#maybe there are more complex reasons AND she also wants kids but like??

[homestuckreplay]

Liberty. Reason. Justice. Civility. Edification. Perfection.

(page 1116-1128)

As it turns out, there’s no such thing as a DEAPPEARIFIER. Such a machine is actually called a SENDIFICATOR, and funding for this technology drastically improves the postal service’s ability to carry out their work, as gloriously demonstrated by PM. This machine is presumably why things keep appearing, as well as disappearing, around Jade’s house (p.770).

I shed a real tear when PM successfully delivered the package – it’s only been a few hundred pages since her first mail spiel (p.894-6), but AR’s erratic shooting and the clear danger of the current situation mean this still feels like an earned victory. There is a song called ‘The Courier’ by Richard Shindell that I’ve been obsessed with for years and this is PM’s theme song to me. I’m actually so taken with this broader theme of mail and with this drive to carry information and items between people even in a world that’s not set up for it, that I want to explore other media that has this theme, and maybe even base my next D&D character around this.

Thinking about AR’s characterization, they’re mad at themself for shooting incorrectly, bonking themself on the head for it (p.1119) meaning they are not above their own laws. This doesn’t make them less dangerous, but it makes their moral code more consistent. The same is true with their attraction to PM – AR has this urge towards forbidden romance with the opposing side, but isn’t going to make a legal exception even for this carapaced hottie. AR is also extremely stubborn and doggedly convinced of things that are factually untrue – for example, they ‘don’t give a shit about’ their weapon being magazine-fed and not clip-fed (p.1101), they think of themself as a ‘crack shot’ despite not landing a single bullet (p.1119), and they think Serenity is a ‘little blinking bee’ (p.1122).

I think black and white thinking, strict ideals and no mercy for those who disrupt them, have to be more traits programmed into all chess pieces (for all its intellectual complexity, chess does not have much nuance to its lore). So this next part might be a reach and might be confirmation bias, but I wonder if these folks have similarities to the kids they command. WV was socially inept at first, prone to flights of fancy, and not great at prioritizing, which are also some of John’s flaws. PM is focused on her delivery tasks to the point of putting herself in danger, and Jade is behaving similarly as she harpoons herself across the ruins and evades Bec’s protection to deliver the time bait as per Skaia’s will. AR’s stubbornness and refusal to question their own biased perspective could fit with either Dave or Rose, but their immediate resorting to violence is a better fit for Dave – the kid who was so mad about being named ‘insufferable prick’ that he destroyed the input box (p.310).

Pretty fucked up that WV just sacrifices one of his pawns. One of his beloved citizens, martyred for the cause. Pour one out for- shit nevermind wrong phrase.

One complaint: there is no possible way WV and PM have read Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff. Even if they could access it from their command terminals – and I do NOT believe Skaia has programmed that functionality – they do not exist in the right cultural moment to appreciate the humor. When the narrative text references SBAHJ during the kids’ sections (for example, p.915) it works for me, because it’s an actual thought they might be having. It doesn’t work for me here on pages 1123-4, because the narrator’s inserting it where it wouldn’t naturally fit, using SBAHJ to distract me from the much better comic I’m currently reading.

UNLESS. I have been interpreting the scribbly pages like 1118 and 1124 (above) as Jade’s understanding of events upon waking, the way a dream that seems perfectly crisp and clear while asleep becomes vague and blurry after waking up. Again likely a reach, but I could buy that the SBAHJ is Jade editorializing on her own visions as she creates this note and draws the map for WV and PM to follow. That feels neater to me, at least.

> AR: Shoot at bass guitar to repair elevator.

[gaylactic-fire]

Zelinkers on here will meticulously go through "evidence" of their ship's canonicity with a fine tooth comb and write thesis level analysis essays about it.

Then they see the school and Zelda's diary and go "Ooo she has baby fever ooo she wants kids" and think no further on the implications of Zelda becoming a teacher based on her own childhood and the calamity.

Head in my hands. Groaning in agony. Etc.

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

IN DEFENSE OF TRAVIS MARTINEZ:

Because I’m sick and tired of seeing travis hate everywhere I go.

“Travis was sexist.”

Did he spout some sexist rhetoric in the beginning of the show? Sure. But it’s important to recognize that: A) he changed, and by season 2 he completely stopped, B) he was a teenage boy in the 1990s, and that kind of rhetoric was normal at the time, C) most of his sexist macho tough guy attitude was a complete act that he likely put on to compensate for his insecurity about his own masculinity, and internalized homophobia. (More on that later.)

(Also let’s be real, Travis is basically one of the girls anyway and I’m tired of pretending he’s not.)

2. “Travis didn’t care about Javi.”

Did we watch the same show??? Granted Travis may have had trouble expressing his feelings (also related to his insecurities about masculinity, likely learned from his father, as well as growing up in a patriarchal and homophobic society), but he cared deeply about Javi. In S1E4, Travis literally DUG UP HIS DAD’S GRAVE, through horror, tears, and vomit, in order to retrieve his ring to give to Javi. When Javi disappeared, Travis kept looking for him every day for months, and never gave up, even when logically it would have seemed impossible for him to still be alive. He comforted and reassured Javi when neither of them drew the card. He cradled Javi’s dead body and ate a bite of his raw heart (which was a metaphor for how much he loved him, and a parallel to Shauna eating Jackie’s raw ear.) Maybe Travis wasn’t always there for Javi in the way he needed, but he absolutely loved him, and it’s important to remember that Travis was also a traumatized, grieving, kid who just lost his dad.

3. “Travis slut-shamed Nat.”

As we are literally shown in the show, Travis was not trying to slut shame her, he asked how many times she had done it because he was embarrassed about the fact that he was a virgin, and worried that she would judge him, or that he wouldn’t measure up because he was more inexperienced than her. When she told him she hooked up with Bobby Farleigh, he did not get mad at her because she slept with another guy (he already knew about that, and was fine with it), he got mad because she hooked up with his bully, and then lied to him about it. I don’t blame Nat for this, she didn’t know about it at the time, and didn’t want him to get mad once she found out, but I also don’t blame Travis for being hurt and embarrassed and upset with her for lying about it.

4. “Travis was just kind of a dick.”

Sure, but so were all of them. He acted like kind of a jerk in the first season. So what? Shauna had an affair with her best friend’s boyfriend, lied to her about it for months, and refused to apologize. Misty tried to drug Coach Ben. Nat faked his brother’s death to him (yeah, she was trying to help him move on, but still not cool). All of them called him “Flex” (y’know, the nickname that was used to bully him for years). None of them are perfect or nice or likable all the time, and that’s ok; that’s the whole point. They’re realistic, complex, flawed, morally gray and sometimes unlikable people. They’ve all done bad things, but nothing Travis did is worse than what anyone else on that show has done. He was a traumatized teen whose dad literally just died. Also, me personally, if everyone around me was constantly calling me the mean nickname that was used to bully me since middle school, I would also probably act like a little bit of a dick.

