#idk i just have had a lot of things i need to express

[eph3merall]

toxic!ex!matt + a sprinkle of mean!matt . . .

cw ; slapping

—

matt is a... nice person. you know this, he knows this. he doesn't get mad too easily, keeping his calm almost all the time when anyone ticks him off. at least, that's what you thought. it never occurred to you how toxic the man was, leaving him after finding girls' contacts on his phone and some of the toxic shit he's done.

but, it always confused you how matt never seemed to care when you officially announced to him you two were done. it was like he just didn't care at all, after it took you so long to muster up the courage to even confront him about it. matt was shrugging and chewing on the toothpick in his mouth, as you huff in frustration and throw a few more curses in his direction.

you eventually got all your stuff and ended up crashing at your friends' house for a little. she was happy to have you anyways, not having seen eachother in awhile as you talked to her for hours about everything. in the end, she wasn't surprised that matt was a douche bag. maybe you aren't exactly surprised either—but he was a good boyfriend... kind of. but, if everything else wasn't good with him, the sex definitely was.

maybe it's why you find yourself outside matt's door. you're upset. pissed off and annoyed. matt always knew how to calm that storm down, and maybe you just needed him without realizing. your first instinct was to just go to him, yet you weren't even sure why. he was an asshole in the relationship.

when you find yourself in his room, matt is rolling his eyes when you start rambling on and on about whatever the fuck. you always talked a shit ton. that never really did change about you—but you looked.. more glowy. like you were doing better. a lot better.

when you kept droning on about something probably about him, matt is just sighing and sliding his hand into your hair. patting your head and then his hand comes up to pat your cheek a few times. "shut up." before his hand slapped your cheek gently—shock forming across your features as the sting starts from the harsh impact. you blink and turn your head to glare at matt, even though it did distract you from everything you were so worried about.

it's why matt has you on your knees between his legs, a hand cradling your face as you whine gently. he knows you. god, he knows you so well that he knows just how to get you to stop yapping your ass off. maybe you needed it too, with how much anxiety had wrapped around your entire body.

"shh, y'got it. doin' real good, baby," matt is cooing at you so gently, you forget that he's your ex. that you probably shouldn't even be here right now, for both of your sakes. but you can't help the way your cheek leans into the palm of his hand, warm and inviting. his eyes glance at your pitiful fucking expression, his free hand slapping you across the face gently.

sometimes, matt doesn't feel like making you suck his dick when you get too pissed off. so, he'll settle on this, or some other tactic to get you to shut your mouth. even after you two have broken off, some things just never change. and, in some way, matt kind of hates how well he knows you as he lands another slap across your pretty lil' face. "i got you, baby. i always got ya. don't gotta worry that head off anymore."

—

inspired from a thought i posted idk how long ago

@conspiracy-ash @sturniolosfavkayleigh @lvrsturniolo @st7rnioioss @meatballlover10 @ashlishes @ferdzom @55sturn @chriseatingmeoutin4k @unknvhx @mattslolita

©eph3merall 2024

[leo-artista]

There are some things I've been thinking about in regards to Stan and Ford and their relationship with guilt that I don't really know how to express so I'm just gonna ramble about it here bc I need to get this out of my head somehow

Okay, so, Stan's one defining trait is that he feels guilty All The Time about a lot of stuff, and it's kinda what motivates most of his actions. The whole reason he spent 30 years working on the portal is because he felt guilty about accidentaly shoving Ford into it, and you could even argue that it's what leads him to sacrifice himself in the finale (which is actually very depressing if you think about it for too long)

Meanwhile Ford is... a bit more complicated. He does feel guilty, especially about being the reason the portal was made. But I think he also tries to shove guilt and other feelings aside in pursuit of what he thinks is more important- achieving his goals, studying anomalies, stopping Bill, etc, and therefore he doesn't really leave a lot of space to actually feel or process it, and I think it's the reason he can come across as egotistical and uncaring a lot of times

So because of this, I like to think that after weirdmageddon happens and they reconcile, there's a bit of a role reversal between them- Stanley's more at peace with his mistakes now that he's been forgiven, and he's not feeling as much self-guilt as he did before (although it still hasn't gone away completely), but now the one who's forced to come to terms with his guilt for his actions that directly or indirectly hurt other people is Ford since he didn't do that before, because he was more focused on other things and wasn't very self aware. And maybe he struggles with it, trying to make up for not being the best brother/friend he could have been to the people he cares about, thinking of how many chances he had to change and be better but chose not to because he was too self centered- and I think if it came to that, it would be Stanley who would help keep him grounded and prevent his self-blaming from spiraling out of control, because he knows better than anyone the kind of road that line of thinking leads to

