#i'm insane thank you very much.

[pianostarinwonderland]

So I think I read one of azul's dorm uniform lines about him wearing/liking cologne? I'm sorry but why do I find that so attractive ig as someone with mild ocd taking good care of yourself and your hygiene is just,,, dude now I wish we knew what kind of colognes he uses/what he actually smells like. I'M NOT BEING WEIRD I PROMISE I JUST LOVE GOOD SCENTS AND PERFUMES SO THIS INTRIGUED ME!

OH NAUR STOP I FORGOT ABOUT THAT NOOOO 🧍🧍🧍

YOU'RE NOT WEIRD ANON DON'T WORRY THERE'S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT SCENTS THAT IS SO MMMHHHHH 🤌🤌🤌 honestly a good scent in general is very appealing, so liking it is not something that should be frowned upon.

I always hc'd Azul having one of those "dad colognes" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you know those scents that make you think "oh this smells like dad"?? Like, it's those heady scents that make you think of silver colors and maybe a bit of blue and your first thought is grey business suits like idk how to describe it?? 😭 Yeah, that's what I always thought Azul would wear lmfaoooo

But you know, there is something about scents that is so addicting....... like. ok now this is me being weird on main BUT hear me out.

Imagine you end up being close to Azul. And I mean this in two ways. If God decided you're going to be the luckiest person in the world, you get to hug him and rest your head on the crook of his neck. If God decided that you're not the chosen one but are a candidate, you're probably seated close to him. And you have known each other for a while, you hang out a lot together. And you kinda grew some feelings for him. As you're together, you just get that whiff of his cologne and it lights up something inside you. It's that sort of primordial instinct that you never knew you had within you, but it makes you hungry. It's his cologne, and you have always smelled it, but it was this particular day that the scent is sharp in your nose, and your stomach is brewing with wanton desire for him—

AND. WE'RE GONNA END THERE 😋 pay me up for an expansion of this thought /j

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[jhonny]

"stop talking like that boy you're ruining my tboy swag" - yami bakura, probably

or, when both bakuras are trans but only one of them has perfected the trans voice.

+ bonus thief king (as a treat)

[meirimerens]

MEIRI!!!! i am taking a class in art history and i wanted to ask about your favorite paleolithic cave paintings, cause i know you're very passionate about that!

OOOHHAHHGRGHH MY GODDDD

YOU'VE AWAKEN MY EVIL POWER......

okay so this is gonna be real hard for me to choose. like reallll hard. but i think i can narrow it down. i don't know how much #info you need or how much Lore you care for me to add, but you've activated my trap card, so now you're stuck in the cave with me, i have the torch, and if you try to leave you won't find your way back. okay. let us start.

GENERAL LORE:

at least in the Franco-Cantabrian geographical and paleo-cultural area [this thing], which contains some of the most famous painted caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, Pech-Merle, Altamira, etc, one main currently reigning hypothesis, because it allows to explain the most amount of [gesture] Stuff Going On, is that cave art exist within a magico-spiritual system of belief of the animist persuasion likely with shamanic elements. The places where walls were painted in the caves, were very, very rarely Living quarters. paleolithic tribes prefered to make camps outside, or just at the very entrance of caves: the depths were Hard to navigate, dangerous, possibly inhabited by predator animals. you didn't got to these places to fuck around; you went because you had a drive, you believed in something about them.

Jean Clottes (one of our main prehistorians in France, who wrote Pourquoi l'Art Préhistorique ?, or "Why Prehistoric Art", translated into english as "What is Paleolithic Art" which is fucking stupid, the "why" is the whole question he's trying to answer in the book, is this guy fucking stupid) identifies 4 main concepts that exist within indigenous, nomadic or semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherer, animist & shamanist societies and peoples, that are widely distributed (as such having "universal" elements) and could, likely, have been found within paleolithic societies, and possibly give us clues to their belief system, which are:

the INTERCONNECTEDNESS: of animal species between one another (explaining the numerous accounts of paloelithic art depiction species together, or separated), and of human and animal: including through mythologies in which humans were created from animal(s), or animal(s) later changed into human(s).

