#i'm really just posting it here cause it's cecil and i

[screensandtangledwires]

my phone and i

[mirroredmemoriez]

John Kramer and The Denlon's

Cracks everything in my body. It's time to yap. I keep going on in many posts about the fact John is just as flawed as those he tries to ''better'', so I want to go over one of my main comparisons in a tad more depth than I have before. John Kramer and Jeff Denlon honestly are very similar when it comes to their backstory and need for revenge due to grief. Even though John always states that he tests people so they become grateful for being alive- It's very obvious in some cases, he's doing it for his own type of gratification too. For example, Cecil Adams who caused Jill Tuck to miscarry and then Cecilia Pederson who scammed John. He didn't put these people in traps just because of his philosophy, but because they were also very ''close to home'' for him.

The loss of a child is very integral to both John and Jeff's character. Both of these men crave justice.... However, the way they want it and how they achieve it isn't exactly the most healthy thing. It leads both of them to neglect their partners, Jill and Lynn. (Just took a break to eat leftover spaghetti I am legit lost in the sauce- I don't plan out these little rants I do, so I just go where rambling takes me.) When it comes to the major differences between them, Jeff is more rage fuelled, at least in how he carries himself. His anger manifests more verbally and physically than John- Which is his downfall, alongside him not listening or acting when needed. This is a bit of a reach, but another thought nonetheless and nothing I say needs to be something I'm 100% on anyway. Danica Scott, the only other witness to Dylan's death didn't cause Jeff's son's demise, however her lack of action and fleeing the scene made her someone Jeff would want to take revenge upon anyway.

Amanda, although she had more involvement with Gideon's death, seeing as she was the one to convince Cecil to rob the clinic, didn't take physical action either. However, outside of her just being a drug addict- It is debated whether or not John always knew about her role in Jill Tuck's miscarriage, another reason for her to be tested.

We've also got basic comparisons such as the fact Jill and Lynn are both in the medical field and having mentioned Lynn again? Her demeanour is more like John than anybody else I have brought up in this post I'd say- I can't really word well why I think that, but it's there anyway. (Another thing to add is how in Saw 3, John in his delirious state starts getting confused and thinking Lynn is Jill.)

Might as well slip some others thoughts in here too whilst I'm fucking rambling this much- I don't have too many complex thoughts on Jeff Denlon I guess, I basically seem him as an example within the Saw universe about a person who cannot let go enough that it results in his trauma and vengeance taking over his life and ending it too. He's not a evil or terrible man, just very flawed. He had some of the physically easiest traps in the franchise to complete, but because he never made an effort to heal and instead remained stagnant within his grief... He takes too long to take action and morally flip flops all over the place when it comes to what decision he'll make- It's that or he doesn't assess the long term consequences of things such as never forgiving. I personally don't think he ever has to forgive someone like Timothy Young- However, I do believe he let's it impact his life and those around him too much. Corbett didn't deserve the neglect she faced and she herself is a child grieving her sibling. Grief and forgiveness are very hard topics to navigate, but I honestly as a viewer felt the most bad for Corbett more so than Jeff or even Lynn. Coming back to Lynn, I believe she ''learnt'' the most or at least came to terms with things faster within her trap than Jeff. She didn't have time to dwell or not be fast paced with her choices, because her life was connected to John's. She was doing her best not only to stay alive, but to get back to her family even if it was dysfunctional. (Me when I come back to this in my drafts weeks later, time to attempt to find the wave length I was on whilst doing this before.) It's an interesting though to picture different people in other traps. For example, if Lynn was going through Jeff's test. Would she have reacted faster than him and made clear cut decisions? Could she forgive? Jeff is no medical professional and his rage wouldn't let him care for John to the best of his ability so we know he'd fumble that, which is why I'm more so focused on Lynn in his test. Lynn's grief is more ''subtle'' compared to Jeff's and as an audience it's hard to pinpoint what her thoughts and opinions of those involved with her sons death would've been. She turned to antidepressants and her fractured marriage led her to having an affair, not to mention the child neglect. But when it comes down to it, we don't see as much as a drive for revenge and justice within Lynn as we do Jeff. This would mainly come down to screen time, setting and general context but it's an interesting thought of how she'd handle someone like Danica or Timothy if they were right in front of her.

This is why I say she learnt the most from her test compared to Jeff in his? After everything she went through with Amanda constantly up her ass and power drilling through a guys skull- All Lynn wanted was to reunite with her family. Like, the only time we see Lynn exert full physical violence is in a deleted scene where she attacks Amanda.... And even then that is because she wants the key for her collar more so than a drive to murder the other woman. On all accounts, she actually won that scuffle as well.

But then for example Jeff when he finally encounters John? He just can't help himself! Lynn literally is on the floor bleeding out, reaching for him not to leave and this man just can't NOT go and fulfil his need for vengeance. He'd literally just acted upon it before too by shooting Amanda, though that is more understandable giving the context of the fact she shot Lynn..... I think overall this is why so many people dislike Jeff but they just can't word it? Like he's been dubbed ''slow ass motherfucking Jeff''- But it's not really the speed of execution, it's either the lack of long term critical thinking and or the fact he's indecisive? Jeff doesn't have the weight of a contraption around his neck and or his life truly on the line like his wife.... However, somehow Lynn is still managing her test better than him with a freaky little lesbian on her ass and doing backhouse brain surgery on some random old dude with a fucking power drill. I'll also bring up the fact that like John and Jeff, Mark Hoffman has a pretty similar drive and motive to the both of these men. Just like how Jeff saw his sons death, Mark saw the aftermath of his sisters murder for example. All three of them feel justified in their actions against those who have wronged them and etc....

And as I always bring up in character studies like these, the perceptions from the audience are so interesting- Especially when you start comparing characters. It will come as no surprise when I say, I am a pretty active Tumblr user... Through this? The interactions with media and popularity of characters from Saw on this platform are decently clear. First I'll get it out the way that screen time plays a big role in making characters fan favourites. Although, Adam is a subversion to this as he's only in one movie (alive) and likely the most popular Saw character- Anyway! Using John, Jeff and Mark as examples here still... As previously stated, these three men can be considered quite alike in some aspects! But our perceptions of them are quite different due to how they're presented and what we know about them. John is an older sickly man, his life being cut short by the fact he has terminal cancer. His wife miscarries and later on then becomes ex-wife and then also somewhere down the line he gets scammed by a fake cancer treatment....All in all? Dude's kinda got fucked over. But what I haven't mentioned yet in this brief is the fact that whilst most of this is going on, peepaw is designing elaborate death traps and testing people in them slash indoctrinating some into his fuckass ideology! He as a character get's quite a neutral response and or a 50/50 split? He's Jigsaw, the face of the franchise.... There is a decent amount to discuss in regards to him. However, when it all comes down to it it I wouldn’t say he’s favoured as much as other characters.

Moving to Jeff, he witnessed his own son get killed in a hit and run and the grief and injustice of that basically made him spiral into neglecting himself but also his family. He cannot move forward from the loss of Dylan and this is why during his test he is so slow to act- I think one thing to mention here too, is this is something John likely accounted for. Jeff’s test is designed for him and the challenge isn’t that of " OH CUT YOU ARM” it’s for him to overcome his grief and to choose whether to forgive or let those involved with Dylan’s passing die. It’s easy for us as viewers behind the screen to think that he could’ve done almost everything faster. But we’re not Jeff. It’s shown time and time again mentally he just cannot move on and the only reason he is making progress though the test is due to its nature, average therapy? Jeff just wouldn’t go because he refuses to confront HIMSELF in regards to his own grief and would rather wallow in fantasies of revenge.

Mark Hoffman? Obviously the case I’ll bring up with him is that of his sister's murder. Angelina is his only close relative, with no other mention of Mark’s family in the franchise really. So, when she is killed in a case of domestic violence and he also sees her dead body? Yeah, that’s certainly the kind of thing to fuck someone up mentally. Which is why Mark then developed a drinking problem to cope and started to display more erratic behaviour such as shooting a man three times who’d actually surrendered beforehand…. By the time Seth Baxter his sister's killer is released from prison via a technicality- Mark has no quarrels with taking his revenge via abducting him and placing him in a Jigsaw like trap. However, as we all know, this trap is by no means escapable and is only being used by Mark as a scapegoat to get away with murdering Seth. This act then kickstarts his life as an apprentice for John when he himself is abducted.

(I legit forgot this was in my drafts- Months later. I’ll post this now even if it’s not really complete…)

[cosmicpancakes]

Hi! So I saw your post about wanting to talk about Will Solace (me too queen, me too) so what are your headcanons? Or funny little tidbits about him and his friends? Love your blog!

OF COURSE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK!!! to hear that someone genuinely loves my blog is so surreal cause like??? You like my blog?? Where I literally just say what's on my mind and ramble???

(P.S. TO ANYONE SEEING THIS!! IF YOU WANT HEADCANONS FOR OTHER CHARACTERS JUST SHOOT ME AN ASK!!!! I WILL HAPPILY ANSWER THEM ALL :DD)

Okay without further ado, here they are!!!

My Will Solace headcanons! ☀️

He has curly hair! Think somewhere between 2c and 3a

Speaking about hair, his hair is naturally brown and he dyes it blonde

ANOTHER HAIR ONE but he has a very extensive hair care routine! You'd think he would have very damaged hair because of all the bleaching, but that shit is SOFT

Only uses feminine floral perfume cause it smells better (hes right. it does.)

Despite insisting on healthy eating, he survives off of random snacks and red bulls

Loves indie pop and jazz music but does listen to a lot a country as it reminds him of his mother

Hopeless romantic. He will cry to laufey.

90% of his closet is made up of incredibly cheesy dad joke t-shirts.

Wears lots and lots of bracelets! All very mismatched in terms of colour and texture, but it adds to the charm (or so he says)

His hair is just long enough to put in a very short ponytail when he works (but a few loose curls always slip out)

He sticks out his tongue when he's concentrating on something

Clarrisse practically adopted him as her honorary little brother and he went to her highschool graduation!! (she totally did not cry when she saw him. nope. not at all.)

everyone at camp owes him atleast 5 favours except lou ellen because she somehow never gets injured??? Cecil on the other hand, owes him about 13 favours.

Friday is the apollo cabin's game night, and he NEVER wins (kayla swears austin is cheating, but hes just really good at monopoly.)

the cabin is always spotless because he despises stable duty

(This one is canon but not talked about enough) when he said he's horrible at every apollo thing except healing, he was not exaggerating. an absolutely horrid singer and he would miss a target 3 metres away.

okay that was a lie because he can manipulate light.... to a certain extent. he's working on it he swears!!

One of those people that are incredibly insistant about wearing sunscreen even tho he doesn't need it himself

And now for some angsty ones because I know you all love them:

A very obvious one, but he has pretty bad PTSD.

