#but i was very skeptical

[mikimeiko]

Catherine Called Birdy (Lena Dunham, 2022)

[captainjonnitkessler]

Just deleted the ask I was trying to respond to, but re: "skeptics always die in horror movies" - I have mixed feelings on that trope!

On the one hand I think it sets the tone and helps the audience suspend their disbelief - people are always complaining about horror movie characters being idiots, so this can be a way to be like "see? We DID consider rational explanations, and then someone immediately got murdered very supernaturally, so stop asking questions and accept the premise."

On the other hand, I think it definitely contributes to the idea that skeptics are close-minded killjoys who are too stubborn to accept reality, which is a very common and incredibly annoying mindset. Shane Madej did not spend the last eight years marching into haunted houses and loudly demanding that the demons inside kill him for me to still be hearing shit about how "if you don't take the supernatural seriously you will Attract Evil Energies And Die".

[handlewithcare-delicate]

Ok so based on the most recent info...we can all agree that all Joost did was stick up a middle finger at a someone who was filming him without his permission, right? We can all agree that it was extremely manipulative to imply what he did was way worse by describing it as "threatening a female member of staff" and just letting it just hang in the air, effectively making it sound as if he had (sexually) assaulted a woman, right?

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[ahaura]

im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

[clearlydusty]

Blue Spider Lily

[fennelwasp]

Being the patho protagonist does kind of mean you look unhinged to any outsiders

[msfcatlover]

Commissioned the amazing @magua-vida to draw my original Princesses, The Dancer & The Dream! I'm absolutely delighted with how they came out, they both look so pretty and bursting with personality!

For anyone who doesn't want to click through, you get the Dancer if you unlock the Princess's cuff & die of a heart attack, making her flighty but concerned, fussing over your health & safety. The Dream is Dancer's unique Chapter 3, who you get if you fall asleep in the cabin with Dancer fussing over you, and is smotheringly protective to the point of aggression & possessiveness while acting manipulatively sweet & fragile.

She just wants to take care of you... even (or especially) if it means chaining you up to keep you safe.

[boonsandwhatever]

kill the monarch

[salty-an-disco]

I just know Shifty would love getting to personally meet the voices.

They were born out of a need for change and adaptability within the construct, after all, and are what molded her vessels, she’d love getting to know more of their unique perspectives.

[codenamesazanka]

Eri's touted as sort of a 'Tenko But Things Went Right', which isn't wrong, but I feel like her save relied a lot of luck too. And luck shouldn't be a determining factor in child welfare??

It was by pure chance that Deku and Mirio first encountered her. 100% random bump. Nighteye had no idea about any child in the Shie Hassakai compound, despite having staked it out for at least a few days already.

The rescue effort was launched to save Eri, yes, but only because the Heroes had that one lucky detail to connect “DNA inside bullets” to “visibly injured child”. Without that...who knows? If Heroes had no compelling evidence to storm the compound, would they have just continued a routine drug investigation? If they raided the compound but didn’t know about the child beforehand, what would’ve happened to her? Shunted off to an orphanage because she’s ‘a criminal/yakuza’s child’? Place under HPSC supervision because of her relation to the bullets?

The manga itself stated that Eri was going to be sent off to an orphanage, BUT her out-of-control quirk was cause for concern and fortunately there was the one (1) guy who can suppress her quirk and help train her - who happened to be a teacher at a private educational campus run by a multi-millionaire who can afford to take her in as a ward. How amazingly lucky!!!! (And everyone themselves said that they were hoping to teach Eri how to use her quirk so that she can cure Mirio. How nice that her quirk is deadly but also has this miraculous healing ability that lends this additional incentive to take her in.) Eri is still only in custody of UA because her last living blood relative, her grandfather, is still in a coma. Would Pops ever want her back, if he ever wakes up? Would UA let him? Good thing UA has the resources and connections to win a custody battle, in this case.

Plus, before all of that, Eri was already another abandoned child, way before the Heroes ever learned of her. Her mom abandoned her; then her grandfather took her in, but when he fell into a coma, she ended up with the worse possible caretaker. Yeah, Overhaul is Overhaul, but a relative falling ill and being unable to take care of a child is something that can happen to any family.

