#leave your prison

[thebeccagramchronicles]

How not to be a victim of your circumstances

Are you a victim of your circumstances? Let me answer that for you. NO! You are a victim only if you allow yourself to be. But easier said than done, sometimes. I hope this post will help. Shape your own future In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to feel like we’re swept along by the currents of life. But what if we were to challenge that notion and take control of our own destinies?…

[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)

[olessan]

The Rings of Power 2x08: Shadow and Flame

"My place is here. You know it is." "And where is mine? If not with you?"

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

"Selûnite rituals often involve milk, treat milk as a sacred substance, and Selûne accepts cups of milk as offerings because of its colour and her association with femininity--" Wrong. Selûne clearly wants milk so she can make the highest quality whey for her beloved buff daughter's holy protein shakes.

And in turn, we are all of us blessed (but Isobel most of all).

[crazy-ache]

I’m here to enjoy a good time in fandom. I am not obligated to hold my favorite character under some trial because YOU don’t like them. I don’t have to hold them to YOUR impossible standards or likes. I am allowed to enjoy them exactly as I wish. If you wish to do that, go play in your own sandbox away from mine. That is, and has been, the point of fandom.

[kerink]

I hope it’s okay to just drop some thoughts I was having about Dipper and Stan for your au here! I was just thinking about them isolated in that little apartment and how I’m sure they weren’t provided with any like entertainment. I think it would be a really rough adjustment for dipper who would want to immediately be working on an escape plan. But I think Stan would probably be the best equipped of the family to handle the situation. He’s been to jail and eaten his way out of the trunk of a car. Like, he’d know how to plan escapes under a warden’s nose and keep himself somewhat entertained in the process. I think they’d argue at first but eventually dipper would realize that Stan is also trying to help them escape, he’s just going about it more subtly.

To pass the time maybe they play games that don’t need too many pieces for. Maybe dipper comes up with like an augmented D&D&MD that’s mostly verbal or maybe Stan gets his hands on some cards. They’d probably feel guilty if they start having too much fun though.

I know they are being watched but Bill is distracted by other things so maybe they can get away with a little more than the others, especially if they play up giving up. But it’s a real panopticon situation. They could come up with some kind of code that they can communicate through the games they play. Like playing a certain card means something or they use the plots of D&D&MD to talk about what’s going on in real life.

Thanks for letting me ramble and for making this au it’s so fun!

i seriously love this!

i was also thinking about what they could do for fun too, and was thinking about stan trying to teach dipper to box lol not just because it's something they can do and it fits in with stan and dipper's existing relationship arc, but also because it calls back to dipper's previous character development: him thinking he's useless without the journals, but once gideon kidnaps mabel he's like i don't need magic i can just beat your ass. so dipper already knows the value in having a good left hook, knowing he can be smart and strong, cunning and violent.

i love stan seeming like he's flippant, like he's given up, like he doesn't care about what's going on when it's really just a facade he's putting on to keep everyone calm and relaxed. he's trying to be the stable rock the kids and ford can cling to. stan believing there isn't much he can practically contribute in this situation, so settling for the emotional home base, the place where busy minds can rest.

but i hadn't even considered what you said about stan having been to jail before and how that would impact him. it's sooo incredible it has me feeling a bit crazy. because you're RIGHT. he knows what it's like to sit in a box and stare at a wall. he knows what it's like to play verbal chess with a mob boss. he knows what it's like to be two-faced with an unjust warden. as much as ford is teaching mabel to steel her heart and have a poker face and dance along with bills game, stan can teach dipper the exact same thing

[breegadey]

i see... i see...

[starcurtain]

I guess it's because his Warp is called 'gilded imprisonment', and the phonecall with Jade where he says 'I don't wanna bet anything just to escape your clutches'.

Kinda makes him a foil to Robin and warped parallel to Sunday in a way I think if you see him as thinking of his job as a gilded cage. It may not really be true, maybe he can walk away anytime he wants I'm sure he has the power and ability to even if hed be up for silencing if he left the Stonehearts, but he has nowhere else to go so he may just be trapping himself there with his own apathy. Hope that made sense lol

Always enjoy reading your thoughts ty for the food 🙏

(Will answer the part about the character foils in a different post because that is a whole long thing of its own!!)

See, I definitely think this is the issue, because I have had people say that exact thing to me "Well his warp is called gilded imprisonment so that has to be referring to the IPC!" Like... Do people think the IPC has a monopoly on the word "gilded" or something? Or that "gilded" can only refer to literal gold coins and not any of the many, many metaphors for being a prisoner to destiny that are swirling around Aventurine?