the FLUIDITY of the living world: animal species are recognized as kin, for they can become it; animal species are given, or projected-onto attributes that make a tribe, a clan, recognize themselves in it

the acceptation of the COMPLEXITY of the world: paleolithic people likely had deep, complex mythologies and cosmogonies, which we might Never, Ever, know anything about (this drives me insane.) their language, and their rites, might (have) reflect(ed) an understanding of the complixity of nature, or animals, that sedentary, then later capitalist societies might have lost the nuances of.

the PERMEABILITY of the living world(s). this again is seen in beliefs in the permeablity between human & animal, human a animal, animal as human: this is also where Shamanism might come into play. shamanism(s) rest(s) upon the conceptualization of the world as divided-but-permeable between a physical, living world, and an unseen, spirit world: the Shaman is the mediator, the person who can freely go between these two worlds, to communiate, to heal, to direct, to plead, etc. AND, and this is where it gets real interesting for The Caves: potentially, the belief in the permeablity of the cave rock itself: multiple painted sites might contain hints of a belief in the cave being the place where spirits dwell; and painting them is less "calling" or "invoking", even if there might be some of it, but rather "revealing". the cave itself, maybe, could (have) be(en) considered the place where spirits dwell, and come forth/from. more about that later.

WITH ALL OF THAT IN MIND. at least in the franco-cantabrian area, the placement of cave art is, very Very likely, extremely deliberate. it is not just the art that counts, but where it was made. we can ask ourselves, why it was made here, and not elsewhere. i am picking my answer on this axis. some caves might be so beautifully painted, but are The Vibes here? if the expression of this potential magico-spiritual complex and tens-of-thousands-of-years-spanning(!!!!!!!!!! this is nother thing that's fucking insane btw. did you know we are as close to Lascaux as Lascaux is to Chauvet, another very ornate painted cave. MULTIPLE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS) is visible, or #feelable, let's mention it. now onto the good part

CAVE ART THAT DRIVES ME CUCKOO CRAZY:

THE NIAUX (pronounced "Nyo") CAVE

reason: i've been there. twice. sobbed both times. came out changed like genuinely. made me go back to uni. the Niaux Cave is located in the Ariège (a-ryeh-juh) département [think smaller than a state bigger than a county] of southern france, in the Pyrénées (pee-reh-neh) mountains making the border with spain.

the almost entirety of the art is concentrated in the "Salon Noir" of the cave.

now. come close and listen to me. the Salon Noir is some 700 meters from both the modern entrance and the prehistoric one. today, like back then, you have to navigate rough, slippery terrain, crouchspaces, and generally accident-inducing (source: my dad slipped & fell just like our guide warned us about) walking space. for most of the way, the ceiling is 5 to 10 meters above, and the walls relatively close together (but not claustrophobic). the Salon Noir seems to be "indicated" by, on both of its sides, red symbol markings. now listen to me. the Salon Noir's ceiling is twice as high. even with modern lamps, you struggle to see it. now imagine. having walked all the way there, in the Wet, the fire of your torch or your grease hand-lamp to guide you, and suddenly not only can you not see the ceiling anymore, but the rock seems to speak back to you. the echo is intense, in the Salon Noir, way more than anywhere in the lower-ceiling'ed cave. your voice carries on for 5 full seconds, if you sing the rock continues singing after you. did you know? in france and spain, studies have shown that most parietal (=cave wall) art corresponds to particular acoustic features. did they sing? did they play the flute, the drums? did they use lithophones: the stalagtites & stalagmites, hit of small sticks, to make them ring? in the Salon Noir, most of the animals are bisons, as is very common in the franco-cantabrian area. now this is just something fun that our guide told us, possibly nothing more than an interesting coincidence, for its truth would rest on an unproven-hypothesis-within-an-unproven-hypothesis, but did you now that the female bison has the same gestational period as the human? 9 months.

the bison to the right, with the red markings and the "eyebrows", is my dad's favorite: he says its profile looks like him, with his beard and his big nose, which to be fair, truly it does. in a previous-previous-previous-previous life my dad as an upper paleolithic era bison. this is my dad's paleolithic fursona.

my favorite is this horsie. see? she smiles.

so does this one on the left, a protome (= name for the depiction of only the front of an animal, of a human)

PERGOUSET (pronounced per-goo*-zeh) CAVE

(* but the "oo" sound is short)

i'm cheating a little. because this is not painting, it's carving. but i consider sculpture an art, and parietal carving to be as important and interesting as parietal paintings, so. take it or don't!

yeah the whole cave. you'll see why. basically if i think about Pergouset for too long my skin starts melting i foam at the mouth etc. anyways. since the cave is closed to the public, and basically only available to researchers' viewings, it is quite hard to find images of it, so we'll just ball on this one.

