#besides what I'm saying is literally from documents of that time I mean

[lit3rallyll0yd]

Hey love, hope your all right. So Hoe about dazai with an s/o who always acts cheery and all childish like him in order to hide their immense trauma. So whenever someone scolds Them bit too loud reader flinches but again brushes it off?? ❤️

SRRY IS THIS TOO LIKE ANGSTY I RLLY AM CRAVING FOR HURT TO COMFORT RN----

You don't have to do it BTW ^^

"it's okay... to not feel happy all the time."

taglist : @justcallmesakira @riiwrites @silverbladexyz @atlasnessie

warnings : angst to comfort, lowercase writing, cursing, mention of past abuse, evil exes(heheh scott pilgrim), kunikida is SOOOO out of character holy shiiitttt (╥﹏╥) not proofread, sorry!!

HAII BABEEEE!!! consider your cravings feed!! i'm actually like this irl omg is that why i'm so excited to write this???? hope you enjoy

i love dazai so much :( my back hurts from slouchinggg i'll have back problems by the time i'm fricking twenty!!!!

osamu dazai x gn reader

dazai

HEADCANONS ₊˚ෆ

you are so cute.

almost everyday is a new adventure for him when he's with you.

he's the first thing you see in the morning.

he opens his eyes and your all in his face like; "hi, sisters!!" and he literally shrieks, but don't tell anybody.

you start tickle fights with him all the time when you seem to be in an upset mood or just want to hear him laugh, but can you ever win?

he will play along with you because too be honest; he is just as childish as you are from time to time. ESPECIALLY when he's with you!!

you grab his arm a lot and jump up and down when something really gets you excited.

once, kunikida agreed to use his card to buy you some ice cream at the fair and you grabbed onto dazai's arm and almost slapped him in the face with his own hand.

he's never really understood why you get so like that over something so childish.

be glad it's not fyodor; SHEESH.

until, one evening.

you screwed up on a mission with atsushi; too which caused kunikida to throw his anger out on you. all the two of you were ordered to do, was to steal the documents you were ordered to retrieve in order to take down this small organization of scary gifted (not the port guys; •⤙•)

atsushi had to save you from a sudden attack, injuring him in the process, having no other choice but to retreat.

yosano treated him up right away.

atsushi noticed the way your arms would flinch up to your face each time kunikida would raise his voice, but honestly kunikida was just ranting about how stupid it was for you to get distracted over such a childish thing like a stray kitten.

he gave kunikida a look, saying to calm down and just go rage somewhere else without having you in the room.

after that you mentioned none of this to dazai; however atsushi thought telling him the way you reacted would be the right thing to do as both your friends.

SCENARIO ₊˚ෆ

"HOW can you be so careless, y/n?!"

it was almost like you felt a knife stab through your rib.

over and over for the past couple minutes kunikida has been going off about you getting distracted on the mission you and your weretiger friend, atsushi nakajima, were assigned on.

"i thought you would be perfect for this job because of how focused you were on all our other missions. WHAT HAPPENED?"

you gulped on your spit, your arms shalking from the once again booming voice come from kunikida.

it was a simple mistake-

"SIMPLE??"

atsushi side eyed you to see how you were holding as he was just awkwardly standing beside you as kunikida continued to just shout at you.

he would noticed your lips tremble ever so slightly, you head held down low as your fingers played with the fabric of your pants as you plucked up the courage to finally speak; "i'm sorry, kunikida. i didn't mean to screw up-"

"we'll, you wouldn't have to be sorry if you had just DONE YOUR JOB!"

your eyes were fixated on the floor still as you took in a deep breath, "jesus, i knew you were childish, but y/n what the fuck!?"

he swore.

atushsi was also getting a bit uncomfortable at kunikida's screaming session.

"atsushi got hurt on this mission, y/n, because you!"

without another word, you ran past atsushi who reached out t grab you back, however kunikida told him to let you go as he sat at his desk, removing his glasses, rubbing the bridge is nose.

with a frown he watched as you ran, looking at the carpeted floor to notice some tear stains following the exit.

you ran.

and ran, and ran, and ran.

into on coming traffic, past strangers who complained when you accidently bumped into them, and to yours and dazai's apartment.

there you were now. standing in the lobby of the apartment, the security guard awkwardly looking at you as you entered the elevator that has opened after a couple of seconds of waiting.

you used the mirror to look at yourself in as you quickly tried to wipe the tears away from your face, and maybe any makeup you may have had on? does it matter, it all melted away anyways!

your floor arrived, and the ding from the elevator dinged as you exit it and slowly walk toward the door of your home.

you fumbled for your keys that were in your pocket, even after all that running and bumping you did to get here, hands shaking with fear.

kunikida's voice echoed through your head; "are you really that childish? he never seemed to care...why does he have to shout?? there's no need for it, no? and even atsushi was there, double the embarrassment!!"

"'donna!?"

dazai's voice rang through your head as you looked up at him at the door step. oh, right, you unlocked the door but have yet to open it, causing osamu to do it for you.

"i thought you were at work, your shift doesn't end till..oh, well you still have 35 minutes?"

you pushed the thoughts in your head in the back of your mind, and gave him the biggest smile you could muster and hugged him, giggling and spinning around until you reached inside.

"don't worry, i just felt like coming home early to see my handsome and amazing boyfriend, who promised me ice cream waffles when i did get home!"

dazai chuckled, grabbing you by the waist and using his foot to close the door, managing to keep you in the air with one hand as he quickly used the other one to lock the door behind the two of you.

"well, i can tell someone's been excited all day?" you giggled, although your throat hurts from crying so much on the way here, dazai hadn't had seem to notice.

or so you think.

he placed you on the couch, gently kissing your lips before slowly pulling away. your eyes were still closed as he did and a smile on your face.

"feel free to choose whatever you like, my dear~" he taps the remote for the tv on your head and hands it to you; "well thank you kindly, my...man?"

he smiled at your cute comeback, causing you both to giggle as he walked to the kitchen.

you could hear him to rattle around with the toaster and opening and closing of fridges and freezers, probably for the ice cream.

when he was out of sight, you checked to feel anymore tears on your eyes and sniffled softly, not knowing dazai had already figured everything out.

"so, how was my sweethearts day, today? make any new friends?"

you chuckled, knowing he meant about the stray kittens you always seem to run to.

"it was alright, what about yours?" you tried to change the focus onto him, but he was smarter then that.

"mm, boring without my angel. day-off's are so sad without you," you heard the sound of the waffle popping out of the toaster, "didn't you have that mission today with atsushi? tell me, how did that go?

he expected the sudden silence that had filled the room. he scooped vanilla ice-cream into a small bowl for you; and only you, as he hummed.

"'donna, don't go quiet now. talk to me..."

you felt the tears roll back again. it was that voice that made you all emotional again. it was so soft and gentle, almost as if he's whispering into your when he's on the opposite of the room.

you took a shaky deep breath in as you stopped clicking the buttons on the remote, you stared at it, your hands shaking once again as you tried to control your crying.

dazai had a blank face was he added whip cream to top of the dish, and finally emerged from the kitchen...his eyes immediately on your figure which was seated on the couch, right where he left you, however your cute and childish personality wasn't.

he slowly walked over to you, his eyes drifting away from you to place the bowl on the table in front of you. you looked down to take a look at the dish; it was a waffle and ice cream scooped into it, like it's own bowl, and whip cream on the sides to give it the mountain shape, "you can do more then stare at it, ya'know?" he smiled, sitting beside you suddenly and wrapped an arm around your shoulder.

you felt yourself suddenly start crying; to which he pouts at; "it was first mission, darling, there will always be more-"

"IT'S NOT ABOUT ME FAILING IT!"

he looked at you like wide eyes and nod; "something more?"

you sighed loudly and hugged yourself, "it's just-" you kept stuttering due to your lack of breath from your sobbing,

"take your time, it's alright." he gently scratches your scalp to sooth you.

"kunikida...gohot so mahad...he...he yelled, he swore at him, he got close to my face...ahand the..thehe thoughts..ihi..ihi could only thihink abouhut my ex...whoho would do the sahame when i screhw something uhup.."

although you kept sniffling and breathing hard through, dazai understood each and every word.

his hands moved to rub the back of your neck, as his other held your hand tightly as you cuddled into him, your tears staining his dress shirt.

"ihi...just got schahared...ihi just whanted to...to have you...buhut i didn't want to bohother you with my prohoblems.."

dazai couldn't believe was he was hearing.

you, giving him problems about your mental health? what are you, MAD?? no, just insecure. which he understood completely.

"may i?" he asks, taking your cheeks in his one palm, making you look at him. not knowing what you agreeing to, he suddenly pulls you in for a tender, soft kiss.

you almost forgot what his kisses felt like, all the memories of your ex made you almost forget you have found somebody new, who will never, ever, want to hurt you without having any sense of what he's talking about.

moments later, he pulled away, placing his forehead to yours's as tears spilled from your eyes; however these were the tears that brought joy and happiness to your relationship.

he was never good with the words of comfort, however this is the reason why he is learning to be better, for you.

"there are bad, bad people in this world, and sometimes they change, some don't. i would know, but that doesn't mean everyone has such an evil heart. like you.." he chuckled, poking your chest, "you have such a pure heart, only the kindest of souls could ever have a chance to ever get close to it and open up to it. kunikida is just a grumpy man, when things don't go as planned he just goes.."

dazai circled his finger by his temple, causing that adorable smile to appear on your face.

"oh, there's that smiiile~" he laughed as he suddenly dig his long fingers into your soft sides, causing you to squeal and laugh immediately, "theres that smile, yeaah, awh~ your so cute, i could just eat you up-"

"DAHAZAI!"

you screeched when he nibbles on your neck, now tickling your upper ribs as well.

all those nasty thoughts that were in the back of your mind, dazai has a way of taking them and tossing them out the window and making sure you go to sleep with that cute smile on your face every night.

[demifiendcruithne]

today on digital devil saga 2 is criminally under-researched (aka crui is a nerd about a 20 year old game)

so i finally got the impulse/opportunity to test out something i've been suspecting for a while but have never seen any documentation on: dds2 has some form of STAB* mechanic with elemental spells for playable characters, based on their associated element (the one they resist + the one their unique gun combos use)

*for non-pokemon folk: STAB == same-type attack bonus. so for example, a chimecho (psychic type pokemon) using extrasensory (psychic type move) will deal more damage than a non-psychic-type pokemon with the same special attack against the same target

i have more tests i intend to make when i have spoons (i'm just grinding mantras for the superboss and noticed it while fighting wild narasimha because that hecker disables my berserker ring), but so far i've tested with my three active characters fulfilling the following:

are fighting the exact same narasimha who has no elemental weakness/resistance/etc (savestates were used and run multiple times; the rng is not fixed until a move is actually used, so i could get multiple data points quickly by making a new savestate every time i loaded it to advance the rng)

have 99 magic

are level 99

have no elemental boost or amp skills equipped

have no rings equipped that may affect damage, outside of boosting magic stat to 99 for consistency

use two different dynes; one of their associated element, and one not. the former consistently did more, and with repeated runs i cannot write it off as damage range.

under cut: many images; by virtue of being in endgame, these will have some spoilers for endgame in plain sight. if you're reading this and haven't gotten to the final dungeon, i highly recommend you go do that and come back later. once you've reached the final dungeon, you're safe to check it out.

(but seriously - i can't stop you, but i highly recommend actually. playing this game first. it's great)

if you're reading this, you've either gotten to the final dungeon or don't care about spoilers; in case of the latter, i'll do a quick explanation of our last party member momentarily. i have been a little misleading because they are. very much a BIG spoiler. but first - gale resists force, and does more damage with zandyne than bufudyne; likewise argilla with earth/teradyne/ziodyne.

