#does NOT speak well for it already

[aniseandspearmint]

... why is there going to be a twister sequel movie???

it is, SUPER imaginatively, going to be called "twisters"

it's out july 2024

[sysig]

Don’t be silly! Okay, be a little silly (Patreon)

[grenade-maid]

Signalis, Authority, and History

There's a level of nuance to how Signalis presents the violence of the authority of the nation that doesn't call attention to itself but which I really appreciate. Which is basically just, all the officers and cops and spies who make life hell for people like the Gestalt mine workers, Ariane, and the Itou family--we get little glimpses into who they are in Adler and Kolibri's diaries and despite the propaganda and the authoritative tone they take in official communications, for the most part they don't seem to actually be particularly invested in the hard line of national ideology. They uphold it though, viciously, both because things were worse under imperial rule (we don't get hard details on what it was like but it's mentioned in passing enough that I believe it) and because they're scared that if they don't they will be decommissioned and easily replaced. They are literally stamped out of a production line after all. There's a subtext of well, if I don't do it my replacement will anyway and I'm not trying to die so what's the point of rocking the boat?

I think Kolibri stands out to me most clearly on this because in communications from the block warden regarding Ariane there is emphasis put on how it is unacceptable and suspicious that she should be so interested and invested in art and literature that does not serve the purpose of furthering the goals of the nation. But we know that Kolibris themselves are bookworms, Adlers are fiends for stimulating experiences, and both get miserable FAST when deprived of art and puzzles and entertainment and hobbies. Y'know, just like anyone. Far be it from being a paragon of The Nation only interested in productive labor, we are reminded that the block warden, too, hates this shitty town and wants to transfer but is denied. They're hypocrites, but not monsters, nor brainwashed puppets of the state.

The monstrousness at play is not contained within any particular subset of evil individuals, or even an inherent universal force of evil contained in the broad notion of The Nation. There is no cosmic evil force that makes them all do these things to each other. The monstrousness is within the social systems, the mechanisms of how authority perpetuates on a structural procedural level, held in place by fear and tangible threats of violence, each link in the chain restraining the next through those threats out of fear that if they don't, then they'll be next. Regardless how many, if any, of those people in this chain are true dogmatic hardliners, they must act as such because failing to do so opens them up to danger.

Here then I think of the quote that is so prominent, "Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl", from Lovecraft's The Festival. This is not just a chilling abstract visual that conveniently evokes a mineshaft-- in Lovecraft's story, this line refers to worms which ate the decomposing bodies of wizards whose wretched souls had remained after death, complete with the terrible powers they gained through contracts with demons. Those worms inherited both their power, and also the evil. The Nation, despite having overthrown the Empire, is built on imperial technology, in particular Replikas and bioresonance. So too, then, we can imply that The Nation inherited with those things some of the monstrousness of The Empire as well. There is no end of history, nor clean break with the past, no matter how violently it may seem to be rejected. That which remains from the past--and something inevitably always does--creates the present.

This is a game that is not shy about evoking East Germany. And I think all of this provides a sophisticated picture of repressive authority that we rarely see in fiction of the English speaking world, especially in games. The year the S23 incident takes place is notably 84, but, frankly, I find this to be more compelling and illustrative than 1984 (and I'm a librarian and have taught English classes so I get to say that). Orwell, let's be honest, presents a fairly one dimensional picture of authority, where people seize power and wield it against others out of seeming mustache twirling evil or malice.

Here though we get a more humanistic view. Authority did not come from nowhere and is not wielded arbitrarily out of gleeful cruelty or mindless brainwashed allegiance. People aren't "just following orders". Individuals have rich inner lives. They make decisions, and those decisions are based in the context they're in. Even the decision to carry repressive tools of the past into the present is a decision that was made strategically with the big picture in mind. Nobody woke up and decided to be evil that day. Everyone operates on self interest, and, we must assume, an earnest desire for things to get better. Even the [spoiler] program which served as an inspirational demonstration of The Nation's power, you can imagine the chain of officers and bureaucrats who genuinely wanted the people of the nation to believe in the future, to confidently trust that everyone was working together towards something great and beautiful. And, through a long chain of those people who couldn't say "No" without being decommissioned, we ended up with something unbelievably cruel.

