#i dont want to be trapped in my own interpretation of this show so while i hold criticism for it

[usercelestial]

okay here's my thing about buck not saying the word bisexual yet- i think that's the point. i just think they aren't doing it in a very graceful way so it goes mostly unnoticed by the audience.

maddie asks how many men did abby turn gay and buck skirts around the question and only defending tommy there while not clarifying that he himself is not gay but rather bisexual. he didn't say that because i don't think he's actually thought about it yet, because i don't think he felt like he had to. like he kind of just speed ran the whole "im bisexual" thing and focused more on the fact that he lied to eddie and felt like a fraud because of it. he didn't have the words to express his sexuality outside of "me and tommy were a date, is that weird?" which obviously eddie can assume "okay so you're not straight" which he was about to say when he asked "wait tommy's gay? so you... two were..." but he shifts away from that question and into another one. so buck never on screen comes to a conclusion about what his sexuality actually is.

i think instead of buck looking amused in that maddie scene, he could have tried to say "well i'm not gay" and stumble over clarification to bring more attention to the fact that yes he is still struggling with his identity and doesn't fully accept/understand it yet.

again, i still have issues with it but i'm trying to see it from the writers perspective and see what they were going for.

[mountainscouts]

I think Gary shouldn't be just a perfect overachiever gentleman that soothes Stan's depression. I don't dislike it but I also want to see Gary not have everything in his life in order, allow him to get angry, question Mormonism (racism, homophobia), pressure him with familial expectations (don't set bad example for his siblings, must marry a woman, etc), let him cut loose and party. Conversely, Stan isn't 24/7 doom+gloom. He can be stable, proactive and self-reflecting even before dating Gary.

WHEW. OKAY THIS ASK HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY ASK BOX FOR A WHILE NOW BECAUSE ITS JUST SO. SO PERFECT. where do i even begin?

okay, i have such a specific view of gary that is essentially this, seriously. when it comes to stary, people tend to gloss over gary as a character and while i can't really blame them for doing that, considering that gary is just a guy who has in total less than 3 minutes of speaking roles in his only episode, it's something i've noticed. while i wish that more people would explore him as a character with as much depth as stan, i've kinda just accepted that it won't ever be the case. BUT because of that, i've sort of hyper focused on these types of details about gary and built on his character more in that regard, going that exact direction you went in your ask.

gary, to me, is a well-polished & put together mess when he gets older. the church is such a fascinating and important facet of his life, and the fact that his character is so inherently & quintessentially mormon is a very accurate portrayal of a lot of mormons from SLC. with that, any type of interpretation of him that deviates from typical norms and values in the church is actually asking for a lot of character dissection. i understand that a lot of people would rather not, but i WOULD. and HAVE BEEN...

gary to me is gay, and i can't really see him otherwise. he finds this out– or at least has a feeling that he might be at a younger age, so already his sexuality giving him leeway in questioning the church and its beliefs. this starts leading him to be more self-aware of his societal and familial role, juggling his own beliefs, the church's, and by extension his family's. with this baggage, i guess, i'm sure it'll extend beyond that to his sense of self. what does he want to be? what does he want to make of himself? how can he feel so trapped, but by the loving arms of his family? so much to build and unpack here!!

speaking of his family, i truly believe they're ignorant folk, conservative, and traditional (inadvertently confirmed by how many children they have and how they all interact with eachother- even if that's just a joke, it proves my point that the harrisons are a decent portrayal of mormon families yet again). gary, being the middle child and if one wanted to write him as "the special one", makes for these dilemmas even more interesting honestly. from setting a good precedent for his siblings, following the path of his older ones, cramming extra-curricular activities as a means to both please his parents and even distract himself from his issues, to having to attend church meetings— it all piles up, all while his own contractions are fed more and more at the incessant exposure of daily life.

the reason why he's considered a polished mess is because he's your typical "looks like he has everything under control, actually under insane amounts of stress" character. i firmly believe that the harrisons have no ill-will, but i think the way that they raised their children falls strongly on the line of emotional neglect. their children were never taught any life lessons that'd help actually help them like- you know, regulating emotions. i've mentioned this in a previous post (and also elaborated on gary showing anger specifically) but i personally believe that while gary is a kind, and generous person to his core, there is an incredible amount of repression deep within him— a product of being raised with many, "boys dont cry"s, "love thy neighbor"s, and "forgive and forget"s. kindness specifically is actually an incredibly important aspect to mormonism, as it's a key part of the lifelong and ever present journey to celestial afterlife. but that's the thing: objectively speaking– this is just a way of control.

so when one wants to break free from this way of thinking, to lose this control, to break away from all they've known— their very livelihood— it's not going to come in the form of an overnight epiphany. in gary's case, considering how tight he is with his family versus his budding progressive views and drive to have more free reign over his self, it's going to be one hell of a struggle.

to touch on your point of him not getting everything he wants, i think that's another fundamental reason why he would question his standing in the church as well— depending on What he doesn't get. perhaps he doesn't want to serve his mission, but does so anyways. or maybe he simply had a bad day, but he can't allow himself to get upset, convincing himself that "things could be worse" as a way to make himself feel better, barring himself from healthily expressing his feelings. repeatedly saying "its okay" is going to be his downfall lol

and, i too would love to see him cut loose and party eventually- without a second thought that he'd be disappointing anyone.

okay now for stan. oh yeah that guy— no i'm just kidding, i'm also actually very picky about stan as well. :P most of your points about him align perfectly with mine. i don't like it when people woobify him to a point where his only/a major part of his character is his pessimism and depression, and while they are a part of him, it seems to be a big theme when people talk about stary. i definitely love the whole "i can fix him" thing gary has with him (because of gary's primordial urge to "fix" things and be persistent until he can't anymore) but that's definitely not all that they are!! (also gary's initial thought of "fixing" stan would already be faulty from the get-go anyways- but he will learn)

with stan, i think people tend to make him already pretty "helpless" in general fandom, and while he has shown to be more vulnerable than his peers, hes still pretty resilient. i do think that he would need a little bit of a push when it comes to his mental health, but that's only because he's found a way to cope with these issues- none of which are truly healthy. he's moreso content with being in a stalemate with himself and while he does wish he could do more, it takes a lot out of him to get out his more personal comfort zones.

kinda gives him another reason as to why him and gary are narrative foils, i just realized :P!!

but yeah!! i really loved this ask, and i probably really should indulge more in this aspect of gary >_<. its something i truly think about, and those who are close to me DEFINITELY know this! thank you for the ask and sorry it took so dang long haha. also thank you to those who read this behemoth, genuinely didnt expect to yap this much

[asillylittlefish]

this is a little animation i made for one for one of ampasmen on ao3's works, "Drowning in your sea of stars", go check it out!!

an explanation about what is going on is below the cut :]

Okay so this is just going to be me info dumping about this ship, not the fic itself. you can read that on your own if you want to

so first of all, the characters used are Benthomaar, from Seabound (a season of Lego Ninjago, for those who don't know him) and Scott, also from Ninjago, but from the Prime Empire season.

I dont know who started this ship but i love it a lot, even if they dont have a canon interaction (call me delusional, but there are so many other ships like this so shhhh)

i have age headcanons for them, since we never got any confirmations, so i think Benthomaar is around 24 years old and Scott is around 21 (not counting the 30 years he spent inside prime empire)

And yes, if you go with the timeline (which already doesnt make sense), Scott is around 40-50 years old while Benthomaar seems to be around the same age as the ninja, but this is my interpretation of how things happened with Scott, and i dont think anyone could age trapped inside a game where absolutely nothing around ever changes

since he also doesnt seem to be older in the show once he leaves prime empire (atleast thats what it looked like to me), i have no reason to assume that he did age, so yeah, while he legally ages, his body went through no changes (other than his skin and shit) and his mind didnt age either, considering the only interactions he had were always more or less the same. i dont believe those interactions can help your mind grow

If this wasnt understandable or too confusing, i imagine it being sort of similar to Krux and Acronix in season 7. Theyre twins and technically still the same age, but since Acronix travelled through time, he didnt actually age and is thus both younger and the same age as Krux.

So Scott technically aged those 30 years, but couldnt, due to prime empire sort of blocking his body from aging and his mind being unable to develop further

i hope this cleared up any misunderstandings if there were any to begin with!

[deadgiants]

I'll hand it to "the Hound," it gave me a lot to think about.

This has been bouncing around my skull for a few days, though it's not really something that I mentioned in the posts while reading it.

Connla's conception and death are all told in the Hound, but they're also very much changed. I do want to preface that this post is more musing than argument against the book, though I do think it shows a kinda gross through line of a very modern sexism in the story.

So in this, the moment when Connla is conceived is depicted in two tiny panels following Eva (Aife, the angicizations are awful) invading Scáthach's school because... she thinks she could teach better than Scáthach? But then she's welcomed back, so everything is cool, and her and Cú have barely implied sex. Cú leaves to go home from exile early on the next page I think (not sure that's how exile works) with the knowledge that Eva (Aife) is pregnant. Importantly though, when he leaves, all he does is give her a ring for Connla to be identified by, and instruction to send him to Ireland at some point.

The key difference here is that in the original telling (or oldest we have) CúChulainn gives these full instructions, framed as geassa;

Connla cannot turn back once he starts his journey, he must not refuse a challenge, and must never tell anyone his name.

I dont Know Bogan's mind, but it's here that I can see where he may have thought "well that makes no sense, why would he do that?" Which is fair if you don't think too long, it is a mythological telling from a culture we don'thave the full context for, but the solution he settles on is to make Eva (Aife) be the one who insists that Connla not tell his name, and that he should come to Ireland and act as aggressor, rather than simply not be able to turn down a challange. The framing makes this read as some malicious act on her part, as though making CúChulainn kill his own son is an act of vengeance for his unceremonious departure unrelated to her.

It also serves again to remove agency from CúChulainn while I think trying to humanize him. In the original he: willingly couples with her, instructs her to send Connla to him in the future, and puts these geassa on him. It gives Aife in the original test less agency for him to make these choices, but to only give women characters agency to make them temptresses, or malicious and calloused feels like a zero sum at best.

This was supposed to be a shorter post, but I haven't gotten to the thing I even really meant to yet because any analysis of this comic cascades into a half-dozen other things.

The thing I wanted to get to is, in a nutshell, CúChulainn needs to know who he's killing when he fights Connla. It may be my interpretation of the story, but from my repeated readings I think CúChulainn and Emer know who Connla is basically from the moment they arrive on the scene, and are trapped by their own laws and mores to play out the scene as if written ahead of time. This created a much more tragic scene of people who know what they are doing, and must continue to do it anyway. It also createds a much more poignant foreshadowing for CúChulainn's battle at the ford with Ferdiad where CúChulainn is in some ways put in Connla's place, knowing that he must move forward, but knowing ahead of time what it means, while Ferdiad is trapped by his society to try to kill one of his greatest loves.

If CúChulainn doesn't know at all who this random 10 year old is, then it's still a setup for the battle, but only in a thematic framing, without as much emotion.

I said before this post isn't as much about the Comic being bad as the others. And while there is something I'm going to say i. Another post following this that IS. The reason this one isn't is that I totally get these choices, or the motivation for them, I still think theyre badly thought out, because the internal logic of the story is damaged by having these characters do the same actions for different reasons, both internal and external. I can see the problem here especially of "how do you adapt this narrative for a modern audience?"

I think the answer is, don't.

Adapting the characters and changing the reasons for events that need to happen in the story in the way they did here, full of (I don't like that I keep saying modern, because it implies a fundamental difference between then and now in people hearts that I don't think exists) contemporary sensibilities, stemming from a neo-liberal society, started in the late 90's, makes the story flow naturally only if you dont think at all about how events connect. It's building a lego set but the top hald are mega bloks.

All adaptations have an element of authorship and will by their nature be personal to the time and place they are made, adaptations that try to be the exact thing are almost without fail boring and somewhat sterile. This seems to be an intentional overwrite of the original, like they were going to "fix" parts if it, and honestly if you feel like you need to fix something like folklore and mythology in order to make it good, maybe you're not the person to do that adaptation.

[squeiky]

!!!List of papyrus things!!!

(Update 3! mini update.)

For anyone who needs more info on the guy! Since you usually dont see alot of info about him!

A list of stuff thats just papyrus's tid bits i've collected overtime!

(Disclaimer: some things can be taken off of memory, though I did search most of the stuff up, so you dont have to worry too much. But if your feeling unsure, search it up! And correct me while your at it.)

his room doesn't play/have music.

(If you have reunited playing at enter his room, it'll disappear forever. Untill you go back and let it play again. Even without reunited, a song that plays no matter what room your in, doesn't play any music.)

Never takes off his battle body.

(According to sans, he only takes it off if he has no other choice too. Otherwise he'll just put clothes ontop of it, or just repaints it if needed. He does how ever, change his pants but never takes off the top.)

the minute "royal gaurd " is out of the picture, he's got nothing.

(It was the one thing he worked up for. When the royal gaurd disbands He says he "working hard on doing absolutely nothing". Then again this can be interpreted as papyrus does say he is working on something, despite not being a royal gaurd yet.)

He lies. (And can manipulate)

(Though he is really bad at lying, he seems to manipulate just fine, though its usually not out of malice. He gets undyne to befreind you by mentioning "challenge", which is a weakness of hers, since she never can turn down a challenge. And has lied about floweys name to her to. Has lied to sans or atleast mislead him about the things he knows about. Pretended he didn't know what a lab was during a call in hotland, but if you call him when sans isn't there, papyrus mentions the lab as if it was common knowledge instead of saying "Labrador-y?" As if he had no idea.)

Changes up his attacks

( if you get captured a few times, you see variation in his attacks. If you do it right, you can get him too skip half of his entire attack.)

