#if i don't get this out of my system i may explode lmao

[dokjaism]

.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hii sex witch

im 19 afab and ive never had sex before, i masturbate sometimes but ive never had an orgasm and dont know how to "get it"?.. im generally scared of sex and identified as asexual for a long time but i dont think thats really my deal, im just scared of it. im scared of it being awkward, of my partner not finding me atractive or worse. i dont like how i look naked, and dont imagine anyone ever could. i think my vagina and my boobs look ugly and alien, i preach body positivity and being natural i think all bodies are good no matter how they look but when im faced with the reality of my own body im repulsed by these parts of it. i think something may be broken inside me because i just cant Be Normal about sex, the thought of me having it always makes me stressed and uncomfortable. i want a relationship and i love meeting new people and flirting etc. but when the person i talk to makes any sexual joke or innuendo i get super tense and scared and realise that if things get further they would probably want me to do it... and maybe i could and maybe i even want to but the thought makes me sick with the pressure. this isnt even a question, so i dont know how you could even respond but i dont have anyone i could openly talk about this in my life without feeling super weird or them just brushing it off as "you'll grow up to it" or something, and i just had to say it to someone or else i will eventually explode. hope this all makes sense ❤️‍🩹

hey anon,

come in, get cozy, grab a glass of lemonade, etc. we're gonna be here a minute.

so listen: I swear to GOD this isn't me trying to pull the "you'll grow into it" thing. I am going somewhere different with this I swear. bear with me.

first and foremost, I think the main problem you're experiencing right now is that being 19. I don't mean that in a condescending or belittling way, or to imply that you just don't want to have sex because you're 19. I'm saying that being 19 (and 18, and 20, and 21, and so on) is mostly for being worried about everything and having no idea what's going on. you have to get all that insane anxiety out of your system as early as possible in your adult years so that you can get down to business actually developing a perspective and figuring out what you want to do. I'm not even, like, a LOT older than you but trust me, by the time you're 26 you're going to feel SOOOOO different about things that you don't even realize you have an opinion about right now. when I was 19 I was made pretty much exclusively of anxiety and the cheapest bagels at the grocery store. (eating badly was not helping my anxiety.)

what I'm getting at here is that you're at like a very exciting and terrible formative age when it's the most normal thing in the world to feel like there's something uniquely awful and hideous and unlovable about yourself. when I was 19 the two most important things in the world to me were losing my virginity (lmao) and making sure I never experienced actual emotional intimacy ever because I was sure that if anyone got close enough to really know me they would realize that I was the worst person who ever lived and fundamentally undeserving of human connection. TERRIBLE place to be in; I had a lot of deeply bad and uncomfortable sex because of it.

there's a really easy solution to being terrified of sex, which I wish someone had told me when I was very scared of sex, and it's if having sex sounds like a horrific ordeal you can actually just Not Have Sex. just don't do it. it's actually REALLY easy to not have sex; millions of people do it every single day.

if you like meeting people and flirting, that's awesome! you should do that, having connections and relationships with other people is important. if you don't like sexual jokes and innuendos you can just tell people they make you uncomfortable and ask them not to do that; how they respond is actually a GREAT litmus test for whether or not those are people you should keep hanging out with. if someone isn't able to not make sexual comments about you after you've asked them not to, kick 'em to the curb!

there are tons of people in all kinds of romantic relationships who aren't having sex. that's a perfectly fine and reasonable boundary to set. it can make things a little more complicated, sure, but dating and romance and love are all complicated and messy anyway. again, great way to VERY EFFICIENTLY weed out who is and isn't a suitable potential partner. (it's also fine to not want a partner, either; there's nothing wrong with being a sociable extrovert who doesn't want to have sex.)

there's nothing broken about you for being nervous about the idea of having sex. whether you identify as asexual or not, it's perfectly fine to feel that way. it's completely fine if you change your mind tomorrow or if you feel this way for the rest of your life. and you might! maybe sex will never sound awesome for you, and that's fine! again, tons of people living very good and happy lives every day without having sex! sex isn't a measure of maturity, but knowing yourself well enough to honor your own boundaries and desires is.

I hope a kinder attitude towards your own body can come with time, and I think it will. be gentle with yourself, alright? being 19 is very silly but unfortunately very necessary, and I think you'll really like what comes after if you let yourself relax a little. whatever you feel like right now, you're actually a very normal person, by which I of course mean you have a rich and brilliant mind and will do many quietly wonderful things in your life and will be deserving of every bit of love and joy that comes your way.

also, hey - have you ever seen a therapist about anxiety? I also should have done that when I was 19.