(bufudyne was a random pick for gale because i had only five for omoikane reasons, but in hindsight it was a good one...)

now - for those unaware, this last party member's name is seraph. they're a fusion of two other party members both of said party members were associated with/resisted ice, and i'm near-certain that they also got the boost to bufu spells (i can check this at some point, i have a backup save right before endgame) the same way gale and argilla do.

but what's seraph's elemental affinities? no weaknesses, no resistances. so what does this mean here?

extra screenshots because the first agidyne was a high roll - literally the highest i've seen on a non-stab unboosted dyne against a narasimha. yet it's still clearly estranged from gale's zandyne and argilla's teradyne.

the other part? seraph's bufudyne does the same as gale's, and the same as argilla's ziodyne and their own agidyne, the same as expected without stab.

i'm not sure what else to say about this thus far besides putting a list of further tests to do eventually / get proper data for:

100s of attempts so it can be statistically analysed better. easy to code the data collection into seraph (my helper program, named after this seraph because. yeah), possibly more difficult to analyse but my partner got me into this game he can deal with the consequences (being asked to do data stuff) :v

including cielo and heat as well, probably after i beat satan and grind them up as a victory lap (in the mantras sense not the internment facility sense)

earlier save reloads for data for serph, sera, and roland - i doubt they'd be any different, but regardless

other elemental spells - both the basic and -la levels, the ma-s, the maxed out mantra ones, and the dances. is the boost approximately consistent?

does it affect combos? i believe it doesn't, same as amp skills and the like (and because i feel like i would have noticed by now), but will get data for both participants initiating

does it affect items? i feel like that's unlikely, but worth trying

is there a 'reverse-stab' for someone's weakness? i don't think so, but i'll get the data for free and if there's a trend i just got to test the ailment damagers for cielo

likewise, is the elemental boost innate like the gun combo elements? almost certainly. but it would be funny if equipping x resist made your x do more damage. and also not really that helpful?

does seraph get a boost on almighty? my first instinct would be yes, purely because of seraph's gun combo doing almighty damage; it's near-useless if you got reincarnate but still worth checking. and if so, does ragnarok behave differently from megido+/last word?

on that note, does seraph resist almighty? i... wouldn't be surprised - status only says no weakness, not no resistance, but almighty resistance tends to be invisible anyway (looking at you, devil survivor 2 that shows everything else) (you're fine just using as an example)

that would be a lot harder to test but if i get a party of seraph / someone with dragon ring / someone else with all maxed stats and just find something with megido+

anything else i might have forgotten

if you hack pyriphlegethon onto heat does it do more damage. i don't think i can test this one but i would. honestly be curious

but yeah. this is pretty cool, maybe i'll check for it in dds1 as well. if anyone else checks any of this out and makes a writeup or anything please ping me i have autistic hyperfocused on jrpg mechanics for over two decades :v

[ragequeen94]

An absolute insane stream of consciousness about ghost and everything else...

Been thinking about the title "Emeritus"....

It has meaning:

- a person retired from professional life but permitted to retain as an honorary title the rank of the last office held.

....Now I'm assuming the ministry works how the actual catholic church works and the choose a name. Like when your picked to be pope you pick a biblical name instead of your real name....

Their real names being... primo, secondo, etc.... and in assuming those are first names unless Nihil was able to find women with numerical last names IN ORDER all willing to having his satanic church bastards. Which for him seems possible but I digress.

It just seems like an interesting choice of title. (Especially for a wild little sweed) and what he was trying to say... perhaps just that they are "past their prime"? They have the title only because they are old?

Also thinking about the usage of "bloodline"... now we all think it's because of Nihil and his breeding fetish. Which may be true. But I'd like to bring up the secondo Papaganda where the "special ghoul" is talking about Secondo and the bloodline...

We can pretend that in this universe, those characters are... real? Easy. Or perhaps they are all "choosen" perhaps the bloodline actually being more children chosen by darkness? Or the devil? Now the three confirmed brothers and now also Copia are all Nihil children, we are about to get Papa V... and is realistic to believe it's Copias twin (also because his name is literally copy in italian) but a copy of who? The only other character could be .... Father Jim??

I'm 100% sure that his name was picked for this reason... but is he being dethroned? Is he dethroning?? We don't know much besides that he's kind of a shit priest and uses cum as hair gell....

And that all other Papas have been dethroned as well for also not being good at their jobs. Interesting. Maybe a comment on hypocrisy with the satanic church having higher standards for leadership??

Also Copia is Imperator now...

Which literally means commander. But commander only lead armies... they aren't kings or emperors and even Sister Imperator was answering the phone to someone she was respectful and obedient too. (See that one chapter when nihil was on the toilet)... I'm pretty sure it wasn't Psaltarian.... but what does that name mean??

My best guess is either someone who documents OR

Which is basically a kinda early guitar.... so hes... the band manager??

I don't think he's running the church. So there are way more characters and story to uncover.

What I can say I at this point... we know absolutely nothing and nothing makes sense.

Fuckin... since we know copia is Imperator and Nihils kid and he's the youngest... and Secondo and Terzo are 3 months apart and can't have the same mother.... Nihil had had 3 children with a minimum of 2 other women already by the time he met Imperator.

And let's pretend everything we see in the MV and the chapters is canon legit. Nihil was a little unsure of what was going on at the party... but that doesn't mean he wasn't already part of the church. We know that Ghost is just the public relations section of the ministry. Not THE MINISTRY... they are important but one one piece. They are the face or figure head. Which is pretty much said word for word. PAPA STILL ANSWERS TO A HIGHER POWER. Who or what we don't know.

Nihil and his father (and his fathers father, his father... his father... hid father's father's father... his father) are all part of the bloodline. All this means is that they are related or choosen by... the devil? That Dracula and the Canadian guy who wrote "Hallelujah" are related??

Or that all of these characters/people are entertainers.

Is the ministry just a record label? Each papa a musician trying to make it?? It's all a metaphor for stardom?? Probably.

Basically papa nihil could have easily been part of the church before he met Imperator. She just got him involved in the ghost project (her project by the sound of it). Then when it fell through got nihils kids involved... cause... why. We don't know.

We have Nihil who is... nothing.

Psaltarian that... writer? Manager?

Imperator the commander.

Defroque the cum guzzling priest.

And the Papas who are all already passed their prime?? but they picked the name.

But nihil wasn't an Emeritus.

Unless nihil was the name he picked and we don't even know his name... and he named his kidd first second and third cause he thought it was funny.

Also it's 100% that Imperator named Copia.

Is he a copy of his twin (or just a copy in general) or is he a copy of his father? Or of her????

Please dear fucking unholy shit can someone hyperfixate with me....

[papakhan]

Episode 1

Fuck it, I'm gonna do it anyway. Here's all the notes I took when watching episode 1 of the godawful fallout tv show. enjoy. I'm gonna run through this with notes I made while I watched the show so formatting might be kinda weird, I haven't done anything like this before so bare with me. I will try to explain things as if you the reader have not seen the show. This is gonna be very long and heavy on the hate and the spoilers.

Content warnings:

rape

incest

gif of the fight scene violence

self harming

Things I liked:

Vault Dwellers reusing the same wedding dress and everyone who'd worn it writing their names on the inside. that's sweet

"don't lose your head" vault poster during a firefight

Johnny Cash

I like Brotherhood Clerics but they totally fucked up the ranking system

The vault dwellers just painting over the blood on the walls

Horses are canon now

Goofy wasteland urban legends like "a feral ghoul does not abide a chicken"

That's literally it. Now it's time for everything else. I'll break it down into character bits since that's what the show does

Cooper

So Cooper Cowboy ghoul man is divorced and he's at this birthday party in I'm guessing Hollywood overlooking LA. It's a beautiful sunny day :) Bare in mind that in this scene the nukes drop so Bethesda has already fucked their own lore of the nukes dropping at 9:40am in Boston would mean that it should be 6:40am in California. Sunrise in California in October is 7am, btw. So already we're fucked. Real "design documents are a waste of time" behaviour on display here.

Anyway, nuke goes off. Now let me ask you something. What's one of the most infamous things about nuclear bombs? The flash, right? A nuclear explosion is bright enough to blind a person. Fallout 4 understood this, at least a little, where the flash of light from the bomb would fill your screen even if you weren't facing it, which is how nukes work. Closing your eyes in the face of a nuke would be pointless because the light would pass through your eyelids. There's even reports of people who held up their hands to shield the light and could see THEIR BONES THROUGH THEIR HANDS. That's how bright they are. They are horrifying weapons of mass destruction.

The nuke that hits LA is not a nuke, the flash of light on Janey's face (cooper's kid and the ONE SINGLE PERSON who notices a NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMB) is more akin to a camera flash. again. she is the only fucking person who notices a nuclear bomb go off, everyone else at the party is distracted by a TV of all things.

In the time between the ""flash"" of the bomb here's everything that happens before Cooper and co feel the shockwave

Janey notices the pathetic flash and looks up.

She holds up her thumb in the "vault boy" way

Cooper comes out of the house and walks over to Janey

He crouches down beside her and says some bullshit along the lines of "i got some cake for my favourite cowgirl"

Janey says "was it your thumb or my thumb?"

Cooper looks towards the source of the nuke and slowly stands up, watching it for a moment

He says "that's just a fire janey" as the smoke unfurls into a very obvious mushroom cloud

He realises that it was not. just a fire

then they get hit by a shockwave

This takes almost a full minute and none of the segments is supposed to be slow motion. Listen I know that light moves faster than sound and heat but come on. It's way too slow and also. dead fucking silent. also the shockwave comes before the mushroom cloud but who cares.

Anyway cooper gets on a horse with the girl and rides off down the road in the direction of LA. good job dude.

I've already read up about yknow who it was who wanted the nukes fired and I know that it was Barb who wanted the nukes dropped on America for?? vault tec profit??? so uh. why did she let Janey go to a birthday party with Cooper?

Lucy

x3 Incest jokes may not seem like a lot but it was 3 too many for me. I hate the "good karma" noise that played when Lucy got arranged married. I said I liked the vault poster of "don't lose your head" but I hate the way Lucy keeps getting her inspiration from Vault Boy I'm sorry but its annoying and dumb to me. Interconnected vaults in LA is also. dumb. you're telling me The Master didn't notice these fucking things? you're kidding. Look at it, it's not even hidden in a cave or anything its just out in the open.

Way to retroactively make the Master look like a moron, though I know they do this to Mr House later on. ugh.

Her intro makes it sound like she's supposed to have Tagged Skills in repair, speech and science but she displays none of this in the later episodes I have seen, in fact her speech seems like utter dogshit so what was the point in introducing her in a "game protag" way if none of that was gonna get used later?

Anyway, lets get onto the raiders. If you know me, you know I love raiders. They're a cool and interesting critique of individualism and "might makes right" and also aesthetically just kind of fuck.

Now, knowing what I know about Moldaver and her being the current ?leader of the NCR remnants, that implies that the people she has led into Vault 33 are former NCR citizens or soldiers, right? right?

So the ""fall of shady sands"" according to the show is 2277 and yeah sure okay that's during new vegas' time and sure okay right todd howard promised that this didn't de-canonise fallout new vegas. however. it's 2296 meaning it's been 19 years since Shady Sand's.......decline. and 15 years since New Vegas where we last saw the NCR. And i know that the NCR aren't exactly the good guys To suggest that in less than 20 years the citizens of shady sands have been reduced to Bethesda-style raiders who:

Are unable to use utensils such as knives and forks

Can't grow crops

Don't know how to use cups

Will rape a woman, wipe his dick on a curtain, and then try to murder said woman

Shoveling fistfuls of cake into their mouth during a firefight

Threatening a pregnant woman

In another episode one of these guys is interrogated/interviews and shows their asshole to the guy talking to him.

is fucking ludicrous

Anyway Monty looks like Jerma

RIP

Anywayyyy how come only Lucy's pipboy picked up on the radiation from these outsiders huh? everyone else was wearing a pipboy during the wedding, they sat next to each other, those geigar counters would have been going off. what? they had them on silent out of respect of a good Christian wedding? if you try to convince me that's the explanation I will eat your liver. Bethesda raider style

anyway no.2 girlypop (lucy) straight up pulls a knife out of her wound which is medical petpeeve no.9394328 for me but then its immediately resolved by a stimpak. I hate how stimpaks in the show are used exactly how they are in the game. I was under the impression that it was a video game mechanic and not how it actually worked in the narrative. What's next? Jet gives me extra action points or some shit? I'm so tired

the fight scene sucked. the choreography of the raider guy shooting a vault dweller through the head of another vault dweller just kind of looked like shit and seemed impractical, clearly just there to be like WOAH THATS COOL it wasn't cool it looked clunky and weird. do not fucking tell me that fallout is supposed to be clunky and weird I will kill you.

the doors cutting the raider in half was also dumb since its been routinely established that the dull and ominous "thunk. thunk. thunk" heard deep in the bowels of a vault is a door that's trying to close but there's something stuck under it, if they could just slice a whole man in half then they could cut through a table or skeleton in game. Also irl I'm a health and safety officer and that moment made my toes curl. lol

It jumps from Lucy to Max and then back to lucy but I'm just gonna continue talking about her shit here. quick fire round because I've been yapping too long already

Her little brother looks way too old to be acting like a teenager this much.

