#but then nobody else wanted them because. their magic yknow.

[wacky-nameless-inventor-24]

Fully dressed, cry in the bath I’m still a child Pick me up, reuse me ‘til the glue melts apart From the heat of the argument

[piescornerstore]

yknow i really like the headcanon where addisons, when they're tired or otherwise out of energy, can plug into some sort of cable and recharge at the end of a long day. but i also like the headcanon where their main source of energy is money. while they can eat anything, from regular human food to magic food to shoes, usually the most important nutrients an addison can get is from any type of currency. and i thought, why not both? humans do the same. addisons use food as the main source of energy, and connect themselves to a cable so they can clear their caches and be more ready than ever to be able to sell and work, which is all that they're supposed to be able to do.

and that made me think a little more about addispam's place in all that.

you guys know about the right to repair, right? that ever-looming fact that as consumerism becomes more and more dominant in our lives, and as corporations strive to make more and more money, the things we buy are reaching new levels of craptastic that they're basically made to break, and that older tech, while durable as hell, is basically totally accommodated for in the modern day.

and what about addispam in that context? in my fanon, he's a much older model of addison that accidentally rebooted, meant for the dump but is now roaming cyber city trying to fulfill the one purpose he was made for. but of course, the world isn't made for him anymore. maybe it never was

i'd think it'd really click for him once he tried to plug into a cable to recharge. it's practically necessary for any addison these days: if you want to sell properly, you need to clear your cache, or else your head will be swimming with endless noise that'll just fuck you up the longer it's allowed to accumulate. so, spamton bought itself a charging cable with the little money it had, after asking around to figure out what it was supposed to do (cause no one ever gave it a rulebook). but as soon as he tried to do it, the charger wouldn't fit. it went back to the store. tried another cable. didn't fit. turns out they don't sell chargers that fit its model anymore. nobody does. so addispam has to deal with a cache that keeps building and building.

and what about other things? updates are crucial to addisons. you HAVE to keep up with the styles, you HAVE to keep up with the trends, and you NEED to mimic every single little thing a lightner does but not TOO much or it might be too uncanny. so when a new update comes out, everyone's getting it.

except spamton. its model's far too old to receive such updates. it's not even on the table anymore. the last update for a model of his kind was probably a decade ago, and of course, there's no way to modify him to receive one in a way that won't kill him.

and modifications are another thing. as lines of code compressed to form sentient artificial organisms, cyber citizens can modify themselves in any way they want. tall, short, thin, fat, long hair, short hair, eye color, fingernails, even down to the way your voice sounds, you can modify yourself in any way you want. isn't that the dream? and hey, they still have modifications available for spamton's type of model? isn't that fantastic?

except they cost money. way too much money. these are the types of mods that if spamton had them, he'd probably be able to make a few sales, but he can't, because he doesn't have MONEY. and that's the thing that's fueling all of this.

everyone needs their cache cleared so they can make sales. everybody needs to update right away so they can make sales. everyone needs to modify themselves in just the right way so they can make sales. keeping everyone on their toes, their nerves ready to explode once the right mistake is made, is just the way an addison's world works. you wouldn't want to fail at your one and only purpose, would you? you wouldn't want to end up like that guy, you know him, everyone knows him, and everyone knows how much they DON'T want to be him. because they'd be failures if they were anything like him.

anyway i hate consumerism bye <3

[lollytea]

low hanging fruit but Willow for the character thingy :]

How I feel about this character

She is like a squeaky stress toy to me. I like to give her problems. I like to give her treats. She's become deeply special to me. She has melded herself to my insides and has basically become another one of my internal organs. She's also a character who has made me extra passionate about the concept of writing teenage girls as their raw, messy, complicated selves. I think a lot about Willow's trauma. I think a lot about her internalised insecurities that she'll never truly recover from but she can definitely learn to handle better. I think a lot about her rage. About her patience and wisdom. About her silliness. Willow just has SO many layers that I'm always flipping through her like a book. She is my favourite book.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

My non-romantic OTP for this character

It's very hard to choose!! Willow and Gus have this bond that's like. The school's most levelheaded dunce and the school's most reckless prodigy. Two bullied, isolated kids who took care of each other when nobody else did. They mean so much to me!!!

Also her dynamic with Amity has the potential to be so rough around the edges but imbued with so much love and yearning and hurt and betrayal and lack of communication and UUGGGHH!!! It's so fascinating, I love it!!

My unpopular opinion about this character

I dont think I have any opinion thats unpopular? Umm. I love to focus on her flaws I guess. I feel like sometimes they're overlooked bit in favour of focusing on what a strong independent kind loving sweet funny tragic young girl she is. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That is a huge chunk of her personality. But it would be cool to see some spotlight given to her occasional pettiness, her anger management issues, her tendency to keep her grievances to herself rather than communicate them because she's so averse to confrontation I feel like these are the nitty gritty details that are super fun to incorporate into a Willow characterization. But like. That's not me criticising the way she's usually interpreted. This is fandom. People can do whatever they want.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Yknow....I probably would have been left wanting so much more for Willow if FTF didn't come along and give me everything I could have wanted for her. So I'm honestly pretty satisfied.

I guess, if anything, I wish Willow's negative emotions causing her magic to go haywire had been a bigger issue over the duration of the show, rather than just little hints here and there culminating in the big FTF meltdown. Like I know she was just a secondary character but an episode or two delving into Willow's relationship with her magic and her emotions would have been really cool. Like it must be scary for a little girl, right? To feel like a bomb waiting to explode? I wonder if she was ever afraid of herself.

[sunnnfish]

Sunnnfish, my local tashiro expert! This is a question out of left field but you have a deeper understanding of our dear gon-chan so I'd highly value your opinion. What do you think Tashiro likes as far as movie genres? Any in particular he might like? It's for a good cause ☺️

this is a lot of spitballing and its all highly hindered by the fact that i do not know many movies or genres. 👍 there are in fact many Not Movies in here. but im going for vibes/genre mainly.

if you want the tldr, my For Sure Likes list is as follows: •tokusatsu shows/movies (like power rangers/kamen rider) •similarly, magical girl shows/movies (sailor moon/puella magi madoka magica) •kaiju movies (Godzilla) •zombie movies •romcoms (like if lovely complex was a movie) •whatever movies old Japanese folks would recommend to him

explanations and more under the cut!! its mostly kinda stream of thought so just. bear with me

he would sooooo love tokusatsu and also action style shows/movies. this is the most sure thing i know. power rangers and kamen rider etc etc. I think power rangers/equivalent is the thing he has the most merch of because its the thing that everybody knows he likes so he always gets merch as gifts. watched it as a kid, dressed up as them for halloween, etc etc. side note: i dont think he ever asks for/buys things for himself. due to constantly feeling like hes not Into It enough. not a Real Fan like everybody else. love & passion issues.

In a similar vein he soooo likes magical girl anime. secretly though. guilty pleasure and all that. he only watches them with shirahama. his ass was forever changed by puella magi madoka magica. we all know this is because of transgenderism reasons. #gon-chan

importantly! i think he has a taste for older movies because of the old folks at the bathhouse !

just feel like he'd like kaiju movies. Godzilla Mothra etc etc. big monsters go raaahhh

i think horror would be a bit of a guilty pleasure. nobody knows he likes horror movies. maybe advertises liking zombie movies but nobody knows he likes those freaky psychological ones. guy who is morbidly curious about blood and guts and haunting. guy whos probably played until dawn. he doesn't seek them out very often because the impact of just one will stick with him for a While.

think he would like romcoms. if lovely complex (manga/anime) was a movie he'd like it. but i dont think he actually reads/watches shoujo stuff often. I think normal dramatic romance rubs him the wrong way. he doesn't like all the miscommunication shenanigans. sweet fluffy romance is like Fine to him. he'll like it if he watches it but it wont like change his life.

kinda feel like he'd like reality tv ? maybe ? has crazy intuition about what the people are actually thinking. would like the show survivor. yknow who definitely DOES watch reality. hanzawa. dont question me. his ass loves to psychoanalyze people on purpose. Tashiro psychoanalyzes people on accident.

i dont think hes as into anime as shirahama. but shirahama will show him fantasy anime shows/movies and he'll get into it just cause shirahama's into it.

i think the one popular anime hes into is one piece. but like. very casually.

hmmm other genres. think he'd like comedy a normal amount. probably would like dramas but only if he watches them with someone else. don't think he cares for sci-fi…? i honestly dont know enough about sci-fi to have an opinion on this front… would like mystery but not enough to like. seek it out. i think most of it boils down to He likes most genres just fine he just doesn't necessarily seek them out/rewatch them. only thing i think he dislikes is those dramatic ones with tons of miscommunication.

anyways. ive been thinking about this for a couple hours now. hope its somewhat comprehensible. 👍 peace and love on planet tashiro

[diabolikpersonals]

is there any Shuuma scenarios/headcanons/ something like that you have recently been thinking about?

yeah, always!! in the yuma CL route labyrinth ending, shu (and everybody else other than yuma and yui who live, and kino who dies by Murder) dies by getting trapped in a burning building right? I love me some hurt/comfort so I've been imagining the Recovery Process if things were really bad but shu and the others managed to make it out alive. (bonus points if not everybody survived lol)

details under the read more B)

while the mansion is burning and there's a magic barrier keeping everyone inside, I like to imagine shu and yuma both trying unsuccessfully to break it from both sides. like they're face to face, both pounding on the barrier with their fists to break it and escape from the fire, but to no avail. and they make eye contact and they both look so scared, because they think shu is going to burn to death right in front of yuma's eyes.

BUT HE LIVES OK there's probably some bad injuries but let's say it doesn't result in everyone's death ok?? ok. but yeah maybe somebody dies, idk who though to be honest >_>

we get yuma on the receiving end of some "my friend (almost) died in a fire and it was my fault" angst!! after 4 games of being the friend that almost died in a fire, it's his turn to be the powerless survivor! thanks, chaos lineage! I love u!! (of course, in the game, his friend really did die, but........yknow)

there's something so terribly cruel about recognizing how much recovering that shu has done over this series (less afraid of fire, less guilty, less afraid that his loved ones will die as a result of getting close to him) and then putting him in such a horrifying situation that it all goes away and he's back at square one. it's awful, I love it.

after the scarlet mansion burns down, everybody packs into the orange or violet house to figure out what to do next. shu freaks out anytime someone lights a candle, uses the stove, etc. he's struggling to talk to people or help out with anything. he's such a wreck that nobody really knows what they can do or say to snap him out of it. it feels like, because he had recovered so much, he fell even further and it's even more painful this time.

I think I fixated on this so much because usually, yuma uses tough love with shu, right? yuma kind of has a thing about showing emotions (like he doesnt think men should look weak or "uncool") and I think that contributes to why he treats shu the way he does. he can act very, like, "you're fine, walk it off!" "dont make a big deal out of this thing, let's just brush it off and go back to normal!" yknow?? and I wanted to create a situation where yuma absolutely cant do that. because right now (especially if somebody else died in the fire) yuma is also grieving, he's also afraid, and he doesn't want to be acting cool or brushing it off right now.

so even if the others are trying to go about business as usual, I want yuma to realize that he can't do that this time. fuck his "men shouldnt cry in front of others" thing, shu and yuma both need to cry. fuck all that toxic masculine stuff, they need to hug it out and be there for each other until they both realize "at least you're here, at least you're safe, at least I didn't lose everything." and with that bit of hope they can start the recovery process again

for a while shu refuses to leave the living room and go to sleep, and the others are bothered by it. he doesnt seem like he's getting any sleep at all. yuma eventually coaxes him into saying whats wrong, and he finds out that one of shu's compulsions after the fire is that he feels he needs to stay awake and alert in the living room In Case Something Happens. I think it would be a rly big moment for them if, instead of getting annoyed, yuma was like "okay then we can take turns as lookout. you go to sleep now, I'll stay up and keep watch."

and as time passes they gradually get less anxious. they're getting better little by little. they dont feel so high-strung about it that they cant sleep. so they start dozing off together in the living room during lookout duty lol

[white-weasel]

I loved reading about finnean in your tags of that poll reblog. This is your sign, if you want one, to talk about him (or any of your other characters) all you want. Fascinating little guy

Anon you have unleashed the floodgates I think... This is gonna be a mix of general information, campaign recaps related to him, and just general brain rot so uhhhhh who's to say if this will be even remotely intelligible lmao

So like I laid out in the tags of that post, Finnean Galondel is a high elf Order of the Scribes Wizard (currently we're at level 14). He's currently 91 and since elves reach the age of maturity at ~100 at least according to the PHB, I started by playing him as the equivalent of someone going off to college for the first time: very smart, but because he had never traveled very far outside of his village before so kinda naive about how the world actually works. He's certainly matured over the course of the campaign, but he does still tend towards optimistic outlooks

The backstory I originally provided for him was pretty brief. Essentially, Finnean's father had been out of the picture ever since he was 5 years old. Nobody really knows what happened to him. His mother told him that he was a very dedicated scholar, studying magic and history in general, but specializing in one specific area thousands of years old. Then, one night, he apparently stumbled on a huge discovery and told her that he needed to take it to the village elders right away. He left and wasn't back the next morning, the village elders saying that he never even approached them that night. Nobody knows why he decided to leave the village, or if it even was a voluntary decision at all. However, since 85 year had passed since then, Finnean and his mother essentially treated him like he was dead by that point.