5. “Travis is a straight man.”

Wrong. (Also not really a valid reason to hate someone… But most importantly, just wrong.)

Travis Martinez is clearly a bisexual.

So many of his issues: the insecurity, the bullying, the macho tough guy act, the whole weird complex about his masculinity, all of it stems (at least partly) from the fact that he’s bisexual and has internalized homophobia. The whole “Flex” thing is just thinly veiled homophobia. The main reason why he got bullied is because Bobby Farleigh spread a rumor about him getting back surgery to better suck his own dick. The unsaid implication there is that he’s a man who sucks dick, which is inherently queer, even if it is his own. If you look even slightly past the most surface level interpretation, it’s pretty obvious that Travis was bullied because of homophobia. His performance of stereotypical toxic masculinity was clearly over compensation for the fact that he doesn’t fit into the box of traditional straight masculinity, and was a reaction to the bullying from his peers, abuse from his dad, and internalized homophobia from growing up in a homophobic and patriarchal society. As the show progresses he starts to unlearn that toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia, and he allows himself to be more vulnerable, emotional, and feminine, and as a result, he becomes stronger, more confident, and more respectful of the people around him.

As for Travis being a man… Is he though???

In season 1, Travis is a man (narratively speaking); there is a clear distinction between Travis/Coach Ben and the girls. However, in season 2, we see a stark shift in how Travis is depicted. The separation between Travis and the girls pretty much ceases to exist. Narratively speaking, there is no distinction made between Travis and the other girls; they are one entity—one hive mind. Instead, the emphasis is now placed on the distinction between Coach Ben and the girls/Travis. When Coach Ben watches the Yellowjackets eat Jackie in horror and disbelief, Travis is right there with them, dressed in ancient greek robes along with the rest of them. In season 2, Coach Ben is the only real Man of the group (Travis has narratively become one of the girls, and Javi is just a boy, not a man) and he is shown staying separate from the rest of the group, and growing more and more uncomfortable with the cultish dynamics, while Travis, on the other hand, becomes more and more integrated with the group, as he falls deeper and deeper into cult beliefs, until he is a full-blown devout Lottie worshipper. Of the three males on the show, he is the only one who actually participates in cannibalism with the other Yellowjackets. Also he lost his virginity to a lesbian.

Whether or not you choose to believe that Travis is transfem (I do) you cannot deny that, at least narratively speaking, Travis is literally just a girl.

6. Travis is a victim.

I don’t know why nobody in this fandom seems to acknowledge this, but Travis is a sexual assault victim and I’m tired of people constantly overlooking and ignoring that fact. In Doomcoming, the girls (excluding Jackie, Nat, Tai, and Van) chased him down, sexually assaulted him, and then tried to kill him. That’s not something that’s up for debate or denial, that is literally canon. Stop pretending it didn’t happen. Stop pretending it wasn’t assault. Stop shaming him and making fun of him for struggling with sex, or not always being able to get it up. That’s a normal trauma response after being assaulted/raped. You guys are literally proving the point. This kind of treatment from society towards masculinity and male victims is just playing into the patriarchy and toxic masculinity, and is exactly what made him act the way he did in season 1 in the first place!

[beannoss]

Something I think about a lot and wonder if maybe gets overlooked in Twilight’s story and as vitally indicative of his character is actually in the very first chapter:

Anya isn’t needed for Strix. Twilight decides to adopt her anyway.

[Spoiler warning: Mostly this post deals with early chapters already in the anime but there is reference to chapter 62, which has not yet been animated and will be in season 3]

Twilight decides it — “I’m going to rework the mission so it doesn’t involve a child because that’s too dangerous” and he’s 100% right! Donovan Desmond is canonically a far right warmonger with fascistic authoritarian aims. His government made liberal use of the SSS — a group to mirror the Stasi — who continue to operate in morally dubious ways (much more likely they’re actively morally reprehensible, though we’ve mostly only had rumours of that so far). From what we can tell, Desmond is at best an absent father and likely actually worse than that: if that's how he treats his own children, imagine how he might treat others. And the timeline seems to indicate that the experimentation performed on Anya was done under Desmond's government — even if Twilight isn't aware of experimentation on children, he is aware of both human and animal experimentation under Desmond's government. Taking all that and also the complexity of Strix's aims, undoubtedly there were other things that could be done, more straightforward if not necessarily easier.

So. Why? Why entertain the change at all? And then, having entertained it, why go back when the reasoning is indisputable?

On the Doylist level, I think Endo wanted to ensure that Anya had some agency within the set up — Endo also does this with Yor. It would be much harder to be on Twilight’s side fully, or to trust him on an ethical level/take him as any sort of moral authority, if he were just straightforwardly using these two people. To have them be active and consenting participants (arguably to actually be affirming the arrangement: Twilight sets it up, but Anya and Yor actually make it happen) even if the audience only knows the depth of their knowledge/motivations/etc currently, shifts the power dynamic in important ways.

But it also the set up tells us important things about Twilight. He is largely impatient, cold, detached in chapter one. His overarching feelings towards Anya are, I think, real annoyance, real confusion, and real impatience. He just doesn’t understand this damn kid and it turns out she’s a person which is frankly unacceptable — he’d needed and anticipated an automaton, ideally of himself in miniature form. (Though I think one could ponder whether Twilight was, in many ways, an automaton himself at this point, but that's maybe for another meta 🙃)

He’s not entirely unmoved of course — we're given to understand he’s affected when Franky tells him how many times Anya’s been adopted and returned, and isn't amused by Franky's joke about names. Franky's comment — "Just don't get attached" — reinforces this. The prospect of “the future” perturbs Twilight when he’s reading the parenting books. His initial reaction to Anya’s kidnap is horror. All these are true too.

Then there’s also this, from earlier in the chapter:

It’s exposition, yeah, and it’s also exposing. "Hopes" and "joys" are very specific words to describe those events. It could simply have been "A marriage? An ordinary life?" but describing them as such — hope for marriage; joy in ordinary life — expose something of what Twilight feels about those two experiences and, on the flipside, they expose what he deems he's lacking. No hopes of intimacy; no joy in (an ordinary) life. There's an argument as well, of course, that he's being ironic but I don't think that actually invalidates the above analysis. Drawing attention to 'hope' and 'joy' at all are revealing, regardless of Twilight's tone in thinking of them. I think it's also interesting this panel, taken in conjunction with a pair of panels in chapter 62, Twilight's backstory. The above is almost a pulled out version of this below panel of Twilight's recollection of his childhood, and of course the returning image of not just a rubbish bin but a rubbish bin on fire when it comes to disposing of his identity:

Back to Strix. Both his final interaction with Karen and the whole everything of the framing of Strix is making Twilight think (and feel, ahem) things that he hasn't for some time. Twilight decides, I’m reworking this. It can’t proceed this way. Not because Anya is a pain in his ass, not because she’s not as (apparently) intellectually advanced as he’d originally thought, not even because he thinks he can find another child who would better be exactly what mission parameters called for. No:

And what changes his mind is Anya asking to come home.

