#he used to watch cartoons about clockie

[another-goblin]

After 2.2, many people noticed that the first part of Ratio's "Doctor's Advice" isn't just a vague encouragement (to think about it, that would have been a bit out of character for him); it actually foreshadows certain revelations about the Dreamworld we only discover in 2.2.

It can't be a coincedence that the words "Death" and "Dormancy", capitalized and placed in quotation marks, are the exact words used to refer to that "Death "meme when we discover the truth about it.

It's safe to assume that he knows more about the Dreamworld than he lets on, and that note is partly a hint to Aventurine about what's going on. And it probably helped, judging by the fact that Aventurine somehow ended up in Dreamflux Reef after that.

So first, that really reminded me of what he did on Herta station. He basically slips into his teacher mode: "I'll make sure nobody dies. I won't disrespect your cognitive abilities by just telling you what's going on. I'll just direct you towards the truth because I know you are smart enough to ultimately get there by yourself"

And secondly, if that's true, if he really knows a lot about the Dreamworld, that would finally explain why the IPC sent him as a technical consultant.

The question is, what's in it for him.

At first glance, he doesn't have a horse in that race. I don't think he gives a damn about the IPC's claim on Penacony. He doesn't strike me as a fan of the IPC in general (his philosophy is "people should have access to education," and money never factors into it).

And they can't directly order him to go; the IPC bosses are not his bosses. The Intelligentsia Guild is affiliated with the IPC and probably sponsored by it, but they are not the same. (I had a little theory about the IPC financing his educational projects. So theoretically, they could use it as leverage. But it's an unsopported speculation on my part)

One of his goals could have been to study the Dreamworld, but I don't think that's the case because he could have just visited it as a tourist for that purpose at any time.

So, why would he agree to go on that mission, taking his valuable time away from teaching and potentially risking his life and reputation (by getting involved with the IPC's shady affairs)?

He's only there to help Aventurine. Currently, that's the only explanation.

[crushedsweets]

Do you have any headcanons on what the creeps like? Like just simple stuff like food or TV shows they like or music n stuff? :)

i think toby likes waf(gets shot)

i think a LOT of them like trashy reality TV. nina, clocky, toby, brian, jeff, ben, ann, and jane are the worst offenders..jane is probably the only surprising one, but she loves getting into bed with her wife and flicking on a stupid show and laughing at people with mary. nice stress relief

jack is the type of guy to only watch(or listen to, i suppose) movies. i dunno why but i feel like he'd be super into horror... i think he'd like jordan peeles movies nina jeff and ben all watch anime. nina likes psychological horror and romance, jeff and ben like shonen lulu used to looove watching cartoons even when she was in college... honeybee and puppycat, atla, adventure time, steven universe, things like that. her roommate teased her for it

jack likes spicy food and in the past, he'd make food for toby and make it Not Spicy cuz he's like 'this white boy from colorado cannot handle this'. so toby was like no, make it spicy. so jack did. and toby was like no, make it spicier. and jack was like dude i dont even think i can handle this.. and toby keeps pushing it till jack is like oh my god stop. then a week later he brings it up to clocky and thats how jack finds out about tobys CIPA.

tim and brian like doing big like, steak and potato and broccoli dinners sometimes. toby always gets so excited until tim was like "im gonna teach you how to grill" and now puts toby to work.. so tobys annoyed..

[internethorrorfan]

Sally headcanons please

Sally Williams headcanons:

Sally was created by La Mishi Mishi. Link to story/info here: cpuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Sally_Williams. None of this is canon, this only applies to my AU version of the character.

Note: My version of Sal is based off of the original 8 year old Sally Williams version instead of the later 12 year old Sally Dawn version.

-Slender Man and Sally do NOT have a father daughter relationship on Earth 2010. They don’t even like each other in my AU. Instead Splendor Man is her father figure. She lives in a mansion with him and Lazari.

