#arguably I like a lot more than I have issue with

[cloudbends]

Also I can't believe I'm saying this about a persona 5 spinoff but p5t is actually... Surprisingly good? The character dynamics within the phantom thieves are much more fleshed out (which is something I always took issue with in the original game), the character screentime is a lot more balanced and mostly no flanderisation (aka yusuke gets to Do Things for once, makoto gets to Not Do Everything thank god, morgana is the most likeable he's ever been to me), the new characters are incredibly fun and executed very well especially for spinoff-only characters, the plot concepts are interesting, the sprites are very fun and expressive, like. idk I just didn't expect it to make up for some of my issues with the main game tbh!! a pleasant surprise for sure

[bi-demon-ium]

do you ever wonder, even with how fucked up it already is, if milligan sanitized his story for the kids

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

how to ruin jugdral characters and make them into shitty modern tropes: have two teenage girls cat fight over their romantic feelings for a grown ass man and make them aggressive rivals

[violentlydefending]

maybe nobody's played plvspw and maybe plvspw is insane and maybe it takes place in britain but it's still better than aa5 and 6 i'll die on this hill

[doubleedgemode]

@followers/whoever reads this: Please feel free to metaphorically wallop me if I say an absurd badly-reasoned take about the series, and also correct me. Thank you

[ohcorny]

i reread all of chobits recently as insp for my next TT book and every time i think about some aspect of it all i want to do is rip it open and tear it apart and go "why?". it brings up so many concepts and scenarios within the premise of "what if computers looked like pretty girls" but it doesn't want to commit to saying anything about it or take its own world seriously.

i have a lot to say about chobits. arguably i have more to say about chobits than even chobits wants to say about chobits.

chobits is about sex except it isn't about sex at all. chi's power switch is in her vagina. we're shown images of chi doing sexy things, she gets tricked into doing a strip tease, and two separate men try to finger her and she does her Do Not Touch Me There magic powers thing, and we eventually learn every time she resets from the power button, her memories are erased, so you can't have sex with her without deleting her.

but we never unpack why her reset button is in her vagina, or why it's so important that nobody can ever touch her, or why people's personal computers were built with vaginas in the first place (we never have it confirmed that all persocoms have them, but that two separate men try to touch her there imply it's expected). why do the personal computers shaped like women have vaginas if not to fuck them. as a product, it is expected that you will fuck them*.

*i assume, because the comic never says so!

the man who invented persocoms is the same person who built chi and her sister, and he built them to be daughters for his wife. he put the reset button in chi's vagina. we never find out why. we never get a HINT of why. he built the chobits so they could feel and fall in love, but also built them so they could never fuck. you can extrapolate a reason why a man might build his daughter-androids that way, but the series itself never touches it, and never makes any sort of point about it. it's just presented as an immutable fact that chi can't fuck without it deleting her, as if it was born of happenstance and not a person's choice.

what does that actually say about anything? what is it trying to say about sex? is it about the commodification of female bodies, how once they're used up sexually they're worthless? that if you can't love somebody without fucking them, what good is your love? that love without sex is okay (but also a huge burden and sacrifice a man must accept for the sake of someone else's happiness?)

what does it want to say! chobits is about sex, but it doesn't want to commit to any specific message about sex.

and that's just ONE issue i have with it. there are so many things chobits wants to be about but won't say anything about. it wants to be about the persocoms replacing human connections, we constantly get told 'gee people hang out with persocoms a lot', chitose publishes a whole inexplicable book series about people preferring persocomes to humans. it's to the degree that a prominent character's husband gets So wrapped up in (presumably) fucking his android that he locks his actual wife out of the house, having just straight up forgotten she exists. we don't have anything to say about it though. she falls in love with a new man. the people who hang out with their persocoms too much are all background characters in crowds. we never look at how the rise in persocoms has affected society as a whole.

it wants to be about grief, in the story about the man who marries a persocom and has to watch her slowly degrade until she can't remember him anymore, or the kid whose older sister died and he tried to replace her with a persocom who he dresses up/treats as a maid and lives alone with despite being omega orphaned and 11 years old. but then it's fine. the man who married a persocom gets in a relationship with a high school girl 20 years younger than him (CLAMP!). it's fine! the boy who tried to replace his older sister just accepts that the persocom replacement won't replace her. still treats/dresses her up like a maid and lives alone. is she his legal guardian. i don't know. don't worry about it.

and it wants to be about women, because everything about the story is about women, all the persocoms are women, all the tragedies are wrapped up in the death of a woman, or a woman's heartbreak, or a woman's feelings. but it has fucking nothing to say about women beside look how pretty they are. my boobs are E cup, sempai :) teehee

it makes me insane.

friend @amphiaria put it best as "Unfortunately the story is uninterested in itself" and i can never forgive it for being so aesthetically good, giving us the best design for an android (the ear things are Perfect) and then being So Fucking Bad.

in conclusion:

[gootarts]

as of 8/3, the most recently updated version of this post is here (it's a reblog of this exact post with more info added)

as a lot of you know, limbus company recently fired its CG illustrator for being a feminist, at 11 pm, via phone call, after a bunch of misogynists walked into the office earlier that day and demanded she be fired. on top of this, as per korean fans, her firing went against labor laws---in korea, you must have your dismissal in writing.

the korean fandom on twitter is, understandably, going scorched earth on project moon due to this. there's a lot currently going on to protest the decision, so i'm posting a list here of what's going on for those who want to limit their time on elon musk's $44 billion midlife crisis impulse purchase website (if you are on twitter, domuk is a good person to follow, as they translate important updates to english). a lot of the links are in korean, but generally they play nicely with machine translators. this should be current as of 8/2.

Statements condemning the decision have been issued by The Gyeonggi Youth Union and IT Union.

A press conference at the Gyeonggido Assembly will occur on 8/3, with lawmakers of the Gyeonggi province (where Project Moon is based) in attendance. This appears driven by the leader of the Gyeonggi Youth Union.

