#i should have done something easier than this

[naamahdarling]

What are the elevator game and Three Kings?

They're modern folklore/urban legend ritual games games akin to Bloody Mary, spread by creepypasta memes across the internet for thrills and chills. (I actually love creepypasta. There's some excellent horror in the genre. Ted the Caver and Candle Cove are both super cool, those aren't hard to find.)

The Elevator Game supposedly originates in Japan or South Korea, and involves getting into an elevator and pressing the buttons in a certain sequence in order to reach a surreal otherworld, with dire consequences should they fail to follow all the rules. It doesn't have a goal or reward, just the appeal of accessing a creepy alternate reality. It's a fairly popular bit of modern folklore and I enjoy it for its modern yet classic feel and its specificity. This is a game that it is actually feasible to play, unlike a lot of other modern creepypasta ritual games, which can be very complicated.

The Three Kings Ritual is another creepypasta ritual game, and it's a fucking banger. I HIGHLY recommend you read it in full.

It has a great name, great symbolism, a creepy as shit setup, and a genuine chance, I think, at getting something fucked up to happen (in the sense that you could very easily experience some trippy visual distortion and possibly some auditory stuff as well from the white noise of the fan).

It genuinely put my hairs up the first time with these bits (the bolded and italicized bits are of particular note):

Place one chair in the center of the room. ....Place the other two chairs exactly to the left and right, facing your throne. The distance between your throne and that of your queen and fool should be about the length of your arm to each side, more or less. Place the two large mirrors on the queen and fool chairs left and right of you, facing you (and each other). Try your best to have them stand at a 90 degree angle (or else you may get more or less than three kings). If you sit on your throne facing straight ahead (north), you should be able to perceive your own reflection in each of the two mirrors without actually having to turn your head nor your eyes to do so. If you see your own reflection in the corner of your eye, just barely there, then you've done it right.

So you can see how this would lend itself to seeing things. Mirrors are already creepy. With a small light in a dark room, it gets worse. This isn't about a demon or vengeful spirit, just...presences, which is much creepier to me because on some level it feels more plausible.

Look straight ahead, at the darkness. Not at the candle, not at the mirrors, just straight ahead. Eagle-eyed readers surely noticed I didn't say during setup which chair was queen and which chair was fool. That's because it's your job to find out. And from their point of view, you are either their queen or their fool, too. Hence three kings.

Fucking hell.

Again the goal is nebulous. The original text leaves so many things unanswered. Are we to converse with these entities, to ask questions? What the actual fuck happens if you get the angle wrong and get more than two spirits?

All I know is that I am curious. This is absolutely my favorite ritual game.

[tinfoil-jones]

Gravity Falls: For Your Own Good, Ch. 8

Summary: A few years after moving to Gravity Falls and having his lab built, Stanford Pines happens upon his estranged twin brother, Stanley. He mentally prepared himself to be suffocated by his brothers neediness all over again - what he wasn't prepared for was Stanley walking right past him like he didn't even notice him.

Rating: M for language, violence, and adult implications

Preface: Dialogue only, but some actions will be annotated for clarity. Cross-Posted on AO3 Here

First - Prev - Next

CH.8

“You’ve been down here forever PhD. Maybe you should… I dunno, leave your evil basement sub-lab? Maybe eat something other than an entire tube of toothpaste?”

“This isn’t toothpaste. It’s a calorie-rich blended solution formulated specifically for daily nutrition, in a convenient tube to avoid the need for cutlery.”

“Doc. Read the label.”

“...”

“You should probably sleep too if you mixed those up.”

“You’re just trying to get me to leave so you can escape.”

“I’ve broken out of county jail, the trunk of a sinking car, a shipping crate, cement shoes, and even my loan sharks book club meeting. But this? A forcefield? A real, no-shit forcefield? I don’t have anything for that… anymore.”

“What was that last part?”

“I said I can’t break out of sci-fi prison. Go to bed already, Doc - it’d be a lot easier for me to sleep too if you weren’t hovering over there, looking at me all sad like I’m some stray at the pound about to be put down.”

“Fine, but don’t go anywhere.”

“Well there goes my plans for the night.”

“...What plans?”

“For the fifth time, it’s called sarcasm.”

“Now that I think about it, I think I still have an invention I need to calibrate…”

“Specs was right; how did you survive out here by yourself?”

(...)

“Thanks for helping me clean the place up, Fiddleford. I’ll admit, I’ve been putting it off for a while now.”

“You don’t say… You know, you still haven’t told me what that extra level in your basement is for.”

“I’ve already told you, it’s a private study.”

“You’re so secretive about it.”

“Private study.”

“Alright, alright.”

“After we’re done here, I have an anomaly in the woods I need to check out; would you be willing to keep an eye on the house and the lab while I’m gone?” 

“I have no problem making sure your brother doesn’t disappear into thin air, of course I’ll stay back for your peace of mind.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s what you meant - oh don’t make that face at me. I’m not trying to make fun of you, I think it’s… Endearing, that you care so much even if you have the worst ways of showing it.”

“...Just keep an eye on the house. And maybe go down there every so often to interact with him, the isolation isn’t doing him many favours.”

“How did your last talk with him go?”

“He’s still convinced that I’m grieving over my ‘real’ twin, and using him as a substitute because we look alike. He can acknowledge that the timeline and traits line up, and that he himself has a missing past, but he still thinks he’s a ‘Malone’ and not a ‘Pines’. I don’t know why he’s being so resistant to the possibility…”

"You know... 'Stan Malone' sounds mighty similar to 'Standalone'. 

*Ford facepalms*

“I thought it was clever.”

“It is, that’s why I’m mad.”

(...)

“-and it’s actually called ‘Backupsmor’? That’s its name?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. They didn’t even bother hiding what they were huh?”

“I suppose so. What about you, Stan?”

“Pft, I didn’t go to college. I’m… pretty sure? I didn’t graduate high school.”

“You’re not fully sure?”

“F, I can only remember back when I was 17, and I was already living on the streets. I don’t think I could have graduated by then. Not like it would have helped me.”

“17, you say? Interesting…”

“What about you? Your whole family full of geniuses like you?”

“Everyone’s… smart in their own way. I’m the only member of my family to attend college, however. The rest of my family works on a hog farm.”

“That’s pretty cool, striking it out on your own.”

“Mighty kind of you to-.”

“Good-looking, smart, and independent? I like that in a-.”

“I’m back!”

*Fiddleford hastily presses the mute button on the containment unit*

“Stanford, you’re back! How was it?”

“I was hoping it was something new, but it was just the gnomes trying to utilize the size changing crystals. How were things here?”

"I was just getting more information on what past he does remember- didn’t rightly get much because he is such a flirt."

"He's only doing it to a) make you uncomfortable, b) make you let your guard down, or c) charm you enough to convince you to free him."

"Well he hasn't quite succeeded on any of those. Does he flirt with you?"

"That's disgusting, Fiddleford. I don't know how you do things in Tennessee, but here it is improper for siblings to-."

“Genius, didn't you just say he doesn't believe you're related?"

