#because you can just assume at that point

[just-sg]

You don't even have to do that! At the very least you don't have to start there.

You don't have to assume a positive. What you do need to do is not assume a negative. And if you can't do that, at least work on getting better at casting doubt on the negative.

"I think people DO like me and WANT to spend time with me!" - Difficult! Especially when you have evidence to the contrary. Sets yourself up for failure to apply too liberally, even, because not everyone will like you (or anyone!), and if you start out trying to assume the impossible, of course you're going to run into times it's not true, and then you accidentally trick your brain into believing it's never true. Still ideal to assume about people who have already established decent or better relationships with you, but if you can't?

"I think people DON'T like me and DON'T WANT to spend time with me." - Easy, cowardly, and frankly really mean to the people who like you! What, do you think they lie to you maliciously for fun? Do you think they're the kind of people who just pity you? Not "do you think you're the kind of person who 'deserves' that", but do you think they are the kinds of assholes who would do that? If so, look for better friends. If not, stop making mean accusations about your friends to server your own self-loathing. Also, simply an unrealistic thing to assume. Everything always being bad is just as unlikely as everything always being good.

"DO people want to spend time with me? I DON'T KNOW. I can't know what they're thinking! If they tell me directly, they could be lying, but they could not. I guess the only way to find out is to try. Sometimes this will not go well but at least I won't be assuming wrong." - Neutral, and potentially more helpful for brand new people especially, even if you should still work on getting better at assuming positives. Going in expecting disappointment is possible but not just assuming it to a point of making it self-fulfilling is a light but functional guard. If you never let yourself risk getting hurt at all, you also guarantee you'll never get any of the rewards those risks may have earned. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can brace yourself and reduce how much it hurts IF (IF!!!) it does end up hurting, and still put yourself out there.

And lastly-

"I think people DON'T like me or what to be around me, because CLEARLY I'm so awful. Then again, if I'm really so bad, why would my judgment be the one single thing I'm amazing at? If I think other people are better than me, and some of them are saying I'm better than I think, maybe I should try trusting they know better than me and see how that goes?" - Sometimes that's where you gotta start. If you simply cannot bring yourself to see anything about yourself that isn't overtly negative, stop asking your own opinion and trust the people who like you, even if you can't believe them, even if it's only just enough to say "I guess there's a chance I could be wrong." Believe in the friends who believe in you.

assuming that people like you and want to spend time with you is crucial to making friends. unfortunately this is the hardest thing to do in the world

[amdiriel]

lonely pt. 2

Azriel x fem!Archeron!reader

SUMMARY: After a vulnerable moment of comfort, Reader tries to navigate Azriel’s increasingly flirtatious behavior without assuming anything. Because she really shouldn’t. Right?

WARNINGS: FLUFF, slight suggestiveness, a bit of hurt but SO much comfort, not proofread we die like men

NOTE: thanks for so much love on part 1! I have some ideas for new Az fics, so lmk if you're interested in being on my Azriel taglist! xox diri

WORDS: ~4.2k

part 1 main masterlist

•••

It had been about a week and a half since my little breakdown in my room, my cycle coming and going just days after it. I attributed my moment of uncharacteristic hopelessness to hormones.

I hoped Azriel would too, since I had trouble fully looking him in the eye ever since out of embarrassment. After a night of deep rest post-letting-it-all-out, I woke the next morning to a spill of hindsight in my mind, grumbling at my ridiculousness into my pillow. Despite my cycle being a royal pain in my ass, it was a few days where I could hide safely in my room.

So the next few days, I was determined to be fine. I was great, living the dream, no worries here, wielding a grin and a dry joke as always.

The first day after my cycle ending, I wake up to blissful absence of pain in my abdomen, and treat myself to a long bath.

Afterwards, I take advantage of a brisk morning walk, the sunshine making the late winter weather less intolerably cold. I barely get two blocks from the River House before a shadow passes over my head.

I tilt my head back, squinting through the direct sunlight. Then the shadow descends at an alarmingly fast rate and touches down near-silently beside me. “Good morning,” Azriel murmurs.

I jump at his sudden appearance, the bubbling nervousness at his closeness making it more pronounced. “Shit—Azriel,” I gasp, calming myself with a breath. “What the hell?”

He chuckles lowly and nudges me slightly as he matches my resuming pace. “Sorry. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid,” he says, not sorry at all.

I huff and roll my eyes, even as my lips curl up as well. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You need to wear a bell.” His laugh curls around me.

“I’m not sure it would go with my leathers,” he pretends to muse. “A collar would really ruin the effect of my scariness. Not to mention the whole point of being Spymaster.”

I snort, shaking my head. He nudges me again, drawing my gaze back up to him. I find his eyes warmly on me.

“I’m glad to see you out and about,” he says. “I was worried about you.”

I let the sweet words warm me for a quick moment before I huff a small laugh. “It’s my cycle, not sickness. I’m good.”

He shrugs. “Still. I know it’s much worse for you and your sisters now that you’re all fae. You handling them alright?”

My expression softens. “You’re sweet. I’m fine. I didn’t have much pain as a human, so I think as far as fae cycles go, my pain now is relatively mild. I mostly just don’t want to do anything,” I reply with a shrug of my own.

Azriel eyes me for a moment. “Alright. But you’ll let me know if you need anything, right? I haven’t forgotten about our agreement, you know,” he says with a sly smirk.

It takes a second for it to dawn, but soon a blush blooms on my face as I remember that night. I huff a sigh, finding it within me to laugh a little at myself. “So, what, you want me to come to you any time I have a problem?” I ask dryly.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Yes,” he answers plainly.

I give him a look. “Are you now our resident therapist too?” I deadpan. “Your resume’s long enough, Shadowsinger, you can take a pause every once in a while.”

He laughs again, shaking his head at me. “I may be busy, but never for you. Never for family,” he replies, and with such sincerity in his eyes that my steps falter for a moment.

Fuck. What happened to cool and collected, Archeron?

But I swallow and arch a brow. “Sweet. But you’re barely here enough to be able to do so for the many members of our ever-growing household,” I say, thinking about our nephew Nyx.

He shrugs a shoulder, his wings unfurling then furling in a subtle motion that catches my eye. I’d always found them fascinating. “Then how about this—I’ll never be too busy for you,” he says, a note saucily that my widened eyes turn upon his smirking face.

I grasp for words for a moment, and I see his eyes delight at my moment of hesitation. I shut my mouth and switch tactics, laughing. “Why Az, you are positively Rhys-like today.”

His brows raise, expression lighting in challenge. “Oh am I? Enlighten me, sweetheart.”

I bite hard on the inside of my cheek at that damned pet name again. This male just made it so bloody difficult to be dignified at all. I swear, every moment in his presence is a fight for my life. “You’re all—” I gesticulate over his person, “Swaggering. It’s unnerving. Please, for my sanity, resume your duties as our resident brooder. You’re putting me off.”

His head tilts back with a hearty laugh that startles me into astonishment. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, now would we?” he drawls, suddenly feeling like he’s looming over me.

Stupid, tree-like male.

I don’t reply except for a disbelieving huff at his forward behavior. His smirk is self satisfied as he halts, taking a step back with a sketch of a bow.

“You’ll have to resume your walk without me, Ms. Archeron,” he says, and I wrinkle my nose at the use of my surname. His smiling eyes rove over it, dipping to my lips before locking with my own gaze again. “Think you can manage?”

I scoff and manage to flip him off as his enormous wings unfurl and beat his figure into the air. His rumbling chuckle disappears as his shape grows smaller in the sky.

—

The following days, he wasn’t as blatantly swaggering, as I had called him, but he was…

Forward. Disarmingly so.

I couldn’t seem to avoid his presence if I tried, if merely to kick some sense back into myself. First it was the library—when I had settled into the cozy window seat, my usual perch, an hour into my reading, he had strode in his silent yet confident way of his. I had stilled, as if hoping he’d simply not notice me. Fool. He notices everything. And he certainly had wasted no time sidling up to my perch and leaning over to observe what I was reading. His warmth and masculine scent was a pleasant yet oppressive blanket to my poor sensibilities. And I barely survived when he had hummed “Any good?” practically into my ear.

Or there was lunchtime—I’d wander into the kitchen to make something quick and simple for myself, and when I walked into the dining room he’d be sitting there already, looking up with a small, unassuming smile. When he bade simply, “Sit with me”, I had no choice but to obey and eat with him. In my suspicion, I confess that I switched the times I went to get lunch by random intervals, in which each and every time he either was already there or showed up soon after.

I couldn’t tell if it just happened that way, or if he was being overly clever in his intentional variation.

Now, three weeks post-meltdown incident, Azriel had been gone a few days on Cauldron-knows-what business, so I’d loosened up, no longer bracing myself like he could walk into the room at any second.

Which is apparently my folly, since as soon as I round the corner into the dining room one morning, I found him standing at the sideboard, back toward me, making a cup of tea.

I halted, nearly rearing back as my mouth started to form the word shit, but quickly clamping it down. But even the smallest of noise alerts someone as discerning as him.

He turns and calls my name with quiet warmth, and I banish the wince from my face. “Hey,” I say simply. “When did you get back?”

“Last night,” he says, abandoning his tea to draw near. My head tilts back as he stops in front of me. “How have you been?” he asks with a soft smile.

His quiet care is almost more flustering than his forwardness. “Well. Fine,” I answer. “And you? Your mission or whatever successful?”

He huffs amusedly. “My mission or whatever was just fine,” he replies. Then he returns to the sideboard. “Tea?”

“Oh, uh, sure. Just bla—”

“Just black. I know,” he says, throwing a smile over his shoulder at me. I blink in surprise, cheeks pink. He’s been paying close enough attention that he knows that?

Of course he has, dummy. He probably has dossiers on everyone in this city with information down to the way they take their tea, the pragmatic voice in my head deadpans. You’re no exception.

I blink again as he draws near with a second cup, passing it to me. I take it with a small thank you, sipping it gratefully.

Just when I start to squirm on my feet at the silence between us, he speaks. “About what we talked about that night a few weeks ago—” I still. “You’re alright in that regard? And don’t lie, I’ll be able to tell.”

I huff a sound between a sigh and laugh, looking down. “Well, I haven’t had a night as bad as that one since then, so that’s good right?” I say with wry self-deprecation. He doesn’t reply. “But really, I’m alright. Just winter blues, I suppose.”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

I roll my eyes in a small flash of annoyance. “Alright, not just winter blues. But they certainly don’t help. But I’m fine. Really. You did really help that night,” I admit softly.

I don’t really notice my teacup is empty until he gently takes it from my hand and sets it next to his already abandoned cup. “What helped most, sweetheart?” he asks gently.

My tongue felt stuck to the roof of my mouth—speaking my vulnerability aloud both impossible and foreign. Letting him in last time didn’t hurt. It helped, a small voice whispers in my head.

I take a breath. “Just—talking through it. Physical touch too, um…” I fight to stay steady. “It’s grounding.”

He hums, nodding. There’s a light touch to both my elbows, and my eyes shift down to find that he’d silently reached for me. I allow the touch, but don’t dare go further, suspended in the fear of the unknown.