Calls his own puzzles "Awful"

(This happens after battling papyrus, he says "WHO KNEW THAT ALL I NEEDED TO MAKE PALS... WAS TO GIVE PEOPLE AWFUL PUZZLES AND THEN FIGHT THEM??" This could be interpreted in many ways.)

Spikes, fire, traps, fencless bridges: are all safe for children, according to papyrus.

("EACH AREA HAS TO HAVE A PRECARIOUS BRIDGE" -bridge likely to collapse, dangerous. "ITS MANDATED BY THE GOVERNMENT. OF COURSE KING FLUFFYBOY WANTS TO UNMANDATE IT SAFER." "WHY?! WONT HE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!)

Has "talked" with asgore before.

(Sadly, asgore and papyrus has crossed paths. Asgore advises him not to but dangerous puzzles around town, for the children. Papyrus wants to put dangerous puzzles around town, for the children. This results in them bickering over saftey laws, with papyrus usually winning.)

Tried to start a flowey fan club

(On multiple occasions calls flowey "his best freind" and shows genuine love for the little guy. He even gave flowey a little red scarf to match his, during the 5th anniversary winter alarm clock.)

Has photo-graphic memory for phone calls.

-call in the room where undyne chased you. He seems nervous, or atleast stressed out during this call. I'll leave any and all interpretation to you.)

(Ps: papyrus has bad memory, but good photographic memory?)

His disliking for grease

(Says this during a call with undyne in grillby's place. Undyne says she loves grease, and he quickly dismisses his opinion in favor of hers. Of course, papyrus HAS visited grillbys before, as the dogamy and doggeressa mention him with sans. )

Calls alphys "great"

(During the first tile puzzle, he praises alphys by calling her "THE GREAT DR. ALPHYS" )

Knows about undynes crush on alphus

(He teases undyne a few times on this, leading to the "hot voice" and "audible wink" papyrus lines. He's not oblivious to the things around him, unless he chooses to be.)

Put limes in his eyes!

(Conversation in hotland! The guy thought limes where cucumbers and stuck them in his eyes. When. He thought it wasn't working he put more limes. It burned like hell but he says it was all to have "mettaton's bishoning eyes")

Knows about mtt's eyes

(Nobody seems to know that mettaton has eyes?! Undyne confirms this fact. Papyrus is the only one who outright mentions it.)

He got mettaton to do the tile puzzle thing

(FOR SOME UNEXPLAINED REASON- mettaton was the tile puzzle robot alphys built. The puzzle robot papyrus had during his own tile puzzle. Infact, during mettaton's tile puzzle in hotland, he says that you'd is this a few hundred rooms ago. If you call papyrus, he starts rambling on all the instructions again. Hehe.)

he likes dinosaur oatmeal

(According to the undertale tumblr, flowey response to "whats papyrus's favorite food?" Is DINOSAUR OATMEAL!! YAY!)

really enjoys mtt's show and mtt in general.

(and mtt even helped him with a tile puzzle)

enjoys cars

Owns a car bed

(Want to drive one)

really freaking artistic!

(Paints a whole bridge, makes a snowpapyrus, made his own costume/battle body, built a okay replica of a sentry station)

The red book on the table in the skelebro's house is infact his!

(For specifics, the quantum mechanics book with infinite books inside of it. It isn't specified who reads it, but both brothers should be capable as jokes and puns are not out of papyrus wardrobe.)

has his own shed and tools.

(Also known as "the punishment shed, doghouse, cpature zone, guest room, a garage" or undyne's pun which was "the coolshed". Ah, to be enriched by shed puns... Wonderful.)

tried to learn the "horoscope"

(Got "stumped" according to sans)

thinks junior jumble is harder than crossword

wants a 6 pairs of hot pants and 6 pairs of legs to wear those pants

has a dream of owning a shop where he just sells flames

(Call near in waterfall, near the turtle man shop.)

He's very influential

(If he's the only one killed in a neutral run, even without undyne, a revolution will still occur. Look into it yourself if need be.)

Called himself a genius

(During the instance, where he talks to you after turning the light on in sans's room.)

Can't really tell when someones mad

(He couldn't tell when undyne was mad at him during a call. He asks us too.)

Doesn't watch anime.

(He thinks its like cartoons for babies. Jokes around with undyne for awhile before taking it all back once he knew she watched anime.-during one of the calls.)

Brutal kind of guy

(He says this himself, i don't exactly know WHY he thinks this of himself, but he does.)

Bookworm

Owns a bookshelf

(He has a book Its where his vast dictionary comes from.

Knows about the time and space manipulation tactics sans uses.

(HE KNOWS- HE MENTIONS IT WHEN HE TURNS ON THE LIGHT IN SANS'S ROOM!!)

believes you can be a better person, if you just try.

(And he's right. Even if you kill him he still believes this, beacuse well.. Its true. Undyne wont forgive you and try to kill you, sans won't fight you, bht he's still right either way)

Knows about river person

(He asks about how river person is doing. No body seems to know about river person, and its unsure if undyne knows about their prescence.)

The days in his date scene (Monday, Tuesday, weekday, Thursday,e.c.t ) changes depending on your computer. Even though the date in undertale is always Monday.

(River person has a scheduled thing that matches up to your computer date as well, but this is about papyrus, not river person.)

Weird abilities

(Flying and super speedy twirling, flying backwards. He doesn't even hide it.)

He's pretty freaking tough!

(According to undyne, the person who defeated asgore.)

His "absolutely normal attack" is a giant cluster of bones.

(In theory, his attack could be the size of the entire area, including the giant bone at the end.)

Papyrus can lower the giant bone at the end of his "absolutely normal attack"

Has Collection of bones (or was planning to make one.)

(The room behind the sink was made for.. His attacks/bones. Before toby(dog)came in and made a shrine instead.)

Is annoying dog's favorite target.

Has a cannon, spears, fire thingy, and a dog at his disposal.

(Displayed during the bridge scene)

One persistent dude.

Likes to say "NYEHEHE!"

Has alot of MTT items.

Owns makeup!

(Mtt brand of course!)

Never dated anyone before.

(He says it himself.)

owns a dating manual

Not much of a sleeper.

(To the point where he just calls sleeping "naps" which aren't that long. He outright says he's always working, so he doesn't sleep.)

Dislikes hotland

dislikes hotland x2

Dislikes hotlands puzzles

Dislikes hotlands ethics.

Doesnt know much about hotland

(Says he knows it like the back of his hand!)

Says he never taken off his gloves, so he has no idea how his hands look like.

(He wears gloves or mittens on top of his gloves. And refuses to take it off, like his "battle body")

Calls hotland's steam puzzles garbage.

Dislikes hotlands conveyors

Thinks L1 and R2 stand for left and right

( Of course, it takes him awhile. He starts making puns, and tries to compare the words to pasta, and THEN comes to the conclusion that its left and right. Its Trail and error.-)

Knows about death.

(Said he wanted to meet death one time during a waterfall call.)

He pauses when speaking as a lost soul.

("I MUST CAPTURE A HUMAN! THEN EVERYONE WILL. ...." This is unusual as he is the only one that pauses. This can be interpreted, but it is rather interesting nonetheless)

Alright this is a bit more interpretive. Things may not be 100% facts down here.

Disclaimer: i will be putting "Interpretive" in red coloring for things that have may my interpretation or opinions in! Please do be mindful in your search, and take it with a grain of salt. It doesn't make it comepelty wrong, it has facts! Just muddled with oppinions.

Ready?

self-worth problems.

( can be called interpretive: He always feels very unimportant, as if he doesn't actually matter. During a call in waterfall, with the puddle hallway, papyrus talks about not letting it "get to you" or something along the lines of that. Since undyne speaks from her experience with the puddles, then i'd assume papyrus would too.)

(I think its just a sign of self doubt or insecurity. Someone once said its dysphoria, which is a cool headcannon for paps or something. What ever it is, he has some demons that he doesn't want to let out.)

Forgetable.

( according to the genocide description)

( Interpretive: Other than that, he's not even noticable. Though, there are a few people that appreciate him, most dont really acknowledge him. Unless you kill him of course!)

Sad/depressed?

( interpreitive as well:Before the human showed up, sans explains how his brother was feeling quite down lately. We see a.. Happier side of papyrus through out our journey.. He vents out to us, the player/human, about things he dislikes, or troubles he faces. Hes like a froggit. Life is hard for a froggit.)

Smiles through things.

("This is where I tried to capture you! What a bad memory." -quote he says as he smiles through it all. He does have a sad emote, but so far i have only seen it during a call in hotland, where the CORE was shown. As your adventure is coming close.. To an end.)

Uses his playful "OUCH!" emote when you straight up kill him. Instead of his hurting/in pain emote when flowey catches him off guard before absorbing everyonesones souls.

(The reason is unkown, but that emote is normally associated with more of "light taps." Examples are, toriel's fireballs at asgore and flowey. Unless... Cutting off his head was considered a "light tap" then, but flowey wrapping him in painful vines is considered more painful than getting his head chopped off and still having enough consciousness to joke about it.)

He knows his cooking sucks and that nobody likes it.

(He's not naive. He knows. He even says it. "Nobody has like my cooking before!" - QUOTE. This isn't some hidden fact. He's trying his best, "mabye next year, he might even make something edible." -sans quote.)

That was all the stuff i gathered for now.

Feel free to tell me anything i haven't added! :)

yeah, hes a pretty cool dude, ain't he?

(Edit: i've added some new things to the bunch, and fixed/deleted ome opinions or unrelated junk. Please, continue helping me add!)

[hikarikaishi-blog]

Why Caleb did what he did in ep127 – my theory.

This is my theory it can be super wrong, maybe I am right at some points, I just want to put it out there, maybe some of  you will like it. Here we go:

Caleb is my fav character the whole campaign so far and what he did in that episode shocked me, it was so not like him. We did see him when cornered he would go rampage but was he cornered here? So I was shocked.

I was shocked he didnt discuss the problem that might come from this with the M9, they didnt talk about it might be a trap they just went for it. They didnt think twice and that was alarming for me and the second they interacted with the guards it all went south and Caleb ignored Astrids tip of being stealthy to avoid Trent. And in the end he did appear and I was like „that is what you get when you just go full rage and dont think a second about it and Caleb you were the thinker in this campaign why did you do all of that?! Next episode I want an explanation for this or I am out!“

Caleb knew what he was doing all the time, he knew if he would do all of this Trent would show up.

There is no way he did forget that because Astrid told him super clear that Trent isnt there so they should be STEALTHY.  But he didnt. He ignored the warnings and put Astrid in danger with that as well, a soon as Trent sees the maps he knows who helped and Astrid will be punished. He said he cares for her and puts her in this danger! It was all a lie? Astrid deserves so much better than this! Boo Caleb for treating a girl that was obviusly in pain so she cried because of you like that! I was at least a bit happy that Matt clearly said Trent did appear because of the rucus, not because of Astrid. She didnt sent Trent. She didnt do it.

Caleb ignoring Astrid and her advice and destroying the bit of Trust that was building up between them – shatterd. „Caleb thats so stupid why are you that stupid.“

I was all that. I was so disappointed.

I woke up next morning and was still disappointed and a bit angry that Caleb went this route with all the murder. He knew Trent will maybe show up and catch them while stealing his stuff and he did it anyway. It was like Caleb wanted Trent to show up. To show him how much he hates him and to show him what he is capable off. Because Trent knows that now because he sees the display of raw power he might want to get Caleb back under his thumb and make him work for him again. There is no way out of this situation for them, than to bargain with Trent and he imo will let them got when they will do him a favor later. Caleb must have known that and still did this.

He is just playing into Trents hand where everyone wanted him to escape from. Because Trent is so bad.

And I was: Wait a minute.

Let that sink in for a secong.

He is playing …

playing Trents game. Do you get where I am going with this?

What if all of this, the killing and blood everywhere, is an act made up by Caleb? What if he is playing Trents mind game back at him?

He is giving Trent a view on him like Trents want to think of Caleb: Powerful, full of hate against the Volstruker and Trents experiments, full on revenge and wants to kill him, Trent, but also is no match for him with getting so easily caught in the middle of his home. He has power but he isnt clever enough. What if Caleb wanted to get caught by Trent? Pretend he is not clever so Trent thinks he isnt clever and can be a puppet for him again?

While  pretendign being a puppet again, Caleb can get closer to him/the Assembly to learn more about him and his connections in the Assembly. To learn how to root out all the corruption in the assembly wich is his main goal this whole campaign! He wanted to learn about all that from Ves, we know that, but that didnt work out so he has to do it another way and now he doing it on his own.

He knows, he can not fight the Assembly heads up. He knows he has to get inside first and root out evil from within. He has to earn some trust to get the info he wants to have. He cannot trust anyone so he goes on his own and wants to plays Trents game and maybe be better this time and beat Trent. What better way to beat someone than in his own game right?

And do you remember who talked about beating someone at their own game? Do you? It was Astrid during the dance scene. She said „...either we walk into their trap or beat them in their own game.“

In that scene i thougt she was talking about the TT because she touched his spots with the red eyes a second before and it bothered me that she said „we“. Was she planning on going with them to Eiselcross? That wont happen anyway (she would need trents permission/it would be to obvious and Trent would not let them go so they can come up with a plan to kill him) this is stupid. So now I get she was talking about „we either beat Trent and whomever we are fighting here or we walk into their trap.“

So what I proclaim is: Astrid and Caleb in general know they are dancing the „can-i-trust-you-tango“ but they know they have one common enemy: Trent.

So they were discussing during the dance without saying it, if they want to work together in bringing him down. Caleb wasnt sure if he wants/can work on the „Trent-problem“. He has more importand stuff to do right now and he doesnt want to face all that stuff from the past that will come up during this working against Trent.