“Somewhere in there he must still know I'm his brother. Which is a good thing for us because his memories can't be buried too deep."

TAPTAPTAP

*Fiddleford presses the mute button of the cell to unmute it*

“No, that's not it. That motherfucker is ugly.”

“Ugly? We have the same face!”

“Yeah, but on you it doesn't work.”

To be continued...

[book--wyrm]

Pengu Finale Liveblog ahhhhhh

Julian just absolutely brain blasting this old woman

Oh Rex is close enough to call her doll and make her breakfast he is not beating the deadbeat daddy allegation

OH NO DOES SHE KNOW OH MY GOD SHE KNOWS

NEVERMIND I WAS SO WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING SHE HAS KNOWN ALL ALONG

holy shit holy shit holy shit

okay so they did find the bodies eventually holy fuck hooooooly fuck

oh my god rex literally teaching francis how to manipulate oz and use him oh my god ohhhhh my god this is so much more of a betrayal than if francis had just hated him for what he'd done

she knew all along she knew all along and she used him and she

she

oz was right ahahahahah every relationship in his life is fuckign transactional because he KILLED THE ONLY TWO BOYS WHO TRULY LOVED HIM, AND KILLED HIS MOTHER'S LOVE WITH THEM

dude he has to kill his mother now

this is a psychological nuke the likes of which i think sofia could not possibly have ever imagined.

Francis's FACE oh my god.

Julian baby boy maybe Sofia should stand out of sight to not break immersion

God this is absolutely not how hypnotism works is it

IT'LL BE EASIER NOW YOU LITTLE PSYCHO

"I see you in ways other people don't" while she is ACTIVELY USING HIM

dude. dude. I just. It's always the same with Oz, isn't it. Sofia, Eve, his mom. He's the biggest bullshitter in Gotham, and he's so full of it he doesn't have a clue how to sniff it out

God they are both so horrific to each other. Just his horrible cycle of selfishness and toxicity what a twisted family they are

HELLO VIC I MISSED YOU

Oh rip lmao I guess the gangs know the bliss is all gone

Vic baby he's saying all the same stuff oz does, only he believes it, so he can't bullshit people to his side

Oh hey that dude on the other side of the walkie talkie lived!!

Man Oz and Sofia haven't been face to face since ep 4 hahahaha

BERTO MENTION. she hasn't used that name in a hot second

Oh my god Sofia literally using that bird nest metaphor ahahahh whoever that anon was in my inbox you are a genius

Man. Sofia literally just laying out all their horrible family drama in the worlds worst family therapy oh my god

Dude I've been saying for weeks now that Sofia's superpower is to completely shatter people with the truth and. ohhhhhh my god ohhhhhh my god ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Wait. Is Sofia going to give that cigar cutter in her cleavage to Francis to use on Oz. I think she should give it to her.

Uh. Nevermind

Wow Sofia really is leaning into this evil therapy thing what the fuck. girl.

God i desperately want her to be the girl-jonkler running the aslume at the end of this show please please please

Also Sofia, I think it was the left. I mean I'm sure she knows just so she can do the other one next, but. man. she is fuckin sadistic. im love....

Julian so enthusiastic about all of this hahaahah

I love Sofia like, almost framing this to them or possibly herself as a gift she is giving to Francis. Is this cope? Is this something she sincerely believes? Or is she just being cruel?

I ALREADY FUCKIN KNOW

It's my finger you spineless prick hahahaahha but that doesn't matter to him because its your love he wants it's your adoration your pride and what actually happens to you? Doesn't fucking matter.

I NEVER STOPPED HATING YOU

Sofia's face right then like. damn dude. god i love her

She had enough love for all of them and he soured every last drop of it. For them, for him, for the world.

Sofia really does know the value of just letting a drama play out.

Francis saying Sofia is right this ep, Sofia saying Francis was right last ep, damn.

Oz really is... the only character in this show chronically incapable of learning

Damn mama cobb strong enough to smash a bottle. I don't think even i could do that.

Oh my god no wonder she said "they look at me like i'm not even theirs" because in her mind, she let their murderer go free

also is oz gonna hulk out that she's showing love to an imaginary jack and benny when oz has just seen her hate?

Oh is she just dying right now

Julian doing the get down mr president

MR DETECTIVE YOU DIPSHIT

Sofia baby you did great okay you already hurt Oz please just go to italy with your boy toy

Wow is he not getting this fucking stab looked at

EW EW EW EW

Yeah sure sure. Sofia stabbed you. Sure. Sure.

Oh noooo. Vic... baby.... he is such a believer in Oz's stupid self serving bullshit. He is so good. And pure. And he speaks from the heart and. And Oz acts like this is something Vic rehearsed

And they laugh about it but Vic doesn't understand. He doesn't understand that Oz isn't giving him advice on how to most effectively show people the fire you hold in your heart—he's teaching him the art of smoke and mirrors. how to con and grift and bullshit until even you don't know what's true and real

Christ. Vic is so fucking dead

She'd never look at me again unless i get this done.

Oz knowing now that this love is transactional. And fine. He'll make that transaction, he'll take down sofia and then maybe his mom will pretend again that she doesn't hate him, doesn't want him dead

it's not going to work, of course. it can't because this show is about him becoming the penguin. and it can't, because even that transaction was always a lie Francis told herself

I don't think she could ever have loved Oz even if he'd gotten her into a penthouse at age 20. I think she lied to herself to survive living with him, because what was the alternative? Losing all three of her boys?

AHAHAHAHAHAH SOFIA LITERALLY PICKING UP OZ'S GOLD SUMMIT MEMBERS i have to say. I did not anticipate this at ALL

damn girlie really is just gonna dip to go to italy or wherever

sofia really is just setting up the funniest game of capture the flag imaginable while cramming like seven olives in her mouth

i dont' say this often. i desire her carnally.

The gun in the glove compartment surely that will not come back later

Oz originally checking his image in the reflection of the car vs asking Vic now, treating this kid as his reflection

Damn. Is Link really going to fall for Oz's shit again after that truck of cigs thing? Or is this just a ploy to get Oz into the right place for Sofia to pick him up?

Actually maybe that's what loses Vic, that Link betrayed him, and Oz expected it. Idk we shall see

Penguin planning to run for mayor in a couple movies?

Oh Oz is totally gonna send sofia to arkham ahahaha poor baby

Oh my god I thought Sofia was gonna claim credit for Sal's death, not that Oz would give it up himself

I cannot tell you guys how fucking tempting it is to skip right to the end of this episode to see if i'm right you guys

Wow Oz really eyeing that Mayor's office

Is he going to kill Bella and frame Sofia. Is he gonna kill bella and THAT is what turns Vic on him.

oh my god LINK

HAHAHAH I WAS SO RIGHT SHE IS BURNING DOWN FALCONE MANOR

oh god that's the watch Sofia gave him for his birthday FUCK YOU CARMINE

Sofia really is gonna fucking screw over EVERYONE hahaha THREE CIGS BABY

oh god she is so hot i love her you self actualize through arson baybeeeeeeee

that shot of her throwing the cig like a dart is so much oh my god

babygirl i love you

you deserve the world

but yeah she is going into the cold according to the needle drop. definitely going back to arkham

... what's in the trunk. i don't think it's normal luggage. is it more bombs

there is still 20 mins left. i am afraid

This is clearly a trap for someone i just don't know who. Where is vic

I'm so afraid this is the last we get to see of Sofia.