The vice chairman of the IT union--who has a good amount of experience with labor negotiations like these--has expressed strong support for the artist and is working to get media coverage due to the ongoing feminist witch hunts in the gaming industry. Project Moon isn't union to my knowledge, but he's noted that he's taken on nonunion companies such as Netmarble (largest mobile game dev in South Korea) by getting the issue in front of the National Assembly (Korea's congress).

Articles on the incident published in The Daily Labor News, Korean Daily, multiple articles on Hankyoreh (one of which made it to the print edition), and other news outlets.

Segments about the termination on the MBN 7 o' clock news and MBC's morning news

Comments by Youth Union leaders about looking into a loan made to Project Moon via Devsisters Ventures, a venture capital firm. Tax money from Gyeonggi province was invested in Devsisters in 2017, and in 2021, Devsisters gave money to Project Moon. The Gyeonggi Youth Union is asking why hard-earned tax money was indirectly given to a company who violates ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles.

Almost nonstop signage truck protests outside Project Moon's physical office during business hours until 8/22 or the company makes a statement. This occurs alongside a coordinated hashtag campaign to get the issue trending on Twitter in Korea. The signage campaign was crowd-funded in about 3 hours.

A full boycott of the Limbus Company app, on both mobile and PC (steam) platforms. Overseas fans are highly encouraged to participate, regardless if whether they're F2P or not. Not opening the app at all is arguably the biggest thing any one person can do to protest the decision, as the app logs the number of accounts that log on daily. For a new gacha such as Limbus, a high number of F2P daily active users, but a small number of paying users is often preferable to having a smaller userbase but more paying users. If the company sees the number of daily users remain stable, they will likely decide to wait out any backlash rather than apologize.

Digging up verified reviews from previous employees regarding the company's poor management practices

Due to the firing, the Leviathan artist has posted about poor working conditions when making the story. As per a bilingual speaker, they were working on a storyboard revision, and thought 'if I ran into the street right now and got hit by a car and died, I wouldn't have to keep working.' They contacted Project Moon because they didn't want their work to be like that, and proposed changes to serialization/reduction in amount of work per picture/to build up a buffer of finished images (they did not have any buffer while working on Leviathan to my knowledge). They were shut out, and had to suck it up and accept the situation.

Hamhampangpang has a 'shrine' section of the restaurant for fans to leave fan-created merch and other items. They also allow the fans to take this merch back if they can prove it's theirs. Fans are now doing just that.

To boost all of the above, a large number of Korean fanartists with thousands of followers have deleted their works and/or converted their accounts from fanart accounts to accounts supporting the protests. Many of them are bilingual, and they're where I got the majority of this information.

[note 1: there's a targeted english-language disinformation campaign by the website that started the hate mob. i have read the artist's tweets with machine translation, and they're talked about in the second hankyoreh article linked above: nowhere does she express any transphobic or similarly awful beliefs. likewise, be wary of any claims that she supported anything whose description makes you raise eyebrows--those claims are likely in reference to megalia, a korean feminist movement. for information on that, i'd recommend the NPR/BBC articles below and this google drive link of english-language scholarly papers on them. for the love of god don't get your information about a feminist movement from guys going on witch hunts for feminists.]

[note 2: i've seen a couple people argue that the firing was for the physical safety of the employees, citing the kyoani incident in japan. as per this korean fan, most fans there strongly do not believe this was the case. we have english-translated transcripts of the meeting between the mob and project moon; the threats the mob was making were to......brand project moon as a feminist company online. yes, really. male korean gamers aren't normal about feminism, and there's been an ongoing witch hunt for feminists in the industry since about 2016, something you see noted in both the labor union statements. both NPR and the BBC this phenomenon to gamergate, and i'd say it's a pretty apt comparison.]

let me know if anything needs correction or if anything should be added.

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

i'm struggling to even put into words how i feel about these two scenes.

i honestly wonder how much of house's facial expressions in these moments were hugh laurie's choice and maybe weren't necessarily scripted, because the episode doesn't really offer any kind of conclusion on how jealous and, more importantly, how deeply fucking sad house looks after realizing wilson has been talking to amber.

first off - this happens a lot in this show, but this is one of those huge instances of "oh, how differently this situation would look if one of these characters was a woman." if that were the case, this whole thing would really be quite simple. if house was a proper Opposite Sex Love Interest, him standing at the door hearing the proof that his unrequited crush isn't over his last girlfriend...well, that would make perfect sense. The level of hurt and jealousy house seems to feel about wilson still being in love with amber is. well. it's Something.

so anyway - house gets that genuinely hurt look at three separate points: #1 is when he realizes wilson is talking to amber (and this moment is especially fascinating bc house's main emotion should arguably be relief at the knowledge he hasn't been hallucinating...but that appears to be taking a backseat to his jealousy for a woman who isn't even alive anymore)

#2 is when wilson tells amber that he wasn't able to go for a run tonight because house is having issues. now, this speaks to the broader problem that - even though house knows wilson feeds off neediness - house is still worried about being a burden to wilson and that eventually wilson will not want him anymore.

Then #3 - when wilson says to house's face that talking to amber makes him feel better when he misses her, and house doesn't. This moment is so painful and interesting to me because house inviting wilson to confide in him feels like a pretty big step in terms of growth! So for wilson to say he'd rather talk to his dead girlfriend than house...well, judging by house's face, the remark cuts pretty deep. (disclaimer: ofc wilson is completely valid for talking to amber; it just also makes sense that house would be hurt by this, especially in the context of him already feeling like a burden and trying so hard to be a better person)

anyway idk where else to go with this . . . i just feel like the episode sort of started to delve into this issue and then never really went deep enough or concluded this aspect - hence my theory that house's level of hurt may not have been scripted and it was just hugh laurie choosing to Do That with his face.

[op-81-lvr]

BABY SAID ~ OP81

Part2

Oscar Piastri x Male!Driver!Single-Parent!Reader

SMAU

Please note: based on my poll i'm going to publish both oscar fics because they seem to be swapping placed by the hour so bear with me. Also to anone who wanted the Max fic, dw about it i'm publishing that one to just at a much later date.

