#idk maybe i’ll write more about this

[madmaxified]

my dead boy detective rewatch got me thinking about my ‘haunting maren au’ that i never told anyone about 😭

the premise of the au is that shelby k!lled herself before brad and hunter died, and then went on to haunt maren. she’s constantly whispering in maren’s ear about how she should k!ll brad and hunter, but because maren can’t see ghosts shelby just sounds like a constant, angry voice in the back of her head

it all bubbles over when brad tries to leak maren’s nudes and she decides to finally take the advice of the weird voice in her head ( that totally doesn’t sound like her ex best friend )

post - murder, maren can suddenly see shelby ( idk ghost magic?? ) and now it’s both of their responsibilities and they’re working to cover it up while also trying to work through their mess of feelings

so when crystal finally confronts maren about the murder she’s just sobbing and is like ‘the voice in my head told me to do it!!’ and crystal looks over, and sees shelby awkwardly standing in the corner

crystal : you told her to kill brad and hunter?!

shelby : i didn’t think she could actually hear me!

[clockwork-carstairs]

“You made yourself a different person than the one I loved” – on Kit’s letter, his projections & idea of Ty

aka where i try to make sense of kit’s letter in the context of who ty was to him. basically i think that understanding that kit may not have had an accurate image of ty in his head helps to contextualise why kit believes the things he does, regardless of whether they’re fair to ty or not. it makes more sense reading lines like:

“in all the world, kit had never met anyone he believed to be so incapable of evil”

“all his energy had gone into ty, all his devotion and hopes for the future”

because you can see so clearly how much kit was projecting onto ty. ty, more than a friend—or whatever you might call it—was also the personification of this new world and all it meant for kit. kit saw him as this overwhelming force of good, beautiful as an angel, someone who not only wouldn’t do evil but was “incapable” of it.

so you can kind of see why everything was lost for kit once ty went through with the necromancy: because by doing so he was breaking the image kit had of him. of ty as a saviour of sorts from kit’s previous life, the person who convinced him to stay, who made kit feel like he was really a part of something, something magical and exclusive that not everyone got to be.

further evidenced by other lines:

“he had been too fixated on losing ty to tell him what he needed to hear” -> kit knows he should have told ty much sooner how he really felt about the situation. kit knows he deflected and in various ways lied to ty about trying to bring livvy back. but kit had wanted to stay by ty’s side, stay included in ty’s plans, more than his desire to tell ty the truth that he hated the idea.

“you made yourself a different person than the one i loved” -> ty as a person being shaped by kit’s projections of all his hopes and dreams, the face of this new world kit was drawn into, the first person he really got close to after he was pulled from one world to another, the person who convinced him to stay.

was the “person [kit] loved” an accurate reflection of who ty really was, flaws and all? unlikely. and the image of ty in kit’s head didn’t allow room for the real ty’s complicated, overwhelming grief, either, and the ways he would try to cope with it: and i believe this is part of why kit was so shocked by what happened and why he’s still so angry at ty. because ty proved to him that he wasn’t what kit believed him to be, and so all of kit’s hopes for his new life came crumbling down.

do i think it’s fair to ty? no, i don’t. but i think both can be true: that kit is upset and had gone through a traumatic situation, and has valid feelings about it while also understanding that he had a very skewed perception of ty that wasn’t fair to him.

mostly i think we need more room for understanding ty’s feelings*. how it must have felt to lose his twin sister in a horrifying way, devised a plan that (to him) seemed completely reasonable** only to have his best friend switch up on him last minute, tell ty he loved him mid-ritual, later say he wished he’d never met ty and basically tell ty that he was selfish and then on top of that leave without saying goodbye.

i also stand by my belief that “how long do you think it will take you to forgive me” is something both ty and kit could/should be asking each other, not just one way around. i honestly don’t understand why both kit and ty would think only kit needs to forgive ty and not both ways. mostly i just don’t think the narrative that ty’s the only one who needs forgiving is very fair, or makes much sense with their characterisation + the context + what actually happened.

in sum, when kit says “you made yourself a different person than the one i loved”, the person he’s referring to is an idealised version of ty whom he had projected all his hopes and dreams for the future onto, and by going through with the necromancy ty completely shattered kit’s understanding of him. this is consistent with other lines in his letter: “you wanted that more than you wanted me”, “when you brought livvy back, you changed yourself” (did ty really change? or did he just prove to be different from kit’s idea of him? genuine question), and perhaps most strongly evidenced by this line: “i don’t know the person you are now. you took yourself away from me. i can’t forgive that.” i don’t understand why he can’t forgive ty for not being the person kit thought he was, nor how on earth ty was supposed to know this, but i digress.