Pergouset is located in the département of the Lot, in southwest-central france. this region is Plentiful with caves, including Pech-Merle that is basically next door, and Lascaux 1.5h away. why this one & not any of those two? well. come closer.

okay. the pussies & this guy with his penis out cave. what's her deal. Well, first piece of lore is to know that, in the grand scheme of franco-cantabrian paleolithic cave art, human representations are minimal. animals make up the majority of depictions, however, "archetyped" or "stereotyped" human figures that insist on sex characteristics are Plentiful. and within representations of that, "female" archetypes outnumber "male" ones by a lot. basically you cannot cough on a paleolithic "human" depiction without landing on a vulva frankly. many such cases in life as well. one of the hypotheses, which Michel Lorblanchet brings forth in his book La Naissance de la Vie: Une Lecture de l'Art Parietal (from which the picture above is from) is that it could be part of a belief system in which the cave, the whole cave, itself could be a "female" principle or archetype: the whole of the cave a matrix, a uterus. basically its giving, it's giving birth. one of the biggest data point he has for that hypothesis is the Pergouset cave. in the Pergouset cave, carvings of vulvae rhythm a long narrow passage following an underground river. the 3 vulvae could represent that of pre-birth, that of currently-pregnant (with the line in the middle, like the pigmentation line on pregnant belly + carved over a convex part of the stone), and that of currently-actively-giving birth: "vulva 3" is just two streaks in the rock, surrounding a naturally-occuring hole in the rock: as if that feature of the cave itself had been recognized as It's Giving Birth / hereditary voice I Am Your Mother. as you can see on the picture, vulva 1 is all the way back in the #depths, in the #dark, and vulva 3 the closest to the exit, indeed to the light ( -> it's giving birth). now. and this is the insane thing. foaming at the mouth like unwell arms shaking rn. i've had to go pace 4 times since i started typing. in the depths of the cave, the animals that are carved are less (see the numbers on the picture). but also, they're... more fantastic. stranger, more unusual. lacking the realism that is typically associated with parietal art. they're... as if from a dream, an undetermined land of weirdness, of amorphousness. as they get closer to the light, they get more numerous, they proliferate, life crawls the walls: they become also more and more realistic. as we reach the last carved vulva, as it is giving, what is it: giving BIRTH, animals are numerous, abundant, fully formed, their visible selves in the world outside: it is as if the cave itself, the depths of cave itself, gave birth to these animals, formed them inside of itself, let them out from this unknown, amorphous, strange land beyond the stone, where human cannot reach. humans went in, and meticulously, sometimes using a natural relief in the stone for an eye, a feature, "released" the animals from the stone, "revealed" them from their state of hidden-inside-of-the-depths-ness. the whole cave this Mother from which all the animals drawn on the walls emerged.

tldr

[mintjeru]

it probably wasn't the smartest decision to start an ongoing 1000+ chapter webnovel when i know it'll consume my every waking thought but here we are

open for better quality | no reposts

[jawz]

i saw the tv glow is legitimately one of the stupidest, most tryhard movies i've ever seen in my entire life. absolute dogshit. and everyone is pretending it's the most lifechanging thing they've ever seen LOL give me a break! the gall to claim this is inspired by fucking DAVID LYNCH??? i can't

[marihem]

Helloo i just wanna confess that im so in love with your frans dynamic 😭😭💙💙💙💙💙 their interaction, their platonic relationship.. aahh somehow whenever i see them i can feel their vibes as a someone who loves platonic partner so bad, the calm vibes and their own shenaningans- which i couldnt stop laughing

Like, romance but most dominated with platonic?? Homies but at the same time love each other but still friend agdhd like that idk how to describe their relation but damn i just love them

How you draw sans and frisk are my most favorite especially your frans dynamic, hope you have a nice day and keep making what you love about them!! 💙