She knows. She always has such a nose for bullshit lmao. Also fuck you Link you gotta know Oz is gonna stab you in the back.

I do think it's promising that Julian has not been seen all day tho. What is he doing.

I love this. I love that Oz and Sofia finally get this one moment to be truly honest with each other.

Well. At the very least, Oz gets to be honest with Sofia. idk that he knows how to be honest with himself anymore.

Why does this look like a chemical factory. I know it's not happening but it'd be so funny for Sofia to become the joker right now.

just dunk her in the goop

Man. Is he actually going to shoot her. Police pls come and save my girl. Cannot believe that's what I'm begging for now.

oh my god

yeah i called it but. Man. This is so painful to watch. also i think my julian prayers are not going to be answered it did not look like Sofia had planned any of this

okay i'm normal about sofia being arrested now.

Okay. I'm normal.

I'm back to not being normal francis and vic and oz all in one place this is all gonna blow up emotionally

Is francis in a coma. is she totally brain dead oh my god.

oh man she really is never going to say she loves him hahaha

she let jack and benny's murderer go and it never got her anything

is he gonna kill her now.

TELL ME YOU'RE PROUD OF ME oz you fuckin

he's so fucking delusional jesus putting her hand on his head

dude. is Vic actually gonna live through this episode

holy fuck

did not call that in the least

well. i was right about the pyrrhic victory for Oz

"All kinds of things" shut the fuck up.

God. I cannot believe Vic is living through this show. Admittedly as the kind of guy that his parents would have been ashamed of, but.

Wait. No no

don't

don't do it

no nondfonfodnfodnfodfn

please dont

pelase dont

oz don't you dare

nONONNNONONONONONONONONONONONO

PLEASE DOJNT DO IT NOW PLEAE

NO NO HE IS THEO NLY ONE WHO HAS SEEN THE WEAKNESS AND HUMAN IN YOU

OZ YOU

OZ

NO

WITH YOUR HANDS???? WITH YOUR FUCKIGN HANDS???? I THOUGHT HE WOUDL PULL A GUN AT LEAST YOU FUCKING

ODSOFANDFONSODNOSDAGNOGNIOAGDSASGJDISGNAGLNFGOSANFOSDO

SANO

NON NO NONONONO

VIC

vic. vic. vic barely lived a month longer than his family

all that good heart and he just. enabled a monster to rise to power. to make gotham worse

HE'S MUGGING HIM

YOU PIECE OF SHIT YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT YOU BASTARD YOU

i

i

and the water takes him too.

JULIAN

oH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT AHHAAHHAHAHA

JULIAN

I WAS RIGHT ABOUT SOFIA GETTING MARRIAGE PROPOSALS HAHAHAHAHAH

SELINA KYLE???????? HELLO??????????????

bro.... oh my god..... this is....

I'm so happy.........

sofia smiling... sofia finding a new family member....

nvm i am so glad my original theories were wrong this is way better than anything i could have hoped for

oh my god

ohhhhh my god he actually is keeping his mom in a vegetative state.... exactly what she begged him not to do.......

she knows.... she knows... some part of her is aware in there ahahahahah

you should have let Rex kill him all those years ago

oh my god EVE???? EVE GIRL GET OUT BEFORE HE KILLS YOU TOO

oh no please tell me he never learned what happened with sofia and eve

hes literally just calling her ma. fuck me. mayeb that means eve is safe for now

NOT THE BATSIGNAL

[kingedbishop]

"Let me guess, you guys got too cool to enjoy the nice things of life around 2063."

There was no reason for Rook to be so stubborn about the issue. Perhaps she was still exhausted and more than ever couldn't accept the idea of giving up food.

Or maybe she was just bored. Willow would have investigated as soon as she was done with her current tasks. It was bad enough she had to deal with Bishop at the moment. The ARK was hardly something worth studying as far as the EPF went. He was just being nosy.

"I can provide a portable unit that will be more compact and easier to interact with than..." she motioned to Strasky, "...any of this."

All things considered, she couldn't blame Rook for complaining about doing all this in the formless void of her pocket dimension.

"Perhaps you should have Strasky report on this. It might help those scans make up their minds before the end of the century." Bishop mused.

"Well, if you guys are fine with not eating anymore…" It was better than being a doorbell, but it still didn't seem right to assume after all the difficulties Strasky had while going to back to his own body. Rook gave a shrug, shifting her attention to her double.

"Blueprints and notes." Bishop hummed, snatching some of the blueprints, "You're forced to work in such impossible conditions."

"My efficiency isn't hindered by the means through which information is provided to me." the cyborg replied, "Do feel free to provide your expertize on the topic, doctor. I'm perfectly capable of holding multiple conversations at once as well."

[helpimstuckposting]

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve

—

Robin’s eyes darted between Steve’s own as she assessed his mental state or whatever it was she was looking for. She seemed to find an answer though as she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

She sank into it, using all of her weight to blanket him within her arms. Even though she was smaller than him, lankier in her awkwardness, she was so warm. Again, he felt that settling feeling, like pieces he’d been missing were clicking back into place, making him whole again.

She sighed against his neck, rubbing her cold nose into him, sending a short chill into his spine. He jerked his shoulder in response, squeezing her head into the crook before pulling away enough to look her in the eye again

“Jesus!” he startled, pinching her side. “How is your nose so cold?”

“My feet are colder,” she said, sticking a foot into the air and trying to slide it into the cuff of his sweatpants. He yelped, stepping backward onto a different stair as she wobbled forward. She still had a grip on his arms and tried wrestling him toward her, one foot precariously in the air as she balanced on the steps, one wrong move from disaster.

“No wrestling on the stairs!” Eddie’s voice called from the living room.

They both froze, sharing a look. ‘Don’t say anything’ and ‘don’t worry, I won’t’.

It was easier said than done, though, when he stepped off the staircase and rounded the corner to the living room. Eddie’s eyes caught his sweatshirt just like Robin’s had and Steve watched as he took a deep breath before looking Steve in the eye.

He tried to give a reassuring smile — tried to show he wasn’t mad they’d been keeping a secret from him — but he thinks it probably fell flat. He couldn’t quite get the corners of his mouth to relax the way a smile should fall; he was too stiff, too awkward. He felt like he was trying to play pickup sticks, gently guiding the twigs to freedom without touching the rest of the pile. It wasn’t working.

Eddie pulled his eyes away, focusing back on his conversation with El. Luckily, Steve didn’t have time to open his mouth and say something stupid before the front door swung open and the rest of the party stormed the castle.

Dustin came barreling in, a thousand questions on his tongue, and Steve tried insisting they didn’t have all the answers. He was glad for the distraction though, didn’t really want to be diving into the abyss of questions his own mind was providing.