* i hope this is addressed in TWP because between TDA and now, we’ve had FAR more insight into kit’s thought processes than ty’s and as such we’re only really seeing one side of the situation.

** i also think part of the glaring misunderstanding between kit and ty can be understood from their respective backgrounds. obviously for kit, growing up away from the shadowhunter world, something like necromancy is completely out of the question. the way it would be for you or me. but ty grew up in a world where bringing people back to life was something that could and had actually happened. so it’s a far crazier, more impossible idea to kit than it would’ve been to ty.

[unordinary-diary]

Seraphina and Arlo: The Brainwashing of High Tiers

Exposition:

— Remi, Episode 50.

There is a heavy implication that Seraphina and Arlo were raised in much the same way. The pressure on Seraphina comes from her parents, so I’ll extrapolate that the same goes for Arlo. This raises the question: how do the authorities create such a strong societal pressure on such a small percentage of the population? Most high tiers will probably not know any other high tiers besides their parents. Take Wellston Private High School for example: it’s the most prestigious private school around, and canonically has the “highest concentration of high tiers in the region”. There are six high tiers in Wellston. Apply this to god tiers specifically, and there are only three. Not to mention that this current group of students is uniquely strong, even for Wellston. In Rei’s senior year, he was the strongest at 5.8 max.

So much of this brainwashing relies on the parents to do all of the work, and it only takes one or two people to break the cycle. So how are the authorities creating this immense pressure? One tactic could be by isolating high tiers. There is a very widespread concept that one shouldn’t associate with those outside their level range. A caste system like this that affects everyone is much easier to create and maintain than an expectation for a small group, and it also means that high tiers are only being influenced by those who are also high level. This creates an echo chamber. I’ve researched cults and how they brainwash victims, and the first step in the process is isolating them in exactly this way.

But, if there are so few high tiers, how the hell are they supposed be isolated from other groups? The answer is that high tiers are just isolated in general. Take a look at Arlo: his only friend is Remi, and even her, he keeps at an arm’s length. Arlo is only close with Remi in the first place because he was close with Rei, who, at the time of meeting Arlo, was presumably close in level with him. [EDIT: I forgot about Holden, which I think says a lot about his relevance. He is kept at more than an arm’s length and doesn’t seem to have any actual influence on Arlo, let alone a deep relationship. He is also not presented as an equal.] Take a look at Seraphina: before meeting John, she didn’t seem to have any friends other than possibly Arlo. Seraphina and Arlo pre-John seemed to have had more of a professional relationship, and while they were not close in level, Arlo did fit the bill of being a fellow god tier, and strong enough to also be brainwashed.

Now let’s look at Remi. In episode 60, Cecile says to Remi: “And yet here you are... Always hanging around those two monkeys, Blyke and Isen. Letting them treat you as an equal even though you’re in a completely different league.” This struck me as odd because, aside from Cecile herself, the Wellston students closest in level to Remi were Arlo, Blyke, and Isen. And who is she friends with? She actually was doing a pretty good job at following that social convention, unless Cecile wanted to be friends with Remi, which she clearly didn’t. But... her friends were still not close enough to her level. Was she supposed to just not have friends at all? The answer seems to be a resounding yes. Can you think of any genuine friends that Cecile has either?

Friendship simply isn’t considered a necessity for high tiers.

But... why is it that Arlo and Seraphina were brainwashed differently? Creating a societal norm for an isolated group of people is one thing, because those people’s mindsets feed into each other. Putting pressure on individual families to keep them in line, but doing it all in different ways? That would be near impossible. My theory is that Seraphina recieved the typical high tier brainwashing, and that Arlo was raised differently because he was being groomed to work for the authorities. Seraphina didn’t have a set career path planned out for her, but if she’s trying to be “perfect” by the standards of those controlling her, she’s bound to end up going in a direction that pleases them. Arlo on the other hand was specifically planned to become an authority figure. That’s why his brainwashing is so centered on leadership. Also, growing up with direct contact to the authorities makes it more possible for them to customize his brainwashing in this way.