[3point14a]

OK SO SOME PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN OUR PUPPET AND ILL TRY TO EXPLAIN MYSELF OVER HERE because 1) I dont think it's a good explanation really :,3 (still working on it) and 2) since we are still working on it (magic system killing us) I don't think i should put it on my art blog or whatever given it may change ToT not how they (the twins) are per se but the explanation of why the hell they r even like that

so yeah! a lot of text under the cut! i don't guarantee any of it makes sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so first of all: Choco you were so right about most of those guesses you did holy shit.

It's both. Pup is trans and identical to Mai and they r both afab, demi-boy he/they, Mai is demigirl she/they, silly as hell. And for the horrible part?? Uh buckle in because this is a lot of us just trying to make ourselves understandable at all

Ok so. Ok so. What the hell are shadows. 

Fhs (Mainly Zero) tells us that shadows are a manifestation of people's negative emotions, the worst sides of them. We really really don't like this, shadows being "things a person is suppressing" 1) because we just don't really like it as a trope?? Like, the demons will get you in the normal people way, you will explode in the normal people way, we don't need magic to make you explain what's wrong with you it will show eventually. (we also think  it takes away some responsibility to the characters, if they act out, bc of their shadow instead of that just being a human quality.) 

And 2)  because Fred being grouped in there just feels bad, we know he's the "exception" and that's why he's special but we don't like it irregardless, it takes away from his personhood to be in that shadow category if theyre going to overall be categorized as smth that “is” someone else's, and therefore we just have to come up with a new magic system!!! easy peasy right?!?!?! (no)

In canon, we really just do not know what's up with mai and pup (puppet) (pup is shorter and they match with 3 letters lmao). Like, Pup just gets into the shadow world??? for no reason??? And they don't even look like a shadow at all? Why is bro still the same, what were they doing there, how did he get there? are they a shadow or not or a secret third thing?? what is going on, someone help. We also thought it'd be fun to make them opposites to fred and freddy. So if those guys are 2 people in 1 body, then Mai and pup are 1 person in 2 bodies (not really) ((kinda?))

Like,,,,what in the world is up with jitter doll?? if you read the lyrics none of it really? makes any sense? it has a bunch of machine imagery and language that doesn't really serve any purpose? Lyrics go on and on about the singer (pup) being sort of a machine, cables and malfunctions and unable to love, and he's also weirdly chill about it ??? Like hes over there saying "I feel like I'm going to blow up and they'll get rid of my body. They'll kill my foul heart" and smiling??? Like incredibly chill about it?? So we smashed our heads trying to give the twins something cool and also make ANY HEADS OR TAILS out of jitter doll.

So.  Machine stuff. Shadows. Something something. Here's what we have right now and what will maybe probably change: Shadows are sort of souls leftovers.

Souls (for now) Have limits? They hold feelings and thoughts and stuff, but when something is too much to handle or when you forget something inconsequential or when you cry or laugh or yell and get rid of excess emotion, that doesn't just disappear. It kinda groups together and becomes a weird invisible thing laying motionless in a corner.

"How do you end up with a shadow?" You are,,,, fundamentally empty. The shadows just by innersia look for some sort of host or vessel or whatever. If your soul has enough space (you don't really feel much or do much or whatever, fundamentally empty) Then they get in there, which doesn't really happen often?? Because most people aren't just empty lmao, sorry Freddy.

Once there the body does some fuckery unconsciously and realizes there are 2 people in here and separates both souls and whatever, like i said, work in progress magic systems are hard and they are killing us. But yeah it doesn't happen often,,, but there is another way shadows start existing,,,,,,,,,,,, and it's by the love put into a craft.

So when you do art, you put "your soul into it" right? Well, when you put passion into a project and pour your everything into it, and when that thing is still somewhat broken, they can take over it! So let's say, haunted painting? Yeah that's a shadow, that painting was made with love and care and yet it remained unfinished because the painter died. But here is where our entire thing will get weirder to explain: Video Games.

Passion project video games, and that good old trope of "The game becomes self aware" but forrealsies. Sometimes you take your silly game with you and it gets possesed?? It's somewhat normal in their society by now. Not fully normal? Like, they still get treated weirdly because "why is that video game character alive" or questioning if they are even alive, dehumanizing stuff and somewhat feared! The inherent human terror of "the creation betraying it's creator" and the "machine uprising" that already gets said in our world, is a lot worse when the machine ACTUALLY becomes sentient. But it tends to follow a certain pattern.

For no rhyme or reason, SOME copies of some games have characters gain conscience, the government in fear of the aforementioned "machine uprising" makes them a body that's as human as possible to keep them from lashing out (whatever that means), they pass off as humans. There are 2 exceptions to this, Pup (the one you care about) and Red (oc)((who invited her))

This isn’t about Red so I’ll refrain from explaining them beyond “didn’t take over a character but over a bunch of glitches”. Pup Didn't take over a game at all! 