A/N: Part 2 of this will be made, lemme know if you have any suggestions for scenarios. My inbox is open.

Faceclaim: Various men on pinetest, couldn't decide on a face claim I wanted for this fic

Summary: In your 2 years as Oscars teamate you two became fast friends. When you suddenly become the sole care taker to your daughter Oscar is there for you through everything.

Warnings/Tags: Set in the end 2024 season/start of 2025 season, totally based on what is currently known about draver contacts and such. Reader drove in mclaren 2019-2024 and takes lewis' merc seat for 2025. Daughter is a result of a one night stand/ex-girlfriend, he is raising her on his own. Pre-established relationship (Kind of)

October 2024

Formula 1

❤️ 💬 📟 🔖

Liked by Your_Username, McLaren, Oscar Piastri and 589k others

f1 Following a sudden personal issue, McLaren driver (Y/N) (L/N) has withdrawn from racing for the rest of the season. Lando Norris is due to take his place in (L/N)’s seat early.

(Y/N) will be back with us to drive for Mercedes in the 2025 season.

User1 This is so sad, he is 7 points off of overtaking Max in the championship standings ☹️

User2 I hope he’s okay, it must be pretty serious for him to pull out when he is this close to a championship win.

Your_Username I’ll see you lovely lot next year. Best of luck Lando 🫶🏻

User3 This is such a PR response 💔

McLaren

❤️ 💬 📟 🔖

Liked by Your_Username, OscarPiastri and 402k others

McLaren Goodbye (Y/N), we’re going to miss you around the garage for the last few races of the season but we know next you you’ll be off doing other things with a new team.

See ya around, Champ

Sincerely, admin and the McLaren team

User4 Admin calling him ‘Champ’ ☹️

OscarPiastri I can’t believe I have to break in a new teammate now. I’m gonna miss my bro 😔

Your_Username Gonna miss you to, How am I gonna cope without our race weekend gossip session

User5 Never beating the romance allegations I fear

Your_Username Who said I wanted to beat them 😏

User6 I beg your finest pardon 😳

January 2025

Your_Username

❤️ 💬 📟 🔖

Liked by OscarPiastri, mercedesamgf1 and 281k others

Your_Username Welp, secrets out (Thanks Mail Online) Whats one more secret between friends?

This is Marceline, my daughter (And yes, she is named after the adventure time character), She was born last October and that is why I exited the season early.

Would like to thank Oscar for being my shoulder to cry on, my person to lean on when I was left with a newborn baby in mid-October and the person to spend my now sleepless nights with

And yes, I will still be driving for Mercedes next year, my daughter was not a deal breaker for them.

Love you all, see you in February 🫶🏻

User9 BABY (L/N)??? OSCAR AND (Y/N) WERE DATING THIS WHOLE TIME??? (Y/N) WENT MISSING TO TAKE CARE OF HIS BABY!

OscarPiastri I love you, baby. Although i’m gonna miss being teammates I am honoured that you want me in Marcy’s life.

Your_Username Love you too Honey, and I wouldn’t question having you in Marcy’s life even if we weren’t dating.

User10 WDYM (Y/N) CALLS OSCAR HONEY, THATS SO CUTE 🙁

mercedesamgf1 Already babyproofing the unit for baby boss’ first day 🫡

Your_Username Much appreciated admin

User11 Arguably think this is better than him winning the championship

schecoperez Good to see another father on the grid, we’re here if you need us!

Your_Username Thanks Checo

User11 Love how Merc and RedBull are made to look like they hate each other but then we get moments like this

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Rainbow Bridge

Summary: The reader is incredibly confused when in heaven one day, a dog she's never met before appears by her side...

Pairing: Dean x reader (in heaven)

Word Count: 1,800ish

Warnings: language, mention of pet death/human death

A/N: I wrote this for my fellow pet owners (and myself). Hopefully those little dudes over the rainbow bridge have their own kinds of adventures like these pups while they wait! (and all the chicken nuggies they can eat 😉)

_______

The air shifted, a warm and joyful presence filling the air. You glanced down in your kitchen, an adorable dog with long fur and pointy ears staring up at you with a wagging tail.

“Well good morning to you, cutie,” you laughed, bending down in your pajamas with your cup of coffee, giving the dog a few pets. “Who might you be?”

The dog woofed and the thought Miracle sprang into your head. That wasn’t entirely uncommon. Animals in the afterlife were able to communicate a bit better than they had when you were alive. 

One of your own dogs you’d had when you were alive, your first dog ever, bounded upstairs from the playroom on the lower level that was for them to use as a way station. Sometimes they liked to stick around home, sometimes by your side and others they’d go off and visit their own animal friends they’d made. But generally they kept to themselves first thing in the day.

“This a friend of yours, baby?” you asked your little dog. He ran over to Miracle, sniffing intensely before he snorted. “No huh. Did you just die, Miracle? I know sometimes dogs are a little confused when they get here and you got your young, healthy bodies back.”

Miracle woofed with a slight head shake, your lips pursing. Your own dog pawed at you, resting a little foot on your arm. You hummed at him, the little guy sending you some positive feelings, sensing you were worried.

“Alright. I’ve never heard of a random dog appearing in heaven unless you request one. You show Miracle around the house and where he can do his business while I get ready. Then we’ll try to figure out who your owner is, okay?” Both dogs yelped happily and took off downstairs, a loud crash at the bottom as they slammed into your boot tray. “Careful! Just cause you can’t get hurt doesn’t mean you can be reckless!”

More than one dog barked back in response and you rolled your eyes, heading for your bedroom.

“At least I don’t have to pay vet bills for you guys anymore. Five dogs is only kind of a lot for one eternity.” You heard more barking and groaned. “I wasn’t complaining you mongrels! I was quite pleased to see your little faces when I died. I could have done with a little less face licking though.”

You swore you could hear the faint echo of laughter in their barks as you got ready for the day.

