#except she didn't get a lobotomy

[astrum-aetherium]

hiii im the girl from Southern Italy ( form the henry would burn in the sun ask) you will probably find me in your inbox multiple times SO im going to call myself A.

personally during summer you'll never catch me wearing pants im literally always in sundresses. those soft, airy, flower printed dresses you find on pinterest or smt.

with big skirts, stretchy fabric a low neck line and sometimes a split.

and i just can imagine henry wanting to have a nice quickie in it. (as if id ever deny him that. )

i just cannot get this idea out of my sick brain i just need it a good fuck with henry in my sundress ughhhhh.

anywho.... love ya

-A

hi, A <3 don't consider me direct when i say i love you for this prompt. sundress season is my absolute favorite — especially now that it is in full swing — which is why i appreciate you sending an ask regarding it greatly. what an utterly rewarding thought to develop. aahhh. i'm about to cry genuine tears.

beyond you loving your summer dresses, there would be henry absolutely maddened by them, as well. the soft, flowy, airy fabric — how it would flawlessly align with each pristine curve of yours, how it would reveal just the right amount of your velvety skin for him to grow uncomfortably hot and subsequently need to hide his indulgent glances behind sunglasses. you would positively drive him insane in sundresses; he would constantly fall prey to the most frenzied of fevers — that ardent, unshakable want for you. he would yearn to feel and touch and taste and tease and worship your skin, with the gentle fabric of your dress billowing in the humid summer air.

and the best part is: you'd know it, too — the power you'd wield over him wearing something like that. therefore, you would shamelessly abuse that very position of power. for instance, you would frequently forget to slip into any underwear in the morning, and then make sure you rub against him in a way that'd make him notice the fact. then, you'd only be left to observe his narrowing eyes, expression tensing significantly, and his twitching palms. how he would command every cell constituting his body to maintain his composure, which the bulging veins on his arms and his forehead would prompt to you. still, he wouldn't be able to resist for an extended timespan; you'd end up having a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses smeared all the way from your ankle to your palpitating center, which he would sweep out with his tongue and proceed to stimulate skillfully whilst buried in the vibrant skirt of your sundress.

in the cases you would wear underwear, however, you'd mostly end up with it strung up at your ankles, your knees, or even stuffed in your mouth as he'd tease and please and ruin you. by the end of the summer, you wouldn't have any dresses left that he won't have fucked or at the very least teased you in. that's safe to say.

[have-you-seen-my-sanity]

My new Babydoll

Orderly!Blue Jones x fem!reader

Summary: You're new at Lennox, obviously not crazy. Blue catched a guy harassing you and took matters into his own hands.

Warnings: None really, except Blue is talking about Lobotomy, acting scary and talks about babydoll's fate.

The last time I've watched this movie was couple years ago, so please have mercy if my memory is bad sometimes. ._.

Hmm this has some yandere energy...

"Enough!"

Blue's voice boomed through the common room. Two guards, one at each side of him escorted him as Blue crossed his arms, scowling at the male who harassed you infront of the other inmates.

"Bring her to my office." Blue ordered one of his guards, who gently took you by the hand and with the other on your back, escorting you to Blue's office.

The troublemaker was brought infront of Blue, who was looking at him with a stern expression, demanding answers. "What were you thinking?"

"Blue, I-I'm sorry, I swear, I–"

Blue raised a finger, making the guy shut up. He licked his lips and slowly leaned in. "But that's why you're here..."

The guy stood quiet, giving Blue his full attention.

"You know, I was thinking... maybe you need our special treatment, hmm? For our 'big' troublemakers?"

The guy shook his head rapidly. "No please.."

Blue just smiled eerily at him, leaning down until he was at his level and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I think we should arrange the Lobotomy for you, okay?" Blue looked at him with a false sense of security, knowing this guy is doomed.

The guy swallowed hard, he didn't knew what was coming. He nodded.

Blue smiled. "Good, it will help you with your... behavior. You'll see." he gave a nod towards the guard, who led the guy away.

Blue has made his way back to his office, where a guard stood at the door. When he entered, he saw you sitting on a chair, still looking a bit shocked from what had happened to you.

"Baby are you alright?" Blue asked, walking over to you and kneeling down on one knee.

You nodded, looking down at him.

Blue put his hand on your knee, rubbing gently with his thumb. "Look," he spoke in a soft tone "We at Lennox are used to give a..." he paused to think "Puppy treatment to our new guests." he licked his lips again. "And I'm so sorry for what happened to you, dollie..."

He patted your knee, "But we can also be quite luxurious to those who behave." he straightened up, moving to sit at his desk.

As Blue sat down, he took a pen and scribbled something down before he looked back up at you. "Come here." he beckoned with a finger.

He watched you get up and obediently making your way over to him. He was already proud you're so obedient.

Blue patted his thighs, indicating for you to sit on his lap.

When he saw you hesistate, he tilted his head a little and smiled. "I won't bite." he flashed a grin right after.

You moved to sit down on his lap, Blue wrapped his free arm around your waist to pull you closer. "Let's get down to business, alright?"

Your eyes landed on what seemed like a patient list of Lennox. Your name was the only one at the 'new arrivals' section. You catched a name on the list, which was crossed out but still readable.

Babydoll

"Who's that?" you spoke up softly, pointing at the name.

Blue's chin moved to rest on your shoulder, you didn't notice the small smile forming on his lips. "She was a patient."

Your curiousity has been piqued. "Oh she got healed?"

Blue had to stop himself from grinning. "You could say that. She received our special treatment."

"Did it help?"

Blue hummed. "M-hm... yes..."

"Why did she receive the treatment?" you asked.

Blue let out a soft laugh. "You know curiousity kills the cat?"

"Please Blue."

You were so cute. So innocent even to him!

"She was good at first. But she caused trouble, just like that patient did to you." he put the pen down and his other arm wrapped around you. "She caused some very big trouble, she was a bad girl, so we had no other choice."

"Did I cause trouble?" you couldn't help but ask.

Blue chuckled, hugging you closer to him. "You? Aww, baby. Of course not."

You smiled. He sounded so genuine.

"But..." he trailed off. "If you promise me you'll stay out of trouble you will get some privileges other patients don't have."

"Like what?"

"Walking around freely. But you have to promise me something."

You nodded.

"You'll be good. Be a good girl and your time here will be nothing but joy."

"Really?"

Blue nodded.

"What do you think? Wanna be my new Babydoll?"

[eastgaysian]

the other trevelyan siblings i'm in full dragon age mode now sorry. been cooking up guys for 7 years ☝️🤓. rhion is the eldest then owain then valerie then caden they all have problemsissues to varying degrees. rhion was revealed as a mage at age 9, mom wanted to try and hide this, dad immediately marched over to the circle, and the general family atmosphere after this was one of emotional neglect by parents who should've gotten a divorce. owain is the only one who has any kind of relationship with their parents/maintains even token contact with his siblings. more infodumping ⬇️

rhion: existence is almost forgotten by everyone except owain and maybe their mother, it's hard to tell. chose to become tranquil at 18 following the death of a "close friend," sean, during his harrowing. probably a girl but that's like one of ten identity crises to deal with after accidentally getting a magical lobotomy reversed. (either by gaining the anchor/becoming inquisitor, or due to Shenanigans with owain in a universe where caden is inquisitor.) prone to crying profusely at random times for no apparent reason, generally lacking in emotional regulation skills due to a lack of practice for over a decade. recently i've been charmed by the idea of inquisitor rhion romancing blackwall...

owain: one year younger than rhion. they were close as children and used to regularly exchange letters before rhion became tranquil, after which owain would only send letters on rhion's birthday and never read the terse replies he received. has much warmer memories of his early childhood/his parents than valerie or caden. well-liked/well-connected, charismatic, his hunting parties are popular social events, but totally uninterested in managing an estate due to never truly accepting his role as heir. something of a confirmed bachelor due to an infamous incident where valerie seduced a prospective bride, as well as his reckless lifestyle. still has a pretty good relationship with valerie, they stay in contact, but he wishes that she didn't agree with their parents on the sole point that he needs to get it together and take over the estate. notably, a close friend of the prince of starkhaven.

valerie: black sheep of the family, a popular topic of gossip among the nobility of the free marches, much to the trevelyans' chagrin. barely remembers rhion and thinks ewan's lying to himself when he fondly reminisces about a warm, affectionate childhood. ran away several times in her youth, finally left for good after the previously mentioned seducing-owain's-fiancee incident (which they deliberately planned together), which convinced her parents to give up on trying to drag her back. sister-in-law to the warden-commander surana, and as such gained a degree of his outsized political influence in denerim - officially a lady-in-waiting to queen anora. the most principled and politically shrewd of the siblings, but also capable of being petty and vindictive, even ruthless.

caden: white boy who sucks. kind of 'got away' with being trans since he was always going to be dedicated to the chantry in some way anyway, so arranging an advantageous marriage was never a concern, and if he wants to become a templar instead of a chantry sister who gaf. was like one when rhion was taken away, so he has no memories of or attachment to his eldest sibling, if he even remembers that rhion exists. basically hasn't talked to his parents or valerie since he was recruited at age 10, was sent off to the hicks (ansburg circle) when he completed his templar training, regards the order as his family. owain tries to keep in contact but caden kind of thinks he's a gay loser. he still holds onto all the letters and writes bare minimum replies to the ones he deems 'important enough.'