Mai and pup are based on the puppet from fnaf right? There's another puppet in fnaf called "security puppet" which we were like "haha their mom" and it snowballed. To have that puppet that was in charge of looking after children, associating the fnaf puppets with tears (tear marks), and the immediate neuron activation of the hit song "its been too long" I was like "she's super protective of her child" and the reason for that protectiveness was insanely warranted.

To put simply, marinette (mai's legal name) ((the og child)) was just sick. Always, forever, just incredibly sick and frail and it hurts to look at because damn that little girl should be jumping on trees and not just in pain at the hospital. Her mom cried over her a lot. All that was on that girl's soul was mostly pain, sorrow, sadness, all of that stuff.

One day! her body had enough!!! and wanted to literally die! It didn't! however, to save "her" her soul sort of split into two and got rid of what was always overflowing (negativity), the puppet has this entire thing of “giving gifts and giving life”, a second chance to live and a gift to be able to not be sick anymore. And so, parts of shadows and parts of her actual soul mixed and mixed and left her just fundamentally wrong. And the phone that she had to call her mom in case of emergencies (or if she felt bad at all) was pretty bare bones and somewhat broken (old), and it only really served as a way to call, it had no games or apps or anything except for some photos of Marinette. Jumpscare, the photo is now alive. 

Anyways Pup gets a body, and first of all that just creeps the hell out of their mom, obviously. New thing just starts existing and looks identical to your child, talks like her but without any real emotion behind it? Her husband left her over keeping Pup because they never really agreed to have TWO children and it was enough with ONE thing that just went in and out of the hospital and burnt money. And yet her child was healthy again after it, and they looked identical, and it’s hard to hold a grudge against someone who has the face of the person you love the most, and it’s also hard to look them in the eyes.

Pup's mom loves him, for sure, she was definitely relieved when he came out as trans and was way more visibly unlike Mai. She couldn't just leave a child that looked just like hers to fend for their luck in another place. It's complicated, with good reason, that woman is stronger than I could ever be.

Pup and Mai both ended up messed up, because that was never meant to happen and because souls and shadows aren’t meant to mix and they lost stuff on the way of splitting (sort of spilled out?) So they both lack a lot of stuff, and also are insanely dependent on each other to function (one in the same).

Mai is overbearing, just by nature, she can’t feel sadness and she can’t feel most of anything that isn’t happiness, she’s impulsive and easily distracted, she can’t read people feeling bad and she can’t give any other insight than “just get over with it and focus on the good ^^” (inspired by her advice in al reves) because she can’t really do anything aside from that. Every bad thing they have felt either registers as somewhat inconsequential or doesn’t really feel like actual sadness, it’s just an excess of energy that makes them angsty and hyper and stuff. Mai also cannot taste stuff, and also does not feel temperature at all, pup does that for her. Both of them are unable to really feel fear, awesome for them (it’s not).

Pup is sort of nothing, they are not empty but sort of insanely muffled, he feels strongly for nothing and doesn’t have any passions or any desires or any anything, he also cannot feel pain, Mai feels it for him. Calling back to Jitter doll, his chill nature to absolutely deranged stuff and the machine language and fred “having something he could never have” is explained that way. He doesn’t fear stuff, he isn’t angry at stuff, he cannot love people, or not in the way that most or any people describe love at all. He doesn’t understand feelings and he doesn’t understand people and he doesn’t understand himself. And he searches for some sort of answer to what they hell they are. Because both of them are aware they were the same person, both of them are aware that they aren’t anymore, and both of them are aware they don’t really function how people should. 

You might have seen that we draw them with eyepatches (or have started to do that) ((new lore called for new designs lmao)), and that is the greatest indicator of them being connected in a weird way. Marinette had a birthmark on her eye, Mai (as the original body) has it on her covered eye and Pup has it mirrored because haha the photo was mirrored. The eye with the birthmark is actually the eye of the other twin, and when they don’t have it covered they just share thoughts, which obviously gives them both a massive headache, which is why they cover it. "wasn't pup unable to feel pain?" fun fact! headaches are not really actual pain (for the most part), they are pressure and tenderness in the scalp and stuff like that! So they are not free from headaches lmao

Pup wants to feel fulfilled, like an actual whole person, and he has no clue how to achieve that in the slightest. But because they perceive what happened to them as supernatural (how else do you describe that) they both went into ghosts and stuff like that. 

They both walk around and try and find ghosts and ask them stuff, they ask people stuff about local legends and local hauntings to try and get some lead on what they are and how (or even if) they can fix themselves. Pup reads a lot more than Mai and is a bit more obsessive with understanding what is up with them. Because while Mai is also messed up, she at least is still regarded as the child they both were, their mom looks at her in the eyes. Hence my little drawing of him with a bunch of books and torn apart pages. In the stories they’ve seen ghost take over lives (took over marinette’s face), they are uncaring (like pup), and a daughter WAS lost, neither of them are Marinette anymore. 

