#i do also find the mere fact that he has a podcast to be a bit funny. this man is 58

[faggotry-enjoyer]

Starting a thread for mildly amusing quotes from my rabbi.

On other streams of Judaism:

"Reform has a lot of social justice elements, which I personally don't need to be part of my religion. Like I don't need a Black Lives Matter sermon on Rosh Hashanah. Then again, I've given a Black Lives Matter sermon on Rosh Hashanah."

"The orthodox are good at many things, but they're not very good at being right."

[sage-nebula]

WatcherTV Debrief

I said I was going to write down all of my thoughts yesterday, but I was simply too tired after work. So I'm going to do so now, in a post that is likely going to be very long, but hopefully will still be worth the read for some of you anyway.

TL;DR: I believe this is a very poor decision on Watcher Entertainment's part and it is at the very least going to cost them a huge swath of their fanbase, if not their entire company in the long run. And at this point in time, I myself will not be subscribing.

With that said though, I don't want this post to merely be a rant about how much I dislike the decision, so I'm going to start off by looking at things from their perspective and explaining why, although some people in the fanbase might feel betrayed, none of the three (yes, three, because Steven, Ryan, and Shane were all equal parts of this decision) personally betrayed anyone in the fandom. If you're still angry, I understand that seeing what might seem like a "defense" might be upsetting, but again, I hope you'll find some value in it regardless.

All of that said, that plus my extensive criticism of this decision is going to be long, so let's go beneath a cut.

First, let us state the obvious: Watcher Entertainment is a media company -- a business -- and Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara, and Steven Lim are not your friends. They are business owners first, and media producers + actors second.

I italicized actors to draw attention to it, because this is something that I think gets . . . not forgotten, per se, but pushed aside in people's minds when they consume video content online, particularly when that video content is on YouTube, which originally began as a point and shoot video upload website that was meant to give anyone and everyone the ability to upload their vlogs or silly little videos. The term "parasocial relationships" is one that has proliferated across the internet, but I think the issue here -- with Shane and Ryan in particular -- is not only that people are thinking of them as "friends," but also that they are thinking, "These are their authentic selves, this is who they really are, I know them." And the fact of the matter is, that isn't true. Shane and Ryan are actors. What we see in their videos isn't their authentic selves. We don't know them.

Now, that isn't to say that it's all a lie. It isn't quite the same as, say, Ryan Gosling or Leo DiCaprio playing a role in a film. But every internet celebrity (and that is what they are at this point) presents themselves in a particular way to their audience. Even in the Pod Watcher podcast, where ostensibly they're having Just Friendly Conversations About Whatever's On Their Minds, they're mindful of the fact that their audience is listening, their audience is judging, their audience is making gifs and fanart of moments they like. They're acting. They're playing up personas to keep fans engaged, to keep fans coming back for more.

So Shane and Ryan (and Steven, when he can be) are actors. You don't know their true authentic selves, and you never have. Anything they say has to be taken with a grain of salt, because they are saying what they want you to hear. Even their live shows are rehearsed. And what this means -- that they only show you what they want to show you -- is that they did not betray you, because they couldn't betray you. They don't know you, just like you don't know them. Betrayal is not possible here.

To that end, Watcher Entertainment is a media company -- in other words, a business. And businesses must generate not only revenue, but profit in order to stay afloat. Now, I don't know what Watcher's financial books look like right now. I have seen people throwing around a lot of numbers about what they have to make from Patreon, from ticket and merchandise sales, et cetera, but without looking at the expense reports, the bank statements, and the budget sheets, it's difficult for any of us to say just what state Watcher is in financially. We can guess, but that's the best we can do.

That said though, we don't have to guess to know the very basic principle of running a business. A business has to, at the bare minimum, break even. Ideally, the business would profit, so that they can not only do things like pay their employees fairly, but also so that they can expand and grow. Any business requires money in order to make product, whether that product is food, an item that you can purchase, or entertainment media that you consume as a viewer. As nice as it would be if Watcher could make their content without needing money to do so, they can't. Even independent YouTubers, including video essayists and Let's Players, require money to make their content. The equipment, in both purchasing and upkeep, requires money. The games (for Let's Players) require money. Internet and electricity bills, food, books needed for research, props, et cetera -- all of that requires money. No matter how simple a video may look, it still requires money to make. There is a reason that most people aren't able to make YouTube a full time job, and it isn't because they aren't talented; it's because it is a deceptively expensive venture to get into.

So with that said, even without knowing Watcher's current financial situation, it does make sense that they need money to run their business, purely from a "businesses need money" standpoint. This is common sense. This is why things like Watcher selling merchandise, having sponsored ads, having a Patreon, et cetera always made sense. And it is possible, too, that even if their present financial situation is okay, that they are thinking about the future, and costs they are likely to be incurring within the next year.

I don't know how many people within the fanbase listen to their podcast, Pod Watcher, but I do. A few episodes ago, Steven revealed that he wants to open a Malaysian restaurant within the next year. This is his dream, to bring Malaysian culture to the United States with food. This is an amazing dream for him, it's wonderful for him, I wish him success in this venture.

However, running a restaurant -- and not only running one, but building one from the ground up and running it -- takes an astronomical amount of time and energy. This is time and energy that Steven is currently expending keeping Watcher Entertainment afloat as the sole person in charge of managing their financials. (He has the official title of CEO, with Shane and Ryan having stepped away from that title In Name Only to focus on production, but the job that Steven is actually doing is CFO -- Chief Financial Officer.) So when Steven announced that he was going to be opening a restaurant within the next year, what I heard was, "Oh, Steven is leaving Watcher within the next year." This is supported, in my opinion, by Steven saying things like how Shane and Ryan will get free drinks whenever they visit, and then hastily tacking on fans can have it, too. He was trying not to show that he was leaving just yet to the fanbase, but the writing is on the wall and they all know it.

What this means is that when Steven leaves, they will need to find someone to replace him. Either Shane and/or Ryan will need to step away from producing and acting in their shows to take over CFO duties (which the reason why they stepped away is because they handled CFO duties poorly while Steven was better equipped for it, so I doubt either of them would like to do this), or they will need to hire someone to do that for them. The lowest CFO salary in LA I can find is $140k/year, and that isn't including benefits. Since Steven helped found the company, it's doubtful he's making that much, but his replacement won't be a founder and will likely want competitive compensation. There is a good chance that, considering this, Shane, Ryan, and Steven feel pressured to bring in a lot more money than they're currently doing right now.

And I understand all of that. I have supported them where I can; yesterday I literally wore my $80+ Mystery Files jacket to work, which felt a bit bitter after the news broke and I realized I wouldn't be able to watch future seasons of said show. I overpaid for a denim jacket because I wanted to support them. It's not as if I don't understand.

However . . . here is where the criticism begins.

To begin with, there is an old saying: you have to spend money to make money. To go back to my previous statements about how even smaller scale YouTubers spend money to keep producing videos to keep their channels afloat, what this saying means is that if you aren't going to put any money into your business or product, you aren't going to have a business or product to generate any revenue. However, some young business owners take this to the extreme, and figure that if they pump tons and tons and tons of cash into their business at the start, it will start to generate revenue more quickly. What ends up happening is that they overspend, sometimes even despite their best efforts not to, and end up not being able to claw their way back out of the red in the end.

Unfortunately, that is what I think that Watcher is doing with their new streamer.

Let's be clear: There have been valid criticisms about how they seemingly over-budget on shows that don't need to have such high production values or budget. Someone mentioned that their Let's Play show (I don't watch that one because horror games are uninteresting to me, so I don't remember the name) credits something akin to 26 people, which is silly when you consider the fact that there are independent Let's Players who are able to produce content themselves. Of course, you have to remember that the LPers on YouTube are editing their own videos, which Ryan and Shane probably aren't able to do -- but even then, that would be one or perhaps two additional editors. The number of people they have working on that particular venture does seem excessive.

With that said though, those 26 people were already employed and being paid, so having them work on the Let's Play show was likely not a new business expense. The streamer, however, is a completely different story.

First, they had to have paid likely multiple people to build the WatcherTV streaming website for them. Granted, I could be wrong since I have never used Squarespace, but I find it difficult to believe this is something Squarespace would be capable of handling. So unless they already had experienced programmers on their staff, they would have had to hire programmers to build the streaming website. They would also need to pay for hosting the streaming website, which includes not only the domain, but server space for all of their videos, and videos take up a lot of space. Previously, YouTube hosted all of their videos. Now? That needs to be on Watcher, and server space and maintenance is not cheap.

So they are paying for programmers, domain name, server space, server maintenance. They are also going to need to pay for security. Not only do they need to be concerned about any potential DDoS attempts, but more importantly they need security to ensure that they can't suffer a data breach and lose the credit card information of their subscribers, something which happens all the time to other companies. Now you may say, if it happens all the time and those companies are fine, Watcher will be too, right? Well, does Watcher have lawyers on retainer? Because litigation can be raised against companies with insufficient website security that puts customers' financial information at risk, which means Watcher could find themselves facing a lawsuit if their streamer is hacked and credit card information is stolen.

So they will need to pay for systems administrators to not only build security for the streamer, but also maintain security for the streamer, because cyber attacks evolve each day and it is a constant battle against them. It is possible that whatever third party they partnered with to build the streamer for them bundled all this together (if that is the route they went), but either way, services like that do not come cheap -- and if they do, you are not getting a service of value.

So what this comes down to is that Watcher Entertainment has likely spent a ton of money they allegedly do not have to build this streamer, taking the "you have to spend money to make money" adage to the extreme. Their hope, near as I can tell, is that they will generate enough revenue from the streamer so that they will be able to recoup the cost of building and maintaining the streamer and generate profit. However, judging by the reaction from the fandom, I think that is unlikely.

As everyone knows, the reaction to this news has been abysmal. While some of the responses toward Steven and Ryan in particular have been racist vomit, I do think there are valid reasons for why this news has been received so poorly. These reasons include:

Watcher built hype for a week, with a countdown timer and everything, teasing an announcement as if it were a new show or similar "gift" to the fandom, when in reality it was the news that the fandom would now have to pay for content that was previously free.

Patreon subscribers are expected to continue paying the same amount, but for far less content than before. Access to the streamer is not included in the basic tier; they'll need to double their cash output.

Many fans are international fans who can't access the streamer at all without a VPN to switch their location to the United States. Even if they want to pay, they are barred from doing so, meaning that Watcher Entertainment is shutting a large portion of its fanbase out for the foreseeable future.

Watcher took a very patronizing tone with their audience in both the announcement video and their Patreon letter. In the announcement video, which was fourteen minutes long when the actual pertinent information took half that time to deliver (if that), they began with a long diatribe about their careers and how much YouTube meant to them, and how sad they were to leave it -- as if they had guns held to their head, and weren't making this decision of their own volition. This is condescending; it implies they believe their audience is stupid enough to believe they were backed into a corner and have no choice. In the Patreon letter, they had a line that read, "And part of that change includes a bit of news that will surely be met with some fits of sobs- we're bringing Watcher Weekly+ to a close. We know. We know." Again, this is patronizing language. They are talking down to their fans, and assuming their fans will be heartbroken by losing a behind scenes the video, or whatever Watcher Weekly+ is. This arrogant, condescending tone does not help soften the blow of being told they are going to pay the same amount of money for less content.

As you can see, the way that Watcher Entertainment executed the announcement that they would be moving future content behind a paywall was abysmal, and the fanbase reacted accordingly. Provided that the anger isn't empty and that the current fanbase sticks true to their word about not subscribing (either out of principle, location, or because they can't afford it), Watcher Entertainment has lost a huge chunk of expected revenue directly out of the gate. And it's possible that they expected this; they had to know they would be shutting out international fans (at least for a time, presumably) and that there would be fans who couldn't afford it. But it's possible that they felt that there would be enough fans to support and subscribe anyway (hence the arrogant tone about people sobbing over losing Watcher Weekly+; that attitude screams of "you're so devoted to us you will do whatever we ask no matter the cost"), and also that they would be able to pick up enough new fans that it would cushion the blow of losing old fans.

Here is where the next problem lies.

Watcher's current subscription model is $5.99/month or $60/year. If you go monthly, you end up paying $72 for the year, so the annual plan is the better deal by $12. When you compare pricing to other streaming services, this may not seem so bad at first; it's on par with DropoutTV, and it's cheaper than Netflix, Disney+, and other big names such as those.

The difference, though, is that all of those other streamers -- DropoutTV included -- have far more content than Watcher does, meaning that the customer (and keep in mind that we are customers, we are not friends, and truly we are not fans when we are paying them money for product from their business) gets more bang for their buck.

I have seen the argument from defenders of the streamer in fandom that say, "So you care about quantity over quality?" And this argument is flawed for several reasons:

There are plenty of quality TV shows on other streaming platforms. DropoutTV has Game Changer. Hulu has Schitt's Creek and Abbot Elementary. Peacock has The Office and Parks & Recreation, so on and so forth. Watcher Entertainment has good shows, but they are not the only good shows in the whole of the media industry. Dare I say, they aren't even the only good shows on YouTube.

While Watcher does produce shows of high quality, their shows have tiny seasons of only six episodes each, and their seasons are spaced out months apart. They also cancel their shows without warning or announcement, meaning fans can wait (and wait, and wait) for a new season of a show they like that will never come, because Watcher dropped the show and didn't bother making official word on it. If you go through Watcher's entire content library (which is easy to do even if you like all their shows, and even easier if you only have a handful of shows you enjoy), then you will be paying for a streamer that you do not use for months on end while you wait for the next batch of six episodes that you maybe want to see if, again, you don't like all of their shows. (I myself only follow five: Puppet History, Mystery Files, Too Many Spirits, Top 5 Beatdown, and Ghost Files.) That is money you have spent on a service you rarely use. In other words: money wasted.

That last point is particularly important when you consider that Watcher Entertainment hopes to draw new customers in to subscribe to their streamer.

Pretend, for a moment, that you have never heard of Ryan, Shane, or Watcher before. You are browsing YouTube, and you come across the season premier of season three of Ghost Files. You enjoy it, so you think, oh, I would like to view the rest of the season. You learn that the rest of the season is on a streaming service called WatcherTV, which only hosts series that Watcher themselves have produced. Their library is very small right now. New episodes for ongoing seasons are weekly, they only have one season airing at a time, new seasons have month long gaps between them. This service costs $60 a year annually, or $6 a month ($72 annually). You've never seen any of their other shows before, and while you could technically afford it, it's not as if money is no object to you. You'd likely have to give up a streamer that has a much, much larger selection of shows and movies you already know you like to give this one a shot. (This one that, mind you, doesn't work outside of your internet browser, so you can't watch it on your television either.)