I'm pretty sure this one is canon, but he saw Lee die in botl (i have had a oneshot idea about thia for months, but i literally never finish oneshots so theres no point in trying to write it ☹️)

A lot of people thought him and Lee were biological siblings because they looked so similar and also because they were super close

him and Micheal were also really close, but they were a lot more distant after Lee died and they never really got to reconnect

Post botl, the apollo cabin had about 17 kids. 3 survived the battle of manhattan.

has a really bad habit of overworking to distract himself

Way too many scars for a medic. (He won't admit where he got them from, or why most of them are on him arms.)

Okay, that's all for today!! I hope you enjoyed those headcanons :)

Once again saying this but if anyone reading this wants some headcanons for other characters please please leave me an ask 🙏 love you all okay bye bye

[assmaster-8000]

I need to know all your thoughts of cecile

i need to preface this spiel with thanking you for opening my can of worms. will this satiate my endless need for this freak? maaaybe not. but like gay sex, it's a temporary fix and by god will i take it.

so, this post will delve into multiple aspects of my thoughts on cécile. i'll have to section it because if not, you'd probably just have a post the equivalent of a werewolf barking at their reflection in a mirror. here they are;

i. visual design

ii. personality and traits (backstory) / character development + his romance arc

iii. comparison to other characters + what made him stand out to me

no read more will be added on this post because i'm forcing everyone to either scroll past a wall of text or indulge my insanity. is this analysis? my simple thoughts? who fucking knows, man. not me. i don't know anything ever. everything is speculation, because my man's ain't even in the demo yet. ask me this question again when the extended demo drops LMFAO

i. visual design

the most notable aspect to cécile is his metal jaw, facial scar, and black eye.

his metal jaw had me in a pickle. for the longest time, i thought it was a prosthetic. as in, he had his lower jaw removed - regardless of how and why - and it acted as a replacement. however, on the ravenstar tiktok account, they show a draft of cécile's sprite that caught my attention.

he doesn't have his metal jaw, nor his iconic scar or black eye. he does have his original lower jaw, though. maybe this is just a draft before they settled on his current design. maybe this is how he looked in the canon past. maybe! but on top of seyl (the director of lost in limbo) confirming that cécile still has his tongue, i believe he was always intended to have his lower jaw. so the prosthetic is out of the picture.

right now, i believe it's more like a retainer; teeth appears to literally be growing out of his cheek, and i don't think it's the teeth in his mouth jutting out. i can't tell what exactly is the cause of all this, too. my favourite medical student (bean ily muah) said his facial scar appears to have been caused by a controlled flame, and shrapnel to the face based on the scarring around his lip. so he could have suffered an act of assault (physical? magical?), an accident, or maybe he's afflicted with a curse that developed teeth on his skin + his red eyes. could he be turning into a monster as time passes?

i also find it incredibly tragic that his eyes used to be brown before The Incident (air quotes). there's always something inherently tragic about the mundane being unattainable - to think that of all things in the world you are forbidden from, you are barred from the sweet innocence of adam and eve, rather than the glorious garden. brown eyes are the most common eye colour here on earth; imagine how cécile feels, the interloper with a face unmarred. a face that was once his. his dislike towards mc runs deeper than his dislike for everyone specifically because they're a harbinger of danger to the master he protects, and they could just be the past he's been hiding like a wound underneath his clothes.

the gaze of his bloodthirsty eyes... is it really? as in, always bloodthirsty? or is it so because it's your blood he needs on his hands?

aside from the practicalities of his metal jaw, i just think it's super... metal. (i wink at a camera offset and i proceed to get shot a million times. where were these snipers at the trump speech smh)

cough... anyways. i think it's bias, but one of my own oc's has a metal jaw prosthetic because they lost theirs in a fight long ago, so you can imagine i morphed into the spiderman pointing at spiderman² meme when i saw him. it's just automatically intriguing when the character's face is unapologetically damaged, unapologetically different. cécile and lázaro attracted my attention instantly because of how unique they look, and i appreciate that cécile's face does all the talking of his character while his attire is rather subdued. (even that itself speaks for him tbh)

as for my personal feelings, i appreciate a man with a long/wide nose. hit tweet, let doja cat smite me down herself.

now, as for his sprite's body language. i was rather taken aback at the fact that cécile has a less imposing stance than envy - yes, there's a defensive undertone to the way he holds his hands in front of him, but it's not to close him off from the world the way envy's crossed arms communicate that. in fact, cécile appears to be comforting himself. most people who hold/rub their own hand tend to do so because they're revolving a subtle conflict within themself. it doesn't help that the hand being held is the one that appears to have suffered the brunt of whatever he endured, based on the scars around his wrist. he could be holding it because it's instinct - to protect the side of him that was hurt the most. cécile is a weapon of war and a shield to his very core. he hurts others, and i don't think it'd be a stretch to say he hurts himself (why wouldn't he? the man that stares back in the mirror is so very wretched and it wouldn't be wrong to want to tear it all away.) cécile protects others (literally only gael) from the world, and cécile protects himself from the world and the additional enemy of himself.

he is a walking wound of all that has happened to him, and he knows acutely where the gash continues to weep.

yet, his cocked head also denotes a level of serenity that not even envy has. atleast, that's what it reads to me. it could also be an expression of interest in his surroundings, and hence, he's actually more on guard than envy. he doesn't keep his arms crossed, and instead in a stand still, because he constantly needs to be ready to pounce. maybe!

back to his attire. i adore the idea that gael actually picked it out for him. cécile is, technically, a representative of gael, so it makes sense his attire needs to hint at that, with the purple and all. but again, i would like to think of gael comparing outfit after outfit on cécile, engaging his opinion on which he thinks is best - and all cécile offers is, "whatever you deem is best, i will accept." (never ask this hoe where he wants to eat /j). one of the few things gael can do for a man like cécile is offering him a part of him to carry around.

also, for anyone who missed it - cécile has freckles ;)

ii. personality and traits (backstory) / character development + his romance arc

cécile is stated to be an istj, and seyl confirmed he's likely to be a scorpio sun. if so, loyalty is legitimately built into this man. a man if the fates wept tears of their eternal duty onto the spool when they wove his life into existence.

his reliance on the past + his traditions is gonna be like a pair of crutches to a man with both legs lobbed off. routine is the prison that keeps him going - break it, and you break him. after all, experience is all he has to go off of. as much as he may try not to linger on his past - that's exactly what he does. his memories are like ghosts in the corner of his bedroom. every good and bad experience, and by god is there a plethora of the latter, stands out like bruises he can't stop pressing down on. that's why i believe it's especially harder for you to gain cécile's worship; gael is all the good he's known, and you're just a strange human. why would he love you, a fickle being that can barely stop themself from being killed by him, when he could have an immortal sovereign? why, indeed. and it's gonna be especially hard for a man like cécile to grow accustomed to a love that's soft, because he's known violence all his life. he was born of it, made of it, and will be undone by it. that's all he can offer you, so he will expect the same from you the day he accepts you.

also, like... cécile literally fits the bill of scorpio's holding life long grudges. aside from protection, his primary desire is vengeance. and it's not something you can dissuade him from. why would you? you loved cécile because he's a walking bundle of rage and despair. you love him because his heart bleeds on you like an open wound. you will kiss the blood off his lips after the carnage - yours? his? someone else's? who cares, it's ours - and he will only sigh on yours, a thank you for being the best constant in his life of spite.

i can also see where cécile's need for domination comes from, with that extraverted thinking (Te). he may be a bodyguard in subservience to a god, but even they must know when and where to call the shots. it's very clear that control was robbed from him repeatedly ("[...] those who snatched his soul away from him—"), so it comes as another instinctual need to maintain control in every situation. and if he must trap it in the iron-fisted palm, so be it. that's exactly why cécile, like envy, benefits from an mc who knows how to push past sharp commands and loud warnings to chase after him. he relies on people shrinking away from him when he snaps to establish a clear line of boundaries. ultimately, it is by obeying caution that you'll never romance him, because you're playing into what he wants - and what he wants is you away from him. he needs an equally dominant person in a way that has them constantly battling for ultimate dominance, or maybe someone who is more dominant, but not in a way that completely imposes on him. in a way that shows him why exactly you can be his new master, y'know? in this life, everything is chains and prisons to cécile. it's just a matter of picking the most luxurious one. if you're shameless about what you can offer him, he might just take you up on it.

i think it's pretty obvious that cécile has volatile emotions hidden underneath (aries moon maybe???). he buries his softer sentiments deep below, where they lie, they run rampant. i'm a little unsure as to how this'll manifest, but cécile obviously can be soft and sentimental when he wants to, especially or only when the mc isn't looking. he traces their face in the dead of night - he alleviates their burdens behind their back - his favourite sex position is one where they can't see his face, but he can service them just fine. he can be vulnerable, but he doesn't want you to see him when he chooses to be once in a blue moon, lest you get the impression that there is a secret goodness to this violence. there isn't. he's not like envy - standoffish and cruel on the outside, soft and pliable underneath. no, peel away layer and layer of rage and you'll find more rage. crack away at that and you'll find a hollow heart. he's doing it because every human, no matter how depraved, is capable of SOME tender intimacy.

also, man. i think switching his loyalties is gonna be the equivalent of ripping all his skin off. like, yes. he loves you. the need to worship is strong, but it is unbidden for a reason. it is essentially betraying gael, isn't it? loving someone else? a man like cécile has a lot of 'love' in his heart, and all that love can only be directed at one person.

now... extraverted intuition? coupled with his scorpio sun? i imagine it feeds into the possession and obsession. it's less about worrying that you might look at others - it's about knowing that everyone has their eyes on you. it's an irrefutable fact, that there's a bounty like a guillotine on your neck. and he promised to protect you. he did, he promised. and he will, no matter what it demands of him, because you're the one thing that makes it all worthwhile and he'll be damned if the world takes more from him.

i don't know if i can sum his personality up, and i'm not interested to. he's an enigma, and i prefer complexity. as for his character development? i don't know. i really don't know. would it be bad to say? that i don't want him to get 'better'?

the appeal of cécile is that he can't offer you a 'normal' love that even a god, for all they're entrenched in, can offer you. his love is always bloodied. his love is always cruel. his love is all-consuming, like a punch in the mouth.

i think the one thing i wanna see, or predict for him to have, is to learn that there is someone who will do more than passively accept him. there is someone who actively desires him - needs him, even, in all his depravity. i want him to realise that he's not the only one who loves like he's the forest fire, and they're the forest or the witness. fire meets fire. violence for violence, like beasts.

maybe i want to see him become more open to someone calling the shots for him? and know that he can trust them, that they won't use him like everyone else has. honestly, it's difficult to not 'use' him. he's a lover, a weapon. the only difference is the affection in your grip when you swing his blade down to take another head. i want romancing him to come slow yet fast, harsh and cruel and intimate. i don't want the devs to feel like they need to water his morality or cruelty down, because like... isn't that his whole appeal. he's a killer and a sinner and that's why you love him. so on that note,

iii. comparison to other characters + what made him stand out to me

i originally was not interested in lost in limbo, because i tend to prefer darker horror. that changed when i saw lázaro, because the knife scene made me believe they were a FREAK freak. turns out they're pretty chill; and that's simply not my cup of tea, so my interest waned even more.