One of the important parts of this to me is this:

He seeks consent.

This moment is a keystone, I think, to understanding Twilight. It’s also more telling than he maybe realises. Twilight is decisive — we all laugh because he spirals at the drop of a hat when his daughter or wife look even mildly upset but outside those (also very telling) scenarios, he makes decisions and he pursues them. Often he makes decisions quickly. He’s a dab hand at it; it’s a large part of why he’s as good a spy as he is.

He’d decided to change Strix.

Anya asks him, in essence, not to.

So, he doesn't.

But it's wild that he entertains keeping her request at all — why? Why even entertain it? It’s dangerous; it’s impractical; there are too many moving parts outside his direct control; Anya isn’t the sort of child he’d wanted for the mission if he’d spent any time thinking about what a child might actually be like; Strix is in many ways an extremely long shot anyway, Desmond could just stop attending for reasons unknown and unrelated; etc.

So, yeah, why? Maybe because of this —

In conjunction, I often think of this moment in the cruise arc:

Twilight first naming the feeling as lonesome, and secondly tacitly conceding that he perceives Yor as a companion and that that relationship is important to him, something to be missed. What makes this for me though is that Anya calls this out "Papa's you're so sappy" and Twilight's reaction is that of someone caught-out. He doesn’t say “nuh-uh!” but he may as well have. Essentially, something landed a bit close to home, hm? Maybe some of that hope for marriage? A soupçon of joy of an ordinary life?

Twilight’s loneliness underpins many of his decisions with his family — probably without him being fully conscious of it. I think he is at least somewhat conscious of it, but also if he looks too closely... Well, best not to. I could fill this post, I think, with images that demonstrate his loneliness throughout the series; that sorrowful/pensive close-up of his eye(s) is one of the abiding motifs for Twilight throughout. I'd probably start with this one from Twilight's backstory arc:

Anya's request plays directly off his loneliness. Still though, he doesn’t immediately capitulate — he emphasises Anya’s choice. Is she sure? The last day has been scary for a child (and for him, but he's ignoring that part) and Twilight, in his increasing recognition that Anya is a person, is probably aware in the back of his mind that he hasn’t exactly been warm or welcoming or at all patient with her. Things that people respond to — he's otherwise excellent at manipulating people, so of course he understands this. So. Given she'd just had this scary experience, given he hasn't exactly been great with her: Is she sure? She wants to come home — with him?

I think the moment may get a little lost because Anya says something riffing off his own earlier thoughts and self-revelation (featuring that shadowed, lonely eye motif again!)

Were this a post about Anya, I’d talk about how it’s an important character moment for her as well by way both of demonstrating her agency/choice and also that she isn’t nearly as dumb as Twilight thinks (and the audience, maybe, also thinks).

But in my view, she didn’t actually need to say anything about it making her cry. I think she could simply have said yes in that moment and Twilight would have agreed.

Twilight’s an unreliable narrator; he’s disconnected from his heart and that shrouds his own motivations from himself — something he actually also concedes in this chapter!

And it shrouds from us just how much he actually understands himself. He’s also a master of deflection. Easy to assume or say that bringing Anya home is just to align with Strix. Nothing more to see here; nothing else going on. But also that ripping off of the mask in the panel above — and the literal 'riiip' sound effects — also indicate to us that this is an unveiling to himself.

In my view, Twilight agreeing to Anya's request, deciding to go back to original mission parameters, actually shifts his motivations, subtly. Now he’s committed not only to the original mission goals, but also to Anya. He needs Anya to succeed at Strix, not only for Strix's sake, but also because otherwise the mission will end and she’ll have to go back to the orphanage, and he’s just agreed with her not to do that (not right away, in any case). I don’t think at this point he’s thinking it’s forever — his thoughts throughout the manga indicate he still expects the Forgers to be temporary. I don't think the shift in motivation is necessarily even conscious, but given the set up, I think something inside Twilight recognises that agreeing to bring Anya home is a compact, jointly engaged. Mostly all this has become subsumed into Strix: he makes decisions. He pursues them. He deflects, even from himself. Of course it's just for the mission; this saved him the trouble of reworking it, of figuring out something else. Nothing more to see; no need to think any more on it. And to be fair to him, Strix is very high stakes, resting pretty solely on his shoulders, so of course that is, objectively, motivation enough. Why even consider beyond that?

But I personally think that to the extent he's aware of it at all, there is something else going on, that he wants to have Anya for as long as it takes him to work something else out for her. If that's the case, then of course, we have Occam’s razor: the simplest solution may be the best one.

Maybe Twilight should just keep Anya himself, eh?

[Image description: gif from Spy x Family season 1, episode 1. Twilight and Anya have just found out Anya passed her entrance exam and are overjoyed. Celebratory, Twilight picks Anya up and swoops her into the air as they smile at one another. End image description]

[fumifooms]

Helki compilation

Helki is a prisoner-turned-servant. He’s a criminal canary and was implicitly one of Milsiril’s charges, and now that she’s retired he’s become her servant.

He must have gotten into Milsiril’s good graces, wether through attachment or convenience, which is a feat considering Milsiril’s a socially anxious recluse. Interesting since it’s not like he seems like the agreeable type, shifty upbeat delinquent style… We really don’t know much about him, not even what crimes he did, so there’s a lot of space for speculation on all grounds.

Edit: Shanghai QnA with Kui gave us a new juicy morsel of info!

Interesting… The original answer in japanese is: パッタドルと同じような杖を使っていました。今も同じものを支給されているのですが、すぐになくすのでもはや携帯していないようです。 That it’s written in japanese seems to say that there isn’t the same double translation issue there was last QnA, so if someone wants to look at the original phrasing and word choices it can be done. Perhaps Helki-Milsiril has a more protégé dynamic undertone than previously thought… "For various reasons", meaning circumstances that made it so the squad had to choose between saving him and saving their own skin, or like, "man this guy’s personality sucks we don’t really like him"? Likely to be a mix of several things, since ‘for various reasons’ implies the situation was either complex or they had multiple reasonings. In either case, the phrasing is very much that Milsiril couldn’t abandon him herself, and so a relationship sprung out of that. Another instance of outcasts seeking out and sticking with other outcasts in Dungeon Meshi. This could mean that it’s a bit less out of personal attachment and more out of a sense of duty on Milsiril’s side as well though.