[amostimprobabledream]

Thoughts on Season 4 so far...

I know, I know, I should probably wait til it's finished, but I finally caught up with everyone else after being weirdly nervous about it.

Just what the hell was going on with the first couple of episodes? Like, episode one felt like it was written by someone with only a passing knowledge of the show. The dialogue felt clunky and it all seemed so rushed. It was a really boring episode. The second one was a bit dull too.

I felt so bad for Hughie when he heard his dad was in hospital and getting choked up over not talking to him and wishing he'd wake up so they could talk about the book his dad was excited about.

Fuck Hughie's mother! (If it really is her...) What a bitch. "Uwu, don't yell at me, son I abandoned for 20 years!"

I'm glad Kimiko seems to have been given more of her own story this season. Karen Fukuhara does such a good job with a character who doesn't talk.

On the flipside, I could not give a flying fuck about Frenchie and some guy he likes. I never care when the show tries to introduce non-Supe love interests. It's like Maeve and her dull girlfriend all over again, except I actually like Frenchie.

Wooow, Butcher has been so neutered this season. It's a real fall from his unchallenged rule In S1 & 2, but I can't say he doesn't deserve it after how horribly he treated his team.

Fuck off, Becca, fuck off Becca, Fuck OFF, Becca. God. Every time I see her I have to press the skip button. (Also it's really funny how she's inexplicably more blonde in Billy's hallucinations. What, did she get highlights in the afterlife?)

I don't care if he's a kid, I'm gonna say it: Ryan is SO boring to watch. He's saved by being important to Homelander and Butcher but god, every scene he's in I'm desperate for it to be over.

Has anybody noticed Homelander was talking to Ryan the exact same way Soldier Boy spoke to him when he called him "ungrateful?" He really is his father's son.

I didn't know what to make of Sage. The fandom was hyping her up to all hell so I was prepared to not be very impressed by her because of how much people were raving about her before she'd even done anything. I'm still confused about what exactly her motives are but her scenes with The Deep are pretty funny. I wonder why she told him about the lobotomy? Because she thinks he's too stupid for it to backfire on her? Hmm.

I know Firecracker is awful but she's so pretty and I love listening to her accent. I can't wait for her and Homelander to interact more.

I...am not loving Starlight's subplot? I get what they're going for, they want her to be this activist who's like a figurehead of La Resistance against Vought, but watching her campaigning and complaining about how she's not Starlight, she's Annie, is not fun to watch. I'm also not a fan of her hair or outfits this season, I think the shorter look suited her face more. (Also, the whole abortion thing came a bit out of nowhere. I feel like that might have been something that deserved a bit more exploration for Starlight, Hughie and their relationship?)

THAT BEING SAID - I do like her dynamic with Firecracker, because I think the writers wrote themselves into a corner with her in Season 3 because she's Starlight! She always has to be morally correct and good in every scenario! I'm glad they're making it clear she isn't this perfect angel - even the scene where Firecracker confronts her, Starlight kind of ducks responsibility by saying she's changed and "my mom taught me to be ruthless". Those aren't really apologies and Starlight only apologising because Firecracker is a threat to her reputation is really interesting - and not dissimilar to the scientists only asking for forgiveness when their monster came back to kill them.

Victoria's relationship with Zoe is confusing. I forgot Zoe existed, actually. I'm not even clear if Zoe is her bio kid or adopted one, because if the former, who's Zoe's dad?

A-Train's redemption wasn't something I was looking forward to, but it's being handled fairly decently, way better than how Maeve did like, one good deed per season and got handed hers on a silver platter. I'm still a bit upset that he's basically been absolved of Robyn's death though.

Homelander. Oh my GOD. He's so unhinged this season and we haven't even gotten to the big finale yet. His facial twitches, the little micro-expressions, his pissy little "ShutthefuckUP!" at The Deep, wow. Antony Starr continues to carry the show on his shoulders.

THE LAB SCEEEENE. Jesus. That was like something out of a horror-thriller, yet I was cheering for him the whole time. Antony Starr deserves ALL the Emmys.

[lady-harrowhark]

Hello! I saw you mention that Pyrrha remembers pre-resurrection, and I totally missed that!! Do you have any theories as to why?

I have a few thoughts!

Just for context - because I didn't catch that on my first read either until I started going back through! - there are a few instances that seem to suggest Pyrrha remembers at least some of her life pre-Resurrection. Off the top of my head, I know there's one point where she refers to G1deon as G--, just like John does. Nona also says that Pyrrha calls her "Hairy Maclary", which is referring to a series of children's books by a New Zealand author. Here's a link to a picture and some info about Hairy Maclary... I can definitely understand why Pyrrha would call Nona that lol. This one's super interesting to me in that it's such a fantastic example of the way Tamsyn uses memes and references so skillfully! In the previous books, most of the references are fairly organic in that they're things that could conceivably be, you know, just things the characters say; the readers catch it (if they also know the reference! otherwise they're fairly unobtrusive) but the characters themselves aren't intentionally making a reference. This would be the things like "You can't just ask someone why they want to be a Lyctor" and "a hunger that only thumbs could satisfy," etc. The exception, though, is John. The "none Houses with left grief" particularly is SO fun from an exposition perspective (but if I start on that one I'll never stop), and then of course we have Commander Wake Me Up Inside. The implication here being that John remembers these specific things and is intentionally making those references within the context of the story. Pulling that same expository trick with Pyrrha sets them up as both remembering... at least to some degree. The hints that we get from Pyrrha are such that it's pretty unclear to what extent she remembers, leaving a lot of room for juicy speculation :)

I initially touched on it over on this post where I rambled about names, memory, and the Eightfold Word, but I'm copying over the Pyrrha-specific paragraph so that you don't have to dig for it:

When assisting with Harrow’s lobotomy, Ianthe tells her, “If you push your brain too hard, any surgery could simply heal over.” And in NtN, Pyrrha tells Palamedes, “You should be draining and replacing her fucking brain fluid... When Gideon and I designed that trial, I used to crack his skull and sieve it myself, just as a control variable... The only other people I put through that damn trial were Mercy and Cris, because only Cris didn’t mind being trepanned on the regular.” I don’t know exactly where the threshold is for pushing one’s brain too hard, but I suspect frequently draining and replacing one’s brain fluid is in that ballpark. Which is to say, it’s very possible that Mercy and Pyrrha (and potentially others) could have healed over from anything John had done to their brains.

Also, I don't know why this didn't occur to me as I was writing up that other post, but when Pyrrha's telling Palamedes about how dangerous their uhhhhh living arrangements are, and how they're risking brain damage... Pyrrha and G1deon were operating under somewhat similar circumstances for thousands of years. Cumulatively, it's possible that G1deon's brain was racking up damage that eventually eroded away whatever John had done. Another thought is that maybe the fact that G1deon died and Pyrrha didn't is at play here.

It could very well be less dramatic than that, though. We don't know much about how Lyctorhood impacts the brain, although to be completely fair, we also can't say for certain how a typical human brain would function after ten thousand years of runtime either. Our brains are constantly wiring new neural pathways and rewiring and revising old ones. After thousands of years, might we be reaching a Ship of Theseus situation with regard to the neural circuitry impacting pre-Res memories? Which is a fancy way of saying, "Maybe it wore off."

It could be all of the above, too. Assuming that Lyctor brains retain plasticity like we see in typical human brains (and I'm not letting myself think too hard on implications either way, because in sci-fi/fantasy make-believe land, neuroscience can be whatever you want it to be), we'd probably see that effect happening with the other Lyctors at roughly the same rate, but at least as far as we can tell (and that wording is intentional because I'm not taking anything off the table with this series), the others don't seem to remember. So that might be contributing, but not sufficient on its own. BUT perhaps ten thousand years of rewiring PLUS ten thousand years of cohabitation PLUS however long of being "trepanned on the regular" PLUS G1deon dying might override John's meddling.

We've still got so many open questions here regardless of what the specific mechanisms are. Like, I'd love to know when Pyrrha started to remember exactly. And did G1deon remember anything, then? It seems like he was Straight Up Not Having a Good Time so if he did remember, he might not have been relying on those memories much. Whatever's going on, I'm sure it's just as bonkers as the rest of the series!

[your-nanas-house]

Hey there, long time not seen haha

I'm not so good rn can I maybe request gotham villains comforting their s/o after having a horrible and stressful week (Ik he isn't from the serie gotham but maybe you can add jason todd 😅)

I hope you have a lovely day/night ♡

Hii! OFC sorry if it took me so long. Hope you're ok now. ♡♡♡

Comforting their s/o after having a horrible and stressful week

Jerome (slightly smut)

Jerome noticed it right away, as soon as he noticed the slightly tense air and a body lying on the sofa hidden by the blankets "dollface?" he approached, popping out in front of her "what's wrong? Rough day?" he received a sigh and a 'week instead of day' correction.