But does all of this apply to high tiers in general, or is it specific to god tiers? Let’s take a look at the high tiers in Wellston. We have Seraphina, John, Arlo, Terrence, Remi, Cecile, and Blyke. John is a unique circumstance because he wasn’t raised by high tiers, so we’ll cross him off the list. Terrence was also unique, so we can cross him off as well. Remi was different from the norm as well. Why is that? Well, Remi actually wasn’t raised by high tiers either. Rei said on screen that both of his parents were elites. We can cross Remi off. Blyke doesn’t fit the bill either, but that’s easy to explain. He was an elite for a large part of the story, and he shot up rather quickly. We don’t know much of his family, but he probably wasn’t expected to be a high tier at all, and was raised as an elite. (All of this also serves to emphasize how much of this brainwashing comes from a person’s parents.) That leaves only Seraphina, Arlo, and Cecile to look at.

Cecile does seem to have high tier brainwashing, but it’s not nearly as intense as with Seraphina and Arlo. She doesn’t seem “obsessive”, and she wasn’t one of the examples Remi mentioned in chapter 50. It’s clear that high tiers are brainwashed in general, but god tiers are kept on a much shorter leash. This makes sense, obviously, because keeping a population in control like that is less necessary the lower the level. However, it’s also a chicken an egg situation: god tiers are both more important to keep in control, and also easier to keep in control. It’s important to note just how many exceptions we had to cross off. People like Remi and Blyke aren’t actually that unusual— a lower leveled high tier is much more likely to have non-high tier parents, or to have not always been a high tier themselves, or just in general, to have way more day-to-day interaction with non-high tiers. The brainwashing gets more and more diffused the lower down the ladder you go.

[puppppppppy]

its so hard to watch time pass when things like careers and assignments exist. what do you mean im supposed to take that seriously

[tetzoro]

me: i’m not going to write for kuroo or zoro for a bit

also me: writes a coworker!kuroo drabble

[monkee-mobile]

okay random headcanon but peter likes to nuzzle with his nose!! he gets all smiley and snuggly and just nuzzles in!!

also the monkees set aside time in the day to snuggle, usually before they crash for bed. this probably starts sometimes in the 70s and continues as they get older

okay thank you bye!!!

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Jon becoming KiTN in Winds (specifically) would actually be bad as far as themes go

[whoblewboobear]

Bumping up the smut scene bc realistically there’s no way Jace would be away from Porter for 6 months and not wanna jump his bones within a day or two of being reunited.

But jokes on him bc Porter has been so terrified to lose him again reformed that he’s like overly careful to the point of being attentive about asking Jace if he’s okay with doing anything again before they’ve even discussed the killing and rage star mind control of it all. And Jace vehemently would like to get his nut and not think about the past because they’re back by each other’s side; always a duo.

[cuteniaarts]

2 hour rough drawing of Ehuang, my precious Green Opal child who I don’t draw nearly enough <3

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

………… thinking evil thoughts

[picture-me-in-the-trees]

happy wip wednesday everyone here’s a snippet of this a quick little roy ficlet i was working on!

“Keeley, who eventually realized like everyone else that Roy—plain, simple, clingy, needy, unbearable Roy—wasn’t worthy of that kind of love.

He had convinced himself he’d never find that kind of love again. That comfort, that safety, that closeness. A person who loved him not because he was Roy Fucking Kent, but just because he was Roy. He had convinced himself being just Roy would never really be enough for anyone. But then there was Jamie.”