“If I’m not back by supper make sure you boys get some dinner,” you called, heading outside with Miracle. You loaded into your car and headed down the road, thinking you had a problem. Soon you were taking an off ramp you’d not seen before. You wound up in a mostly empty parking lot, Miracle following you out and into the lone building around.

“Take an issue form and fill out everything before returning it to the counter,” grumbled the guy behind the desk, shoving a clipboard towards you. You stepped through the empty waiting room, picking up the board. You opened your mouth to speak when he sighed. “The form is a requirement by the big man. I’m just doing my job.”

���How do you have a job which is arguably the equivalent of working at the DMV, but in heaven? Like, we don’t have jobs.” He flickered his eyes up at you, making you jump back when they flashed black. 

“Demon, sweetie. It’s part of my rehab program so I can someday be like you. By then, some other schmuck in the program will have my job. No more questions.” 

“Okay…” you said, grabbing a pen and taking a seat, Miracle laying down on the floor beside you. You stared at the form, frowning when you didn’t see your particular issue listed.

“Um, excuse me, Mr. Demon,” you said, approaching the counter again, the guy rolling his eyes at you. “My problem doesn’t appear on the form?”

“That’s impossible. Those are the only issues possible of occurring in heaven.” You pointed at Miracle beside you, the guy standing to look down at him.

“I have no clue who this dog is and it’s not my dog’s friend. He just appeared next to me in my kitchen this morning,” you said. The demon stared at you, rubbing his temples. 

“Remember your steps, remember your steps,” he muttered to himself before forcing a smile. “Listen. Dogs don’t get lost in heaven. Either you know his owner-”

“Nope. My dogs don’t recognize him.”

“Fine,” gritted out the demon. “Then you and the owner of this dog are soulmates in some way.”

You blinked at him, the man angrily typing on his keyboard. 

“This dog belongs to a man named Dean Winchester. You and Dean Winchester were alive, somewhat, during the same time. He died a lot younger than you did. You two are…romantic soulmates,” he said, a fax machine going in the back. He got up and ripped off a sheet of paper, handing it to you. “Here’s his address. Now please go bother him instead of me.”

You rolled your eyes, ready to leave when you stopped, glancing down at Miracle. “Do you like, want to pet the dog?”

“Excuse me?” You turned around, the demon still on his feet.

“Well I mean, it’s probably been awhile since you’ve seen a dog or gotten to pet one. You can’t be that horrible if they’re letting you up here with the rest of us. So do you want to pet him?”

It was shocking how quickly the demon hopped over the counter and knelt down next to the dog, giving him a few pats and then a belly rub.

“I had a dog when I was a kid. I can’t wait to see her again once I get out of here,” he said, glancing up at you, seeming to forget he was a demon for a moment. “That was weird.”

“Dogs are kinda perpetually happy here and give off good energy. I’m sure your dog is looking forward to seeing you too,” you said as Miracle sat up and headed for the door. “Apparently I’m on the move. See ya around someday.”

“Yeah. Someday,” he said as you left. Five seconds later, now that you knew where you were going, you popped yourself over to this Dean Winchester’s place. You were standing outside a beautiful two story cabin on a lake, Miracle taking off in a sprint down a dock to where someone was sitting in a chair fishing. 

Your heart felt funny as the man on the dock stood and turned around, cocking his head at you. He gave Miracle a good ruffle before he approached, meeting you halfway across his backyard.

“Hi,” he said with a smile, shaking his head. “I uh-”

You both jumped when your five dogs appeared, running and chasing around a ball in the yard, Miracle joining in after them.

“Your dog popped into my kitchen this morning. I’m pretty sure we’re soulmates. At least that’s what this paper says,” you said, the pack of dogs sprinting around the corner of the house. “I’ve had a few pups in my life.”

“Miracle could do with some siblings,” he said, smirking as you felt a cozy peace inside you. “I was wondering where he ran off to. He normally doesn’t stray far from home. Looks like he was off finding his mom.”

“I thought soulmates were supposed to like…snap together when they’re both in heaven,” you said. He smirked, pursing his lips. “What?”

“I probably wasn’t in heaven when you died. I was jumping around alternate worlds and you look very confused all of a sudden.” You nodded, staring at him wide eyed. “I’m a smidge of a rule breaker…and I kinda know Jack…and took down the old god.”

Your first instinct was to call him crazy but he had no reason to lie. Besides, something ached in his soul, like it had a little bruise on it. This man had known serious pain and then some when he was alive.

“You know, I killed vampires when I was alive. What’s something you did for fun?” he asked. Your jaw dropped, Dean chuckling. “Oh boy. Sweetheart, you and I have some catching up to do.”

“Hi baby,” you said that night as you and Dean laid on a blanket in the yard, your little guy crawling up on the blanket and settling in beside Dean. “Aw, he likes you.”

“He’s protective of you. I can feel it,” he said with a hum. “He hung out with your grandparents a lot after he died. Apparently while you were crying over him on earth, he was chowing down on some of your grandpa’s maple syrup bacon thinking mom’s being overdramatic, I’m gonna see her again. She worries too much.”

You sat up, raising an eyebrow. “How do you know that? My grandparents told me they were with him until my parents got here and he stayed with them a while but dogs can’t talk to us like that here. We can sense them and stuff but we can’t know complete thoughts.”

Dean smiled, scratching behind the dogs ears. 

“Well, I’m a little special. I worked a case where I could communicate with dogs once. It came back up here. This little guy adores the fuck out of you and wishes you hadn’t been so sad back then but he understands. He is pretty awesome,” laughed Dean. 

“And he’s a little shit,” you giggled. “What else does he say?”

“He’s glad you got more dogs over your life and he’s glad you found me finally. Also if we don’t stop talking soon he’s going to go inside and sleep on our bed,” chuckled Dean. “Cranky baby, aren’t you?”

The dog snorted, stood up, licked your nose and trotted off inside with his chin turned up.

“Like I said, he’s a sassy little shit,” you chuckled, Dean pulling you closer. “So Dean. What do you got planned for the afterlife?”

