#i've been thinking a lot about this recently i guess

[ghouljams]

In your tags with the "not moose" breaking the Witch's wards you said you had to nerf her. Now all I can think about how insanely strong Witch is. Since it's a long generation of witches in her family- I guess she's well known in the magic community. Maybe they even invite her to be apart of some witches coven 👀. But she always refuses because she likes doing her own thing. But imagine she has to go to like certain meetings and what not and Price sees her in some formal witchy garb 👀👀👀

I haven't talked much about other witches in this au! I keep meaning to. Yes, Witch has been invited to multiple covens, but she prefers her privacy. Witch's family is well known as old magic, and older covens often invite her because they know she's got that strong ancestral tie to her magic. New covens of young witches often invite her because they think she's a novice witch. She does a lot of "makeshift" magic because she knows it so well, and where old witches would see her as somewhat of a prodigy, new age witches see her as inexperienced and unprepared.

As you might imagine that does not fly with Witch. So she only goes to coven meetings for 1 of 2 reasons: for a sounding board on a problem(old witches), or to be petty(new witches). Here's Witch interacting with a very condescending witch, and Price seeing her in her formal witchy clothes.

You snap a card down on the coffee shop table, the crisp sound of the cardstock against lacquered wood is music to your ears. You study the card, the mice, and jot down a few notes in your nearby journal. A cup of tea is set down in front of you, you're quick to swipe your cards out of the way.

"Are you reading tarot?" The girl, you think she's the owner, asks.

"Uh," You look at your Lenormand deck, "Yeah, I am." It's usually easier to lie to people when you don't want to explain what it is you're doing. You don't always want to have a conversation with a stranger about magic and how they have a friend that's really into "that sort of thing."

The girl sort of... scoffs, and rolls her eyes. Rude. "You know it's not all tarot right? That's an oracle deck," She tells you(it's not), sitting down across from you. You don't remember inviting her company, but it's fine. You close your notebook and gather your cards back into their deck. You're not really a fan of being tested like this.

"You read cards?" You try to smile, and look friendly. You wonder if you could make all her hair fall out. She gestures at the store generally. You look around at the, sigh, occult artwork and gothic vibes. Sort of overplayed if you're being honest. You can spy a few "Wicca-pedia" books on the overstuffed shelves. There's a table of crystals for sale, that explains why you're so itchy.

"I'm a witch," She says returning your smile.

"Neat," You already want to text your sister, or Rún, about this. "What do you practice?" New witches always want to talk about their practice, and it gives you time to shuffle your cards.

"Right hand path mostly, but recently?" She leans forward, whispers conspiratorially, "I've been dealing a lot with the fae." You pause your shuffle, your stomach clenching unpleasantly.

"Really?" You ask, "I thought you were supposed to stay away from them."

"Oh, yeah, you should definitely stay away from them," She nods, "They're dangerous for beginners, but once you know how to deal with them you can get them to do all sorts of stuff for you." You snap a card down on the table, a nervous habit from your mother.

The Mice again.

That's not your card.

You glance around the shop, the people milling about. You don't need to see them to know what they are, you can feel it. The mice in the storehouse, waiting for the lights to go out before they gorge themselves.

"So how long have you been practicing?" The dumbass asks.

"Not long," You mumble, still scanning the shop for anyone you might recognize. It's not technically a lie, in the grand scheme of things you really haven't been a witch long. You know witches far longer lived and far longer practiced. You shuffle your card back into the deck and set it on your notepad.

"I've been at it for about five years now," She powers through you ignoring her, "Do you have a coven or anyone you're learning from?" You glance at her, barely paying attention, as you pull a coin from your pocket and a pin from your skirt.

"No, I'm-"

"You should really be learning from someone," She cuts you off "magic can be dangerous for beginners." You ignore her harder, jabbing the pin into your thumb and smearing the blood on the silver coin. "Uh, sweetie?" You reach to tug a sugar packet free of its container on the table and break it open over the coin, what else, what else? Payment, threat, bait- you pull a lighter from your pocket and melt the plastic pin head to stick it to the coin. Assurance, good, done. "What are you doing?" The girl sounds annoyed, like you're making a mess for no reason.

"Making a fae ward," You tell her, she scoffs. Rude, again.

"You need a little more than some random trash to do a spell," She shakes her head, waves a hand. You take the opportunity to flick the coin off the table with practiced fingers as she tells you how badly you need a mentor and how you can't believe everything you see about magic on the internet. The coin goes flying, and pings neatly against the leg of a chair before starting to pinball around the cafe floor. "-you should really come to a coven meeting, see what real magic looks like."

You can feel your magic tracing its web through the store, you're not sure how much more real you can get with it. Not when you can see the fae customers trying not to jump away from your spell. Still, an insult is an insult. You fold your hands on the table and level your uninvited guest with what you hope is a neutral expression.