-Sally’s not pure innocence in a body or anything like that. For the most part she is a sweet, caring child who just wants everyone to be happy but she also has a mischievous streak a mile wide and she’s not against using ghostly destructive temper tantrums to get her way.

-Her default response to anything that even mildly upsets her is to start crying and screaming as loudly as possible. She’s had trouble controlling her emotions ever since her death though the older people in her “life” are helping her.

-The lil’ ghost doesn’t hurt or kill anybody, all she does is prank and scare folks. Sally hates the idea of innocents being hurt/killed. Because of this she doesn’t like a lot of the horrors and the ones she does like either don’t kill innocents or have to hide their killings from her.  -Sally loves going to the human world and A: scaring the shit out of any teens or adults she comes across and B: playing with any children she finds. Splendy takes her and Lazari on weekly field trips to the human realm (incognito of course). -She has severe panic attacks if she can’t find her teddy bear Mr. Death. Mr. D is 1 of the few things she has left to remember her parents by so she is very attached to it. She doesn't feel safe without her bear and she won’t let others touch it unless it needs stitching up or “he” allows it (i.e. Sally holds it up and waves its arms around while voice acting for it).

-She calls all the adult horrors she’s friends with her “uncles” and “aunties”. Lazari’s picked up the habit as well.

-Sally absolutely hates Laughing Jack. She loves annoying the shit out of him and knowing he can’t do anything to physically hurt her.  LJ usually gets back at her by taunting her about her tragic past and all the children he’s killed. She usually runs to Splendor Man after that and just holds onto him to feel loved. After Splendy whoops LJ’s ass I mean. -Her singing voice sounds like the shrieks a cat would make if it was shoved in a blender while getting strangled and that’s putting it mildly to be honest. -She keeps an old scrapbook she had when she was alive hidden under her bed that’s filled with pictures of her and her parents. She misses them a lot and keeps waiting for the day they come back. They're dead but she doesn't know that.

-Her dad taught her how to make basic foods when she was alive. Sprinkles are guaranteed in everything she makes and that includes foods like spaghetti.

-When she’s depressed her wounds start bleeding and hurting again. Thankfully she’s hardly ever depressed. For somebody with the horrific past that she has, she’s a surprisingly cheerful child. That’s true for most of the child horrors but it’s especially notable with her since she easily has the most tragic past out of all the kids. -Surprisingly she really loves old monster movies. It’s not uncommon to see her watching stuff like Taste the Blood of Dracula or Godzilla vs. Gigan in between marathons of Disney movies and Nickelodeon cartoons. -Sally has only told 4 people about what Uncle Johnny did to her: Splendor Man, Clockwork, Sam and Lulu. Splendy because she trusts him so much, Sam because he's her cousin and Clocky & Lulu because they’ve unfortunately gone through similar experiences.

Art by Asmodeusarts: https://www.instagram.com/asmodeusarts/?hl=en

[ganymedesclock]

So it’s been a while since I’ve really posted about some goshdang rocks on this blog but I have been staying posted with Steven Universe and it’s really starting to bother me how often I’ve seen people in the fandom insinuating Change Your Mind, or the show at large, is naively idealistic in the way that it handles talking to dangerous people.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think there’s anything naive or idealistic about SU as a show and how it depicts talking to people.

First and foremost, Steven does not ever successfully talk to people in a situation where he hasn’t protected himself. When he does, it’s a bad thing. Steven doesn’t get the upper hand on White because he makes bambi eyes at her and sniffles a little and goes “oh granny won’t you be nice to me” and she immediately falls over herself to go “oh my goodness you beautiful baby child how could I ever have thought to wrong you.”

White endangers Steven. And at that point, Steven makes considerable emphasis to protect himself and his friends. Neither half of split Steven waste much time looking at White or acknowledging her. Their focus is on each other. Steven takes care of himself first. He makes sure he’s safe and healthy.

Thing is? Pink split Steven makes it clear that White can’t hurt him. She literally tries. She gets steamrolled. She’s lying unconscious on the floor at the point that Steven’s halves reconcile.