until i saw cécile.

my favourite romance trope of all time is obsession, but it's something i abstained from for so long because it's ALWAYS one-sided. with cécile, there's the strong potential that you're mutually obsessive, because let's face it. you won't be able to get anywhere with cécile without matching his freak. AND I MATCH HIS FREAKY I LOVE HIS NASTY!!! I LOVE UNAPOLOGETICALLY VIOLENT CHARACTERS!!! I LOVE CHARACTERS WHO UNAPOLOGETICALLY KILL AND MAIM AND DESTROY!!!! FUCK!!!!

i am not someone who is made to enjoy the tender mundanity of love. i want to be loved like a body hits the pavement below and that is exactly what cécile is.

i think the biggest difference is that cécile's whole romance with mc, aside from his loyalty to gael, relies on the dilemma of knowing he's just a man. the main cast are gods, they can afford to put up a better fight against whatever is ailing the two of you.

but cécile? he has almost nothing. he's just a dog, after all. he'll fight tooth and claw just to keep mc because there is quite literally nothing else he can do in the face of it all. and i love that it would make his route a lot more desperate. in life, we will all suffer so very beautifully. he might as well be your suffering, in name and heart. then, is he truly yours. then, are you truly his.

also, i adore the fact that cécile is the only openly hostile love interest to mc! envy has that ease to growing flustered that endears him even in the face of his... lack of manners. but cécile's only official existing line of dialogue is warning you to stay out of his way lest he gives you a quick death. STAY AWAY is literally printed in big, bold, black letters on his forehead, and i don't doubt he isn't afraid to be the one to kill mc.

AND I LIKE THAT OK!!! GIVE ME A CHALLENGE!!!

i think that is... the brunt of my thoughts, off the top of my head. feel free to ask me any more questions and i will try to go in depth but for now... we rot. @ravenstargames this is all your fault cécile is chasing me around in his basement AND I CAN'T GET OUT

[simplegenius042]

Music Monday

Tagging @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat @adelaidedrubman @strangefable @strafethesesinners @shallow-gravy @cassietrn @chazz-anova @josephslittledeputy @josephseedismyfather @bitchofedensgate @nightbloodbix @afarcryfrommymain @inafieldofdaisies @carlosoliveiraa @skoll-sun-eater @henbased @trashcatsnark @corvosattano @wrathfulrook @g0dspeeed @minilev @softtidesworld @deputyash @dephellseed @deputy-morgan-malone @snake-in-the-garden @derelictheretic @ladyoriza @florbelles @fourlittleseedlings @la-grosse-patate @megraen @onehornedbeast @voidika @titiagls @redreart @starsandskies @thewanderer-000 and @vampireninjabunnies-blog

Three songs for three series, The UnTitledverse, Far Cry The Silver Chronicles and Life, Despair & Monsters, underneath the snippet below:

During some time in The Omniscience Rule saga, Joaquin Cobalt finds himself at the mercy of Archibald Thanatos, the current Head of House Thanatos, of which the patriarch has a deal for the boy; face his untimely death or become his Count because the heirs of House Thanatos are shortly staffed. The irony here is that Joaquin is on the receiving end of being convinced to do or join something, with the exact same song he used no less.

"Right here, right now I put the offer out I don't wanna chase you down I know you see it You run with me and I can cut you free Out of the drudgery and walls you keep in So trade your typical for something colorful And if it's crazy, live a little crazy You can play it sensible, a king of conventional Or you can risk it all and see

Don't you wanna get away From the same old part you gotta play 'Cause I got what you need So come with me and take the ride It'll take you to the other side 'Cause you can do like you do Or you can do me Stay in the cage, or you'll finally take the key Oh, damn! Suddenly you're free to fly It'll take you to the other side."

"Okay, my friend, you want to cut me in Well I hate to tell you, but it just won't happen So thanks, but no I think I'm good to go 'Cause I quite enjoy the life you say I'm trapped in Now I admire you, and that whole show you do You're onto something, really it's something."

...

"So go and do like you do I'm good to do like me Ain't in a cage, so I don't need to take the key Oh damn! Can't you see I'm doing fine I don't need to see the other side."

I was listening to Camila Cabello's "Shameless" when I wrote the fight between Silva and her Bliss hallucination of a former opponent from the Apostles, Zhan Tiri, that will occur in Silva's Hope (it's not really her old foe, merely a manifestation an overexposure of untamed Bliss is projecting through Silva's own psyche/trauma), which I showed in this snippet post here.

"Don't speak, no, don't try It's been a secret for the longest time Don't run, huh, no don't hide Been running from it for the longest time

So many mornings, I woke up confused In my dreams, I do anything I want to you My emotions are naked, they're taking me out of my mind

Right now, I'm shameless Screaming my lungs out for ya Not afraid to face it I need you more than I want to Need you more than I want to Show me your shameless Write it on my neck, why don't ya? And I won't erase it I need you more than I want to Need you more than I want to

No, uh, uh, don't wanna do this now No, uh, uh, don't wanna do this now No, uh, uh, don't wanna do this now No, uh, uh, don't wanna do this now."

And here's a song for The Thorned Crown Of Iron Thrones, focusing on Corvus Targaryen's relationship with his sister, Rhaenyra, their friend Alicent Hightower, his uncle who he despises, his cousin Caecilius "Cecil" Royce, as well as the rest of his family and friends (Viserys, Laenor, Laena, Rhaenyra and Alicent's children, and Otto when the older man is tolerable), as he tries to make sense of the tragedy in the making while out on a ride on his dragon Stormreign (and later Maleficent), as well as resist against the Court King squats rent free in his head.

"If you're not the one for me Then how come I can bring you to your knees? If you're not the one for me Why do I hate the idea of being free?

And if I'm not the one for you You've got to stop holding me the way you do Oh honey, if I'm not the one for you Why have we been through what we have been through?

It's so cold out here In your wilderness I want you to be my keeper But not if you are so reckless

If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently Don't pretend that you don't want me Our love ain't water under the bridge If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently Don't pretend that you don't want me Our love ain't water under the bridge Whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh-whoa, oh-oh Say that our love ain't water under the bridge

What are you waiting for? You never seem to make it through the door And who are you hiding from? It ain't no life to live, like you're on the run Have I ever asked for much? The only thing that I want is your love

If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently Don't pretend that you don't want me Our love ain't water under the bridge If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently Don't pretend that you don't want me Our love ain't water under the bridge Whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh-whoa, oh-oh Say that our love ain't water under the bridge."

[illusivesoul]

THINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY FELLOW WRITERS

Was tagged by @timesthatneverwere Thank you :)

I'll tag @mtreebeardiles @starlightwrites @mxanigel @anneapocalypse and @marythegizka . Only if you feel like doing this, of course.

I'll post the questions here and my answers under the cut.

Last book I read:

Greatest literary inspiration: 

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write:

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: 

You can recognize my writing by: 

My most controversial take (current fandom):

Top three favourite tropes: 

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): 

Share a random frustration:

.

Last book I read: Sapiens: From Animals to Gods by Yuval Harari. A really good and interesting book about the evolution of humanity and religion, societal developments, where humanity may be in the future, etc.

Greatest literary inspiration: Not sure I have any, to be honest.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write: I'd love to read a fic that centers around big events in DA history like the fall of the elvhen empire after Solas brings up the Veil, the fall of Arlathan, the Exalted Marches, etc.

For ME, I'd like to read fics set in what the me2 characters were doing before the events of the game. Garrus in Omega, Samara searching for Morinth, Zaeed looking for Vido, etc

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: I mean, I mostly write rarepairs, so that doesn't get much attention already. I'm currently writing about Leliana's mom, who I hc was a Carta dwarf that through the twists of fate ended up working for Lady Cecile.

I love writing about obscure characters and giving depth to characters who have 2 lines of dialogue in the games lol.

You can recognize my writing by: If you find a ME or DA rare rarepair on ao3, there's a good chance that it was written by me lol

I always open fics with either descriptions of scenery ("It was a busy day at the Grand Cathedral") or direct dialogue (“Shouldn’t be much longer now, Natia”). And my fics very rarely go over 2k words.

I think this is a common thing for writers, but I've always felt that most of my smut fics are quite similar to each other.

My most controversial take (current fandom): I have a lot lol. I'll give 2 for Mass Effect and 2 for Dragon Age.

As much as I enjoy them, I don't like how most of the squadmates don't ever stand up to Shepard and are pretty much just yes men and women who go along with everything Shepard does (it's also why Ash and Kaidan are among my favs)

I think curing the Genophage in me3 is a mistake (I prefer Mordin surviving and going to work on the Crucible and then continue working on a cure to be used later when the galaxy is more stable, as his ending slides show)

For Dragon Age, Loghain was right in retreating from Ostagar cause the battle was unwinnable, and (not sure if this qualifies as a controversial take) Vivienne is the best Divine imo.

Top three favourite tropes: Not sure if these are tropes per se, but I enjoy Fighting before kissing, reuniting after being separated for years,

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): 6.

Share a random frustration: My lack of a proper schedule to write. I always try to get a some words into wips each days, but sometimes I spent days without writing followed by a sudden burst of activity lol.

[cecil---markowitz]

Heyo! Cecil Markowitz here! Remaking the stupid intro post cause I accidentally deleted the damn thing😐

My mutuals,friends, people I care for and love and people I know

(AND HEY! YOU SHOULD TOTALLY CHECK OUT THEIR BLOGS!!)

@sweetxloverxx my girlfriend, Haven 💞💕 really sweet girl, I love her so much

@arejbehllaj annoying sister but we chill

@the-better-stoll-brother connor!! the best big brother! <3333333

@miranda-gardiner my lovely mother figure! ❤

@ellis--wakefield the guy keeps bickering with me but ehhh, he's cool ig

@lou-ellen--blackstone Lou is my bestie for the restie! My partner in crime and my ride or die! <3

@eazojbehllaj better than the other one definitely

@the-replacement-prankster kinda annoying but she's my half-sister and she ain't that bad, she's quite lovely actually <3

@ellis-aka-the-bomb-dot-com other ellis, also keeps bickering me, the two are probably out for me, idk, he is kinda cool too

@katie-kat-kitkat katie!! no offense but you're bossy

@malcolm-pace-is-tired he's a lil wacko probably but he's cool yk/j (no offense please 🙏)

@hearts-4-valentina a sweet girl! she's a good friend of mine

@the-better-castellan amazing big sibling too!! 💞

@that-disabled-hep-kid Jake!! currently playing match maker with mitchell ig

@the-better-pair--aka-the-victors annoying set of twins who are just out for me I swear—

pfp is from @/ask-will-solace-stuff

(OOC: Also, I'm sorry for bothering these ppl with the tags <3333)

Hey! Also, I'm currently having an ask game going on!

