#my ability to go off on tangents with these are a problem with this many questions lmao

[skyheld]

DARP Advent 2024: Day Ten

Tastes and Smells

We're going to start delving into the senses! Which of the five senses (taste, touch, hearing, vision, smell) is your muse’s strongest? Do they have any that is unusually strong? 

Hearing and taste. They're nothing out of the ordinary.

TASTE What is your muse’s favorite food?

Pretty much all fruit. White bread. Also fish. When the Blight got bad Drakon ordered most orchards to be cut down and more sensible crops like rye or barley planted instead, same with wheat fields. It just wasn't feasible to keep growing luxuries with such widespread food scarcity. Then there was the one year in the early Divine Age when the taint got into the fish population of the Waking Sea and those who could without starving avoided eating fish for an entire year. 

Is your muse a decent cook? Can they bake? -

He's good at both cooking and baking. It's rarely anything fancy, because most of the time he's not had access to a lot of ingredients, but he has a flair for making good meals out of very littie.

Do your muse's companions like their cooking? Do they like that of their companions?      

In the past he was the designated party cook, always. Orinna and Telana could cook too, while Haron was apparently hopeless. As of now he won't complain if someone else takes it upon themselves, him cooking is more of an occasional thing. He loves the chance to eat food from different cultures.

How does your muse prepare their food? Do they use a lot of spices?

Mainly he uses a lot of wild herbs because that's what used to be commonly available --- whatever could reasonably grow in Orlais and the Dales, so not a lot of stuff that requires a hot climate. But again, it's kind of his thing to be able to make something good without a lot of spices or any advanced cooking utensils.

What is your muse’s favorite flavor? Is it common in food?

He likes herbal flavours. Some sweetness but not too much. Common flavours, nothing out of the ordinary.

Are there any tastes that call on good memories for your muse? Bad memories?

There are a lot that remind him of his own time and place which does both --- remind him of good times, and that he's lost them.

SMELL

     - What does your muse smell like? Do they know it?Is it on purpose, or an effect of some action in their life?

He has a very natural smell. Leather from what he wears, probably smoke from being around fireplaces a lot, something a little foresty from being outside.

Does your muse like/use soap? Perfume? What kind?

When he uses perfume he prefers lilac flowers. Lilac became his thing because his vallaslin is lilac flavoured and he just kind of embraced that, but it's distinct but not overbearing, and he likes it. He uses soap when he has access to it.

Does your muse associate certain smells with their companions? And is that association good or bad?

Probably, but not so much he thinks about it.

What smells does your muse dislike? What smell does your muse absolutely hate?

He dislikes overly strong perfumes. He hates whatever the Blight smells like, because I feel like it has to smell like something, at least the altered version in Veilguard -- those boils? Whatever they smell like is the answer.

What smells does your muse like?      - What is your muse’s favorite scent?

Aside from lilac, he likes a lot of other flowery smells. The smells of a forest and of books. Wolf fur, yes even when wet. You can like a bad smell.

[blues824]

Obey Me brothers with a female reader who's capable of manipulating all forms of earth (rocks, sand, metals, gemstones, dirt, glass, etc)? Happy New Year BTW!!

I made reader sound like Demeter, which wasn’t my intention.

Lucifer

The first moment he experienced your power was when you first arrived at the Devildom in the Council Room. You were scared, so you raised a boulder up (destroying the floor of the room), and held it so as to make sure you were ready to fight.

After calming you down, you apologized and fixed the floor, and it looked like it was never destroyed in the first place. Lucifer wasn’t even angry, he was impressed. He thought humans didn’t have powers, so this came as a shock to him.

From that point on, you only used your powers to threaten Mammon, which the eldest brother found quite amusing. It kept the second eldest in line, so Luci over here didn’t have a problem with it at all. He might actually let you have your go at him if you so desire.

Mammon

When you raised the boulder, he shrieked like a little child. Last time he checked, you weren’t a witch and therefore you shouldn't have this ability. Mans is cowering behind Lucifer, using him as a barrier to put some space between the two of you.

Once you calmed down, Mammon was still freaked out. You even fixed the floor, which made him panic even more. He was shaking in his boots. You apologized for scaring him, but he tried to convince you that he wasn’t scared at all. It might have worked if his voice didn’t crack.

From then on, he might ask you to use your power to help him evade either his brothers or the witches he made deals with. It’s your choice if you want to help him, and if you do he’ll get you something as a symbol of gratitude. You will be his favorite person.

Leviathan

He was honestly amazed when you made a boulder levitate, and in that moment you reminded him of so many different characters who had the same power. He was still very freaked out because you had the power to small all of them with the earth, but that was secondary to his fascination.

Once you calmed down and fixed the floor, Levi went in a whole rant about the many different characters you reminded him of. He got embarrassed about going off on a tangent, but you reassured him it was totally fine.

I feel like you both got close because he has a close connection with water, and you were one with the earth. You both had entire worlds to show each other, and you were the only one who was able to bring him outside just to talk to him about the fertility of a plot of land.

Satan

Mans was certainly shocked when you just threatened to crush everyone with a boulder upon first arriving at the Devildom, but he understood that this situation wasn’t very normal. So, he took on the task of calming you down (ironic, isn’t it?)

When he successfully deescalated the situation, he proceeded to ask you a bunch of questions about your earth manipulation abilities since they weren’t shown in your student profile. You gladly answered each of them, and that started a spark between the two of you.

Satan went on to conduct a bunch of research to find out more about your abilities, and how a human could accumulate them. You were glad to see someone so interested, so you gladly gave a few lessons on earth and the extent of your powers.

Asmodeus

He definitely let out a loud scream of terror when he saw the floor being torn up and formed into a roughly shaped ball for you to direct if anyone tried to attack you. What was worse was that his charm didn’t work on you, so he couldn’t really do anything besides hide behind his older brothers.

When you had calmed down, he admired your abilities as well as how beautiful you were.  Beauty is strength, after all, and you definitely just showed that. So, he grew attached to you at the hip, much like he was normally.

As the two of you did skincare with each other at night, he would listen as you went on rants about how different the Devildom soil was compared to the Human Realm soil. You’ve even taught him how to take care of flowers so that he may keep his room beautiful and nice-smelling.

Beelzebub 

He was ready to fight back when he saw the floor breaking up and being formed into rough spheres, as well as you getting ready to attack. Lucifer had everyone stop before anything got destroyed, and he explained what was going on.

Beel was quite impressed since he assumed you wouldn’t have any powers, and once you got settled in he asked if you wanted to go grab some food and talk a bit, to which you accepted (because who wouldn’t?). At the snack store, he asked a few questions about your earth manipulation, and you answered to the best of your abilities.

Through that one ‘date’, you both gained a connection that the demon never thought he would have. He loved you and the strength you show when you use your powers, and it’s the perfect durability test for him for training. Carrying a boulder has to give you at least a bit more muscle.

Belphegor

He got to first witness your power when you brought a bag of rocks with you to the attic when you first heard him calling for help. He didn’t expect you to fling a bunch of stones out of surprise at the gate that held him back from the rest of the realm.

After a few tries of hitting the gate with more rocks and no results, Belphie began planning out how he could use your powers to his benefit. However, as you came back to see him time and time again, he got to have a close relationship with you.

When he got out of his prison, he expected you to use your powers. He didn’t expect for a boulder to be hurled in his direction, hitting him in the head in the process. That allowed his brothers to get a hold of him before he could harm you, though.

[selfspinninglies]

👁️👁️?

hi aureo that was fast . anyway explanation under the cut woo

its kinda fuzzy in my head since ive only had this idea for two days including today so . but basically theres magic in the world that this takes place in (side tangent that isnt totally important but im gonna talk about how it works now if you dgaf skip to the plot stuff) its mostly not demonized/hated/feared/whatever cause i dont feel like it . anyway basically the energy needed is inside of your blood so whenever you use it it draws it out of you in some way (depends on what its used for) or you can draw it out yourself (bloodletting) and depending on how strong the spell you're doing is a certain amount of blood will be needed which causes !! a lot of problems for magic users . also its not like . a lineage thing anyone can learn how to do it because another part of how it works is making bonds/pacts with spirits that hold power over certain things and the blood is like . the offering also and you can either use incantations of sorts to do spells or just command things that youve borrowed power over also if your family has a pact with a spirit you are automatically in that also

vey end up going into the center of the woods and there's a grave in the clearing so vey go to it and make a blood offering assuming that this is the correct place (<- its not . oops) which ends up pissing off the spirit there because they do not have a pact together so vey are Not supposed to do that . it ends up pissing the spirit off more by admitting that it thought this was the correct place to be for a different spirit who was apparently not even close to here . who knew (everyone except erika) . the spirit ends up laying a curse on nem as its one of those angry and restless ones + got angered further . the spirit explains that somewhere in their body the seed of the plant that fits them best will start growing inside of them at a random place and slowly kill them by taking all of their energy and eventually spread out of them and essentially take over their body . they don't say if there's any way to cure/get rid of and it doesn't really sound like there is . they also say that when ey're at eir deathbed ey'll drag eir body back to this very spot and become part of the forest in the same way the spirit is . (sorry i keep saying "the spirit" i know it sounds kinda weird but i havent named them yet) (also ihave sooosososo many thoughts about how this would work so . maybe another time but if you wanna hear me go insane ask)

(other side tangent) also the way that the spirits work is that if you're connected to something deeply throughout life and your death is also connected to that thing (ex you have a connection to oceans/lakes/rivers your entire life and then you drown and die) you become bound to it spiritually and it becomes literally a part of you which means you have command over it kinda (does any of this make sense . idk) but it sucks a lot because the thing draws out your energy after death to fuel your ability cause like i said earlier spells require energy n shit but you also gain the ability to share your ability with others which relieves it a little since the burden isnt all on you BUT some spirits are angrier and curse anyone who steps foot near the area where they died . also their abilities and people who have deals with them's powers are amplified in the death area

ANYWAY actual plot time . the protagonists name is erika/erik (goes by both) (any pronouns but mostly uses neos) and ney're part of a family that has a pact (<- i think im going with that as for what ill call these) with some sort of plant spirit ney aren't sure which one though ney didnt pay much attention to the explanation of it all . it doesnt care too much about its lineage its more interested in biology and anatomy related things (<- woaww title reference) and also salamanders . its not story important but ve really likes salamanders . anyway x2 nix is somewhere in nixs early 20s and lives alone in an apartment planning on going to college soon but is putting it off . probably works a shitty 9-5 that it hates idk . very tired guything . theyre kinda bored and start thinking about their abilities and general ineptitude with it and decide that they'll go to the forest that their pact spirit dwells in to feel more connected to it or whatever . ey didn't really plan things through a lot . It makes a small bag with some supplies in it just in case and goes to the place that it thinks is the correct one but ends up being wrong and ends up in a very large forest . paragraph break because this one's getting long

obviously it freaks the fuck out about this and ends up running veryvery far away from the clearing and ends up collapsing somewhere because its really fucking tired . in the morning to nix's surprise nothing happened to nix in that time . anyway first thing he does is take out a diagram of the human body that was in one of the notebooks that he took with him and starts drawing out what the curse might look like on the inside . (which is also kinda where the name of the story comes from)

hey remember how i said energy needed for spells lay inside someone's blood . and how the plants will sap off of the person's energy and therefore blood . and how erik's family has a pact with a plant spirt . hey do you think that might be just a little important -

so anyway she tries to find her way back but fails miserably because the one thing she happened to forget was a map of any kind so now she's stuck in a forest with a deadly curse and no idea how to fix herself. they frantically walk through the forest and end up finding a village filled with totally normal people yayyy . anyway when they get there they say that they got lost in the woods and need a place to stay until they figure stuff out . oddly enough someone agrees to house them for a bit . The people of the town are incessant with questions, particularly about if they've encountered the spirit . on impulse he lies saying that he didnt which totally wont bite him in the ass later i mean who said that . anyway thats basically the plot theres more but this is already long as fuck and i dont feel like typing anymore idk how much of this makes sense but whateverrr im sleepy n sickly (<- has a cold) so . yeah hope you like it :]]

[ephemeral-antiquities]

In regards to the general headcanon that Vincent Sinclair communicates through sign language….

Here’s my idea, everyone…

Obviously, we know that Vincent is not deaf, he is hearing. The only chance I could think is if his hearing was somehow affected in the surgery separating him from Bo, which isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility but still.

Though, that does not make it entirely irrational for him to communicate through ASL. However, there lies one problem in this headcanon, allow me to explain.

Sign language is more than simply hand gestures, and a lot of signs involve facial expressions. As my teachers always used to say about expressions, “if it doesn’t feel weird, you’re doing it wrong”. ASL relies on facial expression to indicate tone (among many other things) and expression is just as much a part of the sign as hand movement. A vast majority of the time, Vincent’s face is covered so his expression is not easily visible, and there’s the elephant in the room. Basically, to sign without visible expressions is.. not easy to put it simply, if not downright impossible.

I do believe that Vincent would communicate through sign though, at least partially. Without a doubt I believe a vast majority of his communication with others would be non-verbal. The method through which he would communicate I think would vary vastly depending on context and target audience. Signing to Bo and Lester is very plausible, in my opinion, or those he is comfortable enough to remove his mask around, but to others you may very well get a notepad or some other form of non-verbal communication.

But I also believe he would speak. It would be rare, though, as I imagine it would be physically painful for him, not to mention downright tiring (I get it). One or two sentences is the most (on a good day) you would get out of him, verbally. I have little information on this but I would imagine it’s not out of the realm of possibility that in the aforementioned surgery his vocal chords could have been somehow damaged, nevermind the scarring it left behind which could interfere severely with his ability to communicate verbally. Babies are small, after all.

I’m going off on a tangent now, though, so allow me to summarize and wrap things up.

Yes, I believe Vincent Sinclair 100% communicates, primarily, through non-verbal forms. Yes, I believe that part of that includes the usage of sign language in certain cases. But yes, I believe he will speak when absolutely necessary (in urgent situations, or when Bo isn’t listening or doesn’t care to pay attention to his signing) and it always catches Bo and Lester off guard. The two would be in the middle of a conversation, and out of nowhere they hear this scratchy, trembling voice (from severe lack of use + damage) from just out of their line of sight. I think they would never get used to Vincent’s voice, because it’s such a rarity and when it is heard it stops you in your tracks and makes your hair stand on end, just for a moment.

On a final note, while I do believe he speaks on occasion and communicates through different non-verbal means, I believe Trudy would have taught him sign first when she realized that speaking was more or less out of the equation. English is his spoken language, but in terms of communication, I believe sign would be the language of his heart.

🤟

[cherienymphe]

Nah I agree. I've never quite gotten that because for argument's sake even if you do change your mind down the road, there's literally no way to know that. If someone told me they didn't want children I wouldn't even question that because you know yourself better than I do 😭 idk why so many people think every woman needs to have children anyway. I could honestly go on a whole tangent about motherhood and such but alas

Lmao I mean if you want to go on that tangent I’m listening…

This is probably going to be long but-

Motherhood is a very serious role that is so often downplayed it makes me sick. As far along as we've come with technology, childbirth is still very incredibly dangerous. Plenty of women still die from complications of childbirth. Death aside, childbirth and pregnancy still has a lot of possible side effects on the body that I feel the average woman doesn't even know about. Those reasons alone are enough to understand why some women don't want to have children.

Now into my more radical opinions...

I'm very much pro abortion. Not even just pro abortion but I'm very much pro death. I genuinely feel like women are co creators with God or the universe or whatever you want to believe in and our ability to create life is hand in hand with our ability to create death. I do not think every bloodline deserves to continue on and I wish women in general were just more picky with who they procreate with. It's why I'm so pro choice because a lot of these men don't deserve children. They don't deserve to have any parts of themselves passed down. In just about every other species in the animal kingdom the males have to prove themselves to the females in order to be picked and those that don't make the cut will have to deal with their particular bloodline dying off. Idk why we don't do that as a whole but it's annoying af. Everybody thinks everybody is entitled to a child and they're not.

