#everyone else : like . a paragraph .

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

celestial surveillance + some garden of eden parallels

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. - Luke 8:17 (NIV)

Over and over, we see how the bookshop feels safe/private while simultaneously being sort of a fishbowl, leaving its inhabitants quite exposed to onlookers. *garden of eden vibes*

Similarly, Aziraphale and Crowley tried to conduct a class-A surreptitious 6000+ year agreement/slowburn romance and yet their 25 Lazarii relationship is fairly obvious to others.

Reminiscent of how Crowley is painfully aware that nothing is certain and time is horribly finite, Aziraphale lives with the knowledge that anything he does or says can be used against him—or much worse, used against Crowley or others our little guardian cares about. Unlike his emotional support demon, however, Aziraphale was afraid Before the Beginning, before The Fall.

While Upstairs aren't the only ones watching, they have the potential to be the most dangerous threat (emphasis on potential bc they have to take an interest and also maybe stumble into important clues): The heavenly office overlooks the entire world. Where Hell had to send Furfur to the theatre with a camera, Heaven's got Earth Observation Files they can pull up to see what someone was doing at any point in history—not even St. James Park can keep you anonymous in the face of thirty-seven classes of scriveners/recording angels!

Aziraphale may tend to underestimate danger in general because of his misplaced hope that Heaven is truly Good, but in the same way that he can be both clever and stupid, I think he trusts Heaven and fears it at the same time. Why else would he be so worried about breaking their rules even when he knows they are wrong?

Of course, Aziraphale is also a courageous little bastard with a deity-defying protective streak! Despite Heaven's indoctrination, we see him navigating all sorts of grey area as he learns to 'blur the edges'. But he knows it isn’t safe to do that openly. He keeps this more human side hidden and tries not to think too hard about why doing good is wrong in heavens eyes. (lol other people's aziraphale metas are my main food group rn)

At the end of S2, we see him leave A.Z. Garden & Co. after tasting the forbidden fruit large oat milk latte, armed with his naïve/misguided 'knowledge of Good and Evil'. (and perhaps he knows he can't 'let the sun can’t go down' on him in Soho lest the the Metatron mete out death instead of coffees?) When Adam and Eve left Eden, Aziraphale and Crowley observed from above. When the angel and demon leave their own garden, we get the sense that they are also being watched.

(also idk if this is anything but Adam facing off against the lion while Eve looks on in the bg seemed a bit like Crowley watching Aziraphale walk into danger w the Metatron. could be a good sign since the lion gets turned into salami)

There are hints at the end of S2 that the watching is getting a little a spicier (at least I think they are hints haha): the bookshop windows are still broken during the last part of E6, further decreasing privacy; the zombies used binoculars to watch A&C from the Dirty Donkey under cover of darkness in 1941 but the Metatron just looks across the road in the light of day. And then there's the whole 'hefty jigger of almond syrup'.

[shitpostingperidot]

imagine if tony stark kissed steve rogers on the cheek in captain america the winter soldier (2014). tony only appeared for less than a minute, and spent that entire minute holding steve’s hand and calling him pet names and making Significant Eye Contact.

and in this alternate reality catws, steve and bucky only interacted in the most tender and heartbreaking flashbacks known to man, never in the present, never touching even in the past, but always yearning. but you know what, we all thought bucky was 100% dead, died offscreen sometime after the first cap movie, with the possibility of resurrection off the table. we never thought we’d see him again at all after that.

a couple years after catfa, bucky made a surprise cameo in some other avengers movie, let’s say, thor the dark world. but oh no, in that movie he promptly died from being crushed to death by a giant statue sculpted to look like tim curry. not that the statue obviously looked like tim curry, but it was like, a subtle easter egg put there to piss off the gays.

so honestly, in this version of catws (2014), we’re just glad we get a tiny smidgen of emotional closure from the first cap movie, and we’re thrilled that sebastian stan got to come back to our screens. is it what stuckies wanted, no, but it’s not nothing. hell, we got some stony! we got steve constructing the intricate rituals! given marvel’s well established track record, it’s more than we could have ever wanted for captain america: the winter soldier (2014) and we get up to exit the theater with huge smiles on our faces.