And Finnean and his mom!! He is SUCH a mama's boy it's not even funny. Before the campaign, she was his best friend in the world. He loved helping her out around the house and just spending time with her. However, she was the one who pushed Finnean to leave home so that he could branch out in his training. She knew that he was pretty sheltered and needed real world experience if he was to actually improve and become a better wizard like he wanted. I have written multiple letters to my DM in character throughout the campaign for what Finnean was sending to his mom to keep her up to date

There was also Daemaris (hate this fucking bitch) who I originally included as Finnean's childhood bully. He's basically the village golden child who has always outshone Finnean and then rubbed it in his face. He left the village to strike out on his own a couple years before Finnean did and for right now all you need to know is he's an asshole and I hate him ajafsldf (he will become important later tho)

So yeah not to get into the details of everything we did in the first part of the campaign, but we played through the Dragon Heist module with some supplementary side adventures. Here, Finnean gets his first experience with violence and actually taking a life, as everything he's done before has been in controlled environments. He struggled with this for some time, about the realities of adventuring compared to all the books he had read that had made it sort of idyllic and heroic (because of course he's a huge book nerd, he's a wizard)

The thing that kinda makes him come to terms with death and killing is the group's first encounter with an evil cult (typical dnd stuff yknow). Basically it's all the horrible things, the group saw piles of bodies, but also saw a few survivors who were horrible brainwashed + traumatized from everything. We fought this cult leader, Vialis, but before we could finish him off, he teleported away. Finnean, seeing all the death and carnage around him, realized that he wished that they had been able to kill this man so he could never do this to anyone else again. Sometimes the world is a better place with certain people dead. (This cult encounter is where we have gotten one of the lines that has become our paladin's maxim throughout the campaign and has now become a central theme: "Death is inevitable, but not today" Whether that death is the PCs, those NPCs/citizens we are trying to protect, etc. Everyone will eventually die, but that doesn't mean we won't fight like hell to push it down the line later. So yeah, Finnean realizes that sometimes killing is necessary and it's part of his duty as an adventurer to carry it out.

During the course of Dragon Heist, Finnean and his friends (our party calls themelves The Keepers of the Howling Moon because we set up/own a karaoke bar in Waterdeep called The Howling Moon and it just sounds sick as shit) work for Vajra Safahr, the Blackstaff. She's basically the archmage of Waterdeep and I love her so much. Finnean and her have developed a friendship throughout the campaign. At first, I'm pretty sure she viewed him as a kid with a good heart, but green in the gills. However, as the party learned and grew and saved Waterdeep from devils, she has become much more comfortable with the party. Finnean opened up to her about his own self-doubt to her and she in turn revealed her own insecurities as the youngest Blackstaff in Waterdeep history and how she is pulled in a million different directions always. Whenever we're in Waterdeep and have downtime, Finnean spends a lot of time with her. Usually, he'll visit her tower and they'll each work on whatever they need to together. We have sending stones that connect directly to her and are CONSTANTLY trying to fill her in on what's going on with us. I just... love her so much

Another important NPC to Finnean is one Renaer Neverember. I wanna say we met him in session two, saw him be insanely competent in battle, and Finnean was IMMEDIATELY smitten with him. At the beginning of the campaign there was... so much failed flirting and obliviousness on Finnean's end. I think the most mortifying one was, Finnean went to his house, followed a courting ritual suggested by another party member (who, unbeknownst to him at this point, had just escaped from a cult so her perspective on romance was severely skewed), and then, when Renaer tried to let him down gently, misinterpreted his words and believed they were dating. After lots of second hand embarrassment, Finnean got his ass handed to him emotionally (Renaer basically said "look, you seem like a great guy, but I have a lot going on with my dad rn" but was never a dick) and resolved that they would never be more than friends.

However, there have been so many moments where Renaer singles out Finnean specifically from the rest of the party: getting bracers of defense for his birthday, lingering touches as the party goes off the Baldur's Gate, etc, etc. So in character, Finnean has already resolved they can never be more than friends based just on how badly all previous attempts at pursuing him went. Out of character I am just SCREAMING because the stories of Finnean and Renaer are so similar to each other, but so different.

Renaer has a bad relationship with his father Dagult, who is an important figure in the city of Neverwinter. His father embezzled a shit ton of Waterdeep money and then dipped. Renaer has had to deal with the mess his father left behind, despite how much he wants to wash his hands of everything and be his own person. To most people he will be a Neverember first, and then Renaer. Finnean, on the other hand, barely knew his father. He used his father's books to study and connected to him that way, but there was never any expectation placed on him to be anything but himself. However, when he learns more about his father, who he was and how he disappeared, he knows that he must finish what his dad started, no matter how much the idea of it scares him.

Speaking of Finnean's dad, Finnean found out more about him by a Cleric/Warlock of the Raven Queen literally giving him the memories of his father's last moments. He had been researching this ancient lich and had finally figured out his location. He left a package and letter to Finnean and then set out to confront the lich. He didn't tell anyone what he was doing and didn't take any sort of backup with him. He ultimately died in his quest.

So cue a couple weeks in game later, we finally make our way back to Finnean's village to retrieve this package for Finnean, which pointed out some suspect ruins. There was a SHIT ton of stuff that happened there for each of us PCs (Paladin/Barbarian from the cult of Orcus had an emotional confrontation with her older brother, trying to save him from whatever entity's control he was under and Warlock/Sorcerer basically found out that she was not who she thought she was (too convoluted to explain easily, but essentially due to the trauma of seeing her sister die in front of her, she took on the persona of her sister to shield herself from that truth + her patron took advantage of that trauma further in making their pact)). The shit that happened with Finnean was twofold

Motherfucking DAEMARIS of all people was in these ruins, performing a ritual to open a portal for the bbeg lich. Finnean always knew he was an asshole, but he never thought he could ever actually be evil. They had a very intense confrontation, and when Finnean tried to get an answer about why Daemaris was doing this and hurting people, Daemaris accused Finnean of being a hypocrite. He wasn't very clear, but essentially said that they both play judge, jury, and executioner. They both kill. We have not played much past this, but now Finnean is spiraling because he thinks that Daemaris might be right. The first time Finnean killed someone, he literally threw up. Now though, he and his party members kill those they deem evil without hesitation and is that right for him? Yes, some people are probably better off dead, but to the extent of what they've been doing? He has a lot to think about. Even if this isn't true, Daemaris' mind games have worked on him. I definitely see a future where Finnean hesitates in the heat of battle and either he, or worse, one of his friends gets hurt because of it. Also, even though I as a player really really want to kill Daemaris, I think Finnean will struggle with this a lot more and probably won't be able to finish him off

Nezerac, the lich, was able to get through the portal and gave a long villain speech and one of the things he said implied that something about Finnean was only able to do all this because of him (so that could mean the source of his magic, his lineage, his village, SOMETHING) which is really just horrifying. And also probably gives a hint as to why Daemaris is working with Nezerac. He also revealed that he had been keeping an eye on the whole party since the very beggining which is so concerning. Nezerac then straight up killed Finnean and the Warlock and then provided two diamonds for the paladin to revivify them as a power move/taunt. And like I said, haven't played past this yet but Finnean is gonna SPIRAL and feel a shit ton of guilt about the entire encounter because the only reason his friends were there was because of him.

I think Finnean has half a thought that he should not let them get involved further, that he needs to hide his guilt that he feels about putting them in this position. He needs to be stronger and strong means that he would be able to handle this on his own. But then he also remembers the last memories of his father (which are now as good as his own memories), where he tried to confront Nezerac on his own and the only thing he did was get himself killed and give Nezerac another soul to gain power from. Maybe if he had spoken with Mordenkainen, or any of the other powerful wizards he knew, he would still be here and Finnean wouldn't be the one who has to deal with all of this. Something something, treading the path of his father but not making the same mistakes

There's probably stuff I'm leaving out about him, but like... I love him. If anything happens to Finnean I will genuinely be inconsolable for at least a week. He's the first dnd character I ever created and I absolutely love playing him because he has all this real shit going on, but also has the capacity to be Just A Little Guy when we aren't in the thick of it. (And I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I think he gets a lot of good, funny moments outside of serious scenes to keep things from getting too dire)

Rapid fire little moments/facts about Finnean:

He has a ferret familiar named Fenny (short for Fenjamin). Fenny's "wriggly body is optimized for dance" and essentially when he's running around the battlefield and distracting our enemies (aka giving the help action to give one of us advantage on attacks) he's "dancing" :)

Met Volo (aka in-universe writer of Volo's Guide to Monsters), had an insane fanboy moment, and got him to sign multiple things including a copy of the book which he kept as a prized possession

His wizard robes were sewn for him by his mom and his name is stitched into the neck part

His spellbook is actually a library book from his hometown. He didn't realize that those needed to be returned though, so it's horribly horribly overdue (we actually just got back to his village a session or two ago and he had to pay a huge fine on it because it's now so beat up it can't be returned lol)

Made the poor choice of buying a Gucci belt for way too much gold (from Old Man Gucci at Ye Old Gucci Shoppe) but then became disillusioned with the drip when he kept seeing assholes wearing them

Helped make magical WWE called Mage Mania (I ordered shirts for my group as Christmas gifts after 2 years of us joking about it. I'm so excited for these)

For an event at the karaoke bar, he disguised self to make himself look like a women. Rolled a nat 20 for hotness and so was disguised as an extremely hot MILF. Daemaris (back before we knew he was like... actually evil) hit on him endlessly and it was very fun to see his reaction when Finnean dropped the disguise and revealed that he had been pursuing the "idiot loser" all night

Loves to study and learn languages (he initially bonded with the paladin/barbarian by taking Abyssal lessons from her)

[mik-mania]

hiiii question for mun/newest characters. how do you think condes, zander, and lionel describe themselves compared to how others("others" being like friends/acquaintances/colleagues) would?

BITING YOU AFFECTIONATELY....THANK YOU.......

i'll go ahead and say this first, condes and lionel dont really have..................................friends. due to the whole Condes Being A Militant Dictator thing. it kinda limits the friend pool.

Condes:

firstly, he sees himself as the best fucking thing since sliced bread. he's strong and powerful. he is above everyone else and makes sure they know it. his confidence is off the fucking charts.

he and Lionel have a..... complicated relationship. to where I wouldn't call them kismesises or matesprits, but Vacillates. cus. yknow. they vacillate a lot. i'll be honest, their relationship is toxic as hell! theyre so tangled up in each others messes that the two of them are a package deal. lionel would love to see condes killed, or even kill the man himself, but at the same time he wont ever let him die. he would let himself be killed to defend the guy. its a special sort of stockholm that's progressed past "poor Lionel" to "well, you didnt have to commit warcrimes about it."

zander..................hates condes' guts. she thinks hes a nasty piece of work and she can't believe that the two of them ever used to be on good terms (although it was a long, long time ago). she remembers when Avatakra wasnt war-torn planet filled with death and ruin, before condes went on his campaign to ruin their world. before he killed Dabria. now all she wants is his death.

condes has a pretty strong empire beneath him. i say empire, but it's more of a large totalitarian militia. while he has control of nearly half of the planet, it's a struggle for complete control between him and various other groups vying for power. other leaders find him despicable, powerful, and mendacious. those beneath him view him as terrifying. they may not like him, but he has witchery he can punish them with. no one is sure how to defeat him because nobody knows where he's gotten these powers from.