We get to know Adler and Kolibri and the other officers not to say well they're human too, maybe it wasn't so bad that they condemned all those people to agonizing suffering, but to remember that if we keep looking for true monsters we will not find them. There are no monsters and there are no demons. There are only people making decisions. A better world is possible. A better world, where Adler is just a paper pusher who does puzzles after work instead of signing papers to authorize torture, where Kolibris are librarians instead of spies and cops, where EULEs can gossip and play piano and ARARs can do maintenance on facilities that don't contain torture rooms, is one that would not have led to the Ariane and Elster's tragic cycle and ultimate end.

Authority and its attendant cruelty is not contained, radiating forth from The Great Revolutionary and Her Daughter, it is within the social systems of control. When those two women die, that cruelty will continue so long as those social systems continue. Like Lovecraft's worms, no matter how long dead the evil of the past is, so long as it continues to be fed upon, that evil will not only remain, but evolve into something new in the present. A better world can't be achieved through the death of the old world alone, even if violent overthrow is warranted. There is no end of history. There is no clean break from the past.

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

[allthegothihopgirls]

screaming. "stop the 'quirked up gay-boy tim drake' propaganda" at the top of my lungs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[narwhalandchill]

oh my fucking god i feel. SO stupid rn at How i didnt make the (super sane very normal just absolutely. Yes. Surely) connection earlier but uhh

so anyway im now like 89% certain that whatever the "traces" of the narwhal that remain on ajax and facilitate their (ever-growing) innate connection are like. an actually fundamental aspect of it (them?) more or less.

why? because if you consider its pov just for a moment. the narwhal was literally about to depart teyvat for good. it had nearly finished consuming the primordial sea and preparing to breach surface to finish the job by eating the french for the leftovers their human bodies were made from. its an interstellar voyager it does not linger on planets it devours. it goes glug glug and it leaves.

and like if it wasnt for traveler intervening its confirmed through narzissenkreuz and renes world formula that teyvat wouldve just been destroyed. no one could have stopped the narwhal not neuvillette not focalors not anyone.

so what was the one other thing it did right before going for that french brunch? calling for ajax. getting them reunited in the primordial sea. like all the possible implications aside bc theres many different ways to speculate on the exact reasons why and the nature of that link. the point remains.

it wasnt leaving teyvat without finding him.

like the narwhal is about to fucking Dip from this cringe planet and whatever part of it that ajax carries within himself his narwhal Absolutely wanted to be reunited with. what the fuck am i supposed to read from that. hoyo???????!??! answers?!?!?!

and its not only the calling from the narwhal side itself either bc this is ALL coinciding with the growth of a 'restless power' within ajax and his vision malfunctioning (the things celestia is literally confirmed to harvest energy thru to repair its damaged authority) and his connection with the narwhal reaching an actual conscious level (arguably subconscious n emotional too bc i find it Curious his mood is poor right as the narwhal is repeatedly described as positively malding to the point its boss fight mechanic is literally a rage meter). ajax' power is growing. his destiny is starting to shift and something is drawing him to fontaine... right as the narwhal is getting close to finished with the primordial sea. funny how it overlaps eh. how it aligns 🤨🤨 why are they orbiting each other like this (they should kiss)

(& not to even Mention how ajax just Happened to get that absolutely exponential and borderline unbelievable feat of power spike in extending his foul legacy endurance as massively as he did. while. within the primordial sea. with his narwhal. who had at that point all but incorporated the power of that sea into itself. i s2g if childe was getting passive home turf co-op bonus exp with a 4x multiplier automatically the whole 40+ days 💀💀)

[puppyeared]

guy who only asks questions if they feel insightful enough to be worth asking and only hangs out if there is smth to do together <- deeply uncomfortable of the idea of wasting someones time

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[shima-draws]

I finally watched The Amazing Digital Circus after seeing all the hype about it (and it's STILL no.1 on trending. Wild) and now I have been struck by the curse of theme song stuck on repeat in brain. Help