AAAA THANK YOUUU 😭 I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW 🥺💙

I've been reading what you wrote over and over and I'm just so glad to hear these from you! Indeed, those are the vibes I'm aiming for these two. Like other people around them, they couldn't really make out of what their relationship status is based on the binary "platonic" and "romantic" relationship. But you just know that they love and appreciate each other and always stick together and that's for sure 😌

I say they're "queerplatonic" because that's the most accurate "label" we can match to their relationship but if you actually asked them what they are, hehe you know what they'll say XD (omg I just love things that exist outside of the established standards made by Society TM)

I should tell y'all the story of how I slowly developed these two's relationship cuz it is also something that's connected to me personally haha ;D

EEEE again, I'm so so happy that you like my interpretation of Frisk and Sans!^^ What being obsessed with these characters for years does to a mf:

Please I'm more than happy to share my own take on these two as an individual and how they got to the being the people I've been drawing now as you can tell that these versions of Frisk and Sans are canon compliant and takes place years after the events of the game úဗù my ask box is always open 👀

Thank you so so much! Your words made my day and night and I'll still come to re-read this again and again! Please accept these humble lil doodles and I also wish you a wonderful day/night 💙💙

[eightyuh]

Freya's sword looks so cool.... 🔥

"Thanks! It's pretty big and heavy ~ "

[cerise-on-top]

🥺 fluff 2BDamned x Reader? Reader finds 2B asleep at his work desk so they carry him off to their bed, so that they can sleep together. Little bonus is like Reader tucks him in first before they join the bed.

Hello! Gonna be honest with you, this is longer than I intended for it to be! I could have continued writing for this, but I'm restraining myself here! Cute request, though! Thank you!!

2BDamned Falling Asleep at His Desk

Honestly? I feel as though it’d be pretty rare for 2B to fall asleep like that. Sure, it happens from time to time since he works hard for Nevada, but he’s too vigilant for it to happen frequently. Plus he downs caffeine like there’s no tomorrow. But when he’s tired, he’s tired and won’t wake until his gut feeling wakes him up or until he’s had a full night’s rest. You carrying him to bed? He might stir a bit from the sudden touch, but it wouldn’t be enough to wake him up. I don’t think he’d notice you carrying him to bed either until he’s woken up. But it’s super sweet either way. You putting him onto your bed, placing the blankets over him, and giving him a kiss on his forehead. While 2B may not be the most physically affectionate guy normally, he doesn’t really have a say in the matter when he’s unconscious. Besides, having you somewhere near him calms him down greatly, even subconsciously. While he will tolerate you spooning him when he’s awake, he kind of just melts into your arms when he’s sleeping. Yes, he’s the big boss of Status Quo, but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate his lover. When he wakes up, he’s fully aware that he slept at his desk for some time since his back hurts worse than usual, but he still finds himself surprised that you carried him to bed. He’s not the lightest grunt out there, so that’s a sign of you being physically strong. Probably another reason why he sleeps better with you. If he’s awake before you are, then he’ll stare at you for a few moments, before sighing and smiling. You care so much about him, it sort of astounds him. In cruel Nevada, where violence is the ordinary and kindness was rare, you made him feel loved. Kisses your forehead, hopes you don’t wake up, and thinks about what kinds of missions to assign you to. Probably something easy to digest, something that lets you spend time with him. Maybe he’ll have you escort him somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll take you to Burger Gil’s for a nice burger. Of course, it’s on him. When he’s still too tired, or when he doesn’t want to leave your warmth just yet, he might lie down again and snuggle into you. He may be the strong leader among the two of you, but that doesn’t mean he won’t let himself feel protected by you either. Again, it calms his nerves. Besides, he’s more cuddly when he’s on the brink of falling asleep.

[danthropologie]

Christian Horner about Daniel Ricciardo's return to F1 | ESPN F1 Unlapped, August 3, 2023

[starpros-sunshine]

Eichi gives away the mask so easily because it was never meant to be an "engagement ring" like you delulu wataeis imagined it to be lmao. It was wataru saying that he will continue playing tsumugi clown role in fine and won't leave it for hokuto's mother troupe after graduation. Do you dumb fucks even read the stories? Eichi didn't even understand tf that mask meant when wataru gave it to him and wataru referenced fucking tsumugi in his "proporsal". I dunno why the f you think it's ok to lie about "! EnDiNG wItH wAtAeI EnGaGeMEnT" when the chapter it happened wasn't even close to the end of ep:link. Cope

PS: how do you live with the fact that Eichi clearly admitted to never being in love in his life and Wataru said that even though Eichi likes him, he still can easily discard him for the sake of his objectives?