"To gild" means to "cover thinly with gold." It doesn't mean to create wealth, to imply actual money, or even to relate at all to the concept of "golden handcuffs" (which is what people seem to be mistaking it for). Gilding could more accurately be described as a process of taking something cheap--like low-quality nickel--and plating it over with the thinnest layer of gold, to try to make the item seem much better than it is. Gilding something is often like dressing up a pig--you can make it look pretty on the outside, but on the inside, it's still a pig.

Just the thinnest layer of gold over a darker interior...

There's nothing about "gilded imprisonment" that automatically has anything to do with the IPC, unless you're already coming in with the impression that Aventurine is a prisoner of the IPC. If you start with a preconceived notion of what "imprisonment" means for Aventurine, then and only then do we make the jump to "Oh, this must be in reference to the IPC." Take that preconception out and there's zero connection lol.

Even the Chinese name of the warp, "囚石铸金" (lit. "Prison stones cast [in] gold") and other languages' translation of the banner name (like German's "Stein zu Gold," lit. "Stone to gold") imply that the most important element of the banner is "coating over something bad with something good"--i.e., turning prison walls into gold, turning the "stone" of his dark past into something shining. (This actually makes a nice irony in several languages, because he turned the rocky desert of his homeland and the stone walls of a prison into gold by... earning a Cornerstone and becoming a "Stoneheart"--or, that is, he himself is a "worthless" stone that has been thinly coated over in shiny wealth.)

But personally, if we really want to go by the English name of the banner, I would argue that it is much more likely Aventurine's banner name is a reference to his own troubled relationship with the concept of "blessings" and "destiny" than anything to do with the IPC.

From the beginning of his life, Kakavasha was told he was "blessed" and that he was the "chosen one." He was favored by a goddess, born on the day of her rebirth, and told that he will be the savior of his people. So, we can literally say he's the Avgin "golden child," which is further supported by the constant connection between Aventurine and gold colors (his golden-haired appearance, his mother's gold accessories with him since his birth, the word "Avgin" itself even meaning [golden] honey). So as the "golden child," we have this perception that his power of incredible luck, gifted to him by a goddess, must be a blessing, a good thing.

And yet that's not how it plays out for him. What his family tells him is a blessing ends up functioning more like a curse for Aventurine, when it becomes clear he can't use that luck of his to protect those who mean the most to him. He might be the goddess's golden child, the chosen one--but no one else is chosen with him. He's a failed savior, an incapable hero, and there is no escape from the destiny which has been decided for him.

There's a reason his lightcone is called "Inherently Unjust Destiny." His own destiny, decided when he was born favored of an aeon, makes him a prisoner of the suffering that he can survive but never avoid.

We see how much this haunts him constantly throughout his experiences in 2.1...

To me, I would interpret the English banner name "Gilded Imprisonment" as much more related to how Aventurine's blessing, which is supposed to make him the favored, lucky, golden child, is actually nothing more than a thin veneer over the terrible destiny that binds him, continually costing him everything and everyone he loves.

On to the other point entirely, I think people might also really be misinterpreting that sentence about "escaping Jade's clutches." Again, I think this relates a lot to the fact that people are coming into Aventurine's character with this preconception of him as a prisoner to the IPC, so they're interpreting this sentence in the most literal way possible ("I want to get away from you"), but that is actually not what Aventurine is saying at all there.

Jade's rank in the IPC is P46. If Aventurine is promoted to P46, he would no longer be her subordinate. Therefore, when he says "I don't want to bet anything just to escape your clutches," this is actually a (vaguely snarky, to be sure) compliment. Aventurine is saying "I don't want you to think I'm engaging in a bet [that I know I'll win] because I dislike working for you."

It's supposed to be flattery. He's saying "Don't think I'm trying to get away from you, oh great Madam Jade. I wouldn't try to make any bets just to get out of being your underling."

I think it's got a healthy dose of sarcasm to be sure, because Jade herself would have trained Aventurine to snatch every chance to get ahead. So now he's in the hilarious situation of having to balance the expected respect to his mentor ("Of course I would never want to leave you! You're the best boss!") with the fact that his own mentor wants him to be cut-throat at all costs lolol.

It's irony-laced flattery for sure.

That's why his next line is "Well, if it's just a friendly bet though, then sure, I'll engage." He's saying "So long as you know I'm not betting because I dislike working for you, sure, I'll play along." Because he knows that's what he's supposed to do--as a Stoneheart, he should be seizing every opportunity to advance. He virtually has to make this bet that he'll be promoted just to demonstrate the desirous personality that Jade would be expecting.

And honestly, it's supposed to be a callback to their first scene together too. They literally add that to text so people can't miss it. Kakavasha came to Jade as a person "hungry" to rise up the chain, to change his circumstances. He's making the same bet again to suggest to her that he hasn't changed in the slightest even after his experiences in Penacony.