LIONEL:

lionel hates himself. deep, deep down, he despises himself and is the same scared kid he used to be. but that was long, long, long ago. he views himself as despicable and twisted. his senses have been all switched up by sweeps and sweeps of abuse to the point that pain and suffering are simultaneously gratifying to him. he's given up on the notion of being a good person. anyone who can write off their own humanity (trollmanity?) like that is a dangerous person, because they no longer have any limits to what they're willing to do. and he is willing to do whatever Condes wants.

Condes views him as a pathetic plaything. he has the urge to control everything the man does--he wants him all to himself. i feel like his desire to control and hurt and destroy lionel comes from their childhood attachment to each other. Condes used to be a sweet kid, believe it or not. they both used to be. but condes got into some dark, dark magic shit and it changed him. and he changed lionel. he sees lionel and he wants to kill him, but he cant quite make himself do it. it pisses him off that lionel is a living reminder of his past self. no matter how much he disfigures and remakes this man, the reminder will still always be there. and Condes hates it.

zander... doesn't feel much for lionel tbh. she used to feel bad for him. she's tried many, many times to help him escape. to bring him with her and save him. but you really cant help a person who doesnt want to be helped. she used to feel conflicted about him, watching as he only descended into being Condes' tool and weapon. conflicted that that used to be her friend, that he refuses to fight her, but wont join her either. then, she pitied him for a long time until it slowly fizzled into complete apathy. the man known as Lionel Farlow today is not the boy she once knew. and if that means eventually cutting him down in front of god and everybody, then so be it.

lionel isnt thought of much by his and condes' subordinates, nor is he a thought in the mind of other world leaders. those under him view him mostly with a mix of pity and disgust. to see such a pathetic violet blood be mistreated and slapped around by a small jade blood is something of an upset. lionel is effectively a traitor of the empress' empire at large and the entire social hierarchy that's been established for milennia before Avatakra's existence. but those on the planet lack any method of contact to reach out to the rest of the universe, let alone even leave the planet. so in lieu of any other sort of action, lionel receives the collective brunt of society's resentment.

ZANDER:

she doesn't think much of herself. in all honesty, she tries not to. she doesn't have much of a sense of self and feels that most of her died along with her childhood. introspection only reveals one thing to her: she wants things to change and she is willing to fight for it.

Condes hates her. she is yet another reminder of his past that just seemingly wont go away. while "her" forces (how he views them--zander is not part of an organization) are nowhere near as strong as his, she is a constant thorn in his fucking side. she's sneaky and she knows him well enough to get around any defenses he may set up. she's come close to killing him a handful of times and vice versa. she has a few nasty scars from the man and he remembers every single one of them proudly. if Condes ever takes her captive, he will take extreme satisfaction in her prolonged torture.

Lionel... feels guilty when he thinks about zander. so he tries not to think about her very often. when it's come right down to making the decision whether or not to kill her--he has decided against it, every single time. which is saying something, considering how often he's had the advantage over her. he cares about her in a nostalgic way, wishing that things could go back to how they used to be. but he's already chosen where his heart resides and there is no going back, regardless of how zander tries to convince him. the least he can do is refuse to kill or capture her--even if it earns him severe punishment from condes every time.

zander lives covertly in a small community just outside of Condes' territory. the community is mostly like-minded rebels such as her; trolls who have no loyalty to any of the rising powers in the world and only wish for freedom. they're brought together by the radical ideals of abolishing the social hierarchy, seeking to live in equality all together. condes is not the only power they rebuke, but he is the largest and the closest.

despite their ideologies, most of trolls in the community aren't active members. most people there only wish to live their lives, living off the land and depending on each other. zander has good standing in the community, being known as somewhat of a loner that lives a bit farther from the town. she spends her time building relationships with the trolls there, helping with development of the settlement. it's a fulfilling day-job and she earns companionship and food in return.

although she knows the handful of folks in town that actively rebel, she refuses to work with them. their rebellion is very small-time, targeted toward wandering foot-soldiers and hostile threats. zander refuses to involve them in anything more dangerous, as it would lead not only to their deaths, but most likely the whole community. she intentionally has no deep relationships with any of the townsfolk because when the day finally comes that she disappears for good, she doesnt want anybody to come looking for her.

[inlove-and-healing]

okay so ive bad this idea in my head for a while... since i was 11, as a matter of fact, sonit would need some polishing to make it a little less cringe.

so, an undertale au. its called torturetale.

frisk falls into the underground, kills Sans, and uses his soul to leave the underground. (who knows, i may have them kill alphys and have sans take the royal scientist role because yknow, look at his shed... but the main thing is that i need the judge role left vacant.)

anyway, alphys (or whoever is in her place) kinda goes... insane. not like the neutral endings where she commits suicide, shes just straight up crazy.

the amalgamates still kind of happen, but instead of being test subjects for DETERMINATION, she uses them as test subjects for a thing that like 1) makes them immortal (so suicide isnt an option) and 2) brings them agony.

maybe its different for every monster? like some types will be bedridden with illness forever, others are in overwhelming pain, others are extremely depressed and anxious... maybe.

(or heres what i could do: frisk kills undyne, which causes alphys to go insane. then after she infects everybody with whatever it is, asgore has her executed, and sans takes her role. maybe? we'll see.)

anyway, this is where the weird stuff starts happening.

so during the war between monsters and humans, the human sorcerers killed a (skeletal) boss monster and used magic to preserve its soul.

this group, kind of like the umbrella corps from resident evil or hydra from marvel, takes the soul. then they kidnap this kid (was an OC, might end up being a reader insert?? probably what ill do, thats what im most comfortable with writing) (also by kid i mean teen) and combine their soul with the monster one.

so parts of their limbs are fully skeletal, their eyes are all black except for the irises (one is blue and the other is yellow). they, like everybody in the underground (even though nobody knows it yet) are immortal. they can teleport, summon gaster blasters and bone attacks, so theyre basically like sans. (when i first came up with this, i thought that gaster was related to sans and papyrus, so i thought maybe the soul would belong to their mother or something??)

anyway, the group uses the kid like an assassin. they make them believe that theyre the good guys, until they discover something that makes them run away, which is how they fall into the underground.

so because the ruins are closed off, everybody down there is unscathed. but toriel tells you that her friend on the other side told her thst things were "bad", and everybody was suffering, but he didnt tell her anything else. then he says one day that he has to go somewhere else, and he doesnt know when hell be back, if ever. (assuming i go the "sans becomes the scientist" route.)

kid tells toriel theyre immortal, and toriel asks them to go check on sans, which is how they find out whats going on in the rest of the underground.

they make it to hotland, and sans' lab, and they work together in the true lab using what few notes alphys took to find a way to reverse what happened.

then maybe an alternate ending, where frisk comes back after everybodys cured. when they meet the kid, they act like sans (i made the kid, called ayanze when she was my oc, to take sans' role. thats why he originally died.) and when frisk gets to hotland, no matter whether or not frisk killed anybody else, sans fights them in his lab. he can be spared if its a neutral/pacifist run (mettaton breaks in for a show and is like sans get the fuck out, but in a genocide or neutral run if you choose to kill sans mettaton breaks in after) and then the kid is the final boss.

because theyre immortal, you beat them by making them lose hope.

so, thats my idea. feel free to leave any suggestions you may have. ive wanted to write this forever but never had the motivation. maybe now i will.

(i will be doing this on a separate blog, which will likely become an ask blog when the first part ((before frisk comes back)) is completed)

[dufferpuffer]

Part 3: I don't see much thats iffy about the prophecy

-- Why wasn't it conducted in his office? Why didn't he cast a spell to stop anyone else from hearing it? Because it was wartime and he didn't want to bring random people into the school, especially not someone he didn't have much faith in. It was likely conducted in the room she was staying in. Much easier than escorting her all the way up into the school and then back out again. I doubt it is a regular practice to cast such defensive spells for a basic job interview. Especially held within a private inn room. Dumbledore walks into a womans room and soundproofs it - uhhhh... yeah, that's strange behaviour. If there are known bad-sorts around, muddling your words to everyone else is a surefire way to attract attention when visiting your brothers inn should be business as usual. A Death Eater reports Dumbledore spoke to the relative of a seer for a position at the school - and rejected them...? Whatever. That's on brand for Professor Dumbledore. If he rejected her then she really isn't anyone of interest. A Death Eater reports Dumbledore spoke to the relative of a seer and made sure nobody overheard...? ...That seems important. Depending on wether people are reporting to Voldemort the ins-and-outs of the school - bringing the seer into his office could put the woman in danger, too. In any case, I can imagine he may have indeed cast a spell like that anyway - partway through the prophecy. A prophecy happening at all took him by surprise! He didn't even expect her to be particularly good at divination - a school of magic he already didn't think much of - and then she starts spouting a whole ass REAL prophecy right then and there?! As he goes to leave??? -- Why did her memory in the pensive act different? Perhaps that is just what a 'direct quote' memory can be like. Perhaps a memory can be distilled into only the most important information for clarity, or to share with others, or whatever. ...Is that speculation and trusting Dumbles at his word? Yeah. But I feel like: 'Dumbledore orchestrated a whole scenario in the hopes that someone (maybe even Snape specifically) would overhear... A plan Aberforth didn't mess up and also wasn't included on... And Trelawny not only enacted his plan but was both a believable actress and never spoke of it again, despite being a bit… yknow...' ...is just a bit harder to swallow than: 'During a job interview he didn't have much faith in... something exceedingly rare and unexpected happened.'

Dumbledore is a Manipulative Piece of Shit: Part 3/?

The Prophecy

In the first post in this series, I mentioned having reason to doubt the validity and truth of the prophecy regarding Voldemort and Harry. This is this post.

Although I don't have definitive proof the prophecy is a lie, I have plenty of circumstantial evidence that sheds reasonable doubt on the prophecy and Dumbledore's interpretation of it.

(link to part 2, for those interested)

Exhibit 1: The Location

So, we know how this goes:

“I did,” said Dumbledore. “On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave.”

(Order of the Pheonix, page 840)

“That might, indeed, have been the more practical course,” said Dumbledore, “except that Voldemort’s information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog’s Head Inn, which Sibyll chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. As you and your friends found out to your cost, and I to mine that night, it is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sibyll Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. My — our — one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building.”

(Order of the Pheonix, page 843)

The reason I'm bringing this up is this specific part of the quote above in particular:

The Hog’s Head Inn, which Sibyll chose for its cheapness

Since when does an interview prospect for the position of Hogwarts professor choose the location of the interview?

We know that when Tom Riddle came to his interview for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position in 1967, the interview was held in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts:

The Dumbledore behind the desk showed no sign of surprise. Evidently this visit had been made by appointment. “Good evening, Tom,” said Dumbledore easily. “Won’t you sit down?” “Thank you,” said Voldemort, and he took the seat to which Dumbledore had gestured — the very seat, by the looks of it, that Harry had just vacated in the present. “I heard that you had become headmaster,” he said, and his voice was slightly higher and colder than it had been. “A worthy choice.” “I am glad you approve,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “May I offer you a drink?” “That would be welcome,” said Voldemort. “I have come a long way.” Dumbledore stood and swept over to the cabinet where he now kept the Pensieve, but which then was full of bottles. Having handed Voldemort a goblet of wine and poured one for himself, he returned to the seat behind his desk.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 441)

Why would Dumbledore choose to hold Trelawney's interview in the Hogs-Head? Because it was his choice. He could've interviewed her in his office like he had Tom Riddle. But no, he preferred the cheap inn, run by a brother who hates him and is known for attracting less reputable sorts (including Death Eaters) in the middle of a war?