I love you anon thank you for giving me a nice reason to ramble again beautiful ask 10/10 I'm sorry this is probably not how you hoped this would go but this is such a funny block of text delightful really thank you for the enrichment please marry me

But okay yes now to get down to the actual ask just to disclaim I am solely relying on translations seeing as I do not speak japanese well enough to understant the original text so if anyone has anything to add to this or to correct me on please feel free to do so.

Now to get started I'm not sure if one could say Eichi gave away the mask "So easily" seeing as he claimed that it was "a hard choice to make"? Which, as one might know, implies unease with an idea and pondering and debating and a general amount of thinking behind a decision so? I know this isn't really the main focus of this ask but I'm just a tad miffed with the semantics of it is all. And in either case giving the mask back to Wataru while expecting it back still shows a certain degree of trust in their relationship it wouldn't have been such a big deal for him (as it apparently was) if the mask didn't have a lot of sentimental value to him (the both of them really if we look at the whole exchange).

Now to the claim that the mask was "only" Watarus promise to stay with fine and "continue playing Tsumugis clown role". This is not entirely incorrect. Regarding the acting troupe and staying with fine bit at least.

I'm assuming this bit in EP:Link Deadend/7 is what you are referencing, and I see where you're coming from. But the bluebird line

from literally three dialogue lines further down, which references this line of dialogue (notorious Eichi line everyone should be familiar with)

kind of somewhat really recontextualises that? Because you see this is a reference to a fairytale about a pair of siblings and they get sent out by a nice fairy to find the bluebird of happiness for her sad daughter to make her happy again so they both go on an adventure and travel far and search and search but they can not find the bluebird of happiness and then when they return home again, disappointed because they couldn't find the blue bird, they realise only one night has actually passed and the journey was probably just a dream. But then their eyes fall upon their pet dove in it's cage which appears blue all of a sudden and so they gift it to the fairies sad daughter which becomes happy again and sets the bird free. The real bluebird of happiness is a dove. At least in the version of the story I'm familiar with but I mean everyone sees the symbolism right? It's. very hard to miss.

And then dropping this?

I'm not sure how to say this properly but in the overall context this makes it pretty clear that Tsumugi has nothing to do with this anymore this is Fully between Wataru and Eichi. And I am the last person to dismiss Tsumugis significance in the course of Wataeis relationship as characters I will be among the first to protest when someone dismisses the importance of Tsumugis and Eichis relationship in favour of some image they have of Wataei but he has nothing to do with this one.

Yes Tsumugi gets namedropped but - again - I don't really see how that would lessen the sentiment Wataru is triying to convey here? Because. Yes. Why wouldn't he mention Tsumugi?

The entire conversation pretty much boils down to "Yes I was initially only in this because I thought I could replace Tsumugis role in your life and then I wanted to leave but we have spent so much time together that I realised that that is definitely not working out because I really do love you. I love you as a teammate; I love you as a friend; I love you as a person and I am very angry at myself for not managing to get that into your head. So please allow me to stay with you for as long as you'll have me." And then also Eichi not understanding because he has the emotional self awareness of a very emotionally unaware loaf of bread and also because he hates himself that is a very big thing about his character huge part of his character arc actually that he. you know? Hates himself? And feels guitly for his actions during the war? And doesn't think he deserves love and companionship? Which is why Wataru wanting to stay with him for him and not for some twisted form of revenge is such an alien concept to him? Because he is projecting his insecurities onto Wataru? As one is wont to do when they hate themself? "EiChi Didn'T eVen UnDErStanD WhAt tf ThAT Mask MEAnt" Yeah. That's. That's the point? So he can think about it and come to that conclusion himself which works as a keymoment in his characters journey from hating life and himself to enjoying being alive and wanting to live on because of the people he's surrounded with? He literally explains why he didn't immediately understand the mask during the EP:Link Epilogue/4

And to get back to the "I dunno why the f you think it's ok to lie about "! EnDiNG wItH wAtAeI EnGaGeMEnT" about which I have two things to say:

"Lying" implies further intent and an effort. Neither of which exist in this case.