He couldn’t help but avoid eye contact with Eddie, though he could practically feel his eyes burrowing into the back of Steve’s head. He just didn’t know how to look at him without dragging him away to talk, without the pile of sticks crashing down on top of him before he could wiggle the one thread of conversation he needed out.

For now, he sat down on the couch as everyone filed into the living room, scattering around the room once the couches were filled. Steve had Robin squished in on one side, El burrowed into the other, and the three remaining adults were on the second couch. Will and Mike leaned against the wall as Max and Lucas sat down on the coffee table and Dustin paced the length of the living room. His sneakers were scuffed and dragging faint lines of dirt across the beige carpet.

A thought briefly flashed through Steve’s mind; his mother yelling about the stains, complaining that Steve doesn’t care for his possessions, that he’s ungrateful and should leave the house spotless next time.

He wonders again where this Linda wandered off to.

“So what do you mean you ‘think’ you found it?” Dustin settled on his first question.

The group of four looked back and forth between each other, no one immediately volunteering their information.

“Well,” El started, “it’s like it’s… closed?”

“That’s good, right? That it’s closed?” Mike asked, eyes darting from El to Dustin and back again.

El glanced back toward Steve and shrugged. “It’s only… kind of closed. It opened when Steve touched it.”

Steve felt all their eyes on him, and he squirmed under their weight. This felt like another reminder that he wasn’t meant to be here, that he was different from the rest of the party. Eddie’s words drifting through those thoughts was the only thing easing his immediate anxiety. Do you want to stay here, Steve?

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with the gate but I don’t plan on going anywhere,” he assured them, liked how the words sounded out loud.

He glanced toward Eddie, saw his approval in the reassuring smile and the relaxed set to his shoulders. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you do.

“If it’s closed when Steve’s not around it, maybe the issue is already solved,” Eddie cut in, the eyes in the room slinking off of Steve and over to the man on the other couch.

“Maybe I can see why it reacted to him,” El said, standing from Steve’s side and addressing the room. “Maybe if I try and… and… talk to it, or at least locate it myself, I can find out what it means. It should not be too hard, now that I know where it is.”

“Now there’s a plan, Supergirl,” Eddie said, snapping his fingers in her direction.

The rest of the teens shared their own looks, weighing the option in their heads. If Steve didn’t know any better he’d think they somehow gained a hive mind through all the Upside Down shit… Though, Steve didn’t actually know better so who could say?

“Okay,” Mike finally relented, breaking the silence, “Fine, El can check out the gate with her mind, but what about Steve being a key? What if we have to shove him into the lock in order to really close the door?”

“Hey!” Eddie, and Robin shouted at once — Robin practically half out of her seat.

“I don’t want him gone either, assholes!” Mike yelled back. His eyes darted back and forth between the two adults, pointedly avoiding Steve’s. He stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against, arms held tightly across his chest.

“I know I wasn’t close to him like Dustin or you guys, but he was still our babysitter. He was still like a brother to me.”

Steve’s heart didn’t skip at Mike’s declaration. It sort of… wobbled, like it was so shocked it contemplated stopping all together before thudding into action again. He looked at Robin, gaping like a fish still on the hook, and he looked at Eddie, not much different than Robin. Then he glanced at Nancy, compelled by the Wheeler bloodline or maybe because he always used to look at Nancy when he didn’t know what to do, and she looked… proud. She smiled at Mike like they’d never fought a day in their lives, like the Norman Rockwell Christmas paintings that Steve used to stare at as a child, wishing his parents cast their happy smiles onto him just like the pictures. She smiled in a way that Steve had almost thought didn’t exist until he saw it on Mrs. Byers and Jonathan when they looked at Will. Like how family was supposed to look at each other, but Steve hadn’t learned that until 1983.

Mike himself was resolutely staring at the floor, avoiding eye contact as Will pat his shoulder and Dustin started rambling again to peel everyone’s eyes away. Everyone except Steve, who kept watching as Mike glanced up and caught his eye. He mouthed a soft ‘thank you’ to the teen before diverting his attention onto Dustin once more.

He was helping El to the floor as Max and Lucas started shoving the coffee table out of the way. Someone clicked on the TV to a vacant channel, screen buzzing away with static. Eddie pulled a bandana out of his back pocket and wrapped it gently around El’s head, whispering softly to check if it was too tight or if she could still see. Once she nodded and gave him a blind thumbs-up, he stepped away again, and the room turned their attention to the girl with superpowers.

Everyone was silent as she sat there, doing god knows what in that little head of hers. Her fingertips twitched as they rested against her knees, and she moved her head around as if seeing straight through the bandana. Steve didn’t know why, but for some reason he got the impression that she was confused — like she was looking too hard at a map and struggling to find her destination. She raised her hand toward him, curling her fingers twice to beckon him forward.

She gasped as he grabbed her hand, fingers clenching tightly around his. She squeezed them tighter and tighter, sitting ram-rod straight now as his fingertips went fuzzy like the TV screen. She gasped again, this time much deeper like she was coming up for air after a swim and she dropped his hand all together, pulling the bandana from her eyes.

El looked around the room at everyone, and Steve was transported back to his own world for just a moment — watching a little girl come back to herself as she sorted through things only she could see. This El before him — nearing her 20s, no longer 14 years old — looked up at him with a question she hadn’t quite answered yet. He nodded, trying to encourage her with his eyes, nudge her to sort it out aloud.

“I saw,” she started, looking once again from person to person, “I saw gates. Lots of gates, every gate that was ever opened in Hawkins.”

“Like… open now? Again?” Max asked.

El shook her head, still a bit confused herself. “No. Not open. More like… whispers? Like memories. Except, when I touched Steve’s hand I saw even more.”

“Also not open?” Dustin clarified.

El nodded, then tilted her head and squinted before shaking it. “Kind of? They were all scattered, different than the ones I saw by myself. It was like they were whispers of whispers, like I was seeing them through a dirty window. Except one.” She looked at Steve again.

“It was like… two gates, on top of each other. It was the tree gate, but… it looked layered? Does that make sense?”

The group mumbled their confusion, varying degrees of ‘not really’ and ‘no’. But Steve thought about what Robin said, about scars and the body constantly keeping old wounds closed. He thought about what Dustin said about parallel worlds living side by side, and El saying it was like looking through a dirty window, he thought of locks and keys and doors.

“What if the foggy gates are from my world, and the tree gate was an overlap from both? Like, a doorway works both ways, right? What if the other gates are just… opening to brick walls?” Steve looked up from the floor, catching everyone’s eyes on him. El was nodding, accepting, but the rest were on a spectrum from confused to contemplative.

“Did I… did I say something wrong?” he asked, trying to parse if Dustin’s look was leaning more toward denial or agreement.

They all looked between each other, going around the room and locking eyes, muttering to themselves, locking different eyes, nodding, muttering some more. Steve felt something creeping up his spine that he hadn’t felt for a long time, not since Dustin had asked “Do you need to be told everything? You’re not a child,” and his father telling him he needed a job for the summer or he wasn’t welcome at home anymore. He felt it when Nancy looked over his college paper and tried letting him down gently, and when Billy knocked him down during gym and everyone just watched.