Children are a privilege, not a right, and the problem is that too many people believe the opposite. No one is entitled to children. They're people, not property and accessories and pets that you decide you want just because it's what's expected or because you're lonely. You're raising a person who will hopefully grow up to contribute something positive to this world. What they contribute to society all depends on you as a parent and some people 100% should not have that role idc. It's literally the foundation of what the world will be like decades on depending on how you raise your children and what's instilled in them. You shouldn't just want anyone taking on that role and you especially shouldn't want people becoming parents who don't even want to be parents.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

share ur well lore headcanons bro (via @crowdemon-boyo)

so this is actually something I already threatened to write about…a year ago: And I touched upon it a little (not required reading for this post but some more lore) but I didn’t really expand because it is one of my most unhinged izombie tangents.

As in, we're way down here, playing with the weird kids:

Before I get into this, I want to go on a VERY brief excursion about wells and their symbolic meaning(s). There is going to be a lot of talk about mythology and symbolism and parallels etc and if interrupt my later explanations every time to introduce one of these themes, it's probably going to feel a lot more hamfisted than it is AND be a lot harder to follow. Feel free to skip this part because I will keep the second part comprehensible for those who didn't read it - but also, I read up on wells for this and it's my post so I will talk about wells.

Wells

In short, wells had great importance for any civilisation throughout history – because wells were where people got water! And without water, there is no food, no drink, no livestock, no washing, no harvest - in short, no civlisation. So wells also found a way into many mythologies with a lot of different meanings. But wells can also hold dangers – like falling into them or the problems of wells turning bad or mosquitos and the diseases they spread (diseases that people likely didn't know were caused by mosquitos). And these dangers also found their way into myths and stories (especially because people couldn't explain many of these things).

Generally, the mythological symbolism of wells is very old and spread across many cultures - e.g., our tradition of throwing coins into fountains and wells likely stems from the tradition of giving sacrifices to the spirits/gods/nymphs looking after the well, keeping it clean and healthy and making sure the people have enough water. (One theory being that the biocidal qualities of copper and silver in the coin would help prevent bacterial infections - and that this effect would be attributed to the well-spirits accepting the sacrifices and creating healthier water!)

There are a few different core themes regarding wells:

health/fertility/long-levity/immortality/life/growth and transformation (I mention this one because it is a very important one, but off the bat: It’s also not really important for the purposes of this analysis. An example of this can be found in old Christian beliefs, where certain wells were believed to have sacred healing abilities and were the destination for pilgrims seeking relief from their ailments. One region where this is particularly relevant is the southwest of Ireland.)

wisdom/knowledge/prophecy/divination (this, e.g. can be found in Norse mythology very famously with the well of Mimir, where Odin pays with his eyes the price for all knowledge)

death/source of evil/connection to the underworld.In Greek mythology, wells and springs are associated with the Naiads, the nymphs. They personified the well and were worshipped for it - but they weren't always benevolent. For example, a very famous story is that of the lover of Hercules, Hylas, who dropped his pitcher into a well - and the Naiads fell in love with him and dragged him in. Another mythology where wells and magical ponds and fountains play a huge role is Irish mythology (which works nicely bc the McDonough family very likely have Gaelic roots, considering that Blaine and Angus both are Gaelic names and McDonough is also Gaelic). One example from Irish mythology are these stories from the Dindshenchas:

These themes also have had a big impact on literature and media staples and wells as a source of evil also appear often, like we see in The Ring.

Personally, I would argue that these categories are not distinctly separate - and that not all appearances of wells fall into these three categories at all. They're just very common. Another personal leap I would like to make is that not all the deaths associated with wells are addressing the mysteries of disease or the dangers of accidents (like in the case of Hylas who dropped his pitcher) or dealing with them. I also think there might be an association with wells/rivers/waters and suicide. The reason I believe that is the attraction of the well (Narcissus) and the number of tales of people (especially women) being turned into wells as a means of protection from duress in the earthly realm - it's not just accidents:

According to Pausanias, Alpheius was a passionate hunter and fell in love with the nymph Arethusa, but she fled from him to the island of Ortygia near Syracuse, and metamorphosed herself into a well, whereupon Alpheius became a river, which flowing from Peloponnesus under the sea to Ortygia, there united its waters with those of the well Arethusa. This story is related somewhat differently by Ovid. Arethusa, a fair nymph, once while bathing in the river Alpheius in Arcadia, was surprised and pursued by the god; but Artemis took pity upon her and changed her into a well, which flowed under the earth to the island of Ortygia."[8]

This is something that appears in other stories too - and you will notice that it also happens in the stories of Sinann und Boand: The well is specifically sought out with lethal consequences.

There is another, very historical reason why myths about wells and the fae and mythological creatures associated with them have taken on a darker connotation: Christianisation. A lot of pagan traditions would later be villainised, usually by associating them with demons or devils and demons. An example of this is a tale like that of Melusine. Originally, the stories of Melusine (a nixie, a Germanic female water/well spirit who in this case is half-woman, half water-serpent) and her mother were about how a human men fell in love with them and they would set conditions and boundaries to being with them - that they wouldn't see them in their natural non-human states. Something that their male partners would ignore, meaning that they spied on them in vulnerable states such as when they were bathing or nursing or birthing - leading to the water-spirits abandoning them. This is another very common theme to all these kinds of fae-stories: The creatures of the other realm might give you something (in this case, marry the human suitor) but there are always conditions and contracts attached - and if you violate them, your situation will usually be worse than before.

But Christian interpretation changed these stories. For example, Martin Luther mentions a new version of the story (which he believed in) where Melusine was actually the devil or a succubus, taking on a seductive shape to corrupt me. In this version of the tale, "a young man meets a beautiful woman named Melusina who has the lower body of a snake. If he will kiss her three times on three consecutive days, she will be freed. However, on each day she becomes more and more monstrous until the young man flees in terror without giving her the final kisses. He later marries another girl, but the food at their wedding feast is mysteriously poisoned with serpent venom and everyone who eats it dies."

this is another huge aspect of well-related horror and symbolism, the idea of a slow-working, consuming poison that takes and takes and depletes you - another famous example of this is H.P. Lovecraft's where a poisoned well kills an entire family, farm and surroundings: "Nahum said somethin’ lived in the well that sucks your life out. [...] Nahum thought it feeds on everything livin’ an’ gits stronger all the time." (Actually, Lovecraft, who really liked lending from old myth, also writes this in the Case of Charles Dexter Ward which reminds me a lot of Blaine's final fate: "The torch shook in his hand, but he looked again to see what manner of living creature might be immured there in the darkness of that unnatural well; left starving by young Ward through all the long month since the doctors had taken him away,"

I'm sure you can't wait to see how all of this is gonna be relevant in the context of the zombie-crime show.

The Well on iZombie

Time to subject you to the original point of this entire enterprise here:

The McDonough family

So I'm going to start with a quick re-cap of the canon well-lore on iZombie. We know the McDonough family is very rich and has a pretty big estate - which happens to have a well on it.

They are introduced with a very strong focus on the paternal line in three generations: The grandfather (I don't think he was named), Angus, and then Blaine himself. The original wealth of the family mostly seems to come from the business the grandfather built until he was finally usurped by Angus, who took over his business and whose main goal seems to be to accomplish even more and attain more wealth - but who, unlike his father, seems to have very little interest of actually being loved by his family.

There is also Angus' wife/Blaine's mother, who also goes unnamed and we never get a reliable account of her story, with most things about her being told from the point of view of Angus, often with the deliberate intent to attack Blaine, and sometimes by Blaine in order to confront his father. What we do know is that this relationship is very abusive and ended with Blaine's mother taking her own life when he was still a child. In a way, this also seems to be true of Blaine's grandfather, who we only know from Angus' and Blaine's accounts (with Angus being disgusted with his father for being fond of Blaine and treating him well ('babying him'), and Blaine clearly loving his grandfather a lot, even taking care of him all these years but finally sacrificing him for revenge against his father).

For the most part, Angus seems to be obsessed with attaining more power and more wealth - and believes cruelty, hardness, and remorselessness to be the only means to accomplish that. While he has some appreciation for the finer things in life (mostly wealth but also things that emphasise his own grandeur - Major once points out that Angus owns a bust of himself), one thing he resents about the rest of his family is their supposed 'softness' (in the case of his father and his wife) or in Blaine's case, his hedonism:

The key difference here being that Angus wants to attain money and power for the sake of having money and power (quoting "unlimited wealth! unlimited growth!" as the goal of everything he does) - while Blaine shows a far greater interest in the things money and power can get him - or that he thinks they can get him. (though I would argue that a lot of Blaine's story is about how Blaine eventually sheds a lot of that humanity, e.g. by killing his grandfather, turning back into a zombie when he used to prefer being human and even the way music seems to play a smaller role in his life in the last seasons - but we get to this in detail a lot, lot later).

Something that I think is very important for this entire analysis and that often goes unnoticed or underestimated about their dynamic (and why it is so destructive) is that as much as Blaine resents his father for all the abuse he inflicted on him, he also suffers from feelings of abandonment. Sometimes he actually seems more focused on the fact that his father took so little interest in him as a child and how little time his father spent with him (e.g. pointing out specifically that they shared 'seven meals together' in his entire lifetime) - feelings that make a lot of sense in the light of the fact that as a child, Blaine actually hoped he could appeal to his father to protect him from the abuse Frau Bader inflicted on him as well as the fact that he also lost the two other relevant adults in his life: His mother, who withdrew into depression and finally killed herself as well as his grandfather, who was hospitalised.

We also have to consider that as much as Blaine resents Angus' abuse of himself and his loved ones on a personal level (where it hurt him), he also internalised a lot of Angus' world-view in terms of cruelty and the drive for power on an impersonal level: He's also absolutely fine with hurting others to gain power. In fact, it is perfectly compatible for Blaine to accuse Angus of being a 'child-abusing son of a bitch' - while he himself murders homeless kids for profit. Which is another problem peculiar to abusive families or communities that also foster socialisation that is incompatible with the rest of society: Blaine didn't just grow up very lonely due to his family's very particular situation or his wealth, he also internalised a world-view that isolates him further into adulthood - the idea that absolute egotism and disregard for other's isn't merely acceptable, but also a position of strength, one of superiority, and that it is something an individual should strive for. That's Angus' ideology - and it is one that Blaine consistently displays throughout the show.

Because while Angus' abuse of Blaine is a product of this power-oriented worldview, Blaine never learns to reject that entire worldview on an actually meaningful level - he only ever learnt to resent his father's treatment of him. He still defines himself and his success and his world by those same standards. He hates Angus - but after a lifetime of watching Angus humiliate and mock and destroy everyone he perceived as weak, the only idea of value and safety Blaine has for himself is to define himself within the framework of Angus' approval.

The Well.

Back on it with the well!

We're first introduced to the well in this scene in season 3, ep. 8:

Without getting into the detailed immorality of what Blaine did surrounding his fake amnesia and Peyton, I think it is important to point out that this is happening on the tail-ends of Blaine's (failed) attempt to define himself outside of his father's ideology: He was willing to neglect his strive for power and his own values - in favour of being with another person. Which, apart from having been an absolutely horrendous thing to do another person, was kind of a big deal for Blaine (and I could already make some connections to the symbolism point I'm trying to make here. But I'm not sure if y'all out there are ready (unhinged) enough for that, at this point. We'll get there!)

We learnt that Blaine used this well for most of his childhood as a way to deal with his feelings, by using it as a wishing well to manifest his father's death - but also to count, very specifically, how often it happened. Blaine, it turns out, actually kept count of this, saying that it's 'about $1.40 in pennies down there'. Now, I was actually curious about this and it turns out that for victims in abuse situations, documenting and quantifying instances of abuse situations can be a way of keeping their sanity and trying to simulate some agency and control over the situation. (I also researched whether there is any meaning to the number 140 but I couldn't find one)

To make this very clear and explicit: What Blaine does is a very understandable, very human behaviour in response to the abuse he experienced. There is the big question what role we give Blaine's upbringing when we evaluate his actions as an adult. And personally, I think it plays a very big role. What I don't entertain is the notion that Blaine was simply always evil or so evil as a child that he deserved the abuse he experienced - that is something that the narrative very clearly identifies as the narrative of one of his abusers (Frau Bader), who thinks he was a monster, even as a child (very opposed to Angus' excuse, that Blaine was too soft and he was toughening him up). Blaine wishing for his father's death is not inherently evil, especially not for a child in an acute, multi-layered abuse situation. Using a wishing well to manifest the death of the man who abuses him, abuses his wife, is at least compliant with Frau Bader's abuse of him - and eventually even takes his grandfather from him, the only person still left - that is not 'evil' or immoral child behaviour. It's pretty balanced, all things considered. So what I'm going to say next has little to do with a moral evaluation or condemnation of actions - but a lot with the symbolism and being damnationed by the narrative.

Wishing Well

Earlier, I spoke of the origin of wishing wells as sacrifices to the well-gods, in exchange to which the spirits grant your wishes.

It's also in this context that I want to propose my first actually bold claim: The well does fulfil Blaine's wishes.

In fact, it probably grants the wishes of everyone who granted a sacrifice over the years. This is something I already once touched upon in the post I linked earlier and I'll link it again here where I listed every request Blaine has ever made of the well - and how they all came true. Every time Blaine is nearby that well and says that he wants something - it happens.

But: It also happens with a caveat. Some big drawbacks or logical loopholes. This is one of the most basic features in almost every kind of story, where you call on other-worldly forces: They give you what you want....except slightly to the left. It's the Monkey's Paw. Rumpelstilzchen. You find it with Djinni. The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Peter Schlemihl. King Midas. And very famously - the devil. While most of these stories are about warning you not to be cheap or not to get above yourself without doing the work or not to be haughty (e.g. The Sorcerer's Apprentice) - the deal with the devil is the Christian spin on it, warning you that sinful behaviour or a "literal" pact with the devil might give you what you want in this world, the devil is after your soul and wants to condemn you for the afterlife.

But that's another very important aspect: In most cases, you pay some sort of price. You make a 'deal'. There are exceptions to this - e.g. a magical artefact might grant you your wishes for free, even if get screwed over (Monkey's Paw) OR you already did the work to control the powers you're using (hence, you don't get 'punished' for "cheating" the natural order) and therefore get what you want - like in the case of the Golem, who only causes troubles if you did NOT do the work and make a mistake operating the Golem (like giving a faulty command or failing to remove the paper that animates the Golem. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was actually a gentile interpretation of a Golem story - and the mistake of the apprentice is that he didn't do ALL the work and overestimated himself and caused disaster/comeuppance.)

Based on the assumption that all the wishes uttered around the well on iZombie come true, let's examine the price of these wishes. I already went into this in the post I linked, but in short: These wishes are always accompanied by someone throwing something into the well. This is very literal while Angus is in there, because Blaine keeps throwing brains in there (not to mention threw his own father in there) and talking to his father (who in turn belives he's hearing the voice of God).

One example is in the first episode of season 4: Blaine talks to the well, complaining a) about how Chase has an army - and he doesn't. and b) that he wants to expand his business. He also complains about how much he hates working for Chase Graves.

Later in the same episode, Dino frees Angus from the well and this facilitates several things:

Another of Blaine's well-wishes comes true: In the previous season, Blaine talked at the well (while throwing brains in there) about how he wishes he had a father who loved him, the same way Baracus loves his own child and was willing to take a bullet for him. When Angus is freed from the well, he got re-wired into believing that he loves Blaine, that he has to make up for abusing him in the past and he wants to re-connect

Blaine gets his army: The cult of Brother Love who helps him stop the prison bus AND becomes his tool to carrying the zombie virus out of Seattle to help his real estate plan

He no longer has to work for Chase Graves after finding Renegade for him and on top of that, Chase Graves dies in the season finale (under the same guillotine that he showed Blaine in that first episode of the same season, in the Blaine-scene previous to the opening scene at the well. In many ways, his monologue at the well sets up Blaine's season arc for us.