Idk man I just like imagining how they would cope with shit like that- Ford making an effort to be more sensible and empathetic to other people's feelings and trying harder to show how much he cares, Stanley learning to not beat himself for his own mistakes after seeing his brother do the same thing and helping Ford understand that not everything was his fault and that circumstances also played a part in how everything turned out- idk I just feel like it would be something interesting to explore

[bottom-slut-unionizer]

I want to start or join a band so bad. I've got so many music ideas

[deoidesign]

I met the me who made different choices

[cerealmonster15]

five stages of adeuce ft the trials and tribulations of ace trappola

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I've always felt that it'd be Killua who initiates the first hug we see between him and Gon

[mukuharakazui]

i sound like the youngest boomer on earth whenever i say this but it really was a mistake for baby gays to learn about the term fruit. idk what it is about the internet that makes kids see a derogatory term for a marginalized group they’re part of, or even just adjacent to, which they’ve never been targeted with and decide it’s just their new Special Inside Joke Swear Word. some 16 y/o online calling a picture of a celebrity wearing a gaudy sweater fruity or faggy isn’t “reclamation” it’s just parroting homophobia and not funny in the slightest.

speaking among onesself or close friends is one thing but when it gets to the point (and it has) where people are calling real life people they barely (or don’t) know homophobic terms, it doesn’t matter if the person saying it is gay or not.

[kg2hub]

kindergala? more like: lou singlehandedly revives the kindergarten tumblr rp community part 2 electric boogaloo /lh /silly

[halfdeadwallfly]

hello i just wrote a poem and for some reason it feels important

[gible-love-nibles-archive]

Forever thinking about that moment in E.ternal D.iva where D.escole jus. Picks the girl up. So I did a redraw(?) of it the other day.

It looks like whoever it was, they've made a big mistake…

Also an extra tiny thing under the cut that is decidedly more cute than above

(Please reblog! I like reading tags :])

Also also what I was referring to

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[therosevest]

um yall… sam’s roommate pulled up to coffee like. um. dressed like this. btw. and their hair is just like. a better fluffier mullet. is this surprising

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

it's so interesting for me to hear that houses localization changed the script to vilify(?word?) the church bc when i played the game (i recently finished my first and so far only playthrough in lions route) for the first half of the game i was waiting for the shoe to drop to reveal the church is the big bad guys but it never came and the revealed was actually ed. idk if it should have been obvious but i was too focused on suspecting the church to see it or if it was actually subtle as i tend to be oblivious to hints(¿word again?) given in media lol.

idk where im going with this but i hope it makes at least some sense bc i am so sleep deprived rn

and the thing tou said about Henry being changed i am so curious of that too

hope you have a nice day and better sleep than me!

I'll answer the last part first since the rest is more descriptive.

Basically Henry went to Wizard School (tee em) and it was a cool and great experience. In JP, it was... iirc basically close to torture/hellish? It was a more mature situation/topic, but the loc changed it to be silly and fun sounding. For some reason Treehouse in particular seems deeply if not fatally allergic to mature topics and/or properly handling them.

Thank for about the sleep comment and I assure you, I sleep too often!! I wish I could send you some of my sleep and make it extra quality for you. :(

As for Three Houses, yeah, in AM it doesn't really happen that way. Nobody is really vilified (not even the imperialist warmonger invading neutral lands!) in AM (same with AG in Hopes).

What you saw/understood was the whole point! It was made it look at first like the Church was suspicious, but then the reveal was meant to be no, it was a fellow house leader all along. That was what the red herring part about the Church was all about. You were supposed to suspect the Church at first, hence Jeralt's warnings, and if you're playing GD, Claude's suspicions.

Unfortunately what happens in the other routes, especially in CF, is that Rhea's trauma is never explored, no characters stop to understand her motivation, etc. She's just used as the resident bad guy because she's Edelgard's enemy. Basically, you're seeing it from the point of view that Rhea is bad because you see it from Edelgard's perspective... but it fails to work because the game, in particular the localization, amps Edelgard up as a huge progressive hero. AM is the only route that really confronts her about her "views", and even then, it's a mess because all the things she argues with Dimitri about aren't her end goal (i.e. they don't ever end up actually happening in the vast capacity she claims she's going to do).

About Edelgard:

The localization avoids any particularly negative comments about her and changes or outright removes them (true of Hopes as well). In Dimitri's case it would make sense because of their connection, but when it ends up just being another route in the pile of feeling sorry for Edelgard (and... not Rhea, who had her family massacred and their bones turned into weapons), it just feels stale.