Eri was abandoned by her mom because she killed her dad. What on earth was the police doing then? Did her mom is not report this? Five seconds after the dad disappeared, the mom immediately plopped the toddler in the car seat and drove her off to Pops? Or is it more likely the mom screamed and panicked and called emergency services, but it turned out that there’s nothing to be done about the dad… and then emergency services also apparently did nothing about the mom or Girl With Newly Lethal Quirk or the beginning of quirk counseling so that the mom could understand the accident as ‘mutant quirk’ and not ‘curse’??

There were points where Eri could've been saved, before she ever bumped into Deku, before Overhaul put Pops in a coma and started cutting her up.

Similarity, saving Tenko shouldn't have just been 'Hero happened to be in the area and wasn't busy and was able to spot this injured child and go help him' (if it doesn't turns out AFO was behind this too lol), or 'if only there could've been a Hero 15 years ago who could handle his quirk, hold his hand, and give him relief'. It should've been 'first person who saw this injured child called the police or took Tenko to a police box'. It should've been 'Kotarou's last act of parenting was not to pick up garden shears and whack his kid with it, but know to keep calm and know what to do in a quirk emergency' or whatever. It should've been 'the three other adults in the household had enough conscience to not let Kotarou bully his toddler'. Hell, it should've been 'All Might and Gran kept tabs on the Shimura boy'.

idk. I just don't think 'Luckily a Hero noticed!' is good enough.

[birdmitosis]

You know how you can get the "you're special" conversation with the Narrator in the various Chapter IIs? Well, I got very curious about everyone's responses to that, and some of these are very interesting...

At its base, the conversation goes like this:

And then whatever other voice you have with you chimes in after that. There are a few exceptions that I'll cover because I find them interesting, but the ones that follow this pattern are:

Broken

Cheated

Hunted

Opportunist

Skeptic

Smitten

(Some of the above have further back-and-forth with the Narrator, but that's a bit outside the point of this post!)

There are a few variations that really intrigue me, though...

One just changes up the order slightly, nothing else, but I think even this simple change still has some character implication to it:

Stubborn

Which makes Stubborn, interestingly, one of the only ones who buys into that as easily as Hero, possibly the only one (but, funnily enough, possibly not...).

On the other hand, changing up the formula drastically:

Paranoid

Paranoid doesn't even let Hero respond before responding himself, and I only showed the rest of the conversation to show that the Narrator has no chance at all to deliver his "Of course you're special. Why else would you be here?" lines -- he's put on the back foot by Paranoid's suspicions, and even when he tries to be soothing and encouraging again, Paranoid shuts that down too. If Stubborn is the most receptive, Paranoid may very well be the least.

Another major variation, which I find very interesting and can't even quite put my finger on why I find it so interesting (except that I like Cold so much):

Cold

Like Stubborn, Cold speaks up right after Hero's response before the Narrator can get into his own "Of course you're special" lines, and like Stubborn, it's in a way that seems surprisingly receptive. He actually takes the place of the Narrator responding with that, actually -- the Narrator doesn't say those lines at all, making this the only other time other than with Paranoid that he doesn't.

And the final variation...

Contrarian

There are no screencaps for this. Because interestingly, I don't think you even can get this sequence with Contrarian. Or if you can, I wasn't able to figure out how. You can't get to any of that questioning at all from what I'm able to tell.

And I think Contrarian would enjoy knowing that he's the most uniquely disruptive out of all of them.

[venaue]

I sure hope thats just like a ceiling painted like the sky and not like ACTUALLY THE FUCKING SKY????

[lagtrained]

yknow that one pixar animation with all the round birds on the electrical wire. i had a vision during class the other day that suddenly spiraled out of control. have some guys

[i-write-things]

How do you think (Yan or non-yan) Chrollo would react to finding out through Neon in the York New arc that -reader- is their soulmate/the person they are supposed to fall in love with? I'm planning on perhaps writing a fic like this in the future and I'd love your input.

(Of course! I'm always happy to help out another writer! Thanks for the ask, and to anyone else reading this, don't be shy! Send in an ask! And be sure to look at my fandoms list, I don't just write for Chrollo!)

(further requested details for context: Female! Nen user! non-hunter! reader who is similar to Chrollo in that they are skeptical of most people. Strangers to lovers! I wrote for Regular! Chrollo, but it could also be interpreted as Yandere.)