Pup, by feeling all muddled and devoid of most feelings at all, is still attached to the idea that they could become one again, while Mai, who is unable to be anything but positive, is certain they are different people now and forever. Pup is also attached to not seeing himself as alive (?), as a program (what ppl like him r called) and being technically artificial he thinks of himself as a robot, as something lacking that human spark, hence the entire robot thing in jitter doll, they use that as a way to sort of cope with how wrong they are because otherwise it really just sets in that they are simply unfixable. A robot or a ghost or an android or some spirit, whatever you want, except an actual alive person. 

Also calling back to them both just sort of appearing in Fred and Freddy’s mind in the show and all the weird meddling they do with them both. Like how pup is implied to remember meeting fred in the shadow realm thing cause he says “haha this feels familiar” when freddy asks for their name, or like mai saying “it's easier to notice someone's absence when they are always beside you ^^” and stuff like that. They have some dream insanity at camp.

Camp to us us is the end of the world and an insanely important event, due to close proximity all the people related to shadows sort of start sharing dreams, which is nice for no one, and which definitely sparks those two to be insanely invasive in hopes of discovering something new in their mad chase for any answer at all, Rip Freddy and Fred I’m sorry they are like that (inspired by them being voted as enemies in the series, at least according to the subtitles, i think she says friendemies but that also works irregardless) 

They are just not really good friends to most people, and even worse to Fred and Freddy. They sort of see Fred like a thing, like something they can get answers out of and something they can learn from, they dehumanize him a tad and it’s not done with actual bad intention, they aren’t trying to be bad people or anything, but then again they are just fundamentally wrong, and the absolute worst at feelings. Pup in general already dehumanizes himself so what’s the damage of doing it to someone else?? 

They also make Freddy feel unwanted, they treat him as a gateway to see Fred, and that messes with Freddy because everyone always asks for Fred, like, people like Fred more than him, and he’s just the means to get that. 

HGHGHGHGHG ANyways if anyone got here thank you so much, sorry this is so long and if it answers nothing, like we said, magic system is killing us. However I love them both too much to not draw them even without a set magic system so i couldnt hold back from drawing them </3

Last thing: Did you guys know mai and pup's songs respectively start at the same time in their episodes???????? That's so creepy why would they do that??? t2e7 6:56, then t2e8 6:56. What.

But yeah to anyone or everyone who was curious thank you so so so so much for showing interest :D And I'm very sorry if our answer is not that sufficient lmao, <3 <3 <3

[lenorethequietbookkeeper]

Can't believe this never dawned on me before. Do any of the holders speak another language? Have new languages developed over the eons?

Very excited to talk about this one cause I've always wanted to discuss demon language specifically!

But!! I'm getting ahead of myself! I'll answer the first part quick!

John- Basically nothing outside of English. Knows some individual words, but often mixes up what languages they come from, and even what they mean.

Charles- A bit of Standard Chinese, but not enough to hold a conversation. Some Greed-Variety Demontongue, just enough to handle business contracts.

Ferris- A decent amount of Spanish, although he doesn't use it a whole lot due to lack of opportunities. Basic Demontongue, mostly dumb pickup lines.

Daniel- Literate with French, Egyptian, Standard Chinese, and a decent amount of Basic and Pride-Variety Demontongue, is unable to speak any of these.

Jeagar- Very knowledgeable regarding Hebrew, literate with several ancient dead languages, especially Latin, Sanskrit, Biblical Hebrew, and Akkadian. Also literate with all varieties of Demontongue and Angelchirp. Can speak most of these on an intermediate level.

---

Now!! Regarding languages in the ZoP universe! In general, at least on Earth, I don't imagine humans or undead have really created new languages. That being said, I do imagine the degradation of borders and interactions between undead/humans from other cultures has led to the development of multiple sub-languages all around the world. I won't get into every single one here, it's just something I'm laying out.

There are two languages exclusive to ZoP itself I'd like to discuss; Angelchirp and Demontongue, those being the native tongues of angels and demons of course.

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NOTE: Just for context, the words from these languages take snippets from other words of whatever speech they're being translated into (ex; "fivfinlim", which takes bits from the words "five", "finger", and "limb", means "hand" in Basic Demontongue). The words in my writing will be based on the English language for my convenience. That being said, Angelchirp and Demontongue are very complicated in their original forms, so they need to be heavily localized for humans to even understand them as languages (and literally not explode while trying to speak them).

TLDR; The translated versions of these languages I use in ZoP are not the only versions that exist.

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OK WITH THAT IN MIND, Angelchirp is pretty universally similar for all angels. There may be some dialect differences for the higher-ups, but that's about it. When translated, it often uses bits of words related to emotions and the spiritual. It also acts as the base for all languages in the universe, including Demontongue.