He cares for Astrid as he said. He isnt against helping her but maybe not right now.

What made him change his mind was Astrid crying in a spot where nobody would have seen her crying all on her own. He knows her, he know how much is to interpret in her crying. I think she is rarely crying. She has doen the same training as Caleb did, she is used to be cruel and to murder and be a bad human. But she wont cry because of that. She said so herself in their first meeting. Her crying is super special and Caleb gets that. And because he cares so much for her, maybe you can relate when you know a person you care for is crying in the mud. You want to help so they dont cry anymore. That is why he decides he wants to help her,/wants to start working on the problem now and not later. He knows she is using him, but he is using her as well. He doesnt care. He wants to help, to help her, help his country. He made this decision over night and Astrid gave him the time to think about it, but she needed a signal from Caleb. Ans anwer to her question if he wants to do this now or not. She said „I will see what I can do for you“ aka says „i want to work on this now, how about you?“

He sent a red firey bloody signal back. A signal as bright as the fire Warning beacons of Gondor

in „The return of the kings“ when Gondor sent signal to Rohan asking for help. The fun part is nobody gets it beside Matt and that is exactly the kidn of pranks the people on the table like to play. Remember Sam/Scanlan? I do. it was stuff he planned for weeks and nobody was expecting it and it was a big suprise for everyone.)

He could have been stealthy and just get the stuff he wanted during the heist. It would have send the signal to Astrid „thanks for the help, I cant work on this now. Maybe later. See you“.

But Caleb did not do that. He send a signal like: „I am full in, I want to play this game, starting it right now and either we win this game or loose and run into his trap. Lets do it.“

Its amazing how they comunicate without saying a single word about it.

The three different papers you ask? For me its the answer to his „for the love that we three shared I need to ask a favor“. She answeres with the box „Here is what i can do for you and yeah we three are in this together“ the paper are symbols for the three of them. The three people from Blumenthal. Its brialliant.

Why she is thankful in the message: Because he comes back and contacts her. He is her only hope.

Why she is sorry the day after: Because she thinks she is guilty to drag him into this. She knows this will be hard for him and will cause a lot of pain. That is why she says she is sorry.

(Is she for real? We dont know. They are still dancing the „can-i-trust-you-tango“)

They are playing Trents game of saying the truth and show whats obvious. Matt and Liam are playing this game so good they fool the other players and me and other fans. Its brilliant.

To let everyone think its a Trap set up by Astrid? - Its fine because people will focus on her (and its legit because she is shady and in this game as well) while Caleb is the one whom they should be worried about.

Let everyone think he does all the stuff he did here because of the Drama, Trauma and the pain etc – Yes it is exactly that to a percentage and that is the truth he is showing here, but underneath that is the other truth that he just wants to get closer to Trent. Caleb knows how he has to behave to get what he wants. He does it all the time because he learnid it from Trent! (remember the scene he wanted to work Essek as he needed him to work in that moment on the ship, because Caleb wanted the peace talk to happen? Because Caleb didnt want Essek to run away but to stay and get done what he Caleb wants?) He does not like those methods but he has to use them to get what he wants.

This is a brilliant plan from Caleb and Astrid and you know, they worked together before. They know each other so well when it comes to work (and probably more). They were a team for a long time and its like: watching a movie where old action heroes that worked together for a time suddenly have to work again. They just work together like they always did. Its like one comes visit the other one after 10 years of both of them living their lives, and they just look at each other and the person stands up goes to a shelf, gets his old gun out that was hidden there all the time and only asks: how is the weather? And the other says „its clear blue sky“ and they dotn talk anymore and just to their thing like in old times and know exactly what to do. Caleb and Astrid are Assassins in this but you know the dynamic is there.

Another way to put it:

With the dinner invitation trent put up a chess board. And invited Caleb to play. Caleb doesnt answer. Astrid asks him at the door in private: „you said you want to play this game last time you visited me. Do you still want to play? „He says „yes“ and she answers „race you to the top“ wich was clever. It seemed like she wanted to play the game herself, and that is again one half of the  truth here: she wants to play this game, but not on her own because she knows she cannot win this alone. She needs help and playful/tricky invites Caleb to play this together against Trent. Like she would say: „I want to play the game and I would want to know who is more clever/better here, you or me“. This is the dynamic I think they had as teens: always challenge each other who is more clever and gets the solution to a riddle first etc. but always playful never hating and i think that is how they connected in the beginning and fell in love at some point. We will see that maybe in the comic in summer.

During the dance she said: „You have to decide soon if you want to play this chessgame because Trent is a bit distracted anyway right now. Also time is of the essence. You have eyes on your back?“ this mental chessgame wont be a game that will finish soon, or in 2-5 episodes. It might go on for half a year because its a chess game where you have to think a lot and think a lot up in front. With the „i will help you with the necklaces“ she holds out the first pawn to Caleb, and with his rampage he takes it and sets it on the board and the game is on.

And its all covered up in half truth and some scheming but never blunt lies because that would be to easy to find out and could be the end of the game.

So Astrid and Caleb are workign together against Trent while behaving like nothing happend. She does her stuff, he does his.

They will meet sometimes because they both have the working connetction to Trent and who knows how this will end? Trent I think is aware that the game is on and I think he will play (move his figures in the next episode. With the maybe task they have to do for him so he lets them go.)

He set the board on the table in the first place.

Tldr:

Caleb wanted to face Trent. He was aware of what he did, he knew their actions did lead to Trent appearing. He wanted to seem to be the scholar that breaks into his old teachers house to get stuff so he can get closer to Trent again, to gather information from inside the assembly so he can take the system down from inside. Astrid might have gibt him the idea, and maybe there is some planing going on between Astrid and Caleb that we can’t see.

[daggerfall]

Why people hate meridia? Really i don't know what happened about her and Daurien Gautier, i would be glad if you could explain to me :)

I have a paranoid suspicion this is bait but whatever, fine, you can have it.

There’s like two general reasons, the first being her in the lore and the second being her actions in eso.

In the lore, going all the way back to the time of the Ayleids, Meridia was the one who backed them in their fight against the humans they were enslaving. Particularly, she backed Umaril the Unfeathered (who you may remember from the Oblivion DLC) in his fight against Pelinal Whitestrake. Pelinal also sucked, but he was fighting alongside Alessia the Slave Queen to free her people. The Ayleids sucked and were an incredibly cruel people, so Meridia helping them is not great.

In the lore as well, Meridia is known to “purify” her servants, making them immortal but also taking away their free will. She also does this as a punishment to those who break their vows to her, and just in general. We see this in the dungeon “Depths of Malatar”, where she enslaves the Imperials who went to loot it, as well as keeping her Ayleid worshippers “alive” for thousands of years in service protecting half of the Wrathstone for some unknown reason. I believe it is implied she wished to use it someday, but dont quote me on that.

And in the lore again, Meridia has been known to “collect” people, being called the Daedric Prince of Greed in the Illiac Bay. We can arguably see this again with the Purified Imperials in DoM.

And finally in the lore, Meridia’s feud with Molag Bal has resulted in her sacrificing the lives of her own worshippers on the regular just to spite him. When Molag Bal’s forces were attacking a city of her worshippers (the Hollow City), she used the portals they were coming in from to move her city into Coldharbour. Molag Bal could not touch the city, but she moved/displaced all of her loyal followers into another princes realm just to stick it to her enemy. Every single inhabitant of that city either died from being placed outside the protection of the city, or eventually left the city due to being sick and tired of being trapped in there/Oblivion and eventually died. The only survivor was the last Ayleid king, who had been being held and tortured the entire time before his rescue via the Vestige. So a few thousand years.

Now in the games, particularly ESO, it is a popular belief that Meridia was the one who originally led the Vestige to the Worm Cult where they were killed, and is the kickstarter for the events of you being the Hero. The Hooded Figure looks shockingly like the Groundskeeper, has the same voice, and has a vested interest in getting someone powerful to have a deep hatred of Molag Bal and the Worm Cult and be on her side. A lot of people don’t take kindly to being led to their torture and death. Though this is a theory, not confirmed canon, but fandom interpretation is powerful.

Meridia also did not tell the Vestige she was Meridia until just before the fight against Molag Bal, playing with the Vestige like a chess piece in her own fight against her enemy. A lot of people don’t take kindly to being manipulated and used, even if it was against a common enemy. 

As for Darien, Meridia created Darien to be her champion on Nirn. She let him believe he was just a normal Breton his entire life during ESO. At the end of the main quest, Meridia does not return Darien to the rest of the group, and instead takes him to her realm and keeps him there. A lot of us players, as well as NPCs, cared greatly for Darien, and very much dislike Meridia for that. 

Darien writes from the Colored Rooms that he wanted to come home, a letter we can show to his friend Gabrielle (who it is strongly hinted he loved and who loved him back).

We don’t see Darien again until Summerset, when Meridia sends him there to help stop the daedric triad. Meridia did tell him the truth about who and what he was, to some degree, but not everything. When Meridia first talks about Darien, she expressed distaste for how he had changed having met the player. He had a singular purpose, but now he... cares. Meridia does not like her servants having their own freewill and thoughts. 

Darien has to sacrifice himself at the climax of the main story. Once that quest is over, you can find a letter again from him, warning us not to trust Meridia. Just one tiny bit from “Words of the Fallen” “I need to tell you something about Meridia. She's a deceiver. She promised that if I served her faithfully, I'd earn my freedom. She never told me that freedom was just another word for the void. Don't trust her. Don't trust any of the Daedric Princes. Not ever.” I highly recommend reading all of Words of the Fallen btw. 

So! Meridia promises freedom to her most loyal champion, and then takes it away after he does his job. Those who like Darien once again very much dislike Meridia for this.

In Dragonhold, there is a sidequest where you find someone dead next to what looks like Meridia’s Beacon. A letter on him implies that Meridia is looking for a new champion, one who will not betray her, implying that Meridia thinks Darien betrayed her. We know from Words of the Fallen that Darien sacrificed himself for the player, not Meridia. Meridia does not like that Darien cares about the player. 

You can bring the letter to the dead khajiit’s wife, who says she is going to throw the stone in the lake. But if you talk to her again, she says that she thinks she’s going to hold onto it now, implying that she thinks she will be able to hear those same voices as him, and that she might take up the champion mantle.

The world boss quest giver in Southern Elsweyr talks about his own issues with Meridia, being a people collector and possibly having some past trauma with her/her cult.

And in Greymoor, Meridia's temple (mount kilkreath) is attacked by the Icereach Coven's harrowstorm, which steals the life energy of people and either kills them, turns them into mindless passive zombies, or feral vampires known as harrowfiends. It was mostly her priests and pilgrims that were attacked. Meridia did nothing to protect her followers or purge this corruption from even the inside of her temple. Many followers lost their faith that day.

All of this together, and the sneaking suspicion that she is not done with yet in ESO, makes a lot of us not only dislike her, but not trust her at all. Zenimax brought up Darien for Valentines Day, keeps bringing him and Meridia up in DLC, has her featured greatly in the main quest and a major chapter DLC...

It’s less an outright hatred of her. Believe me, I hate Molag Bal significantly more than I “hate” Meridia. I tend to take on my OCs beliefs and feelings as I play them, and my own main character was in a relationship with Darien and hates all daedra. Also she gets brought up more in recent DLC and thus is more of a relevant topic than Molag Bal. So I tend to post a lot about Meridia in less than positive lights. It’s more than I take issue with her being so connected to slavery and manipulation of mortals, yet being painted in a benevolent or even good light by a lot of the lore. I take issue with people who ignore the fact she is featured very prominently in recent games and accuse anyone who talks about disliking her of misogyny for not being equally or more loud about their dislike of other, worse daedric princes, regardless of if they do or do not. I take issue with people who romanticize her slavery or call her a “feminist icon” solely because they don’t like Darien (or me. That’s another reason). But that’s more of a specific tesblr community issue rather than “legit reasons in game or lore to not like Meridia”.

Overall, Meridia is a daedric prince. They’re not good or bad by mortal standards because they don’t ascribe to mortal defined morals. They do what they do because they must. It is their realm, their sphere of influence. Meridia started out as the Daedric Prince of Greed in early games, a collector of people, and her hatred of undead and Molag Bal are extreme. The fact that she is more present in ESO, a game I play on the regular and that gets updated multiple times a gear, means that people will talk about her more. When I was deeply into Skyrim, I talked about my dislike of Hermaeus Mora a lot. When I was deeply into Oblivion (for a short while), I talked about my dislike of Mehrunes Dagon. And when I am thinking about Morrowind, I end up talking about my dislike of Azura and the Tribunal. She isn't necessarily better or worse than other Princes, just more of a hot topic in the ESO side of the fandom than other Princes.

If this was sent in good faith then I apologize for saying it felt like bait. If it is bait, then here. Take it and start raving about what an awful misogynist I am. I await my callout post. 

[summahsunlight]

Perhaps It’s Fate, Part 18

Rating: T, to be safe

Word Count: 2031

Summary: After joining the Resistance as a mechanic, you were happy to keep to yourself, until a little orange and white bb unit and his master wander into your workshop one day.

Pairings: Poe Dameron x Mechanic!Reader

Taglist: @ms-dont-care​, @starless-eyes-remain​, @elmoakepoke​, @marvelobsessiononastick​, @kiaralein​, @softly-sad​, @totalpoedameron, @ordinarymom1​, @sevvysaurus​, @spider-starry​, @liadamerondjarin​, @jingyuhearteu​, @dream-alittlebiggerdarling​

It’s here! The next part! Hope you enjoy it. I didn’t get to proof read this too much before posting, I’m too excited for you to be able to read it!🥰 Remember if you want to be added to the taglist, just let me know!