Would you do it? Really put yourselves in the shoes of someone who has no familiarity at all with Shane, Ryan, Steven, or their shows before that moment. Would you choose to pay $60 for a streamer with low accessibility, and a tiny, infrequently updated library? Especially if it meant losing access to so much more?

It isn't just that numerical value of the price that makes it a bad move. It's the price relative to the product being offered. Watcher's own fans, who love their content, are fiercely divided over whether to subscribe, with many saying they won't. In what universe does someone who has never heard of Watcher sign up to pay them that much for so little offerings? Particularly when they'll only be advertising via YouTube, and infrequently at that given that they'll only be posting season premiers?

(And this is not getting into how they were originally going to pull all of their content before the backlash. Yes, they walked it back -- but not only did they say in the video that the content would only be live until May 31st, but the Variety article says that the company originally told Variety that they would be pulling content, only for Ryan to issue a statement saying they wouldn't do that after. Meaning, they walked that part back because that's the part they could walk back. They have undoubtedly sank far too much money into the streamer to back out of that now. It's way too late.)

Businesses need to make money. Steven, Ryan, and Shane are business owners who are trying to make their business profitable. But I believe that this was one of the worst ways to go about it. I'm not saying that I know exactly what they should have done instead. I don't have all the answers. But I do know that from the terrible execution of getting everyone excited only to tell them (in the most patronizing way possible) that they would now have to pay for a previously free service, to deciding to sink a bunch of money into a streamer that they seem to have done no market research on beforehand and that they don't have the content library to support, this absolutely seems like the wrong way. Moving their content to an existing streamer like Nebula would have been a better move, in my opinion. (And it would have prompted me to actually sign up for Nebula, since there are several video essayists I haven't followed there . . . but I would have followed Watcher, since it would give me access to Watcher content and the content of those video essayists I've been missing.)

But what's done is done. As I said, I think at this point Watcher Entertainment has jumped off the cliff and they didn't do so with a bungee cable. I don't think they can walk this back. I'll be interested in seeing if they succeed, but I have very strong doubts they will.

[jackgoodfellow]

~ King of Winter and Toxic Positivity ~

I've made you all a "motivational" poster! 🥰🥰🥰

" Manifest your dream reality through sheer force of will! Anyone can do it! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps! Be a self-made king! Good things happen to good people! Get in that grindset! The only one standing in the way of your dreams is you! Anyone can do it! Nothing is impossible! Everything happens for a reason! Everything will be fine, so don't worry! You can do whatever you set your mind to! Never give up on anything! Every failure is just an opportunity in disguise! Have you tried yoga?? Have you tried supplements? Would you like to hear about an exciting new business opportunity? It's all part of God's plan! You just gotta stop fearing SUCCESS. Happiness is a choice! Delete negativity! Push every boundary! For winners, limits are merely suggestions! Lean in! Don't take no for an answer!! Anyone can do it!! "

[for those who deal with eyestrain, there's a plain-text version of the above pink and green paragraph of assorted toxic positivity slogans copied down at the bottom of the post.]

Anyway, it turns out the people who are willing to look you in the face and tell you that your oppressive burdens are in fact not that heavy at all... are people that either don't have that same burden, or people who are comfortable forcing someone else to carry it for them. - All while they proudly take the credit.

and also, he's HORRIBLE it's FANTASTIC I love him, 11/10, Evil Gay Bitch Gold Medalist, REALLY puts the MLM into mlm [the "Multi-Level-Marketing" into "man-loving-man"]

❄ ❄ ❄

More context and thoughts, if you're a media analysis nerd:

I am, however, obviously a media analysis JOCK 😅

So, the actual toxic positivity quote that I used in the image was inspired by the commentary made in these two episodes of the excellent anti-fatphobia (and therefore anti-capitalist) podcast "Maintenance Phase".

It's a two-parter on this one piece-of-shit white lady wellness influencer, and the hosts are funny and awesome and the entire catalogue of the podcast matters a lot.

[Sidenote: the episode "Is Being Fat Bad For You?" is VITAL shit. - My main takeaway has been that it's ALWAYS better to be fat than to be fatphobic. Every time.]

But the main point that is relevant here is the way this podcast helps peel back the ugly truth of a broader phenenomen:

In other words, it is notable that the kind of people who say things like "We all have the same 24 hours in a day!" are generally also people who already have the money to pay someone else to clean their house, thus literally giving them more free hours in a day, than say, the people they are paying (or underpaying) to give them that time.

And what stuck with me most from these two episodes is the absolute open disrespect that toxically positive privileged people often have for the very individuals they are relying on for all those extra hours they seem to find in a day.

Because the thing is, most of them absolutely buy their own bullshit. They HAVE to.

In order to justify the way of the world to themselves and ease their guilt over their role in it (while still maintaining all their power), they end up so good at lying to themselves that they see no irony in funding their personal business ventures with money from their wealthy parents and spouses... and then calling themselves "self-made."

Anyone can do it, after all! (There are simply certain things that are best left unsaid! Best not to be rude!) And any kind of shake to this worldview means they might just-- crumble to dust!!

And in my personal experience as a Poor Cripple [TM], those folks are champions at shaming the poor and disabled.

Folks like that might very well might very well force someone else to bear the crushing madness of their golden crown, so that they are free to build a beautiful kingdom of ice and agreeability!

They may see no issue, then, as they oh-so-benevolently relax on their throne, being waited upon and granting gifts to pretty strangers - all while pitying that nothing can be done for their poor disgusting maniac of a neighbor--except, of course, to punish them for the crimes they commit in their weak-willed madness~ 💚🩷

I. FUCKIN'. LOVE THIS SHIT, Y'ALL. GOOD WRITING. HELL YEAH.

[Not shown: the literal 6-page essay I wrote today while trying to explain FULLY and COMPLETELY why The Winter King episode matters so much to me. Turns out, in order to do that, I had to talk about the way casual ableism and classism can easily become extreme ableism and classism--and THAT got dark REAL FAST.

I didn't even finish writing it! I was headed to 8 pages at LEAST (and that's not even including talking about the wonderful artistic craftsmanship of the episode!!) when I realized that people might not reblog this as much if it included AN IN-DEPTH PERSONAL MANIFESTO ABOUT THE GRIM REALITIES OF CAPITALISM AND ABLEISM. So like... maybe that's a separate post lol]

Plain-text version of the colorful paragraph:

Manifest your dream reality through sheer force of will! Anyone can do it! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps! Be a self-made king! Good things happen to good people! Get in that grindset! The only one standing in the way of your dreams is you! Anyone can do it! Nothing is impossible! Everything happens for a reason! Everything will always be fine! You can do anything you set your mind to! Never give up on anything! Every failure is just an opportunity in disguise! Have you tried yoga? You just gotta stop fearing SUCCESS. Happiness is a choice! Delete negativity! Push every boundary! Limits are merely suggestions! Lean in! Don't take no for an answer!! Anyone can do it!!

[pynkgothicka]

Ｔｙｐｅｓ ｏｆ Ｙａｎｄｅｒｅｓ Ｔｈｅ Ｑｕａｒｒｙ Ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｓ Ｗｏｕｌｄ Ｂｅ

Synopsis - Pretty simple, a set of hcs describing The Quarry Characters and their tendencies as Yanderes

Warnings - Acts of violence, Literal murder, gaslighting

Authors Note - me and the quarry game as a whole getting married. Also.... IS DYLAN GAY?!?? I DIDNT WANT TO WRITE FOR HIM CAUSE I WAS UNCERTAIN

A friendly reminder that all my works are dark fanfiction! Please if you do not like that do not read them! This is your final warning before hitting the keep reading button!!

Abigail - Shy

She won't even speak to you at first, literally she waits for you to make the first move

She will still stalk you, that's just a given but she'll never interact with you on her own

Yet when she first does either through you or maybe Emma introducing her to you, she becomes a open book

She'll talk and talk and talk, most of it being a bunch of rambles. But hey it's not common for someone she's been admiring from afar for 2 weeks to finally speak and enjoy being around her.

As for actually hurting or killing people she would never, well intentionally or plan out a murder. But if it's like a spur of the moment thing she gets super ashamed and hides what she's done quick

She can't risk you hating her for something she didn't even know was possible for her to do

However she will never actually take you unless she's forced, even then she'll just let it all he and just have you live with her

Abi will apologize continuously, she craves your validation so please give it to her

Laura - Determined

Once Laura has her sights set on a goal, you, it's hard to steer her away from that goal.

This makes her one of the hardest to get away from, Laura being smart enough to think of every attempt before hand and having something to counteract that attempt

Yet she's also preplanned any possible way for you to trust her again if case things go south.

The more you trust her and her guidance the more things she'll allow for you to do, it's not like she doesn't want you to enjoy your time in the relationship, infact that's all she wants when it comes to you

Laura is the type willing to get her hands dirty over you, killing whoever she sees fit. Sometimes she’ll chose someone very close, make your watch, then torture and then to prove a point, which is always a huge end goal for her.

Her main key is proving a point, the point being that she's right. And that you belong together and always have been.

Ryan - Lovesick

He loves a connection!

As soon as he hits that connection with you he's hooked. Ryan doesn't really talk to people, in fact he was never really good with them in the first place. So whenever you pop into his life out of nowhere hes lovesick and will literally be wrapped around your finger

One thing that benefits him is the fact that he's a tad bit intimidating. He's so intimidating in fact that he just kind of sulks around and

Sharing is caring, only with you though, so he listens to his podcasts with you, sharing his thoughts and how it'd be so cute if you started your own

But as soon as someone messes with you and your relationship he goes ballistic. He will harm someone, not to kill them but he will get his point across

His entire snarky awkward attitude is all a front why would he reveal who he really is when he'd rather hide behind you and be that rock for you to lean on

Max - Obsessed

Imagine how doting his is over Laura upped x100. He's a big goof ball yes but he knows what's his is his

He's super clingy at that, so expect every moment with him to be him cuddling up next to you and feeling up on you

This is way worse whenever he gets infected, turning even more obsessed with the mere idea of you, it's to the point where he constantly smothers you with just how much he loves you

Even if your not a thing he will find some way to be this crucial aspect in your life, by any means possible. It could be he's your quirky next door neighbor in your apartment complex that always invites you over after work, or maybe a returning costumer that comes every day to the small shop you work at

During all these instances he has memorabilia of the event, a bag you gave him or maybe you left your purse and he'd take something unrecognizable like a chapstick. (He will constantly rub it against his lips and claim it's almost like kissing you)

Nicknames galore! Your his whole world and he needs to remind you that always!!

When it comes to killing he actually plans it out to where he's around his target or would lead them into a desolate location to let his werewolf form handle it, god knows he can't

Overall with him it's never bad, it's just tiring at points

Emma - Manipulative

She knows exactly what you want to hear and when you want to hear it

Emma will wind her way into your life slowly making her be seen as the only thing you truly need in this world

Literally she will spread mess with the only goal of it getting back to you therefore pushing you further into her arms, instantly she'd play the sympathy card

Only when times get desperate and she's at an actual risk of losing you will she ever go out of her way to harm anyone.

Without the threat she usually does nothing, tearing your idealization of that person down with just a few words from her lips

But as soon as you find out something happened you go to your best friend and cry on her shoulder, Emma being there to reassure you that everything is alright and safe! If all else fails you could even stay with her until you feel better!!

She's the only one in your corner, your best friend remember!

Kaitlyn - Controlling

She doesn't like you leaving the house or go anywhere without her permission

After what happened at Hackett's Quarry, she can't even think about you getting hurt, especially if you got bit there.

This means controlling the food you eat, limiting your time outside at night, even hooking you up on a full moon just in case

She truly loves you! It's just hard for her to trust the outside world, just about seeing the worst of it

It's to the point to where she hides guns in places all over your shared house

Other than that she's super fun when she's not overreacting, she'll allow people to come over all the time

Nick - Intense

Nick is so intense with his love for you, he will find any and all ways to show that love

He gives compliments like no other, and will constantly flirt with you calling everything you do amazing or even just you in general

That is until he gets bit

Whenever Nick gets bit he like loses it over you and instantly claims what's his, and what's always been his

He's big into pda and if he sees you talking to someone he doesn't like he will go up to you, make out with you and then just lurk behind you, taunting whoever your talking to behind your back

Then immediately after that person leaves he drags you off to where you can be alone, which is definitely a hiding place only he uses and knows

Nick will hurt you, almost never intentionally, he just can't recgonize his strength and goes too far at times in which he will patch you up

Yet he really gets you when he paints himself as this victim and that your one of the few things he can rely on so don't leave him yada yada

So he would trust you to chain him up and to watch over him whenever he turns at times, but on others he takes that as a opportunity to attack others and act as a form of a protector to him

Jacob - Emotional

He puts his all into you and let's his heart lead his actions, you could use him if you really wanted too

After Emma kind of treated him bad he hoped that someone hell anyone would love him the way he loves them

Then he meets you

And God is Jacob in love, someone who lets him be him without any judgement, it's like he's in heaven

So of course he would want to protect that

Most of what makes him a yandere, is that he acts without thinking, and attacks people just merely to protect you

Sometimes it's charming but others it's scary and changes into a completely different person, his carefree and joking attitude turning into a more serious and dark one

But he recognizes he scares you and his emotions change once again and he's back to doting and apologizing to you, but he'll definitely take care of the situation later

He just has more important things to worry about at the current moment

[random-ln-stuff]

Hello! Hi! I am deep diving hard in the little nightmares lore and I think I’ve scrolled though most of your blog now (lol). There are still a few things I’m confused about and can’t seem to find…

The north wind, What is it? What powers does it have? Why is it so strong?

The lords, who are they? Do they govern this wrapped world? Do they ever convene with one another?

The eye, is it one big eye? Or is it a realm beyond the no where? Does it control all the other eyes that we see in the games?

If this is too much feel free to ignore it! Sorry to ask so much stuff (I am genuinely trying to make sense of it all) ps. I absolutely adore everything you have in this blog!!

Reading this made me realize that there’s a couple things i just haven’t explained anywhere.

The following is a mix of headcanons and actual (vague) lore.

1: The North Wind.

The North Wind is a monster found in one of the two official Little Nightmares Comics.

In the story, the North Wind is a formless entity, being the wind itself, although he is shown to be capable of making himself a humanoid shaped body deep within the storm that he is, probably forming the shape of a person using dust and debris he’s picked up.

He’s shown making a wager with the Ferryman (which I now believe is “who can pull this child fully into the Nowhere first” or something similar) and given how he calls the Ferryman a Cheat, he’s probably done a similar thing with him many times before.