Steven at no point neglects protecting himself to negotiate with people. Even as early as Monster Buddy half of his argument at protecting Nephrite is the awareness that she’s obviously not trying to hurt him and becomes dangerous when she’s triggered by the senior CGs’ overbearing interventions. Steven not attacking Nephrite is literally the sensible thing here and the Crystal Gems are wrong because they assume that being violent will fix everything in absence of factual evidence. Steven is in no danger. The reason things go to hell at the climax of Monster Buddy is because Garnet’s earlier violent behavior meant that the sight of her summoning her weapons was a trigger for Nephrite- and, even then, she still protects Steven, the person who was consistently nice to her.

This is not a whimsical fantasy scenario. If you use brute force to push people around, they will remember, and will either resent you or panic when it seems like you’re about to hurt them again. If you’re up against someone who is motivated primarily by fear, don’t scare them.

“Violence isn’t the solution here” in this case is not an arbitrary nicey-pants talking point where “oh but see if you just sing songs and hold people’s hands they will all universally like you!” it’s talking about the fact that you need to actually meaningfully develop your response to situations based on information. Nephrite is a traumatized soldier suffering from an affliction that makes her easily startled. When she’s able to maintain a clear head, Steven is readily able to observe that she is friendly and willing to work with him. Steven not being violent to Nephrite is based in the fact that she is not a threat, and the Gems are failing to reevaluate because they’re just assuming she’s a threat based on prior behavior (and likely some bias- both out of the assumption that corruption can’t be cured and out of knowing Nephrite is a Homeworld soldier) and they’ve stopped observing what she’s actually doing.

The show doesn’t even exaggerate how much or how well talking to people works. We see people rebuff Steven (e.g. Jasper in Earthlings). We see people indifferently stonewall his overtures of friendship (Peridot in Marble Madness). We see people who take fondly to him because he’s nice to them but frankly trust him as far as they could throw him and don’t feel that bad selling out his friends (Lapis in The Return).

We see people give him a blank look of “are you actually kidding me” when he tries to talk to them (Aquamarine in Stuck Together)

Heck- the entire thesis of Beach City Drift is that Stevonnie needs to reevaluate the way they’re responding to Kevin because he’s engaging with them in bad faith and using it as an opportunity to mess with them.

The idea that this is unrealistic because, we guess Stevonnie doesn’t decide that Kevin messing with them means they need to take him out back and extrajudicially execute him on the spot just tells us something: Our culture has been spoonfed the idea, over and over and over again and mostly through popular cartoons, that violence is the default solution for problems.

This is an idea that SU is deliberately deconstructing like in Monster Buddy. Because- why are Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl just assuming Nephrite can’t be trusted? In-universe, they have their reasons, but those reasons are also wrong.

However, we have to consider that Steven was clearly operating on the assumption all the monsters are bad even though he was able to observe that some of the monsters were only dangerous by accident (the worm from Bubble Buddies).

He assumed the monsters were dangerous even though time and time again, they largely only targeted the Crystal Gems, and most of them were in remote environments hiding, and only are drawn out of hiding because the Crystal Gems deliberately hunt them down.

And this is an assumption so pervasive that when given starkly contradictory evidence in Monster Buddies, his initial reflex is to defend this viewpoint- saying Nephrite “isn’t like the other monsters” and then trying to tell her “you’re not a monster any more!” when she never was in the first place. She only seemed “like a monster” because Steven was fed a specific narrative from people who were in some ways ignorant to the reality of Nephrite’s situation, and in others withholding information. And Steven is not a gullible, unobservant, or callous person. 

Here’s the thing: before we as an audience are told anything about the Gem monsters, we accept that. We take it as a given the Red Eye is going to crash into Beach City just because it’s bad. We assume the “Centipeetles” are hostile even though Nephrite’s drones are frankly no more aggressive than you’d expect a stray cat loose in your house to be, and Pearl is the one calmly standing there snapping one’s neck.