Finn left you in the med bay with the medics and promised to go find Poe. You were concerned that he hadn’t showed up to hover over you and make sure that the medics were taking good care of you. Finn figured that Poe was busy, after all the Raddus was now attempting to outrun the First Order fleet--he was surprised to find Poe tucked away in an abandoned part of the ship. 

Poe’s head was cast downward, his shoulders slumped, with his face buried his hands. BB-8 was sitting by his side, every once and while beeping sounds of what Finn interpreted as comfort. “Poe?”

When the commander looked up at him, Finn was taken aback by his appearance. There was a dull looking in his brown eyes, he’d obviously been crying and he just looked--defeated. “Hey, you’re awake. How... how are you feeling?”

“It’s sore... but I supposed it could have been worse,” Finn replied.

“I dunno, buddy; you’re trapped on a ship being pursued by the First Order,” Poe said, tightly. “Seems like it is worse; we’d probably all be better off dead anyways. at this point.”

BB-8 moaned, sadly, his photoreceptor looking over at Finn. 

Finn stood there, dumbstruck. It was like the fire and passion had been sucked right out of Poe. “Are you okay, Poe?”

Poe chuckled, angrily. “No. I took that dreadnaught out to protect us, to save the people on this ship--and it didn’t matter. The First Order managed to track us, they killed my friends.” He sucked in a large breath, trying to stifle a sob, “they killed her. I just wanted to keep her safe... keep her away from anymore pain they could inflict upon her. I failed her.”

It took Finn a few seconds to realize that Poe was talking about you. No wonder he hadn’t come by the med bay to find you--he thought you had been in the hanger--he thought you were dead. “Poe-”

“Don’t tell me it’s not my fault. I’ve heard that enough already.”

“But Poe...”

“Finn, I know you think you’re helping...” “Dameron! Shut up for a second! She’s fine.”

BB-8 rolled back and forth in excitement, wildly twilling and beeping at Poe--who sat there looking at Finn with wide, shocked eyes. “But she was working in the hanger--the First Order blew the hanger up.”

Finn shook his head. “She wasn’t in the hanger. They couldn’t find you when I woke up, so they called her. She came to see me. We were going back to the hanger when the ship was hit. Poe--she’s in the med bay wondering where the hell you are.”

Poe scrambled to his feet, wiping at the tears in his eyes. “I didn’t... I didn’t know--I thought she was dead, Finn. I thought I had lost her.”

“She’s a little banged up, but she’ll live.”

“Banged up?”

“Yeah, she hit her head--but like I said--she’s fine, Poe.”

BB-8 nudged Poe in the legs. He couldn’t figure out why the pilot was still standing there--the little droid wanted to go see you. He had been sad just like Poe when he thought you had died. 

Poe suddenly snapped back to life, pushing passed Finn and heading towards the med bay with both BB-8 and Finn trailing behind him. You were alive; you were alive and suddenly the galaxy was aligned again--suddenly Poe realized the dire situation they were in.  If they didn’t figure out a plan soon, they were all going to be dead in just a few hours. 

Heart racing, he burst into the med bay, startling the medics and calling for you. Poe could worry about the Resistance in a minute--he just needed to see you first, needed to see you with his own eyes. When he came around a corner and saw you, sitting on a cot, asleep, his heart leapt into his throat. 

Gently he went to cup your neck and ease you into a comfortable sleeping position. The movement stirred you and you looked at him, sleepily with a smile. “There you are. I thought you forgot about me,” you teased him. 

“Never,” Poe sighed, tears springing to his eyes. “I could never forget.”

“Poe?” you questioned, seeing the tears. “What’s wrong?”

His arms were around you, drawing you towards him and holding onto you tightly. “I thought I lost you,” Poe cried, “I thought you were in the hanger when it was blown up and...my world crumbled, Y/N. There was nothing left for me to fight for, to care about--I love you.”

You pressed your face into his neck and let him hold you, your heart breaking at the grief he must have endured for the last couple of hours. If only you had known... you would have sent Finn to find Poe much sooner. 

BB-8 rolled into your room then, happy to see you. Looking down at him over Poe’s shoulder, you smiled. 

Poe pulled back, taking your face between his hands. He inspected the cut on your head, that the medics had done a nice job stitching up, and then he kissed you, tenderly. “Don’t scare me like that again, sweetheart.” 

“I’ll try not too.”

“Guess I know how it feels to be you now--whenever I leave.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

He stroked his thumbs over your cheeks. “Yeah... a lot.”

You smiled, lovingly. “I’ll try not to scare you again.”

Poe pulled you into his arms once again, burying his face into your hair and taking a deep breath. He knew he loved you, he just never knew how much until he thought he’d lost you. The cool metal of his mother’s ring pressed against his chest while he pressed you against him. He was going to give it to you, when this whole thing was over--when they had found away to get to the new base safely. 

Finn cleared his throat; BB-8 beeped, reminding you that you were not alone. Softly pressing a kiss to your forehead, Poe pulled away from you. 

“General Organa is looking for you,” Finn announced. 

“Are you going to be okay, sweetheart?” Poe asked you.

“I’ll be fine,” you insisted. “It’s just a bump on the head.”

“Hey, Bee, stay with her okay?”

“Poe...”

“I’ll check in on you later.”

Finn smiled at you, awkwardly, and then leaving BB-8 behind to watch over you, he followed after Poe. Once they were out of the med bay and on their way to the bridge, he spoke. “You said that the First Order tracked us?”

Poe nodded. “Yeah... some kind of light speed tracker. When...when I left the bridge before you found me... one of our top mechanics was working on finding a way to disable it. But first, we need to get access codes and a shuttle to get on to the Supremacy.” 

His eyes went wide. “Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship?” Finn sputtered. This was very, very serious if Snoke had shown up. 

The pilot grimly nodded. “Yep. We learned that the tracker is generating from that ship, it’s only tracking the Raddus, which means the rest of the fleet made it to the next base safely. But we can’t jump to light speed and join them without the First Order following us.”

“Can you warn them?”

“Leia’s nervous that a transmission to them might be traced as well--I don’t blame her.”

“So... what’s the plan?”

“Once we know how to disable the tracker, we’re sneaking onboard that ship.”

Finn stopped walking. “You’re insane!”

Poe turned on his heel. “My dad jokes that’s my middle name.”

Shaking his head, Finn sighed, “Do you know what will happen to any of you if you sneak onboard that ship? Poe, you’d be executed. It would probably be broadcast for public display to scare the reset of the galaxy into submission.”

Placing his hands on his hips, Poe set his jaw. “I know that, Finn. It’s a risk I’m willing to take--it’s a risk a lot of us are willing to take. We might be the galaxy’s last hope at freedom, at restoring the Republic. There are a lot of lives depending on us.” He saw the fear flash in Finn’s eyes and dropped his hands. “Listen, I understand why you’re nervous. They took your identify from you--your life from you--but you’re here with us now, where you belong.”

-----

You wanted to get up; BB-8 ratted you out every time and the medics made you stay in bed. You were seriously cursing Poe for having his droid stay by your side while he went to speak to Leia. “BeeBee, I’m fine. Please, I need to get out of here. I’m bored.”

BB-8 firmly blurted no. You wondered if the little droid had ever said no to Poe a day in his life. You hated to just sit idly around--BB-8 probably knew that better than anyone. Of course, there wasn’t like there was much for you to do around the ship. The hanger was gone--all those people were gone. You feel the panic begin to bubble up inside of you as that familiar feeling of survivor’s guilt washed over you. 

Slamming your eyes shut you did the breathing exercises that Poe had taught you for when he was away on missions. Deep breath in, count to ten, deep breath out. Repeat. You did this several times before you finally felt some what calm. When you opened your eyes, you saw that BB-8 was still standing loyally by you, watching you closely. “Okay, since you’re insisting on staying here--why not tell me a story, Bee?”

“No time for stories, Bee,” Poe said, sweeping into your room. 

“What’s going on?” you asked, noticing that Finn wasn’t with him.

“We figured out how to disable that tracker.”

“Tracker?”

Poe recalled that you had not been present when he told Finn about the First Order tracking the ship at light speed. “Somehow, General Hux is tracking us even through light speed.”

You nodded. “Yeah, they can easily install one through a spy I’m sure--disabling them is the hard part--usually they’re heavily encrypted and can only be disabled from the Supreme Leader’s ship. The codes are incredibly difficult to decipher--when the First Order took over my planet I was forced to work on creating those codes.”

He smiled at you, his eyes filling with affection. “I told Leia you were the one.”

Confused, you looked at BB-8. “The one for what?”

“Our codebreaker.”

“Me? You want me to be the codebreaker?”

“Yes. Leia’s contacting Maz Kanata now--to see if she knows someone that can get us on the Supreme Leader’s ship.”

BB-8 whistled, lowly. You swallowed--you’d never left the safety of the base before getting on the Raddus, now Poe was asking you to go on a mission.

Poe saw the anxiety that ran through your eyes. He sat down on the cot with you and took your chin in his hand, forcing you to look at him. “Y/N, I trust you with my life--you can do this. And I’ll be right there. I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”

Leaning into his touch, you closed your eyes. You had no doubt that Poe would protect you--with his life if he had too--but that didn’t make you any less terrified of the potential of sneaking on board the Supreme Leader’s ship to disable that tracker. And if you couldn’t disable it? The people on the Raddus were doomed. 

You felt Poe’s lips brush against your temple. “Darling, you can do this. I know you can. You’re braver than you give yourself credit for, you know that?”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do; you fled the First Order with nothing but the clothes on your back to join the Resistance. That takes guts, sweetheart.”

“This is our only chance, right?”

“We have a back-up plan, but yes, this could be our only chance.”

Opening your eyes, you set your jaw. “Then I’ll do it, Poe. I’ll crack that code to save the Raddus.”

[backtobackbakubabe]

Stuck in the Middle with You (Part 2)

Bakugo x Reader 

Reader is a closet couponer and when word started spreading that there was going to be a mandatory quarantine to fend off a virus you weren't worried. You had enough supplies to last for months. However it wasn't until now that you realized you had no idea how to cook and you relied on take out and fast food for most of your meals. The only person who knew about your crazy couponing habit was Bakugo, so when he called and asked if he could raid your stash you got an idea.

Words: 2054

*****************************************************************************************************

You tried not to moan as you took your first bite of Bakugo’s pancakes. They were so delicious, but you didn’t want to add to his already huge ego. For the most part you both are in silence, locking eyes every so often before immediately looking anywhere else but at each other. There was still some awkward tension between the two of you. He had kissed you, like actually kissed you but neither of you wanted to be the one to bring it up. 

You knew he only did it to try and help you through your panic attack. There was no way he would have done it for any other reason. He was Bakugo after all and you weren't even convinced that he even liked you as a friend. Sure he always attended movie nights, and yeah he brought you coupons. But that was it. The two of you never hung out one on one and you rarely spoke to each other over the phone. You had known the man for years and you didn’t know a damm thing about him. 

It wasnt until he cleared his thought that you realized you had been staring at him, “Do I need to teach you manners as well as cooking? Lesson number one, don’t stare at people.”

You snorted, “Oh that’s rich. A lesson on manners from the same person who manages to find a way to insult anyone who dares try and speak to him.”

He slammed his fork down, “Well at least I wasn't the one staring at another person practically drooling while they ate!”

You stood up and tossed your plate into the sink, “I was not drooling! I was just thinking...”

Bakugo came up behind you and rinsed your dish as well as his before putting them in the dish washer, “You really shouldn't leave dishes in the sink. Its a bad habbit...”

When you didnt answer he took a deep breath, “If we’re going to be stuck here then we should probably at least try and get along.”

Again you were struck by how little you knew about him. How had you been friends with him for this long and not know anything about him.

He groaned, “Are you even fucking listening to me?”

You nodded and pinched the bridge of you nose, “Yeah sorry, just was thinking again... I can be kind of spacey.” 

He softened a bit before leaning on the counter next to you, “So I’ve noticed... What are you thinking about?”

You blushed slightly before regaining your composure, “Honestly you... Not anything weird... It’s just. Well I feel like I actually don’t know much about you. Like are you a morning person? Whats your favorite color? What kind of movies do you like? I know none of that seems important but for some reason it just weirds me out that I dont know.”

Bakugo scratched the back of his neck, “Well I mean you never asked...” 

You hopped up on the kitchen counter and swung your legs that were now dangling, “Okay well to be fair that can go both ways. I’m sure you don’t know anything about me either.”

He seemed to think for a minute before nodding, “Well I guess it’s a good thing we have some time to catch up. Just promise me that what you learn stays between us. I dont need any fucking extras thinking they know me.” 

You rolled your eyes at his abrasiveness. “How about you pick something to watch and I’ll go raid my closet for things you could wear. I doubt you want to wear the same clothes every day for the foreseeable future.” 

“Tsk as if I’d wear girls clothes. The director from my hero agency said he’d send someone over with some clothes. It’ll probably just be a bunch of training gear with the agencies logo on it but I guess beggars cant be choosers.” 

Bakugo was right because halfway through “Gladiator” a man showed up with a duffle bag full of grey and black shirts, shorts, and sweats with his agencies logo on it. They were all still wrapped in plastic just to be safe. 

He threw the bag full of clothes behind the couch and reclaimed his spot next to you. You were bundled up in a blanket, trying not to fall asleep but you were drained after your episode earlier. It was only a little after 8 and you could feel your eye lids growing heavier. 

At some point you woke up and to your horror you were leaning on Bakugo. You would have panicked except you could feel his arm draped around your shoulders holding you to him. This was odd. You slowly sat up and stretched. “Sorry. You could have pushed me off. I wouldn't have blamed you. Especially with social distancing or whatever.”