Still edit: So then maybe him staying with Rin in that comic isn’t that much because of work ethics or that he cares for kids (or maybe he does because he feels kinship to them, alone and mistreated), but because he didn’t want to join the other canaries in that room chatting and laughing… Maybe the isolation was exacerbated because he became Milsiril’s favorite, teacher’s pet style, but I’d also be careful about assuming the others disproportionately dislike him, it could be that they just don’t really care for him. Why? Could be because of his personality, because he’s seen as shifty or unreliable or annoying, if an event, who knows who knows, but I like to think because of the Rin comic that he generally just tends to be a loner, that he’s "weird" in a neurodivergent vibe, he doesn’t conform to proper social behavior which in elven society seems especially alienating. He’s the only one with Rin to think of her sake, not only worth observing/caring for but also asks her to eat, but he does this with an offputting stare, not really emoting, and then well, the infamous alone with her staring munching covered in blood panel. He stands out. I’m a fan of the theory that it was a "Helki? Not that I dislike the guy but I’m not risking my skin for him" situation… Ok end edit back to older observations.

He seemed to be acting out of his own initiative in the Rin comic, he doesn’t look thrilled to be there in many post-canary comics but he also seems content enough. He restrains Milsiril in the Mithrun cleaning comic which is interesting to think of for their relationship.

It’s fun to notice how he’s the only one that didn’t get bored of looking after Rin, and then reports back about her condition… I’d say he was getting used to taking care of kids which would come with the job of serving Milsiril, but then, not enough for him to clean the blood off himself hah. In this way it’s interesting to think about his relationship to the idea of parenthood, he’s probably the closest thing to a father figure/male role model Kabru had growing up, without mentioning the other kids. I feel like he’d consider himself an older brother, cousin or uncle figure sooo much sooner than a father, but even then I do think it’s just his job and he’s not really invested or forming real relationships with any of them much.

It’s curious to note that he’s dressed in canary uniform presumably after having been pardoned and living with Milsiril? Which you can tell by the armor bits (the yellow strips of spider silk). In the Kabru training montage and the Rin comic specifically. It seems very implausible for him to have still been a canary while being a retired Milsiril’s servant and being with her all the time, and the cleaning with Mithrun comic (where he’s not in uniform) happens after Utaya so it could happen after Kabru was taken in but around the time of the Rin comic. So why uniform? It could be one of the best outfits he has, so it’d make sense to wear it around especially if you’re sparring or getting… Blood on you? Could just be because that's how Milsiril wants him to dress. But yeah we don't know when exactly Helki becoming Milsiril’s servant happened. We do see Mithrun’s charge Cithis be tasked with taking care of him, so a charge being given a servant-caretaker role doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, sometimes even prior to retiring.

Imo, if he doesn't work for Milsiril he goes back to jail/the canaries/has to try and get a job instead of just tending to her, so Helki is staying with Milsiril because she's the best option for him. He’s her milsiril's personal servant and does mostly dull tasks involved in that. He’s not particularly suited to the role but they’ve gotten used to each other to him so she took him with her, and he does prefer it to canary work so it works out decent for him. I think he’s used to reading her and managing her moods and he’s one of the rare social connection she has.

Under spoiler is stage 2 interpretation stuff, bigger speculation, in a reblog I’ll make soon I’ll go over my thoughts for stage 3 interpretation lol. Helsiril I’m coming for you

Translation of the canary hierachy chart used is by Thatsmimi, here

[redflagshipwriter]

Nest Swap chapter 5 progress

In which Tim flirts with the sad thoughts but is not committed to them.

masterpost

Probably the best thing to do was to make sure everyone was happy with him. If he did everything that everybody wanted, there would be no issues. 

So, Tim finished his experiment for Miss Fox and sent her his report. The groceries arrived while he was finishing up. After he put it away, he made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ate it one-handed while he looked up the address that Jason had told him about. 

“That's pretty far away,” Tim mused. Some grape jelly dropped onto the keyboard. He swiped it up with his sleeve. He was a little less careful about the apartment now that he knew it was Big Tim’s place and not someone important or mean. 

Huh.

Tim paused mid contemplation. Speaking of important people, where was Mom? (And also Dad.) He turned his head around looking for the most recent post card. He usually kept that on the fridge.

Apparently, Big Tim had lost the habit. The dig post card tacked to the fridge was years old. Tim took it down and read it anyway, smiling at Mom’s handwriting. It was neat and precise, just like her. 

He felt better. He'd figure it out later. Tim put a pin on the thought and went back to focusing on his- on Jason's request. He squirmed in his chair while he thought it through.

The address was in a residential neighborhood, the kind with separate houses and not apartment complexes. The suspect himself lived in a duplex. The other half of the duplex was registered to a retiree who Tim didn't find any digital trail of, other than that her Social security checks were being cashed and her bills were paid on time. Oh, neat, she had been part of Gotham’s historical recreation society. She seemed kinda cool.

She had crazy huge electric bills, though. Tim frowned at that. He wasn't absolutely sure. But he thought that most people didn't have electric bills in excess of $600 monthly. How was she even affording that off of her Social security income? 

“Maybe the neighbor killed her and is using her apartment for nefarious purposes,” Tim reasoned aloud. “He's chasing her check and concealing the death. Maybe he uses her apartment to store his industrial sausage making machines.” 

It was a bit of a reach but it seemed a little more likely than his follow-up idea: her hobby was running every appliance in her house at the same time for all the hours that she was awake.

Focus, Tim! How was he going to surveil this place?

It wasn’t like there were any nice big buildings with dramatic awnings and gargoyles to creep around. It was suburbia. 

Tim spun around on his chair miserably, hands on his head to help him think.

Were there any abandoned homes in the area that he could use as a viewpoint? He checked on that. No. No, there weren’t. Dangit. He looked up everyone who lived in the neighborhood, wondering if there might be like, a family on vacation or someone whose second floor was unoccupied. He didn’t see anything useful like that. There were just a bunch of families with little kids.

He spun faster. Maybe the centrifugal force would somehow jar his brain awake.

“There’s nothing for it,” Tim decided ruefully. “I have to go undercover as a child.”

He put on the light up sneakers that he had ordered, washed his face, and made sure he had enough money for the bus. Then he set off on an adventure with a little notepad in his pocket. When he got to the apartment lobby he realized that he probably should have brought Big Tim’s phone, but oh well. It was too far now.

He took three buses and walked twenty minutes. He arrived in the right neighborhood in the early evening, around 5 pm. He looked for rogue groups of playing kids to join in. He’d do whatever game they were playing, then subtly interrogate them.

Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone was inside eating dinner. Tim frowned at one window. He could see a table being set.

Weird.

Alright, new plan. The old lady neighbor was probably dead, so he could just sneak into her half of the duplex, find a place to hide, and observe whatever sick and twisted stuff Jason’s bad guy did. Then he could tell Jason about it later, and he would like Tim.

He tried the backdoor. It was locked. Tim skulked around the house and tried windows until he found one that was open. He had to scramble a bit to climb up the siding to get into the house but he managed it. He hit the floor with a tumble.

“I have a mace!” said a female voice. “I am prepared to use it upon you!”

