#i have a problem and it's the fact this description fits like 3 of my blorbos <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[everestgale]

I SLIDE U SMITTEN ACROSS THE FLOOR FOR THE CHARACTER ASK STUFF -OWL

SMITTEN OUR BELOVED...

[Send Me a Character and I'll List Ask Game]

favorite thing about them

Smitten is so full of love! And he is so open about his love! He loves the Princess no matter what she looks like, no matter what she does to you, how much hurt she inflicts on you. He will always love her! He is so passionate, so devoted to her, even to his own detriment-

Yes, my favorite thing about Smitten is how absolutely deranged and passionate he is. No, I am not sorry /lh

least favorite thing about them

This is less "least favorite thing about him" and more about disliking how some people misunderstand him as possessive and malicious in HEA. He is unhealthy and flawed, and he caused harm, absolutely, but he is not doing anything in HEA from the place of malice, and I will die on that hill <3

favorite line

"Oh, just you wait and see! My vengeance will echo the depths of my bereavement!"

brOTP

I really like the Grey Brothers (Skeptic + Smitten), I like the idea of them having a weird sibling-ish bond, but in a "distant sibling who you don't talk to much because you two are so different... but it's nice to chat and catch up sometimes, and you are still there for each other if you really need one another" kind of way.

OTP

Ironically, I don't actually ship Smitten all that much... who am I kidding, the answer is CheatedSmitten, and I really need to draw more of them when my wrist recovers, or I will EXPLODE-

(If you'd like a reason, a friend wrote a very nice description on how this ship would play out, and I've been rotating it in my head for a few weeks. Smitten, the kind of person to extend his heart wide open, but also to probably wonder if he will ever be enough after he disastrously failed with HEA... and Cheated, the guy who repeatedly failed over, and over, and over, and over, someone who would understand this feeling of not being enough- Okay, I gotta stop, otherwise it will take over this whole post)

nOTP

Definitely not a nOTP, it's just that out of popular Smitten ships, I have a very hard time imagining Smittunist (Smitten/Opportunist), and it's entirely because of how I designed and how I write both of them. In fact, I actually really like seeing how other people write and/or draw that ship!! So it's decisively a "me" and "my designs/interpretations" problem 💔

random headcanon

People-pleaser Smitten. You can see it throughout this entire post, I'm very deep in the "people-pleaser Smitten" headcanon mine, and I can't get out of it /lh

unpopular opinion

Once again, don't know how unpopular it is, but I think specifically in the Unknown Together ending, where Smitten knows that she left with the Long Quiet, while he would be sad for a while over the fact that the Princess is gone, he will eventually bounce back, accept the fact that she is happily with "the big guy" somewhere, wherever that might be, and then choose to extend his over-the-top loving self to other people (mainly, his fellow voices) <3

...this is specifically for the Unknown Together endings. If we're talking about A New and Unending Dawn... well, we get an entirely different Smitten.

song i associate with them

It's more of a mixed HEA + Smitten song, but there is no other song that I associate with Smitten more than this one, so "Predator" by The Crane Wives it is!

"What were you thinking? Shouldn't you know better? You took advantage of another anxious people pleaser"

I'm kind of obsessed with how these lines fit well as HEA singing about Smitten... but also as Smitten singing to the Long Quiet, or rather, you, the player, for choosing to stay in the cabin and create this "Happily Ever After" ending... only to be dissatisfied with it.

favorite picture of them

This is what happens when the character we're talking about is a disembodied voice who has no canon design. So! How about my favorite drawing of him, which is this illustration with the Damsel. Look at them! They are so happy :]

Ignore the fact that it's part of the illustration set and in the rest of the illustrations they are not so happy, that's not what the question was asking!

[khickuwa]

Reasons Why I Think Jerome Adams is Oedipus. [CHAPTER 13 SPOILERS]

So in the recent events of Main Story 13, we see that Luke finally confronts Oedipus about the drug or, should I say "cure", to Luke's illness. I had my suspicions before, but we have incriminating evidence of this being true in this chapter. Let's go through the facts together:

Oedipus

There are things we know about Oedipus:

He has contacted two individuals within the Story; Skye Harper, the nurse who murdered both Tyson Turner and Gerard Boone's mother by injecting the NXX drug into them; and Luke, receiving an unknown drug with a note from Oedipus that says "try to live on" and meeting him under the guise of a Teddy Bear mascot, sending children to bid Luke his little cryptic messages.

Knowing these facts we can concur two facts from this:

Oedipus is someone who has access to the NXX drug.

Oedipus has access to the hospital to be able to sneak the drug into Skye Harper's hand and a part-time job as a mascot (or several) to be able to relay the message to Luke.

Oedipus knows a lot, he's always at the right place and the right time: about the NXX investigations and the whereabouts of the NXX team if he can figure out who Luke is and where he is.

The only person who would fit this criterion is a little freaky Where's Waldo ass mf with a ridiculous amount of part-time work he could probably use as covers aka Jerome Adams. (Seriously, it's like he knows to be at the right place at the right time every time.)

Here is his character description from the wiki:

Thus we can see that Jerome meets all the criteria because: 1. Access to the NXX Drug - "Jerome claims the Gladiolus Valley Research Center as his former employer", We have also seen several scenes of him previously in the Gladiolus Valley Research Center conversing with Wilson Surge,

2. Access to the hospital - "As a facilitator, he volunteered at various hospitals throughout Stellis." 3. He's aware of the NXX Team's presence and can be at the right time and place. Holding multiple part-time jobs such as a convenience store clerk and a food delivery service (and this time a bear mascot) gives him cover for his activities.

But the most incriminating evidence we have is actually within the exchange between Luke and Oedipus himself.

This is undoubtedly something Jerome Adams would do because: as established in the previous chapters, Jerome Adams works in a hospital and he has handled kids as well. This exchange coincides with all the facts previously mentioned. Ultimately, there's just too many threads that connect Oedipus and Jerome Adams together.

But why is he doing this? I can think of two reasons:

The reason why he is choosing to cooperate with Luke: In this chapter, we can see that both Oedipus and Luke have something to gain from this. Oedipus can run "clinical trials" for the NXX drug on Luke, and well... Luke doesn't have much of a choice here either, does he?

Despite Jerome freaky freaky ways, ultimately, I believe that Jerome has "good intentions" despite his very... twisted way about going about things. I can't wait to see what the new chapters have in store about is backstory and his ties with the NXX drug.

I think there's a reason why Jerome/Oedipus seems to always be hovering around the NXX team. Perhaps we're getting closer to the truth or perhaps he's trying to cooperate with us. But, I don't think Jerome/Oedipus is an enemy if anything, he's more like a third party that is working independently. I could imagine him working together with the NXX team (for a short while perhaps before they start getting at each other's throat again), or maybe even sacrificing himself in the end to ensure the NXX team gets to the root of the problem. That said, I have several other theories storming up in my brain regarding the NXX drug and how all the boys tie in all of this as well.... in another post.

[lurveinn]

I’m so curious about Wizarding fashion. JKR isn’t very physically descriptive- we just know that wizards wear robes, which are outlandish to muggles, and pointy hats, but what does that really mean? What kind of robe? Magical fashion clearly isn’t very gendered, since Harry remarks on a man at the Quidditch World Cup wearing a dress and insisting that it’s unisex (certainly not the case in Britain at the time), but we don’t have any other parameters. Keeping in mind the uniform from the movies, and the fact that in SWM, Snape isn’t wearing any trousers, here’s what I think wizards wear:

1. Flowing silhouettes and cloaks; clearly, wizards love a good statement cloak. Think tassels and frills (not like Ron’s Yule Ball fit!), massive extended sleeves and lots of draping.

2. Skirts: let’s be honest, just one singular robe, without any layering, doesn’t give us much to work with. Skirts go with the general silhouette, explain why the World Cup wizard thought muggle men wore dresses, and keep with the no-trousers thing from SWM. I’m South Asian, so I like to have a little fun with it and think of wizards in ghararas (my favourite item of clothing); the Wizarding World is quite insular, travel is relatively unrestricted (hello, they have magic!), everyone has a common enemy in muggles (and other species- goblins, house-elves) etcetera, so race probably doesn’t function the same way and I headcanon a lot of cross-cultural exchange. Plus, wizarding fashion isn’t restricted by weather- they have warming charms- so wearing clothes made for hot climates in England, for example, wouldn’t be a problem.

Plus, I actually think saris are a natural fancy dress option- flowy, drapey, colourful. Speaking of which-

3. If there’s one fanon idea that I hate (aside from fanon!Sirius, of course), it’s this image of wizards (specifically high society wizards) as reserved. Sorry, did we read the same books? Wizards, even posh, rich wizards, like the Malfoys and Blacks, are camp and very outlandish. They do house-elf taxidermy, they keep their wands in canes. Just because Hogwarts uniforms are black doesn’t mean that people dress like they’re in mourning all the time. People can be total snobs and obsessed with their image and still wear bright pink, insane robes, because guess what? They have different social conventions than we do. Men and women dress basically the same, so there is no reason to believe that a man wearing a flowing robe would be against the norm. I say this as someone who believes misogyny and homophobia are well and truly alive in Wizarding society, especially in pureblooded families where the emphasis is on continuing the line; they definitely exist, but they probably look different.

4. My personal obsession and headcanon: rich wizards wearing bones. Look, I might not think of them as racist in the traditional sense, but they are undeniably speciesist, if that’s a word? They think of themselves as superior, and other sentient magical species either work under (goblins) or are enslaved (house-elves) by wizards. We only see Veelas very briefly, but despite them being admired for their beauty, I doubt wizards treat them very well. So- show me blood-purists wearing corsets made of goblin bones and teeth. Show me Veelas being hunted for their blood to stain and dye clothes with. Show me exotic “magical creatures” that are humanoid and capable of reasoning and should have rights, like mermaids and werewolves, being hunted for their scales and pelts while also being ostracised for being ‘non-human’. It’s terrible, but that’s the kind of archaic jewellery and fashion the old families that the fandom likes to fetishise would like to wear.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Do you know of games where acquired 'detriments' (such as scars and traumas) give players unique benefits rather than being seen as strictly detrimental?

Preferably ones where its not just "Get a bonus when this causes a problem"

Theme: Helpful Detriments

Hello there, I had a question similar to this back in 2023, so I’m going to redirect you to my Curses recommendation post first, because there might be something there that fits what you’re looking for. Then we can top off that list with a few more!

When I think of this kind of thing, I think of three categories: horror, the paranormal, and cyberpunk.

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer.

External Containment Bureau is a game of paranormal investigation and bureaucracy using a lightweight, hackable version of the Forged in the Dark design framework. You play as trained agents of the External Containment Bureau, an organization tasked with the study, identification, and containment of paranormal phenomena.

The Bureau authorizes agents to make use of these phenomena to give yourself incredible powers (so long as the proper forms are in order). But take care: using paranormal energies inches you ever closer to joining the ranks of the paranormal yourself. Will you transcend humanity in the line of duty? Play to find out.

ECB gives your characters special paranormal powers during the course of play, and whenever you take enough resonance (ECB’s Stress mechanic) you mark another one. Your character can take up to 3 powers before things get tricky: mark enough resonance to get your 4th power and you are no longer a playable character - you get promoted, demoted, or transcend past mundane existence. If you were to hack this system, I think you could flavor these powers and abilities to make them feel more like curses - in fact, I think Congregation, by DM Rawlings, does something like this.

Urban Shadows, by Magpie Games.

The streets bleed shadows as the supernatural politics of the city threaten to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero—a savior for those who have never had enough—or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or give in for power?

The choice is yours. 

In Urban Shadows, your characters are constantly wrestling with the opportunity to be really shitty people in exchange for Corruption. Each character has a special move that entices them, such as the Spectre’a move “witness a scene and do nothing” - which gives you corruption. Mark enough corruption, and you get more powerful - like the Spectre’s Telekinesis ability.

Of course, the more Corruption moves you have, the faster you take corruption, and once you’ve maxed out your Corruption limit - well, your character isn’t really a hero anymore, are they? (Which is why the GM gets control of them, and you make a new character.)

The link above is for the 1st edition. The 2nd Edition Quickstart is a teaser of what's coming soon.

Heart: The City Beneath, by Rowan, Rook & Decard.

Heart: The City Beneath is a complete tabletop roleplaying game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process.

It is a dungeon-crawling, story-forward tabletop RPG from the designers of Spire that focuses on what characters have to lose in pursuit of their dreams in the chaotic darkness beneath the world.

Heart is known for many things: its juicy setting, its utilization of the classic dungeon crawl, its body horror… but the horrifically gorgeous descriptions of the characters are what we’re here for. Watch your characters slowly hollow themselves out and give themselves over to whatever dark power has given them unique abilities. These characters will get more and more powerful… until they reach the final session, where everyone goes out in a big blazing, gory mess.

The Fallout system also gives the GM a chance to give characters interesting trauma and wounds, but they also could help generate interesting Beats that players want to work toward in order to level up. I think mechanically, this recommendation might have a loose connection to what you’re looking for, but thematically it might still be close.

Doll.Bod, by curatrix-ribston.

In a City of neon lights and shimmering pools of acid rain, the world ends a little each day. Hunger and sickness walk the streets like the ripper in the tales of old, taking those that the system casts aside. 

There is a way out. When you've got nothing else, you can always mortgage your body. The corpos have use for an object's flesh, for those they can augment without having to care for those pesky regulations. They're just playing with dolls really.

Dolls that they send on the jobs you can't actually send your employees on. They're not comitting crimes, just making creative use of their property.

That's what you are now. Their property. Maybe, with time, you can be something else entirely.

Let’s talk about Doll.Bod.

You are really cool cyborgs, with really deadly abilities and useful skills. You each have special abilities like the Razor-grrl’s skin razors that can cut at the slightest touch, or the Seamful, whose blood can heal herself every time she gets hit. The catch is: you don’t have control of your body. Your body has been sold, and the corporation that bought it is using it as they please. In play, this is often represented by other players at the table making decisions for you about what your character does - with safety tools in place, of course.

Not only that, your own special abilities harm your character in certain ways - for instance, The Razor-grrl can’t engage in physical intimacy with anyone, because she’s likely to hurt them, while the Gargoyle can’t turn her eyes off - until they short out, that is.

Other Games I Talk About Ad Nauseum...

Apocalypse Keys has a Ruin track similar to that of Urban Shadows, giving your characters more and more powerful abilities that encourage their descent into monstrosity, constantly pushing them towards ending the world. It’s not necessarily a bad thing either - sometimes the more satisfying outcome is tearing down the whole organization and rebuilding anew.

Those of Us Who Know Better has superheroes whose power always comes at a cost. In one way, you could see this as a detriment with a bonus (having to do certain things to get access to special powers) although I acknowledge that it might be a bit of a stretch.

Numenera has a lot of random mutations that can happen to you if you choose to use the random tables at the back of Destiny, and the Rusthaven expansion has some other abilities that come with both benefits and setbacks.

[simpjaes]

if only you knew HOW LONG i've been searching for a vampire fic that ACTUALLY turns reader into one 😩

LEMME DIVIDE MY THOUGHTS ABT OOTDG ONE BY ONE

1. the way you write is DAMN addicting. the flow of the plot, the twists, the WORDS used all matched up like i just hit the jackpot in the casino. 777. in hoon's case, 333. it FIT the theme so much, to the point that it FELT natural to read. i super ADMIRE your writing and hope to see it more soon.

2. the reveal of hoon's doings: it was so WELL WRITTEN! the description of all of it, the yearning, the desperation, i all FELT IT whilst reading.

3. the period sex scene: first thing that came to mind was saltburn, actually. HOWEVER!!! yours was more pleasant because it was NECESSARY for hoon. he NEEDED that blood. and YOU managed to pull it off and write without making it seem disgusting.

4. the plot development: i said it already and i'll say it again. the YEARNING. it is exactly what i wanted to see. the way they WAITED. from y/n finding her first friend, the drunk parallels, the cathedral, accepting hoon, going back home, healing, dying, and turning won, EVERYTHING WAS WELL DEVELOPED.