He chuckled, “Oh believe me I thought about it. But you were cold and if we stuck together I cant have you getting sick.”

You saw a slight blush creep up his neck. You knew there was no way you would have gotten sick from being chilly in your own living room. But you also knew he was probably more comfortable doing something nice if he had an excuse. So you game him a genuine smile. “Thanks. I’ll be honest that's the best nap I’ve ever had. Well best I’ve slept in months actually. I’m always tossing and turning.” You turned off the tv that was now playing the credits. You had seriously slept through the entire second half of the movie. 

You walked over and started pulling out pillows and blankets from the hall closet. “You can sleep on the couch. It pulls out into a bed but honestly its more comfortable if you just sleep on it normally. We can take turns sleeping in the bed if you’re here long enough.”

He accepted the blankets but held tight to your hand. “Hey you know I meant it earlier when I said you could talk to me. I’m the last person to voluntarily open up about my feelings, but you know... I worry about you sometimes.” 

You plopped down on the couch with a huge sigh. “I appreciate your concern. But I wouldn't even know where to begin... I’m just... I don’t know. I’m fine.”

Bakugo took a seat next to you, “You’re what? Smart? Strong? Badass? Because those are the first words that come to mind when I think of you...”

You could feel your eyes prick with unshed tears. “Well those are definitely not high on the list of adjectives I would consider for myself. More like small, scared, and incompetent.” You leaned your head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. 

Bakugo crossed his arms over his chest in mild frustration. “Why? That couldn’t be further from the truth! Well except the small thing. You are kinda little. But last I checked that wasn’t a bad thing. If anything... its kinda.... cute.” 

You looked up expecting to see him blushing. But instead you saw him giving you a nervous smile. You wiped a tear from the corner of your eyes and returned his smile, “Well you know how my quirk can be really vague? I only get fragments of the truth and even then it’s up to me to decide what they mean... That’s a lot of pressure. I cant be wrong. Ever. And there was this one time when I was a child... I was living with my mom.. I interpreted something wrong and someone died because of it. That kind of thing sticks with you.”

Bakugo reached out and took your hand, “Is that why you decided not to be a hero?”

You nodded as you wiped away another tear, “Yeah. Now I work behind a desk, looking at files, and no body gets hurt.” 

Bakugo surprised you by pulling you to him and giving you a tight hug. “I’m going to say something and you better not ever repeat it.... But I was always nervous to spar against you. You always seemed to be able to read me like a book. You worked harder than the rest of us including me. You were always in the gym or the library. I’m not saying I don’t understand your decision. I just want you to know that I think you would have been great.” 

You leaned into his hug, “Thank you... for everything today. For helping through my panic attack, for making me dinner, for hanging out with me. I know you say you didnt have a choice. But you really are a great friend.” 

You both laid there on the couch. Bakugo holding onto you taking deep breaths, “You want to talk about earlier? You dont have to but it might help me out to know what might trigger you if we’re going to be stuck here.”

You buried your face into his chest. “I dont really want to talk about it. But I will say I dont do very well when I feel trapped, especially if I have to be alone.”

He gave you a quick squeeze, “You going to be okay alone tonight?”

You sat up and swatted as his chest, “Bakugo Katsuki! Did you just ask if you could spend the night with me?”

He rolled his eyed before he pushed you off the couch. “Sorry for being concerned. I promise it’ll never happen again. Next time I’ll just let you suffer.”

You giggled, “There’s the Bakugo I know.” You started your trek up the stairs to your room calling a goodnight over your shoulder to the man who was getting cozy on your couch. When you had woken up this morning there was no way you could have predicted your day would end up like this. You didn’t know what was harder to believe, the lockdown, or the fact that Bakugo was a secret softy.

You were already so exhausted that it was hard for you to fall asleep. The hard part was staying asleep. You woke up several times, tossing and turning. Your anxiety was truly kicking your ass tonight. At one point you felt compelled to go and check that Bakugo was still there. Not that it would make any difference. There’s no way your insomnia would magically be cured by knowing that Bakugo was still there. 

But logic wasnt on your side tonight.

You wrapped yourself in a towel and tip toes across the cold hardwood floor. You tried really hard to be silent, slowly making your way down the stairs. It was so dark, but you could just make out the silhouette of his rising and falling chest. At least he could sleep. 

After you had satisfied your irrational need to make sure he was still there you stood and turned to go back up the stairs. You were almost to the top when the board groaned under your foot. You froze. 

“Y/n?” Bakugo slowly sat up. “Y/n what are you doing up?” He picked up his phone and groaned. “Y/n it’s four in the morning!” You remained frozen to your spot on the stairs. “Y/n I can see you... Are you okay?”

You sighed, “I’m fine, I was just having a hard time sleeping again. Its nothing new. Go back to sleep.”

He stood up and wrapped the blanket around his half asleep form. He slowly made his way up the stairs. When he got to you he didnt stop but kept walking towards your room. He only paused when he got to the door. “Are you coming or not?” 

You silently nodded and joined him in your room. He laid down on  the floor next to your bed, which looked extremely uncomfortable. “You sure you’re going to be okay down there?”

He scoffed, “Of course I’ll be okay. I’m no cry baby.”

You rolled your eyed and threw a pillow at him, “At lest take a pillow!”

He muttered something under his breath but excepted the pillow none the less. 

You rolled over and pulled the covers up to your chin, “Thank you Bakugo.”

“You’re welcome smalls.” 

Smalls.... It was a nickname he had used during your time at UA. You used to hate it but after tonights confession, you found it endearing. 

[flimflamfranky]

What daemons do you think would suit each member of the strawhat crew? I’ve been craving daemon content the last few days, and I’d be curious to hear your take on it 👀

i’ll preface this by saying that i only read one (1) hdm book and most of my knowledge of daemons is from fandom, research, and my own interpretations on what a daemon is and/or means.

but yes, i absolutely have daemon thoughts 👀

luffy - the most typical answer, but i cant imagine luffy having anything other than a monkey daemon. it’s just the perfect fit for him. specifically, i’d give him a red-faced spider monkey! spider monkeys are super agile and they have prehensile tails, which fit luffy’s df abilities - since he got them when he was young, i’d assume that’d influence what his daemon settled as. also, they swallow fruit whole, which is like basically how luffy eats. and a red-faced one bc red.

zoro - CROCODILE! a saltwater crocodile, specifically. apex predator, strong bite, overall an intimidating animal...it all fits. plus, as a reptile, crocs tend to laze abt for sunning and digesting, which matches zoro’s whole napping tendency. plus, imagine zoro riding around on the back of a giant crocodile...that’s fun.

nami - this is self-indulgent, but a red fox! they’re cunning and smart, and typically seen as thieves. and they’re often associated with magic or have magical abilities, which fits nami’s whole witch thing. and i like the idea of nami and her daemon having matching hair :0

another fit would be sabine’s gull! gulls are also seen as thieves, plus they can sense storms to an extent! and a bird fits with nami being trapped by arlong and wanting to be free. i like the red fox better cuz i love foxes, but this is also a really good fit.

usopp - i had to give usopp a bug, and it had to be a bug that mimics, so i went with a giant stick insect! they disguise themselves as sticks, obviously, but this one also startles predators with it’s hidden bright wings! which is a great fit for usopp’s strategy. and i just like the idea of usopp’s daemon hiding on him and pretending to be a stick when she gets scared.

sanji - i was debating between several ducks, but in the end, i had to give sanji a swan. i mean, a beautiful, peaceful-looking creature that’s actually really aggressive and protective?? perfect. plus, they’re associated with love and often show up in fairy-tales, so it’s just a good fit for sanji’s whole vibe. and also zoro being chased around by an angry swan is just a great image.

chopper - i was honestly debating if chopper would even have a daemon?? he didn’t start out as human, after all, and i dont know if a devil fruit is enough to give him one. it could be another thing that makes him stand out and nervous around humans. but also, him gaining a daemon bc of the devil fruit is also a fun concept and you could do a lot of interesting things with their relationship :0

so, i’d give him an arctic bumblebee! honey has been historical used as a remedy for loads of things, plus it does have anti-microbial properties. and arctic bumblebees are cute, small, and very fuzzy, which is basically chopper in a nutshell. 

robin - a snake! specifically, a black/purple shore pit viper. robin having a daemon that people tend to be scared of is just a fun idea, symbolically. her daemon settling as that and as something dangerous as a way for robin’s soul to protect herself is just *chef kiss*. and i just like the idea of robin carrying around a snake wrapped around her neck.

franky - i had a lot of requirements for this one, but i eventually settled on an american beaver! they swim and they’re one of the most well known animal architects, with their impressive dams and what not. and, while they’re commonly associated with rivers/forests, they can live in inter-tidal areas! and i just really like the idea of franky having a (relatively) small, furry daemon.

brook - brook is another interesting case cuz he’s, ya know, dead, and typically daemons disappear when you die. so, he either doesn’t have a daemon anymore (which is hella angst-y) or his devil fruit, which mostly seemed to affect his soul, also affected his daemon. so his daemon looks all ghostly and spooky now (which is also fun).

as for what his daemon is, i went with an albatross! albatrosses have this strong literary tradition of being metaphors for a mixed blessing and curse, and of psychological burden, and that symbology was just too good to pass up. and it’s also a music term (referring to a song that overshadows the rest of an artist’s work). and i just think they’re neat, and i want brook to have one.

jimbei - i had a hard time picking one for ol’ jimbo that wasn’t a whale shark, but i eventually settled on a koi fish! an asagi koi, specifically, which have this lovely blue/orange patterning. i just think the koi aesthetic is very graceful and dignified, which is a good fit for jimbei. and they’re hardy little fish, so that fits too. i know they’re freshwater fish, but i’ve always thought that daemons wouldn’t be limited by stuff like that, and could exist in environments that the animal they’re based on wouldn’t survive in.

vivi - honestly, a white dove is a great fit for her. she been involved in politics from a young age, so her daemon settling into something symbolic like that would be very interesting. plus, the dove’s homing ability and vivi’s loyalty to her home are fun links to make. a pure white dove would be good, but i also like the idea of a white/blue-grey coloration

and as a bonus cuz i like her:

carrot - i instantly decided that carrot would have a bird of prey daemon bc they have a) great eyesight, b) freedom/travel symbolism and c) it’d be funny. specifically, she’d have a grey eastern screech owl! owls also have an association with the moon, like rabbits, so there’s that. plus, they have matching head things (rabbit ears and feather tufts)!

[fragmentwitch]

Im not tagging this post bc it is an unpopular(?) opinion but I dont think lambda is part of satoko at all... I definitely am not trying to downplay what satoko went through (her brother, teppei and her aunt, the syndrome prpbably damaging her brain, being forced to witness her childhood friend's disemboweled corpse or being tortured by shion, etc) but it... just doesnt match up with the way lambdadelta describes her own logic error. It's so terrible she won't explicitly specify other than there was what seemed to be total isolation and eternal silence according to her.

That might well be the case for Frederica who could only watch fragments play out for when she was featured in the manga (idk how the VN covered this and it probably is irrelevant to understanding Retconathon GOU) but we have no idra what the higurashi logic error even is still. Or maybe im stupid and Ryukishi just needs to spell it out OR admit he can't do it without having to forcibly retcon a shitton of stuff because Umineko came after Higurashi, and probably didn't start sprinkling in Umineko references in Higurashi material until the console arcs n stuff added new content (I'm guessing, but that's what I think usually happens for writers that want to tie in separate stories within the same metaverse but didnt initially introduce it to seem that way)

Idk... it's funny now but when I first heard of Gou I got so excited to see if we'd get a prequel metafilled Umineko-Higurashi crossover thing where we'd pretty much see Bernkastel explicitly originate... but with the way Gou has been going and no 2nd season confirmation (convenient to find rumors of it right when we're about 5 episodes away from the end) I'm perfectly content if we just don't see any explicit Umineko cameos/Meta Logic stuff at all now? Haha it's really weird my thinking changed.

There's a saying that goes around for horror where the mind is capable of interpreting the unseen monster (i.e. the creature from Bird Box that makes you commit sudoku if you see it) as something MUCH scarier than anything the creator would reveal to you. It's fun to read different interpretations, and provided no hard evidence disproves them, all are perfectly valid and really creative if the person theorizing crafts an excellent forgery.

So when the 'solution' is given to you, inevitably it's going to disappoint some people that it isn't up to par vs a more plausible/favorable explanation offered via interpretation. An old rokkenjima forum post I read a while ago had a pretty valid concern: perhaps it's better not to try and explain Higurashi as a gameboard because if Ryukishi is not extremely careful, the struggles and individual stories of each character may feel cheapened and devalue Higurashi's story by untroducing an element where it was the doing of witches all along.

Honestly I'm hoping Satoko and Lambdadelta aren't part of each other the way Bern and Rika are... I feel like it would cheapen how enigmatic she is, and it cheapens by a LOT if Lambda's supposed logic hell started when Satoko... wasn't thriving in an academic environment. And even if Rika goes full Bernkastel and says something really heartless to Satoko, would it really justify pushing her to murder Rika and handwaving it like "it's not out of character because Satoko still has hinamizawa syndrome"? I'm really not sure. Shion's reason for what happened was a pile of issues that you gotta unpack, it wasnt just because she was a yandere for satoshi (and no, Shion isnt a yandere)

If you ask me, Lambdadelta isn't part of Takano or Satoko at all. This is entirely subjective but I got the impression Lambdadelta has been a witch far longer than Bern has. She even said she'd "maybe understand Bern's feelings a little better" in one line... meaning Bern is also an enigma to her and perhaps her goal of trapping Bern in an eternal stalemate is to get past that last wall Bern put up around herself and her trauma. (I call it a brand of flirting only traumatized magical girls would think is cute... and it is... but it's tragic). I'm a LambdaBern stan who doesn't believe they're actually unironic yandere with each other. I think they're both witches that came from unique circumstances and found solace in that. Their logic hells were so traumatic to them that their only comfort is to watch people go through a hell of their own. Sure they say really violent stuff to each other but again I think it's them both putting up an act. Neither of them would ever show weakness or vulnerability in front of pieces, much less other witches. Maybe not even each other, and that's why they are glad to play a game of cat and mouse with each other forever.