The ginger did not open his mouth, staring at her for a few seconds before smiling mischievously, leaving her confused and worried on the couch waiting for his return since he was gone.

When he returned holding a blanket Y/n's eyebrows furrowed in concern; a few movements and Jerome had wrapped her like a sushi in the blanket and a few more efforts and he was inside her thrusting with just the right rhythm until they came, causing a hum from her accepting the cuddles and food he was offering her shortly after.

Jeremiah

It was enough to feel a presence enter his office for Jeremiah to look up after a while observing how his Y/n moved and grabbed a blanket which they had left there before disappearing muttering a little "Hi Jeremiah". Honestly that dull response was enough for him to realize that something was wrong, usually he didn't leave his job for anything but this seemed more interesting so he followed them to the room they were going to and then sat down with their permission on the bed "What's wrong?" he asked studying them, they sighed knowing better than to lie to him specifically and telling him what had happened during that stressful and hard week, finding themselves with their boyfriend's arms around their sides until they fell asleep, snuggling in his warm body.

Jason

The message he had sent a few minutes earlier had not yet been read by Y/n and this began to worry and confuse him since the girl usually answered his messages right away but maybe she had other things to do that she had forgotten to tell him so he did not worry further. 

He only went to her apartment when more than an hour had passed, the lights were all off except for a small light coming from what he knew was the living room.

It only took him a short time to get in through the window that had been left open and was letting in all the cold Gotham air "how many times have I told you to keep your windows closed when you're alone at home?" the curly-haired boy asked before approaching where he thought Y/n was, which was... wrapped in blankets on the couch with the small light on.

Her y/e/c eyes slowly shifted to her boyfriend before sighing and murmuring softly, "a lot"; something was wrong and Jason could feel it, he didn't need to be a detective to know that the energy that usually invaded their relationship wasn't there at that moment, now that he thought about it, it hadn't been there all week.

A/n: I took ispiration from a tiktok video for Jerome's short story.

He did not force her to talk, he just lay with her and cuddled her as he rested his chin on her shoulder waiting for her to want to say all that had happened to get it off her chest and feel better.

.

Taglist:

@gabile18 , @mrsfullbuster500 , @rex-ray , @elizamalfoyy, @eovjjj , @monkeyking-and-liuer-mate , @jeremiah-va1eska , @gothamchic16, @rabbiteggz , @dieg0brandos-wife , @rottenecstasy , @lazyexcuse , @teh-vampire-bunny , @lobotomy-lover

[firenati0n]

year in review: favorite lines! :) <3

hello hello! I was tagged by the lovely @anincompletelist in this adorable tag game where we share our top favorite segments from our published fics and/or wips! :)

I only have one published fic LOL so here are some of my favorite pieces from that and three out of four wips right now (four is buck wild to me considering i had zero like ten days ajflakjfds).

i saved some of my real faves for y'all to read in worm fic (i didn't want to spoil my favorite paragraph at the end LOL). I have linked the fic as well as the tags with wip snips :)

from our world, mine and his alone (the midnight train to go)

Deep breath in. “By the way. Digging the cardigan, Henry. Very…” He rifled through his extensive vocab for literally any appropriate adjective. Refined? Boring. Professional? Practical, but also boring.   “Very…?” Henry raised an eyebrow, long fingers wrapped around a cup of tea. Earl Grey, Henry had said a while ago, but Alex couldn't be sure. He had been terribly distracted by said fingers, wondering where else those fingers could— What Alex’s distracted, useless worms in his left temporal lobe decided to supply him with as a response was: “Slutty-English-Literature-professor core.” Alex was going to jump off the train. He was going to change his name. He was going to get a lobotomy, as a treat.  “Excuse me?!” Henry sputtered into his tea, turning red alarmingly quickly. His sexy-librarian cardigan was collateral damage, tea splattered down the front. 

from the full spectrum of human emotion (WIP, The Proposal (2009 movie) AU, eta 2024):

And selfishly, he’s pretty fucking scared for his career trajectory if it doesn’t work out. He can’t start over, he can’t. His resume can’t take it, and neither can his ego.  He can already hear Oscar clicking his tongue and shaking his head, practically taste the disappointment in Ellen’s pitied gaze and outstretched hand. He absolutely cannot give them the silver bullet that goes clean through his erratic heart and wrenches him back home. He loves Austin, breathes it, and yet…and yet. He just can’t return, not when he’s so close. He still has so much to prove, so much to hold up to the sky and say I’m here, I can take it, I did it, I’m good enough. It almost swallows him whole—his overwhelming love for his family, his nostalgia for the Texas sun. But it’s just not enough to—

from queerano de bergerac (WIP, Cyrano / The Half of It (2020 movie) AU, eta 2024):

“Amber, everyone thinks you’re pretty, it is an objective fact. Irrefutable, even.” “Aw, Henry! That’s so nice of you to say, thank you.” She flashes him a genuine smile. She’s sweet, Henry is loath to admit.  “You’re welcome. But. This letter…we need to workshop it a bit. Make it more personal? More about who Alex is as a person, and not who we see him as. What’s below the surface? What are his hidden depths that you are willing to explore? How do you show you’re in love, not just tell?” Amber raises an eyebrow. “Okay. How do I do that?” She sniffs. “I thought I was being so obvious when I asked if he had lunch plans.” “...You asked him if he had lunch plans during our…one lunch period at school?” “Okay, fine! I’m not the best with fancy words like you, Mr. Future English Literature Major.”

from untitled continuation of worm fic (WIP, eta 2024):

If Alex could land Henry's phone number (a bit forcefully, if he remembered Henry's tone correctly) using sheer fucking charisma, he could nail a date with the guy. Easy peasy.  Except. Except for the fact that Alex's brain seemed to rapidly degrade in every conceivable way when faced with Henry's fairytale hair and anime-worthy blue eyes. Henry's presence was lethal for every ounce of Alex's grey matter. With every blink of his doe eyes, Henry obliterated another one of Alex's (already fucking limited!) brain worms. They would writhe in agony, unable to shake the vicelike grip of Henry's charisma, doomed to a slow and sensual death. Alex was so fucked, and not in the fun, safe, and lubed way. 

+

no pressure tagging @ninzied @inexplicablymine @anincompletelist @myheartalivewrites @suseagull04 @priincebutt @sparklepocalypse @kiwiana-writes @onward--upward @nocoastposts @user-anakin @wordsofhoneydew @littlemisskittentoes @happiness-of-the-pursuit @matherines @lizzie-bennetdarcy @celeritas2997 @sherryvalli @gayrootvegetable @ssmtskw @affectionatelyrs @tinyarmedtrex @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @14carrotghoul @orchidscript @rmd-writes @dustratcentral @eusuntgratie @magicandarchery @leaves-of-laurelin @songliili @cricketnationrise @msmarvelouswinchester @leojfitz @dragonflylady77 @cha-melodius and open tag for anyone else wishing to share! have fun :)

xoxo roops

[belaprus]

Dottore x reader: being his assistant (pt.1)

"So this is my new babysitter"

Just hearing his sarcastic words was already enough to prepare yourself for the next 6 months to come.

"It's not my fault if you messed up again, Akademiya student Zand-"

"So you even had a background check done on me. Bravo! Was it Pantalone's doing?"

Indeed, it was Pantalone who had entrusted you with your current job: surveillance on the most unstable of the harbingers. After the last laboratory had exploded in the midst of an anonymous Sumeru's forest, he decided Il Dottore would be better off returning to Snezhnaya in a high-security bunker under the mountains' hard rock, just to make sure he didn't draw in too much of the uninitiated's attention in such a critical time. You were about to answer his previous question, when he harshly cut you off again, getting closer to you and looking at you with sharp and malicious red eyes, barely but still clearly visible from behind the mask:

"Oh, and don't ever think of calling me that again. Everyone knows of me as Dottore."

He then turned back to work without even waiting for you to speak another word.

'Dude's not too good with social interactions, isn't he? Predictable', you thought to yourself while fixing your eyes on the hospital bed before him, probably containing another of his failed experiments - "no. 726" was written on a blood-stained blanket.

You had observed him for far more than he would ever be aware of: ever since Pantalone had let you into the Fatui, indirectly or not, your duty was to find informations about this man... More like a monster, as he was perceived from everyone, and you were no exception. You had kind of got used to it, though - to be completely fair, you even had started to be curious about him. You usually would have preferred to check on him from afar, but work was not an option among the Fatui. What you hated the most about him was that he was so blatantly incapable of interacting with people, but at the same time he was getting more and more unstable for this very reason: trying to ascend gods' power, yet creating other versions of himself to make sure he didn't completely lose his sanity in the process without even knowing. Different perspectives of reality? Was it even needed when he could have just asked other existing people? Such arrogance in thinking he was the only intelligent one of them all. As a psychiatrist, you had already witnessed a lot of individuals like him and knew better than to let his solitude eat him out.