But then Dustin nodded again, a more certain look in his eyes as he snapped his fingers and pointed at Steve.

“That’s gotta be it,” he said, and Steve felt the creeping thing slip away, falling from his shoulders like a cloak. “It makes sense, right? A scar on top of a scar, opening the wound again. That’s gotta be why Steve can open it but El can’t, she’s got the wrong key, she’s not from Steve’s universe.”

He didn’t flinch that time. Maybe it was exhaustion from the day’s adventure, maybe it was what Eddie said, still floating through his head. Maybe he was just getting used to it, his otherness. Whatever it was, he didn’t flinch when Dustin said Steve’s universe.

Eddie did though. He looked from Dustin, to Steve, to the sweatshirt Steve was wearing, and then he shot a desperate look to Robin before mumbling about the bathroom and slinking from the room (very obviously walking in the complete opposite direction of any bathrooms, though no one else seemed to be paying attention). Steve hoped they could end this soon, because his feet were itching to follow Eddie, to talk about whatever the other Steve was to him. Though, he knew what they were. The Polaroids in the closet were burned into his brain.

But then Mike asked again about the key and the door and what they would do if Steve had to be put back, if the gate couldn’t close without him, and Steve knew it would be a while yet until he could talk to the man who put such a warm smile on OtherSteve’s face.

—

Sorry for the delay! I was focussing all my time on my steddie bang for a good chunk of the year so this update was slow going. I'm so excited to jump back into this one!

@devondespresso @machete-inventory-manager @sirsnacksalot @space-invading-pigeon @aliea82

@goodolefashionedloverboi @anti-ozzie @13catastrophic-blues @estrellami-1 @cinnamon-mushroomabomination

@likelylad @aellafreya @wxrmland @shunna @howincrediblysapphicofyou

@1-8oo-wtfbro @grimmfitzz @queenie-ofthe-void @redheadchimechild

[waytooinvested]

Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 35

This and previous chapters are also on AO3

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

Please don’t leave me.

Lena swallowed against the lump in her throat and stepped closer towards Kara until they were almost toe to toe.

‘I do want to talk about it. I didn’t realise it until you offered, but I think I need to talk about it.’

She paused again, unsure if she was about to cross a line, but hopeful that Kara would forgive her for it even if she did.

‘Kara do you think… I know this isn’t something I should ask for right now when we don’t even know where we stand, but just for this one night could we put all of the hard stuff aside and just… go to bed? I feel like this will be easier to talk about if we’re lying down in the dark, and also, I just… I really, really need to be held right now.’

Lena had never admitted something like that to anyone in her entire touch starved life, and it was terrifying just to say the words, but before she had even a moment to second guess herself she was enveloped in Kara’s embrace. She let her head find the dip of Kara’s shoulder and wrapped her arms tight around her, squeezing with all her strength, no need to worry about hurting or winding the girl of steel. Kara’s own hold was firm enough to make her feel safely anchored, and yet infinitely gentle, never pressing hard enough to hurt, or even make her feel restricted. She wanted to live in these arms forever and never, ever let go. Now they had started, she didn’t think she could let go, not without Kara physically peeling her off, and she wondered how they were ever going to make it to the bedroom.

But it turned out she didn’t need to worry about that. Kara let go of her with one arm, then dipped down to hook it behind Lena’s knees, scooping her easily up into a bridal lift and carrying her to her room like she was an overtired child up past her bedtime.

Once she had been deposited gently onto the bed, Lena managed to force herself to release Kara long enough to pull on some pajamas and whisk a toothbrush round her mouth in a vague nod towards proper dental hygiene. By the time she got back from the bathroom Kara was already tucked under the covers, her Supersuit exchanged for pajamas of her own and a tiny smear of toothpaste in evidence at the corner of her mouth, though Lena wasn’t sure how she had had time to brush her teeth already.

Oh right, superspeed. Handy.

Then Kara opened her arms invitingly, and all the mundane trivialities she had been focusing on to get her through the last few minutes fell away as she crawled in beside her and fell gratefully into the embrace. Kara pulled her closer until their bodies were pressed together all the way to their tangled feet, Lena’s head finding a comfortable spot resting on Kara’s chest as if it belonged there, the steady beating of her heart a soothing drumbeat against her ear.

Lena curled her fist into the fabric of Kara’s pajama shirt, feeling the hot, taught skin of her stomach as it rode up a little, and at last began to talk.

She told Kara about the day she had arrived at the Luthors’ manor, and the chilly reception she had received from her ‘new mother’. How those words had stung, because she had a mother. She had a lovely mammy who had loved her and wanted her, and had never looked at her like she was an unwelcome mongrel that had wandered in off the street to spread fleas and chew up the furniture. If the New Mother had been a proper one she would have scooped Lena up into her arms and crooned soft lullabies to her. She would have called her dote, and honeybun, and taken her back to her own small, bright home that had always felt so much richer than this soulless, echoing mansion. Lillian Luthor had done none of these things. She had barely glanced at Lena, speaking over her head to the man who was going to be her father as if she wasn’t even there, and Lena had known right then that she would never be a proper mammy.

But Lex had spoken to her. He had asked her if she wanted to play with him, and told her that he was going to be her new brother. He had taught her to play chess, and every time she beat him he had pushed her to do it faster, smarter, again, not seeming annoyed or defensive to have been beaten by someone so much younger than he was. It was Lena’s first experience of having a sibling, and she thought it was going to be a nice thing to have.

Of course he hadn’t been perfect, not even at his best.

Throughout her childhood she had wanted so badly to impress him, and yet nothing she did ever seemed to be quite good enough. Even so, he was the one who seemed to see her the most, and took her the most seriously in that house. Her mother mostly ignored her unless it was to criticize, and as for her father… Well, he had been a good man, and Lena had loved him fiercely, but while he loved and even favoured her in return, he always treated her more as a pretty doll or a little pet than a real person, patting her head and chuckling vaguely when she tried to tell him what she was working on, as if it was all some elaborate imagining of hers that she couldn’t possibly actually understand. Then as she had grown he had started drinking more and more, until finally Lex had felt like the only stable presence in the house.

Not that he had been there all that much since he was away at school so much of the time, but she would look forward to his holidays, working hard on her inventions in between times so that she could show him something perfect when he got back, and maybe this time he would be truly impressed. Only inevitably when she showed him at last he would hold it up for a moment, pressing buttons and twiddling bits like it was a toy, then toss it casually back to her with a dismissive ‘that’s cute Lena, you should make it in pink’. And Lena had burned, and redoubled her efforts on the next project as if that would ever really make a difference…

Kara listened as she talked on and on, the good and the bad entwined so inextricably together that sometimes they seemed like the same thing. She told her about the White Knight signal that Lex had made for her, and how he always answered it no matter what, even if they weren’t speaking at the time. She hesitated for a moment, and then admitted that using it was how she had got him to turn up this time after all their fruitless months of searching by more conventional means. She wondered if Kara would be angry with her for not using it sooner. After all, if she had it was possible that Kara would have got her memories back months earlier, but she didn’t point this out. She seemed to understand how big a thing it had been for Lena to use their sacrosanct SOS beacon as a weapon against her brother, and instead of criticising she pulled her impossibly closer.

