#just needed to put this down somewhere

[pepperf]

Oh to be a little kitty using one pillow as my entire bed.

[wackywatchdotcom]

something i genuinely adore about tadc is how painfully flawed everyone in the circus is. and not in a small way

everyone does SOMETHING that negatively impacts the others. but it makes the fact that you are supposed to sympathize with and really connect with them all the more potent. because its easy to want to put a bunch of characters in a bad situation together and to just have them all be nice to each other and everyone and never make mistakes because theres no reason to hurt each other, and most of them dont TRY to, but the way they cope is so, so realistic for each of their personalities, and it doesnt always mesh with the others, and sometimes it exceeds self destructive and Just Hurts Others, Too

they still generally care about each other and the mistakes they make and the ways they end up hurting each other dont lose their weight but like. it doesnt take away from their humanity and the fact that they are all trying so hard to manage in an awful situation

and the characters seem to have sooome sort of understanding of this too. not fully, because the characters dont tend to be 100% communicative, but when they hurt each other, it often makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. because these are the only people they have. these are their friends. and theyre all coping. but it doesnt change how much it affects them (best illustrated by ragathas lines at the start of ep 2 or gangles 'i love her, but after a while it gets kinda hard to tell how genuine shes actually being'). its not all like this, theres a good amnt of variety, but characters knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it is very painful in an effective way

(i think a subtle example of this is how zooble handles gangles situation in ep 4- they were so genuinely trying to help her because they care. but could tell as the day went on that oh, this is not working at all and its making things worse, and they leave gangle alone- something that very genuinely couldve been the moment she abstracted, because of the mask zooble gave her- and we dont get to have a super blatant explanation of zoobles thoughts on it, but they reach a fairly healthy conclusion about it that helps both of them, and i like that a lot, because on paper zooble could be placed at fault but the narrative doesnt dwell on it excessively, because thats not the point. i dont know if that tangent makes sense but i think about it sometimes. i think zooble wasnt 'to blame' but it was still a mistake, which is a hard balance to strike, and having them help at the end feels extremely effective at rounding it off!!!)

but like. in general its complicated balancing making characters in a bad situation act flawed because it can run the risk of seeming like the story is scolding them or blaming them for the situation theyre in, or like youre expected to not sympathize with them despite it (though the inverse also has complications- if characters in a bad situation never mess up, it feels unrealistic and hard to relate to, and can imply that their innocence is why whats happening to them is bad at all), but the show handles it so well

even the characters who are genuinely trying all try in different ways- some of them have similar outlooks or attitudes towards these thing but theres vital differences for ALL of them- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. in fact some of the more painful mistakes characters have made in the show have come from them so genuinely trying (like the thing i mentioned w zooble, or basically Everything Ragatha Does, or pomnis first attempt at helping gangle, etc), which hits harder than if every mistake characters made had wholly selfish and cruel goals.

i mean, there is a selfishness to many of the characters' actions but imo not in a way thats not warranted. because all of them are in a horrible setting. its uncomfortable to watch characters be selfish. but it is a natural instinct to survive. its not the foundation of most of their actions, but when it is, its uncomfortable but hard to completely disparage them for in a way that makes you feel kinda conflicted

and like. it hurts to be doing your best and for that to make things worse, but its what happens often in the show. because no one in a bad situation is gonna handle it well. by the very nature of trying to survive something is gonna give, but it makes the themes of the show so much more powerful. that making sure the people around you dont feel unloved, cherishing them and finding meaning with others is no less important just because everyone is fucking up. it complicates things, for sure, but it doesnt make those characters exempt fromt this. theres a reason pomni tells gummigoo that she doesnt want "anyone" to feel like theyre nothing, and that kinger doesnt add ANY quallifiers to making sure people feel wanted and loved (not that i think either of them were thinking SUPER super hard, but it conveys smth from the perspective of the narrative

it gets complicated when you add in jax for sure, since i think on the surface he IS the exception to this concept- none of the characters like him, including pomni or kinger. but i think this is something thats gonna be examined further down the line, bc hes the main complicating factor in this reading of the show, but i feel like thats on purpose. hes universally disliked (and so is caine, in a different way) and his actions arent mistakes. they are him coping. the show has made it clear that he can be a complex person AND also a piece of shit. his actions dont detract from the fact that hes a person and the show reminds us of this. so it makes things so messy, but im genuinely super excited to see how the show examines that. where his character goes is, imo, going to be a massive piece of how this show fleshes out this concept

[puppppppppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[timeslipcamp]

dj khaled voice another one

i had. a WHOLE half of this post typed up and in my drafts and it DELETED

thanks tumblr

anyways i wanted to do a lil compilation post on the defunct houses. let's see how much i remember of what i already typed

spoilers through ep 14

so this post is going to be a lot more conjecture than the other ones simply because we don't have nearly as much to go on. i'm looking to compile what little we have and my guesses based on names, and then i'll be updating as we get more information.

we first hear about the defunct houses when mc is in the library doing research. ngl when i saw that there was 10 houses i was like oh god even MORE names to remember now! but thankfully we don't have any! everyone transferred out of them.