They basically tell you Edelgard is very cute and easily embarrassed, and she's just this headstrong progressive woman fighting For The People (tee em). The truth is (as per the game itself, i.e. content they can't change/localized because it's the contents of the game itself) that she's invading innocent lands, conscripting her own citizens, turning her citizens into demonic beasts to add to her military strength (lelz when u can't even rely on ur nation's own military strength without demonic beasts), and victim blaming anyone who fights back (if you have yet to see the extremely infamous "no u" line from Edegard to Dimitri in CF, you've been blessed) among other things.

They basically shove it down your throat, characters and narrative both (in the loc in particular), that Edelgard is good and just, while the story itself is looking at all that like ???. The JP script still tries to take good care of her and her image, but they're a lot more blunt about her/her goals (i.e. they don't dance around them nearly as much).

The localization showers what she does with love and attention, and even when they have to say she's the problem/aggressor, they still pretty it up as much as possible (such as Dimitri wondering if maybe her vision of society could possibly be just and righteous, instead of outright admitting what she's done is absolutely atrocious when it's way worse than anything he ever did, all of which he admits to doing and takes responsibility for).

The JP version is more clear on her being the villain. There's definitely bias toward her (as the writers were, confirmed by an interview), but it doesn't slap you in the face with it nearly as badly. Also, Dimitri has won a character popularity poll every year since the game's inception in Japan. In the west, Edelgard is much more popular than she is in the east. That, of course, is because of the way the loc pushed the writing for her/about her.

Edelgard's "progressive" stuff is supposed to be just propaganda (which is ultimately, even as per the western endings because there's only so much they can change). The way the loc frames it is that it's actually what she's aiming for. It's what she uses to inspire people to fight for her though, not what she's actually doing.

About Rhea:

This one's the real doozy because it's a victim of the above. Since they wanted to pretty up Edelgard's dialogue and make her A Hero (tee em), they needed whoever her main enemy was to be the "villain". Since Edelgard, now popular because of the tweaks in her dialogue, hated and wanted to kill Rhea, so too did her raging fans who gave no fucks whatsoever about any character who opposed her... even if it was just to save their own life!

They changed the tone of Rhea's voice in the loc to make her more angry and villainous sounding, rather than sad or kind. She was basically altered in the loc to make Edelgard look better. Like, of course, in the perspective of playing a villain in CF, she's the bad guy and the enemy. The problem comes when they have Rhea say things that are more aggressive than in the original script, and change her tone to sound demeaning and vicious (when she was otherwise not or not as much).

But like, why? The only reason any of us can think of is because they wanted to market Edelgard more. This is likely a result of the west's views and especially political views, since Edelgard's pretty words would sound good to a westerner's political beliefs... until you dig into them/the actual story content more.

Rhea also being the head of a Church probably got tweaked because of the west's recent irl views on religion. Religion in the west has been looked poorly upon in recent years. Instead of accepting this is just a fictional game though, the loc team just... pushed that they're Really Bad.

Rhea is more of a victim of them needing someone to be worse than Edelgard to make Edelgard look like less of a villain (which again, this isn't the case in the original script nearly as much), and they couldn't use Thales/the Agarthans because you were allied with them in that route.

The other characters vs Rhea as a villain choice:

The goal wasn't to make a playable lord a villain in the loc's case. It was the intention of the original script with Edelgard, but the loc tried to make her actions sound more justified because ??? like idk, I can't wrap my head around them justifying what she does.

Dimitri isn't handled too badly by the narrative itself and he's overall seen as a good person (even the loc didn't alter that or Edelgard's ablest mentality toward a mentally unwell person), so he wasn't really a good candidate for all that. Also, Dimitri's story is one of recovery, and because they ventured into mental illness, he wasn't a good candidate. He was treated well and pretty fairly (Edelgard not treating him particularly well makes sense with her character, but the narrative itself doesn't push him as being a monstrous person. Even in the time he considers that he was, there's depth, logic and complexity to the situation).

Claude being the main bipoc character would have just been an all around disaster if the loc or even original script tried to make him the top villain, yadda yadda (understandably). There was no chance that was going to go over well, especially in the west (have you seen the shitstorm GW caused? And that was with the writing not considering him a villain!!). He was basically safe from the get go as far as villainy if they writers/localizers didn't want serious backlash (there are discussions about the overall treatment of poc characters in Houses/Hopes, but I can guarantee it would've been legit backlash if he was made to be a genuinely and intentionally horrible person, so that wasn't really an option if they wanted this game to actually sell and be enjoyed).

So since Rhea isn't playable and is the head of a Church, that kind of makes her the only candidate. Players will get attached to the other lords and not like killing them, so it won't feel like a badass victory to kill them. I guess for some reason the loc team just... hated Rhea or something?