Chet (Lucy's cousin and ex boyfriend. gross) wants to come with her thank god he doesn't

why doesn't she give a shit about the sky

Why doesn't she give a shit about the ocean

Maximus

"stupid blimp is back" is at the very top of my notes, lol. anyway I still don't understand where they got this thing from

Latrines made out of stacks of tires is so dumb. like I cant even explain how dumb that is. surely rubber has better use for that. surely. just shit in a hole in the ground like everyone else please for the love of god

I know the twist with Daine and let it be said, having your first on screen transgender character cut themselves with razors to get out of the military is not, in fact, Bethesda trying to be on the side of transgender people, it is in fact them making fun of us, okay? do we understand?

hiding baby max is a fridge made me so angry I blacked out. do not remind me of "kid in a fridge" ever again.

Anyway Bethesda finds it so difficult to keep the BOS consistent to the point that they are all so different from each other with little to no explanation as to why they've changed so much. In fact it feels like to me that at some point between fallout 3 and fallout 4 Bethesda has totally mixed up the BOS and the Enclave, since now the BOS hate ghouls for no reason and want to colonise the wasteland. This is just that again. Once more, no design doc behaviour.

Quotes from the BOS i think suck ass

"Duty of the Brotherhood of Steel is to secure the wasteland"

"Flesh is weak by steel endures"

"Violence is a tool we use it to bring order to the wasteland"

When Max is getting interrogated for being a suspect for cutting Daine with razors, mentions "send me to Eden or wherever" and it confused me so much. The only Eden I knew about was John Henry Eden from Fallout 3. Turns out I think what they're trying to reference is New Eden a BOS base from. Fallout Brotherhood of Steel 2?? of all fucking things?? really strange I can't imagine what else he could possibly be referencing though. This is literally just thrown in for the loreheads and I hate it.

Anyway after being a suspect for cutting Daine with razors and also failing his classes Max gets a promotion! this is not explained. They also brand him which people a lot smarter than me have discussed at length about why branding a black guy on screen in your fallout show is a bad idea. Read it here.

I don't really understand why the BOS all do shit in latin now, I know some of them had latin names in fo1 but IIRC Frank Horrigan of the Enclave was the only person in the og games who spoke latin. it feels like Bethesda wanting to capture the interest of people who liked the Legion. maybe that's a reach but given how much right wing propaganda is in the coming episodes I wouldn't put it past them.

Cooper again

I am not calling this idiot The Ghoul that's fucking dumb. what like he's the only one? ever? dumb. whats up with him being buried huh? did Todd not want to tell Nolan that ghouls arent actually zombies and arent actually undead? that just wanted him to jump out a coffin because oooh spooky zombie. honestly just kill me.

My notes: "Don't tell me the ghoul is in that grave I can't take it"

this guy gets dug up once a year and gets pieces of him cut off and put back?? why? for what purpose? how is he down there without eating or drinking? is it a kid in a fridge moment where ghouls don't need to eat or drink, well he drinks a whole lot of water in episode 3 so that's afucking lie. get real. the glowing IV? what is that??

the yodelling is really gonna piss me off, isn't it.

Not him ending the episode on the same quote he said to his daughter. whatever.

Rating: 3/10

[the-letterbox-archives]

what is the letterbox archives?

nobody’s really asked me that question. then again, there’s nobody here but me, so who’s there to ask? it’s a weird question, though. i couldn’t give you an easy answer. besides, i’ve been combing through documents all night, and the night before that, and the night before that! it’s becoming more and more clear to me that i won’t discover every story here anytime soon. but i’m not quitting, either. i’m just… very tired.

================================================

ridiculously meta post, hence the red, bear with me here. kinda weird to talk like this, without the pretence of a character (this will be one of the only times i will be speaking like this, don’t worry). i wanted to do a little rant about the style of this blog, i guess? partially inspired by me considering doing a small revamp so everything’s more aesthetically connected. because of this, i wanted to say some posts will be altered slightly, but not in any way that changes the content of the posts. it won’t be much, maybe updating blog pics and changing some text on certain posts to better reflect letters as a character and distance my own identity more from it all. however most of it will stay the same, referencing me as an author letting little elements of letters slip through (as a general rule if i talk about the writing as if i'm the writer, not a reader, then it's me, whereas if i refer to a document as a reader or reference the archives, then it's letters). even though this blog is somewhat severed from reality, it’s still me behind the curtain, so nothing huge will change.

onto the reason i crafted my writeblr presence like this; i didn’t want to broadcast anything of my real identity, and i wanted more substance to my online presence beyond just my writing, so i attached this ‘archival’ aesthetic to it. that’s the basic preface, but i’ve got a lot more information.

the central idea behind the letterbox archives gimmick is that all my creative works (technically not mine lore-wise, but i did write everything here) have been stored in this ever-expansive abandoned archives, and someone is bent on reading all of it. this is the meta way to explain the little quips from my online presence, letters, about the state of the archives, and also kind of justify the existence of my works, if that makes sense. in canon, it’s his ‘discovery’ of these documents that elicit the posting of these stories, though he’s not actively posting the stuff he finds (it’s a little less clear whether letters is keeping a ledger of stories, or if the posts are just her thoughts, or something else entirely – i don’t even know why it’s like this). my unreleased works are functionally the stories letters hasn’t found yet, therefore cannot be documented yet – basically representative of my endless wips haha.

speaking of letters, let’s talk about them. literally speaking, they’re my online identity, but in a more character-driven way. assume that every post i make that isn’t this one, the contents of a story, or something to that effect, was thought of, written, or spoken by letters (which means that it is letters that’s fangirling/shitposting about my characters/stories, in universe). most details of letters’ existence are ambiguous, and meant to stay that way. gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, etc., have no impact on letters’ personality or existence, so he doesn’t have any. i have certain things made clear on my blog, mostly in the description, such as ‘young writers,’ and ‘queer writers,’ but this moreso reflects on me than letters. letters is just a concept, they don’t have many labels in that way.

in relation to the archives, letters is the lone occupant who is always sifting through stories and trying to unravel / understand / catagorise / etc., all of the documents for unknown reasons. whether or not she’s trapped in the archives or is here by choice is entirely ambiguous. but they seem to enjoy it there, hell, they unofficially renamed it ‘the letterbox archives,’ after themselves.

none of this affects my writing in an impactful way, so if you don’t give a shit about the lore of the archives, that’s fine by me, because it’s quite inconsequential to the grand scheme of my work. i just wanted to put all my thoughts and methodology about this blog down and make it known what i’m doing. to anyone who’s trudged through all this text, you’re great. thank you so much for indulging me, your support, vocal or inconspicuous, means the world to me. you’re giving a weird new writer a shot at sharing their stuff, and that support is absolutely priceless. thank you, all of you. i think that’s all i wanted to say, have fun exploring the archives!

================================================

damn. must’ve passed out again. that’s alright, there’s never a dull moment in the archives! a lot to do, and an… indeterminate amount of time to do it in. thanks for dropping by, i appreciate the company! and if you wanna stay a bit longer, the archives always has a story to share.

[gren-arlio]

CAUTION: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CRIMINAL?

(Image made by @kirstenonic05. Huge help on this, so thank you.)

Hello, one and all, it's Gren here. Today is Witch's birthday as well as Halloween, and to celebrate such a momentous occasion for the girl who appears in oh so many of my posts, I'm gonna to do two things besides say happy birthday to her.

An in-depth look on what The Witch has committed, her devious crimes.

How to handle/deal with/tolerate her if you're a random person, or you're a special guy.

Possible prosecution of her. Keyword "Possible".

I basically became Schezo's Private Investigator for a solid few months and today, I'm here to drop it all out for the press to see. Puyo fans are gonna be in shambles tonight.

This will be a detailed tutorial on what happens if you see The Witch, how to deal with her, and what happens if she approaches you. Hope you enjoy this overly elaborate shitpost.

-----

What IS The Witch?

For those blissfully unaware, The Witch is a wanted criminal, a young 15 year old felon who often resides in the realms of Madou Monogatari and Puyo Puyo, owned formerly by COMPILE, now by SEGA.

(A rough draft of what the suspect looks like. Be careful. Actual draft of her from Madou Monogatari Saturn.)

She seems harmless, but that's how she gets you. Never trust teenage girls who can brew potions, I learned that the hard way.

Commonly, she's a blonde haired, blue eye teenage girl, about 5'2 (158 CM) and 99 pounds (45KG), seen with a blue robe with tints of white and red, a blue hat and some of the worst shoe game I've ever seen.

However, she has been seen in a green robe with a red amulet, a steampunk outfit, and even cosplay as either Arale Norimaki from Dr. Slump, a literal cat, and Emilia from Re:Zero. (Besides the cat one, all really good alts in Quest design wise and Puyo-N just has good designs.)

(Video recording of The Witch cooking something malevolent)

-----

What? Crimes?

You heard me right good folks, as the guy who has documented her misdeeds for weeks on end, (AKA I've been casually researching other games and she appears,) I have found many of her criminal acts, some worse than others, and some shit I definitely made up. Here are a few cases, some of which are somewhat stretching the definition, but it's alright:

Attempted Murder:

Most notably committed in Madou Monogatari Saturn, where whilst getting kidnapped by Incubus, she absolutely torched the man. Could claim self defense but still.

Harassment:

Mostly to Schezo, when you stretch the definition long enough, it can be considered verbal harassment. If you count 4Komas and Compile Club Underground Edition, visual harassment is...certainly on the table.

(Attempted) Petty Theft:

More notable in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon, where she tries many-a-times to get Schezo's robes, even threatening assault if he didn't.

Assault:

Threatened Schezo with it for his clothes in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon, saying she'll rip them off.

You may ask, "Aren't Puyo matches assault cases?" And to that, I say...no. Usually, it's a joint agreement. The same goes for Waku Puyo, it's part of the attraction itself, the person somewhat signed up for it. However, I don't think personally trying to rip someone's clothes was part of the rules.

Drugging:

Most noticeable in the Tottemo Puyo Puyo Manga, where she drugged Arle with a love potion to make her fall in love with them, but it failed. Badly.

(Not many people know this one too much, so I thought I'd show the time where the crime occurred.)

Possession/Distribution of Alcohol to and as a Minor:

In Puyo 20th Anniversary, she just so happened to have something that made our boy Klug feel a tad unwise. Apparently happened to Lagnus too in Quest, but we're unsure, since it came from a 2nd source.

(Also, I know she didn't mean to give Klug it, but...why did she have it anyways?)

Crimes Against Schezo Wegey:

Along with almost every crime here, during the run of Compile, she's committed the worst one of them all: Being a Simp.

Easily the most notable for me, In Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon, she's normal to almost everyone else (she has beef with Rulue for some reason,) but the minute Schezo is in a 2 mile radius, she "forgets" to take her normal pills.

(Image recording of her harassing Mr. Wegey. She's just saying "it" looks super cool, leaving Schezo confused on whatever she meant, and yes. It's about his clothes.)

Second most notable (for me) is PuyoLympics, where the SECOND he takes off his robe to show the uniform he got, she starts acting a little unwise, to put it bluntly.

(Prelude image seconds before The Witch commits her worst crime yet. Being a Simp. Also the NicoNico video I saw for this had some of the most down bad dudes ever, don't become them please)

We also must speak about her acting unwise when she saw Madou Saturn Schezo, asking to touch the man.

And how could we forget when she got possessed by Marle, who totally gave her back her Madou conscious after laying dormant for God knows how many years and began her quest of simping yet again?

Saying submit to me, saying that she doesn't know why she feels so desperate for him all of a sudden, and then prolongs the word fun? Marle was scheming that day...