He literally went down on one knee while making a big proclamation of offering himself to Eichi with a very personal item that works as a symbol for their commitment to each other on a starlit rooftop. The comparison writes itself.

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

And then I expected there to be a proper reason given and instead you proceed to follow that up with "when the chapter it happened wasn't even close to the end of ep:link". I know the shame is on me for expecting something sensical from an ask which has been near constant in it's lack of correct statements but such is human nature I suppose. And you are not wrong. Deadend/7 isn't very close to the end of EP:Link. That is true.

But do you know what Is very close to the end of EP:Link? The Epilogue Chapters 3-5.

Do you know what the content of those chapters is? I do. Very well actually :)

(Eichi literally explains why he didn't get it)

So if this answers your "Do you dumb fucks even read the stories?" questions, Yes. And I think I'm a lot better at it than you. So I'd say I'm coping quite well over here :p

PS: Regarding your PS, I take the "I've never been in love before so I wouldn't know" comment with a lot of humour actually as an aroace person who's emotional self awareness also ends at "good" and "Not good" I think it's very funny all things considered especially because he mentioned the loving Wataru thing several times before that and I'm generally of the belief that actions speak louder than words and also am in a happy long term relationship with the concept of "Reading Subtext". So please excuse me for not breaking down in tears everytime someone reminds me of that one singuar line of text in one of my favourite all time enstars stories that came out three years ago which also brought us the single best card set in the entire game

as well as absolute banger dialogue such as

Among others <33

And there are soooooo many other examples of wataei dialogue that simply make me swoon but I have already had to take out so many of the one's I wish I could put here so this wouldn't get "Do you love the colour of the sky" long

And also, regarding your "Wataru said that even though Eichi likes him, he still can easily discard him for the sake of his objectives" I'll just say that no he absolutely could not. I mean he'd say that and if pull comes to shove and he has no other option then he might seriously consider it but may I mention that Wataru was gone for a few days at most but really not that long of a time during Sanctuary and Eichi stopped considering being a normal rational person that doesn't leave helpless 17 year olds in the midst of a construction site. Very different situation but I feel like it's worth mentioninh here. Another example is Eichis almost not being able to go through with the war because of Wataru. Wataru had to actively come and tell Eichi to go through with it. Wataru isn't the reason Eichi started the war, that is wrong, but he is the reason Eichi almost didn't finish it. and during the war era that was his Main objective. Again I'm part of the fraction "actions speak louder than words" Show don't tell and all that, but even the words are pushing it.

And that concludes my essay :)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[heesulovebot]

IMPRISON ME IN YOUR NAME; LET LOVE KILL ME  

the eighth sense (2023), dir. baek inu & werner du plessis // small favors, erin a. craig // the affliction, marie howe // the amulet of samarkand, jonathan stroud // gif credit: @aejeonghae

[boyfridged]

You may have already mentioned this in some of your other metas, and I just missed it, so please ignore this if it's redundant.

Do you think Bruce is projecting onto Jason by pushing him as a Robin? Obviously, Jason wanted to be Robin and was excited about it, and Bruce let Jason do other things, but (if I'm not mistaken) before Tim came into play, solidifying the whole Batman needs a Robin/support to keep him upright, Bruce and Dick becoming Batman and Robin, in the beginning, was also sort of a coping mechanism.

I think there are a few examples of Bruce enabling this kind of mindset. Like in Gotham Knights #43–44 (sorry), every time Barbara brings up Jason's inner turmoil, Bruce refocuses on his ability as a Robin; similarly, when Jason finds out about Two-Face and his dad, he is hurt, and Bruce acknowledges that but then does the same thing, zeroing in on reassuring Jason that he made a mistake but is still a good Robin.