“A bit of fishing here and there. Working on my car. Going out for a drink at the roadhouse. Hanging with my brother. Sneak out of heaven to get up to shit every once in a while, hopefully with you. How’s that sound?” he asked. You leaned over and kissed him slowly, rolling back with a smile. 

“Sounds like a plan, Winchester. Time to start having some fun in eternity.”

___________

[chaosandmarigolds]

pięć 🚑

Of EMS AU Thingy!

summary: Simon Riley finds himself utterly and completely in love with the newest medic on base, the only issue is that he has the social skills of a toddler.

“Mary I promise, I’m not incompetent-“

“never said you were!!” She counteracts, rummaging through the kit, stating she had a blood pressure cuff in there, “Just…you’re a baby.”

You frown, “I’ve been a paramedic for five years, hardly-“

“Gunshot wound to the upper anterior leg, what do you do?” The question was lifeless, as if she had been planning this for a long while. She leaned on the counter as she watched the color drain from your face for a moment, of course she knew that you were capable, yet she also knew you were a dear in a headlights, “Knife to the lumbar spine, what do you do? Solider is 35 year old male, 260 pounds of pure muscle plus gear and you do not have a lift assist.”

“I-“

“oh you’re also in an active warzone so you falter you get shot, stitch.”

you gulp, you had been in New York as a paramedic for years, you had seen some horrible things but…you were also aware you were walking into murky waters, “Mary, I-“

She frowned to your words and turns back to her bag, “The team as a EMS refresher at 0700, tourniquets, packing, and anything else they have in their itty bitty first aid kit. I’ll be on a plane, you take care of it.”

with a huff you run your hands down your face as you move to grab your kit, the large backpack fit easily weighing upward to fifty pounds. You end up standing in your spot for a long moment, trying to figure out what to say next. However, you no longer cared on if Mary thought you stupid or not, you cared much more on the refresher course.

“Who…do we have a dummy?”

She scoffs, “No. You’re the patient, layer up.”

…oh.

—

Kyle Garrick was arguably one of the nicer (looking) personalities on base, he seemed genuine in his actions- or so you thought, as did he. If not a bit overbearing, thought he did not mean to, so when he saw you walking down the corridor with arms full, he offered to take some, simply because he wanted to be kind-nothing else.

“How are ya finding it?”

You let out a breathy laugh as you wait for the door to open, “Do you want an honest answer or one that makes me seem better?”

he feigns thoughtfulness and hums, “I’d say…honest.”

“Overwhelmed. But hey!” You were mainly rambling to the poor man, and when you get to the gym you drop the obscure items onto the table, where he followed- to where you were speaking face to face, “It could be a lot worse right?”

Kyle shrugs to your words, a smile on his features and he pats your shoulder, “You seem capable. The trainee fore you slept through an OP so..you’re doing good.”

great, you’re better than someone who slept through a mission that seemed like the lowest form of compliment but you would take it. “Awesome, well thank you, um…where is the Captain, Lieutenant and sergeant?”

“Well you’re looking at a Sergeant.”

a smile tugged at your lips and you look down, “I mean MacTavish, though I do suppose I have one accounted for.”

Kyle then motioned to the other side of the gym, which you hadn’t bothered to turn on the full lights as of yet, “LT is over there.”

that was one of the oddest sentences you had heard, so you frown and move to turn on the light, and sure enough you find the lieutenant casually sitting in the darkness, a book neatly folded on his lap. To the sight you furrow your eyebrows, “Should I ask, Lieutenant?”

He shook his head, standing up as he spoke, “No, probably not. Scare ya lil’ medic heart.” (He got there ten minutes before you and the lights were motion activated)

You laughed to that, not a real one though, more of petrified squeak, “Okay! Anyway! Where’s MacTa-“ just as you were speaking the door buzzed open and the very people you were speaking about came in, looking somewhat exhausted and barely awaken begrudgingly they grab the fold out chairs from the closet and sit down, and you would admit it was somewhat funny to see Johnny so…quiet. As you turn just double check everything was neat you didn’t see the slight fight, more like nudges between Johnny the Lieutenant, until he was tire of it and pulled the chair back and replaced it with his own. So when you turned around you saw a straight line of chairs, but for Johnny, who was now behind the Lieutenant, who was now directly in front of you.

You’ve been patient before, during paramedic school you wanted to be the patient. it was fun, now however you had a genuine worry if their tourniquet would just snap your leg off.

This will be fun.

(all I got! Comments and all that jazz mean so much to me, toodles!)

[meanbossart]

Ask compilation: I'm Starting To Think That This Drow Guy Is Kind Of An Asshole Edition.

Probably a Ranger in the hunter subclass. I actually intended to multi-class him as fighter/ranger at some point and make that his official class, but I haven't had time/quite figured out the best build that would still suit him - Ranger makes a LOT of sense with his backstory, arguably more than fighter, but he's still supposed to be a magic-less brick-house with 19 strength who hasn't handled a bow and arrow in 10 years, so I'm not sure where that leaves us LOL

A lot of people have suggested that Berserk Barbarian would fit him well, but I think that implies a lot of other characteristics that do NOT suit him at all so 🤷

HE DIDN'T EVEN GO TO THE CRECHE, and honestly it made the game feel much more immersive to pick one path and stick to it like Halsin suggested, even if I did have to endure the shadow cursed lands without the shiny mace 😂

Probably for the best, it'd be a real shame if the story ended there just because he didn't like Vlaakith's attitude.

But yeah Lae'zel (who, for the record, I adore) never stood a chance in his playthrough. Sorry baby girl.

I'm either uninformed or we have different definitions of what constitutes a crush, but sure I'll play in this space LOL

He's both jealous but also kind of aloof when it comes to things like that. It's yet another symptom of his arrogance, where it seems unfathomable that anyone who has him would be genuinely tempted by someone else. He doesn't mind a normal amount of glance-stealing and flattery, even playful flirting to a degree, but if there's persistence or if his partner seems to seek another person out for things he thinks he should be providing, he feels threatened.