And even if he is holding the interview in the hogs-Head, let's say he has a good reason for it, why not make sure he wasn't overheard in such a place? We know its possible with the Imperturbable Charm.

Turning to Fred and George she said, “It’s no go with the Extendable Ears, she’s gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door.”

(Order of the Pheonix, page 69)

Because if Molly Weasley can cast this charm, surely Dumbledore can.

Or the Muffliato Charm that Snape has invented by that point:

and, perhaps most useful of all, Muffliato, a spell that filled the ears of anyone nearby with an unidentifiable buzzing, so that lengthy conversations could be held in class without being overheard.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 238)

But no, instead he made sure to be in a place where he was likely to be spied on and took no precautions against it, even though he could've held the interview in the safety of Hogwarts.

The only conclusion I can draw is that he wanted to be overheard. That he wanted some Death Eater to hear the prophecy and take it to Voldemort.

Exhibit 2: The Circumstances

But why? Why would he want Voldemort to hear a prophecy that would make him target an innocent baby?

Well, Dumbledore was in a rough spot in May of 1980 when the prophecy was made. Voldemort practically controlled the ministry and did as he pleased (even though, it wasn't much). The Order of the Phoenix had 15 of its members and member families killed from August 1979 to that interview.

Dumbledore and the Order were losing. And they were losing badly.

Arthur Weasley says:

“Oh, Molly, come on, it’s about time you got used to hearing it — look, I can’t promise no one’s going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we’re much better off than we were last time, you weren’t in the Order then, you don’t understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one. . . .”

(Order of the Pheonix, page 177)

By 1980, if Dumbledore wanted to win, he needed a miracle. And that's when he was approached by Trelawney approached him.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say he held a normal interview in the castle, and in that interview, she made a real prophecy about Harry and Voldemort, but not the one we hear. Dumbledore heard the prophecy and knew he'd have to orchestrate the circumstances of Halloween 1981 if he wanted to end Voldemort. So he did.

He gave Trelawney a script, and he made sure to be somewhere a wizard down on their luck who wouldn't stand the temptation to spy on him would overhear and sell the information to Voldemort. I don't know if Dumbledore specifically intended for it to be Snape, but maybe? I don't know.

But I know he made sure Voldemort got hold of the prophecy, or at least part of it so Dumbledore could set Voldemort's demise into motion.

Exhibit 3: The Only Time We Hear the Prophecy

Now, we would never know what the true prophecy said, since it was smashed.

The only source we have for the full prophecy is the word of Albus Dumbledore. Well, his word and his odd memory:

Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip. A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before. “THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES. . . . BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES . . . AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT . . . AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES. . . . THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES. . . .” The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

(Order of the Pheonix, page 841)

No other memory Harry sees in the pensive behaves this way. Harry always places his head in the pensive and is sucked into the memory, to walk in it. It's how a pensive always worked.

Except for this one singular instance, in which it shows a "memory" like a hologram, like an illusion.

I don't think this is a memory at all, just from how different it is described from any other memory. For context, pensive memories are described like this in the same book:

Harry walked the remaining few feet to the Pensieve and stood over it, gazing into its depths. He hesitated, listening, then pulled out his wand again. The office and the corridor beyond were completely silent. He gave the contents of the Pensieve a small prod with the end of his wand. The silvery stuff within began to swirl very fast. Harry leaned forward over it and saw that it had become transparent. He was, once again, looking down into a room as though through a circular window in the ceiling. . . . In fact, unless he was much mistaken, he was looking down upon the Great Hall. . . .His breath was actually fogging the surface of Snape’s thoughts. . . .His brain seemed to be in limbo. . . . It would be insane to do the thing that he was so strongly tempted to do. . . . He was trembling. . . . Snape could be back at any moment . . . but Harry thought of Cho’s anger, of Malfoy’s jeering face, and a reckless daring seized him. He took a great gulp of breath and plunged his face into the surface of Snape’s thoughts. At once, the floor of the office lurched, tipping Harry headfirst into the Pensieve. . . . He was falling through cold blackness, spinning furiously as he went, and then — He was standing in the middle of the Great Hall

(Order of the Pheonix, page 640)

Even if I did take the prophecy at face value, which is a big if, I can interrupt it in multiple ways. I'll give one example:

The third line:

BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES

Sure, it can refer to July, the seventh month in the Julian calendar we use today. But before Julius Caesar and Agustus (the Roman emperors) added months named after them, September was the seventh month. It's why it's called September — "Septima" means "seven" in Latin. September is literally named "the seventh month".

And that's without talking about other calendars, that have a whole different system to their months.

Or the Line before it:

BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM

What exactly counts as defying? It's so vague any disagreement could be considered a defiance. Is it battle? Is it that he offered James and Lily to join him and they refused?

Vagueness means it could mean literally anything and puts the whole interpretation of the prophecy in question.

Conclusions

So, we have a prophecy that was made under odd circumstances, where the only source we have to it is supposedly a memory of a powerful Legilemense that knows how to edit memories.

There isn't exactly cutting evidence the prophecy is fake, but I think there's enough here to make us doubt its validity along with its intentions and interpretation.

[vivithefolle]

Hi! I love 99% of what you have to say about HP, and thank god for people who defend Ron as passionately as you do! People like you make navigating this fandom a lot more bearable. I've seen your criticism of Harry having no clue what to do on the camping trip and I wonder if you have some ideas of what they should have done instead? (Genuine question, I'm not trying to be passive agressive) I also question why no one else could know about the Horcruxes. I'd love to know your thoughts on this.

My pleasure, hope the remaining 1% aren't too off-putting! >3<

What Harry could have done... oh boy. Well, let's not blame Harry that much because, to be honest? The whole mess in DH is all Rowling's fault. She has a huge boner for drama and just wanted the drama at all costs. So everyone got a lobotomy so she could indulge her revenge fantasies of beating up a guy that just got psychologically tortured.

So, using only the tools Rowling gave them:

THE FUCKING MOKESKIN POUCH, OH MY GOD USE IT

Hagrid gave Harry a mokeskin pouch, saying it's a magical item that won't let anyone but its wearer retrieve the items in it. PUT THE LOCKET IN THERE, BAM, 90% OF THE "but what if Death Eaters try to steal it from us" PROBLEM SOLVED

Instead Harry uses it as his "random shit" bag. Thanks Harry I'm sure Hagrid feels so valued

If the mokeskin pouch don't work, then just... I mean... your tent... is safe???

The whole thing just felt pointless

Seriously though when you read the book Rowling wants so hard to create that kind of "what's gonna happen, we don't know what else could be tomorrow morning" tension, but it. Just doesn't work. Nothing happens! Nothing ever happens! Nothing happens so much that Harry and Hermione have time to chit-chat with a portrait instead of ACTUALLY BEING PRODUCTIVE???

It's like, "oh but they're just young wizards that could so easily be overcome by stronger, adult wizards! Imagine if Voldemort's minions were to detect the magic emitted by Hermione's wards and lifted them-" LOLNOPE NEVER HAPPENS LOL Hermione's wards are perfect and totally safe and Ron was actually in more danger being outside than the Hs ever were... But of course we mustn't think about that and wholeheartedly agree with Hermione when she talks about Godric's Hollow, as if SHE AND HARRY HADN'T MADE THE DECISION TO GO THERE THEMSELVES, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IN DANGER HAD THEY STAYED IN THE TENT

Rowling tries to make it feel dangerous and shit but at the same time she just casually skips over so much? Like, after Ron's return and the visit at Lovegood's, fifteen pages go, and we're told later that's it's now March. The Lovegood visit happened in January...

That means. That Ron's departure, which lasted weeks, lasted for 4 whole fucking chapters.

This is why people laser-focus on Ron's departure. Because it lasted. It went on for four fucking chapters. But nobody remembers that Harry canonically went "lol fuck the Horcruxes Imma think of Voldemort and the Elder Wand" FOR THREE WHOLE MONTHS simply because. There was. Not. Enough. Emphasis!! Put on it!

But Harry giving up on the Horcrux Hunt to fantasize about the Hallows instead, FOR THREE GODDAMN MONTHS??? That's just half a chapter.

HALF A CHAPTER FOR THREE MONTHS OF HARRY DOING NOTHING.

Ron's departure is held over his head by the entire fandom, he's raked over the coals about it, even when at the end of it all he's the one coming back with valuable intel, useful supplies AND destroys the Horcrux on top of it, like a first-grade badass.

Harry straight-up gives up on the mission he was given, yknow, the mission to SAVE THE WORLD to have power fantasies instead, HE GETS THE TRIO CAPTURED, Dobby has to give his LIFE to bail him from the mess he caused, AND NOBODY FUCKING REMEMBERS BECAUSE HEY LOOK HARRY GOT COMPLIMENTED FOR CARING ABOUT A HOUSE-ELF ISN'T HE SO BRAVE AND SPECIAL YOU GUYS??? (Oh yeah, also Hermione got tortured somewhere. I mean she's up and about two pages later so it might as well not have happened. Can't have anything distract us from how Harry's life is naught but suffering.)

ok ok so then

SAFE HOUSES. YOU HAVE THEM, ACTUALLY

Like... Shell Cottage. Aunt Muriel's house. Oh my god you have safe houses you jerks, actually use them.

Hermione... please... shut the fuck up

"Stealing is wrong, we can't go to the supermarket under the invisibility cloak because we don't have the money and we can't not pay people :("

YOU ERASED YOUR PARENTS' MEMORIES AND SENSE OF SELF AND PRETTY MUCH DID TO THEM THE PEGI+3 VERSION OF WHAT LESTRANGE DID TO THE LONGBOTTOMS, I THINK IT'S A LITTLE LATE TO WANT THE HIGH GROUND ON MORALITY

KREACHER

HE CAN TELEPORT. HE ACTUALLY CAN TELEPORT WHEREVER HE WANTS OH MY GOD

---

Honestly though the whole camping trip was utterly pointless. Save for Ron having his epic bittersweet moment it had ZERO purpose. Yeah ok it vaguely introduced the notion that Dumbledore wasn't perfect and shit but - yeah, well Harry could have just been hanging in a wizard library under the Invisibility Cloak and nicked it because he was curious and that would spare us him being a complete idiot that walks right into an obvious trap.

(I mean, yeah, ok, go see your parents' graves. SURELY Voldemort is not gonna take advantage of your puny sentimentality or anything. SURELY the guy that created an army of Inferi to protect one of his Horcruxes is NOT going to go to a cemetary he knows is important to you and make some Inferi to trap you with maybe...

Ugh. As for "nobody can know about the Horcruxes" it's, again, For The Drama.

It would be too easy to get Bill and have him tag along to Curse-break the POTENTIAL DEADLY CURSES VOLDEMORT WOULD LEAVE AROUND HIS HORCRUXES (remember the ring?). It would be too smart to use safe houses, use the Order's network to remain aware of Voldemort-related issues, and all that.

It would require strategy. It would require thinking about the plot as more than just going from A to B.

Fuck all that! All you need are Deus Ex Machina whether they're provided by Hermione or Ron or another character (or even by the goddamn Elder wand itself) and a lot of talking about how the power of love is all that matters but never showing the power of love mattering.

(Like... Harry "invoking the sacrificial magic Lily used" is... utter bullshit. Lily's sacrifice was supposed to work only on Harry because he was her flesh and blood. Why does Harry's magic love shield has extra range and shit? Don't try to tell me it's because he's pure of heart. Kid mustered the sadism required to cast Crucio: that ain't a great hallmark of a pure heart in my book.)

Bleh. Anyway, I hope this answer satisfies you, friend, and if 1% of it was unsatisfactory I'm sorry and I... uh... I, uh, I hereby declare that you are allowed to eat a cookie as a consolation prize for my failure to completely satisfy!