[multiplicity-positivity]

TW self harm discussion

.

Hey, I'm the host of a newly discovered system. I started a journal for communication between headmates and asked what I could do better for them as their host and pretty much everyone told me to stop self harming, the caretaker said that our little thinks I'm a witch for self-harming, and I don't know, it just, really hurt to read?

But I'm not sure how to stop self-harming, I think it's nearing an addiction for me. It hurts emotionally and physically whenever I self harm now because I know that I'm hurting the system and causing discourse within us, but I don't know how to stop.

Hi! This is really tough - we’re so sorry y’all are going through something like this! Self harm can be quite serious, but hurting yourself does not make you a witch, evil, or a bad person! It does, however, make you a person who is suffering and in need of help. We have some advice that may help y’all that we can share!

(Note: most of our advice actually comes from a workbook our system is currently completing. It’s the DBT Skills workbook, and you can get it on Amazon for like $20USD! Link to Amazon)

First, please trust that your system does want what’s best for you when they encourage you to stop self-harming. Refraining from hurting yourself will benefit the whole system, which includes you! It may be difficult to try and change these habits, but we promise it’s possible. It will take some diligence and effort on your part, but we believe in you!

When you have an urge to self harm, here are some things you can do instead:

1) Draw on yourself. Use a red or black pen/marker that will leave heavy marks. Draw on the places you would normally hurt yourself. Leave the marks there for the rest of the day.

2) Journal. Write out how you feel, why you want to hurt yourself, what you would do, and what you are choosing to do instead that is less harmful. Remind yourself why you want to change, and how you plan on achieving that change.

3) If you are feeling overwhelmed, try RESTing. REST means Relax, Evaluate, Set an intention, and Take action. To keep this post from getting too long, we’ve made a companion post explaining REST, which you can check out here.

4) Find a less destructive way to hurt yourself. Perhaps give yourself a quick pinch, flick your arm, hold a piece of ice, or snap a rubber band against your skin. Ultimately, it will be good to move away even from these! But when just starting out trying to mitigate self harm, finding ways that can bring that pain response without as much damage is a good thing!

5) Talk to someone. You don’t have to suffer alone! We’d always recommend therapy, but we understand not everyone has affordable access to a good therapist. Still, you can vent your frustrations to a trusted friend or loved one, and seek reassurance from those who care about you. Ask someone close to you if it would be okay for you to reach out to them when you want to self harm to try and talk to them instead. If they agree, make good on this. When you want to self harm, get in touch with your loved one first before deciding to hurt yourself.

We hope these things can help set you on a path towards recovery! Remember that progress is usually not linear - it’s okay to mess up, to backslide, regress, or make mistakes! What matters most is that you’re continuing to try and change, even when it’s hard, even after you’ve made the wrong choice. It is never too late to start practicing self care and showing yourself (and your system) compassion!

Good luck with everything! We’re wishing you hope, healing, and the very best. Thanks for reaching out!

🌸 Margo and 🖋 Cecil

[zooterscooter]

thank you for asking @expensive-muscle i will be doing that for sure

i had this sitting in my drafts for a while so here we go hehe. it'll be quite a bit so i do apologize in advance

original post with the tags

the guy with the mask will be first :) his name is mars (legally his name is micah, but he doesn't go by it anymore, not a deadname or anything he just doesn't like it. not terribly important but yknow) he's part of a group of four... outlaws... i guess ? the group consists of him, his sister, the other girl in the drawing (who's also the one in the fifth drawing) and one other guy (when you look a bit closer on the 8th drawing, he's the one in the speech bubble they're talking about. their names are cecil, finch and karman, in order of being mentioned

he was unfortunately caught in a warehouse fire a few years back (story wise) and was pretty badly scarred bc of it. he wears the mask so he doesn't have to walk around with his scarred face and blind eye showing. he really only wears it out in public and around strangers because it is quite uncomfortable

i'm still working on a group name for the four of them, and nothings really sticking. but since we're on the topic of them i'll talk about finch a bit :)

she's a hitman, late 20s. she's been employed by a bunch of higher power people in the city where she lives, so she's kinda sorta untouchable by law. she's been taken in a few times but is always bailed out by someone somehow. money can buy anything i suppose

the other two mentioned, karman and cecil, are kind of a team... as someone who has no clue how sports betting works (yet) i don't really know how to explain, but cecil is like... this worlds equivalent of a nascar driver kinda ? kinda not really. anyways. betting is legal in this city, but for karman and cecil it's like an inside job, if that makes any sense at all. i haven't thought about this group as a whole much if i'm being honest, but it'll come in time i hope

moving on !!

onto the "mf in the beanie" :3 her name is lilith and she's a screenwriter. her dad kinda sorta skipped town when she was younger, but she is super close with her mom, and they're so awesome. her mom gets a bit sick at one point, spending a lot of time at various hospitals, but she ultimately turns out fine

lilith wanted to peruse comedy as a career at one point, but she didn't really get as into it as she thought she would, so she just sticks to the behind the scenes by writing :)

the "homosexual friendship" is about her now girlfriend, who was an alchemist at one point a few years ago but i've changed her career a bit and don't know the exact word to describe it 😭 her name is ophelia, very smart, very pretty, younger sister.

i'm going to be honest with you, dear readers. lilith was a danganronpa self insert at one point. she comes from a simpler time. her and her girlfriend, tho said gf wasn't a self insert, just a dangan oc. not anymore tho....

the more i rack my brain for info the more i realize i just. don't have the descriptors for anything that they do. questions welcome and encouraged

now onto the rest of the people in the drawings, i'll attempt keep them short and simple hehe

1st drawing- ophelia/her sisters moms, vada medea (left) and sage (right) both are biological. i took inspo from how the "making babies from bone marrow" stuff that's kinda sorta happening in the science scene. the timeline for all this takes place about a hundred years from now, so i think they'd be figuring out how to do it with little complication. i am not a scientist myself, so i have plenty research to do to get the specifics down

2nd drawing- ophelia's sister, rue, and some 180 year old freak scientist. the freak is the one in the sewer. he had a grand time fucking up a bunch of people and giving them what appear to be lizard scales, and then was told to get the hell out of the city lest he causes more chaos. unfortunately the scales get passed down, but they really have no impact on the lives of the people who have them. rue is nurse who lowkey gets corrupted by the freak (his name is emrys) after her girlfriend passes from a long battle with various medical complications. she takes her grief to the wrong person and starts to lose her mind.

3rd drawing- their names are kaleo (left) and Non (right) not quite sure what their deal is exactly if i'm being honest. kaleo is a boxer, and Non just... exists really. he's alive to be pals with kaleo so far 😭 he's one of the people who had the scales passed down to him, which is silly and fun. kaleo is related to the person in the 6th drawing, which i will get to

4th drawing- zephyr (left) and kairos (right). detective and cop due respectively. sometimes they're tasked with keeping up with finch and her little gang of criminals but they can't really do much.

5th drawing- that's finch. love her

6th drawing- her name is desdemona and she's a spirit freak. she's been alive for hundreds of years or maybe she was just willed into being alive yesterday. she's got a bunch of weird spiritual abilities, like time travel (sounds cheesy) and communicating with the dead. she also eats people sometimes but that's a minor thing don't worry about it. she's the "wrong person" rue went to after her girlfriend died... oopsie. kaleos relative somehow also. the body on the floor is her ""human disguise"" because she can't really walk around town with a skull on her head. said skull isn't hers btw

7th drawing- holt (welding the sandwich) and caspien (watching him weld) they're just a little duo of gays tbh. it would take a while for me to explain it all so lmk if anyone wants to hear about it. holt is a mechanic, early 20s, and caspien is legally dead but he's fine. has wicked nightmares a lot but other than that he's fine. caspien and zephyr are brothers.

8th drawing- finch and mars :)

9th drawing- lilith (explained above) and her pal alaric. alaric is the guy that knows everyone and everything about the city they're in. somehow related to emrys (sewer freak) but neither of them are exactly sure how. emrys shouldn't even be alive but here he is, corrupting the youth

10th drawing- eve and varden :) (varden is @yaffles-world 's oc, shoutout to you) eve is sage's sister, making him ophelia and rues uncle. one of the only guys in the family which is lowkey funny bc he's a trans guy. someone had to attempt to balance the scales i guess. varden is his secret partner he hid from everyone for like 15 years because he was scared of being made fun of for some reason. i dunno. he's my main projection oc and even i don't get it. his full legal first name is evening btw. he's named this because i was like "hey wouldn't this be funny ?" and then it stuck. eve is an astrophysicist (which is why his name is funny to me) and varden is a mechanic :) lots of mechanics in the city

and with that im gonna cut it off or else i'd just keep yapping on in a single post about everything. thanks for taking the time to read this all if you did, please PLEASE ask questions i obviously love talking. asks are encouraged

[rindomness]

what do you like about Carlos? (jackdaw) ( grdhgfyg my questions are basic because I do not know much about wtnv but don’t mind being spoilt)

FAIR WARNING: this is, like, really long? it is five pages long and that's on 11pt Arial in google docs, where I had to copy and paste it so I could fix paragraph spacing so it would post. Also, I like, legit cried while writing this? So there is that also. like thank you for the blorbo talking enabling but also i do not know if you fully grasp what youve unleashed. idk if i fully know what youve unleashed

Because what don't I like about Carlos? He is my chief blorbo. He is the Guy I think the most about. I'm a little bit beyond just blorbo thoughts about him.

Okay let's break this down a little bit 'cause there's, to put it simply, a lot. Like, fifteen thousand words and counting of fic a lot? Also, I'm gonna be getting into, like, super recent stuff and also It Devours! here so just heads up on that

So. Carlos. Carlos shakes up the entire status quo, helps put the world back together, and becomes a critical element of Night Vale. That's on a narrative level. I'm gonna start with that because that's easier for me to talk about and also won't get me called out quite as quickly!

Carlos is a driving force in the narrative, in the world. Carlos shows up in town at the very start of the podcast, says he is here to study the most scientifically fascinating place in the U.S., and proceeds to uproot every single bit of Night Vale's centuries-long status quo. Carlos shows up and turns the entire universe on its head, at least in Night Vale. If I'm going to talk about how powerful, exactly, Carlos's impact is, I need to talk about Cecil. Of course I have to talk about Cecil.

Cecil announces, on live radio, that he fell in love with Carlos immediately. Cecil instantly attaches his attention to Carlos. I talked about this a little bit more in the Night Vale essay (over here) but Cecil is vital for the continued functioning of Night Vale. In mundane terms, Cecil on the radio serves as a giver of instructions and updates and ways to stay safe in this unbelievably dangerous town. In a less mundane sense, he's the Voice of Night Vale, which is an actual title, and sort of... represents his place as the center of Night Vale's community (which contains that more mundane element) and also as the center of this weird little pocket universe Night Vale is stuck in for the first five years at least. Because Huntokar loves Night Vale and Huntokar loves Cecil and Huntokar is a god and a god's love can be a dangerous thing.