-------------

Mortality was easier to dispose of than the human's social nature: to stop the process of aging, the DNA only needed to acquire better telomeres-preserving abilities and some more copies of p53 genes to prevent cancer, whereas for emotions not even lobotomy was enough of a secure option. He knew it damn well: even the loss of empathy was not an assurance against his fits of rage and unpredictable personality. After he'd been expelled from the Akademiya he was livid enough to burn a whole city down by just staring at it, but now that he had just said goodbye to years of research - his own copies, all of his past ways to see the world and their contribution to the cause against the gods - he was always in a frantic rush of searching up for new leads to start a new experiment and trying to figure out what went wrong with the last. He didn't have either time or care to spend on another of Pantalone's lackeys. What disgusted him even more is that his associate had chosen such a sharp, direct, sassy woman: the perfect pain in the ass. Her stare was piercing holes through him, and he was so irritated by it. The way she was quietly looking at him taking in the dismembered corpse of yet another child, carried over with another hospital bed, only for her gaze to turn to him again, almost like she was trying to say: "What next? What are you going to do after this?"

He almost thought it nice to make her subject 728.

-----------

The sun was setting when he was fed up enough to finally speak with you:

"Aren't you gonna go eat anything?" Sounded more like a request to go away than actual concern on his part.

"Not until you do", you replied coldly.

His face had turned purple almost instantly. 'He's already gotten that short-tempered? What a hassle', you thought to yourself.

"What are you, a fucking Matra?!"

"Whatever you wish, Dottore..." - you made sure to highlight his name in a slightly mocking tone - "...smoking a cigarette wouldn't be a waste, though" you blatantly ignored his homicidal expression and kept looking at him, waiting for his answer.

He hadn't thought thoroughly enough before getting his right hand on your neck. It was when he felt the high voltage shock and the burning sensation on his hip that he quickly let go of you and started clearing his thoughts. It was at that same moment that your electro and pyro visions suddendly flashed into his peripherical sight, hanging on your belt next to each other.

"You wouldn't let me focus anyway", he quickly responded with his own usual venom-coated tone, rushing to the door and closing it in your face in a childish attempt to leave his new babysitter behind.

"For fuck's sake...", you murmured to yourself before tagging along.

This was going to be the beginning of either a very refreshing experience or a complete mess. And you were already more on the latter's side.

[bruised-halo]

Fuck it

Here's more information about each of my completed Tavs/Durges so far (Besides Zephyra but I have a pretty good feel for her personality already because I'm almost to Act 2)

Nyx:

- Mephistopheles Tiefling - Folk Hero Background - Level 10 Arcane Trickster Rouge and Level 2 Fighter -

First ever Tav - She's loosely based off of my first DnD character from highschool. I say loosely because I cannot customize her to her full potential on PS5 because there are no mods just yet :(

Once I DO get the ability to do mods here in September(?) I will be remaking her to look more like she should

Lawful good for the most part

Pansexual

Romanced Spawn Astarion

I imagine that she had a rough childhood but decided to make the best of it

Would definitely sacrifice herself without any regrets if it came to that (Out of any of my current characters she is probably the most likely to willingly become a mindflayer to save her companions) - I think if I was to play her character again she absolutely would become a mindflayer to save her companions. Especially if Karlach tried to do it first (I didn't know you could bust out Orpheus at the time :( )

Scarlett:

- Zariel Teifling - Haunted One background - Level 12 Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer -

First ever Durge - was not redeemed

Chaotic Evil

Lesbian

Romanced Minthara

Very loyal to Bhaal

Scariest Bhaalspawn I have created so far. Like girl is absolutely ruthless

Definitely a narcissist and does not really give af about any of the companions except for Minthara.

Probably the strongest of my characters. She was absolutely slaughtering everyone she came into contact with

Became the absolute in Bhaal's name

Definitely a doomed from the beginning antagonist

Only character of mine that has willingly become half illithid

Lyssa:

- High Elf - Haunted One background - Level 12 Oath of Vengeance Paladin -

First redeemed Dark Urge character - I absolutely loved her dynamics

Chaotic good - an actual chaotic good. Like girl is goofy

Did not break her Oath :)

Bisexual and Polyamorous

Romanced Spawn Astarion and Halsin

Pre lobotomy Lyssa was definitely a menace but not entirely evil. Very conflicted tbh

She did have on and off again flings with Gortash for sure pre lobotomy

I believe she first became a Oath of Vengeance Paladin to get vengeance on whoever robbed her of her memories. Post Orin's death I believe she kept that Oath of Vengeance to continue to vanquish evil that would hurt innocents.

Views Jaheira as a motherly figure for her and cares for her deeply

Her Dream Guardian was her adoptive mother that she killed when the urges first manifested as a child (the guilt will live with her for the rest of her days)

Lillith:

- Seldarine Drow - Haunted One background - Level 12 Berserker Barbarian -

Redeemed Dark Urge

Neutral Good - mostly heroic but did do some questionable things

Silent but friendly type once she gets comfortable with someone

Demisexual

Romanced Gale

Pre lobotomy Lillith was probably evil asf. But to be fair it was the only thing she ever knew. Girl was most likely besties with Gortash. Maybe some romance? Who knows? But most likley

Fun fact about Lillith: The eye that her tattoo is on changes from Red to White to symbolize Bhaal's grip on her being broken post resurrection from Withers

When she was first resurrected, she wished she would have stayed dead because she thought she could never repent for the heinous actions she committed while being under Bhaal's influence

Gale is the first person she has ever felt truly safe with

Willow:

- Mephistopheles Tiefling - Haunted One background - Level 12 Archfey Warlock -

Chaotic neutral/chaotic evil depending on which ending she gets - She is my only Dark Urge character that could go either way

I prefer her redeemed ending bc girl is traumatized but the evil ending also makes sense for her

Queer - she does not give af about labels tbh

Romanced Gale

Pre lobotomy Willow killed her first love Ophelia during a Dark Urge episode - safe to say her dream guardian is a dead version of Ophelia

She definitely went off the rails post Ophelia's death. I believe this event was the main trigger that led to her becoming fully devoted to Bhaal. There's nothing worse than losing everything/one you cared about after all

Romantic but also very toxic relationship with Gortash. Out of all my Durges she is definitely the most likely to have been all over that greasy man LMAO. Girl was FERAL

She is the only Durge who does reject Bhaal but also has the opportunity to become the Absolute depending on the choices she makes in game

Her and Ophelia are tragic soulmates in EVERY lifetime. One of them will always die tragically by the others hands. There is no reality where they can both live together happily ( Angsty I know LMAO )

Ophelia:

- Human - Urchin Background - Level 12 Life Domain Cleric of Selûne -

True Lawful Good

Only exists in the alternate reality where she managed to get the upper hand on Willow in self-defense. Unfortunately Willow dies due to this

Definitely my bravest tav. She will run headfirst into anything if it means saving someone in need

LESBAINNNNN

Romanced Shadowheart

Definitely the more rational one between her and Willow. She was always trying to keep Willow out of trouble. She loved it though. The chaos as definitely fun at times

Before Willow's death, Ophelia was trying to make ends meet by any means necessary. She was an Orphan and had no one to rely on but herself. Hence the Urchin background.

After Willow died, Ophelia swore to repent for what she had to do by becoming a life domain Cleric of Selûne. It definitely helped her grieve. It also gave her a purpose and led her to becoming who she is

The enemies to lovers dynamic with Shadowheart is the BESTTTTT. I highly recommend Shadowheart x Selûnite tav

The ending she gets with Shadowheart is just what she deserves. Like poor girl had it ROUGH

Zephyra:

- Githyanki - Outlander background - Currently level 7 Paladin of Vengeance -

Chaotic good for sureeee

Bisexual

Previously had a fling with Astarion but is absolutely in LOVE with Lae'zel (she pretty much so always was but she was in denial)

She's a little less rough around the edges than Lae'zel (especially in the beginning when Lae'zel still doesn't trust anyone yet)

Also far more knowledgeable about Faerun than most other Githyanki due to her outlander background. She loved to explore far and wide before the mindflayer abduction

She's definitely a romantic at heart but doesn't want to admit it just yet

She swore her Oath of Vengeance after her best friend went missing and is presumed dead. She just wants to know what happened to her (Spoiler: Vlaakith Ascension ending 👀)

Her and Lae'zel are definitely mother's to the githyanki egg from the creche

Her relationship with Lae'zel is absolutely adorable. They definitely complete each other. Zephyra was the first person to ever show Lae'zel the importance and feeling of softness when it comes to love

[bardofhype]

hello darkest dungeon and lobotomy corporation communities

i saw a post in the darkest dungeon tag talking about how DD was sort of like LobCorp, except with everything gothic instead of the Kabbalah. And though I didn't quite have thoughts about it at the moment of seeing it, I think I silently agreed with it, to the point where my brain went "hey you know what would be funny" so... here I am, about to assign all of Darkest Dungeon's heroes what I believe would be the EGO suits that best fit them. take this as a LobCorp DD au if you'd like, but either way, I'll put the list (and explanations for each) under the cut, for courtesy. Here we go.

