#but my point is that it's not relevant at all to my surgeries with him so it's a testament to him being a good doctor

[ji-lixie]

ive never hated a doctor quicker than i have now.

[genshin-scenarios]

across the spiderverse!

Summary: We’re back with more guys in the Spiderverse AU! For more like this but different characters, check out my previous Spiderverse parts one and two! My pinned post also has more about Lyney’s route if that’s your thing.

Characters: Childe, Albedo, Scaramouche, Dahlia

Warnings: Reference to details of Scaramouche and Albedo’s lore, but otherwise no large spoilers! Very brief mentions of injuries, kidnapping, human experimentation, blood drinking (vampires) and surgeries. (It sounds bad but this post is safe for general/teen audiences I promise.)

Childe

Your life as Spiderman is pretty uneventful until the masked villain Tartaglia shows up in town — around the same time a new cutie is enrolled in your highschool (completely coincidental, you’re sure)

Childe’s villain persona, Tartaglia, is basically his Foul Legacy form (and a version of the ‘Green Goblin’ in your world, flying around and causing explosions). ‘Tartaglia’ kind of takes over Childe’s mind and he isn’t completely in control of it — leading to wreckage in the city and general chaos that the regular him probably wouldn’t like. 

On the bright side, even Tartaglia draws the line at harming children! One time, you see a mix of headlines on the news: ‘Tartaglia attacks’ to ‘Supervillain protects kids?’ 

Childe fell into the abyss during his childhood (yes, it exists even in this modern AU) and gained an unknown power that turns him into Tartaglia! After some time he gets a hold on his persona, though, so your villain x hero fights slowly grow into something he’s more conscious for.

Anyways! Childe is also your new classmate who’s taken a liking to you from day one (call it instinct or whatever, but he could feel that you were something special.) 

Later on, your bond is less determined by your superhero and supervillain statuses, but more on how you’re both not quite human. Childe feels less alone and dangerous around you — and what can be better than having the love of his life beat his other self into submission keep his alter ego in check? The main thing he worries about is doing irreversible damage, so technically speaking this is a very romantic and ideal life you’ve got!

Ah, but backtracking to how you reveal your identities: …Well, Tartaglia kidnapped you once, for the purposes of a date. (Do not try this at home.) During which you found out that it was Childe behind that mask and was so surprised that you called him by his legal name (“Wait, don’t scream! It’s just me!” “Ajax?!”) 

At this point, he has a handle over ‘Tartaglia’ enough that he’s just acting like his usual self (save for his freakish strength and agility). Childe explains that he wasn’t planning on kidnapping you (just daydreaming about it) but sensed something dangerous was around → turns out he wasn’t being delusional and it was a Doc-Oc spying on you situation (Dottore), which will become more relevant in Season 2 (stay tuned!) 

During this impromptu kidnapping-date you have an entire crisis because sure you had a crush on Childe but this is crazy! Are you supposed to just pretend this never happened the next time you’re Spiderman?

A few weeks later Childe gets injured really badly from a fight (abyss creatures came out of some rifts and Tartaglia unexpectedly cleared them out before you) — so you end up taking him in for medical treatment because, well, the police would otherwise unmask him, and even though Tartaglia was annoying he never did anything unforgivable. And you’d still like the chance of potentially dating him if this works out.

There’s a whole arc of you bonding throughout his recovery, resting in your room and hiding him from your family and friends (his injuries are too severe to make excuses for.) But now that both your identities are revealed Childe feels like a fool because damn, he really did just reveal his identity to his ‘rival’ all because of a crush (to be fair, he didn’t care for the secret identity thing too much in the first place.) 

You learn that Tartaglia was a type of self-defense mechanism that developed from when he fell into the Abyss. When placed in a regular modern world however, his instincts to fight for survival still linger.

—Yet all things considered, this could’ve ended really differently if you just decided to turn him in: ‘You must’ve found me really cute, huh? Was it my boyish charm?’ ‘No, it was your cyclops mask’ ‘...Now I see that spider-snark.’

Tartaglia would still cause trouble on occasion and you’d be the one to reel him in (just a little less violently than usual, though Childe does request for you to ‘treat him rougher’ at times. And you don’t know how to respond because whacking him on the head is just giving him what he wants.)

Sometimes you have encounters that are more akin to playfights, and whenever Childe does get the upper hand and cages you in, leaning close… you realise that maybe sparring is one of your love languages too — not that you’d ever admit it. You’re still in disbelief over the last time you arrested him as a joke:

’Oh? What’ll you do with me now that my hands are tied?’ 

…Next time, you’ll throw him off the building. There’s no way this ginger has that much of a grip on you!

Albedo

You were bitten by a radioactive spider that escaped from Rhinedottir’s lab! Rhinedottir is a super-genius scientist who specializes in creating synthetic life, who only realized the connection after Albedo did a sweep of their lab and found a test-subject missing.

So of course, Rhinedottir assigns him to investigate who you are. This is a great opportunity to study how the spider’s changed your biology, after all! 

It takes about a month for Albedo to figure out that Spiderman is none other than his own classmate in high school — he may be a synthetic human, but has been living more or less like a regular person since his body functions the same (needing to eat, breathe, and age). 

With his heightened intelligence and senses, Albedo does act a little inhuman sometimes — but that’s mostly because Rhinedottir was his main parent figure and less to do with his genetic makeup.

You guys never interacted before because of how big the school cohort is, but this year you were sorted into the same class! Shortly after Albedo sussed you out, you started to sense that eyes were on you via your spidey-sense, but couldn’t figure out who it was. Eventually, Rhinedottir formally invites you to her lab and an agreement is struck: you’d visit biweekly for check-ups and tests, while Albedo will assist you if anything unusual happens due to your spider traits.

Said tests range from sitting in a scanner to doing crazy stunts, but at least Albedo is there as a cute lab assistant! 

He’s generally kind and understanding to you (which you later realize is only directed to those he’s interested in, due to his aloofness at school despite his delicate looks,) and you both build a rapport through mutual secret-knowing (you find out about his synthetic makeup, too, after Rhinedottir explains that this lab is top secret and that no one should know it exists.)

Albedo didn’t immediately try to hang out with you outside of the lab, but eventually you grow close enough to admit that being a superhero makes it hard for you to maintain friendships. You have to bail if a villain appears, and can’t really explain where you disappear to — which makes Albedo suggest:

’In that case, I could keep you company.’ ‘Wait— Really?’ ‘Of course. But I must warn that my hobbies aren’t as exciting as your usual work.’

Despite this, you learn that genius scientists aren’t also dubbed as crazy for nothing. During missions or lazy afternoons where you declare your boredom, Albedo suggestions on what you could do always manages to surprise you. ‘...Hm, too much?’ ‘I’m starting to wonder if I’ll have to arrest you one day.’ ‘If that day comes, I’d look forward to our fight.’

You went from thinking Albedo would be just a cool, calculated friend into wondering if you’re the only thing keeping him from running morally-questionable experiments. On the other hand, this makes him very objective when you’re struggling on what to do during a fight — and your values of saving the most people possible pushes Albedo to consider other ways to resolve situations. Sometimes he’d handle the rescuing, so that you can pursue the villain who’s getting away.

However— his quiet, ethereal charm is very much still there. And there’s just something disarming about spending golden afternoons with someone that knows the biggest secret in your life; sketching flowers and working on assignments as if you’re just human. 

Albedo also does a bit of research based on his own curiosities; such as… to what extent do your senses try to protect you from harm? Does it register flusteredness as a state of vulnerability, like when he gains a sudden boldness and traces his fingers over your skin?

Sometimes, you can’t process how he plays both sides of himself so well; an effortless student with a thoughtful smile and clever glint in his eyes, then a lab assistant who coyly asks about your day, knowing full-well that he spent the entirety of it testing your reflexes. But the biggest debuff you have is how you feel some part of you melt, or shrink, or burn whenever Albedo fixes his gaze on you like that. As if he’s drinking in every little detail and cares for nothing else but you.

You tell yourself it’s for science, but even Rhinedottir knows Albedo’s invested much further than that. He’s never had this much pursuing a line of enquiry, before. Maybe it helps that he has a cute partner?

On a regular day where you’re testing out a new gadget Albedo’s designed (he appreciates how tools of potential destruction become acceptably used in your hands), your world is thrown off-kilter when a lookalike appears on the street. An earlier product of Rhinedottir’s research, who now goes by the name Rubedo, or Ruby for short.

Scaramouche

The spider-hero Scaramouche is otherwise known as Kuni in his civilian form, known for his sharp tongue but otherwise perfect track record as Inazuma’s local hero. He has a somewhat strained relationship with Ei (his mother who owns a giant tech company, that everyone expects him to inherit) and tries to keep people behind a ten feet pole. But of course, being a hero makes him soften up a little bit, swallowing his pride to help a lost tourist or explain an assignment to a peer.

His canon event was losing Niwa, which he blames himself for (if only he’d decided to be a superhero earlier, he may have been able to save his friend.) However, he does find the strength to persevere after he saves a young boy from an accident, who then requested to be swung around the city a little more so that he can experience what it’s like to fly (Scaramouche tells the kid that he can’t fly. But the kid is not picky about specifics.)

The young boy has an unknown illness, and isn’t expected to live past adulthood — but is somewhat doing fine while Kuni visits him on occasion (normally as Scaramouche, to cheer him up.)

Kuni’s also put some of his savings into being an anonymous sponsor for the illness’ research, which did catch Ei’s eye but she knows better than to pry. There’s a little moment of connection where she pats his head and tells him the funding will go to good use, and he huffs before leaving to sketch out new gadget designs in his room.

Being flawless for most of his life (skills come easy to him), Kuni does fear deep down that when there’s something he finally cares for — something big — he may fail in a manner that is unsalvageable to him. 

That’s why being a hero has helped a little, as even saving a person from a road accident helps him realize that that’s a life saved, regardless of the scope. His suit and powers are electro themed, with the ability to collect static and store it in his body, enough to prompt lightning-fast dashes mid air or shock an unconscious person back to life. 

You attend the same school as Kuni and caught his eye because of your big aspirations! The thing is, you’ve never been vocal about that and always chased them quietly (what aspiration/hobby is up to you) — working on your projects during your spare time, sometimes in the less frequented spots on campus or the library. Both of which Kuni is familiar with

There’s just something about the focused pinch in your brow and little smiles — it’s cute, and endearing, and maybe he’s projecting a little but whatever — you’ve just charmed him without even realising he’s been crushing on you. And eventually, Kuni takes some chances to interact with you more, both as a student and Scaramouche.

He’s often reading, listening to music, or sketching tech ideas in his notebook (it has a lock on it courtesy of his paranoia) — borrowing you his pen whenever yours runs out of ink or offering to show you a quieter corner when the noisy kids have taken over the main hall. Then as a hero, he’s saved you a couple of times from normal-human nuisances and swinging you to campus when you’re late and frazzled!

Scaramouche is more mellowed out around you because the mask helps him be less self conscious, while Kuni is reluctantly nice (still prickly). But once you find out about his identity, you'll be one of the only people that know of just how much good he's done for the world. He’ll start to openly shift between ‘both sides’ of his personality, which is kinda hilarious whenever his civilian sassiness comes through during his patrols (he’s very much a smart-mouthed spiderman). 

Your romance does develop, but there's sort of an odd love triangle before you found out his secret (his fault for approaching you in both forms). The breaking point is when you’re gazing out of your bedroom window (can’t sleep) and Scaramouche knocks on the glass. A short late-night rendezvous occurs, where you vent (without too much detail) to the stars.) And that’s when Kuni realizes that he really can’t screw this up.

Once you’re official, you’ll start to see parts of Scaramouche in Kuni and vice versa. LIke when he rescued Childe once and you could tell he really didn’t like the idea of bridal carrying the guy to the infirmary, so you volunteered to make sure Childe survives, instead. Or when a stray baseball almost hits you and Kuni effortlessly pulls you out of the way without a flinch. 

People say you've changed him but really you just made him comfortable enough to reveal the other sides of himself. The upside-down kiss trope also happened during one of your night-time escapes (yes it’s an ongoing theme) and it still lives rent free in his head!! He's a romantic deep down and now spends part of his time thinking of other date activities (he finds a match in you)

You’ve helped him on missions a few times (desperate moments where he can’t do everything alone), but the fact that you’re the first person he goes to for help — not Ei, not the police, not even Aether — is very telling of how much trust he places in you. All that echoes in his mind is the thought of you: resulting in ‘I need your help’ and your prompt ‘Just tell me what you need.’ (Yes you’re a little reverse of that Anna/Kristoff moment!) 

In the past, this may have been a moment where he feels his vulnerability threatened… but the idea of that isn’t even on his mind. He knows you — that just shows how far you’ve both grown!

Dahlia

Note: very brief biblical and church themes used, mentions of you as a type of monster/demon as perceived by the public. Feel free to skip Dahlia’s entire part if you aren't comfortable with these!

In a gothic medieval city without much tech and a strong Cathedral vibe… You're a vigilante hero who solves crimes in morally questionable ways (by the public's strict standards, at least). 

You're a vampire-spider with the ability to paralyse people with your venom! No other side effects exist, for now, but you do have an increased appetite for foods high in iron, and the change in your physical features (fangs and unnatural color of your eyes) are becoming harder to hide. 

At first, they’d only appear whenever you were using your powers. But as you get used to swinging around and climbing on walls, they’ve been appearing whenever your spidey-senses kicked in. And you have a bad feeling that if nothing is done, they may be on display forever.

You haven't committed any actual crimes, but the nature of your vigilantism and blatant disregard for the local police puts you on a general ‘wanted’ list. Open-minded folk thank you for your help while others call you a monster that needs to be caught by the Church. Deacon Dahlia is an important person in said Church but he doesn't really think there's a need to start a hunt; true to Barbatos’ ideals, he’s one of the more carefree and understanding figures amongst his peers, well-liked for his graceful demeanor and ability to keep calm under any and all pressures.

…That is, until you break into the Cathedral’s gardens and kidnap him one day, out of desperation when your spidey-traits don’t seem to be turning back like they should. Your fangs and eyes won’t be possible to hide from your friends and family — which will either land them in a tight spot as they try to keep your secret or land you immediately behind bars! 

Your intent was to ask for his help in a way that hopefully keeps your identity secret. Dahlia and the other deacons and deaconess’ have the ability to heal people from illnesses (small miracles enabled by Barbatos through their prayer), so surely he can do something! Fix your features, or take away your ‘curse’ altogether — anything works! (At this point you’ve been trying to do good as a hero, but it was mostly prompted by just horrible things happening in front of you that you couldn’t ignore. You’re still very early into your career.)

But, of course, Dahlia accesses your strange demeanor, request, and mode of approach (next time don’t commit borderline blasphemy by kidnapping Barbatos’ Herald) and finally tells you that he doesn’t have the answers you’re looking for. Blessings are for regular, small sicknesses — not exorcisms or curses like you described.

It’s not anger or frustration that fills you, but instead a hollow sense of helplessness. ‘...What am I going to do?’

Dahlia was just going to leave, now that you don’t seem intent on keeping him on the Cathedral’s rooftop — but pauses. He looks at the way you’ve lowered yourself onto the ground and buried your face against your knees, and asks:

‘What did you need my healing for?’

The dam breaks. You tell him everything — the day you got turned, poisoned by some animal in the woods, to the first time you used your powers to this morning, when your features transitioned fully. It all spills out without mentions of your personal background, but Dahlia gets the idea and decides to help you.

You look at him warily, your surprise strong enough for him to sense even with your disguise. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. So long as you help me with a matter of my own…’

Thus begins an odd dynamic of you using a spare room in Dahlia’s private quarters (being Barbatos’ Herald does have its perks of extra living space), in an almost beauty and the beast type of way (except the only thing making you the beast is your spider-powers, and Dahlia is only a little surprised — mostly intrigued — by how your eyes have turned into an unnatural variant of its original color, while your fangs seem to be made for delivering venom, but not exactly for eating meat like carnivores do.) 