I have a lot of complicated feelings in the way I try to explore their dynamic that can't quite be put into words. Umineko is very layered but my favorite pastime is figuring out why they're drawn to each other while simultaneously playfully in constant opposition. And maybe Im a little fearful that Gou could ruin the fun of guessing for me + devalue Satoko and Rika...

[escapekissed]

Lucky do you have any favorite pieces of media from the psychological horror genre? Feels like its a genre that matches ur interests very well 👉🏽👈🏽

there are a couple that really speak to me!

first is rule of rose, which is a game that is incredibly formative to me. in a time where i was looking for representation as a young gay person and REALLY into looking up wiki pages for horror games, rule of rose showed me the symbolic trauma of puberty and toxic ‘love’ between girl children and the violence of patriarchal figures that i was looking for. it showed such cruelty but also such strength in its main character, and the symbolism? exquisite.... it also just has such a creepy atmosphere and the fact that the game is near impossible to play along with its shitty graphics for the enemies makes it so. peculiar and creepy in a very special way to me.

catherine is another atlus game near and dear to my heart, tho i dont  think i’m ever going to be playing full body for that exact reason. it’s a game basically about eugenics and misogyny, about gods&devils thinking of women as only reproductive objects and the men in their lives that ‘waste their reproductive time’ being tortured and killed for it, taking away a woman’s choice. i always thought it would be so interesting to do trans and lesbian takes on this game, and i have never really? stopped thinking about how this game is so thrilling in its themes of entitlement and stopping people’s freedom to love as they wish. this is also one of the only horror games in which the ‘human element’ actually interests me. so many horror games give u terrible people and i dont give a FUCK ABOUT THEM. but the way this game shows u just snippets of his life as a ‘break’ from the excruciatingly scary (to me, because time limits scare me LOL), stressful as hell puzzles. and u get to figure out the mystery of what is going on in people who would otherwise be boring to you, but in this game are shrouded in just enough mystery that ur actually interested in their boring day-to-day lives. its so satisfying just to drink with ur buds. its like really great gameplay to me tbh. i also just love katherine and catherine and they frusturate me so much and that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do which i LOVE. extremely effective atmosphere setting and worldbuilding, basically.

the lighthouse is my favorite horror movie tbh because it does suspense so well. the movie is literally themed around suspense, the suspense of not getting sexual satisfaction to completion, of being touch starved and lonely and repressed, of being able to hold ur boss but never kiss him, of being fed lobster but it tastes flavorless and bland and u can smell ur boss’s farts the whole time while he prattles on with disturbing sailor’s tales and barks out orders until he’s lulled into his drink. i honestly love this movie. and the acting is brilliant and unhinged

there’s a few indie games i really like that have been either formative to me or i just??? really like their vibe and i can basically tell from them i would like every game in the ‘genre.’

pocket mirror to me is like, this beautiful game about your own inner toxicity and escaping from yourself. i love indie 64-bit games like this, the background art is so beautiful, and while i’ve never played all the way through it because it scares me too much---i love ib and all the games in the ‘ib’ genre LOL.

doki doki literature club i know is a very strange game to like, but i enjoy it for letting the women be actual characters with their own thoughts and feelings. the pychological horror movie ‘i’m thinking of ending things’ is the exact opposite of this game.'i’m thinking of ending things’ is a backwards approach to feminist horror in my opinion. it’s from a male’s perspective of his hallucinations of a girl that once didn’t give him a second glance and his violence towards her in these fantasies. it takes itself painfully seriously. it pretends to deconstruct something that the director helped soldify (the manic pixie dream girl trope) in the public eye. doki doki literature club on the other hand, the passive character who ‘things happen to’ is the man. the active roles all go to the women in the game and what they do to themselves in order to be loved by not just a man, but the player, and in doing so they often become the all-knowing god of their own prison. like tell me that’s not the dopest thing u’ve ever heard of!

twilight zone is a big one for me but 5 episodes in particular have shaped how i view horror forever. ‘to serve man’---where the greatest, scariest thing in the world is not being able to understand the language another person is actually using and for them to manipulate u using ur own, actually wishing u harm as they placate you with your own interpretations. the episode where a rich man’s last will and testament is for his vain, selfish relatives to wear a mask until midnight that reveals symbolically how ugly they are to him. they bicker all night with petty squabbles, and then at midnight he reveals the mask has permeanantly shaped their faces to reveal who they really are and the abuse he suffered under them. the cornfield episode still scares the shit out of me as someone with an entitled younger brother whose entitlement and anger is often enabled by those around us, and i’ve always thought that it was such a good show of like, how patriarchy enables little boy’s violence. the episode ‘all the time in the world’ where an abused man with a shitty life is finally the last man on earth and he can do anything he’d like to do and all he wants to do is read but then he breaks his glasses. and finally! the episode where toys in a box come to life and bemoan their fate as they realize they will be trapped there forever in clothes and identities they do not recognize. these episodes always scare the shit out of me LOL.

besides that i really like. low-budget passion project indie games. the first that comes to mind is ‘the path’ which is about a family of four sisters of various ages all inspired by little red riding hood who stray from the path and are hunted by the woodsman. and then the game that YOU my dear myers! showed me! that haunts me to this day. basically a tape talks to you about the areas of a house and then starts to talk about the house as a living creature. and the living creature is hungry, without you inside it. the living creature is tired of being alone, it’s tired of being abandoned, it’s tired, and it’s eyes are empty with no one in the windows, and it’s mind is blank with no one in the bedroom, and it’s hangry there’s no one in its basement to feast on, to torment as it has been tormented by disuse.

last but not least, i really enjoy the book ‘sharp objects.’ which is not technically a horror novel. but it is about a serial killer, and about women and abuse and it has some of the best writing ever. so i highly recommend it AND the miniseries (watch the miniseries first then read the book bc the miniseries is like. directed better? but the novel is written and characterized better. it’s also very short u can finish it in like a day and a half).

honorable mentions for horror In General (not necessarily psychological horror) are: 1) the birdcage. i honestly consider this movie entirely unsettling. robin williams failing to portray a man that is actually attracted to nathan lane, which could be because they have simply been married so long but also is just awful to me in general bc it makes me feel like even our outwardly gay but still more masc gay men can’t love and be attracted to femme camp gays even when they’re married to them. the fact that both these men that could be so in love, that were so in love at one time, you can at the very least imagine, are told by their only son that they need to go back in the closet to impress some old ass republicans, giving the message that no matter how succesful you are in the gay community, no matter how bright and wonderful a presence you are, no matter how loving you are, no matter how much you love, no matter how interwoven you are in lgbt-ness, the straight people you love most will still try to change you to impress the wold. horrifying.

2) coraline. its children’s horror but that’s still horror baby! i think lately about how much the movie talks about mothers and birth. coraline calls whybie ‘why born’ and i just think about how much she thinks about creating a new life with a new mother, and how going through that small door into a long tube... it’s like crawling into a new womb and being reborn to a new mother that loves you. and that’s horrific from a feminist perspective in and of itself---that your child would feel so unloved and unimportant to you that she would literally... rather die in this life, technically, rather be ‘unborn’ to you and born anew to someone, someone just like you but better, someone just like you but what SHE wants a mother to be, feminine and skirted and smiling. and then there’s the fact that coraline only gives this up when she realizes her other mother basically wants to change her more to suit her liking in ways that would cause her pain, at which point she realizes this whole fantasy is a lie, not real, something meant to entice her and control her and make her ‘perfect’---the same way she wants her mother & father to be ‘perfect’ in a way that causes her to act out and hurt them. it’s psychological horror that’s technically not psychological horror in the best way, something you can really dig your teeth into, something that has so many layers to it. and the animation! gorgeous!

3) finally i have recently watched annihilation. and it kind of changed my life a little bit.... so often we’re used to viewing monsters as either 1) malicious or 2) romantic/sad/sexy. but the monster in this movie is literally a metaphor for cervical cancer. 

to me, the monsters and the corpses and all the beautiful scenery in this movie, in every color u can think of, a muted rainbow of flowers and nature at its best and most bizarre and sprawling. i often say that monsters are beautiful, but tbh, i feel like... somehow i always mean that in a way that is near-fetishitic, somehow self-depcrating way, where i want to consider what other people think is ‘ugly’ is ‘beautiful to me’ because what i am also ugly to other people as a monster to the cishet white patriarchy. there are things i consider beautiful, certainly, purely beautiful. but when i talk about monsters being beautiful, it is in the way the sublime is beautiful. it scares me, it haunts me, i love it, i want to possess it as part of me, a totem to carry in my back pocket to make the strength in my own ugliness stronger.

when i saw the monster in this movie (SPOILERS) i was immediately unnerved at this bad cgi abomination that bloomed from the most beautiul cgi cancer death cosmos imaginable. it scared me and i had to sleep with a light on for 2 days after LOL. but i was also moved by its gentleness. by the fact that the cervical cancer alien, when it tried to hurt you, wasn’t trying to hurt you at all. it was simply copying your movements. in the movie, it says that the creature wants nothing. it was simply copying. it was simply changing. it’s a prism of nature---and it corrupts yes, and it can hurt people and things and turn them into scary but still terribly unique and beautiful things that also kill---but the movie says that it wants nothing. it simply exists. it’s a part of nature, same as us, a part of the same universe and cosmos, despite being alien to us and stange and hurting us sometimes in ways that it doesn’t understand.

i don’t know. if i quite believe the movie when it says that, though. because i think if you copy someone, like a child would, you are trying to understand them. you are trying to understand yourself. you are trying to form yourself in another’s image when you have none, and you are failing at that, and hurting people and creating monsters in the process, but you are trying as best as you can to be whole and beautiful and sane like the lovely creatures you’ve met on this earth, or this body. to be part of something great and beautiful. to be part of another world.

maybe it doesn’t want anything. but do WE want anything as children, when we copy adults? why did the bear and the alligator try to eat our heroes if they were not hungry? did the bear and the alligator not WANT to eat? i think everything wants to live, and everything wants to grow, and if it can learn to live better and grow better it Will learn even if that is not its explicit intention. does the alien have feelings? does nature? do we have to personify things to understand them? no. does personifying things make us understand them less? no, yes, sometimes. we ask animals and nature to copy us, follow us, so that we can understand them better. the relationship in between----from the hurt, from the pain, from the droughts and the food shortages and the hurricanes and the fireworks---forms from our kindness and understanding. that our crops are useful, and the man-made mutation of our crops and the help of the ran and the sun is also useful. that our animals may not love us, but they need us, and we love them for putting their paw on our thighs to be pet, for following us into the bathroom even when we just wanted a moment alone.

regardless of its intentions, the alien, cancer, every creature, every human, they simply want to grow. in copying others---in trying to touch, to change, to understand, and be close---we learn to live in the same body, learn to live in the same world. the togetherness--the new sight the prism brings---it’s beautiful. it is beautiful to copy, however poorly. it is beautiful to try. we all shape others to our own standards---we sometimes forget we too, were made in own own perception of others’ image.

[misterbitches]

i said i would talk about saizon and usually i would be under the influence. but i am not yet. read the * at end of the post first if u want clarification of overall.

i might mention torfight (will refer as f/t) but if anyone gets upset just chill. it’s a really inconsequential opinion. the chances of someone stumbling upon this means nothing. it isnt’ a compare and contrast just how i personally feel while viewing these shows. and i probably want to dive into what this means in a broader context since i have all the time and brain space in the world 

from the first encounter of saifah and zon or their first encounter outside of their “kiss” (LOL? so unnecessary) it was clear that as awkward as it could or may be there was natural chemistry. which i want my tiny head to explore.

so a lot of BL (which is like....tv and movies etc in general anyways) hell even dramas may have a less sexual undertone to get to where they are going. which i think is a problem with tv in general (a friend was bringing this up with the new rules of social distancing on set which...capitalism but whatever)  where sex is a vehicle for connection. a lot of BLs can be explicit i suppose, but in the west it’s like jumping into bed is a huge base for a lot of couples. also everyone fucks too much who cares.

but sex, kisses, hookups, any nudity, etc is not a placeholder for like actual intimacy, romantic love, showing love. that’s part of why i hate the concept of love at first sight, at least the way it plays out. you can really like someone, hell maybe even love, when you see them or feel this bond but the bond isn’t because you TOUCHED them.

there’s a difference between natural chemistry and forced. natural chemistry is what you would prefer which is why casting directors have literally chemistry tests to test your compatibility as actors, with a writer/director, and on camera. there can be people whose chemistry develops and we see the potential, or people who we know don’t love each other IRL and this is acting but it’s still powerful. but this always means you have to give them the time and space. actors can jump in/out of character but it’s human nature. if two peopl eare meeting for the first time and have to simulate sex there’s going to be this natural like...strangeness. obviously. viewers can see it.

so when you get two people who click irl and it doesn’t always have to be romantic or sexually it’s kind of more of a thrill. very obviously mii2 are a lot more flexible around each other so it is less mechanic. i think i like watching tharntype because even tho i feel like parts of it seriously need some oil, i can see and understand a relationship developing through their characters as they act (and i do not particularly think they are good actors.)