But Cecil falls in love with Carlos. Carlos, who is a scientist, who deals in observation and acknowledgement and recording information and learning from it all. Things which Night Vale, a town with a very tenuous grip on its own reality, is innately allergic to. Night Vale is built upon the necessity of ignorance and denial for survival and continued existence. It depends on Cecil, the Voice of Night Vale, not changing, not growing, not looking, not for real. And he falls in love with a scientist, and he changes.

Narratively, it's absolutely insane how much power Carlos holds. Given the rules of the universe, Carlos is incredibly powerful. In Night Vale, perception is reality and acknowledgement becomes a threat to the powers that be. If it were anyone except Carlos, there is absolutely no way that any of the enforcement entities in town would let him get away with even a little bit of what he's able to. But Cecil loves him. I fully ascribe to the idea that Carlos's miraculous rescue and survival in One Year Later is because of Cecil, and Cecil refusing to accept that Carlos was dead. Cecil is powerful. And he's been protecting Carlos, in ways he might not even realize. Which means that Carlos is free to acknowledge Night Vale's weirdness, and because perception is reality in Night Vale, it changes for him.

I'll get back to this more later, but you see this a lot with the University of What It Is. If anything, that's what the UOWII arc is about. It's been a thesis since at least Who's A Good Boy? and Cecil wandering through the ruins of Night Vale, announcing that he must bear witness, even though he is sure his mic is not broadcasting to anyone. Perception is reality and acknowledgement is what is keeping Night Vale together post-Matryoshka and what kept it from toppling into the abyss to begin with. Carlos becomes unbelievably powerful in this way, in this understanding of the power of observation and recording. (I promise we will get back to the UOWII but I want to spend actual time on that and I have other stuff I wanna talk about first.)

Carlos does not seem to realize this, though, not for a while. I personally don't think that it really clicks for Carlos entirely what perception is reality means in the case of Night Vale until somewhere around Toast. I do not think it really clicks for Carlos how important he has become here, how much of an impact he has had, until reality itself starts to fall apart. The key of Carlos, and Carlos's impact, and what makes this Night Vale the True Night Vale as opposed to any of the other Night Vales we learn about, is the presence of Carlos. Every Night Vale has a Cecil, because the existence of Night Vale hinges on the existence of Cecil. There is only one Carlos, though.

Carlos only exists in this one reality. Carlos only exists in this one version of Night Vale. And we see how much that has changed things! We see it in The Missing Sky, when we hear the miniature city's Cecil and how sad he is. This Cecil is despondent, and cannot see any reason to keep going. He is deep, deep in a terrible dissociative depression, reporting on a pointless war and a missing sky and a god he believes has abandoned them. We see it in Cal, with the version of Cecil who never met Carlos, either, and Cal himself. The simple, stated question of "do you have a girlfriend yet?" sets all the scene we need for Cal. This Cecil does not have a Carlos, and he does not even have the safety in the knowledge that Night Vale is a safe place for him to announce, loudly, to the whole world, that he loves another man. And it's... depressing.

The podcast is from Cecil's point of view, so we get most of this information from listening to Cecil talk. We don't really see Carlos's perspective often, if ever, if not filtered through the way he interacts with Cecil. For that, I take us now to It Devours! because oh boy. It is very clear that Carlos loves Cecil very very deeply. If only from what we get in voicemails and phone calls. I haven't listened to it, but my understanding is that he's very clear about his love for Cecil in Condos, too. And we get it from his actions in Taking Off/Review and the way he picks up everything he's been doing for a year in the desert otherworld to go back to Night Vale and to Cecil because he loves Cecil and wants that to be his home.

Except, it wasn't a year. It was ten. And this information is revealed right alongside Carlos cares about the people he loves more than anything and the book-long element of Carlos trying, despite the wishes of City Council, to investigate the desert otherworld. I have written so much about the desert otherworld, and I will write more, because holy shit. Holy shit. I'm not going to tell you what it is because it made me almost scream for real in the very early hours of the morning when I heard it, but the information that is revealed in the very end of It Devours! is heartbreaking. Carlos cares about the people he loves more than anything, and it brings him right to the brink of destruction, because of how much he cares about Cecil and this new family he has found through Cecil. And throughout It Devours! you get such a clear idea of just how much Carlos loves Cecil, how much knowing Cecil has changed Carlos right back.

And, like, the autistic coding. It is blatant. It is obvious. It is much harder to overlook it than to notice it. It is intentional. We're getting to the part here where I might be calling myself out a little bit but like. The way that it weaves into how he expresses his love for Cecil and for Night Vale. It's the way that it is channeled through his science, and how his science helps him make sense of the world. I love him, and I love how he is written in such a way that his science has become the lens through which he navigates the world and this step-by-step justification of his existence. The way that this plays into the ongoing belongingness element of his arc throughout the podcast. 

He starts as an outsider, and he stays an outsider, and just as he's starting to think he might not be an outsider, well. The desert otherworld happens. And I've definitely worked through a lot of these thoughts already but that's what it comes down to! I cannot help but read his belongingness arc as innately tied into how he is written as autistic because that's just what it's like to grow up autistic! You don't belong anywhere, or at least that's what you're told. If you're a lucky one, that message isn't stated explicitly, but it's there. Of course he's cautious with his assertion he belongs in Night Vale! It would be a wonder if he wasn't!

So he does not know how important he is until he is forced to see it and then as soon as he is forced to see it it becomes his whole world. And every time I think about how there is only one Carlos across every single Night Vale in existence (or tentative non-existence), I have to think about how he believed he should not return to Night Vale because the door had shut for him, and how this led to spending a full ten years in a lonely and empty desert otherworld while Cecil fell apart back in Night Vale. I think about Cecil's sobbed I am still holding the trophy in One Year Later, and I think about Carlos grounds me in Delta and I think about how, in The Promise of Time, his joy at the end was for himself and Carlos, and I think about his panicked I have to call Carlos as soon as the warrant goes out in The Heist Pt. 3. And because of that... Night Vale attaches its reality to Carlos, too.

Night Vale cannot exist as it is now without both of them. There is only one version of Carlos across every single version of Night Vale. Carlos makes Night Vale what it becomes, because he witnesses. He witnesses and he records it all and he investigates and he understands. Besides Cecil, I do not think there is a single person in town other than Carlos who truly understands Night Vale. He understands it through scientific observation and archival and experimentation. Carlos pokes the boundaries to see how they'll react to him but he never crosses them, never breaks them. He does not feel the need to explain why Night Vale is the way it is now, because it simply is. He is observing the laws of this town (both legal and physical) and he respects them and nods as he passes.

Which brings us back to the University of What It Is. I said we'd come back to this, didn't I? I don't know how much I can say that doesn't lead to speculative conclusions here, because the UOWII arc isn't finished at the time of writing, but there are some things that have been laid out clearly. Janet Lubelle does not stop for anything or anyone. Janet Lubelle is what the UOWII considers to be the height of a successful scientist. Carlos used to also be considered a successful scientist, and then he came to Night Vale, and he lost whatever quality it was that the UOWII considered a qualifier of success.

Janet Lubelle does not respect the rules of Night Vale. It's very, very easy to see Dr. Lubelle as a foil for Carlos, especially since they came from the same institution. Only, Dr. Lubelle tramples over those boundaries, those unspoken (and, arguably, spoken) rules that make Night Vale what it is. She is here for an explanation for everything and she will not stop until all the mystery, all the wonder, is gone. And she calls it science. 

And if you go back far enough, Carlos talked like this too! He was looking for an explanation to Night Vale's temporal weirdness, an explanation for its weird seismic activity, an explanation for the house that does not exist. But he adapted, and he learned, and he observed, and he took his time and did not simply enforce his way of things onto the world without its permission.

Carlos feels like a love letter to science and the scientific way of observing the world and falling further in love with it through that scientific inquiry. I'm going to get a little, uh, sappy and personal here, so fair warning, but I likely have that reading because that's been how I've lived my whole life. I was talking to someone even just today about how, when I was little, my dad would take us out onto the back patio and we would set things on fire and see what we could burn to make the fire different colors. 

I've grown up with parents who deeply, truly love science. My mom has a physics degree. My dad has a math one. He still texts my family group chat every day to inform us it is pi time at 3:14. Every day. So maybe it's that, and maybe it's growing up with an understanding of the world that is rooted in scientific inquiry and questions and exploration, but Carlos feels like a love letter to science to me.

Carlos comes in and he turns the entire world on its head as he does it and he finds, at the end of the day, that he loves Night Vale. He loves Night Vale because it's so weird. It's the most scientifically fascinating place in the U.S. and this becomes his way of saying I love you. I want to understand you. Science, through Carlos, is its own sort of faith in the world and the way it is all put together, how everything connects. And Night Vale loves him back for it. He'll poke and prod at the edges but he will never cross them if he knows crossing will do harm, even if he does not fully understand why, because following an ever-growing series of whys is what science is about. Not having one single explanation at the end of the day. 

Carlos's exploration of Night Vale changes it, because it must change, everything must change eventually in order to continue to exist, and Carlos does what he can to help it not fall apart completely as it does. Carlos becomes more Night Vale as time progresses, and Night Vale lets more of Carlos in, until he is so enshrined in it that it is just his life. Night Vale lets him rest, and here, in this weird, weird town that is so incredibly hard to find, he finally finds a place he belongs. I don't know what isn't to love about that.

[b0nelessdoodles]

Art Summary 2023

shoutout to the one month were i drew fanart and then everything else was just dnd content again lmao (also shoutout to me being late to posting this haaaaa)

2023 wasn't the best year for me personally. between money problems and job searching, health issues, mental health issues, unintentional discomfort at my new job, and the overall issues of the world it just hasn't been great and I felt it heavily in my creativity. I never really had any creative highs this year outside of artfight (and even then i felt like i didn't do well) which only fed into some of the issues I was having.

But looking back I am really happy with most of what I made! Sure I didn't draw much but hey I think I popped off when I did!

So here is to 2024! Already off to a good start in the art department and even if I slow down at least I've had fun so far!