(i do, however, have a sneaking suspicion they'll add more later on. obey me did, and if the story goes how i'm predicting, we'll follow mc through the start of the time loop and go back far enough to see the houses before they were disbanded.)

all we know is that the houses went defunct last year. the timeline so far is a little ambiguous about what happened when, but here's how i have it in my head:

one eyed sleeping beauty murder -> whatever betrayal involving jin and the traitor -> the clash -> houses going defunct and people transferring

if anyone has any canon evidence saying otherwise PLEASE send it my way!! i'm going to be doing a full reread when i get started on character theories, but i can only do so much at the same time on my phone at work lmao

the three houses are clementia, ultio, and dionysia. interestingly, they're all named after gods. clementia and ultio are both roman goddesses, and dionysus is a greek god (but he did have a roman counterpart named bacchus.)

let's get into it

clementia

this is the house we've heard the most about so far in the story. i think that's for one of two reasons, either A. it's more important to the story and what happened last year, or B. it's just where mc lives so it comes up a lot. my bet's on the former, but i honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's a secret third option: C. it had a huge role to play last year but won't be major going forward, so they're gonna tell us more about it now and then we'll learn about the other two later

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

clementia was located in the absolutely fucked up church mc lives in right now. i still can't believe she's just living like that lmao it kills me every time i think about it.

though i do wonder if it has to do with what happened last year. i mean, obviously it got destroyed in the clash last year, we know that (at least i think we do), but maybe the manner in which it was destroyed makes it somewhat unfixable.

i know there's folk tales out there of objects and places being seals of sorts and if they're broken, something bad is unleashed. i don't think that's actually what's happening, but mc did make a point to say that the church still hasn't been fixed even though the rest of the campus got fixed after jiro's fight with the big anomaly. perhaps it has to be cleansed before it can be fixed? but if the holy house is gone, who else can do that?

haku can :)

like i mentioned, clementia is a roman goddess. she was the personification of mercy, gentleness, forbearance, clemency, forgiveness etc etc. this fits with what we know so far, especially because she also represents absolution, salvation, and redemption. a couple gen ed vagastrom students said they used to go to clementia for exorcisms, and rui spent some time there after he was cursed. haku was originally a clementia student, and his family has a prominent shrine and he has quite a lot if experience with spirits and laying them to rest

this pretty much solidifies clementia as the holy house, so to speak, on campus, especially with their dorm being a church. their job was probably centered around purification and spiritual healing while mortkranken handled the physical healing.

a quick note regarding clementia the goddess and her history: she was never a major goddess. like, at all. there's very little known about her cult, and in fact, a lot of evidence points to her just kind of being used as a symbol for the rulers to make themselves look better to the people. several of the roman emporers and dictators used her in their symbols and coinage to make themselves appear merciful. in fact, the year that the senate voted that julius caesar was a god with his own priest, they were going to build a temple with a statue of him and clementia holding hands as equals. and then a few months later he was stabbed to death!

if this is translated into tkdb's story at all, i could see clementia being caught in the crossfire between the faculty and the ghouls. they're a neutral party, focused on healing, and because the ghouls rely on them and the school is holding them up as a model house--boom. friendly fire from both sides. could have been from multiple ghoul houses as well, if the faculty was playing snake in the grass.

or, as is so common, those with a holier than thou attitude are quickly brought to heel by the common man

either way, we ended up with an empty and broken church and one less house of healing.

ultio

one of the ones we know next to nothing about! so feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but ultio was the one that had the prison below it. it's across the lake from hotarubi--god i want a map so bad--and it looked like it had the same mists. i would love that tbh, spooky battlefield vibes.

in a historical context, ultio was another roman goddess who was more a personification of values than an actual goddess that we think of in modern media. she represented vengeance and was typically placed inside already existing altars and temples of mars, the roman god of war. super cool fact, she was the direct counterpart to clementia. roman rulers were told to always hold both ultio and clementia in equal respect, otherwise righteous vengeance would become its more negative version, revenge.