‘That’s why he was so angry with you tonight. Why he tried to take something from you in return.’

‘I knew he would be. It was the one betrayal he could never forgive.’

‘And you did that... for me?’

‘Of course I did. I would do anything for you.’

Lena could feel the bob of Kara’s throat as she swallowed, then whispered into the cocooning darkness that surrounded them:

‘Still?’

‘Still.’

Her response was definite, solid reality to Kara’s fragile question, and she felt the change it brought about in Kara as if it was happening in her own body, so closely were they pressed together.

‘Lena-’

The simple two syllables of her own name on Kara’s lips were laden with all the love and complexity that sat unspoken between them, and hearing it when she was already so raw and vulnerable threatened to sweep away what little composure she had left.

‘Don’t say it. Not to tonight. If you say it now I will break and I can’t- I can’t take any more breaking tonight.’

Kara swallowed again, but she nodded, and Lena felt the brush of it against the top of her head as she did so.

‘Okay. Not tonight.’

Lena took a deep, shaky breath, and pressed the tiniest kiss to Kara’s collar bone. Then she moved back from the precipice they had been teetering on.

‘How about you? Do you want to talk about anything? You’ve been through a lot and it must be so confusing. I promised you I’d tell you everything as soon as I could, and now you have your memories back I can do that.’

‘Maybe tomorrow. Right now I think I need time to process having two lives worth of memories. It feels so strange. Now I remember my real life all the human memories feel different, kind of flat and two dimensional, like something I just made up. But I also still remember what it felt like for them to be all there was...’

She trailed off into a frustrated sigh, unable to articulate quite what she meant, though Lena thought she understood – at least as well as anyone who hadn’t experienced it could. On a much smaller scale she too had held two realities in her head, the sudden reframing of her experiences with Kara and Supergirl that had happened when Lex had played his recording like the collision of two tectonic plates. Devastating and transformational, the landscape of her mind forever altered.

‘My head is just so noisy right now. I think I need to let things settle before I really get into it, if that’s alright. If you’re okay with it I’d like to spend tonight just being here with you until it quiets down.’

‘Of course darling.’

Lena tightened her arm protectively around Kara’s waist, wishing there was more she could do to calm the turmoil, at least for a few hours so that she could sleep. Then in a flash of inspiration she remembered how she had soothed Kara the last time her head had been too noisy.

‘Would you like me to tell you something instead?’

‘Like what?’

‘Anything. Something science-y that you can fall asleep to. Like last time.’

Kara perked up. ‘Really? But no, I can’t ask you to do that. I came over here to look after you, you shouldn’t have to look after me.’

‘You are looking after me. You’re giving me exactly what I didn’t know I needed, and I am so grateful. Let me do this for you?’

‘Okay then… yes please, I would really, really like that.’

This time Lena didn’t tell Kara about her latest work with L-Corp. Instead she talked about quantum entanglement – how two subatomic particles could be intimately linked together, the relationship maintained even if they were separated by billions of light-years of space. Kara listened, hmm-ing softly as Lena expounded on Bohm’s variant of the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox, the hand that had been cupped around her shoulder finding its way up to play idly with a strand of Lena’s hair instead, twisting it round and round her finger as if she was trying to tie the two of them together (as if Lena wasn’t already tied to Kara more completely than an entangled pair of photons), until at last she began to relax into the mattress, releasing the strand and skimming her hand down Lena’s side to settle in the dip of her waist.

Her breathing shifted into the slower tempo of imminent slumber, and Lena too felt her body growing languid and heavy, lulled by Kara’s closeness and the little island of peace they had created together. She tried to go on describing how the use of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors could be applied in deep space communications, but her words began jumbling into incoherence, until at last she gave up and allowed herself to follow Kara into sleep.

They still had a way to go, but for right now, for this one night, the rest of it could wait.

[danrifics]

[rotationalsymmetry]

So, I'm not great at avoiding procrastination either, but some thoughts on it:

Schedule leisure time and honor it at least 80% of the time, even if some stuff doesn't get done. Also get enough sleep most of the time -- if you're up late on a big project now and then, OK, but don't routinely stay up doing schoolwork. This is important not just because leisure is a human right, but also because of course people sneak around and steal leisure time wherever they can when they can't get it by following their own rules. That includes study breaks. Your brain needs some times where it's not actively working to absorb new information.

Break it up: people tend to be better at not procrastinating when there's a near future, urgent deadline, so it's a good idea to break large projects into smaller parts with smaller deadlines at the beginning. Sometimes people have trouble responding to self-imposed deadlines; sometimes positive reinforcement (pretend you're 5 years old and give yourself stickers or something) helps a lot, sometimes getting an accountability partner (someone who will ask you if you've hit your smaller deadlines or not) helps a lot.

Just do it/first step: when you catch yourself procrastinating in the moment, you can try telling yourself you'll just take the next smallest conceivable step to doing the project. Like opening a document on your laptop. If you do the next smallest step and really can't bear to do more, oh well, but often once people get going they want to keep going.

Sometimes people can break out of a cycle of "I know I should do x" but not actually doing it in the moment by counting down from 5 to 1 and then doing something in the physical world, like standing up (or eg putting down the phone if it's an electronic distraction.) This gets easier to do if you've practiced it a few times.

Breaking up the shame spiral: I don't think people usually procrastinate because they're actively enjoying whatever they're doing instead, I think what happens is they're (or at least this is how it works for me) feeling bad and there's something other than Doing The Thing that is better distraction from feeling bad. So, doing something to change the feeling bad into feeling OK can break a procrastination cycle. What I do is write "I fucked up" in a notes app and write down what happened and how bad it is and how I can make it less bad, and that tends to make me feel way better (and once in a while even helps me figure out how to do less of the thing I feel guilty about); but any emotional management thing that actually works for you is fine. Take a walk around the block or do some jumping jacks, say some affirmations, do a breathing exercise, whatever. Anything reasonably short, that actually works.

Acceptance: behavioral change takes a while and tends to involve some relapses, that's how people are, people don't need to be perfect to get things done.

Finally, this isn't anti-procrastination advice, but: DON'T DO EVERYTHING. Prioritize. Part of what you're supposed to learn in uni is to learn what to do when you have more to do than what you can do -- learn which things are lower priority and can be put off or skipped entirely, and which things have to be done. In particular, you will get too much reading, so learn to skim. This is not cheating or slacking off. This is part of what you are supposed to be learning. See also: asking for extensions and stuff when you need them.

So I’m a first year uni student. How did you survive your bachelors? It feels like such a long slog, and as I write this I have five things I need to do.

In particular, how did you… not procrastinate

I’d really appreciate any advice you can give!

One day at a time mate. One day at a time.