He’s a lot more laid back about this than you expected, helping you get basic necessities and food without letting any of the others in the Church know. It helps that you can hide and crawl outside pretty easily if needed, to hide — and you start to grow curious about Dahlia yourself when he finally gives you your mission brief — to investigate some small crimes around the city that he suspects are connected, based on Rosaria’s reports. 

The mystery quickly proves to be bigger than either of you imagined, and it becomes a battle to keep the peace in Mondstadt while nefarious forces linger in the shadows. Meanwhile: What will the public think when they find out Deacon Dahlia has enlisted the help of a monster, of all things? A person whose powers (in a world with only blessings from gods or curses from demons) is most likely from a dangerous, nefarious source? 

Because of how close you’re working together, you discover sides of Dahlia that even the longest term Sisters haven't seen before (mostly because he works with them in a professional setting).

“You're less pious than I thought you'd be.” “Well, no point doing that in front of the person who decimated Barbatos’ statue.” “...Touché.” “You’re helping with the repairs, by the way.” “How many jobs are you having one person do?!”

And the first time you hear a genuine, happy laugh fall off his lips? You know that deep down, even if Dahlia was to turn against you someday… You may never be able to truly cut yourself off from the friendship you’ve built. Even if it was only you visiting the remnants of it, chasing after phantoms in the courtyard where bloody flowers bloomed — you’d stand there and wait, eyes angled away from the shadows swarming beneath your steps. 

[midnight-in-town]

Classical language and paranormal powers : Anya Forger and Arnold Crowley

Crack theory that I haven't seen anywhere, but I can't get it out of my head since ch95, so here goes.

We've had enough clues across the story so far to understand that there is a link between Anya's past and telepathic powers and her mastering classical language (which is not spoken anymore nowadays, according to Twilight), which recently earned her a stella :

While the nature of the link is still unclear, I can't help but question if Sensei hid other clues about this topic.

More specifically, Anya scored second, a big victory for her, but we eventually even met the kid who scored slightly better than she did in ch 95:

Moreover, he seemed particularly interested in Anya and wanted to meet her, before the dance party gave him the chance to.

Of course, it can be purely mundane kid behavior or just a comical way to annoy Damian, but still, I couldn't help but notice that mainly he, like Anya, has weirdly shaped pointed hair.

Might I even add, he has 3 horns/antennas, while Anya only has 2 (is it why he scored better ?). That's one similarity to two kids scoring well in classical language. Could be coincidental, I hear you.

Even more recently though, Anya and Yor encountered Melinda at a festival, when trying to get a fortune telling for Anya. Melinda shyly explained to Yor that it's a hobby of hers and that she believes in destiny and paranormal activities & powers, like telepathy :

However, Melinda is not super confident in her reading abilities, which is why she's not charging any money for it. But did you notice the name of another fortune teller who seems very accurate and popular, in ch107 ?

That's right : Magical * Crowley

Of course, at this point we don't know at all whether or not Arnold from ch95 is related to this fortune teller. However, I kinda doubt Sensei would mistakenly give the same name to the weird boy who beat Anya in classical language and to a popular fortune teller, when someone like Melinda, of all people, hardcores believes paranormal forces and powers are real.

Melinda who, by the way, is extremely scared of her husband who may have undergone surgery to get telepathic powers at some point.

Last but not least, we also know that fortune telling is likely to be a real thing in this universe, meaning Magical * Crowley's could have actual powers, considering Anya's family already owns a dog, Bond, who can see the future.

TL;DR Arnold Crowley from ch95 may be a kid with a strange power, like Anya is.

What this has to do with them being good at classical language, which is not used anymore nowadays, I don't know**, but I'd bet a few pennies it's going to be plot relevant.

**EDIT : To specify on what I currently imagine, since Anya's powers disappear during the new moon, maybe her powers depend on some kind of emitting/transmitting wavelengths (received by her hair horns/antennas), that could be coded with classical language (since it's not spoken anymore) ? It is a spy manga after all. x)

And if I were Endo-sensei, I'd take it a step further and reveal that she was actually hearing/reading all along people's thoughts in classical language, because that's how her powers were coded. She just doesn't realize it, because she's 4 years old, which is why most of her mistakes during classical language tests were spelling ones.

We shall see later. :) Thanks for reading and happy new year 2025 !

[the-sol-eater]

CH2-12 thoughts (spoilers, I guess. You probably shouldn't be in the tag if you haven't finished the episode though.)

So! DRDT is officially back, and wow what a way to begin the rollercoaster we'll be put through the next few weeks. This episode was amazing, and I wanted to discuss my thoughts on it in a more detailed form. This episode gave us a lot of character moments that I want to at least mention, so let's get into it? Before we do though, I want to say that through these posts, I will be updating two things and showing them at the beginning and end First one being the swear statistics! It became a thing after my previous rewatch that every time a character swears, I count it, and I want to continue doing that for the rest of the series if I can so manage it.

^ current swear statistics as of CH2-11

And the second being...drumroll please!

My own personal DRDT CH2-Part 2 bingo card! If something on this list happens in CH2-Part 2, I'll check it off. Hopefully I can get a bingo or two in here, especially since, spoilers, two of the boxes have already been checked. But with all of that preamble out of the way, let's begin shall we? I’m going to cover the character moments we got in separate categories of the well…characters, rather than in order, for the sake of being concise.

Arturo

First and foremost, “Shut your whore mouth” made me scream at the top of my lungs. God I wish that was voiced. But more importantly, the thing about Arturo being very young for a plastic surgeon actually being addressed was not something I expected, especially so early. But I definitely appreciate the nuggets of Arturo backstory. Funny enough, his situation sounds very similar to Min’s in some regard, especially this line

(x) Arturo: I was only able to get this far in such a short amount of time because I specialized in plastic surgery, and nothing else. I neglected everything that wasn't immediately relevant to my goals.

This absolutely plays a factor into his relationship with his little sister. It more than likely was not just him leaving that made her commit suicide, but perhaps also years of neglect. And if she really felt like she couldn't live a life without Arturo in it, it's safe to say that their parents probably weren't the best either. The more I learn about Arturo and his homelife the more worried I am for him and especially his sister.

Veronika

Veronika didn't get much besides being her usual self, but I gave her a category because I wanted to point out two things One, Veronika calling Arturo cute. That just made me smile

And secondly, this line right here

(x) Veronika: Oh, and don't say something as boring as "I want to kill myself." I have no interest in such mundane reasons.

This is so fucked up and awful and gross and I absolutely love her for it. I just know she's going to get worse, I hope she does.

And also the fact that she apparently finds suicide to be inherently boring is very interesting, given the fact that she more than likely has the self-harm secret.

Whit

I know he didn't have much, if any major role in this episode but...listen I missed him. So much. You have actually zero idea how much I missed him and his goofiness... But also I can't believe that was the explanation for the dent in the computer lab that's been bugging me for months. Well played DT-Dev... (though the fact that Whit got away with breaking a rule solely because MonoTV thought it was funny is a bit fishy...it's almost like he's the MASTERMIND-- /hj)

We also in general got a lot of Charles and Whit moments, which I always like to see I don't think there's anything else to cover when it comes to Wh--

(x) David: Ugh! Goddamn it, Whit, does everything you say have to be made into some shitty dumb joke?! You're actually really fucking annoying! Shut the fuck up!!

...Well, when I said I wanted more Whitvid interactions I guess this can serve as a reward. ...guys dont worry this is how we can still wi--

Levi

...I mean, what else is there to say really?

No but actually I'll talk. This is what we've been theorizing for a year, and I actually had it in my predictions that Levi's secret was going to be the one revealed in this episode. But I did not expect it right at the end, nor did I expect it to be so sudden. And I don't think Levi has any reason to lie either, so I think this is his actual secret. Seeing him lose confidence and apologize for his unhelpfulness kind of stung to me, honestly. Levi has been trying to help the group since the very beginning, and that has only amplified since the start of Chapter 2. So seeing him...basically give up was very upsetting He is definitely going to be in the hot seat next week's episode and I am very excited for it, hopefully we get some insight on his past as well and...maybe a levi and nico interaction? please dt-dev? please? :>

Hu

FishyFried, as always, knocked it out of the fucking park with Hu's voice acting, and her monologue towards David was just as amazing...if not a bit terrifying, as it directly parallels with her hidden quote

I want to pay for what I’ve done. But even then, I still want to live.

I think I've said this before, but I adore David and Hu's dynamic and how both of them tackle the themes of change in their own ways, how both of them project onto the people around them to fulfill their own desires due to being stagnant in their own growth as people, it's so much fun, and I can't wait to see how this continues to develop in the later chapters I am sincerely a ch5victim!david + ch5killer!hu believer at the end of the day.

Teruko

Oh Teruko, quite a bit to discuss with you today.

For starters, her genuinely feeling embarrassed and upset upon realizing what she did wrong, apologizing for it, and (how I interpreted it anyway) beginning to realize that working alone and not accepting help from others is starting to bite her in the ass? That was not what I expected. I really did think that Teruko was going to get worse before she got better, but maybe she's improving a lot quicker than I thought (...let's hope she doesn't backslide again though, especially if the culprit is who I think it is) Also.

If I have to live with this knowledge, so the-fuck do you. And then there's her argument with David, which I already made a post about, but I want to add onto it by saying that the performances from Swords and LuucarIi here are absolutely phenomenal. One of my favorite voice acted scenes in the entire series. I have replayed Teruko's "Hah! Based on what?!" probably around 20 times and I will repeat it 20 times more because the delivery gives me actual chills. This fangan has such an amazing voice cast oh my god it's insane.

David

Oh. You are such a broken, broken man, and you are absolutely going to go down the Simon Laurent route. I actually don't have a lot to add when it comes to David's actual motivations for his actions, I think a lot of us theorized that he was trying to kill everyone and himself. But the main thing I want to talk about is the Xander shit because oh my god this man is Down Fucking Horrendous. I mentioned all the way back in this post that David idolizes Xander just as much as Xander idolizes him. What I didn't expect was for him to still be clinging onto the hope Xander gave him and trying to follow in his footsteps, and being borderline possessive over the damn dead man. Xander may have idolized David, but David is obsessed with Xander and what he represents to him. And he is willing to ruin his reputation, reliability, and dignity in pursuit of what he thinks is right. Not to mention, it puts the Tally5 image in a whole new light.

Though I still think these words apply to the very possible revolution that David, Xander, and Mai enacted towards Hope's Peak, a theory that has become even more credible after this episode, I also think these lines portray David's thought process during his actions in CH2-11 and his motivation for doing the things that he does. David calling Xander "the only good person he's ever known" is very, very telling when you consider what he personally thinks makes someone a bad person (lazy, useless, stupid). And that makes me upset. Xander and David's relationship will never not be absolutely fascinating to me. ...alSO DAVID APPARENTLY HAS MEMORIES FROM HOPE'S PEAK??? APPARENTLY??? Like am I reading that right or do I just have bad media literacy. How...How does he??? WHY does he??? Why did he say he didn't know who Xander was in the prologue???? I am very confused and I'm sure it will all be answered. Extra Thoughts !! - we got 7:30 AM confirmation, woohoo!! And the bonus of Arei swinging when she was first found was such a good detail and I’m surprised none of us noticed it, honestly. With that confirmation, that leaves basically everyone else (minus J, David, Veronika, Hu, and Nico) in the hot-seat. - the multitude of new sprites we got were so amazing, especially David's - Apparently everything that happened in the second half of CH2-11 was in the span of two hours?! Sheesh, the editing crew on the TV show must be working overtime. Hopefully they get a paycheck and its not just MonoTV who gets paid. - If I had any doubt in my brain that Eden was the culprit it has basically dissipated with this episode. I really do not know who else it could be other than her. three of the five main suspects other than her have basically been cleared up, either through alibi (J and Hu) or though plot (Levi) David and Nico are also cleared from suspicion Though there isn't really any plot or evidence reason to necessarily exclude Rose, given her moment in CH2-8 and, let's be honest, this murder being way too physically complicated for someone as lethargic as her to commit, I'm inclined to believe she is not And every other character has something that's clearly being set up to be further explored in Chapter 3 (Charles, Whit, Ace, Arturo, and Veronika) Like... even if you don't think Eden is the culprit, you can't deny that she's the odd one out here. I still think Accomplice!Levi is true, but I also truthfully think the culprit can't be anyone other than Eden - If I were to give one I-guess critique though, not just on this episode but on the trial as a whole, it's that we are four trial episodes in and there has been very, very little focus on the actual murder mystery itself. We have barely even covered 80% of the evidence. This isn't like, a huge problem for me specifically because I very much watch DRDT for the astounding character writing over the murder mysteries, and I definitely think that the lack of focus on the case is worth the amazing character moments we got in this episode. But I can see it really bothering some people, and there's a part of me that can't help but be a bit afraid that the actual solving of the murder case is going to hit the audience with a bunch of information at once and come across as a bit rushed due to the lack of focus it's had so far. I trust that DT-Dev is cooking though, and it'll probably be a lot more cohesive once we have the full trial to look through.

Predictions for CH2-13 - Like I said before, Levi is going to become the main suspect easily thanks to his secret reveal. I know Ace is going to be on his ass especially, because in his mind it would basically confirm the image he has already conjured up of Levi in his mind as a violent brute who is going to snap his neck any second. J is also going to jump to conclusions because that's just what she does, and she was already concerned about the murderer secret to begin with. - Furthermore, I think most of this episode is going to entail Teruko trying to disprove that Levi could've been the culprit. Considering the fact that there, well, isn't much evidence to suggest he didn't, maybe this episode will feature this chapter's Random Guess minigame. - I highly doubt we're getting an AM VS PM scrum debate now, but maybe we'll get one on whether or not Levi is the culprit? Maybe? - On the topic of trial minigames, I hope we get another nonstop debate, it's been like three episodes since we've had one lmao - Nico is either going to defend Levi, or reiterate the speech that J gave them in CH2-9. Either way, I hope this reveal causes them to interact it would be so interesting - We are on a track-record of having at least one person's secret exposed every trial episode. Considering the fact that Xander and Min are dead, and I do not think Teruko's secret will come out until the end of the chapter, that really only leaves Hu and Veronika...which is interesting, as they are both in the clear for being the culprit. Hu has already had multiple moments to shine in this trial, so I think its more likely that Veronika's secret will be the one getting revealed. How that happens, I am unsure. But I think Veronika will be the next person to have her secret revealed.

Conclusion Overall, I think this episode was amazing and a great way to kick off the end of the hiatus. I can already tell that these next few weeks are going to be a wild ride for us DRDT fans, but we're all in this together, so I think everything's going to be fine (nothing is going to be fine.)

UPDATED SWEAR STATISTICS: CH2-12

UPDATED BINGO CARD

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! I need some advice on how to deal with something in my story. CW for mentions of violence. This takes place in a medieval high fantasy setting in a rural village, and it's going to be a comic.

I have a character who was injured during a sword fight. She developed PTSD from this (along with another unrelated, separate incident which isn't relevent here).

CW for brief mentions of violence, description of panic attacks.

I'm gonna try and condense this so it's not 20 paragraphs of nonsense:

She actually copes with her PTSD relatively well, and is only triggered in specific situations which are not common occurences.

She lives in a rural village with one healer who has advised her on healthy coping mechanisms, but does not have the time/experience to act as a therapist.

At one point in the story, she starts becoming closer to another character she needs to work with, and they spar with each other.

He swings a sword near her face, which triggers a PTSD flashback. (Her face was previously wounded in a sword fight). He does not know she has PTSD or would be triggered by this, it's a complete accident. All he knew is that she had a scar on her face from something.

There are other characters in the story with facial scars from things like slipping and falling or cleft lip repair surgeries so he just assumes hers is from something like that.

After realizing that something's wrong he immediately stops sparring with her. He doesn't have PTSD but he does have severe anxiety and panic attacks and he recognizes that she's freaking out.

I have anxiety so I know what a panic attack is like, but I don't have PTSD so I'm not sure what a flashback is like.

When I have a panic attack, I get severe tunnel vision and my ears ring to the point everything sounds muffled. I also sometimes shake/shiver violently and feel like I'm going to faint if I don't sit down immediately.

Questions:

Would the flashback look/feel similar to that?