5. the emphasis on friendship: i feared that jungwon will be left alone or worse, killed during his visit. however, it was quickly answered by the plot. turning won into one of them made me feel so relieved, as they were both important to each other. my remaining problem now is seeing jay after won's turned. does tt hi Hu hu Hu

HELLO BELOVED! this is a very VERY long response im so sorry omg. i do want to make a correction regarding what you think happened in the fic tho!

Jungwon does not get turned at the end of the fic. He gets bitten, much like reader does throughout the story, but turning someone requires a lot more than just biting and sucking their blood, as you saw with the death scene. So, real quick let me give you the run down of how it works.

Being a vampire's prey: you get bitten, you lose blood, usually to the point of death. human death. this is what Jungwon was at risk of when he walked into their, by then, shared apartment.

Being turned: You are bitten and drank from until you die, but that last bit of blood is then fed to you. This is difficult to complete because that last drop of blood is considered the most important, and also a flavor that's not only different from the rest of your blood, but even harder to resist as a vampire. GENUINELY, this is why so many of their meals are killed, and this is an indication in my fic that sunghoon genuinely tried to control himself time and time again from both killing reader, and turning her. anyway, that last drop of your blood is what is meant to ignite the change, that last drop of your own blood blooming in your belly is what turns you. plus some other magical vampire shit I didn't get into or care to make up, but that's the idea and all that was really needed to be described.

When reader turned, Jungwon was the first living person she came face to face with, and his scent blinded her into her own drunkeness. She wouldn't have been able to control herself to turn him with being a new vampy and all. She very nearly could have killed him in that scene, this is why Sunghoon was prepared to fight you off of him because he knew you'd be sad to learn you killed ur platonic soulmate lmfao. You impressed Sunghoon though, by somehow managing to stop yourself. In fact, at the very very end of the fic, you'll note that reader only bit Jungwon once, and she feels really fucking guilty of it. She doesn't feed on him or intend to bite him at all after that scene. Even when he's over at the cathedral, Sunghoon basically trains her using Jungwon since he's so irresistible to you (to Sunghoon's fucking DISMAY omgggg) So, no, jungwon is not a vampire, he simply takes over the apartment and you go live in the shadows of the cathedral with Sunghoon. Jungwon knows what you are though, and eventually, so many years later, i'd like to say you'd turn him out of fear that you'll see him die one day. Cue jay, who would then be turned by jungwon bc that's his fucking MANNNNNNN.

anyway, onto other matters [i'm answering this between classes, pls forgive me if im messy]

i'm so so so SO thankful that you appreciate how I crafted that story ; u ; it was my first time delving into fantasy, and also the first time i ever got to write even slightly about my love of gothic architecture and/or the art and goth world colliding. In my head, it was very much a gothic romance [as ALL vampire media should be, sorry, i don't quite appreciate the modern stuff as much. even if mine is technically modern, sunghoon IS NOT!!!]

i could talk about this specific fic all day, my thought process, all the things i wrote and removed, the things I wish i could have added. I'd continue the fic honestly, straight up write a whole 200k series [including me re-writing what i already have], change the names, and try n find those publishers that'll make me a best seller for the horny ladies LMFAO but, yknow, i still have so many other fics and ideas i wanna flesh out.

for now, OOTDG is genuinely my best work, like im SO proud of that fucking fic it's insane. I never actually like my work, im usually rly insecure about it.

but that one. that one is different. AS FOR SALTBURN LMFAO, i loved that film but i actually didn't take any inspo from it for OOTDG. I, personally, just like blood a lot in sexual situations and the safest, least painful way to do that is for reader to have her period. Additionally, it's a vampire story. Vampire wants fuck. Vampire wants blood. Vampire wants you. You = on period Vampire = HELL YEAH It's like, to expect me NOT to write that is craaaaaaaaaaazy ;o; i know not many people are into it but im genuinely shocked there's not more period stuff happening with het vamp fics. like if i was a vampire i'd be slurping that shit like a motherfucking juice box. Like??? pussy AND blood??? dONT MIND IF I DO.

[melliae]

Refraction Railway Line #1 Abnormalities Part 1 (Analysis)

Madness.

Simply put, there’s no better way to describe the first Refraction Railway ever released, and not without good reason. We can’t really expect a forced “patchwork” made of several possibilities coming from 3 Sinners to make sense, can we? Project Moon surely just threw whatever they thought interesting to the wall to see what stuck.

However…

“Embracing the madness is a necessary step for humans to move forward.” - Lunacy’s Flavour Text.

I stated in my second analysis of RR2, in Sign of Roses’ section, that accepting madness is to admit the limitations of the conscious mind, that things are just so vast and complex that there’s no way for us to fully understand them, let alone predict them. Life’s essence is rooted in uncertainty, and so is humanity. To separate them is to mutilate and destroy both, and to deny the life that madness wishes for is to increase its power over you.

So… who knows? Maybe there’s something there, a thread we can’t fathom, just like how life is. To try to say something with utter confidence and “rationality” is just as irrational as the opposite. The only true difference is your own disposition to admit and be conscious about it.

And thus, honoring its name, let’s try to find meaning in that which is unknowable and uncertain by definition.

“A symbol always presupposes that the chosen expression is the best possible description or formulation of a relatively unknown fact, which is none the less known to exist or is postulated as existing.” - Psychological Types.

Misery Loves Company

“In any case, we now know why dragging on doesn't do us any favor. I felt like I was being dragged deeper into the swamp of gloom as the fight went on.” - Ishmael, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Glupo is one of the strangest Abnormalities ever, but not because of its meaning, no. Its weirdness solely comes from the effects of its EGOs and EGO gifts, which literally have nothing to do with the actual mechanics of its fight, notwithstanding the actual logic of the former two. A weird little guy, all in all.

Anyway, moving into its meaning… Really, there’s no way to get it wrong: a Trauma Abnormality with skills that are exclusively Gloom-based, and a blue resin defined as Gloom itself that fills the arena and escapes from its body once its eyes are broken. To say that Blubbering Toad represents anything but depression (or any other deep-seated sorrow) is wishing to “not fit in” on purpose.

However, if you pay attention to some details present in its Mirror Dungeon Encounter (not battle) and Observation Logs, it becomes obvious that Glupo isn’t a representation of depression per se, but of a certain perspective over it: the Abnormality doesn’t just want to wallow in its misery, but also to be heard and seen.

“An eyeball belonging to the toad was on its tongue. When we picked it up, it blinked its other eye at us before going on its way. Was that its thanks for lending an ear?” - Abnormality Encounter (“Sit and Wait” option).

This necessity for someone to at least hear it is seen many times, both during its actual fight and its Encounter, with the Sinners and Dante wondering whether they should interrupt Glupo’s crying or let it finish. And considering that it heals back some or many of the deployed IDs to full SP in case you fail the check of the “mimic the cry” option shown below, which is determined only by the average SP of the team, it’s obvious what it truly wants.

“‘Cruh-huh, croohoo.’ The toad makes a different noise as if to answer. It sounds like an affirmative reply. It extracts its long blue tongue, snatching a person from our group. Sometime later, they walked back out of its mouth. They seemed drenched… in moisture, or gloom.”

No matter what Glupo does or to what place it moves, its despair will chase it forever, for the true crux of its problem lies inside—the “gloom resin” that fills its body and that melts its own eyes. It’s completely fruitless to get angry at it and fight off its sadness, and so it’s to comfort it lovingly, because Glupo simply knows such things won’t work. Its essence is that of Gloom manifested after all, an endlessly dark dampness that crushes and taints everything it touches, and one that the Toad doesn’t have any way to free itself from.

Without escape and without rest, Glupo’s only solace as an Abnormality resides in others’ acknowledgment of its pain, that someone will hear its cries one day and maybe—just maybe—will remain by its side in an attempt not to make it better, but as an attentive, non-judgemental ear.

“I wonder what would've happened we just waiting until it's finished crying? No, I'm not saying we should try it. I don't see it being efficient, either. It's just... I remember someone doing the same for me a long time ago, and it helped me back then.” - Ishmael, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

The sadness and emptiness inside one’s heart may never disappear, and all the attempts at soothing it may be fruitless. But the short-lived relief that’s born at the moment your visceral cries are heard—that you and your suffering are finally seen—is so much more precious than any other thing, because it means that someone is willing to share the pain you thought was unbearable, and we all know that the only way no one will have to cry ever again is to share our curses. The Abnormality is no exception, willing to help you to its own detriment once you lend it the companionship it yearns for.

Yet, it’s because of that very same dependence on people that Glupo becomes vulnerable to the thorns that poison relationships too, the bitterness that leads people to resentfully think that someone else is receiving the attention they think they themselves need, and the resulting self-pity and doubt over one’s predicament. It’s very different from the seeming indifference the Toad holds for the Wrath, Lust, and even Pride of the Sinners, which in turn reinforces the empathy it has shown during all its apparitions and that it earnestly hopes will be returned to it.

Depression surely is a terrifying thing, isn’t it? Melancholy, sorrow, agony, despair, emptiness… Being so deep in the abyss of such emotions, wishing more than anything for someone—anyone—to be by your side, isn’t something I want other people to experience. But if there’s no other way, if you have already ventured too far into the dark cave, then it’s important to remember something: humans are not meant to be alone; even in desolate silence, companionship is nothing short of salvation.

A "Leashed" Dog

“This creature was like a living battery. Collecting lightning in its body, it used the power to fuel itself. Alas, its usage of the lightning's energy was not for a self-motivated purpose such as pursuit of strength; the accumulated electric forces appeared to dictate its motion, giving me the impression that it was the will of the sky that it followed.” - Yi Sang, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Have any of you seen the movie Frankenstein? The one that showed how electricity was the element that animated the Creature? Yes? Perfect, then, because everyone should know such a thing never happened in the original book. The “electricity” was just a cinematic adaptation of the “vital principle” that Dr. Frankenstein discovered, akin to God’s “secret”. However, for Project Moon, there seems to be no difference between the two things as implied by Yi Sang.

But then one must ask what “divine” will or power is represented through said electricity. For that, we have to look at two elements that I’ve already gone over in my previous analyses.

The first one is related to another Abnormality with purple lightning, Dreaming Electric Sheep. There’s not much to comment on here thanks to how obvious the symbolism is, but I want to emphasize something about its environment: the lightning comes from the dark and chaotic sky, from the “liminal world” that the Sheep lives in. This world is our second element, being an adequate symbol for the source of all dreams and vitality: the realm of the dreaming, unconscious God, the source of the “spirit" or psychological spark that enlivens the mind (and body).

Regarding the nature of the unconscious mind… I’ll have to explain it once more since it’ll be important later on. But basically, the unconscious, as theorized by Carl Jung, is divided into two levels: a personal layer, proper to the individual, and a deeper, more collective one that underlies the former. While they do have their own peculiarities and differences, their point in common is that they are the matrix of life, the source of all “psychic” energy and change, as well as their limitations and possibilities. To say that the domain of the divine is the unconscious, while blasphemous, isn’t inaccurate, yet one must take care not to assume they are “asleep” or—even worse—“dead” just because of said unconsciousness.

“As an autonomous psychic factor, Wotan produces effects in the collective life of a people and thereby reveals his own nature. For Wotan has a peculiar biology of his own, quite apart from the nature of man. It is only from time to time that individuals fall under the irresistible influence of this unconscious factor. [...] It seizes everything in its path and overthrows everything that is not firmly rooted. When the wind blows it shakes everything that is insecure, whether without or within.” - Carl Jung, Essay on Wotan.

The wilderness and madness of the “divine” is best seen with the Erlking, who is identified as the Devil by Nelly, and what is the Devil but another name for the stormy unconscious personified by Wotan-Odin? What I meant is that the Erlking—Heathcliff himself—was the tempest that tore apart Wuthering Heights personified, the culmination of the accumulated pain engraved in the very mansion and without which its residents couldn’t survive—the master, the scapegoat, the “source” of all evil. He was the manifestation of the spark and winds that pushed everyone and allowed them to live, despite being no different from corpses only held together by the resentment that flourished deep within them.

At the end, no one should be prideful enough to think of themselves as friends or equals of the “heavens”. At most, we are just toys and slaves of our superiors’ unpredictable wants. Such is the logic behind Alleyway Watchdog, who has given up entirely on its autonomy and dignity as an individual being, breathing and living to the whims of its unconscious master—succumbing to its own smallness. Naturally, I don’t think I have to point out how a watchdog connects to this idea, right?

With that part clear, it’s obvious why the Abnormality has both Envy and Sloth skills, with a body at the complete mercy of that psychological and capricious lightning received by the Telepole. Thus, more curious are its Pride and Lust skills, “Howl” and “Claw” respectively, that point to how succumbing to its own drives and instincts was something the Watchdog did on its own. There is no grandiose sense of duty behind all the mutilations, pain, and discharges, only resignation and loss of all self-control, becoming no more than a devil that lacks any sort of shame even during its most beastly expressions.

Overindulgence and loss of control are also present in Fairy Gentleman and Sign of Roses by that matter. But whereas the Fairy still has a humanoid identity and form, enough to reign over itself momentarily, the human effigy in the other two Abnormalities is beyond disfigured, near the brink of extinction, as it is representative of the collapse of rationality. And while Sign of Roses is a manifestation of a twisted divine love, Watchdog is the epitome of submission towards said “love”, lacking any semblance of self-determination and responsibility for just as God created and commands you, the “torment” acts through and seizes you without asking.

Towards the heavens and God, there’s no answer or question, only blind obedience. You just have to look at Faust and her relation with the Gesellschaft, the temptation offered by Mephistopheles the Devil, who originally presented himself as a black dog in Goethe’s novel. Or Sancho and her nature as a Bloodfiend that demands her to follow the Bloodstream, to the point she wasn’t able to stop herself when commanded to leave La Manchaland (though Rocinante did help with that). And I don’t think I have to go over Heathcliff’s case after my explanation about the Erlking, though I find it noteworthy to mention just how typical his portrayal of emotions as a storm truly is—nothing more classical than a Byronic hero!

And to end the analysis, I want to highlight how the Abnormality’s weakness to Pride and resistance to both Gloom and Envy show that, again, the Abnormality accepted this on its own, without complaint or sadness for its nature as mere marionette for something “higher” and more “primal”; it refuses to stand up and claim its own being, like most would have done. In contrast, the Body’s and Telepole’s particular weaknesses to Sloth reflect once more his inability to refuse the heavens’ whims, while the vulnerability to Wrath of the Person and Head does so with the classical trope of raging against the above, awakening the squashed soul with its own kind of “vital spark”.

At this point, I don’t think a final remark is needed. I’ve already gone over this topic a couple of times before, and the question remains the same: is it truly worth it to completely relinquish oneself to the soul and its inner storm, to be no more than a rabid beast that doesn’t know any better?

Please, Don’t Call It “Dumbass”

“A smile is displayed on the terminal, but in the robot’s gestures, you feel a plea for help.” - Abnormality Encounter.

Okay, I give up with this one. I don’t have the slightest idea of what the Robot means. The only thing I know is that it wants to be anywhere but in its “town”, so please, don’t call him “dumbass” :(

…

Okay, in all seriousness, I have an idea of what KQE stands for, but the lack of EGOs and the vague nature of the “town” makes the Abnormality difficult to analyze. Still, if I had to put my life on the line, then…

“<There must have been an issue with the tour program.> After printing those words, the robot stood still for a while. Just when you started to wonder if it was broken, the terminal flashed. <No response after multiple requests to the Administrator.> <System Error. System Error.> <Rebooting…> After that, it kept throwing up complicated words on a blue screen.” - Abnormality Encounter (“Tell it you took a tour” option).

The City is still using Windows

Abandonment. Complete and utter isolation after being transformed into an unrecognizable monster and used as such.

However, even though the “administrator” and “townsfolk” have completely abandoned it alongside the “town”, KQE continues to fulfill its role and protect the latter all alone. The Heart of the Townsfolk that appears once the Robot’s claw is avoided? Don’t be fooled by the name; the Heart is its own, as they do not only share the same traits and Sin affinities but also have their HP bars connected thanks to the Heart’s passive, which causes KQE to take damage and become staggered once it’s destroyed. All of this means that the Abnormality is the last of the “townsfolk”, the only one who makes sure to keep the forsaken ghost town functioning in spite of its agony and despair.