but then! in the post credit scene, there’s a bucky. not Our bucky, but one who’s alive and well and seemingly happy wherever he is. a bucky who’s one of the most powerful people in his universe, a bucky who’s collected his universe’s infinity stones. a bucky who’s one of the only people who can make a portal across realities to get back to Our steve. and apparently this bucky is friends with sue storm.

imagine this, really think about it, and you will understand why I am going insane over The Marvels (2023), and especially Maria Rambeau, right now.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Hello! Could you help me with something? I read that Jewish people call God HaShem l, but why do they also write "God" as "G-d"?

Quick disclaimer that I am not an expert, and while I want to give a thorough answer, I also do not want to be too wordy - I may leave out some things!

The long and short of it really comes down to respect and revearing His name! There are many names used for g-d, and in fact, I can think of many just off the top of my head!

When g-d's name is written down, whatever is used to inscribe that name on should not be destroyed - to the point that there are specialized places (genziah) where one may place time-worn objects (such as tefillin or manuscripts with g-d's name written down within the pages) within in order to be properly disposed of. In fact, we have one for our shul and community and though I haven't gone, it's a serious thing!

One way we "get around" using g-d's name is calling Him Hashem (השם), which just means The Name - it's appropriate to use pretty much whenever, honestly. In shul (at least, mine), we don't use Hashem in prayer or reading from the Torah, we instead use Adonai, or Elohim, or whatever is appropriate for the prayer or situation. G-d is a g-d of name names, but honestly, if someone respects g-d's name, the semantics about Which Name is right become ess emphasized, in my experience.

[commsroom]

im sure you've talked about this before but what are your opinions on hilbert

hilbert is... a fascinating character. he's an archetype disguised as another archetype, concealing a real person with understandable motivations and sincerely held ambitions. in a way, that's very reflective of how his work has been hollowed out and warped with each iteration of himself he becomes to continue it. hilbert is an insidious type of evil, because his goals are noble and he doesn't enjoy hurting people, but he will carry out orders and rationalize his actions "for the greater good." which makes him an excellent foil for eiffel; hilbert is nothing if not a Big Picture thinker. "you talk about helping people, but what about the real, live people around you?" / "increasingly, i find them to be of negligible importance." etc.

i think it says a lot about wolf 359's character writing philosophy that hilbert's betrayal and big reveal is really kind of his first character moment. he's there for two seasons after that, but he's never redeemed, and his goals never change. what makes hilbert more complex, more real, more understandable, is entirely perspective.

and the tragedy of hilbert, i suppose, is that he sacrificed everything for what he believed was right, sold his soul to the devil for it, and then... wasn't even particularly good at it. he's a big fish in a very small pond, as far as wolf 359 antagonists go. his death virus was never going to be anything but a death virus, and cutter figured that out (and found another use for it) ages ago. in change of mind, he was so certain he had the right answer - of course it was the scientist, his work was threatened - and they wouldn't have made it out if not for fourier, who realized it was really about human relationships. in am i alone now? hilbert's part is the only one where no one else speaks. before he dies, jacobi cuts his comms line, and his final words are a cut off "can anybody hear-?"

so, again... hilbert is a narratively and thematically significant character. this is barely even scratching the surface of that. but do i like him? hell no. absolutely not. he tried to murder hera and then said "tell me you're not mourning that appliance" so i think it's fine that he died, actually. that's how i judge all wolf 359 characters.

[ghostoffuturespast]

It's been really nice writing again without feeling like there's a fucking fire under my ass the entire time.

[vigilbutts]

i've been silently stewing on this for A While in my little corner but i wish this community would participate in the "send an ask to the person you reblog this ask meme from" thing that other rp communities do on this site. there's been a number of people i've heard from or noticed being bummed about getting few or no asks for these memes within the gw2 tumblr community, and like... maybe as a community we should go back to following that little rule? just something to consider, perhaps.