I can't give you any advice on procrastination, I procrastinated every project I had throughout all of uni.

[icewindandboringhorror]

recent lounging babey images

[mxtxfanatic]

I’m wondering something though -

When Xie Lian and the others learned of He Xuan’s background, it was made clear He Xuan had extremely bad luck.

“Although this scholar He’s family was very, very poor, he was a talented man. Since his youth, he was frighteningly intelligent and picked things up quickly and expertly. He was also widely known as a good son; there was really nothing bad to say about the guy in any respect. Unfortunately for him, he was also very unlucky. For him, nothing good ever lasted.”

Volume 4, Chapter 53 page 28

———

If the Reverend of Empty words can only shout misfortune upon its victims (and their loved ones) causing them to despair so much they commit suicide, does this mean He Xuan had bad luck all on his own even without the fate switching? 🤔

Or does the Reverend actually draw bad luck to his victims? This would actually make a lot sense but from how Xie lian explains things , this isn’t how a usual venerable works and explanations about the Reverend do not explicitly state this. 🤔🤔🤔

He Xuan couldn’t have had bad luck all on his own without the fate-switching, because his fate was to ascend. However, I think a full answer to this question would need to be a meta, cause I think that a core point of tgcf is that fates are not set-in-stone from birth, that fortune is what you make of it rather than what makes you, and that we shouldn’t fall into traps of letting superstition rule our lives, thoughts, and morality. The Reverend of Empty Words specifically chose prey amongst those with great fates, and most of those people had terrible ends. The Reverend was only able to speak on Shi Qingxuan—who had a fate of wealth—once before his family masked his presence, and yet the family still went into decline and lost their fortune. Were all of those fates fake? Was Guoshi not as good a fortune-teller as he so claimed? Or is all of this more changeable than people want to believe?

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Sunday doodle (singular)

[moonsrune]

"I was just going to say..." his eyes fall his to his hands and he has to will himself not to scratch at the skin. It was a coping mechanism. One he wants to overcome but he hasn't found a solution yet. There's alcohol and drugs, but Tyler has been sober since France. He was planning on wooing Brooke before she got back together with Jake and wanted to be sober for it. However, he fucked that up when he got drunk at Noel's party and let his demons convince him it would be a good idea to have Nina seduce Jake and for Brooke to walk in on it. This is why he needs to stay sober. Because when he's drinking or taking drugs, his inhibitions go out the window. "It's hard to say," he laughs and then releases a steadying breath. "I just think you would have been my first crush. I think I would have done anything for you to look at me and only me." It would have been a world without Nina manipulating him. A world without Jake telling him she's his and off-limits. He would have been the one to grow up with her. Life would have been worth living. But that's not how it was. For most of his life he was just waiting to die so he could get away. It was hard, cold, and loveless. And he might not believe in love but there's something in her eyes that makes him believe in something.

Upon hearing her review of his sandwich, Tyler gets stuck on hearing her say 'I like you.' The sound of that makes his heart swell with feelings he's not used to. It's almost overwhelming and makes him put his sandwich down because his stomach is too fluttery to digest food. He had people tell him he was hot before and fun but no one ever said they genuinely liked him. Not in a way that was so innocent. Brooke had nothing to gain from liking him. It would be easier for her to hate him. He was a jerk to everyone but her and Riley. Doesn't she find that strange? Shouldn't that be a red flag? "You would have sat through it if it were nasty just so you wouldn't hurt my feelings?" He's speechless. After years of abuse and neglect, he never would have thought someone would care enough to spare him from any kind of pain. Emotional...physical. Usually they kick him around and they don't think twice about it. Nina included. She hurts him more than she cares for him. In fact, he's sure she doesn't care for him at all. "You should stop saying nice things." Tyler stands up from his chair and the legs scrape against the linoleum. He can feel his hands starting to shake a little as he makes his way around the island and takes her face between them before pressing a kiss to her lips. He expects her to push him back and reject him but he can't spend another second repressing how he really feels.

"That's all I ask." Is that he gives Riverwood (and her) an honest shot to win him over. Maybe if she's successful, he'll lay down roots here for the first time ever in his life. Everyone deserves a home. Even someone who feels like they aren't deserving of it. Brooke knows in her heart of hearts, he belongs here. Just as much as anyone else claims to.

As Brooke shifts in her chair, she notices the little goosebumps starting to arise along her legs. She's cold but feels feverish at the same time. And she can't tell if there's a reason for that or if he just makes her that nervous. "No---" Brooke tries to interject. She wants him to finish his thought. "What were you going to say?" He may not be willing to live in a fantasy land but she is. She'll do it enough for the both of them, if she must. "As for being blunt. I always say it's better to be brutally honest, you're right. This way people know where you stand." She's a big advocate for boundaries and the truth. She tells it like it is. Which is why she's especially candid about her thoughts on his homemade sandwich. Just for dramatic flair, she takes her time chewing after taking her first bite. If only to savor the flavors that burst on her tongue from the cheese, the sauce, and the buttered bread. After a solid minute or two, her stoic expression softens into dimpled grin. "Okay, honestly.... I was expecting it to suck, I'm not gonna lie. And I was prepared to tell you it was good even if I hated it. Just because I like you and I don't want to hurt your feelings in spite of everything I just said. But, I actually don't have to pretend. It's good. Really good." To prove it, she takes another bite and then another until nothing's left but half of the crust. "Now I'm just wondering if you're a robot." A laugh escapes her, as she eyes him skeptically. "Hot people aren't supposed to be smart, athletic and know how to cook. You get one or the other, not all three. So what lab created you?"

[nbclover]

hehehe

[arcane-ish]

I mean, why would getting beaten for years make her kinder?

I have a kinder view on her, but my verdict after S2 Act 1 was also that Vi has no connection to Zaun.

My head canon is that she was far away from Zaun for a long time and after she emerged it was completely changed. Zaun was the idealistic warm place of her childhood to her and when she came back she found it "poisoned" by Silco. She doesn't feel at home there anymore. Maybe she blames it for "ruining" Powder.

The frustrating part being, okay, even if Vi is the kind of person who dislikes and looks down on the dirty immoral parts of Zaun (rather than seeing that as a result of their oppression or seeing beauty and potential in the depravity there), she has been to Ekko's tree. She has seen the nice/happy/friendly parts of Zaun. Shouldn't she feel at least protective of those?

My take is that the approach of the writer is that Vi has a more general sense of morals. She protects people who get attacked, whether it is a Piltover Elite or the little Zaunite girl. She has indeed neither class conciousness nor hard loyalty (in season 1 her goal was to bring down Silco and she had no problem teaming up with Piltover to achieve that goal via the chem factory raid, she didn't even think of rallying Zaunites against Silco, she went for what was easiest and the biggest stick)

And I don't see how that is that much of stretch. If Vi is not a big thinker, why should she have class conciousness? Having just pariotic loyalty to a place without class conciousness or larger historic context is something that still works for a "not a big thinker" person, but I could easily picture the writers seeing Vi a decidedly not that. There are plenty of scenarios where unthining patriotism isn't a good thing, so the writers might actually see that a creative wrinkle that Vi is more of a universalist who doesn't distinguish anymore where people are from. (and yes, maybe people who get treated with prejudice react by locking deeper into that identity, but it is not that out of the ordinary that they could also react with "it shouldn't matter at all where people come from")

IMO Vi emerged from prison and felt like she didn't have a home anymore because her second family was dead and everything she knew looks different. And yes, Vi's first family was killed by Pilties but her second family died becuase of an inner Zaunite struggle. So is it really that out of the ordinary that she might have mixed feelings about Zaun?