Tim rolled over to see the retiree. “Oh,” he said. “Hello.” He was a little disappointed that he was wrong about her being dead, though of course it’s always nice when someone isn’t murdered.

Mrs. Henderson yanked open a drawer and withdrew her mace. She pointed it at him steadily over her walker.

“Whoa,” said Tim. “That’s really cool. That’s Gothic, right?”

She looked at her mace. “...I believe so,” she said. “Get out of my home!”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Tim said, deliberately not agreeing. He sat up and crossed his legs. “I didn’t realize that you lived here.”

Mrs. Henderson slowly lowered her Gothic mace, which was probably a replica of one from Western Europe and weighed about 2 kilograms. “...Did you mean to go next door?” she said, sounding more confused and less hostile. 

“Yeah, I got mixed up,” Tim lied like a champion. “I accidentally locked myself out and no one is home.”

Although that really wouldn’t be true for much longer. Hm. Maybe Tim should have waited until tomorrow to come by.

[germesthegenie]

Can a “😍😙😁” gal and a “💀👿🩸” gal really be besties? Sure seems like it so far.

Based on a scene from Ward 3.3

Recently finished Ward Arc 3! Thoughts below:

Been a while since my first post on Ward, a couple of thoughts:

Arc 2

I like the slower pace so far (we’ll see how long that lasts i suppose). Nice to get little moments like Victoria going to interviews and visiting the kids at the hospital.

Zion really gave one last middle finger to humanity and said “You know what? Automated random horrific death triggers.” Jokes aside, the broken trigger scene was haunting, might draw something based on it in the future.

The therapy group superhero team premise is interesting. Nice to have a band of characters who have mental or emotional weaknesses but have each other’s backs! Now let’s see who they’re up agaisnt- oh, Tattletale? Oh no.

Not too many thoughts on the arc’s interlude, a lot of nice worldbuilding which is always welcome.

Arc 3

Capture the Flag was a fun premise for a friendly fight, and it delivered pretty well in showing off everyone’s powers, strengths and weaknesses. Also nice to see Victoria filling a more mentor/coach role and getting to flex the experience she’s gained with her power in a more positive light. Have some drawing ideas once I figure out how exactly I want to depict stuff like her aura.

Liking the new team so far, though still need to wrap my head around some of the finer details of the powers. Definitely gives me Jojo vibes in how the powers are more complex in the sequel/s.

I realized quickly that Kenzie’s powerset is a lot like my character from my friend’s Worm campaign (which I might write more about later on). Also a surveillance/drone Tinker, though with more focus on multiple drones and material efficiency than Kenzie’s big boxes of large scale holograms and photo-distortion.

Seems the group all have their own little secrets and/or problems they need to work through. Please Vic don’t let any of them near Tattletale they would practically be a freebie for her to take down.

Ok, no Birdcage as I learned from last post. But is there, like, a dead Earth with a one way portal to toss Carol into? Is Sleeper still occupying Earth Zayin? Maybe we should send Carol there on a free vacation I hear it’s a lovely time in… whatever the effect of his power is.

Evil Robot Grocery… ok how do you even fight that. I guess it’s an S-class Threat for a reason but like what option is there other than quarantining and bombarding the entire area they’ve spread to? Do EMPs work? Put Ghost Bakuda to good use and make that Arc 6 Bomb to knock them all out?

Silly rodent themed hero. Close enough, welcome back Mouse Protector Ratcatcher. Also gonna toss her on the list of “characters I should draw some time.”

Amy Dallon finally speaks, and looks like she’s making friends! Friends that are all (at least former) supervillains! That are encouraging her down a darker path! I can only see good things happening here. A little surprised we get her this early from an Interlude rather than from a main chapter, though I suppose it does make sense to flesh her out more now rather than waiting until Victoria directly sees her again in whatever state she’s in by that point (probably a bad one).

That’s all the Ward thoughts I could think of at the moment. Will be reading more, next update hopefully won’t take 2 months again (but probably will)

[all-pacas]

random and very specific chase headcanons i will insist on secretly working into all my stories:

chase and his sister don't look much alike. not in a "they're not related" way, just he takes after their mother and she takes after their dad, lookswise: there's not a deep symbolic meaning for this, they just… don't look alike.

chase never considered himself a Rich Kid growing up, because yes, the big huge house and dad's fancy cars, but he went to one of those very fancy private schools where like. his best friend's father owned oil fields. his friends had superyachts. he was the poor kid in that school, which in turn greatly skewed his own self perception of his family money.

the novelty did wear off but he enjoyed searching people's houses at first, because he'd get to creep on people's houses and belongings and learn about poor people and normal people hobbies and just observe. like an anthropologist. chase wants desperately to Be Normal and has the sinking suspicion he isn't, but also doesn't realize how boring he truly is. (he comes from a Mental Health Is For Other People family)

he has fucked men and he does consider himself heterosexual. his sexuality is a rotisserie chicken of repression and catholicism and "if i don't look at it it will go away." he knows what bisexuality is he just truly believes it doesn't apply.

the reason he worked NICU to earn extra money was a) he actually did kind of mean it when he said he needed a break, but for chase a break is overworking myself and not sleeping because then i simply have no energy to think, and also his sister needed money for rehab. again. and she was cut out of dad's will too.

they talk maybe once a year, but chase has a huge guilt complex about his sister and whenever she asks him for anything (money) he just throws it at her. to her credit, she has only done this once or twice ever. he actually wishes she'd do it more, because then she'd need him, and he could be useful to her (in a way that didn't involve talking to her).

he has a fairly high alcohol tolerance, but is also very good at coming off completely sober even when he's totally drunk, which makes it seem like he has a superhuman alcohol tolerance.

chase has very specific rules for himself and drinking, because children of alcoholics is a constant mantra in his head, but he does still drink. part of it is just a… cultural/social thing, part of it is absolute self flagellation. for a long time the rule was don't drink at home, never drink alone, but after his divorce he started to drink more - at home, alone, whatever - in a sort of rotating self flagellation sort of mess of: what if i did.

cameron was absolutely his first serious relationship.

he genuinely liked and was close with his priest, his teachers in catholic school, he has never had any brushes with Catholic Church scandals, it was the one place in his childhood chase genuinely did find adults who cared about him. however, he does not go to church as an adult. maybe once a year or if he's very, very stressed. it's almost more of a nostalgic thing than a prayer thing. he feels safe in church. he lights candles for his parents and dibala and tries to convince himself he believes in it.

he still believes in god and does absolutely believe he's going to hell. so why not enjoy his life and sleep around and do whatever while he's still alive, you know? enjoy the time you have left because all you can look forward to in death is eternal torment and suffering!!

he thinks, incorrectly, that he can do a pretty good american accent when he tries

[sexycraisinthanos]

Actually I’m gonna talk about this, controversy aside, Hazbin Hotel is so fucking lackluster. From character design, as I've previously mentioned, to animation

Vivziepop had years to work on these character designs and this is the best she could do on a LARGER animation budget?