"When do you meet?"

-

You're remembering why you hate covens as you get ready. First of all you've been drawing wards on yourself all day, and snuck in a ritual bath, then you had to find your great-grandmother's old chatelaine since your ritual robes don't have any pockets. Most importantly you forgot how fucking cold it is when you're just in the gauzy ritual fabric your aunt made for you.

You check the clock, you're running a little behind so you don't have time to put on anything else. That's just great. Maybe you'll skip it. But then that stupid- Ugh. You take a breath to steady your emotions, no sense in getting worked up when you're so thoroughly doused in magic. You grab a length of Mal's lace from your closet and pin it in place to veil yourself. No way are you letting these little dumbasses stick anything on you.

Another quick check of the clock as you lace your heels, then you're out the back door. You stop yourself at the fence, stare out at the snowy winter landscape. You can already feel the frostbite setting in.

"lace looks good on you," Price whispers, his fingers feel so rough where they brush your back. You hum, and turn to face him. His eyes drop immediately to your chest. You wait for him to decide to meet your gaze again, and find yourself feeling a tad self conscious. You've never been self conscious about going to a ritual sky-clad before. Witches had a long history of dancing naked in the moonlight after all.

"Since when do you cross the fence unannounced?" You ask, trying to bring his attention back where it's meant to be.

"Since when do you leave the house with so much skin showing?" He fires back, stalking around you to check the back like a shark. You lift your veil for him, let him trace his fingers down your spine. They stop short of the draped fabric covering your ass, and you suppress the shiver it draws from you. You let your veil drop back over his hand, obscuring his view.

"I'm going to a ritual."

"Any reason they're getting the works?"

"I'm trying to prove a point." You sigh. "I may have gotten a little-"

"Petty?" Price fills in, you're glad you don't have to say it. His hand smooths over your shoulder, sliding under the lace to cup your neck. "Anything I should be worried about?" You tip your head, feeling the curl of his fingers against your throat, the lingering warmth of his cigar still on his fingertips. You wonder if it'll leave a mark.

"No." It feels too plain an answer, but you doubt there's anything he could do even if he was worried. You're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, especially when other witches are involved.

Price hums, and you find the sound resonant as he tips your head back to rest against his shoulder. His body presses flush to your back, and you let it. You want nothing more than to sink into him, to let yourself relax into the dangerous hold he has over you, but you know your own ego. If there's one thing you can't stand it's a witch that thinks she's untouchable. You'd hate to see fresh talent eaten before it'd had a chance to blossom.

"You could escort me," You say, the idea striking you suddenly. What better way to show a new witch the dangers that hide behind fae kindness than to bring Price as your plus one? You're sure he's eaten more witches than he's comfortable divulging, but more importantly the wild listens to him. If he can take you through the forest you won't have to be cold so long.

"And what do I get, for this service?" He asks.

"What do you want?"

His hands go to cup your breasts almost as soon as the words leave your mouth, the thin fabric of your ritual robe doing little to hide his callused grip as he squeezes the soft flesh.

"Ten minutes," He breathes.

"You know you can have more than that," You smile.

"Not with you like this," His hands slip down, cup the softness of your stomach, hover over the pleat of fabric covering your legs.

"Alright," You agree, "ten minutes-" you can feel the ripple the goes through him, a deal of temptation being made, "-but only after, and you can't rip anything."

"Of course not," He agrees, "I want to see my witch dressed up again after all."

Inspiration images for the witch's ritual wear

[foodtruckery]

Throwing a new scenario at you have you ever thought about what if ford kind of took advantage of stans spotty memory to start a deeper relationship with him? Just implying this is something theyve been doing already and stans simply forgotten and stan (not that ford is aware of this) hesitantly believes it because he has memories of looking at ford in a way he shouldn't. /thinking/ about ford in a way he shouldn't so maybe he just hasnt recovered those memories of acting on those thoughts yet

But as time goes by he'll ask ford for like. More details to try and jog his memory and ford gives him vague, general things (because well. Never actually happened) and stan is getting more suspicious and freaked out

He starts questioning his reality and if ford is just going along with this because it's what /stan/ wanted and ford felt guilty for the mind wipe so he went along with it so he starts pulling away and ford is getting a little panicked because he thinks stan has figured out his lie and is about to leave him (guess what ford? Gaslighting your brother actually can backfire crazy right?)

Hell maybe ford got the idea because sometimes stan in his relapses DID get confused about their relationship and commented on fords attractiveness or something so ford was like. Well. What's the harm? It's better to not stress stan out in the relapse and make him panicked about finding his brother attractive. Clearly it would be easier for him to just act like this was pre-established!