He’s also one of 3 entities that acknowledges the Ferryman’s existence, the other two being The Mall from the podcast, who recognizes the Ferryman and begs him not to take Noone, and the Lady, who the Ferryman works for.

Besides his ability to literally strip things to the bone with nothing but wind and his own control over it, the mere fact that the North Wind can both casually wager with the Ferryman and the fact the the Ferryman often needs to cheat to win against him shows that the North Wind is equally as powerful or at least very close in power to the Ferryman (and also the Lady).

As for WHY the North Wind is so powerful, I think it’s because of the same reason that the Ferryman is so powerful, but I’ll get into that in a bit.

2: Lords.

First off: All inhabited areas of Nowhere have some sort of Vice or Obsession related to it. A thing that most, if not all of the inhabitants are obsessed with. The Pale City had Escapism and TVs, wherever Guests come from (and by extension the Maw, which is a restaurant that serves these people, not their original home) has food and hunger, etc.

(The Nest is an exception. It doesn’t have any sort of Vice because it’s only inhabited by three people, not counting the Lady whenever she presumably stays there, and doesn’t have the population or resources or anything to sustain any kind of obsession. Sure the Pretender has her dolls, but that’s more of a “spoil this kid rotten” thing than an addiction)

A Lord is basically just my word for “Any creature that controls a given area or vice of the Nowhere”. Meaning The Lady, The Broadcaster (not the Thin Man, but a separate being. I got a whole theory post on that), and if you take the Podcast into account, The Chained Woman, Living Mall and Ventriloquist. Along with any other rulers of the Nowhere we haven’t seen yet or even will never see.

Also included in this list are The North Wind, Ferryman and Signal Tower Flesh Walls. They don’t truly control any real areas (unless you count the North Wind tearing his way through the wilderness) but their power and influence is too great to really ignore, especially since out of the three of them, two work directly together with other Lords in ways that other minions simply can’t. The Ferryman works for the Lady alongside dragging kids into Nowhere to begin with, bringing them to either the Maw or the Nest depending on what the Lady needs. The Flesh Walls aid the Broadcaster in his control over the Pale City, helping spread the Transmission by literally being the Transmission Tower. I’d even argue that for the Ferryman and Flesh Walls, helping the Lady and Broadcaster respectively is more of a beneficial partnership than working under them, especially for the Flesh Walls.

Lords are also the entities that can pull children into the Nowhere, although some do it far more than others and as such are more experienced. For example: The Ferryman, North Wind, Living Mall and Flesh Walls.

(Also while I’m on the topic, I fully believe that Noone’s dream in Ep 3 of the Podcast is essentially an unplanned, forced detour for Noone’s Nowhere Tour, with the Living Mall being the thing that pulls her in this time instead of the Ferryman, which is why the Ferryman ends up taking her away from the Mall at the end instead of just letting her do whatever until she wakes up again. This would explain not only why the Ferryman actually helped Noone during her escape from the Mall, pointing at her necklace and gesturing for her to take it off before offering Noone his hand to escape (which brings to mind the North Wind comic, where the Ferryman does the exact same gesture to the Refugee Boy to take him away from the North Wind), an action we never him do before or after episode 3 when Noone is in danger, but also why the Mall got incredibly distressed and angry at the Ferryman when he showed up. The Mall pulled Noone in themselves this time, and the Ferryman had to show up to make sure his target didn’t get caught by different Lord before he could take her.)

Lords are the most powerful creatures found in the Nowhere, often possessing incredible power and uniquely, more humanlike intelligence and qualities. Adults in the Nowhere are more often than not mindless child killers who simply do their job or keep up with their obsession or vice (the Teacher teaching, the Hunter hunting, Viewers being addicted to the Transmission, etc) and completely LOSE IT when they see a child, gunning straight for it with the intent to kill unless something even more important (usually Obsession related) happens to stop them. It’s shown that some non-Lords can resist these child-killing urges with some practice like the Thin Man refusing to actually harm Six when he grabs her (although he did still leave Six to be corrupted in the Tower) and the Butler being able to look after the Pretender, who is a child, but this seems to be the exception. Especially since in all cases of this happening, there’s a reason for it. The Thin Man can still recognize Six, The Butler doesn’t harm the Pretender because she’s the Lady’s daughter, who the Butler works for and fears for VERY good reason, the Hunter didn’t kill Six immediately because he wanted to either cook or taxidermy her at a later date, etc

Meanwhile Lords have been seen completely ignoring any sort of child killing urge or compulsion easily. The Lady looked after anywhere from 2 to 6 children and is the one that trained the Butler to not attack her children in the first place, the Living Mall is extremely possessive, but doesn’t appear to have any real intentions of harming Noone, just wanting to keep her happy so she won’t leave them to be alone again and even begs her not to go further into the Nowhere for her own safety and even the Ferryman, despite his constant kidnapping of children in and out of Nowhere, never resorts to outright harming them or chasing them down like a wild animal like some other adults.

The Ferryman especially is a good example of this. Instead of chasing and snatching up any child he sees or mindlessly chasing one no matter the cost or killing them immediately upon capture, the Ferryman usually manipulates kids into giving themselves up nonviolently and is extremely persistent in doing so, stalking targets for YEARS if he has to in order to manipulate them or to wait for them to get into a position to be manipulated. He does tie up Six when bringing her to the Maw, but even prior to that he doesn’t chase Six down or harm her in order to capture her. He simply finds Six and points at her, causing every adult nearby to also point and make noises at her (possibly showing that the Ferryman has some sort of control or commanding power over Adults, just like some other lords we see), which overwhelms Six to the extent that she just curls up and tries to block out the noise, and after that the Ferryman presumably just walked over and took her without resistance, avoiding any sort of chase or fight entirely.

This isn’t to say that Lords won’t attack children or will treat them with any sort of kindness, the Lady will kill any intruders she can find and the North Wind seems to seriously enjoy killing things, making a whole game out of it with the Ferryman, but what I’m saying is that they’re able to resist those natural child-killing instincts if they ever want or need to. If a Lord kills a child, it’s because they want to, not because they need to. And boy do they often want to.

They’re also noticeably more aware and intelligent than typical adults. For the best example of this, compare the Maw and Signal Tower to any other adult in complexity.

Every year at the same time, but never in the same place, the Maw shows up, brings guests aboard and lets them eat endless amounts of delicious food and meat, only to later kill all of the guests aboard to feed the Lady with their souls.

The Signal Tower keeps producing the Signal by using a time loop. The loop is initially set up when the Broadcaster finds Mono, a child with signal powers, and attacks the Pale City Orphanage that he’s living in. The two meet, something we don’t get to see happens and Mono ends up in the forest outside the city, most likely coming out of one of the TVs there. Then Mono meets Six and the two journey through the Pale City. The actual loop begins when Mono releases the Thin Man, who kidnaps Six (and removes her soul by doing so). Mono then kills the Thin Man, and enters the Tower, only for a soulless Six to leave him there. Mono is then used as a living battery to create the transmission until he’s too old to be useful, at which point Mono (now The Thin Man) is released from the tower by his past self and is then eventually killed by his past self, who goes on to become trapped in the tower and so on infinitely.

All of these things are not only complicated (Especially the Loop), but when compared to other adults, even adults with Jobs like the Teacher and Doctor, have something that other adults don’t: A Purpose and Ultimate Goal.

The Teacher endlessly teaches fake students that can’t grow, change, learn or ever leave the school. She will do that forever simply because she is a Teacher and Teachers teach. The Doctor endlessly preforms surgeries on patients that never leave, simply waiting in the hospital to go through it all again, once again, simply because the Doctor is a Doctor and that’s what doctors do. The Hunter hunts and taxidermies because he’s a hunter, end of story. These adults CAN do things other than their jobs if they want to, like the Teacher playing the Piano in her free time and even writing and editing her own piece, but in the end they’re stuck endlessly doing their jobs for no real reason, with no end goal, simply because that is what they do.

But the Lady and Broadcaster are different. For example: The Maw’s whole thing isn’t something the Lady does just because she’s The Owner or The Host of the Maw and that’s what she does, she does it to keep herself alive, maintaining the whole thing as a way to guarantee a steady supply of souls to keep herself going year after year. In fact: The Lady didn’t originally run the Maw. She forcibly took it over from the previous owner (The Granny). In other words: The Lady planned out everything with the Maw. She took over because she wanted to use it as a guest trap and continues to use it as so. There’s also the Lady’s connections to the Nest, showing that the Lady can just straight up stop the Maw stuff in its entirety for a while and do whatever the hell she wants at the Nest, not to mention her own collection of books and spells deeper in her personal quarters, further abandoning any semblance of “I run the Maw because I am it’s owner and therefore it is my purpose”. The Lady runs the Maw and keeps track of all her employees because she wants to (use it to become immortal), not because it’s her only true purpose in life.

Her name actually somewhat reflects this. Instead of a job title or something similar, her name is simply “The Lady”. “The Lady of the Maw” for long. It’s just a description of her. Not a job title. Because the Lady does what she wants and doesn’t have a preset job-related purpose. The Broadcaster can also technically be used here as well, because The Broadcaster isn’t actually his name. We don’t know his name. He’s simply a second Thin Man that you can find if you search through the Lore enough. I just call him the Broadcaster because that was the Thin Man’s original name when LN2 had just recently been announced.

(The Thin Man also has a non-job-related name and isn’t a lord, but that’s because he doesn’t actually have a job to define him with. He’s a living battery for the signal tower, nothing more and nothing less.)

Point is, Lords are way more intelligent than the typical adult, and are able to think in ways that regular adults simply can’t.

Also (and this one is a pure headcanon with little canon evidence): Lords have the unique ability to speak in a language that both Children and Adults understand, when normally Children and Adults simply can’t understand each other. The only other creatures that can do this are The Butler, a Non-Lord Adult who can speak Child thanks to the Lady, The Pretender, a child that can speak Adult also thanks to the Lady, and Children that are still in the process of being dragged into the Nowhere, like Noone being able to hear and understand an adult shopkeeper.

Lords can be aware of each other, interact and even work together, as seen with both the Lady and The Ferryman working together either with the Ferryman working underneath the Lady or both on an equal partnership (it’s hard to say given how powerful the Ferryman is and how we don’t know what he’s getting out of this partnership) and the Broadcaster and Flesh Walls working together to create the Transmission, the Loop and everything else that keeps the Pale City the way it is. It really just depends on how close their respective domains are.

In fact: we know two Lords who are either rivals or outright enemies: The Lady and The Broadcaster (once again, a separate entity from the Thin Man, although they look nearly identical).

In Little Nightmares 2, you can find an apartment that used to belong to the Lady, implying that she used to live in the Pale City.

It even has a picture of her (Masked, implying that she had her powers long before coming to the Maw, throwing a massive wrench into the Cycle Of Ladies theory) and one of her ceramic statues. The Glitching Remain found near it might even be the shadow-lifeforce-soul-stuff that the Lady stores inside those things, having leaked out and gotten ensnared by the Transmission.

Given the state of the Pale City and how the Lady now views the mainland as “Chaos”, it’s pretty clear that the Lady lived in the Pale City before the Broadcaster and Signal Tower showed up, and the Lady left once the Transmission started up.

Then in the Nest, we have the Lady locking up a TV in a heavy duty room while suspending it in the air (presumably so nothing can come through and if something does, the TV will fall and break, preventing them from escaping).

Combine that with the Broadcaster’s failed attempt to enter the Maw through a TV in the Post-Credits of Secrets Of The Maw and one of the Pretender’s drawings depicting the Broadcaster, and it’s very possible that the Lady did this in response to the Broadcaster trying to enter the Nest through that specific TV. To prevent him from taking her daughter. It would certainly explain why that TV was rigged to be one way. If the Broadcaster were to come through, the TV would fall, preventing the Broadcaster from escaping with a kidnapped Pretender.

It’s not the only TV in the Nest, as the Pretender does have one of her own, but there’s also a possibility that this specific TV is special somehow. Maybe it’s the only one in the Nest that can access live TV and signals, with the Pretender’s TV only being able to play pre-recorded stuff.

Final point is, both the Lady and the Broadcaster seem to despise each other, with the Lady leaving the Pale City once he showed up and the Broadcaster making multiple attempts to enter the Maw and Nest, most likely with the intention of harming the Lady and/or the Pretender.

As for how Lords are made, I headcanon that there’s two ways. A Deal with The Eye or being Made By It.

For the second opinion you have The Ferryman, North Wind, Signal Tower and Living Mall. They were just straight up created by the Eye. They aren’t the only ones either, as other Lords like them still have the capability to exist out there in the Nowhere. These are just the Lords we’ve seen.

As for why I believe these guys were created by the Lord, just look at them and what they’re capable of.

The Ferryman is described as a otherworldly figure with a face resembling melting wax (fun fact: that exact description is used in the podcast and is a reference to the Cut Character The Wax Bellman, who was confirmed out of universe to be an older beta version of what would later become the Ferryman.), who can shapeshift, teleport, speaks entirely in riddles and is shown to have direct connections to EXTREMELY powerful creatures, not to mention that Otto identifies him as “The guardian at the threshold. A mythic entity who’s appeared in the stories of innumerable cultures.”

The North Wind is a formless entity that is the Wind, is on par with the Ferryman in power and out of universe, The North Wind is often a character in legends and stories of various cultures, just like how Otto describes the Ferryman.

The Signal Tower and Living Mall are so similar that I first they were the same character. They’re giant masses of flesh covered in eyes that can mimic entire buildings. The eyes alone should give these things off.

Coincidentally (or not), these four specific lords are the ones who are better at invading people’s dreams and accessing Our World, with the Ferryman in particular being so adept at it that Otto initially believes him to be The “guardian at the threshold” of the Nowhere. In reality, all Lords we see can access our world through dreams, and it turns out that Eye-Created Lords are just naturally better at it. The Ferryman isn’t THE guardian at the threshold that Otto is looking for, but A guardian at the threshold. A Lord. One of many.

For the others like The Lady, Broadcaster and most of the Podcast Lords, they started out as regular adults.

Now it’s important to note that Regular Adults, despite being bound to that singular purpose or job, can do things outside of it and have unrelated things on the side, like the Teacher playing and composing on the piano in her free time.

For many, this is where it starts, with an adult using that Free Time and stuff on the side in very specific ways. They start researching the world they inhabit and how it works, the Nowhere, Magic, The Eye, and it all eventually culminates in them somehow getting the attention of the Eye itself, and making a deal with it. Either that or the Adult comes into close contact with another Lord, who ends up bringing the Eye’s attention to the adult for them.