the friendship that saizon display—whether we think it is spontaneous and too quick or not—is legitimately nice. and they are very obviously comfortable with each other. i guess there can be an idea of romantic friendship (but idk abt that one, we dont have to fucking label everything you can love someone so deeply in your own way outside of our parameters bla bla capitalism ruining everything bla bla individualism)

they got in each others faces, then would do very weird shit together, because that’s who they are. for me personally i think being able to have fun with your partner is iMPERATIVE. one of my fav moments is when they fucking meow at each other (which i know is a thai joke, right? idk) and it is so weird but you can tell they understand the way they communicate?

to me  like...having someone you feel something deep with is that there’s this role you guys are playing, it’s a joke you started, and with the best kind of intimacy and love your partner can keep it going, keep it rolling, hang it up in the air and you guys just go back adn forth....forever lol 

i also legitimately think it is important to hammer home the fact that you are yourself without a partner and i really resent a message that makes it seem like you can’t live without someone. maybe a lack of saizon was good that way. like they existed as two seperate people. their love and attraction weren’t the only thing going for them. it was just natural and very nice.

this particular display of romance and affection is one that’s strong but doesn’t take itself too seriously. not because you don’t want to lose them but because there’s enough security. or like, it’s really guided by this unspeakable feeling you feel with another person. 

i’m not sure if that means soulmates but it’s something close. saifah doesn’t expect zon to be someone he can’t, but it doesn’t mean he has to let himself go completely for him. when he expressed being sad that zon pulled away it’s normal. and zon knew he couldn’t do it but they still got through it. and then he pats the bed and saifah jumps on him.

these types of couples remind me of why i feel the way i do about love. i can’t imagine something fucking bogging me down, where i feel like i can’t get up without pulling me, where i don’t feel myself first. zon was figuring himself out and he was thinking of himself and his feelings. bc he should. 

that’s another reason why trapped MC (H3) is one of my favs. first of all THEY LAUGHED TOGETHER WHICH IS LIKE A REQUIREMENT UR NO FUN IF UR A SQUARE and second of all they were going to spend year apart and could do that. had to. fuck the carceral state but. 

you don’t ask someone to give up a part of themselves, you only want them to be the best they can be. it isnt through demands it’ sgrowing with them and fucking respecting them with everything you have. and it means having a foundation outside of them, too. 

i know people get upset at the “love anybody but u have to love yourself” adage but i don’t really see it tht way. i absolutely believe you need to learn to be healthy alone and have a community. rely on all sorts of people. have different types of love and figure yourself out. we can’t be free as human beings without it and i would rather fucking die than not feel free. 

oh and like....being with someone where you feel seen and heard not shamed. i read this thing in the atlantic like, partnerships fail a lot because of lack of validation. imagine having someone who trusts you, and maybe helps to trust yourself, and validates you by being there. nice.

and it’s nice having someone you love so deeply and beautifully along for the ride. instead of no actual pleasure outside of sex, your relationship IS the pleasure. beautiful stunning etc. and that’s what makes everythign feel good the love, sex, living, whatever. with someone and with yourself.

this got away from me in conclusion theyre very cute eand that’s cos it’s easy and natural. mii2 are fun to watch as saizon and themselves. life shouldnt be too hard. im a big fan of working as little as possible and being happy kekekek

*i am talking monogamy, love, and the self. why only ‘traditional’ rships? first: i literally cannot handle people because i can’t handle my mind. non-monagamy is incredibly alluring to me for my autonomy, in the abstract, and in theory. however, in practice, i don’t think���for me as a black woman and what it means for me—i can enact anything i feel would be detrimental to me or puts me in a position where i feel forced into a dynamic i no longer care for. 

and who knows if that changes? i only do and care about the things i like and find important. no one else but me, family, and friends. how i choose. so i am talking abt monogamy but u can interpret that for other rships if you wish. 

second: it’s. my. life. 

i dont carrreeee about monogamy/non monagamy outside of liberation and sexual freedom and what does that mean?  there is no blueprint for that. there is no future expectation for a relationship, there is nothing but how we choose to interact with the world and community. first and foremost: love means so many things and it doesn’t have to mean any “new” ideas. or “instincts.” who fucking cares. we can’t reimagine literal relationships, people are fucking toxic in all types of them, only reimagine how we interact with ourselves and each other. there is no fucking guarantee with any of this we are safe. you cannot predict life. just live it. honor yourself first. there’s some black feminists books on like love and intimacy if you are curious how capitalism binds us. we keep wanting to find solutions WITHIN when its like nah, it;s our own fuckin terms. self-love becomes the love you can extract from others. it isn’t sustainable. 

ROMANTIC LOVE WAS INVENTED TO MANIPULATE WOMEN = JENNY HOLZER

[darthravage]

Why and how does Watcher X help Cipher Nine?

When you meet Watcher X at the Shadow Town which is basically like a open prison you know about him that he feels traited by the Empire. That makes it astonishing that he helps you without any promblems (except the paranoia which caused that he was sent there). It isn’t that astonishing anymore when you find out that he has to do it since he is tortured with headaches when he dosn’t serve the Empire. But you get out by own experience that he is very inteligent when he uses your mission to escape from the Shadow Town. After that you can choose if you want to help him or kill him.  In both cases he is helping you later on when the Republic uses the IX serum against you. (Question in passing why did I need almost two month to find out that IX ist the Latin number for nine what relates to your Charakter?) Since you don’t get a final answer in game I made some theories myself.

First I want to get out how he was able to help you what you can basically seperate into three points.

The first one is that he gets acess to your mind due to the poison and/or implants he gave you when he worked with you on Nar Shadaa. But there is the question why he has done it. If you think you can beliefe him that far he hasn’t had the plan to escape in the beginning of your mission but later on when he saw you work. So it were the implants for sure maybe in a mixture with the poison he gave you in the beginning of the quest.  If this is the truth why has he done it? I can’t believe that he has done it in a good porpuse since he is too cold and calculating therfore so I think he wanted to have an advantage by doing it so that he can defeat you only with the power of your own thoughts. But there is still the oportunity that I think too bad about him. Since he informed you about his escape instead of just hiding from you he must have thought that you aren’t a normal agent and he has experienced himself what happens to people who work for Imperial Inteligence and aren’t like just obeying and nothing else. And that he acts perspicacious is obvious. (That can only be true when Cipher 9 left Watcher X alive because I don’t see how somebody without a body could use such a technique.) And I ask myself why Watcher X didn’t use this technique when I fought against him since it would have saved his life.

The second posibility is that Watcher X became something like a force ghost due to the experiments they did with him. This had enabled him to talk to Cipher nine freely without being concerned about the conditioning.  But that seems unlikely since actually only stron force users can become force ghosts and Watcher X wasn’t capeble of using the force. If he were others would have noticed it or he had used it in the fight agains Cipher nine since it was clear that only one of them will leave the place and using the force would have made it easyer for Watcher X to be that one. 

The third and in my eyes most likely case when you killed Watcher X is that he is only a delusion and the Agent goes mad. In addition to be more realistic compared to being a force ghost it might have logical reasons. First, you can say that Cipher Nine was stressed due to the occurences which hapened and the fact that he wasn’t able to ask anyone for helf even if he wanted to do it. This kind of inner tension makes it more likely to get delusions.  More over, Cipher Nine is enabled to empathize with Watcher Nine. When you killed him than because he knew to much and was a potential danger who got tortured by headaches when he didn’t obey. Now you are almost in the same situation. You know a lot of things which the Republic, which only needs one word to get it from you, isn’t supposed to know. And you are in the situation since the Sith and the minister for Imperial Inteligence distrusted you for helping them and risking your life for them. That is also similar to the story of Watcher X when you regard Operation: Undertow in witch Watcher X fought for the Empire and got punished because of paranoia witch is the responsibility of those who did the genetic experimens. All that causes that Cipher Nine can empathize to Watcher X and maybe has bad conscience about his deed. And together that can cause that Cipher Nine almost becomes crazy and he hasn’t somebody to talk since he can’t tell about his situation even if he wanted since the conditioning makes him say something else when he tries to tell the truth. When you become mad you automatically remember Watcher X since he was mad either and Watcher X was high analytic minded and not loyal to the Empire so you could’n have had a better help for getting yourself free. In addition to that imagine Watcher X gives you the feeling that you don’t have to do anything on your own what can be a great relief either. When you dind’t kill Watcher X leave the part where I’m talking about killing him away the rest will fit in both cases)

But why should Watcher X help you?

The answer can be splitted in why he helped you when you let him alive and why when you kill him (without the dellusion theorie which is already explained).

Let’s start with the theorie that you let him alive.

I think it’s basically a practical thing when you let him alive because Watcher X observed how Cipher Nine fights and dosn’t wat to get into conflict with him for saving his own life. Additional to that he can get a ally against Imperial Inteligence which betrayed both of you. When he keeps his promises now and you are betrayed by Imperial Inteligence you are more likely to help him in secret and it is a very easy chance for him. And I don’t know if you can say it about him but he knows how it feel to be traited what possibile makes him honest when he promises something (except he only promises for building a trap by it). Finally it could be that he is seeking some ways to get his own conditioning away and hopes to find something when he helps you (I mean he can transmit the princip he used for getting rid of your conditioning to get rid of his conditioning)

When you killed him there is still the thing with seeking rvenge in Imperial Inteligence what was only your job since he isn’t able to act. More over, it could be possibile that you almost did him a favour by killing him. I mean like what could he do? He had headaches as soon as he acts against the Empire and it was unlikely that he could get rid of the conditioning of his own.

The intersting and almost ironic thing is that, when Watcher X is really there, he is the only one who can at least almost fulfill his aims. Imperial Inteligence gets abolished what causes that he gets his revenge for what they did to him (be honest I don’t think that the Dark Cauncil is frindly to the former members of the secret service) and since there isn’t like a person who watches what he is doing he can get rid of his conditioning. More over, the only one who works as a kind of Secret Service is one of his allys. And since Cipher Nine didn’t obey when he let Watcher X alive the former Watcher controls the situation. What he also does by being the only one who knows that Cipher Nine got rid of the IX serum (except the minister for Imperial Inteligence if he is still alive). (The part which is written cursive is only important when you let Watcher X alive).

Thinking further

When I looked for inspiration I found a topic in a internet forum a tread which told that the Imperial Agend acutally died when he fought against Darth Jadus. Even though I dont think so it’s an interesting story which would explain a lot of the things which aren’t explained in the game. Like why didn’t i notice that I’ve got the IX serum, how can a young member of the Imperial Intelligence stop one of the most important and powerfull Sith Lords for a while? And it is an additional explanation how I was able to see Watcher X. When we both are dead he musn’t do any efforts to get into the real world and he dosn’t need any power. Another thing which could be used to agree to that theorie is that Lord Alaric (?) tells at the temple of the Sark side that some people don’t notice that they are dead when they die in a trap or someting like that (and Ciffer Nine was the only one on Jadus ship. That agents have no value in the end is something that I musn’t explain...) But there are also things which speak against the theorie. First of all you get to know people who you never could haver have heard of like Hunter and why would you imagine that? More over, nobody could have described Voss to you and you are there. And when you play as a Sith you have to find out conspiracies which are supposed to known by Imperial Inteligece what shows that they to either a rather bad job or they don’t exist anymore. But the first thing would lead to the second thing since nobody needs a organisation which works that bad, especially when war goes on. (Except in one old religion where the number nine stands fror trancendence it has no meaning which has to do with things like dead and that was interpreted too far)

Nevertheless, the story of the Agent contains a lot of things where you never get an answer for. For example Hunter tells you that you are the only one left who is like the star cabal but why? More over, Hunter asks in one part of the game if Cipher Nine could remember the code word which was given to him by Watcher X but it dosn’t appear in the game anymore what leads to the question if it was only a try to frighten Cipher Nine or if it had a deeper meaning. And it was interesting to know what happened to the other people of Imperial Intelligence (although I believe they are dead or soldiers what means basically the same at least after a few time). 

I hope this text dosn’t contain that much misstakes but in the end i had problems by focusing me and I never needed complex English for around a half year. So if you’ve got problems with understanding something or you notice misstakes in my spelling or grammar I was greatfull if you would tell it :)

[gaygwenpool]

*slams fists on table* MYSTELEON

I knew you wouldnt disappoint! :D  tho you already know most of these lmaoo  lotsa credit to @herbofoo anyway, i dont remember which of these you came up with but Patchwork wouldnt be the same without your Good Good Content! (And of course thanks for all your patience as i cry about comics lmao)

I’ve lost all shame long since ive started shipping them so brace yourself for the self-indulgent cheese that is Chameleon/Mysterio in my Patchwork verse. (its reallly. really Melodramatic. i gave up all pretense.. also under the cut cuz its long..)

ask meme

Who cooks:

Mysterio! Although Chameleon is objectively The Superior Cook thanks to the long years of being a servant to picky russian nobility BUT exactly because of that, he really doesnt enjoy it, even less when cooking for others and not just himself. So it is usually Beck who prepares meals (that are not bad either, they are just simpler) but as often as they can, they eat out. That said, Cham is very well aware Quentin loves his cooking so sometimes, he makes them something. (Being sick isnt so bad when it means Chammy bringin you a big bowl of hot borscht :)

On the other hand, Cham has quite a sweet tooth which Q notices Fast and decides to learn how to bake. It took more effort and failed tries than it could have, mostly because he got cocky, how hard could this be and just. kept forgetting he put stuff in the oven.. But now he makes quite delicious cookies n cakes which make Dmitri almost tear up because tasty + Quentin baked something Specifically for him?? 

Who does the laundry and other chores:

Mysterio’s laundry is usually booby trapped so he has to clean it himself and he doesnt even let Cham near it. And he keeps forgetting gadgets in his civvies. Not to mention that again, for the same servant reason, Cham really doesnt enjoy house chores in general, so he usually just gets his own clothes cleaned somewhere else (especially since his fancy suits and even fancier gowns are the highest quality and delicate materials, he doesnt even Know how to clean them..) 