(i was gonna put me gushing about things in tags but its a lot so i'm doing a read more this post is already so damn long lmao i'm sorry)

okay i'm here to gush about two pieces at a time and their contents cause then make me happy to look at so lets get started on that with march and september 'cause hey! look at the relationship development of my little goblin guy!

march was when kk (tic's best friend and now boyfriend) first appeared to the rest of the party outside of just tic talking about him. literally the entire party could see that kk was in love with tic and was just like "oh buddy sorry about that" 'cause tic was a dumbass and romance was just never something he thought about until meeting the party. then we flash forward to september where the two confessed to each other after what really felt like the end of tic's story arc. at least it felt that way to me 'cause he reached his goal of killing groll and becoming the king of goblins but i know he still has shit to do I'M LOOKING AT YOU TRAVELLER AND RIP! but yeah that was the whole reason he left and it was done. he did it! but it almost cost him kk and the two ended up having a really important talk about it. kk chewed tic out and spilled his guts and i still think about it a lot holy shit it was so good omfg but it was in that moment that it clicked for tic. that if he had actually lost kk he had no idea what he would do, that he felt like his whole life would fall apart without him. and just man it was good wholesome content. congrats to the goblins for being the first canon relationship! (even tho they were not the first confession that one goes to rhami!)

now that that block of the text is out of the way we get to more depressing ones, those being january and october with my guy, dr. cecil wilfree.

its just.... man. what do i even say about him. january was probably the last moment before his life went into a full downward spiral, eventually leading into his demise. that piece isn't even anything major but rather something like a reminder going "hey, remember when wilfree had two normal eyes? good times!" and just man (-insert that image of a horse standing on the beach-) compare that to where he's at in october and knowing what happened in those 10 months? january he still had trust and hope, he believed that he was going to get back home and help river out with his plague, maybe even get aster home if she'd let them, maybe find a way to cure himself and help casey. but by the end there was no hope and he found out that he had been used, was nothing more than a tool for someone who he trusted, despite knowing that he really shouldn't have. river was dead and it was his fault (at least in his mind it was), he had failed to protect aster and traumatized both her and willow, and he could do nothing to save an entire population from being wiped off the face of the map. and he caved under the guilt. he gave up. its sad to see him alive and pissy in january and then look at december and see a shell of the same man, no more thoughts in that head as his mind got disconnected from his body and self.

and then for extra sads we've got december which was his birth month, so i drew something from a time before the campaign. back when he was alive and well, no soul curse and unknowing of the horrors yet to come, and receiving a gift from someone whose life he could soon destroy due to his own hubris.

anyway! pay no mind to may! i didn't draw a damn thing that whole month!

[nathank77]

11/4/24

5:31 p.m

I hope working out can really lower cholesterol, cause it isn't fun. I haven't tried the statin since the first day and my wrist still hurts.... and as I said before I love myself as is. My little belly. I don't need to be thinner or fit into skinny clothes.... that's why i was going to wait until January... but my chlorestoral is what pushed me to join the gym... bc all the medications are scary.. and the only side effect of the gym is muscular arms and pecs and a thin waistline. And some expected normal soreness... not myopathy!

They want to percribe me something else. Idk what to do. The scan i need isn't covered by insurance so idk what to do about that...

I am sore from running for so long. I pushed myself more with the lifting as well. Low weigh but more reps and more machines. My legs are sore. My arms are a little sore.

I mean the statin is the only cause of the muscle pain if I take it despite not taking it for almost a week..... I have looked at other medications and they cause all sorts of issues... like some of them can cause gout... that's fucking scarey. Not the statins to my knowledge and I don't want to know bc i found out they can lead to brain blood clots.. maybe the less you know the better.

Also I tried this machine called the cybex arc.... holy mother fuck. It was after the elliptical... but omg I lasted all of 2 minutes. It fucking hurts.

I'm hoping I can find the right chlorestoral medication and the working out helps a lot. I'm also changing my diet around a little just a little.... to try to reduce sodium. I have great triglycerides levels... but my hdl is low and my ldl is high. i don't really know where to start to change my diet more.

Idk what to do. I really want to post pictures of my brain scan... I've been thinking about it. What's sad is i have no one to share anything with. My mother and I only share tension and she yells at me a lot for nothing... today I was gone from 9 to like 1 and she blamed me for not being able to get into the kitchen at 1 p.m when i was cooking..... I mean she's just being a royal cunt... I was gone ALL DAY. And it's not my fault your aids were here and you couldn't do what you wanted to do.

Also I do somewhat believe in Elise. I believe she cares about me and one day she will show up for me. I believe she's been on my blog. I need to pretend there is potential for love for me to have some form of a purpose other than myself bc it's not enough.

I have no one to share things with. No one. At all. That's the saddest thing about being single.

I may get my covid vaccine soon... so I don't have to wear a mask or have anxiety when it comes off at the gym bc I can only tolerate it for so long....

I'm sick of having no one in my life to share anything with. No memories to make. No nothing. Just tumblr. My black viod i scream into. I know people read. But some of the people who read i wish they would talk to me. I know you guys care. Maybe some of you are just like wow this drama shit show.. but I think most of you care...

I do feel like this is a black viod I scream into though. I know why cecile won't talk to me.... at least I think. She's poly and she could develop feelings for me... or maybe she still low key hates me a little which i don't blame her for...

I took two Hydroxyzine last night bc my xanax hasn't been as effective and I knocked the fuck out.. i wish she would raise that script bc tbh the 2 with xanax i was GONE.

[thejellybeanboys]

You. Explanation. On. What. U. Are. Now! Also I'm hungry for candy now.

Luis: “Oh yeah right we have to like properly introduce ourselves, Hoagie @ the rest of everyone in here so we get introductions started!”

Hoagie: “Got it! @everyonejellybeanboys Luis wants intros.”

(Codeyy, Dragongurl34, BennyB, Music_sniffer logs in) (the whole gang is now online)

Luis: “cool.cool. we are all here now. I'll start. I already introduced my self but I guess to give an example for the others, I'm 13. He/him, uh I draw and code, actually mostly I hack and draw but whatever. I'm like the best gamer to exist, no competition f*ck you. I guess the most notable thing and what I can't prevent from you all finding out is that my dad is Tobey McCallister.”

Hoagie: “Hoagie the youngest sandwich making guy--yes that's my full name. Uh I cook/bake! Making pastries, dinners, creative food requests, and of course sandwichs for the internet! Want to eventually get multiple platforms for my cooking videos. I'm 13, he/him, and my uncle is Chuck the evil sandwich making guy!”

Jeremy: “Jeremy Hevaer or JJerm321 if you know me from streaming already. I'm 15, go by he/him/they pronouns, Uh I actually have a channel already where I mostly do improve or game...is it successful? No not really. My idol is the ever great doctor two-brains! He really inspired me, well kinda. I actually cosplay as him regular in most things, which has kinda left people thinking that I am him somehow. Unfortunately no, as much as I would love to be, I never met him yet but one day I'll will 🥰 ”

Mason: “....My name is Mason! I like posting vids about oddly satisfying stuff, making stuff about it. I also just do things like pour lava on glass cause it's cool...uh hydraulically pressing my toys cause it's cool... Heating up my knives and tools cause it's cool... Uh yeah! My pops the Butcher! He's like known for the whole meat stuff. I don't eat meat but pops says I'm still a good griller so he won't disown me yet. He/ham, I'm 14 and yeah.”

Codey: “Oh good you didn't immediately f#ck up the blog I had to create for you. Well let's get this over with. Codey here. She/her, 16. I'm a software developer and I can code the shit out of anything my autism be dammed. I'm mostly just behind the scenes doing all i can to keep this whole thing running, you know typical stuff of the real beautiful intelligent computer woman doing the work while the only slightly charismatic yet incredibly ugly looking guys get all the credit.”

Luis: “ Thank you for perfectly explaining why I like hanging out with you ❤️/pos”

Cecil: “¡AH! ITS HERE NOW AND AN ASK⭐‼️ Oh okay introductions!! I'm a level 24 half dragon, 11 dexterity, 14 charisma-- jejeje okay okay kidding, I promised Luis I wouldnt describ myself or make too many DND jokes kekeke. Cecilia Vázquez Montes at youre service! I'm 15 and a she/her now, I attend an all girls school so Im not online all the time. As you could see I mostly do DND and roleplaying gaming stuff. I also love love making clothes and cosplay✨! I just moved from Puerto Rico recently and I just started learning Ingles so aplogies if I spell or say something little bit wrong, Codey helps in trying autocorrect stuff for me.”

Otty: “🌸🌸❤️❤️🐇🐇💞 Hello everyone! So good to be here :)) My full name is Otty Monnie Smalls, my family is known to be pretty wealthy and be all boring business. Um the most infamous person I'm related to is my older cousin Big or well he tells me to call him Mr. Big, but my dad calls him Shelly? Idk its complicated. I'm 12 years-old, he/him, and my favorite thing ever is to make my friends happy! Which is why I'm here because they told me I could be here if I give them money. A lot of people say I'm cute but the real cute thing ever is my stuffed bunny Mr. Wabbit! He's all pink and fluffyyy!”💖💖💞

Leroy: “Don't know how I'll complete with that but schyeah. Sup dudes my name is Leroy Vázquez He/They, 13, yeah Cecil over there is like my half sister but we don't gotta get into that...Uh I wanna be a DJ, eventually get signed on for something. I'm kinda sensitive to outside noises so I regularly wear these headphones I stole from Luis's dad. Oh yeah Luis is my main man! My top bro. Besties for life. My passion is music i make it, if you think my tunes sound like a printer going through a meat grinder you just don't get it.”

Wil-Liam: “Name is Wil-Liam. I'm pretty sure I'm 13. Uh. I think I'm a he/him. Oh yeah I just checked I am. Uh. Definitely sooo human bro......... All you gotta know about me is that I'm definitely a better gamer than Luis.”

Luis: “I still have no idea how you got here, I didn't even invite you!”

[wandringaesthetic]

Post Bahamut fight, a couple more things

Eikons are like Gundams, I guess. Clive and Joshua can fuse. How bout that classical score for this fight(s), huh? I'm still not sure what to think of the flower. How's this for sheer spectacle, huh? Maybe this is a darling that should have been killed or maybe this is just what this story is. The logical endpoint of taking that Bahamut ZERO materia in VII seriously.

Dion is very much "the hero of a different story." His character and situation bear a great resemblance to Cecil FFIV, but unfortunately Dion is a dragoon, so he has The Curse. Eventually I'll do a whole essay on Final Fantasy dragoons and their ego deaths (the more pure dragoon they are, the worse it seems to be for them), i.e. going through failure and/or loss so profound you have to restructure your identity after. Bonus points if you beg someone to kill you at some point.

(Clive also notably goes through this. Jill also! This being a story high on emotional pain.)

Go berserk in your giant dragon form, killing civilians you have thus far been doing your best to protect, because you murdered your father in an attempt to murder your brother. Who is possessed by some kind of ancient evil, but it's not like anyone ELSE knows that. Then you SUCCEED in murdering your brother and pass out, cackling and covered in blood. This is the guy who has been, up to this point, portrayed as The Paragon.

Good stuff. Love this.

I don't know if Annabella makes a lick of damn sense as a character. It depends on what she knew when and who was whispering in her ear, which is information I don't have atm. I've been trying to figure out her deal the whole game and have a couple of times just thrown up my hands and gone "oh she's just insane." And she kills herself in front of her sons and one of them's response is *shrug* and the other's is "😬 oof." As was earned. (Kinda feel like my WoL watching Zenos off himself). Also, it seems like she didn't age. Or maybe they just didn't want to make another character model for her.

