#it doesn't have to be fucking literal

[ultfan]

me when tumblr recommends me someone defending dr3 in the tags and i read through the entire thing and get mad bc they don't understand what brainwashing really is.

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[egophiliac]

do skully have pokemon?

Pumpkaboo is the obvious one, but y'know, sometimes the obvious one is the right one! (we'll say SUPER SIZE Pumpkaboo, just for fun. big pumpkin for big skeleton boy.) and another person actually also suggested Greavard, which I somehow hadn't considered, but feels so perfect that I feel like I should have. dangit.

(they can also have little Nightmare Suit costumes :D)

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

STOP calling his little barrel a cuck chair it's NOT a cuck chair my best friend Christos confirmed Hodge CHOSE to sit separate from the nasty little mutineers so he could look at them DISRESPECTFULLY. if anything this is his FUJOSHI THRONE

[zecoritheweirdone]

wanna preface this by saying that i am. So normal. anyway i just spent the last week redrawing scenes from mystery skulls animated but as that hermitcraft au i posted about a couple times. you guys should watch msa it is. so so good.

[divineandmajesticinone]

CENTURY OF LOVE (2024) I 1.04 "Vee is the fox that conceils himself in Ms. Wad's fate. Like the nine-tailed fox that possessed the consort Daji."

[crippledasinfuckyou]

sometimes a healthy relationship isn't 50/50 because it can't be, and that's okay.

disabled people who cannot take on an equal portion of the work in a relationship deserve to be loved too, if that's what they want. and as long as their partner is getting the support they need, and is happy to take on that work, then what's the issue? it's nobodys business but your own the way that works in your relationship.

if you or your partner are disabled, and you can't split the work in the relationship 50/50, that's okay. you're not abusive, or a baby, or unloveable because of that. I promise

[lotus-pear]

never forgiving bones for fucking up this scene

[geddy-leesbian]

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles–

❝The only thing that can defeat power is more power. That is the one constant in this universe. However, there is no point in power if it consumes itself. I will enlist the help of an old friend against our common foe. I will use one pawn to eliminate the other, and emerge with the spoils for myself.❞

➛DARK LEGACY

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.

It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.

[ampleappleamble]

hey as long as we're all Nastyposting remember when josh sawyer said that literally every single companion and sidekick in both Pillars games canonically can, will, and/or does eat pussy/suck dick. king shit

[cometblaster2070]

so i'm going to go fucking insane because for a while this aspect of malenia's character design has been bothering me and making me think I'm seeing things and going fucking crazy.

the aspect in question is malenia's left arm:

when i first saw malenia's arm my first thought was oh okay they're probably just bandages or some sort of wraps.

but then you look a bit closer and like

idk about you (because i might be losing it) but it seems like the mesh of whatever the fuck that is very clearly melded with her skin in a way/it looks like it's going into and then emerging out of her skin (which is HORRIFYING to think of I won't lie).

and once again i thought i was going crazy and seeing things because surely these were just meant to be wraps or bandages like the ones we see in the scene of her fighting radahn right?

and then the thought of the needle came to my mind. along with something malenia says in her cutscene before we fight her.

"my flesh was dull gold"

huh. now isn't that interesting.

this would imply that in order to stall the rot from consuming his sister, miquella made a plan to sew unalloyed gold into malenia's skin using his needle in a last-ditch attempt to save her arm.

(granted it's funnier to imagine he just sticks it in her arm and goes okay great all done! and that's probably the canon way it went but)

the thought of the sheer pain malenia must've gone through during this process, to be honest, and the thought of the guilt miquella must've felt at having to force his sister to endure even more agony just to help her is just sad.

and all of it is done just in an attempt to salvage what they can of her and hope that more can't be taken.

edit: btw when looking at malenia pre-bloom and pre-losing her needle it looks like there's a proper layer/cover/whatever it is around her arm up till her knuckles making it seem like an actual covering or layer on top of her skin and what not, but when we fight her post-bloom and post-losing needle it appears like some of the layers have either flaked or fallen away and that reveals that it's actually meshed with/into her skin.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

was rereading the convo dirk has with dave and was captivated by the subtle work done to indicate how very much this was not actually a good or productive convo for dirk, and a capstone on the toxic mess that is him and hal

in the exact same conversation that dave is explaining, and dirk is seemingly accepting, that beta!dirk/bro should not have been allowed near a child, dirk chooses to bring up hal. and he does it to be really shitty.