Absolutely nothing could go wrong ford is sure of it

- 🐶

oh absolutely! i also swear i saw someone else talking about a similar situation the other day that i just loved (and i wish i could remember WHERE i saw it so i could link it). like the darker spin of "ford convinces stan they were closer than they were" on purpose is definitely interesting. but i really love the idea of it being a little bit of ford leaning in and a lot of stan not having a great grasp on what he was repressing. so you've got ford blurring the lines on purpose but then you've got stan blurring the lines because he's always wanted to so okay yeah that tracks, he just wishes he could remember how they got there, who made the first move, how long they've been open with each other about this.

i also really love the idea of stan thinking that ford might just be putting up with him, because it's almost always the other way around when i've seen it. stan agreeing to (or maybe not necessarily agreeing to but not fighting as hard as he should against) letting their relationship go further than he's comfortable with because it's ford. and if that's how he can keep ford in his life, he'll make it work. but i haven't seen a lot of the reverse, of stan feeling like he's the one that's pushing them over the line and ford may only be going through with it to keep him happy or out of some sort of obligation after weirdmaggedon.

so here you have two fucking idiots, basically, who both just refuse to outright admit their feelings for each other. and yeah, ford has a heavier responsibility here being the one with all his facilities in better working order, sure, but god forbid they just sit down and talk about it when stan is lucid enough. i actually just recently was introduced to this fic, which you have probably seen already but if not, HIGHLY reccommend! because i really do love the idea that when stan has his memory lapses he just. immediately starts hitting on ford. like every time that trope comes up it thrills me.

but okay lol, this is a sharp left and not at all in line with the complicated, angstier edge of things we've been talking about, but lean with me for a second, 🐶. let's assume they've sorted their shit out, they're both up to speed with their mutual affection, and this kinda lapse happens frequently enough that they need a contingency plan of some sort. but when he does lapse, stan has a wildly high rate of immediately clocking ford as "hot as hell" and someone he wants to horizontal tango with.

well what if stan just...gave ford permission to go along with it if he wanted to? it's like an absolutely buckwild sort of pseudo-one-sided roleplay, but they can debrief when stan's back to rights, and it's a nicer way of navigating the situation. stan sure as hell prefers coming back to himself with Ford boneless in bed beside him rather than wringing his hands and looking like the guiltiest man that's ever lived. like there's obviously a fantastic opportunity for angst and drama and emotional fallout with stan's memory ish, but i also think they deserve to make the best of the situation once in a while. as a treat!

[anemicjellyfish]

I don't usually like to comment much on stuff like this, but I'll give it just this once. Because there's been something I've been wanting to say and I think this moment is the right time to say it? (Please pretend you don't see any typos or grammar issues, I'm trying my best after a concussion I got recently.)

Helluva Boss respects its audience.

Our beloved demon show is full of jokes, gags, visual and audio stimulation, and more. It's wild, it's silly, it's emotional, and it's weird. All of which are good things, imo.

But when I say it respects it's audience, I mean the show (the writers, producers, etc) trusts us (the viewers) to understand what they're trying to say without necessarily saying it aloud.

I don't have to provide screenshots by now, and I won't because I'm tired, sorry. But we've all seen the evidence that there is a big class divide in Hell. Since this divide places imps near the bottom, we see the world of Hell from the bottom tier* (or close to it, I'll touch on that in a little bit) because imps make up a lot of the named characters.

Even ignoring every instance of "small/tiny" said by multiple characters, we get a line from Striker about how it's impressive for an imp (Blitzø) to own their own business.

We see imps in difficult and humiliating service roles to the higher ranking members of society.

Seemingly successful imps like Crimson shouldn't be considered the standard by any means. We found out that his "business" was failing. He tried marrying off Moxxie to get whatever fortune Chaz had amassed (even if it did turn out that Chaz was penniless himself & had lied).

I highly doubt that Crimson's criminal empire really fell to pieces because one little Moxxie ditched him. The system is rigged against Crimson and the only way he could try to get ahead was by running a literal mob/mafia group.

We were shown through world-building and snippets of dialogue that imps haven't been treated fairly in society.

Helluva Boss told us all of this without characters breaking the 4th wall like a 1990's Saturday morning cartoon educational end segment. They pulled a "show, don't tell," on us, and I respect them so much for it.

And I don't want to be too harsh to those who didn't catch it earlier. It's totally fair and understandable to miss these things. Which is why I think they had Millie be the one to spell it out for everyone.

An imp, from a presumably poorer background (edit at the bottom**) than her two imp coworkers, was the one who put into words that imps are seen as "less than" by just about everyone else. She's our down-to-earth, badass character, who has no reason to just make up excuses for why things are so difficult in life. If Millie is acknowledging the classism, it's serious.

Personally, I think a lot of reactors get caught up in the act of reacting and don't get the chance to take in the media they're watching. Yall know that moment when someone shows you a video on their phone and you have to watch the video knowing that the person is watching you watch it?