[pencildragons]

some assorted merlin headcanons:

word has it around camelot that merlin's favourite food is blueberries. this is incorrect. his favourite food is blackberries. he is deathly allergic to blueberries.

arthur found this out the hard way

that bracelet he wears in season 1?? gwen gave it to him. i don’t CARE that they’d known each for like 2 days gwen immediately saw this man and though he Will Be My Friend and then made him a friendship bracelet and nobody stopped her (i love u dork)

in ealdor the Thing He Is Known For is falling into ponds. that’s it. ‘oh who’s that?’ ‘that? that’s merlin. he falls into ponds.’

he almost set Will on fire as a child and will teased him mercilessly to his death about it. off-scene moments before death bitch literally made a joke abt at least he wasn’t set on fire and merlin strangled him then and there.

he can freaking shape shift. like man, how cool is that?? his shape of choice is an EAGLE rather than a merlin, but. the thing is. the way he figured out he could shapeshift was he sneezed one day and suddenly he was a goldfish

GODDAMN my man loves lancelot. he’s the og lancelot fan. he started the lancelot appreciation club and literally the entire round table, gwen, and a couple of randoms off the street are part of it. it’s a great hit. ironically, lancelot doesn’t know it exists.

he made gwaine a Bag of Holding but it’s just for apples. all that’s in the bag is apples, all the way down. gwaine proposed to him on the spot when he got it

he’s left handed BUT arthur taught him to use a sword with his right hand which is why he’s not,,,, fantastic (also because my man just Isn’t Good With Swords) BUT elyan sees him cutting some stuff up one day, yknow. with his left hand. and Realises and as a fellow leftie decides to train him and confuse the HELL out of everyone the next time merlin’s part of training

it works

oh! he was born on samhain, which does play into the fact that he’s immortal, because usually babies born on samhain die,,,, but he didn’t

this did lead to a lot of people being suspicious of he and his mother as he grew up

he didn’t do a lot to help this, admittedly

so y’know how babies can’t really control their limbs when their young?? yeah well merlin couldn’t control his magic

kid would just start spinning and shit right out of his cradle while hunith was having people over for dinner which was. interesting

his entire eyeball was completely golden until he was about 8. it used to freak ppl out so he just. stopped making eye contact

when he’s REALLY angry his eyes just start changing colour,,,,,

there is a Reason why he doesn’t get angry very much

lancelot saw it once and he was Shook forever

gwaine saw it and Immediately decided that it was the coolest thing

he is waiting for the day that merlin cracks because that will be the day that Shit Goes Down

in the 15th century merlin will discover coffee. a caffeinated merlin is a merlin that the world is not ready for

you know how he can speak to dragons? well that extends to all reptiles now. one day a snake starts talking to him and he just shrugs and rolls with it. whatever. this is normal

this is Not Normal

poor arthur walks in on him one day to find him fucking hissing at a twenty-foot python

he and gwen are at the very top of camelot’s rumour mill. they see everything. they hear everything. they know everything. they can also control it >:)

one day merlin’s had enough of arthur and goes to complain in the kitchens

arthur the next day: merlin WHY did i just get called in front of my father on allegations of being in love with a statue??

merlin, pouring a potion of itching into his bath: .....i really couldn’t say, sire

this continues for a while until arthur catches on

in retaliation he writes a letter to hunith detailing all the dumb things her son has gotten up to over the years

the effect is devestating

(as in: merlin doesn’t speak to him for a week)

my man can SEW. his mother was a seamstress and taught him how to make clothes to sell at market the next village over

he loves embroidery, and he also helps gwen out sometimes and they gossip

his magic acts up a lot when he’s sick or tired

this includes turning the sky green and wine into soup

at the same time

while at a banquet

arthur just wants to know why there’s soup in his goblet

he’s,,,,,, really uncomfortable with the druids’ worship of him, bc they see him as akin to a god and their savour and post-camlann they’re going ‘oh mighty emrys the rule of the pendragons has passed onto the once and future queen finally magic can be freed’ and he just loses it

too bad gwaine didn’t get to see it

or anything else, ever

he and morgana pretended to court for a while just so they could absolute SCANADALISE uther, and also to make arthur jealous. they fake-eloped at one point and uther charged merlin with high treason

he got charged with high treason a lot actually, and not just in camelot. he is now a wanted criminal in four different kingdoms

losing morgana (the first time after the poisoning) absolutely DESTROYED him and he became rlly recluse until she came back, which started the descent into who he becomes in s4/5

he is Small and Angry and he will throw hands with Literally Everyone

merlin is no longer allowed swords in public

he’s also tone-deaf but thinks he’s not, and it drives arthur, who’s very musical, absolutely INSANE

he gets his hands on the medieval equivalent of a kazoo and has stopped two bandit attacks and three assassination attempts to date with the ~Power Of Annoyance~

one of those assassination attempts took place during a council meeting and merlin just whips out his kazoo and starts playing

he gets charged with high treason again for that

he is TERRIBLE with plants and kills every single of one of them

he once woke arthur up by climbing through the window on the 9th floor of the castle or whatever and rattling the window pane until arthur woke up and nearly tried to kill him because he thought he was an intruder

he has tried to consume rocks but elyan stopped him

idk i just love him, i’ll probably do some more of others later ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[gay-jesus-probably]

why do people always write high school AU's focusing on boring cliques like popular kids and jocks and art kids and drama kids and nerds and who sits at what lunch table. those aren't even a real thing. ...well, at least they weren't a thing in my high school; my drama class had like five members of the football team and nobody gave a fuck. the closest thing we had to a 'designated clique lunch table' was just a decent sized group liked to hang out and play magic the gathering. and nobody gave them any shit for it, the general agreement was that it was pretty cool that they were all into a complicated game like that.

but yknow what part of high school did have clearly defined cliques with rivalries that occasionally escalated to blood feud levels?

god damn Band Class.

listen. listen. i was in band in junior high and high school, and that shit was RUTHLESS. ...i mean, in a friendly sort of way, given that we were all there for a shared love of music and had to work as a single unit if we wanted to sound any good, but like seriously the different sections were Defined Groups and we had full on political intrigue of rivalries and alliances n shit. It was wild. Flutes and clarinets were basically married, and together they made up the eternal Woodwind Alliance, which the saxophones would be a part of half the time. The trumpets were the leading powerhouse of the brass section just by merit of being Very Loud, but also frequently alienated the rest of the band, again by merit of being Very Loud, but they had a relatively steady alliance with the trombones, and would have an on-and-off friendship with the saxophones. The trumpets and the woodwind alliance hated each other like poison though, it was a full blown blood feud between them. The trombones would usually be on decent terms with everyone, except whenever they decided to start trying to convince everyone to refer to them as the tromboners, which only the trumpets thought was funny and they never really noticed that the rest of the room just wanted them to shut the fuck up and play their damn trombones without making terrible innuendos.

Percussion (my people) was in an interesting position of being both the most and least powerful group in the room, because everyone knew we were A. vital and B. irreplaceable, since we were stretched thin enough that at least one of us would be playing two instruments in most songs, and being in the back of the room meant we were observing everyone while our own internal disputes stayed fairly private. But also being such a wildly different section from everyone else and being at the very back of the room meant there wasn't much of an opportunity to forge alliances, and not much common ground to work with. We felt a pretty solid kinship with the woodwind alliance by merit of mutually hating the trumpets, but that never really went anywhere just by merit of them being all the way at the front and us being all the way at the back, and they usually suspected we were associated with the trumpets just because percussion is also Very Loud and the brass section sat closest to us. As the lone keyboard percussionist, I was basically our ambassador to the woodwind alliance, because a lot of the time I'd be playing the melody along with them, and I also wasn't capable of being Very Loud like the others were on drums (although they were a little concerned with how enthusiastic i was when i got to wield the big hammer to play the giant fucking chimes)

We did have a solid alliance with the tuba section, mostly because again the band wasn't that big so our tuba section was exactly one guy, so he got along with the percussion section on our shared ground of being irreplaceable, having Giant Fucking Instruments that were a pain in the ass to move for concerts, and feeling bitter whenever the rest of the band was taking us for granted (though the strength of the percussion-tuba alliance was also helped by me and him already being friends outside of class). Occasionally the trumpets would get obnoxious enough to drive the trombones away, and that'd usually lead to a percussion-tuba-trombone triad vying with the trumpets for control of the back for awhile. And it was very rare, but occasionally the trumpets would get their act together while the trombones were on good terms with tuba and percussion and the flutes and clarinets were being primadonnas, and the end result would be the mighty union of saxophone-trumpet-trombone-tuba-percussion dominating the room, at least until the trumpets and/or trombones inevitably started being annoying again and the alliance broke apart.

I'm just saying, high school cliques? Boring, overdone, unrealistic, and honestly the whole inter-clique rivalry thing is usually too meanspirited to be any fun, especially since high school social standing will mean absolutely fucking nothing the second you're out of there. High school band cliques? Hilarious, filled with political intrigue and shifting alliances, literally everyone is forced to work together in the end no matter what, nobody is trying to be mean because its universally understood the rivalries are just for fun, and your allegiance to your band section (aka what instrument you play) is something you'll have for the rest of your life.

[dahniwitchoflight]

KH: What is Namine Really?

See also my other post: KH: What is Repliku/Riku Replica Really? https://dahniwitchoflight.tumblr.com/post/649102821124440064

Since I’m continuing my sudden Kingdom Hearts kick sparked by me rewatching all the cinematics for all the games thus far lately and watching all the story cins for KH UX since that’s gonna be relevant to the next games

I just feel I have to re-make this post about what Namine really is, because calling her Kairi’s Nobody has never made sense from the start when you think about it

When Kairi loses her heart in KH1 in the beginning, her body and soul specifically doesn’t get transported to the world that never was like all other nobodies, it’s stays in the realm of Light because Kairi is a princess of Heart, we know this, we see Riku lugging around her corpse throughout the whole game, we keep tabs on it constantly up until the point Sora gives Kairi back her heart and Kairi is re-completed again

KH1′s lore will state that it’s at this moment when Kairi is recompleted that Namine was born, but from what?

Sora’s Body+Soul became Roxas, they make it clear in KH2 that Sora and Roxas is a half and half deal, and when they go back together Sora is complete again.

But in KH1 the only reason Sora was able to maintain his form, was because his Heartless maintained his strong will

Kairi couldn’t have done the same, because as a Princess of Heart she had no darkness, so she couldn’t have had a heartless form

so if Sora’s Heart = Sora

Sora’s Body+Soul = Roxas

Kairi’s Heart = Inside Sora’s Heart

Kairi’s Body+Soul = An Unconscious Kairi

So literally what is left of Kairi to make Namine?

Consider that Kairi has one thing that Sora does not have, a Heart with a Pure Light inside of her, and not just any Pure Light, the thing that makes her a Princess of Heart, and as of KH3, this Pure Light, one of seven Pure Lights, can and do move on to different princesses

The princess from KH1 are the old holder’s of the Pure Lights, the Pure Lights moved on to different princesses in KH3, while the originals still remain full beings pure of heart even without the Pure Lights, the Pure Lights are just a special thing that exists within them that can be passed on to others

but in KH3′s Kairi’s Pure Light stays within her Pure Heart, now why would that be?