“The claw was a pretty big bother to get around, but when we cut into that thing somehow, that tin can stopped moving! Haha, that sure gave us a breather. …Well, it might be because the heart belonged to the robot.” - Gregor, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Another interesting detail to note is how the (only) trait KQE and the Heart have, Mechanical Amalgam, is only shared with the MultiCrack Office IDs and enemies. And if we go by Heathcliff’s Uptie story of said Office below, then…

“Grabbing piping-hot items without hesitation. Walking for hours upon hours without ever getting tired. It was those little things, those minor details, that have been making the child feel a sense of alienation ever since he replaced most of his body with prosthetic parts. [...] Days rolling, clicking by like cogs in a machine. The child was merely growing used to that kind of life. The life in the City.”

Mind you, I’m not sure how applicable this loss of emotions is to other MultiCrack Fixers due Sasha’s attitude during MotWE, but it’s still worth considering how reminiscent of KQE’s situation it is. Besides, this kind of abstract meaning is somewhat in line with the rest of Abnormalities that share the “06” classification code: Steam Transport Machine, whose existence is basically the past given physical form; 1.76 MHz, a Trauma Abnormality that stems from PTSD (likely from the Smoker War veterans); and and Nothing There, an Original Abnormality that represents the emptiness that has assaulted the city, one of the many consequences of the “sickness of the mind”. All of this, unironically, tells us a lot about the Abnormality:

Speaking about Nothing There, it’s extremely important to highlight how its code is almost identical to KQE’s. This was likely intentional on Project Moon’s part; they want us to connect the emptiness or alienation that the two of them represent.

Thus, the true nature of KQE, as per the rest of "06" Abnormalities, is abstract, not physical. More specifically, in a very similar way to NT, it likely originated as a “void” or some sort of abstract thing that people filled with flesh and machinery.

Finally, considering it’s a mechanical amalgam in the same way as the MultiCrack Office Fixers (and the “heretics” pursued by N Corp.’s Inquisition), the effects of technology has on the human body and psyche is a fundamental part of its meaning as well.

While Project Moon has been mostly impartial regarding the overall idea of prosthetics and technological implants, it’s obvious they aren’t blind to the debates over them and their possible consequences. The MultiCrack Office is just the most recent case “against”, but prior to them was Canto III (sort of), and even before it was the Brotherhood of Iron in LoR. All of them point both at the real and perceived risks of technological transhumanism, which are the basis of KQE… Or better said, technological transhumanism is the consequence of KQE’s meaning—an amalgam of flesh and technology created to satisfy the emptiness inside to no avail, the result being a clunky, misshapen, and simply useless monstrosity.

Basically, what the Abnormality tells you is that the root of your (psychological) suffering doesn’t lie in the outside, but within your own soul. It’s not about trying to imitate someone else like Nothing There or to modify your body like KQE, because in both cases you are simply running away from your fundamental essence, from the thing that rightfully can be called your own self. You just need to see how miserable KQE is, with all of its skills being either Gloom- or Envy-based, to know that altering your body to soothe your fears isn’t really the path to happiness (especially if those modifications are old as fuck).

Now, to finish things here, let’s go over KQE’s last relevant element: its Sin resistances. The first ones correspond to its two weaknesses, Gloom and Lust, which imply that KQE is weak to… despair and love, as if its entire Encounter in the MDs didn’t show already how deep in pain and agony the Abnormality is. Anyway, moving to the resistances as such, we have both Wrath and Envy, which are quite self-explanatory, aren’t they? KQE has already gone beyond the “despair event horizon”, and none of your resentment, rejection, and anger will ever compare to the hell it dug for itself.

… Okay, maybe KQE does deserve to be called a “dumbass” somewhat.

Post-Commentary

Ahh, finally I can post this. I really wasn't lying with KQE being hard to analyze. I was stuck on it for like 1 or 2 weeks because I had problems trying to just understand what it was about. Really, I'm still not convinced of what I wrote, so if you have any idea, share it! Anything is welcome here xD

Now, regarding the organization of the posts, I was originally planning to publish the analysis of the 5 Abnos together... But Headless Ichthys happened, and I don't doubt MFE is going to be as dense as the Fish. So to avoid making an even worse wall of text, I decided to divide them in 3 and 2. I'll likely use this for any post with 5 Abnos from now on (otherwise, it'll be half and half).

Anyway, moving into some curiosities, something I didn't comment was about the alternating resistances to Gloom and Wrath of Glupo's eyes. It's a reference to Ishmael’s commentary at the beginning of the third Log: the left eye is dedicated to physical damage, therefore making it resistant to “physical attacks” (Wrath) and weak to “mental anguish” (Gloom); the right eye, focused on sanity loss, is the opposite.

Other interesting thing is how there seems to be a parallel between Glupo, the Tearful Thing, and STNOWC, if we go by the quote of Sinclair’s Cavernous Wailing. I’m not sure of the implications, or if it even was on purpose, but it’s worth highlighting.

Other thing I find curious was how Telepole's theme fits with Ishmael. More parallels between her and Heathcliff, I suppose.

Also, it’s funny Telepole always uses Wrath and Envy - resentment against others and oneself - with a third Sin affinity, which changes according to the Sinner: Gloom for Don, to represent how her deep sorrow over what happened with La Manchaland and original Don Quixote (unconsciously) guided her; and so is Lust for Heathcliff, embodying his (multi-)universal love for Catherine. Faust uses Lust too, and much more than Heathcliff by that matter…

And as last thing since it was released long afterward I finished Watchdog's section, but the check affinities of its new Encounter are pretty obvious: Pride and Envy because, seriously, those telepoles look goddamn fine! Oh, and they are kind of wasted in the dog anyway.

So, now with all finished, and ignoring the obvious disclaimer of spelling, grammar, and different interpretations, let's go for the 2nd part!

(Please kill me)

[princesscolumbia]

About that [VARIANT] HRT thing...

If you're not deep in the thick of all things trans on Tumblr then you'll have seen the [animal] HRT that was spawned by the Dragon HRT series by aveydoesthings, then I feel sorry for you.

Seriously, go give her a follow and start from the beginning. There's TONS of inspired work that came from this, you probably won't ever find them all, but trying is worth the attempt.

If Dragon HRT were possible, I'd absolutely be mainlining that shit. I've felt draconic for so long I remember, just like when I realized I was a woman, learning that according to the oriental zodiac I was a dragon and feeling like that just fit.

No wonder I was so obsessed with the Dragonriders of Pern when I was a kid.

Naturally, since we're a system, I need to be taken into account here, so dragon-lady there wouldn't go full scaley unless there was a way for me to still be me. We're already crazy tall and gaijin, being a goddamn dragon might be a step too far for me.

...I wouldn't say no to having a cat's ears and tail, and the ability to purr...oh, and the fangs and claws!

Okay, therian...

In any case, a few months ago (about 2-3 weeks before we split into a system, as a matter of fact) I read a fic on Scribble Hub called "A Date with Faet," and...well...okay, some spoilers below the link. I'm not going to cut, because I want the whole post showing up, but if you like TG TF fics that dip into the hard weird, keep reading. Otherwise, skip the next section until the AO3 link:

In this fic, the protag discovers that she's a changeling, as in non-human. They're fae, and, in fact, turn out to be a fairy princess. Now, this is actually rather common as TG/TF fics go, and at first it appeared to be fairly standard for its type...right up until it wasn't.

Turns out the protag's adoptive father was also trans and the character that could have been a Mary Sue winds up with Herculean problems; they've got plenty of power, but will it actually be able to fix anything? Will this make things better or worse? What are the consequences of their actions?

This book/series takes a hard turn into the "𝕕𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕝 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕦𝕞𝕤" when, decades after being turned into a woman who's no longer actually protag's parent, dad-turned-mom-turned-cousin is once again asking to be changed, and this time she becomes protags daughter.

This particular bit in particular has stuck in my mind ever since. It's what works for the story, it's a completely natural outgrowth of the events that happened before, and what's more it allows the author to naturally insert someone who's a system into the fic. (You would not believe the number of fics I "stumbled on to" when I was incubating as the system we are now.)

The protag and their father/mom/cousin/daughter start out perfectly ordinary humans. In fact, they are, at first, rather desperate to cling to that humanity. But over the course of the story they, step by step, wind up being almost completely non human and, in the fae princess' case, periodically wielding power enough to transform reality to her whims.

And, of course, if you know me at all, the fact that this made things as emotionally/ethically/plot-wise/morally complicated as fuck just made me love it harder.

A few months ago I started penning "Like a Cat in Heat," which was a direct response to a smutfic that had a promising description but absolutely fell down on the execution that presented the question of, "What if a person had a distinctly inhuman trait? What if it was more like an animal trait?" I said, "Okay, how about that but if it was actually good? And what if it were funny?"

It turned out to be a fun little bit of flash fiction that I hadn't, at first, intended to be more than what it was. But then one of the readers dropped a comment and coupled with the last, closing lines that were intended to be just a silly little joke wound up spinning out "Dragon's Lair," which proposed the question, "What if 'the normal character' turned out to be a monsterfucker? What if that monster was as fragile as spun glass and the human was the real monster all along with the power to crush the 'monster' if they so chose? What if making the 'wrong' choices by 'society's' standards was actually the best thing for these characters and was the (morally/ethically/narratively)Good Ending™?"

Then I finished that up with "Smokin' Hot" which said, "...fuck it, full eldritch abomination! Fuse that main character with a kami! Main characters LOVE being fused with kami!"

I even have a scene where the MC is being burned alive to nothing and must trust that she'll be reborn from the ashes...

...so imagine my surprise when I found Eldritch HRT and the artist did basically the same thing in their comic, including the cocoon analogy:

( @dawning-mars - PHENOMENAL work so far, please keep it up, this series is wonderful and I can't wait to see where you take it! ...oh, and drink some water and make sure you're getting enough sleep. Burnout is the creative's worst enemy. Don't worry, the inspiration and the zone will be waiting for you on the other side. 😉)

And all this has reminded me, from reading "Date with Faet" to my own work to Dragon HRT and Fish HRT and Mouse HRT and Eldritch HRT...all of these are about people becoming their best self when they no longer conform to "normal" "humanity."

This is not a new revelation, of course. People have been identifying this phenomenon for decades, possibly longer. When the people we now call "queer" are targeted by fascists for killing, and when "normal" people can't be bothered to lift a finger in our defense, and when the "bad" guys in movies and TV shows are queer coded so heavily some of them are actually shown as being gay and in loving relationships...well, it's not hard for us to take a look at the options (do I conform and deny my basic nature and be miserable for decades, or do I commit to the bit and live a happy, if short, life?) and choose to become the monster.

And for those who wind up on this path, it doesn't feel like we're "less" human than the "normal" people. If anything, we're retaining what it is that, to us, makes us human, our sense of self, our agency, our individuality and identity in a vast, uncaring cosmos on a burning world filled with uncaring people. And once we've embraced that part of ourselves, the parts that we're told growing up make us monstrous and evil and inhuman, we look back at the humanity we left behind and see nothing but a faceless mass of conforming nightmares that wish us death.

We may be the monsters, but they are the Borg in its most pure, TNG-era form; uncarring, unfeeling, all consuming, faceless, mindless but the hivemind, and destroys everything it touches.

We embody IDIC, in our weirdness and our multitude and our refusal to conform. Resistance isn't futile, it's mandatory.

The collective sees anything that's different and seeks to force it to conform or erase its existence.

We bronies and furries and scalies and therians and transwomen and transmen and gays and bisexuals and systems and catgirls and dogboys and catboys and doggirls and eldritch abominations are the chaos of life. When someone says, "I'm...new, there hasn't been anything like me before," we say, "WELCOME BROTHER!" ("I'm a non-gender robot, actually..." "WELCOME SIBLING!")

Do you have a place to stay? About five people in the community have couches you can crash on...oh, you're good there? Are your bills paid? "Capitalism," amirite? How about medication? Can't get you your brain pills without a scrip, but we can hook you up with DIY HRT...oh, you're not planning on medically transitioning but you want top surgery? We can find you a list of places and the right people to talk to to make it happen. How about food? Here's a food bank near you...is your job treating you okay? No job? Let's get you resources to keep you housed while you're looking. Oh, that's your first art piece? Gorgeous! Magnificent! You've got a future...GAI'S, COME LOOK AT THIS ART THE NEWBIE DID!

Who's the monster here?

tl;dr - Maybe the real humanity is the eldritch abominations we made along the way?

[whereisyourstar]

Be Well

Part 6 of the Stand By, Hold Back, Be Patient series

Part 5

Rating: SFW

Word Count: 9.5k

Warnings: Mild angst, minor descriptions of death and blood, description of a really bad date, extensive lore dump

(AN: This marks the beginning of where I went off the rails and created my own lore, so we're in mild AU territory that follows the movies up until most of part 3. Just go with me on this one.)

Seems fitting that this conversation is happening in an idyll like this one. If every difficult conversation could be had in a clearing overflowing with wildflowers and butterflies, the death of spring imminent and grandiose in its final gasps, then maybe you wouldn't dread them so much. You're glad for the distraction of the butterflies, and the two blindingly happy dogs that chase them, if only because it gives you an excuse not to look off to the side. Jason sits there on your right, back against the trunk of a tree much older than the one you've claimed, dark and imposing as ever in the shade. Only the curve of his spine, hunched in on himself even more than normal, like he needs to make himself smaller, gives away the tumult happening in the brain behind his mask. Tumult is a great word for it—your own mind is like a feedback loop on itself, repeating Jason's explanation over and over.

The land keeps him alive. He doesn't know why or how any more than you do, but it reversed death under the very lake he drowned in, and it kept him there, half-alive, half-conscious of the years passing him by, until his mother's blood was spilled and he could rise. It wanted Pamela, he thinks, to be its protector. He was just the beating heart of her vengeance, the locus of her grief and anger and despair, that the land might have rewarded her with when she was spent. A living son, returned to life just before the time of her death, to thank her for her service. But then the girl, then the decapitation, then the blood, and the blood, and the blood, and suddenly Jason was alive. Alive and utterly alone in the world, his mother's final gift to him a white hot, concentrated anger that burned him from the inside out. He held her head in his hands and swore then, with the land listening attentively, to continue her work. This camp, this lake, the land that surrounds it—no one else would live here. Let the span of the forest be a grave for his mother, who loved him so much, and a killing field for all others who would attempt to infiltrate it.

A protector is what the land needs. Jason isn't the first, and when his time comes, he will not be the last. This, he tells you, he knows intrinsically. Most of what he knows about this arrangement is based around feeling, which stresses you and your appreciation of quantifiable facts out to no end. There's no guarantee it's even the land that's bound him—and you already find the idea of a somewhat sapient stretch of land disquieting—because it could just as easily be a demon, or ghoul, or whatever. Anything's on the table now. It was all well and good to acknowledge Jason's supernatural existence in a passive way, never looking too hard at it, but after he sliced deeply into his palm and made you watch while the skin pulled itself back together and healed…you are, unfortunately, forced to admit that this is real. He's exactly who he claims to be—Jason Voorhees, who died in 1957, and then didn't.

Therein is the problem that he's worked his way up to telling you. In order to live as long as he has, the land puts him in what sounds like a kind of hibernation. When there are no intruders, no one threatening the land, he sleeps. His body just…stills, from the sound of it. The food and water he needs when awake no longer present a problem, a kind of stasis slowing down the natural functions of his partially living body, for however long is needed until the next round of invaders show up. Once they arrive, he senses them somehow—and he neatly dodged the question when you asked how it feels, and is he sensing you right now—and he wakes, eradicates the problem, then survives and patrols on his own until the land inevitably calls him back. Only this time, the land isn't calling him back, and the implication is clear: you're the reason why.

It's already been too long. These past few weeks of the two of you getting closer, actually becoming something very close to friends while Abby recovers, have been a fluke. While you thought you were just getting to know the most enigmatic person on the face of the planet (and actually learning ASL so the two of you could talk), effortlessly slotting near-daily hikes without the dogs into your routine, he has been waiting for the inevitable push to return back to sleep. You're not vermin to be exterminated anymore, at least for him, but the land doesn't see it that way. If the land sees anything at all, if it's even aware of itself to that extent. Exceptions made by its protector are, apparently, not supernaturally binding.