I’d hardly even call them redesigns since you couldn’t even tell they’re different than when they first debuted (save for Vaggie)

And the actual animation just looks so stiff and like it’s a fan made thing

Versus the pilot from FOUR YEARS AGO

The reasoning for the “simpler” designs is to make them easier to animate but they aren’t that complex of designs and I’m no animator I’ll admit so maybe it makes it easier for musical numbers, but part of the appeal of the pilot was the hand-drawn loose style

Plus, any interesting design choices that were there were taken away in the Amazon show

Not to mention that almost every character is supposed to be based off an animal and you can't fucking tell what animal they're supposed to be unless you fucking google it

THIS is supposed to be a spider. If I didn't know who he was, i wouldn't even know that. Maybe it's not a universal opinion, but I feel like if your character is supposed to be based off of something, it should be a little more obvious than four arms and dots under his eyes which are actually another set of eyes.

He's a gay man, who's also a sex worker/porn star, which can be told by his outfit, but none of his outfit looks good together. You've got two sets of gloves, knee high boots, a mini skirt, and a blazer with a bowtie AND a choker.

It is a perfect outfit to tell you everything you need to know about him because it's a fucking mess. It looks like when your kid dresses up in your fancy clothes to take pictures in but nothing goes together because the kid is 5 and doesn't understand that just because you like the clothes doesn't mean they go together.

This is apparently a deer, though I've heard he's based off a w*ndigo so he wouldn't be deer-based, WHICH IS STILL BAD BTW HE'S GOT SO MANY RACIST PARTS OF HIS CHARACTER ELEMENTS BUT I'M NOT EDUCATED ENOUGH IN THOSE ASPECTS TO TALK ABOUT IT

And the outfit is just...bad. Aside from the tiny antlers that can barely be seen behind the hair, there's nothing cohesive about it. There's his coat that doesn't match the era he's from, the bob cut, the microphone which doesn't look like a microphone, the neckline that makes no sense, the random stripes on his shirt that you can't really tell what they're supposed to be (suspenders and a tie? a print on the shirt?), the actual tee shirt he appears to be wearing underneath his coat, the gloves, and again the FUCKING BOWTIE WHY DO EVERY ONE OF HER MALE CHARACTERS HAVE BOWTIES IS SHE ALLERGIC TO NECKLINES?

Not to mention the colors of the show and the characters. Vivziepop is under the impression that since they're all in Hell, they need to have a color scheme. Or at least the more important characters do. And what color scheme is that? Red and black.

But you know what else has red and black?

EVERY

SINGLE

BACKGROUND

IN THE SHOW

And he just blends in with the background. Which is not something you want a character to do if they're one of the more important characters in your show.

[sketch-twentytwo]

This is coming of the heels of the FOP:NW season 1 finale, and I guess I was just disappointed in the ending.

The season has been building up Dev and Hazel's relationship (friendship you heathens!) and showing Dev's struggle to mature and really understand what he thinks is missing in his life (parental love from his father) but his heel turn kind of comes out of nowhere.

I don't think it should've been on Hazel to "save him" but they barely have a conversation the whole second half of the episode. I thought she could've given him some tough love, a speech about real friendship, or something.

Instead Peri tells him he cares about him (which is nice) and he basically forfeits and succumbs to being fairy/friendless and most likely being reset to square one (that is unless his sunglasses blocked out the magical, memory erasing flash).

I just think it could've been one of those finales where Hazel fights Dev with the power of friendship while still extending a hand. The guy is a selfish jerk and all, but he's also a ten year old nepo baby who doesn't know any better. Maybe we'll get some more dev-elopment if we get a season two, but he just felt more fleshed out and complex than the rest of Hazel's friends who get to keep their memories for some reason.

Oh yeah. That. For all the flack Timmy Turner got for almost revealing his fairies and the threat of them getting taken away from him over and over, Hazel just wishes her buddies can remember. At that point why not use the next rule-free wish to wish that she'll be able to remember her godparents FOREVER? IDK, it just sort of feels like some of the stakes of the show have evaporated.

I think it would've worked well if they'd just kept it with Hazel and Dev being the only god-kids in the show who have knowledge/memorize of fairies. Now it feels like there's too many people. But, we'll see what happens I guess.

Fairly Odd Parents: A New Wish has it's Pros and Cons, in my opinion. The character writing is FANTASTIC when it's good, but the plot lines aren't always compelling to me. I want to see more of it because I think it can and will be improved/built upon, but for now, it's a nice show I'd probably watch once and not again.

[shakespearean-dream]

TW!!! — blood, scarring and mild body horror ahead 🥲

benny’s turn!

before i start i wanna clarify i hesitated a bit on posting this because lovely mutual @vor-leser just posted his benny interpretation (go look at it and follow him btw), and idk if we like mind melded or smth but our human benny’s are super similar LOL. i damn near scrapped the whole thing out of fear someone would get mad at me but i Would Not be able to start over and get this done ever so this is as good as we’re gonna get. 😭 my apologies niko love u /p

this has been like a full 7 days in the making 😭😭 the art block that i felt coming on while doing ellen and ted hit me like an optimus prime sized semi truck this week along with a depressive episode so i definitely appreciate that happening and i am not upset about it at all! /s i’m totally good so don’t worry or anything /gen, mental health is just weird and i also wanted to explain the gap in my posts 😔

i do not know how to feel about this drawing if i’m so fr with you; i’m proud of myself for AM-ified benny cause i think i got the slowly rotting from the inside out primal freak energy down pretty good, but on the other hand this feels kinda empty?? i usually have a lot more commentary squished in here but i think my brain’s a little fried 🤦‍♂️ i love drawing me some beautiful buff men though so drawing normal ben was familiar territory. however his wack ass haircut i gave him is his punishment for being a PRICK!!! go sit in the corner and think about ur actions benjamin.

like ted n the rest of the sillies i’m not straying too far from canon with his personality, he’s an ass and a murderer and a hella smart dickhead who desperately needs to be punished by the universe (thank you for that one AM). hot take i did not like his “redemption arc” in his game scenario and i don’t think with how he was throughout the entirety of his life (and also throughout the game, main example his inner dialogue) he would actually go out of his way to help the kid because he means it??? n prove he changed to the guys he killed cause he means it??? i dunno maybe AM torturing him made him have a main character “omg i’ve been in the wrong this whole time!!1” moment like the game suggests i’m just not buying it 💀 i’m sure it’s just cause bennys scenario couldn’t be too long and they couldn’t fully flesh him out which i won’t fault the game makers for. i’m a steven universe fan, i know what time constrictions can do to a plot and redemption arc 😭 looking at you white diamond…

his wife n kids are up top and they’re kinda neat to me— i was considering the hc that part of the reason manya (his canon wife) left him is because she realized she was a lesbian which would be funny as fuck considering benny’s also One Of Them Queers 😭. i think during the brief times he was home and able to parent his daughters they got really scared and tired of him, one because he’s just a very threatening powerful and overbearing man, but also because i feel like he would’ve been on their ASS about everything. grades, extracurriculars, friends, wardrobe, this guy was micromanaging his family to an annoying extreme (ofc because of his perfectionist complex). he probably loved manya and the kids in his own weird way, but it was more contractual to him than any real personal relationship. maybe he inherited that from his own parents?? i doubt he ever talked to them after he moved out.

that’s about the end of my thoughts on this fucker. 🥲 funny storyyyy i just remembered i have laundry to finish so im gonna go do that, lord help me. thank you for reading all this if you did!!!!! we’re over halfway through so who do yall want next? wanna save AM or nimdok for last? i’ll see u guys later :]]]

[effieotto]

What’s your headcanon about Haymitch and Effie after the rebellion?