He also gets his wish of expansion by the end of that season: Major makes him the number 1 brain supplier for New Seattle. He ends up rich.

So that's great, right? It's a wishing well! Post wrapped!

...

Except. If we entertain the notion that by some power of symbolism (and for the record, I'm w e l l aware that we're way past any writer intentions), the well actually does grant wishes, this raises one and a half big questions

how is Blaine being monkey-pawed?

and what about his original wish? What about Angus 'dropping dead'?

Well, let's first have a look at how all these wishes work out for Blaine:

his "army" meets the fate that many armies inevitably meet: Another army. They're destroyed spectacularly and his plan doesn't work out. Also his dad dies.

Blaine's own ill-gotten wealth and power go to his head and put him into a particularly vulnerable position: He loses everything and becomes the most hated person in all of New Seattle. After he was so proud of being a 'hero'

And ...did I mention that his dad dies? That was his biggest wish, right? Except...that first, original wish - that one took years of throwing in coins (and even even throwing in Angus himself) to fulfil - and that also came with a big fat caveat: By the time Angus finally 'drops dead', Angus was already Brother Love and made efforts to make (extremely toxic) amends in his relationship with Blaine. And not only that, despite having reservations at first, towards the end of the season and especially in the finale, Blaine actually built a sort of trust and opened up to having a relationship with this new version of his father for the first time (because that is the price of actually having the kind of relationship that Blaine wants with his dad: opening up. being vulnerable) - e.g. allowing him to talk about his mother and listening to him when Angus tells him he's proud. This is something I also wrote a long text about, but in short: By the time Angus dies, Blaine is, for the first time in his entire life, in a place where this would genuinely and first and foremost - hurt him.

So in short, that's how the well seems to work:

You feed it + you express a desire = you get what you want + eventually you get the opposite and get screwed over Monkey Paw style.

You will also find small examples of this. Like Blaine expressing that he would like to show his father his new car - and the first time Angus sees that car is in the scene in the finale, when Angus finds out that Blaine doesn't want to join the cult's suicidal escape from New Seattle and shatters the tentative relationship they had been building.

And I could count my eggs or whatever here, tell you that the well is a wishing well. Rest my case and go home. But...I promised you a little bit more. And we're in so deep now, there is no turning back. So.:

The Well is Hell (Hell is the Well)

Hades / Tartarus

Throughout his pre-Brother Love cycle on the show, Angus is often shown to have an avid interest in ancient history, especially ancient Greek history and mythology. This is already teased in his first appearance on the show:

Alexander the Great, himself the son of a Macedonian father and a Greek mother, traced his lineage back to the gods, even claiming Zeus his father. He also deeply valued Greek history and mythology,

The theme continues just a few lines later-

etc etc etc

Angus' interest in ancient greek culture makes several appearances, usually in the context of Angus a) being disappointed that Blaine either pretends to or really doesn't understand his references and b) Angus seemingly not noticing that he himself really likes to reference tales where a father is killed by his son - and like in the Oedipus discussion, he usually positions himself as that father and Blaine as that son.

Cronus, like Angus, rose to power by overthrowing his own father (and also castrating him). So it's really in tune with Angus' self-glorification that he would compare himself to Cronus. Except, he presents this tale as if Cronus lived happily ever after as the king of the universe eating his kids.

But as is the entire point of this essay, you can only trick the powers of fate for so long: Cronus' wife Rhea (notice how Rhea stayed unnamed in Angus' account of the story much like the name of his own wife/Blaine's mother is never mentioned throughout the show?) eventually had enough of her husband's baby-eating habits. She took her youngest son and hid him - giving Cronus a bundle full of rocks to eat instead. And that young boy's name? was Albert Einstein. Zeus. Zeus eventually grew up and became the prophecied child to overthrow Cronus and tossed him - along with the other Titans - into the dark abyss of Tartarus, in the cave of Nyx:

We have some mythical description of what Tartarus was understood as:

"as far beneath the earth as heaven is above earth; for so far is it from earth to Tartarus. For a brazen anvil falling down from heaven nine nights and days would reach the earth upon the tenth: and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days [725] would reach Tartarus upon the tenth" (Hes. Th. 724-725)

"murky Tartarus, far, far away, where is the deepest gulf beneath the earth, the gates whereof are of iron and the threshold of bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth! (Hom. Il. 8.14-15)

In Tartarus, according to one telling, Cronus lies in chains in the cave of Nyx (goddess of the night) where he is "chained within, asleep and drunk on honey – dreams and prophesies."

I think you know where I'm going with this.

And if you know where I'm going with this, you might have a very valid objection:

Originally, I claimed that the well would be Hades. Not Tartarus. These are two different spaces. And you're right! In this analogy, the well is Tartarus, the prison of the wicked dead, not Hades, which is the realm for all the dead. But considering that this metaphor is happening so far, far, far in the periphery of the funny zombie crime show, I am willing to let it slide as slight metaphor-mixing in the service of overall story-telling functionality.

Not to mention, Hades also makes its appearance, indirectly:

A few episodes after speaking these words while dramatically sipping from a glass of water, this man was found tossed in a mysterious well where he forgot who he was when he was alive.

There generally is a pattern of Angus, before his time in the well, predicting the future - without ever realising it. Not just in terms of Greek mythology but -

This is literally the same episode where he gets tossed into the well - aka the future where the only thing will happen is occasional brains being thrown down to feed him. Yeah, your future is brains alright. Just not in the big business sense that you expected.

So much like we have a mysterious pattern of the well granting wishes, we have a pattern of Angus prophecising the future - without ever realising it.

And this is also reflected in the specific choice of Greek myths that he decides to reference - and his clear lack of understanding of what he himself is literally implying (despite his own canonically vast knowledge of ancient myths and tales.) On the surface, the Cronos myth and the Oedipus myth have very little to do with each other. The reign of the fall of Cronos is a primordial creation myth of gods and titans. Oedipus' tale is (mostly) that of mortals.

The only things they have in common is a) the theme of people trying and failing to cheat prophecies (and thereby: fate, the order of the universe) and b) an abandoned and alienated son overthrowing and replacing his father.

Both with the Oedipus comparison and the Cronos comparison, Angus is trying to put himself into a position of power over Blaine (both with comparison he's making - comparing himself to the powerful Titan Cronos, comparing Blaine to unhappy Oedipus - and by making them in the first place, because he's trying to flex on Blaine with his own education/his disappointment in Blaine's lack of this education.

In fact, Angus' blindness to the actual prophetic nature of the things he says is already lamp-shaded in his first appearance. It is not just that he made another unintended prophecy (comparing Blaine to Oedipus, who unintentionally causes the death of his estranged father) - he also fatally misrepresents the myth: He compares Blaine to Oedipus, insinuating that Blaine's mourning of the death of his mother is excessive and that Blaine is resenting and punishing him because he holds Angus responsible for her death. But...that's not how the tale of Oedipus goes. By the time Oedipus meets and marries his biological mother, he had already (accidentally) killed his biological father. It is only when the truth comes to light that Oedipus' mother commits suicide and Oedipus blinds himself.

It is only after he 'drinks the waters of Lethe' - aka suffers ego death in the well - that Angus truly becomes a prophet and is aware of his making prophecies.

And I think it becomes even more damning when you realise that the fate of the Lethe strikes the entire paternal line of the McDonoughs (and no, I don't mean Blaine’s fake amnesia era. Though there was some real amnesia, for a while, let's not forget)

Grandpa McDonough suffered dementia after Angus overthrew him and eventually lost every connection to the world around him other than music. He finally dies at the hands of Blaine, who was planning to overthrow Angus by feeding him dementia brains.

Angus literally drank the waters of Lethe when Blaine threw him into the well. He died and became Brother Love.

Blaine tastes the waters of Lethe after the show ends - by turning Romero in the well.

Family legacy, honour, masculinity etc. are all values that are very important in Greek myth - and they are things that Angus is often shown to care about a lot (especially illustrated by the fact that he keeps attacking and humiliating others for not living up to those values). On the other hand, in Greek mythology, family dynasties tend to end in horrible tragedies - for many reasons and very often because of prophecy or hubris/arrogance. By the time we encounter the McDonough family, the inciting dishonourable act of hubris and disrespect has already been committed - Angus taking over his father's business by underhanded means and having him hospitalised. He had his father declared mentally unfit - and one after another, everyone in his family actually loses his mind and (more or less) eventually dies.)

Arguably, losing your mind and your identity is more relevant an ending to a person's life in this family than actual, physical death is. Only losing yourself mentally first facilitates physical death. Meanwhile, dying doesn't necessarily mean a final end - especially Blaine bounces back from the dead with impressive frequency. This is even true for Blaine's mother, who first withdrew herself and faded and removed herself from the rest of the family until she finally ended her life - losing all agency and independent identity in the process, to be only defined by and in Blaine's and Angus' narratives. (In fact, even though Blaine's grandfather's name is lost too, we get some pictures of him: We see him, we know what kind of art and music he liked, we see old photos of him on the wall of his hospice room.)

Blaine's mother isn't really given that same dignity. She is spoken of, but never really as an individual. She's mostly an idea. A ghost hanging around in the background of some of their conversation. She doesn't pass the lamp-test. (the test where you replace a female character with a fancy, expensive lamp - and then see how much this would impact the plot.)

The most important things to take away from this section:

Something that I think is very important here is that Greek mythology and especially Angus' fascination with it also serves as a visualisation of the rift between Angus and Blaine. Angus is frequently annoyed when Blaine doesn't understand his references to a subject that clearly means a lot to him. He clearly feels entitled to an heir with the same interests as him - a continuation of his legacy. We know he wants to be immortal and one way to live on is through your family and in a very patriarchal family, the way for a father to live on is through your son. But...Angus also never put in the work. He never gave Blaine any good reason to emulate him or to take an interest in his father's interests. He never gave Blaine any incentive to spend time with him and do anything together. He never even gave him any reason to love him. He just expects Blaine to function as his heir because he is his son. But he...never really tries to be a father beyond the biology of fatherhood (he literally calls Blaine a 'waste of his sperm' before he gets tossed into the well). The person Blaine actually emulates - is his grandfather. The person who, according to Blaine, actually loved him. Blaine specifically says he has his love for music from his grandfather and even (claims he) takes after him in looks.

If we do take that leap of faith and consider that most of Angus' Greek mythology analogies have a prophetic character on some level that he isn't aware of (and that the show also frequently identifies him as a prophet in season 4) - then in these prophecies, the well is positioned in the symbolic role of Hades or Tartarus or rather, a wellspring to Lethe, one of the 5 rivers of Hades.

Another (third?) thing is the disappearance of Greek mythology from the show. After Angus' time in the well, the references to Greek mythology stop - and Brother Love isn't exactly invoking the Greek pantheon. Instead, the Cult of Brother Love leans much more closely on Christianity - and it is even confirmed what a great change that is: In S04E10, he tells his congregation that Frau Bader was 'always concerned about his immortal soul' - and that it should be very surprising for her to see him now as a priest. There are some references to it, like the statuettes we see at the McDonough Estate but those are old, from pre-well times.

So this brings me to the next part of my little essay here:

(pls don't make me spell out the halo-thing) Christianity The Cult of Brother Love

Some brief disclaimer: I do not intend to talk about religion here. I AM going to look at Christian symbolism and the use of symbolic language on the show in order to decipher subtextual connotations in the same way as I did with Greek mythology earlier. My personal belief (or rather: lack thereof) does not enter in here.

First of, it's important to make a certain distinction: While the Cult of Brother Love is definitely inspired by Christianity and Christian imagery, it is not fulfilling many of the core tenets of Christianity. (e.g., I don't think there is literally any mention of Jesus other than Blaine asking once who the 'zombie-messiah' is going to be and Brother Love implying it would be him). I think there is a meta-reason for this (obviously, making it too Christian would piss a lot of people off). Also, since this entire cult grew out of Angus' delusions in the well and since Angus was canonically never particularly interested in Christianity, it makes sense that this would result in a very warped version of the original.

However, the change from the original ancient greek philosophies that Angus emulated vs the bastardised version of Christianity he practices in his cult does incorporate some of the core tenets of Christianity like the idea of universal morality which hellenic paganism didn't have (the cult actually looks down on 'heretics' and non-believers and thinks that every zombie needs to join the church and be baptised and that people who refuse are the enemy), repentance (Christianity has a much greater focus on the option of repenting for your former sins and being forgiven, while in ancient greek stories, usually actions -cause- the consequences - and while you can ask the gods for forgiveness, they are fickle and fallible rather than all-loving and all-forgiving, so whether they forgive or not can be mere coincidence), in fact: one, all-knowing, all-powerful god (Angus believes that the voice he heard in the well was the voice of god - and he is tricked again when Blaine has Don E throw brains into a wood-chipper to convince him that it is raining brains. He does this because he now expects a god who loves him and wouldn't mislead him and who knows everything and wants zombies to be safe.)

The well becomes an important aspect of the way Christian elements are used and turned on their head (!): Wells and waters play an important role in the symbolic language of Christianity, e.g. the idea of being cleansed by baptism and the powers of holy water cleaning and warding off evil and being used to bless sacred items and places in Catholicism.

There is a very important passage in one of the communal affirmations of the cult:

I believe this to be a vague meta-reference to a story from the New Testament, John 4:10-15, where Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. He asks her for water because he is thirsty. During their conversation, Jesus shifts the conversation from the literal, physical water of the well to spiritual water e.g. he compares having faith to 'drinking living water' -

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

The reason I believe this to be a reference is that Brother Love also frequently makes the promise of 'feeding' - his cult, promising that by following him they will never be hungry again.

But it also gives us some idea about the relationship between the faith of the cult and the well:

The 'living water'/'water of life' in the analogy from the bible represents a relationship with god. But taking personal belief out of the equation, the Christian 'relationship with god' is simply - faith. It's believing in god. Just like the cult believes in their idea of god. Their idea of god is ...that god considers zombies the chosen people, that he wants them to destroy humans and eat them, that he loves zombies a lot. But this faith/water was given shape by the well: This 'God' was just Blaine talking to his father in the well and Angus who was slowly losing it trying to decipher meaning from his words.

This is also symbolised by Angus often echoing Blaine's words in a slightly warped way.

One obvious example:

Basically, the well gave shape to their faith/the water by running interference between what Blaine said (wished) and what Angus heard and what Angus (driven insane by the well) is now parroting to his followers. And if we're still working under the assumption that the well is fulfilling the wishes of the people feeding it (coins, brains, people), then this interference, this 'giving shape' directly results in the well granting Blaine's wishes:

In fact, something that I find very important here is: Blaine never said the words 'I wish I had an army' - much less 'I need an army' or 'give me an army' like Angus cites it. While inside the well, Angus remembers hearing something entirely different from what we were shown was spoken into the well.

The reason why I think this is very important is tied back into the function of the well as a wish-fulfilling device: As I mentioned earlier, devices that fulfil wishes usually come with some sort of caveat. Sometimes, the wording is used against the person speaking the wish in an overly literal way (this is especially important in stories where a person has but a limited number of wishes because now they have wasted one). This, however, doesn't seem to be the case with our well here, because Blaine doesn't even need to express a wish - instead, through the interference of the well, his subconscious desires or the implications of his words are manifested into commands. That's how connected the well and he is at this point (I'll elaborate on this point later)

The well doesn't only give him what he says he wants - it gives him what he really wants. (In fiction there are usual different aspects of character intent. Usually, these are simplified into want vs need but personally I like to separate them even further:

What a character says they want (what they tell others)

What a character wants (what they think they want)

What a character really wants (the subconscious desire that is behind that conscious wish)

What a character needs (usually opposite of their actual wish/the thing they come to realise is missing from their lives and that they give up their wish for in the end)

For example, what Blaine says he 'wishes' when he's near the well is that his father would see his new car or he talks about what a brilliant businessman he is and how everyone in the city looks up to him - what he really wants is the satisfaction of proving his father wrong about what a failure he is as well as Angus' approval* because-

But what he actually needs is...to stop letting his father and his fucked up childhood have such an influence on the life he's living. What he needs is some actual human connection and self-actualisation.