[askamnesiamoonjumper]

me after editing the aau prologue for the bajillionth time

[seagreenstardust]

Literally all I want to do rn is write bkdk. I’ve had the skeleton of a hospital fix-it fic rattling around in my head for months that I never got around to and turns out today is the day it decided to hold the brain cell hostage

[iamthemaestro]

you know, in certain ways I am disappointed by the fact that clothing is no longer as gendered as it used to be—don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great thing, and it definitely is still more gendered than it should be—but it means that people’s perceptions of you now have this additional emphasis on the way that you physically look, which is to say, the unchangeable aspects of your appearance. in the sense that, like, gender is based not on the way you present yourself but on the way you are. and if you don’t physically match to people’s perceptions of what ���is” male or female or whatever, then to them you just aren’t.

throughout history, and in some extent today, so much of gender was how you presented yourself and how you performed your gender—which is a problem in itself, of course, but it also kind of gave you the option to “reject” one gender by choosing to present and act as the other, even if it came at a great cost, because people would generally take this outward expression at such face value. in a paradoxical sense, the rigidity of, say, victorian gender expectations made it easier for one to “not achieve,” or even outright reject, their assigned gender, and in that sense, made it easier to transform it. and you can’t do that in the same way anymore, which, as I said, is a double edged sword, but like… I don’t know. it’s a feeling mostly from personal experience, arising from my own historical fantasies as a history-oriented person—a hundred years ago, if i wore men’s clothes as a woman, I’d be told that would undermine my assigned gender and make me “too masculine,” which, you know, would have been the goal. nowadays if I dress entirely masculine I’m just a girl wearing boys’ clothes because people can’t ever see anything else. I don’t know. I guess I’ll just sit here daydreaming about running off in the 18th century to join the british army by “disguising myself as a man” instead of being given one look at a reenactment event and observed with the remark that “the british units tend to have really good female impressions.”

[owtenen]

When a Ranch Becomes a Home (pt 1???)

Tango, despite his best effort, dies. Unfortunately, he has a lot more than just death to deal with after.

read my stuff of AO3!

CW: Depictions of anxiety, minor panic attacks, and tango gets blown up.

————

Tango was just thankful this game happened during the summer.

His body was still cold, and when the wind picked up, he felt the fire on his head fight for its life to stay alive. But all in all, it was better than last time. The cold winter air and stormy rainy nights made it almost impossible for the blaze born to function properly, but this time it was different.

He felt good. He had armor, he had food, he joked with his friends and made some new ones. But behind all of the it, there was a little nagging thing in the back of his mind.

It took Tango a while to realize it was anxiety.

He didn't really get anxiety, which is probably why he didn't realize it at first. He was a man on practicality, a man of smarts. He knew he could talk himself out of any anxiety he found himself clouded in, so he had never really felt the hollowness in his stomach like he did now, or the way his heart jumped when he thought about it.

It was faint though, like it wasn't really there at all. That is, of course, when Tango realized it actually wasn't there. That is was his soulmates. Whoever his soulmate was was really stressing out, and only when Tango realized it did it start to actually effect him. Like when he was talking to Bdubs and Impulse, he had to stop for a moment to breath, his soulmate had fallen off something and it hurt his ankles, but the pain in his stomach from the anxiety his soulmate felt was somehow worse. He needed to find them, whoever they were.

It got worse as he was going deeper in the cave, it started creeping into his own thoughts as well. Maybe his soulmate had a reason for being this anxious, maybe they were in trouble. Maybe he was in trouble.

An arrow shot right through his arm, and it took a minute for Tango to register the pain. He turned around quick, but there were too many monsters coming after him to process what was happening. He swung his sword with one hand, making sure to step back with each swing. He was getting through them one by one, if he just brought them to a choke point-

That's when the creeper dropped, and thats when everything went black.

~

"Common..." Jimmy found that muttering under his breath as he scaled the mountain to actually be quite helpful. His arms and legs hurt like hell though, and he was having a difficult time breathing.

He felt a shattering pain rip through his left arm, but he just shook it out and continued to climb, "Don't. Even. Think about it." Finally, he got to the top, and he looked out over the sky as he tried to catch his breath.

He felt another jab in his side, and then he felt a sharp snap in his ankle. He winced and clutched his stomach, the random bursts of pain were not helping his anxiety.

He would not be a burden to his soulmate. He would not damn them the way he had already damned himself.

He felt a few more jabs in various places around his body, and as he was thinking what on earth his soulmate was doing, he felt a searing pain ripple up his back, and he fell to the ground to die.