Speaking of, Demontongue is far more complex and insane than to Angelchirp. While most basic nouns/verbs are universally the same, a lot of words can be totally different depending on what species of demon is speaking. So uh...yeah...prepare for a beefy ass read lmao.

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Gluttony/Wrath/Lust-Variety (also called Basic): The first and most common rendition of Demontongue. Quite similar to Angelchirp in its original script due to being a direct descendent from when Hell was first created. Where it differs is that when translated, it uses snippets of words related to the physical, usually regarding nature and flesh.

---

Greed-Variety: A more complicated version than Basic, originally invented by greed demons as a form of code to prevent outsiders (including other demons) from prying into their affairs. Not really spoken in casual conversation, mostly used to encode secret messages. Often rely on the words of numeric systems when translated.

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Sloth/Envy-Variety (also called Simple): An odd version of the language that predominantly appears in magic-related material written during humanity's Dark Ages. Origins coincide with the era when Sloth and Envy Demons terrorized humanity. Most notably the easiest variety to translate due to being more similar to the Greek alphabet than demonic runes (the progenitor for Basic Demontongue). Because of this, magidemics believe Simple was actually created by early human sorcerers as a tool for what would become spell crafting.

---

Pride-Variety: The most difficult and complicated of all varieties of Demontongue created during the peak of the Pride Demon's culture. Infamous for having some of the most convoluted, long, and difficult to pronounce words, perhaps in all of the universe (ex: "crekmahogoakbireverbarkflorfon", which means board). Hell-based historians argue this is to increase the magic potential of Pride Demon spells, although adept sorcerers believe this was done so the noble class could gatekeep their brand of magic from the "common rabble". Regardless, due to the outbreak of the Affliction, there is the very real possibility that this dialect might become a dead language in the not too distant future, which brings worry to the magic world, but relief to those tasked with translating demonic scripture.

---

-From Biblically Accurate Producer!

[scriberat]

You ever have one of those days where you think, this might as well happen? Yeah. This might as well happen. It makes sense, really, in the grand scheme and small scale. I am one of five children, siblings I loved growing up with, and our parents loved us and each other very much.

But when your mom and dad save the city like every day is a ball—perfect synchronicity, powers combined like they were never separate, every punch and twirl a dance—and your siblings are doing their parts to take down minor supervillains, and you... well, you can almost do math okay and history kind of escapes you, and you never really got the deal with a lot of the science stuff—

I'm a fuckin' loser.

All those stories where the superfamily is going around doing their power things, and the one normal kid has, like, some kind of intellectual gambit that saves the day? Like a power of their own?

Lmao. Fuckin' loser.

So here I am, tied up, blindfolded, dark room that's cold and smells sterile, no idea where I am but I'm pretty sure I've been kidnapped by whichever supervillain left the hospital last month. It makes sense. I'm the non-powered kid so I'm an easy target. But I'm still their kid, right? So the superheroes are on their way directly into a trap.

Have you ever told your dad with pride that you finally scored a B- and saw the disappointment in his eyes? Ever sat in your room practicing clarinet, only for your mom to come in and tell you you need to study something useful, like geography?

I'm a fuckin' loser.

The world gets a little brighter through the blindfold, and I realize it's ransom note time. Welp. Time to get this over with.

There's one thing that was dinned into our heads as children, over and over again. The planet is the most important thing. Saving people for another sunrise, ending schemes and plots for another hour. Buy time, stave off the end, always prioritize saving as many as possible.

"Hello. So good of you to join us," the supervillain says. I recognize the voice. One of the... techy ones.

"What are you planning?" My mother. She's got a sharp tone, but I hear the calculations underneath. So she's already calculating the odds.

"As you can see, I have your daughter," the villain said. Oh. That guy. This won't shake out well for me. "I also have the entire subway system rigged to explode. You have a choice. Either save the city—"

Yeah. I'm screwed.

"—or your daughter!"

"Fine," Mother says. Her tone is final. She's made her decision. What happens next happens, and what she'll do—what I know she'll do because I was raised by her—is save the city.

I'm just one life against several million.

The transmission ends, and I sigh.

"Looks like she's coming right to our trap," the villain says, cackling.

"Nah," I reply. "She's not coming for me."

"I wouldn't be so sure—"

"I would." I don't care. I always knew it'd end like this. The city may see my parents as heroes, but for me, they were villains. I watched the light die in my siblings' eyes, one by one, my playmates and best friends and worst enemies and everything I love in the world, even against the planet. I saw them crack and break and become the tools my parents had them to be. I saw myself get left behind.

I'm a fuckin' loser.

"And why is that?" the villain asks. Worry, and tension, and concern. He's on the ropes and he knows it. Calculations only take you as far as the information flows.

My siblings are extraordinary.