You've already run yourself ragged in the attempt to clarify any of this, ("Can't you tell the land that I'm allowed to be here?" "What happens if you can't get back to sleep?" "Do I have to bind myself to the land too? Would it even want me?"), all of which has resulted in increasingly frustrated, I don't knows.

And you have obviously been silent too long, because Jason lifts his hands and signs, I will try to sleep.

It's the only solution either of you have come up with that won't uproot your entire life. Again. Which isn't an option. "I hope it works," you tell him honestly. You hug your knees to your chest and lay your cheek on one, looking at him from the side. His body language is subtle at the best of the times, but you're not getting anything off of him right now. Your brain is just too overcome, you think. "I don't…fully understand most of this, but I know I'm making things more difficult for you. That's never actually the goal, you know." He's not the sort to placate you, but he does hunch his shoulders further in, and your heart hunches right with him. "But I really do hope it works, for your sake."

You're both more somber than this beautiful place should allow, but the thing you're both leaving unspoken is that everything is going to change. If the land eventually accepts you, or he's able to force the hibernation somehow, then that spells the end of consistently seeing each other. Just two weeks without him imposing on your life had you feeling somewhat abandoned, and you hadn't even known him that well yet. After the month the two of you have spent together, fully living up to the simple, honest desire to see each other more, it's going to be even harder. Because you've come to expect the local murderer to call on you almost every day now, to spend time with the dogs, and to learn whatever new signs you crammed into your brain the previous night, and to show you all the best parts of the forest, and just to talk—

He makes you happy. This time spent getting to know each other, not as predator and prey, but as people, has been so much fun. You weren't lying when you said you aren't good with people anymore, but he's worse than you are, so it just works. But now that's over. You understand why, but you don't have to like it. Neither of you do.

There's nothing else to say, really. Despite Jason's improved vocabulary—and to say it's improved is almost an insult because he's taken to the language with a hunger that surprised you, never having considered how much he wanted to express himself without you as a buffer—he's still not the talkative type. The silence is nice, usually, and you've come to really appreciate knowing someone who doesn't feel the need to fill every single moment with chatter, but you do wish he'd say something. Is he going to miss spending time with you? With the dogs? Do you make him as happy as he makes you? Sometimes you think you must, because why else would he bother with you—and the way he stares sometimes, head tilted to the side…it feels fond. Will he come visit the next time he wakes? Will he want to? Will you want him to?

You realize on the way back, still mulling this over while the now-exhausted dogs trot at yours and Jason's sides, that you're thinking of this as a kind of break up. Maybe that line of thought was inevitable, because it feels like a break up. If this works, if things go back to the way they should for him, then you're about to lose someone who has become important to you. Not forever, maybe, but the relationship's dynamics will change, and you are…not the best with that. There's a reason you didn't manage to hold onto any friendships after college. And this, whatever this is, that you have with Jason is going to go exactly the same way. You, the one left behind while everyone else moves on.

Jason walks you back to the cabin, as has become habit. It doesn't help with the break up analogy snaking its way through your head, because he walks you straight to the door. He actually drops to a knee and wraps his arms around Abby, mindful of her mostly-healed torso, his massive head kind of tucked into her neck. Abby wriggles further into the hug—she's the type of dog that would climb inside Jason's skin if she could, having clearly chosen her person—and sniffs curiously at his ear, none the wiser that this is a goodbye. It'll be at least a week or two before tourists start coming through Crystal Lake, and Jason won't wake again until those tourists start to camp, so it's anyone's guess when he will next see his dog. The whole thing makes your throat tight, and you have to look away, busying yourself with the door and shooing a tired Heracles inside.

When he's had his moment with Abby, he untangles himself and smooths down the fur that he disrupted, then sends her inside as well. You watch as she heads straight for the bowl of water that Heracles has blocked with his entire body sprawled on the floor and gracefully steps over him to drink. Then you shut the door and, with a steadying breath, face Jason.

"She'll be okay, I promise," you assure him, tucking your arms around your middle for the comfort of it. In the late afternoon sun, orange rays catch in the eyeholes of the mask and turn that brown eye a vivid molten honey. It makes his skin look almost lifelike, and you wonder, in the part of your mind that doesn't know how to not wonder these things about platonic friends, if his skin is warm. He's alive in other ways, eating and drinking and resting are all still necessities, if on a lesser scale than a typical person—does his body still know to warm itself? You'll likely never find out. "I won't skimp on walks, and I'll try to brush her every day. And I know it'll be like no time has passed for you the next time you come around, but it will for her, so I'll…try to keep you fresh in her mind? Maybe I'll draw a picture of your mask for her to look at, or…I don't know. The important thing is I'll try."

Jason's more or less immune to your rambling, thankfully, and he picks the important parts to acknowledge. Abby is in good hands. Thank you.

You drum your fingers against your sides and nod, realizing too late that you haven't been signing like you normally would. Just this once, you think he'll forgive you. "Not a problem." And you open your mouth to say a couple things, any and all the questions you have bumping around in your head, but what comes out is: "Then…I guess I shouldn't keep you any longer. Go get some rest, Jason. We'll be here when you come back." Which isn't what you want to say at all, really, but you also don't want to prolong this. So you manage a brief smile and take hold of the doorknob, twisting down, and—

Wait, Jason signs, taking a half-step closer. He signs stop, but your brain translates it to wait of its own volition, likely for the novelty of this role reversal. Not that you're really thinking about any of that when he continues with the gentle way he signs your name. I will miss you.

It takes you off guard, the way he signs it and the way he finishes the next half-step, coming close with the sun still in his eyes. It's impossible to forget his height, but when he's this near you have to stretch your neck so far back to meet his eyes—god, but you should tell him how pretty they both are in the sunlight. The faded, sightless one is a shade of blue like a winter sky, gorgeous in its own right. "I'll miss you, too," you tell him, someplace hidden in your heart aching a little. He always makes you too honest when he does it first. "But at least you'll hardly notice, right? You'll wake up, do…what you need to do, then come visit? It'll be like hours."

Jason's next breath comes out harsh and shakes on the end. His hands fidget in the space between the two of you for a moment while he works out what he wants to say. Yes. But you will be alone.

He's just as reluctant to stop seeing you as you are to stop seeing him. You knew that, somewhat, but it really hits you now. A part of you wants to point out that you know you'll be alone, you still have to live every moment he gets to sleep through, but that kind of venom just isn't in you right now. "Mm, well, that was why I came out here in the first place. Don't get me wrong—" this is rushed, because you can just feel him getting ready to take it the wrong way, and you step fully into his personal space to more directly get your point across, "—if I had it my way, nothing would be changing. I'm good at being alone, and I like it most of the time, but I want to make it abundantly clear that if I had the choice between seeing you and being alone, I would choose you." Which does embarrass you, now that you've said it out loud, but at this point…fuck it! If he doesn't know you care about him, then the least you can do is say it now. Nonchalance is a loser's game and you are tired of playing. "But you have oaths to keep, and I'm already getting in the way, so don't…don't waste time worrying about me, okay? I'm upset right now because I don't do change well, but I'll get over it. Just promise me that you will actually come visit, because I'll need to talk your ear off for at least an hour the next time I see you. And every time after."

I promise, Jason signs, so immediately that you haven't actually finished talking before he does it. I will look forward to it.

And that's all you need from him, really. This situation sucks, losing daily walks-and-talks sucks, but if he says he's looking forward to it…then you can, too, and it'll eventually be okay. Although, if the two of you keep this up for a decade or so, you're gradually going to be physically older than a man born in the forties, and that threatens to send you spiraling. Definitely one to tuck away in the later folder of your brain.

You're about to say something—good night, probably, because it's not fair to draw this out any more—but Jason stalls you. You're already standing closer than normal, breathing in that unpleasant-but-familiar scent of his, yet the way he lifts his hand to the side of your face still catches you by surprise. The palm of his glove hovers over your cheek for a second, age-yellowed wherever dirt and old blood haven't discolored it further, and you know you're not breathing. The last time he touched you was when he pinned you to the ground, and this is the wrong time entirely to remember the strength in his hands where they grasped your arms, the way he shifted his weight to press your leg down under his knee. Are you really about to let him touch your bare skin with that completely disgusting glove? The answer is yes, and you're already leaning into it, when Jason abruptly rips the the glove off—so fast—and skims cool, bare fingers over your temple. He pushes them, featherlight, through your hair and follows a lock down behind your ear, then rolls the end of it between his fingers. All the while his brown eye tracks his own progress, the pupil wider than should be possible with so much light, until he lands on your face. He holds your eyes at first, and you notice for the first time that he has no lashes on either eye when he glances down to your mouth.

Then you think, literally breathlessly: He's going to kiss me. Never mind the mask, never mind that he reeks of blood and sweat, never mind that he's a murderer. You think he's going to kiss you and you don't tell him to stop. Your lips part of their own accord, your lungs finally unlocking enough to exhale a shaky breath into the space between the two of you, and your chin lifts.

Jason releases his gentle hold on you and has his ungloved hand back in its usual garb before you have a chance to be curious about it. His eye never leaves yours when he signs your name, drawing out each letter. Be well, he tells you.

And you laugh, just a short puff of air. Incredulous and amused. "You first."

His shoulders lift, and his eyes crinkle—it means he's smiling under that mask, you're certain of it now. Then he turns and walks away, always purposeful, always onto the next task. Never a glance backward, not in the entire time you've known him.

You watch his back until he steps into the treeline and becomes lost amid the forest. It will be cooler tomorrow, you can already tell—you're shivering.

Four days of self-pity is about all you can stand. It's an active kind of self-pity, the kind that sees you doubling your usual output at work, and cleaning the cabin until it's spotless, but you know your own patterns by now. Any time your productivity slips, and you're alone with your own thoughts, you can actually feel a shroud of melancholy settle itself over you. A sighing, moping thing that threatens to lay you up on the couch and keep you there for the next week.

So you got attached to the local murderer. So you made a connection with another person that felt genuine. So he made you happy. So what. Things change. And it's not like you'll never see him again, it'll just be different, and different is fine.

On the fifth day, you snap yourself out of it. You've maxed out your possible earnings for the week, and without the distraction of work, there's not much else in the cabin to do that will hold your attention. After you've gotten the dogs out for their walk—and you pretend not to be looking for him every single time you're out here—you find yourself standing in the kitchen, elbows on the breakfast bar while you idly scroll through the apps on your phone. You're pretty sure you've got a game on here that might keep you occupied for a while, or you could clear out your pictures, and there's always answering the texts that just keep piling up from your mother. None of it sounds particularly appealing, but you're about to launch the game when you see, tucked away in a folder you never open, the dating app.

You remember the last time you opened the app and exactly why you shoved it in a forgotten folder afterward. It was back in the city, when you'd just returned from a genuinely awful first date. The guy had been forty five minutes late to the movie the two of you were going to see, and after fifteen you'd just gone inside to watch it on your own. Disappointing, especially after how great he'd been over text, but no harm done. At least until he started blowing up your phone with messages, demanding to know where you were, had you stood him up, what kind of person blows their date off like this, etc. You rushed from the theater, met him in the lobby, and the two of you had it out right there in front of the poor teenaged ticket taker. Despite being late, he actually expected you to wait around for him—he said a high value woman would prioritize meeting with him over entertaining herself. You were annoyed, and more than a little affronted by the domineering Alpha bro vernacular out of nowhere, but you could see it from his point of view if you squinted. So you offered an olive branch—"Look, there's another showing in two hours, so let's get dinner, then we can watch the movie together, okay?"—which he eventually accepted with some deeply unattractive pouting. Then you paid for dinner, which, okay, fair, you were the one that suggested it. He dropped the pissy attitude after he had some pad thai in his stomach, and the two of you actually started to connect the same way you had over messages. He was funny, and you were charmed by the way he sometimes couldn't finish his own jokes because he was laughing too hard, tears crowding his eyes. And you'd never been a stunning conversationalist, so you were happy to just sit back and listen while he talked. But the straw that broke the camel's back came at the theater—or rather, on the walk back to it. He complained about the walk itself despite it only being a block away, then he complained about the place you had chosen to eat, then your outfit, then the movie, and after all that had the gall to suggest skipping the rest of the date. In his infinite benevolence, he had decided you were worth inviting back to his apartment on the other side of the city, just as long as you didn't mind getting the Uber.

You'd gone back to your own apartment, the one you had before you resorted to subletting a much cheaper bedroom, completely alone. You gave up on dating for a while after that, declaring the entirety of New York's dating pool useless, and should have just deleted the app altogether. But some part of you, small and romantic, couldn't quite bear the idea of entirely giving up, so into the forgotten folder it went.

Looking at the app now, your interest is piqued. It's been a while since you even thought about getting back to dating—certainly not since the incident—but maybe it's time. You could open the app and look around a bit, just to see what's out there. No pressure to actually message anyone, or go on a date, assuming it could even get that far. As a recluse from society that has spent the last two months evading, then making agreements with, then enjoying the company of the resident slasher, you don't exactly have a lot going for you. But even still, that small and romantic part of you, smaller and more romantic than ever, thinks it would be nice to build a connection with someone who stays.

You drop your phone on the counter and grind the heels of your palms into your eyes, groaning. You are emphatically not going down that line of thinking.

That's what slaps you out of it. Self-pity can't hold a candle to your sudden, overwhelming need to get outside and to do it quickly. You get dressed in something light enough to handle the warming days, a pair of shorts and a cropped hoodie, and lace up your shoes. Abby and Heracles nose around at your ankles, both of them still brimming with energy after the admittedly pathetic walk you took them on earlier, and you harness them up with only one incident of Heracles knocking you flat to the ground in his excitement. Part of it has to be because he expects Jason to be out there—both the dogs have been lapsing into inconsolable fits of whining these past few days, and you really can't blame them—so you give your blockhead some grace. The dogs understand this even less than you do, after all.

When you get outside, Abby immediately starts tugging for the usual direction. Heracles is the pathfinder of their little duo, but she's a stickler for sniffing all the usual spots, so they've compromised in their own doggy way to start out in the same place every single day. They are both confused when you take two steps toward that section of the woods, just past the truck, then abruptly stop.

You've spent too much time in the forest recently. Whenever you and Jason were able to properly exhaust the dogs, after dropping them off back at the cabin, he would take you to the deeper, older parts of the woods. The dangerous things that lived there didn't concern him, so you didn't let them concern you, though you told him in no uncertain terms you would just lay down and die if a bear took its chances with you. (And he signed, looking at you from the corner of his eye, You would not run? To which you replied, "I can't outrun a bear." You ran from me. "Well, yeah, but you're not a bear. Two legs, you know? It's different.") He showed you things you never would have found on your own, some of the secrets of the forest that he'd had nothing but time to discover. A span of blueberry bushes that you gratefully plucked a handful from, a green pond stocked with frogs and turtles and curious little dragonflies, a tree split perfectly in half by a bolt of lightning, and the wildflower clearing. Once, on one of the hikes he took you on—it stops being a walk to you when the majority of it is spent going uphill—the two of you quite literally stumbled upon a porcupine, fast asleep and tucked up in a hollow log in your path. You couldn't stop staring at the way it rested its head on its paws, nose twitching in sleep, completely unaware of being observed. You signed, grinning and completely silent: Look at him! A baby! To which Jason tried to explain that it was full grown and could still be dangerous if it was startled, so it was better to be away from it. Because my track record of staying away from danger is so good? you signed, crushing your lip under your teeth to keep from laughing before stepping away from the porcupine. The mass murderer had no ground to stand on and you both knew it, but you definitely pushed your luck with a whispered, "Oh no, don't quill me!" joke when he glared at you.

The point being, the forest is too full of memories right now. You'll make new ones there, on your own, with the dogs, and with Jason, maybe, but for the moment it's just too much.

So you drop to a knee and scrunch your fingers over both Heracles' and Abby's backs, getting their attention back on you. "Come on, let's go find out if you're water dogs."

You're the pathfinder for once, both dogs trotting at your side while you follow the vague layout of the area you have in your head. It's mostly downhill to the water, which is nice, and a two mile trek is nothing after all the time you've spent walking recently. You keep a hand on your phone though, just in case two miles turns into five, and you become lost enough to have to call for help. It is, much to your consternation, probably time to learn how to properly read a map for this area.