How fast would she be able to recover or realize that she's not in any danger?

Would she be able to communicate to her friend what's happening and what he can do to help?

Would asking him to just sit with her and hold her be okay/make sense? She also has autism and she likes to be squished and hugged tightly, it makes her feel secure and safe.

I can recover from panic attacks pretty quickly and then maybe feel only a little bit off for the rest of the day, but I don't know if she would be able to do the same after a flashback.

Also, there's one last thing I'm debating on whether or not I want to happen:

The character is fighter and it's a HUGE danger for her to be having a flashback in the middle of a battle. She (or someone else) could die if she's unable to fight.

Since the village healer can't help much, would it make sense for her to sort of DIY exposure therapy?

Obviously in real life this would be risky, but the character really has no other choice in this scenario and, to be honest, it's entirely in character for her to say "Fuck you, I'm doing this my way."

I'm going to read a couple papers on it to see exactly how it works and what she might do, but my main concern is that it would end up being weird, I guess?

She asks her two friends to help, one of which is the man she was sparring with (and later falls in love with).

Obviously, he's not actually her therapist, but I'm worried people will read it and go "Omg unhealthy relationship! Power imbalance! Therapist is fucking the patient! Evil!" but Idk, maybe I've spent too much time around fandom discourse lmao.

A few more questions:

Do you have any other advice or things I should keep in mind about her PTSD, like (healthy) ways she might cope with it?

With enough time and therapy, will she be able to sort of feel "normal" and have so few symptoms that she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria, or is she just sort of stuck with everything?

Is there anything I've written about her PTSD that is inaccurate or that could be done differently?

I'm so, so sorry that this got so long. Hopefully breaking it up into bullet points helped. Please take all the time you need to respond <3

First of all love the use of bullet points. It was incredibly helpful and I appreciate it! Many of these questions don't have one straight forward easy answer. PTSD varies a lot from person to person and even day to day or moment to moment. There is no one answer to “How fast would she be able to recover or realize that she's not in any danger?” and “Would she be able to communicate to her friend what's happening and what he can do to help?” Recovering could take minutes to days. She might be able to speak fluently or not at all. That’s sort of up to you. 

There are different types of flashbacks and they will feel different to different people. These several links may be useful to you. Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4

So with the exposure therapy, you are right. It would be really risky. I don’t think it’s a matter of "Fuck you, I'm doing this my way." The risk here is that it’s entirely possible that it would make her PTSD worse rather than better. It’s not a fast process either, it takes time. Why can’t there be a therapist near her? 

The character asking him to just sit with her and hold her would be okay and definitely could make sense. 

My answer for “Do you have any other advice or things I should keep in mind about her PTSD, like (healthy) ways she might cope with it?” Honestly just do your research! Learn about how people with PTSD cope and experience the world. There are lots of personal records available on the internet. Maybe even look at the PTSD section of the DSM. 

“With enough time and therapy, will she be able to sort of feel "normal" and have so few symptoms that she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria, or is she just sort of stuck with everything?” The answer is likely something in between the two. It is unlikely she will ever be cured of PTSD. However, given time and help she can find ways to cope and have a happy life. Her happy life might never be able to involve sword fighting, maybe it doesn’t look “normal” but she can live a happy satisfying life without being cured. 

Now on your last point. I have some concerns when you say “The character is a fighter and it's a HUGE danger for her to be having a flashback in the middle of a battle. She (or someone else) could die if she's unable to fight.” First, this is a harmful trope of disability representation in media. It’s not great to treat disability as an active liability/threat. We also don’t need to moralize symptoms. To quote another mod “Flashbacks suck but they happen…having a character with significant PTSD never have flashbacks…is not super realistic especially if…she's retraumatizing herself by being in an environment similar to where the trauma happened”

If she knows she's being triggered by battles why does she keep fighting? I don’t understand why she would take the risk of retraumatizing herself in such a high-stakes situation. Especially because from the sound of things she’s coping well and knows about her symptoms. 

Thank you for your question. I hope this was helpful. 

-Mod Patch

[meltedbrains]

Re: MCU Taskmaster

At what point do you think Dreykov decided to turn his own daughter into a weapon?

He'd already been trafficking, training, and brainwashing young girls for a while (and per Agent Carter this had been going on since at least the 40s).

Prior to Natasha blowing her up, Antonia seemed to live a relatively normal life, she certainly didn't appear to be undergoing black widow training. Did he see an opportunity as she was undergoing life saving surgery? A chance to save his daughter and create a more powerful, more efficient, more loyal widow all at once? Did Natasha seal her fate?

Or was she always destined to be her father's weapon? Would he have sold her off as an oligarch's wife to secure a political/financial partnership? Did her facial scarring and brain damage prevent her from being a beautiful chess piece and force him to pivot into something else?

Did her traumatic injuries save her from a miserable marriage only to doom her to be a killing machine that answered only to him?

I doubt we'll ever know, and honestly, it's probably better if we don't. My hope for the thunderbolts (and future projects?) is that she's allowed to develop a personality. Instead of dwelling on the wheel of trauma that seems to plague female comic book characters (and some of the men) we focus on the present; giving her agency, plot relevance, friends, quirks, flaws, strengths, all of the things we can so easily take for granted in well rounded characters.

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

To be clear, one of my favorite things about Lady is that she's an ordinary human who keeps up with incredibly powerful demons through sheer skill and determination.

However, it may be fun to entertain a sort of role-swap AU, where she's the half-demon defender of the human world instead of Dante.

DMC3

The premise is the easy part.

Kalina Ann fills the role traditionally occupied by Sparda. She was the demon who woke up to justice, and turned on Mundus to free humanity from his rule. Unlike Sparda, who was portrayed as a swordsman, Kalina Ann was more like a spellcaster. Perhaps this version of Lady has some magical girl-adjacent qualities, I'm not that acquainted with the genre.

Arkham was a human that she fell in love with. Perhaps he did love her at one point, but any feelings he might have had were overpowered by jealousy for Kalina Ann's power and youth. He took advantage of her trust, trapped her, and murdered her, all as a part of a ritual that granted him a pale imitation of her power. Though, much like Sparda, Kalina Ann sealed away a vast portion of her power in the Temen-Ni-Gru.

The mortal priestess that helped Kalina Ann seal her power away was an ancestor of Eva, and by extension, her sons Vergil and Dante. Their human father isn't particularly relevant. Both he and Dante are dead, likely due to a demon attack.

Vergil is a mortal who picked up some sorcery from his mom. He teams up with Arkham, believing that he could claim Kalina Ann's power for himself, for much of the same reasons that he seeks power in canon.

Eva, not wanting to lose the son she has left, takes it upon herself to stop Vergil. However, when she encounters Lady, who is far more physically capable than herself due to her youth and her demonic heritage, she pours her resources into empowering Lady instead, most likely with items and upgrades and the like.

Kalina Ann's power manifests as a weapon, named Kalina Ann. It's pretty much the same as the canon version of the same weapon, only it's demonic in nature. I think Lady would actually use the weapon, unlike Dante with Devil Sword Sparda. She isn't uncomfortable with power like Dante is.

I like the thought of Lady actually preventing Vergil from falling into the Underworld. Saving what's left of Eva's family, knowing that her own is broken beyond repair.

After that, Lady becomes a devil hunter, making it her mission to kill anyone who would abuse demonic power, regardless of which world they come from. Eva continues assisting her, she won't leave Lady all alone if she can help it, even while she has her own family to rebuild.

DMC1

The main difference when it comes to DMC1 is that instead of Trish, Mundus creates a clone of Kalina Ann. Lady reacts with far more hostility than Dante did to Trish, though she ultimately succeeds in luring Lady to Mallet Island. Things ultimately go the same way as they did in canon from there.

I wonder which of Lady's allies should have the honor of giving her a taste of her own medicine and fucking a sexy clone of her mom. Vergil and Nico are both funny options.

DMC4

The Order Of The [Weapon] worships Kalina Ann instead of Sparda. This makes their aversion to guns even more ironic. They probably use a lot of spears in their imagery.

So, some time ago, my friend @strengthofmayhem made some posts about a different role swap AU, where Kyrie is Vergil's child instead of Nero. It's an interesting concept in its own right, and you can read about it here, here, and here.

However, I'm going to borrow a bit from them, and suggest that in this AU, Kyrie is actually Lady's daughter. Perhaps some time after the events of DMC3, Lady had a drunken one-night-stand with Credo's mom (this was pre-bottom surgery, if not pre-transition entirely) and unknowingly got her pregnant.

Kyrie looks about the same as she does in canon, except that she inherits Lady's one red eye, and perhaps when she uses her "stand" DT her hair gains some black highlights. Her Devil Bringer could be an arm like Nero's is in canon, however, consider the thought of her having a long tail that shoots beams out of it.

Compared to Nero, I think Kyrie would be more willing to press Lady about the nature of their relationship, and Lady would be more willing to tell the truth than Dante was in canon. Lady would teach Kyrie how to use her powers and send her lots of money, but she'd make it loud and clear that she isn't trying to be a maternal figure. More because she's not suited to the role than out of any disregard for Kyrie, though whether or not Kyrie would see it that way is another matter.

I have no clue what Nero's situation is in this AU.

DMC5

I don't really know how something like DMC5 would happen to Lady, since she doesn't even really have a Vergil. That's kind of where my thoughts on this subject end, though suggestions are welcome.

[arealphrooblem]

A Lost Cause Part 2

Synopsis: The trusted keeper of all the Heroes' secrets, Civilian's existence is kept a tightly guarded secret itself. So how did the villain find her? And how will she withstand the attempts of his scientist to break her open and discover those secrets himself?

CW: nonconsensual drugging, medical whump, medical experimentation, needles/IV insertion, mentions wounds from torture, torture recovery, captivity

The anticipation of what might happen each time he walked into the room was almost worse than actual torture. His words ran on a loop in her head as she dozed in and out of deep sleep.

I am dying to create the tools that will break you open.

But each time he visited, he did nothing but check vitals, change bandages, survey her progress, feed her. Slowly she worked her way up from broth to solid food, from sleeping most of the day to sleeping at night, from needing a catheter to walking to the bathroom herself once the bottoms of her feet were healed (and that was not a fun day, no sir).

The scientist refused to answer her questions outright unless she offered up answers of her own. Each day they ended in a stalemate, which he seemed to find amusing.

He refused even his name. Eventually she just started calling him the doctor, because he treated her like one. Despite her captivity, despite the ominous warning Vanderbilt gave her in the interrogation room, despite her overwhelming vulnerability, he treated her with polite and patient professionalism.

She tried to give him the same courtesy. Whatever his future plans were, he had given her the space and time to heal back to full strength. She would make sure he regretted that. But first she had to look cooperative and weak.

A few days after shedding both the catheter and the bandages on her feet and thighs, the doctor strolled in not with his usual stethoscope, but with a clipboard and a pen.

Her gut did not like that.

“Your recovery is chugging along quite spectacularly,” he said, clicking the pen. “Which means we are almost ready to start the clinical trials. Of course, before I give you anything, I will need you to answer a few questions about your medical and family history.”

“Clinical trials for what?” she asked, feeling like she swallowed a stone.

“For my experiments, of course,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Why did you think I’ve been helping you recover? Pity? The goodness of my heart?”

“What experiments?” she demanded.

“Oh I have several in mind for you. But first, a few questions.”

“Sure, of course,” she said, deeply scathing. “Let’s make it easier for you to torture me. I’ll jump right on that.”

“You should, if you want greater chances of survival. I need to know your allergies, cancer risks, medications you’ve been on, previous surgeries, or else I could accidentally kill you. You’re a very special experiment. I’d rather not lose you so soon to such a preventable cause.”

It made her blood run cold, the casual way he voiced her probable death, as if  he equated it with the disappointment of prematurely expired raspberries. An inconvenience, but there’s always more.

The worst part was that he had a point. What would be the purpose of her team rescuing her in a blaze of glory if she had died of anaphylactic shock?

So through gritted teeth, she answered all of his medically relevant questions. He wrote each down dutifully on his clipboard.

“And your name?” he asked finally.

She pursed her lips into a thin line and glared at him. He nodded.

“Not today, then. No worries. That will be the first thing you give me with the success of my first experiment.”

A knot formed in her stomach. “What’s the first experiment?” she couldn’t help but ask.

He smiled enigmatically. “You’ll find out when the time comes.”

She waited a few minutes after the door shut before she tip-toed to the window. The only thing she could see outside was a sheer cliff and water for miles. Probably the ocean, but she couldn’t open the window to tell. It was nailed shut.

Wherever she was, it looked far from civilization. Maybe that was why, after what had to be at least a month if not more, that her team hadn’t found her yet. They were city people. Superheros rarely had to venture into the rural countryside, let alone a place this remote.

Such reassurances did not cure the unease in the back of her mind that something didn’t add up.

Now that she had recovered, fatigue did not weigh her down so much and boredom began to creep in it’s place. The doctor offered her a handful of novels, mostly pulp scifi and dystopian literature. She read them and re-read them so often she could quote passages from each one. When the doctor finally appeared in her room with a small, rolling table of syringes and an IV needle, the jolt of adrenaline was almost euphoric in the face of the mind numbing monotony of her days.

“You seem eager for our first experiment,” the doctor said with a bemused quirk of his lips.

“Ecstatic,” she deadpanned, ignoring the jolt in her heart. “I can’t wait for you to kill me with whatever ungodly chemical is in that.”

He chuckled, pushing the cart next to her bed.  “You’re right in that God has nothing to do with what I create. But it is not my goal to kill you —  the opposite in fact. I try to limit risks as much as possible. There is only one you, after all.”

“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

“Is it not?” It was almost comical how he blinked at her in innocent confusion.

She just glared at him in return, which he cheerfully ignored as he slipped the latex gloves on with a snap. He even hummed a little as he pulled open the packaging for the IV needle and the alcohol wipe.  

Meanwhile her gut churned and frothed in horrible anticipation. She had gone through literal torture but this scared her more. When knives or brands or electric cattle prods came out, at least she knew what they did. No one knew what would happen as a result of this experiment, not even him. At least the goal of torture was to keep you alive as long as possible. These experiments could kill her. These could be her last living moments.

Fear tainted her every breath but just as she did in the face of her torturers, she refused to let it show on her face. Instead she stared resolutely out the window, at the glint of the water in the sunlight.

“Deep breath,” he murmured just before she felt the sharp pain of the IV needle.

Her gaze darted to him, drawn like a magnet to the sight of him tapping the air bubbles from the syringe. Nausea roiled inside her.  She fought hard against the urge to rip the IV out before he could inject the serum. Instead, she could only watch in horrified resignation as it flowed through the IV drip.

“And now we wait,” he said, flashing her that polite smile, as if they were sitting in a doctor’s office.

He removed his dark tinted glasses and sat down at the love seat.

“We wait?” she cried. “Wait for what?”

The anticipation of the IV alone nearly drove her mad and now this?

He shrugged. “Ideally your mind should relax into an altered state where you forget you’re not supposed to keep your secrets and you tell me whatever information I desire. However, that didn’t work well back with Vanderbilt and I’m not expecting much success this time. I just want to see how you react to these sorts of chemicals.”

“So you’re just fucking around with my brain?”

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose.” He crossed his legs and tapped his thumbs on his knees, the picture of nonchalance. She never wanted to hit him so much.

“What if it does nothing? What if you failed?”

“Failure is just important data I didn’t have before. I’m not afraid of failure.”

You should be she thought bitterly.

But of course it wasn’t his life on the line.

When the effects hit her, it wasn’t nothing. All the muscles in her body locked up and spasmed. She could do nothing but writhe in the bed and scream. It felt worse than all her other torture combined.

By the time she finally blacked out, she couldn’t scream anymore.

[destinygoldenstar]

🌟Is This Where The Season Gets Bad? 🌟 - Total Drama Viewer Reacts to Disventure Camp Season 3 Episode 7 “Ball Busters”

Yes, I had "Born To Drive Me Crazy" on loop drawing this.

The regular version though, not the DC cover.

My favorite song of that episode continues to be the "OUR BOYFRIENDS ARE ASSHOLES" song.