(First off, somehow I got this with both her eyes closed. Didn't expect that. Second, why does it look like Schezo is grabbing his own name box?)

We can forgive many of her crimes. But we can't forgive this crime specifically.

-----

What Do You Do When You See The Witch?

Now, most likely, you'd want to report her to the feds, the police if you will. But her world doesn't have police somehow, and that's rough buddy. However, The Witch is a very social person, and might want to talk to you.

This will be a step by step guide on what to do if you're a normal person near The Witch or if you're Schezo. Gotta look out for everyone.

However, for all:

The Witch is incredibly dangerous, and unless you're a relative, odds are, something malicious WILL be brewing.

Willingly going near her is dangerous as well, but if you live for danger, ignore this section.

For the Everyday Guy:

Keep your distance. The easiest thing to do, thankfully. If you don't approach her, odds are, she won't interact with you unless she wants something.

Don't own a Meteor Grimoire. She can sense that.

If she decides to go near you, do not panic, nor run yet. She has magic, you don't most likely, so unless you want a fireball or a Meteor hitting you, don't run.

Keep the talk short and brief. Prolonged exposure can be detrimental to your health in the long run.

If she asks for something, there's two ways to go around it. You can either give it to her quickly, or be the innocent victim of her next robbery/crime.

Don't try anything she gives you. Ever.

This is a split path. If she tries to take something from you, you can either choose to finally run or fight. Thankfully, she's pretty average at Puyo, so a good player can fend her off.

If everything goes well, she will leave you alone. And if you run, she probably won't chase you that much since you're just kinda a random dude to her.

For Schezo Wegey: (Or People in a Similar Scenario)

Before you even go out, don't wear cool-looking robes.

Don't own a Meteor Grimoire. She will sense that, especially if you're Schezo.

Same with the everyday man, keep your distance. If she spots you, it's absolutely over. Schezover, even.

If she spots you, everything changes now from the everyday man. She wants to approach you, she wants you...r items, or actually legit you. Don't show visible panic. Pretend she's not coming.

There's no shot you're going to be able to keep conversations short, she probably knows that you're trying to leave fast. However, try to keep your responses short enough, but not short to the point that she catches on.

If she asks for You, do NOT panic externally, which is easier said than done. Try to ask to elaborate. If she doesn't, you're fucked. If she does, give the thing to her...unless it's your clothes.

If you run, she's will very much chase you. There's several pieces of evidence for that, and unless you can run 100 meters in maybe 12 seconds, she will catch up to you with her broom. Even then, stamina issues for people, and she flies. Don't risk it unless you're absolutely confident.

This is a situation where you want her to leave first. If you noticed with some of the times Schezo gets harassed, she tended to leave first (Puyo 20th, Waku Puyo,) while in some cases, Schezo got out first (Madou Saturn, PuyoLympics but that went poorly), so try to make her leave first by doing...God know what.

If she tries to fight you, fight back. Self-defense is always good, and if you're Schezo or have a body similar to his, odds are her Meteor will hit you, but you'll survive. He's survived worse, you probably can too.

If everything goes well, you're free. Least for a little longer.

If you lose the fight, and everything else failed, FUCKING RUN. If Schezo can do it upon losing to her in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon, you can too. Probably. Maybe.

Proof you can probably survive a Meteor:

(The Witch uses her spell...for 66 damage.)

-----

Let's Say, Theoretically, She Gets Arrested. What Happens?

(Old image my girlfriend made years ago. Little did we know how it'd end.)

Prosecuting her will very much be a challenge because simply put, there's no damn police in Madou/Primp. Well, good ones at least.

For you see, there ARE police in Primp or Madou as a whole. But in Quest, there's police in Intral City, the place Atari's from, but unfortunately, even in there, they don't exactly do much.

Call up Miles Edgeworth and teleport him here, then we got a shot, or even some other stupid good lawyer.

I'm no Laywer, but I think she'd go to jail for her crimes.

-----

Conclusion:

The Witch is a very dangerous felon. Armed and Dangerous, it's best to stay as far away as possible, especially if your name is Schezo Wegey or occasionally Arle Nadja. If you see her...well, you have the steps, or you can say fuck it and ball. Your choice.

-----

And Now, Actual Updates:

I enjoyed writing this, it was fun. With this, I'll repeat myself from last posts.

I'll be taking a 2 week break from this. I'm experiencing minor burnout and I do need a break, I've been doing this consistently for a couple of months now.

I'll also be taking a break during Thanksgiving week, Christmas, and New Years week as well to spend time with family.

Thank you all for your support, it means an absolute ton to me and I'm grateful I have people who actually love my work. Hell, I've even made a few new friends from this, and I couldn't be any happier with the progress I made.

I began this stuff on the notion that no one will read these, but it'd be better to document these sorta things just for fun. Little did I know, a little over 35 followers later, that people would enjoy what I made and the info I share, even if some of it is... somewhat peculiar. The support I've gotten from the community is unreal, and it's genuinely appreciated that you guys care so much. Even you reading this means a lot to me.

Thanks guys. Happy Halloween. Hope you enjoyed the show.

[lord-squiggletits]

I wish to love and appreciate idw optimus more too. But I also don’t want to read through the entirety of IDW 1.0. Can you please recommend me any specific issues/parts?

My best friend and fellow IDW Optimus lover made a post compiling all the comics with major story beats involving Optimus. Her list has a lot of the same things mine does, but also a lot more specific issues because she actually knows which specific issues of which series you can read specifically for ones focused on IDW Optimus. We don't agree on everything (I love some comics she dislikes and vice versa), but I would recommend her list simply because it's the most well-documented and thorough. Link I also have a lot of far less coherent but still genuine posts about IDW OP on my #idw op love tag.

As for specific parts I would recommend... since you don't want to read through all of IDW1, I'll go ahead and recommend you things based on in-universe chronological order rather than story release order, but if anything here interests you then I would recommend reading IDW1 in release order so that you get a better grasp of the story's context and how new lore was given out over time:

Chaos Theory and Police Action by James Roberts (The Transformers 2009 issues 22-23): I love love LOVE the way JRO writes Optimus talking to Megatron during the present day, it's very IDW-Optimus flavored because of how blunt, abrasive, and snappy Optimus is. There's a part in the comic where Megatron claims that he "knows [Optimus] better than anyone else," and he's right, but it's also true that Optimus knows Megatron well enough to see that he's bullshitting and it's very entertaining watching Optimus slowly lose his patience with him. I love the dialogue especially, no one (canon or fandom) has ever quite written the same IDW OP who's in this set of comics. It's also the most MegOP comic of all time because the sexual tension and the subliminal imagery of them doing BDSM together is unreal, plus it really captures their dynamic of two old soldiers who snap together with chemistry despite (or perhaps because of) being such long-time enemies. They just UNDERSTAND each other so well. Also, as a bonus point, Chaos Theory is where the pre-war lore for IDW1 began being published, so if you read Chaos Theory then the context for future pre-war lore makes a little more sense.

Shadowplay by James Roberts (More Than Meets the Eye issues 10-11): More pre-war lore that picks up where Chaos Theory/Police action left off. Important because it establishes a lot of IDW OP's character relationships, especially with "the Senator," Roller, and to a degree Ratchet and some minor side characters. I don't really know what to say about this besides it's just really fucking fun to read and features IDW OP getting to do cool shit like fight bad guys, investigate conspiracies, and do heists while also establishing one of his key character traits: being disastrously gay for suspicious men that he places entirely too much trust in to tell him what the right thing to do is.

Spotlight: Orion Pax by James Roberts: Okay, I'm really sorry for recommending JRO's stuff because it feels like favoritism and I don't even think JRO does the best version of IDW OP, it's just going in in-universe chronological order means that a lot of JRO stuff ends up first on the list. This one doesn't really have much of consequence in it and is honestly one of the weaker Spotlight issues, but like Shadowplay, it involves Orion Pax doing fun action shit and having way too much trust in a suspicious man (a new one from the suspicious man in Shadowplay).

The Autocracy Trilogy (Autocracy, Monstrosity, Primacy) by Chris Metzen: Oh my fucking god this is THE IDW Optimus to me, this trilogy is literally what made my ears perk up to even start liking IDW OP because it's what took me from "Optimus Prime, that's the guy who's the super awesome leader that everyone likes and is a paragron to everyone, yeah I know him" to "Oh.... holy shit this is such a good plot/worldbuilding, Optimus has so much CONFLICT and DRAMA with other people." It covers one of my favorite periods of the general Transformers formula, namely pre-war and early war plot events as conflicts come to a boiling point, there's political conflicts and personal conflicts, the planet is falling to shit and everyone is trying to escape and things are as depressing and scary as you would expect for a war that's literally about to consume a whole planet. I found the general plotlines to be gripping and intense (Autocracy is the weakest in this regard, but the writing gets better with each book) and I really like seeing how Optimus grapples with leadership. Especially the negative parts where people hate/fear him because of his association with Zeta's regime (the previous Prime, who Orion worked for), call his judgment into question, refuse his calls to action or waver in their faith in him, and so forth. I found it to be a really nuanced yet sympathetic view of IDW Optimus that made me fall in love with him. Because really, the thing that humanizes a character the most is making them flawed, and Autocracy trilogy Optimus is so incredibly flawed and conflicted. And also it shows him being shit on by other characters in a way that's well written in a plot that makes sense and doesn't feel like the entire plot is conspiring to shit all over him.

The Death of Optimus Prime by James Roberts and John Barber: This comic is basically the transition from phase 1 to phase 2, it establishes the branching plotlines of MTMTE and exRID, so this is another one of those comics that will help you understand IDW1 better if you want to read for more than just Optimus. Anyways, DoOP is great because it has a similar vibe to the Autocracy trilogy in that society is chaos and full of people who fucking hate Optimus' guts for the role he played in the war. You can also compare/contrast the way OP was before the war and early in the war versus the way he is after the war and see how much the war changed him (Chaos Theory also kind of is like this but it more shows bitchy Optimus specifically in his dynamic with Megatron). It also features a fair amount of Optimus Heroic Moments, Optimus Brooding, and Optimus being so fucking depressed he's literally sad when he wakes up and realizes he's not dead dude get some fucking therapy please I'm begging you--

Punishment by John Barber: This skips ahead quite a bit in the story but I think stands decently well on its own without having to understand the wider context. It's one of Barber's best-written stories and one of the only ones I've come back to reread for its own sake. It features Optimus trying to solve the murder-mystery of a bunch of Decepticons, featuring really cool plot conflicts like Optimus trying to navigate post-war society and the tensions that still linger from the Autobot-Decepticon war. I really like this one because it has that whole "not everyone loves OP and a lot of people hate him for justified reasons" thing that makes IDW OP a much more 3D character, PLUS it has some politics with the way Decepticons are treated post war. And I think it does really interesting things with Optimus in terms of showing how he DOES have this idealistic, merciful side that wants people to choose peace and letting go of vengeance, but of course it's not so easy to expect that of people after a 4 million year war. So when people inevitably choose violence, Optimus gets frustrated and angry and lashes out in a way that feels very real and understandable. It's a really good example of a comic that shows IDW OP in a nuanced way, showcasing both his virtues and flaws in a complicated situation that shows that there's no easy solution to these problems and no way for Optimus to escape without getting his hands dirty. Unlike future comics which involve OP being in complicated situations but instead the plot is super contrived and seems to overwhelmingly shit on OP without ever mentioning the very obvious ways that he could be defended, creating a story that's conceptually fascinating but incredibly mediocre in execution.

If I had to recommend any single one of these to read, I would recommend the Autocracy trilogy the most because it's literally the story that made me love IDW Optimus and made me realize "whoa, this guy is super nuanced and not what I expected of him." That's not to say that no other Optimi have depth and nuance, but I think the Autocracy trilogy was great for me personally as one of the first IDW1 comics I read. It struck a really good balance between "uh Optimus was part of some bad things that warrant being shit on" and "Optimus is struggling to overcome those bad associations he did, succeeding with some people and failing with others" and "Optimus is an optimist who has faith in others even when they don't have faith in themselves." Also, as a bonus, the Autocracy trilogy also features cunty murder-husband Megatron, an interesting character arc for Hot Rod, and the Dinobots as really interesting supporting characters (including their leader, Grimlock, having a cute veteran-rookie dynamic with Hot Rod that I wish we got more of).