and in roman culture, it ultimately did. julius caesar had done so much pr to have clementia associated with him that his successor, augustus, began promoting ultio until mars was once more one of the most prominent gods and the roman military was out conquering again. clementia all but faded into obscurity after that.

but we're talking about a mobile gacha game, not the fall of the roman empire.

having both ultio and clementia on campus is so interesting to me, especially when you take into account the faculty's stance on anomalies. in lyca's case, for example, they were perfectly content to leave him locked up forever and have stated that if they even get the hint that he's done something, he's done for. looking at how trigger happy most of the ghouls are and the lax consequences on them killing anomalies, i'm willing to bet that reflects how their stance has been for a few years now. ultio became less about the righteous side, containment and preservation, and became its darker side: imprisonment.

darkwick became more about containing and destroying than actually researching and understanding, and that's why haru's stance is framed as being the odd one out. saw an incredible theory post by @labulemon about haru having been originally in ultio and i think i'm fully on board. from a thematic sense, it's so easy to see someone like haru being in ultio (the prison place) and being like "wait...why are we treating these living creatures like this?" and ending up the sole caretaker of jabberwock like that.

weird thought i just had typing that; what if towa was another one that was in the cages? like it was another suba and lyca situation: there was a weird ass creature stuck in a cage and haru broke him out and now towa helps him run jabberwock. (i have another theory post coming about how i don't think towa is actually a ghoul, i think he's something else.)

ultio is now an abandoned prison...or so we're supposed to think. there's other anomalies still down there even though we broke lyca out. who's taking care of them? who put them there? if ultio is gone, why are they still locked up?

if ultio isn't fully gone, who's to say the other two aren't either?

dionysia

this is the third house and the one with the least amount of information on it. as far as i'm aware, the only time it's mentioned is when tohma says something like "their campus is this way" when we spot him out at night. why's that shady man going there? what's he investigating?

dionysia is also named after a god, dionysus. i could write entire essays on what he as a god represented to the people, but i'll keep it to basics (and historical context) for now.

dionysus was the greek god of revelry, wine, and ecstasy. good times and good wine. he's one also with a bit of a dual nature to him. greeks believed you should let loose and have fun and relax, but if you leaned too far into excess, you were at risk of being lost to madness. in a few accounts, however, he's also referred to as the dying and rising god and acts as a communicator between the living and dead. he's one of the gods that's had so many tellings and retellings that just about anything about him could be true, and even has a crazy amount of parallels to christianity. kind of compelling for a god of ecstasy and madness to have layers upon layers of versions of himself.

zero idea how this plays into their role on campus. each house tends to have a specialty of some sort that vaguely relates to their name (jabberwock is creatures, mortkranken is illnesses, etc) so i suppose dionysia could have dealt with anomalies that affected the mind and emotions? like for instance the cat, from the latest jabberwock episode, that drove people mad. maybe they could have helped with that. or maybe even the plants, and that's why rui took them over. he was the god of wine and was very "back to your roots naked in nature" for his worship, maybe dionysia students were the farmers.

bacchanalias were actually outlawed by the government at one point in time, and i do think it's worth saying that lots of roman gods were depicted wearing laurel leaves. interesting that the clash happened and got rid of not only the party house but the party too

i think dionysia could have gone either way. it feels more ghoul aligned to me, like i get the vibe that their wild and whimsical nature wouldn't have been easily held down by the faculty, but i could also see these shady teachers being like "hey go fuck with their heads"

oh shit is that what happened to taiga?

there's what i have on the three houses! not a lot, mostly vague guesses and their historical correlations. it's fun to see what each theory u post leads to another. this one, now, is going to have me looking a lot more into haru and also the chapter where we found lyca.

and the teachers, i don't trust those mfers

asks and dms always open!

[discoscoob]

THINKING ABOUT YANDERE NEO…

ִ ˙ ✩°˖💿 ⋆｡˚ A shameless ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ ripoff from your resident Harry Styles fan :)

After forcibly removing you from The Matrix, Neo’s hope that you would eventually learn to accept your new life in the real world never comes to fruition. So he has to try alternative measures.

His idea comes from the training programs but he tries something a bit more ambitious, he’s The One so he can practically do whatever he wants. He creates a whole simulated suburban town, designed like the 1950s and he keeps you plugged into it. Your mind is wiped of everything that came before and all you know is this simulation, you believe it to be the real world, you believe Neo is your husband and you’re happily married but you keep having such vivid dreams, where you live a completely different life (the life you had in the matrix) in a completely different world that is far more advanced and you have a successful career, you tell Neo about these dreams every morning before he “leaves for work” (unplugs from the simulation) and he acts amused telling you how absurd they sound.