Abomination - Cobalt Scar (Big and Will Be Bad Wolf) (Yes, this is going to be in alphabetical order. Bear with me.) For those who don't know much about Lobotomy Corporation, a lot of the Abnormalities/monsters in the facility are based off of urban legends and fairy tales from different corners of the globe, with a few grim twists here and there. Big and Will Be Bad Wolf (and a different Abno we'll get to pretty soon) is based off of Little Red Riding Hood, where- from the Wolf's point of view- he was expected to be bad, and his hunger ended up making that expectation his destiny. And. Well. It's Bigby we're talking about here. Dude is trying so hard to not be a terrifying monster, to keep it at bay... but sometimes it has to come out, whether he wants it to or not. And in Lobotomy Corporation... well, the agents themselves don't get to choose which EGO suits they have.

Antiquarian - Gold Rush (The King of Greed) This one was a little tougher to pin down, but I eventually decided to go with the semi-obvious choice. The King of Greed is one of three (technically four if you take Ruina into account) Abnormalities that are part of a Magical Girl group- heroes of the world who were corrupted in one way or another by different events. The one Josephine here has been assigned used to be the Magical Girl of Happiness, until that desire for happiness turned to obsession, which turned into greed- and she sealed herself inside a case of amber for the sin of ravenous hunger for every earthly pleasure there was. Josephine may not share such a desire so outwardly and for so many things, but she does have that eagle eye for valuables and shiny objects...

Arbalest - Bear Paws/The Forgotten (Happy Teddy Bear) Happy Teddy Bear is an Abnormality based around abandonment and memory, coming in the shape of... well, a giant stuffed teddy bear that's a little worse for wear after its child grew up and left it. Each Abnormality has a special ability that can trigger upon a certain condition being fulfilled, and Happy Teddy Bear's activates if you send the same employee to its containment twice in a row- in which it hugs the employee to death, not wanting to be abandoned again. Missandrei wasn't quite abandoned, but her backstory involving the death of innocence and being left on her own with nothing but a crossbow- not to mention one of her Crimson Court trinkets being a stuffed animal called Childhood Treasure- definitely makes her a good candidate for this. (Though it should be mentioned that she wouldn't have Happy Teddy Bear's EGO weapon, as it's too close range for her. She'd have Parasite Tree's crossbow. "what the fuck is a Parasite Tree" don't worry about it :] )

Bounty Hunter - Crimson Scar (Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary) Told you we'd get to the other Little Red abno. Based on the titular character herself, Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary follows a Little Red who's become a soldier for hire, hunting down the Wolf from her nightmares whenever she can, swearing that she will be the one to kill it. Hell, she has a mechanic where she'll breach containment if Big and Will Be Bad Wolf does so as well, just to fight him. It's nuts. You know Tardif would respect the shit out of that. And dare I say it, he might even see himself in the Abnormality, to an extent- dude has a Vengeful Kill List for a reason, and the both of them have some pretty deadly methods of dealing with their foes... "Does this imply Tardif and Bigby are enemies in this AU?" No, Bigby's just a lot more scared of Tardif that he would be normally, even when the big guy doesn't even have that much aggression towards him. Very funny "rivalry", if you can really call it that.

Crusader - Pink (Army in Pink/Black) Before you say anything, he has One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deed's EGO gift. I promise we'll get into the tasty religion Abnos later. Just lemme explain. Army in Pink/Black is one of the few Abnos in this whole thing where- if you hadn't checked the wiki beforehand and spoiled yourself- the game lies to you about what they are and you don't even know it. It starts out as a ZAYIN grade- the lowest threat level possible- and it seems to do nothing but benefit your employees at first. But then, when the conditions are right and it breaches... it wrecks hell, or it has the very good chance of doing so if you're not properly prepared. And after a good bit of time, it'll reveal it's actually an ALEPH- the highest threat level possible. It's still willing to benefit the facility even after all that, but... now you know you have to be careful around it, because it can and will destroy your shit. To me, that just kinda screams Reynauld. A guy with humble beginnings who simply signed onto the army to provide for his family, who then became an absolute powerhouse with little to no mercy. And I know the EGO set involves a gun, but like. Why not see what the holy knight can cook with that.

Duelist - Frost Splinter (The Snow Queen) Yeah I'm bring Darkest Dungeon II into this as well. Because the two new girlies deserve it. The Snow Queen is based on the story of the same name, where after a series of events, the titular character freezes the heart of someone who was led to her Snow Palace so that he could not feel the cold anymore. Not much of the story is important for the context of this list, but what is important is that her special ability involves freezing an employee and then having a different employee duel her for the frozen employee's freedom. Sahar has probably dueled with her many times while in the facility, and it's never been a grueling task for her- in fact, she enjoys the stakes in place, as she believes it brings out the fierceness in both her and her opponent- though don't get her wrong. She does not see this as entertainment or play-fighting. Simply a honorable duel.

Grave Robber - Cherry Blossoms (Grave of Cherry Blossoms) Had a difficult time pinning this one down. Not because there were no good options- I just didn't know which one fit the most at first. After reading over Grave of Cherry Blossoms, though, I think this is the right choice. Nourishment from the dead, using what they had for themself to the benefit of the many in a kinda twisted way... Audrey would probably raise an eyebrow at the specific methods used, but she can't help but think it clever. Some things do look more beautiful with a lot of blood on them, after all. ... and speaking of blood,

Flagellant - Paradise Lost (WhiteNight) Here's the tasty religious horror shit right here, babey!! This is where it's at!! Possibly- maybe arguably- the most dangerous ALEPH in the entire series, this thing wants to be God so, so bad. And the worst part is that it probably is, and it's fucking terrifying about it. The first time it ever breaches, it's when it's transforming into WhiteNight in the first place- oh, yeah, forgot to mention that this guy first comes into the facility as a ZAYIN-grade called Plague Doctor who gives blessings to the first twelve people (all having to be different people) to visit it, only to reveal that those "blessings" were actually WhiteNight marking them as Apostles, and OOPS! THOSE EMPLOYEES ARE JUST FUCKING DEAD NOW, SAVE FOR ONE THAT'S THE HERETIC APOSTLE THAT BETRAYS THE THING BY CONFESSING TO A DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS ABNORMALITY ENTIRELY- All I'm saying is, Damien would really like this guy. And in as unhealthy a fashion as you could imagine.

Hellion - Wingbeat (Fairy Festival) Fairy Festival is an Abnormality that is weird in a good way to me. You see, its special ability is sending out a group of fairies to aid and heal any employee that had a normal or good Work with it. These little fairies heal 10% of the employee's max health pool for 8 seconds, and these 8 second are so, so vital, because while these fairies are capable of benefiting the facility and the emplotees, they are also capable of gruesome employee instadeath by eating the employee they were sent to care for it if said employee was sent to work on anything but Fairy Festival. After eventually getting over the horrors of that, I think Boudica honestly respects that sort of system. You turn attention to something else while they're trying to thank you? You get what you deserve. That and the cannibalism.

Highwayman - Regret/Magic Bullet (Forsaken Murderer/Der Freischutz) Listen. I was split on this for so long but I know- I just know- he has stuff from both of them. I could not choose between the two. Probably started with Regret first, then got Magic Bullet a few weeks later- because the Manager is an evil bastard- and has the EGO gifts of both of them. Most Haunted Employee of the Month. Forsaken Murderer is kind of what it says on the tin- the story goes into a lot more specifics that outright involves experimental cruelty, but such specifics are not why this Abnormality was a candidate for Dismas here. It's moreso the themes of freedom despite being so heavily restrained, whether physical or otherwise. It's the trauma, and the illusions/hallucinations that came about because of that. It's so- I want to word my thoughts on this better, but I hope you see the vision with this half. As for Der Freischutz... roughly German for "The Marksman", and also based on the tale "Freischutz". A gunman who made a deal with the Devil, for a gun whose magic bullets could hit anyone, no matter what- but the last bullet was meant to puncture his beloved... so he went and killed every single loved one of his, so that the bullet shot through his own heart instead. Do you see it. Do you understand the vision. The absolute torture. When you add on the context that the Magic Bullet EGO weapon- a rifle- pierces through everything and can damage an entire corridor of enemies and allies alike and does not care to stop friendly fire, it's just. Dismas practically requires a mental counselor at the end of each day because of this shit.

Houndmaster - Beak (Punishing Bird) To make a long story short, there's these three specific birds in the game that are all linked- similar to the Magical Girl abnos, but much more fucked. One of these birds is Small Bird, aka Punishing Bird, whose story involving wanting to punish any wrongdoers in the forest it and the other birds lived in, but someone said he couldn't possibly do such a thing, due to how small his beak was- "the punishment wouldn't hurt at all." So Small Bird grew a fucking mouth on his stomach to devour wrongdoers. William really would not like that sense of punishment, but he'd understand it was just trying to protect what it loved. When it inevitably breaches (and it will do this often), he just lets it sit on his head and peck at him. It's fine, as long as he doesn't hit it back. "Why not any of the funny dog abnormalities???" Because his dog's still alive here and he doesn't want to betray her trust behind her back. (Dogs are man's best friend, after all.)