---

There is very little that someone can do to shock Chrollo. But...this. This does it. A soulmate? No. He is incapable of a love like this. How does he, of all people, have a soulmate? He thought that it was for the select people who wanted love, who sought it out. Has he ever pondered something like this before? Yes, but that was it. A flimsy thought before.....this.

The paper in his hands from Neon's ability that he stole...how? He had to be reading too much into this. He was well known for reading into things much more than necessary.

Humans are curios creatures by nature. They are afraid of the unknown. Which is why they crave answers. To prepare themselves for a haunting truth. But sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction.

Which is exactly why the fortune he wrote out to plan ahead for the next step of his life shocked him. No warnings about a chain user, nothing about a clown. But... someone else. But no amount of warning could have prepared him for this astonishing news he held in his very hands.

'The night rises and falls. A spider and raven meet at last. Both curious of one another, The Spider's head ponders raven's past.'

'Stars burn bright, with cupid's might. A match made in dark, A bond will spark.'

'Time ever flows, The soulmates dance. Here, the spider shows It's in a trance.'

'The night rises and falls. The spider in the raven's nest, Though it could weave webs of deceit. This love was something it could not best.'

...Was he really to love someone? When? Where? How? Truthfully, Chrollo did not take himself as someone to love. Someone who could love. And this raven...would they accept him as he is? His true self, whoever that is, as the Spider's head?

The raven...

He felt his lips quirk up slightly. A part of him wants to avoid this person. After all, this is someone who he would love, given he meets them. He knows his line of work would be dangerous. Then again, would he really fall for someone who couldn't protect themself? He thinks not.

Why fight it? If fate has set for him to have a lover, who was he to deny it? It's not something he could control.

A heavy gust of wind blows the paper out of his hands. Rather than holding onto it, he lets it flow with the wind. He inhales deeply, enjoying the cool, crisp air brought by the gale. He looks up at the night sky, stars shining brightly beside the full moon. Trees sway, creating a peaceful ambiance. The park bench he sits on is cold from the nightly temperatures. He closes his eyes and listens....then he hears it.

The crow of a raven. He opens his eyes and sees a hooded figure in all black walk past along the concrete path. How did he not hear her footsteps? No doubt, she was someone special. Chrollo was an observant man. He knew exactly who this was.

The raven...

The spider quietly rises from his seat and approaches the walking hooded figure. "What brings you to this place at a time like this?" He inquires.

"I have my reasons. I'm pretty sure you do, too. Go about your night as I will mine." She says coldly. There was no emotion to her voice.

"Do you believe in fate?" He asks suddenly. "...Why are you asking me? Don't you have places to be?" She spoke with an icy tone, yet again. She whipped her head around, allowing for him to get a good look at her. Her eyes, skin, hair... He quickly took in it all. So, this is what his soulmate looked like? Funny...he never imagined having one, and yet here she is.

He stoically stares up at the moon. He breathes in another breath of cold air. "Hm...that's quite the question. No, I don't have anywhere to be, other than here. So, the answer is both yes and no at the same time. It's rather interesting how that works, isn't it?"

The girl stops and looks at him, confusion written all over her face. But Chrollo can read people beyond the surface. The eyes are the windows to the soul, as they say. He can see intrigue, as well.

"Who are you?" She demands. Chrollo looks back at her and quietly chuckles to himself in a manner he would had someone challenged him to a fight after losing his Nen. "Who are you?" He smirks, scanning her for any reaction. She isn't afraid. She isn't upset. No, she's completely calm.

"I asked first." She countered. Her face was made of stone as she said this. She showed no emotion during this entire encounter.

"Chrollo." He finally answered, smiling. He was enjoying this. Was he in love? No. That would, inevitably, come with time. But was he drawn to interest? Most definitely. "Hm. Goodbye, Chrollo." She hummed, walking off.

"You didn't give me your name."

"I know."

The raven...

'Humans.....are so very....interesting.'

[logansgaar]

Ever think about how Tony literally kidnapped Peter? If you take a child somewhere without their guardian's express and informed consent, lying to them about where you're taking their child and what you're doing while there... that's... that's kidnap.