*This is another very interesting aspect of their interactions: Angus again and again reiterates how successful Blaine is specifically as a businessman and how proud he is of Blaine for this. He says it at Romero's, he says it during his services, he says it to Liv even (showing that he genuinely believes this and doesn't just say it to prop up Blaine or get brains from him. He suddenly genuinely believes this) --- and the reason that this is interesting is that as Brother Love, Angus doesn't really care about money or riches anymore. He stopped caring about his own wealth, he gives donations to the poor. One of the first things he says, when he gets out of the well, is to call Dino a 'filthy lucre' (the word combination filthy + lucre is mostly originally used in the bible) when he tells his girlfriend that he wants a reward for freeing Angus. We know Angus didn't use to consider Blaine a real 'businessman before the well, we know he doesn't care about money after the well - and yet, he still feels somehow compelled to praise Blaine for exactly these things. The only thing that changed in this regard is that Blaine poured a lot of energy into that well, talking about how he's such a great businessman (and mentioning that it hurt him that his father doesn't think so.) This is another subconscious desire of Blaine's that the well fulfils - but it really isn't what Blaine needs or is good for him. What would be good for him would be to remove himself as far from this entire situation as possible. But instead he comes back and keeps coming back. The first thing he does when he finds out that he's a zombie is seek out his abusive father and infect him - out of all rich people he can and did infect later on. He was always waiting for that moment of revenge. And the thing is, Blaine probably felt like he was free after he grew up and cut ties with his father (or got cut off) - but really, he never has been free, or he wouldn't have come back after all this time.

Even more important in that regard and something that I rarely see anyone talk about: He never killed his father, as I mentioned, - and he never killed Frau Bader. Instead, he's upset by both of their deaths - despite all the people he literally murdered in cold blood, he was clearly not ready to see the two people die that he hated the most in the world.

The reason I think that this is interesting is that - the 'army' thing just showed us that the well doesn't need Blaine to (be able to) express what he wants for the well to make it happen. As long as he's throwing things inside the well (brains) and alluding enough, the well sets it into motion. And I feel like it's here that we encounter a problem: As a child, Blaine wished that his father would drop dead so that the abuse would stop. But he also wants a father who loves him. He wants to have a meaningful relationship with his father - throughout the show, he frequently seems at least as angry with Angus for abandoning him as he is with him for abusing him. Now, these are two very conflicting desires - but by turning Angus into 'Brother Love' and then eventually having him go on a suicide mission to be killed by the US army accomplished both - in the most painful fashion for Blaine, who finally was starting to develop some trust in this new relationship with his father, only to see it destroyed in the worst way possible.

There is something else I find very interesting in this regard. Now, if we follow the earlier assumption that the whole symbolism of Greek mythology functions as an illustration of the rift between Angus and Blaine and of Angus' feelings of patriarchal entitlement and ownership over Blaine as his heir as well as his feelings of anger and disappointment at Blaine's failure to live up to his expectations - then the disappearance of Greek mythology from Angus' repertoire when he becomes Brother Love also becomes significant. It shows a (seeming) change in his attitude. Which holds up bc in season 4, Angus (seemingly) has a very big change of mind, both about his own philosophies as well as his son.

So far, I've focused a lot on Angus' role in all of this - which makes sense. Because the Greek mythology stuff is mostly happening in Angus' side of the court. Blaine has very little interest in any of it.

In fact, there is a very obvious and very important fact that I frequently see neglected when people speculate about Blaine and his family: Blaine grew up with 1. a mother who checked out mentally, 2. a father whose entire care accumulated to 6 shared meals and 140 pennies worth of severe abuse incidences and 3. a grandfather who eventually also disappeared. As much as Blaine defines himself by his father's values - most of the time, he was raised by someone else. The person he probably spent most of his time with (at least further into his mother's decline) was Frau Bader.

This is a woman who had so much influence in the household, Angus was willing to let her inherit his fortune if Blaine killed him. Someone who could make a dog disappear without anyone asking any questions. Someone who could berate her own boss about his religion.

And that's one thing we learn about Frau Bader is that she is very religious. Specifically, she is very Christian. Blaine, throughout the show, is shown to have a lot of contempt and disinterest for religion and - especially (x) Christianity, something that especially becomes evident in his interactions with Gabriel and his first encounter with one of the cultists.

But there is one noteworthy relevant difference between Blaine's contempt for Christianity compared to his contempt for his father's obsession with Greek mythology: He also seems to know at least some things about it. In fact, he shows a quite detailed knowledge of it, beyond what is the natural osmosis in a culturally Christian society.

While he doesn't get understand his father's obscure references to Greek mythology, he understands - can even make - obscure references to the bible - e.g. comparing his own attempt to tempt Gabriel into giving him the tainted Utopium recipe to Jesus tempted by the Devil during his 40 Days in The Wilderness. This is not...something everyone knows. Considering that he seemingly didn't have a father who valued religious education (prior to being brainwashed by a well) and Blaine doesn't seem to have an inherent active interest in theology (rather, he dislikes it and I don't see him seeking out Sunday school or reading the bible at any point during his adult life - the most likely implication is that this was passed down by Frau Bader. The fact that Frau Bader also tried to proselytise to Angus might even be the (literal, non-symbolic, non-Lethe,) reason why Brother Love's particular insanity takes this shape. And if she proselytises to her boss, what are the odds that she wouldn't proselytise to the child in her care?

Blaine's seeming disinterest and contempt for Christianity also reflects his complicated relationship with his abusive nanny: On the surface, he doesn't care about Frau Bader one way or another. He never actually bothered killing her. He didn't even infect her in order to obtain power over her or humiliate her somehow (likely because she's not rich enough for him to exploit her in any meaningful fashion that would be worth the added emotional baggage of having to deal with her again). Much in the same way, his seeming disinterest and his dismissive attitude towards Christianity is belied by the fact that we learn that Frau Bader was a very religious person - and that her religious beliefs played a significant role in her abuse of Blaine: She believed that Blaine's transgressive and rule-breaking behaviours as a child made him a 'monster' that needed to be disciplined.

The word 'monster' is very important here imo because it is a word that speaks to a belief in inherent evil. Now, Christians believe that (all) humans are inherently sinners (not monsters). Human nature makes them imperfect and fallible - but they also believe that everyone can be saved through repentance and a relationship with God/Jesus. And here I think it is also very interesting that lack of belief doesn't seem to be what sets Frau Bader off: Clearly, she thought that Angus could be saved if he only started believing and going to church since we know that she was always 'worried for his immortal soul'. Now, we cannot know whether to her religious-nutjob-brain there was something about child-Blaine that set her off in particular or whether she's just an abusive person and inflicted his on the first best helpless person she had power over (or maybe even every child she had power over). What we do know is that for some reason, she thought that Blaine was abnormally evil or monstrous somehow. (we often hear some stories about how disruptive Blaine was as a child, but something that I think is important to point out is that most of these stories are implied to have taken place when he was no younger than 9 or 10 years old while Frau Bader was implied to have joined the household much earlier and Angus' abuse probably going on at least as long, likely longer than that. So it is very likely that the disruptive behaviour is a result of the abuse, and not vice-versa).

The reason I'm bringing this up is the following:

We know that Blaine is pretty obsessed with power - he's literally talking about how he's going to run the entire city. And I feel like this scene comes very close to touching on the origins of this: Power means safety. In his childhood, while Bader was the person who spent the most time out of all adults having power and authority over him (and abusing that authority), Angus was objectively the most powerful person in his life. That's why he asked his father to protect him from Bader. (btw, I also consider the fact that he quotes himself calling Angus 'daddy' when he asked him to help him another indication towards how long Bader was working in their household and how early all of this started.).

As far as we know, he never threw pennies in the well over Frau Bader - just like he never went after her the way he went after his father. Just like he represses his religious trauma by neglecting the issue and making light of religion and avoiding it, he deals with the Bader-situation by ignoring her and minimalising the impact she had on him. This is very different towards his attitude regarding Angus. And this makes sense considering Blaine's whole worldview: Family is one of the few things that actually matter to him. Bader isn't family and while he detests her as a horrible person, Angus, as his father, owed him much more - and therefore betrayed him far worse. That's why he can yell and shout at his father for being a 'child-abusing son of a bitch' while he himself killed dozens of homeless teenagers.

Another thing that stands out: This very scene is referenced again in Frau Bader's death scene:

Now, this line clearly exists primarily because we haven't seen or heard from Frau Bader since season 2. But out of all the things that Don E could have said (or Blaine could have said) to identify her for the audience, they chose to reference this scene - to which Don E wasn't witness. We never learn how Don E obtained this particular information about Blaine's childhood, so it would have been far easier to refer to her in other ways. For example, Don E walks in on them listening to Angus' video will.

The reason I bring this up is because they reference the scene where we learn that Blaine asked for Angus to help protect him from Frau Bader - in the very same scene in which Angus, now as Brother Love, kills Frau Bader. And even also acknowledges that he knew of the abuse and did nothing and that he specifically failed Blaine in his duties as a father.

And here is the thing about this:

If we assume that Blaine's resentment of his father is not just rooted in the abuse and not just rooted in the trauma of negligence but ALSO specifically in his refusal to protect Blaine from Frau Bader (pretty canon, based on the torture scene in The Whopper) AND if we assume that (based on the army-thing) that the well facilitates Blaine's wishes even when they're not explicitly stated, then Blaine's wish for Angus to 'drop dead' also entailed that particular grievance. Until eventually, in the same breath as fulfilling Blaine's wish for a father "who cares that much" (another wish that was subconsciously implied in Blaine's resentment of the father he was given), the well gives him a father who does defend him. And that's how Brother Love specifically ends up killing Frau Bader.

(which raises another issue for me: On the textual level, I attributed Blaine's ... disinterest? refusal? avoidance? to kill Bader for what she did to him to his refusal to seriously connect with his trauma and accept what has been done to him. But on the metaphysical whatever-level we're moving on, it makes me wonder whether Blaine was even ever able to kill Bader - or whether that role had always been assigned to Angus all along)

Hell Is The Well

I mentioned earlier that the cult has a pattern of turning things on their head. And some of that is simply because it's a cult and therefore engages in things like behaviour-control, information control, thought control, emotion control etc. and warp any actual Christian teachings to fit the cult-agenda.

But a lot of that also comes from the fact that Brother Love is working under a false assumption - one that as the audience we know to be false: Brother Love really believes that he received/receives signs and messages from god and is doing his bidding.

And it's not just that confused Blaine's voice with the voice of god - he completely conflates them:

He believes that god threw him in the well and spoke to him there and even when he's back out, he points out that Blaine's voice reminds him of the 'voice of god' and names him the 'zombie messiah'. (we also see a complete conflation of family relationships /identities here with Brother Love going back and forth between referring to zombies as his siblings and his children, casting Blaine in the role of god (the father) but also as his son. Just like we have the conflation between Blaine as a mortal (or zombie) with him being 'god' while on the other hand, he's also a character commonly likened to or compared to the devil throughout the show (which would change the implications of the well/hell and Blaine's role in brainwashing Angus and Angus' misreading of the situation entirely.) Basically, through the interference of the well, Angus doesn't really seem to know who Blaine is anymore. It seems to kind of splinter his identity.

This warped perception is also an evident in the 'poisoned chalice' aspect of Angus' 'cleansing' in the well (showing us that this is not a real cleansing or something 'good') and 'purifying' and Blaine's role in it are also illustrated by the fact that Angus does not become a good person - or the heaven-sent prophet he considers himself:

As Brother Love, Angus simply exchanges his extreme individualism and personal superiority complex for a new kind of chauvinism - with very similar results:

Angus believes that he is better than everyone else. Brother Love believes that zombies are better than everyone else.

He takes himself out of the equation, even stating that he isn't sure that he will see all his prophecies come true - calling himself 'merely the Baptist John', while simultaneously being the driving central force behind the cult, literally controlling the members' minds and how they move and how they eat and that eventually, they go to certain death with him. At first glance, what he offers is charity, but he also demands complete obedience in return. And like any extremist, he also starts cannibalising the cause and the people he's allegedly defending - which means that any zombie that steps out of line or allies with the humans or doesn't support the cult is a heretic. Those zombies that bought the zombie cures? They're heretics deserving of death, in his eyes. Filmore Graves soldiers are all deserving of death in his eyes.

As Angus, he talked about 'unlimited growth, unlimited wealth' - something that is impossible to accomplish on a planet of unlimited resources (especially if your product is human brains and your customers need to eat them to survive). This kind of attitude of rich people is what is destroying the planet right now. And because he wasn't really changed or cleansed or "purified" in the well, he simply becomes the harbinger of the apocalypse in a much more literal fashion:

He eventually ends up riding out on horseback, about to bring the end of the world because Blaine told him he had a vision that they were supposed to turn 'half the population of the earth zombie, keep the other half for food', meaning that one half is going to wind up being eaten, the other half is going to starve as Romero's. (no, seriously, they HAD to include a horse for this. Which...makes him either War (it's a red horse) or Death (and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the Earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the Earth.)

Now, I don't want to dissect all of this, because this is supposed to be the well-post, not the brother-love-cult post - but I think it is fair to summarise that all of the misconceptions and the entire horrible development of this cult and the symbolism around it make a lot more sense if you take them by their world - the well is hell. And hell is where their 'living water' (aka faith) came from.

Blaine & Loss of Personhood

I mentioned earlier that we were going to talk about Blaine losing himself. Which is another big feature of well-stories - drowning, becoming the well, forgetting who you are...) There is one myth I didn't talk about so far that might come to mind. For one, it doesn't feature a well, specifically, but rather just a body of water. Also, the title is very loaded and might raise wrong expectations regarding where I want to go with this entire post. And lastly, I really only wanted to get there after I explained a lot of my reasoning already, especially the conflation of identities we encounter around the well and Blaine's person.

I know this is a step back towards Greek mythology but let's take a moment to talk about Narcissus.

To get this out of the way with, Narcissus is obviously most famously the guy who loved himself so much that he fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water. And...honestly, a conversation can be had about Blaine's degree of self-obsession and arrogance etc. but ...that's really don't where I want to go with this.

Because while Narcissus is obviously mostly associated with the character trait we named after him - and even the medical condition of "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" - an obsessive love of self is by far not the only theme or interpretation of the Narcissus myth. Important themes also include a loss of self, a yearning for something that isn't real, the rejection of others and the doomed attempt at complete independence.

To give you a brief summary of the full Narcissus myth: When Narcissus was born, his mother asked a prophet (here we are again) whether her son would live a long life and the prophet - Tiresias - prophecies that he would live a long life unless he gets to know himself. Narcissus eventually grows up to be quite the handsome guy and is courted by many men and women including the nymph Echo, another very tragic figure in Greek mythology. Narcissus rejects all of them - usually very haughtily - and especially Echo, who had her life ruined by a curse courtesy of Hera (yeah, one of those stories) and thought she had found love and companionship with Narcissus, is absolutely heartbroken. Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, steps up for the humiliation Echo has suffered and curses Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection - which he does. Eventually, he just starves and withers away at that poolside, yearning for the elusive man in the water. (also, poor Echo has to watch all of that and eventually runs away into a cave to die there)

I mentioned some interpretations of this, other than the most famous one: For Narcissus to (rudely) reject all these proposals also meant a serious rejection and withdrawal from society at large. One interpretation of these rejections is a refusal of Narcissus to let anyone have power over him (Ledermann, R. (1988). Ovid’s Myth of Narcissus. British Journal of Psychotherapy) - There are different ways to translate Ovid here, but basically Narcissus says he'd rather die than give her what is his or let her have power over him (one translation being: ‘Away with these encircling hands! May I die before what’s mine is yours.') Narcissus rejects other people because being with someone means they have power over him and that thought terrifies him - he's scared of real intimacy. This makes even more sense when you know that Narcisuss is the product of his father's rape and abuse and imprisonment of his mother Liriope (another Blaine parallel).