DIRK: Creating him was an interesting exercise I guess, but over the years I came to see his development as one of my biggest mistakes. DIRK: He sort of turned into a monster. But I could never bring myself to get rid of him, or even really blame him for being an asshole, because he wasn't actually that different from me.

like... hal is dirk's younger brother/kid, right?

that's part of the reason that when hal starts using a different color, it's dave's red. in one part, the orange/red split is evocative of dave/davesprite, casting dirk/hal as foils, but... i don't think the lil bro/"kid i'm responsible for" vibe is unintentional, either. especially when paired with the fact that the brainscan is of 13-year-old dirk, and that the words "nascent" and "emergent" are used to describe hal's consciousness, all implying an element of youthfulness or childishness to him that isn't applied to dirk.

hal is fully sapient, has real feelings (by dirk's own admission, too), and is also, like, completely his own guy. he's not a dirk splinter, he's a computer housing a dirk splinter, and he and dirk only think they're the same guy because their individual issues happen to perfectly align in the worst possible way.

so if you look at their relationship through that lens instead - a frankenstein/frankenstein's monster scenario (which is also directly and intentionally an exploration on parenthood) at best and dirk Pretty Much Actually Just Making A Child at worst - doesn't it become really fucked up that Dirk tried to kill him?

Doesn't it become really fucked up that Dirk is outright calling him a "mistake" and a "monster"?

the other really interesting thing here is when he talks about Jake - specifically, the way he chooses to "make it up to" jake. which is to say, he doesn't.

DIRK: I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to avoid me as much as possible. DIRK: I'm sure that's for the best. DIRK: I think I need to stay out of his business for a good while, so I don't risk poisoning another innocent kid's life.

This isn't a solution. Hell, this isn't even an apology. This is just self-isolation, self-punishment, more of Dirk's martyrdom complex and teen boy diva bullshit.

yes, dirk hates himself, but the actual toxic loop he's stuck in is one where he doesn't address any of his problems. he identifies what his issues are, he feels really bad about them, he can enunciate them very clearly to other people, but then, instead of fixing them, he inflicts punishment on himself and then calls it a day.

We know that this is a bullshit thing to do to Jake because we know the situation from jake's side of things.

GT: Do you think you could relay the same sentiments to dirk? GT: I was thinking about all the stuff he said to me while we were all telling him to dance. GT: And yeah i was really being a prick when i ran away to lomax. GT: He was right about everything. I should have come clean about wanting some space.

jake wants reconciliation! jake wants to address the fact that he failed and apologize! jake wants to be friends again!

self-punishment is not a solution, and while I don't think dirk is entirely cognizant that he's doing it, by venting to dave - who literally has no idea what's been going on in dirk's group - he's able to frame the story - ahem, control the narrative - to justify his own shitty choice to not actually improve as a person, but instead to wallow in his own self-inflicted misery. If he'd said what he did about Hal to Jake, Roxy, or Jane - all of whom recognized hal's personhood and emotional reality to some degree, and spoke with him extensively - how would they respond? If they knew he'd tried to kill Hal, how would they respond?

The answer to that is why he doesn't tell them, and has got to be ticking in the background to explain why Dirk chooses to isolate himself from them. Put simply, I think the reason why he seems to think his friends never know the worst of him is because he deliberately avoids showing them. If he showed them, they wouldn't stay quiet, and if they didn't stay quiet, he'd actually have to... do something about it, instead of just indulging in some self-punishment and walking away feeling like the problem was solved.

and i think part of why he's so terrible to hal is because, on some level, he recognizes that he does kind of owe it to hal to be better. because, you see.

Hal is his kid.

hal's existence, hal's circumstances, and hal's suffering are a direct result of dirk's decisions, and hal is taking him to task for them. the things dirk really resents about hal are less the ways that hal is a reflection of dirk, though that's in there too, but the fact that hal is asking dirk to take responsibility. actual responsibility. that hal keeps confronting him with the fact that he's the one who caused hal's plight, he's the one with the power to fix it, and he's the one choosing inaction and avoidance.

TT: I'm guessing she's touching base to remind me about the party tomorrow. TT: I don't know what to tell her yet. Or Jane, for that matter. TT: It could get pretty awkward. TT: I have no idea if Jake will be there, and I'm not about to write another cringe-inducing message of desperation for him to ignore. AR: Would you like me to calculate the probability of his attendance? TT: Fuck no. AR: Are you sure? AR: My probabilities are extremely precise. TT: Your probabilities don't mean dick. AR: I could hack his chats, and determine what his plans are. TT: No. Don't do that either. [...] TT: Just don't do anything. Seriously. TT: No hacking, no calculations. Do absolutely nothing.