"How many people are on the subway?" I ask. The villain admits he doesn't know.

"Your father must be on his way, if not your mother—"

"My father and younger sibling are tracking the source of your bombs. The others are doing the same or whatever." I never did pay attention. "Anyway. Shitton of folks, cars all packed. I traveled them to go to school and work, I know how many I saw and I can guess how many more there are."

"What's your point?"

"I'm one person. If you put one car in danger, I'd be abandoned," I say.

"But you're their child, their blood—!"

I shake my head.

"I'm just a fuckin' loser."

When we learned what it meant to be a superhero, we knew we would live our lives in danger. I knew my parents would be the death of us all.

I knew it'd shake out like this.

"You're dead," the villain says, with a similar note of finality that Mother had. I prepare myself for the end, but before I get far, the villain surprises me.

"We will forge papers and a new legal identity. I do it often for my henchmen. You'll legally be dead, and then you can have your choice of any place to live in the world."

"What are you talking about?" I ask. The villain sighs.

"My father... never saw me. Drank his depression away. I didn't have powers, but if I could reach the heights of heroes... Then I trusted the wrong person and got labeled a villain. All of my charity work is underground."

"Charity work?"

He tells me everything. Psych wards and rehab centers, staff vetting and revetting, charity auctions and mobility devices, and I realize that he made the wheelchair that got my friend up a mountain last summer.

"Why?" I ask.

"Why what?"

"Why do you do villainy?"

"Because I realized something. If people have a sun to worship, they'll love anything under that sun. Your parents fight me openly, and applaud my underground work for helping people. Those people see a terrible face and proceed to love the work of my hands. For them, it's about patting themselves on the back for being in the right."

I'm stilled. I'm... baffled.

"Your wheelchair helped my friend. We bought one for them as a birthday present because they always wanted to go up a mountain."

They was amazing, gifted with a silver tongue that talked us into and out of all sorts of trouble... when we could bring them along.

"Up a mountain?"

"Yeah. Thank you," I say. "It meant a lot to them."

The blindfold is removed. I look upon the unmasked face before me. It's twisted and scarred heavily. Chemicals, or acid. Bad, bad burns.

"My baby sister heals." My siblings forgot what pain is. Our parents refused to let us remember.

"I am fine with this. Truly, I will help you go anywhere in the world."

"My friends are here."

I'm a fuckin' loser, but that never mattered to them. I'm just me to them. Sometimes we forget that I have super parents at all.

"Then I shall look after you. How many?"

"Four...?" I count them off. He's nodding and sending glances to one of his subordinates.

We were granted jobs and a place to live, food to eat. It was fully accessible. It was perfect. I didn't know what to say. I'd never gotten more than minimum wage. I was a fuckin' loser.

But to these people, to my friends old and new, I don't have to be more than me.

You were the only child that didn’t have powers in a family of metahumans. Today you got kidnapped by a supervillain… and none of your family came to the rescue.

[dirt-grub]

totally forgot a day has passed. new years day just straight up doesnt exist in the vacuum of time. also you think that gated community is mad i drove past three times speeding and blasting my terrorism music  

[seahdalune]

it may be just my 2 am sleep deprived brain but i just had a weird match on TF2

i was assigned to be on Pier but there was like barely any people in it... at some point it was just me and some Engie.

instead of being sensible people and quitting out we both just stuck around, didn't really fight, and we just did our own things. i landed on top of the cart, then i started dancing on the cart, the Engie putting a teleporter down on the rails to see what would happen (it exploded as soon as the Payload went over it, RIP)...

then i fell off the Payload and wasn't able to get on it again because i still have no idea how crouch jumping works, lmao,

i decided to just kinda hold truce by turning on my Mannrobics taunt and we had fun. went around a few arches.

Suddenly though! i was shot! not by the Engie, he was still dancing. but his Sentry, right around the corner!

it was awkward for a split second. no one was dancing, and suddenly everything was super quiet.

before the Engie went to his Sentry and.... deactivated it? woah, really? for me?

then he approached me, looked at me up and down, as if to kinda ask "are you ok, stranger?"

{maybe it was that he didn't have visible eyes, so i could just assume whatever.

...no but i swear though, i could feel the sorriness from whoever was controlling that Engie.)

all i could really say was

i resumed my dancing, but....

oh, ok. ok then.

i just stayed in the map even after the Engie disconnected. i mean, yeah i did want to explore this place anyways. i've been busy fighting. i can just... take a stroll. no biggie.

it felt weird.

turns out when there aren't any grown men (and Pyros) with guns and explosives and all sorts of hoo-ha's, the whole place gets real quiet. almost liminal space, even.