Jester - Da Capo (The Silent Orchestra) The Silent Orchestra is the third ALEPH to appear on this list, but unlike the other two, this one at least lets you know it's ALEPH pretty much right away! No surprises with this guy, but lots of fear! His containment breach is literally him conducting a whole orchestra and making everyone around him take physical, mental, emotional- pretty much any type of damage you can get in the game. And when the finale happens, anyone with less than great sanity after the rest of the performance dies. And considering what the hell Sarmenti did to that royal court the one time, I think he's one of the people to give the Abnormality a standing ovation. Real great music, even if he couldn't really hear it.

Leper - Spore (The Little Prince) I'll be honest, this is what got me to actually read The Little Prince's wiki page & story in full for the first time, and oh my god. It. I want to be able to describe it, but words are failing me right now. Just trust me when I say that Baldwin would feel sympathetic for it after finding out the story himself, and would be the only one of the team to request the Abnormality's EGO gear himself. (It does help that it's actually pretty decent gear, too, in my opinion.)

Man-at-Arms - The Sword Sharpened with Tears (Knight of Despair) The second Magical Girl on our list!! This time, the Knight of Despair- who used to be the Magical Girl of Justice who sought to protect and uphold the law, but realized after many years that nothing was upheld on her watch, and she had failed to protect anyone. Barristan can certainly relate, not being able to protect the men under his own order during the war. The blade that comes with the EGO set doesn't quite feel right at first, but now he wields it with what he hopes is a truly noble purpose.

Musketeer - Heaven (The Burrowing Heaven) With how little we know about Margaret and her past, this is actually one of the harder ones to try and figure out. But a single thought was what won me over to this concept, and I really need you to bear with me on this one. In this universe, what if this is what Margaret saw when the bullseye target shifted in her sight? What if she somehow caught a glimpse of that creature and just... knew she needed to figure out where the hell that came from? Just an idea. I hope we learn more about Margaret at some point.

Occultist - Sound of a Star (Blue Star) Hello fourth ALEPH on the list and second ALEPH to make your intentions known as soon as you show up. So Blue Star is... interesting. Its story involves employees treating it as some sort of god or deity, practically making an entire religion around it, and it's highly implied- if not explicitly stated- that it's a result of the Abnormality itself corrupting their minds, to the point that the company had to issue a statement about it. Something in me has the feeling that Alhazred would be one of the agents whose mind got corrupted by it, but due to training he received before being hired by L Corp, he was actually able to resist most of Blue Star's little mental antics- which probably ends up being the reason why he gets the EGO set in the first place. There is a dark curiosity lingering in him, though...

Plague Doctor - Solemn Lament (Funeral of the Dead Butterflies) I know I mentioned the Abnormality called Plague Doctor back during Flagellant's section, but considering what that led to, I don't think I'm gonna do that to Paracelsus. Plus, I think she'd be more interested in a personification of Death, anyhow. An arguably peaceful rendition of it, even- the Funeral of the Dead Butterflies understands that everyone's end comes eventually, and it wants to comfort those who die and have nowhere else to go in this place. It's got the coffin for a reason, after all- it wanted to be a savior, a long time ago. Much like a certain doctor who thought she could best Death.

Runaway - Fourth Match Flame (Scorched Girl) Based on the story "The Little Match Girl", this Abnormality takes the form of a charred, almost innocently cartoonish silhouette of a young girl, with a lit match piercing through her torso. Do I gotta say it, even. Bonnie probably ends up being good friends with the Scorched Girl, somehow, due to somewhat similar trauma. Or at least she'll really like using the flamethrower that comes with the EGO set.

Shieldbreaker - In the Name of Love and Hate (The Queen of Hatred) All the Magical Girls (sans Servant of Wrath) are here!!!! (celebratory emojis) The Queen of Hatred used to be the Magical Girl of Love, until too much peace and her strong mindset towards justice caused her to have a thought: "If there's too much good in the world, who will be the villain I have to protect everyone from?" Eventually, she became the villain herself, just for a balance of order to the world. Nowadays, she's actually relatively friendly with all the employees of the facility- even doing a friendly breach to help the employees with containing other Abnormalities- but if there's too much peace for a long time, she'll start having those familiar doubts... That's not the reason Amani was given her EGO, however. The reason is for what the Queen of Hatred looks like after she breaches with hostile intent- a giant winged serpent, with hands coming out the sides of its head. The Manager said its shape reminded them of her. Amani does not like the Manager. But she can't deny the effectiveness of the equipment given to her.

Vestal - Pleasure (Porccubus) Remember the possibilities of funny dog Abnormalities I mentioned back with Houndmaster? This is one of them. Imagine a poppy but looked like a dog and it was giant and it floated. Oh, and you can get addicted to petting its thorns because getting pricked by one causes you to experience a very large dose of an indescribable joy that the average human cannot hope to withstand. So now you might be thinking. "How the hell would Junia get this thing's EGO with all her repression?" Yeah, funnily enough, I think she tries her hardest to avoid this Abnormality at all costs, but she's been in there a few times and she claims it wasn't that bad, actually. That said, she hasn't pet it yet.

[deusexlachina]

Wannabe Warden Part 19: The personal is political (and therefore top secret Grey Warden missions)

In which people won't stop trying to kill my family for more than an hour at a time.

The political is personal, because Kirkwall is a very small city. Well. It's not. It's massive and very crowded. But you keep bumping into the same few people, so I've learned by now that the best way to discover city-threatening problems is to casually do errands for friends and family.

I pay a social visit to Uncle Gamlen, and look for problems to solve by reading his mail, which I'm pretty sure is a crime, but I'm immune to crime because my family friend is a corrupt cop. An anonymous note from someone who claims to know Gamlen gives him cryptic clues to finding the Gem of Keroshek. What's the Gem of Keroshek? It makes you lucky. Not like critical hits lucky or anything like that. It just very slightly increases your income and minutely increases your chance to hit things.

Ironically, Gamlen spent the family fortune chasing this gem. Somehow. I'm thinking something like he invested all our cash in "Kerocoin." This currency I just made up gives you a stake in the ownership of the Gem of Keroshek. Not like, you have the gem. But. Hypothetically. Anyway, he spent the family fortune chasing the gem because he really wanted it for reasons he never specifies, and now he doesn't want it because he spent all his money chasing it. Say what you like about Uncle Gamlen, he certainly doesn't fall prey to the Gambler's Fallacy. Even though he does literally gamble. And lose all our money. But his logic is airtight.

What does this have to do with keeping Kirkwall safe? Quite a bit. It turns out the Gem of Keroshek does have a power - it makes people want it to irrational extremes, just like the red lyrium. Well. I assume it must, because dozens and dozens of people throw themselves at me trying to get it even though I don't even have it.

This is one of the largest human armies I have ever faced, all lining up to fight the woman who single-handedly killed the Arishok, and also killed his army, though that one wasn't single-handed, it was with my companions. Who are also here. They're fighting the doom squad. All for a gem whose effect is to slightly improve accuracy and coin drops. I've sold more than a dozen more powerful magical artifacts.

Honestly, I'd just walk away from all this, except the search for the gem has endangered my cousin Charade, who I didn't mention before because I just met her. Charade sought it out because her father neglected his wife in favour of the Macguffin, which is the tragic subtext of Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail. Except that was over the cup of Jesus which could grant immortality, whereas this makes you more accurate and rich to a degree you wouldn't even notice if it didn't say so on the label. Unfortunately for Charade, Gamlen doesn't want the magical trinket. He only cares about...uh...his family?

I explain to my dear cousin where she might have gone awry with this plan, which not only didn't involve talking to Gamlen but also entailed actively obscuring her own identity as his daughter, who he didn't know he had, which paints a grim picture of the state of sexual education in the Free Marches.

With this crisis averted and a hole in my family mended, I can rest easy knowing my family is safe for literal minutes before another crisis threatens Kirkwall and my family again. Orsino, the First Enchanter of Kirkwall, wants to deal with a problem among the mages without alerting the lobotomy-happy templars. What's the problem? Uh. There's. Meetings.

Not considering the possibility that his mages might be having secret meetings to resist Meredith, like he is doing right now, Orsino sends the most famous woman in Kirkwall to spy on the meeting, but somehow I'm recognized and they fight me to the death, cryptically saying they know I'm working for Orsino. Are these mages his enemies? Even curiouser, this is a mix of mages and templars, despite them having been bitter enemies.

It turns out that mage-sympathizer Ser Thrask has organized a resistance of mages and templars working together to take down Knight Commander Meredith. A stunning display of peace and solidarity. When they're not trying to murder me.

I would just leave this extremely stupid situation before more good-intentioned people basically run into my axe, but I have to dig deeper, because they kidnapped Bethany!