Post-Canon Hayffie is just my favorite subjected of all time, so here we go with my favorite headcanons for my favorite silly ones

-Effie started using drugs after the war (real strong drugs, like cocaine and stuff) as a way to cope with her strong suicidal thoughts, and that’s how Haymitch found her two years after he left to Twelve with Katniss, because Plutarch called him for help

-As a consequence of her torture, Effie had injuries that caused permanent damage in her left shoulder, messing with her motor coordination, which made her unable to style her hair by herself. So Haymitch asked Katniss to teach him how to braid her, so he could make her complicated hairdos for her instead

-Effie and Katniss relationship was really hard at the begging, because Effie wasn’t in a great stage of mind to keep her bubbly old self, so between her PTSD, nightmares and withdrawals, combined with Katniss’s grief and severe depression, they were extremely hostile with each other (it is actually a very complex analysis of their relationship, so i’ll let the explanation to another post). So Haymitch and Peeta had to meddle the situation together to not let it get out of control, like they screaming at each others face, blaming them for their own miserable stages

-Haymitch was a huge gossipy man, although he strongly denied that. Therefore, every night, when Effie get home from downtown, they would set in front of the fire with two cups of tea and share every detail about the dirtiest scandal they could find

-Peeta and Effie got together to cultivate a community garden for the few people living on Twelve, where they planted fruits, vegetables and medicinal herbs, not only to help the District to get back to their feet but also to distract their minds

-Every time Haymitch had a bad nightmare, Effie would set his head down on her lap, pet his hair and sing the song his mother used to sing to him when he was a kid (the one she learnt from Grease Sae because she asked her help to learn more about Twelve’s culture, cause she wanted to do it right)

-When she had progressed on her condition, Effie was getting crazy staying at home doing nothing, so she decided to start teaching the young ladies from Twelve all the things she had learned from home (like music, etiquette, sewing, communication etc) -latter she joined an small school to continue her journey-

-Their relationship never changed from what it was before ~They continued with the teasing and fighting like they were still who they were back then, mostly. However, with all the baggage they both now had, they needed to adapt to a new routine. So there was bad days when Haymitch would drink himself to oblivious remembering his dead friends, and Effie would stay completely catatonic over a particular bad flashback. When it happened, the other would give them enough space while doing small things to try and get the other back from their depression

-Effie was obsessed with local festivals and she would drag Haymitch with her every month when Twelve made a big carnival, so they could eat, dance and help Peeta with his pastries stands. At first people who were living in Twelve wasn’t very friendly with her during it, but when she started going earlier to help them build the stands and make their schedules more consistent with all her escort knowledge, they warmed up a little bit -although most of the friends she made came from different Districts, mostly nine, eleven and six. The Twelve original citizens (apart from Grease Sae) never really got to friendly terms with her, for obvious reasons

again, i have many more, but since it was already a lot, maybe i’ll do another one later (if you want)

[nobodysdaydreams]

Explaining fandoms I’m not in, but I have seen on my dash from the mutuals (to the best of my knowledge based on their posts):

Why? Because I thought it would be fun and entertaining and I hope I’m not wrong.

The Magnus Archives (TMA)- a group of people document creepy and supernatural events while they slowly one by one discover either that they are the monsters/possessed by them, or that they are being taken in by the monsters, or that their coworkers are the monsters, or that they themselves are possibly friends with or dating the monsters, or that they have been working for the monsters (or bad guys) the entire time. Many of the villains seem to be demented or possessed life sized toys and clowns or eyeballs. This podcast has so many episodes, and I see so many posts about it, but these seem to be the common themes.

Miraculous Ladybug- actually haven’t seen this one on my dash in a long time, but when I first did, despite appearing like a straightforward kids fandom, the shipping discourse confused the heck out of me. But if I have this right, based on the posts from my younger followers, two teenagers are animal themed superheroes who are dating each other and also have crushes on each other, but they don’t know they are dating each other, because they don’t know each others secret identities, because… okay, I still honestly have no idea why. There are ~5K posts about this apparently very central and specific plot line, but not one explains why they don’t just tell each other who they are??? Anything for the plot, I guess. Apparently this has been going on for a long time to the point where even the show’s target audience of children is confused as to how these teenagers and grown adults haven’t put the pieces together as to who everyone’s secret identity is.

Keeper of the Lost Cities (KOTLC)- there’s a girl named Sophie. She is an elf in a love triangle with Keefe and some other guy (I think his name is Fritz). Keefe’s parents are terrible, especially his mom. Sophie has horse DNA (I don’t know if that post was a joke or not sorry if that’s wrong). There’s an elf with fire powers. Elves read minds. There’s a group called the black swan who are the good guys, I think. Also I think the elves and humans are at war. I know Keefe’s parents are trash, does Sophie have parents? From what I can tell, she grows up believing she’s a human but then surprise! She’s an elf and the chosen one, and elves are possibly immortal? Wait, maybe Sophie’s a half elf. Is that a thing?

Spy x Family - two people are fake dating each other for spy reasons but eventually fall in love for real. The twist is, they each think the other is a normal civilian who doesn’t know about the fake relationship (which is kinda messed up to make someone fall in love with you for a fake cover but if they’re also doing the same to you that’s karma I guess) but I think it might end up ok, because they fall in love for real (Aw) but possibly also not okay, because I also think it might be revealed that they’ve been working for enemy sides this whole time (drama). Also the adopted daughter is a mind reader who knows everything but chooses to keep what she knows secret for the plot. Respect. And I recently saw something about the family having a super powered dog? Is he real?