Like, Jason got it from Bruce, but he unintentionally encouraged that kind of thinking.

oh, i definitely think that bruce is projecting on jason and that it profoundly affected jay. and, while every single one of your observations is apt, i would add that what truly made it so tragic is that he projected his own worst traits on jason while being blind to the fact that jay already shared his best qualities.

tldr: bruce projects himself on jason in terms of grief (saying that jason needs vigilantism to work his grief through) and sees his own worst traits in jason (anger) but doesn't see his own best traits in jay (compassion, love, and sensitivity). ironically, jason does end up developing all of the (projected) worst characteristics of bruce (obsessiveness, and relentlessness in pursuit of the respective perceived idea of justice). this happens even though they were barely present in his early storylines, and only ever manifested when jason was scared or lost. later, they truly came to be because of his trauma relating to vigilantism.

and the long, long version, coming with panels and quotes: under the cut.

first i want to say that the following analysis focuses very specifically on bruce's mistakes, but i don't view the overall of jay's upbringing by bruce solely in these terms. from text it is also clear that bruce deeply loves and cares about jay, and that jay enjoys being robin. now that this is clear, let's get to particularities, and start with jay's origin story.

i truly never stop thinking about the significance of bruce meeting jay in the crime alley, the place of his parents' death. there's a lot to be said about it, but here the focus is, of course, on the fact that he sees a little boy, very much similar to himself, angry and hurt, in the same scenery that brought him so much grief. and jay in some ways does appear to be a mirror of bruce's own agonies, as well as a mirror of his own inclination for seeking justice; and somehow, bruce fixates on the first one, while almost completely dismissing the latter.

bruce looks at him and assumes that the remedy to jason's pain and anger is being robin; and he doesn't stop to think about it. (it has to be noted that there's also classism at play, classism that is mostly a result of writers' own beliefs – collins did state in a couple of interviews that that the motivation behind jason's background was to make his introduction into vigilantism seem less offensive, as jason has already been exposed to crime...)

i think, in this context, it's interesting to look at the two-face storyline even closer, and from the start too. in the beginning, bruce talks of jason's 'street' roots and assumes jay would go "down the same criminal road that took his father [willis] to an early death." he also talks of jason making a lot of progress. later, in batman #411, after jason learns that willis has been killed by two-face, bruce comments that jay "has never been like this...listless...almost pouting--"

this all, along with jay's cheerful and diligent behaviour from the previous issue builds an interesting picture for us: because we essentially learn that jay has been overall an unproblematic child. bruce, of course, attributes this "progress" to the training. however, for anyone else, the logical conclusion would be that jay's quick adjustment was simply a matter of finding himself in a safe and stable environment and receiving continuous support and attention from a parental figure. i find it rather questionable that jason's personality softened down because he had something to punch in the cave–– the more intuitive explanation is of course that he was angry and quick to fight when they first met because he couldn't afford anything else and because he was scared. but months later, in a loving home, he can allow himself to drop his guard; and his cocky attitude disappears until much later.

so the rather unsettling picture that we derive is that bruce is training jay to become a vigilante in order to "channel" his (nonvisible at this point) anger into something useful and just. and he clearly links this to his own trauma in batman #416 (that’s already starlin btw), in his conversation with dick, explaining why he took jay in: “he’s so full of anger and frustration… he reminds me of myself, just after my parents were killed.” bruce also mentions that soon after their first meeting, jason helped him and "handled himself well" in the fight, but he doesn't mention that jay has ran away from a crime "school" and intended to stop injustice on his own only because he was ignored.

the theme of bruce comparing jay to himself appears again in detective comics #574 (barr), where it is approached with a much more... critical look, thanks to leslie's presence and her skepticism of bruce's actions. after jason has suffered nearly fatal injuries at the hand of the mad hatter, bruce reminisces on his own trauma and motives. he tells leslie: "i didn't choose jason for my work. he was chosen by it...as i was chosen." leslie replies: "stop that! (...) you do this for yourself... you're still that little boy (...)" then, the conversation steers to the familiar ground and the topic of anger. in bruce's words, again: “i wanted to give jason an outlet for his rage…wanted him to expunge his anger and get on with his life…” and finishes "and instead, i may have killed him."

the recognition that bruce's projection on jason and involving him with his work might have fatal consequences is, as always, fast forgotten once jay wakes up and proclaims that he wants to continue his work as robin.

but to circle back, i think there's something else worth our attention, something deeply ironic, that is showcased in that issue: that bruce has no evidence for jay's "rage." when leslie talks of bruce's past, she recalls his tendencies to get into brutal fights at perceived injustice as early as in school; when bruce talks of jason, two pictures that are juxtaposed, are that of jason fighting as robin and jason... smiling, playing baseball.