The forest abruptly opens up to an expanse of shoreline, grass gives over to gritty sand, and there it is. The eponymous Crystal Lake, its smooth, blueish waters sparkling in the early noon sun. It's a mammoth of a lake, too wide across in any direction to properly see the shore opposite yours, and it fully lives up to its name. You've seen the lake in person only once, when the real estate agent you closed with walked you past it on the way to the cabin—the lake had actually been the focus of her selling point, and you couldn't have cared less—but this is the first time you've properly appreciated it. Waters don't get anywhere near this clear where you grew up, there's no place for oversized fish or sneaky alligators to hide here. It really is a crystal lake, multifaceted and clear and beautiful—you wonder, absently, if it freezes in the winter.

Heracles loves it the moment that first breath of lake water scent hits his nose, and he starts yipping with excitement, his tail repeatedly whacking poor Abby. His exuberance rubs off on you, and you start toward the water with a faint smile playing across your lips. The day is perfect for this—summer is on its way, and the days are getting truly warm. You crouch at the waterline and put a hand in to find that the water is several degrees cooler than the air, deliciously refreshing after the walk. At your insistence that it's okay, Heracles flies off of the shore and jumps into the water with a mighty splash, his tail helicoptering with abandon.

Abby takes more convincing. She hated the one bath you've given her so far, crying the entire time you washed soap out of her fur, then sulking for hours afterward, brown eyes accusing you of the greatest cruelty possible. The lake water lapping at the shore is interesting enough to sniff at when the gentle waves retreat, but as soon as they roll back up, she skitters backward in the sand, clearly nervous. But she keeps staring off to where Heracles paddles around in the water at the end of his leash, her tail distractedly waving. You pet between her ears, finding the spot Jason discovered that makes her relax when her anxiety makes her shiver—you wish your anxiety had an off switch like that—and smile down at her. "I don't like water either, sweet girl, but are we really going to let Heracles have all that fun by himself? Come with me, it'll be all right."

You toe off your shoes and socks and place them away from the reach of the waves, hoping against hope that no sand bugs decide to make their home in there. The sand is gritty and sun-warmed, ultimately kind of pleasant, though you much prefer the feeling of grass under your feet. That first step into the water is pure relief and a sigh of genuine pleasure filters out of your lungs—it's exactly as cool and refreshing as you hoped, and being able to see right through it gives you some peace of mind. You neatly avoid a cluster of slimy-looking grass clinging to the submerged shore, and when you're three steps in, turn around and beckon Abby forward. You must look ridiculous, one arm stretched as far back as it'll go to keep a hold on Heracles, and the other making gentle come here motions.

Abby looks at you, then the water, and pants a little. Then she puts one dainty white paw in the water and you cheer. "Yes! That's it, good girl!" At your encouragement, her tail gives a hearty wag, and she steps fully off the shore. She sniffs at the water again, then looks past you to where Heracles yips and splashes, then surprises you by bounding right in after him. The combined force of their tugging nearly knocks you off your feet and you yelp, already laughing. Water is tolerable to an extent, but fully submerging yourself in it? No thanks.

The three of you pass upwards of an hour like that, playing in the water and along the lakeshore. There's plenty to explore, the natural beauty of the area giving even the most mundane tree the benefit of a long glance. Long, swaying grasses hide little crabs that you have to wrestle the dogs away from, and you pick up a few shells that catch your eye. But the best is sitting on the sandy shore, a dozing, damp dog on either side, and watching the lake surface glitter. Teams of fish flit around under the waves, pestered by long-winged swooping birds, all while lazy puffs of clouds float along the horizon. It seems so innocent like this, so peaceful—and you know better, but that doesn't stop you from sitting there and feeling completely, perfectly calm.

It's time to go back, and you know it. The dogs will both need baths to get the lake water out of their fur, and Abby requires so much brushing, and you're already wanting a nice afternoon nap. Two miles back to the cabin, then the baths, then the brushing, then maybe an early dinner…you're all going to sleep great after this.

But as you stand, brushing yourself off, the dogs apparently sense your thoughts and gain a second wind. Abby dances in the sand, looking up at you with happy eyes, and you break instantly. "Okay, okay," you tell them both, a smile tugging at your lips. "Just a bit longer."

The dogs found a piece of driftwood earlier that they have taken turns running around with—after you thoroughly inspected it for splinters—and you pick up that driftwood now. Then, as a show of trust, you unclip their leashes and throw the driftwood into the lake with all your might.

They go crazy for it. They race each other into the water over and over, competing with each other to be the one to get the stick. Abby has the advantage on land, she's fast and focused when she runs from your spot on the shore into the water, her head lowered like a racing dog. Heracles' goofy run doesn't help him over sand, but in the water he's a powerhouse all his own, shoving through the water like it's nothing. They're pretty evenly matched, but before long, it becomes clear that Abby just wants it more. The way she prances up to you with the driftwood in her mouth, ignoring Heracles attempts to snatch it away, makes you think of proud hunting hounds.

You're breathless with laughter over their antics, especially when Heracles gets the stick and launches himself the final foot back to you to avoid Abby's snapping jaws. He takes you to the ground hard, both of you kicking up a shower of sand, and you're already scrubbing your hands over his sides while he covers your face in gross, lakey kisses. It isn't helped when Abby joins in, shoving her snout into the fray so she can sniff at the happy, laughing tears streaming down your face. God, but you love them. Why was anyone worried about you being alone? You have everything you need right here, just you and these goofy, personal-space-invading dogs.

Movement to the right has you, Heracles, and Abby all snapping your attention to it. There, twenty feet away in the treeline before it becomes shore, is a familiar shape. He really must be summoned whenever you finally stop thinking about him. That's the only explanation, and damn, considering all you know now, you might actually believe it. Because here, watching you be lovingly attacked by the dogs, is Jason Voorhees.

Abby reacts faster than either you or Heracles can, a high-pitched whine cracking through the air as she leaps off of you and sprints to Jason. He drops to a knee and spreads his arms wide, taking the full brunt of her impact to his chest without so much as a sound. He wraps securely around her despite her wriggling and he buries his mask into the side of her neck, tender and gentle. Then he stands in a smooth motion and, still holding his dog, makes his way to you.

You almost don't want to believe your eyes. Oh, you're delighted to see him again, just the shape of him in the distance is enough to soothe something unsettled within you—what a difference a month makes—but you know what this means. It didn't work. He couldn't force the hibernation.

Heracles howls when you hold him back, his entire body quivering while he sings for the approaching Jason. Still on the ground, though now in a somewhat respectable sitting position, you call, "You'd better hurry up and say hi, he's in a knocking-people-down mood today! Ask me how I know." If you had a free hand, you would use it to brush sand off your back, but it does make your point for you.

Once Jason is close enough for his shadow to cover you completely, he drops to both his knees in the sand and, with a bit of readjustment, reaches a hand out to scratch at Heracles' chin. That's the final straw for your sweet, excitable dog, because he wrenches out of your hold and throws his entire weight against Jason, crying pathetically. And, already down an arm from holding Abby—who licks at his ear, making you grimace in sympathy—Jason has no option but to follow Heracles' momentum and be knocked soundly onto his back. He grunts when oversized paws find purchase on his stomach and stay there, and the combination of hearing Jason's voice for the first time, in a way, and the effective transfer of your dog's sloppy kiss attack onto the mask makes you break out into honest to god giggles. You cover your mouth with your hand and make no move to save Jason, content to watch. "I could be wrong," you say between laughter, "but I think they're happy to see you."

He grunts again, this time because Heracles jumps off his stomach to fetch the stick you've abandoned, and uses the opportunity to sit up. He's as sandy as you are, and it has to feel awful on the back of his head with no hair to protect it, but you can't stop smiling. Especially when he finally releases Abby, who plops wetly into his lap with total satisfaction, and signs, Are you next?

A fascinating idea, and if he were anyone else, you might have launched yourself at him just to prove him right. But, seeing as you're being violently reminded of the last time you saw him, the way he touched your hair with his bare fingers, and how you had been so sure he was about to kiss you, you pluck up some reserve. "Yeah, no, I know when I'm beaten. Heracles—oh, he wants you to throw it." Heracles shoves his entire head under Jason's arm and proudly presents the water-and-slobber soaked stick, which is taken and launched hard into the water, the stick cutting through the air like a missile. Show off, you think, not unkindly. You watch Heracles as he scampers off after the driftwood, keeping an eye on him for any distress as he eagerly paddles out into the water—he's going further out to get it and you just want to be sure he's not too tired to come back. That's where your attention is when you continue, "Like I was saying, Heracles and Abby are going to have to drag me back at this rate, I am thoroughly laked out. But," and here you glance his way, finding him still staring at you, and you smile, "I'm happy to see you, too."

He waits to sign until Heracles is safely back on shore, which you appreciate. You reach out and snatch up the stick from Heracles, keeping him distracted with some tug of war so Jason can use both hands to sign. They are clearly enjoying the lake. Not you? He indicates your mostly dry clothes, minus the huge wet spot where Heracles slammed into you.

You're suddenly very aware of how much midriff you're showing, but you stubbornly fight down any embarrassment. If anyone sticks out here, it's Jason. How and when he decides to deploy that jacket is a mystery to you—this is only the second time you've seen it and it's the furthest thing from raining now—but it's the least concerning thing at the moment. You're both equally covered in sand, anyway.

"Not really a water person," you explain, abandoning the stick to just lavish Heracles with pets. "I just wanted to come see it at least once before summer brings the hordes of drunk people and screaming toddlers. But since these two apparently like it…" You sigh and finally meet Jason's eyes, obscured once again by the angle of the sun. "No, I'm sorry, I am really happy to see you, Jason, but this means that sleeping didn't work? It hasn't even been a week yet."

Something peculiar happens: Jason looks away first. He drops his chin and opts for watching Abby, no longer dripping but almost certainly sleeping, in his lap. His next breath is so large that is disrupts some of the sand on his shoulders, and his shoulders hunch inward. There was a camper. He stayed too long. And here you notice that one of the stains on his ever-bloody shirt is newer than the rest, the thin, skipping trail of it not fully oxidized yet. It's partially obscured by his jacket, but there's no mistaking the look of fresh blood, even to an untrained eye. But it worked.

Oh. So he hadn't wanted to tell you that. He's making himself smaller, like he did when he told you about the hibernation in the first place. The body language is much easier to focus on than the fact that the man across from you just admitted to killing someone, and did it so recently that the victim's blood is still somewhat fresh.

And it probably makes you a worse person than you thought, because the first words out of your mouth are, "Good! That's great!" You are glad it worked, and you can now feel a little less complicated about seeing Jason right here, right now, when he's meant to be sleeping, but you do force yourself to sober. It already doesn't reflect well on your moral code that you've found such a good companion in someone whose only motivation in life is to kill, you don't need to add to that by celebrating when someone's dead. "I just—I mean it's good that it worked. That has to be a weight off your mind."

If Jason's surprised by your reaction, he doesn't mention it. Rather, he just nods once, slowly, and turns his attention out toward the lake. He's like that, you've noticed. He's not one for fanfare, or what-ifs, like you are. This latest experiment worked, his covenant with the land once again secure, and that's all there is to say about it.

You take the opportunity to study his profile. With the sun making its descent toward the horizon, the lake has started catching its colors and playing with them, rippling out with every breath of wind. Many-hued oranges and blues spread across the expansive water and bounce off the white of Jason's mask. It doesn't cover the entirety of his jaw, there's just gap enough to show where the body of it meets the ramus. No hint of stubble on the tanned skin, and you've never seen any on his neck either. It doesn't feel off base to assume he's not shaving regularly, not with the state of his clothes, so he likely just can't grow facial hair. Probably a boon, considering how much time he spends in that mask. You think of his eyes, the lack of lashes, and his more obvious baldness, and your brain lingers on whether or not he has brows under there. His jaw is softer, more rounded than fully defined—does the rest of his face match? Low cheekbones, recessed eyes, and maybe brows that pull down when he focuses, or lift when his eyes crinkle like they do when Abby howls, or you say something that amuses him. He could be very handsome under there and you would have no idea. Does he wear that mask all summer? Does he not sweat?

It would be unbelievably rude to ask him to take the mask off. Your curiosity, a low, simmering thing before, is fully piqued now, but you're not entirely tactless. That mask is the one consistent part of every story and half-baked legend about him—he has to wear it for a reason. And you are not going to be the one to get it off of him, you're sure.

"I never saw water like this before I moved here." You turn your attention back to the lake, gathering up Heracles' damp head in your arms to keep your hands busy. "I haven't been able to get over it. So much of it, and it's so clear. We never had this back home—everyone has a story about a gator in the pool, or in the pond where the kids swim. I tended to avoid all of it, since I'm genetically predisposed to not liking sharp gator teeth in me."

You catch Jason's shoulders hitching up again, and you have to look closer to see the impression of his eye scrunching. He's laughing at you, in his way. It is not only bears, then. You have always been like this.

You gasp with faux affront. "What, sensible?" His shoulders actually shake this time and you have to defend yourself, though you're fighting a losing battle against your grin. "I live alone! In the woods! Someone has to be worried about predators!" Disturbed by the jostling, Abby pokes her head up and you pounce on the opportunity. "Abby, are you seeing this? Your dad's mocking me because I'm not a fifty foot tall walking wall of bear deterrent. Can you believe him—" and here you're cut off because you're laughing too hard to continue, just covering your face with your hands.

God, but it's just that easy, isn't it? Jason slots right back into your life like he never left, making you laugh and laughing at you, and granted it's only been five days, but you missed him. Missed this. This easiness, so eagerly sought but rarely found from others in your life. What makes it extra satisfying is that, once the laughter dies down, Jason signs, I missed you.

Heracles has shifted off of you to expose his belly to the sun, warming and drying, and you take the opportunity to sit a little closer. Jason, maybe just to take the pressure off his knees, readjusts until he's cross-legged with Abby sprawled in his lap. The two of you face the water now, comfortable in the gritty sand. In a fit of madness and pure contentment, you lean into the space between his arm and yours and rest your cheek against his bicep. "I missed you, too." Then, quieter, but no less earnest: "I'm really glad you're here, Jason."

You can't see him as clearly, can't gauge his reactions with your eyes on the faceted water, but his breathing quickens enough to notice. It occurs to you that you can't hear his heart, only your own steadily thumping in your ear from being pressed to him like this. Does his heart still beat at all?

I almost did not come. There is nothing in this place for me. His signs are harder to read like this, but you see the hesitation before he continues. Except for you.

That makes your throat constrict in a way you weren't expecting. Of course. Of course he wouldn't want to be here. Nothing good has come from the lake for him. But he still came, despite the history, because it's where you are.

You make yourself comfortable against his arm and discover that under the normal Jason scent, the jacket has a nice, smoky scent that brings gatherings around a fire pit to mind. Or sitting near a fire, warm and safe. You breathe it in unashamedly, feeling a heaviness around your eyes that you can't give in to. "I love it here. I thought I loved it before, but then I wake up and realize where I am, and I see something new, or the sun hits something from a different angle, and I love it even more. Every single day, I get to wake up and know that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be." A lapse where you just listen to the sound of Jason's breathing, and the lap of waves onto the shore, and you feel completely at peace. "There's this sense that I was meant to be right here, right at this moment, sitting with you and watching the sun over the lake. You know?"

Abby snores in her sleep and you grin against Jason's sleeve. He runs his gloved fingers through her fur a few times before signing, I know. I feel the same.

That is exactly where the two of you stay. The sun continues its journey ever downward, filtering the world through an orange lens. Half-dozing on Jason's arm, you know you should go. You should have left an hour ago, two hours ago, and yet here you remain. There is nowhere else in the world you would rather be.

Turbulent water. Its waves beat against the shore with angry, white-hot hands, scalding the sand beneath them. The sky is a dark grey, cloud cover thick with the promise of storms. And all around is the howling of wind, a wounded animal screaming its pain from every direction.

There, in the middle of those water, sits a boat. How can anything rest so calmly in here? Yet it's untouched by the riot that surrounds it. The little boat is simple, hewn of unfinished wood that has been sanded until smooth, and it repels the tempest completely. All about its keel is a glass-like surface, a perfect circle of peace.