Yeah, I imagine it's something like that. In not sure I'd come up with the best takes if I knew people were waiting for me to make online content about other online content.

* One slight add-on here is that Hellhounds appear to be below imps in social standing. Blitzø is seemingly able to walk into a shelter/kennel and take his pick of Hellhounds to adopt. So if I had to guess, imps may rank a little above Hellhounds. But honestly I'm just so tired and I think I'm gonna have to call it on the analysis here. Sorry!

I've had so much respect for this show since I first saw Harvest Moon Festival with the way they treat the world building.

** sorry I think I worded this differently than I intended, and I'm not even gonna blame the concussion this time. What I meant was maybe Millie wasn't necessarily closer to/deeper in poverty than Blitzø during their youth/early adult life (Moxxie seemed better off than both). I meant that it seemed like she stayed "poorer" for longer? In the sense that Blitzø was already working for himself when they met; he seemed to already be surviving on his own and was able to save money to start IMP and give them an office. My stupid brain is a mess, again sorry for being weird.

Danny Motta so fundamentally misunderstands Blitz and it boils my blood. Oh well. I will not elaborate.

[hungryslothwrites]

What emotion do you create from? by traumacure / Why is millenial humor so weird? by Elizabeth Bruenig / "Reunion" by Eliza Victoria from A Bottle of Storm Clouds / Memo to Human Resources by They Might Be Giants / "Path Between Houses" by Greg Rappleye / Sweet Hibiscus Tea by Penelope Scott / "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot

[bambiraptorx]

just had a random thought: what if splinter starting going by that name when he met april. like, picture the context, he has four kids who have been calling him variations of dad since they could talk and he's rarely if ever interacted with other people since leaving the hidden city. he's gone by two names previously (and is no longer truly comfortable with either) but hasn't used either name in years. Again, his kids just call him dad and they're most likely the only people he talks to. so when he finally meets april, she asks what his name is, and he completely blanks and tells her the first word that comes to mind. maybe he's looking at his hands and notices a silver of wood from a box he was moving earlier. maybe he glances at an old crate and the word just comes out. maybe he's so disconnected from who he was before that even though he has two names he could give, he makes one up on the spot.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[silvertsundere]

other people have made posts and theorized about it (and I too blame tw culture bleeding onto here) but I do miss old tumblr and how much more people would interact with one another. Maybe it's just cause of the circles I'm in and it still happens outside of it but I just feel I interacted with people a lot more back in the day

[purgatorygrl]

Arthur had to face the reality of his mortality. With each passing day he knew that his life was coming to an end, with no possibility of a better tomorrow.

The dreams and plans he once had became impossible knowing that he would not be able to experience a future. The fact of not being able to think about anything but the present, without the possibility of planning for tomorrow, is something that surely filled him with deep loneliness and terror.

The uncertainty of whether he would wake up the next day or not, and having to live with the constant pain, both physical and emotional, is an unimaginable pain.

The fear of the unknown, of what would come after death, is something he probably struggled with in his final days, in addition to the sadness of the emotional weight of knowing that his death would affect those he loved, leaving a void and causing pain

[spacedustmantis]

imagine any other youtube show started locking 70% of their content behind a paywall. not even including stuff like high resolution character art or post session discussions. 70 percent!! there would be riots in the streets

[sysig]

Just a few favourites, only a couple, I swear (Patreon)

[babacontainsmultitudes]

80 or so years of life really ain't enough can I have an elf lifespan instead please? Or at least a dwarf's... I need at least a couple hundred years... Oh and a new spine every 5 or so years, if that's not too much to ask. 3. 3 years actually. Yeah, a new spine every 2 years, and a lifespan of 350-750 years, that's all I want really.

[holdoncallfailed]

i've talked about this before but my best friend is a classically trained pianist and has a really high level of music theory knowledge whereas i am obviously a big music fan but i have literally NO ability to understand music theory it's just incredibly difficult (read: impossible) for me to comprehend. so whenever she gets excited about a music thing she has to do a music theory 101 course and i just keep saying ok ❤️ yay ❤️ because i don't know what the hell she's talking about but we're both having fun in our own ways

[autocat5876]

guys i think mm2 might be peak

[iiboronii]

i think that i might've posted about it before but i <3 all the little -ler blogs on here. i'm being so fr. nothing clears my skin more than seeing a -ler blog answering questions. i love you guys please keep making silly little -lers.

[keeps-ache]

goin to the library, library time woohoo !!

[cuntwrap--supreme]

My dog has been having senior moments, such as randomly forgetting what she's doing or trying to walk into a street, and I've been calling her "Mr. President" when it happens.

Like, "No, Mr. President, we can't walk into oncoming traffic. That's how we get killed!"