Another big theme of the Narcissus myth is the longing for something unattainable to the point of delusion:

The feelings of familiarity that underpin recognition are often based on the perception of similarity. Ovid draws our attention to similarity when he shows us Narcissus struggling to come to terms with his love and its inaccessibility. All Narcissus can do is look and long, he cannot possess, and we see a mirroring of faces, arms, smiles, tears, and declarations of love: …Whenever I move to kiss The clear bright surface, his upturned face strains closer to mine. We all but touch! The paltriest barrier thwarts our pleasure. Come out to me here, whoever you are! Why keep eluding me, Peerless boy? When I seek you, where do you steal away? It can’t be my looks or my age which makes you want to avoid me; Even the nymphs have longed to possess me! Your looks of affection Offer a grain of hope. When my arms reach out to embrace you, You reach out too. I smile at you, and you smile at me back. I weep and your tears flow fast. You nod when I show my approval. When I read those exquisite lips, I can watch them gently repeating My words… Ov. Met. 3.451–62

TOMKINS, L. (2011). The Myth of Narcissus: Ovid and the Problem of Subjectivity in Psychology. Greece and Rome, 58(02), 224–239.

Narcissus longs for something he can never have. Whether it is his arrogance or a fear of intimacy and dependency, it does make Narcissus unable to experience the same kind of love and relationships other people can have. He clearly yearns for these things, but he can never have them (unless he were to make some real changes to his personality and priorities). As is, he can only look in from the outside - both on the kind of lives and intimacy that other people have as well as on his own reflection that he falls in love with. And even bigger than that: He falls in love with something that isn't real. While he does eventually come to realise his mistake and understands that it was his own reflection that he fell in love with, he originally thought that there was a real person, a real lover, real intimacy waiting for him, just separated from him by the surface of the water.

Another interpretation - one that I consider particularly important here - is the theme of loss of identity. On the one hand, Narcissus is obsessed with himself. He's in love with his reflection. But he also fundamentally neglects himself as a person. He loses himself. He is so preoccupied with the yearning for something that isn't real and dreaming of something that he cannot have that he literally starves to death and withers away. Even that what we most closely associate with Narcissus - his beauty - is gone in the end: "He no longer retains his colour, the white mingled with red, no longer has life and strength, and that form so pleasing to look at, nor has he that body which Echo loved."

And here's another very big hypothesis for his little essay:

Blaine also loses himself

(and it has a lot to do with his commitment to the well)

Blaine loses himself and his humanity. It's his arch that spans the entire show. It's a central part of his character development.

I noticed a lot of people saying that while they loved Blaine in previous seasons or 'loved to hate him' - they really lost all patience with him by season 5. That they could no longer muster up any sympathy and just found him detestable and insufferable at this point.

But the question still remains ... what changed so much about him that people feel that way? Because Blaine was literally always a horrible person, from the moment we meet him. Literally in the first two episodes we find out that he's manipulative, murderous, and he's willing to risk the zombie apocalypse for some quick profit - basically rendering all the sacrifices that Liv made to contain the disease ineffective. We learn that he uses sex to spread the virus intentionally, that he kills children and ruins lives left and right. In fact, season 1 Blaine seems particularly awful. But he was always a fan favourite.

People love Blaine, because aside from being an absolute monster, he was a fully-fledged person with many complexities and idiosyncrasies - especially from the beginning of season 2 onwards. We know about his backstory, his weaknesses, his personal flaws and feelings.

For example, we know that Blaine really likes the arts and music and sophisticated things. It's part of his characterisation as a hedonist, one of the traits that his father hates so much about him because it overrules his ambition. It only positions Blaine as an opposite to Liv, who was too busy to care much about art and music when she was alive - but when she died, she was forced to take a step back from her ambitions and this, in turn, taught her to enjoy life a little more and actually take in the world around her. She actually starts to liv(e) Liv Mo(o)re after she died. Her ambition didn't let her live her life - in fact, she wasn't even living her own life, she was following the dreams of her mother.

Meanwhile, this is one of the first deaths we see the original Blaine die: He only becomes ambitious after he becomes a zombie/dies. And while we know that he already did a lot of horrible and manipulative stuff in the past, he only gets worse after his 'death'./undeath?

But we also begin to learn other things about him like him being incredibly invested in music to the point of impracticality (leading to him being overly trusting with Lowell.) And this is especially interesting because it gives us a first insight into his youth:

I feel like the information we get from this is underrated because we learn quite a few things:

For one, we can at this point already make an educated guess that Blaine's childhood and/or youth was not a particularly happy one. He's not just saying that he liked Nirvana as a kid or even loved them - he's saying they were like a soundtrack to his youth. Nirvana gets deep into themes like mental illness, isolation, alienation, disillusionment, trauma, rebellion, homelessness, neglect etc. And while you don't need to have experienced these things to relate to Nirvana's music, we do happen to know (or learn later in the show) that many of these things are quite familiar to Blaine so it makes sense why he would specifically describe it as a soundtrack to his youth.

Additionally, we have Blaine stating that his childhood ended with Kurt Cobain's death. Obviously, even if everything is alright with a kid's life otherwise, the death of a star they looked up to (especially in such a horrible fashion) can be a traumatising event. But someone identifying it as the end of their childhood even 20 years later means ... this was really the last load-bearing pillar of something breaking away. It also tells us that something fundamentally changed in Blaine after that event. That he became a different person than he was before. Obviously, there are some positive interpretations to someone saying that their 'childhood ended' - if there is a focus on growing up and if this happens later rather than earlier, it is even an urgent thing, when someone finally grows. It means that someone has more freedom and more choices and is mature to start shaping and designing their own life. But it's pretty clear that this is meant in a negative sense. Growing up and becoming an adult also comes with a lot of sad truths - it means giving up a lot of illusions about he world, about goodness and fairness and hope and certainty. And whatever amount of these childhood notions Blaine had maintained up to this point died with Kurt Cobain. He took one step closer to the adult that we know he eventually would become: Someone who is very cold and callous and cynical and uncaring.

The rest of this statement also puts this into perspective: We learn here that Blaine - as a child - had friends. And not just that, apparently friends who considered him a source of comfort, someone they can share their pain with and not...expect the kind of dickishness that we associate with adult Blaine who would probably mock a person for being sad about something like this. In fact, we're talking about a person for whom the final culmination of their entire life story arc was him betraying his only friend and that friend telling him that 'no one could ever love you' and 'I was the only one who could even stand you'. That's adult Blaine. That's who he turned into. Meanwhile, as a child, there were people who loved him. Not just his friends but also his grandfather. I think that this is very important: As a child, Blaine is implied to have had a certain capacity to care for others and he was someone who was approachable and reliable and good enough to actually be friends with or to love. This is one first aspect of his identity that Blaine eventually sacrifices in order to be safe from pain like the death of his idol - and to be able to hurt people left and right if it means an advantage for him. (Which is basically adopting one of his father's values.) While there are people who care about Blaine and maybe even love him - there is usually only so much of real emotional intimacy that he's able or willing to give back. You have Jackie who forgave him for turning her into a zombie and even sided with him when his two henchmen wanted to usurp him and offered her cheaper brains - she was definitely loyal, but he still killed her. There was Peyton, who actually respected him because he was the only one in the city who was willing to stand up to Mr Boss - for all the wrong reasons obviously - but he still couldn't love her enough to be honest with her or to put her agency and wishes first (and I think it really shows the progress of Blaine losing even more of his humanity when he loses the basic decency of wanting to be with her on a consensual basis and of leaving her alone after she left him. (That is another stage of his undoing: Blaine's relationship with Peyton was barely consensual to begin with, it is happening under a pretence - but that pretence is for his benefit as well as hers. Back then, he still convinced himself he could have a relationship and a genuine connection to a human being. In the end, he doesn't even care about the pretence anymore)

I think another relevant example is Blaine's grandfather. His grandfather was one of the few ties Blaine actually had to the rest of humanity: When he was a child, his grandfather was one of the few people who actually loved him. We know the great impact his grandfather had on him because of how much he shaped the more human sides of Blaine (and that Blaine is aware of this). In the hospice scene, Blaine specifically calls attention to this: He points out his grandfather passed on his love for music to him. There are also small things like the Dutch paintings in the hospice room while Blaine is frequently associated with Dutch art (in his basement office, in his mansion later). Even Blaine's love for his grandfather itself is a result of that: Blaine's grandfather genuinely seemed to have cared about his grandson and loved him (something that Blaine even quite viciously snarls at his father at the beginning of season 2, when Angus just seems confused about his father 'babying' Blaine). In turn, Blaine - who seems to hold quite a bit of resentment for pretty much everyone and only maintains relationships that benefit him and always puts himself first, just like he learnt from his father - actually cares quite selflessly about his grandfather. He seems to pay for his hospice care and visit him regularly, There are books there implying that he reads to him, he plays music for him, even kisses him on the forehead. By killing his grandfather, Blaine also killed an important part of who he is as a person - the part of him that is a person. A part of him that is genuinely good and has the capacity to love other people in a selfless and authentic way. And the big question is - why did he kill his grandfather? - to get back at his father, the worst part of him. Basically, the murder of Blaine's grandfather in favour of revenge against his father is the start of a development: Blaine made the ultimate choice against breaking the cycle, against ever freeing himself. This is his Hamlet stabbing Polonius - by infecting his father, he turned from a passive to an active player in his family tragedy, and now, the tragedy is beginning to escalate. This becomes even more evident considering the immediate futility of it as he finds out that he cannot feed his father his grandfather's brain because, in the meantime, Angus was abducted by the Chaos Killer.

(I have officially run out of characters, continuation here (x)

[bookwyrm35]

I've seen a bunch of theories circling about what makes a person's Talents stronger so here's a compilation/my two cents on the subject.

1. The closer you've been with death, the better you can sense it. The first example that comes to mind in A. J. Lockwood himself. Orphaned at age six, his sister murdered three years later, and his uncle passing after a stroke somewhere along the way, Lockwood's life has been filled with death and maybe that's why he's able to see it so clearly. Lucy Carlyle, the greatest Listener since Marisa Fittes, has also had her fair share of nearness to violent ends. Her entire team from Jacob's was killed by that ghost and even if she doesn't dwell on it in the books, she carries their deaths with her forever.

A counter point to this theory is the fact that it implies your Talent gets stronger as you have more experiences with death, which isn't something we really see as the books go on. Lucy mentions after she (spoilers!) leaves that she feels she's getting stronger and more confident in her Listening abilities, but she hasn't had any brushes with death in that time.

If it's true though it does make me wonder what kind of life Marrisa had before the Problem that made her gifted enough to hear Ezekiel...

2. When you meet your soul mate, your Talent gets stronger. I remeber this being illustrated with Locklyle by saying that Lockwood seems surprised at the brightness of Mr. Hope's death glow in 62 Sheen Road. Despite knowing the abruptness of his end, Lockwood didn't think the death glow would be bright enough to warrant bringing his sun glasses. Lucy likewise seems to be surprised by the clarity of what she hears and the impressions that come when she connects to Annabel Ward's ghost, making me think that this is a new development.

It's a bit of a romantic spin on a gift that's only good for dealing with the dead, but in this fandom something like that is inevitable.

The counter point again stems from Lucy's resigning from Lockwood and Co. but this time it's a bit more complicated. Yes, she is physically far from Lockwood during this time, but it's only because she cares for him that she left. This is an entirely different tangent that I might get into later, but I truly believe her leaving was an ultimate symbol of love in her (subconscious) mind.

3. Talent in simply tied to your physical senses. I personally like this theory the best because I see a lot of evidence for it. Lockwood had good Sight because he's got good sight. If you read carefully you'll notice he's usually the one who tunes in to visual things first. He'll see someone coming to answer the door, detect movement from far away before the others do, and spot clues that have led them to sources many times. There's not as much on this for Lucy but I think that might just be due to the fact that she's the one narrating. The others don't hear what she does but she doesn't realize it. George, as we know from the scene when they're trying to get information from Carver before he dies, has very bad hearing. (that or he just has a hard time focusing on soft sounds when he's stressed. Which is valid, but really George? Bogeys?) While we're talking about George though, it's a good time to bring up that they never mention his Talent in Sight because, if this theory is correct, he's as blind to ghosts as he is to everything else with his glasses off. It's also worth noting I think that ghosts are best seen in the corner of your eye, an obvious blind spot to any glasses wearer.

It also explains (in my mind at least) why Touch isn't as talked about as the other senses. It's hard to gauge how physically sensitive you are, so I'd wager it'd be the same for the psychical side.

4. Strength in Talent is genetic. This one has the least going for it in my opinion. We know that some of Lucy's sisters and her mother had Talent when they were young, but it was barely enough to qualify them for Night Watch. We don't know much about the abilities of Lockwood or George's family, but I feel like we would have gotten some snippet of information if they were.

5. It's random, there's no rhyme or reason, and I spent way too much time thinking about this 🙂.

Thoughts anyone?

[nerdnag]

Claude von Riegan: ENTP

“No matter how hard you look, you won’t see what I’m scheming.”

Described by both himself and others as a schemer, Claude is an energetic and highly motivated trickster who loves to test people’s limits, yet recognizes when it’s time to take a step back and apologize. In short, he ticks all the boxes for ENTP.

Full analysis under the cut!

DISCLAIMER: MBTI is not a scientific tool and should not be abused as one. My analysis is of a fictional character for fun only. Also: This analysis is just my own view and opinion, and I’d be really interested to hear other perspectives on the character!

DOMINANT: EXTRAVERTED INTUITION (Ne)

“Um, naturally, I have no immediate plans for this stuff! I suppose I just felt like broadening the ol’ horizons a bit. When devising schemes, it’s best to have as many options at your disposal as possible. Expanding those options is kind of a hobby for me.”

The ENTP thrives on different ideas and connections between them and will keep generating new ideas as long as there are plausible links between them. This is vividly clear in the quote above, but there are plenty more examples. Claude has a fascination for all kinds of mysteries and wants to solve them: He also tends to go off tangents in different directions: "By the way, they’ve discovered a new kind of poison mushroom. When you eat it, your body exudes a mysterious steam! Um, or so I hear…"

Dominant Ne also shows in his brilliant scheming abilities. He’s able to brainstorm various alternatives for how to tackle a problem, and can quickly come up with a new plan if the initial one fails. His intuition further helps him to pick up details and draw conclusions from them: “Never discount a wild hunch. Sometimes they're closer to the truth than you'd think.”

Furthermore, Claude enjoys debates and discussing his beliefs with others—even having those beliefs challenged. He never says no to input from others, which only broadens his horizons. This is also in line with Dominant Ne’s tendency to be open-minded. “Say... Mind if I pick your brain? What would you do in my shoes?”

He’s also good at keeping multiple ideas and plans in his mind at the same time, and at planning even for failure, as shown by Hubert’s comments after chapter 14 of Verdant Wind: “Ordinary fools run headlong into combat, without even considering the possibility of defeat. But to consider one's chances, and to prepare for plans to go awry—that takes real intelligence.”

He tends to come up with and use unconventional strategies, such as partnering up with the Almyrans—which many people in Fódlan see as ‘the enemy’—or developing poisons that don’t come into effect until two days after ingestion, so that the effect can be carefully planned to occur at the right time. According to himself, however, he can lose himself in his own mind at times: “Bah! I almost disappeared into the bottomless swamp that is my mind.”