Anyway, HOLY SHIT GOLDEN IS BACK.

My followers know why I took a break. I went through a break up. I had to recover from that.

I also had an oral surgery. So I've been out recovering from that too. I actually lost quite a bit of weight from that recovery. Some of my pants don't even fit anymore. Yes I'm gonna get that checked out.

BUT DON'T WORRY, I'M BACK NOW. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Ironic because I got comments saying THIS is where the season gets bad. XD

I actually enjoyed myself with the first six episodes. I did have criticisms so far, but overall, ya know.

My thoughts are mostly the same.

Predictions: I think the next elimination is Fiore. I do not see a world where Magenta (yes I finally got it right) doesn’t boot Fiore next.

I don’t see Yellow losing any more members. They’re all jello. UNFORTUNATELY (Get Yul Out)

I don’t see Ellie going right now. Even if I think she absolutely fucked up her game, the writers are gonna bullshit her surviving elimination if Cyan loses. Which in that case, sorry Tom.

I still think she and Gabby are going to be vital going forward. Gabby is STILL my winner pick. And I think her plotline is starting to unfold, especially since her girlfriend is, ya know, working for the bad guys.

I say Tom because I think after last episode with the whole “Jake getting cucked” situation, he’s going to come around and we’re going to get the explanation on why Tom wasn’t talking earlier.

What do I think it is?

I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say Tom has a boyfriend.

He met someone else. He’s doing well in his life with his new job. He realized he could have a happy life without Jake. He moved on.

And now Jake needs to move on too. Because, well, he has a boyfriend. It’s not you.

Jake’s gonna be LIVID, and probably screw himself over. But ya know. Not his choice to make.

Point is, their storyline is kinda wrapping up, and I can’t see a world where either of these two make finals. If Cyan loses Tom is gone. And that’s it. If Magenta loses Fiore is gone, but if they lose twice, Jake is gone. Because Ashley and Allyson are getting along, and Ashley’s gonna ditch him because he’s a dent to the team.

And if that’s not the case and all three of these Magenta folk merge, Jake is STILL the first boot of the merge. He’s problematic. And he’s not even a villain.

Allyson’s going to also be doing more in the future. But I STILL don’t understand her characterization in this season. Like, this does not feel like Season 2 Allyson at all. Sorry.

Like, hate comments are something we all deal with, don’t get me wrong. I can see a character struggling with this. But not Allyson. In Season 2 she never had a care in the world what people thought of her, and she always kept a cool head, even when she got paranoid Tess would steal her man. So idk. Also, SHES A GAMER AS A CAREER. SHE SHOULD KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THAT SHIT ALREADY.

You’re telling me she never got a single hate comment prior to Disventure Camp? I find that really hard to believe.

I need more from her. And I think we will get more. I want this fleshed out aside from “Some Internet people don’t like me and my boyfriend is careless and bad with kids 😭”

Like seriously that still surprised me. I thought Allyson and Hunter’s drama were gonna be a focal point of the season, but NO.

I still don’t like that. Especially since Hunter leaves so early. It just felt like “We need drama. Let’s have a couple fight.”

Even though we already have the Jake and Tom drama to cover for that?? And Riya and Connor even though I still think they’re just friends????Except that’s actually plot relevant drama????? So what’s the logic? And I think we’re gonna get Gabby and Ellie stuff. So…

Whatever. Point is I want to be won over with Allyson.

Anyway, enough rambling. You waited. I waited. Let's get back to the show!

"Uh, it's still not on Spotify, but we're working on it."

Well I don't use Spotify. I use iTunes. So...

And I looked up the song on YouTube, that's how I got it when I was making that drawing.

"Tom and Aiden kissed during their performance, causing some delicious reactions from one watermelon boy."

Krystal, you can just say he got cucked.

We hate Jake in this household /j

Also watermelon? I know he had a watermelon on his pajama shirt, but idk. Fruity boy sounds more accurate.

He might not even like watermelons.

"Oh that's a nice watermelon shirt! I assume your favorite fruit is-"

"Pineapple."

I never usually react to the recaps. They're just so boring to me. Krystal's voice while doing these narrations kinda kill it for me.

"Who will be voted out tonig-"

*Pie Adblock Ad*

RUDE.

Though it does fit that ad.

Didn't even let her finish the sentence XD

OH YEAH OLIVER GETS SHOVED OUT OF A PLANE. I FORGOT ABOUT THAT PART 😂

Wait is Oliver dead? I don't think we've seen him since the plane 😂

OH NO 😂

"Man, we really trashed this place, huh?"

Riya. Riya trashed it.

"What? You didn't like my showing?"

NO RIYA CAUSE WE GOTTA CLEAN UP AFTER SAID SHOWING.

"How was Riya not voted out? Isn't she the one who caused all this?"

Because she's a queen. 👑

Also it's called having a strong locked alliance consisting of Alec and Grett.

And also this other dude who was just too likeable to eliminate.

"How'd you know about that?"

UM, HE'S IN THE STAFF?!

ALSO HE WAS THERE?!?!?!

HELLO?!?

"I watch cameras all day, Connor."

YEAH EXACTLY. HE WAS THERE.

You getting Alzheimer's, Connor?

I've been out for...

*looks it up*

OVER A MONTH. Jesus Christ it was that long-?!

And I remembered that!

"Except for when you're using the potty of course."

Someone hasn't watched Total Drama.

They don't give a shit because they film your shit.

"Wait, so you can see everything?"

OMG CONNOR XD

"IF YOU LOOK IN A CAMERA, YOU CAN SEE STUFF?! 😲 WOW! THIS IS SUCH AN INNOVATION GEN Z CAME UP WITH!"

I'm Gen Z and I can tell you our gen kinda sucks.

"I'm sorry to see you go by the way. You were one of my favorites."

Is that accurate?

I don't actually know anything regarding Silly Billy's DC content aside from him voicing Trevor.

That would be hilarious context for this line if Connor is actually his favorite character.

"Riya was a real jerk."

That too I guess.

I'll still be the sole Riya stan.

"Sometimes you just gotta move on."

Oh it's hard. Believe me.

Also sad you were eliminated cause you could tell Jake that.

And Grett.

And... I guess Allyson even though they're not broken up. (Not saying they should have.) I'm talking about her internet shit in her case.

"Maybe... yeah. I should just move on."

Oh yeah Trevor's crushing on Krystal.

It's still so random to me.

Why is there a love triangle here?? Idk if Derek is into Krystal, but sounds like it.

My girl improved so much as a person she became the point of a love triangle. All the intern men want her!

Oh look at these two just chilling.

RIYA FINALLY GOT A CHAIR. YES QUEEN!

"I made it with my fine woodcutting skills! Wonderful showing, isn't it? Just a little project for my next showing to forget about the whole Connor incident. Wanna hear how I got the paint?"

NO RIYA DON'T LET THAT BE BIRD SHIT!! YOU'RE TOO CLASSY FOR THAT!

"Have either of you seen Yul?"

"Oh, I dissed the birds I scared the shit out of on him. He should be covered in such right now."

"He went for a walk."

"A walk or a hobble?"

*looks it up*

XD

Okay that's a great burn.

"If Yul mentions his foot one more time..."

"I will arrange my next showing to be me reenacting him getting his foot smashed with the light!"

I LOVE that she doesn't feel bad about it at all XD

"AND I'D DO IT AGAIN! BAP BAP! AND I'D DO IT AGAIN! BAP BAP BAP!"

"So, how are you feeling, Riya?"

Yeah I'm curious.

"I'm peachy, what's there to say? Connor was dragging me down like he always does."

You're lying.

"I know he was loyal to you, but he would have never worked with the villains."

Connor is not loyal to her. Not anymore anyway. Also he ditched her mid-challenge in the finale.

Not saying Riya's right, I'm just making a factual point here.

"Still, I kinda miss him."

Yeah. I actually thought their friendship was really sweet.

"What's the point in crying over the past?"

"Trust me! That did not work in my favor at all!"

That's actually a pretty good development line for her considering what happened in Season 2.

"Do I really have to do this?"

Do what?

MURDER FLOWERS YOU MONSTER?!

Yeah, when you pick flowers, THEY FUCKING DIE.

That's why I hate getting flowers as a gift. Because when you give people a bouquet of flowers, you are essentially giving them the plant equivalent of a child whose stomach was torn out so now they can't eat and they'll starve to death in your vase.

I'd be pretty insulted if I was given a bouquet of flowers personally.

"My real fans will know this isn't natural!"

And by fans, he means his mother.

(Say it in the reply if you get that reference)

"I would never gush over that 2/10!"

He sounds like a Dhar Mann antagonist.

"I was just picking some flowers!"

"I was just MURDERING."

Plant equivalent of murder.

This man is a monster.

I'm torn.

I want Grett to be happy.

BUT ALSO, if THIS is a version of happiness, maybe I should get you some angst and trauma instead.

"I wish I could show our fans on Instagram."

I'm sorry, who actually ships this?

Like okay you can ship whoever you want, fine, whatever, but... I'm just really curious WHY.

"Our fans?"

At least he acknowledges he has no fans.

"Even though most of those followers came from me..."

Oh it's opposite day! I get it!

Ha! And here I was confused!

"Woohoooooo..."

That was the fakest woohoo I have ever heard.

DO NOT MAKE A SIMS JOKE BRAIN.

DO NOT MAKE A SIMS JOKE!!

"People are so superficial. They care about things like 'personality', yet my influencer status means nothing?!"

PREACH GIRL.

"So I made a promise to not care what random nobodies think."

THANK YOU GIRL.

TELL ALLYSON THAT.

"That being said, it's really nice to have someone that respects that... and genuinely loves me."

Aw. I love you too, Grett. 🤗

NOOOOOOOOOO

TOM.

STOP IT.

STICK WITH THE FRUIT.

I WILL GET THE CLOTHESLINE OUT!!

HE LOOKS SO DONE 😂

Or she. Idk.

"Wow. Trapped again. This is what the twentieth time in my life now? *sigh* I'll escape this one too, just you wait."

OH-

*clasps mouth from shock*

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.

Also the squirrel escaped I flipping predicted that-

BUT OH MY GOD.

THEY'RE TALKING!!!!

THEY ARE TALKING!!!!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!

"Dammit Jake, that was supposed to be lunch!"

And he's still upset.

Tom will never eat lunch in this town again.

"I'm sorry."

Aw. He's sowwy.

"What's wrong?"

GEE, I DUNNO.

"I just thought we could finally talk."

THANK YOU.

"I've got a party of five expecting rotisserie squirrel in half an hour."

Tell them you found something else for lunch. 😏

I'm sorry, that's inappropriate right now.

"You always wanted me to talk to you before I jumped to conclusions, right?"

OH. COOK HIM.

"Well here I am! Talking to you! Take me seriously, please!"

AWWWW JAKE, HONEY ❤️

Yeah he learned a lot from last season, that's for sure.

"Oh... sorry. What is it?"

OH MY GOD TOM IS ACTUALLY GOING ALONG WITH THIS.

HOLY SHIT THIS REALLY IS NOT A DRILL.

"Do you like Aiden?"

Pfft. Oh wow. What a start.

"Where'd this come from?"

"You kissed."

"You cucked me on national TV, like what the fuck, man?"

"I thought you'd know better, that was for the challenge, me and Aiden are just friends."

THANK YOU.

FINALLY, THAT'S OVER AND DEALT WITH. WE DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT SHIT ANYMORE.

It was funny. To me. But thank god we ain't dragging that shit, it's been five episodes.

"Then why do you keep avoiding me? Why did you keep ghosting me all these years?"

THANK YOU. PLEASE ANSWER.

WHY TOM? WHY WHY WHY??

I bet the answer is gonna be, "Uh, because you suck, and I've moved on. So... bye."

Though idk about ghosting. But I was given advice recently you have to shut out some people in your life, even if you care about them, because you have to work for yourself first.

I'm not expecting something that realistic though.

"All I wanted was for you to answer one lousy phone call. After all we've been through, all I'm worth to you is a dial tone."

AW JAKE, MY GOD I FEEL BAD FOR YOU ❤️

I don't think it's that simple on Tom's end though. I don't think that's the message he wanted to send.

WAIT.

OH MY GOD IS HE TEARING UP?!

HE ACTUALLY FEELS BAD?!?!

Yeah, he knows he fucked up. Good to know he's actually sorry though.

"Tom, I know it's been years, but I've still got these feelings."

Ooohhh 🥺

"I never stopped liking you, and if you're open, I was wondering-"

"I-I have a boyfriend."

*Spends a minute to process*

NOOOOOO

NOOOOOOOOO 😭

NO I WAS RIGHT?!

I CALLED IT!?!?

"I don't know if I can do that, I... I have a boyfriend!"

"Uh, yeah, and I have... uh... you heard Aiden! Man's got a man!"

*eyebrow raise*

I was kinda worried Tom was gonna say he had a boyfriend too for a second.

Oh that'd be heartbreaking if that was what was going on.

I FREAKING CALLED THIS!

I SAID "IMMA TAKE A SHOT IN THE DARK. TOM HAS A BOYFRIEND."

I DIDN'T WANT TO BE RIGHT!!! 😭

GODDAMMIT!

Nooooo I liked them... 😭

I knew this was gonna happen though. I knew it. I predicted the storyline.

THAT IS SO BOLD OF A WRITING CHOICE THOUGH.

You have this major ship in Season 1 that you're routing for, and then in the next season they're in you just say, "Hey. They did not work."

Something you don't see everyday that's all I'm saying.

THIS IS FUCKING BOLD OF YOU.

I wonder if this is gonna be a "They didn't work, but that doesn't mean their relationship meant nothing. They changed each other. They can move on with their lives and be just fine" story.

Cause the appeal of their ship was that they were two guys who loved each other but hated themselves. Tom had insecurities from his horrific past of torture and his career, and Jake had insecurities about his emotions and his poor relationships with others. They both believed they don't deserve love, and yet they found that each other found them interesting and pleasant to be around. For a fleeting moment it seemed like it would work and this relationship would be their way of finding love and happiness in life.

Only for Episode 10 to happen and now the show is saying "Actually no, them getting in a relationship is NOT the answer to their problems. They gotta love themselves and let each other go because they found good lives elsewhere."

That's at least what I found interesting about their relationship anyway.

Also I may or may not ALSO be going through what they're going through right now.

HOLY SHIT THOUGH. THAT'S DEVASTATING OF A REVEAL.

"Yeah. I've been dating him for months."

Damn. That's how you know he's not pulling this out of his ass.

"Hope you understand why I'm not saying much else. I... I just don't wanna ruin a good thing."

Yeah you're on TV. I get it.

"I wish you could've told me sooner."

"He wasn't ready to be all public about it."

Checks out. TV.

"I appreciate your honesty. I hope you're happy with this guy because... you... deserve the best..."

😭

HE IS BARELY KEEPING IT TOGETHER. OH MY GOD JAKE I LOVE YOU.💔

"We'll talk again soon, uh... but I-I have to go."

At least he's willing to talk now.

WAY TO SINK A SHIP THOUGH. 🛥️

THE SHIP HAS SUNKEN.

AND IT IS NOT COMING BACK.

Fine. FINE. I never liked them anyway. I was never routing for them. No no no. I predicted it. Therefore, I wanted this. I want them to suffer. I want them to never be together happily eating Chinese food.

NOPE. I NEVER SHIPPED THEM. I NEVER CARED!

WHY WOULD I EVER PUT INVESTMENT IN SOMETHING THAT WOULD NEVER WORK?!?! HUH?!?! HUH?!?!??!?!?

"So Tom's dating someone. That's... great!"

Oh he's upset. I called this too.

"Oh great. He's found someone else. WONDERFUL! I LOVE THAT I CAN'T FIND LOVE!!"

"I'm glad he was able to find happiness. I wish nothing but the best and... oh who am I kidding? I'm not over him..."

OH MY GOD HONEY 😭💔

Look this man in the eye and tell me with a straight face you do not feel bad for him right now.

Here. Have a virtual hug Jake.

It's okay. You'll move on. It's okay.

WE CAN GRIEVE TOGETHER.