(Now, why he's trying to act like he hasn't changed in front of Jade is another story, and "Aventurine is out to destroy the IPC" conspiracy theorists can run wild with this one for sure.)

But yeah. That line... really does not mean what people think it means, apparently.

Anddddd I'll get to the character foils in another post; this was already long enough as-is! 😂

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

You know, I don't think I've ever seen a direct reversal of the "At Least I Admit It" trope. You know the one, where the bad guy says "I do bad things but I acknowledge they're bad so that makes me morally superior to you", and I could go on about why that bugs me but that's not the point. The point is that Qimir and Sol are both holding someone prisoner, but Qimir is the one trying to disguise it with soft words and fake freedom while Sol is being completely honest.

Qimir: You can leave at any time, provided you swim across several miles of turbulent sea to a ship I locked and then fly through space with no idea how to navigate. Oh wait, you're gonna try it anyway, um....actually, first you have to stab me with a lightsaber, no this is not physically restraining you from leaving I'm just holding you in a way that prevents you from moving anywhere unless I let you, it's totally different.

Sol: I shot you in the back and handcuffed you to a bed while you were unconscious.

[minothtime]

HWAT DO YOU MEAN THREE ENTIRE MILGRAM CHARACTERS ARE DEAD AND IN THE GROUND??? HELLO???? IT ISN'T EVEN SEASON THREE??????

AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU AMANE WHEN I GET YOU

[that0nebird]

Genuinely sick to death of the fake walter theories so fuck it. Maybe Taissa is secretly walter. Maybe Jackie reconstructed herself out of her og bones and loose flesh and became walter. Maybe walter is the antler queen. Maybe walter was the black box and he’s manipulating misty for revenge. Or perhaps walter is actually Callie and Callie is Hannah’s baby that Shauna adopted to make up for her past sins.

[thedungeonbat]

Tuesday, October 15 ᯓ★

researched some uni courses (found two very interesting English literature classes I’ll look into!!), had a dentist appointment and picked up my book.

trying to fight off first symptoms of depression by going on walks while listening to the Harry Potter soundtracks and drinking (too much?) tea.

[lenievi]

my ideal valvert dynamic is Javert thinking he wants to seize and devour Valjean, and so he starts being quite dominant, but he slowly submits to Valjean step by step

[snootlestheangel]

Break For Your Heart snippet

@stuffireadandenjoy

Simon shifted in his seat uncomfortably as he stared across the table at Soap. The other was shoveling the rather unappealing mashed potatoes into his mouth, and Simon realized he was truly surrounded by absolute psychopaths.

"Why are you here?" Simon asked the question before he could stop himself. Soap paused in his eating, barely flicking his eyes up at Simon before resuming.

"Killed someone, obviously." He mumbled around the food in his mouth. Simon frowned, oddly disappointed by the lack of a response.

"Yeah, but how?" Morbid curiosity got the better of Simon and the question came out more confident than he wanted it to. Soap didn't pause this time, merely shook his head.

"Burned him alive. Shoved a poker through his chest so he couldn't get out of it." Soap murmured before taking a loud gulp from his drink. Simon frowned at him, unable to respond for a brief moment. The mental image was gruesome, but he couldn't shake the feeling there was a critical detail lacking in Soap's response.

"Who was he?" This time, Soap's eyes snapped up to him. Those piercing blue eyes stung his very soul, and something akin to rage flashed within them.

"Does it matter? Fuck head's dead." Soap snapped, and as if he were deaf, Simon didn't drop the issue.

"You lit someone on fire and it doesn't matter who he was? God, you're fucked up." Simon dropped his gaze as Soap tilted his head ever so slightly, deciding it'd be best for his sanity to stare at the unsavory pork chop on his platter than Soap's intense glare.

"He pushed me. I pushed harder." Soap growled, and Simon bravely met his gaze once again. A familiar look of fear, one Simon saw in the mirror after confronting his abusive father, passed through Soap's eyes, so fast Simon almost missed it. But he didn't, and suddenly the man's twisted story made a bit more sense.

"Good for you." Is all Simon muttered before he turned his attention back to eating. He missed the way Soap's head tilts as a wicked, knowing grin broke out on his face.

[random-autie-fangirl]

Another Chara! -Demon/murder run version!

@idrawgaystffs

"Right, you are a great partner. We'll be together forever, won't we?"

(...It's supposed to look like they're reaching out to Frisk. Apparently that's something really hard to draw though so I might have shot myself in the foot there)

[toasts-httyd-hyperfixation]

Nothing to say, i just love this picture