IF YOU ALREADY DO THIS OR NEVER STOPPED DOING THIS! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE! I HOPE YOU GET MANY ASKS! 🥰💕

[spacecluster]

I just love how in age of ultron

Marvel established

that they have these pods

that can heal people of serious injuries

And are capable of building an entire body out of nothing pretty much aside from like a sentient Rock

and that this pod

which is destroyed at some point in this movie

is a lower level version of something that Dr Helen Cho has in her facility in wherever she said it was cause it's been a while since I've watched this movie

and then they

to my knowledge

Never mentioned again

[elminsters]

some people on here care waaaay too much about what other people are doing, fan behaviour

[peaches2217]

Okay, who kickstarted the return of the Mareach baby fever? Because I logically shouldn’t post even more Expectant/Parent Mareach when I literally just posted one such fic two days ago but DAMMIT NOW I’M IN A MOOD.

…in my defense, for all the crap I’ve posted, I still haven’t given my fankid a name. 😅

[beautifulstorms]

woke up to matteo daylight robbery (has me screaming in rage) and also kao doing this. like fcsp1 cssp2 ccosp4V what....

[princehendir]

Not a criticism of anyone else this is mostly about me!!! But! I always think it's a little funny when posts are like "with academic reading, unlike novels, it's normal and also expected that you would [list of things that I do constantly while reading novels]"

[irithnova]

No one asks you to welcome racebent characters, why would anyone expect anything out of you. Racebending is pocs creating for pocs. I live in America and I am Native. My America is Native, end of story.

I also said in my very long reply that it was not my call to dictate first nation peoples decisions on reclamation of characters and that I had no say in it - and that my original post was talking about the issues of race bent white characters garnering more attention that actual non white characters. But sure don't read anything I wrote like a majority of my repliers did.

"Racebending is pocs creating for pocs" I am also a poc ,💀 and again in my very long reply I said my original point wasn't about pointing an angry finger at pocs for race bending even though I myself am not usually a fan (I say usually because I literally said first nation peoples were one of my exceptions) it was more about questioning why race bent characters got more attention than canonically non white characters. Thanks for making me repeat myself for the umpteenth time because again, you didn't read half of what I wrote. hope this helps 👍

[bibiana112]

Kinda weird question- do you have any links to people talking about Mira from ZTD and ableist stereotypes? I mentioned that I was uncomfortable with her portrayal but kinda fumbled it and made some other ND people in chat uncomfortable. I searched for various keyword combinations but most of what I'm finding is like "and not to mention the ableism with Mira" and doesn't elaborate lol.

Not weird at all! And uh, you see, there's a recent post I made where what I complain about is the very fact I've never seen anyone post too in-depth about her at all, I'd love to see posts that do elaborate on that but I do not have any that I know of right now, sorry :/ hopefully someone else who sees this can point to one? Okay!! After some tag searches I have found exactly one post who kind of gets into it I like this take still would love to see. more than just one but hooray

And like though I complain I couldn't elaborate much on it myself I don't think, I believe most of the posts people make about Saito from aitsf would apply since it's a different uchikoshi take on the very same trope of "emotionless characters who cannot function without killing others" I guess he's a worse portrayal though since she's at least not stated to get reward brain chemicals when killing people and I guess her case also has the added layer of "femme fatale" to it? Which either makes it less bad or worse depending on where you approach it from As I said I am not doing a good job of being coherent on this oh and also there's her being "redeemed" and "cured" in the epilogue which in on itself is kinda not great to imply it just goes away like that and honestly I personally don't even buy it I think she'd just be like oh okay Akane over here has like a thousand reasons to hate me after all that oh and what's that she's the leader of a super wealthy underground organization who's organized one of these death traps before yeah no I'm better off going to prison I'll be fine there lmao bye

But I'll say as an autistic person with relatively low empathy I usually see a character who just doesn't understand other people's feelings and wants to feel them too and is just trying to survive despite getting no help and I just kinda go hm. yeah. shout-out to roxas kingdom hearts shout out to mary from ib shout out that's why I started hyperfixating on media art helps me with understanding others a great lot and Mira is just in a story too badly executed for me to care or even begin to wrap my head around tbh like god she's so fucking terribly used as a plot device in every conceivable way that it makes it difficult to see past it and into what she could possibly be if it weren't for the stereotype of equalling low empathy with no compassion what's with her killing off screen in ways that wildly deviate from her stated m.o? why or how was she even in cahoots with Zero why was that a thing? Honestly her dynamic with Sean could have been better fleshed out could have done something interesting about robot child and his aspd big sis but we just kind of don't get any attention brought to the subject of emotions and the authenticity there of except for the "reveal"...