"She went fishing with Ally."

They're having a girls night.

"Why wasn't I invited to girls night?!"

"Have they been gone long?"

"Couple hours."

DAMN. THEY REALLY ARE HAVING A GIRLS NIGHT.

"Seems like Ashley has a new friend. You're not getting jealous again, are you?"

Course not. He just needs someone to talk to. This is a lot.

"Oh shut up. She's just trying to help Ally feel better."

Yeah exactly. Jake is over this shit.

"Fool me once shame on you!" (Ellie)

"Fool me twice shame on me!" (Alec)

"Fool me three times... well shit I really am that hopeless."

"Sure princess, whatever floats your boat."

XD

He pulls a Marinette.

"If I disguise as a princess, I can stalk their girls night and I can prevent Allyson from kidnapping my friend!"

"Keep throwing shit on the wall. Maybe something will actually stick one day."

XD

OH THEY'RE ROASTING EACH OTHER.

Ashley and Allyson are gonna come back and there's already gonna be two children BURNING for lunch.

"You carried Trevor in those episodes."

Idk how accurate this is. But I care so little about those two that I am not bothering to look back at Season 1 to jog my memory.

They're all probably like "GODDAMMIT. HOW IS YUL STILL HERE?!"

ALSO GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF GRETT I'M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN.

"Letter? W-what letter?"

THEY KNOW.

THEY KNEW SINCE EPISODE 5.

"Today's challenge will test how well you handle balls."

Har har. Insert dirty joke here.

"Excuse me?"

Nevermind Yul's so dirty he is the joke.

WOW.

THAT'S SO WELL HIDDEN /s

OH MY GOD I ACTUALLY CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE /s

THIS IS SUCH A HARD CHALLENGE /s

Oh?

What does that do?

"If you find it, you won't have to carry your balls up the hill."

What difference does that make? They're still in the challenge.

Also these are YARN balls. That does NOT sound like this would work. Won't those just, like, UNTANGLE? FALL APART?

You don't have yoga balls? Or bowling balls- no that would hurt.

Chris McClean would make them bowling balls if he was in charge of this challenge.

"Ashley, wanna be my player 2?"

Aw.

Aren't YOU player 2 though? That was a whole thing in Season 2- whatever.

"Can I join?"

"Not today I'm afraid."

DAMN.

"Hey can I play too-"

"NO."

They only have two controllers XD

"I'm putting you on demon child duty."

Demon child duty XD

They really hate Fiore that much, huh?

"Banzai!"

BANZAI! AYE GABBY!

"Aren't these dang balls supposed to be big as a bull? Where could they be hiding?"

Okay I'm convinced this is a blindfold challenge.

"Wish we could fast travel in real life."

"When you teleport locations in RPGs, that's what it's called."

Aw! Is Allyson pleasant again? Is she back to her old self?

HEY! TESS!!

What's up girlfriend? They haven't talked yet.

"Ashley's been a big help, and getting to sing that song on stage was so liberating!"

"It was amazing singing about how much of an asshole Hunter is! Ya know? Felt so good!"

"I can ignore those pesky feelings for now."

Why did she say it like that? That sounds very sus.

"I'll ignore them for now, but when they come back, I might go ahead and kill my teammates to cope. Or something like that."

"Sometimes it's better to just talk it out."

"I can't."

Um... I thought HUNTER was the one with the social issues. Not Allyson.

She never had this problem in Season 2. SHE was THE social one of these three.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE GUYS.

"You were there for me last season when I felt my life was falling apart. I'd love to return the favor."

Yeah exactly.

Also let Tess return that favor.

"You'll always be my best friend."

"You'll always be my best friend" Proceeds to HOLD HANDS.

"Aww! Aren't you two the cutest?"

See even Ally is a shipper!

Ally?

See even ASHLEY is a shipper!

I messed that up.

"Oh what a shock. I was right again."

Jake is plugging his ears. 🎵"COUNTRY ROAD!!! TAKE ME HOME!!!"🎵

*unplugs ears* "Sorry did you say something?"

"I was saying that Ashley and Allyson hate you-"

*plugs ears* 🎵"COUNTRY ROAD!!!!"🎵

"You're being cast aside, Jake."

"Stop trying to make me paranoid."

He's so DONE.

He's so DONE with everyone trying to use him.

Now he's just like, "Fiore. Do me a big favor: SHUT THE FUCK UP."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! KNOW YOUR FUCKING PLACE, TRASH!!"

(Couldn't find the vine)

"If you want to join me in kicking out Ally next time we lose, you could have Ashley back all to yourself."

How about no?

That's a stupid idea.

"Do you really think she's abandoning me?"

...

GODDAMMIT JAKE.

I get it. You just got dumped. BUT ALSO.

"It's like what you did with James."

What?

James has nothing to do with this.

"Best to get rid of the problem before it gets you first."

Okay. *Proceeds to yeet Fiore off a ciff*

"Fiore did say we were exposed in a letter written by Miriam."

You DIDN'T communicate that to Alec?

That seems like pretty vital information to give to your fellow Jellos!

"Why wasn't I informed of this?"

EXACTLY.

"I can't believe we almost saved him last elimination."

Except you didn't?

That was a unanimous vote.

"Who cares? It's not our problem. Fiore and Ellie are the ones in danger."

She speaking facts.

Love Riya being the smart one here.

OH SHIT GABBY.

THAT'S HOW GABBY FINDS OUT.

What did I say? Her plotline is kicking off.

"Why didn't Ellie tell me she was a part of this?"

Honestly. I don't know.

I feel like Gabby would be more than happy to join them knowing Ellie was there XD

"Does she not trust me?"

No sweetie.

She's just making stupid game moves as usual.

"Jake confronted me."

"He came to our camp?"

"Yeah, he came over wanting to 'talk' to me. Ya know, no biggie."

"He came with a gun for some reason. Idk what that was about."

"Aiden, I would flee the camp if I were you."

"He thinks there's something going on with you and me."

"Oh god! Seriously?!"

Aiden is revolted by the idea XD

"EW! Me and Tom?! Bro he's not my type! I'm into shady guys!"

"I AM a shady guy."

"...oh wait, hold on-"

"What's the lucky boy's name?"

"Sorry, I'd rather not dive into my private life."

You're on TV.

"You know, especially since we're uh... on TV?"

YEAH.

I swear this is not a prewatch. I'm predicting the next line a lot today XD

"Jake can be... sensitive, but he can also be really sweet. I just hope he's taking it okay."

Meanwhile Jake is loading up the shotgun for his Cyan Team camp raid. HE JUST WANTS TO TALK.

"Jake is starting to really piss me off."

Over WHAT?

I know he shoved you, but OTHER THAN THAT, he didn't do anything else DIRECTLY TO YOU. He just stared at you condescendingly. Not even say anything, just looking. The only time you two talked is when he shoved you in that beach challenge.

I mean I get being mad cause he shoved you. Still.

"I'm starting to think he may have a hand in sending James home."

OH YEAH.

Nevermind. Completely justified. Forget I was defending Jake. Get your revenge, Aiden!

Did Fiore just get steamrolled by yarn?

That's embarassing.

THAT'S WHAT YOU GET.

Why did you think that would work?

Sure. Ashley doesn't need help.

Why is the yarn in the water-?

I don't have enough image slots for this guys!

I do for that though.

QUEEN SLAYS AS USUAL.

She's really good at finding this stuff, huh?

XD

"Yes Trevor. Do my bidding."

That was a useless advantage. Why was that included in the episode?

So what's the point of the colors then? Does that not matter in this challenge case?

I don't know. I don't get it.

"The team with the least amount of points wins reward and immunity."

Wait, LEAST?

I gotta see this in action. Cause I don't get these rules.

WHYYYY DO YOU HAVE FIOREEE IN DEFENSE????

PINK TEAM SUCKS AS USUAL

I want to see Yul get pummeled by a yarn ball though.

XD

AGAIN?!?!

IT HAPPENED AGAIN?!?!

I PREDICTED YUL GETTING HURT SECONDS BEFORE IT HAPPENS!

Do I have a superpower where I can just do this??

Also GO RIYA! 👑

"AND I'D DO IT AGAIN! BAP BAP! AND I'D DO IT AGAIN! BAP BAP BAP!"

"Hey Yul, you good to play human shield for us?"

OH YES PLEASE! I LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT! 😀

Aaaannd Fiore is gonna be a pancake after this.

"What's going on? You seem down."

YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING. THIS ISN'T A GOOD TIME.

"Ellie's part of the villains alliance."

Sad thing about this is that Gabby NEVER faced any of the blunt of Ellie's scheming actions in Season 1. She got eliminated before that happened.

So it's a case where Ellie is shady and doing toxic things, but she has never done any of that directly towards Gabby. She genuinely does love Gabby.

But in doing these actions at all, she still hurts Gabby because she's not being honest with her on what her goals are.

Come on. You KNOW Gabby would join the Jellos if Ellie is a part of it too!

"Wait, you're part of the elite squad that is the villains alliance?"

"Yeah."

"Can I join?"

"Ellie's been pretty devious recently."

AS THOUGH THE LAKE ELIMINATION WASN'T? HELLO?!

"I'd say the alliance name suits her."

Eh...? Idk about that. She's more so an antagonistic character than a villainous character.

"But what hurts is... Ellie lied to us about it. She lied to me. Her own girlfriend."

AW GABBY NO 💔

"She gets... competitive. I'm nervous."

Yeah. Games can change people. Kinda hurts when it's someone you love.

Man Connor and Gabby would've had a nice interaction.

"We need your firecracker energy to win this challenge!"

I'm pretty sure both teams have already used up their balls at this point.

"HEY WHAT'S GOING ON UP THERE?! SHOOT!! WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE TALKING?!"

"We can use this log to deflect our balls."

Is that allowed? I feel like that's not allowed.

Oh it worked.

"Oh no, it might come down to Magenta Team and us!"

XD

They're like "OH NO! A LOG?!??! WE'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO BEAT THAT!!!"

So this is why the season gets bad.

They get beaten by logs.

And they get beaten by yarn.

Pathetic.

WHY ARE YOU LEAVING AIDEN TO DEFEND?! HE'S THE WEAKEST ONE!

Fucking idiots.

"CURSES! WE'VE BEEN BEATEN BY A ROCK!"

HOW?!??!

I FEEL LIKE THAT SHOULD COUNT.

"It's up to you, Jake!"

WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE AND NOT HELPING HIM?!?!

Did they say "Only one person can defend at a time?"

Because I DO NOT remember that being a rule!

(Edit: No. It was not established.)

OW! The fuck Ellie?

"Oh my god! Get a room you two!"

OH GODDAMMIT.

REALLY?!?!

THEY CLEARED THAT SHIT UP EARLIER THIS EPISODE! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Are we STILL doing this?

I can't even laugh anymore. That's straight up bad.

REALLY?! THAT'S HOW THEY LOSE?!

I wouldn't be upset if they didn't clear it up earlier this episode. But they DID. So this is the one case where Jake falling for this makes no sense.

"That was a dirty trick, Ellie."

But not out of character. She LOVES watching Jake suffer. As she said herself last episode.

"I told you the ball was coming!"

Did you NOT see the shit Ellie pulled? If Jake was in hearing range, you were too.

"I'm fine by the way. Thanks for asking."

SASS. HELLO?!

"I just got CRUSHED."

"WTF man? Why didn't you do your job?!"

"I'm HURT."

"You had ONE JOB!"

"I think I'm concussed. I need a doctor."

"YOU HAD ONE JOB YOU FAT FUCKING FAILURE!"

"I was worried!"

Nobody asked you Fiore.

"He's predictable and easy to manipulate."

That's true, actually. They COULD use Jake if they kept him around.

But I don't think they're gonna do that. I think they're gonna get rid of him in either the next episode or the one after that.

"Good thing you're not Tipiskaw's soccer team!"

"I THINK MY NECK IS BROKEN FROM BEING CRUSHED-"

"NO ONE CARES JAKE! YOU COST US THE GAME!"

Beaten my yarn. PATHETIC.

YOU ARE SUCH A LOSER.

"You don't need to feel bad about the challenge."

LOSER

"We all make mistakes."

"Your mistake was thinking you deserve a break you loser."

"Did you see Aiden and Tom?"

"What?"

WAS NO ONE ELSE IN HEARING RANGE?! HELLO?!?!

ELLIE BROADCASTED THAT!

"I talked to Tom this morning."

"Oh really?"

She does NOT sound convinced.

"Oh really? I thought we were done with this!"

"Can we get rid of Ally?"

"Oh Jake come on!"

Yeah that's a stupid idea.

Fiore is the safer vote and everyone here knows it.

Just get Fiore off.

"I feel like you've been ignoring me and spending all your time with Ally."

She's been hanging out with her for TWO DAYS.

I get Ashley's your only friend. CALM DOWN.

"It makes me feel like you value her more than me. I'm worried you'll choose to work with her once Fiore's gone."

That is exactly what's going to happen.

Jake will fuck up his friendship, process the loss of Tom in a nasty way, and Ashley will decide Allyson is the better ally for her game. And they'll all ditch Jake.

"We've been friends and allies since Day 1, I can't believe you'd think that of me."

Yeah, well, the LAST person who claimed to be his friend talked to other people, AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED WITH THAT.

I don't blame Jake after that trauma, actually. So I get it.

But also I am still frustrated.

"I will never vote for you. Understand? That's a promise."

Really?

Wow.

Did not expect that.

"I guess if it makes you feel better, I can consider voting Ally tonight."

Really?

Goddammit.

Allyson doesn't deserve that. Come on.

"Sorry. This Tom situation is just stressing me out. Forgive me, I'm being dramatic."

Yeah. At least he apologizes.

He doesn't want to antagonize anyone right now, he's just grieving.

"Hey, at this point, I'd be worried if you weren't a little dramatic!"

Yeah. That's just Jake for you.

We love him, but also, he's a pain.

Dammit. I guess they're gonna bullshit an Allyson blindside.

Which that makes no damn sense.

But oh right, this is where the season gets bad. So they're gonna do it.

I don't want Allyson gone. I know I've been having problems with her, but I don't want her gone.

"Man, I'm getting tired of seeing y'all's faces here."

Did Krystal just say they sucked? XD

Jake is gonna be like Cody in that episode.

"OW! THE YARN GAVE ME A REALLY BAD CONCUSSION! OH IT HURTS! I CAN'T SEE WHAT I'M WRTING!" *writes Allyson's name* "OOPS! THAT WASN'T WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO WRITE! SORRY UWU!!"

'ALLY'

Yeah yeah. Let's bullshit this.

'FIORE'

Yeah yeah hurry it up.

We know they're gonna bullshit this.

'FIORE'

😮

HANG ON. WHAT?

WAIT.

WAIT THEY MADE THE SMART CHOICE?!

OH MY GOD.

I know I said it would be her. BUT OH MY GOD.

THEY ACTUALLY MADE THE SMART CHOICE?!

Cause the Jellos are gonna dominate the merge if all their members make it. They gotta wipe out as many as they can.

So, "Screw it! Who cares about my own personal feelings? They don't matter! Let's get Fiore off."

"Karma's a bitch, isn't it Fiore?"

OH HE WAS PLAYING THEM.

OH I GET IT.

He was never actually gonna vote Allyson, he just wanted to test Ashley's stance to understand his security first, AND give Fiore a false sense of security.

👏

PROPS. PROPS TO THAT.

I GET IT NOW.

Wow, Jake NOT making an enemy out of Allyson. How about that?

"Jake's just too stupid to see he's already lost."

Well, yeah, he's gone next for sure.

But still. Just shut up. You're already voted out.

"I hope scar face and skunk hair do a little more than kissing next time!"

SKUNK HAIR?

HEYO DON'T DO AIDEN DIRTY LIKE THAT!

"Can someone please shut her up?"

Yeah, this child has just been bullying him this whole episode!

Oh hey I forgot Connor was here.

"What's crackalackin kiddo?"

"SHUT UP BOOMER!"

AYO

"I just can't help but wonder if she voted Fiore as revenge, or to save Ally."

YOU JUST TALKED ABOUT THIS.