As for the rest of the chores, its pretty balanced, although Cham has more of an eye for things that needs to be cleaned up (and Beck already has cooking duties) so he does a tad more. 

How many children do they have + Any pets:

In my Patchwork universe there’s a whole Thing about Leon, the Chameleon of the Ultimate universe but I’ve tried to type up a short summary and failed, it’s a long story lmao ^^;; and anyway he isnt exactly their kid, he is just much younger than them and they ended up sorta mentoring him. 

However, they have Celavi, the escaped ex-spy beluga.(Yes, it started as a joke based on this post that accidentally grew more and more serious until @herbofoo and me were too attached to let it go) She counts pretty much as their adopted daughter that they both spoil to hell and back, I mean no surprise, she saved Cham’s life once and sometimes, she helps out with heists. (Mostly for the show, you should have SEEN the look on Spider’s face when a beluga splashed him. He is used to humanoid sharks, to Hydroman.. not like. real life beluga that LAUGHS at him) Beck’s voice: “Dont you dare to insult her, SHE IS PERFECT AND FLAWLESS and A GOODNESS INCARNATE!! -she is literally a deserted russian spy that was trained to gather everything that could be used to harm USA-yea, i have a soft spot for those ;)“

She was always surprisingly clever so she never really counted as a “pet” and at one point, she even bonds with a symbiote (together they are Vague, again long story ah ha). They dont talk but have quite some range of vocalisations so communication isnt a problem. 

Who’s more dominant: 

They both have pretty dominant strong personalities (ok chameleon’s a bit more complicated with that but like.) with big egos who dont like others questioning their superiority. (Of course not at the level of like Doc Ock etc, they are surprisingly flexible and good team players that can be willing to let someone else take the spotlight if they are Nice) But the whole point of their relationship is that neither of them is dominant over the other, they get enough of that literally everywhere else. It’s very reassuring to be so sure that they are on equal footing, cooperating, no hidden nooses around their neck. Especially in their line of work of course! 

(Also, for the other interpretation of this question: anythin remotely sexual happens Pretty Late in the story and both of them are somewhere on the ace spectrum so it doesnt happen that often but they are both verses tho Beck bottoms more)

Favorite nonsexual activity:

MOVIES!! Sprawled on the giant comfy couch, closer than technically needed, cuddling and watching old movies with great special effects and/or great actors! Listening to Beck excitedly rant through the most dramatic speech of the story as he explains how the next cliffhanger is done with hydraulics! Focusing so hard on the stars in his eyes and his excited tone and gestures and just the tone of his voice you forgot to listen to the words themselves! Watching Cham’s face flawlessly mimic the faces on the screen in a blink of an eye and secretly guessing which one will he pick next. Feeling his head slowly fall on your shoulder, eyes closed, his mask smooth but not tense, instead just.. peaceful. Slight ping of annoyance, after all, this is A Classic movie dammit, but it’s gone in a second because Mitya hasnt slept since thursday and you are just relieved he is finally getting his rest. Feeling his warmth under your hand on his shoulders and suddenly never ever wanting to get up again.. EHM. anyway

PLANING HEISTS TOGETHER!! and more or less successfully executing them but planning is actually even more fun aside from the Big Reveals and Entrances which are actually harder to coordinate than one would think! 

Lots of shobiz/job talk actually, they really enjoy what they do! Lots of people already mentioned that in their hc compilations but i agree, they love goin to see all kinds of movies and plays and performances as well as acting various scenes with one another!  

Their favorite place to be together:

NEW YORK CITY BABEYY. Sure they love to travel and see other countries (and cause mayhem there) but.. they love their mess of a city, it’s never the same without the webhead around as well as the bazillion of other heroes n villains bashin each other’s heads. 

Any traditions:

Oh so many pop culture references and inside jokes, oh my god. One time, they spent the entire heist (and its planning period) speaking strictly in famous movie lines and titles, Max and other sixers tried to join but didnt last too long :’D 

Beck also has a habit of taking pictures of people with Interesting faces or styles he sees and sends them to Cham. Also another fanon classic: together they have a running game, disguising themselves as moderately famous people and the other guessing who..

Their “song”:

‘This is me’ from the Greatest Showman, i just live for the two of them singin it in Cham’s car,off key but fully immersed and living it. 

What they do for each other on holidays:

Neither of them are religious but that doesnt stop Beck from going ALL OUT at any opportunity, Sin Six doesn’t do any heists around holidays because you Know he’d make them dress for the occasion or worse, write them themed lines…  They still meet for Christmas and Hanukkah and sometimes other holidays too because this is my AU and you can pry festivities-related shenanigans from my cold, cold hands. It’s always at Beck’s place tho because he can turn his hideout into the tackiest holiday-themed showcase but he aint roping them into it.  

On the other hand, Cham despises American commercialized holidays in general and Christmas time especially, since it’s not a big thing in Russia and  also once again, he has family issues for days. (Although relatively speaking, he is pretty over these, he is not gonna like mope around or anything) 

Anyway, what they do for each other is that they try to compromise, Dmitri doesnt sneer at stupid kitsch decorations every 5 minutes and Quentin ..chills a little. :’D To be fair, Beck makes everything fun and having Cham there makes Beck appreciate the details more instead of just goin into BETTER!BIGGER! frenzy.

Where did they go for their honeymoon:

After the fuckin Ages of pinning, when they finally end up together for realsies, they wanted somethin Big and Flashy! (Well Beck wanted and Cham kinda too but also with the option to merge with the crowd unnoticed and take some chill time) Anyway they went on a whole world wide tour! Starting with a luxury cruise, they took their time, lots of crime sprees to plan and execute, lots of local shows to see, lots of dumb heroes to fool, they’re gonna have it all! 

Where did they first meet:

Around the time when Cham and Hammerhead had their criminal empire running Fisk to the ground, Otto decided the Sin Six should team up with them for their ressources needed on one heist or something. They agreed but Cham insisted on actually going in the field, it’s been a while since he really stretched his face legs like this and the mafia life was starting to bore him. Doc made him team up with Mysterio much to the fishbowl’s dismay because why do they need another disguise artist?? He is the Master Of Illusions dammit, he can run circles around this guy, what the fuck Otto?? So at the start, he pouts and fumes under his helmet and in general he is his v unpleasant self but… He can’t help but notice that the new guy is a real professional, he even uses Traditional masks, he likes the same movies… And most importantly, he is actually interested in Mysti’s craft, asking questions and even LISTENING to his long winded answers… At one point he even wondered if that X thing was meant as a HOMMAGE to the Y movie, the Six never did that!! (Usually the rest of the sixers dont know the reference, heathens, and when they do, they mock him for it, that he’s copying ideas and mixin them ridiculously.  BUT THIS GUY GETS IT!!) So it doesn’t take long for them to hit it off, of course at this point without any real Trust behind it but it’s a start. 

(Though Beck does pay a visit to Otto like, buddy pal i know you’ve been planning on manipulating these crimelords to your end somehow and honestly, any other day i’d be down, i actually had a robot prepared for my own backstab but i was thinking they werent that bad and maybe we Could hold our end of the bargain this time and just. leave each other on good terms? Mabye? Obviously it’s purely out of respect for our teammate Kraven since him and Chameleon seem to have some history, nothing more, definitely nothing to do with how bright Cham’s eyes were when i was showing him the back of my stage… ) 

What do they fight over:

this whole post has been a mountain of cheese but im bringing more! Honestly, goin through my notes on Patchwork, their biggest arguments have always been about.. the other one not taking proper care of himself :’D Or them lashing out because they were scared and worried about the other and they cant stand being so vulnerable while the other pretends it’s not a big deal because they dont know how to handle genuine concern directed at them. 

Do they go on vacations, if so where:

GIVE!!! BECK!!!! HIS!!!! ISLAND!!!!!!They actually do have one, it’s where Celavi spends most of the time and they visit her often. But never for too long, neither of them can actually spend too long doing nothing.. 

[embalmerandphotographer]

I really enjoy reading your headcanons! Finally, fellow fans who are also interested in the lore of Identity V! I have a question for you. Joseph is a very interesting character to explore, in terms of his background. Some players have also noticed that he makes different sound effects depending on whether he is in the Camera World or not. He sounds way younger when in the Camera World. Do you have any theories to explain this?

[makes some big dumb show of doing stretches and cracking my bones b/c ive spent the past two days reading an isekai manga about a spider and i need to remember what its like to be a person again] OKAYSOin general ive got a massive love-hate relationship with idv’s lore b/c some of it i think is fun and interesting and some of it i think is astoundingly poorly written/presented/conceptualized 

i tend to turkey-carve it for the bits i like and ignore the rest, and that works for a game like IdV b/c the lore has so little to do with the gameplay and is so incredibly loosely strung togethor anyway that it really is very much a free for all in terms of headcanoning and world building

what we know from canon is more or less as follows-joseph and his family were french nobility that Barely escaped the french revolution with their heads (literally)-his twin died when they were both young men (most likely in their twenties) of chronic illness (ill get back to this one in my personal headcanons)-joseph lived well into old age obsessing more and more over parapsychology and his work with his cameras until he inevitably ended up alone and rather scrambled in the head, at which point he is implied to have died of mercury poisoning from said photography, but not before amassing a large but uncertain amount of victims whose fate is unclear (but most likely dead)joseph in game is, obviously, not an old manthings to derive from: the french revolution was in 1789, the general concept for how photography works and the camera obscura has been around since BCE though the first concept for a portable functioning camera was conceptualized in 1685 but even so the first camera capable of taking a photograph was in 1816this means that if we’re going by real-world timelines joseph wouldve never touched a camera until plausibly his 30s-40s at the earliestluckily this is a loosely strung togethor silly horror game so i think its okay to fudge our timelines a bit to make things run more smoothlywhat im getting at is that i Believe the intent in canon is that the photograph taken of Joseph and Claude when they where in their twenties is where the in game version of Joseph derives from- that is to say, you might need to accept that there’s sort of been “”two”” josephs, the one that grew old, developed his craft, and died alone, and the “psychic imprint” joseph left behind in the photograph with claude, that “inherited” all these abilities and is now the joseph we know in game

a bit complicated, but simplified down to this: basically, its my interpretation that in game joseph is a poltergeist that derived his appearance and state of being from the old photograph, but also retains all the information from his old life

his sense of self is probably incredibly strange i dont think joseph is super aware of whats going on in his own head

AS FOR THE BREATHING and different states depending on if he’s in the camera world or the Real ™ world

since joseph is a ghost that is immediately tied to this camera world, it is within that world that he appears most alive- his breathing is still very rough and heavy, because in life joseph was Also a very sickly person like his twin (i told you id get back to that)- its worse in the Real world, because when he’s in the real world you see him as he really is- a shambling, broken undead, and his breathing is noteably even Worse because of it

also a semi related tangent but if we’re to assume that joseph died around, say, 1860 and most of the other characters (not all!! the hunters and survivors are all very clearly from all over the timeline, enforcing the idea that the mansion is a sort of timeless dimension) are from between WW1 and 2, that means that if we want to judge joseph’s “age” by when the old joseph died, he’s roughly been 80 years a ghost plus his age upon death

not that i think he really grasps that, like i mentioned i dont think joseph is all there by any means at all but i dont expect a murder ghost to be All There anyway

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!!

all of this!

to summarize&elaborate: we think the lore implies that the version of joseph at the manor is a supernatural impression/ghost (specifically a poltergeist) of the man joseph was while he was alive.

the mortal joseph lived a long life, and developed his soul photography techniques to the point where he was actually able to capture human souls in photographs. it’s unclear whether or not he knew that the people he then took pictures of and trapped in camera worlds of their own were effectively killed by this process or not (basically we don’t know if mortal!joseph knew we was killing people, but we tend to think he didn’t, and may actually have thought he was helping them). that joseph died in old age of mercury poisoning related to chemical exposure from the photography.

also, he may have started the whole soul photography research out of grief over his twin’s death. that would explain why ghost!joseph (i.e. our joseph, the hunter in the game) looks so young. mortal!joseph was trying to find a way to get to his brother in the photograph taken when they were both still alive.

the living version of joseph had a serious chronic illness, and his twin also had it and eventually succumbed to it. we think it was a disease of the lungs, and that’s why ghost!joseph’s breathing is still so heavy when he’s in the camera world, the place his ghost came from and therefore looks the most “real”/closest to how he appeared in life. when ghost!joseph leaves the camera world he’s native to, his true nature is revealed and he looks broken/cracked/monstrous, and his breathing gets lower and more rattling.

we also headcanon that as a ghost, joseph’s body produces a thick black fluid instead of blood/phlegm, and when he leaves the camera it gets into his lungs the way his phlegm would have when he was alive because of his illness, but it’s thick and possibly toxic and it makes his breathing much worse. he chokes on it but he can’t die because he’s already dead.

and because of how we interpret the twins’ illness, this means that every time joseph hunts outside the camera world, he’s experiencing what killed his brother.

tldr: hunter!joseph is the poltergeist the living joseph desaulnier left behind/created through his soul photography technique. this ghost version of joseph breathes heavily in both worlds because he was sick while he was alive, and that illness killed his twin and led him down the path to both his research/photography and the grief and self isolation that resulted in his madness and body count. the difference in his breathing between the camera world and the real world is due to the fact that joseph still appears alive (he’s a positive copy inside the negative of the photo world) there, and so he sounds how he did in life. it gets heavier/deeper outside of the photo world because joseph is a ghost/undead and only his obviously undead photo negative copy can exist outside the camera world.

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