...from the Grey Wardens?

Ser Thrask is there, and explains they needed leverage against me, correctly guessing that I care more about my accidental Grey Warden sister than anyone else. What I'm stuck on is why they couldn't have picked an easier hostage, like...anybody? Fenris and Merrill live alone. Bethany not only has gravity powers but travels with the Wardens, who wouldn't interfere with their plans (since they're Politics) except if they threatened the order, e.g. by kidnapping a Grey Warden, especially one who is like a daughter to the terrifying unkillable moustachioed menace that is Warden Stroud.

On that note, how did they even pull this off? Bethany explains that "last thing she remembers, she was in her quarters." Her...Grey Warden quarters? Like, she was in a Grey Warden base? How did they get in and out of there? How did they steal a whole lady from the Grey Wardens? And, if they have such illicit skills, why didn't they cut out a lot of unnecessary and frankly stupid steps to their plan and just steal Meredith? She can't have been any harder to attack than the Grey Wardens, especially not Secret Grey Warden Aveline Hawke. What are they afraid of, an army of templars? They are an army of templars!

Thrask tries to explain: they all thought I was their enemy, because they oppose Meredith and I publicly opposed Meredith. Hang on, that doesn't make sense. Well, they know I'm working for Orsino, and he's their enemy, because he...was also publicly opposing Meredith? Even Thrask himself is confused, wondering why I'd side with Meredith even though they know I'm working for Orsino, her enemy. This is your brain on lyrium and/or blood magic.

After a wildly unnecessary fight, Cullen comes just out of time to arrest the conspirators so the mages can be executed and the templars can have their pay docked. I tell him not to make the situation worse by unnecessary executions, especially not Alain, who saved my sister.

While his fellow templars are exhibiting templar sexual dimorphism, Cullen, who is working for the evil Meredith and will be until she later snaps and tries to kill apparently everyone, sneers at Alain for a convenient last-minute change of heart.

[harrowing-of-hell]

Didn't wanna reblog the post because it had a message in it that I thought was very important for people to hear and I didn't want to detract from that, but...

I'm very surprised some people think HTN ended with Harrow being vindicated for her lobotomy, or that the narrative is saying what she did is correct in any way. Especially when literally every character except Dulcinea, from Ianthe to Abigail to Magnus and even Alecto (when we only knew her as The Body), was telling Harrow to turn around and accept Gideon's death; from the very beginning of the book no less!!! Even then, unless I'm misremembering, Dulcinea didn't even tell Harrow what to do with the information she gave her! Dulcinea wasn't even sure it was Gideon, just that there was someone in Harrow's body moving it around.

But Harrow, being who she is, obviously was never going to listen to that advice. I made a post tangentially related to this, but Harrow's lobotomy before the beginning of HTN and then Harrow's soul going to sleep in the tomb at the end of HTN are actions that are pretty in-line with her character thus far. And this is why her being in the river-bubble-dream-thing with John in NTN is so important, because she's forced to directly confront what it means to be someone who's incapable of letting go.

After we saw what exactly became of Gideon in NTN, I was definitely of the opinion that things are unequivocally worse now because Harrow could not accept Gideon's sacrifice.

Harrow was trying to avoid consuming Gideon's soul, but as a consequence of her self-lobotomy Gideon is a revenant who's been stuffed into her own corpse, and her experiences during her short unlife have probably been worse than her actual life.

I do not read that as Harrow being rewarded for her suffering. And yeah sure, she may actually get Gideon back in the final book, but we know jack shit about what's actually going to happen in ATN. She may be resurrected, but I personally think it's just as likely that Gideon may stay dead. As it stands right now I think whether or not Harrow was "correct" to do the lobotomy is a heavily debatable question, and I'm heavily leaning towards the answer to that question being no.

[anonymouspuzzler]

(PSYCHONAUTS 2 SPOILERS IN FIRST IMAGE TEXT ESPECIALLY!!)

oh boy we've hit the point in my Psychonauts art backlog where we get into my OVERLY ELABORATE AUs!! This first one is what I call the "Cally O'Pia AU", which is basically "everything is the same except Cassie stole rescued one very specific weird little boy from a psychic lobotomy, and he grew up raised by her instead. There's a lot more content for this that I'd still like to finish someday, so I'll leave it there for now! There's another AU I've worked on more that you'll be seeing a LOT more of soon, though...

(Alt text/image IDs under the cut!)

[Image 1 ID (PSYCHONAUTS 2 SPOILERS IN DESCRIPTION): A sketchy, colored design for "(Caligosto) Cally O'Pia", an alternate version of Loboto who was raised by Cassie. He is posing with one hand on his hip and the other gesturing outwards; he has both original arms rather than a prosthetic. He has a full head of hair in a sloppy bob with long bangs and a yellow flower tucked behind his ear, wears glasses with green and red lenses instead of the inlaid lenses, and wears several multicolored bracelets and necklaces resembling Cassie's. He is wearing a janitorial staff Psychonauts uniform with the sleeves rolled up, half dark teal-green like an agent uniform and half-lilac purple. Over the uniform, he wears a long handmade-looking light-yellow skirt with pink tassels along the bottom edge, patched with several long patterned scraps of fabric as well as several smaller square patches. He is also wearing blue ribbed socks with light-brown sandals, and two fanny packs on his waist, one purple, one dark blue. There are bullet points about his personality and backstory next to the design, reading: - Picked up by Cassie during a Psychic 7 run on hospitals performing lobotomies (she got a little overzealous seeing a kid on deck and just. took him and ran) - Never met Lucrecia; she'd already left for Grulovia by the time he was adopted - Kept training with the Psychonauts, but became increasingly disillusioned seeing the Psychic 6 fall apart (especially when Cassie retreated to the Gulch) - Extremely powerful psychic, but blows off responsibility to the point he's all but useless as an agent; mostly tends to the aquarium and acts as a handyman - De facto custodian of the Gulch, since he's the only agent who can reliably make it in and out (he's going to check up on his mom) - Openly bisexual; in an on again-off again relationship with Oleander (both would rather it stay on but neither are emotionally mature enough to admit it) - Suspicious about the circumstances behind Maligula's defeat & the "official" Psychonauts founding; took on the moonlighting half from disillusionment, half to secretly investigate without influence (Oleander knew & would occasionally help) - Took the Deluginary job to get info on Maligula, didn't know about the plan with Truman until too late (no hard feelings against the guy himself, y'know?); realized he was in over his head, leaked coordinates to Raz & co. but got threatened into finishing the job regardless - Considered leaving the Psychonauts to be a dentist or marine biologist when he was younger; couldn't bear to abandon Cassie - One of the only agents to still regularly visit Compton in Psychoisolation - Picked up some writing skills from Cassie (he likes freeform poetry) - The socks with sandals are absolutely, specifically to piss off Hollis. Come at him.]

[Image 2 ID: A younger Cally O'Pia. He has messy hair, glasses, a big smile, and is eating a chunk of honeycomb. He is wearing a long tank top resembling Cassie's dress, over pleated pants that reach mid-shin, and sandals.]

[Image 3 ID: Traditional pen sketches of Cally O'Pia. In the left, he is standing with a neutral expression, one hand on his hip and the other holding up a dripping mop; in the other, he is sitting, grinning and using his psychic powers. In the second image he has removed his wrap-skirt to wear it as a shawl around his shoulders instead, revealing the Psychonauts uniform jumpsuit reaches about mid-shin on him.]

[Image 4 ID: A sketchy three-panel comic of Cally and Oleander. In the first, Oleander, wearing boxers and an unbuttoned shirt over a tank top, walks down a hall shouting "Cal??" Cally, standing around the corner wearing sweatpants and a baggy shirt, using telekinesis to bring plates over to him to dry, replies, "Kitchen". Oleander continues, "I can't find my All Paul shirt". The second panel shows Cally shifting his weight onto one leg as he dries the plate with a rag, nonchalantly saying, "Mm. Haven't seen it." Oleander, now looking directly at Cally around the corner, says, "Cal". "Yeah", Cally replies. "You are wearing the shirt", says Oleander. The final panel shows Cally, grinning knowingly and continuing to dry the dish, replying sing-song, "Dunno what you're taaalking abooouuuttt". Oleander, bracing his feet against Cally's lower back and tugging at the hem of the shirt with both hands, screams, "CAL SO HELP ME". Cally simply responds, "I look good though right".]

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 32 and 33 of Harrow the Ninth

I wonder why Augustine keeps accusing Mercy of doing stuff with Cytherea's body. And Ianthe... lol. Since John established that he couldn't detect her body anywhere on the station, why do they all still think it's there somewhere?