What's wrong with it being both?

Ashley's just happy. Good for her.

"YAY! NO KIDS!!! I CAN DRINK NOW!!!!”

My first episode back after a month. Good god.

Maybe the hiatus caused me to be like "Wait what is happening right now?" XD

Beaten by yarn.

Beaten by logs.

Beaten by a rock.

Beaten by a child.

Beaten by a dead ship.

Yep. Sounds about right.

Everyone's a loser.

Except Riya. Riya continues to slay.

Jake's gone next. If we're just talking about Magenta. Jake is gone 100%.

Gabby and Ellie are gonna be the major focus now. They're the ones with the setup and the direct link to the Jellos. The lesbians can infiltrate the game and that alliance.

I'm surprised to see Gabby feel betrayed like that. She was the #1 Ellie supporter. So for HER to not approve of Ellie's actions is definitely interesting. It might also lead to an Ellie redemption arc. Very interested in that.

Now that I realized by Yul Torture superpowers: Can we just have Riya and Alec spend next episode bullying him?

[venus-is-thinking]

DRDT Chapter 2 Episode 12: Initial Thoughts

Hello everyone! I thought it'd be fun to do a post going over some of my first thoughts from the episode after each release. "Initial" is a bit of a stretch, considering I did watch it a second time while making this post, but it's more "initial" in the context of being before the next episode drops. It's sort of like my "initial thoughts" of the Milgram MVs, which are actually the result of, like, 3 hours of obsessing and research, lol.

(By the way, @accirax and I watched the episode together, so apologies if her initial thoughts end up being, like, the same as mine.)

SPOILER WARNING FOR DRDT CH 2 EP 12!

T/W: Body image issues/body dysmorphia, murder, suicide

The Reactions

Confirmation of what I think most of us already suspected! I do think it's a little weird that Nico didn't bring up their testimony about all of the fish being there at the last time they fed the fish. That probably means it's being saved for later in the Trial, I guess?

It's okay Teruko, I saw literally no one in the entire fanbase figure this one out either!

Why is everyone so mean to her though. Everyone here has been an idiot in the Trials at LEAST once

God I missed David

This was so funny. Get his ass.

(In all seriousness, though, I do wonder if we're going to come back to what J said. I don't currently (?) think Arei was drenched, unless the real purpose of the water WAS just to confuse the time of death, so if the water didn't connect with her enough to cool her down, it might be weird that the body isn't warm after all.)

This took me out. Who let you say that. What.

Okay, but Ace, outside of a killing game... why. Like, literally why would a plastic surgeon need to know how to do an autopsy. King.

Like Felicity...? /hj

All in all, though, this was a really interesting character moment for Arturo! And god, the fact that he started learning medical knowledge and spedrun plastic surgery specifically since age 12 HAS to mean something. My vague theories of Felicity having struggles with body image/dysmorphia (Arturo's section of this post) are... maybe real???

Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if Arturo is going to go farther in this game. I don't expect him to survive or anything, but I could see it taking him a surprisingly long time to die. He feels like he's got too much lore to unpack to die, like, next chapter. Unless he gets HELLA focused next chapter, which is definitely possible.

This is so silly. I love them.

(Note: I'm not a Whit mastermind truther, but if I were, I would point out that MonoTV sort of covering up a rules violation for Whit could be relevant. I'm not a Whit mastermind truther though, so I think this is just a very silly joke a la "no wifi! why live :(" )

Well you see Eden, the killer would have actually had all night to prepare. If, say, they mentioned that they could dial in and focus on their work for like 14 hours straight, they could have gotten a lot done before 7:30 AM!

I'll talk about this more later, but the fact that J, David, Veronika, Hu and Nico seemingly have alibis that actually matter is so iconic. I can't believe that many theories died that quick. I'll talk about that more in my theories section, though!

It's been said before, but. Funniest fucking reaction to being declared innocent of murder.

"David still has a family history of depression even if that isn't his secret" nation where you at?

This one made me laugh out loud. Who does it like him

How truthful do we think David is in this next section? I refuse to believe it's 100% a lie, just because he's cooking SO hard on SOMETHING, but I could also believe David thinks he's lying to an extent. I could definitely see a "the best lies are based on the truth" kind of thing?

Also, damn. Xanvid really is real. LGI got me to believe it but WOW David's just being gay on main now

This was a really good, succinct way to have Teruko show her opposition to David's ideas. Even if it is to end the killing game or do something "good' or whatever, Teruko is still hurt and betrayed by what Xander did. Xander tried to kill her, and presumably would have tried to kill everyone else. David is now doing the same thing.

It's going to be really interesting if, whether genuine or not, David is kinda taking on Xander's position. That's going to give Teruko a reason to (outwardly) hate him even more. I'm really looking forward to learning more about how both Teruko and David view Xander.

Also, it's so fucking funny that Teruko and David are literally fighting over Xander. Like, valid, but. Guys.

(Also, David soooo knows Teruko's secret is the killing game is all your fault. Idk if he specifically knows that Xander's plan was to kill Teruko no matter what, but he's definitely caught on to some extent.)

This was crazy. Is Xander famous? Why would everyone recognize him? Like, did David just take particular notice of Xander because he's a simp, or is there something else going on?

Notably, it's also extremely interesting that David says "Even if you all lost a year of memories for this killing game." It almost implies that David didn't? What do you know???

Also, if David DOES have weird memories about this that no one else does, it's a really interesting comparison to Teruko remembering the existence of a killing game in the area investigation when she was talking to Veronika. Are these two getting special memory privileges because they're important? Or does everyone have some kind of memory that they all should have, but only one person knows each thing?

At first I was confused when David said this, because I really don't know how dear anyone in DRDT's life to him was other than Xander. But then I realized, if David is talking about killing 15 others and yourself, he's definitely still talking about Xander's mindset. Xander had something worth the lives of 16 people that he was trying to do.

I don't know how much David cares about ending the killing game. I wonder if "belief in Xander" is the thing he's willing to kill 13 people plus himself for?

I'm starting to get REALLY curious what J's deal is. Between this and her voiced line earlier in the trial saying something along the lines of "it's like you all still haven't grasped just how serious murder is," she definitely seems to have strong opinions on specifically the morality of killing other people. WHY is she being singled out with these beliefs, what does it say about her, and where is her character headed?

(If she is the mastermind, does this couple with the "all murderers must be held accountable" rule?)

"Any answer" is so funny. I think she's looking for the truthful answer, David. This is why no one believes you when you say anything ever /aff

Notably, this is VERY similar to the plan Eden came up with that Veronika described: using the fact that TV shows need entertainment to continue to end the killing game. It's the same thing, but with a much more depressed "everyone should just give up" kind of flavor.

The level of similarity does make me think David is probably not being 100% truthful, and that he just repurposed Eden's escape plan to be something sort of similar to what he was going for.

I do think that he WAS trying to defeat the killing game by killing people through the class trial. I just think that, between Xander's actions and the motive secret he received, he was trying to kill Teruko specifically. Yet another way that David's unhinged behavior ties into the Chapter 2 secrets.

*Hu hopeless child looms in the distance*

I'm so glad that Hu gets to pop off though. She really hasn't gotten, like, any content in the series so far. Here's hoping this is kicking off her getting a bunch of time to shine!

Interesting that they had both Ace and Hu cut Nico off in this interaction. The staging definitely implies that they're trying to show that while Ace is wrong for talking over Nico and not letting them say anything, Hu is also wrong to an extent for not letting Nico defend themself and running to their rescue all the time.

I am begging you. Please discuss the murder method. I didn't realize until my rewatch of the trial that they have actually literally not talked about the murder method at ALL except for telling David that he doesn't know shit about it.

HUH?????????????

Theory Update/Analysis

Well, I'm gonna start this off by saying that I'm still pretty locked into Eden being the killer. We still need to address the tape, and I personally still found her to be decently shifty now behavior wise (she seemed nervous when we turned back to solving the trial, and she says something about "it's too hard to narrow down the killer :/" when people were talking about morning alibis). I just think it makes the most sense.

While obviously my logic for why Levi would be the accomplice has to be at least somewhat flawed, given Levi's surprise confession (!!!), I still think it's possible that Levi is the accomplice here. He could be doing this to further confuse/complicate the state of things (hence why he calls it leading people astray), and it's possible he's not being 100% honest here.

Something that Levi could be doing here is taking control of the situation and spinning the truth in his favor. Hu mentioned earlier (e11, I think?) that the secrets are phrased dramatically. Similarly, Levi may be trying to offer an explanation for his secret that might be more tame, but still believable.

For example, if Levi says that he killed one of his parents because of the circumstances he grew up in, but it turned out that his parents were extremely abusive to him in some way (cough cough Amane Momose), wouldn't people be more willing to forgive the fact that he's a "murderer"? There are different levels to the culpability of murders.

So, it's definitely possible this is still an attempt by Levi to conceal the truth of his secret. It's true that, right now, no one's really trying to match all of the remaining secrets up with the remaining secret holders in-universe, but the entire fanbase pretty much slam dunked this one. Once the content of the secrets was revealed, it wasn't too difficult to track the origin of this secret to Levi. Levi might know that, and might be trying to spin it in a positive way while he can get everyone's attention and tell everyone the same narrative here in the class trial.

I don't think any Levi accomplice or killer truthers have to fully give up on the idea, or at least not until we see what Levi actually says after this. It's a WILD topic to reveal we're going to talk about, but we haven't actually talked about it yet. If we were told "we get David's motivations for trying to throw the trial," I doubt literally any of us would have locked in the prediction of "David is trying to follow in Xander's footsteps by killing everyone via the trial because he kind of remembers Xander." So, until next week, I'm keeping an open mind!

This was insane. I can't believe we actually got a new episode, and that we're gonna KEEP getting new episodes until the chapter finishes. What the fuck!!!

[cookeybg]

Autumn's Loss of Petals - Chapter 1

Title: Autumn's Loss of Petals

Various POVs : Damian Wayne, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson

Tags: Angst, Loss of love, amnesia, brotherly love, familial love, will add more if relevant

Obviously, I do not own any of the rights to any of the DC comics, animated cartoons or movies and I am not getting paid to write this. This is purely for my enjoyment :)

Word Count: 1,936

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Damian

“Before I have you sign, I must ask, are you sure you want to go through with this?” Dr. Sato’s soft kind eyes looked at Damian with compassion. "Must you keep asking me such an inane question, I've already said yes." Damian snapped, he hated seeing the look of pity everyone kept giving him. "It is an important question, many think they can go through with this without fully grasping the consequences." Dr. Sato's eyes somehow turned softer when he smiled, a tinge of sadness marred the corners of his eyes. "It's just protocol, little D." Dick reached out to pat Damian's hand only to be swatted away. "He is my child, once he has made up his mind he will stay strong." Talia stroke Damian's head gently, she was not swatted away. "If you would only tell us who it is, we might be able to set things right. Before going through with such a major surgery." Bruce crouched next to where Dick sat, his hand hovered over Damian's. Jason snorted where he leaned against the door frame and Tim, sitting in the chair next to the door, paused in his typing. "There is no point if the object of his affection doesn't reciprocate." Talia glowered at Bruce, who glared back, finally placing his hand on Damian's. "Yes, well," Dr. Sato cleared his throat, "if you have determined that this is for the best, please sign the release form so we can begin the surgery." Damian rolled his eyes. He didn't understand why his family had to be here, he would have been fine on his own. He grabbed the clipboard the doctor had handed him and signed his name neatly. He coughed, his hand shooting up to cover his mouth. He was too late, a bit of blood had splattered on the consent form. Removing his hand he stared down at it, a clump of thick white petals came with it. He felt the room silence, his family ready to fight an opponent they could not punch. He felt weak, his breath coming in short, burning his throat, leaving a sour taste. He felt pathetic and that was the worst feeling of all. He hated that this was what had become of him. That he had let his feelings rule him in this way. His mother had warned him all his childhood that love would only hurt him, would hinder him; yet here he was beholden to it, ruined by it. "Tt." He crushed the petals in his hand. He grimaced, feeling the hateful tears, that he had tried to keep at bay, drip down his cheeks. A choked sob escaped him, before a hacking cough over took it. He clutched at his chest, the noise from the heart monitor attached to him rising to dangerous levels, the temperature in his head skyrocketing, forcing his veins to bulge, a high pitched ringing overtook his hearing. His fingers dug into in cheeks, his palms covering his open mouth, preventing the bloody saliva from splattering out. His forehead bumped his knees with the force of the last cough. With watery eyes he saw a full flower in his cupped hands, it's waxy white petals let the blood it came out with slide off with ease, dripping, staining the white hospital blanket. The strong sweet smell of it mixed sickeningly with the smell of iron and bile. The ringing gradually dropped and when he looked up his family were being pushed to one side, their panicked faces pale under the florescent lights. A nurse pat his back, telling him to lay back, trying to comfort him. Dr. Sato pushed his medical bed forward, his calm soft demeanor gone, replaced with the concentration and determination of a doctor who had been working in this field for decades. They rushed him out of the room, the white sterile walls blurring in their wake. He knew he was dying, his head light, his limbs heavy. He felt relief. When they placed him on the metal bed of the operating room, they placed a plastic mask over his nose and mouth, told him to breathe in and count backwards. He saw a pair of blue eyes reflecting the sky, tousled black hair and a smile brighter than the sun, his arms opened wide, beckoning him for one last hug.

Soft light streamed in through the large window, gently waking Damian up from his dreamless sleep. His mouth felt like sandpaper, his throat felt worse, he tried to lift his hand to rub at it but a weight prevented the action. The weight was warm, comforting and when he looked down he saw Talia holding his hand, half her body laying on the mattress. He tried to call her but all that came out was a rasp, the effort was too much and he fell back into unconsciousness.

“When do you think he will wake up?” Dick asked, pacing the room. “According to records from other’s surgeries, it can take anywhere from a couple of hours after surgery to three days.” Tim said sitting next to Bruce on the beige couch, his face hidden behind his opened laptop. “How do…did you hack the hospital records?” Dick asked stopping in front of Tim. “Is it really considered hacking if it was so easy?” Tim scoffed. “Yes. Yes, it is.” Dick said. “What, you going to arrest him, pig?” Jason was lounging on the recliner, an open book in one hand. “Boys, please let’s be respectful to your brother’s recovery.” Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, his hair looked like it needed brushing, his dress shirt rumpled and unkempt. Damian watched his family bicker with half opened eyes, he was already annoyed with them. He carefully glanced around, he no longer stayed in the sterile white hospital room he had first been admitted to. He could tell that his father had put him in a private hospital room complete with a two seater couch, two reclining chairs, a coffee table and a giant 4k television hung on the wall. The walls were a light warm colored wood and the giant window that basically covered one side of the room faced the peaks of mountains. He tried to tell them to shut up, instead what came out was a soft gasp. The gasp left a burning sensation in his throat, he needed water. “Little D!” Dick rushed towards him, “How are you feeling? OMG I’m so relieved that you’re awake.” He sobbed, clasping Damian’s hand to his chest, being careful of the IV needle embedded in it. Bruce and Tim had followed Dick, but were much more reserved. His father looked relieved, smiled at him and ruffled his hair. Tim smirked, the bags under his eyes looked darker and more defined. Jason had left the room, when he returned he brought a nurse with him. The nurse worked around them, checking Damian’s vitals, while Dick prattled on about how relieved Kori and Mari would be when they found out he had woken up. Damian did not have the energy to make Dick shut up, though he was relieved he was there, something he would never admit to. The nurse gave Bruce a cup of shredded ice, giving him instructions to feed it to Damian slowly. She helped put him in a sitting position, adding pillows for back support. She then excused herself, stating that she would inform the doctor of his wakefulness. The ice that his father fed him was the best thing he had ever tasted. He wanted more, was frustrated when he couldn’t snatch the cup away due to his heavy limbs. He was shaky and uncoordinated, Tim and Jason teased him, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn’t retaliate both physically and verbally. Bruce scolded them, feeding Damian another sliver of ice that melted far too quickly on his overheated tongue. The room quieted down when Dr. Sato walked in, his soft smile directed to the whole room, when it landed on Damian it softened further.