The Murderbot Diaries - a bunch of robots are created for one purpose: murder. But when their murder programming goes haywire, they discover that they might have more in common with the humans they’ve been assigned to kill than they originally thought. Or that they have more humanity inside themselves than they thought… or maybe that the people who created them have more evil intentions than… well in hindsight, “the people who build the murder robots are evil!” seems like an obvious plot twist, but maybe they’re more morally complex or had decent intentions and just never intended for it to go this far… or maybe the robots get hacked or decide maybe they don’t want to be murder bots anymore which brings us back to free will. Interesting philosophical questions, but I think the robots might be getting into some wacky shenanigans as well. Also they apparently have diaries. I get that a diary is just like… a log of what they’re doing, but that won’t stop me from imaging a big scary robot with a little pink glitter pen writing “Dear Diary, I killed three people today. I still see their faces when I try to power off at night. When I go into sleep mode, I dream of their faces. I begin to wonder things, like whether they had families, dreams, or ambitions. I also wonder what they felt in their final moments. I fear this means I am developing a conscience and desire to turn against my programming and the creators. But probably nothing a little update and restart can’t fix. I’ll keep you updated, dairy. XOXO, Murderbot 💕” So. How did I do? Scale of 1-10, with 10 being “you nailed it!” and 1 being “None of this is remotely close. What posts have you been looking at?”

[frankiebirds]

i have so many feelings about the "why mess with perfection" scene. im going to analyze it in a way it was probably never intended to be. fuck you silly crime show i can overthink ANYTHING. this got long so it's under a cut. please please read it though im actually very proud of this one.

personally i count this line as being more evidence that william reid is a scumbag. this is how diana describes her pregnancy with spencer in the episode immediately proceeding this:

"I went off my medication when I was pregnant with you. I spent every day in terror, but I made it. And it was beautiful. I had you."

it's a bit of a mixed bag, because she clearly considers it to have been worth it, but. i mean, maybe this is just me, but if my wife went off her antipsychotic medication for the duration of her pregnancy and "spent every day in terror", i wouldn't be raring to put her through that again. "I made it" also feels quite charged to me, like there were moments where she wasn't sure she would.

from what i could find, there's still no real consensus on whether antipsychotics are safe for use during pregnancy (as much as any medication can be) and i imagine there was even less certainty during the early 80s. any subsequent pregnancies would likely have also involved diana going off her meds, and pregnancy is difficult enough when you AREN'T also skipping your antipsychotics.

and diana's expression here—to me, that's not the expression of a woman who had one kid and was then just like "nah im happy with this one." it's a woman who had an extremely difficult pregnancy and whose husband then tried to convince her to do it over and over again. there's resentment in the way she delivers that line.

as sweet as this line is, i think it's ultimately diana protecting spencer. she can't say "my pregnancy was incredibly difficult, i couldn't bring myself to do it again" because spencer will get a complex about it. so she says this, although that doesn't mean it isn't also true. in a perfect world where diana's pregnancy was as smooth sailing as pregnancies get (because i don't think there's really such thing as an easy pregnancy), i think she still probably would have only wanted one child. it's not that this isn't why diana wanted to stop at baby number one, but i do think there's a second reason she's leaving out because she knows the truth will make spencer feel guilty.

but i think he sees through it. not that he'd ever tell her. (she knows anyway. not that she'd ever tell him.)

[vaperarmand]

any female!armand backstory headcanons/crumbs to share with the class?

i think she would be an expert at Performing Gender and, probably due to the fact that she would have been expected to be very feminine while younger/mortal, when she's attempting to manipulate or w/e through her wits alone she presents as hyperfeminine. and she does serve cunt while doing this

i imagine though that armand at her most comfortable is a very similar style to the dubai wardrobe which is fairly androgynous. she does also serve cunt this way

the existence of femme and androgynous armand implies the existence of butch armand which like. yeah i mean. can we all hold hands for a minute and imagine her in a leather jacket (maybe even DANIEL'S leather jacket? and some beat up jeans. a cigarette dangling from her lips. sorry what was the question?

i think all of the above and also 500+ years means that armand is as comfortable with gender as she's going to get which is like. she knows how it fits her and knows when to "use" it to get what she wants and otherwise feels pretty emotionally removed from it

(as opposed to daniel who wants to be butch SO BAD but can't due to her issues. but that's another story)

(quick cw here for armand's backstory re: forced prostitution/slavery, though not discussed in great detail)

i think her thing with pregnancy would arise from the fact that she for whatever reason was never able to have a kid. she would have been at the age where she was expected to marry/have children and that she wasn't able to was one of the things that contributed to her "brokenness." i don't even want to get into the marius of it all because i don't have a fully developed enough thought to make it compelling but trust that being a young girl who wasn't able to have kids + living with marius + losing the possibility for children forever by becoming a vampire + 500 years gave her a pregnancy complex you could see from jupiter.

this of course results in a fascination with daniel who has, as far as they know, a fully functioning womb. (she does in fact have a fully functioning womb. but watch out!)

this plays into the personal armandaniel sex dynamics a great deal but i think it alters the purpose of the cuck chair encounters even more. armand would be so obsessed with getting men to fuck daniel and kind of tempting fate with getting her pregnant

re: tracking daniel's fertility cycles she IS doing shots of daniel's period blood out of her diva cup

lastly, she SHOULD be the first lesbian ever to get her gf pregnant through strap

[blood-orange-juice]

Other characters about Arle.

Scaramouche:

Childe:

From what I've seen she does seem unhinged but in a, uhm... reasonable and tolerable way? What she does seems like necessary cruelty. Both guys are not exactly reliable narrators but I'm still curious if there's something about her that we will find out later. Or maybe her crazyness is a performance for colleagues and nothing else.

There's the Commedia dell'arte trope of Arlecchino serving two masters, but if she simply wants to save Fontaine it's a beautiful and relatable goal, there's nothing wrong with that. Alternative theory: she's loyal to Narcissenkreuz, not Fontaine.

(Narcissenkreuzers are everywhere, just like Rosenkreuzers irl. consider me a conspiracy theorist)

I'm also fascinated by the things she says to the House of Hearth kids. "True understanding can only be found, not sought" to a neurodivergent girl trying to fit it. "No one needs self-satisfied concern" to a guy with a savior complex. These are all not things intended for tying people to her, these are things to make them stronger and set them free. Their loyalty to her comes from a place of gratitude, not fear, they weren't coerced into it. Before the siblings' appearance I contemplated whether she could be a yandere, sweet to her followers and horrible to everyone who dares abandon her. This is something more interesting.

Siblings' lines about her.

Lynette:

Lyney:

Also Lyney mentioning somewhere in the 4.1 quest that she has a very unique view on what can and cannot be sacrificed.

Freminet:

Also she personally saved each one of them.

Their loyalty is so beautiful and genuine, and so sick and twisted at the same time. I want to see more of this.

So far she seems like a character who values survival over everything with a bit of a "strict asian parent" mixed in. Ruthless but not crazy. I wonder if it changes in next patches.

(I have an undestroyable headcanon that Childe has good intuition about people. he would have loved someone acting like a strict dad and he would respect a focus on survival. if he doesn't like her it means she is something else entirely)

I also wonder what happens to kids who are unfit for military/spying. I mean, there's Freminet but he's an engineer and a diver. Would a simple cook do all right in HoH?