...Gangle and Zooble and Kinger too, Ragatha, Jax and there's Kaufmo (woo-hoo!!!) Day after day after day after day after day--

[trainingdummyrabbit]

in conclusion the most poignant thing about ruina is its running theme of Imperfection. imperfection, focused not on its flaws, but on the miracle of it existing to begin with. imperfection not as a failing, but as a triumph. its cracked, broken, deeply in need of repair-- but it's real and its ours and it exists. despite everything it exists and that enough is a relief beyond words, beyond expression. to present a toppled structure not as a conclusion, but an opportunity.

its the choice-- and the joy-- of looking forward, unflinchingly, and facing it. one step at a time.

[themoonking]

when people bring up the racism, homophobia, transphobia, romanticization of domestic abuse / rape / pedophilia / incest, literal actual written porn of literal actual real life flesh and blood children, et cetera et cetera on archive of our own, one of the ao3 stannies’ main defenses is “you can just filter out the tags if you don’t want to see that!” when that defense has no fucking legs to stand on.

ao3 is not an archive, it is barely even a website: a rant <3 (very long)

ignoring the fact that it’s a problem that all of that is permitted on the site in the first place (i guess child porn and racism are fine, and the people who allow it on their platform are fine, as long as i, personally, do not see it), that defense literally means nothing. it’s assuming that every little thing on ao3 is tagged properly and it absolutely is not, and if you think it is you are dumber than rocks. i mean for fuck’s sake, just touching on archive warnings and not tags, “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is literally a valid option for fic authors to use when it should fucking not be.

if someone is a freak who thinks that pedo shit is hot, they might not tag it as “rape” (archive warnings OR tags). i’ve literally seen underage father/son rape porn with no trigger warning tags but “child abuse if you squint”. IF YOU SQUINT. if someone thinks that domestic abuse is actually cool and sexy when attractive people do it, they might not tag it as “abuse”. if someone is a freak who likes incest, but bends over backwards to justify it by only shipping adopted family members, then they tell themselves that they don’t view it as incest, and might not tag it as “incest”. if someone is a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe, et cetera and they wrote bigotry into their fic (or else wrote a deliberate troll fic to trigger people on purpose), do you really think they’re going to tag it as racism / homophobia / transphobia / et cetera? and some people get kicks out of writing purposefully triggering content and either leaving it untagged or mistagging it so that people will read it unsuspectingly.

even for just general content tags, it’s a mess. people just forget to tag things all the time. people deliberately won’t tag the endgame ship of their fic because “it’s a spoiler heehee”. people use the romantic or sexual “x / y” tag instead of the platonic or otherwise “x & y” tag, sometimes by mistake sometimes on purpose. it’s a joked about issue how people will tag characters or ships that appear in their fic for two sentences.

there’s no standardization of tags, which is a pretty obvious problem. what first comes to mind is the “dead dove: do not eat” tag which should just not be a tag at all because it just has no meaning. depending on the individual fic writer using it, it could mean anything from “literally the most sickening and depraved thing you’ve ever read in your life” to “horror w/ gore”. but it applies to other vague tags too - different fic writers will have different ideas of what the tag means.

in addition to that, what is and isn’t made a filterable tag, what tags are made synonymous, et cetera, is entirely up to the whims of the site staff. as an example, if you’re trying to look for fanfiction of a singular animated disney movie, the infinite crossovers with other disney movies will not actually be counted as crossovers (which they are) because they’re classified as the “disney theatrical animated universe” (which isn’t a fucking thing), so you can’t filter them out the “exclude crossovers” way. if you try to filter out the fandom tag “disney theatrical animated universe”, it’ll show up with zero fics because that tag is synonymous with every disney animated film (regardless of if the fic author actually used the tag “disney theatrical animated universe” or not), thus also filtering out the one you actually wanted to find.

and do not get me fucking started on the “all media types tags”, which also just shouldn’t be a thing because it makes it fucking impossible to find the specific fics you’re looking for. some people use it in place of tagging a specific canon / adaptation when their fic very clearly draws from one specific canon / adaptation, and you can’t filter it out because it’s synonymous with every fandom tag under its umbrella.