A Pure Light, one that specifically cannot exist inside a heart filled with Darkness

Consider that, way back in KH1, when Kairi’s Heart first entered Sora. Sora had Darkness in his heart just being a normal dude, and the Pure Light could no coexist within it

So when Kairi’s heart enters Sora’s, the Pure Light crosses through Sora’s heart and then is ejected somewhere else, Castle Oblivion, and then continues to exist, as Namine

Consider that even though KH1 says Namine and Roxas started to exist at the same time, when Sora Released his Heart and became a Heartless,

We see Roxas’s origins, and he’s a complete zombie, barely existing at the start of Days

and yet Namine the first we see of her in Chain of Memories, seems to have already existed and already gained her own desires and feelings by the time CoM has even started

The whole game is put into motion, because Namine was manipulated into changing up memories to become friends with Sora and Riku

When you consider the timeline with Days, that would have to mean in a very short period of time

Namine would have to appear in Castle Oblivion, be found by Org 13, grow enough of a personality to want things, specifically, the feeling of loneliness, demonstrate her power to change memories in some way, and be manipulated into starting the plot of Chain of Memories, all while Roxas is still basically a zombie

To me, it just makes more sense to say that Namine existed at an earlier point than Roxas did

All this together, I believe Namine is what happened when Kairi’s Pure Light got dipped into Sora’s Memories way back at the start of KH1

and since as of Days we know a full heart can be seeded by nothing but a sprinkling of scattered memories as it’s origins, Namine’s Heart must have grown the same way

Also, it explains why Namine’s so pure white themed and has blonde hair, that can’t really be explained by a connection to Sora’s heart, because he’s a brunette, and even Ventus’s/Roxas’s hair isn’t as Light as Namine’s

But wait you say, A Pure Light can’t make a person, there’s nothing of substance to even make anything there

But DiZ himself explains that Namine is a special nobody, less then a nobody, less then nothing, the most fleeting of all the fleeting shadows

and then yknow, Vanitas is a thing

If all Vanitas is, is a manifestation of Ventus’s Darkness torn apart from him

Then why couldn’t Namine be a manifestation of Kairi’s Pure Light?

Consider also, that of all the people who could be said to be a part of another person, or a special other half, Vanitas and Namine are the only ones given special unique true names, when everyone else, even Xion, is given an anagrammed X name, from “No. i”

and they are the only beings that come with their own unique color schemes, specifically Black for Dark Vanitas, and White for Light Namine

and the only beings that have unique special powers stemming from their unique origins

Vanitas powers over dark emotions, stemming from how the darkness in hearts contain their negative emotions

Namine with her powers over memories, because shared memories are the pieces of light inside hearts that connect different hearts to each other

and then the final nail in the coffin for me, is during the prologue for KH Union X, when Kairi’s Grandmother is telling baby Kairi about the legends of the age of fairytales, when she gets to the part about talking about the “Pure Lights that exist in the hearts of Children” remaking the world

Namine’s Theme starts playing, ever so briefly, even though Namine is nowhere pictured in this scene or has anything to do with this story

Except, if you consider her Origins as a being made from a Pure Light

https://youtu.be/z6NVTZlqw1k?list=PLPCJnwphQDQcJOkD9OsmxxMHX7YHE4WP2&t=70

and since Namine is still within Kairi for all of KH3, Kairi’s “Pure Light” remains within her as well

So that’s my theory and I’m sticking with it

Namine is thematically and symbolically basically the full opposite of what Vanitas is

A dark flavored Sora made from ripping all the darkness out of a person’s heart

and a light flavored Kairi made from the Pure Light inside Kairi being ejected from a person’s heart

but while Ventus becomes half a being without vanitas, since the darkness is part of his own Heart, Namine can exist outside of Kairi, both being full beings of their own, since the Pure Light is something external that Kairi’s heart held onto for a time, and is something that she can live without *EDIT*

one last thing as well, to do with how Kairi went from Radiant Garden to Destiny Islands and how Namine ended up in Castle Oblivion when she was first born

when BBS Sleep came out, Kairi met Aqua and Aqua cast a spell on her saying “One day when you’re in trouble, the Light within you will lead you to the Light of another”

and people were content to assume this means Aqua is the reason Kairi ended up in Destiny Island’s one day since the spell took her to see Sora/Riku the keyblade duh

but then, Melody of Memory came out, and it was revealed that actually Terra-Xehanort purposefully kidnapped Kairi as a child and he sent her directly to Destiny Islands

so then, what was the point of Aqua’s magic spell?

well, for one, it was cast on “The Light” within Kairi, which this theory posits went on to become Namine

and well, Namine as the Pure Light had to end up at Castle Oblivion one way or another when she was first ejected from Sora and Kairi’s Hearts right?

So what if when Destiny Island’s fell to darkness, and Kairi’s heart went inside Sora, That’s when Aqua’s spell triggered for the Light Inside Kairi, and it sent that Pure Light to another “light” one that Aqua knew: Ventus!

Who at this point was sleeping inside the transformed land of Departure aka Castle Oblivion

Therefore, when Namine was “Born”, Aqua’s spell triggered and she landed somewhere near Ventus’s hidden room in Castle Oblivion

Ta-Dah!

~Things mean one thing in the present, and mean a different thing in the future!~

[unproduciblesmackdown]

oh lmfao edited to add. the thirty tags are maxed out but i have to work in the wordplay of: call this post-it notes

speaking of [happening to think about, then for a separate reason talk about, the film “stand by me,” an adaptation of the stephen king short story “the body”] last night, & tumblr ads reminding me, i did turn around after listening to the podcast ep extensive, research enhanced analysis / discussion of specifically the book like hey yeah yknow what. i’ll watch the It films; not the miniseries / the one with tim curry, which i saw the first half of but wasn’t really inspired to commit to the latter half. and you Know like yeah i’m truly interested in the choice to build on [stephen king kicking his legs like “whaaat are some Problems kids could have.....um being a girl.....being jewish.....having a stutter.....”] with “what if someone was gay or some shit” like yeah right on, which idk that steve ever wrote into any vaguely primary characters even though it’s markedly made textually relevant. and the cultural alignment for kleinsen enjoyers is still very funny. i forgot about even the arm cast business till halfway through. even the [break it again] joke kind of manifested lmao

anyways the point is i’m like, my two primary modes of [this experience] being expressed via [mad men meme In The Cinema seriously considering the material] and [the shot of that guy in the alternate titanic ending where he’s like ahahahaha throwing his head back and the camera is overhead zooming out a little bit] and the like Oh Hey. This Is All Coming Together? kind of [that madman cinema meme] moment hit in The Second Part because it’s like, it’s Remarkable for a stephen king story to have Adults Who Are Friends. which is where it can be cross referenced with Stand By Me, which is about kids who are friends, but Framed by like, this story is written in the future by the main kid, who wanted to be a writer & now is, mostly about his friendship with this one other kid who was like “hey man you can & should be a writer. believe” and that classic [stephen king High Concept stories] central plot impetus / definition which is “the one where some kids go on a trek to find/see a dead body” and then ending with Adult Main Kid with that classic / standout remark “i never had any friends like the ones i had when i was twelve. god, does anyone?” which is included even in the film via seeing him type it out on bulkier ye old computer terminals while his kid is now twelvish i guess and talking to a friend. after also musing on like, yeah that bestie who hyped me up the most and who i saved in turn, with a gun, tragically died. iunno where those other two kids in the group are, living kind of underwhelming lives out there probably but whatever. lmfao like man i dunno write them a letter, call them, you could do a little digging here and get in touch. but yeah it’s not gonna be Exactly The Same as when you were kids, nor exactly the same as it was when things aligned to have a brief but dramatic adventure, nor when you Could just all spontaneously decide you wanna go walking & camping to find a body & then just up & do that. but like, you can consciously make & maintain friendships i prommy my man lol. like “it’s great when things align so you Happen to have these friends when you’re twelve and you all like offer each other emotional support and can understand each other like nobody else can. but then you Will all just drift apart” like, i mean, will you. you can have friendships beyond what you just Happen to have / hope that the magic alignments will just continue falling into place for you so that those friendships still exist

and probably part of it is that it’s really mostly About the two kids who are friends even though there’s four of them, i.e. the protagonist & the moral support bestie, as well as the fact that this is a short story so there’s presumably only so much time to focus on characters at all really or delve into any setup and bg lore and whatever all else, i dunno. but thinking how it’s like, oh hey, in It it’s kind of its own serendipitous alignment of elements there to be like, here’s a group of adults where it’s peak relevant that they’re friends, for once. because afaik that really just doesn’t happen in sking stories, like, yeah adults kind of have friends but it’s Not Very Deep / it’s just kind of convenience about working together moving plots along & it’s like yeah uh i don’t fucking know i guess we see each other / hang out for dinners or post dinner drinks together or join forces about whatever fucked up shit and just talk about that, mostly....and probably people are just dropping off like flies eventually, the protagonist man of that [sooo many protags who are just some fuckin middle aged guy who’s a writer] type, and it’s also in part just because like, characters don’t really matter that much / have to be particularly distinct / Are Disposable when plenty of the point is to go “was that fucked up or what?” about whatever’s happening, so yknow you go “there was once just some fuckin guy, i dunno, he probably has a wife he’s paternalistically protective of but maybe also resents and maybe a kid or two or something, whatever....” like, being the main character doesn’t really matter, it’s just this avatar through which we are told a story of some fucked up shit and to whomst any fucked up shit can even happen, being other characters also really doesn’t matter

so it’s like huh, stand by me / the body as obviously this Ode To Twelve Year Olds’ Friendship And How Your Emotional Support Of Each Other Defines The Entire Path Of Your Life Though Mostly For The Main Character, Everyone Else Fucked Off Or Whatever like right yeah, but with that difference of how like clearly as an adult this isn’t gonna be about this guy going like “hey yeah where are those still living scamps today,” he’s reminiscing only, he’s talking about how he now doesn’t have any friends like the ones he had when he was twelve....then what changes in It is like, hmm how are these adults where the fact they’re friends actually is peak relevant? how does one remain friends with even Any childhood friends there huh. and then the fact it works out like that is like aha, well it’s because they don’t lmfao. that everyone happens to scatter to the winds at some point when it maybe will eventually rear its head amongst even their own adult guardians like hey, yknow, maybe let’s not live in murderville. or coincidence. whatever. where the point is that like oh also, everyone just magically forgets the goings on as kids including the existence of their friends, but is about to be reminded of them / remember all that, for a specific external reason rather than [adults are like hey let me try getting in touch with that mf] and already plot and magic is relevant to all of this. they’re not going to have gotten together for the shittiest high school reunion if not for the connection of Friendship, this is about adults but it’s about that childhood plotline still, so Twelve Year Olds’ Friendships still stands / is relevant, so we can even fathom these adults having a connection, b/c yes they Didn’t have it as they got older there, but now they’re jumping back into it actually, b/c magic, and because also this is Directly About (Childhood) Trauma which was also like, hey damn, even outside the stephen king oeuvre & its tendencies (solid & wretched), this is also transcending grievances i so often have with Horror, as someone who likes horror and doesn’t like horror but likes horror but doesn’t like it, and just like. questionable employment of [you Are bothering to focus on Character, and their emotional arcs being entirely relevant to the story here] when sometimes it’s like, do you need a story? the strength of horror shorts to just go “was that fucked up or what.” do you need the characters with the emotional arc relevance at all, or is it just a little avatar walking around with enough vague motivation to have / see / make fucked up shit happen? are they particularly characterized to play into some Metaphor, what’s that metaphor, is it shit, is the execution of it shit. and oftentimes Trauma is just like, idk, it’s like well here’s this person’s Weakness, and it being horror that’s more likely to make it into a Fatal Flaw, like way to have trauma you dumbass, if you were so weak as to fail to just get over it already / Overcome it, you just might be killed for it

annoying, shallow and hackneyed, insulting, etc, and it’s also like, the Individual Focused emotional journey like and here this character who’s been weakly propped up by the Stronger people supporting them will have to go through the crucible of being alone, facing down their Issue like their trauma, and getting through it in this big dramatic one and done way so they can finally stop being a pussy and an obstacle to others. or else fuck it up & die. and it’s like do you know how this works lmfao (no) why shouldn’t the support help. why should it Have to go away. why shouldn’t everyone be crowdsourcing their emotional support amongst their group lmao and never needing to “overcome” it Forever, alone. and that’s at least mostly what gets to go on in It lmfao, like, so obviously this is About Childhood Trauma. whereas It = any of the forces that make people act in ways that create, facilitate, or simply passively allow trauma. (or just some shit that really fucks shit up sometimes i guess.) and you have kids who get caught Alone getting got. but then you have a larger group of some twelvish year olds who are like alright fuck this then, and that’s enough to get through it, the same way that naturally in the less magical / more literal realm of their lives, that friend group & joining forces & providing this like actually (relatively) safe and supportive environment amongst themselves is what protects them & makes everyone a lot more of a force to be reckoned with than they are when out / caught on their own. and it just doesn’t happen to be about choosing to write about like, and then all these kids got picked off one by one anyways, despite their efforts, f. which like i guess it could be, but when the Point is so Directly about the emotional support some kids get from each other / that they Are crowdsourcing protection re: their individual vulnerabilities, that wouldn’t really emphasize that Point so much if regardless of the [having a friend group] everyone was fucked anyways. or the fact that like, again, this is About trauma and what can create it and how that can persist and all, the Magic Rules are about the emotional component of it all, when it’s like, oh this just so happens to be a magic murder entity that’s picking off kids but also prefers to torment them and/or like idk takes the route of going “oh you’re gonna hate this” and hooks up their consciousness via usb cable to the zillionth dimension void & then sips their life force through a crazy straw, or, as it would be to clown entities, a normal straw, and i dunno, that if the usb is unplugged vs eternal living death then the torment juice can give people the interdimensional premonition / telepathy across space & probably time shine(tm) like good for them i guess. call that hypervigilance?