The deal is all the benefits that lords have over regular adults (plus whatever is unique to them, like the Lady’s shadow magic and the Broadcaster’s signal powers) in exchange for… something. We don’t know exactly what, but this something is generally assumed to be souls. Many souls. For example, the Viewers of the Pale City are eventually consumed by the Televisions they watch, leaving behind only their clothes. It’s assumed that their souls are claimed by the Eye through this, the Eye getting any and all souls that the transmission ensnares and drags into itself.

Speaking of which….

The All Seeing Eye:

To my understanding and theorizing, the Little Nightmares Universe looks like this:

You have Reality as we know it, The Threshold between Reality and Nowhere, Nowhere itself, an unknown space that most likely just contains another threshold, this time between the Nowhere and the Nightmare World and the Nightmare World itself, which I also call the Eye’s Domain.

The Eye is a cosmic horror-esque eldritch monstrosity. Simple as that. It is the ruler and sole inhabitant of its domain, the Nightmare World. The Eye’s Domain essentially stands opposite to ours in a cosmic sense, and the Nowhere is created where both of these very different worlds overlap ever so slightly.

Also in a very disturbing twist, the Nowhere is actually essentially the universe’s DEFAULT STATE, or at least is as close as to you can get to it, and at some point in the incomprehensibly distant past (most likely during or even before the literal Big Bang), it separated into the stable, orderly “reality” where we live and exist and the horrifying chaotic eldritch nightmare world where the Eye exists.

We know this thanks to the Ferryman’s words: “Two flows from one, and here, is whole again”. In other words, there used to be one world, but then they separated into two, and in the Nowhere, both worlds meet again.

This also means that the Eye most likely predates the entire universe as we know it. In fact, I’d compare it to this bit of Adventure Time Lore:

The Eye’s Realm is literally just Eldritch madness the mortal mind can’t comprehend. Pure chaos with the Eye being omnipresent, all seeing and in full control of everything that happens in there. But the Nowhere is different. It’s not created by the Eye, at least not on purpose. The Nowhere is a space between spaces, where our reality meets the Eye’s nightmarish hellscape, and the end result is the Nowhere, where things make JUST enough sense to be comprehensible while also being filled with the Eye’s nightmares and corruption.

The Eye can see into the Nowhere and is almost always watching almost everywhere at once, but can’t truly interact with anything outside its domain like the Nowhere or Our World (thank god), but it can use other methods to influence things, like it’s various Lords. The massive amount of Eyes seen all over the franchise are less a thing the Eye looks through and more just a sign of Its Presence. It can’t show up physically, but the Eye symbols are a sign that it’s here and watching regardless.

However, despite the Eye being unable to physically appear in the Nowhere, we’ve seen it. In Episode 6 of the Podcast.

In episode 6, Noone is brought to the Threshold, the final barrier between the Real World and Nowhere, where crossing it will trap you forever. The Threshold (or at least Our side of it) is described as Extremely Dark, filled with black mist that makes it extremely hard to see, and contains a single wooden door simply described as “Ancient” with a symbol of the Eye on it. But after Noone crosses through the door and sees the Nowhere side of the Threshold, it’s different.

The Mist vanishes, and Noone sees countless stars that fill the sky with a red moon, but quickly realizes that those aren’t stars, they’re Eyes. Even the Red Moon is just a Massive, Red Eye. That is our description of the Eye itself.

The Eye can’t enter the Nowhere or Our World, but seems to be fully capable of existing within that border space between the realms, although it’s power is somewhat limited here compared to in its own domain.

Or maybe you can just see into the other realms from the Threshold. The Nowhere is compared to a one-way mirror at some point. Earth is on the mirrored side, and can’t look into the Nowhere, while the Nowhere can look at us. Presumably, the Nightmare Realm follows the same idea. From inside the Nightmare Realm, you can’t see the Nowhere either. You are on the mirrored side of a one way mirror. But from the Threshold, and more specifically the part of the Threshold that’s closer to the Nowhere? You are on the side of the mirror that lets you look straight through it, and with Noone being in-between Reality, The Nowhere AND the Nightmare World, she might have be able to look straight at the Eye in its domain, looking at it through the one-way mirror that is reality.

Anyways, That description of Countless Glowing Eyes matching the amount of stars in the sky with a single massive Red Eye surrounded by rings in the centre is the closest we can come to understanding what the Eye looks like. It’s the most complicated form it can take that we as human beings can still comprehend without going insane.

But there’s more. In episode 5, Otto attempts to use a machine to see into Noone’s dreams, but is stopped at the dark mist of the Threshold. He watches as a single eye appears from the darkness, and then it opens, staring at Otto with such intensity that he’s physically in pain from it, barely able to choke out words as he rambles that “it’s watching me” until the machine he’s using completely breaks down.

In other words, Otto tried to stare into the abyss that is Nowhere, but the Eye cut him off and stared right back.

Also also: Otto’s reaction to the Eye staring at him plus the sound it makes as it does so reminds me exactly of the Sentry Eyes used in the Maw and Nest that turn people caught in its gaze to stone. There’s also the unused TV Eyes from LN2 that do the same thing and it looks like the Mechanical Monster Baby in LN3 can do the same thing with it’s own eyes. This leads me to believe that many Lords directly draw upon the Eye for magical power, and Sentry Eyes (and the Eye Cameras in the Maw) use raw power taken straight from the Eye to power themselves.

Also as pure headcanon: In my headcanon post about some children being native to the Nowhere and some being from Earth, I mentioned two things:

Children that are visiting Nowhere as they sleep (like Noone) but haven’t been fully pulled in yet will disappear from Nowhere and go back to Earth if they die in the Nowhere, Fall Asleep in the Nowhere, or “go unobserved for too long”.

Children will naturally appear in the Nowhere (basically spawn in like Minecraft Mobs) in any area that is completely unobserved.

For both of these things, I’m not just talking about going unobserved by others, but also by the Eye.

The Eye, despite being present almost everywhere in the Nowhere and having a reputation as being all-seeing, is not perfect. Occasionally, a tiny gap will appear in its all-seeing sight, and when it can’t see a spot, Children, one of the only things immune to its corrupting, nightmarish presence, have a chance to appear in that unobserved spot.

[reel-fear]

Love as a construct rambling below bc Im thinking so fucking hard abt it rn

one of my favorite bits ever since I read the fic as a kid who has just played portal 2 in elementry [yes I've loved it for that long, I still remember looking up GLaDOS x Wheately on my first shitty little windows computer when I stumbled upon it haha and man did I love it] was the one where Rick shows up, both bc its hilarious and very fun but also because it's just... It's such a delight. Everything about it. I've got so many lines from this fic outright memorized bc of how often I read it. If all fics were suddenly wiped one day this is the fic I would desperately try to keep archived no matter what.

ANYWAYS THO THE RICK CHAPTERS, not only hilarious but a great dissection of Wheatley's character and his true love for GLaDOS. The way his character contrasts with Rick is soooo well explored and in mere words is put out so plainly and well in character. Having Rick go full out Alpha Male Podcaster in this chapter was a great way to show just how well intentioned Wheatley always is. Rick speaks of trying to bed GLaDOS and who Wheatley is a little idiot who will never Get anything out of his relationship with her leaves Wheately baffled and confused. Because he's not in this relationship to try and wrangle something out of GLaDOS, Rick is projecting and Wheatley can't even seem to understand how or why Rick would view GLaDOS almost like an object for him to own.

It baffles and terrifies him. How could someone ever view the amazing, complex, powerful and beautiful GLaDOS like that? The way he starts to view Rick for the weirdo hunter/predator he is also shows Wheatley's intelligence, which is ironic but regardless. He might be stupid but he knows GLaDOS deserves better than that and that the way Rick thinks of and talks about her is demeaning.

But specifically these lines in particular.

everything about it potrays Wheatley so in character, the way his thoughts are so scattered, he gets off topic so quickly in a way that only makes sense in his brain. Me and Roddy have talked at length about how in this fic GLaDOS and Wheatley easily potray neurodivergence and Wheatley in particular has a very frantic fast and panicked mind. He screams ADHD or Autism mixed with an anxiety disorder to me. The way he thinks, the way he tries to talk it reminds me a lot of myself. Even if generally I find GLaDOS the most relatable character here.

Hell Wheatley after this thinks of how strange it would sound to tell GLaDOS he was visualizing her as a butterfly. Her brain just doesn't work the same way his does.

Not to mention it shows one of the best things about Wheatley's inner conflict here, how does he protect someone he views as so much more powerful than he is? He can't just disregard the idea of protecting her. Even if it doesn't make sense logically. He wants to protect her more than anything in the world, she might not need that protecting, he might not be able to do it, but those facts don't matter to him. His love for GLaDOS overpowers everything.

When Rick implies GLaDOS made a mistake Wheatley tells him bluntly GLaDOS Doesn't make mistakes, even when she herself has admitted it to him that she's not perfect. Wheatley just thinks the world of her and while Rick passively demeans her Wheatley sings her praises.

When Rick shoves him his instinct is to shove back but his second thought, what would GLaDOS want? This is the thing that makes Wheatley not like Rick, even in this part where Wheatley can be read as somewhat protective and possessive, this thought in particular shuts down the idea Wheatley would ever let such things overide GLaDOS' desires. He wants to protect her and keep her close to him, that's his first thought but his second? What does She want? What would She do?

THIS, is what makes Wheatley different than Rick. Wheatley doesn't want to warn GLaDOS about Rick so she won't hang out with other men or so she won't fall in love with them. He doesn't want her to do those things of course, but most of all he wants her to be able to make an informed decision about what she is doing. If Rick and her did get together, he wanted there to be no deception, no tricks or manipulation. That's what he wants for GLaDOS that's how he protects her.

It's not about keeping her to himself, it's about knowing if he lets go... She'll still be okay and happy.

[mere-christianity]

Mere Christianity Podcast: Episode 6

Book 2: What Christian's Believe.

Chapter 5. The Practical Conclusion

The perfect surrender and humiliation were undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man. Now the Christian belief is that if we somehow share the humility and suffering of Christ we shall also share in His conquest for death and find a new life after we have died and in it become perfect, and perfectly happy, creatures. This means something much more than our trying to follow His teaching.

People often ask when the next step in evolution-the step to something beyond man-will happen. But on the Christian view, it has happened already. In Christ a new kind of man appeared: and the new kind of life which began in Him is to be put into us. How is this to be done? Now, please remember how we acquired the old, ordinary kind of life. We derived it from others, from our father and mother and all our ancestors, without our consent-and by a very curious process, involving pleasure, pain, and danger. A process you would never have guessed. Most of us spend a good many years in childhood trying to guess it: and some children, when they are first told, do not believe it-and I am not sure that I blame them, for it is very odd. Now the God who arranged that process is the same God who arranges how the new kind of life-the Christ life-is to be spread. We must be prepared for it being odd too. He did not consult us when He invented sex: He has not consulted us either when He invented this.

There are three things that spread the Christ life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names-Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord's Supper. At least, those are the three ordinary methods. I am not saying there may not be special cases where it is spread without one or more of these. I have not time to go into special cases, and I do not know enough. If you are trying in a few minutes to tell a man how to get to Edinburgh you will tell him the trains: he can, it is true, get there by boat or by a plane, but you will hardly bring that in. And I am not saying anything about which of these three things is the most essential. My Methodist friend would like me to say more about belief and less (in proportion) about the other two. But I am not going into that. Anyone who professes to teach you Christian doctrine will, in fact, tell you to use all three, and that is enough for our present purpose.

I cannot myself see why these things should be the conductors of the new kind of life. But then, if one did not happen to know, I should never have seen any connection between a particular physical pleasure and the appearance of a new human being in the world. We have to take reality as it comes to us: there is no good jabbering about what it ought to be like or what we should have expected it to be like. But though I cannot see why it should be so, I can tell you why I believe it is so. I have explained why I have to believe that Jesus was (and is) God. And it seems plain as a matter of history that He taught His followers that the new life was communicated in this way. In other words, I believe it on His authority. Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority-because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.

Do not think I am setting up baptism and belief and the Holy Communion as things that will do instead of your own attempts to copy Christ. Your natural life is derived from your parents; that does not mean it will stay there if you do nothing about it. You can lose it by neglect, or you can drive it away by committing suicide. You have to feed it and look after it: but always remember you are not making it, you are only keeping up a life you got from someone else. In the same way a Christian can lose the Christ-life which has been put into him, and he has to make efforts to keep it. But even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam-he is only nourishing or protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts. And that has practical consequences. As long as the natural life is in your body, it will do a lot towards repairing that body. Cut it, and up to a point it will heal, as a dead body would not. A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble-because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out.

That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or-if they think there is not-at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

And let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being "in Christ" or of Christ being "in them," this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts, that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution-a biological or super-biological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him, But in the meantime, if you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is to remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more work.

Another possible objection is this. Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it dial He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else-something it never entered your head to conceive-comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

To be continued in episode 7, based on the works of CS Lewis.

A Christian apologetical book by the British author C. S. Lewis. The book consists of four parts: the first presents Lewis's arguments for the existence of God; the second contains his defence of Christian theology, including his notable "Liar, lunatic, or Lord" trilemma; the third has him exploring Christian ethics, among which are cardinal and theological virtues; in the final, he writes on the Christian conception of God.

[thegreatbacon]

Currency of Politics is a well-researched and informative history of money and the (non)politics that govern it.

Originally published 2023-07-09 on my blog

I think money is fascinating. A physical, malleable thing held in your hands. Taking on the form of bills & coins, which themselves carry heavy artistic and symbolic representations of the societies that made them. And yet here in the 21st century, the abstract nature of money as a mere system of account is underlined everyday by the fact that most of our transactions simply involve moving numbers around in a database somewhere. As someone who works as a computer programmer & hears about crypto almost everyday, thinking about the form & structures of money is inescapable.

In my free time I began to read about the history of money & currencies. I find the roots of it in the Mesopotamian collective grain storage system particularly fascinating. It started out as a very simple system, where a farmer could deposit some weight of grain for a token to be redeemed for that same amount of grain at a later date. So when I was listening to the podcast American Prestige last summer and they had a guest on to talk about money, my ears perked up. Their guest, Stefan Eich, was on to discuss his new book The Currency of Politics. When they started discussing the Mesopotamian grain system I knew I had to read the book for myself.

Primarily structured as a historical survey of western philosophical thought regarding money & the politics that surround it, we start with Aristotle (I would expect nothing less from a western philosophical text.) and then climb our way back up through the historical record past Locke, Fichte, Marx, and Keynes before finally taking in the post Bretton Woods status quo.