as an example of the issues of both the “all media types” tag and mistagging in general: as a fan of the witcher books, it used to be a fucking ordeal to find fanfiction specifically for the books (post netflix show release). some show fans would, for whatever reason, tag their fics with the book fandom tag in addition to (or even in place of!!) the show fandom tag when their fics were unquestionably show-specific, meaning i could not simply search only in the book fandom tag. i could not simply filter out the show tag, because some show fans would, for whatever reason, tag as fucking “all media types”, when their fics were unquestionably show-specific. and alas, i could not filter out “all media types” and the show tag, so that i see only those fics which have been deliberately and exclusively tagged as the book, not only because as mentioned some show fans would tag their show fics with only the book tag, but also because the fucking all media types tag filters out the book tag as well, leaving me with zero fucking fics REGARDLESS of if the author actually used the “all media types” tag. now, thankfully, i’ve thankfully seen this issue in this specific fandom lessen, but it still occurs in other fandoms and i guarantee that it didn’t lessen in the witcher fandom because of any fixing of the site on the part of ao3 staff.

another common defense of ao3 freaks is that it’s an “archive”, and therefore can’t get rid of anything anyone posts, and disregarding the fact that that is not how archives fucking work, they don’t just allow anything and also ao3 DOES get rid of fics... when they say that they don’t like proshippers, apparently, archives have... you know... archivists. they have someone or a team of someones making sure that everything in the archive is *properly fucking categorized*. they have someone or multiple someones making sure that everything they recieve (1) belongs there and (2) is properly labeled and organized. same for libraries. meaning that if ao3 really were an archive and not a sub par fanfiction website, they’d have something like that in place. something as simple as a report button for fics with a review team that will see if something’s been mis- or untagged. they’d have some kind of standardization of tags (especially the warning / trigger tags) and have proper tagging enforced in some way. and then they could also do something like stop being spineless racists, queerphobes, and pedos have the barest minimum of content guidelines saying that you can’t post fucking hate speech.

if something is mistagged or untagged, the most you can do is leave a comment politely asking that the author fix the issue, and then hope and pray that they do that. and if that person thinks [insert form of abuse] is hot, or if they’re just straight up a bigot that wrote bigotry into their fics to be bigoted, or they’re a troll that gets kick out of deliberately traumatizing people by tricking them into reading their mis/untagged fics, they might not! AND if you see a major tagging issue on an orphaned work, or a work that has an inactive author / hasn’t been updated in forever, good fucking luck getting even a negative response.

you can’t permanently block tags (i mean even tumblr.hell has that), meaning that if you would like to search for fic without coming across something troubling, triggering, or just something you don’t like, you have to either (1) do a work around by having a bookmarked link for every fandom you’re in or every character you like with all of your tags already blocked, (2) download browser extensions that do the work for ao3 because they can’t be bothered themselves, or (3) input every individual tag every time you search ao3 and don’t forget that all of those options only fucking work at all when everything is tagged properly, and we’ve already established its not. you also can’t actually block people (you can only prevent them from commenting) meaning that if there’s a specific person you’d like to stay away from your fics or a specific fic author that you don’t like and would like to stop seeing their fics clogging up the tag, you’re out of luck (though for the latter you could insert “-[username]” into the “search within results” box, but then uh oh we’re right back around to having to input that every time or have a bookmark)

their archive warning system is shit. first of all it’s functionally useless because, as mentioned, “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is an option. what’s the fucking point of special required archive warnings if you’re going to allow people to opt out anyway. second of all, aside from “chose not to use warnings” and “no warnings apply”, the only warnings are “major character death”, “graphic depictions of violence”, “rape/non-con”, and “underage”. disregarding the fact that they shouldn’t be allowing porn of underage characters in the first place (but i’m talking to a brick wall on that issue) and that “non-con” (and “dub-con”) as terminology needs to die, it’s just fucking rape lets not use weasel words... this is a paltry list of possible warnings. there’s no official warnings for depictions of: domestic abuse, animal abuse, depictions of racism / homophobia / transphobia / et cetera, suicide, self harm, et cetera et cetera. and we return to the issue of standardization of tags. in your required archive warnings at very least, there should be a standardization of what these mean, but ao3′s own faq is just like “ehh... you decide. we’ll leave it up to you”. what qualifies as graphic depictions of violence? two people may write the same level of violence, but qualify “graphic” differently, and make different decisions regarding their warnings. and we also return to the issue of: if a freak doesn’t see something that is clearly rape as rape, they might not tag it as such.