and then that like, into the Adults timeline, not only is there this cheat like woops a stephen king story where adults are friends b/c they’ve reconnected the usb cables where the [friends like the ones i had when i was twelve] has now become immediately relevant and active again, i was like, mad man cinema contemplation meme a bit confused going into the second half until i realized some particular fact of the plot And it was slowly like....we’re kind of goofin huh, is this Being Funnier? b/c i mean, the first one wasn’t not ever funny or like otherwise not super solemn & heavy, and also i’m just Used to horror to the point it’s not gonna like bother me probably, i was watching alone and turned off the lights b/c i couldn’t adjust my screen’s lighting levels & the overhead light in here was gonna create glare via the mirror behind me, and i didn’t think anything of it at any point, i had to also be like “@ me, okay stop saying ‘me’ the moment you realize anything [A Scary Moment] is transpiring for no especial reason,” and yknow, it’s like a roller coaster to me, or i’d say like being tickled except actually i hate that one & will start physically fighting lol, where it’s like yeah aaaaaa but it’s fun & i’m Humored really, i’m experiencing the [horror & comedy are two sides of the same coin], when i’m startled or going like oooh that was, to be sure, creepy, it’s still like, ahaha, i’m figuratively tickled, going :] at the screen, i especially liked the same [ooh hehe yeah that’s eerie] type of moments in both halves like yeah very [your standard marble hornets enjoyer] of me....but anyways so then it did take me an extra few moments maybe in the second half like oh is this Markedly More Humorous? oh it is, then....sort of unexpected but then it immediately makes sense and was Fascinating like, oh, this is so In Conversation With the first movie and with the Overall Story here lmao. like, we are illustrating the Perspective Shift, the [kids timeline] is still relevant and defines everything that’s going on, but they Are adults now and That itself is relevant. b/c otherwise it’s like, it Is just the same situation played over again lmfao like damn we were the [kids fight & defeat a murder sewer clown monster] and now we’re the [adults fight & defeat a murder sewer clown monster]. and Of Course It Makes Sense for there to be overall more Drama for the kids, who are more so just living & immersed in their normal lives in that storyline, and of course, Are Kids, where like anything “was that fucked up or what” that’d happen would be more intense & threatening, and sure applying that perspective like, not only “yeah i’m just experiencing some media, but if that was really happening in life that’d be fucked up, if it was happening for real to me, i’d be like, whoa uh oh holy shit aaaa” lmao, and then an Additional layer of “and if i was twelve” like “yeah aaaa oh shit” way compounded by that, naturally. 

but then i’m Also like, listen, i’d be more like halfway through my 27 yr time jump but i’m the adult with cptsd lmao and so i’m Madmen In The Theatreing because of this angle as well, and intrigued, positively, by the uptick in levity about everything. wherein it’s like okay, it’s sure Also true that like, undo the [and if you were twelve] angle, but The Same kind of fucked up shit happening would of course still be like well this sucks, and is startling, to Anyone who’s an adult, right. But Also like, again the way it’s relevant to touch base with the [kids] timeline, because that’s Defining Everything, this isn’t just “and they’re adults which means everyone’s just tougher than they were when they were kids” and That’s That, it’s like, these are adults who were these specific kids with specific experiences vulnerable to and exposed to bonus trauma, and now this is a “time to jump back in to a head on confrontation with that” plotline but As A Group again rather than this being just the story of like any individuals, or just the main kid/guy, who is now to be sure the [the middle aged writer guy of a stephen king story] lmfao, congrats....and you had [repressed memories but like, magically extensively encompassing] as the device here to as what allows for this outlier scenario of like “but how can adults possibly maintain friendships formed organically in their youth? well, they didn’t lol. but now they’re back.” and the past Has to be relevant and freshly Active because again, this Is directly about trauma lol, not just about whatever broader thing and anyone might secretly have this Hangup or two that’ll get them got. and they all Know this lol, this may be some exclusive knowledge more broadly, but this is Not a secret amongst this group of adults like ah yes my marinating issues that nobody suspects i have....which is a bonus to [even though they’re adults in a stephen king story they don’t all or even mostly have to die] and then like, as i am trying to get around to, that it’d be Different being just any adult approaching this as a new situation to them vs being an adult With Trauma(tm) lol like. the way that one might go “well, this would suck for anyone, but i have a different vulnerability b/c [cptsd involving this shit]” but Then Also the resilience that nobody should have to have and it’s technically a “strength” even though then actually people interpret their [lack of honed ability through direct life experience to cope indefinitely with traumatic experiences] as the strength, a la “wow why’s that person put up with that, i wouldn’t stand for it b/c isn’t it So Clearly Bad & Unpleasant?” victim blaming mentality and people “used” to that shit “putting up with” said shit, which other people would throw up their hands like Wow Just No and walk away from. which in turn isn’t a “weakness” lmao like, there’s no moral judgments to being someone w/trauma or someone without it. that people shouldn’t Have to have cptsd or Resilience, of course, but then that they do. i’m certainly relating to like, yeah it’s Magic Rules / Exaggeration the way that only people young enough can detect & deal with this shit directly, the first time around, and then that they still have access to it as adults presumably b/c of that exposure as kids and because [the childhood trauma doesn’t just Go Away b/c you grew up, even though Also people just think that it ought to or like wow so immature or wow you’re Letting it affect you too strongly still, huh] etc. and anyways, relating to like, yeah enjoyed the way some adults would just be cool & generally supportive, but i also only had so much access to such adults, all Through parents or via school where it’s like, yeah but all the adults there have to Make Sure You’re Behaving Properly in various ways that lead to [punitive] ends and if anyone’s being like particularly supportive / understanding that’s a personal individual choice & they’re probably going Above & Beyond. kind of impressed how useless, and actively unhelpful / counterproductive, any adults were later on when i was dealing with it all the more / had it coming to a head in ways lol, didn’t have an epic friend group i hung out with at twelve or ever who Knew Me that well or i shared anything with or got lifechanging emotional support from, but there Were occasions of like, yeah these peers get it, huh. and now with the perspex of [cptsd having adult] it’s like, yeah, i’d have repeated dreams of parents showing up & i start physically fighting them off with like a shovel and shit lmfao. even now when i rarely have dreams ft. like a more general monster / menacing figure, like i did last night, go figure, Dream Me is always like Oh Okay and immediately physically charges them unarmed lmfao. (also had a dream cameo where some guy on a home computer who was making up like building / engineering schematics? was a Wrole like omg hey buddy. unfortunately a limited interaction, that plot got quickly waylaid by the one where i launch myself at some entity. booo) i can be like “ah, here goes the adrenal response” mostly only noticing sometimes when it’s like, my physical tension has gone to the point of [i can notice my legs/knees shaking], i can also Not Notice It / not think of it b/c you know, it’s like this is truly mundane / everyday shit, in the Relative / Comparative way that it can be. it can be stealth mission time to do some ordinary shit like you live in a survival horror game. it can also go “yeah i could very easily see how if, say, there was this manifestation of trauma / the shit that causes/facilitates/sustains/allows it, i’d go sicko mode on that shit just immediate physical attack” lmao. i know if i’m startled it’s like, that can be a) ordinary, and/or b) unpleasant, and probably c) immediately followed by my being ready to go sicko mode, possibly being a bit pissed off lol. like i can’t even be worried like oh no it’s nighttime what if something was menacing. like yeah that’d be scary and suck, i might get got, i’d also immediately be pissed off like fucking try me you asshole. and it’s like, again the way comedy is A Framework, it’s not what happens when a situation is Lighthearted, Unserious, Frivolous, etc. the like, obvious fact like wow people who are funny can be sad? can have had some fucked up, Serious experiences? can even joke about that? like yeah of course humor can be Deliberately Employed To Cope, including to even communicate about shit, where you’re cueing hard like, i’m not necessarily collapsing under the weight of this right now but it’s a reality and when i’m telling you about it with Humor it’s not in turn asking for you to fix it or even do anything about it at all except be listening to / comprehending the info i’m giving you. and that even looking back on shit can be funny To You because it’s just like, sure Elevated and can be a bit absurd. so it’s like oh yeah of course it’d be funnier, in a way characters are aware of & actively interacting with lmfao. like of course any adult would be like “jesus christ. yikes. aaaa” lol while also being more inclined and able to tackle bullshit right off, but Also being specifically an adult with the [this is your childhood trauma] can be like, yes i’m both still affected by and vulnerable to this shit, but i’m Also less vulnerable than some rando might be, actually, and prepared to / more used to this, and able to go “jesus christ yikes aaaa lmfaooo ahaha” about it. like, i feel that lol. 

paragraph break just because that one was getting Extra long: oh and also the matter of Genre Awareness, that this isn’t just some fucked up shit that happens to be scary and fuck your shit up, but this is expressly an antagonist coming after you with the intention to be scary to you, and you Know that, you are aware you’re in a Horror Genre situation lmao, so meta, surely helpful. and sure sometimes i felt the like comedy vs horror; comedy vs drama sometimes didn’t transition perfectly like, my kind of feeling ambivalent at this one point like uhhh is this scene more straightforwardly dramatic? hmm i guess it was. well anyways. but that’s fine, meanwhile continually delighted even to realize like, here we are going over this all again but with this Shifted Perspective / Framework, we’re clearly goofin a bit. and like how i can clap & cheer like ooh yeah that was creepy lmfao, i got Got comedically like idfk dozen times or what all. ahehe....not to mention the [i Am going insane. society] experience of scrungy expression spit take coughing laughter when overlaying [titanic guy going HaHaHaHaHaHaHa XD as the camera lifts away from overhead] upon [mad man serious contemplation of cinema png] while experiencing like wow the gay Text is more textual than i though, more extensive, turns out i had some things to go into entirely afresh without going “oh yeah, i remember what i osmosis’d about this” to then go :0 =0 about, or that i didn’t quite get Everything through osmosising that i did recall, to then spit take about and become titanic guy fifty times over. i Am a bit joker mode, you really just have to be. and laughing about [when stephen king and PPL go “you know this type of guy” and we all go “yeah i guess. i know Of them [possible knowing looks amongst ourselves, or to the camera]” and then they go “you know how they’re—” and then our answers of “maybe like gay or some shit” overlaps with their “just another heterosexual amongst all the rest of us, unless we’re gay, but we’re talking about how all the protagonists we write are cishet i guess?” like. haha. what an alignment, good for everyone in the overlap....oh and i was like ahahaha when the podcast discussion of The Book Specifically nevertheless had one guy knowing the lore already that the stephen king cameo here as Some Secondhand / Pawn Shop Type Place Owner Guy was someone who, in stephe’s (not a typo, making stephe as = steven happen, with particular enunciation of the ph vs v) own written text as the description of That Guy in the book, is like, this gay caricature who is like wearing some mesh or i think they said it said “fishnet” shirt and like clearly reading this gay porn mag. because how else would someone be gay lmfao? how else would you Know you’ve encountered one of them?? lmfao like, a) i also agree with the podcasters who are like, stephe’s a coward for not staying true to that specific description he wrote when cameo’ing as that person, and b) like, people are gay, stephe....but classic matters of [running down a hallway going Noooo and knocking shit down behind you while being chased by [the way stephen king writes about [take your pick] and/or just like, what do you think is going on in life re: [take your pick] exactly, stephen king, i swear] lol)