AUXILIARY: INTROVERTED THINKING (Ti)

“Somehow I can't seem to stop thinking about you. It's almost like a crush. I have a crush on your secrets, sweet Flayn!”

The ENTP wants to understand things in a logical manner - and not for anyone else’s sake, only for their own. It doesn’t matter if the conclusion is in line with the general opinion, it just has to make sense for the ENTP. The ENTP creates their own legal system.

In several of his support conversations, he’s asking questions and listening intently to the other person’s responses, wanting to absorb their ideas and make connections between them on his own. His C Support with Ignatz starts with Claude simply watching Ignatz in silence, then when Ignatz notices and says he was thinking about the goddess, Claude says, “Fascinating! Please, go on.” Another example is his C Support with Marianne, where she runs away when he asks where she was born (after she’s said she was adopted). He stands there alone, saying to himself, “She's hiding something, that much is clear. But that just makes me all the more desperate to know her secrets!“ 

In his B+ Support with Byleth, Claude brings up the question of whether gods exist. He starts out by talking about how he’s never really believed in a god, because you can only really rely on yourself: “You can't win a war by leaving your fate in the hands of a god. Only tangible facts can really decide a war.” He then goes into a monologue about how there are facts that seem to weigh in favor of fate and maybe even some kind of god after all. It’s clear to me that he’s reasoning with himself about what to believe based on a collection of various different things (i.e., based on what Ne has given him).

In Claude’s C Support with Ignatz, Ignatz mentions how stories about the goddess always glorify her, at which Claude immediately suggests an explanation for it: “They probably hope to rake in more followers by glorifying the goddess as much as possible. That would be why the church tends to quietly shove all of their more questionable records under some secret rug somewhere.” This is Ne and Ti in action - not only does his brain instantly come up with a connection, it also leans heavily into his own personal logic (as mentioned in the previous paragraph).

It’s also important for him to confirm facts for himself rather than simply trusting another’s word for it: “Legends about the saints abound. It's hard to tell fact from fiction. I like to confirm whatever I can, with my own eyes, to find the truth in those legends.”

TERTIARY: EXTRAVERTED FEELING (Fe)

"I hope you don't feel like I used you… because I sort of used you."

After taking in all the different perspectives, details and facts with Ne, the ENTP runs it through their logic filter (Ti), then checks it against their empathy (Fe). This is how they understand other people. In Claude’s A Support with Hilda, he accuses her of fake-crying to make people think she’s a delicate flower. He confesses he realized it’s fake because his eyes often wander in her direction, and Hilda herself says that maybe it’s because he’s not so different himself, because he’s always fake-smiling. This, to me, shows that Claude analyzed what he saw Hilda do and compared it to himself in order to come to a conclusion.

The ENTP also tends to have somewhat of an interest in drawing emotional reactions out of people - possibly because they like analyzing people. This is prominent in Claude’s support conversations with Lysithea. He knows she is scared of ghosts and often uses that to make her tick. He also knows she hates being treated like a child, and… Well. “Still studying, are we? Isn't it past your bedtime? If you don't get your sleep, you're never going to grow big and strong! Now, come along, princess. Brush your teeth and get yourself ready for bed. I could read you a story, if that helps?”

But Fe also wants harmony, and in the end, the ENTP doesn’t really want to hurt other people or go too far. Remember what I wrote in the Ti portion about Claude’s C Support with Marianne, and how he wanted to figure her out? Well, that was his immediate impulse, but in the B Support, he apologizes to her: “Asking you about your family like that was pretty insensitive of me. No matter how curious I am, that's no way to treat someone. I'm sorry.” (After she’s said it’s alright, he promptly goes on to ask about her past again, however.) The Fe may not come easily to the ENTP, but it’s there - and for Claude, it’s clearly in the tertiary position.

I feel like I also have to mention the fact that the B+ Support with Byleth about gods (mentioned above under Ti) unlocks after… a certain special-someone to Byleth has died, making it seem like it’s Claude’s way of offering emotional support to Byleth by connecting it to his Ti: “Even in distant lands across the ocean or over the mountains… They have gods who see the world as a whole, who don't care about Fódlan's borders... Who don't meddle in our affairs. Who don't grant life or take it away. And maybe, sometimes, they'll make a miracle happen. A god like that... That's the sort of god I think I could believe in.”

INFERIOR: INTROVERTED SENSING (Si)

“If you let it rule you, Fódlan never changes. And if it doesn't change, it'll just fall apart.”

In many ways, Si is the opposite of Ne. Ne looks to future possibilities while Si looks to the past. However, the Si is part of where Claude’s ideals come from - his goal of uniting all of Fòdlan to begin with, and then the whole world. This goal stems from his upbringing and how he was always seen as an outsider: “Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been seen as…different from those around me. An outsider of sorts. I’ve been resented and hated.” He aims to destroy prejudice (and, as a result, people’s reasons to hate him) by ridding the world of boundaries; this is a kind of obsession for him that glimmers in the cracks of several of his support conversations, most noticeably those with Byleth.

Si can help Ne explore the future by learning from past experiences, and the ENTP tends to enjoy exploring historical meanings and implications: “This monastery is packed with a thousand years of history. (...) Those pillars, these walls, even the floor... They've all seen more than we can possibly imagine. Our distant ancestors may have walked these very halls. Doesn't that excite you?” We also see several examples where he dives into the history of Fódlan in order to understand the present and the future and make sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes as his predecessors. 

At the same time, Ne and Si can create an inner struggle between the past and the present, where the ENTP is in a tug-of-war between wanting to respect history and tradition, and changing things for the potential of a better future. One example of this can be seen in his B Support with Hilda in Three Hopes: “Is my way really the right path forward? It feels like I'm rejecting everything Leicester used to be up until now. Like I'm tearing something important away from the people who need it most.” Then in their A Support, he acknowledges that they don’t need to change *everything*, just the important parts: “[W]e've taken the Alliance in a brand new direction (...). Of course, not everything has to change, but the things that do need to get decided soon.”

Conclusion

ENTP is the MB type that makes the most sense for Claude in my opinion, seeing how he’s practically a machine gun of ideas and enjoys scheming and working things out for himself - with his feet still standing on a practical ground. Possibly he could also be an ENFP, which is a type I considered for him while writing this analysis; an argument could be made that his strong ideals indicate auxiliary Fi. However, the internal logic of auxiliary Ti coupled with the sometimes clumsy emotional intelligence of tertiary Fe seems more accurate to me in the end. 

Curious to hear what you think - and which character you’d most like to read about next!

[golbrocklovely]

What happened yesterday (if it's not too personal to ask)? Not trying to be nosy or anything, just offering a sympathetic ear - or eyes, I guess- for venting.

i'll share a little bit just bc i need to talk to someone that isn't my family (since they're the story).

and by a little i guess i mean the entire thing lol

this is sincerely, extremely long. i don't really expect you to write anything back - especially with how much shit happens in this story. but thanks for lending your ear. i honestly needed to talk this out.

my mom has chronic pain, on top of heart problems, anxiety, and needing sleeping pills. her primary doctor is out for a month or so, so they had someone else fill in. this guy is a complete and utter dickbag. first off, he doesn't "believe" in anxiety medications and argued with my mom about whether or not she even needs to take them. and then he said that he wanted to wane her off of them slowly bc he doesn't want her on them.

mind you, he is only filling in for her primary doctor.

so he was supposed to fill the scripts on tuesday. she calls, he never sent them to her pharmacy, but said "oh by friday you'll get them." mind you, she was already out of her medicine by tuesday.

my mom, for a couple months now, has been taking advil pms when shit like this happens (usually bc the pharmacy has fucked up tho bc her actual primary doctor is a really good one) bc they somewhat help her sleep (and don't really do anything for her pain, but that's not surprising). for the past couple days, she has been anxious as hell, ready to fly off the wagon at any second, and hasn't been getting much sleep.

she also is disabled, so her ability to walk is very small. she's can't walk far and usually at night falls a lot bc her balance isn't fantastic at night, especially after just waking up.

friday morning, around 4 am, i heard a loud bang come from her room. i heard her door open first and then the bang, so i thought at first maybe the dogs had to go out since they sleep in her room, and then she just accidentally fell or knocked something over.

both me and my brother found her, and she was completely out of it. she didn't know who we were, who she was, what the dogs' name were, and she was riving in pain. we thought we would have to call 911. miraculously, she snapped back to reality. or at least somewhat. we have now chalked this up to her most likely sleep walking (which is something she's never done).

but the rest of the day was not good. first off, from wednesday - friday around 12 pm, my mom had maybe slept collectively 10 hours, if that. that's being extremely generous on my end. after everything that happened at 4-5am on friday, i stayed with her until 6ish and then went back to sleep. i woke up to my brother yelling at her bc it was 12 and she had not slept. he was telling her that we needed to take her to the hospital.

and it was like that the whole day until 4 pm.

not only was she just not sleeping, we believe now that she took too many advil pms (bc of how exhausted she was) and it snapped something in her brain. that piled on top of her anxiety, her chronic pain, her breathing (which is also an issue) being bad for a couple weeks now, and about a million other things on her mind caused this break to happen. this was all keeping her awake. bc when she spoke, she wasn't making complete sense. like she could hold a conversation, she wasn't slurring her words, but she would go on tangents and loop back to certain talking points, regardless of what we were talking about.

like my mom was on oxy for a long time. didn't abuse it, but around the time of my father getting sicker, her doctors were taking her off of it after having her on such a high dose. but that was four years ago, and she was bringing it up yesterday. she kept talking about how it was an addiction and that she doesn't even believe she was actually in pain, she was just addicted to the pills. she also talked really badly about herself, which i won't get into.

now i need anyone reading this to understand: my mom is not an addict. she was prescribed pills that she never abused for 20 years. she has chronic pain, and will have chronic pain the rest of her life. i've seen her fall to the ground from pain, i've heard her cry out in the middle of the night. she's not making it up. there are way too many times i have seen her cry after going to doctors begging to not be on pills anymore bc they weren't working anymore. she doesn't want to live this way, but this is just reality. i have seen the way she has been abused by doctors that don't care, have no time for her, and just see her as an addict bc she was on oxy for so long. anytime she has mentioned about wanting something for pain, they act as if she's begging for pills bc she's a druggie. SHE PHYSICALLY CANNOT WALK FAR BUT THEY THINK SHE IS DOING THIS ALL FOR PILLS. she got discharged from a hospital years go after falling down the fucking stairs bc they saw she was taking oxy and just thought she was a druggie when in reality it was a combo of some medication that was doing it to her - which she was PRESCRIBED. she had a doctor that was giving her shots in her back (which is another thing that has been damaged in her body) that said to her "if i was you with all this pain and taking all these pills, i would have just killed myself. why do you stick around?"

but for some reason yesterday, all of her insecurities and all of the shittiest things my mom has been told over the years came to the surface and she fully believed them. it wasn't just about the pills either, it was about herself and her personal worth too.

and on top of all of that, she just wouldn't go to sleep. and she couldn't tell how much time had passed. she would lay down for not even five minutes, shoot right back up, and think hours had gone by. that's why we were ready to take her to the hospital if she couldn't sleep.

but finally at 4 pm, she went to sleep. and slept until midnight. she barely moved the whole night and we kept checking on her to make sure she was breathing. my brother fell asleep around 10ish, i woke her up at 12, and we talked for a bit. she didn't really remember what had happened friday.

which brings us into today. she's a lot more coherent. but her frame of reference is completely off. the things she did on tuesday she thinks of as a week ago. she doesn't remember talking to certain ppl on the phone that she did on wednesday, she feels like everything we tell her that happened yesterday happened in a dream. we'll ask her what she remembers, she doesn't know much, but when we tell her certain things she goes "oh yeah i remember that". she's not completely better, but she's way more coherent than yesterday.

me and my brother have no clue what happened. we don't know if it was a psychic break, psychosis, withdrawals from her medicines, taking too many advil pms without realizing it, lack of sleep, delirium, the starting signs of dementia, everything and then some - we're not sure. we're keeping an eye on her, and if anything seems worse, we're taking her to the hospital. but so far it feels like things are okay.

just bc this is something else i want to say - not too long ago they had her on xanax. which mind you, for someone her age, basically melts your fucking brain and liver. and for a while there when she was taking them, she was somewhat like this until she finally got this primary doctor who took her off of them bc she knew better than the psychologist or whoever that prescribing them to her. and also, in case anyone reading this is curious as to why we didn't just take her to the hospital: first off, she didn't want to go, and we would rather not take an ambulance which won't take her to the hospital she likes and then on top of that is $1000+ we don't really have to spend. second, we are not doing the best financially so the fewer hospital visits the better. third, we know that bc it was about to be the weekend, unless she was literally dying, all they would do is put her in a room and not do anything to help her until monday bc that's happened before.

if you're wondering how i'm feeling: i'm completely drained. i more defeated than anything else. i hate situations where i feel completely helpless in, and this was and continues to be one of them. i just want my mom back. i want her to be okay, and i'm so tired of her having to go thru shit like this with her fucking doctors. do they not realize they are taking her life in their hands when they act this way?? my brother is about ready to kill this guy, and i mean that very seriously. bc this asshole doesn't """""believe""""" in a medicine my mom takes, he almost fucking broke her brain. and i pray that this is just a fluke and not a permanent problem. bc if it is, i'm taking every single dime this man owns, and i mean it.

i just want things to go back to normal. to even 48 hours ago at this point. things were okay. or at least a certain stress level i'm used to. but the idea of losing my mom rn… i won't be able to manage it.

it really is always one step forward and 12 steps back.

[hapigairu]

It's astounding to me how cherry-blossom-inferno runs around trying to bash Dimitri to blatant Dimitri fans while warping literally all scenes involving him. There was one where they said he was JEALOUS of Edelgard's reforms, which was a negative twisting of his words that bathes their beloved Edelgard in a positive beaming light... when all he said was he can admire the changes the Empire was going through because of how rapidly they could accept the change (in comparison to Faerghus that struggles more to adapt very quickly, but stability BaD so we need chaotic war, rapid and forced change only, GooD). He never said he was jealous and no other character did, but they intentionally put an Edelgard-positive spin on it by using a more negative word than the ACTUAL word Dimitri used.

Now the narrative "kinda humiliates" him? Actually no, the game has to find a way to follow its own mechanics depending on whether or not you used a certain battle strategy. Every single time they randomly attack a Dimitri fan (for absolutely no reason, mind you, seeing as they clearly do not like him. But then, I guess that IS the reason. They just want to hunt down every Dimitri fan they can find and Teach Them A Lesson In Edelgard Bias), they twist everything possible to paint Dimitri in a bad light. I guess they just really feel better puffing their chest by saying "Dimitri BaD and I can't prove that unless I twist words in the actual games to make him actually SOUND BaD!".

This person literally just exists for the sole purpose of harassing Dimitri fans and without the ability to do so would just dry up and die.

I mean, I totally get your frustration towards this kind of behaviour. As far as I understand, Edelstans have been twisting Dimitri's (and anyone who isn't head over heels over their waifu) words to put him in the worst of light for years now… In a way, I'm glad I haven't been active in the fandom until recently, because at least I was able to play the games without anyone souring my opinion on them with their wild takes and toxic behaviour.

And the idea that Dimitri is BaD because he doesn't want to implement rapid reforms will never fail to annoy me.

I'll go off on a tangent here (ish), but bear with me: Around 10,000 BCE, humans started to experiment with farming and agriculture in certain parts of the world first. Which ones? Well, where food was aplenty, meaning that if this farming/agriculture experiment were to fail, they could still hunt or gather food around. Of course, it didn't occur in the span of a few years, but it was still a radical change. And it wouldn't have been possible in places where food was more scarce. And Faerghus faces a somewhat similar problem in that they can't afford to take too many risks like the Empire can. The country is constantly at risk of famine, civil war, the works. If Dimitri makes a mistake, it's over for him (as shown with what happened to his father) and for too many of his subjects.