Weirdo statement, but I'm not sure this setting is misogynistic enough for Annabella to make sense as a character. Versus like Cersei in GoT. I'm really getting mixed signals on what the gender politics are here. The vast majority of physical fighters seem to be male, but at least among the common folk, a lot of the "pillars of the community" type characters are women. It's never been clear that women can't inherit &etc. You just don't have the world-building supports for this kind of character and plot, is what I'm saying. You're depending on the audience to assume some things I wouldn't necessarily assume.

I am very intrigued by Sleipnir (I think that's his name, Odin's white haired commander) and have been intrigued by him since the first scene he was in. I am interpreting him as Annabella's counterpart in Ash, but I'm not sure that actually makes sense. Knows something, but not as much as he thinks. Whispering in the king's ear, steering things the way the big bads want to go.

Jill continues to be severely under written. Feel like Martha and Vivian Ninetales are better developed than her. And whenever she and Clive are together they talk about the past, so I'm pretty unconvinced by them as a romance.

Something that is BOTHERING me. Did no one notice or care that things seemed to be worse after we blew up the crystals? Shouldn't things be starting to get more green in the Empire, at least? But no, now we have this eternal overcast and no one has connected the dots that we might have caused it. Are we sure Cid was right??

There has been precedence for this in FF that I could go on a tangent about . I just find it weird that we haven't addressed this in dialogue so far.

I assume we have two more Eikon powers to acquire , because there are two spaces for circles on the ability tree. And that's got to be Odin and Shiva. So either something really fucking sad happens with Shiva, or she's just like "oh, you need the last one? (For as yet undetermined plot reasons) here you go"

I'm intrigued/worried by Barnabas' little erotic vision with Benedikta and Hugo and... His mom? Oh he's that kind of unstable.

Have one Eikon left and like 1/3 of the game left. It's looking like the end of the world out there. Not sure where we're going from here. Let's find out.

Thoughts on FFXVI so far (Jill is awake and she and Clive are on the way to Rosaria) (spoilers to that point)

The game is beautiful. I've been taking a lot of screenshots like "man this pretty"/"man this almost looks real." I saw a few "this looks like a PS3 game" comments from earlier demo/gameplay footage, and I think I understand that, because the zones from the demo (the barren mountains where Titan and Shiva fight and the blighted village) are somewhat empty and have fewer/more muted colors. The story takes place in a dying world, and has the look and lighting of somewhere far north. You can quibble with the aesthetics if you like but not the graphics.

The thing that impresses me most in this generation in graphics is lighting, so. I keep being like "woa" and taking screenshots of water.

There is no minimap, and in "dungeon" zones, no map at all. I like this a lot, because I feel like I stare at the map if it's there instead of the very beautiful pictures in front of me, and I think it's appropriate to feel a little lost and disoriented and nervous about it in, say, the enemy castle you are infiltrating. But I imagine some people will not like this. Areas so far have been fairly linear, though I did get a little turned around in the first forest area (the greatwood?)

Bosses and midbosses are fun and very beautifully animated. Average field enemies feel like a bit of a waste of time and should either be a little easier or a lot tougher. I feel like, with skill, one could absolutely blaze through boss fights, and with either more caution or less skill they're a bit of a slow grinding down. Feel like I'm generally falling somewhere in between on these.

I'm playing on "action" mode and am not using any of the "timely" accessories. I have played some action-y games but am by no means a real pro gamer. I've had to retry some boss fights (when you do this, the game lets you restart the fight with a full inventory of potions (4 potions and 3 hi potions)) but I haven't felt like I've been "stuck" on anything yet. I feel like the "reward" of increasing your skill isn't necessarily just getting through the game (which you can probably do regardless of skill if you just grind at it) but feeling like a bamf as you do.

(there is a kinship with FFVIII in this regard)

I've done....4? Sidequests so far. They are very reminiscent of FFXIV sidequests. Go rescue this girl and grab the supplies she was supposed to gather. Be Valisthea's surliest waiter. Not too exciting but they fulfill what I think is their primary function of fleshing out the world building.

The intuition I had regarding the "bearer" tattoos from the trailers and the demo was that they were magical and either sedated or memory wiped the bearer or somehow made it impossible to escape (need to the spell renewed so often or they kill you or something like that). And it turns out, no, the system of slavery is so ingrained and the odds of being cast out and then hunted down are so high that they don't need to be magical. The mark is enough.

I ALSO thought the bearers were generally POW slaves acquired through conquest and weren't necessarily people who can use magic. THEN I thought they were ALL people who could use magic, but no and no. They are ALL people who can use magic WITHOUT a crystal (excepting dominants, which are special) and Clive was actually a weird cultural exception as the first shield of Rosaria BEFORE he was branded and then fell into the general norm after. Which makes a terrible sense! We do not like what we can't control! Also makes Annabella's weird disgust towards him make more sense!

I think probably part of the reasoning behind that awkward Yoshi-P statement saying "everyone in this game is white because we didn't want it to be about race" is probably BECAUSE slavery is a major plot and world-building thing in a system that in some ways mimics but mostly doesn't real world chattel slavery. Whether making it all be white on white crime is effective or worth it is something I'm going to reserve judgement on for now.

Oh Cid. Cid. What are you doing, Cid? I didn't understand what he wanted at all at first, and now I get the idea that he is good intentioned but has no coherent plan. Free as many bearers as possible and then eventually we'll have a revolution? But you don't want to say that because you're already pretty sure you'll fail. a lot of the people you're freeing are old or infirm you're not exactly forming an army. This is only working because the powers that be are too busy fighting each other to notice you. What are you going to do when they do, Cid? I'm going to do what I think is right until they come kill me and then God can judge me??

I enjoy Cid. He is just some guy who is trying and not at all an inspirational figure.

This game is pretty brutal, huh? I keep thinking about the guy who ended up as a blood spatter under a rock in the first few minutes of the game and the blood pooling under some of Shiva's ice later.

(the ice and the rocks creaking and the subtle controller vibration as you walk through the aftermath of Shiva and Titan's fight really sold the scale and also that this is all about to come crashing down)

I feel it's more tasteful, if you're going to do violence, to have semi-realistic violence rather than bloodless violence. Also I just personally like it. I like bones crunching. I like the post battle blood on your heroes clothes and armor. Enough to be slightly gross but not Dragon Age style ridiculously drenched in blood. Just right.

There are a weird number of surprise lethal axe throws though.

Alas, Benedikta. We hardly knew you. She has a kinship to Yotsuya. I actually wonder if there is a Japanese trope both of them fall under with the long pipe.

None of the soldiers in this game seem to be women. The only women we see fight are Jill and Benedikta, who are both dominants and therefore exceptional. Which... I will reserve judgement on whether that adequately makes sense later. Valisthea is in other ways not a nice place.

I get the idea that the eikons/dominants aren't always passed down via blood. It seems maybe each eikon has its own rules? I wonder if they always have a gender preference for their host.

I like the little overlay arrows showing where you can climb up or under something. It feels like that breaks immersion less so than all Horizon Forbidden West's foot and handholds being yellow, for example. Or all the walls you can run on having a certain texture, or w/e.

The music is good, ofc. Maybe my new favorite main character theme? I have to meditate on it.

Oh, the one huge awkward guy is named Goetz, which is speculated to be what Guts Berserk's name is "supposed" to be. Or Gotz, some Germanic shortening of Gottfried or similar via translation party shenanigans. I don't think this has any significance but it might be a nod. (Which make me wonder whether FFV's Bartz/Butz was supposed to be something like that now. Hmm.) Also I lay like 50% odds he's going to end up as Titan's dominant by the end of the game.

I am also on High Berserk Fan Alert due to the eclipse in the one live action trailer/advertisement.

I have NO IDEA what we're heading for here in terms of overarching plot or what the final showdown is going to be, and since I don't have enough freedom to just dick around in the game I'm getting a little antsy about that. And where's that second time skip gonna land?

(oh man I just happened to encounter the shortened version of that commercial in the wild in the break room on tv FATE WILL FALL that music aaaaaa)

There's a shot in the very beginning of the game that's a Gandalf versus Balrog visual reference and Clive opens double doors by dramatically throwing his arms wide. There are a lot of small details that feel a near copy to Game of Thrones. Clive grows up in the castle with his father's ward who is like a sibling to him. He's second fiddle to his brother. His mother figure hates his face. He has a loyal doggo. He's Aragorn. He's Jon Snow.

I've often thought that the storytelling of FFXIV feels more like doorstopper fantasy novel storytelling than video game storytelling (or movie or tv show storytelling for that matter). FFXVI seems to be continuing that. Opening up the active time lore menu (I love this feature, BTW?) feels like flipping to the glossary.

Alexander O. Smith cites A Song of Ice and Fire as inspiration for the style of Vagrant Story and FFXII. And I'm glad he did, because when I played those games in a world pre Game of Thrones television show, I was like "is anybody else seeing this???" It turns out the Venn diagram overlap of "people who play epic fantasy video games" and "people who read epic fantasy novels" is SURPRISINGLY SMALL. Smith overdoes it but just occasionally, imo. By which I mean, if you use the phrase "mummer's farce" there had best be some fucking mummers in your story. It took a long time for anyone to hit approximately this correct tone in video games again but.

I'm digressing.

ANYWAY. I THINK IT'S INTERESTING THAT WE INITIALLY ADDED THIS FLAVOR IN EX POST FACTO IN THE LOCALIZATION AND NOW WE'RE GOING FOR IT INTENTIONALLY THE WHOLE TIME. Because this was written simultaneously in English and Japanese. I find it interesting that we started by being inspired by the tabletop gaming heirs of fantasy literature and now we're taking after fantasy literature itself.

We're also seeming to go for the Game of Thrones thematic thing where the nobles are squabbling amongst each other when everyone ought to be banding together against the oncoming climate apocalypse.

But we will (most likely. Hopefully.) Be reaching a conclusion in 40-80 hours of action RPG instead of leaving me hanging for the rest of my natural life. And I would be shocked if we have some sort of red wedding situation in the works.

I'm having a good time, overall. Hesitant to quantify how much of a good time at this juncture.

Sometimes I feel like we need to put the F-word privileges back on the shelf for a minute, but mostly the swears are effective.

Oh gosh, I glanced upon this subject in tags, but I do love Clive's post accepting he killed Joshua freakout. And how Cid's all "well, why don't you just track this guy down anyway, and if he wasn't involved THEN you can kill yourself ;D" because it comes right after a moment Clive was standing on a bridge, and there's not any attention drawn to it but you KNOW he's thinking about jumping. And then Torgal bounds up to him and the moment passes.

And Cid's "welp, you're alive so you may as well make yourself useful" attitude is not the BEST but it's also not the WORST, you know?

Anyway, like I said, having a good time. Having a good time having a bad time.