Someone is in the boat and, unknowing or uncaring of the storm just outside, lets their arm spill over the side to drift fingers through the still water. Their perfect reflection copies them, reaching up from under the water to touch their fingers. First contact, then second, then third, the two meet again and again. Then the hand under the surface shoots out from its airless prison and grabs at the arm, no longer gentle, no longer hesitant. Droplets create ripples for the first time in that mirror water and the person in the boat tilts their vessel violently, distressed. But the other arm, wet and trembling, no longer content to copy, does not let go.

The boat is going to capsize like this. The person inside will be dragged down, down, deep under the surface of this water that beats and chokes and boils all that ventures inside it. Who would not cling to them? Who would not want to be in that circle of calm, if only for a moment?

The person in the boat is stronger than they look. The water stills again, only ripples where the mirror image protrudes outward, and suddenly the arm is being held just as tightly. There is room enough for both here. With a shout, the person in the boat reaches down and grasps that small arm in both hands and pulls. Something breaches, and the first gasp of air is so loud—

You wake with a jolt.

A quick reality check of everything you can hear, smell, and feel. Hear: Heracles' snoring, the cabin's foundation settling, and ice being made in the refrigerator in the kitchen, just down the hall from your bedroom. Smell: clean sheets, the artificial pomegranate of the candle you blew out earlier, oat and vanilla dog shampoo. Feel: firm bed under your back, Abby's curled-up spine pressed to your side, sweat on your neck. You are exactly where you were when you fell asleep—at home, in bed.

But that dream. It had felt real. The water—the lake, you would recognize Crystal Lake anywhere now—and the wind, the way it had whipped around hard enough to hurt, hurling boiling hot waves around like nothing. You have to check your legs for burns, because you had been there, in the lake, standing in that scalding water and watching the person in the boat. Nothing. No redness, not even a hint of lake water. But even that isn't enough to totally convince you that you hadn't just somehow visited hell.

You have to get up. No amount of rationalizing can calm the racing of your heart, adrenaline remnants rushing through your veins until it pulses in your head. Heracles and Abby both stay where they are, so you spare an affectionate rub to both their ears. God, your hands are shaking.

It's only 2 in the morning, according to your phone's clock. It won't be dawn for hours yet, but you're too wired to get back in bed, even after pacing the length of your living room a few times. You force down a glass of water, though water is the last thing you want to be dealing with right now, and take out last night's dinner from the fridge. It's a bastardized carbonara you'd thrown together with whatever was left in the fridge, but it's fatty and full of carbs, and you need something in your stomach that isn't the sickly, sour feeling that's taken up residence there.

With both water and bowl of pasta in hand, you settle down in front of your computer and switch it on. If you can't sleep, you might as well research for future articles. A good distraction will banish that dream from your head, and nothing is more distracting, for better or worse, than niche internet drama. You've got your fork halfway to your mouth when there, on your desktop, is the file you haven't so much as glanced at in well over a month. Am I losing it.

You read through the document inside, remembering your past self typing it up with feigned nonchalance. The dream had rattled you then, and it rattles you now, only worse because this one was so much more vivid. So much more real. You'd been a spectator before, but this time you'd been there, in the dream itself. Your legs throb with phantom pains, like they should burn.

It is significantly harder to convince yourself that the dream, whatever it was, could only have been brought on by your day at the lake. This feels…other.

So you write it all down. Every detail, every terrifying moment, laid out as explicitly as you can make it. Maybe you are losing it, that's always a possibility. But you know the land is awake now, and you know that it does not want you, however much a forest and lake can or cannot want something. Is it so far-fetched that this dream is more than a dream? A warning, maybe?

You don't know, and you aren't sure if you want to know. All you can do is make a report of what you felt, what you saw, and hope that it does a future version of you some good.

That next sleep, pasta-induced and taken hunched over your desk, is punctuated by dreams of cool, calloused fingers tracing your jaw, the tendons of your throat, and the dip of your clavicle. Two eyes, mismatched and gorgeous in a swirl of void that serves as a face you haven't yet seen, watch you with open adoration.

When you wake from this one, sunlight pouring in from behind closed curtains, you can only touch your feverishly warm cheeks and wince.

"Oh no."

[shatcey]

Ally thinks of himself

Maybe I should hide it… It will contain screenshots from the main part of his route. I'll talk about how Ally sees himself. That's how I see and interpret his words. It's not necessarily being the truth. That's true for me, but you have every reason to think otherwise.

This may sound a little depressing to some of you. For me, it is just a matter of fact, nothing more.

Even at the very beginning of his route (chapter 3)… Ally gave a very big hint. I didn't take this screenshot while reading his route four times (damn, I'm crazy), so I faked it. I didn't find the exact font, just a similar one.

As I said when I read this for the first time… This is too detailed a description, it is unlikely that anyone would come up with such a thing. To suggest that, you need to communicate with a person for some time… or have experience dealing with such people. This is not a thought that could have appeared in your mind by accident. So that's what he thinks of himself.

I kind of understand why he thinks so. He does not allow himself to feel, he does not allow himself to receive anything… And every day he does the same thing... over... and over again… It's a routine, of course, it's boring. Honey, you need to be more selfish. Willy, how could you not notice that??? I'm so disappointed in you.

He belittling the value of his life in the middle of his route. He's not pretending, he really thinks so.

And I have already mentioned why, in my opinion, he thinks so… He just doesn't consider himself a person. He lives in the future, where he is no longer there… The fact that all of us will disappear at some point and be forgotten, in 10 or 30 years doesn't matter, this is inevitable. The only exception is people who influence our culture or science… but we don't remember them, we only remember their work. So what's the difference? Why can't he really live in the moment, enjoy life to the fullest, as he claims?

And at the very end I finally understood why. After I read his route four times and God knows how many times I looked at the screenshots. I'm so slow. He tells us how much he despises mirror and how much he actually considers it a villain.

Oh, my delusional beloved, come here, you need a lot of love-vitamin. And I'm always ready to give it to you.

So… in his opinion, the mirror from the fairy tale is the very reason why the main characters face all their problems. He (or should I say "it") is telling the truth, which no one likes to hear, and doesn't think about the consequences of his (or "its"?) actions. Why can't I decide which pronoun to use? Don't you think someone fits that description too well?

Roger.

And the contempt that Alfons shows towards the mirror is very similar to his hatred of Roger.

Perhaps he doesn't quite understand it himself. But he's obviously trying to be the exact opposite of that. He's always thinking about what's going to happen next. He always tells people only what they like to hear… or something that will cheer them up, distract them and make them feel better. It's like he's saying: "I'm not a mirror, I'm not like him (it)".

Maybe I'm digging too deep again… but it feels very accurate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🔝 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℝ𝕋 ℙ𝔸𝔾𝔼 🔝

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[fantasy-mixtapes]

Fig Faeth Junior Year Playlist: Side A

It's no surprise that Fig Faeth's playlist is the one that I actually listen to the most. It's just a very good vibe and I love her. Took extra time to Song descriptions and thoughts down below. Spoilers for Episodes 1-10.

Genres included: Pop-punk, Punk, Alternative

1. hair out, Stand Atlantic

Am I fuckin' up my life? I'm just tryna make improvements Slowly givin' up the fight But I gotta cover up the bruise That I get from all the Expectations give me vertigo Wasting away to the pressure The pressure, The pressure, oh

This song is such an earworm, scratching a specific itch in my brain. Love the fact that both Kristen and Fig (the failing girlies) start with a Stand Atlantic song, and it works with the way that Fig is coming at this season. From the jump, she is one of the most visibly and audibly burnt out, specifically from the pressure of the "sophomore album" that was supposed to come out months ago. This song is definitely about the pressures of a songwriter as well as the pressures of life in general so it fits sooooo perfectly. Especially with the "I can already here people hating the song" outro *chefs kiss*

2. Who The Hell Am I?, NOBRO

God, I'm tired of being like this I can change, but in a minute Always looking for the back door, on the run Always at the party, never quite having fun Play with fire, and you're gonna get burned I'm on fire, and you know it hurts I was always on the outside looking in Maybe it's me 'cause I never wanna fit in

Fig's class struggles, her conversation with Mazey, I can't take it. I feel like we've all been there. I really love how the narrative with her has progressed, like last season was deconstructing her need to mold herself into other people (or into an idealized version of herself) now she's trying to figure out who she is at her core without all the disguises.

3. 7 Years Bad Luck, Glasseater

Something strange seems to be plaguing me Everything I touch falls apart I've lost it all, losing all my luck Suffering 7 years bad luck

I don't particularly love this song, a little too unintentionally underproduced, but it deserves a spot on this playlist. I feel like I would be Fig in the curse situation. It took me a literal year to deal with debilitating stomach problems, and I, too, waited until my friends noticed to actually do something about it. Either way, can't wait to learn more about the weird Galier Pride curse, love the representation for my stomach problem girlies

4. Where the Heart Is, Sweet Pill

Get this My mind's been in a million places but my body hasn't moved an inch And I feel like I'm missing out again Ignoring my plans Wondering how they went Feeling bad about it If I could just take a chance I wouldn't feel so bad To see past myself I wouldn't feel so bad

This is Fig's final decision to try Paladin after doing so well with Warlock. She knows the priorities in her gut don't match with what anyone else says, but she's discovering her loyalty. She's figuring out her actual drive... following her heart <3

5. Impostor Syndrome, Sidney Gish

Unfortunately, I am My own dog, my own fur companion My own old lady on a forum Who types in glittery decorum Unfortunately, I take Myself out walking every day and I had my legs to the feet and I give my head to the leash

Making Fantasy High playlists is like making a ven diagram of which dog-themed songs are Tracker-coded and which are Fig-coded. This one, to me at least, is Fig-coded. (yes, I do have a tracker playlist, and yes, every song in it is dog/wolf specific, BUT THEY'RE GOOD OK). We love our Oath/Pact of the German Shepard.

6. You Owe Me Nothing In Return, Alanis Morissette

I'll give you countless amounts of outright Acceptance if you want it I will give you encouragement to chose The path you want if you need it You can speak of anger and doubts Your fears and freak outs And I'll hold it

So I know that we're gearing up for Fig's Warlock/Paladin agreement post "mooner yulenear," but this is my interpretation of what it's going to look like. She cares about her friends, and she would do anything for them! And though I know this song came out in 2002, Alanis Morissette is a 90's icon and perfect for the grungy riot grrrl vibe I see for her

[princess-of-the-corner]

Princess Bee

K, couple thoughts, my devices are being weird, so even though I sent an ask, I’m going to compile a few things here, just in case

1) On Artemis being the Fox, possible lore for a name - the Teumessian fox was an uncatchable fox from Greek Myth, sent to hassle the city of Thebes as a punishment. Eventually, when the gods felt the city had suffered enough, they ran into the problem that they had created a LITERALLY UNCATCHABLE CREATURE, so they couldn’t really get the fox to stop. So, they sent in a dog, called Laelaps, who was enchanted to be able to always catch her prey, to catch the fox. The two were basically a paradox, and eventually got put into the sky as constellations (Canis Major [the dog] and Canis Minor [the fox]).

2) I headcanon that the reason the SentiKids are Sapient is in part due to the fact they are “hybrids”. They aren’t “pure” Sentimonsters, the Parents used the Peacock to basically “fertilize” an egg and make a fetus. So while TECHNICALLY a Sentimonster, it’s a little closer to, say, how Steven Universe is technically a gem. And similarly, if Steven’s Gen is damaged, he gets hurt. Like, if the Amoks got broken before … whatever they do to severe the connection, the SentiKids would be hurt pretty badly. They MIGHT be able to do something to manage survival, but the Amoks are still connected to their life force. (I hope this is making sense?) Does any of this sound … like it fits, I guess?

3) OC Chester description, so you hopefully don’t have to go hunting for it. Originally conceived as Lila’s hench person, but he doesn’t HAVE to be, I just thought it would be a little boring if Lila doesn’t have another person to talk to. You can take or leave any part of him.

Chester Fester.

Age: close to Lila and the Miracuclass parents, so … What are we going with here, late thirties, early forties?

Looks: Only thing I ever got was brown hair, face looks … ratty.

General Notes: Rats are his favourite animal. He has two pet rats, Mister Whiskers, and Morning Glory. Likes fermented and/or cured foods. He hates food waste, and sees rats as performing a vital service by eating the food people throw out. Thinks rats are given unfair press as “plague spreaders”. Hates cats, dogs, anything that could pose a threat to a rat. Was nominally trained as a chef, but has been fired repeatedly for allowing “pests” into kitchens. Always seems to be between jobs as a result. Will cheerfully allow himself to be Akumatized into a “Rat King” style Akuma (original name was Ratatouille, but I’m kind of ‘eh’ on it, especially cause at that point, he’s basically Evil Linguini). Favourite movie, the Rats of N.I.M.H..

The man is a bit … morally vague. I mean, he isn’t the kind of guy to think murder is a viable solution to most problems, but he sees a lot of Laws as more guidelines than anything else. Like, “We’d rather you didn’t do this, but if you don’t get caught, we don’t care” is sort of how he sees it. He sees breaking and entering as more of a challenge. I think the only laws he would follow fastidiously would be traffic laws. He sees why those are there, people operating several tons of metal powered by explosions should follow the rules.

Lila specific: The two met sometime when Lila was pulling a con on a restaurant. Chester was really impressed with her skills, and offered to help her, because the restaurant in question had been putting out rat poison. They’ve been friends ever since.

Chester and Lila did have a brief period of dating, before Lila figured out she was AroAce. She was sure this meant Chester would be ditching her, but Chester surprised her by sticking around. In his words “We were friends first”, and he didn’t really see why whether the two of them slept together should mean anything. People do often assume Chester and Lila are a couple, especially as the pair live together, but the two are simply chaotic besties. The best term is probably “Queer Platonic”, but the two don’t really want to label it. They’re friends. Who else cares? They do have a pact that, if they ever need to, they’ll get married, but only as a last resort kind of thing.

-

1.) Did get this one! Rip to your tech though because while tumblr makes asks disappear it’s happening to you A LOT so idk what it is or how to fix it.

2.) Hm! Maybe it’s a combination? Like like like. Okay I made the post about the lore of what went down with the Sentikids and Kagami actually having a dad. So how about Mr. Tsurugi managed to make Kagami entirely from scratch, which is why he died real quick. Essentially giving his Life Energy to make her. But it broke the Peacock so everyone after still got fucked up. 

Emilie tried to mitigate the effects by doing the Senti-Human hybrid trick, so she’s only dealing with ‘broken Peacock’ not ‘took too much Life Energy at once’. Same with Colt. So they’re still dying, but not as quickly as Mr. Tsurugi did.

Adjust the fuckery in age differences by having like. It’s a Senti-baby she can just make it magic so it speeds up and she’s only actually pregnant for like a month. Colt can do the same with Amelie and then just gaslight her of ‘oh we must’ve been so convinced we were infertile that we didn’t notice you actually got pregnant!’.

3.) I love everything about Chester

[crimson--freak]

hiiiii :3

i read tags on that post you reblogged for me and i agree that its most likely that kayne is nyarlathotep since it'd pretty much align with cthulhu mythos - it often takes human form to walk the earth and it's character is pretty similar to kayne's. It also acts with seemingly no particular goal again just like kayne! and i can't really think of any other gods in cthulhu mythos that would fit him so well

also I'd love to hear more about that theory of yours ^_^!!!!!!

Aw thanks for asking about this! :D

{Putting this under a cut because this is a lot of information. It’s pretty condensed but still quite long}

Please take in mind that this theory only just popped into my head when I read the post, so this has more holes in it than Emmental cheese.

I was thinking on the fact that Harlan’s post mentioned explicitly that Kayne’s identity will be addressed in season 4, and I was wondering what other things have been added to the podcast this season. Most notably are the characters (Oscar, the Butcher, Daniel, etc. - Noel is a Very Close Contender for being Kayne for me), but we’ve also had some other things at least slightly confirmed. Probably one of the most important things that have been confirmed it the time dilation.