So of course he has to take a slow but safe approach. Do the Edelstans want him to throw caution to the wind and implement reforms that are not the priority for the people of Faerghus? (Well… if the Kingdom ends up in disarray, it'll be easy picking for the Empire who would then civilise these barbarians /s)

And it's not like we haven't a myriad of real-life examples of how hasty "revolutions" and annexations of countries were utter failures (mind you, I count impoverished and still not independent territories as failures as well, like Puerto Rico or French Guiana).

As for the narrative humiliating him… lol. Wow, Faerghus (a country with meagre resources to begin with) is struggling against the Alliance on the Eastern front after being spread thin due to being invaded from the West by the Empire and the North by Sreng, who would've thunk? And what does it say about Edelgard's army who got yeeted off Leicester in the span of a few battles in Part I and who can't seize Arianrhod because a Crestless general is too competent for her many canon fodders? Not to mention the Alliance was about to win the Gronder field battle until Almyra forced them to retreat. And Dimitri (Sylvain too ofc) caught Claude off guard several times, compelling him to find a way out through brute force. But Dimwitri dumb, Clod clever. Sure.

But that's kind of a problem with these games; there are too few setbacks so it always feels like your army is able to coast through battles with remarkable ease regardless of the route you've chosen.

Now, I've barely (if at all, really) interacted with cherry-blossom-inferno, so I don't know how often they waste their time reading posts about characters they clearly dislike.

But to play the devil's advocate a bit (because, as much as I find their reasoning bonkers, it'd be unfair of me to diss them after reading like… a handful of posts/comments from them without giving them the benefit of the doubt. Hey, look at me pulling a Dimitri "Enlightened Centrist" Alexandre Blaiddyd); maybe they're trying to have a discussion/ (not unhealthy) debate, but they have trouble conveying it? Like, I find it hard to express myself and can come across as blunt or rude sometimes, which is unfortunate for all parties involved. And at least (I know the bar is reaaaaaally low), they don't harass people off social media like a certain toxic pistachio as far as I'm aware? Please do correct me if I'm wrong though! Even as a complete outsider, I'm still angry for the people who got harassed, insulted, etc. by this guy who should know better.

Still, it's fair to be annoyed at cherry-blossom-inferno for butting in discussion just to pull some kind of Akshually.

Ultimately, it's sad that these people can't find better things to do than… this. If I spent half as much time "debating" like they do, I wouldn't have started to learn the flute or read this many books. The world sucks enough as it is, so why waste your time trying to make people feel bad about themselves for having certain tastes instead of doing literally anything else? Write, read, draw, run, make people laugh, play music, sing, help a charity, watch movies, play games, learn a new language… anything!

I really hope one day they'll realise how awful they can be and that they'll try to do better. Starting with apologising to all the people they hurt.

[classicintp]

I know this was posted months ago but it is a subject important to me and I try to never miss a chance to talk about it. For anyone wondering about this, when you sleep your brain consolidates all of your day's experiences into its different facets of long term memory. It's how you actively get better at tasks after you spend time practicing them, whether physical tasks or studying information, and it's why it is recommended to take a nap after an extended period of studying instead of cramming all night (and why cramming all night generally is detrimental rather than helpful). Now, going off on a relevant tangent:

Your dreams are the byproduct electrical activity of your brain having to access your different pools of memory during a state it otherwise wouldn't be accessing them. Have you ever wondered why even some of the most impactful or emotionally intense dreams you have tend to slip away half an hour or so after you wake up? Your brain doesn't want to confuse the experiences you have while conscious to the runoff stimuli it inadvertantly creates during its memory consolidation process. When you're unconscious, your brain isn't responding to stimuli in a way that you normally do in order to write those experiences into memory, and the result is not remembering your dreams, or forgetting them shortly after waking. Waking up feeling rested but not remembering your dreams or forgetting them pretty soon after waking is generally considered a sign of healthy sleeping.

Of course just like with anything else there are going to be outliers and exceptions; if you wake up feeling good and rested and remember every moment of your dreams it isn't particularly bad but it's not the common experience. You can train yourself to remember your dreams or hold on to them longer without it impacting your health, and there are certain drugs and anesthesias that suppress dreaming and the result isn't positive (not remembering your dreams is different from not having them at all even if the experience feels the same). In general though, intense vivid dreams that you do not forget is a sign you are not sleeping well, and that can be detrimental in very many ways. It can be caused by persistent stress, insomnia, physical illness, or even just sleeping in a bright or noisy room. My problem was sleep apnea, where you stop breathing while asleep due to obstruction in your airway whether from your tongue, inflammed tonsils, or just the relaxing of your throat muscles.

Something I have found as a very common experience from people who are not sleeping well and dreaming vividly because of it is the prophetic dream claim, where an extra intense bout of recognition like an extreme version of deja vu hits and they genuinely feel like they are moment-for-moment re-experiencing a dream they had the night before or sometime in the past. Now let me be clear, that is not me giving you my opinion or beliefs of whether people can or cannot have prophetic dreams. What I am saying though is if you know someone who has claimed to have prophetic dreams but they only seem to happen randomly in short bursts, they can never really harness their ability to predict anything other than maybe a high odds guess (50/50 coin flip, which of the three cups a ball is in)? They're not lying to you, they are genuinely experiencing something they can't explain and are just as frustrated they can't use it to their benefit, they also likely haven't gotten good rest in so long they have forgotten what that feels like, and will chock their incredibly sleepy mornings and sluggish days up to just getting old. Being able to fall asleep without struggle and waking up not having remembered tossing and turning does not mean you're sleeping well.

Deja vu is the sudden feeling you've experienced the current situation you're in. It's a glitch of recognition whereas stimulation of one of your senses matches or is similar to stimulation you've experienced before, so your brain sends the appropriate signals of successful memory recall while failing to actually locate the memory. Every feeling and sensation you have is the result of hormones and neurotransmitters being released, binding to specific receptors, being neutralized, or having been taken back up, including the different feelings of recognition. When a physical stimulus matches to stimulus you've experienced in the past and you recall the memory, your brain releases the neurotransmitters responsible for your feeling of successfully remembering. When you recognize something or someone but fail to recall the memory, you're left with the tip-of-your-tongue frustration and you don't get the neurotransmitter signals responsible for that feeling of remembering. Deja vu happens when the neurotransmitters are released as if a memory was successfully recalled, and yet no memory was recalled at all, you're left with the feeling that you recognize the situation you're currently experiencing as a past experience.

Anyone can experience deja vu but most people notice they will experience it more frequently after several days or weeks of little or rough sleep; your brain starts to more heavily rely on its ability to autopilot recurring tasks to save energy and that includes involuntary processes you generally don't actively drive, like the processes required in remembering similar sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and feelings. Instead of waiting for successful recall, your brain will pre-empt the signal having full confidence the memory is going to be recalled because why wouldn't it? But then no memory is recalled at all, and you're left with the feeling that you have successfully remembered a past memory of everything currently happening in front of you.

so last night i was struggling with a difficult section in a game, and when i woke up this morning i got it on my first try. this reminded me of a documentary i saw as a kid about how mice have maze-exploration brain activity in their dreams after a maze task, and have better performance after, so dreaming is maybe "practice" of daily activities.

anyway, i mention this because i noticed myself conceiving of this sleep-skill-benefit as a "mouse ability", and feeling gratitude towards Mouse (the abstract spirit of mice) for granting me this boon. this is the gator's aid all over again

[ghostlyturtlewhispers]

I have written this post so many times and have scrapped each one because I kept going off onto random tangents. I'm going to just make the point clear at the top and then go into detail under a read more line just so I can get it straight because I am irritated and want to just vent for a good portion of time.

Ok so point: A coworker yelled at me for not picking up their calls to my personal phone while at work. They had an extra cart they had to work and I am assuming they wanted my help but do the the poor reception in the building I never received the calls. They yelled at me while on the floor in the area I was working where customers and others could hear rather than respectfully taking me to the side in the back and let me know that they were frustrated. Case in point they really shouldn't have been trying to call me on my phone like that in the first place, but I digress it honestly wasn't a massive problem to me that they call every now and again since the building is as big as it is and we aren't able to have walkies or anything since we aren't actually that important in the eyes of the company. Usually she doesn't call. However I told my mom that she yelled at me just so that I can give her the story that happened to me today that was unusual. I forgot that my mom is very protective of her children aka me and I also forgot that she has manager experience and would use that to yell at me for not standing up for myself and going to a manger. Now in this situation I didn't think that this was necessary just because of the nature as to my coworker, typically they don't go off like that and I just took it as they are having a hard time at work because let me tell you it has been stressful. If they try to go at me again in the same manner I will bring it up but otherwise I will leave it as so. I'm not upset entirely about the coworker situation but more as to how my mother handled me telling her the story.

Ok as for the rest of it. I will start where my mother had irritated me because that's really what annoyed me and then I will speak about the situation with the coworker.

My mother was a manger for years and honestly she was a really great manager. Thing about that is she doesn't have the ability to turn it off. There is also the fact that she is very strong in her values and how she sees things and will not stand for disrespect. What my coworker did was not only against what every manager does but also disrespectful towards my own integrity. My mother looked at her yelling as a challenge to see if I would push back and be the bigger fish or not. Now this coworker has a knack for being a dictator, they like to act like they are in charge even though they are not. I, however, don't follow their reign if I don't wish to. I am an independent body who does her own job the way that I feel like I should, if it matched with how you think it should then great, if not well that's your problem.

I tried to explain that this was the first they had ever yelled at me and honestly I thought it was just because they were having a difficult time with the job in general since we've literally been so busy and such. My mother took that as a valid deal but would not let go the fact that they should have acted more of a manger than that if they really wanted to act like they was in charge. Thing about being a manger is that if you are not taught then you don't know. This person wasn't taught, I grew up with everyone being a manger so I already had it built in to how a manger should act(perhaps that is why I do my own thing for the most part and don't just listen to people, because I know what managers do and I don't give out respect that isn't earned? Who knows) but do to this fact of growing up with management I know how to remain calm in situations where people are yelling and choose to ignore if possible. There just is no point in fighting a battle that will only make things worse if challenged.

This coworker felt ignored and instead of thinking clearly they let their ego and need to be perfect get the better of them. In their mind I had challenged what authority they thought they had and so naturally they would lash out. Do I think they did it on purpose, not really. I just think they couldn't handle it. I did nothing wrong and therefore I took no interest in fighting back, I was not in the wrong for not answering the nonexistent phone calls. If they were to go to a manger and complain there is no ground to stand on to discipline me in the slightest.

I have gone to management before with problems and usually that is when things blow up in my face, therefore I try to either avoid the issue entirely or I work through it the best I can. Management is the last and final step which usually is followed by my leaving entirely. The way I see it(which my come off as egotistical and narcissistic) is that my departure is their loss. The skills I learn and talent that I carry to do my job usually transfers to other jobs and no one is stupid enough to do as I do. It is almost like Deadpool vs Taskmaster. Taskmaster will not copy my moves because they at the expense of ones self. Most management doesn't actually know how to deal with employees fighting, especially if they are in the same area/rank. The talk isn't usually going to be effective, all that will happen is a feud is going to erupt between the two coworkers and soon the whole department will pick a side and kick the outsider out.

For me in this case, I would be the outsider as I don't suck up to anyone and so it would be as if I was never there in the first place. Managers forget this type of thing when they try to fix the problem and my mother is no exception to the rule. She wants her children to be vicious and protect themselves at any given chance, she fails to think of things with calculations when she feels that someone has harmed her. I on the other hand am very calculative and will already work on outcomes for the situations that come. I calculate before I act.

Me going to her to tell her the story was not to get advice of what to do, it was not to do anything more than talk to get it off my chest and vent out how annoying it was. The outcome was an argument had occurred in our kitchen that irritated both of us. Her because she felt that I was acting her knowledge and wisdom and me because she refuse to listen to me clarifying what I had written above as well as some details she was not understanding.

When I speak it doesn't always mean I want a result, sometimes it is literally just to speak.

[jerricocreates]

Looking around, I'm seeing a few places that say the 5e Monk is kind of weak. Having played one for over a year now, I can say that without a homebrew subclass and magic items, I would not be having as much fun. In general, I think a class can be a bit underpowered and be offset by magic items. That said, what is the Monk's problem and how does one fix it? Can it be fixed? Importantly, can it be fixed with a few small tweaks, or does it need some massive overhaul? More contentious than you might think.

In general, I'm seeing problems pointed at HP, AC, Ki, Damage Output, Stunning Strike, and even some levied at its selling point, bonus action economy. A big factor I've seen debated is what a Monk's role in the party even is. Some classes have multiple roles based on build, can the Monk? Determining that will shape how the changes are made. Let's think about that for a moment.

So, last I read, in whatever the new DnD rules are called now, they are sectioning off classes into some variation of damage, expert, mage, etc. I recall Bard, Rogue, and Ranger were all supposed to be skill experts of some sort, which means Monk is probably going to be lumped in with Fighter and Barbarian. There's a solid chance they've already changed that and are doing something completely different, but if they haven't, I think they are making a mistake. Lumping the classes together like that assumes that they can all fill the same role and will always fill that role. Yes, a Wizard and a Sorcerer can both be a party mage, but there's so many different builds for those two that they can both serve different purposes on a team.

Tangent aside, I've seen people struggling with the Monk's role in 5e. Most will agree the Monk is a damaging class. The Monk is meant to get in and deal damage on the front line. Is it a Frontliner? The Monk doesn't deal enough damage to stand up with the likes of a Fighter with a greataxe. Is it a Tank? The Monk doesn't have the AC and health pool to stand up as long as the Barbarian or Paladin (who can also wield a greataxe). I've seen a few ideas posited:

The Monk is a Skirmisher. Like a specialized surgical tool, a Monk gets into the thick of the fight, deals consist damage on a critical point, keeps up fleeing targets, and getting out when things get tough.

The Monk is Field Control. Monk is designed to get into the fight fast, move between enemies, put pressure on certain areas, and stun them in place so that everyone else can eliminate threats.

The Monk is the Problem Solver. This is my personal suggestion, but you ever see a team of any kind where there's a guy that just doesn't quite fit, but gets the stuff done that the others can't. While the rest of the team is on the front line, the Monk can get past and open the gate, take out the archer, signal for backup, etc. The Monk gets stuff done that makes sure the team can win.

These roles all rely on the Monk's speed, stunning strike, and ability to disengage. What's interesting is that it's not mutually exclusive. The Monk could do any of these roles depending on the party that they are in. If you're team has an archer, there's a solid chance you don't need a skirmisher. If your wizard already has field control covered, your Monk can focus on solving problems. That's without even getting into subclasses.

Now I'd like to lay out all of the problems I've seen people say they have with the Monk and whether I think they would be worthwhile or not.

Ability Scores: I think this is the most important issue that I'm not certain how to solve. I've seen people say that the Monk by itself is MAD (Multiple Ability Dependant). No matter what your Monk does, it is very reliant on both Dex and Wis for AC, damage, and saving throws. This is a problem for multiclassing, but also in general for a Monk with weak stats. I've seen it posted as a martial artist with a Str dump is strange, but it's mechanically justified. Also, this causes problems for

Armor Class: A Monk has unarmed defense using Dex and Wis. These two stats being high usually gives a Monk decent AC, but the Monk has 0 options for an alternatives. Most Monk abilities, for some reason, require being unaunarmed. A Barbarian's unarmored defense scales with Con which makes their amazing health even better and they can use a shield, but if they decide to wear regular armor, they only lose out on a 10ft speed boost. I'd recommend removing this aspect. This coincides with

Hit Points: A Monk has a d8 hit die. I've seen people recommend increasing it to a d10 to incentivize staying in the fight longer. I'm inclined to agree considering the Monk can't invest much in Con to bump their HP up.