He wakes up sweating, he didn't think he was sweating before, but he certainly was now. Sitting up from the grass, he pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, his breath coming in short, uneven huffs that made him feel like he wanted to throw up. The place on his back that hurt the most was pulsing, and he felt paralyzed.

Suddenly, he heard a tree branch crack, and a voice coming from above. Was it God? Was it Them? No. Jimmy shook his head to clear the fog that clouded his brain, looking up to see what was happening.

He saw a man in the trees. Well, calling him a man was maybe a stretch. He had seen him around. Tango if he remembered correctly. He was the blaze born that hung out with Impulse and Etho. Redstoner maybe? Wasn't this the guy with cows in the first game? Jimmy's head started throbbing along with his back, he tried to ignore it.

"Oh no...." He heard the man mutter under his breath. The flames in his hair were big and wild, and yet they didn't set the tree on fire when they jumped up to meet the bark.

"What happened, Tango?" His voice was tough, and he fliched at his tone. When he looked up, he noticed that Tango did too.

"I'm- I'm so sorry." Tango leaned over and put his head between his knees, his legs dangling off the branch. "I'm so sorry."

Jimmy took a deep breath, and then another, "What happened?" His voice was softer then, and he was satified.

Tango sniffed, and ran a hand through his flaming hair, "I was caving, and there were about 500 mobs coming at me from one side and while I was worrying about them-" He looked up, and the two soulmates made eye contact for the first time. Jimmy smiled, maybe it would ease Tango's mind. It must have, because the man in the tree paused to give Jimmy a small smile of his own, "You know, the old creeper-from-behind trick."

Jimmy nodded, looking around spawn where just a few hours ago, was filled with everyone. He realized with a jolt that he was yellow, the first yellow. He quickly took out his communicator and read the chat, every joke and taunt making the hole in his stomach grow bigger and bigger.

~

Jimmy's anxiety was just getting worse. Tango watched in silence as he watched his soulmate read the comms messages about their death. He wasn't completely oblivious, he knew the jokes that were said about him.

Cursed. Stupid. Careless. Jimmy's friends would always say they were taunting him in good fun, but Tango never felt comfortable enough to go along with it.

"Jimmy, right?" Tango hopped down a couple branches before landing on the ground, his back was still stinging, and he didn't need broken ankles on top of that.

He watched Jimmy come out of a trance in real time, his eyes going from little glossy things to wide alert oceans. “What?”

Tango shook his head and held out his hand, “I’m Tango….” after a pause, he awkwardly added, “of the Tek variety.”

Jimmy, despite it all, chuckled softly. “I’m Jimmy.” He thought for a moment, and Tango could see the gears turning behind his eyes, “of the…. Solidarity variety?” He shook his head in disapproval. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“Good enough for me.”

Jimmy smiled, and Tango felt the anxiety lift just a bit. Until it came crashing down again, and Jimmy ripped his hand away from Tango to run it over his hair. “I have no idea where I was.” He looked back at Tango, and his wide eyes were filled with worry, “All my stuff is gone.”

Tango sighed, “Yeah. I have no idea where my stuff is either.” He thought for a moment, watching Jimmy as he began to pace around the top of the hill. He wanted to shake him, tell him to breathe and calm down.

Instead, he started picking up sticks, “Let’s make a chest here, then we can go find out stuff and meet back up.”

Jimmy turned and watched Tango, his arms were crossed and one of his hands was up near his face, and Tango raised an eyebrow while he watched Jimmy bite on his fingernail.

Tango sighed, “I’m really sorry for killing us. It’s one thing for me to explodificate myself but I didn’t want to take you down with me.”

Tango saw Jimmy smile behind his hand, and the tightening of his chest had nothing to do with the anxiety, “Explodificate?”

Tango smiled and threw some materials at Jimmy. He didn’t catch it. “Common, let’s go hide our bits in a tree.”

This time Jimmy’s head tilted back in laughter, and Tango wanted to bottle up the sound.

The anxiety didn’t come back as strong after that, and Tango was happy for it to stay that way.

————

i should be working on Problem of Etho and my other 24lsmp fics and yet here i am writing about a dead ship from a 10 month old smp …. oops?

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

trying to write this essay while maintaining at least a facade of academic objective voice is ridiculous, actually