Personally, I grew up with the high fantasy genre. Heavy door-stopper books with dragons on the cover, and games like Final Fantasy. This is a genre that most popular codifying installments of give you broad, sweeping pastoral environments chock full of monsters that live exclusively to fight and kill you, and you need to kill them first. Anything that you shouldn’t kill on sight is going to immediately broadly flag you down so that you know not to murder this one. And killing monsters is never wrong. The ones that you aren’t supposed to kill, the narrative will coddle you so that you could never even think they might be just like the intrusive offal.

Sometimes you’re explained these monsters, they’re especially bad, because they did this bad thing or caused that bad thing to happen. Often you don’t actually witness it. Sometimes there’s simply no explanation given at all, but they are called “goblins” and they look strange and pointy and dangerous compared to the pretty likable-looking Heroes, and that’s supposed to be all the evidence you need to never worry if your heroes run them through.

We don’t worry, even if these monsters are actually people. We don’t worry even if they will directly talk to you and make it clear they believe they’re doing the right thing. After all, they have an entry in the in-game bestiary, and if they were really good, the game wouldn’t have given us the option to kill them, right?

When I hear people talk about “villains” and which villains are entitled to “redemption arcs”, what I hear overwhelmingly is thinking that sprouted from that genre, those games and those books. I hear, basically, the indoctrination that we just accept that worlds just have a bunch of Evil Things and the way to solve Evil is to kill it, and that the world will gently guide our hand so if it’s not actually Evil, then it will throw up its hands and drop to the floor and the battle music will stop and all of our combat commands will lock up.

We accept that Nephrite is evil, going in. Even though, actually watching that first episode, she’s standing on the outside of the Gem Temple, and doesn’t attack until the Crystal Gems barge out to threaten her. Nephrite is written from the very beginning of the show as an expression of its thesis statement.

Nephrite does not fling herself to the ground and whimper for mercy and try to stagger back to her proper Gem form as soon as she’s encountered. Nephrite is written, deliberately, as a monster. We accept that she’s here to be a threat for Steven to beat to prove himself. We accept that her pain doesn’t matter because she’s a monster.

We accept, in effect, that she is not a character with a life or a story. We accept that she is merely an empty receptacle for Steven’s fighting capabilities and inventiveness.

That’s preposterous. That’s ridiculous. If you suggest someone disagreeing with you is actually just an empty caricature of a person here to galvanize your growth as a person, or just show off what you’ve learned or accomplished since your past, people would look at you like you’d grown another head and rightfully so. There’s nothing “realistic” about that.

But it’s pervasive. It’s everywhere. And when patterns are repeated endlessly and repeatedly and constantly we get used to them.

It’s why Steven Universe, why Undertale, why even Off are treated as subversive narratives, even though they’re actually more realistic.

“But Clockie,” you say, “the Diamonds were so willing to talk and listen to Steven! That’s preposterous!”

“They sure weren’t in The Trial, or most of Reunited,” I say. “In fact the only reason they’re shown to have changed their mind so quickly is because Steven had a direct personal connection to them, and is that really so unlikely- that these people who have been alive for thousands of years and live at the heart of a densely populated empire would actually have connections with other people, who would not all homogeneously believe the same thing? That they could meet and interact with others who might change their opinions even slightly?”

And even then both Blue and Yellow try to talk Steven out of actually trying to say anything to White. And Steven literally points out why he’s doing this: because they tried fighting White, they tried fleeing White, and none of that worked. It failed to meaningfully change anything. And forcing change through by murdering White and standing on her corpse would just repeat the doomed rebellion because the staged murder of Pink Diamond just entrenched more people against the Crystal Gems.

Steven literally criticizes the refusal to attempt any form of negotiation as impractical. Because it is. The only reason people genuinely think violence as a narrative cure-all works is because we are basically raised in narratives- even narratives that are otherwise optimistic, friendly, and colorful- where the only solution is murder.