“You don’t have to be afraid to ask for that,” he murmurs quietly. Suddenly I’m very aware of the air we’re sharing, how close he’s gotten to me. His hands slide slowly to my upper arms, my breath hitching as the warmth of his palms bleed through even my heavy sweater.

The panic sets in before I can think this interaction through, before I can rationalize that maybe, just maybe he wants to be close to me, wants to touch me. Instead my eyes find the clock and seize the subject change before me. “Don’t you have Valkyrie training in five minutes?”

Azriel stills and follows my gaze to the clock. His jaw works once before the fleeting tension is gone. “You’re right. I should go.” He squeezes my upper arms gently before letting his hands drop. “Stay warm today. Wind is supposed to get bad, and temperatures will drop rapidly once the sun sets.”

I nod, giving him a brief smile. “Of course, you too. Stay warm, I mean.”

He returns my smile before leaving the room.

A whoosh of air leaves my lungs as soon as I’m alone again. Idiot. Silly, foolish girl.

—

Azriel was at his wits end.

He’d been pulling far more stops than his usual personality allowed, hadn’t he? She was certainly clever enough to notice that he was acting much differently around her, right? Had he just not been forward enough?

And still, she did not allow him closer, as close as two people could be. He'd given her every sign he could think of without embarrassing himself.

Impossible girl. Can’t you understand that all I want is to comfort and coddle you?

He must not have taken care to erase any tension in his expression by the time he touched down in the ring atop the House of Wind, because Cassian’s brows raised upon seeing him.

Azriel just had to cast him a cool look for his brother to relent, though he caught the half-smirk on the General’s face as he turned toward the group of priestesses warming up and began training.

It was during sparring that Nesta finally deigns to sidle up beside him as he watches a match. “So. What the hell’s going on between you and my sister?”

He stills for just a moment before erasing the reaction. He debates lying to his friend, but she’ll call him on it. He doesn't think she’ll warn him off her sister either, so finally he admits evenly, “Much less than I would like.”

The eldest Archeron huffs a laugh. “I appreciate you sparing me a lie. Honestly, Az? My sister is just supremely oblivious, clever as she is. If nothing else has worked at this point, you just need to lay one on her.”

He chokes and turns his head toward her. “I would never. Not without her express permission—”

She snorts, shaking her head. “Gods, males can be so boring. At the very least you need to sit her down and make sure she doesn’t leave until she understands exactly what your intentions are. Then you can lay one on her, if she’s amenable to it.”

Azriel takes a deep breath, letting the words sink into his turbulent mind. “I don’t want to scare her,” he admits after a pause.

“You won’t,” she replies instantly. “She’s not afraid of you, she never could be. In truth, my sister is scared of very little. But based on the fact that she’s never had a romantic attachment before, what seems like indifference is likely just borne out of nervousness.”

“I don’t want to make her nervous either.”

“It’s not you that does. It’s just—being vulnerable. Emotionally intimate with someone,” Nesta says. “Years of fighting with her have taught me that she’ll hide anything behind biting wit or a laugh and joke. I think that’s what makes it all the more difficult to understand.”

He doesn’t reply.

“But speaking not as her sister, she definitely is attracted to you,” Nesta continues. “Speaking as her sister?” He looks at her cool features. “Don’t fuck it up.” Then she stalks away to Gwyn and Emerie.

Azriel forces down a growl. Tonight. He'd do it tonight or hell, he'd go crazy from this dance around the line. He'd spent too many centuries wanting this, wanting companionship for him to squander an opportunity with, at last, a female that he connected so deeply with. A female that seemed to need his touch as badly as he needed hers.

So...yes. He'd had quite enough of waiting.

—

True to Azriel's word, it did end up being very cold today.

I forgo any ideas of taking a walk, but I did end up camping out in the warmth of Feyre's study, taking turns with her to organize some of her paperwork or play with Nyx on the floor. My nephew (and his poor parents) had had some rough nights due to the last dregs of his teething pain, but it was good to see him smiling and playing despite it all. Rhysand stopped in frequently, unable to stay from his mate and son for extended periods of time, and after the fourth time Feyre shooed him out with their laughing, squirming son in his arms.

Our bi-weekly dinner fell that evening. Usually I enjoyed it.

Usually.

The dinner was fine. But I was so chilled that I took the opportunity of warmth from any hot dish passed around to me. I shiver for the upteenth time as Azriel passes me the potatoes.

"Cold?" he murmurs close beside me, and I shiver again. Not from the cold, damn him.

"Freezing," I retort instead, scooping potatoes on my plate. "Doesn't Rhys have this place warded to hell? Why is it so drafty?"

Azriel chuckles lowly. "How do you know that it isn't just you?" he teases.

I shoot him a look. "No, no, Mr. 'Stay Warm Today', I'm quite certain it isn't."

He laughs again, and it warms me only temporarily. I finish before everyone else, per usual. Not only do I tend to eat fast, but I'm also not caught up in constant conversation. Bored, my eyes travel the room, around my friends. My family. Even in my relaxed, two-glasses-of-wine haze, my mind doesn't fail to notice how paired up they all seem to have gotten.

Feyre and Rhys feed a fussy Nyx in his highchair, Rhys's eyes roaming over his mate and child with unrepressed love. Cassian's arm was slung around Nesta's shoulder, my usually stoic sister slumped comfortably into his side. Varian looked down at Amren next to him like she was the most fascinating creature alive, which...wasn't entirely a subjective statement, considering her interesting history.

Even Elain was speaking in shy tones with Lucien, who watched her with amused adoration. I had been so proud of my younger sister for finally realizing that she could just as well choose him as not choose him. They were taking it slow, she'd been telling me recently, but she begrudgingly had found that her mate was, indeed, her perfect match.

But as with all my friends and family, my happiness for them comes at a cost. To myself.

I turn and opened my mouth to chase away the tightness in my chest, but found that the Spymaster next to me was turned away, engaging Mor in conversation on his other side.

I quickly clamp my mouth shut and instead go for my wine.

Gods, hadn't Feyre mentioned there was some sort of will-they won't-they situation between the two of them? Something that had been brewing for the five centuries they'd known each other? It was none of my business, of course, and I hardly paid attention, but even I noticed that it had been pretty consistently they-won't in the past few years of living here.

Right?

Azriel laughs at something she says, and suddenly I feel sick.

Cauldron. Was I going to be the only one left?

And even worse—had I also been imagining his forwardness with me as of late?

There's a rushing in my ears and I tune out completely, going blissfully blank.

I hardly recall cleanup. Or the migration to the living room. My body seems to draw itself to the fireplace, a hand lifting to drag a blanket off the back of an armchair as I settle on the floor before the flames.

And as I wrap the blanket around myself, shivering minutely, I can't bring myself to look at what I know I'll find behind me—each couple in the house cuddling for warmth.

—

Azriel's heart aches at the sight of her vibrating form in front of the fire.

He'd taken his place behind the armchair she usually sat in, hoping to finally coax her into having a conversation in the privacy of the hall. Or if things went well, his bedroom.

But instead he watched her walk as if unawake from the dining room to the fireplace in the living room. Unblinking. Not looking at anyone else.

He doesn't know what to do.

He also doesn't realize that a shadow had flitted to her until it came slinking back to his shoulder, whispering, Upset. Crying.

His heart broke. Oh, sweetheart.

He felt suspended in air, in time for a moment. Everyone was lounging, cuddling in their respective pairs, speaking quietly with one another. Distracted. So he took a gamble.

And silently pushed forward.

—

I felt him before I heard or saw him.

I lock up as I feel his warm body settle on the rug, not quite directly behind me, but not quite beside me either.

His touch was warm, intentional.

Mother, I needed intentional touch so badly.

I hadn't realize how upset I had gotten until the first cold tear spills down my cheek. I wipe hastily at it.

"Hey," he coos softly in my ear, his arm coming firmly around me and drawing me into him. I sniff, shooting a panicked glance over my shoulder since everyone was in the room right now. I barely register that his wings block any sight of the two of us from the rest of the room before his gentle hand guides my chin back to look up at him. "No one can see, sweet girl," he murmurs. "You're alright."

The lump tightens painfully in my throat as a second, third tear spill down my face. "Sorry," I mouth, unable to get any sound out.

"Stop," he whispers gently. "You're alright. You're safe." His hand slides to the back of my head and I let myself be guided to the shelter of his embrace, once again in his lap as I silently shake. "Are you feeling that way again?"

I nod silently.

He sighs. "Sweetheart. Why don't you just let me in?"

I untuck my wet face from his shoulder to glance confusedly up at him. "I...I am," I breathe. "You're—you're hugging me."

He shakes his head, cradling my face with both hands. "I mean: why don't you let me into that head of yours? That world? Most importantly, why can't you just let me into your heart?"

Said heart seems to stutter and stop beating.

There's a long moment where my lips don't form words, don't do anything except lay parted, slack. "What do you mean?" I finally blurt, a note of tightness in my voice.

His jaw works and he sighs heavily through his nose. "Sweetheart, is it so impossible to understand that this whole time you've found yourself lonely at the sight of everyone paired off that maybe I want to be that person for you? Your person?"

"Wh—you?" I sputter on a whisper as everything dawns, hell, practically crashes down upon me. The denial comes a split second after. "No."

"Yes."

My expression shutters in emotion. "There's no way—"

"There is," he murmurs with an adoring smile on his handsome face, thumbs brushing at my tears. "And you can't change that, ever. But what you can do is let me in."

I take a shuddery breath, in and out. "Let you in?"

He nods.

"Be my person?" I croak. "And I be yours?"

The words seem to have an effect on him, his chest puffing for a moment before deflating again. His hands cradle my face like I'm precious. I've never felt more so than in his lap. "Yes, sweet girl. Mine. And I, yours."

A release another uneven breath, feeling my body go warm all over. "I—I never thought that I...that you could want this with me. Could want me," I rasp.

He smiles. "But I do. I have for a long time."

I let out a little wet laugh. "Gods, I—" I shake my head. "I don't feel like asking questions right now. I've wanted you too, for so long. I just didn't want to delude myself, to make a fool of myself in front of you when you're so..."

He raises a brow but his eyes remain warm. "So?"

"So perfect, damn you," I finish, no real malice behind my words. When he laughs this time, I feel it seep directly through my chest and into my soul.

"You're the perfect one, sweetheart," he murmurs, and presses a kiss to my hairline like he had those weeks ago. "In more ways than one." He draws back to look at me, and I return his gaze with nothing but openness, with love. Then he breathes, "May I kiss you?"

Heat blooms across my cheeks, but I give him a little nod. "You may."

He dips his chin ever so slowly, and when his soft, full lips finally meet mine, my eyes slip shut. Tentative, and so gentle with me, he dares his tongue over my bottom lip. Though I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, I let him through.

The first swipe of his tongue, this hungrier kiss sets my soul ablaze, his hands travel to wrap around my waist, drawing my chest against his.

We kiss quietly yet needy for Cauldron knows how long. All I know is that I’m breathless, fuzzy, and light by the time I draw away softly. He chases my lips a moment more before settling his forehead against mine.

Breathing the same air.

A giddy smile tugs at my features, and I giggle with blushing embarrassment. “They definitely know what’s going on,” I whisper, fighting the urge to peek. He chuckles lowly and draws me closer, depositing a kiss on my shoulder, my jaw, then my lips.