I mean, you already did something to you brain to rewrite a large number of your memories, but that isn't exactly what lobotomies used to be used for, back when they were actually being used in psychiatry

You know, there are a (relative) lot of characters in this story who seem to have fertility issues: Magnus and Abigail, Harrow's parents, entire Houses seem to rely at least partly on test tube babies, etc. I guess exposure to lots of thanergy is just not great for reproductive abilities. I remember when I was growing up, I was exposed to all sorts of almost conspiratorial ideas about how ordinary activities would damage my reproductive organs - being in the hot tub for too long, standing in front of the microwave, what have you. There's a large swath of medications that pregnant women just aren't allowed to take because they might interfere somehow with the pregnancy. It's like somehow women's reproductive abilities are still considered so sacred that we literally have wild superstitions about what breaks them. But in this society, they completely embrace a power source that is well-known with documented evidence to cause infertility and just say, that's ok, we can just have babies artificially, no big. What a world

Although unlike Harrow I'm not wondering why Camilla is alive, I am dying to know how she is here. Also curious about what Harrow thinks she recognizes about her, since according to the rewritten memories, Harrow never saw her with her head intact. She must have some residual memory of the actual events if she recognizes Camilla, I think, but maybe isn't consciously aware of it?

That was good of her

The skull is described as being six months old here, and then Harrow later tells Palamedes that he's been dead for eight months. Which is it? Or is her "eight months" based on her false memories, and not on her analysis of the skull? This part of the story is labeled as "two months before the Emperor's murder" which should be seven months after the start of the book, which started not long after the end of Gideon the Ninth. So he should be seven months dead, right?

Is she talking about the message that Gideon relayed to her, or some other, less substantial message?

I'm guessing this was the Cohort that was on board the Erebos? Back at the beginning of the book, it did mention that there were some pieces of remains in Palamedes' coffin, so I guess that's what they did with them?

Right, so here's the actual book's explanation of why they are not attacked by ghosts when they go in the River they way they were when they took the shuttle there

And then we go to Palamedes' dream bubble. No really, the River bubble is just 100% a Homestuck dream bubble, that's exactly what it is. I've literally read a Homestuck fanfic where they are in a dream bubble and get attacked by a monster from Karkat's memory and have to quickly remember something different, this is exactly the same thing, except that I guess no one has actually gone there when they were asleep yet

If Harrow's false memories are taking place in the River as well, I wonder if they are also in a dream bubble?

I see Muir found another use for the name Abella after she decided not to give it to Ianthe. Actually, except for the hair, she does sound not dissimilar to Ianthe

Is this... a book that Palamedes actually read at Canaan House and then re-imagined with perfect accuracy because of his memory abilities, or did it come from somewhere else? Was this one of Cytherea's romance novels?

This is a good point, because Harrow couldn't have predicted that Palamedes would be back after the events of Gideon the Ninth - Gideon told her he had died and didn't tell her what Camilla had said about that, so she would have had no way of knowing there was a contingency plan. I wonder if Palamedes' continued existence is going to interfere with pre-Work Harrow's plans

Is this meant to be a reference back to Dulcinea's bible quote about three strands?

Palamedes is stuck in a dream bubble for eight months with a bad romance novel, so he writes fanfiction of it on the wall to pass the time, I love it, I wonder if someone has taken a stab at writing Palamedes' fanfiction yet

What is her false memory of learning the Lyctor theorems, and her memory of her reaction to that? So far in the false memories we don't have any memories about the challenges or about the theorems, other than the account that Judith was killed doing the Imaging/Response room. So far no one in the memories has discussed Lyctorhood at all. She says "that was always the plan" but she has contempt for her fellow Lyctors for killing their cavaliers, she does seem to feel that it was wrong on some level. I wonder what her false memory of becoming a Lyctor is actually like, and why she says this here. Is she just saying it because she considers Palamedes a stranger now?

Palamedes is like, it's horrific that you did this, but I'm dying to know if it worked. Also, I think he was like this close to using the "wrong" pronoun for the cavalier and maybe causing Harrow some Issues

Makes sense that she wouldn't tell him it didn't quite work (or that she thinks it didn't quite work), though

So I gather Palamedes is going to become a talking skull, that's cool

More darkened corridor metaphor. And a first-person pronoun from the secret narrator who is probably Gideon

[liesmyth]

Great, I won't be anon, I’ll be the weirdo who's reblogging all your shit bc I need to connect with others as deep in this fandom as I am

Can we have a moment to acknowledge and mourn for how Ianthe is constantly everyone's second favorite? No one likes her best except arguably Coronabeth, who spends their childhood using her to cover her own shortcomings. Babs is obedient to her first, but he clearly is simping for Corona. Her own parents are like, Corona is cuter so she’s gonna rule the Third, but she can’t do necromancy so could you please fake it for her? She gets to the Mithraem and Harrow is like, thanks for the help with the lobotomy but I prefer a corpse in a takeout box and some ginger I can’t remember. 

She throws out all the stops and lets Augustine die to save daddy Jod and this is her chance!!! someone will love her best by default!!! And what happens? Jod chases down his estranged dead daughter and gives her Indestructible Bod, proving that he could’ve regrown Ianthe's full arm this whole time and just like, didn't. 

She’s got to care. She’s got to feel some kind of way she is the 1% skim milk in every single one of her relationships

DON'T BE ANON I love talking about my best worst girl.

Also! This is inch resting because I go back and forth all the time on whether Corona and Ianthe's parents know of their ruse. "Dad wanted a matched set"... did their parents actually SAID that, or were they just very clear in their expectations (down to giving the twins the same House arithmonym, something that's actually rare among siblings as per Taz) and the girls picked up on it?

Because I can't imagine possibly staking the future of my House on a six-year old, and her ability to convincingly fake necromancy for her sister for the rest of her life and wanting to live in her shadow. If it had gotten out the consequences would've been pretty Bad for the whole House, and it just strikes me as the kind of stupid AND brilliant scheme that children would come up with.

Anyway back to HER, Prince Ianthe Naberius! Ianthe has Rancid vibes but she DESERVES LOVE AND AFFECTION and also posters of her face. She just needs a friend... hugs... maybe to consume some sugar. Maybe that'd fix her.

[rabbiteclair]

after I mentioned it last night multiple people expressed interest in my thoughts on Lobotomy Corp so here we go.

(cut for various minor spoilers)

This is the kind of game where my friends who've already beaten it are gathered around me like a pack of hyenas watching a wounded gazelle, asking me questions like "so, what do you think of this character?" and then huddling up to whisper amongst themselves, presumably eagerly waiting for me to hit the scene where, I dunno, Hod vivisects and eats a baby while looking directly into the camera or whatever.

People really looked at what happened to the word Sephirot(h) and went 'listen, we're just getting started' huh.

If Hod wants to eat a baby though, I think that's her right. I wanna hug Hod.

Netzach can have one too. A hug, I mean. Eating a baby would probably just make him more depressed.

Yesod is in the 'fucked up, but I can see how he got there' tier. If the game gave me true managerial oversight, I'd make Netzach share half his drugs with Yesod. I think it'd be good for both of them.

Malkuth is kinda scary, but I like her anyway.

Angela is just scary and at this point I'm 90% sure that there's some 'the PC is [important thing here] and she is fucking with your memory/perception to hide it' stuff going on. If I had to guess, that blank is 'actually B' or 'actually A', but I'm going on pretty scant and indirect clues so far.

This game is going to be forever warring with Arknights in my mind for the rights to define the word 'Enkephalin.'

Judging by my friends, I've had pretty horrible luck so far, including the game skipping me directly from Teth to Waw and then giving me some of the roughest Waws to boot. I only got He ones later.

As of last night I'm currently around day 20 and getting ready to make my first rewind back to day 1, because hoo boy am I not prepared for Alephs.

I was dreading rewinding, because I am very attached to my pro super agents Max and Yum-Yum, and then I realized. I also have the fucking... iron maiden thing. The one that you can only use/research by letting it murder people. The one that I haven't researched at all, because I don't have people to feed to it. But if I'm rewinding anyway... Thanks for your hard work, everyone, I'm just gonna need you to leave your gear at home today, form a queue, and step through this door one at a time. Don't mind the screams.

I might still spare Max and Yum-Yum though. Go free, my friends. I have no quarrel with you. Try not to get blood on your shoes, there's gonna be a lot of it.

One Sin, Fragment of the Universe, and Scorched Girl are my friends.

The first time Meat Lantern escaped I went 'okay, I don't know what this guy is capable of, so let's round up everyone I have and send them in to pummel it with their best weapons.' It killed literally every agent except like two who had guns, in one gigantic bloodsplosion. I've discovered some ways for Meat Lantern to kill people that my friends didn't know was possible.

Old Lady, Child of the Galaxy, and Naked Nest aren't friends exactly, but they're generally well-behaved energy-printing machines. My friends insist that Naked Nest isn't, but my kid Max has that thing locked down. (Sorry again if I do torture you to death in an electronic iron maiden, Max.) Every Zayin I haven't mentioned basically falls in this category, except they don't actually make meaningful levels of energy at this point.

FUCK Alriune, all my homies hate Alriune.

CENSORED is pointedly not my friend, but it's so funny that I can't dislike it. To a lesser extent this also includes Grave of Cherry Blossoms, because every time it's gone off, it's killed some clerk while I watch and go 'eh, this is fine.'