Also, he has a difficult time discerning that "deep emotional connection" does not equal "romantic interest". So, at least immediately after the events of the game, he's more likely to be made insecure by his partners forming deep bonds with others than any throwaway expression of physical desire or fleeting infatuation.

[MORE UNDER THE CUT]

Let me preface this with the (hopefully unnecessary) disclaimer that this murderous dark-elf's opinions are not my own, and that I very much purposefully made a bit of an asshole character because I find that entertaining.

And now that you're hopefully primed for what's coming - DU drow is pretty damn judgemental of people's looks save for the rare times when they give him a good impression right off the bat. He notes people's appearances and makes preemptive assumptions about them without even realizing it. He definitely does not equal beauty to value or prowess (in fact he will very much still mock of you if you seem too concerned with your appearance) but he does prescribe things based on looks.

I don't think he'd take issue with what you're describing, It sounds like a pretty average body, but he would assume that person is weaker and less fit to "keep up with him", basically. Which kind of diminishes interest.

As far as to what he finds immediately attractive, he definitely prefers people who seem physically fit (not more than himself though - gods forbid). But, the caveat to this whole tangent is that once you get past initial impressions, he could definitely come to be sexually attracted to pretty much any type of body attached to the person he's in love with.

Thank you! There was no main event, just the building up of resentment over time and the opportunity she saw opening up when the Chosen's plan came into motion. She definitely didn't always hate him though, they had a fairly close relationship until his obsessive behavior and arrogance became an issue.

Thank you!!!

They call him the/that drow, dark elf, or "big drow" if there's more than one present. In private they might facetiously call him Bhaalspawn if they get tired of referring to him by race.

I'll be honest, I forgot whether or not I found it in his playthrough LOL but if he did stumble across that would be VERY funny. He'd be like "look at these idiots and their fake murder god. What kind of dimwit would worship carnage as a religion. Hey Shadowheart get a load of this-"

HAPPY YOU ENJOY HIM! I think his unique situation overall with having been such a overwhelmingly horrid person and forgetting all about it is my favorite bit. That's kind of vague, I know, but I often think of dreams I've had where I committed a crime or did something horrible, and that immediate feeling of relief and disconnect that follows immediately after waking up. That's kind of what I imagine it's like for him - he knows of the things he did, but he doesn't really. In theory it's all true but that's a truth far too fantastical for anyone to conceptualize even if it's put right in front of your face.

That, tackling the guilt (or lack thereof) of something you genuinely don't feel like you've done and the intricacies of it, that's a fascinating state of mind to explore. I love how many directions you can take that.

For me, having a character who is not good, but is not necessarily pure unadulterated evil, makes for a lot of complex thought experiments and contradictory values. DU drow has a lot of those - things he believes and abides by absolutely except for this specific instance, being contradictory is a pillar of his character and it can be a little challenging to keep up with it - but I'd be lying if I said I don't deeply enjoy that aspect as well all the same.

THANK YOUUUU It took me so long to figure out how to draw Astarion in a way I liked, I'm so relieved that others enjoy it too 😂

Shockingly he did succeed it and was immediately put-off by it, lmao. They wouldn't really develop much of a relationship for a while after that, so at that point DU drow just figured he was trying to get something from him and wrote him off, much as he did with everyone else with the exception of Shadowheart.

He didn't meet her at the Tiefling grove! I didn't even know you could meet her before-hand for the longest time. But he did super, duper kill her at camp of course.

He managed to hide the body and everyone else was none the wiser, huge blood bhaal-sigil on the ground aside lmao. He was a little shocked but didn't feel all that bad about it, kind of resigning to that primal feeling of satisfaction at a job-well-done that overwhelmed him instead. He decided she was too weak to survive out there and he had just spared her the trouble.

[raayllum]

I have a lot of thoughts about how the show actually successfully, Seriously uses the ship as a metaphor for Rayla and Callum's dynamic (which I'll talk more about when I make my way through to the end of this ep) but as always I have fun looking at microcosms.

Here, we have Rayla once again volunteering to do something dangerous alone (shocking), Callum wanting to switch places with her because he's the one with the issue / 'messed up', the wedge of ice literally dividing them, and Rayla assuring him it's okay and she'll be okay, she can do this for him.

We see time and time again across the course of the series that Rayla is ultimately a very forgiving person — she can see the potential good in Claudia in early S2 even if she doesn't trust her, she forgives Amaya and Soren for attacking her largely without a second thought, on her assassination mission even with so much personally and politically at stake she fumbles because she sees a stranger as 'too much' of a person and seeing that he's scared of her causes her to spare his life.

She's arguably worse at staying mad at Callum (1x04, 1x05, 1x06) than he is at her. When Callum does dark magic in S2, she's angry for maybe a day but is still tending to him and taking care of him. Outside of initial hurt and confusion, she's never mad about him wanting space or not wanting her around in S4 and continually puts the ball in his court in subsequent seasons (S5, S6) for pacing their relationship. It's kinda like how even when the boys 'mess up' with the Plan in 1x08, Rayla assures them it's okay or wasn't their fault, a grace she never extends herself.

That's one of the reasons, I think, it's been so rewarding to see Callum extend that same kind of grace to her—"I trust her, unconditionally" for ex—in arc 2, because she's the one who messed things up. She's the one who got lost, and left.

But Rayla doesn't let him go into the ship by himself just bc it's 'his fault', so Callum doesn't let her take all the blame for their lack of relationship repair, either. And I like it

[violetasteracademic]

Contributing some of the thoughts I've had to the active conversation about the world building laws of mating bonds in SJM's universe!

Here is the very first on page introduction of the *highly* discussed term mate in Sarah J. Maas's world. I think it's quite important to consider both A. The fact that Wyrd, Urd, and The Mother, the creator of Fate and all creation, is the same entity under different names in the three different worlds and B. Prythian is arguably the most popular/read/analyzed series of SJM, but functions as the outlier/rule-breaker when it comes to mates. The chronological development is worth noting:

Our first ever mates in the multiverse are Emrys and Malaki. They are a same sex couple! Mated and husbands. Right off the bat, mates are described as an unbreakable bond, deeper than marriage, that lasted beyond death. Erilea and the world in Throne of Glass, in addition to their gods, is governed by and founded by Wyrd, which is not a word made up by SJM, but the Anglo-Saxon concept of fate:

In Crescent City, we discover a few things. One, that the Fae definition for mates is exactly the same as it is in Throne of Glass. A bond deeper than marriage. However, we also know that the shifters are in fact also the Fae originating from Erilea, and that their mates are their true lovers pre-destined by Urd. Then there are the breeding mates that the Asteri force in the archangels- akin to forcing animals to breed in a zoo.