It is also written as a surprisingly cutting-edge and present text. It is not presented in an evergreen, disconnected philosophical prose but rather as a voice specifically speaking from within the midst of the COVID pandemic and the brewing social and economic unrest that has continued to flow from it.

One of the most important insights of the book that I took away is that money has not always floated above us in a neutral, disconnected manner. In Aristotle’s time, money was very openly grounded in the people. Its very power was connected to the polis that minted it, in the same way that a collective trust and agreement between a group of humans develops language and laws.

He was mostly ambivalent about money though. Seeing the same greed and capacity for wealth hoarding and power development that we can see in our modern society. But with the understanding that its ultimate value came from the same place as laws & language, and thus could be a tool for justice.

Skipping ahead to Keynes, I found the concept & exploration of his bancor particularly interesting and farsighted. It was a supra-national unit of account for international finance, pegged to a basket of common commodities. It was a fair, even headed proposal that could have led to a more equitable and just society.

So of course the US delegation, high off atomic powered victory, rejected it outright in favor of the Bretton Woods system that established the U.S. dollar as the de-facto reserve currency for international finance. At least until that system broke down & was replaced with the current floating exchange rates managed by central banks & backed by the almighty petrodollar.

The majority of the book is spent getting its historical house in order, but I found the most interesting and insightful part of the book to be the forward looking Epilogue. In my experience it is easy for authors to do a historical or literature survey and then just leave it at that. It’s rare to have an author with the courage to ask some questions & even propose solutions!

The three questions that stood out to me were “Who gets to decide who creates money?” “Where should money power reside in our constitutions?” and “Is a more democratic money possible?”

Based on what I read in this book and what I understand about the world, I have to take for granted that the answer to the last question is yes. The alternative is to simply accept that the status quo is the best we can have, and considering its blatant failures in this current moment I don’t believe that is the case nor do I believe that less democratic control of institutions is the answer.

Who gets to decide who creates money is a question that I think is given some good consideration in the epilogue. The idea of creating more seats at the table of governing boards that are accountable to the working class (or really anyone outside the banking industry) seems like a good first step. I will always be skeptical of a bureaucrat who says that inviting people who are not a part of the bureaucracy to look at their work will make things worse in the long run. I’ve been in enough bureaucracies myself to know shirking when I see it.

As for money power and where it belongs in government I feel less clear. I’m not a professional in this space, but I think if there’s one thing this book has made clear it is that not having enough outsiders involved in the process has diminished the potential of our monetary systems. Pages 214-216 of the book give some good jumping off points though if that’s something you’re interested in.

This is an academic work and expects the reader to have some familiarity with the field. The chapter on Marx in particular assumes a familiarity with his Capital texts that occasionally left me feeling lost.

But even with my amateurish status in the field I felt well taken care of and was able to get new information and insights out of it. My only real critique is that the book took me 10 times as long to read as I think it should have, as the end notes contained both citations of texts that I will never read & the juicy asides that I live for and wish had just been footnotes.

It also left me with a couple of questions of my own. First, what would a book like this look like if more women, and non-white/western thinkers had been surveyed? Second, with the book grounding all but the last chapters in the body of a particular person, who is the political theorist who best represents the thinking in the post Bretton Woods world?

Overall the book is an interesting, educating, and insightful primer about the Western political philosophy and approach to money up to the present day. If you have any interest in why money is the way it is or how we got to the modern international financial system we live in, I highly recommend you pick this book up or at least take a listen to the American Prestige interview that started me on this path.

[mcbex]

*What's Special About The Universe*

I may have gone down a rabbit whole these past weeks, but hear me out. I know these types of things usually get a bad wrap.

In this case I have been devouring podcasts and books from doctors, scientist and theologians along with mediation. The resounding theme being the connection of everything. Which makes me begin to consider that maybe we are what is special about the great black beyond.

Looking for life on other planets we don't look for life size beings that may or may not come in peace. No, we search for bacteria or signs of what could have been water, at some point... maybe. We won't likely find the kind of life that will shake our hands, although I don't deny its possibilities. I concede that we look for the kind of life that does not interact consciously with its surrounds. We search for mere action and reactions, with our consciousness being the key. When we bring our query closer to the earth and all that it holds, again we find an equation that leaves us dazed with the realization that we are the universe looking at itself. Do comets do this? Does the grass? I've heard of trees sharing a root system but I'm not convinced they know themselves the way we do.

Then I think it's funny how time and experience change us like no other chemical reaction. Using our emotion and recognition of ourselves these connections can become so powerful. Curiosity becomes knowledge and this eagerness to know more becomes necessity. This need can be so profound at times that I find myself fascinated with the question of how much my happiness is dependent on others. How much I lean on the expectation of interaction of all the tiny things that must come together for the purpose of self awareness.

This love becomes focused on how much of it there is in the universe. How much need I have to share it with you. What's very cool is the deeper I go in this perception the crazier I feel about my love for Christ. I'm nuts for him. This is indeed a rabbit whole of sorts because as I open my Bible to inspect it against historical fact I see him calling us to this realization. Reaching to us to love Him for all he has done for us, to love one another as we love our selves and to be aware of who you are, and who's you are.

We are able to give and share and show and know one another in so many ways that the universe will never fathom. Although secretly I think that the stars ache to join us. Maybe it's not us looking out into the cosmos for answers, but the natural world peppered throughout existence with unreasonable distance and detail merely for our enjoyment. I mean why not.. if a creator of the everything loves us enough to make us, I'm sure he built in a little entertainment.

(Sorry for the extra verses... I had a hard time choosing)

Psalms 89:11 The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it.

1Corinthians 13;1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Ephesians5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

2Timothy 1:9  He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Luke 10:27 He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

[dalla-mia-isola-strana]

As I said on a different reblog I have come to the conclusion that this is so bizarre and unbelievable that it must in fact be from a real person, but as to whether there's evidence for the claim that the bots are out there ... take a look. Visually stunning, stunning visuals. At the same time an awful lot of new accounts over here have taken to posting "inspiring" quotes from his books and years-old fanart by other people at a remarkable rate. You can conclude they're all 100% real if you want. But we know Gaiman's hired a "crisis management" PR firm. Burying bad news under torrents of banal results is an established reputation management strategy.

I'm getting really tired of the "it's all a Tory plot ...against the stars of Good Omens!!" conspiracy theory. For the umpteenth time, (this information is not hard to find out!) Paul Cuarana Galizia's recent work for Tortoise Media includes a lengthy, and damning investigation into the corruption of Boris Johnson. You can still argue that his reporting has flaws, but you cannot make a serious case that he is merely a conservative stooge, or that Rachel Johnson's role on this podcast was some kind of nefarious continuation of the Boris Johnson political project. If she wanted to do that, she would never have gone near Galizia. Also, and this really shouldn't need saying -- women are not their male relatives! Rachel Johnson is in fact a member of the Liberal Democrats and has said several times that the Tory government needed to fall! And she still sucks, in many ways, in her own right! And that does nothing to undermine the stories these women have independently told us about their experiences! Further, the investigation behind the podcast seems to have been going on for around a year. There is no way for it to have been motivated by anything recent about Gaiman in the news, let alone about the actors who probably consider him merely a friendly work acquaintance and are not mentioned in the story at all! That is just absurd.

And even if you don't trust Tortoise Media, it is thanks to them that another woman found the strength to come forward on an entirely different podcast, hosted by a non-binary person, about her own extremely similar experiences.

This can't be real

So, Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook are awash with bots trying to bury news of the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Over on Twitter, it's thousands of posts all praising the "stunning visuals" of the Sandman series. Here, there's been a suspicious rash of quoted platitudes from his books and reblogged, years-old fanart by other people filling up the "Neil Gaiman" hashtag. And then there's this. I don't know what to call this. It's so bizarre and spiteful, so unlike the genuine shock and sadness I've seen from most people to whom I've directed similar notes, so far from the cautious tone of even the most infuriating rape apologism I've seen out there. It's so defensive, I honestly wonder if somehow, this supposed crochet artist is a sockpuppet for Gaiman himself. But whatever's going on, for the love of God, if you're not a bot account, stop acting like one. Neil Gaiman has paid an expensive PR firm to do his dirty work for him -- the least you can do is not volunteer.

[simplepotatofarmer]

there's a point in the prison podcast stream where c!techno and c!dream are talking about religion, specifically church prime, and techno says that because dream doesn't believe, he's a heretic and not profiting off it.

in response, dream lowers his voice and says, 'but i'm profiting off of those that do.'

and the thing about that moment is, combined with the earlier bit with the potatoes where c!dream asked c!techno if burning the potatoes hurt him, it feels like dream is merely playing the role of the villain.

which he is but because techno doesn't see him that way, doesn't treat him that way, dream comes off like some edgy myspace status. it's theatrics. he sounds like he's doing a really bad joker impression.

and that's not to say c!dream isn't cruel or that he hasn't done terrible things because he has. he obviously has. those things are blunt, clinical, strategic. but when it comes the act of being the server's Big Bad, the attempts are often so over the top and stereotypical, that to a lot of people, it's just like 'okay dream' or techno's 'strange green man' description. because they haven't experienced the actual cruelty. it makes sense that, for example, c!tommy buys into this act because he's experienced dream's cruelty. that act is designed for tommy in the same way that dream's over the top cruel speech towards c!tubbo at the green festival hit on a lot of tubbo's insecurities and from that perspective, it was intense.

i just find it very interesting because it was always something that felt vaguely off to me with c!dream's actions, not just the vault and its impracticality, but overall. the fact that as soon as that act isn't working or someone pushes back on it, c!dream seems to drop it immediately. like a mask that's no longer useful.

you can also see a bit of the same switch in c!dream's perspective. he hides from c!seapeekay or backs away, crouching as if he's concerned about what might happen (that body language giving him away) but as he's speaking, he's dismissive, calling cpk a 'peasant'. his words imply that he looks down on cpk and that he poses no threat. it's an act, however. just like his attempts to get c!techno to see him as a tough/bad guy. just like the vault and the final confrontation.

it makes me want to know more about who c!dream really is.

[lulu-zodiac]

Hidden in Plain Sight

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Jeremy Bradshaw

Tags: Early seasons Dean, pre-podcast Professor Bradshaw, denial, unresolved sexual tension, bickering, smut, gratuitous owl references, case fic

Summary: It's the fall of 2006, and a string of grisly deaths linked to local lore brings Sam and Dean to the village of Bridgewater. There, Dean finds himself working closely with the frustrating and unexpectedly compelling Professor Bradshaw.

---

Dean feels about as comfortable in old colleges as he does in churches. There’s the same sense of exclusivity, that same reverence of things Dean has spent his life stuck on wrong side of. This campus even feels a little like a church, with its old architecture and sprawling ruby ivy and slit windows like narrowed eyes. His footfalls echo heavily along the cold stone corridor, making him feel uncomfortably aware of his own existence.

The door he’s looking for is old and made of oak, nestled in an alcove near the staircase, with a small plaque on it that reads Professor J Bradshaw.

Dean pauses for a moment, then knocks abruptly, suddenly noticing his knuckles are still smudged with earth. From within, a muffled voice instructs him to enter, and he does so, wiping his hand surreptitiously against the side of his leather jacket.

The first thing that hits him is the sheer volume of books in the room; they clutter every available surface, piled high in front of the big bay window like a strange line of defense. There are stacks of loose papers everywhere too, haphazard but clearly organized, some held in place by empty coffee mugs or odd-looking artefacts. The air is bright and warm, like this room catches the sun when it’s slow and mellow in the afternoons.

The second thing that hits him is the man sitting at the desk.

He doesn’t look up at Dean’s entrance, continuing to scribble away in a leather-bound notebook with intent dexterity, seemingly utterly lost in his own thoughts. He’s not what Dean expected; surprisingly young, maybe approaching forty, with a sharp jaw and tousled hair that just brushes his broad shoulders. When Dean clears his throat awkwardly, the man finally looks up with striking blue eyes that immediately pin Dean in place.

“Yes?” his voice is inquiring and several octaves deeper than Dean would have imagined, low and gravelly. He sets down his pen, looking at Dean with piercing focus.

“Uh – hey. Professor Bradshaw?” Dean feels distinctly self-conscious.

“Who wants to know?” the man closes his notebook with a snap and stands with surprisingly fluid ease, eyes still intent on Dean as though he’s cataloguing him.

He’s wearing a faded navy-blue sweater with the sleeves rolled up, slightly crumpled shirt tails poking out at the hem, just visible.

Drawing on years of sizing people up, Dean guesses that the guy probably has no one to go home to at night. If he goes home much at all, that is; the office has a distinctly lived-in look. It’s strangely reminiscent of the makeshift home feel of the impala’s interior.

“Um – Dean. Dean Collins,” Dean answers hastily, suddenly realizing he’s spent a little too long looking. “I’m uh – a student in one of your classes,” he lies the best way he knows how: with a charming smile. “I was wondering if you’ve got a moment? I was hoping to ask you a couple of questions about your work.”

“Come in, please,” Professor Bradshaw sits back down behind his desk, and gestures for Dean to close the door. “Take a seat.”

“Thanks,” Dean shuts the door and awkwardly removes three hardback books and a small, slightly drooping fern from the only available seat in front of Professor Bradshaw’s desk.

“Sorry – let me –” Professor Bradshaw leans over the desk to relieve Dean of the books and the plant. Close up, Dean can see faint lines softening the corners of his vivid eyes, and when he breathes in, he catches a hint of peppermint and the musk of warm skin, strangely compelling. Their hands brush for a moment as Professor Bradshaw takes the items, and Dean flinches, jerking away and planting himself firmly on the chair.

“So – Dean, yes?” Professor Bradshaw settles back into his seat. He’s still looking intently at Dean, gaze startlingly blue.

Wordlessly, Dean nods. He doesn’t know why he can feel the heat creeping up his cheeks.

“You’re not in any of my classes, Dean,” Professor Bradshaw says, with a slight edge to his voice. He reaches for a half-drunk mug of tea on his desk, expression skeptical.

Dean feels his stomach drop. “Uh, yeah – I’m new, just transferred a couple weeks back,” he bluffs quickly, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. He feels strangely flustered, visible.

“No, I don’t think so,” Professor Bradshaw says, flatly. “I believe I would have noticed,” he adds, wryly, with a kind of impatient warmth in his expression that makes Dean’s cheeks flare with heat all over again. Professor Bradshaw merely swallows a mouthful of tea and sets the mug back down, still looking at Dean. “So. Who are you?”