this website gets a disgustingly large amount of money every year that it doesn’t fucking do anything with. it’s been over a decade and they’re still in fucking beta. features that would actually be useful, like an actual block system, don’t exist. they technically have a report system for abuse and harassment and such, but apparently what they qualify as abuse and harassment is fickle. ao3 defenders seem to be very proud of the legal work they do for fandom / fanfic authors, but they set aside a very small amount of the money they get every year for legal advocacy, and they actually use even less of that, because it’s not the early 2000s “anne rice hates fanfiction” era anymore - you aren’t going to get fucking sued for writing fanfiction in the first place. based on their own self-reported yearly cost of upkeep, they literally already have enough money to run the site as they are now for the next twenty years.

once again: ao3 is not an archive. it is not a library. it is barely a even a website.

[secretsofthewilde]

Margaret Curruthers is such a good addition in Deadloch, because by the time we realize that the killer is most likely a male (and therefore isnt her), we already know that she's a threat we just don't know how bad her actions have been yet. Her calling Abby over about Miranda's earing and her "trespassing" confirms to us that she is in fact a rich white woman who weaponises her privilege over the aboriginal women around her, despite her claims of charity. She honestly could have gotten away with her behaviour (both current and past) if she hadn't decided to;

1) try to punish Miranda for refusing her offer

2) Go back to the Island to try and cover her past sins (her brother's body)

It's doing this and revealing her true nature, which sets her up to fail. Even if she hadn't been bitten by the snake in an act of karmic justice, her choice to try weaponise her status against Miranda and Tammy would have been enough to cement the already brewing suspicions about her true nature, and therefore the Island dispute would have come out eventually.

But because she couldn't handle the thought of coming under suspicion and her true nature being revealed, the second she finds out her brother's disappearance is being looked into she acts rashly and goes the the Island and seals her fate.

Even the fact that the girls were attempting to help her out when they find her bitten, despite at this point already knowing she called the police on Miranda for trespassing, shows brilliantly how the girls believe in community and supporting each other whereas Margaret for all her public philanthropy doesn't truly care for the others around her - as we just witnessed her abandon the other women arrested with an obvious lie that she intends to get her lawyer to help them out too.

The island was never hers, and we see this when despite her constant warnings to everyone about the tiger snakes, she met her end by disturbing the snakes' natural habitat in her attempt to bury her past sins.

In a show that constantly points out the flaws of men/the patriarchy, it's nice to see them not only successfully but (imho) brilliantly write a storyline underneath the main plot that shows the villainy of colonialism that persists to this day in women like Margaret.

[torahtot]

ok ive had enough of queering judaism. can we start judaizing queerness now. or something

[casiavium]

I really need to be cleaning my room but. fanfiction I'd write if I had time but I Do Not

There are several ghiralink fic storylines that are along the lines of "Link gets exactly what he thinks he wants and turns out it isn't really what he needs" (whether real or a dream-state) that have him taking Ghirahim's sword and gaining complete control over him and the themes are of personhood and power and complacency. be careful what you wish for type things. A few that are Ghirahim killing Link/Link losing and realizing he would rather have him alive and fighting instead of dead/given up because it was more fun than way, but usually end up being sad. oh well I guess for the former and teaming up with Link to defeat Demise for the latter.

What I want to write is the themes of scenario 1 but role reversed so it's like scenario 2 with Ghirahim having the "this isn't what I wanted" moment. Ghiralink adds, usually as a joke, a level of "if I can't kill you, maybe you could join me ;)" and I want to write more or less Link doing that, Link being a perfect subservient extension that does everything he wants him to and he doesn't regret it (he can't), but Ghirahim having the realization that he doesn't want someone who is nothing more than an object for him to use. A doll. A sword.