The way I read it Vi at this moment doesn't particularly like Zaun and she's feeling her way around. She feels like she doesn't belong there, doesn't fit in there and so she's trying to feel her way around if she can fit into Piltover (especially if Caitlyn is luring her in with "actually we are trying to reduce harm to Zaun, it's moral of you to join, because you are actually trying to make things easier").

Act 1 ends with Cait and by extension Piltover rejecting her. And based on the trailers it looks like Vi is going to dive deep into self hate and with that deep into the most violent parts of Zaun. Which to me suggest that this reflects that she has a low opinion of Zaun, that this is where she goes when she's at her lowest and self-hatiest.

Again in a world where even if she doesn't fuck with the darker seedier parts of Zaun and has no motivation to let's say be another Silco or Vander to try to slap down the chem barons, sort of pacify Zaun or even rally it. ... she could have just joined up with Ekko and tried to to just do nice things and help orphans.

But it seems likely that that's not how she's going to react. She could take her rejection from Cait and Piltover and react with rage "I tried to work with them, but they are actually monsters, let's fight them". Or she could have shut down, gone to the pretty place of Ekko's there and try to recoup there (maybe she's self-haty and scared that they would reject her for the things she's done?) and find herself by trying to do small nice things for people. But it seems like she reacts with self-hate because she's a pretty splintered broken person herself who is highly unsure about her place in the world.

But yes, Vi has zero class consciouness because she just doesn't think like that is just correct description of her character. That's just how she is. She's a mostly one track universalist.

I just don't think it makes sense that we impose what her trauma response should be (ie she should retch at every badge she sees) just because that's what we would like to see and we feel that this should be the "most logical" thing. People have all kinds of different trauma reactions.

And Vi has been on the receiving end of bad actions of Zaunites and if you put into the equation that she just genuinely doesn't have a class conciousness/doesn't think of things on that level, why shouldn't she have aversion and trauma reactions to Zaunites as well? She disliked Pilties and enforers because they enacted violence on her, but she also had violent run ins with Zaunites. That street kids brawl after the heist in season 1 was against Zaunites, she was there for the murder of Benzo, Silco to her knowledge killed Vander, she fought Sevika (and I still think she blames Zaun for "ruining Powder"). Maybe she even holds it against Zaun that the followed Silco (though even if she unreasonably idolizes Vander, shouldn't she at least see that Ekko's people uphold the memory of Vander? I wonder if Vi knows that the Vander statue exists).

In short, it's going to be interesting how her relationship with Zaun will evolve. If she will gain a more nuanced view on it or not. I can see a world where she finds out more about Vander's regrets and sees more nuance is necessary, I wonder if she will interact with the Viktor people and what her take on that will be. I wonder if she will find comfort and familarity in the fighting pits or if it will just be her self hatred and ultimately Cait "saving her" from the pits (whether actually retrieving her and luring her out with more tasks up in Pilotver).

I don't buy that Cait is that keen on the Noxians, so I could picture her asking Vi for help again soon.

Or maybe she'll team up with people to for example hunt the new monster Warwick. It's gonna be interesting if Vi finds her new community in Zaun in some way (ie teaming up with somebody to hunt Warwick, or fight Viktor, or rally people against the Noxians or reconnecting with Ekko after all). Or if she has trouble connecting with people and Cait and enforcers will remain the only thing that ever gets offered to her (after all she spelled out to Cait that she feels like she has nothing).

We know the story is highly slanted towards Vi ending up with Cait and probably even as an enforcer. The question is whether it will be with her getting a nuanced view on Zaun and trying to walk between the world, seeing both sides and negotiate between them (ie by keeping a positive relationship with Ekko or making new friends in the pit adventure) or whether the rift between Vi and Zaun will stay there (maybe they hate her for working with enforcers, maybe she is at odds with them again if she ends up trying to protect Warwick from them).

Having digested the first 3 episodes of Arcane 2, I'm ready to say something bold and brave, and I hope I don't get too much hate for it.

Vi is just not a nice person.

In season 1, I feel like I was maybe unfair to the writers by saying that "rushing the romance with an enforcer/1% like Cait" was "flattening" Vi's character. That it was bending her out of shape.

How could a Zaunite as maltreated as Vi so easily turn to someone like Cait?

I was told by shippers it's because Cait is the first to show her kindness in a long time, and I still think that's hogwash. She is fresh out of mega hell prison where enforcers beat her so often they lost track of it. I don't believe any amount of kindness could make you fall for an enforcer within 48h in this context. Not realistically.

But now?

Vi hears Cait dehumanizing Zaunites and doesn't fight back. It takes a few compliments to make her accept an enforcer badge. She's running around gasing the people of the Lanes, making excuses for it, while looking fresh out of a WWII horror movie in that gas mask.

And when the gas mask is off, she's wearing Claggor's goggles... Like, yeesh.

She's clearly blinded by Cait. And that's fine! I used to think it was the flaw of the writers trying to hurry a Caitvi ship along. Now I gotta admit, it looks like Vi just doesn't have strong morals.

She hates enforcers but she'll join them easily. Her wanna-be gf says we use toxic gas that has horrible side effects [cut to horror medical slides] and she says "yeah, it's for the good of the people, sure".

She sees Jinx and accuses her of killing Powder, and says she's tired of making excuses for her.

To WHO, Vi? We don't have you on screen apologizing to anyone for Jinx's actions. I'm sure things were said to Caitlyn, but like, yeesh.

She accuses Jinx of orphaning kids, WHILE WEARING AN ENFORCER UNIFORM, the same worn by the people who orphaned HER.

I give up. The writers knew what they were doing.

A flawed woman who wasn't made a better or more moral one by all the suffering she endured in Stillwater.

Vi is cool, but she's not super loyal, is a bit of a meathead, doesn't have her priorities in orders, leads with her fists and caves easily to her emotions. She's horny for Cait and not very interested in the fate of her community.

Being locked up and beaten didn't make her smarter or kinder. It just made her a better fighter.

It's kind of my bad for assuming that Vi "should be better", logically. If she's written as a human, then she should be flawed and yeah, I guess she fucking is lol

I'm curious to see if she develops some... class consciousness, or some patriotism of some sort, when everyone realises the Noxian offers of protection are a yoke. I'm a lot more curious seeing where she ends now that I've accepted she's cool while also kinda shitty. It's nice that it goes along Cait's spiral into villainy.

[thatuselesshuman]

Me when someone says some dumb shit about my medical issues

[basically-fabulous]

u "don't vote" motherfuckers r stupid as shit