[pooks]

so i'm on a Callum being happily adopted brainrot and the WTSE au gives such cute scenarios, so here is my hot takes aka imaginations

first off: Cecil

Cecil is the first one Callum learns to trust. first off, Cecil saved Cal when they first met. which is the disasterous intern job interview and Callum fainted because he was nearly starving to death (he had previously on, since his arrival to night vale, been living on granola bars until he ran out for a half week ago). Cecil just decided "nope, this poor boy needs help", took him home and him along with Carlos, Jon and Martin nursed Cal back to health. and then he got attached.

it also helps that Cal has purple eyes (a permanent result from the apocalypse) which Cecil instantly took as a sign that Cal was destinted to come to Night Vale (don't ask why, cause no one understands how Cecil reasons with that)

oh and let's not forget Callum have still untreated trauma from the whole Maxwell Rayner and the dark business, which made him lash out during the apocalypse. now, Cal refuses to stay in any room/place where he can't see anything, he has a crippling fear of the dark now for two reasons.

1, he was traumatized. he's genuinely scared of what hides in the dark. 2. he's scared of relapsing into a monster again.

avoiding the dark isn't an easy thing in Night Vale, but then Cecil gives him a night light (it's a really cute one, it projects space images) so Cal can sleep at nights. it also comforts him and makes him feel safe. Callum nearly cries because he can't remember the last time any adult has cared for him like this. then Cecil decided "yeah i'm adopting this lil lad".

next up: Martin

we all know that Martin has excellent skills in caretaking, so taking care of Callum wasn't a hard job for him. i mean, this funky ex-archival assistant succeeded in taking care of Jon and that says something.

Martin re-meets Callum when he's starving and sick, so naturally Martin took charge of nursing him back to health. he made extra sure that Cal wouldn't throw up because he ate too much and Martin knows well enough that you can't just give a big plate of food for a kid who's starving, that will result in diarrhea and abdominal pain. so he cooks gentle food, in small plates and works up Cal's appetite in a slow pace, but it works. he also makes sure Callum hydrates with water and takes him out for small walks, so he can get some exercise.

none of they haven't exactly forgotten about the apocalypse or night street, but Cal hates thinking about it and Martin is respectful of his boundaries. until Cal breaks down about it and reveals he never really intended to become a bully in the apocalypse.

we then get the full story from Callum. post-kidnapping and pre-apocalypse, Callum was bullied by his peers relentlessly for being scared of small spaces and the dark. he was traumatized and he got no therapy, nothing. and when the apocalypse hits, he just snaps and turned on the table of his bullies, letting them experience what he felt. it just kept going on, towards innocent kids because being an avatar and using fear powers was like a drug, it was impossible for Callum to stop, even if he wanted to.

maybe Martin don't fully understand what Cal feels because he doesn't have his experience, but he is here for Cal if he needs it.

third up: Carlos

Carlos takes on a more mentor role to Cal. he manages to capture his interest in science and he teachers Callum what to expect of Night Vale

it also turns out Callum has a hidden interest in science, so he listens eagerly when Carlos goes into science infodumps and just drinks in the information. as expected, Carlos is very excited to have a young little science buddy and encourages him to chase his interests. they also bond a little over music (especially iconic 80s music)

Carlos also made a map for Cal when he felt ready to explore Night Vale on his own, so he won't get lost and a phone so he can call them, if he needs anything.

something that Callum never agreed on, but begrudgingly accepts is Carlos has "adorable" nicknames for him. Cal is the type to pretend he don't like cute nicknames from parents, but he totally likes it. and like Martin, Carlos gives great hugs.

last one...Jon

there was too much friction between Cal and Jon. they recognized too many similarities. both are traumatized by eldritch horror powers at young age, they both reacted differently to it.

Callum is reluctant about listening to Jon at anytime, Jon feels constantly irritated over how rude Cal is. his reasons why he doesn't open up to Jon are unknown until he reveals how he knew Jon was coming to Night Street

turns out, Helen had been riding around with its yellow door and telling all avatars that the Archivist was coming to smite all. imagine you are a thirteen year old, you are a new avatar and ruling your own place in darkness. then you get told that the Archivist, practically the lord of the apocalypse and the anti-christ, is coming to your house and will possibly kill you. hence Cal being very on edge and defensive.

what Jon and Callum needed was to sit down and actually talk to each other about this. while it didn't began great, it ended with Jon embracing Cal, comforting him with unconditional love like a true parent.

afterwards from this point, Jon and Cal has a very warm parent-child relationship, even when Cal tries to be a rebellious teenager and tests the rules. Jon is the one who enforces rules and curfew for their teen son, especially when he starts to date (which he argued 14 was too early to date and Cal responded by slamming doors)

but they have soft moments, like when Jon suffers from post-partum depression. Cal sees this and while he don't have any more wikipedia to get advice (damn it Sheriff's Secret Police, he just wants to help his dad), he does little things to cheer him up. like cooking and bringing breakfast in bed,

bottom line? Callum loves all his new dads unconditionally, because they were the first adults who actually listened to him. it was a team effort, but Jon, Cecil, Carlos and Martin gave exactly what a traumatized kid needs; unconditional love, support, comfort and protection.

i care them so much... 🥰🥰

(i don't own anything. the WTSE au belongs to @sm0kebreaks @kerink and game-warden)

[missnight0wl]

I don't know what is up with the dads in this game, they simply scream "human cases" from every corner and at this point I'm seriously asking why they are stalking minors instead of seeing a good therapist or better, being locked in Azkaban.

Relatives are a problem here? They have communication issues?

I partially joke but the major events of the last years happened for a good 30% because Jacob is very elusive, I talked about the daddies cause we may see Ethan and Peregrine competing over the golden medal for worse parent of the year 2022, Verruca & friends methodologies on relating with nieces ecc are also pretty arguable. Counting that the package has inside also Jacob, Tulip parents, Barnaby parents ecc.

Different situations but it's sad to see that everyone is actually growing on their own almost all alone. You can't really tell if it's normal or if HPHM lacks of someone wise and grow-up.

It depends on the person? It's another reality? We don't know the entire scenario so it's too soon to judge? MC grew up too fast? It will impact they way they'll presumably treat their child if they'll ever ending up having it?

Who knows 😶.

I just wanted to ask your opinion about it, because I personally find really depressing the fact that exactly Peregrine is involved, bringing life to a theory that is old as time (they mentioned him in y.5 chapter 11 in a lesson about crups the chapter may be wrong, but I remember MC saying a thing like "this crups reminds me of my dad") and it was 2018, the perfect incentive for theories. I remember reading a lot of stuff related to MC father's back then talking about his potential involment in the fake mafia that is "R".

Merula's family was a good point to start and the game dosen't lacks of tragic & sad backgrounds but oh well, we have MC and their disaster of a brother. Not counting Peregrine.

Areas we have Cecil Lee & Tulip grandmas, all heroes of the motheand.

Btw I love your comments & reviews, your knowledge over the matter is truly impressive & I adore your humor. Never had the opportunity to ask something and doing an appretiation post but here we are, sending much much love! You deserve it!

Have a fantastic day!💞

First of all, thank you for your nice words! 💖 I’m glad to hear that you enjoy my content!

Now, as for the rest of your message, I’ll start by addressing the Crup lesson. Because you see, I’m fairly certain that this line was supposed to be Barnaby’s. I remember very well when it was discussed in the fandom, but I also remember realising that this particular class had more “mislabelled” lines. For example, MC said this:

And again, I’m pretty sure that it’s supposed to be Barnaby’s. I recall him mentioning at some point that his grandma has a Crup, but even if not, he’s basically the only character who talks about his grandma (since, as we know, he lives with her). So, I think it’s a rather reasonable conclusion. Besides, “mislabelling” in classes happens from time to time… all the time.

Therefore, I’m actually pretty sure that MC NEVER mentioned their father as "a single unit". The closest we got is probably our conversation with Tulip from Y3.

Sure, there were theories about the father anyway, but in reality, they existed mostly because there was no information – and if they’re hiding it, they have to be planning some plot twist with him, right? Well, no. If there’s no information, there’s nothing to twist. They should’ve left him not existing at all, and it’d be more logical from the storytelling point of view than what we got.

And because of that, I’m gonna hate this “plot twist”, no matter what Peregrine’s personality would be. Because it’s just stupid and lazy. Even if Jam City added only one line in Y1 when MC was telling Rowan about Jacob’s disappearance, like: “It was even harder because just a couple of years earlier, our Dad left us, too”... I’d be less upset than I am now. They wouldn't have to talk much about him later on or even not at all – just give me some basis to twist.

As for shitty fathers in general, though… I don’t know. I mean, I can’t comment on Ethan because I don’t play Quidditch content, so I don’t even have half of a picture of his character. I also have to mention that I probably have a MUCH better opinion about Tulip’s parents than most of this fandom (more about it here and here). But other than that? Well, I think it’s a mix of factors you mentioned. For example, MC’s generation was born and raised during the First Wizarding War. I imagine that most people were affected by it somehow, Death Eaters or not. And so, it could affect family dynamics as well (in fact, I believe it’s a big deal when it comes to Tulip’s relationship with her parents).

Besides, I’d keep in mind that it’s a story about teenagers for teenagers. And in stories like that, it’s quite common that parents just don’t play a big role in general. For example, Hermione was spending almost every summer and holidays with Harry and Ron. When you think about it, her parents were barely seeing her since she started Hogwarts. Does it mean they’re terrible and neglectful parents who don’t care? Or they’re so abusive that Hermione didn’t want to be with them? Maybe. Or maybe the story simply needed Hermione to be with Harry and Ron. I suppose it kind of qualifies as “we don't know the entire scenario so it's too soon to judge”.

Admittedly, Jacob and Peregrine are a bit different. Personally, I believe that they’re both simply shitty and manipulative people, and I don’t see any excuse for that. Of course, I also believe that Jacob we see is an imposter, so… I might be wrong about him. However, I have no doubts about Peregrine. Still, even though it’s bad and unhealthy… it kind of makes sense overall? Like, HPHM was always about mysteries, and deceiving, and betrayal etc. It’s almost to be expected that Peregrine would fit that pattern.

That being said, I assume it will affect MC as a parent. In the best-case scenario, though, it’d mean that MC will try extra hard not to repeat Peregrine’s mistakes, so it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Then again, MC is an idiot, so they probably won’t learn anything… But hey, it might mean they won’t learn bad things either!

I don’t know if that’s the response you were expecting – I feel like it’s not. But I don’t really know what else I could say. And it’s partially because I feel like my opinion on parents in HPHM is quite different than most of the fandom, just like I said in the context of Tulip. In fact, I don’t even think that the Snydes were bad parents. Terrible people? Sure. But I’d say they were decent parents (again, more here, if you’re interested).

On top of that, I guess I’m too upset that Jam City decided to use such a lazy “plot twist” to be really concerned about Peregrine as a father figure. He is a bad person and a bad father, but I'm not surprised by that, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a wonderful day, too! 💕

(And feel free to ask if you’d like me to elaborate on anything!)