“I am happy to see you awake. If you would allow me to do a few tests?” He indicated for the rest of the family members to leave the room. They all reluctantly complied, Bruce squeezed his shoulder telling him to call if he needed him. Damian rolled his eyes, why would he need him? Dr. Sato gave him a brief check up, checking his breathing with a stethoscope and his eyes with a small pen light. When satisfied, the doctor brought the stool chair that had been under the hospital computer in the room, close to the bed, sat on it, looked at his clipboard and then gave Damian a serious look. “Physically, it seems that you will recover wonderfully.” Dr. Sato stated, “Do you remember why you had this operation?” Damian scoffed, opened his mouth to respond, but when he realized that he couldn’t remember his mouth shut with an audible clack. He rubbed at his neck, trying to message it, trying to distract from the uncomfortable feeling of blankness. He looked around the room, did he get hurt? Obviously, his throat burned and he had bandages wrapped around his neck, but what hurt him? His hand slowly drifted down to his chest, he had bandages there too, the skin felt painful, inflamed, he hadn't noticed before. "I was hurt." Damian rasped, unsure of his respond. "In a way," Dr. Sato nodded, "we removed a growth from your lungs and heart, it was causing an obstruction to your airways." He tried to remember, a subtle image of a memory crept up and quickly slipped away. It felt like a cold bolt had struck him, the sudden pain making him wince. "No, don't," Dr. Sato patted the blankets next to Damian, "rushing it will do you no good and will only hurt. Many patients in your shoes will have temporary amnesia, slowly you will regain most of your memories." "Most?" Damian couldn't go above a whisper, his throat burning with any effort of speech. "Hm, yes, all of the relevant memories will return, except for the ones that caused the injury in the first place." Dr. Sato wrote something on his clipboard and stood up, "You were very brave, I am glad you pulled through. I will inform your family to give you some time alone to process, I'm sure they would like to go eat and shower. Please rest, you need plenty of it." He smiled and left, the door giving a soft click as it shut. Damian stared at his hands, a faint image of white petals lingered, but he couldn't remember the shape. He shakily touched his chest, it was solid, his flesh intact under the gauze. He took a deep breath, it tasted of blood but it was clear. His heart beat without constraint, comfortable in his chest. Damian could feel it, that something was missing, he gripped his hospital gown. It felt like he could reach in if he pressed a bit harder, like he could fill the cold void left behind by whatever they had removed. Fill it with his fist, squeeze his heart so that it could feel warm. It was an silly thought, dangerous even, he should be grateful that it was gone. Wet droplets landed on his hand, large and hot, with a shock he realized they were tears. He was crying and couldn't figure out why, all he knew was that this emptiness was unnatural. He had forgotten something important. He wanted his father, he wanted his mother, he needed his family.

I will be experimenting with different POV's for this fic, but they will all be Damian-centric. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope I got the imagery across.

[sabrinahawthorne]

CLASH! Devlog, January 28, 2025 - Contest Reworks

Let's talk about how Contests have changed!

Perhaps the hardest lesson in game design, no matter your experience or skill, is that sometimes you must kill your darlings.

The Conflict Meter was a holdover from the game that originally inspired me to make CLASH! in the first place - a PbtA game that I haven't touched in years. It took many forms in its many iterations across games, and in each instance it fell short of what I wanted from it. Sometimes it failed to be the gravitational center of conflict; sometimes it allowed a fight to last forever; sometimes it could make a single encounter balloon in length with the addition of even a single character. It was re-inventing all the problems I hoped it would solve. I loved the Conflict meter; so I had to kill it.

In fact, I've removed "combat" as a bespoke mode of play entirely. Instead, I've split CLASH!'s resolution mechanic two ways - if you want to do something cool, you'll initiate a Skill Challenge. If you want to do something cool and Someone is Opposing You, you're initiating a Contest.

This creates a cascade of changes both great and small. For example:

NPCs can initiate Contests if you decide to oppose their actions

Contests are standalone, meaning that the act of fighting is much more freeform and integrated into the larger flow of play

It's no longer clear what, exactly, you're Bidding for

That last point is the most substantial change in my opinion, and my solution is an attempt to marry the story-based play and the more tactical elements of combat.

The way it works is this: Character A announces the action they want to take, as usual. The action in question has the following poperties:

its outcome is both uncertain and guaranteed to be dramatic

Character B is standing in the way of its completion

Once B has announced their intention to oppose A, then they both need to describe their goals. That is to say, they need to tell the table what will happen if they win the Contest. Fate veterans will benefit from thinking of this almost like an aspect - a phrase which concisely and clearly describes what winning and losing looks like in this scenario.

Fighters are encouraged to make their goals dramatic and proactive. Instead of "I want to stop Lord Skull from punching a hole in my stomach," for example, they could say, "I want to grab Lord Skull's fist as it comes for me and bury it to the shoulder in the mud, immobilizing him." Paired with Lord Skull's goal of "I want to punch a hole in this kid's stomach," we have a nice establishment of the stakes.

From here, the Contest proceeds largely as you're probably familiar with it - Bids, Counters and Techs. Now, Techniques have been reworked in their own right, but they're their own can of worms, and I'm determined to playtest their current iteration before I speak confidently about them. I've learned that lesson.

There are a couple smaller changes I should mention as well - for example, it's now possible to Bid more Points than are in your relevant Pool! Doing so will still win you the Contest if you pick a winning Pool - however, it comes at a cost, inflicting you with a Condition that will make further Contests harder for you.

This is part of the effort to balance out the first-move advantage built into Contests. I want Fighters to have a high-risk way to get out of a corner if they're the second one to Bid. This also, of course, adds further layers to the mind-games that Contests are built for.

If you want to learn more, check out the Playtest Materials! I've recently released the second version, and I have sessions planned to put this iteration through the wringer. With luck, more progress will be incoming soon.

I'd also appreciate it if you'd check out my Surgery Fundraiser Sale - as of this writing, all of my works are 75% off for the next six months, and I'd be grateful if you'd contribute. Plus, my games are pretty good!

[batsplat]

“the issue was that valentino had thought that he could fix that bike - and while obviously he did influence that project, it was still several years away from being particularly close to being fixed. those two years are all about frustration, of trying to make changes to the bike and nothing working... which was enough to make valentino willing to accept yamaha's terms as long as he could get back to a point where he was competitive again. because he had begun to doubt himself, because after two miserable years of injury, a bike that oscillated between throwing him off and just being slow, the tragedy he and the sport suffered at sepang 2011... well, more than anything else, he just wanted to enjoy himself again”

sorry to copy whole chunks of your work into your inbox and idk if you meant it to sound this way or if it’s an accident but reading this part you could have also been talking about marc’s last years at honda (heartache! my god, my chest twisted) and his switch to ducati and it’s rather interesting… that this happened at almost the same age for them… through almost the same situation………. idk, as different as they sometimes seem, it’s almost like they are meant to be viewed as two versions of the same

(x) maybe a teensy bit on purpose lol

yeah, look, obviously there's plenty of notable differences between the two situations - from how serious the injury was to the personal tragedy valentino went through during that time to the disparity in their ages (three years doesn't sound like a lot but in this sport it kinda is). personally, I didn't really doubt that much that marc could be a title contender again, but from the way he speaks about it, talking during this last presser that he was considering retirement at assen last year... look, some of the stuff early this year was expectation management and of course he's perfectly capable of lying about this stuff, but he very obviously did have some serious doubts about the extent to which he could be competitive again. this is the thing, right... he just hadn't been able to fight at the front of the field for so long, plus he was on a bike that is just ideal for slowly stripping away the confidence of a rider. if you're constantly unexpectedly crashing because you just can't trust the feedback you're getting from the bike, that's just psychologically incredibly tough to deal with (incidentally broadly an accurate description of the ducati during the early 2010s)

which is where the parallels with valentino really do come in, don't they... it's the confidence, the way for the first time in their careers, it's really been systematically stripped down... all this self doubt, the way they're struggling to find themselves again. of course, they'd both gone through rough patches before - the 2006-07 period for valentino, 2015 for marc. they've had a few knocks, it's not as easy to shrug off injuries any more, they know there's no guarantee they'll measure up to the riders they once were. I compiled valentino talking about marc's injury here, but most relevant is how he compares it to his own 2010 injuries. so you have this in july 2020:

I think it's interesting that valentino acknowledges that it helped he knew his title charge was over after the broken leg, to force him to give it up and just focus on his recovery. it's easier, right - if he'd been in marc's situation, it's entirely possible he would've tried to race the following week too. I also think this is an interesting way of framing his actual recovery process, where he *checks notes* still came back way sooner than everyone expected,leading to speculation he didn't really believe his title charge was over - plus kept delaying surgery to the shoulder to the off-season even though it was very obviously hampering him, which then continued to be an issue the following year. like, okay, great job, you didn't try to ride a motogp bike WITH A BROKEN LEG, but also "I only thought about getting better" doesn't quite match up with your actions buddy

as valentino acknowledges, the sport does have a history of near-miraculous comebacks... I feel like these days people only remember 2010 and not the 2017 knock-off

and of course marc's ill-fated decision has to be seen within this context. the ways in which he was influenced by the comebacks from other riders in the past (the most famous of which is probably jorge assen 2013) and by how he himself had a habit of somewhat improbably recovery timelines after constant off-season surgery. from the vale race recs post *wink wink* *nudge nudge*:

valentino also compares his own mugello injury with marc's in september of 2020:

so you also get valentino agreeing with the parallel between honda's situation in 2004 and 2020. of course, the situation in 2004 wasn't as dramatic for honda - but in both cases, they went into that season fully expecting to win that title and instead found themselves underperforming and losing

moving on to comparing the injuries: valentino says his initial injury was worse, but it was marc doing the crazy fast comeback that really fucked him over (which is all true). he talks about why it's so tough... the "physical side" of the pain when you ride the bike but also "on a mental level if you have any fear". how this leaves a "mark on all riders". not particularly hard to draw any parallels here, he's already doing it for us

and lastly in november 2020, again with reference to his own 2010 injury:

talking about how eventually it becomes not just about the career but also about quality of life... how it was a tough period for him because he was just in constant pain... "sometimes you need time"... again, not really much to add, is there. the following years are a brutal double whammy of sorts: not only are you attempting to recover from your worst career injury, not only are there massive reasons why you're suffering (chronic pain, personal tragedy), but also you're suddenly uncompetitive in a way you've never been before in the premier class. you know there's a real possibility your time at the top of the sport is over... that even if you get back on a competitive bike, there's no guarantee you'll be able to come close again to being the rider you once were. you've ridden a bike that's gradually sapped your confidence, your ironclad trust in your own ability to be able to master any bike... you've spent so much time away from the top positions, and you've also made way more high profile mistakes that you had at any stage of your career. for valentino, the most memorable one is obviously jerez 2011 - which, yeah, you can write it off as just a dumb error in the wet, but it's not the kind he'd make if he didn't see this as his one chance to get a big result this early in the season with the crap bike and the crap shoulder (this is 'ambition outweighs talent'). for marc, it's silverstone 2021 (as martin says afterwards, "I hope he can learn from this one and improve for the future", which is great snark lol), portimao last year (y'know, the home crowd booing him)... arguably aragon 2022 the first lap, but that one's not quite as bad a misjudgement (admittedly, he maybe should've called it a day after the first collision). obviously, valentino was never a particularly crash-prone rider until he got on that ducati - but it's worth remembering marc wasn't really known for this kind of error, where he was collecting other riders and causing them both to crash. all of this isn't fun! it's also just kind of humiliating! they're used to so much success, and now they're getting barely any of that - while also occasionally having to go around apologising to other blokes for annoying errors they weren't really making back in the day!

then from marc's end, you've got this quote from 2014 (credit to this post):

of course, knowing marc, there's no way he's not thought about the parallels between his current situation and valentino's back in 2013. and, look, obviously it's not one to one. valentino was three years older back then, his injuries were serious but considerably less so than what marc went through, the competitive landscape looks completely different now than it did in 2013... but this isn't about drawing direct comparisons, it's more about the associated feelings for both of them... all this self doubt, all this pain, the way they just weren't having fun any more... this is the first order of priority, rediscovering the joy. personally I reckon they were being more or less sincere at the start of that journey in not primarily thinking about securing more titles. of course, that changes once they realise they can be competitive again... but while the doubt remains, it's not the main thing they're concerned with

that's the fun thing about qatar 2013, isn't it? there's no point in valentino's entire career where he would have been less invested in whether he ended up winning or losing a fight like that. the whole point wasn't the end result, it's that he was even capable of fighting like that again... of having fun again, battling with a top rider, with the star of tomorrow. given his weekend up to that point, he wouldn't even have been expecting to do so right before the race! really, beating marc in that race was just a bonus. in a different way, the same thing was obviously true of marc: making his debut in the premier class and immediately getting to fight his hero, ending up taking his first ever premier class podium. because of some cruel alchemy of timing and circumstance, you've managed to capture them both at the precise moment where they really are just happy to be there, made their first fight with each other a moment of pure, undiluted ecstasy. such a sweet moment for the pair of them, where they found themselves able to fight each other and had every reason to relish it. you really couldn't have scripted it better

and like you say, they are two versions of the same rider! it really does feel like their careers should be read in conversation with each other! obviously valentino frequently acknowledged this himself early on, saying it wasn't an 'exaggeration' to call marc 'the next valentino rossi'... the ways in which marc had modelled himself after valentino, including of course copying some of his most famous overtakes. beyond their rivalry and conflict, there is also continuity between the pair of them. their entire feud hinges on how it can feel like a blessing to face another version of yourself... but it can also become a curse. the reason why they grew so close in the first place and why things got so ugly between them is fundamentally the same. neither of them have ever really forgotten about the similarities between the pair of them either. mutually inescapable until the end, I fear

incidentally, for context, here's what valentino was actually saying at the end of the ducati years. first of all, he pays casey his dues for being able to succeed on that bike:

you'll note that while he says the experience hadn't broken him (though "I don't think so" isn't particularly firm either), he does talk about how psychologically tough riding that ducati was. also, like I mentioned in the post that this one is a follow-up to, the really big frustration is not even about the riding as much as it is in the utter failure in bike development terms - where nothing they did actually worked:

he describes this as his first wrong career choice (although in other places he has also defended this decision), while also paying credit to his ducati team. crucially it followed on from all these rolls of the dice that had worked, the most major ones being probably the switch to yamaha and later the switch to bridgestones:

he says he's uncertain about whether he'll be able to fight for titles and even race wins again, stressing the importance of the valencia test (which is when he knew he was in serious trouble back in 2010):

and he talks about being the number two rider back at yamaha (while of course flipping it around again to ensure he's putting pressure on jorge):

same principle as with marc, some of this is expectation management and avoiding putting too much pressure on himself, cf marc's constant talk about being content if he could just fight for those 'top five top six positions' again (lol). but crucially valentino didn't know what would be possible

he does also talk a bit about his successors to the seat:

the thing about the ducati during this time, right, is that it was a very bad bike. honda decided to be a bit more dramatic about this post-2020, but these are two broadly analogous cases of massive decline for a manufacturer that had recently won a championship. casey came in for 2007 as a 21 year old insanely talented rider who wasn't too familiar with another bike (certainly not one as friendly as the yamaha) and was able to do something special with that capricious package... but he also talks in his autobiography about how ducati became far too complacent once that title had been won. it's not just mystery illness that explains the progressive decline in his results at ducati during the following three years - it was hubris from ducati, their refusal to listen to their riders while preferring to insinuate their riders simply weren't following the right diet or just weren't exercising enough. valentino switched to this poor package at an age at which adapting to a new bike is just categorically harder, and he failed in making any real progress with that bike for the following two years

that being said, at the end of the day ducati's situation back then isn't a million miles away from what you've seen with the honda - albeit in a different era where this performance decline wasn't punished quite so badly in championship standings because the margins now are a lot slimmer. casey did the equivalent to what marc did in the late 2010s, and put a somewhat evil but obviously fast bike into championship contention for two of his four years at ducati. he jumped ship at the right time, valentino jumped onto it at the wrong time and swiftly realised most of the ship was by this point underwater. look, just some interesting context imo! feel free to ignore. if you're interested in a more in-depth read about what was actually wrong with the bike in 2011, here you go - the short version is "front end feel". which is of course the ideal way to ruin confidence... if you can't trust the feedback you're getting, you can't trust yourself, simple as

[tamsiblings]

safe shooting script flashbacks analysis (1/3)

warning: this will be long because it includes a whole scene from the safe shooting script, which can be found here.

i wanted to explore the flashback sequences in the safe shooting script, because they're all pretty different from the final version in the show.

the other two still incorporate some elements from what we see in the show, but the first one is an entirely different scene.