anyways This has turned into [gif of the guy emphatically pointing at a laptop and also at some unseen listener to this Serious Monologue] because i have endless things to say about anything. the point it it’s like, well hey i think that was remarkably successful re: choosing to have Characters with Emotional Arcs tied to a Metaphor in this horror media, when usually i’m like, the execution of this is so shit that it’s like, just don’t have characters lol, don’t try to make it a metaphor (although you know, difficult for it not to be tied to anything irl, so don’t be unaware of how it Could be), if it’s gonna be this kind of a mess. the fact that like, you can’t have [trauma] be a character weakness fatal flaw that gets them got b/c they weren’t individually Strong Enough, b/c this is All About a) having & interacting with that [trauma] first and foremost and b) how having a group of relationships affects that (helpfully). my pleasant surprise about how like yeah of course you can’t just make the exact same movie again but i wasn’t necessarily expecting a noticeably more outright comedic angle for round two, but duly kinda delighted by it, and that felt very Appropriate and Verisimilitudinous for the new angle of And You’re Completely Grown. that stephen king Rarely writes about relevant friendships and all the more rarely to never writes about relevant friendships between Adults but whoops, that happened here, b/c there was a magical workaround where “drifting apart” was not entirely congruous to the real life literal actual way that’d happen, and b/c the way this is about childhood trauma means that the Rest of that childhood is relevant to adulthood / adult identities, and he ends up with “god, does anyone?” being answered by “yeah, sometimes” lol. and yeah being a deh enjoyer / being haunted byer / analyzer means anytime something is About the connections someone, say a young person for one, might make and how that can be relevant to All Their Issues, i’m sitting up & taking notes like oh ya don’t say. that stephen king shit overall is like, well this is Interesting and i could talk all day but i’m also like, personally more ambivalent and bound to run over like hey stephe i’m shoving you around, bitch. until we form an unlikely, begrudging alliance to instead go after stanley kubrick, then boo the the shining movie, but whatever. the the shining book ending, one of the few things i particularly remember from actually reading that one, is true like, stephen king endings tending to be a hot mess that maybe aren’t super successful but here we are and it was like, why’d it get so goofy all of a sudden lmfao like i’m telling you with the schrodinger’s boiler that’s old and temperamental and if you don’t maintain it it’ll blow up probably, and that the way things end in the book is the [middle aged dime a dozen writer man protag] being possessed by a hotel is like oh fuck me lmfao, not the boiler i can’t maintain myself even though i’m possessing a hotel, it hasn’t been maintained, and then as always in any of these stories things go off the rails and yakety sax starts to play while after hanna barbera cartoon scrambling in place for a second, your haunted hotel avatar starts sprinting to the basement or wherever it was but Too Late, it blows up and the hotel dies kind of. and that’s kinda fun and funny lol but yknow, put it back in. beating up kubrick aside, i’ve seen all of? nigh all of? wasn’t paying much attention. the movie and it’s like oh okay whatever. but as with like [anything stephen king] and my not even being born till the 90s, it’s like, i can’t possibly experience this afresh, we can all agree that surely this is the best known stephen king work b/w book & film adaptation, even among biggies that really just permeate pop culture overall, who can know what i’d think if these things were New and pre [own significant influence on relevant genres / mediums] or also i was a younger reader/viewer at the times as people could often be. but i was like....expression where you scrunch your face up and look to the side like “are you seeing this” bemusement like...this is. fine i guess? it’s not really scary lmfao. and regardless, resurrecting kubrick to beat him up. but on that note it’s also funny that god knows why i ever mentioned the hypothetical of watching the shining once in passing to my mom, it would’ve been humorous / not in earnest b/c no way would i have been suggesting we watch that or even that i had watched it necessarily, so i Think i must’ve just been informing her of some things that were on tv at that moment with some goofy but technically accurate suggestions like that one, and she is a bit indignant like clearly disapproving of the general idea because, as she says, she doesn’t think it’s Right to tell kids they should ever be afraid of their parents. but between “but like. they go axe murder possessed by a hotel mode here, wherein i think it’s very appropriate?” and [someone who watches It and keeps looking into the camera one zillion times / is fascinated by the fact it’s like oh wow, any horror talking about What If You Had Trauma that isn’t like fundamentally misguided throughout and probably egregiously insulting about it] i take a perfectly comedically timed pause and then we freeze frame on my doing a spit take Laugh into my own drink. not actually in the real moment lol, i just Say Nothing and file that one away lmfao

oh and as a little postscript here i want to shoutout my going “just like Watch Your Step in goosebumps the musical the phantom of the auditorium” where it’s like, schrodinger’s warning about how a kid could just up and accidentally die via this trapdoor or like anywhere anytime, but you don’t really realize that b/c you’re kids, but I’m Telling You. and like, he’s right in general to be sure, you can just die, as well as unknowingly right of course like oops yeah some kid did just up and suddenly die via this trapdoor, grimly. and that’s Stand By Me / The Body handshake emoji It, like of course that mortality is ever relevant particularly in horror, but that also it’s like, kids realizing the reality and Proximity of that, like You Can Die, this could be you or could’ve been you. [horror, and it’s middle schoolers] wins again

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi!!! I just discovered your blog and I am definitely getting a lot out of it. I hope you don’t mind answering my question - do you think it’s possible for someone with no Greek background to… I don’t know if “worship” is the right word, but worship Greek deities? (Or however you would put that.) I myself have felt some connection to one or two, and done a lot of research! I try not to make unfounded claims (unlike some on TikTok lmao), but I know I lack the cultural background to fully understand what it’s really like. (continued)

Like a lot of American kids I came into contact with Greek myth through Percy Jackson and my book fair and I know that’s not the end all be all of the mythology and I’ve got a few books on my shelves as someone who is generally interested in Antiquity, as well as Hellenistic faith specifically. I’ve always felt a connection to love goddesses in particular and while I don’t claim to be a PRIESTESS (that’s very silly), I can’t deny that Aphrodite in particular draws me in (and her other counterparts in Ancient Mesopotamia). But I know that Greece is a real place, and it has its own culture, and I don’t want to be disrespectful yknow? (continued)

(Thanks for your patience, I’ve definitely rambled a little). My question is this: is it possible for me to continue down this road? (I mean, I hope so! Having a relationship with the Divine has improved my whole life.) And if it is, do you have suggestions of where to dig in deeper and learn more?

___________________ [END OF ASK]__________________________

Hello! Greeks agree that anyone can worship the Greek gods! It's not a closed practice and any faith is supported by the right to religious freedom. As you read, you can't exactly reconstruct the faith, but that doesn't mean you can't reach the deities in the ways that are appropriate for you, trying to follow some guidance from the past. I wouldn't recommend calling this worship "Reconstruction" for that reason, but I am sure you can at least practice something. You can have an altar, idols, offerings, and say the translations of ancient hymns.

It's true that you might lack some background knowledge and that can be balanced by years of reading ancient original texts (translated in your language ofc) about the deities and analyses by different scholars. Additionally, observe the iconography and the statues or idols of these gods to get an idea of how they are. Even many modern Greeks are not well informed about our ancient religion (because they might innately know some things but there is a lot of material to cover). In both cases you can only learn by studying.

If you don't have that feeling of what the line of respect is, you can acquire it by asking some Greeks who are Hellenic Polytheists and, if you can't find them, random Greeks who are decently informed about the gods (someone who won't call Zeus "a d*ck" unironically, for example :P). Many modern Greeks can feel the bs and when someone disrespects a deity, even though they are not in the ancient faith.

And there are some Greek Hellenic Polytheists who are only that in name and for them the worship is magic vibes, cool names and candles. So, always check what the individual knows and ask more than one person. Cross-examine the info you take with what you read on the ancient texts and the scholars. Don't forget to check the reputation of these scholars and if their claims have been debunked.

Search keywords on Google scholar and you might find papers that discuss matters that interest you. (Don't copy the DOI of the paper and definitely don't copy it into SciHub so you can download the paper - or the book, or article - for free! 👀👀👀👀👀)

I don't have a list of recommendations ready (and most of my books are dusting in a distant village) and I am not sure if my suggestions would help you. I am not a Hellenic Polytheist and I think you might find more suitable reads if you ask other Hellenic Polytheists what they have read or what they plan on reading. There are some who have a big collection regarding the gods!

I'll also cover that scenario: in case you want to worship 4 different goddesses from 4 different pantheons, that won't be a very consistent practice. Legally, nobody can or should stop you from doing that, but it will not be the most respectful thing on your part. While gods can be "imported" to other pantheons, first one has to be devoted to one pantheon and then import one or two deities from elsewhere. That means that to do it, you will have to focus on one pantheon and recognize and worship all the gods there. Meaning, if you only worship Aphrodite, it won't do it.

I've also noticed that a large portion of Hellenic Polytheists call themselves "Devotees" and that's not what they think it means. Being a devotee is closer to being a nun than having a deity that protects you. If you have one deity that protects you and you want to have their altar, that's not being a Devotee. That's more like a Christian aunty talking to their beloved saint. For someone to be a devotee, at least from what I know, they have to dedicate their life to religious worship on the temple of this particular deity. (Whilst recognizing the power of the other gods in the pantheon). I am not sure there is any place in the modern era when someone can be a devotee for a Greek god.

Lastly, I'd advise taking a look at this post for better terminology use. I get that a foreign vocabulary is difficult to use if you don't know the language. For example, you used "Hellenistic faith" and, unless you mean the state of the religion in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece, the phrase doesn't hold the meaning you intended. Perhaps you mean "Hellenic faith"? Although the standard "Hellenic faith" for the last two thousand years is Orthodox Christianity xD So you better specify this by saying "ancient Hellenic faith".

A Greek Hellenic Polytheist was calling herself "Hellenic Greek" for her foreign audience but if she were to say this to a Greek she would sound like saying "I am a Greek Greek." And the Greek would tell her "of course you are a Greek if you are a Greek. What else would you be?" So she is misusing her own language, for what purpose I am not sure.

P.S. visit my tag #Aphrodite

I hope I covered your questions and if you have more I am here! As always, the post is open to anyone who wants to offer some more advice!

[buttercupart]

ok so now that i’ve introduced them, im gonna like.... infodump abt them + their story now. soooo here’s Mello’s moms’ one and only piece of incredibly aauuuhhhmm High Quality concept art (that i never finished and also accidentally saved over and had to restore to an earlier vers to get back). ooooh look shiny image

Ok first up - GINGER MOM

-Went to St. Epiderm, prim & proper preppy private school kid

-Star plant student. She’s not so much good at combat as she is, like, horticulture? Grows lots of amazing beautiful monster flowers and stuff but isn’t like Willow who spawns vines to fight people yknow?

-Yeah she spent all her time training in like, big beautiful glass greenhouses and stuff

-She’s Amelia’s aunt, Amelia’s mom’s sister specifically

-Her family is wildly batshit toxic and she was sort of pushed into the plant track no matter what she wanted, she’s good at it so she’s not upset really but... sometimes she wonders what else could have been out there for her

REDHEAD MOM

-Scrappy kid from Glandus, has tons of scratches and scars from like, mudwrestling demon bears for fun because there’s nothing to do in Latissa

-Her parents never cared about school or education as a whole, so everyone was pleasantly surprised when she turned out to be really good at plant magic on her first day of high school, which is why she was accepted and enrolled into a track at all despite.... less than ideal grades

-She’s Jerbo’s aunt, Jerbo’s dad’s sister specifically

-Spent all her time in community gardens helping grow food and vegetables w/ like teeth idk, this is the Boiling Isles

---

Ginger and Red met at a school plant competition, with each of them being one of the competitors for their school. They beat out everyone else and eliminated Hexside completely by the 2nd to last round, and during the last one Red completely blew Ginger out of the water. Ginger’s parents were piiiiiissed that this scrappy little nobody from Glandus beat their daughter, but this, for Ginger? would be the start of a years-long fascination and infatuation with Red that, in hindsight, was defffffinitely just a big gay baby crush