“Alright,” Dean puts his hands up in mock-surrender, smiling wide even though he feels stupidly on edge, knocked off course. “You got me. I’m – uh – a journalist. My boss has me writing a piece on local legends, and I was hoping to pick your brains. Heard you’re the expert on all that stuff around here, and thought I might be in with a better chance of talking to you as a student instead of some annoying reporter.”

“I see,” Professor Bradshaw leans back in his chair, contemplative. A shaft of sunlight filters through the bay window behind him, illuminating a hint of tawny in his dark, untidy hair. Dust motes hang everywhere like suspended snow. “Well, luckily for you, Dean, I find that my students can be just as annoying as reporters. And I still talk to them on a daily basis.”

Dean grins a little awkwardly, “Yeah?”

“Of course, I do get paid to do that,” Professor Bradshaw adds, dryly. “But perhaps I do them a disservice. Some of them are really quite inspiring.” He pauses, raising his mug to his lips. It has an owl on it, Dean notices absently. An overly fluffy one, with a slightly threatening glare. “I daresay I can spare five minutes. What is it that I can do for you, Dean?”

“Uh, so you study the supernatural, right?” Dean asks, clumsily. His hands are sweating where they’re shoved in the pockets of his jacket. “Ghosts and demons and all that shit?”

“I study the lore and mythology of supernatural beings, and why it’s important to humans to create such stories,” Professor Bradshaw clarifies, shortly.

“Right, got it,” Dean agrees, hastily. “But you’d know a bit about the Bridgewater coven?”

“I am familiar with the legends, yes,” Professor Bradshaw replies, reaching for his mug again. There’s an ink stain on the side of his index finger, smudged deep blue. Dean fleetingly wonders if it would rub off easily if he touched it, if it would leave a ghostly imprint on his own skin.

“Yeah – uh – so there’s been quite a lot of interest in the coven recently,” Dean blusters, annoyed with himself for how stupidly flustered he feels, “You know, since those bodies were found last week? At the burial site in Bridgewater Forest that’s associated with the legend? Yeah. Well, anyway, I was – hoping you might be able to tell me a little more about the legend of the coven.”

“I don’t see what the recent tragedies could possibly have to do with the legend,” Professor Bradshaw narrows his eyes skeptically.

“Right – yeah – nothing, I’m sure,” Dean lies hastily, “But the location of the crimes has definitely raised awareness about the existence of the legend, and that’s what we really want to provide for our readers.”

“Well, certainly, I can tell you the history,” Professor Bradshaw replies, briskly, “In fact, I teach an undergrad course on witchcraft in history and my lecture this Wednesday actually covers the legend of the coven. If you want a more detailed, nuanced version, you’re more than welcome to come along then – it’s at 11am in the Milton building. But I’m happy to give you the short version now, if that would be helpful?”

“Thanks – yeah, that’d be great,” Dean says, gratefully. “On a bit of a tight schedule today.”

“Well, the local legend about the Bridgewater coven has existed for almost two hundred years,” Professor Bradshaw starts, and immediately Dean can picture him talking in front of a lecture theatre full of kids. He’s a natural, something inherently captivating about the way he speaks. “In the 1800s, this village was an important site of religious pilgrimage. However, according to the legend, the village was also home to a small coven lead by a witch named Iris. Iris’s coven was said to have lived in secrecy in the forest on the outskirts of Bridgewater for years, and not to have troubled the village people. However, by 1816, the legend claims the coven had become very hostile, specifically towards the church. There were fears the coven had begun indoctrinating – or bewitching – members of the congregation.”

Professor Bradshaw pauses, swallowing another mouthful of tea. The muscles in his throat work, drawing Dean’s attention to the way his pale blue shirt isn’t buttoned up properly. He’s filled with the sudden, inexplicable urge to button it up correctly.

“More and more people started disappearing in connection with the coven,” Professor Bradshaw continues, setting his mug back down on the desk, and Dean jerks his gaze guiltily away from the line of his throat, clenching his hands into fists inside the pockets of his leather jacket. “The rapidly diminishing congregation lived in terror. The remaining members of the church all turned against each other. Then, at the height of local hysteria, Iris is said to have murdered Blanche, the minister’s daughter, in what is portrayed in the lore as some kind of statement of the coven’s power over the church.”

“Bet that didn’t go down too well,” Dean remarks, sardonically.

“Quite,” Professor Bradshaw catches Dean’s eye, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Anyway, according to the legend, the tragedy of Blanche’s death united the warring members of the congregation. They captured Iris and entombed her alive, using her own magic against her to keep her trapped. Iris’s death broke the spell on the members of the congregation who’d been indoctrinated against their will, and peace was restored to the village. The few remaining members of the original coven fled and were never seen again.”

“Wow,” Dean raises his eyebrows, “Very love-thy-neighbor.”

Professor Bradshaw snorts, “Yes. Religious leaders in the 1800s were renowned for sitting down and resolving their problems through compassionate discussion,” he remarks, dryly.

“Okay, but what about the other versions of the legend?” Dean asks, trying to remember the things Sam had told him to ask about, but drawing a total blank. His brain feels weirdly scrambled. It’s hard to remember what happened before walking into Professor Bradshaw’s office. “The other stories about the coven I’ve come across so far all seem pretty different.”

Professor Bradshaw frowns slightly. “It’s true, there are many conflicting accounts. Which is often the case with legends, being human constructions of the past,” he regards Dean slightly disapprovingly over the rim of his owl mug, a kind of skeptical stubbornness in the set of his mouth. “It’s not about knowing which ‘to believe’ – it’s about looking at why historically people have favored one version over the other and what that tells us about them.”

“Right, yeah, but aren’t legends often based on fact?” Dean pushes.

Professor Bradshaw pauses, contemplatively, “Yes. That’s certainly true in some cases.”

“Do you think it’s the case in this one?”

“Possibly,” Professor Bradshaw replies, haltingly. His expression is serious and he hesitates for a moment before elaborating; “In fact, I’m currently writing a paper about the historical figures who feature in the legend of the Bridgewater coven.”

“Yeah? Which ones?” Dean presses. He’s used to having to fake interest to get information out of people like Professor Bradshaw, but for once, he finds he’s genuinely interested. There’s something compelling about Professor Bradshaw’s evidently obsessive quest for obscure answers, something that resonates with all too much familiarity.

“Iris, predominantly,” Professor Bradshaw replies. “I’m very interested in the historical reasons women were condemned as witches. Often, it’s as simple as jilted male lovers using accusations of witchcraft as a means of revenge, or the women using herbal remedies that threatened contemporary male ideas of medicine and the body. Sometimes it’s to do with female homosexuality and society’s unacceptance of same sex relationships or women as sexual beings. Of course, it wasn’t uncommon for gay men to be condemned for witchcraft either. But statistically, more homosexual women died as a result of such accusations.”

“Uh – right –” Dean swallows, looking away. His hands are sweating again, and he wipes them surreptitiously on the insides of his pockets. Clearing his throat, he changes the subject, suddenly remembering the other thing Sam had told him to ask Professor Bradshaw about, “What about the runes?”

“Ah yes, the runes on Iris’s supposed tomb,” Professor Bradshaw’s gaze is suddenly inscrutable in a way that makes Dean’s heart thud uncomfortably in his chest. It sweeps over Dean, lingering and unnervingly blue for a moment, before he continues, “Very interesting. I’ve been studying them a great deal as part of my research. The true nature of them has always remained a mystery, and any attempts to discern their meaning haven’t fitted with the legend at all. I believe they may be key to understanding the history behind the creation of the legend. But,” he smiles, wryly, “It’s not an easy task. They’re unlike any runes I’ve come across anywhere else before.”

“Can I see?” Dean asks, partly out of interest, and partly for some way of distracting himself from the way his heart is still thumping uncomfortably fast.

“You’d have to visit the forest burial site to see them in person, but I do have a couple of sketches of the lines I’m working on at the moment,” Professor Bradshaw gets to his feet and crosses to the cabinet by the window, pulling the top drawer open.

The fall chestnut trees outside smolder amber behind his silhouette, midday sunshine pale gold and still where it filters through the window. Time seems strangely irrelevant. Dean watches as Professor Bradshaw flicks through a green binder, fingers quick and dexterous, skilled and uncalloused in a way Dean’s have never had the chance to be.

Dean swallows and looks away, ignoring the thud of his heart as he stares around at the rest of the room. He clocks a bunch of compendiums of mythology on the bookcase nearest him, and two other eccentric and slightly neglected looking plants. There’s a thick plaid rug on the couch in the corner, not quite concealing a plate of half-eaten toast. On the windowsill, there’s a little tin mug with a toothbrush in it that makes Dean wonder again just how often Professor Bradshaw goes home at all. He finds himself wondering whether Professor Bradshaw has always had nothing but an empty house to return to, or whether that’s a more recent development. He’s definitely old enough to be going through a divorce. The thought sits uncomfortably in Dean’s chest for reasons he doesn’t particularly want to identify.

“Here we are.” Professor Bradshaw’s gravelly voice, suddenly much closer, makes Dean jump. He glances around to find Professor Bradshaw standing beside him, holding out a sheet of paper. The smell of warm skin and peppermint catches Dean off guard, stronger this time, and still strangely compelling.

“Uh – thanks,” Dean says awkwardly, taking the proffered page. He feels Professor Bradshaw’s fingers brush against his fleetingly, warm and ink-stained.

Dean swallows, forcing himself to focus on the page in front of him even though his cheeks are hot with something he doesn’t want to think about. The sketches are good, a few strange vaguely Norse reminiscent symbols drawn hastily with accompanying, scrawled notes in the margins. There’s something about the runes that niggles at Dean’s brain, familiar and unfamiliar all at once, like something he’s known his whole life but can’t put his finger on.

“These are interesting,” Dean he frowns, tracing his finger along the two last symbols.

When he glances up, he finds Professor Bradshaw looking at him intently, blue eyes inscrutable. “Yes,” he says, leaning back against the desk and folding his arms across his chest. “Those are the ones which struck me too,” he’s speaking a little quieter, low voice distracting Dean from why the runes are so familiar. He hopes he can remember them, that Sam will be able to place what he can’t about them.

“So, uh, this tomb. The one with the runes on it – that’s definitely where that guy’s body was found last week? It wasn’t just nearby or something?” Dean forces himself to ask, ignoring the way his heart is suddenly thumping again. “And the girl found the week before – she was directly linked to the burial site too?”

Professor Bradshaw clears his throat, unfolding his arms. “I believe so, yes.”

“And that doesn’t seem – I don’t know – a little strange, to you?”

“Human beings committing violent acts against each other is generally something I find a little strange,” Professor Bradshaw replies, in clipped tones. “But beyond that – no. Now –” he breaks off, glancing at his watch. “I’m afraid I have a seminar to deliver in ten minutes,” he confesses, and there’s something unfinished about the way he says it, something almost reluctant. Like he half wants to stay here talking with Dean.

“No problem,” Dean stands, and takes a last glance at the sketches before handing them back, trying to commit them to memory. “Thanks, Professor.”

Their eyes meet as Professor Bradshaw accepts the page, and the room suddenly feels very airless, a pause suspended between them. Neither of them moves away.

This close, Dean can see miniscule flecks of grey like tiny stars lost in blue of Professor Bradshaw’s eyes, the way that his full lips are slightly chapped, like maybe he worries them between his teeth when he’s thinking. They’re soft pink and warm-looking, and Dean wonders fleetingly if they taste like peppermint tea.

“It was nice meeting you, Dean,” Professor Bradshaw says, gently, and his eyes are so blue.

“Uh – yeah – you too. Thanks. I’d – uh – I’d better get going,” Dean stammers, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and cursing the way his cheeks are suddenly flaming with heat. His thoughts churn unsteadily; he ignores them the way he’s learnt to.

Still feeling strangely wound-up, he nods awkwardly at Professor Bradshaw and turns reluctantly towards the door.

“Wait a moment, Dean –” Professor Bradshaw’s voice halts Dean in his tracks as he reaches the door, and Dean turns expectantly, heat thumping a little painfully.

“Yeah?”

“Here – you’re welcome to borrow a couple of books on local history,” Professor Bradshaw is pulling a couple of books down from the overflowing cabinet by the window. “They should have a bit more about the legend of the coven that you might find interesting. Divergences of the legend and so forth. I’ll need them back by Thursday morning as I’m teaching a class on them in the afternoon, but you’re welcome to borrow them until then if they’d be helpful.”

“You sure?” Dean takes the proffered books awkwardly, and swallows the strange disappointment sinks in him like a stone as Professor Bradshaw steps back again. “Thanks.”

“As I said, I’m also giving a lecture on Wednesday where I’ll be examining the history behind the legend of the coven. I meant what I said - you’d be more than welcome to attend,” Professor Bradshaw says, sincerely. His eyes are intent, and there’s a hint of something almost like hopefulness hidden in the depths of his gravelly voice. Working on long ingrained instinct, Dean chooses to ignore it.

“Thanks, I’ll – I’ll see what my schedule’s like,” Dean replies, haltingly.

“Of course,” Professor Bradshaw agrees. He turns back to his desk.

“Can I ask –” Dean pauses, watching Professor Bradshaw stuff another notebook and a stack of handouts into his briefcase. “You said you’re writing a paper about the runes at the forest burial site– do you go to there much?”

Professor Bradshaw glances up, distractedly. “Yes, I spend time there every week.”

“So you haven’t noticed anything – I don’t know – anything unusual when you’ve been there recently?” Dean ventures.

“Unusual how?” Professor Bradshaw closes his briefcase with a snap and looks up at Dean properly, eyes narrowed with sudden skepticism. It’s stronger than the hints Dean has caught at other points during their conversation, sharp and blue, a world away from the observant warmth of a few moments ago.

“I dunno – odd noises, sudden drops in temperature, shadows –”

“Just what are you asking me?” Professor Bradshaw demands, voice clipped and defensive.

“Have you seen anything like that?” Dean presses, stubbornly. Irritation prickles his skin.

“No, I haven’t,” Professor Bradshaw says, bluntly. “And you know why? Because yes, I study the supernatural – but it’s not real, Dean. I don’t know what kind of sensational article you’re writing about local lore, but I can assure you, lore is all it is.” He winds a striped scarf haphazardly around his neck, and grabs his briefcase off the desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach.”

-

Sam is eating some gross looking granola yoghurt pot with a plastic spoon when Dean eventually clambers back into the car, feeling distinctly frustrated.

“You took your time,” he remarks idly, raising an eyebrow as Dean adjusts the mirror with an unnecessary amount of force and turns on the ignition.

“Goddamn waste of time was what it was,” Dean mutters mutinously, pulling out of the space and then immediately being forced to hit the brakes when a cluster of students cross the parking lot in front of him. He grinds his teeth and resists the urge to honk the horn. “Thought I was getting somewhere but he completely shut down the minute I asked him if he’d noticed anything weird at the burial site.”