YOU KNOW WHAT that's probably one huge reason it feels so fucked up actually! Like the whole fucking game is written so you could experience it in whatever order you want and therefore Mira being a serial killer at all is something that though not very well hidden it also cannot be a topic of discussion or explored Ever ever because the player may not have seen the fragment where that is revealed yet- problem being the menu design of that game sucks so bad and practically everyone gravitates towards the same few more interesting looking thumbnails first and then the rest is kinda just there, I mean that is part of the reason A Lot of characters feel half-baked I think but also I think it definitely does impact perception of her character specifically probably The Most and then there's just the general not being given nuance not being able to see the minutiae of how that disorder manifests in her character aside from the killings about how she acts aside from being overly flirty trying to lure in Eric but that affects pretty much all of the new cast we don't have last names and in her case we barely have any backstory at all like Saito is a harmful stereotype sure but we get So Much Context for him that people still love talking about him and delving into different aspects of his life since we have that very well telegraphed in the narrative meanwhile for Mira all we can do is fill in the blanks guesswork that only highlights the worst aspects of the surface level portrayal we got and ultimately that people just don't care enough to dissect because there isn't much there character wise once you remove it

[mastersoftheair]

part of raff law's interview with GQ magazine. you read the rest of the interview here

[paperconsumption]

its a bit hilarious how little of a fuck my novel class professor gives about sci-fi/fantasy

[fyrefrostanimus]

I still need to finish full references for most of the characters in the Everyone Lives AU but I might as well infodump what I know about the FNaF 6 cast after the fire if anyone wants to read it.

Michael

So, Frailty's remnant logic. If you know you know, if you don't it basically means that he recovers really quickly because molten soul metal is a hell of a drug. Mike actually didn't start recovering until AFTER the fire, since most of his body was rotten to the point it would take forever. Then the fire burned the parts that were stopping the remnant from really working (as you may guess it did not burn as Henry had anticipated) and it really was a shock when Michael passed out in the middle of the floor in front of everyone because his lungs just completely reformed and he hadn't needed to breathe in so long he'd just forgotten.

After he fully recovered (basically he looks like a normal human being again), his eyes took on a silver tone instead of the previous gray-blue. A little nod to the Silver Eyes trilogy even if it's just me taking the name literally.

Honestly way too much of Mike's stuff here is just "yeah this is how having remnant in his bloodstream affects him", so last one: while ghosts just phase through most people, Michael's a solid object (usually ghosts can only physically interact with other ghosts/directly haunted objects). Also he's kinda stuck being 23 forever.

Michael really likes Mother Mother, his favorite album is O My Heart. This might seem random but just listen to Body and you'll probably get it.

Since this AU came from nostalgia from an ask blog I used to frequent, he figures out that the older animatronics are still out there and goes around collecting them one way or another.

Henry

Charlie kinda shoved his soul into Lefty. She refuses to elaborate why to him.

Henry's a bit upset that he's still here, but maybe that's a good thing since no one else seemed to die in the fire.

Charlie

Her main reason for shoving her dad into Lefty was that THIS being his solution to keep her there pissed her off. Before you get on me for mischaracterizing her, imagine trying to fall asleep, but whenever you're about to nod off something wakes you up again so you're just constantly cranky from being tired for a whole week. That's basically what it was like insider Lefty for her.

She was inside the Puppet for a week before leaving it, and most of that time was spent inside a cardboard box that Michael was about to put into recycling. Box is box and Charlie was tired.