And then, how Link has guilt over Fi and the Master Sword and his role as hero and how Hylia controls him but he's no better than her, Ghirahim realizing Link is now what he is to Demise and rethinking his own position. Is this what Demise thinks of me. Is that why he treats me the way he does. And he takes his anger out on Link but Link can't fight back anymore. Link doesn't want to fight back anymore, and not in a depressed it's hopeless kind of way, but in the same way Ghirahim accepted Demise pulling the sword out of his chest.

When Ghirahim is empty and goes isn't this what you wanted, Link can genuinely say no because he has a hero's heart and conscience and never meant for anyone to get hurt. When Link goes I am what you made me, Ghirahim has to face that fact that yes, he is, and he is made in my image, and I do not want this anymore.

[safyresky]

Scrimbly Jacqueline 29/52: adult supervision does NOT go according to plan...

✨🧪🔥😴💚🧡✨

"Right. Okay. So. Let me get this straight." Jacqueline took a brief, long deep breath in. "You think you've finally managed to perfect your sleeping elixir and Ken's going to test it for you."

"Yep."

"That about sums it up, yes."

"And you decided it'd be best to have an adult on hand, despite both of you being adults."

"I mean...is nineteen hundred really adulty?"

"YES."

"I dunno, Jacqueline. I don't feel very adulty. Ken's way more mature than me."

"Not nearly as such."

"You're too hard on yourself, dude! You're super mature."

Ken blushed. "Oh! Well. Thank you, Fino."

Fino grinned. "Of course!"

"Right. Okay. So you both decided an adult would be wise, despite being mature," she enunciated the T, her voice popping up an octave. "but are still going through with this despite, y'know, all the red flags."

"Yep!"

"Correct."

"And you can't like, test it on like, a mote, because?"

"Motes have a very different physiology from magibeans, Jacqueline."

"And it already works on them! So Ken said he'd give it a try!"

"Us orcs have very high constitution, after all."

"It's true! I've seen him nearly poison himself four times this week alone and seventy-five percent of the time he had zero side effects! Didn't even know he'd ingested poison! The worst thing that happened was a gnarly case of diarr—"

"We don't need to give your sister all the details."

"He's just being a supportive partner!"

"I know how much it means to you to master all facets of magic. I can make sacrifices."

"Right. So. Why me? Why not Mom or Dad? Jack? Lucy?! I mean, she's a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, Fino."

"Yeah, and would probably tell us to not do this."

"Debatable. Woman loves her science. She'd MAYBE protest in case, you know, the side effect to sleeping potion is DEATH. But she'd probably stay on site and be able to, y'know, HEAL you BOTH if anything untoward happened."

Fino squinted. "You turn more into mom every day."

"I can't tell if that's an insult or a compliment."

"Just an observation."

"Compliment," Ken clarified.

"Right. Okay. So you decided, quite idiotically, that Lucy was a no. Mom and Dad?"

"Didn't want them to worry!"

"Jack?!"

"Didn't feel right!"

"So you settled on me."

"Yeah! I dunno, I guess I just thought, y'know, out of all the more adulty adults in my life that aren't Ken—"

"We're the same age, Fino."

"Yeah, but maturity! Anyway, the niblets do crazier things—"

"—goddess above, don't remind me."

"So I figured that for something like this, you'd be ideal! You've got the experience, Jacqueline. So? What do you say?"

Fino grinned. His eyes got very, very big and for a brief moment Jacqueline was reminded of when he was much littler and asking for her to pretty please keep the cat, he really likes your room—

She sighed. Rubbed a spot on her temple. "Okay. Fine. But I do NOT approve."

"Don't even worry about it, Jacqueline!"

"There's a very good chance it doesn't work on magibeans yet, after all. Potions and witchcraft aren't Fino's strong suit."

"A fact you will never let me live down," Fino teased, scooping the sunset reminiscent liquid out of the cauldron and pouring it into an uncorked jar. He swirled it; the pinks and oranges gave way to purples and blues, the mixture sparkling.