One day you’re running errands when you see Neo’s car parked outside a motel. You watch him enter one of the rooms and your mind thinks the worst, that he is having an affair. Determined to confront him you storm over to the motel and barge into the room you saw him disappear into, prepared to find him with another woman only to be greeted by an empty room. Your feet quickly rush to the bathroom but that’s empty too. Feeling confused you come back to the room and notice the phone hanging off the hook and carefully put it back while your mind races wondering if you were imagining things. You startle when the shrill sound of the phone ringing echos through the room, making your heart leap out your chest. You quickly answer it and everything goes dark.

When you wake up, you’re in an unfamiliar dark room, you can feel the cold air against your skin as your blurry eyes try to look at your surroundings. It’s hard, your eyes hurt, you’re unaware of how long it’s been since you last used them. You look down, realising you’re strapped down to what looks like a dentist chair, you panic and start crying out for help. You notice all these strange ports on your skin with wires attached, you feel like you’re in a nightmare. Then Neo comes running into the room, realising you managed to escape the simulation. He soothes you, telling you this is just a dream as he plugs you back in.

Once you’re back inside the simulation, you wake up confused, the ‘nightmare’ still fresh in your mind and Neo is there ready to feed you some lie. You fainted in front of a motel he tells you but your memory tells you otherwise, you feel confused, wondering where the nightmare started and reality ended.

The next day while Neo is “at work” you revisit the motel room, it looks just like it did in your “dream” and the phone is sat on the beside table. You sit on the bed and hesitantly lift the phone off the hook and put it to your ear after taking a deep breath. Nothing happens. All you hear is the dial tone. With a sigh you put the phone back down and shake your head, convinced it was all just a dream you return home and your life with Neo continues as normal for a while again…

[weltato]

A Complaint - AO3

I have a question for the AO3 readers: why is interaction so hard for you? I never normally see this much of a drought, my goodness.

I will admit, the bookmarks are very nice, thank you to those people, but this is kinda sad. Normally I'm not bothered, but it's just- can't even say hi? You just read a fic and leave? You don't wanna take a second of your time to hit kudos? I understand some of the hits might be "shit I didn't want to click on that one" and some will be "eh, I tried it, but didn't like it" but I just can't believe that over one hundred people have done that. And true, maybe there's the rare few that have been coming back to read the fics and that's bumped the count up, but I have ONE (1) comment saying anything. Just one. I know it says two there but that's my own reply and I'm not counting it. These are my two most recent fics btw, this is a recent issue for me, my older fics haven't been this dreadful.

Genuinely, that second image bothers me more than the first one. At least that one got a comment and people have bookmarked it, ok then. That one is fine actually, that's not a problem for me. But the second one is just..."wow" is really all I can say.

That, and a resigned sigh that this is the fate of the internet right now. Tumblr posts are getting less interaction than they used to thanks to the widespread like-culture bleeding through from other apps and AO3 readers are putting the authors on such a pedestal that they're afraid to even leave a comment or a kudos anymore.

I'll admit, I only recently started leaving comments more often and that I used to be part of this problem, and I'll also admit that these two fic stats are for a fandom that is pretty much dead thanks to the show killing itself at the end (TUA S4 look what you've done), but even my niche fics - Red Dwarf, Wind in the Willows, VHS Christmas Carols - have got relatively balanced stats in comparison.

Either it's the fanbase being dead (probably the cause), users not interacting anymore (still a problem), or my writing is just going down the toilet at the moment (I don't actually think it is but everyone has different tastes in writing style) but this is something that's irking me right now and I had to complain somewhere.

I'm not usually bothered by numbers and statistics, I know it not gonna benefit me in the slightest, but sometimes I look at things and wonder why the interaction on it is so shit. This is one of those times. You read the top, right? You know this is a complaint, it doesn't necessarily need to make sense.

I'm gonna shut up now.

[infernalmass]

calling it now. gemma was pregnant when she was taken, and gave birth while severed. the baby's in cold harbor. she doesn't recall. that is going to be the ultimate test of whether severance holds up.

[iwanttobepersephone]

So, my mom was telling me how much free time I have, and I was like, "I have no freetime wth do you mean?????" And I just wanna see if this is like. A normal way to think of things?