Charlie can interact more with the physical world, unlike most ghosts (eg. picking objects up, having more choice in when she phases through things, etc.).

William

He's just completely out. Everyone else could at least move after the fire (although Mike did have one of his legs charred to the point it crumbled when he tried to walk on it), but he's in UCN right now. Elizabeth in CB had to carry him out of the building.

William does still twitch occasionally, so he's obviously not dead. To reduce suspicion from the house smelling like someone died inside, they keep him in the basement and check on him once in a while to see if he woke up.

Elizabeth and Circus Baby

I got a lot to say on Elizabeth, honestly the reason I made this post was because I thought about her a lot while drawing her and I didn't want to forget it. Eventually I just decided "screw it, this IS the main AU I think about anyways so why not give everyone who wants to know an intro?". I'll color the text as it corresponds to each (green for Liz, blue for CB).

Originally she planned on only staying at Michael's house until William woke up and they split off (not like she would tell him). Elizabeth only stayed longer because it became really apparent that he wasn't getting up for a long while and she didn't want to leave without William.

She died in 1987 shortly after the second Missing Childrens Incident, and hadn't actually left Circus Baby until after the fire. So she spent about 36 years with no break inside the 7-foot-tall robot, and was extremely used to that. Once she's out and herself again, Elizabeth is suddenly about 4 feet tall and feels completely different. The closest thing I think to how she'd feel is weak/defenseless.

Michael managed to tell Elizabeth that William full well knew that Circus Baby would kill her if she went near it because that's what she was created to do, even having an emergency override: he just didn't pay enough attention to use it in time. She does end up believing this but it left her in a situation where she just couldn't trust anyone in the house for a while. William was shown to not really care about her as much as she thought he did, and she still didn't trust Michael. Elizabeth didn't trust Henry or Charlie either, and the rest of the Funtimes kicked Circus Baby (and by extension her) out to survive on her own. Eventually she built enough trust with everyone but it really did take a while.

The original MCI kids and Evan show up eventually, and Elizabeth subconsciously would count them and only really interact closely with one at a time when it was just the two of them. It's a habit she picked up from her time in Circus Baby and I don't think it really ever left her. So Elizabeth looks really shy at first, but really she's just functioning off of something that she has for years.

Circus Baby is still Scrap Baby when it comes to looks, but still goes by her normal name.

She has the claw on her right arm but no actual reason to use it, so sometimes she'll clamp down on something and not let go just for fun. This annoys basically everyone else since occasionally it will be one of their arms.

CB and Elizabeth still get along really well. CB's the only one Elizabeth trusts during that time period where no one else seemed trustworthy.

Everyone just calls Circus Baby either by her full name or CB (like I did here sometimes). But no one under any circumstances calls her just Baby. More from their own preference.

Molten Freddy

The Funtimes (minus Circus Baby who is still exiled) aren't exactly Molten Freddy anymore. They separated into their different characters again but take their sweet time figuring out how to take a form other than just a blob again. They'll figure it out eventually.

By eventually, I mean when Michael finally caves and goes back to the bunker for their casings. If Circus Baby can do it and not get locked back in, there's no way he can't (I would not doubt that the remains of his previous internal organs are still there, but he wasn't thinking about that part).

They get really excited seeing some of the most mundane slice-of-life things. Mike's building a LEGO set since he hasn't had enough time to do so in a while? They're immediately over there watching. The Funtimes probably haven't seen vents that aren't large enough for a grown man to crawl through and are questioning about why they exist if not as a mode of quick transportation around the house.

The Rockstars

Not much about them, but there's some notable things about the Rockstars I wanted to put here to finish this post off.

Rockstar Freddy's fucking dead. I'm not even holding back, he overheated in the fire and no amount of repairs are going to bring him back (UCN reference lol).

All the surviving Rockstars have some pretty bad fire damage, but none of them really care about it. The nice part of not having as much of a programmed personality is that you don't care how you look quite as much.

With Freddy gone, Rockstar Bonnie and Foxy do vocals together. Despite their grouping being called the Rockstars they actually do more country songs than anything.