"I got the colouration right! Yes!"

"Hmm. Perhaps I stand corrected. Well, bottoms up, eh Fin?" Ken took the flask from Fino, lifted it into the air, and chugged it in one go. Placing it down on the counter, he swallowed the last droplet, smacking his lips. "Tastes like gobstoppers."

"Unexpected but delightful result! And how are you feeling?"

Ken licked his lips. "Fine for the most part, though my tusks are a little bit tingly—" his eyes snapped shut and he fell down, face hitting the corner of the island as he plummeted to the floor and landed on his knees, tilting forward until his chin landed on the dirt floor, arms alongside him, ass in the air.

Jacqueline gasped, gently stepping back. Fino lifted the flask. He flushed, looked down at his partner, then up at Jacqueline through the empty vial. He chuckled, embarrassed, and scratched the back of his neck, his fiery locks warm on his skin.

"So, uh. Heh. I guess it worked?"

Ken began to snore.

"Yeah! Maybe a little too well!"

Ken snored louder, the dishes in the sink behind them rattling gently.

"That's probably not a comfortable sleeping position."

"Not unless you're like, five."

"I have a levitation spell for this—"

"Absolutely not! I think he's had MORE than enough magic for the day. I'm calling Donnie. She can lift him easy."

Fino placed the flask down and cleared his throat. "Good call."

✨🧪🔥😴💚🧡✨

hehehe huehuehue hahaha. Meet orc friend! And 1900 year old ish Fino, FULLY REALIZED! And the RETURN of MILF JACQUELINE. FEATURING STOCKING GARTERS. She's only getting Milfier, guys.

Anyway I love Orc Friend (Kenothy, aka, Ken,) sooo much you guys. You don't even KNOW. Today I decided he has the most luscious, wavy, L'Oreal shampoo commercial hair. One day I'll draw him in cleaned UP scrimbly format! But for now, BEHOLD! A BUTT.

Design Notes:

I really did give Fino a goddamn mullet. He's working it.

He alternates between vest and no vest. Since he's at home practising potions, it's a no vest day. This is deffs NOT code for "I forgot he wears a lil vest sometimes. a lil waistcoat, if you will"

Milfline's bun is poofier because it is closer to the end of the day. That thing is five seconds from pulling a Mrs. Claus up-do explosion, and Ken being KO'd by a sleeping potion certainly doesn't help!

K and I were talking about garters and stays and such today and adding them to Jacqueline's fit hit me so hard my desk chair wheeled back on me! More on this next week.

I got a really cool pair of boots in Dreamlight Valley and if I don't adapt them to Milfline I may die about it, more on that next week too!

I RIPPED the PAPER bc I originally had Ken drawn like. Across the page? But I was picturing him butt in the air the way kids pass out. I got home from work, looked at it, and went no wait. this is how it should be doodled, and voila! Orc Friend Butt

Orc Friend Deets, if you're curiouse :3 (under the read more)

Post Colouring Thoughts:

I forgot how. In theory. Fino's patterned dress shirts and rainbow lined cloak are cool as FUCK. But in PRACTISE. Make him look like a bowling alley carpet.

You know what tho? It matches the mullet >:)

Which I am wildly proud of tbh!

Decided that orc friend DOES dress fancy! hence the (matching) green coat with golden buttons >:3

His hair is SO luscious and I put the gold in just to see the lines bc after I coloured it it didn't really show, but now I'm like. idk! I kinda like it!

His right hand got eaten? I sketched it. And now it is gone. I think it's under all that hair.

He also has a BUTT TON of earrings, ya girl just got sleeby and forgot to add them in! But he has like. 5 on each ear and one of the earrings is two studs linked by a chain bc it's NEAT

Maybe I'll do like a proper scrimble of him! I really like Orc Friend you guys :3

[silusvesuius]

g*lmar rly has to be the best skajrim character on the real like even if you don't like him he just is . literally The best one i think......... on dat note i also imagine that he and ulfr*c despite being fairydust BFFs for lyfe genuinely have the worst communication skills ever seen

[misscrazyfangirl321]

"Summer vacation" is over... Back to the real world.