Things I need to do:

Finish reading icebound land

Make a whole lotta art that I promised people

Research study abroad programs

At least one Dutch lesson a day

Keep my room clean

Talk to my friends so they know I love them (and so I don't go insane)

My math homework

Keep myself clean (showers, finally brushing my teeth after months, etc etc) so I don't go insane

Eat at 7pm

Various things I enjoy as to not go insane

All from 6pm to 9 pm, every day, after being at school from 8 am to 3:30 pm and then The Public (teen center) from 3:30 to 5:30, and I need to be in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10:00

So, basically, I'm "on the clock" from 7 am (When I start getting ready for school) until 9 pm, with no breaks

But yeah no I totally have free time. Yeaup

[platinummice]

The ‘Important’ bullet points I have written down for Mors btw I have these for all of my little ocs and they are all equally descriptive,,, anyway I will proceed to word vomit about my boy.

Morsus is very small for an astartes, he’s short and thin and it leads to a lot of problems for him because he appears weak in the eyes of his brothers (He has a different SKILL SET okay? He’s still very capable in a fight.) He is almost constantly harassed by his battle brothers, beaten up to ‘make him stronger’, and he just kind of accepts it because he does believe they’re trying to better him. He keeps himself small and out of the way for the most part, does whatever is asked of him and then slinks off to hide, usually in vents because it’s difficult for other Night Lords to get to him that way.

He has a few,,, not great relationships with other Night Lords. He loves like a dog, you almost can’t do anything that he would deem Too Much and it makes him very vulnerable. Honestly he doesn’t see anything wrong with previous relationships because he doesn’t know better (until he meets Carrion, a world eater oc by @jaghatai-khock) He’s very clingy if he likes someone and he’s an open book emotionally cause his ears and tail give him away.

It honestly bewilders him, how he managed to secure Carrion as his mate. He’s small and fragile looking and, in his own opinion, not a great pick. All he can pin it on is his insistence. There was a lot of rejection involved at first (and maybe getting tossed around like a ragdoll for trying to crawl into Carrion’s lap uninvited) but he’s very insistent and it works out for him in the end. He develops a very healthy obsession for the man, veeeery healthy… Like, a ‘You could pull out all of my internal organs and wear them around if you wanted to. You could pluck my eyes out and use them as your own if it helps you see better. And I won’t even wiggle around while you do it.’ Kind of healthy… Needless to say his tail goes crazy every time he sees Carrion.

ANYWAY. Morsus. A little insight on how his brain works. A little information on him. My bestest little freak. My weird little dog. I love him.

[pinknblueforever]

Be a lover, choose love, give love

Love everyone always

[sae-something]

I just had a really really really really really cool job interview for a volunteer job (for a few hours per month) and I'm SO excited about it. Told them I'll let them know tomorrow if I want it; I'm 99% sure I do but I know it's better to sleep on it and see if any fears or anxieties pop up bc that's a sure way to know it's activating something somewhere internally.

And then. And then it's just hoping they'd want me too!!!!!

Also a bit hesitant on whether or not to tell A because it's kinda related to dissociative stuff and it's very likely she knows this org and what if she hates it or what if she thinks I shouldn't be doing anything like this... aaah!!!! (Okay maybe that's echoes of T telling me 'it's probably best if you never do anything in the mental health field', even though this is not even in the mental health field...)

Anyway. We'll see. It's very possible some part will blurt it out for various reasons. I hope A won't shame me for it or tell me it's a bad idea. Gosh the longing for approval from her is really big, shame shame. Gonna try and sleep now.

[tetedurfarm]

brush cutter cames by today and we are once again blessed with Downed Branch!!!

[faunandfloraas]

i hope whatever weird thing thats wrong with me is resolved by the concert next month bc if its not im really not seeing how i'll be able to go

[thelibraryofsylphide]

Loki, the Prince

Loki Moodboard trilogy: 1 | 2 | 3

[vampyriix]

theres so many rts that just live in my brain. infested

[shirajellyfish]

ADHD mood (again)

I swear sometimes having ADHD is like living in a world where inanimate objects just teleport sometimes. Every day at random objects just teleport around your space.

The teleport happens completely at random. Usually paying really close attention to an object can delay it teleporting, watched pot never boils and all, but not always. Sometimes you're trying sooo hard to look at this thing so it doesn't teleport away, but then you blink or sneeze or look over at a noise you heard and oops it's gone.

It doesn't matter if you put an object in That Place You Will Remember It, because it will probably teleport somewhere else before you need it.

It doesn't matter if you have a special place for the thing, it's not going to stay there. No matter how many times you put it back, it's going to keep teleporting around.

It doesn't matter if you try reaaaally hard to remember where you put a thing. It's not there anymore, it teleported.

And after a while you stop bothering to try and remember where you put things, because it's faster to just look around at places things are likely to teleport to.