[jkl-fff]

Top 5 (or 10 if you have many) favourite magical creatures and why! (Includes folk, media, science fiction too if you wish, urban legends, etc! The point is that you like them, they don't even have to be so magical!)

The first will always be Unicorns for me. The real-world history of them is fascinating (meaning the folk beliefs that people had about them in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, the heraldric and spiritual symbolism, the use of them in fantasy literature) (also the origins of them being traced to rhinos, poorly transmitted descriptions of rhinos and Ice Age megafauna, rare mutations in deer and horses, and simple imagination--it's not hard to imagine a horse with a horn). But also and especially influential for my personal preferences ... the main character of one of my favorite movies both as a child and even today as an adult is a unicorn. "The Last Unicron", to be specific.

(Gods above, how could anyone be surprised that I turned out to be both gay and filled with ineffable melancholy?)

Coming in at a close second are Satyrs like the Greek God Pan. There's just something charming about merry, little goatmen who live their lives simply and at one with nature while dancing, singing, making music, and just plain having a good time together in a pastoral way. This one can also be attributed to some formative interests in my childhood, since I was a Greek Mythology kid and also enjoyed "The Chronicles of Narnia".

(Plus ... As was previously mentioned, I'm gay. And they're cute, shirtless, happy men who live together out in the woods. Little me might not've realized why they were so fascinating to him, but big me certainly gets it.)

For number three, I'd choose Bigfoot or Sasquatch or Yeti or whatever we want to call the big, hairy, ape-like cryptid that seems to exist in the folklores of every continent (except Antarctica ... unless the penguins have got some stories they haven't shared with us yet). This one, to my knowledge, has no childhood memories associated with it (nor gayness, surprisingly), nor is it born of a belief that Bigfoot is literally real. More it's because I find the folkloric stories fascinating--how they're composed and how they spread, what they say about the people who share them, etc. Kinda like my fascination with stories about Alien encounters; it's less about the creatures in question, and more about the people.

The Mothman comes in at number four for similar reasons. Except, unlike with Bigfoot, we have a specific time and place pinpointed for the genesis of the Mothman's urban legend. Point Pleasant in West Virginia, 1966 through 1967. Even a specific event that causes its story to coalesce into something more than a very regional cryptid. The collapse of the Silver Bridge on December 15th of 1967. After that event, allegedly the Mothman has been sighted across the globe before many disasters, which causes some very specific powers attributed to the creature (it foretells disaster, either being the cause of it or an omen of it) (unlike with Bigfoot who doesn't consistently have any magical powers).

Basically, the Mothman urban legend is like Bigfoot folklore, except from the modern day and with modern documentation of when and where the story developed. Which is cool!

Lastly ... Gryphons. No particular reason, I just think they're neat. And it certainly doesn't hurt that their origin might be attributable to triceratops fossils (besides human imagination).

Thanks! This was fun!

[oxpogues4lifexo]

Keeping up with the Camerons

TumblrTV

Keeping up with the Camerons

Episode 2 - A Helping Hand - Part 3

Episode transcript (/ means cut scene, bold italics means narrator, bold means host)

Word Count: 3.7K

Part 2 Here

“Yeah I’d say Wards like a dad to me! I mean I barely knew mine so he’s the closest I’ll get to one. So yeah I’d say so! He helps out a lot with literally anything and everything. It’s why I offer to do jobs and stuff with him when I can because it’s like payback in a way you know.” She giggles, her smile warm and eyes soft.

/

It was now around 4:30. It had been a long, hot, stressful day and the two of them were ready to go back home and just relax. The sun had already begun to drop, as the wind had picked back up; cooling the once humid air.

The two of them reach the estate, getting out the car and heading inside.

Walking back into the house, Ward stops Bella at the entrance, turning her body so she'd face him. He rested his hands on her shoulders, "I want to apologise for earlier.. I wasn't mad at you. Rafe was getting me worried about the show.."

She shakes her head, taking Wards hands from her shoulders and holding them tightly, "It's okay I know.. it's just.. he didn't do anything wrong?"

"It might not seem like it honey, but when it's constant disobedience it just gets too much and slightly upsetting. I gave him specific rules before starting the show, and so far? He's broken two of them!"

"Rules? What rules?" Bella frowns, tilting her head as she lets go of his hands, placing them by her side.

"There's three! 'Don't start pointless arguments, 'Behave and save the attitude for his room, and three, 'Don't say things that aren't about himself.' The shows about everyone yes, but talking bad about the other people on the show isn't what I wanted it for. I'm glad he hasn't broken it yet but I'm not counting on the thought that he won't."

"But telling the truth is better for the show is it not? You want the show to be a real depiction of your life! Telling Rafe to behave and not be rude is like telling him to not be himself!" Her tone was serious but her words only caused a chuckle from Wards lips.

"I don't think you want him hearing that."

She snorts realising what she said before shrugging it off, "I mean I said to tell the truth!" She giggles.

Ward smirks, taking her hand again, "Come on, he's not following them anyways so l guess you don't have much to worry about."

Hand in hand, Ward pulls Bella through to his office. "Take a seat sweetheart." He gestures his hand to the seat opposite his desk as he places himself in his chair.

Bella sits, crossing her legs on the chair but making sure to pull at the hem of her skirt to cover everything necessary. Ward pulls out some documents from a drawer in his desk, tapping them against the table.

He looks up at the camera beside them that was placed by the window in the corner of the office, "Basically, every month me and Bella add up every dollar she's made over the four weeks, take off anything that 'goes missing' aka Callum has taken for God knows what, work out the average time she's spent actually in the house, and thats how we work out how much she pays for her half of the rent money. It seems confusing-"

"It is confusing! It's why I let you do it and I just sit here." Bella laughs awkwardly, a small wobble in her words causing Ward to chuckle lightly.

"Right yes. I do all of that and her job is to send the money over." They both laugh, Bella's cheeks reddening; Ward fiddles with the paper in his hand. "Because she stays here most of the time but also takes all the responsibilities for her and Callum, I don't feel as though it’s very fair for her to pay the whole chunk, so we work it out to down to the time"

Bella nods, a half smile pulling at her lip, "See, confusing!" She looks into the camera, her complexion blank at the effort of processing Wards explanation.

Knock Knock

The sound made Bella’s body jolt as they both turn to the door to the office, their faces lifting again once they see the familiar face walk in, "Wheezie!" Bella exclaims joyfully, swinging her arms out to gesture a hug. Wheezie skips over with a quiet 'hi" to Ward, falling effortlessy into Bella's arms, slowly making her way onto her lap.

"Everything okay? We sort of have a thing Wheezie." Wards tone stiffened, more forced now. She seemed to shrug it off, not as bothered as Bella clearly was, a sign that Wheezie was most likely used to this behaviour.

/

"She doesnt seem to care but everyone sees it! He's sooo different with everyone. It's actually crazy and it makes me feel really bad. He's so nice with me but when he starts randomly bursting out on Rafe or getting irritated by Wheezie that's when it really bothers me. Its either be nice to everyone or don't bother because thats horrible you know! its mostly when Rafe's trying to talk to me about something Wards said or done to him but then brings up how id never understand because hes so different with me. It physically hurts because ive seen it, i know it happens, yet everyone holds this grudge against me because i get it easy: its not my fault, its not like i want him to be this nice with me i never asked him to be. I dont get why i get the hate?"

/

"Just, Sarah seems upset and Rose is in a mood again, and I'm just concerned about Rafe because he's not here right now and-"

"Hey hey shh." Ward stands up, crouching down infront of the girls and taking Wheezie's hands in his own. "Slow down, what's going on with Sarah?"

She shrugs, a sniffle escaping her nose as she pushes at the bridge of her glasses, "I don't know! I mean I think it might be to do with Topper? Because he seemed mad earlier and Rafe was on about some Pogue she was with or something? And Rose is just mad because of the cameras and also all of us were apparently annoying her and she was getting really stressed I think? I don't know! But I can't deal with it on my own, what do I do?"

Ward looks up at Bella who gives him a reassuring nod, accompanied by a soft smile. He looks back at Wheezie as he stands up, tugging at her hand to pull her from Bella's lap,

"Come on, you go upstairs I'll deal with them okay? Where are they?" He tilts his head down to her level.

Her eyes wander as she tries to think under pressure, "Uhm.. I think.. I know Sarah's on the boat! Rose is in the kitchen I think but I don't think Rafe's in the house?"

"What do you mean you don't think he's in the house where did he go?"

Her face contorts, her shoulders shrugging as she throws her hands up in the air, "I have no idea! Last I was told, he went to go see Bella. But he's not with her so l'm not sure. Sorry." Her eyes fall, Wards hand finds her chin as he guides her face to look at him.

"I’ll find him okay! You go relax, I'll talk to them."

She nods and mutters a quiet 'thank you' before skipping out the office and up the stairs.

Ward lets out a deep breath, his hand running over his face as his brows knit together. He sits himself back down on the black leather seat.

"I thought-?" Bella points to the door, confusion clearly masking her face.

"I'll sort it later. Let's just get this done please!" He sounded irritated, pissed off even. Nothing had happened yet he seemed to switch like that.

/

"How'd it go bro?" Kelce passes Rafe a beer as they walk over the grass to Tanny Hill.

"Don't ask.." Rafe spits, rolling his eyes as he takes a big mouthful, finishing the drink in one.

"Woah slow down man!" Callum catches up, snatching the can from his grasp but it was too late. "Whats up? John B talking up my sister too?"

He groans, running a hand through his strands as he opens the door, "What do you think?"

"She still at the dock? Forgot she was working today."

"No idea. Don't really care." He shrugs, helping himself to another beer from the refrigerator on the way through the kitchen.

"Dude watch your mouth that's my sister you're talking about! Thought you were all obsessed with her or some shit?" Callum grimaces at his own words but also very serious about his question.

"Gross man. I ain't obsessed with her bro!" Rafe spits as if Callum's words were absurd. "I gotta take care of her a'ight? What my old man told me to do."

"So you're using her?"

"Just shut up Cal!! You know that's not what I meant. Why do you care anyways? You hate her!"

Callum's head swings round, gripping Rafes collar in an instant, "Say that shit again and your dead you understand me??"

"Get the fuck off me Callum.." He stares at him, holding his ground whilst also slowly trying to wriggle out of Callum's grasp.

His grip loosens when he hears Bella's voice through the door behind them; he turns around, forgetting about his hold on Rafe.

"Guess she's in there!" Rafe shrugs, brushing himself off; earning him a glare from Callum.

/

"Where were we?" He searches through the papers on the desk. Bella watches intently, her eyes full of concern as her eyebrows form a v shape. She doesn't say anything however, just watches him.

"Okay so you've earned a total of-" A loud bang and a mass of voices erupts through the halls, made out through the crack in the door. Wards face meets his palms as he groans. The noises in the other room only growing louder causing Wards expressions to deepen.

He lifts his head, looking back down at the papers, "A total of-" He's cut off once again by the door creaking open slowly, the sounds coming to a halt. He bites the inside of his cheek as he chuckles away the clear pain this situation is causing him.

Despite opening the door, a small knock is still made out before three figures walk into the room. "May we help you?" Ward spat, his eyes piercing into each of their own.

"There you are Bells!" Her eyes widen at the familiar voice, her back raising as a shiver takes over her body; hesitating before turning to become face to face with her brother. "You been with Ward all day?"

"Yeah!" She frowns, confused about his calm tone.

Callum nods a second, biting his lip as his eyes squint. He gives Bella his hand, squeezing his fingers to his palm and letting go again to gesture for her to take it. "Come!"

"Cal l'm-" She points at Ward and the papers, Callum's face dropping with pure uninterest.

"We're in the middle of something Callum she can speak with you soon!"

He frowns at Ward, quickly turning back to Bella, trying again with his hand. "Well we're going out. Your coming. I haven't seen you all day!"

"Callum!" Wards hand meets the desk with a hard smack, he takes a deep breath, "Callum, just let us finish and she'll-"

"I wasn't talking to you was I? Old man." He heaves, rolling his eyes; not even fazed by the raise in his voice, unlike Bella who looks too terrified to move.