And of course, the fact that Urd is in fact Wyrd. Who is, in fact, The Mother.

Urd, Wyrd, and the Mother. Fate. Destiny. Not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation.

It is not the Mother's intention to breed. It is the Mother's intention to guide ones fate and destiny. To match true, soul bonded lovers in a connection that lives beyond death. Procreation does not play a role, and there is no particular drive for such things in Throne of Glass or Crescent City. M/M mates set the stage. Crescent City deals with fertility, sterilization, and denounces any living soul being valued or paired for the goal of breeding.

Starfall. Will-o-the-wisps. Souls that stay connected as they journey from one life, one world, to the next.

And then we get to Prythian, where the pattern breaks. And suddenly, mating bonds are not soul bonded pairs. They are not ones true lover. They are, in fact, more in line with what the Asteri have created: breeding animals in a zoo. People who do not love each other are forced to be together. Poor pairs that are not a match on a soul level. A threat of violence if a woman rejects their mate. And even that term, rejection, is one only brought up in Prythian. It brings my attention to another interesting passage in HoFaS:

Consent. Yes, this is talking about consent for the tithe and the giving of power. However, I think it's incredibly noteworthy that the Asteri have a goal of getting around the tricky issue of consent to enact their goals. They have found a way around that on Midgard.

They also are able to force "mates" amongst the archangels without their consent.

How interesting that in Prythian, the one world where the Cauldron lives, the language of creation, the object of the Mother, Urd, Wyrd, and fate has been tampered with by the Asteri, the zoo animal breeding masters, consent is also required for a mating bond.

This does not exist on the other worlds. I believe by the time the Asteri reached Midgard, they figured out a way to circumvent consent not only for taking power, but also, the creation of the Archangels who are brainwashed from a young age to serve the Asteri and give up their consent.

I know a lot of people don't like to have this conversation, because it's a threat to the existing mates on Prythian. Obviously I'm an Elriel, so I don't think that's true. As I believe myself and many others have mentioned before, Elain's mating bond also breaks pattern. She is immediately snapped with her mate the second they lock eyes. This is akin to Rhysand's mother and father, who also had an immediate snap of their mating bond upon first locking eyes.

Rhysand's parents bred the most powerful High Lord in all of Prythian's history. So powerful, that other High Lord's are essentially humans to him.

Nessian and Feysand took time. The female did not experience the bond before she wanted to. They fell in love before accepting the bond. Their souls bonded before their acceptance, and it was a slow, consensual journey into love. This is akin to the other true mates. Ones true lover. A soul matched pair.

These are the genuine written words to differentiate the different kinds of mating bonds. There are different kinds of bonds.

Both the Asteri and the Mother's will live on in the Cauldron. Yes, the mating bonds are affected. But the Mother is not gone from Prythian. She was not erased from the Cauldron. She is governess of worlds. Creatures like Maeve and the Asteri actively interfere with bonds to interfere with the course of fate. These are the stories on the table.

It is wonderful and fascinating and endlessly exciting!

*ps I am still largely on my theory, inbox ask, and SJM scrolling break. I've been mostly living in the writing, poetry, and Agatha All Along tags. But I became violently ill in the middle of the day, then saw there were some great discussions about the mating bonds and Cauldron corrupted theories (I read @wingedblooms and @psychologynerd !) and I've been sitting on my little cluster of thoughts for this forever, so I am in bed doing this 🤣 enjoy! Apologies if I've repeated anything that is already largely out there!

Stay kind out there fam. Please promote positivity in the reblog tags should you feel moved to share!

[wilcze-kudly]

The Gaang being 'bad parents' didn't ruin their characters.

I've seen this argument tossed around a couple times and it's honestly one of my least favourite criticisms of lok.

Katara (and Sokka but we have no confirmed kids for him, which seems unrealistic with how much game he had) lost their mother as children and their father was forced to abandon them when they were barely starting their teens. They were raised by their grandmother with little to no peers of their own age.

Aang did not know his parents and a huge chunk of his childhood was him being groomed into taking up the mantle of the avatar and mastering airbending. He also was isolated from other kids his age. His closest parental figure was Gyatso who was more of a teacher than a father. Also the Air Nomads were literally wiped out so that adds to the trauma pile.

I really don't think i have to talk about Zuko's family life here, but at least he had relatively positive parental figures in the form of Ursa (though i do have a burning personal dislike of ursa) and Iroh. Despite this his struggle around the subject of his family and his trauma relating to his upbringing was a focal point of his character arc.

Toph was raised in isolation by her asshole abelist parents who did not listen to her, sent people to capture and bring her back and then disowned her. (If my cursory understanding of 'the rift' is correct, I need to actually read it because i am unreasonably obsessed with the Beifong family.)

Where, pray tell, were they supposed to learn proper parenting skills? On their brief stint as child soldiers? While fighting a war as literal children?

There is the argument that they must've matured later in their lives, of course. But you can only recover so much from copious amounts of childhood trauma.

Being a bad parent doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. Sure it makes you a failure in an incredibly delicate and important aspect of human life but it doesn't make you a bad person. And saying that it does takes a lot of nuance out of the conversation.

Like, do you know how easy it is to fuck up a child?

Especially that the ways the members of the Gaang 'fucked up' as parents feel mostly in character.

Bumi was going to face some struggles with self worth due to being the firstborn child of the Avatar and arguably one of the most powerful waterbenders in history, while being a nonbender himself. That much was unavoidable, no matter how his parents approached the issue.

And Aang was obviously going to be over the moon when Tenzin was born. Think about it. He's literally the last of his people. He has no one else 'like him'. No one else to pass down the traditions, the teachings that Gyatso and everyone else he cared about and who were horrifically murdered to. Aang is getting older and he feels like his culture and history and his entire life before he got trapped in that damned iceberg will die along with him. And then Tenzin is born and Tenzin can take up the mantle that had been thrust upon Aang.

I'm going to withhold my judgement on Izumi and Zuko, since we barely know anything about them. She seems well adjusted but that's all i can say right now. But Zuko has also been shown to be extremely, painfully aware of how fucked up his family is and has clearly been putting in a lot of work to unscrew what his ancestors have screwed up.

Toph situation feels very tragic to me,because it's obvious that she thought she thought she was doing better than her parents. She gave her daughters the freedom to do what they want, to not feel opressed and trapped like she had. How was she supposed to know that she was making her girls feel like she didn't love them? (Here's another post of mine about the Beifong family and how they just feel like they're cursed or something at this point.)

TLDR; I get annoyed by people saying that the Gaang being 'bad parents' ruined their characters, because to me it felt like it actually enhanced them.

Neither Aang nor Toph acted out of malice or a lack of love. On the contrary, Toph was trying not to repeat her parents mistakes, accidentally committing a bunch of her own. While Aang probably didn't even realise that he was neglecting Kya and Bumi.

But just loving your children doesn't always make you a good parent.

I think these flaws only add to them as characters. It makes them feel more real.

It's unrealistic and, frankly, just plain boring to go 'oh the Gaang were all good people so they would be good parents too.'

The Gaang were a gaggle of traumatised children forced into saving the world, because the adults around them failed them, that then grew into traumatised adults who have no idea how to be good parents.

[rachelamberprice]

i’m an amberprice before all, but chloe is one of my favorite characters of all time and i think the way they wrote the pricefield break up (and really the fact it exists at all, narratively) is ooc. chloe’s arc in lis1 shows she becomes very attached and fiercely loyal to her loved ones. to a degree most people just wouldn’t go. it would take military grade equipment to remove her from william, rachel, max and even joyce. the reason why she even offers to sacrifice herself also hinges upon that loyalty, hence how she brings up not wanting her mom to die. but she also knows the trauma max has gone through (that’s like life ruining trauma) to try and save her and she loves her for that in ways you couldn’t put into words

i agree with michel on this one

but even he conceded that it shouldn’t have happened, narratively

but anyway, to tack onto this, something about deck nine that really frustrates me is the way they sort of break life is strange down into these marketable “components”. you can see this both in the ads for the game and the game’s writing itself. they’re like “look, it’s a small town and a murder mystery! that’s what you want, right? look, some independent music! that’s the same thing, right?” and even their love interests feel phoned in/shallow that way. life is strange 1 (and even before the storm, which is theirs) didn’t have these marketable love interests that were commodified more or less. they just had organic characters that were organic to the story — max, chloe, rachel. none of them were there to be love interests specifically. they were there to tell the story that the creators had a lot of artistic passion/inspiration to tell. the indie music wasn’t chosen just to be novel and hipster, it was carefully chosen to tell the player even more things about the scene or its characters. “To All Of You” was commentary on how poorly female characters are written in american media and how they aren’t allowed their own complex emotions and portrayals because they’re dainty archetypes usually. the entire game flies in the face of that issue by showing us a cast of women who are more than just their traumas and the abuse they suffer to the men in the game. they’re allowed to be imperfect, angry, multi-faceted

then you have “Santa Monica Dream” which set the tone for what chloe had lost in her relationship with rachel. i mean, there’s so many examples

there was sooo much passion that went into crafting that game and none of it was like “oh, we’re checking boxes to please the publisher and market the game”. to be fair, the game was made first and then shopped to publishers. but even with LiS2, it had the same love and genuine care instead of just… marketable pieces forced in

and i don’t fault the devs for being forced to do some of this under square’s thumb and complying to do everything they can to keep the IP because they want to have jobs. how can i fault people just trying to feed their family and live? and even when corporate/capitalist shit has been ruining the lives of devs in the industry forever now, they’ve always asked us to keep buying and supporting games anyway because they don’t want to lose their livelihoods. they would suffer, not the higher ups at square. but the issue is complex. because at some point the product isn’t being made with a desire to make art anymore, and it’s also not being made with over 60% of the audience in mind… and a lot of us are poor or struggling too and don’t have the money to waste. so then we don’t support the game, fine. but it’s like… no one is winning here? the devs aren’t winning because they’re closer to losing the IP because fans are let down (and arguably kind of lied to in marketing), square is making less money as pre orders are canceled, fans are just getting these games without love/passion that are made under extreme stress because the workers are in awful conditions. no one is winning here. something has to give and if that means it’s voting with our wallets then…? i guess that’s what it comes to, right?

the game industry is less about art now and more about appeasing these rich people that are making demands and that sucks for everyone involved. it’s predatory on the devs and the fans. and this is without talking about the nazi the studio had employed. not even sure if he’s been let go yet. not that that’s the fault of the other people who are having to suffer working alongside him (and HR is usually corrupt in games anyway) but it’s still something to really consider when supporting a studio?

but anyway, my main point with this post was just to analyze the way deck nine’s LiS games have now turned into this “hit the check boxes, give them the murder mystery, manufactured love interest, music, etc” and to me that’s making the games worse than anything else. even the pricefield debacle aside

because at least before the storm felt like a story being told to tell the story and not like a “hey here’s a murder mystery with love interest 1 and 2”, which started happening with true colors

maybe this is like a melodramatic take though, idk. i mean, i love before the storm so it’s clear to me there’s people in D9 (or there were) that do care about the original story/world of LiS1 and want to make art. even if there are also some losers in the mix (the nazi… 😭) maybe there are some really redeemable things in double exposure that make it worth playing and also just worth more than the sum of its bad marketing and flaws. i didn’t like true colors much because it felt hollow a lot of the time (and rushed?) but yeah