Ki Points: I'll be honest, I had to beg my DM for an item to restore a bit of Ki mid-battle. I've seen comments that say early Monks don't have enough ki and late Monks don't have enough. Sorcery points are also per level, but Sorcerers have a different use case for their points and they interact with spell slots. In general, I think Monks need more Ki early game and a method of restoring Ki mid-battle that can't be abused. I've seen suggestions for a meditation feature that restores ki. A cool suggestion I've seen on reddit was that defensive abilities should restore ki while offensive ones spend ki. That would make for an interesting balance during the battle. However, I know a smart player is going to spam defend outside of battle to restore their points the first second they get.

Damage Output: A Monk's damage comes in the form of repeated small attacks. To put it into perspective, a basic 10th level Monk in 1 turn (Action and Bonus Action) can deal 4 unarmed strike that deal 1d6+Dex. Each strike has a chance to crit and can be stunning on a hit. Any other melee character at that level can deal 2 hits with upwards of 1d12+Str, but every single melee class has additional ways of dealing more damage (rage, divine smite), plus magic items. There are very few official magic items for Monk damage, but homebrew exists for a reason. It's in this way that I'd lump Monks in with Rogues, but even Rogues have sneak attack which would be 5d6 at 10th level and it doesn't even need to use a bonus action. While Monk was never meant to be a Frontliner, it's worth considering that the Monk's methods of dealing damage is a bit low compared to others. I've seen suggestions of spending ki for more damage and I've seen suggestions that instead of scaling the die (d4, d6, d8, d10) it should scale the number of die (1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6). I'm not certain on the best method.

Stunning Strike: Stunned is a potent condition in a player's hands. The ability to lock down an opponent is the Monk's bread and butter, but it's in a shaky territory. Let's do some 10th level perspective again. A Monk spends its action, bonus action, and 1 Ki point to strike 4 times. On a hit, they can spend 1 Ki to try and stun. The dream is to run in and stun four guys at once, costing you 5 ki, half your max at this point. Since the DC is based on Wis, and it's a Con save, you've actually got a very small chance of stunning a lot of stronger monsters who have very good Con. Even all attacks hit, if the dice don't like you that day, you run in and spend half your ki trying to stun one guy. I've seen suggestions that it should be free a number of times

Bonus Actions: Alright, hear me out. Monks have so many bonus action options. Most classes would kill for more bonus actions. My issues with Monk bonus actions are that they cost too much ki or aren't sustainable. In general I'd wager most Monks spend at least 1 Ki per round, but stunning brings that up to 2. It gets real expensive. There's a chance that giving Monks more ki doesn't actually solve the problem of overspending. Giving Monks some free options that are free might solve this problem. My second problem is actually with the Rogue's Cunning Action. In a lot of ways, the Monk and Rogue share a similar space on the board. Perspective time again. A 5th level Monk with a base 30ft speed can spend can spend 1 Ki point, action, and bonus action to move 120ft in a round. Meanwhile, a 5th level Rogue can potentially move up to 90ft in a round without any resources. Speed is one of the Monks main selling points, but if the Rogue gets a speed boost, the Monk will run out of Ki and will catch up. I'm not saying this is a massive concern, but it is worth considering when changes are made.

This is just a cool thing I wanted to add, but Reddit user HelicopterMean1070 had a cool idea I wanted to write in this ramble for future thought. They suggested that Stunning Strike should be replaced with a Pressure Point Strike that targets certain ability scores. So, a Str save causes the opponent to deal half damage, a Dex save reduces the opponents speed, and the Con save deals the normal stun. I couldn't find it again, but in another thread, I found a suggestion that Monks should be magic diffusers, so having a "strike" ability that is anti-magic would be cool too.

With everything said, despite the number of flaws I've stated, the Monk is so tied up in itself that a couple big changes would probably balance it out. A solid Ki restoration system would probably solve the lack of ki and make its point economy more bearable. Removing the Monk's inability to function in armor might give more AC options, take the pressure off the two ability scores it requires, and make it a more favorable multiclass option. Lastly, increasing the Monk's damage output and giving it more options for dispatching problems may make it better at its job. The foundation is there, and it's a really interesting class, it just needs a boost to stand along side its peers again.

[iconoclast-infidels]

"Shame." She smirked at that. What a defense mechanism she thought to herself. It made her like him all the more. She could at least see why Nico liked him personality-wise.

"Obviously. You're not dead...." Her voice trailed off unsure of her own words as soon as they came out of her mouth. He ate enough to not die huh? Was he not dead though? Was he alive? She was on a lot of drugs the day before. Her head wasn't clear and she was flashing back to the intro of the boys greeting her attempting to recall what they told her. Something was off. She wasn't quite in her own head yet. She was missing her morning meds just about now. Her body was going to start adjusting. Withdrawls. Abilities were going to come back to her. She could almost sense something.

"Well good. As long as you're not one of those big bingers that eat a pantry full of stock puking up a weeks worth of life preserving rations in one sitting on an emotional tangent. Those people piss me off. If you want to starve yourself. Feel free. That's your problem, not mine."

Nova straight up was a survivalist and everything that came out of her mouth would be about it. Dmitry would probably easily start to catch on by that point.

"Well shit, you're pretty confident. You trying to be all accurate had me thinking you might."

It wasn't like she was just talking circles.

"You heard of sacred geometry before? Here. Let me see your phone. I'll show you the ones like Metatron's cube, the flower of life, or vesica piscis. There's others. But those are the staples."

Whether Dmitry handed the phone over or whether Dmitry went ahead and looked them up for her he'd see so many beautiful geometric designs just by googling the phrase.

But what does it do?

"Lots." She'd say. "It's called sacred because it's the answer to all things. The key is always in the math."

She climbed up onto the table and sat criss cross applesauce to explain.

"Everything is created within the rules of this geometry. EVERYTHING. These patterns are in nature, architecture, um... the Victruvian Man, all kinds of art, biology, religion, even their texts. They interconnect everything and have been studied since forever. These are the bases you see in cultures all over the world because it's a universal truth. Think mandalas with the Native Americans or Hindu yantras. Everyone seems to find a take on this because we all tap into it eventually. It's healing. It's balance. It's beautiful. The VP is supposed to be a symbol for example of the interconnection of two worlds. Say the material and spiritual world. It's one of my favorites. This is power.

"Now think sigils. Think summoning demons. Think angels and their symbology. They follow these same patterns. You study this math, you tap into the other worlds. You tap into the spiritual plane. You learn to use sacred geometry right and its protection."

If Dmitry was following Nova just tried to demystify magic for him. Witchcraft, voodoo, hoodoo, sorcery, black or white magic, wicca, occultism, alchemy, necromancy, power of faith, whatever anyone wanted to call it, Nova was calling it math.

He was in a good enough mood that, although uncomfortable, the question about food didn't seem to get to him as personally as it might have otherwise. He looked at her as she spoke, and after pausing for a moment to think about how to answer, he sighed. Dropping the pencil on the blueprints, he leaned against the countertop and crossed his arms, giving her a serious look. She'd gotten his attention alright, and he was giving her the chance to talk, no bullshit. By then, he'd also finished eating the apple, core included — seeds and stem and all.

"I thought you'd ask sooner," he conceded, "though I guess with the drugs and all... Shame. That shit sucks. I'm not gonna waste the food, I'm not... It's not like that." He spoke candidly, though quieter than before. "I don't owe you an explanation, Nico knows and that's enough. You caught me in the right mood though, so you can ask. I do eat, and I can keep myself alive. Not gonna be a problem for your food stash."

He almost laughed though, finding the geometry question unintentionally funny. "I can paint anything anywhere, as long as I like it or there's a good enough reason why I should. I can make circles happen. You're gonna have to be more specific though. I'm gonna need the designs and which constellations you want them to go with. Means I need to be careful not to cut anything off or in half. What do they do?"

[mathematics6weeklyblog]

Trigonometric Integrals

This was, by far, the most difficult lesson I have had during my Math 6 journey, and it is on pace to become the hardest lesson for this quarter. Even the grandest of math wizards were stumped by this topic, and that alone makes me worried about my own learning process. With so many identities to memorize and manipulations of the original problem to get a more desired form, this lesson requires expert levels in both natural mathematical ability and limitless creativity. 

The problems revolving around sine and cosine were definitely the simplest, but it was not even close to being smooth-sailing. In particular, the case involving angle identities yielded the more complicated problems, since the formulas were hard to memorize and it required more creativity than usual to solve. However, no other sine-cosine problem could trump tangent-secant ones. Any problem involving tangent or secant would turn me off completely. The fact that you can only factor out either tan^2 x or sec x tan x made it complicated to solve, and this is not even mentioning the entire process of solving for the integral of sec raised to an odd number. All in all, it was a complete maze to go through, to the point that most of my close friends decided to schedule remedial classes. 

With the coverage of the long test now set, it is shaping up to be the hardest one this quarter. I am going to need all the practice problems I can get from these lessons, and hopefully we can make it somewhere between the 25-30 point range. But for now, that tabular method is looking really attractive right now, because it might yield me some surefire points. 

Figure 3. Practice Problems on Trigonometric Integrals

[golbrocklovely]

I think what’s upsetting to people the most about all this is they feel like they were lied to. Like “I didn’t know SnC acted this way” or “they seem so nice and down to earth”. Truth is: social media, in any form, is mostly fake. Yes there are real elements to it but for the most part things posted on there are fake. Creators post things they WANT you to see and will make them money.

I think the Gabby Petito case is the perfect example. She posted happy photos all the time. How great it was living in a van and how happy she was with her fiancé and it was all a lie. People who followed her were shocked he killed her and was abusive. She never showed it in posts.

You have to create a false narrative because truthfully, real life is boring. No ones going to watch videos of people being real and dealing with real life problems. We all live that. You’d rather see someone go to a haunted place (which are businesses so, that should be telling right there how “real” these places are) and ‘act’ scared or shocked. It’s entertainment. Entertainment isn’t real.

Moral of this post is this: 99% of the things on the internet and social media is BS. Take everything with a grain of salt and don’t believe everything you hear or see on the internet/sm. If you do believe everything on the internet/SM, go out side more. Really, go enjoy the real world. For the most part, it’s pretty cool and will always be real.

this could get into such a longer discussion with so many tangent topics, so i'll try to be as concise as possible lol

you are right about this feeling of being lied to, but i think bc it goes in two different directions, it makes this situation more complicated than it really is, imo.

but i also want to note that i personally don't feel lied to. but i get that other fans do feel this way.

first, you have the fans that put snc on this weird pedestal as these pristine, perfect angels that never do anything wrong and are the perfect gentlemen who would never say something bad about anyone. and the issue with that is putting someone that high up as a saint, they are doomed to fall or break your idea of them. but i also feel like these things aren't mutually exclusive. as i've said before, even the nicest ppl can be assholes sometimes. no one is on their A game all the time. good ppl have off days too. but just bc you act like an asshole once doesn't mean you are an asshole.

for example, having a negative thought about someone doesn't make you a bad person. it's what comes after that thought that can change the path you're on. i could think badly about someone, but if i take it back in my head or even think "oh that was a bit harsh" then that means that i am a good person, who just sometimes has bad thoughts or is judgmental. and snc being immature in this instance, but then apologizing and paying back what they broke is proof they are good ppl, just ones that make immature choices sometimes.

i think it's the ppl, both fans and haters alike, that immediately think this one off instance is proof of a deeper problem are the ones that put snc on an unattainable pedestal. so snc were bound to disappoint them at some point (or in the case of those that hate them, prove them right).

then the opposite side of this is the ppl that are surprised and feel lied to that sam (which was actually seth) would say "all of this shit is fake" / them acting calmer off camera than on. i'm gonna be honest, like i said before (but a bit more blunter the first time around), if you genuinely believe that snc would just ever so casually admit in a random house half way thru an investigation that everything they have been doing for the past couple years, what they have MADE their careers about, is a lie and they are fooling their audience by keeping this ruse up……. i don't think we have anything to discuss. bc one, you have absolutely no common sense or ability to think critically. and two, you already had your mind made up on snc and this was just the "proof" you needed to justify your beliefs.

(not saying this directed at you, anon. just the "you" in general to everyone else)

i've stated before in the past that while yes, snc ham it up, i don't think they outright lie. snc collab with too many ppl that would somehow have to keep the secret quiet, and there's just no way that would happen. snc have money, but not enough to pay off ppl to keep quiet. not to mention a lot of ppl they have collabed with are skeptics, so what do they have to gain by keeping up snc's shtick if it wasn't true? and i would like to argue that while snc definitely do the most when the camera's on, that doesn't mean that they are fake or frauds for doing that.

everyone acts different around other ppl, depending on comfortability. you act one way around your family, another around friends, another around colleagues, another around strangers, ect. does that mean these tweaks in your personality, to save your ass from being completely exposed for something you would rather keep hidden, makes you fake? no, it doesn't. and the same can be said for snc. if they acted like their true selves, it wouldn't be completely entertaining. not only that, they would get eaten alive for their insecurities and everything else in between if they bared it all for everyone to see. i mean, that still happens so in the long run, it's better for them to put on a mask that is similar enough to them, but isn't quite them, to both be entertaining and to keep a distance between them and watchers.

but i think it's wrong to assume that bc they ham it up for the camera that somehow that means the content they create is fake. you can act over the top and still get real evidence. you can act calm as shit and still fake stuff. i think it's a silly argument to try and make, personally.

this also doesn't even get into the talk of what is someone's "true" self? is my true self who i am when i'm alone, or who i am around other ppl? is there even such a thing as a true self to begin with?

also, not to get into what would be an even BIGGER conversation, but haunted locations being business kinda has to be a thing bc one, no one would know they existed if it was just a random family or whatever living in a space. and two, we live in a capitalist society, money is important and everyone needs it to survive. of course ppl will try to profit off of this type of thing, but that doesn't mean that these businesses are fake inherently. it just means ppl need money to survive. maybe if we lived in a society that didn't value money so much we would be able to have places like this exist for free but that's just not gonna happen, especially not anytime soon.

and i do not agree whatsoever with "entertainment isn't real". entertainment is very much real, or at the very least is based in reality enough to be real. when you tell stories of things you experienced, do you tell it 100% verbatim how it happened? bc even then you're not telling the real story, you're telling it thru your eyes, or your truth. most ppl when they explain something that happened to them, they tweak it a little. maybe they're a bit more dramatic, maybe they fib a bit to be funnier, maybe they overexaggerate, but that doesn't mean what happened to them didn't happen. it still did, but it's thru their eyes. bc you and i could experience the same thing exactly, but i might see it differently than you. does that mean i'm not telling the "real" story? no. a lot of entertainment is based off of real events: music, movies, youtube videos, whatever. a lot of it actually happened. of course, molding it into a way to make it more entertaining doesn't mean it wasn't real, unless it was something that just completely didn't happen at all.

snc go to actual places and get actual evidence. whether or not that evidence is bc a machine malfunction or if a ghost is touching it is up to the audience and snc. bc plenty of times snc can paint this idea of the rempod going off as real, but there are many others that will just see it as a malfunction or them clicking a button they apparently have to make it go off. it depends what you really believe. bc i believe that a rempod could be getting touched by something there, but i also think it can malfunction too.

i get why fans feel lied to in some way. i don't personally agree with it, but i understand it. my complaint is that what actually happened is that some of these fans put them on a pedestal that they were just never gonna actually be able to reach. snc have flaws, like all of us do. we all make mistakes and dumb choices we wish we could take back. a one off is not proof of a pattern. a one off is not proof of a deeper problem. and i think setting snc on a standard so high that we don't even put ourselves to is a bit hypocritical.