so, in the early days of jason's training and work in the field, we see bruce talking of jason's anger a lot; but we barely see it.

that being said, jay is angry sometimes– and i think your observation about how bruce deals with it is incredibly interesting and accurate.

we first see jay truly and devastatingly angry in the two-face storyline. bruce focuses on jay's reaction as robin, which is, in fact, aggressive. but something that he barely addresses is that jason's first reaction is sleeping all day, and not beating anyone to a pulp; in fact, this vengeful instinct seems to arise only when he is put right in front of two-face. and his third instinct, once the rage (very quickly) dies down after the altercation with two-face, is crying, because bruce hid the truth about willis' death from him. jay, while crying, asks bruce: "you have taken me out into combat-- but you spare me this?" in response, bruce lectures jason about how grief inspires revenge, which is, again, deeply ironic, given that jay seeking out revenge seemed to be prompted and enabled solely by the role of robin. moreover, his question suggests that at this point he saw grief ("you spare me this") and fighting as two different things.

the final is, as you said, bruce focusing on making it into a lesson on vigilantism, or, in his own words, "tempering revenge into justice." personally, i think in this way bruce directs jason to bring his grief into the field as a powering force, something that he didn't necessarily have an own incentive to do. the flash of compartmentalisation between his ordinary life and being a sidekick that jay has shown by questioning bruce's decision is lost. emotions are now a robin thing, and they have an (informal) protocol, a moral code. and when jay is confronted with an emotionally exhausting case next – the garzonas case, i believe that the focus on "tempering revenge into justice" is exactly the problem– we don't see jay crying, we see him frantic about finding the solution. this, right there, is bruce's obsessiveness, that in my opinion, was developed in jay specifically as a result of how his engagement with vigilantism combines with his deep sensitivity.

and, needless to say, his sensitivity is all the same as that of bruce – they both can't stand looking at other people hurting, they both wear their hearts on their sleeve, caring way too much – the thing is, bruce never quite acknowledges how they are similar in this matter. instead, he focuses on his sparse bursts of anger, wanting to bring jason closure in his grief the only way he knows it – in a fight for a better world. so, as you said, he focuses on jason's ability as robin.

which just doesn't work for jason. at all. we know it from how his robin run comes to an end: in the first issue of a death in the family (batman #426) alfred informs: “i’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying.”  to that, bruce contends: “in other words, i may have started jason as robin before he had a chance to come to grips with his parents deaths.” he also tells jay that the field is not a place for someone who is hurting; a message that is the opposite of what he's been saying for years now, and something that i imagine was difficult for bruce to conceptualise, because then he would have to question his own unhealthy tendencies. it's a bit late to come to this realisation; bruce's self-projection that caused him to worry so much about jay's anger has already turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy that will fully manifest itself in utrh, when jason does the only thing he was taught to do with grief: try to channel it into justice.

[featherymainffins]

Peace and love on planet Earth but if I see one more post NOT about recovery and, in fact, encouraging eating disorders in the ed recovery tag, I might just turn into a chimpanzee and tear everyone's faces off.

[angeart]

thinking about the boatem circus au and...yeah, i totally forgot that it's implied that the watchers set fire to the circus..............i can't imagine the GUILT grian feels if/when he finds out.........maybe he thinks that he should have just sucked it up and stayed with the watchers because if he had then at least the only one being hurt would be himself, not other lost and vulnerable hybrids........

okay you have nO IDEA how much this made me think of hhau grian actually. for, uh, reasons.

anyway, i think if the boatem circus folk found out, they'd get even more protective over grian. pointing out that it's not his fault; that he's not guilty of this crime, but the people who set those flames, knowingly. that the cruelty doesn't come from grian's hands and it's not his fault that it follows in his footsteps.

grian would still feel guilty, absolutely devastated that scar's wonderful circus burned to the ground because of shadows of grian's past... but i think he couldn't stand the thought of never leaving that awful place. even if it'd prevent this from happening to the others. is it selfish? maybe.

i don't think i should've never left is a thought that he has. but it's not like he wants anyone else to get hurt either! it's complicated!