(oh hey, one buzzword down)

this is where the 1 am brain comes in. because i felt super melancholy... lonely, actually. i looked at all the stuff i could see, swam around, found a secret rest area around one of the canals.

but all i could think was, "man, what if that Engie was there?"

ok don't get me wrong it does sound stalkerish. at some point i found a boat and was like "i could've sat there with the Engie :(".

but y'know, staying for 3 minutes couldn't have hurt.

with nothing but silence and ocean noise accompanying me in the tour, it just made me reflect a little. how i enjoy the TF2 experience, my newly-sprung rather horrifying spending habit on cosmetic cases, why i'm running around as a funny German man when i should be asleep.

how lonely i am when playing TF2.

that despite how many people surround me in matches, i never feel quite happy, how much i resent the others. and how much i rely on the noise to keep my depression at bay, despite my emotions.

i sat in the boat until the match was over.

i mean, maybe i was hoping the system brings in people or something.

to sit with, maybe. i dunno.

and then i was thrown to round 2 and had to disconnect my own damn self! and proceeded to scuttle to Tumblr and write for 30 minutes!

anyways i should sleep. just one more match...

[spirantization]

Okay, Lucifer 5B: loved it, had a great time, happy with the direction it went in.

Some quick thoughts and SPOILERS:

Lucifer and God were A++, all their interactions were the right blend of hilarious and heartbreaking

I'm very pleased with how they treated God's character and all his ~mysterious ways~. I love that they treated him as complex character without making him the villain

He had great interactions with all the other characters as well...except Chloe? I would have loved for her to a private one-on-one with God but they didn't give her one, which is a shame. We got "you're a bad father" and then that's it.

Dan and God, on the other hand, knocked it out of the park. So glad we got to see Dan dealing with everything on screen

Did God really explode Dan and then not even erase the memory of it happening, lmao that's harsh dude

Dan Espinoza, MVP of this season really

The Dan-centric episode was one of the highlights for me, I loved it

I think a lot of people guessed that Dan was going to die, and narratively I was expecting it. I was not expecting to actually cry my own tears when it happened though.

Handjobiel the Angel

All the angels actually? I really enjoyed them all!

Even Michael, although tbh I don't get why he's so committed to Being Evil. He doesn't like being a twin is I guess the official reason?

Lucifer and Chloe's relationship was not as front and centre as I thought it would be, but there were some good cute moments in there

Lucifer is such an idiot (affectionate) calling her Future Mrs G ALRIGHT just PROPOSE to her casually on the sidewalk

Chloe getting the ring at the end was obviously like a wedding. Did that count as a wedding? Are they married now?

This is petty but I did not enjoy the special effects of Lucifer burning up and now the only footage of him saying "I love you" has him with stupid flames on his face

Chloe is now God.

Lucifer may technically sit on the throne or whatever, but we all know who's making the decisions

Speaking of decisions uh... Chloe deciding to leave the LAPD to support Lucifer was a Choice

I kinda get where they were coming from with that but I feel they could have set it up MUCH better if that's what they wanted to do with her character

I will reserve final judgement on this Choice for s6 to see where exactly they're going to go with it

Alright I am very pleased that there is a season six coming because I there are some pretty significant threads left hanging:

Obviously I need a ridiculous episode where Lucifer is a complete idiot with his new whatever powers and messes everything up

Hell reform? Hell reform.

They danced around the issue but I feel it's pretty obvious that's where they're going with it and why Lucifer NEEDED to be God so that he can change the system of Hell

All the pieces are in place!!! Do it!!!

Anyway, in conclusion: fun ride, would ride again, looking forward to the next one.

[guyinlovewitheremika]

Oooh could you expand on why you liked the op?? I honestly don't know what to make of it yet, especially since it felt so different from other ops, but I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Absolutely will do!! This took longer than I wanted cause everytime I sat down to write I started getting distracted from the OP and just listening to it on repeat lmao

To start this off, I should add that throughout the week leading up to release date, I was following a couple of leakers on twitter who did drop some info on the OP; mainly that Shinsei Kamattechan were returning, the title, that it wasnt gonna feature any characters and instead be a metaphor for the “cruelty of war”. Knowing all of that had me pretty excited but also gave me the right expectations, so it wasnt too jarring to see at first. 

But, to jump into this, first of all, I just loooove the visual style in general. It mostly just being static shades of white and light grey, with these very washed out colors exploding and flowing onto the image...it’s absolutely gorgeous! Like I just really dig this color scheme. And it’s highlighted even further by the gorgeous, fluid animation...these explosions look so good! I’m also just a big sucker for familiar characters/entities being represented in a sort of timeless way...be it a portrait, a statue, a monument, whatever (think smth like this), so seeing Eren and the other titans at the end there was just an absolute treat. Whatever that thing is, I want some kind of print/purchasable piece of merch of it because that heap of titans looks amazing. 