*any bolded emphasis mine. gonna have some line by line commentary but also talk a bit about it at the end.

CLOSE ON: Rich expensive BRANDY as it pours into a rich expensive snifter. Pull back to see: INT. TAM ESTATE - DAY The room, tasteful, lit by candlelight, feels warm. SIMON holds the snifter. He swirls the brandy around a bit to warm it, inhales the aroma, looks up and smiles. SIMON This is a joke, right? We see Simon's father, GABRIEL, 50, refined, used to having control, standing in front of him. At the moment, he seems warm and jovial.

definitely already setting up gabriel tam as a father - used to having control, used to things going how he plans them to (including the lives of his children). and he SEEMS warm and jovial... right now.

GABRIEL Yes. That's exactly right. Because brandy is funny. SIMON It's just, this is... this smells like New Canaan brandy. Gabriel pours brandy for himself and for Simon's mother, REGAN, late 40s, elegant. SIMON (cont'd) Aged New Canaan brandy. How much did you pay for this? I thought business was slow.

not quite sure what to make of this, honestly. while the tams are clearly still wealthy and living in comfort, it seems to suggests that they've had - if not current money issues, money troubles potentially on the horizon. this COULD theoretically lean into the theory that the tam parents intentionally gave up river as some kind of deal, but i don't particularly like that theory or think the episode itself (or even the rest of the shooting script flashbacks) do much to corroborate it.

also, a focus on simon being concerned about it. always maintain he is a worrier in general and has been likely expected to act like an adult long before he actually was one.

GABRIEL Pierre owed me a favor. Seeing how it's a special occasion. SIMON Is it? Simon tries to read his father's grin. Then: REGAN For god's sake, Gabriel. Just tell him. Gabriel chuckles. GABRIEL Fine, spoil my fun. (to Simon) I had a talk today with Jerome Stuart. Seems he's about to take over as Head of Surgery at AMI. Said when you're done with your internship, there'll be an attending position waiting for you. This is a huge moment for Simon. He's thrilled.

just, so many points of fascination here. first of all, if we take this as canon, then simon was not even done with his (8 month, according to the pilot) internship when river went to the academy. also, the way i understand it in our universe, after an internship, you would usually have a residency before becoming an attending, would you not? maybe it works differently here idk.

but also - again, gabriel as the (likely, in many circumsmtances) well-meaning but controlling patriarch who information comes through. this is simon's career and life, but he's getting told what's going to happen - this isn't framed as like "oh, this is one opportunity for you" - this is The Plan, getting told to him by his father.

of course, simon's not upset about it, because this is what he wants, and this is the life he knows - it may be something that's been Decided For Him, but it's also what he wants to do. in this moment, what came first isn't so relevant, and he has little reason to question it.

also worth noting that there does seem to some sort of quid-pro-quo who-you-know society politics going on here. while i maintain that i'm sure simon IS very smart, talented, and a hard worker - and maybe would have gotten this opportunity on his own - he's alos been afforded privileges other haven't, and would never entirely know if this is on his own merit.

REGAN (smiling) Congratulations, son.

i know it's common for some, but there is something so formal and stilted about calling someone by their familial title.

Simon stares into his glass, embarrassed. SIMON It's not a big deal.

despite my earlier tangent about this being an admitted moment of privilege for simon, this moment was legitimately so fascinating to me and since first reading it, has informed my view of simon a fair bit. simon is confident and assured in his medical abilities in the show, but he's not actually that arrogant or showy about them. and the script could easily say he's simply feigning embarassment or humility because it's the "proper" thing to do if that's what they meant, but he seems legitimately a bit uncomfortable with the praise.

GABRIEL Oh. Well, all right then. Playing along, Gabriel reaches for Simon's glass. Simon pulls it away, grinning.

okay hshshs this is cute! i want to acknowledge this because it's like, Such A Dad Thing, and clearly brings simon back out of his shell a bit. and in a story like this, where a big part of the focus is the deterioration of the family and what simon actually lost, it's important to show he did actually lose something positive. i'm (as i think the narrative encourages the audience to be) fairly critical of the tam parents, and i think in many ways there love was performative and conditional. but people are complicated, and i Do think they loved their children, or at the very least, thought they did.

BUT (and i am so full of contradiction here), while this is played as funny and playful, there is another fore-shadowy reading here of "if you don't react the way i think you should, i will take things away."

SIMON Okay, okay. It's an enormous deal. AMI, that's, I can really do good work there-- GABRIEL Good work, good pay. There'll be an announcement at the term-end ceremony.

we get an immediate contrast on their focus as well. simon is excited because of what he'll be able to do while he's there - gabriel gives a sort of passing acknowldgement but is the one who focuses on the pay component as well. while i'm sure simon wasn't put off by the financial gain, i don't get the sense that was ever the sole reason he was interested in becoming a doctor; we see pretty clearly here that he wants to make a difference.

REGAN We're so proud, sweetheart. SIMON Is River coming back? Gabriel and Regan stare at Simon. SIMON (cont'd) For the ceremony. Did she say she'd be able to get away? REGAN We didn't... (brightly) We'll write to her immediately, tell her all about it.

i'm very <3, actually, about simon having this big prestigious thing going on in his life and immediately going "yeah okay but will my little sister be there" lmao.

but i don't get the sense that this is about the ceremony specifically - i'm sure he'd like her to be there, because it's a big thing happening, and you want the important people in your life there when big things are happening, but it seems like he's more taking the opportunity to ask about something that's been on his mind a while.

curious about what regan was going to say here before cutting herself off, too. we didn't... tell river? think you'd care whether she was there? that seems odd, considering they clearly know close simon and river are. definitely the first sign of trouble, and i am getting the sense that the tam parents already know something is wrong here and are evading the question.

GABRIEL I doubt she'll come. You saw the schedule at that school of hers. I took one look at it, had one of those school dreams. You know, "I didn't study"... Gabriel chuckles to himself. SIMON I just... I haven't heard from her in a while. I thought she'd come home sometimes, or at least send a wave, but there's only been the occasional letter, and half the time she doesn't sound like herself.

river has been gone long enough that simon finds it odd that she hasn't visited home at this point, and he's already started to receive her strange letters...

REGAN She's changing. Finally starting to fit in. You should be happy for her.

there is a note here that i think probably has an element of truth here - it seems likely river (as many tiny child prodigies often don't) never really fit in anywhere before. and it's plausible that simon may even be a bit perturbed by the idea of her changing, because that's a hard thing to wrap your head around with someone you love sometimes.

but - you could read this differently, but it does honestly just read like straight-up emotional manipulation to me. while maybe there is a part of simon that doesn't want river to change and is uncomfortable with the idea (because they are close and it can be scary when someone you love very deeply is changing) he's not bringing this up for no reason. he's also not suggesting anything nefarious is going on at this point... just expressing mild concern at things that seem strange. because schools, again, should have like... breaks, long weekends, something. the focus on river not sending a wave (which i think is usually a video message or call, right?) as opposed to sending letters is signficant, because we see in the river tam sessions that her physical appearance and mental/behavioral state would have made it obvious at this time that something was wrong.

and while people can change to varying degrees, it's odd for someone to change so much even in their writing that they don't sound like themselves. simon is picking up on this BECAUSE he loves her, not because he wants there to be something wrong.

and his parents are immediately reacting like he's just like - being jealous, almost, or not wanting to river to succeed. it's (subtly) making him out to be a problem for feeling this way, and implying that he doesn't want the best for river, which is, of course, laughable.

Simon forces a smile. SIMON Of course. GABRIEL Your position will still be there for her to admire when she gets home, Doctor Tam. Come on... let's have a toast. I've been working on this all day. The three of them rise and lift their glasses... GABRIEL (cont'd) May your future always be as bright as it is this very moment -- The three glasses meet... CLINK.

that's really not what it's about for simon, though. gabriel is bringing it back to being about simon's new position, but i truly don't think simon wants river there to like, fawn over him, lol. he wants her there because he misses her and is already suspecting something's odd, but, of course, doubting himself because (of his parents) he probably DOES just miss her and he doesn't want his parents or river herself to think he's NOT happy for her.

so, yeah, entirely different scene from what we get in the show. i understand why - to truly understand the loss and magnitude of what's been done to river, as well as the bond between her and simon, it's necessary to see her playful and exuberant as a child, and paint a picture of how close the siblings have always been. so in that sense, i don't mind the change.

but i still really like the scene we're presented with here, and honestly, none of it is contradicted by anything in canon, i don't think, so i'm still considering it True. it's very easily still something that could have happened. and while we already get some of the picture this paints, but here, i think they convey a lot with clarity in a short amount of time - the expectations placed on both the tam children, their parents being theoretically supportive and warm and generous when things are going well, but still that undercurrent of controlling beavior and manipulation. as well as a bit more of a grasp on simon's personality at this time - someone who clearly loves his sister, clearly loves his parents and wants to do what they think he should, someone who is excited about the idea of being able to do good work and really make a difference, but actually a little bashful at being praised for it at first, polite but still brings up his concerns early. again, i get cutting this because i do think we get a sense of most of this from everything else we see of the tams, but certainly adds an even more colorful picture of exactly what the dynamic here was.

[calamitys-child]

Hi, are you comfortable saying who your top surgeon was? You look great! Totally understand if not. Either way thanks for sharing, love seeing guys that look similar to me, and congrats and hope you recover well!

Hi! Thank you sm!

So I'm on the NHS for my surgery and I personally had a fucking Saga of admin issues on my way which I don't yet have it all behind me enough to speak on at length, but what's most relevant here is that on the NHS you can't pick your surgeon, just your location/team. I ended up with Chelsea and Westminster, who are a pretty new pathway for gender affirmation surgery, even if some of the surgeons have been in the field for a While now.

The team is led by Victoria Rose, who I also had for my consultation - she also worked previously and I believe still does work with the NHS Manchester pathway. Her results, as I've seen from other people, are really good; I personally had a really difficult time with her at my consultation, but ymmv, I know other folk have got on great with her so maybe it was just me or she was just having an off day. Either way, I know she's a great surgeon, makes sense for her to be the team lead.

When I got my admission paperwork for surgery, it said I'd be with Giuseppe di Taranto. I hadn't seen much of his work online before the surgery - looking him up I found he works partly in the NHS and partly in the private sphere, the latter of which he has an instagram for showing some of his work.

On the actual day of my surgery, what happened was a sort of boy band in scrubs arrived in my room??? Honestly idk, I got 3 hot men who all said they'd be my surgery team and I genuinely couldn't tell you whether he was any of them I have handsome guy faceblindness (and also regular faceblindness). I'd been fasting for 14hrs, had 3hrs sleep, and was the most anxious I've ever been, not my greatest state for remembering details.

Pics under the cut for a healing update, if anyone is curious: contains scarring and medical equipment but no blood, which should give at least a sense of how it's going 2.5 weeks on!

At discharge, ~5hrs post surgery: I had to wear that post op binder 24/7 for the first week, no drains even though di Taranto apparently usually uses them? Unsure why but grateful not to have needed them

There was padding over the surgery site which we assumed was gauze but my partner discovered upon helping me wash with baby wipes was essentially just a huge strip of kitchen sponge which, hilarious

1 week post op, first dressings change: elated. Incisions almost completely closed, minimal bleeding or oozing, zero sign of infection. Right nipple graft doing perfectly, left nipple graft looking mostly okay but a little more fluid and scabbing. Redressed whole site and kept compression vest on, can now take it off for half an hour daily to wash, avoiding getting dressings wet - this will be the case til 4-6 weeks post op

2 weeks post op: incisions pretty much completely shut and frankly astonishingly neat so far, no signs of infection, just still fragile. Some swelling, particularly on left side, but not enough to cause concern - it's very very common after a mastectomy and usually mild swelling resolves on its own after a couple months, especially with the compression top and with gentle heat applied like a hot water bottle or something for 20 minutes a day. We're keeping an eye on it. Grafts still looking both good, right slightly neater than left. Discolouration near grafts in these pics is because the dressings we're using are soaked in iodine which disinfects but can stain the skin, it'll come off eventually in the shower.

Current plan is the grafts should be kept completely dressed for 6 weeks, redressed weekly, and I'll still wear the compression top for 6 weeks. Incisions are now down to just steri strip dressings until 4 weeks, at which point we can hopefully move to scar care - I have a 4wk follow up remote appointment with the Chelsea Westminster team to discuss then

[ckret2]

@bluefrostyy said: How did bills eye moved from his corner to his center XD

That's a terrific question I actually have a serious answer to!

So for context this comment was left on a post with this image:

About the writing system used in Bill's home dimension. I also illustrate him with an eye on his corner in other posts about his home dimension.

Small diversion: I actually do also occasionally illustrate him with an eye on the inside of his body to represent "psychic" perception (that is: the ability to see the third dimension)—

—as in his home dimension, having an "eyeball on the inside of your body"/inner eye is a non-literal visual metaphor for psychic powers (equivalent to how humans use the phrase "third eye").

But that's just supposed to be a visual metaphor to represent him looking at the third dimension; in reality his eye's in the corner where it belongs. Diversion over!

So I've mentioned recently that one of the consequences of living in a 2D universe is that to someone looking in from "above," a shape's perimeter is their outside/skin, and their internal organs are all on the inside of their shape—completely open and visible to the third dimension. (This is backed up in the original Flatland novel, where the main character Square mentions the visiting Sphere touching his "insides" because the sphere can reach it through the third dimension.) So if you were looking down on Bill's dimension you'd see this, exposed organs and all:

(just an illustrative example of the concept, I don't actually think their guts look LIKE THAT.)

Which means that for Bill to become the Bill we know today, at some point after he left the second dimension, he got skin or armor or an exoskeleton "over" and "under" his body to hide & protect his guts from being poked in the third dimension.

All of which is to say: since leaving the second dimension, Bill's had to make some SERIOUS surgical alterations to his body to accommodate living in the third dimension. Covering his guts is just one of MANY changes he continuously made over the eons since burning his universe.

Relocating his eye from a corner to the center of his body is just another thing he's had to do to adjust to 3D existence. An eye on one corner that's designed primarily to see in a thin horizontal line and that requires him to hover horizontally to see isn't as useful as an eye on the "inside" of his body that faces flat out toward the world and allows him to hover vertically. The new position WOULD look grotesque to a normal shape from his own dimension... but, hey, they've been extinct in the wild for a trillion years, so who cares.

For my writing needs I don't think the exact mechanism by which it was done is relevant. (Surgery by another shape doctor who'd moved to the third dimension? Snapped his fingers and did it himself automatically because he has godlike power? Slowly migrated as his body adjusted itself over time to accommodate his needs, the same way humans' muscle structures or bones can gradually change in response to how they live their lives but extended over billions of years?) What matters is: it was done deliberately, in response to living in the third dimension, because that's where he needed his eye to be.

The other survivors from his dimension—Kryptos, Hectorgon, Amorphous Shape—also have eyes in the middle of their bodies and also started off with eyes on their corners. (Hectorgon appears to have a mouth instead of an eye, but as Bill showed us in the penthouse scene those are the same organ for his species. Kryptos kept his eye in the original place, but it IS now forward facing, and he added a mouth in the middle of his body like the others.)

I think Bill was an early adopter of the new eye position: because being stupidly OP means it was easier for him; because he's not afraid of looking like a freak to his peers; and because since childhood a large part of his identity has been being "psychic"/"having an inner eye" so the idea of making that literal came naturally to him, it's making him a freak in a way that also highlights what makes him special.