“Suspicious?” Sam frowns, through a mouthful of granola.

“No, don’t think so. Just really damn touchy,” Dean drums his fingers impatiently against the wheel as he waits for the students to move, “And a bit of an asshole. I dunno, suppose working in his field he’s probably used to people thinking he’s just some lunatic who believes in the supernatural.”

“And does he?”

Dean snorts. “No way. He’s got a real bee in his bonnet about it. You’d think someone who’s spent the last twenty years with their head buried in books about ghosts and covens and demonic possession might be a little more open to the idea,” he shrugs, and gives in to the temptation to lean on the horn, reveling in the brief satisfaction of making the students jump and scurry out of the way, “But no. The guy’s absolutely blind to it all, and could rival you on stubbornness.”

Sam purses his mouth in annoyance, but doesn’t rise to the bait. “Get anything useful at all?”

“He did lend me a couple books,” Dean admits, nodding in the direction of the backseat. “Have to take them back on Thursday morning, though. He needs them for some class.”

“He leant you his books?” Sam raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Dean shrugs, skin prickling in annoyance, “What of it?”

“Dunno, that’s just,” Sam swallows a mouthful of yoghurt, “Pretty trusting. Academics usually treat their books as if they’re their first borns.”

“Don’t mess them up when you read them, then,” Dean says, dismissively, as they pull out onto the main street. “You find out anything useful about the victims?”

“Not really,” Sam leans back in his seat with a sigh, “Both from middle class, religious families. Seem to have been pretty well liked by people. Hard to establish any link more than that. The wife of the guy that was killed last week seemed a bit cagey, though,” he shrugs, “Might be worth a second visit to see if she’s holding out on us about something.”

“Right,” Dean drums his fingers impatiently against the wheel as they wait for a light to change. It’s starting to drizzle, tiny flecks of grey hitting the windshield. “Are we still definitely thinking ghost?”

“Seems like it,” Sam affirms, “The way the victims died definitely points to a vengeful spirit. But the place they were killed – connected to the burial site associated with the coven? I don’t know, I was thinking maybe it’s no ordinary ghost. Maybe it’s the vengeful spirit of a witch, and that’s why it’s so powerful?”

“Hm,” Dean mulls it over, flicking the windscreen wipers on as they continue to wait. They squeak slightly, repetitive and familiar. “You could be onto something there.”

“Yeah?”

“Professor Bradshaw was telling me about the local legend of the coven. Apparently, its leader was entombed alive by a bunch of angry churchgoers,” Dean steps on the accelerator as the light finally changes, and the rain-slicked village slides past in a blur. “That’s got to be some pretty good vengeful spirit material right there. And you said the victims were both religious, right? Can’t be a coincidence.”

“Why now, though?” Sam frowns. “It’s been what – two hundred years? There must have been plenty of churchgoers who walked by the burial site before now.”

“Dunno,” Dean shrugs, staring out at the rainy smudge of fall colors. The chestnuts trees lining the street are the same smoldering hue of amber as the one outside Professor Bradshaw’s window.

They drive in silence for a few moments, wipers squeaking.

“Okay,” Sam says, at length, “So I’m thinking – we go check into a motel, get through as much of these books from your professor as we can while we wait for the rain to stop, and then check out the burial site later this afternoon before it gets dark?” Sam asks, chucking his plastic spoon in the empty yoghurt container.

“He’s not ‘my professor’,” Dean says defensively, and suddenly has to step a little too hard on the breaks to avoid running a red light.

“Alright,” Sam says, slowly. “Okay.”

“Anyway, yeah,” Dean blusters, hastily, ignoring the weight of Sam’s gaze on the side of his face, “Works for me. But first,” he flicks on the indicator and pulls into a space near a little line of local shops. “Food. Not that yoghurty shit you’ve been eating. Real food.”

-

The forest is steeped in quiet in the way all ancient places are, fall singing the leaves on the gnarled branches that claw their way towards the fading gold of the late afternoon sun. Dean breathes in the wet, cloying smell of moss and follows Sam’s careful path through the trees. There’s a chill in the air, but the handle of Dean’s blade is hot in the palm of his hand.

“How much further to this place?” he hisses at Sam’s back, swatting a frond of bracken out of his face and casting his gaze edgily through the twisting branches and burnt amber.

“Nearly there, according to –” Sam stops so abruptly that Dean nearly collides with him, throwing out a cautionary arm.

“What?” Dean whispers urgently, instantly drawing his blade. His heart is racing now, whole body tense, coiled, ready to attack. His gaze flickers rapidly through the mess of branches and he stands on his tiptoes, trying to see past Sam’s stupidly large frame. “Sammy,” he hisses, impatiently, when Sam doesn’t immediately answer, “What is it?”

“There’s something there,” Sam breathes, almost inaudible. His posture is still, alert. Dean can see Sam’s hold on the gun in his back pocket tighten.

“What kind of something?” Dean whispers, craning his neck to try and see. The light seems somehow dimmer already, the fading sun sliding further towards the ground. When he breathes in, the smell of wet leaves is stronger, now that they’re in the heart of the forest. His heart is thrumming so fast but everything else feels suspended in time, unnaturally still.

“I think it’s a person,” Sam murmurs, and somewhere close, Dean hears the brittle rustle of dead leaves, loud and unnerving in the wooded quiet. He watches the quickened rise and fall of Sam’s shoulders as his breathing suddenly sharpens. “They’re holding something. They – shit, Dean, they’re coming this way.”

Dean reacts immediately and on nearly twenty years of protective instinct; he shoves Sam out of the way and stumbles out into the clearing, blade brandished in front of him.

---

[aerialflight]

Fic Recs (cause it's always nice to give a shout out and get people into things I'm into rn)

[The Magnus Archives] (I recently finished the podcast and I fell into a hole for a while so here you go)

Sing a Song of Sixpence by Kaiel

Ship: Jon/Martin

In which Jonathan Sims is a Siren, and he fails to notice any new abilities granted to him by the position of Archivist. Or really anything about the Entities at all.

Takes place in season 1 featuring Jonah Magnus’s slow decent into madness

(The new mythology interwoven with tma's worldbuilding is so freaking good and I love how all the characters change and develop because of these changes. Also, f you Elias)

Along Came a Spider by Dribbledscribbles

Ship: implied Jon/Martin

Sasha James is the Archivist, as expected. Martin Blackwood is menaced by Jane Prentiss, as expected. Elias Bouchard weaves his web, as expected.

All goes as it should.

At least until something calling itself Jonathan Sims steps in.

(Web!Jon in this makes me want to weep, it's so freaking good. A pretty long, very excellent oneshot on what could've happened if Jon got taken by the web when he was a kid. And Sasha as the Archivist is ALWAYS so cool, we love her in this house.)

A Break in the Clouds by Ash_Rabbit

“I’m eight.” the kid sniffs as if eight was any different from four, maybe not an unspeakable horror then, just a regular horror. “And I heard that the Magnus Institute deals with-” his little nose scrunches, cute. “-spooky things.”

“Do you have a-” he cracks a grin, and then rethinks it as small hands tighten against their burden.”-spooky thing to deliver?” gods he hopes not, it’s bad enough when adults walk in and lay out all of their baggage, but for a child-

“There’s a spider in this book.” the kid says solemnly, raising his textbook sized parcel. “It ate Evan Pritchard.” a bloody fucking Leitner. Of course an eight year old would find a murder spider book. “This seemed like the best place to bring it.”

(I never thought about what the Original Elias could've been like AND NOW I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT BECAUSE OF THIS FIC. I LOVE HIM, HE'S COMPLEX AND HE CARES AND JON CARES AND THEY BOTH CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER. THIS IS THE CONTENT I WANT, OMG. Also, Jon being even smaller than usual is adorable, so cute. No wonder Elias wants to hug him, a LOT.)

See the Line where the Sky meets the Sea by The_Floating_World

Ship: Jon/Martin, Jon/Oliver Banks

When Jon is a child he looks into the infinite abyss of space. The Vast looks back into him.

(One of my all time fave fics in this fandom, no questions asked. I have reread this three times and am open to doing it again, god. Vast!Jon, such a concept. It's written so beautifully and the relationships Jon develops, so good. ugh. My heart. Please please read.)

Sweet As Roses by Prim_the_Amazing

Ship: Jon/Martin

“Come in, Martin,” he says, not looking up from his notes.

“Hi, Jon,” he says, and Jon stops writing at the sound of his voice. “We’re out of the green tea, but we’ve got lemon?”

Jon looks at him. Martin smiles at him in his usual tentative way as he sets the mug of tea down on Jon’s desk. Heat spikes so sharply in his gut that he twitches with it.

“Thank you, Martin,” he says, mouth dry, and he stands up.

“Oh,” he says, sounding almost surprised. He smiles again. “No-- no problem-- um, what are you--”

Jon takes Martin by the shoulders, leans up on the tips of his toes, and kisses him.

(You have no idea how much I howled through this fic, my god. *buries face in hands* The number of times I wanted to cry from sheer hilarity and horror reading this good lord.)

Things Could Always Be Worse by theOestofOCs

Ship: Jon/Martin, Georgie/Melanie

Sometimes, the most horrifying thing of all is what might have been.

Somewhere, Jon could swear he heard a crowd laughing.

Or: in which Jonathan Sims is forced to swap places with his alternate self—a tall, chivalrous hero extraordinaire, who knows neither fear nor nuance—and is sent to the aggressively straight alternate universe the Magnus Archives was never meant to be.

“Whatever place this is,” Jon announced, “I just want to be sure it knows I hate it.”

(I will say this once, THIS IS THE MOST CURSED THING IVE EVER READ EVER. Like holy hell. I can't believe this thing exists. please read it oh please please please)

-

[Supernatural]

heard from your mother (she don't recognize you) by Schmuzz

Ship: Dean/Cas, Jessica/Sam

A man named Cas wakes up in 2003 with no memories, but he's able to piece together a few things:

1. Supernatural creatures exist, and most of them will hurt innocent civilians if he doesn't stop them; 2. He has abilities that no human hunter should have, but he knows enough about human hunters to keep that to himself, and finally; 3. He keeps running into another hunter named Dean Winchester, who seems to be about as lonely as he is if he's willing to put up with those former facts long enough to help Cas unravel the mystery of who (or what) he really is.

For his part, Dean's still (not) dealing with Sam's departure to Stanford, and figures distracting himself with a bit of mystery and intrigue is as harmless as it gets, right? Right.

(THE fic I'm most into right now, been following this from the very start and it's AMAZING. Cas has agency and is making friends and S1 Dean is growing out of John's influence and is becoming a Person and the both of them first being friends then more. The slow burn as their relationship develops, SO GOOD. SO SO DAMN GOOD. *screams* Seriously one of the best spn fics I've read in a long, long time.)

anamnesis by cenotaphy

Ships: Castiel/Dean, Sam/Eileen

Chuck is depowered, Jack is the new god, and the world is free. Dean and Sam get into the Impala and chase down the miles on an endless highway, and their story is finally, finally their own to follow. At least, that's what Dean tells himself. But the diners and motels and painted interstate lines are blurring together and the smallest details keep catching at his brain like tiny fishhooks and he can't quite shake the feeling that not everything is exactly as it should be.

* Fix-it/alternate series finale. Canon-compliant through the end of 15.19.

(THIS IS THE FIC THAT GOT ME THROUGH THE FINALE OKAY. WHY COULDN'T THIS HAVE BEEN CANON. It's Disturbing and honestly plot-wise this makes more sense. Why couldn't we have had this. *screams*)

-

[Avatar: The Last Airbender]

where the stars do not take sides by WitchofEndor

Ship: Sokka/Zuko

When Azula is nine, she becomes an only child. She hears the Fire Lord call for Zuko's life, and in the morning, her mother and brother are gone. Azula may be young, but she isn't naive. She knows what happened to them.

Which makes it all the more surprising when Azula tracks the Avatar down and fights his group of peasant friends, only to find herself staring into an eerily familiar face.

(The fact one of the tags in this fic is, "Sibling Dynamic: Fucked Up But Wholesome" should give you an idea what this fic is like. Chaotic as HELL and I just love Azula here, she loves Zuko so much in her messed up way and Zuko loves her back in the exact same way lol. It's batshit and I am Here For This.)

-

[Naruto]

Eclipse by AislingRoisin (JayBird345) for HybrisAnaideia

Ship: Nara Shikaku/OFC

"In life, it's easier to remain stagnant and wallow in your troubles. But life isn't merely about continued existence, nor is it meant to be gone through alone."

(This is a fic that's slept on and I NEED people to read this. A self-insert fic that I find really interesting in its approach and the worldbuilding for the post-third war shinobi world is fantastic. I feel like there's a certain pattern with self-insert fics, not that is a detriment in any way to how much I enjoy them, so this fic feels fresh to me in a way I haven't read in a while. I am waiting eagerly for this to get updated! Please read!)

On Freedom and Other Formalities by iaso

Ship: Kakashi/Genma/OFC

When push comes to shove, Hiwa Inuzuka doesn't go down easy. Reborn into a new, dangerous world? She puts her past life as a spy to work. Thrown into a war? Hiwa does her duty, for Konoha. And when she's forced into an arranged marriage? All there is to do is beat them to the punch and get married first. Thankfully, Genma Shiranui is willing to lend a hand. Literally. SI/OC

(Listen, LISTEN, it's about the slow burn, the longing, the communication (it both has and hasn't and isn't THAT great??), the messy way you fit three very different people together, it's so freaking good! Also, Kakashi is so Chaotic here this is my fave characterization of him, you can't change my mind. And Genma is a Good Boi who is Doing His Best, along with the Self-insert character who I LOVE SO MUCH, SHE'S FANTASTIC FNEIWOPAF. Sped past this fic in the speed of light, I could not stop reading!)(Honestly, read all of the author's fics, they're all really REALLY good!)

Building a Castle by WhisperingDarkness

Without needing anyone to tell her, Sakura knew that talking to someone no-one else could see or hear would make her weird. It would draw the bad kind of attention to her, something people could make fun of her for.

She didn’t like being weird, but she did like the voice. Her inner voice was helpful and it was a part of her that had always been there. The idea of it not being there would have been so much weirder than anything else.

It was during her first year at the Academy that Sakura realised the voice was not in her head at all, but that it came from a cloudy shape floating next to her.

(Basically a short-ish retelling of Hikaru no Go. Only with more Shogi and Nara and Ninja's)

(Sakura can see ghosts (I'm noticing this is a popular trope for her) and it's really cute haha! Her relationship with Tobirama is sweet and I just enjoyed reading this so much.)