“I sent them out,” he replies. My brows raise. “I told Rhys mind-to-mind that if he didn’t get everyone out, I’d quit.”

A laugh bubbles up within me. “Liar. He just decided to have mercy on us. On me, at least.”

Azriel grins, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Boyish. Free.

“Kiss me again,” I whisper. And he does.

That night, he takes me to his room, scooping me under the covers and into his body. I’m too wired, too happy to fall asleep right away. It’s when I watch him slip into dreamland, the most relaxed I’ve seen him, that there’s a tug within my chest.

A soft glow flickers to life deep in my soul. I smile and let the tears fall as I feel what I think is the bond.

I settle in. I’ll tell him tomorrow.

•••

NOTE: i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i did writing it! i have an idea for a short series taking place post-ACOSF, where Reader is part of a group in Montesere that’s sort of adjacent to the Valkyries, and she comes to visit the Library, so I’ll start drafting if anyone is interested k love you bye! -diri

TAG LIST: @lilah-asteria @salvatoresister1 @a-courtof-azriel @thestartitaness @casiiopea2 @kk191327 @missxmarvelous @saltedcoffeescotch

[neproxrezi]

everything wrong with elon musk's dogshit elden ring build

elon musk recently bought a blatantly boosted poe2 account and started trying to pretend he knew what he was talking about with it. while you could definitely in part put this down to... his general... everything... i think this was influenced by his elden ring build getting roasted a while back.

@luciferhimshelf has prompted me to go through his build and pick apart everything i see wrong, because while i think people get the general idea it's horrendous, i really want to go through it ALL

ALRIGHT. some of these are excusable first playthrough mistakes, and some of them are fucking baffling

he's in the mountaintops of the giants with 1009 hp. this is WAY less than you should have by this point. for anyone curious, i used a build calculator to check and he hasn't kept the debuff from hugging fia, which is a shame because it would have been very funny

he has 31 vigor, which governs your health. the general agreed end point for your build is 60 vigor, which bring you to 1900 hp. he also has a talisman equipped that gives you +5 vigor, endurance, strength and dex, MEANING HIS ACTUAL STAT IS 26 VIGOR. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE 26 VIGOR AT THIS POINT

the spirit summons are... strange. having three equipped at all times is a really odd decision. two of them, Skeletal Militia (1) and Banished Knight Oleg (3) are reasonable choices, though by this point you really could have replaced them with something better - especially skeletal militia. the middle one, Marionette Soldiers (2), is more odd, but it's not a shit-tier choice. the odd thing here really is that he has three summons in his hotbar and no healing flasks - which i assume are in the quick access. i'd love to see his split of hp and fp heals too, because of the next one...

38 mind is a really strangely high amount to have. you don't need this much, ever. the only reason you might need this much is if your only spellcasting staff is lusat's glintstone staff (which is the one he is using), because it makes all your spells more expensive in exchange for dealing more damage. this should not be the only staff he is using.

and i know it's the only one he uses because for some reason he seems to be equipping all his weapons at once. i actually did this on my first playthrough of a souls game so i can't trash talk this one that much but it is still really fucking strange, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE IS HEAVY ROLLING IN THIS IMAGE. WHY IS HE HEAVY ROLLING WITH THE +5 ENDURANCE TALISMAN EQUIPPED

the more things i point out, the more inevitable i feel my descent into madness will become

why does he have two shields

i can understand multiple weapons. i don't like it but i understand it. two shields makes no sense. you should never have two shields

"oh but lunne maybe he has two shields because one parries" both of his shields are uninfused, and their base ash of war is weapon skill.

there is no reason to have two shields equipped.

i'm going to try and push past the fact he has two shields equipped, and move onto the weapons and spells

the weapons themselves are reasonable choices - rogier's rapier is a free weapon pre upgraded with a nice ash of war, and moonveil is a very powerful weapon and he has an intelligence build. this makes sense.

however, i would be an idiot if i did not point out that the reason elon musk is running an intelligence build, is absolutely 100% without a doubt because he thinks he is intelligent.

68 (62+6 from the helmet) is an odd choice - there is a spell that requires this amount, however i am not convinced he was smart enough to find it. if i had to guess, i would say he is probably just working toward 99

with this in mind, i looked at his spell choices. i can make out that he is running zamor ice storm, night comet, magic glintblade, comet, and loretta's greatbow. (i found out there is a wider crop of the image after scrutinising it, and it turns out i was right anyway)

these are extremely odd choices for your five spell slots.

the fact he has five spell slots really is the piece de resistance here. the funniest thing about this whole image. i'm sorry i put it off, but i really had to savour this.

you get two spell slots at the start of the game. one is bought at the roundtable hold. one drops from the red wolf of radagon, a mandatory boss on a casual playthrough taking on every legacy dungeon they find. a fifth one drops from demi-human queen maggie, in mt gelmir near where he would have been doing a quest to get that staff.

all the other memory stones are acquired through puzzles.

he is running an intelligence build because he thinks he's smart, but he could not solve a single puzzle.

he also took a photo of the screen instead of a screenshot.

[no-144444]

famous or not- c.sainz

summary: everything falls apart?

pairing: carlos sainz x fem! actor! reader

୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ

It wasn’t the plan for everything to fall apart, but that’s just kind of what happened… 

For the first few months, everything between you two had been great. Carlos adored you, treated you like a princess, and you did the same to him. Your relationship was full of romantic dates, cozy nights in, and various trips to races to support. 

Then, he stopped returning your calls, stopped answering your messages, and really only came to you for one thing. He was stressed, you knew it. The new season had just started and he’d been struggling to out-pace Alex, let alone get in the points. You gave him grace. You gave him time. 

That was until Miami. He’d gotten in the points. He’d out-performed Alex. He’d done it. So you went out. And half way through the night you lost him, and just stayed with the other girls instead. When you woke up, you were not expecting to see photos of your boyfriend tonguing another girl. You called him, you texted him, you did everything. 

Still, no response. 

You didn’t go to the next 3 races. You left him alone, assuming you both knew you two weren’t together anymore (especially considering the fact that you explicitly told him you two were done), and you moved on with your life. Did it hurt? Yes. Were you going to let the world know that? No. 

It all kicked up again after a damn interview on the red carpet of your new film. 

“What about your alleged boyfriend Carlos Sainz? Is he here tonight?” 

You laughed. “Oh him? We were just fucking, nothing too interesting there.” 

It was meant to be a throw-away comment. He wasn’t even meant to care. 

But then he was standing in your hallway with a hardened look on his face, and you gulped. 

“Hi,” you smiled politely. “Nice to see you again.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a premiere,” he said, his voice low, warning. 

“We’re not together,” you shrugged, putting your coat away. “I didn’t think you’d need to know.”

He scoffed. “Who says we’re not together?”

“Me,” you answered plainly. 

“You don’t just get to-”

“Oh, I do though. You didn’t respond to me for weeks, Carlos. There’s photos of you kissing other girls, and guess what, I’m not just going to be your girlfriend for the weekends and let you off because you’re an F1 driver,” you scoffed. “You can go now. We’re done.” 

“Baby, what? They don’t matter, and even if they did, I only want you. Sometimes… things happen, and we don’t mean them to,” he shrugged, trying to get closer to you, but you just walked further into your home. 

“I’m not one of the girls that let those things ‘just happen’, Carlos. If you’re with me, you’re with me. Not some random groupie, not some girl you’ve just met, me. Now, please leave.”

He grabbed your arm. “Come on, you enjoyed being my WAG so much-”

“If you’re only doing this to get Williams more popularity, I suggest you fuck off,” You cursed, grabbing your arm out of his hand.

“You’re not famous enough for that anyway,” he mumbled. 

“Oh! So now I’m not famous enough for you? Pick one, you dick,” you laughed, your blood boiling as he continued insulting you. 

“Cariño, calm down,” he said, and there was silence. Mostly because your jaw was dropped at his fucking audacity. “You must admit, I did have a hand in making you more… popular.” 

You laughed in his face. Angrily and loud. “Go fuck yourself! Oh my god, the sun actually doesn’t shine out of your arsehole, though I know James has made you believe that! I am far more famous than you are, because you’ll always just be the guy that Lewis Hamilton replaced.”

You were both quiet. You’d hit a nerve. 

“Well that’s…” he trailed off. “I’ll see myself out.”

And that was that. He never bothered you again. 

୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ

williams & merc masterlist (omfg it's so weird to write that ew)

navigation for my blog :)

[alkit832]

Quick note, I have like no context for whatever it may be implied that orpheuslament is talking about, but real talk, this is a serious issue with most groups left of centre, they assume a basic framework of understanding for all topics when that's not something most people have.

I'm going to use flat earth as an example, since I have a really good analogy in mind. Imagine you know nothing about geology or astronomy, and think the earth is flat, and you decide to educate yourself. You find Professor Dave, and you're instantly turned away by his hostile attitude. That's most left of centre groups.

Now imagine that same scinario, but instead of finding Professor Dave, you find Dave McKeegan. McKeegan explains things in a non-hostile, and in depth way, covering the same stuff Professor Dave does, but without that immediate air of hostility. You're more likely to not be turned away, assuming you are actively looking to learn in good faith.

Now, I understand being rather rude to someone who is clearly not acting in good faith, but there's the assumption that anyone who approaches without any baseline knowledge won't be acting in good faith just because they didn't do any preliminary research, but that assumption alone turns away so many people who are willing to learn and don't even know how to phrase the first questions they want answered that it's a massive detrimant to any left of centre communities.

I'd even accept us just saying "hey, it seems you don't have the baseline knowledge to even begin to understand what we're talking about" over the current attitude of "Well, you're clearly too dumb to be here in good faith" at this point. This is a long standing issue in a lot of places with a long history of ongoing conversations as well, not just left of centre communities. This can be seen in some hardcore gaming spaces as well, or games with well established META's, but those places don't have nearly the effect on the world and the people living on it that political discussions have.

Wow, I know I ramble a lot, but this was supposed to be a quick note, so I'll stop here before I accidentally end up writing an essay long enough to be used for a college application.

i find the whole "i had unpleasant experiences with leftists before so now im a raging fascist" narrative incredibly funny because we have all had unpleasant experiences with leftists before. it comes free with being a leftist

[cafem3wcuryy]

౨ৎ ━━━ HALLWAY CRUSH !

req from anon: hii!! :3 do you think you could do another version of the hallway crush with some other characters? i was thinking about Tendou specifically but tsukishima and kenma would be super cool!! <3

continuation to this

━ characters: kageyama, tsukishima, kenma, akaashi, tendou

━ sum: bumping into their (hallway) crushes, then finally confessing.

━ tw: fem!reader, unestablished relationship

lowercase intended

m.list

━━━ KAGEYAMA TOBIO

⤷ kageyama first saw you in his class and thought you were really pretty, making him intimidated of you because of your beauty.

⤷ kageyama would try to talk to you face to face, but would backout last minute, making you confused every time he would call your name and just walk away without saying anything else.

⤷ kageyama would instead pass you notes during class.

hi

hi :) shouldnt u be paying attention?

ya but got bored :p

understandable btw y do u keep calling for my attention but then just walk away?

i get nervous sorry.