Dimitri's death in CF is either extremely sad and garners audience sympathy, or in the other version of his death in CF it's clear his mentally stability is starting to break right before he's killed, which in and of itself is another topic. Claude is either free to go by choice of the player or can be killed, and his death is sad and he's not villainized. Aside from how some characters treat Claude's death (in contrast to Dimitri's which is never outright villainized even by Edelgard), the scene meant for the player at the time it happens is supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

So again, it really just leaves the loc team with the option of Rhea if they want to make the final battle seem like a big victory for the player. VW also has its big happy victory, and surprise surprise, Rhea dies in that route (offscreen no less!).

SS kills off Rhea but actually makes it sad, and it's, you know, actually the route that focuses on her/the Church most. AM doesn't kill her off and doesn't treat any character death as a badass victory, and instead gives a bittersweet ending (which again would be in line with Dimitri's connection to Edelgard, and it only feels botched down because of all routes obsessing over her).

So while, technically, the writing in the JP script wasn't trying to make Rhea as bad as the western version of the game, if the loc wanted to go for that, she was the best option. It just... came at the expense of butchering her character to make Edelgard shine, which shouldn't have been done but it was.

[vulpinesaint]

throws a book at the wall i'm SO fucking tired of putting emotional effort into relationships only for it not to be reciprocated

[eorzeashan]

I keep thinking of how Watcher 2 goes uh, Cipher, there were no ghosts in the Dark Temple, which genuinely baffled both me and Eight, because she's completely sincere about it. Like you don't believe in ghosts but you believe in guys who shoot lightning and lift things with their minds...? What do you think made those people go insane then, a gas leak?

It's actually pretty typical within SWTOR for Imperials not to question superstitious matters or anything related to the Force either out of purposeful lack of knowledge, unwillingness to believe in it given how technologically advanced the Empire is and so they defer to science, or plain fear of the unknown and everything associated with the Force, but it's always a bit of an interesting shock seeing where particular officers lines lie about it. In Watcher 2's case, spirits do not exist. Regardless of the walking specter who made your personnel be in pain for no reason a few hours prior, cough.

Eight's the rare example of an Imperial who is immediately ready to accept and understand these outlying forces so he definitely believed there were spirits and other things at work, but more than that, I headcanon that Jadus sent him into the Dark Temple alone not just as a test of skill, but to test if their Force bond had manifested and would protect him from its malicious influences. In which case, it absolutely did and the agent emerges unscathed from the Temple of babbling soldiers. This also minorly awakens Eight's potential to see the world through Jadus' eyes, and so he has proof of the mysticism that other Imps refuse to accept-- another point that most likely makes investigative branches like the IRS looked down upon.

In other words, though he can't affect such things and is more Force-blind than Theron, Eight has become a medium of sorts because of his powerful connection to Jadus that leaves a mark on his being and has the willingness to quite literally open his mind to these forces. This makes him more attuned to odd situations that involve the Dark Side while retaining a self that is utterly mundane, so he acts as a sort of middle-man between the world of Sith and Imperials: the perfect union of the force and force-blind.

In the basic class story, it hasn't manifested fully but by the time of KOTFE/ET, it takes a dramatic spike in power because of Valkorion's influence and the extreme growth he and Jadus forced on each other in order to win that final battle. This is explained in-game as Valkorion leaving the ability to use the Force or amplifying it after the expacs, but Eight will never have the ability to use it, and I have no intention of ridding him of being normal despite all the ways he isn't. However, Eight and Jadus pull out all the stops to defeat the former Emperor and this nearly kills the former-- he collapses immediately after the two Sith have a psychic battle in his head and his vitals flatline, to which Lana and Theron panic. Then, Jadus himself finally appears in the flesh and whisks his Hand away. The two Alliance directors are unable to stop him, weak as they are by the battle, and no sign is found of either Eight or Jadus when the dust clears.

Eight is found weeks later in a hidden facility with no recollection of what happened prior, though he's purposefully vague about his "savior", and what happened between them. When Lana touches him, she feels a shock-- and realizes it's Eight, who she feels all the more keenly through the Force. He realizes this too, and those eyes that bore into her now look past her vestige into the depths of her soul. It feels like someone else is there. She cuts off the temporary connection immediately, the sense of wrongness remaining.

Eight still isn't force-sensitive. Nothing registers even when they test him.

And yet, no one can explain how he sees things he shouldn't, and how it's even possible for him to connect with others in this way. They leave it as another mystery surrounding the agent with no name.

[mosspapi]

My problem with university is pretty much everything except the learning actually. I'm not cut out for this shit