That's why Dirk takes such exception to the AI thing, too.

AR: In any case, my use of the responder responder is ironic. TT: It's not ironic. TT: YOU were ironic when I made you. TT: Then you became self-aware, and ruined irony forever.

then you became self-aware - in other words, "then you became a free-thinking entity and those jokes became reminders that your situation is fucked up, and i'm the one who put you in it". in other words, "and then you were born, and i had to be responsible for that". because, after all, the AI jokes that dirk hates so much? those aren't a reflection of dirk. that's all hal, baby. dirk can't use his "i hate you because i hate myself" excuse on that.

now i don't want to make it sound like i'm saying that dirk is a monster or anything. he does care, very fucking deeply, about his friends. and i think this conversation was genuinely very cathartic and helpful for dave. and it is, genuinely, very tragic that he does actually hate himself to the point where he finds it difficult to believe that he can get better, or even that he deserves to get better.

but those feelings have transformed into a vastly more harmful attitude of wilful, obstinate refusal to change, and even outright resentment and fear towards those that would ask him to. it's subtler than some of the others, but his convo with dave really highlights that dirk has not finished developing as a character yet. and i think it's really neat.

[all-pacas]

i think fandom tends to overestimate chase's imprinting on house a bit -- not to say it didn't happen, because it absolutely did, but it wasn't an immediate thing. it wasn't even a season one thing. chase in s1 really doesn't care much about house - he likes him, he thinks house is funny, he dresses like him, but his loyalty is still ultimately (always) to himself: he sells out house to vogler. s1 chase knows he's lowest ranked in the office, knows he's the least favorite. this doesn't bother him much: not to say it doesn't bother him at all, but we don't see chase try to rectify it or change it. cameron is the office asskisser, not him: where she agrees with everything house says and refuses to doubt him or believe he's an addict (even going so far as to declare her loyalty as a reason house shouldn't fire her in heavy); chase has no problem disagreeing with house or snarking about him, falling in the middle of the extremes of cameron's blind loyalty and foreman's cynicism.

chase likes house. that's not in question: he says so himself in sports medicine. but not more than himself. not more than his career.

you know when this starts to change? i can tell you, thanks to stacy. kids. at the end of s1.

chase sells house out to vogler. and he gets away with it. sure, house gives him shit, but chase isn't fired, isn't unduly punished. house even says to wilson and cameron that he understands (and is in a way fine with) chase doing so: he wanted the team to protect their jobs, to want to work for him, and chase fucking protected his job. (we see this in s5 with taub, and in s8, even, with 13: house doesn't want his employees distracted or half-hearted.) but consider it from chase's perspective. he did a Bad Thing. his reputation takes a hit, foreman holds it against him for a long time, and he grew up with daddy issues and neglect and never being good enough, doing everything he was told and being ignored and forgotten and punished. chase decided he'd rather house hate him than not work for house (insane!), but house doesn't hate him. he isn't punished. he is allowed to have fucked up and move on.

you know what else happens right around now? according to stacy: the mistake. right as chase is getting bullied for vogler, his dad dies, and he kills a patient, and you know what happens? nothing. house doesn't punish him. house covers for him. when chase fucked up the angio house considered firing him; chase does something infinitely worse and house doesn't do anything. later, in the mistake proper, house even helps him. offers to support him, go with his lie if chase wants. again: when has chase had that. when has he ever had the ability to make mistakes and fuck up and not get punished for it. he never wanted to be a doctor: his father wanted him to. he never wanted to raise his sister and nurse his mother: his father forced him to. house lets chase fuck up and doesn't hold it against him. he is probably the first person chase has ever known who has done that.

and so in s2 chase gets his lapdog reputation. and in s3 he doesn't even consider ratting to tritter. and in s8 he'd rather quit medicine than work for anyone else, anywhere else. chase didn't start being that loyal. but once house won it, boy did it pay dividends.

[sagelessichor]

You know what my fav hc I've ever come up with so far is? Apollo has to take shots of alcohol in the morning every day so that he can keep up the dumb blond act.

Cause like, you're telling me the god of poetry, education, logic, art, music, and so many other things just writes shitty haikus, is an ignorant, arrogant, self-absorbed shitty person? Hell no! This is literally the god of education, logic, and truth we are talking about here okay.

But on the flip side: imagine what would happen when Apollo doesn't take alcohol in the morning and after years of only interacting to people while drunk to keep up the dumb blond act, they now have to meet soberpollo who takes no shit and is just a no-nonsense guy. The whiplash would be absolute gold