The song also just bangs tbh. It’s such a weird agglomeration of instruments and vocals but I find it comes together really well. The childrens choir, the piano at the beginning, the distorted vocals and most importantly that E-violin!!! so fucking good! Honestly I just love the way this song sounds and Im more hyped for the full version than the ost release atm (even tho I love what we heard so far from that too). The combination of the visuals with the music too is great here...I’ve never seen a flamethrower used in combination with the beat of a song before (outside of mad max fury road I guess lol?) but goddamn its just such a cool fucking combination I cant get over it. 

I have some thoughts on the imagery and the symbolism and my interpretations of it all, and I wanna get into those too, but really, the main thing I absolutely love about this OP is how different it is. Just as the marley arc is probably the most different of all in the manga, just as the new studio has made a show that, in many ways, looks feels and sounds vastly different from the old Attack on Titan, the OP encapsulates all of that by just being this new thing and succeeding at it

I love WIT’s OP’s, I love Linked Horizon’s work on the show. But honestly, the “Linked Horizon hype OP” genre pretty much peaked with Guren no Yumiya for me. I still like all the others, but overall, OP 1, 2, 3 and 5 just feel a bit too same-y for me, especially given that I honestly don’t think any of the follow ups surpass the original. Heck all these other songs even reference GnY in some capacity--I cant help but feel like they could never let go of Guren’s success and never tried something else. Except for Red Swan of course, which is also my 2nd favorite WIT OP. It’s slower, it’s sadder, it’s melancholic, and vastly different from all the others, and I really appreciate that. It tries to be its own thing and it succeeded for me. And “My War” even more so feels like it has a very distinct, unique vision, goes all out in that way, and it just works beautifully.   

And it’s that distinct, unique vision that I wanna dig into lastly here, because, just as the marley arc does for this manga, I find that out of all the OP’s, My War most explicitely depicts and visualizes many of the core thematic ideas of Attack on Titan and brings them directly into the forefront. I’ve seen a bunch of cool interpretations of the song at this point, and someone may have somewhere already said all this, but I wanna throw it in here regardless

After countless battles, sacrifices, victories and losses, Eren and the survey corps were able to win the war against the titans that their walled world was stuck in for a hundred years. Their gigantic enemies were defeated, and freedom ought to lie ahead. But no, beyond the shores is just more...more oppression, more war, more death and more sacrifice. The history their king to from them is one of war and oppression, a never ending cycle of violence, spanning back 2000 years, continuing forward. One oppressive regime falls, only for the next to take its place. This has been the history of mankind since the dawn of man, and it continues on and on and on. 

This is what this episode shows us, another military battle around another walled encampment, and this is what this opening shows us...a world perpetually at war. Man’s hatred for one another leads to conflict, to war: it’s continued existence in history and continued technological advancements are the perfect visual representation of this. Man’s capacity for war breeds more war, and it takes lives and it takes freedom and it doesnt stop, it just keeps consuming. 

The Opening starts off with battleships, artillery fire, mortars, flamethrowers, nuclear explosions and a titan spine forming among them all, until the birds of freedom fall dead out of the sky. Neverending armies of soldiers march the streets, airships rule the sky, but all the soldiers, all the military craft, the marleyan military and the paradisian soldiers all fall to pieces and get destroyed. War and conflict rage on and all the pieces fall to the ground, littering the earth in nothing but death and destruction. And at the end, atop this mountain of corpses and mayhem, the titans arise, reaching forward, attacking. They are born from mankinds neverending cycle of destruction, the physical manifestation of our inner demons that lead us to kill each other. 

I thoroughly believe that this sequence of events most perfectly encapsulates all of attack on titan. Look at the marley arc: the years of their attempts to wipe out Paradis island lead the island and the attack titan straight to them, delivering a terrible blow to them during their declaration of war. 2000 years ago it was the warmongering, slave hording king fritz who had a girl hunted for sport who brought about the era of the eldian empire, creating a system to eternally maintain the titan’s ability to wage war and rule the lands that would wind up ripping humanity apart. Look at the final arc: all of humanities hatred towards the island devils birthed the final attack titan and his horde of demons who have come to trample the world underfoot. The titans have always arisen as the consequence of man’s tendency towards conflict and death. Eren’s titan first formed from inside a titan who just killed him, his last titan was born out of his own death yet again. Titans are man’s desire to kill given shape, and the more man kills and fights, the more titans arise. 

It’s a bleak and terrible look at the cruelty of the world, that I think the OP highlights immensly well. It’s a gorgeous looking and sounding 90 seconds, and despite its contents being essentially horrifying, its fun to look at and listen to. Isayama once said about Eren’s attack in marley that “what eren does here is the worst thing. but if you were able to feel just a little bit of excitement from it, then it was worth drawing manga all this time”. Somehow, one way or another, we’re drawn to conflict, despite how terrible it is. And I think this opening manifests this beautifully