"Cal..??" She whisper-shouts, her brows furrowing at his antics, shaking her head as if to get him to stop.

He ignores her, nodding his head to the door, "Bella let's go." His eyebrows raise, face more serious now as his tone had hardened. His jaw clenched.

The two remaining boys at the door, Rafe and Kelce, both give each other a look of concern, a small word passed between them followed by a shake of Kelce's head before looking back at the event.

Bella looks up at Ward, her eyes full of plea. He merely watches her, his face blank as if he'd switched off part way into the conversation. Her focus follows back to the camera before blinking and nodding lightly, lifting herself from the chair and placing her hand into Callum's.

He guides her to the exit, following the others outside; she pulls herself back into the doorway, giving Ward a small smile, “I’ll send you half!”

“No no don’t worry, we’ll sort it tomorrow!” His eyes widen as he pushes himself up. She nods but didn’t quite catch what he said as Callum had dragged her away from the room.

/

“Would you say you like the Camerons? We haven’t had the chance to speak yet!”

Callum’s face drops, his brows tighten as his expression tenses; scoffing at Ryan’s words, “No why would I?? They think they can control me like I’m their kid or something. But I’m not! And neither is Bella so I don’t know why he’s treating her like she is. She’s MY sister. Not Rafes, not Wheezie’s. Mine!! He doesn’t need to get involved in all her shit, that’s my job now! And it has been for 16 years!” He spits aggressively, shoving past Ryan almost pushing him to the floor.

/

Ward finds himself in the living room, “Rafe? Let me speak to you!” He calls him over from the couch, leading him into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” He frowns, “We’re leaving in like ten minutes!”

“Watch your attitude I just want to talk.”

Rafe roles his eyes, sitting himself on one of the stools beside the island.

“Wheezie mentioned you and Topper were involved in something earlier. To do with Sarah and a Pogue?”

“Of course she did..” He curses under his breath, his hand finding his hair, “Yeah what about it?” He slams his hand on the marble.

“I want to know what happened. I mean you stormed our boat earlier.”

“Yeah OUR boat? I was checking on Bella what’s the problem?”

“The problem is you were arguing with her. I was trying to film for the show and you come and start something. Do you not want to act normal for two seconds when the cameras are on you? Are you incapable of that or something Rafe?” He waits for a response but Rafe simply just stares at him, speechless at his sudden switch in attitude since this morning. “Hello? Rafe I’m speaking to you! What is wrong with you?”

The words hit Rafe like a brick, causing a sudden tense in his muscles as he stands up, the force throwing the stool to the ground. “I was making sure she’s okay?? And your-“

“Why wouldn’t she be??”

“And you’re making it out like it’s a bad thing!! Im sorry I give a fuck about someone for once! I’m sorry I’m ACTUALLY doing something you asked for once! But you know MY bad for actually doing what I’m told. Jesus yeah what the hell’s wrong with me??” He smacks Wards water bottle out his hand, covering the counter and his lap in liquid as he leaves.

“We’re not done Rafe!!!” Ward yells through the room, Rafe flipping him off on his way out.

He cleans himself up before going upstairs to find Sarah.

/

“Hello honey..” Ward slowly opens the door to Sarah’s room, keeping his tone calm because Wheezie mentioned her feeling upset.

“Hi daddy.” She smiles, placing her colouring book on her bed as she gives him her full attention.

He sits himself infront of her on the edge of her bed, placing his hand against her leg; stroking his thumb against her skin ever so slightly. “Are you okay sweetheart?”

She frowns, tilting her head slightly, “Yeah of course. Why?”

He nods lightly, “Just because Wheezie was worried about you! Said something about Topper?”

Her eyes widen and fall as her fingers find a pencil to fiddle with, “Um.. yeah no everything’s fine. He just seemed mad earlier and left me while we were out.”

“What do you mean he left you? Alone?”

She nods, not looking back up at him as his tone shifts only slightly, “Was he mad at you?” He emphasises the ‘you’ as his face tenses.

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what I did! I just went to the bathroom then when I came back he shouted at me and left? So I went to see Layla.” She looks back up at him, her eyes glassing over.

Wards brows furrow; he pulls Sarah into his chest, his hand stroking the back of her head as he places a kiss to the top of it. “I’m so sorry Sare Bear.. I’ll speak to him okay..” He rests his head against hers.

She shakes her head ‘no’ as she lifts herself from his hold, “No it’s okay.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve before tucking her hands into them, “He’ll be fine tomorrow!” She reassures.

“Okay honey..” He strokes the side of her head, his thumb rubbing against her cheek, pulling her head closer to give her another kiss to her forehead. “I love you..”

“Love you too dad..” She smiles softly, picking up her colouring book again. He nods as he leaves to the door, turning back once more to blow a kiss before shutting it behind him.

“That boy is pissing me off..” He mutters to himself as he walks past one of the cameras to go back downstairs; head in his hands.

/

"Hey Rafe?" Bella runs over, catching up outside the gate, her hand slipping into his.

He doesn't fight it but also doesnt reciprocate, not turning his head to look at her, "Mhm?"

She hesitates at his lack of touch, "Hey look I'm sorry about earlier!" The other boys turn back to watch as they kept walking, looking at one another with a slight snicker.

He looks up at the boys, looking back down at his and Bella’s hands before pulling away, "Yeah look it's fine a'ight? You already said sorry."

Again, he didn't look at her once, meaning he didn't notice the way she very obviously noticed his intent behind his hand pulling away as her eyes began to tear up. Holding back a whimper she takes a deep breath, "I mean.. You could've stayed? W- we weren't doing anything." She looks up at him with her forced doe eyes, hoping for atleast a small reaction.

He shrugs, "Yeah well you looked busy with that Pogue so.. didn't wanna bother you." His eyes squint as he scratches the back of his head; a small 'tut' falling from his lips.

Her eyes widen, a frown forcing onto her brows as a tear falls down her flustered cheeks, "I.. I told you that it didn't m- mean anything?" She choked through her tears, causing a slight eye twitch from Rafe as he fights back from looking at her.

"Look Bells I-“

Callum interrupts, turning back and grabbing Bella's arm, "What he means, Bella, is that us Kooks don't hang around those Pogues a'ight? Don't listen to Rafe, he's being a prick." He spits at Rafe, giving him a dirty glare as he wraps an arm round Bella and pulls her infront to walk with him instead.

Turning back, Callum's brows furrow at Rafe, a small 'what's your fucking problem' falling from his lips silently. Rafe feels himself tense; his fist scrunching as his face contorts into a mix of anger and upset. He hits himself in the head, "Stop it.. Stop it." He scolds himself, blinking back the evident tears that glassed his eyes.

We did end up asking Rafe about the situation but it didn't end the way we wanted so for his sake we can't show the footage, we’re truly sorry but it’s confidential.

/

The lights were out, the room lit by only the few yellow flames surrounding the couple. The moonlight through the glass doors, filled the room with a slight warm glow. The small table was covered in plates of salmon and glasses of red wine ontop a white tablecloth.

The two enjoyed the meal, watching the stars whilst midway in a deep conversation about one another. Eyes never left the others, hand in hand, admiring every little detail they had missed about each other in the time they had away.

They join eachother on the couch afterwards, putting on a romantic movie about a pianist and an actress. Bodies glued to the other, heads rested together.

"It's been a long day Rose.. those kids are way too much sometimes.." Ward mumbles as he rests his head against Rose's shoulder.

She lifts her hand to gently caress his cheek, placing a light kiss to the top of his head, "I know baby.. thats why I mentioned finding somewhere else for Rafe to stay.. It's one less person to have to worry about after a busy day.." She leans her head against his as he pulls her hand into his own, his fingers tangling between hers.

"We can't kick him out Rose.. not because im tired sometimes.. Its just difficult with so many things and so many people. I almost snapped at Wheezie earlier.."

"Is it getting bad again..?"

He nods a 'yes' against her chest, causing her to tut as she takes a long breath, placing yet another kiss to his head, "Just take it easy the next few days okay.. The cameras are probably making everything worse than it is.. You have a few days without them so just make the most of it okay baby.."

Ward sighs, digging himself deeper into her body, her warmth radiating onto him causing his eyes to fall shut, "Mhm.. Okay honey.. take it.. take it easy.. got it.." He yawns, resting himself fully as she hushes him to sleep. One last kiss to his head before she turned down the tv volume and pulled a blanket over the two of them.

"Sleep well honey.." She smiles softly, watching his eyes flutter as a quiet snore begins to release from his throat. "We'll figure it all out at some point.."

Thank you for watching yet another episode of Keeping Up With The Camerons! Today was a hard one, but maybe tomorrow we'll have some more answers surrounding this supposed 'Pogue' drama as we join Sarah for her day in the sun. Stay tuned and keep an eye out for the next one!

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[ghostofacrow]

i watched the Somerton RGU video and I'm assuming this one isn't plagiarised besides the wikipedia synopsys because I don't think the person who wrote it liked Utena, he keeps joking about how weird the show is and spends half the video trying to pick apart what's real and what is a metaphor and says he dislikes the movie because it blurs the line between reality and the metaphorical events more.

That's not how fiction works! Ohtori academy is definitively real in the show, it's even what Somerton treats as the baseline reality - it's still a metaphor!! For patriarchy or gendered society or just for adolescence in general, the things that are real in the show still mean something. Fictional events aren't either a metaphor or definitively real, this is some dream theory ass analysis and especially with something like Utena that deals so much in symbolism this is such a useless approach and it takes up the bulk of the video. "Do they actually have sword fights or not?" is possibly the least interesting angle you could take here.

Knowing that every time he had a good thought, it wasn't his, really makes me question if he is actually capable of meaningful media analysis that goes beyond 1:1 mapping elements of a movie onto real life (by real life I mean the experience of a white cis gay man). Genuinely does he know what symbolism is?

Then I remembered a clip from the Attack on Titan video where his main argument for why the Eldians aren't a metaphor for jewish people in ww2 is that there are some aspects of the story that don't match real life exactly but. They're marked with stars. There's an obvious ghetto. Everyone has german names in this japanese story. The general look of all the technology clearly say ww2 era. The idea that a story can use this many specific signifiers of a very narrow time and place but because there are some elements that don't match reality exactly, it's actually not about that history is so weird.

So I went to look up the clip and, of course, he is also wrong about the history, most of the things he list that didn't happen in WW2 did actually happen. Honorary Aryans were a thing. There's even direct examples of people of jewish descent (like Helmuth Wilberg) earning honorary aryan status through military service, the thing Somerton confidently claims didn't happen.

There wasn't a crack special forces unit in the Nazi military made up of Jews but the Sonderkommandos are a well documented historical fact. A lot of the day to day operation of the death camps was handled by prisoners who were forced into that position and they were killed and replaced on schedule.

He gets confused about what Paradis is because surely it must stand in for exactly one real historical thing or the whole allegory is fake and claims it's not a ghetto because there is a literal ghetto later in the story. He even admits that it might be Israel but "jewish exile island" is also literally the Madagascar Plan, the only reason this didn't happen was the logistic issues of moving thousands of people halfway across the world while under a naval blockade.

There's so much you can argue about how Attack on Titan uses it's historical elements (and personally I think it uses all of this very carelessly), but denying that they are there because there wasn't a jewish exile island irl is so stupid. I started out just being confused about the RGU analysis and just wanted to get a backup argument but what I actually found is Holocaust disinformation and it feels both wrong to tag this onto the "Somerton doesn't understand what a metaphor is" post but I also don't want to ignore it so here it is. Fuck this guy seriously

[spacemonkeysalsa]

Idk trying to be measured or something?

Debates on bg3fandomcritical got me thinking about wanting to write more meta on queerness, also I have an opinion, it seems.

Ages ago I made a short silly post that was the beginning of a word document that I've not added much to since about reading BG3 as a queer text.

The post was about how I have been playing too much BG3 to write about BG3, but that I really wanted there to be more meta on it. I wanted this so that I could selfishly read it, without having to do any of the writing myself.

Specifically, I wanted more about queer themes in the story, and the way characters express queerness. And I wrote that after the very first time I saw someone else complaining about BG3 not being queer enough. How it just hadn't done enough or gone far enough and actually wasn't even gay at all, now that they thought about it.