I seem to remember that there were quite a lot of theories around time loops and similar phenomena (I think a few were on @ty-betteridge’s blog but I can’t find the posts for some reason). With Scratch’s apparent ability to live longer in dreams than in the real world, eldritch time dilation is basically canon, as far as we know. This could further open the door to other time-related shenanigans, including time loops, to be canon as well.

It’s also been mentioned in the time loop posts that John could in fact be a future Arthur (I may have got this wrong because it’s been a long time since I caught up on the theories). I personally don’t see that (I don’t know how that would fit in with the KIY stuff) but I do really think there’s going to be some stuff involving timeloops and Arthur and John.

Anyway, enough of that ramble! Let’s get back to the important part: who is Kayne?

I 100% believe Kayne is Nyarlathotep - or at least one version of him. Maybe not the one directly from the Lovecraft source material, but definitely an entity that shares the same role as him in the story. Especially with the common description of Nyarlathotep as “joyous”, and we can defintely say that Kayne is enjoying himself with Arthur’s story.

I say that Kayne may not be entirely based on Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep, because that entity is described as an Outer God, and this theory hinges on the fact that Kayne’s origin is something much closer to home.

So what are some things that we know for sure about Kayne / Nyarlathotep?

From Lovecraft’s source material: his description tends to be of a “tall, swarthy man” but it’s often noted that he can shapeshift.

From the podcast: he has no canon appearance apart from wearing a black suit (and other details), as described by John in part 20. He is also noted to be playing piano in his first appearance.

He also has an Extreme interest in Arthur’s life, as far as to having “watched [Arthur’s] life unfold”. He wants to find out what’s “different” about Arthur compared to other people.

So here’s my theory:

Kayne is Arthur (+ John) from the future.

If you’re thinking that’s a slightly far fetched, I agree! There are several problems with this theory that I need to iron out. I’m replying to this ask because I hope other people can add to this theory, correct me on things that I got wrong, share some more stuff about Nyarlathotep, etc.

One question with this theory is that surely John would recognise Kayne if he looked like Arthur? Well, that’s already got an answer - Kayne can shapeshift, so probably changed his appearance to throw John off his scent. That might also explain the difference in accent between Arthur and Kayne: Future Arthur!Kayne is trying to be incognito, he doesn’t want Arthur and John to find out who he is.

Another question is why is Arthur!Kayne doing this? The motive I think Arthur!Kayne has is pretty evident: he wants to find out what makes him different, what allowed him to become Kayne. We’ve already been told that Arthur is different to most people in that he can hold a piece of the King in Yellow in his mind without succumbing to their will (compared to Marie’s sister, who was taken over completely by Mr Scratch, and the people who did not survive John’s book). Perhaps this difference allowed Arthur to become Kayne (remember that Kayne discusses hearing voices too, perhaps in a similar manner to John + Yellow in Arthur’s mind). Maybe what sets Arthur on the path to becoming Kayne is… accumulating other parts of Gods? Mr Scratch maybe - Arthur might be strong enough to keep charge of his body and Scratch just lives in his mind like Yellow did (if his plans with the stone go badly).

[sectumsempress1]

Good Omens Season 3: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Sectumsempress1, Hag

I am once again going through my Good Omens season 3 predictions bingo and explaining why I think the things I think. Today I want to talk about Metatron's memory meddling, or more specifically why I think Aziraphale is the Archangel Raphael and why I don't think he remembers.

Once again, I know I cannot be the first person to think of this theory. I'm just adding my two cents. Here we go.

I know there is a fairly popular theory that Crowley was Raphael before the fall, but putting aside the fact that it simply wouldn’t work for television to give them a name that similar to Aziraphale, I just disagree with that assessment. I like to think that Crowley was Jophiel before they fell and Aziraphale’s original name was Raphael. 

I think we can answer this theory very quickly by noting that in The Book of Tobit, Raphael disguises himself as a human on earth, acting as a healer and guardian under the name Azariah. I honestly just think that Neil and Terry took the name Raphael and his human name Azariah and landed on Aziraphale. 

Furthermore, Raphael (“God has healed”) is literally the archangel of healing. He is also known as the angel of protection and keeping people safe on their journeys. God gives Raphael a mission in The Book of Enoch, verse 10:10 to:

“Restore the earth, which the [fallen] angels have corrupted; and announce life to it, that I may revive it.”

Aka ‘thwarting evil wiles.’ In The Zohar it’s also stated in Genesis chapter 23 that he: 

“is appointed to heal the earth of its evil and affliction and the maladies of mankind.”

If I were to go over every single instance of Aziraphale fitting the bill for these descriptions I would be here all day, but some I can think of off the top of my head are:

Giving Adam and Eve the flaming sword to assist them on their journey

Healing Anathema’s broken arm and bike

“Actually, I encourage humans to do the actual- [thwarting of evil wiles]”

Fixing that man’s phone in the graveyard in Scotland

Insisting that he wants to heal wee Morag  

Protecting ‘Jim’ 

This stunning scene in the Job memory: 

He is very clearly shown as a healer, protector and guardian of humanity, more so than any other character. 

Raphael is also known as a matchmaker, which is funny when you think about the Nina and Maggie situation but also makes total sense. Aziraphale loves love. Also he blows the trumpet to announce the Day of Judgement, aka the second coming. I guess Metatron needs Raphael back now huh? He even told Aziraphale himself that he is the only one qualified for this job. Aziraphale is Raphael. 

Or… he was.

I believe that Raphael was demoted following the fall, and Gabriel’s story is meant to mirror his. This scene says SO much: 

“You have refused to exercise your celestial authority, and are henceforth removed from office”

I think something similar absolutely could have happened to Raphael. We all saw how immediately drawn Aziraphale was to Crowley in ‘before the beginning,’ and it makes sense that Metatron could have seen that connection as a liability when he fell. He cannot have an Archangel in Heaven who is sympathetic to one of the fallen, it would be a ticking time bomb for another revolution. Aziraphale being sympathetic towards Angel!Crowley before and during the fall would make him question the fall as a concept, and Heaven could not afford that.

“For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story, for it to happen twice makes it look like there is some kind of institutional problem.”

I think the first prince of Heaven Metatron is referencing to is Crowley, and I think he had this same mindset of making sure there was no perceived institutional problem during the time of the fall. So I think that is one of the reasons why Raphael wasn’t cast down; it would look bad. I think the other reason is; Metatron wanted him and Crowley separated, even then. Even then there was some glimmer of their potential combined power, the love and danger that could be born by having them both in the same place with neither of them on Heaven’s side. The most logical option would be to cast Crowley out and make Aziraphale think he deserved it. Because Metatron is smart. He knew that keeping an angel like Crowley in Heaven—an angel who unapologetically asked questions and wasn’t afraid to go against the status quo, even before he fell—could only end badly. The smart move was to keep an angel like Aziraphale on—an angel who wants to believe, who needs to believe, that heaven is fundamentally right and good—and feed into his faith by manipulating his fear. 

(Editing to add- it’s presented as an either or. We will not send you to hell, we will wipe your memory and demote you. We will do A or B. This is why I think Gabriel’s story mirrors Aziraphale’s more than Crowley’s, because being cast down to hell and having your memory wiped was never on the table here. It’s either or.)

“Although as a kindness, your memory of your time as Gabriel will be erased. You will be demoted.”

“As a kindness, your memory of your time as Raphael will be erased. You won’t remember the Starmaker, you won’t remember the fall, you won’t remember the injustice. All you will remember is the war, the divine plan, God’s will and your undying faith to carry out that will. You will remember what not doing so costs, but you will never remember why. All you’ll remember is that you had better not ask, because look where that got the others. Oh, and you will be demoted to earth. You will not remember the incredible power you wield as an Archangel. Because if you hand power like that to someone with a powder keg of repressed questions it may spark an explosion, and we cannot afford that. Not again, Aziraphale.”

Now I want to talk about two specific scenes that relate heavily to this theory.

Before The Beginning

I think this memory has been altered, and there are two ways of looking at it.

Aziraphale remembers it just as shown on screen. 

But in Eden he genuinely seems as though he is meeting Crowley for the first time, and then when he introduces himself as ‘Crawley,’ Aziraphale consistently messes up and calls him that even after he changes it to Crowley. So I can deduce from that that if Aziraphale had known Crowley by another name for millennia before Eden he would very much struggle with remembering to call him Crawley to begin with. The fact that he doesn’t struggle at all makes me think that it truly is his first time learning this person's name, his first time meeting them.

Aziraphale does not remember this moment, it’s only shown to the audience for a season 3 payoff. 

But during the confession, Aziraphale says “like the old times, only even nicer.” re: Crowley becoming an angel again, which implies that Aziraphale remembers ‘the old times’ with him. He also says “I know the angel you were” during the Job scene. 

We are at a bit of a dead end here… or are we? A possible solution is that Aziraphale does remember ‘before the beginning,’ but that memory has been altered to remove Crowley’s involvement, à la Frozen (“I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic, to be safe… but don’t worry, I’ll leave the fun.”) The ‘magic’ in this instance being anything that would paint Crowley in a sympathetic light and the ‘fun’ being the actual events that transpired. That would also explain why he remembers it the way he does, aka why Crowley’s angel name is omitted and why he introduces himself as Aziraphale and not Raphael, but he still recalls the actual string of events. Because Aziraphale can’t just have large gaps in his memory. He has to actually remember the cold hard facts. Metatron is far too refined of a villain to leave holes in his soldiers’ minds, especially giant star-shaped love holes. Where was I going with this? Okay anyway…

So when Aziraphale says “like the old times, even nicer” he is not specifically referencing the Starmaker scene, but instead a more general ‘memory’ of Heavenly life, which makes total sense considering Aziraphale’s apparent blindness to the true detailed atrocities of Heaven. All he sees is the big picture anyway, that’s all he’s ever seen. Because… ‘even nicer’ ??? What do you mean NICER? A bureaucratic job will be nicer than watching the being you love build a universe?? Okay. 

Same goes for “I know the angel you were” from the Job scene. The wording is important here. He didn’t say “I knew the angel you were” or “I knew you in heaven.” It feels like he is a step away from saying “I know of the angel you were.” Which, in the context, makes sense. He is trying to use a personal plea as a last-ditch attempt to get Crowley to do what he thinks is right, he is not reminiscing on their time as besties. He’s already cycled through:

“You don’t have to do this!”

“You have free will!”

“I don’t think God wants this!”

“I don’t really think you want to either!”

And when Crowley asks “what do you know about what I want?” in that bitter tone, Aziraphale reads it as an in. He thinks a personal plea may be the thing to get Crowley to stop, so he uses it. It’s a tactic.

With all that in mind, I believe ‘before the beginning’ to be an altered memory. I believe that Aziraphale remembers the creation of the universe in general terms but does not remember the Starmaker or the feelings that were already beginning to take root inside of him. 

In The Beginning

I believe this to be an authentic memory, and if you look hard enough (aka are delusional and also insane) there are clues to support my ‘Aziraphale doesn’t remember' theory, starting with their first meeting.

Aziraphale does a few confused double takes (which, sure, could be interpreted as ‘oh fuck it’s you’ but I am choosing to not see it like that :)) and then politely smiles and laughs at what Crowley says before asking for clarification. This is absolutely giving ‘awkward first meeting with a stranger’ energy and not ‘oh fuck it’s my old bestie who is now damned.’ This is not a face of recognition, even fearful or reluctant recognition:

This is very much just giving ‘who the hell is this?’ Especially because it is then followed up with:

Aziraphale flat-out does not know who that is. He even closes his eyes for a second in what looks like confusion, as if he’s trying to remember. As if he’s trying to look where the furniture isn’t. And if I think he’s confusedly pursing his lips for a millisecond as if he wants to say a J name that’s my damn business.

They look sorrowful. I don’t know how I didn’t catch it the first few times I watched the show. This is the face of someone who just slithered up to an old friend and started having a chat as if it was the most natural thing in the world only for that friend to have no idea who they are anymore. Even as their face moves into a smile, it’s not real.

Babygirl looks like he’s experiencing the most haunting, ancient melancholia behind those lovely snake eyes. It’s actually quite striking. David Tennent you are on my hit list.

Anyway Crowley then goes on to question the ineffable plan in a way that’s very reminiscent of ‘before the beginning,’ which I believe to be intentional because they remember, and Aziraphale doesn’t. So Crowley is thinking to himself that maybe Aziraphale’s memory could be jogged with familiar behaviour. 

Crowley also goes on about the flaming sword, which I believe used to be theirs when they were the angel Jophiel, so the emphasis on it makes sense. 

They really said “what the fuck did you do with my sword?” But then when Aziraphale says he gave it away we get the most genuine display of emotion from Crowley that he’s shown during this entire sequence. 

He is impressed. He is remembering the angel who refused to exercise their celestial authority and got his memories stolen as a result. They are thinking there may still be hope after all.

Okay now let’s briefly talk about why I think Crowley does remember. I feel like this is a pretty easy one to get through as there are plenty of moments where Crowley references heaven and the fall in a very clear way, some of which I will drop right here:

All well and good, but one big question still remains: if Crowley knows, why the fuck did he not tell Aziraphale in six thousand years?

Well… why did Elsa not tell Anna about her powers? I know this analogy is a little silly and trust me I’m losing my mind right now, but hear me out. Elsa doesn’t tell Anna about her powers because she thinks it's in her best interest not to know. She thinks that knowing will put Anna at risk and that she will be to blame for that risk. Now look back on Crowley and Aziraphale’s history, terrible communication aside, they don’t tell each other things because they both think that they can handle it on their own and they both don’t want the other to be in danger. They both consistently hide important and dangerous things from one another. For example:

Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale about the Hell Hound for 11 years

Neither of them realised that both of their team of human agents were Shadwell’s men

Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale the details of his execution

Aziraphale didn’t tell Crowley that he met Shax on the way home from Scotland

Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale that he got dragged to hell and offered a promotion from Beelzebub

Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale about The Book of Life threat 

You get the point. It’s a pattern. And the details of the fall, stories from their distant past… these are lethal pieces of information. And we have to remember that both of them are essentially under constant surveillance. They never know when they’re truly alone or not, as we can also see with how much they side-step and rationalise their relationship away. They are both constantly terrified. Why would Crowley share information like this when they know how the acquisition of knowledge ended for the last group of angels? After all, Aziraphale wouldn’t like it in Hell.

Now there is also another very plausible explanation: Crowley is simply assuming that Aziraphale already does know and is following his perceived unspoken lead to never discuss it. Which again makes sense considering how fragile every aspect of their relationship is. It’s largely unspoken with a shared handbook of unspoken rules that they use to maintain the little bubble of companionship that they’re permitted to have. They have presumably never had a real conversation. So when would this ever realistically come up?

In conclusion, I need a lobotomy. But I want this to be true so badly as it does genuinely make sense in my sadly un-lobotomised little brain. As always, Neil Gaiman, I am in your walls. 

[obscurori]

A Really Really Long Shang Tsung Tangent

HIIIIIIIIIII ~ <3

I've mentioned it on another post but I feel like getting it out there with more explanation. This is my first sort of think piece or character analysis I'm posting publicly so bear with me lol.

The TLDR is there are villains, there are people who are bad, and there are people that could do better but have a lot of trouble doing so. Not all of them are disordered or have something afflicting their decision making. But Shang Tsung, in my mind and given all the factors, is a villain with ASPD/Anti-social personality disorder.

While ASPD can contribute to what is medically considered 'psychopathy' and 'sociopathy', and from my anecdotal experience those who experience ASPD do not shy from the words, I personally will only be referring to the disorder itself.

I also got a comment about how much of this is him being disordered and how much of is a choice. I want to make it absolutely clear, while my theory of his tendencies stand, all his actions in the game are his choices nonetheless.

I still clown on him for not being able to just grin and bear the cards dealt to him and/or make a friend because... yeah he really just should have. This ramble is me acknowledging that many villains don't fit the description of ASPD, but he's one that definitely is rife with enabled anti-social behavior.

I think a lot about the second chance Liu Kang gave him. The parallels they gave Shang Tsung and Raiden are evident. People born in small pockets of their world, unassuming and uneventful until someone of great power (titans, no less) approach them with a task.