⤷ kageyama would continue to pass notes to you during class, then one day you got tired of sending notes all the time, so you asked him for his number and he started freaking out mid lesson.

⤷ kageyama wouldn't talk to you much during school, but whenever there is study hall or partner projects, he would look at you immediately with round eyes and softly furrowed eyebrows.

⤷ kageyama was hanging out with hinata one day during lunch, and you passed by, making kageyama freeze up when you waved and smiled at him, resulting in hinata to start freaking out and tell the team.

⤷ kageyama wouldn't even be the one to confess to you, hinata would accidentally say it out loud when he and kageyama saw you in the hallways.

"HEY! aren't you the one who kageyama has a crush on?!" hinata point at you.

"c-crush?"

"HINATA, YOU DUMBASS!"

⤷ kageyama would start to avoid you, wanting to avoid rejection and started freaking out when you texted him to meet you before volleyball practice.

"are you avoiding me?" you asked, a slight pout on your features.

"n-no?"

"well, i guess i there's no point in me telling you that i like you, too, because you want to keep ignoring me."

"W-WHAT???"

⤷ kageyama's cheeks were still bright red when he got to practice, making tsukishima and hinata to start teasing him throughout the entire practice.

━━━ TSUKISHIMA KEI

⤷ tsukishima was assigned as you tutor for math, marking the day he first saw you and thought you were cute, but he felt like you were going to be a nuisance.

⤷ at first, tsukishima thought you were annoying and thought you didn't care about school and you only cared about your looks or friends, but was proved wrong when you were actually trying to understand.

⤷ tsukishima would lowkey feel bad for thinking you were annoying, and as he kept tutoring you, he saw that you were nothing like he assumed you'd be, and his feelings began to grow for you.

⤷ tsukishima would rather die than to let people (ahem, the volleyball team) know that he has a crush on you, so whenever he sees you throughout the hallways, he'll look at you with a slight nod that you would return with a smile.

⤷ tsukishima would start to lowkey flirt with you, but the way he flirts is to tease you.

"you really do prove that not all pretty girls can be smart."

"excuse me?"

"i guess your stupidity can be overlooked because you're cute."

"is this your way of flirting or..?"

⤷ tsukishima would start asking you after your math sessions if you need help with any other subjects, and claiming that he has nothing better to do.

⤷ tsukishima would slowly start texting you, asking if you understood your homework and if you need help, you can just call him whenever and he's help a "poor soul" like you.

stinkyshima Did you do your homework?

[name] yes teacher 😒

stinkyshima You're an idiot.

[name] ur idiot <3

stinkyshima Good night.

[name] JUST SAY U HATE ME STUPIDSHIMA :(

⤷ tsukishima wouldn't want to tell you he has a crush on you because he has low self-esteem and is trying to avoid rejection, thinking you're too pretty for him.

⤷ tsukishima soon got tired of keeping his feelings in, so during one of your study sessions, he slid you a note as he looked away from you.

"read it." he muttered.

it's annoying keeping this to myself, i like you.

⤷ tsukishima would let out a quiet sigh of relief when you told him you like him too.

"okay, now finish."

"yeah, yeah."

━━━ KOZUME KENMA

⤷ kenma has the fattest crush on you since his first year, now in his second year, you're still is hallway crush.

⤷ kenma being the introvert, he never spoke to you, only keeping his eyes on you, unnoticed, every time you walked by him with your friends he would look discreetly, but it never went unnoticed with kuroo.

"what are you looking at, hm?" kuroo teased, as he followed kenma's line of sight.

"nothing."

"now that i think about it, you're always looking when she walks by."

⤷ kenma didn't know if he should be scared, happy or anxious when you came into the gym during practice and coach nekomata introducing you as the new manager.

⤷ kenma avoided you like the plague, why? idk introvert things.

⤷ kenma thought he was genuinely going to faint when you began talking to him after practice ended and he was playing on his psp.

"what are you playing?"

"?!"

"oh, i'm sorry for scaring you," you nervously laughed. "i just like playing video games too, but i'm not very good."

⤷ kenma was lowkey so jealous when any of the guys talked to you so easily, when he couldn't even go near you without being so nervous, he was mostly jealous of kuroo and lev because he didn't know if you liked tall guys more.

⤷ kenma almost never responded to you the first time you texted him outside of school because he was so nervous and scared.

xxx-xxx-xxxx hey! its [name] i rmbr u saying u play league i was wondering if you wanted to play w me? (07:29 pm)

[name] it's okay if u dont want too srry for bothering :) (10:56 pm)

kenma if u still want we can play (11:48 pm)

⤷ kenma wouldn't be the one to confess, let's be real, you were the one who confessed first, which then kenma told you he likes you too ever since his first year.

"i was scared you liked kuroo or lev..."

"what the-? why?"

"i thought you liked taller guys..."

⤷ kenma later made you a minecraft world, confessing to you a second time, saying he wanted you to feel special, too, because he was too much of a coward to confess first.

━━━ AKAASHI KEIJI

⤷ akaashi had first seen you walking out of your club one day with your teammates, and after that you were suddenly everywhere he was. (you guys have the same hall, he just never noticed you)

⤷ whenever akaashi saw you, he thought you always looked happy, no matter day, season, weather, you always had a small smile on your face whenever you were speaking to someone or just walking alone.

⤷ akaashi gained his crush on you after one day you and him locked eyes, and smiled at him.

⤷ akaashi decided to finally talk to you after that, and asked if you ever wanted to hang out with him during school or after clubs when you weren't busy.

"i should be free saturday if that works with you." you hummed, talking to akaashi on the phone.

"i'm free whenever you want me too be."

⤷ akaashi would be so whipped for you and he's such a gentleman, even though you guys weren't together (yet) he would open the door for you, pull your chair out for you, he even follows the sidewalk rule bro IM whipped.

⤷ after your hang out, akaashi would start calling you after clubs, asking how your day is, and what made your day, he just wants to listen to you talk.

⤷ you and akaashi would then start a routine where every saturday, you and akaashi meet up somewhere (wherever yo choose) and just hang out and talk.

⤷ akaashi thought he was slick with his crush on you with his teammates, but one day he went to practice and everyone started asking him questions, especially bokuto.

"you got a girlfriend now, akaashi?" konoha asks.

"what makes you say that?"

"I SAW YOU WITH A GIRL AT (cafe name) ON SATURDAY!!"

"were you spying on me...?"

"AKAASHIIII! I'M NOT WEIRD LIKE THAT!"

"mhm."

⤷ akaashi one day brought you to practice because bokuto kept asking him to introduce you to the team, even though akaashi told him you guys are just friends, he insisted.

⤷ akaashi decided to tell you about his feelings for you during one of your saturday 'hang outs'.

⤷ akaashi told you he was taking you to a park for a picnic and that's when he confessed.

"[name]."

"hm?" you look a him.

"i have feelings for you."

⤷ akaashi thought he was going to pass out when you flashed him the smile you first gave to him, even more so when you told him you had feelings for him too.

━━━ TENDOU SATORI

⤷ tendou first noticed you when you walked into the gym, asking for semi, he thought you were really pretty.

"soooo who was that semi-semi?" tendou coo'd.

"my classmate, why?"

⤷ tendou began looking for your face throughout the halls, wanting to just see you, and he that would literally just make his day.

⤷ tendou never approached you or spoke to you because he was scared you were going to think he was weird or you would get scared of him and how he looked. (the bullying took such a toll on him bro, i will fight for tendou)

⤷ tendou was SHOCKED when you came to the gym asking for HIM, he thought that this was the end and his heart was going to be SHATTERED.

⤷ imagine to his SHOCK when you asked tendou if he wanted to help you make some chocolates for a school fundraiser, and how you kept you smiling as you spoke to him.

"the counselor told me you wanted to become a chocolatier when you graduate and i thought you would be the perfect person for this!"

"r-really?"

⤷ tendou was lowkey so nervous when he got to the school's kitchen and it was just the two of you guys in there, so nervous that he didn't talk to you the first few days.

⤷ tendou tried so hard to mask the ever growing smile on his features when you started asking him some ice breakers, he went home so giddy, his parents were so happy seeing him happy like that.

⤷ on the last day of making chocolates together, tendou gained the courage to ask you if you wanted to exchange phone numbers, which you happily obliged. (i mean cmon he's so cutie patootie)

⤷ tendou never texted you first, he didn't want to come off as desperate or anything, so he waited patiently for you to text him, and after a few days went by with no text back, he was ready to give up, but! you eventually texted him, much to his relief.

[name] hey! sorry for not texting sooner, i was really busy with the fundraiser

(he forgot that you were part of the fundraiser bro)

⤷ as you guessed, tendou would never be caught confessing first, so when you confessed to him with chocolates on valentine's day, he almost cried, he also began to rapid fire questions at you, begging it isn't a sick joke.

"no! i would never joke about that!"

"you swear?"

"i swear."

sniffles.

"a-are you crying?"

"no. not yet."

notes:

lightly proofread bcs its 4 am ALSO IGNORE THE FUCK ASS COLOR SCHEME I CANT BE BOTHERED RN

YUR I DID THAT, reqs are opennn

[mayakern]

In light of finding out that there's actually people out there being jerks to you in your inbox, I wanted to tell you how much joy you've brought into my life without even knowing about it! My girlfriend introduced me to your art and your clothing and I've been a huge fan ever since! Your art makes me feel more comfortable in my own skin and see beauty where I hadn't thought to look before, and watching you succeed puts a smile on my face. I wish you and your wife a long and happy life full of joyful memories and interesting stories!

aw thank you, this is so incredibly sweet 🥺🥺🥺

we did have a couple ppl being weirdly combative at the combo of me asking why ppl hadn't purchased from the canada store (this was a genuine question to see if there were issues we didn't know about, which there were) and then me talking about what a rough position the business is in currently, but largely people have been nothing other than extremely kind and supportive and wonderful.

i think it often comes down to the sad reality that when a small brand like us, which is more expensive than fast fashion in large part because we use certified ethical labor, talks about our financial/sales issues in a time when most people are struggling, people sometimes get defensive.

even if i am not being aggressive or mean or blaming our customers--i am also a non-wealthy person who lived through 2024, i have not at any point been unaware of just how difficult things have gotten and i don't blame anyone for their financial situation--because of the type of business i run, seeing me or the business fail can make people feel guilty. because even tho a lot of people try not to think about it, when you buy a fast fashion shirt for $5--or when you buy several, knowing that they'll fall apart after just a few wears--there are so many "invisible" costs. knowing that you can afford a shein clothing haul because someone was, at best, paid pennies to make the garments wears a person down. knowing, too, that that piece of clothing that was made by exploiting other humans is going to end up in the trash relatively quickly also takes its toll.

for a lot of people, fast fashion is all they can afford. and also for a lot of people, they have convinced themselves that buying a higher quantity of cheap garments that will fall apart quickly is more affordable or a better deal than saving up for one more expensive piece that will last them multiple years. after all, buying a single garment that you'll wear for years doesn't give you nearly as much of a dopamine hit as getting an entire clothing haul that costs the same amount up front.

and i think because of this--because a lot of people make this choice and do not feel proud of it--when they see me or my business struggle, they project their own feelings of guilt and assume that i must be blaming them personally. that i am figuratively breathing down their neck and haunting their closets.

the truth is, i know the path i have chosen is not the easy one. i could probably make a lot more money and live a lot more comfortably if i operated on a business model that more closely resembled fast fashion. but for as long as i can afford them, i would like to stick to my ideals. and i don't blame other people for not being able to do the same.