I was confused, but not as confused as they were because it turns out they hadn't played the game, and didn't really know anything about it besides what they'd seen in some memes. They thought the extent of the queerness in the game came down to being able to customize your character, and romance whoever you want.

And I don't want to dismiss that, because I actually do think that's worth exploring as a queer element itself, and not just because of the medium; the plot of the game is all about struggling against an autonomous collective that just assigned you this procreative role against your will. So, with that in mind, I actually do think having some say in your gender, gender expression, and sexuality isn't thematically insignificant, in that doing anything else would be contradictory (and super ironically serve as a counterpoint) to the overall message and theme of the game.

Ultimately, the story presents a kind of library of babel (tldr on the library of babel is that it's a library where every book possible exists, somewhere, and most of them are unreadable nonsense you can literally waste your whole life going through the shelves trying to find a book that makes sense but you probably won't because the statics are against you, so you just get to go mad knowing that all your favorite books and a perfect autobiography of you exist here somewhere, along with a perfect autobiography of you in which you are replaced with a bag of marbles etc.), albeit very scaled down which I hate saying because the whole point of the library of babel is that it's both infinite and finite (its an analogy for the universe and the pointless search for meaning within, maybe I should have included that with the tldr) scaling it down messes that up, but it is by necessity because we can't conceive of infinity and we certainly can't program it, though the modders are sure gonna try it.

We can imagine hundreds, thousands of new scenarios every day, and that can keep going until we're dead. And so far, that's kind of been my relationship with the game. I'm constantly starting new playthroughs with new characters with new backstories and taking everything I've learned to create a slightly different scenario, and the game really plays into that by accommodating my imagination to a pretty broad extent. But, like, I could easily slip into a tangent never to return, so I'm just going to shift back over to what I'm really trying to say before I get lost: Being vague about character sexuality for each of the romanceable companions, is actually really important and purposeful writing in this context. Most of what we do get from them is very vague, blink and you miss it moments, flirting with another NPC, or casually referring to a past partner with certain pronouns, or euphemisms. If they were too firm about their preferences, that would influences the "most likely scenario" in this library of babel context. At a minimum making each of the characters open to any scenario with any partner (under the right conditions) is something that they would have had to consider and I think they narrowed the possibilities as much as they ever should have. Death, choice and moral alignment acts as a hard litmus test, and a point of no return threshold for certain characters, but apart from that, you're free to romance who you want, and you're free to headcanon whatever sexuality you want onto whoever you want, and you're free to change your mind next playthrough.

There are some characters who are explicitly pansexual. Halsin is the very best example of this, because he's very direct, talking to the player character about past romantic and sexual relationships. But past romantic and sexual relationships aren't definitive, so even then, his explicit pansexuality is also negotiable, because everything is written to be negotiable. For my own part, I think having a headcanon sexuality for certain characters that you prefer (or even that you can't mentally/emotionally separate from them) besides pansexual is totally fine. I'm bisexual, and that could easily influence how I feel about it personally, which is that I can imagine any of these characters with partners of any gender. It does not feel weird to me in any context to imagine any one blurbo getting hot for anyone else. But if you've got a headcanon sexuality for them that's different, more exclusive, then cool.

At this point I've romanced every character in the game, most of them a few times, and each time I'm in character creator planning the run and thinking about who I'm going to romance this time, I have to take a minute to consider whether I'm playing M/F/N this time around, and every possibility is always on the table for whoever I'm romancing.

But, I wouldn't call this playersexual, because I think we should have retired that term before it had the chance to come into popular use again. I've complained about this before, but as I remember it, this was the word that Bioware invented to make excuses about why certain characters (the one that was really egregious was Jack, a canonically pansexual woman) just weren't available to romance unless you played as the opposite sex.

And don't cite the deep magic to me. I remember. I grew up in a house that always had fox news going, it's one of the reasons I'm so angry all the time now, and I don't care about Bioware's shareholders. I do think it was cowardice you aren't going to convince me otherwise.

The counterpoint is that the utility of "playersexual" is as a writing criticism. The idea is that characters in a video game should feel like real people, and that being able to (functionally/effectively) project something onto them (like sexuality) isn't something you can do with a real person, so it shouldn't be something you can do with a well written character.

First of all, I don't think that well written characters necessarily need to feel like real people. Orin doesn't feel like a real person and I love it, I love the way she's written, I think its great. And to feel like a real person, a character doesn't need to be like a real person. No one is like Karlach, at least on a physical level, but she feels very real because clever analogues.

But, I don't really want to go all the way back to the assumptions that a lot of these opinions rest on, and how they don't hold up. Let's skip to the part where a lot of people think these characters should have a fixed canon sexuality that's evident and unchangeable in their gameplay and mechanics, if not in the actual writing around them. Meaning you can only romance certain characters if you chose a gender they canonically prefer in character creator, all the way at the beginning of the game, or that to romance certain characters as another gender, you have to get a cute little Abigail "realizing something about myself" inclusion.

And that's one way to go about it, but I don't think its automatically worse writing to simply not do that. I don't think purposefully allowing for any scenario in this context is bad writing, I think it's playing into the above themes. I think if you want to only ever romance a character as one gender or another, because of how you perceive them, you should do that. I romanced Minthara as a man the first time around, and didn't think it felt weird at all, but now that I've romanced her as a woman, I'm probably just going to stick with that going forward because I liked it more. That happens. Having headcanon that a certain character is a certain sexuality or has specific preferences, isn't wrong, and isn't contrary to how the game was written and programmed.

But for sobbing out loud can we please just use the term pansexual instead of playersexual? It's accurate and gets the point across and doesn't have all that baggage attached to it.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

"Also, where does anon get the idea that mothers "don't do anything"? I'm not even talking about the importance of child rearing. Do they think mothers can't write books? Invent things? Go outdoor adventuring? Etc etc etc? What a weird world view." I literally said mothers are the "backbone of society" right after that. Good mothers and good fathers are the backbone of society and we need them, it is just from everything I have read (magisterial documents) a lot of it makes it seem like even a mother doing anything besides her motherhood (like having any sort of job besides staying at home with the children) is something the Church *permits* but would not *prefer*. And sometimes I become worried. Does the Church think that it is "bad" if a mother can afford to stay at home all the time but also wants to be, say, a nurse or teacher or scientist?? (obviously the family comes first for both parents)

I love stay at home mothers. I think modern society picks on them too much. I probably would have turned out better if my mother stayed at home. But sometimes I wonder if the Church is in the opposite direction (picking on married women who are not stay at home mothers).

In case you couldn't tell I overthink a lot

I know you said mothers are the backbone of society; that's why I said I'm not even talking about child-rearing, the thing which most people mean when they talk about mothers being backbone of society.

You also said it seems like “the Church would prefer that women.. not do anything” and that “women should not strive for anything besides either being a nun or a mother”. Which you could only say if, in your worldview, being a nun or a mother precludes them from doing anything other than being a nun or a mother, which is utterly bizarre, given that both nuns and mothers have been teachers, theologians, shop keepers, artisans, farmers etc, and continue to be scientists, writers, and so on. Being a mother can mean staying at home or working outside the home. In the case of being a stay at home mom, that can include being the backbone of society, ie raising kids, while also pursuing your own interests that you may not be paid for, like art, volunteering, political work, hiking, camping, writing, pod casting, church ministries, etc. Just because these activities aren't necessarily done for pay doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile. It's a mistake to equate having a job with "doing anything".

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

Some people underestimate what it means for someone to have been through almost a decade of abuse. It's not like when an abusive relationship ends that the person will all of a sudden just go back to normal and not be disturbed in anyway, even many years and decades later. I think we could see that Evan's relationships have been anything but normal since Emma. I'm not trying to put blame on Evan and i'm not saying that I know Haley personally to tell what she is really like in a relationship. But it's a fact that if we look at his and Haleys separate dating histories, based on how long each of their relationships lasted and also generally looking at the drama level, that Haley does look like the more regulated person between them. Again (because I feel like I have to underline it) i'm not saying that to put Evan down! I'm just sad because I got such good vibes from Haley. And now I just got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that the next woman he chooses will be more like.... you know. That is why i sincerely hope he goes to therapy.

no one is underestimating the emotional trauma of living through an abusive relationship for 7 years. i am sure there have been some studies done by someone that speaks to DV victims repeatedly choosing partners that in some way perpetrate abuse or mistreatment against them. i think it's fair to say evan's low self-esteem and self-image issues have lead him to accept treatment that he shouldn't have, and that he also stayed very long with a woman who was documented to be awful and physically abusive. now add into that they were both dealing with addiction issues and you probably have a 7 year blur of traumatic and chaotic suffering. no, no intelligent person would be so unreasonable as to surmise that it did not have a lasting affect on evan and that he will likely spend a very long time unraveling that.

however, evan has had two relationships since emma that we know about: a 6 month stint with halsey and 2 years with frances. i don't even think of halsey/evan as significant because it was so short, but when it comes to fran/evan, we know next to nothing about their relationship. we can only speculate. all of the negatives we have are based upon frances' very unlikable internet persona. we do not know what their dynamic was actually like.

also, we do not know the nature of evan/haley's relationship. i don't think it's reasonable to jump to catastrophic conclusions when we literally have diddly squat to go off of besides them dating, and now deuxmoi, who knows nothing, saying they ''cooled off'' due to evan traveling/working. they could still be dating, they could have stopped seeing each other - we don't know. so we certainly don't know the reason why they would end their romance or if it was on good terms. haley is also 8 years younger than evan and has prior relationships the public knows nothing about. so it's not really fair to speak to what she has or has not experienced and how it could impact her relationship to evan. i think she seems like a very emotionally in-tune and sweet girl, but she is also younger and could be idealistic and never dealt with someone with a history similar to evan's... or, she could be someone who has put in the emotional work on herself and would be able to understand and walk through any issues that would arise, because she understands how an abused person can miscalculate things because they are traumatized. who knows.

and i totally get you're not trying to put evan down. i didn't think that was your intention! i just think we have to get out of our own heads sometimes when we are on the outside looking in at someone elses' life. evan and haley could live happily ever after, or they could fizzle out and the next woman evan dates be another problem. or she could be someone even more wonderful that everyone adores. only time will tell.

[memorymessage]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mud8FFnY5Bg

boy, if dorian didn't take the words right out of my mouth

although, i probably would choose 12-13 as the age to go back to—i already had severe anxiety and IBS at 17, dropped out of school and started becoming isolated. i literally crashed out in middle school at 13. "peaked", i guess, but... in a really chaotic, uncontrollable way.

i did not give af about anything back then—i was having sleepovers every weekend, ditching school, taking the bus to the mall, staying at friends' houses for days to weeks at a time, riding bikes and scooters to unknown locations—looking for a new secret spot to loiter in, bleaching my hair in the rec center showers, running away from home.

emily stole her mom's credit card and "treated" everyone in the group to a french manicure at a nail salon. that day ended in the mall toilets—hiding from the police. it could have been paranoia. the mall security could have just been a coincidence. maybe they weren't looking for us.

i don't even remember how that day ended. the memory cuts off after hiding in the toilets. like a dream that's been crudely interrupted and left unfinished. it's intermingling with a different memory-... or maybe the same one?

running out the back of the mall, telling my counterpart we could run across the street to escape being found by... whatever was looking for us.

was that emily? was that leaundra?

truth is, i've been in so many questionable scenarios, it starts all blending together.

i envy the youth of today—always a phone in hand, documenting every memorable moment with a picture or video. back then, i had an LG chocolate. it could only store 15 songs, and videos were out of the question: 140p quality cap with a recording limit of 30 seconds. i'm sure there are moments i will never remember, that could have been stored and recalled for later, if only i'd had a phone from this age.

god, there are so many things i wish i could see again. my house. my backyard. the park. the endless hours spent at malls and shopping centers. my friends' houses.

all only distorted memories now. you can go back to those places, but they don't look the same. the stores are different—torn down, or built upon. the trails we walked in the woods long since overgrown with prickled brush.

these days, i have no friends. those days, i don't even think i could list all of my friends on all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. this post inspired by the "nostalgia project" of dorian's doesn't even come an inch close to sharing the photos i had back then. even with all the photos, they don't come an inch close to documenting all the experiences i had.