The difference is how they handle it. What is there to handle? Well... a lot, if you have as severe problems with empathy and collaborating with the rules of society as Shang Tsung does. His pre-game biography lists him as 'too lazy for labor' and 'too shifty for honest work', but he can work hard for the right promises as is evident in the game.

Gritting his teeth and doing the work handed to him would have been easier. While Outworld has its issues (prominently, the remnants of the royal's imperialist stand-offs and the ableism that looms in various Outworld characters' narratives), the general wellbeing of the working class doesn't seem to be one of them. But as a huckster, he's isolated, consistently having to rely on his lies, and receiving the consequences.

To be honest, I don't think Shang Tsung didn't try. I can believe it not working out very fast, but I don't think he simply ignored that standard work is out there. He can be arrogant and bratty, but he doesn't dilute his options.

Symptoms of ASPD such as lack of empathy, ignorance to the result of his actions, and disinterest in performing standard work/social obligations are already evident, and would impede on his life whether he is a powerful sorcerer or a nobody. These impact any friendships he could have, his impulse control, and how he regards anyone up to and including himself (who he deems untrustworthy).

But we are social people that want to feel, want to be happy. Anti-social behavior isn't extreme introversion, in fact many people with ASPD are very extraverted and social. It's less about being around people and more about the reactions they're capable of while with said people.

Not all villains have a disorder, obviously. Some have motivations deemed reasonable, and some are just delightfully evil. Shang Tsung starts off very disordered and not entirely villainous, though hardly good. He was someone who couldn't do what people around him thought was so straightforward.

He's in distress over his life as a scammer, but not really how it impacts others. He's unable to connect to them and has a sense of grandeur over them, but honestly most people are doing better than he can. People, to him, are inherently isolating and alienating. He's aware this isn't normal, and can only answer to it with apathy and more lies.

Most people with ASPD don't go in for that diagnosis. They do so because of comorbidities: mood disorders like depression and bi-polar, anxiety disorders such as OCD, and other personality disorders such as BPD. I do think this would have been the case for Shang Tsung as well, if Outworld was a sort of place that would pick these things out about him, but it isn't.

Damashi's approach is so glaring to me as a result. I can make all the wet cat jokes in the world, but it is sad to me that he cannot process the consequences of his actions, only that he is forced to feel them. He expects so badly out of others that he doesn't bother giving them anything good or better from him, which gets him punished, and the cycle starts all over. That's what he figures the woman is about to do.

And that woman could have been anyone. That's already the lesson there, as she is Titan Shang Tsung in disguise. He was given the right words by someone equally manipulative and was just as vulnerable to tricks, lies, and abuse as anyone else would be in his position.

You gotta remember, if she was there just to pummel him into a pulp, he was about to let her.

His decision to follow her is one of desperation and likely depression. Depression manifests differently to those who find themselves alienated, and do not understand people's sympathy and overt emotional responses.

From my anecdotal research, there's a set of words that come up a lot that doesn't show up on many articles or bullet points about ASPD. Numbness and boredom. It's not a normal boredom where you can occupy yourself with an activity or friends. It is a complete lapse of emotional connection and stimulation. If you aren't angry, you are bored. If you aren't bored, you are numb.

Which moves us into the topic of: sensation chasing.

"Damashi" teaches him real sorcery, and what ensues is his development into the conniving and cruel Shang Tsung we know and dread. A true testament to Shang Tsung's wit and manipulative tendencies, along with this new position dissolving his impulse control. Now that he isn't held down by a lack of magic, he treats people like objects toward his greater goals with even less regard than he had in the first place.

Good L-rd you are short.

People are the subject of his curiosity and how he chases off his boredom susceptibility. "Damashi" has a plan set in stone, but Shang Tsung's horrific laboratory is unrelated to "her" demands. The lab isn't just dedicated to his own research, but his sense of morbid novelty. He can already manipulate and use people - creating hybrids out of those already existing is a very "because I can" thing.

Syzoth is one of Shang Tsung's biggest victims of this. Shang Tsung exerts control of him first for his shapeshifting, but proceeds to keep him around and hang his family over his head... because he can. And because he can, he thinks it better to do so. But the more time he kept Syzoth in the cold, cruel, and dark, the more chances he was giving him to fight back or sabotage Shang Tsung - something that ends up happening.

Shang Tsung killed Syzoth's family very early into this. Perhaps even the day the Syzoth agreed to stay in the lab. What does he get out of hiding that? Perhaps it was a sort of inside joke, a chuckle he got with each and every visit. It wasn't for control, and it wasn't to get anything out of Syzoth besides a reaction. He gave himself something by doing it this way, no matter how cruel it was to Syzoth.

There's a lot of other examples obviously about how Shang Tsung treats the people around him, but I think that one's the most important to get out of the way. This post's long enough already.

More evidence of Shang Tsung having ASPD is his primary motive: revenge against Liu Kang. Shang Tsung doesn't dare question why he couldn't fit into a normal life, he only applies new faces to the life he detested and blames them for his problems. Taking responsibility and accountability would mean processing his social faults and how to improve them... something he absolutely refused to do.

When Shang Tsung is faced with "Damashi"'s true identity, he's more angry about being manipulated and outsmarted than any of the plans falling through. He's told, to his face, he isn't the best or smartest. He was a tool, running errands while being conspired against. Instead of registering that and empathizing with the people he used before this reveal, it fuels his internalized cruelty.

When he collaborates with Liu Kang's crew, he clearly tries to suck up to Kuai Liang and even Raiden. But these are people that run on empathy. Caring about people as a whole and having faith in them doesn't mesh with Shang Tsung's view that this whole world runs on fraudulent transactions. In that moment, he fits in with the people around him just as poorly as he did while running a travel cart.

Alan Lee, the voice actor of Shang Tsung, mentions that "Damashi" approached Shang Tsung with a cheat code to life so potent that it makes Shang Tsung determined to own up to his depravity. He describes him as a "madman with pandora's box, mixed with a child to the keys to candyland." He's unpredictable, not just by standard villainy, but because nothing else has appealed to him in life.

Now that Shang Tsung has burned nearly every bridge he had, he wants to own up to that. Because to him, the only other option is the quiet. Boredom. That numbness again. If he spent any longer in that travel cart, he may have frankly committed suicide out of the sheer droll.

He will lie, steal, and carve his way into and out of any problem as he was enabled to under Titan Shang Tsung, and in a way has initiated a new, sad reality of chasing that Titan's shadow.

[marengogo]

CORONA BOREALIS - 3: NINETY FIVE

Like Crazy + People Pt.2 PLAYLIST.

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Every year we spend on this planet something that will change the course of our lives tends to happen. Sometimes, it is something as small as the discovery of a new plant, and sometimes it is as big as a pandemic. So let’s, for example, look at positive things that happened in 1995 cause believe me some pretty fucked up shit also happened this year. This was the year that made the internet mainstream (can you imagine our lives without the internet? … ). 

Music was also 👌🏾this year, it brought us some classics such as Waterfalls by TLC, You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson and a “little” song named Gangsta’s Paradise, which instantly raised its singer to worldwide fame; Coolio. Yeah, 1995 was an amazing year for Coolio, but little did he know that his life would end up being intertwined with seven others, two of which were also born in 1995: 13 October 1995, in Busan, a little bundle of joy, named Park Jimin graces this planet and a couple of months later another one decides to make his surly quirky entrance, 30 December 1995, in Daegu.

Jimin. He turned out to be a boy who would be very confident in his abilities, but perhaps not so much in himself as a person. Nevertheless, he knew he wanted to accomplish big-big things, and was going to stop at nothing to accomplish his goals. Then there was Taehyung. He on the other hand turned out to be a boy very confident in himself as a person, but perhaps not too sure of his abilities per say. Yet, he had dreams, very big ones at that, and admittedly he might have not known exactly how to get there but his desire to make them come true was as big as the dream itself.

They don’t seem to have much in common up to this point do they? Like, if there ever were a human representation of the concept of YingYang, it be them, no cap.

Even from an astrological point, don’t mind me an my interest in things of the sort  ���😬😬 not only do they seem to fit their descriptions, but they also just so happen to be each other’s opposite. Jimin is an Air Sign, and people with this element are known to be intellectual and communicative. They are experts in the ephemeral, the things of this world that lack physical form, and this is especially true of language and information. Taehyung is an Earth Sign and people with this element are known to be patient and practical. On a bad day: Just as Earth signs can be loyal, they can also be stubborn and inflexible. It's often their way or the highway .

In conclusion, regardless of whether you look at their factual past or their theoretical astrology, any kind of relationship between these two would seem impossible and even non-advisable. Yet, there they are being soulmates and here are some in the fandom scratching our heads, which is exactly the problem. They are here taking in superficial information regarding VMIN, rather than moving a couple of steps further and going there, where VMIN actually are, and take a closer look. If they did, they’d find out that in fact, Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung share the same exact spiritual level. And what do I mean by this?

Tae and JM’s isn’t a simple story of “opposite attracts” because they actually also have so much in common. Both look for warmth and love in their relationships, they are indeed very tactile and in the same way respond well to being touched by those they love/care about. They like and seem to crave attention a touch more than all other members in the group, and admittedly, they have recalibrated this desire as they grew up. Both are not comfortable when those they care about are suffering, they have a need to reach out and try to “kiss it” better. This might have been very apparent to people lately with regards to Jimin They are both painfully shy, Tae simply has a better control of his facial expressions, but once that cracks, it is off to the nearest hiding point. Lastly, and this is very important in their friendship dynamic; they do whatever they want to do. Always this JM is more skillful in hiding. 

It is only fair to now take a look at the tangible parts of their personas which aren’t, or weren’t as I think they’ve actually grown out of some of them compatible. Jimin is actively aware of his surroundings and Tae isn’t, meaning that JM is more likely to quickly try and make a change in his situation if he doesn’t like it (help someone in need, cheat to win, etc …) and perhaps regret it later, but not really. Tae, who also has the same kind of awareness, is however a ponderer; do I have to do something? What will happen if I do something? Depending on his personal answer, and the situation at hand, he may or may not do something about it, and perhaps regret it later, but not really. The following, I feel like it applied to them as teens, their “possessiveness” towards things, or relationships, has always been to a point where JM would do his might best to latch on to whatever he wanted to “monopolise” until he did, whereas Tae, if he found out he couldn’t “monopolise” whatever, he would move on to the next thing he could. 

And it is exactly because they could understand each other on this level that their friendship has become so solid and further from reach that it’s understanding is also eluding the mind of many. Their friendship, in my opinion, has now exceeded the performative level, on every level, it is almost as if these two have unlocked the ultimate regular friendship goal, which has the dynamics of a non-celebrity strong-ass friendship. This is a friendship that right at its very core didn’t skip any step and has experienced it all, from euphoria for example, ANY and EVERY TIME they start acting like characters in their imaginary scenarios to tribulations arguments caused by thoughtless, resulting in insensitive, words or actions, particularly in their youth.

So then finally, if you piece all of the aforementioned together  a situation where the two of them had a completely different opinion, then one starts an action, the other has a reaction, they then stay put in their opinions for a bit but then one will eventually cave and the other will cave even harder as they soothe each other … isn’t too hard to imagine, is it?

In a way, if you think of them as their astrological signs. JM (air sign) has been that one person who has been able to understand and vibe with Tae’s quirkiness, helping him to elevate towards those heights he always dreamed of. And at the same Tae (earth sign) has kept Jimin grounded in moments when perhaps being up there in the air wasn’t it. In moments, when he perhaps needed someone who would be willing to very normally share a hug and/or a tear. 

As we all know, they both have separate friendship groups and are very involved with their respective ones, which also goes with the nature of their character; they will do what they want to do and this we know from videos, pictures they decided to share with us. But please, let’s not forget that Tae is the one person who has probably called JM the most, the one who has declared Jimin as his fav, the one thanks to whom Jimin's back is blessed with more moons. Let’s also not forget that Jimin has been around for Tae in moments of great loss, or that Tae is his forever teddy bear, and that Jimin can understand him just by looking into his eyes. They’ve gained each other’s trust and I’d like to believe that they also know how to protect and cherish it. 

Great. Now, let’s get back out here . BTS as a whole has really reached levels where performative actions are, yes, a fan-fav but they can, in all honesty, decide not to act up on them, like posting things on social media, fanservice, etc, it is really all to their discretion. So let me ask you? If you were either JM/Tae, in 2023, and had a problem with Tae/JM, which you wanted to solve, who would you address it to?: Tae/JM? Or your fans’? …

Whose words would ultimately provide you with the solution you are searching for? Tae/JM? Or your fans’? 

Always respectfully yours 💚💛

Marengo. 

[aureli-us]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

i was tagged by @2lim3rz but the og post was getting pretty big, so i remade it!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

30! soon to be 31 😎

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,166,343. 😳 woah

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mainly skyrim! it's my most beloved, my bread and butter. however i recently also wrote for one piece, dragon age, spiderverse, and some older stuff for jojo's and star trek!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. apocrypha

2. dragonmark

3. smut drabbles (not really a fic but im lazy)

4. break of dawn

5. sic parvis magna

5. Do you respond to comments?

ALWAYS‼️ i love love LOVE commentors and do my best to respond within 1-3 days!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

UGH i wish i could but i don't often do REALLY angsty endings. so this would probably have to be dragonmark, since it ends with tharya and miraak quite estranged from one another and quite a frosty exchange of dialogue, as well as setting up for the next fic (which ends a teensy bit angsty as well, but not really)

possible runnerup to this is from the new world with love, since it ends rather ambiguously on what happens next.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

easily revenant. it's a rollercoaster of a fic, approx 40 chapters iirc, but ends with the thing i set out to do when i initially started writing the first & last series :3

8. Do you get hate on fics?

NO, but i have gotten bot comments! i'll take it as a mark of fame 💅 lmao (jk i have no allusions of grandeur)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

YES. YES. YES. i'm probably a boring smut writer bc i kinda just write tharya and miraak over and over and over and over and over. but i do enjoy experimenting with them!

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

not really - though i did write a dragon break fic once and asked a few other writer friends to lend me their characters for it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?  

nope! would be cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also not really, but for that same dragon break fic i had those writer friends write scenes and brainstorm with me to fit everything together! so in a way, sort of :)

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

god....would it make sense to say even though i write, i'm not very active in fandoms? i've never really considered myself well and truly a PART of a fandom (aside from skyrim), just someone who likes to orbit the fandom and extract ideas from the source content. so i don't have many fandom/canon ships i like. can i say my own characters instead??? if so. my ldb/miraak 10000000%

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

hmm....well, it was arms of chaos before i gave up and deleted it. i have two longstanding WIPs (jojo fic and miguel fic) but i'm in love with their content and ideas, so i do have full intentions to finish them both! might just take a while

16. What are your writing strengths?

i would say putting emotion and description into my work. i LOVE trying to perfectly capture emotions as i feel them, even if that sometimes means the way they get written can be unorthodox. and, ofc, im obsessed with describing stuff all. the. time.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

description is a double edged sword LMAO😭 sometimes (most times) i go way too overboard or in depth. i also have a hard time writing kids 💀 and am not the best at writing normal fluff, i always need some kind of emotion or drama or problem/underlying plot to latch onto. i really wish i was, bc then i could write the cyrodiil vacation fic i've been dreaming of for two years

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

supporter! i do it occasionally with miraak and tharya. the original shōgun miniseries from i think the 80s is what first showed me that not all dialogue needs to be understood by the audience - in fact, it can be a powerful plot device when it isn't. so i'm a big fan of untranslated dialogue (in moderation) when it serves a purpose. otherwise i just denote the dialogue is in a different language after writing it in english.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

god....probably transformers (i've gotten over that shame and am now in love w transformers again)

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

i often say revenant because it is in a way my crowning glory. but it's also stuck in my old style of writing (which is not bad, just less matured imo, and more flighty). but revenant is probably my fav ever content for a fic, it's something i wanted to write for like 4yrs before i did - from the new world with love is the only fic currently completed in my newer, aged wine style, and i really enjoy that one as well!

((but my coming soon fic is probably gonna take the cake whenever it drops))

i'll tag @kiir-do-faal-rahhe @nuwanders @elventhief @nusaran and absolutely leave an open tag for anyone who wants to do it :) tag me so i can see it!