[howi99]

A Knight second chance 12

Jaune: (Tsk, it's taking too long! At this rhythm, Pyrrha's gonna get killed!) Hey, Pyr?

Pyrrha: Hm?

Jaune: *point to Mercury* Just letting you know, that the guy over there got 2 prosthetic legs.

Pyrrha: *perplexed* How-

Jaune: *point to the disguised Neo* I spoke with her. So anyway, he plans to fight you. Now, you remember what i said about using every advantage in a fight, right?

Pyrrha: B-but that wouldn't be fairplay and-

Jaune: *sigh* Pyrrha, do you really wish to be a huntress?

Pyrrha: *shocked* Wha- Yes! Of course i want!

Jaune: *taking her hands in his, looking at her straight in the eyes* Then... Why are you still holding back? Do you think the criminals will? Or the grimms?

Pyrrha: *Blushing madly* whu-..

Jaune: *sigh* Guess i'll have to teach you more. *Getting up* Miss Goodwitch, may i take the first fight?

Glynda: *surprised* I don't mind... This is the first time you volunteered yourself. *Frown* Is everything ok?

Jaune: *chuckle* Yes professor. I just want to show my partner how a huntsman should fight.

Everyone: *whispering between themselves*

Nora: *nodding to Yang with a smirk* Hey, you shouldn't be rude!

Jaune: *blinking* ... What?

Yang: *grinning* You know, she's right! How dare you say she doesn't fight like a huntress, uh?!

Jaune: ...! *Panicking* W-wait, no! That's not what i meant! Pyrrha's amazing, b-but she still holds back and-

Ren: Jaune.

Jaune: *looking at Ren* Uh?

Ren: *smirk* They are joking.

Jaune: ... O-oh, yeah, right. *Cough with a slight blush* I-in any case, i wish to fight you *point to Glynda* Professor!

Everyone: *silence... Then everyone starts talking at the same time*

Glynda: *annoyed* Silence! *Everyone shut up* Good. *Turn to Jaune* Now, why would you want to fight me instead of anyone else?

Jaune: *smiling* In the face of a stronger opponent, one needs to create their own advantage. I'm not expecting to win against you, but i want to show everyone how even the most powerful semblances can be overcome.

Glynda: *small smirk* Oh? Am i to assume you will use any trick necessary to that goal?

Jaune: *smirking* Of course. If it's to help my partner, i don't mind getting a bit rough.

*sound of something falling to the ground*

Nora: Uh... Jaune?

Jaune: ... That was Pyrrha, wasn't it?

Nora: Yep.

Jaune: *sigh* Anyway, maybe we should spar outside? And uh... Can someone help? I think i'd make it worse if i tried helping her.

Yang: *smiling* I'll go get some water! *whispering to Nora* because that girl is thiiiirsty~.

_ Outside _

Ruby: *vibrating with excitement* Oh gosh, we are going to see Professor Glynda fight! This is so awesome!

Pyrrha: *still a blushing mess* We held hands...

Nora: *nudging Pyrrha with her elbow* Hey Pyrrha, eyes on the ring!

Yang: *squinting her eyes* Wait... Weiss, did you give Jaune some of your dust?

Weiss: Yes, why?

Yang: How come you never share with us!?

Weiss: *deadpan* I did, once. And you used it all on your stupid bike.

Yang: Hey, her name is Bumblebee and-

Blake: Shhhh!

On the ring

Glynda: *looking at her students* Tsk. Maybe i should be stricter with them.

Jaune: *wearing his armor and a bunch of vial of dust* Well, can't blame kids for being kids, right?

Glynda: *looking at him* You are one of them you know?

Jaune: *flinch for a instant then smile* I guess i am. *Stretch* Well, for today i'll be your assistant teacher.

Glynda: *keeping note of that flinch* Hm...*taking position* Ready when- *gets blinded by Jaune's using thunder dust as a flashbang* !

Jaune: *already running to her, quickly mixing dust together* A huntsman should never lower their guards in a fight! *Dodge the disciplinarian, then slash at her twice* We rely on our senses to use our semblance, so the best way to win- *gets pushed back by Glynda's semblance* -is to have the element of surprise! *Throw an ice and fire dust vial near Glynda, a thick mist instantly forming to obstruct her vision further*

Glynda: *smiling* (He's good. Using my politeness to get the advantage.) You didn't follow the rules, Jaune. *Hearing him approaching from the right* Maybe you should be punished? *Use her semblance to condense the water in the air into needles, throwing them at Jaune, which blocks part of them with his shield*

Jaune: *apologetic smile* Sorry, just wanted to show them that real fights don't have rules. *Unsheathing his sword, starting to run at her* And i'm not done yet! *Using ice dust on the ground, making it slippery* Bad day for heels, don't you think?

Glynda: *trying to maintain her balance* What the-

Jaune: *slide, making her fall on the ground* The second thing you can use is your environment! *Gets on one knee then stab the ground with an earth crystal covered in plant dust, making the ground under them burst with roots, covering Glynda* Change it, mold it, make it yours!

Glynda: *chuckle while using her power to unroot everything around her* Not bad, not bad at all. *Aim at Jaune with a smirk* My turns now.

Jaune: *using gravity dust on himself to make himself heavier* The last part is aura management. *Taking position, placing his shield to protect his vitals* Everyone has limits, a point where they can't realistically fight at 100% even if they still have Aura.

Glynda: *begin her assault, throwing stones and roots at her student*

Jaune: *gritting his teeth, slowly but surely sliding out of the ring* Semblance uses Aura, you can bring them down with time! You don't need to rush! *His foot pass the borders limit* Ring out!

Glynda: *sweating, stopping her assault* That was.... That was good, very good even!

Jaune: *not moving*

Glynda: *worried* Mr Arc? Jaune?

Jaune: ... I used too much gravity dust, I'm stuck!

Back with the spectators

Ruby: *frotting at the mouth from the awesomeness*

Weiss: *looking at their aura reserve* 87% for Jaune and 68% for Glynda.

Yang: Damn, VB is good, right Pyr?

Pyrrha: ...

Nora: Pyrrha?

Pyrrha: ... *Looking at her hands* So he was holding back during our spar too...

Nora: *worried* A-are you ok?

Pyrrha: *having a... Weird smile and eyes* Eh, eh eh eh~

Yang: ... *Slowly pulling out another bottle of water and slowly giving it to Pyrrha* P-money, your thirst is showing.

Pyrrha: *snapping back to reality* O-oh! I'm Sorry!

Blake: ... By the way, did anyone see Ren?

Ren: *coming back with his pockets full of Liens* I'm here.

Weiss: *frowning* Where did you get that?

Ren: *shrug* Everyone was betting on low aura while i took the "risk" of taking the ring out.

Yang: Wait, there were bets?!

Ren: Yeah, team CRDL was making them when you were gone getting some water for Pyrrha. *Looking at Ruby* By the way, you won too, Ruby.

Ruby: *hearing the news, getting back to reality too* Woohoo! More part for Crescent Rose!

_ meanwhile _

Cinder: That kid...

Emerald: Should we be worried? He was the one who stopped Roman from stealing the cargo at the docks.

Cinder: ... I need to ask that old fool for more information on him. He could be... Useful, since our plans have changed...

[rhowena]

The core problem of Campaign 3's god debate is that the only real support offered by the anti-god side is "some people are mad at the gods" and no one -- in-universe or out -- seems to realize that the mere existence of people who dislike the gods isn't sufficient to make "should the gods stay or go?" into a hyper-complex morally grey debate, any more than the mere existence of global warming denialists is sufficient to make the factual reality of climate change into a hyper-complex scientific debate. "People who are mad at the gods exist, therefore the current system is broken somehow" is the mentality of people-pleasing: if someone is mad at you, it proves that you're a bad person who did something to make them mad, and you are now morally obligated to internalize everything they say about you and devote all your energy to appeasing them.

I am, personally, of the opinion that it is vitally important for people in positions of power to maintain a healthy awareness of their own fallibility and cultivate lines of feedback from lower down in the chain the way software developers provide bug report forms; however, the reality I encountered when I accepted a forum moderation position years ago is that, if you're an Authority Figure™ of any stripe, for every person with a good-faith criticism of a poor ruling you made while overtired or an outdated policy that needs to be revised, there are a dozen who shake their fists at you because they want someone to be mad at. And when you look at the actual substance of the complaints being made (nearly all of which display a fundamental refusal to grapple with the scale the gods operate on and how that affects their decision-making) and ask "what, if anything, could/should the gods have done differently?" and "is getting rid of the gods actually a viable solution to this problem?", they're all firmly in that latter category.

To go down the list:

Vecna: If we're treating "people who are mad at the gods" as a Marginalized Group™ whose grievances are Good Points™ and Worth Considering™ simply because they are grievances with The People in Power™, then Vecna is part of said Marginalized Group™, seeing as he holds a massive grudge against the gods who helped banish him beyond the Divine Gate and per the campaign books his ultimate goal is to eliminate the worship of all deities other than himself. One can only imagine how hard he's kicking himself for failing to find out about Predathos before his own ascension.

Ludinus: His parents will still be dead whether he succeeds or fails, and preventing the same thing from happening to others is what the Divine Gate is for. Killing the gods would not only not prevent similar tragedies, it would, at least in the short term, actively make things worse: assuming Tharizdun doesn't just eat everything, how does he expect Lesser Idols like Uk'otoa to react to a glorious new age where there are no gods to keep them in check and millions of newly deity-less clerics are stuck watching people die whom they could have saved if they still had their spells? Moreover, what happens when people discontented with his glorious new era swear vengeance on those they blame for taking their gods from them, as Ludinus swore vengeance on those he blames for his parents' deaths, or start idealizing the lost age of the gods and looking for ways to somehow bring them back, as Ashton does with the Titans? Does the perspective of people who like the gods then become Worth Considering™, if they've gone from being Privileged™ to being a Marginalized Group™ who have been collectively traumatized by the loss of something precious to them?

Aeor: One of the major takeaways from Downfall was that Aeor was extremely decadent, corrupt, stratified, and generally dystopian at its height. Their main reason for wanting the gods dead seems to be not liking the existence of anything more powerful than them, and anyone arguing that the gods are Too Powerful To Exist needs to explain why the tiny cabal of mages at the tippy-top of Aeor's societal pyramid, wielding power that 99.9% of Exandrians will never have access to, were not themselves Too Powerful To Exist, especially given their evident imperialist ambitions.

Dorian: I won't downplay the genuine grievance there, but a. Opal was victimized by one of the Betrayer Gods, and what to do about them is a question that Vespin Chloras and Cassida Previn, for all their hubris, approached with considerably more nuance, and b. per the post linked in the previous bullet point, if your ultimate goal is to prevent all ill-advised deals with powerful entities and the unpleasant consequences thereof, where exactly do you stop?

Tuldus and Hearthdell: Plenty of irreligious people across Exandria are living their best lives unmolested, so the whole "you must be religious OR ELSE" isn't something the gods themselves are demanding in a systemic way, and getting rid of them wouldn't prevent all oppression any more than it would prevent all cataclysms and mass deaths. (It might not even stop the oppression committed by those specific religious people; per 'personality predates ideology', the ones who are in it to bully others and feel righteous about it will simply look for a different excuse to do so if their current one is taken from them.) There's a genuine debate to be had about how much responsibility the gods bear for their followers' actions and one could, more reasonably, accuse them of having become too lax and needing to be more stringent about telling their priests to cut that kind of shit out (though that in turn opens the question of how much they can micromanage their followers' behavior before it becomes genuinely smothering and oppressive), but it runs counter to the "the gods have too much control" narrative the Vanguard is pushing.

Liliana: Every parroted accusation she levies at the Exandria's pantheon is something Predathos and its worshippers are far, FAR more guilty of, but Predathos doesn't present itself as a caring, benevolent entity in the same way the Prime Deities do, and she expects us to believe that it admitting that it's bad somehow makes it good. (There's a Slacktivist quote that I think sums up the underlying logic here: "Once you've decided that the Most Important Thing is to avoid the wolf in sheep's clothing, your safest course of action is to embrace the wolf in wolf's clothing.")

Ashton: Essentially blames the gods for refusing to micromanage reality on their behalf and, in focusing so much on his own pain, hasn't stopped to ask what the world would look like if the gods actually felt obligated to micromanage reality on behalf of everyone who petitioned them that way, not just him personally. My dad is an agnostic and specifically doesn't believe in a god who answers prayer because what's a god to do when there's a baseball game and both teams have fans praying for their victory (or when there's a war and both armies include adherents of a given faith)?

Bor'dor: It's one thing to say that the gods have certain obligations to their followers and quite another to say that that the gods are supposed to keep their followers swaddled in bubble wrap 24/7 and prevent them from experiencing any consequences for their own actions whatsoever, and arguing that the Wildmother should have somehow stopped Bor'dor's family's suicide charge from resulting in their deaths is the latter.

Vox Machina: Continue to hold a grudge against the Matron for taking Vax away and would like to believe her being gone would make him mortal again, but when you stop to think about Vax as a person with his own feelings and opinions about his relationship with the Matron, instead of as a passive object to be fought over, the "what if Predathos eats the Matron?" scenario looks a hell of a lot bleaker. There's also the question of whether or not Predathos would consider Vax himself edible; a mere celestial might be one of those half-crushed potato chip fragments at the bottom of the bag in comparison to a god, but when you've been trapped and starving for thousands of years...

Zathuda: Objects not to being told 'no' but to the existence of forces who could potentially tell him no, which to me reads as an asshole whining about how unfair and oppressive it is when people see his assholery and tell him to cut it the fuck out.

[gayofthefae]

Extrapolating the full Mike and Nancy scene from that one screenshot: cinematography analysis

Just posted this then realized I have not lived up to it so let's go. We have one and only one to my memory actual camera shot of a potential Byler scene as opposed to a leak (though I could try to decipher from camera position itself for pics from afar).

And I haven't done my job to its fullest. So here we go.

This shot is MIKE'S POV. It is a dirty OTS. I have established that when he turns he looks a bit sad. He is aware of her eyes on him. She looks sad for him, obviously, so we can gather that he is feeling sad about something but trying to hide it from her. In this shot, he is hyper-aware of her being able to see him, which explains him turning away and supports that it is to hide his face and not just for whatever task he is performing off screen.

It is also an OTS shot, but a lingering and silent one. We know that something provoked this is her so it is clearly not the beginning of the scene. New information is gained at the end and withheld or coded to start and she has clearly just learned or realized something. The OTS is pertinent, though, because a shot for non-casual dialogue. Less intimate dialogue is often shot wider - think Steve and Robin in 4x08 talking about Nancy before it shifts to Robin's fears of dying, think Mike and Will between talking about Mike and El's fight and talking about the party's heroism.

There is also something called a "reverse shot" which refers to doing the same shot you just did on person A on their scene partner when you cut to them. Because of how it lingers on her here, I would assume the scene itself is in her POV and it being a dirty OTS shot may speak to Mike's awareness but not his perspective in the overall scene and is more likely just a reverse shot of her previous dirty OTS. I would also assume that based on this visibly being a point of gained knowledge - the value having changed in the scene (this means if you start feeling/knowing one way it's gotta end up something different or you should cut the scene) - this is the end of the scene, this scene for being for the purpose of gained knowledge setting UP a future scene with the purpose of a conversation on it, but those are two separate scenes. If she immediate said what she noticed, there would be no need to focus on her while he's looking away here any more than Will needs to silently pine for Mike in the van scene like he did in the junkyard - a shot you'll notice IS absent in that scene as I just noted because the same information is provided in other ways. THIS seems to be the sole source of the information here. So it is likely the end of the scene.

From that, we can gather that they were already in OTS's and not wide shots, which are the shots most used for one on one dialogue that is meaningful to the characters. They are having a dialogue that is already intimate or important to them, unlikely a simple strategy brainstorm. I didn't feel the need to mention but will anyway as this reminded me: this seems to be only a dialogue with no other participants or witnesses present. Back to the dialogue, though, this actually is different than what I previously thought because looking down makes it look like he's working on something, which would bring a more casual tone to their conversation. But he could have also just now resumed that activity, having stopped to talk seriously. I also might be simply wrong and he's just looking down, not at anything specific.

We also know, though, from my earlier point of Nancy not yet acting on this information that, though Mike is aware of being witnessed, there is no confirmation that he knows she knows etc. The information she gained is unspoken. For example, he didn't slip up and confess his feelings for Will. That would be undeniable. Here, he is able to at least pretend she doesn't know and turn away, continuing with something else, rather than trying to correct the situation in any way. Most importantly in defining this: whatever Nancy just learned - to Mike's awareness (whether he noticed her realization or not), he is still safe. Notable by the fact that his reaction is avoidance, not desperation. At best he is oblivious, at worst he is anxious, but he is not desperate. This is not as high stakes to him as we have seen before when it comes to personal information.

All this information helps us start to put together a scene:

In a scene in Nancy's POV, Mike and Nancy are alone together. They have a serious conversation. In it, Nancy learns something about Mike, but the information is unspoken. She looks at Mike thoughtfully. He seems to be aware she is looking at him. The scene ends without further action on the topic.

[theconcealedweapon]

He was shocked because you reprimanded him when he wasn't doing anything wrong. That's a great way to make sure someone never trusts you. You seem like the kind of person who interprets everything a child says in the worst possible way so you can belittle them and feel powerful at their expense while pretending you're being virtuous.

If he said "she's playing hard to get, I'll change her mind eventually", then your response would be justified. But you can't accurately make that kind of assumption from just the words "keep trying". He could have easily meant "move on and keep trying to find someone".

Also, he doesn't have to leave her alone. He only has to stop the specific action that was rejected. If they're friends and she turns him down as a romantic partner, he can still continue being her friend. If they've flirted consensually and she turns him down for sex, he can still flirt with her in ways she consents to. But thanks to you reprimanding him, he won't know that. He'll think he has to just drop her from his life entirely. He'll avoid her whenever he sees her. She'll wonder why he's avoiding her. She'll probably get the impression that he's throwing away a friendship because it won't lead to sex. She'll tell her friends that, and many people will think he's a creep, all because some adult asshole decided that feeling powerful for a few seconds is more important than anything else.

It could have gone like this.

Teenager: "I know. Keep trying."

Adult: "Correct. Keep trying to find someone. She turned you down, but that doesn't mean everyone will. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with her. It only means you aren't compatible with this one person. But if you keep trying to find someone, you eventually will."

You can still get the point across while assuming the best.

[ervikirvi]

TADC Rambles and Rants: Kinger (TW for Disturbing Images)

Remember when Baron Mildenhall said that he was no longer the protector of his wife and theoretical children?

[ignore the misuse of the word pair, I couldn't find another word for it]

And how we all agreed that the Baron is a pretty obvious parallel to Kinger in the past? Considering that this would've been during the time both Queenie and Kinger were already stuck in The Amazing Digital Circus, and it would've been some time after they arrived, who do you think "theoretical children" were referring to? Because not only that, but it's "children", plural. And again, since this is taking place back in Kinger's past, and I don't believe this is referring to Pomni like a theory channel suggested. No, this is definitely referring to someone way before her time, but who?

If we take a look back at the environmental storytelling of Episode Three, our first clue is a gravestone with the name "Peggy Mildenhall"

Problem is, she died in 2029-2030, WAYYYYYY after the early 2000's, where the timeline supposedly takes place. Unless the game is being restored or something at a later date, this makes no sense. And yet it's there, unless of course we just blame it on the fact that Caine is an AI messing up minor details like AI's do, there might be some importance to this. Another thing to note, Peggy died as a one-year-old, a baby. Which makes it even more strange that she'd be included here at all unless it was Queenie and Kinger's before they entered the circus. OR, the one-year difference is supposed to represent how long the person survived in the circus before abstracting. At this point, I'm grasping at straws, so I'm going to ignore the date but keep it in the back of your mind that there are three Mildenhalls. (Peggy is also a girl's name, keep that in mind later)

Now, pay attention to the pictures on the walls before the adventure starts.

This one piqued my interest the most. A woman (we can assume to be Martha), and two others. The one in the white shirt seems to be younger than the other one, with a chubbier face, and appears to be placed on Martha's lap (notice the arm beside them). I believe this is Peggy. The other one looks to be a bit older, standing up perhaps or just leaning on Martha. With their short hair and pointier chin, I believe they are a boy. With no other reason as to why they have a picture of Martha with two children hanging up in their home, I believe there are now FOUR Mildenhalls.

And now notice the picture on the left whenever Ghostly introduces himself.

One eye and buck teeth? The Pink Cyclops

They even have the same shape of eye; however, the eye color is a little lighter than that of the Cyclops. Whose eye is the same color as the rest of his body. There is a less strong contender on who this could be, but just keep in mind that we'll see a one-eyed creature again.

And now I want to introduce to you someone who I have no clue the identity of.

Since I'm going off of every-picture-has-meaning, I believe they are important too. The figure I assume to be a woman from the long, black hair and small, pointy chin. It's obviously not Martha, so who could it be? Possibly another older child? I wouldn't say that Caine couldn't make a parallel to Kinger's past appear as a dead figure, he did that with Kinger himself. Whatever it is, it appears to be... demonic

Let me show you a few other things that caught my attention, some of which I have no explanation for or are pretty obvious for what they represent.

Originally, I was going to say that this was something related to Queenie because at the beginning where it was first shown the room was dark, and you could only see the left side with the scaly eyeball, and the shape of it made it look like a moth wing. But at the end when everyone is reunited you can clearly see that this is the hide of something. Possibly of the deer skull above it? If so, the Baron did a terrible job. But the fact that is the shape of a strange, squiggly line(?), with a scaly eyeball, and contour lines makes me think it might have to do with The-Worm-On-A-String

A stretch, but still. Could it be Peggy? Or the demon woman from before? How many children did Kinger have???

Looks like to be the Angel, but why did the Baron have them painted and hung up on his wall? In one of the main halls might I add??

Obviously an Abstraction, but of who? Or is it to represent Abstraction in the first place? Another thing to note is that this painting is in the same room with the Cyclops and Demon Woman, could this be telling us that the pictures of the other two are IN-FACT Abstracted characters?

Another one to add after the adventure ended. I believe that they are two Abstractions, on their knees, connected by a branch or a tendril. Strangely, they only have one eye. And they ARE two different Abstractions since the farther one is slimmer with a bigger white dot on its stomach. Keep in mind that there will be a repeating theme of twos and threes.

And now for the adventure:

A skull I could not identify, in a way it reminds me of a bear and canine skull, but incredibly bloated. The eye sockets are also wrong, the right one seems to be higher up to the top of the skull, while the other is more forward. One socket prey, one socket predator, in the same diagonal direction as that of the Angel. Speaking of the Angel, look where it's located.

Right under the Angel's head. Who, coincidentally, has the same eye-diagonal-direction to that of Queenie. Although there are different takes as to what the Angel itself represents, I believe it represents an Abstracted Queenie, or at least, Abstraction in some way or another.

Skulls in The Bible represent mortality and the nature of Life and the inevitability of Death, something that the Abstracted know all too well. Minor rant over, just know that Queenie will be a part of this. And the skull-skeleton-bone whatever WILL make a minor comeback! 

//Minor appearance of two people, one being built like Bigfoot and the other, possibly a woman, carrying a dark object in her arms, or having her arms wrapped around something, a dog, perhaps.

The Boiled One The painting beside the stairs resembles the Demon Woman, but de-faced, bloody, and crying blood. You can tell it's her from the eyes, nose, pointy chin, and smile. Interesting that she got more demonic since the adventure started, and that she's looking directly at the staircase that is walled off with brick. Preventing Pomni and Kinger from going back upstairs to the rest of the group, while she was also the one right beside the Scary Door. Almost like the painting is sentient somehow.

Enough about the Demon Woman, this is where things start to connect: [Heads up from the future, I went crazy after describing things that you can just see with your own eyes, just skip to the third photo. Still keeping it in here for those who are curious]

A missing pair of three, two ghostly women looking out hauntingly. And a singular entity that looks to be on its own page, less human than the others. One woman stands out with a crooked neck, and we can vaguely tell that she has a dark set of hair. The other, with a more neutral expression, has a light set of hair. The three men, two dark beards one light, interestingly have X's over their eyes. This is the point where I want to mention that these figures could just represent friends that have Abstracted. After all, these do seem to be the victims of God's Angel. A reason for the Baron to go after it, a reason for Kinger to protect his family from it, whatever it is. Another Side Rant: If God's Angel represents someone who Abstracted or Abstraction in general, the early players may not have known that they were Players. And that they were viruses or demonic creatures that Caine put in to torture them. And when Queenie Abstracted, that's when Kinger realized, or after attacking the beast who "killed" his wife he realized it WAS his wife, and thus that heartfelt reunion in the Pillow Fort. That's why Queenie held no grudges, she knew Kinger was just trying to protect everyone else.

"And I ended up shooting the love of my life, mistaking her for the creature. It's ironic, isn't it? In my attempts to protect her, I ended up becoming the monster myself." -Baron Theodore Mildenhall

BUT I'M NOT DONE [Just a heads up, I went nowhere with this]

BECAUSE I BELIEVE THE CROOKED NECK LADY IS QUEENIE. OR MARTHA WHO KNOWS, IT ALL LEADS BACK TO QUEENIE IN THE END SO WHO CARES? A REPRESENTATION OF A REPRESENTATION IS STILL A REPRESENTATION BUT ^2. This entire thing is me grasping at straws, so why not more? She's wearing a robe, and her hands look to be detached. Also, messed up neck? Queens have quite a history of neck and head trauma (ever heard of King Henry VII? /j) Why is Martha revealed to be dead already? I don't know, the figure behind her also has a chubby face, could it be Peggy? Are we circling back to Peggy now? Is this the baby but as a teenager because they're shorter than Martha? Is the one-year difference just how long they survived in the circus? Why do they have light hair? Can't be the Demon Woman because they also have dark hair. But guess what, according to Google baby hair can in fact get lighter as they grow older. Ghost-white hair though? I don't know. If it isn't Peggy, then how many HYPOTHETICAL children did Kinger and Queenie have????? Am I going to get anywhere with this?

The only photo I want to note here is the last one with the creature. A black, gangly creature with two heads although the left arm looks to have an eye on it. Abstraction representation anyone? (Also why was the Baron taking photos of his own Manor???)

This is where the connecting starts happening

The one-eyed figure returns. Another hint that the Cyclops might be one of Kinger's children (if you completely forgot that was the point of this post, I don't blame you) HOWEVER, he does look like another character. One that is purple with spikes.

It is almost an exact match, even down to the highlight in his eye and the pink spike on his head. Only thing different is the black lines, suggesting tension, on the pink spike, which looks more like a flower petal. And having a full set of teeth. Strangely, it's a picture of only their side, which the Cyclops picture also does:

The Cyclops picture, actually being the Whatever-It-Is makes a little bit of sense since they have a lighter iris, a prominent bucktooth, and matches more with the body color. The only problem is, Whatever-It-Is has a snout, this guy does not. They look like a cyclops with Whatever-It-Is's coloring.

The other elephant in the room is the high-looking dog thing that also reminds me of a muppet. A sock puppet. A dog sock puppet that looks like none of the two characters who would fit that bill.

It has piercing, blood-shot eyes while being as pale as a ghost, it has to be one of them. Unless Caine has forgotten what they look like, or Kinger? At this point, I'm ready to throw my towel in and just say that the Whatever-It-Is and the Cyclops are the children, if I didn't know that it continued.

Slithers A snake-like creature can be spotted on the shelf, a GREEN snake. A green, worm?

guess who's part green

And to top it all off?

Queenie's there too. A spider on a green web. If this entire episode is on Kinger's past, and everything so far represents someone, then Queenie is a bug. If she's not the Angel, then she's a bug. Unbeknownst to Kinger, the entire family was reunited in some messed up way. Not only that, but Martha's portrait is on the bottom left-hand screen. And you want to know what's even better?

DO I NEED TO SAY MORE? Not ONLY that, but the ANGEL is RIGHT THERE TOO, with the caption "IT'S IN ME". And TO CONTINUE, there is a hole on the abstraction page, with black blood splattered over the Angel and gibberish note. ALMOST LIKE A GUNSHOT???

The Angel being some sort of parallel-representation-whatever of Queenie, would make sense as to WHY it ONLY started to attack Pomni and Kinger AFTER Kinger killed the fly. Could it be a parallel (I'm getting sick of this word) to a struggling fly caught in a spider's web only alerting the spider after thrashing around in its web? (Pomni and Kinger, Kinger specifically, struggling to kill the fly, and making a whole lot of noise when he does?) Or could it just be that she was pissed that he killed a fly in the first place? MAYBE THAT'S WHY SHE WENT DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE OF ABSTRACTING, KINGER KILLED SOMETHING FROM HER INSECT COLLECTION!

Anyways, REMEMBER THE SKULLS?

THREE FLOWERS, TWO SKULLS, THREE PAIR TWO PAIR. And who has the third skull? QUEENIE, because EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO QUEENIE. 

//Queenie died and took the children with her istg

But two children and one parent don't fit the pattern we've been seeing. Where's the Demon Woman? Where's the Worm? Who is Peggy? Who are their children??

I think the answer lies in that first photo:

A woman, Martha. Queenie. And two children, a boy and a baby girl. Originally I went into this wanting to prove that Dobby was their son, but it looks like there's more evidence for Whatever-It-Is being their son than him. So that's who the little boy in the picture represents. The girl, however, I have two answers:

The girl is Pomni, hypocritical of me since at the start I said. "And again, since this is taking place back in Kinger's past, and I don't believe this is referring to Pomni like a theory channel suggested."

And I also said that I believed the baby to be Peggy, who also only lived for one year. However, the time difference doesn't necessarily mean she was one year old, she could've been born (joined) a week before New Year's or a few months before New Year's. And escaped the circus (died) at the beginning of the new year. The baby could represent a new child in their life, some more recent, Pomni.

OR

The baby is the Worm-On-A-String, which would be a more satisfying answer since this IS supposed to take place in Kinger's past. Also, very multi-colored children, seem fitting. (she also looks like a Peggy)

But if the Worm-On-A-String isn't the baby, then she's the Demon Woman. I mean, worm--snake? Close enough. The funny thing is her getting more demonic as time goes on. First, she appears beside the Scary Door, as if she's hiding or has something to do with its contents. The next time we see her she's looking at the stairwell, smiling, almost like she's curious to see their reaction to the stairs being bricked off. Like she knew it was, maybe even was the one who did it. This also forces them into doing the adventure and forces the events of the entire episode to take fold.  Although she does not appear demonic, rather, she appears curious about the situation. Funny how an entire plot point of this episode was the demon being revealed as one of God's Angels. Two skulls, three flowers. Maybe the skull underneath the Angel's head wasn't to say that Queenie had the third skull, the Worm's skull, but rather that she and Kinger are the skulls, and their children are the flowers. A set of two, and a set of three. Two parents, and three children. It would make a lot of sense for the Worm to be one of their children since there are two girls and one boy.

But if we say that the Worm-On-A-String is Peggy, then who is the Demon Woman? Could it be perhaps Pomni because she gets possessed? But this takes place before Hell, and we're trying to stay timeline-consistent here. Who is the Demon Woman? They may be another Abstraction that we haven't looked at yet, one with too much of a blurry door to tell what it is. Or maybe the Demon Woman isn't a woman at all, but rather a lingering presence in Kinger's past that started all of this. Perhaps they are the first Abstraction, when they realize they can, in fact, die. They may not be an actual person, they may just be Abstraction itself, but it would explain why they get a humanoid figure. A representation of Death.

Perhaps the Worm-On-The-String is both Peggy and the Demon, first to go, first to die. We only see Martha with two children, not three. Maybe the skulls, Queenie having one, represent them all being dead. And the flowers? I'm not quite sure, could be the memories of them, that would explain why Queenie's the biggest. But it's not confirmed if Kinger has any memories of his children. He did say that the memory of his wife once he "has control over", maybe the memories of them are like a candlelight flickering in and out. I genuinely do not have an explanation for them, all of this is speculation and me grasping at straws trying to make a scarecrow out of them.

I believe that Whatever-It-Is and Worm-On-A-String are Queenie and Kinger's children. I don't know about Pomni and I don't know about the Cyclops. Perhaps they were in the "just getting there" stage. Gooseworx did say we will get to learn more about Kinger, and I can't wait to see what I got wrong and what I got right.

//I was going to do another rant on Kinger's realization with Queenie, but if you couldn't tell I hit the maximum number of pictures I'm allowed to use, so that will be for another time.

[transmutationisms]

hi - looking to get more into reading history books instead of just researching online… do you have any tips on vetting books/authors for liberalism, racism, etc… in the past i’ve found this very hard to do with nonfiction before actually reading the book. are there publishers, etc i should be looking out for? esp bc there’s ideas/trains of thoughts/scholars i might not recognize as biased, liberal, conservative etc. if i’m not well-versed in the discourse of the subject.

in general if you are looking for refereed (peer-reviewed) academic nonfic, you are going to have to assume the texts will reflect not only the ideological values of the institutions (universities and university presses) that produce them, but also the winnowing effect that ensures only a select few people even get the opportunity to publish this way -- these individuals also have class interests and those tend to overlap heavily with those of the institutions, both because people who can make it to this stage of an academic career tend to be bourgeois and petit-bourgeois to begin with, and because even those who weren't almost invariably come down with a case of temporarily embarrassed petit-bourgeois syndrome sometime in between phd candidacy and book manuscript submission.

which is to say I really cannot give you a good vetting list to eliminate liberals and racists from your academic nonfic reading. sorry! you will spend a lot of time reading people you disagree with, people who did valuable archival research but interpret it in chronically liberal idealist ways, people who are right on one historical point and wrong on all the others, &c. even when I read the rare communist historian I can't remember ever co-signing the entirety -- this kind of criticism is just part of the process.

I do think, though, there are some helpful things you can look for that can cue you as to whether a book is worth reading critically or is just straight up trash. ymmv and this is definitely a non-exhaustive list but here's some of what I look for:

read the methodology notes in the intro. phrases like "contextualist history" (= social and economic context) are a good sign. "history from below" or "social history" also tend to be helpful (read: this book talks about 'ordinary people' and labourers, not just heads of state and military).

intros should also signpost if the book deals with colonialism and/or imperialism; look for substantive statements about these.

in rare cases in certain subfields you may see references to a distinction between 'internalist' (idealist, whiggish, great man histories) vs 'externalist' (contextualist) approaches.

everybody in history footnotes foucault, so that means nothing in any direction. anybody who footnotes marx positively in the last 30 or so years is at least going to be a fun time, but is often also a dipshit. scan for other big 'theory' names you may recognise -- even before you know the historiography, this can help indicate what you're getting into

you can also read intro + conclusion first, and that can help you gauge whether the chapters are worth it. not always perfectly indicative, though

academic presses are all clowns but if you read a lot in specific areas you will definitely start to get a sense of certain clusters of clownery if you're paying attention to the frontmatter. like for example if a history text came out of berkeley in the 90s it might still be stupid but I do kind of know what flavour of stupid it will be and what I can expect to extract from it

on that note, it literally is helpful to skim the acknowledgments at the beginning and idk why more people don't do this lol. look for names of scholars they credit as having given feedback (on manuscripts or conference presentations), as well as the name of their advisor if it's a first book. the first few times you do this you won't recognise any names and that's fine, but when you start to see repeats or see names you've read before you actually gain a lot of information right off the bat on the author's ideological and political milieux lol

look at what journals it was reviewed in. again reviews in flagship journals don't automatically mean it's good but it tells you about the intended audience, with all the baggage that entails

books reviewed in mass media (legacy newspapers, etc) tend to be aimed at a popular audience and are intended to be more readable, with less dense scholarly references and often thinner primary source work. again this doesn't mean the academic publications are automatically good.

zero shame in reading book reviews, either before or after reading the book. reviewers are part of the same clown system as authors and publishers. but seeing how other scholars talk about the book and topic is very helpful for clueing you into what sorts of debates are happening in the field, what their ideological parameters are, and how the author in question comes down on them

you are allowed and even required to disagree if an author is wrong lol. I would say the no. 1 thing I run across in what I read is like, decent to good historical work on racialisation but the interpretation will be completely distorted by the author being a horrendous liberal who does in fact think that 'race' has some biological reality (while often not believing that they even hold this belief, lmao). when you start seeing arguments like this it's your cue to follow the footnotes and look at the data and archival material included in the book. and if there's none that's just bad methodology!

[felassanis]

I said in my own post about one of my favourite interactions between Solas and Lavellan is (I'm pretty sure it is the 1st) their 1st flirtatious interactions. And how it isn't even all that flirty it's just Solas expressing how, unlike her, he doesn't have a divine mark protecting him from the Chantry and human filled organisation they've found themselves in.

And lavellan immediately tells him that she'll protect him from whatever comes. But logical man he is. Solas, in disbelief, asks her how she alone would stop anyone from bringing him harm. He probably just assumes she's being polite, and he wants to point out how much danger he is in.

And she's just..."however I had to," point blank. Whatever she has to do to keep his safety. She'll do it.

And the look of mild surprise on his face. It's the way he's shocked someone would put themselves out there for his sake. Look out for him. Maybe it's illogical, she's one woman after all. But that the intention and determination is there at all, when she barely KNOWS him yet, is what startles him. And it is so so sweet because she's ALWAYS been good to him since the first moment you can depict interest in him.

I was watching some angles of The Atonement Ending and I was just struck with how Lavellan watches Solas. She honestly doesn’t look like she’s listening. He’s talking about the Veil and atonement and she’s just… lost in his face.

Doe eyed.

She looks at his hand after he cuts it and I just know she thinks, that’s the same as mine that had the Mark. It bleeds fast and a lot. He cut deep and he didn’t even flinch.

I think she’s already assessing “Solas needs… me. He needs me.” And there’s this little widening of her eyes when he moves toward the tear like “Oh no you don’t. I’m coming too.”

She’s still protecting him. She’s still looking after him. And I think that’s something so incredible about her as a person. She’s not just in love with Solas; she’s good to him. She’s always been good to him. From the moment they met. She never used him, she never manipulated him. It was all kindness and love.

And that’s why Solas looks at her like she’s the morning embodied.

[yuurei20]

Hello YuuRei! Slight spoilers for Book 7 JP content below, if you don’t mind me asking! I saw Trey’s new Book 7 SSR get translated as both “Queen’s Court Chef” and “Queen’s Chef Coat.” I tried to look into it myself and learned that “coat” and “court” are the same (form what I understand, at least), so I was wondering if you knew which translation to go for, or is both technically correct? With Heartslabyul, honestly court works, too. Thank you so much and Happy Near Year! I hope you are doing well! ☺️

Hello hello! Thank you for this question! ♣️

You are correct! ^^ コート is both "court" and "coat"!

For a long answer:

Yana has done this before, with the Bloom/Broom series that is technically both the word "bloom" and the word "broom"!

We were never shown a romaji name for this series--it only appeared in katakana, where it is both words simultaneously--so if you were to ask "well yes but which one actually was it?," the only answer is: both!

This is one of those things that the Japanese language can do but English cannot, so EN was forced to choose one or another, and they went with "birthday bloom"!

And it happened again during White Rabbit Fes, when Epel says he has heard of someone called "ogama Duke" and Deuce begins to panic because "ogama" means cauldron.

But it also means "scythe" and Epel, who heard his information over the phone and never saw the word written down in kanji, assumes that it is the "scythe" ogama rather than the "cauldron" ogama.

More here!

For a super long answer:

The Japanese language has a lot of different words pronounced the exact same way and differentiated only by kanji: god (神), hair (髪) and paper (紙) for example, are all the same sound (kami).

This means there is a lot of potential for puns! And Yana has always been very big on wordplay, to the point that a pun was the entire basis for her kuroshitsuji manga:

There is a short comic at the end of the very first volume that shows a phone call between herself and her editor where she is telling him how she wants to create a manga about an amazing butler.

The Japanese language 「あくまで」 is used to emphasize that something is being limited or focused on something in particular, like 「あくまで執事ですから、私が決めることではありません」 (as I am only a butler it is not my place to decide).

It is also pronounced identically to 「悪魔で」, which means, "as a demon."

So in Yana's original manga series every time the demon character says "I am a demon butler" all the other characters are hearing it as "I am, ultimately, just a butler."

Since the characters can't see the kanji in his word bubble, he is technically saying both things simultaneously.

And similar wordplay is hidden throughout a large amount of Twst!

Rollo, for example, ends many sentences with a common way to end a question that is pronounced the same way as a word for "bell."

The very first line of Glorious Masquerade is that exact pun:

Kane no oto ga kikoeru kane

There is also Idia's "pretend I'm a bug and ignore me" (both "bug" and "ignore" are the same sound, "mushi"), Riddle's "Rose trees, tear his body apart!" (both "rose" and "apart" are the same sound, "bara") and more!

[artbyblastweave]

With a couple days to chew on it I've gotta say I've really come to appreciate the Untwist surrounding Nina's character. She's coded as a specific kind of guy, right, who shows up in a lot of Ensemble superhero stuff and Gunn's superhero stuff specifically- the innocuous neurotic with a middling power who ultimately comes in clutch at the last minute and demonstrates why they actually did belong on the team the entire time. "Heart is an awesome power", in TVtropes parlance. Polka-Dot man and Ratcatcher, Vigilante, Groot to an extent in the first Guardians movie.

So you spend seven episodes with this one member of the ensemble who never kills anyone, doesn't try and doesn't want to, gets haplessly dragged from nightmarish situation to nightmarish situation with no say in anything, spends a significant amount of the show's runtime trapped in a goddamn bathtub, and you've been trained to assume that she's going to get some kind of big moment that retroactively justifies all of that, demonstrates why Waller thought she was a good addition to the team. And then it turns out, no, she actually was just fundamentally poorly suited to this lifestyle. She had a superhero origin, the same kind of emergency power-granting medical intervention that Cyborg and Beast Boy got, but it turns out that Gunn's version of the DCU is a weird enough place that that's just a kind of thing that can happen to children sometimes, not something that guarantees that you'll actually become a viable superhero. She genuinely had no business being on the team, except that she looked weird enough that she got legally unpersoned and handed over to Waller, and Waller thought she looked weird enough that there was no reason not to try pointing her like a gun to see if she could do anything useful. No skin off her nose if she's a dud munition- you don't end up on the Suicide Squad because you're hard to replace, you end up on the squad because you're available and there won't be any blowback if you go missing.

This is, of course, one of the tensions that Suicide Squad and associated projects occasionally run into- you need to strike a balance between staffing the team with villains who're competent enough that Waller doesn't come off like a moron for entrusting them with anything important, and villains who're inept, underwhelming or out-of-control enough to remind you that half the point of the squad thematically is that it's a corrupt and morally bankrupt idea that on a really good day breaks even on solving as many problems as it creates. The usual fix is to include some number of mauve shirts who're included entirely to die badly- Slipknot in the Ayer film, Mindboggle in the first arc of the original Ostrander run, Voltiac in the first arc of the New 52 run, Most of Rick Flag's decoy team in the opening of The Suicide Squad. All played for some combination of shock-value and kafkaesque dark humor (did anyone check if Weasel can swim?) but rarely played for tragedy. These deaths are tone-setters, too early for you to care enough for it to be tragic. Nina is a well-disguised Slipknot, with her pointless, anticlimactic death bumped to the end of the story in a way that lets you get attached to her- which in turn finally, finally allows the narrative to hammer home that what keeps happening to the Slipknots and Javelins in these stories is fucked up. Nina didn't belong here! She's the only one of these people who doesn't have a codename! She gets the big, heartfelt you-can-do-it- you're-one-of-us speech from The Bride and Phosphorous, she strides out to finally get her Big Moment, and then no, she really really isn't one of them, and all that happens is that she ends up getting gutted like a. like a. Hey. Hang on