what an odd thing—to say that your life experiences peaked at age 12. but yeah- they did. maybe it was unwise, but i don't regret any of it. i appreciate being able to have lived that life. besides, i had already decided what kind of person i was, and what i did and did not want to do in life. i turned down my first offer of an ecstasy pill at 12.

and when they say "the first time you have sex, you kind of get obsessed with it"... they were not wrong. i still feel embarrassed about how much i wanted it all the time.

ah, but that's besides it all. it's not about the severity of "adult" experiences i had, but rather the community and love i had at the time. i wish i had the words to document every feeling and moment i had. i wish i could share those late nights of looking up 'emo hair tutorials' and calling up fellow scene/emo friends, telling them we should meet in the school bathroom with scissors and shaving razors (using a shaving razor was the secret to scene hair "layering", btw.)

i'm surprised klarissa and i didn't end up dead with how much chaos we tried to cause every time we were together, back when we had no idea of the meaning of the word consequence. strangers weren't danger to us—they were like toys to mess around with and get a rise from. you'd think... we would have learned our lesson after the first time we ended up getting chased. but nope. if something seemed odd or dangerous, we needed to know what it was.

leaundra and i lived like nothing mattered, as long as we were with each other. my best friend, my first love. not just romantic love, but an unconditional love. we shared everything. my weeb partner in crime. also a very dangerous duo. two problematic children left to wander the world together.

and emily. what can i even say about emily? i thought my life was a lawless free-for-all. she definitely one-upped that in all ways, and taught the underage lawless lifestyle just by existing around me. it was stupid to run away to see some strange man, 8 years our senior, in his 20s with his own house, but i never had a second thought back then. there was no danger, only spontaneity.

we really did think those cops were after us at the bus station. ran and hid in the bathroom of some random furniture store.

i keep wondering... how i became the way i did. so solidified and frigid with anxiety. was it my father's abuse? was it the move? probably a bit of both.

how did that unstoppable child with a desire for neverending freedom, chaos, friendship, and love, turn into the anxiety-ridden and sickly adult? too socially inept to reply to a simple text? too unwilling to engage with the world at all?

when did it all become so meaningless?

the world used to be so colorful and new

i only see it in shades of grey now

[telomeke]

ID text–

First image is of some lines of computer code, presumably an extract of the Twitter feed algorithm. This is followed by a text post:

Elon Musk released the Twitter feed algorithm on Git yesterday as open-source. I know how to read code and know Git, so I had a brief looksy. First of all, holy hell, I can't believe he let this algorithm see the light of day. It reveals some INSANE biases which are the REAL "Twitter Files", if anyone besides engineers gets interested. My only thought as to why he publicized the code is that Twitter is a wreck and he fired most of his engineering team, the remainder of whom now can't keep up, so he's hoping that by open-sourcing the code, engineers like me will fix it for free. And indeed, you can make pull requests on his repository if you have a Git account (and I do.) I'm not about to help. (For laymen, a pull request is when you pull the code to your local machine, alter it, and then make a request that your changes get integrated into the repository, which the owner of the repository must approve.) I use Git for version control. Meaning every change is documented and approved. Undoubtedly, Musk will task a remaining engineer with reviewing these Git pushes, and potentially approving them. Remember when people started complaining that all they saw were tweets from Elon Musk, even though they didn't follow him? Or all they see are right-wing lunatics, even though they didn't choose to see that? There's a literal carve-out in the code to artificially boost Musk and right-wing lunatics. Narcissist much? The code also arbitrarily dumps you into "categories" like Democrat, Republican, Power User, etc. He's also artificially restricting tweets about The Ukraine and bolstering Russia. I wonder who's paying him! Not a mystery. Every interaction with your tweets gets ranked. Every like is worth a lot. Replies and retweets are worth less. This is opposite of normal (I used to write algorithms for search engines), where a like is passive interaction, retweets and comments are active interaction, which should be weighted more heavily. Negative interactions are also weighted. If you've been blocked or reported, you're punished for that. Your tweets get seen less. The most insane part of the algorithm (in my opinion) is that if you follow a lot more people than follow you, you get artificially suppressed as "unimportant." That means someone like you or me doesn't get seen. I follow around three times as many people as follow me, which means I effectively do not exist on Twitter. This means that bad actors and bots (who follow nobody, because they aren't human) get artificially amplified. Including a video or an image in your tweet artificially boosts you. Including a link to an external website (like a news site) hurts you. Misinformation gets downgraded for normal people. Blue checks boost you insanely. This effectively results in blue-checked people being able to spread misinformation with impunity. As you know, now anybody can pay Elon $8 for that sweet sweet blue checkmark, including bots and foreign actors. Y'all. Twitter is a DISASTER. If you've used it since Musk took over, you at least suspected it. Musk is a foreign actor and at best, a narcissist. At worst, he's deliberately bolstering the right-wing looniverse (as evidenced by my personal observations, and now confirmed by inspection of his algorithm.) All of this is not to say, drop Twitter, or to espouse an opinion of what you should do. I'm going to hang out and see what happens. I'm just telling you, as a person who writes these kinds of algorithms professionaly, what the code Elon Musk provided publicly, indicates.

[casspurrjoybell-22]

Dream Eater - Chapter 17 - Part 2

*Warning Adult Content*

I wake up from a dream and I smile.

It was a good dream, though I can't remember the details.

It had something to do with Dante and a cake and maybe a dog.

It doesn't matter because it didn't mean anything and it was all mine.

I roll over and press myself closer to Damien's back, wrapping my arms around his waist and giving him a light squeeze.

Early morning light spills in through the bedroom windows and the comforting sounds of the city drift up from the streets below.

We're home, in our apartment, on Earth.

After Astoreth healed me, I came to lying in the snow, stretched full-length with Damien at my side and my hand clasped in his.

Dante knelt beside us crying like we'd broken their heart.

Which, I learned, we momentarily had.

When they found us by the stone arch, Door closed and Astoreth gone, they'd thought we were dead.

It seemed like we were, too.

Then I woke up and a moment later, Damien did as well.

I hadn't felt any different, as far as I could tell and Damien said he didn't either.

Except that when he tried to use demonic power, nothing happened.

I was terrified he'd resent me for it, eventually, for choosing a human soul but if anything, he seemed overjoyed.

"You don't miss it?" I'd asked.

"Being able to summon fiery swords and pop between realities whenever you please?"

He grinned.

"Not at all. Do you miss having to eat people's dreams?"

I shook my head.

"No but that was never cool to begin with."

Somehow, though I don't remember hearing her speak, Astoreth had told me that the three natures of my soul were now one.

Each part had joined to create a single whole but while I was no longer a dream-eater and I'd never been much of a Celestial, I was still a Key and always would be and now Damien's soul was inextricably linked to mine.

Astoreth said that we would always seek one another, drawn by a force stronger than magnetism or gravity and that we were each now a part of a greater whole.

"What if I'm reborn as like, a toad or an eel or something?" I wondered and Damien had laughed.

"Then I hope I'm a toad or an eel too."

Dante offered to make us both sex-demons and told us we'd be able to feed off one another for all eternity but of course, we'd have to die first and we've both had enough of that for the moment.

We kept their offer as a distant backup option, just in case.

For now, we're happy to live and love as mere mortals and to savor each beautiful, precious, fragile moment as it comes and goes.

As for Dante, they decided to remain in Carnâk for now.

They said they were still having fun there and enjoying the artistic adoration.

Also, they'd bonded with Oran on the battlefield and the relationship had bloomed.

Apparently, seeing Dante in full battle-mode was like watching a violent ballet and Oran had been hooked.

I was sorry I hadn't gotten to see it.

Sometimes, when I just want see them, I wish Dante wasn't currently living in another dimension but Oran brings them to visit often enough that I hardly have time to miss them and Damien keeps me busy in more ways than one.

I hug him to me now and wonder at the strange machinations of fate.

Not that long ago I wanted nothing more than to get away from him and never look back.

Now I literally wouldn't be complete without him.

He wakes up and rolls over to face me, his features lit with a now, familiar look of wonder and delight.

It's the same look he has every morning when he wakes up next to me, like he can't quite believe his eyes.

"Good morning, beautiful boy," he says, kissing me lightly.

"I don't think you can call someone born a hundred years ago a boy," I say, smiling.

"Your passport says you're twenty-one," he replies.

"Barely old enough to drink."

It's amazing what money can buy these days.

Damien has us both fixed up with all the documents we need to live legit and above-board.

"That didn't stop you from getting me drunk last night," I say.

It didn't quite leave me with a hangover but it was enough that I don't remember exactly what happened, except that at some point I was up against a wall and then on the floor and then... I blush as memory returns and he grins.

"Thinking of something good?" he asks.

"You wish," I retort but blush harder when he slides a hand beneath the sheets and finds me hard.

"I do love mornings..."

At this point, he hardly needs Dante.

He's becoming a sex-demon all on his own.

Speaking of Dante, that night we celebrate the opening of Damien's latest architectural triumph... a gallery dedicated to their work.

I do my best to hide in the shadows and not draw attention to the fact that I'm featured in many of the examples on display.

Dante and Oran are here for the event and Dante finds me before long.

"Still happy, little bird?" they ask and I smile.

"Yes. I'm still happy."

"That was a ballsy choice you made. I don't know if I could've done it. Not after everything I've seen."

"That's why I made it," I say.

"I've seen a lot, some through my own eyes but mostly through other people's dreams. I know what grief and sorrow and loss and hate and fear look like. One thing I didn't see a lot of was happiness. But I saw it in those months I was living here with Damien, before Azael found us again. That's what I wanted more of, a happiness that's not just mine but his too."

"Well, I hope you enjoy it for a long time," they say.

"But when you get tired, just say so and we can be demons together again... all three of us."

I squint at them and they hold up their hands.

"Not like that... I just mean in general."

"Maybe someday, Dante," I laugh.

"Or maybe not. Maybe we'll just grow old together and die and see what comes next."

Dante makes a face.

"Listen up, little bird... you make me cry again and I'll fucking kill you myself and then I'll bring you back as my own personal demon and keep you in a gilded cage for the rest of eternity, safe and sound where I can see you and paint you whenever I want. Of course, I'll have to bring Damien too..."

It seems like they've given this a little too much thought already, so I distract them by asking about Oran.

Apparently, he has amazing stamina, both in bed and on the battlefield, which for Dante is sometimes the same thing.

I let my mind wander when the details get to be a bit too much and before I know it the evening is over and we're saying goodbye once again.

After an overly drawn-out farewell, Dante and Oran are gone.

The world seems a little more empty without them and I hope they get tired of Carnâk and come home to stay soon.

Later, Damien and I return to our apartment.

I feel deliciously tired... not exhausted, not drained of energy and needing someone else's nightmares to keep me alive... just pleasantly weary and ready for sleep.

Damien has other ideas.

"I have something for you," he says, walking me back until my legs hit the edge of the bed and I fall over.

"You've already given me that three times today," I say, though I'm not really complaining.

"Not like this," he says.

"Close your eyes and don't freak out."

"Uh..." I frown but do as he asks.

I feel him take my wrists in his hands and then something soft closes around them with a click.

I open my eyes and see that he's chained me to the bed with a pair of fluffy pink handcuffs.

"If you don't want to, I'll take them off," he says quickly, looking nervous.

I tug at them experimentally and frown.

"You realize the last time you had these on me I thought you were gonna kill me, right?"

"These aren't the same ones. I bought these myself."

'Oh, great. What a relief.' I roll my eyes.

"At least tell me you bought them online, where no one could see your face."

He doesn't answer and he still looks really nervous and I give in.

"All right... have your way with me then."

The slow grin that breaks over his face makes me shiver.

"Oh, I intend to. That night, when I put those cuffs on you, I really was just afraid you were going to hurt yourself if you got up too fast. But when I looked back on that memory it became an obsession and I've been dreaming of it ever since."

"I never saw that in your dreams," I scoff.

He gives me a crooked smile.

"It's not a nightmare. Sometimes I'm not even asleep."

"You're a demon," I say, laughing.

Maybe Dante will be getting their wish sooner than they think, after all.

~The End~