-

[The Magicians]

So Long (And Thanks For All The Books) by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)

Ships: Quentin/Eliot, James/Julia, Quentin/Margo/Eliot

When Quentin is told Julia wasn't admitted to Brakebills, he realizes he has a drastic decision in front of him. If he tells Julia about magic, he'll have his mind wiped as well as hers. But he can't just leave her behind, either. He can't lose his best friend, and he can't let her life a life with her magical potential stolen away from her.

So he makes a third choice.

(Really, and I mean REALLY well-done canon divergent fic, this is the Quentin & Julia friendship fic I have been looking for forever. It explores so much of what could've happened and I just love Quentin here, I really really do. Characterization done so right. I also recommend the author's other works too. Been a follower of them for a long time, they're great.)

-

[Game of Thrones]

The Road to Victory by writing_as_tracey

Too late in preparing for the Night King and the Long Night, the last stand at Winterfell is close to falling. Bran takes desperate measures to ensure victory, and Jon, Sansa, and Arya pay the price for it in a time unfamiliar to them, on the cusp of another war. [GoT, time-travel fix it]

(I swear, this fic made me laugh so many times, all the Stark are BAMF and fantastic, and Rhaegar gets Wrecked lol. It's crack btw, and the plot goes in directions you'll never guess and it's amazing hahaha!)

-

[Haikyuu!!] (I am very very late to the fandom but here I am)

Ballare (To Dance) by MidnightSparks

Ship: Iwaizumi Hajime/Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru, and platonic Kageyama & Kentarou (really love their friendship)

Kageyama’s first love is volleyball. His second, however, is ballet.

In one world, Kageyama Tobio is left behind by his parents. In this world, the existence of soulbonds keeps Kageyama’s parents in Miyagi and leaves Kageyama in the care of his grandma and grandpa.

(In which soulmates exist and that changes everything and nothing at the same time.)

(*buries face in hands* I have fallen for this ship so hard and I can't get out fudge me. I understand now. Their DYNAMICS FIEWONPAF)

Kings of Tomorrow by bokubroya (liarielle)

Ship: Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru

On the eve of Tobio’s 16th birthday, he counts down the seconds to midnight, and emerges with Oikawa Tooru’s name on his wrist.

It’s been two years since then, and Tobio thought they had an understanding. A silent, never spoken about understanding that this thing between them is nothing, and they’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Of course, it’s just like Oikawa to change the game and leave Tobio wondering what comes next.

(I am WEAK for soulmate fics between these two, I don't even really like soulmate fics half the times what is WRONG WITH ME-)(Please suffer with me, I'm begging you. Its a good fic, thumbs up.)

-

[Crossover]

Honey and Magic by JustARatherVerySillyWriter, White_Squirrel for Super Carlin Brothers

Fandoms: Matilda (yeah you read that right), Harry Potter

Everyone knew Matilda was a rather extraordinary child, but even she didn't know she was a witch. Matilda Honey receives her Hogwarts letter in the year of the Triwizard Tournament, and soon, she will leave her unique mark on the magical world.

(Do I even need to explain how amazing it is to have Matilda in the wizarding world? And Matilda is a HUFFLEPUFF AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL THIS FIC IS GREAT PLEASE READ!!!)

An Eye for an Eye by DpsMercy

Fandoms: The Magnus Archives, Welcome to Night Vale

In which Jonathan Sims is not from the UK but instead, if you took his origins and turned them sideways twice then flipped them over, he technically would be from the US, the town of Night Vale specifically. Elias can’t do shit about it and gets a headache and slowly creeping madness instead.

(Look, I know probably everyone has read this because if they haven't, what have you been DOING with your lives??? Jon interning at Night Vale is Incredible, nothing phases this man, it's Delightful. I laughed so many times reading this, I'm not even kidding right now. Read or perish.)

The Favour by R_Cookie

Fandoms: Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Ship: Original Percival Graves/Harry Potter

Percival is ten years old when his grandfather tries to tell him that he's ensured the greatness of the Graves legacy for him, that he ought to be eternally grateful - but the explanation is hijacked by a stranger who manages to intimidate Chester Graves with an ease never seen before.

or: Hadrian (Harry) Potter is the Master of Death, who grants Graves a boon. Nobody could have known that the Deathly Hallows didn't turn you so much into the 'Master of Death' as into the anthropomorphic personification of Death. And so, Death becomes Percival's guardian angel, and Percival does not spit out his cereal.

(Look, I don't know how I stumbled back into the FBAWTFT fandom either, it just happened and I'm grateful for that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have found this amazing fic. Their relationship is slow and strange and I just love how Percival is characterized here. Also, one of the tag promises that it deviates from canon so I am really, really excited for that! XD)

baby that's what i do by natanije

Fandoms: Naruto, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!

"Are you telling me," Hidan exclaims, incredulous, "that you collect money all this time to give to orphans?!"

Kakuzu pauses. He blinks a few times.

"Huh. I guess I do."

(Tsuna reincarnates as Kakuzu and it's HILARIOUS. HE'S SUCH A MOM HAHAHA)

[utilitycaster]

The gist of this is that The Silt Verses is a horror podcast about a world where gods are real and require (typically human) sacrifices. Legal gods are fed primarily with prisoners, but illegal ones require the worshipers find their own sacrifices. Anyway, (spoilers start here) the story mostly centers around a few worshipers of the Trawler Man, a ancient but not legally sanctioned river deity, and then later in season two their former hostage (not intended as a sacrifice, they just needed her car) and the now former cop who had been tracking them.

Mason is the leader of the worshipers (the Parish of Tide and Flesh) and in a climactic moment appears to have abandoned them to save himself, when their secret main refuge is discovered and attacked. However, it's then revealed he had cornered a politician who was coming down particularly hard on the old illegal gods and forced her to call off the raid. In the conversation he has with that politician, he does not seem terribly faithful, but he is extremely politically savvy. He offers a powerful prayer mark (kind of like a written spell only available to the faithful) in service to an upcoming war, essentially drafting the parish and his god into the military helping the nation that has long oppressed them in exchange for legality. (He also threatens to kill the politician and make it look like an assassination; she had recently been targeted in a similar one so it was a very plausible tactic). There are also heavy casualties among the worshipers while this occurs, and he chose not to warn the parish before leaving.

Anyway, Mason does not fancy himself a god - in this world, in fact, it's generally considered terrible to become a saint (physical and often horrifying and eldritch avatar of a deity). But he's absolutely willing to use his god as a bargaining chip to get himself personal power.

This is very much how I see Ludinus. I could be proved wrong, but nothing he's done points to him wishing to become a god himself; I've always found that to be a weirdly unfounded assumption. He wants very normal, everyday levels of power but in particular absolute control over people - a relatively small group of people, all things considered - and he does not have any respect for their lives. This is pretty typical cult stuff too. Cult leaders can develop an extremely overblown sense of grandeur because they have such a huge and complete level of power, but typically it's still limited to power over a couple hundred people at most. And when they die, it's not out of a sense of ascension; it's usually because they'd rather die than face consequences, but they convince those underneath them that this is martyrdom or merely a step on the path to enlightenment.

There are easier and subtler ways to become a god, if Ludinus wished to do so; what he wants is a level of power over people that even a major advisory position in a imperial government cannot grant him, without the responsibilities of godhood. I think he also wants the gods dead, just as Mason probably genuinely wishes for the parish to be legalized, and there's a strong element of revenge, but this is in the end a very mortal story.

Finally caught up with the Silt Verses today and now I'm having so many Ludinus thoughts as a result

[wenellyb]

Girl give it up. Just look up his name and the articles that come with it. He dug this grave himself.

Hi Anon,

“Look up his name and the articles that come with it”

Thanks for sending this because this an easy example of why I’m trying to do someting (maybe useless) about this.

Just to make it clear that I’m not Anthony’s agent and I’m not his friend, and I am not a die hard fan or anything, but I’m doing this as a matter of principle because the treatment Anthony has received by the press is disgusting, and what you are saying is proof. 

“Just look up his name and the articles that come with it” 

All the articles you are mentionning, are based on ONE article on one interview written by a journalist from Variety, who intentionally wrote an article misleading people into thinking he was talking about Sam and Bucky’s relationship, when in fact, he was merely replying to a question, the journalist himself had asked about the rarity of male frienships but wasn’t replying to Sam and Bucky’s relationship.

Not your fault at all, I won’t pretend that I don’t do the same and only read headling or even dig deeper than the article most of the time. But what I don’t understand is the journalists, whose job this is and who are doing the same thing, I don’t think that any of them listened to the actual podcast.

Say what you want about what Anthony said, but the reason why this is such a big story, is because the journalist placed the answer in the wrong context. That article was written to stir drama, and the journalist knew that an actor saying he didn’t support a ship as romantic would create more headlines..

And all the other articles you see are based on that misleading one, and not even on the podcast. And that journalist knows exactly what he is doing, because when he was asked to publish the audio on Twitter, he cut the part with his own question, leading to Anthony’s reply.

Now I don’t care if Anthony Mackie likes Sam and Bucky’s relationship or not, and this has nothing to do with shipping or even Anthony. 

Honestly, I’m not even doing this for Anthony because Anthony will be fine, he has his money, his family and isn’t on social media that much, I highly doubt that he is severely impacted by this. And by the time it could do any harm to his career, the story would have died down.... Because this how the Internet works... the stories go from 0 to 100 back to 0 very quickly.

But I do think this is unfair that the journalist who’s setting him up is getting away with this, especially since the jornalist as a history of framing misleading stories about Black actors, Ray Fisher and John Boyega.

I don’t feel ok not trying anything when people keep getting away applying racists pattern, especially when I look at how racism in the industry has affected John and Ray’s careers.

If you’re really interested in knowing more and not just reading the headlines:

You can find the transcript of that portion of the podcast HERE, and I’m sure there are other transcripts on Tumblr or even the audio in questions.

And if you really want to dig up interviews, you can also dig up articles where he gives his opinion on why it was important for him as a Black man to star in movies like Brother to Brother or shows like Black Mirror.

I’m not doing this for Anthony as a person, but you have no idea how infuriating it is to see a Black man get demonized for something a White man would get away with and especially something he didn’t say in that context in the first place.

If Anthony’s answers had been put it the context of the questions asked in the podcast, this wouldn’t even be a big story.

My personal thoughts on THIS

[workingforitallthetime]

c’mon join the marty party

or, why you should love jordan martinook

I initially thought of Jordan Martinook as merely the means to a mistah svechnikov end. But as it turns out, I like Marty a whole lot too. So I thought I would take a few minutes to get you up to speed before I inflict svech/marty fic upon you. A full primer on that ship will follow, but for now, let’s get to know Marty, okay?

Unless otherwise sourced, all the information that follows is from here or here.

Marty is unquestionably the Canes’ energy guy, on and off the ice. There are countless articles referencing his “relentless energy” and describing how the entire team is less effective if he’s not playing. If a conversation is happening, Marty wants to be involved. If there’s a fight, Marty probably started it. If there’s a team event, Marty is planning it. If someone is getting punched by Evander Holyfield, it’s going to be Marty.

Background: Born in Manitoba, raised in Saskatchewan, claims Alberta. We love a prairie boy playing pond hockey, yes we do! A late bloomer who was passed over the first two years he was draft-eligible, Marty was finally drafted in the second round by the Arizona Coyotes in 2012. When asked what he wanted to be doing in five years, this 20-year-old softy said he’d hopefully be on his second contract "and be settling down in my life with a wife and kids.”

and look! he did it!

This is Chase. He was born the same week Marty signed his new contract with the Canes, but Marty would like you to know he also went to a Metallica concert that week. It was a big week. I would like you to know that Marty dressed Chase up as a Canadian moose for his first Halloween, but unfortunately I cannot find pictures. However, there are plenty of pictures of Marty’s gassy french bulldog Gus. Marty’s wife Courtney also seems lovely but this is an rpf zone so I don’t think about her too much.

Marty made his NHL debut in 2014, and in 2018 he was traded to Carolina. Possibly you could say this happened because the Yotes had a surplus of wingers with Lawson Crouse on the way up, but cosmically this happened because Andrei Svechnikov needed Marty.

Marty played it cool the first few weeks in Carolina, but he released the Marty Party after that and he has been the best beloved of the Canes social media team ever since. Here is Marty extremely drunk after tailgating at an NC State game (with a little bonus svech for you):

The Canes gave him an A in his second year, and truly there is no one better suited for the role. As I understand it, one possible job description for an A is Vice President of Good Vibes and Making Sure Everyone Feels Included (please note that I could be wrong about this, my sample size is Kevin Hayes), and Marty excels at this responsibility. Brind’Amour describes him as “kind of that guy that glues it all together.”

Here’s Marty bellowing the starting lineup. And here’s Marty tweeting at Ryan Suzuki because Marty is the kind of guy who researched the Canes’ brand new draft pick and found out his go-to karaoke song is Love Story:

Marty takes karaoke extremely seriously. His worst fear, other than rattlesnakes, is getting booed off the karaoke stage. This happened to him once, in Portland ME, but he acknowledges it was his fault for choosing an Eminem song. (”I’m from Alberta, I can’t rap.”) His go-to karaoke song is I Wanna Dance With Somebody, but he notes that other appropriate choices for someone from Alberta include country music and Sarah McLachlan.

Oh, a little more about that Nickelback thing:

Here are some other important Marty facts:

Was a drama kid in high school! He had the lead in the school play and they had to reschedule it because Marty had a hockey game.

The team was already calling Martin Nečas “Marty” when Jordan Martinook arrived in Carolina, but Jordan pulled rank and claimed the nickname and made everybody call Martin Nečas “Junior” instead.

If Marty was an animal, he’d be a dolphin (because he loves water and can do a very plausible dolphin squeal.)

Speaking of loving water, last summer Marty took a river float trip with Joel Edmundson, Brock McGinn, Jake Gardiner, and Svech. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about this.

Marty is a hairy motherfucker who regularly waxes his eyebrows (because threading is too painful and laser hair removal did not work) and has been chirped about his back hair in every locker room he’s ever been in.

Speaking of hair, Marty would like you to know that when he was 16 or 17 he and his brother-in-law “fell into some beers” and his brother-in-law tried to wax Marty’s asshole with drywall tape. (Are you starting to see why Marty is the best hockey podcast guest ever?)

I think it’s important for you to know that Marty has hot pink swim trunks:

Finally, it should be noted that Marty comes by it honestly. His dad is legendary for partying like a rock star on every dads’ trip. I will leave you with this photo of small Marty and his dad, two generations of party: