#my entire life has revolved around these guys my whole family knows how much i love mario

[superbellsubways]

mariooooo 😭😭😭 mario games 😭😭 wahoo! yippee! 🥹 m

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE A

Rebecca Bunch Propaganda:

Okay, so Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a musical from the perspective of Rebecca. However, a very notable thing which is only fully confirmed at the end is that every single song is from her perspective. Not sure how this applies to songs she wasn't there for, but there's that. The point is, these songs are how she sees and processes things, which often casts her friends as characters/roles.

I hate to bring up a song with an explicit version, and I'll bring up less nsfw songs later so you can ignore this (I only added paragraph breaks for this purpose), but a very notable one is I'm So Good at Yoga, which is the first song of Valencia, the girlfriend of the guy Rebecca is trying to get with. In this song, it quickly devolves into Valencia just talking about how much better at literally everything she is, often bringing up sore spots which Valencia would not know about (such as her talking about how her father didn't leave her when Rebecca's did). This is Rebecca casting Valencia into her role in her life, when this role ends up becoming wholly inaccurate later on.

Face Your Fears is another super good example of this, even if it's more subtle. The whole song is Rebecca's best friend Paula trying to get Rebecca to just take a step forward in her life and set up a party that could help her get closer to Josh. However, Rebecca ends up seeing this as so absurd due to past traumas regarding running parties (as in her dad literally left the family the very night she decided to set up a party as a child) that the whole situation sounds so absurd to her that it, in her imaginary song, becomes "Go ahead and do the must stupid, dangerous things you can think of. Confront a bear head on, stay in a burning building, run with scissors, just do every stupid thing you can think of". This absolutely was not Paula's message. Angry Mad is one of the songs Rebecca wasn't even there for, but I think it works as a Rebecca pov song just because it's a song which ends up portraying Josh as a simple man who represents every masculine stereotype ever and does not have a complex string of thoughts when he gets upset. Josh is a guy who Rebecca heavily casts into a role that he ultimately does not live up to as a guy who has thoughts not entirely revolving around her. I could keep going on but the whole point is that Rebecca is the source of every song in the musical and unfortunately a lot of those songs are about how she sees others and the roles she's assigned them to instead of who they actually are.

^ same submission, poll maker just decided to space it out

Ted Propaganda:

he invented unreliable narration……. the entire story is just his own spiral through what AM does to everyone and like!!!!!!! “i am the only one AM has not altered. that is why they are all jealous of me and plotting against me and hate me and make fun of me behind my back and plan to leave me behind whenever they can. i was never paranoid before so that means these thoughts must be true, instead of paranoia AM gave me” so true bestie how’s the apocalypse going for you.

[oh-my-damn]

Hey Mandy,

I know you said you’re not going to post every single ask, which I understand since your inbox has exploded because of everything going on now.

I really do hope you’re able to find mine within the shuffle & hopefully answer?

I just want your advice (and anyone else’s out there?) on how to move forward?

I so appreciate all the posts I’ve been seeing fighting back at all the negativity being thrown at the fandom itself - ALL OF OUR FEELINGS ARE INDEED 100% VALID.

People out there are depicting us as these “femcels” who are having “meltdowns” and “tantrums” because “Chris will never fuck us” and all that similar conjecture - which honestly really stings because that’s truly not the case and what’s happening at all. That doesn’t even begin to describe it. If only they actually knew, if only everything we knew and have witnessed was more public knowledge, but sadly, it isn’t.

We’re all so disappointed and feeling how we’re feeling not because he’s gotten married at all, it’s not that fact, it’s not the verb, it’s the noun - it’s because of WHO he’s married and the circumstances revolving this. It’s because of who he has CHOSEN to go down this path with & share his life, his name, everything with. This is who he has chosen to connect and link his name to.

We’re not making up anything. This isn’t “fandom lore.” Everything that we have found out about this girl and the people who she herself is involved with, it’s all right there, the receipts and proof are literally there. And it’s IMPOSSIBLE that Chris himself or anyone in his circle doesn’t know even one iota of any of this. He knows. His family, his friends, his whole entire world knows.

In yet, in spite of all of this - he and they have all CHOSEN and ACCEPTED her and her whole group - with open freaking wide arms.

“The company you keep, is a reflection of who you are.”

And this just goes to prove to us all, after all this time, that THIS is who he truly is, too.

Everything that he stood up for, just everything… you CANNOT be both. You just cannot be the guy who stands up to racism and anti-Semitism and publicly proclaims all these things, and then quite literally be around, married and tied to someone who represents the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.

You just cannot.

I’m rambling now which wasn’t my intention. My head is pounding. I literally cannot believe any of this, I just can’t. After all these years, after everything - this is what it’s come to? Her? And it’s just so many layers of it too - the age gap, the optics of how they look together only making the difference even more apparent, her *film* history, her personal history, the fucking trolling and lying and manipulating, and then all the racism and everything else tied to it. I just…

He’s a cliche. He truly is.

We thought he was different. We thought he was better.

But it was all a facade.

Because he actually, truly isn’t.

And I’m rambling again…I’m so sorry.

Going back to the whole reason why I even reached out in the first place, I just really need advice on how the hell to get over this and move on. I actually hate that this is even affecting me as much as it is. After Bermuda, I just knew it was coming, but I honestly didn’t believe it was happening until much later, so I barely was able to mentally and emotionally prepare myself fully.

And ngl, but I was still holding out hope. I really was, because I just couldn’t believe or even process the thought of him actively choosing this with her, after everything. I just couldn’t wrap my head around him not being who I thought and truly believed he was. But now…

I am just in such shock, anger, disappointment and complete sadness.

So I really need to know, how is everyone else getting through this?

Any tips? Any advice?

I truly don’t know what to do with myself atp.

It’s like a major car wreckage or something, I know some people will say to just turn away and don’t look, but I honestly can’t stop looking because I know more developments are coming.

Anyway, I know I sound a certain way now, “unhinged” but I honestly don’t even care. I know my feelings are valid and I’m not alone. And I understand this has happened with other fandoms too unfortunately. I know life goes on and we all will eventually move on too, with time. I know we will. But getting there, it’s going to be so hard and honestly, it may even take longer than expected.

Again, any guidance, any words of comfort, anything at all, I just need someone to share something.

If you do post and answer this, Mandy - thank you in advance for giving me this space. 💜

Hi hon. I'm not quite sure what to say, because I don't know if I have any advice on that..

For me it's been a long process of slowly getting more and more tired of it/him/them. My breaking point was definitely the Ghosted premiere, things changed for me after that.

I can definitely understand why a lot of people are having a hard time right now, and I know it's going to take time for people to move on from something like this. Fandoms run very deep, especially on a site like here where there's content being made and you kind of get to dive into it more than usual.

But I think the first step is distancing. After the Ghosted premiere, I unfollowed a ton of fan blogs. I didn't want to see him on my dash bc I just got annoyed every time, and I unfollowed the blogs that were like keeping us updated on what he was doing etc.

It may be beneficial for you to unfollow the people who are putting his pictures etc on your dash, or talking about him (this could even include blogs like mine. It may be easier to take a clean break) you can even filter out his name on here and other SM (I've done that for insta and tiktok, for example) and it really is true that if something is out of sight, it's out of mind.

I'm sorry you're feeling sad. It really sucks, I get that. I hope you know that a lot of people share that feeling with you right now.

But to be honest, the only good tool I know for helping with any of this is distance. Distance yourself from him/his content etc. This means stop liking and watching his edits on tiktok, cleanse your insta so he doesn't show up on your explore page, unfollow fan blogs and accounts (even though a lot have already deactivated lol). If you read fanfics, maybe stop reading about him.

Another thing that has helped me immensely is adopting the mindset that the real person is a different entity from the characters. At this point, in my mind, his characters have absolutely nothing to do with the person himself. This is what has helped me to continue writing for so long, for example.

Otherwise it's just about time. The wound is fresh right now, so to speak, so of course it'll be worst now. But it will pass. In time, it's going to be this thing you felt that you don't even know why you did because he really ain't shit. He's not worth all of these terrible things people are feeling right now, I promise you he's not.

He doesn't appreciate or care about his fans, why should you care so much about him?

I know this may not be the things you'd want to hear but I don't know what else to say.... But I hope it helps even just a little bit ❤️

[dolokhoded]

80s jesus 'verse disciple headcanons pt. 3 (jesus, judas, jb)

my sincere apologies i know i said i'd bost judas "in a little bit" about. 2 weeks ago. here they are. @ that one anon who asked me about judas, my brain works very slowly, there he is

JESUS

ok starting off jesus is gender wacky. idk what he is i use he/him for him but calling him a man feels off. he's my favorite gender identity which is wack.

being somewhat divine does that to you you don't really care for the labels society has completely made up. ANYWAYS

i don't even know what i'm gonna write for jesus i'm sure you know what kinda guy jesus was. 

okay. grew up in nazareth with his parents miriam and yosef and his siblings 

(don't ask me why im using the hebrew form of names for the parents but not jesus himself. it's because we have a hundred marys.)

he has three siblings, two sisters and one brother, and he's older than all of them with a pretty big age gap, he was kind of an accidental pregnancy

(or, y'know, the son of god. but who knows ! )

had a relatively normal life compared to everyone else. i guess reparations for how well his life went last time idk.

jesus is also the only one out of them all who has somewhat of a sense that they've all existed together somewhere before ? he doesn't clearly remember any of it, but he did recognize his disciples when he met them.

he also has a lot of nightmares. they're vague, but very painful.

anyways aside from that pretty decent upbringing. he always knew that he wanted to help people as much as he can.

he learned carpentry from his dad and although he did study political science he ended up just running his father's shop.

however of course he also runs his organization ! which i really struggle to pick a main cause for because like it's jesus ? i feel like he'd care about anything that helps people he's just trying to make the world a little better.

idk. i'll think about it.

before he was doing that he was doing a lot of activist and volunteer work alongside his cousin john ! you guys know cousin john !

and therefore already had a lot of peers and a lot of friends who then followed him and supported him. the first being andrew, who was very close with john and was there when there was just talk between the three of them and maybe some more friends about jesus starting his own cause

aside from carpentry, which he obviously likes and is very good at, jesus is actually a little bit of a creative in general.

he just started with woodcarving with his leftover supply for fun and then slowly moved on to clay and occasionally even sculpting.

likes to give stuff shape anyways

cares so much for his whole team and always reminds them to be kind to themselves and take care of themselves however he has not practiced self care a single DAY in his entire LIFE

will overwork himself to exhaustion if someone doesn't physically drag him away. has before.

for an all loving creature he has the emotional intelligence of a doorknob

dgmw he's great. he's kind to everyone and all that. he's understanding.

still has not known what the fuck is going on a day in his entire life. each time any of his friends looks the slightest bit off he comes to the wildest possible conclusion.

most of the time said conclusion being that it's his fault

he might be a tiny bit self-centered. usually not in a positive way towards himself either, it just means he thinks he's the cause of everything bad happening in his life.

feels like the world revolves around him, just in a very pessimistic way

but he's got a lot on his plate can you blame him.

love how i went "yeah he's relatively doing pretty well" and then gave him a bunch of issues lol sorry jesus

JUDAS

welcome, queers, i know you're here for him, here he is

judas is an only child and comes from a very rich family.

his parents own an insurance company and have like a bunch of buildings they're renting.

generational wealth, basically. it's all inherited and they're making a shit ton of money out of nothing it's all already set up.

judas' family is also very religious.

and i know that so far two out of the two times i've said that it means the parents are assholes but i swear it's not like that james and john's parents are also religious it just wasn't relevant.

but yeah judas' parents are, in fact, assholes. judas was very involved at the temple from very early childhood.

which unfortunately led to him being abused by religious officials that he could supposedly trust and grew up with.

especially once he started growing into his teens and came to the realization that he very much Does Not like women.

which his parents didn't love either.

somewhere around that time he started to distance himself from his family, especially once he moved away for university. judas studied political science but halfway through kind of changed career plans and double majored in journalism

which was very demanding but he did it anyways !

in university he meets jesus. jesus is in his third year when he's in his first and helps him out a lot. they're both very politically active too and always meet at protests and charity events etcetcetc so, yeah, they know each other. and sure there's something there but judas is very closed off and they drift apart when jesus graduates.

oh, judas also has depression, he was diagnosed at age ten, his family was very ashamed of that as well.

in his last year of university, he falls out with his parents once and for all.

they already weren't close, judas was very hurt by them and obviously he had a lot of personal issues with them but to him the line came when he found out about a lot of things that were going on behind closed doors in his parents' company, they were scamming a lot of innocent people and also partnering with a lot of . really just scum of the earth kind of people.

judas got rightfully very upset and had absolutely zero reason to keep covering up any of this. so he didn't ! and obviously that was very disastrous for the company.

judas gets disowned. not legally, but his parents cut all ties with him. not that he wasn't going to do that himself anyways.

obviously though as a consequence he suddenly has very very limited money. luckily for him he's currently in a relationship with his guy, isaac, who's very happy to let him move into his apartment. it would benefit him too to share the rent anyways. as it turns out, isaac's not a great guy ! judas himself isn't too well either so they have a very weird very unhealthy very codependent relationship and though they fight a lot it takes judas two years until he finally finds the strength to walk out on him.

judas didn't think that through very well because he doesn't really have anywhere to go. to his luck, guess who he runs into !

it's jesus. of course it's jesus this is the dolokhoded bible where the main character is still jesus, no matter how much i love to talk about james and simon.

jesus is on his way to a meeting with his team and he's like hey why don't you come along. and judas does. and that's it, he meets the whole gang, he ends up rooming with andrew and philip for a while before he gets his own place.

and, y'know. he does, eventually, in an excruciatingly slow process that tests the patience of all of their friends, get together with jesus.

okay i prob have to write this too uhh sad stuff ahead judas attempts once.

he's spiraling and overworking himself and hiding it pretty well. has some petty fight with john that jesus scolds him about and then has another fight with jesus over that and overall it's not going swell.

strangely enough it's john who decides to check on him after that. he has not gotten along with judas a day in his life but he could tell how upset he was and jesus is hurt and also a little petty and isn't gonna go do it himself so he decides he might as well. to his horror he stumbles into. well. yeah

he survives.

he moves in with jesus, john and matthew for a while after that.

(a lot of them are rooming they don't have much money)

goes back to therapy too.

okay sad stuff over. it gets better. he's doing well. gets a job at an independent news page and becomes quite known among his circles for his work too.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

or JB.

he does not baptize anyone. his first name is john baptist. don't ask me the logic of being named after himself when he hasn't existed yet for people to be named after him ok making an au of a defining characteristic of current human society is fucking difficult

jesus' cousin. his mother, elisheba, is miriam's sister. she's a good fifteen years older than her, and was in her fourties the year that both jesus and jb were born so her getting pregnant was a bit of a surprise.

grew up with jesus and they're very close. they studied together and they theorized together and they discussed everything together.

very big on environmental activism. and by consequence very very anti-capitalism. very anti-fast fashion, for multiple reasons. also vegan :).

jb genuinely believes the human race is the universe's biggest abomination and we should just go extinct. he's not wrong.

he doesn't pick favorites (but he does and they're andrew and philip they're his favorites)

philip was sort of his right hand

he's kind of there to encourage all the shit jesus can't if he doesn't want absolute chaos and zero planning. give simon a pat on the back for getting into fights with racists and all that.

generally he's a little more radical that jesus is. they don't agree on everything but they both respect each other's stances.

he's so well read. it's obvious too, they're all educated obviously, but this guy talks and you can tell he knows his shit. it's very impressive.

and not even in the sense of being well informed and reading theory he knows literature he knows art he's so cultured and i don't like using the word cultured because it often brings to mind a very western very white very high class perception of "culture" but that's not what i'm talking about here.

jb calls himself an atheist in a more political sense. he believes that people shouldn't rely on some higher force to give humanity and morality substance and should instead search for meaning inside those things alone, otherwise they won't have the right motivations to be moral and therefore their beliefs will have no strong foundation.

he grew up jewish but his relationship with his faith is very personal to him and stays between him and god. he doesn't care to discuss it with anyone, except maybe jesus a few times.

sort of everyone's go-to person for advice. he's there to talk the stupid out of them.

his mother was a seamstress, and he learned from her. he likes to make a lot of his own clothes.

professionally, however, he's a translator. he speaks hebrew, english, greek, russian and arabic. (also a little bit of french and german. he's not qualified to translate those though) (is constantly in the process of learning more)

he just fixated on different alphabets as a teenager a little too hard.

[chibishortdeath]

i absolutely love your tags on my post about the mysterious woman, it's nice seeing someone who's as passionate about her as me ❤️

Hehehe, thank u, I’m pacing around all happy about it rn (>.< ). I love Simon’s Quest and how genuinely odd everything that happens in it is.

And the Mysterious Woman doesn’t get talked about very much and y’all are missing out!!! She’s so so so fun to speculate about!

I ran into I think it might have been an old conversation on like Gamefaqs or some other comment section somewhere and there were a surprisingly large amount of people in the conversation who said that when the game came out they assumed that she was meant to be Selena, and that’s just aaaaaa so so interesting to me. And it wasn’t just American fans either, there was someone from Japan who assumed the same. It’s so awesome getting to see the perspectives of people who were there when the game was new and this theory has me going nuts sometimes lol. On one hand it makes sense for the ghost woman in the Belmont family graveyard to be someone from the family, but on the other hand is she really “mysterious” anymore if it’s someone Simon would know?

And why did the Mysterious Woman not mention the Tooth of Vlad and only the other five pieces that she knew would partially summon Dracula instead of the intended burning, burying, and breaking of the curse? Especially if she’s meant to be Selena/Simon’s wife or if you interpret her as Sara? Simon’s Quest really went for the twist of having the call to action character and the one to get Simon out of whatever rut he was in for 6 years in the first place be the first person to lie to him. Which is just so!!!! Aaaa!!!!!!!!!!! This also raises the question: is the Mysterious Woman actually a force of good? Or did she just know that Simon was desperate enough to believe what she was saying to him? I’ve seen some people theorize that she was some kind of Dracula cultist or even a possible form of Death because of this.

Or was she completely right that summoning and killing Dracula is the only way to break the curse? After all a lot of other games in the series that revolve around curses end in Dracula being brought back and defeated. But this is also a strange option as usually when Dracula is resurrected it’s by cultists or Death or whoever else and it’s not a good thing and is just for the purpose of having the evil dark lord do evil things. So that would make this game one of the few scenarios in which Dracula’s resurrection is justified which is so weird I just— thinking about Simon’s Quest to hard is gonna kill me one day lol X,,,,,D.

She also says that one line of “within your own heart, you might be able to defeat the evil if you wager your own life” and thinking about that along with the ominous vagueness of the endings all having different eulogies so similar that you could genuinely make an argument for any of them being the canon ending and the fact that almost all of Simon’s symbolism is related to self sacrifice and martyrdom is uh… interesting. Also a lot of people forget that the area around Castlevania is also cursed, not just Simon. The swamps are messed up, the towns get less saturated in color more empty the closer you get to the castle, and there’s monsters everywhere, this wasn’t entirely a selfish endeavor to save himself.

Anyway, the Japanese manual also talks about the Mysterious Woman in specific ways, appearing and disappearing with the mist. And maybe this is a way to keep her as mysterious as possible, but it’s an interesting choice of words. They could’ve said she walked away into the mist, but they specifically said “disappear”, which is an awfully ghostly thing to do. And it’s also weird cause we kinda do see another character suddenly appear out of thin air in a graveyard in who I like to call the Garlic Guy. The Garlic Guy is also massively under appreciated like what the heck is up with that whole interaction 💀💀💀. Go to the graveyard, only at night, and some hooded figure will suddenly begin to exist in front of you if you lay garlic on the ground and then give you a bag. And then like most things it’s completely unexplained and you just have to keep moving on. I’m thoroughly convinced Simon is just as confused as we are lol. And in a way she is also treated the same way as any other NPC: she does something unexplainable and is never mentioned or important again. The way the game is written I swear it’s designed to make you feel anxious and rushed, ya know like a guy who is actively dying would feel.

And the fact that none of this is ever explained is just so ominous. It adds to the tension of the game and themes of not being able to trust anyone. Nobody trusts Simon, Simon can’t determine who’s trustworthy, there’s NPCs that you don’t even get to know who or what they are, sometimes even the hint books aren’t particularly helpful, things happen and you just have to keep going as to not waste any time.

Hopefully any of this makes sense lol I ain’t reading all that again to check cause I gotta go have lunch cause I forgor about it whoops. Anyway I am very normal about Simon’s Quest and every character in it, please everyone play this game it’s good I promise— (;w; )

Edit: oh my god I did not realize how long this ended up oopsie—

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Buddie 611 Meta - The Sun & The World

*aka the cosmos/universe theme strikes again*

Buck has been accused of being self-centered several times in the show, especially in past season. Basically every main character at one point or another has made this claim about him. That criticism became lodged in Buck’s mind over the years. How could it not?! The people around him saw his attention-loving daredevil behavior among other things as self-centered (affectionate, because “Buck’s gonna Buck”). With Eddie, we saw him make this claim to Buck specifically about their relationship and the strain it caused several times during the lawsuit arc in s3. I think through the previous seasons, Eddie was the most vocal with this criticism and was pretty much the only one to ground this criticism in his PERSONAL relationship with Buck.

In 305 Rage, the infamous grocery store argument:

Buck: Look, man, why can’t you see my side of this?

Eddie: ‘Cause that’s all you see!

And in 306 Monsters during their reconciliation at the firehouse:

Eddie: Lotta “I”s in there. Your actions, your choices, they impact the rest of us. That’s what it means to be part of a team.

And in 309 Fallout during THE Kitchen Scene:

Eddie: Seriously? You’re gonna make it about you, again?

Basically, Buck took that past criticism to heart, like you do when you care about the people around you and you care about what they think of you to a healthy degree. That brain weasel surfaces in an interesting way in 611 via the coma dream. 

But that old criticism takes on a different flavor in coma land, because the dialogue in the episode evokes the idea of a planet circling its star, which lifts it out of the realm of just Buck’s ego and places it firmly in the Cosmos/Universe symbolism that’s so interwoven with the Buckley Diaz Family!

In 611, Buck is talking to Hen and Chim about Bobby and then Buck’s mind takes and interesting turn:

Buck: My not being at the 118 is what pushed him over the edge.

Hen: Or maybe it was just some random butterfly effect and the entire world doesn’t revolve around you.

Buck: Eddie Diaz.

Hen is Buck’s “reality” check. In the coma dream, as an echo of Buck’s own thought process, she tries to humble him. But somewhere in Buck’s mind he also knows that he is deeply loved and that he matters. The whole episode was about him starting to consciously realize and accept that fact so that he could return to his real life and thrive. He’s working to replace his bravado (ultimately a performance on some level) with an understanding that he actually does matter.  So, in Buck’s coma dream, when Hen evokes the idea of Buck as the sun and everyone else as the world revolving around him, she both echoes old ego wounds AND she creates space in Buck’s head for him to figure out that he’s not the center of the universe in any grand sense but that he does bring light and love to his loved ones just by being himself, a bright sun. He doesn’t fully get it in terms of Bobby until the end of the ep, but dream!Hen’s criticism initiates the workshop process of Buck truly seeing his influence in other people’s lives.

After the Bobby realization starts to percolate, Buck immediately asks about Eddie. It matters that it is immediately after Hen’s comment about the world not revolving around Buck. I’ll come back to that.

Hen: They said that Diaz was unfit. That he couldn’t be a firefighter and a single dad. He tried to bring him to the firehouse a few times, but Captain Righetti said no.

Buck: [flashback and then] Carla. He never met Carla.

Buck eventually saw his role in Bobby’s life but he dropped the ball with Eddie! Buck thinks that Eddie would have lost Christopher if he never met Carla. Our guy removes himself from that equation entirely. Despite the fact that up to the flashback point in the coma dream, Buck was the one who introduced Eddie and Carla in the queerest way possible! Buck was the one who assuaged Eddie’s fears about Chris during the earthquake and took Eddie to pick up Chris after the earthquake and went to the hospital with Eddie when Abuela broke her hip!!! Buck, it wasn’t Carla who changed Eddie’s life; you did that, my guy!! But Buck can’t see it. Not yet. 

Back to my point about Buck immediately thinking of Eddie after Hen tells him the world doesn’t revolve around him. So, this is Buck’s deep dark subconscious. I took that whole exchange to mean that Buck’s world does in fact revolve around Eddie and Chris. In reality, Buck has centered Eddie and Chris since he and Eddie took vows to have each others’ backs in 201. Buck has been doing The Most since that day. He faltered in the lawsuit arc but came back strong and hasn’t wavered even a little since then, dropping everything when needed to be there for his family. The Diazes are the center of Buck’s world and some part of him knows that but that part isn’t conscious yet, hence the Chris of it all asking him to help him find his dad plus Chris’ words to him being the signal to his coma brain that he needed to get back to the hospital in order to wake up.

It’s also super important that Buck’s thought process while talking to Hen in the coma dream is about Eddie as a single dad in particular. He didn’t think of it as Eddie being without resources/support. No. He framed it as him being a single dad. That means that Buck was aware on some level that he was stepping up and stepping into a co-parenting role for Chris with Eddie!! Some part of Buck knows that he buffered Eddie against the fallout of being a single dad. Abuela had health issues and then moved back to Texas. Tia Pepa had circumstances that limited her involvement with her nephew and Chris. Carla is a paid professional (echoed in her distraction technique with the nurse!) but Buck is Eddie’s actual partner in every way. He is the one who’s keeping Eddie from truly being a single dad. Based on Buck’s coma dream, I repeat: some part of his beautiful brain knows that!!

Going back to the fandom read that “Buck is the sun” - Eddie and Chris love Buck and he’s their light especially in dark times. We’ve seen it repeatedly. It was featured in the scene where Chris and Eddie visit Buck in his room. He’s illuminated by the lamp above the bed while Eddie weeps in the dark. Even in a coma, that man is lighting up their life! But in that particular scene, Buck is a distant sun and Eddie is struggling to feel the light. Chris isn’t though. He’s right there next to the sun drawing him back out. Stars and planets, baby! Between Buck showing up for them in every way and the constant interplay of light and shadow in their scenes, Buck as the sun is pronounced in this episode. I would argue that the reverse is true as well but Buck hasn’t had the full realization that the Diazes are his sun and his family yet. *sigh*

Buck is working out his issues in 611 so that he can show up for himself AND for his family in a fully conscious way. If Chris is the Universe that energizes and holds all things in the Buckley Diaz Family, then Eddie and Buck are worlds, circling each others’ star. I may be taking the metaphor too far but I don’t care lol. Buck is moving from the subconscious awareness that Eddie and Chris are his family to a conscious awareness. It’s so damn beautiful it makes me weep.

[dreamcrush]

for the idol identity ask game: 5 + 8 + 10. questions go to both mods + for any/as many of your kins as you want :]

5. Is there anyway your timeline differed from source? It could be a small or big thing.

erm im miker . my mika canon is rather divergent just because im uhh worse maybe. im very reclusive and not good at friends at all and really don’t have. any friends for the most part until i get put in the dorm system with ritsu. that’s because naru ended up dropping me, she got real mad at how bpd i was basically and said i was hurting her and a terrible friend and she just stopped talking to me around the same time nazunii left valkyrie too. so my whole first n second year pretty much im just all alone, and im real scared of people so i don’t really wanna make too many friends anyways. i just stay real close with oshisan and madonee and latch on to them for dear life. eventually i am real good friends with ritsu, i love him a whole lot. we might have been more than friends but i don’t super understand emotions like that so im no good at telling. i love him though i know that for truth. and i love oshi san and madonee. i don’t end up being able to forgive nazunii ever really i don’t think… like i’ve read human comedy and it’s just not quite right. there’s too much hurt there still i think for me let go of. maybe more stuff i don’t remember rn - 🏹

I just recently discovered I kin Tsumugi and it's quite a bit divergent. I think I was actually in Eden possibly? Or just another unit entirely as things with Natsume didn't go as well as hoped. I'm still remembering things and working out the issues / gaps of recollection but yeah! - 🪽

8. Who was your closest friend? Tell me about them.

as izumi my best friends are chiaki and kaoru. this is constant across a Lot of my canons and i have some rather divergent ones too. chiaki is energetic and loud and kind of gross and sweaty but as long as he doesn’t touch me i don’t give him As much of a hard time about it. he smells like boys and jumps all over people and is always eager to help and be praised and always willing to offer a listening ear or to dish out attention, which is much appreciated. he’s very emotional and not super great at thinking things through and he harbors a lot of anxiety he doesn’t like to let others know about, but i do, and kaoru does too, and we’re his friends and we help where we can. kaoru is closed off like i am, pretty faces and teasing and sweet cologne to hopefully distract you from picking out whatever is hurting in his heart. not me though, im not into him, but i see the pain settling the surface tension there, and i don’t ignore it. they take care of me more than perhaps id ever want to admit, but i take care of those two losers too. chiaki was probably one of the biggest reasons i didn’t end up offing myself or doing something otherwise seriously bad after leo left so genuinely in a way i owe him and his comfort and genuine care for me my life. and kaoru is so unsure about himself, has so much disgust and hatred built up in his heart towards his own person and i help him figure things out as best i can. i help with feelings and love in a way his family never cared to teach him, i help him figure out he likes boys, figure out he likes kanata and chiaki, figure out that it’s okay to be a little open, a little vulnerable every once in a while, that it can feel good to be close with another guy even if just as a friend, because community is good and closeness feels terrifying but healing. they’re my best friends. i love them a lot. - 🏹

Leo time- I kinda want to take this to talk a little about Mama? I don't remember him as well as I kinda wish I did? And I don't know if i'd even call him my closest friend but I do know I cared about him and things were really hard with things revolving around him but I'm starting to slowly remember a few things and he was just. very protective of me? he was protective of anyone he cared about of course but i just remember he was there to help with a lot of things. not that sena wasn't enough for me and didn't help enough but with how much i split on him and was clashed it was nice to have a friend to bounce that energy off of and that's what mama was for me. he's just a really good person deep down i think. - 🪽

10. Was there a relationship (doesn't need to be romantic) in your canon you find funny looking back on?

jun and nagisa for real. we were pretty good friends especially because of how ohiisan is, but we are from very different worlds and are very different personalities. i like video games and working out and a ton of typical boy stuff i don’t think nagisenpai was ever exposed to at all. but he likes animals and archeology and reading and quiet the likes that i’ve never really engaged with before either. i play games with him, hang out with him on downtime, practice together, rest together. ohiisans always happy to see us getting along well too, so that’s a bonus, even if he’s got his jealous streak. it’s funny though in that i expose him to a lot of internet stuff for the first time really, stuff like shooter games and memes / stupid funny shit and a bunch of new things that his autism gets kinda hung up on, i think he has fun though. and i even cater stuff to try and be more inclusive with him, or pick things i think he might like more. he likes watching me play shooters more than playing them himself, but i hear about games that have archeology functions or emphasis on different gems or bones or any of these things he’s into and im like hey let’s check it out. it’s just fun - 🏹

literally as mao my relationship with ritsu LMAO because i do not have a canon so far where i was ever with him romantically but he would always tell everyone we were or somehow convince them we were, despite me usually being with someone else romantically. i loved him obviously and sometimes it did feel like more than friendship but i wouldnt say anything deeply romantic. it just always makes me laugh how we were never romantically together to my recollection. - 🪽

[prophetofnothing]

Hey. hi. do you wanna hear my teen wolf homestuck classpects. of course you do.

thank you for listening. theres more characters i want to do but i still havent been able to settle on anything yet. reasoning below the cut

scott: maid of blood. very blood player. his whole life revolves around his relationships, his love life, his friendships, his pack, his mother and father. hes also all about being a true alpha and a natural leader. these are all blood player traits. maids are generally quite passive, starting out with an absence of their aspect and relying on others for it. sounds like scott! he relies on the people in his life to keep him anchored, relies on derek to teach him how to use his abilities, relies on stiles' friendship and is generally quite passive in his role as a protagonist. eventually maids get so much of their aspect they dont know what to do with it. this happens to scott as he comes into his own as an alpha and has to navigate being the leader of his pack.

jackson: thief of life. thief theif thief. his jealousy, his competitiveness. this guy can be a hundred miles away and you can still see hes a theif. thieves horde their aspect, they want to be the best at their aspect, and if anyone else tries to be better than them they will shit and puke themselves to death. i make him a theif of life because he killed people as the kanima (stealing their lives) so i think it is fitting in that sense. but life also represents affluence, healing, growth. jackson is always trying to flex his wealth and his talent and his academic prowess. he wants to prove he has a better life than anyone else. i think its also fitting with his character arc, because he had to heal the emotional baggage that prevented him from becoming an actual werewolf.

lydia: seer of doom, because she can see when people are going to die. that much is obvious. i debated on making her a mage because she suffers a lot from her aspect but the knowledge mage's gain through their suffering is more for their benefit, while seer's knowledge is for the benefit of others. shes also a seer because she gravitates a lot to knowledge, even outside of her banshee abilities. shes a smart girl! she loves insight! she knows a lot, and she shares that with other people. this is also why i debate on making her a light player, since light is also about attention ('spotlight' and 'bringing light to something'), knowledge and intelligence. but i think the doom aspect has way more influence on her character, since goddamn does this shit plague her. doom players are like that. their life is defined a lot by sucking real bad. and her moments of intelligence can generally be attributed to her seer-iness. so seer of doom is my final assessment, as she acts both like a seer and a doom player, and it takes into account the banshee part of her character more. mage of light secondary maybe? or maybe seer of light primary, and mage of doom secondary. could go either way.

derek: heir of rage. okay so. i dont know that much about how heirs themselves act, but their thing generally is being surrounded by their aspect. and rage represents.... any negative emotions. anger. grief. hate. suffering. as well as ugly truths. well, its safe to say derek is surrounded by that. one could say his entire life is dictated by rage. this is a little bit biased but i think heirs can be a little woe is me. because its not usually their fault that their aspect surrounds them all the damn time, that shit just gravitates to them. and like derek. yeah. he gets to have all the rage in the world, what with his whole family burning to death, and having to kill his first love, and the banshee pussy gone wrong event etcetera. and if you take it literally i also think he straight up is a rageful guy. he totally has a reason for it but yeah boy hes fucking mad and brooding and shit all the time and thats absolutely a side effect of being a rage player.

stiles: mage of heart. this one was so hard and i couldnt tell you why. i tried overthinking it a lot but in the end i just went with my gut instinct. and that tells me stiles is a heart player. hes just so full of heart! hes a funny, silly guy, with a lot of feelings bursting out of that head of his. he contrasts mind a lot with his impulsiveness and instinct and biases. hes rarely objective, hes really in his head, and he never misses an opportunity to voice his feelings. heart all the way. the other shoe of this is that hes a mage. now, if you look at this before void stiles, mage is still sort of fitting because we know that his impulsiveness as part of his adhd is making him fail in school, thereby making him suffer through heart. but heart is also about identity. and if you look at his season 3b arc... yeah. its all about losing himself to the nogitsune. literally not knowing whether hes his true self or not. and for a heart player that loss of identity, that struggle to find yourself, is suffering through heart. mage is also a knowledge class, which i think accounts for stiles detective work and penchant for sticking his nose into things.

allison: page of mind. shes a page. shes a fucking page. before i started writing this i was trying so hard to fit her in the knight box. allison dont be a page. dont be a page. youre too badass to be a page. but i cant deny it. fuck. i cant deny it. she just absolutely is one. okay. mind first. mindheart dichotomy is about being driven by logic vs being driven by emotions, among other things. and thats something thats had a really big hand in shaping allison's life. she doesnt want to be emotional, she wants to be objective. but at first she just isnt. good at that. its what shes trying to convince people she is. she pretends she isnt scared but she is, and there are cracks where her emotions show through, where you can see that she is just as weak and lost as she feels. but as the show progresses she begins to excel at mind. she uses her steady arrowhand, her level-headedness to help her friends. and thats what pages do. theyre about potential. they put on a front at first to convince people theyre good at their aspect when they really arent, but as time passes they come into their own and unlock to their full potential.

that is everyone ive done so far. if i do anyone else ill make a seperate post for it because this is already too long.

[nemosopenletters-blog]

Dear Husband

I'm sorry I ruined your day. And every other day. But especially today. Your birthday.

I'm sorry I'm so horrible. I'm sorry I do everything wrong. That you can't trust me with any tasks, even the most simple. That you can't rely on me to hold myself together at all costs when needed. My emotions cost me more than being numb ever would.

And now you're happy again. Excited again. In a great mood. I didn't contribute to it, though. Not really. BIL is the reason you're okay again. Without him, I would have likely lost you Iong ago. You would have already left.

And sometimes I wish you would. Because I don't think I'm strong enough to leave you, to stop hurting you and ruining your life. I'm not strong enough to set you free, baby. I'm so selfish. I don't want to live my life without you or the kids. And I know I couldn't raise them on my own. Because I'd ruin them, undoubtedly. Like I ruin everyone else. If I save you, I'd have to save them too.

I'm the worst person you've ever met or been with. BIL will hate me eventually, just like you will. Because I ruin everything for yall. You can't be happy about anything. You can't be happy at all. You can't ever be anything but miserable with me around. And I am so so sorry I've put you through that. Our entire relationship has revolved around you trying your best and me shitting on everything you ever do, enjoy, or love.

I don't want to be your misery baby. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. To be excited to see me everyday. To wanna hold my hand, and me entirely, all the days of your life. To go on adventures with you, raise our family, laughing and smiling and healing from our past lives.

But those last 3 things are most important. Laughing, smiling, and healing. Neither of which you can ever do if I'm around. I'll ruin every single day, like I have been.

I wish I wasn't such a defective piece of shit. I wish I'd known I was gonna ruin things so badly for you. I wish I'd known that marrying me was gonna end up being the worst choice you'd ever made. Because if you'd married someone else, imagine how great it would have been. For you and the kids. They'd have a good mama. You'd have a good wife. Everyone would win.

I wish I'd been the kind of woman you could be proud to have. I wish I'd been different my whole life. I wish I could stop hating myself. I wish I wasn't going to make you guys hate me too.

I wish I had saved you before. Because I've done nothing but break you. That's all I've ever done. I don't try to,it's not intentional like you think it is. I swear I don't have a goal of making you hate me, or upsetting you, or arguing with you. I don't have a goal of ruining everything for you, I promise. Sometimes, I just feel too much and too much of the wrong thing at that. I'm sorry you've had to deal with me for so long. I'm sorry I approached you the first day. I knew I was a wreck. That I wasn't worthy of any of you. I knew. And I approached you anyway when I should have walked past you inside.

You said, looking at me that first day was like looking at the sun. Now look at you. Now it hurts to look... I guess you looked too long.

[rememberingnoah]

Okay, I'm not putting anymore drama on my blog, so ignore this since you said you were going to ignore me if I interacted with you again.

"the whole point is you're not supposed to mention them period. they've both asked you to leave them alone and stop name dropping them and you're still doing it. tagging something as "vent" doesn't change a single thing. you're literally obsessed with them."

Okay, yes that is true. You're right. They asked me, and I shouldn't have done so. But here's the thing. If I'm blocked by them both right now, how is it they can still see if I post anything? /gen

"thinking about everything that happened isn't creepy. but making your entire personality about it is. you can't even go ONE day without bringing them up. that's obsessive behavior. oh, but you probably don't know what that means tho since you clearly don't understand what boundaries are. "

Actually, if you care so much about my blog, then you would see that I haven't spoken about them. I've been talking about Brina and zombies non stop since my switch. So I actually can go a day without SPEAKING about them. But thinking of the friendship I had and seeing their blogs with Kail? I can't believe that having feelings is now considered as "creepy and obsessed." I absolutely adored our friendship and the one I had with you. You guys were my friends. And feeling regret for what I did? Thinking about it? Tsk. fyi, I may not know boundaries, but I know creepy and obsessive, considering the fact I've watched documentaries on serial k*llers. So.

"fyi i never had you blocked. YOU blocked me and then apparently unblocked me, which is how i'm seeing this right now. i'm assuming you regret that choice now, huh?"

Yes. I did. I told @buckys-babygirl (as I'm typing this) that I'm trying to move on from the drama. So today, I unblocked everyone. I don't wanna hold grudges anymore. I don't know if you're talking about the fight or unblocking you, but if it's the second option, I really don't.

"take a look around. all your friends keep leaving you because you're nothing more than an attention seeking lunatic who thinks the entire world revolves around you. it doesn't. we all tried to be your friend and to help you realize and work though your problems but instead of listening and trying to grow as a person you chose to be bitchy about it and block anyone who confronts you. you gonna go do that with me again now? shocker."

Can I explain? Yes. I've always been attention seeking, ask my own family. Yes, I am weird, but a lunatic? Really? I do think that, yes. But it is MY blog, so I can post anything I want, correct? It doesn't, true, I'm not the sun. If you're upset by me telling you to shut up, then all I have to say was, I was just tired of going in circles talking about the same thing, when I was trying to move on and not think about it. I did in fact reblog you saying "it was supposed to be mean" but it was. It was harsh. And I'm - I don't even think I should say it anymore. No, I'm not going to block you for confronting me. Is that a shocker?

"sorry isn't an undo button. once you say something, it doesn't go away. you need professional help and unless you get that you're going to live a miserable lonely life because no one will put up with your shit for very long before realizing who you really are as a person"

Therapy won't help me. Wanna know why? Too late. You already do. No one has been able to put up with me. Not an attempt to guilt trip you, I'm just stating a fact. I've tried therapy for everything I have going on, my anxiety, apparently my PTSD??, but nothing works. And to be quiet honest with you, you probably figured this out, feelings? Not a great topic for me.

I'm sorry for invading your asks, delete this if you'd like. But, I thought I should explain myself. Again.

You had every right to not talk with me. Your friends too.

the only reason i'm answering this is because i think you could use some advice. this does not make us friends and idrc if you take any of this as me being harsh. i'm done sugarcoating things with you, so all of this is pretty straight forward.

the thing about the internet is nothing is private. whenever anything is posted- even if they're deleted within 5 seconds- it's out there forever. boom, done. screenshots. sometimes nonny's like to spread the gossip around too. before posting anything take a moment to think if that could come back to bite you in the ass later on.

feelings aren't "creepy and obsessive" actions are. everything you've been doing is not normal behavior. you might not be a serial killer, but you do enter stalker levels sometimes. as for feeling regret? good. you should feel regret. you've done some pretty shitty things that will never be swept under the rug this time. but instead of blaming others, own it. prove you're actually sorry instead of just saying it. words mean nothing if you have intentions on keeping the cycle going. use this as a learning opportunity.

i can't say that i believe you because i don't. if you are actually serious this time, prove it. not to me. to yourself. use this a learning experience and be a better person.

i'm not upset because you told me to "shut up" i'm upset because i've noticed a never ending loop of *you do or say something terrible* *apologize and say you know what you did wasn't ok* *then you do it again* it never ends. the cycle keeps repeating itself and it's nauseating to be around. we've all gave you so many opportunities to better yourself and you just.. don't.

i've done therapy and i take medications to help me cope with my feelings/depression/anxiety/suicidal thoughts. it does help, but you have to find the right therapist and try out a few different meds until you get one that works for you. everyone is different and you have to experiment to find out what works for you and what doesn't. it took me months to find the right ones and after a few years i still need to switch up my meds occasionally. but i'm coping with everything, you could be too, if you wanted to get the help you need.

[spelviin]

Flower 7, 13 Honey 6, 19 Rieta 37, 63

aaa tysm for sending/letting me rant abt my lil guys!

Flower (bugbear ex-lawyer/peace cleric and hug enthusiast)

7. which party member do they understand the least? in terms of the whole party, definitely recurring npc jeff goldblum. bc of the running joke that jeff keeps getting credit for the parties' (current and past) heroic deeds, flower just doesn't understand how the guy who singlehandedly defeated strahd von zarovich and saved the city of elturel from its infernal bonds can barely land a vicious mockery in combat?

in terms of actual PCs, i'd probably say @birdz555's druid, lyria. they love her cheerful demeanour and her owl friend, but do find her a bit mysterious. also she spends a lot of time in wild shape and communicating via charades, so also like... they literally understand her the least lol.

13. what do they dislike about themself? why? they definitely dislike their past life as a mean, privileged, high-powered lawyer in the big city. when they were practicing, they were the greatest legal mind in their family (and possibly all of faerun), and they definitely used those powers, if not for direct evil, definitely solely for the benefit of the ultrawealthy shitheads of neverwinter. they've since changed their ways and renounced their old life and family, but their past still haunts them.

oh, and there's also the fact that they allowed an unspeakable evil ancient god to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world because they DIDNT FUCKING CAST HOLD PERSON ON THE GODDAMNED SILENT ONE WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE (a misstep that fucking haunts *me* lmaooo). but, y'know, they try not to think about that generally. just to keep their usual positive outlook on life.

Honey (bugbear lawyer/paladin, flower's terrible older sister)

6. which party member do they relate to the most? in her current party? well, since both other PCs are, in her opinion, bleeding-heart do-gooder chumps for slogging it through the nine hells to save their idiot friend from her own bad choices, they're pretty much completely unrelatable to her. so i honestly think tiax, our guide npc burdened with delusions of grandeur, would be the most relatable to her. she still doesn't like him, but at least they share the same level of self-importance lol.

in her previous party, definitely morgan lol. in her eyes, he was the only one in the group who had any goddamn sense or perspective. and the fact that his deity is *lawful* evil also helped his case. which is honestly probably why she ended up setting up shop to work with him in the banite-controlled baldur's gate post-adventure.

19. what haunts them? what doesn’t? honey is so absurdly privileged and out of touch that she has very little in the way of conscience or compassion, so honestly almost nothing haunts her. the one thing that *does,* though, haunts her fucking deep (and i super hope i get to explore that whenever we get to whichever level of the 9 hells is about envy).

basically, honey's entire identity revolves around her legal prowess. she is hands-down the best *practicing* lawyer in her family, and she takes a lot of pride in that... but she knows, as mentioned above, that she only has that position because flower renounced their legal career and left to become a cleric. she knows, deep down, that everything she has, she has only because flower willingly gave it up, and that if they were ever to pick up the mantle again and return to their former profession, she would once again be relegated to second best.

(and like, second best in her family is still miles ahead of any other lawyer in the whole of neverwinter, but still... for someone as status-obsessed as honey, it would basically be a death sentence).

Rieta (tiefling sorcerer, currently imprisoned in the nine hells)

37. what is their favorite thing to hold? issarissa tbh ;;, @birdz555's half-elf grave cleric and rieta's gf (unless rieta's totally fucking blown it by secretly entering into a contract with a devil and lying to her about it for like two and a half years, but that remains to be seen as issa's still slogging it thru hell to save her from her own bad choices). between traveling to icewind dale on an adventure, and then getting dragged to hell for defying said devil's orders, she hasn't seen her in possibly close to a year, and misses her terribly ;;

in terms of a physical object, either some good quality wood to whittle, or, as a Certified Horse Girl, a set of reins, or like a horse brush or something idk.

63. what fight has scared them the most? oh god. i've been playing this motherfucker for like three campaigns, there are so many fights to choose from. like, obviously any of the fights she's actively tried to get herself killed to avoid/end (girl has the world's biggest martyr complex so there have been a few lol).

and THEN there's the time her bestie, our goliath barbarian/druid, got possessed and essentially hijacked by a ghost who almost killed the whole party and then fucked off. and like, she almost had to kill him, and he almost killed her and she was worried she was gonna have to tell johan that he got fucking KILLED on HER WATCH and it was just. not a good time.

but i think the ones that truly scared her most are the ones she has refused to let happen?

like, basically the reason she got dragged to hell in the first place is because the devil who holds her contract ordered her to allow a dragon to fuck up the towns she was trying to protect, and to fight her party if they tried to stop it. and she just could not bring herself to let all those people die, and ESPECIALLY couldn't fight her friends (esp after the ghost snafu lol), and so she defied the order and got reverse-raptured as punishment. so that's one.

but the REAL, number one fight that scares her more than anything, is the one that she's had recurring nightmares about for two and a half years - the fight that almost was, that involved her friends trying to get her out of her contract with gargauth by force. she is absolutely convinced that he would have (and potentially will) kill them horribly if they try to intervene, and it's just. the literal worst-case scenario for her, since her deepest fear is her friends and family dying for her sake (the hypocrisy of this is, of course, entirely lost on her lmaoooo).

anyway, all this to say i do NOT anticipate her taking it well when she learns that said gf and bestie are currently en route to try to save her dumb ass, actively putting their lives and souls on the line for her sake. so, y'know, that'll be fun when we get to it lol.

anyways OOF, hoo boy, i'm so sorry this got SO LONG, i just have A Lot of Thoughts abt my dnd characters.

tysm again for sendingg!!!! <3

[stupidgtblog]

🌈 + 💘 for sylvia, mira, qiana, and magnus?

AAAAAAA ALL OF THEM THANK YOU :3

💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them?

🌈 RAINBOW — what is your oc's sexual orientation/gender identity? what pronouns do they use?

---

We're doing this backwards because I SAID SO

Magnus

💘 - OK so Magnus is kind of simple. He enjoys baking and loves his girlfriend. He's been baking since forever and it's a very important part of his life (and one of the very few things he's had his whole entire life, and didn't have to give up.) He also likes Qiana because uh she's smart and she's pretty and she's nice and she's amazing and she's wonderful and she's beautiful and shes-

🌈 - Magnus is very rare case among my oc's due to the fact he's completely cishet lol. He's just a straight dude. He uses he/him most of the time, but it's VERY canon he's used to responding to it/its, but he literally hates it.

Qiana

💘 - Qiana holds the field of biology almost strangely close to her, she's very devoted to it and almost revolves her life around it. She cares about her friends, and she's absolutely horrible and showing it but she really cares about Magnus too (She doesn't really mind being called his girlfriend, but Magnus being called her boyfriend literally makes her really embarrassed about being perceived.)

🌈 - Qiana's bi. Her romantic life hadn't really gone much of anywhere more than 1st dates before she met Magnus. She uses she/they most of the time and likes that bit of androgyny she keeps when she just calls herself Dr. Roosevelt. It's a VERY SPECIFIC feeling (hmm I wonder where I got this from) but yeah she doesn't really present too feminine, they look pretty androgynous but yeah she's a girl.

Mira

💘 - Mira holds lots of things and people close to her. She really loves her family and her totally-not-her-girlfriend, and she likes magic too! She's a witch too, so she has all the typical items, the broom, and the wand, which she cherishes also. (It doesn't matter that Sylvia makes fun of how gaudy they are. Life without sparkles is no life at all.)

🌈 - GIRLKISSER. Yeah, Mira is completely sapphic and she comes to realize that throughout the story. She uses she/her, presents feminine and stuff but yeah she's gay. :p

Sylvia

💘 - Sylvia likes books, magic, and Mira close. She's afraid to let much more in. She has hobbies, but she's not really attached to any of them. Sylvia will not admit it but she is a literal NERD who is almost concerningly magically inclined.

🌈 - GIRLKISSER NUMBER TWO. She is well aware she is gay in a very conservative and backward society and she wears it directly on her chest and she knows no one's gonna do shit about it. She uses she/her personally but like it's not really defined as well? She doesn't really care that people mistake her for a guy? She finds it funny when people come to her expecting a man, she usually just doesn't even bother actually correcting them. She doesn't mind when people who don't know her use he/him for her? If I *try* to put it in modern terms I guess I'd call her a chapstick lesbian bc she doesn't really care all too much??? idk man

OK THATS IT THANKS FOR LISTENING!! :)

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIBALE NARRATORS; SIDE A

Rebecca Bunch Propaganda:

Okay, so Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a musical from the perspective of Rebecca. However, a very notable thing which is only fully confirmed at the end is that every single song is from her perspective. Not sure how this applies to songs she wasn't there for, but there's that. The point is, these songs are how she sees and processes things, which often casts her friends as characters/roles. I hate to bring up a song with an explicit version, and I'll bring up less nsfw songs later so you can ignore this (I only added paragraph breaks for this purpose), but a very notable one is I'm So Good at Yoga, which is the first song of Valencia, the girlfriend of the guy Rebecca is trying to get with. In this song, it quickly devolves into Valencia just talking about how much better at literally everything she is, often bringing up sore spots which Valencia would not know about (such as her talking about how her father didn't leave her when Rebecca's did). This is Rebecca casting Valencia into her role in her life, when this role ends up becoming wholly inaccurate later on. Face Your Fears is another super good example of this, even if it's more subtle. The whole song is Rebecca's best friend Paula trying to get Rebecca to just take a step forward in her life and set up a party that could help her get closer to Josh. However, Rebecca ends up seeing this as so absurd due to past traumas regarding running parties (as in her dad literally left the family the very night she decided to set up a party as a child) that the whole situation sounds so absurd to her that it, in her imaginary song, becomes "Go ahead and do the must stupid, dangerous things you can think of. Confront a bear head on, stay in a burning building, run with scissors, just do every stupid thing you can think of". This absolutely was not Paula's message. Angry Mad is one of the songs Rebecca wasn't even there for, but I think it works as a Rebecca pov song just because it's a song which ends up portraying Josh as a simple man who represents every masculine stereotype ever and does not have a complex string of thoughts when he gets upset. Josh is a guy who Rebecca heavily casts into a role that he ultimately does not live up to as a guy who has thoughts not entirely revolving around her. I could keep going on but the whole point is that Rebecca is the source of every song in the musical and unfortunately a lot of those songs are about how she sees others and the roles she's assigned them to instead of who they actually are.

Tsurugi Kamishiro Propaganda (TW; mentioned suicide):

He thinks he's the best and that everyone loves him, but sadly he's a disgraced noble son exiled from the family for being a disgrace. He doesn't even know the "him" that exists is an echo that lives in the memories of an alien who killed and impersonated him. He thinks he still has time to make up for all his sins. He thinks he will be able to live lavishly once again after his estranged relatives decide to call him back to live with them (his parents were also killed by aliens, but only he was impersonated). The first inkling you get of his skewed perception of reality is that he introduces himself as "Tsurugi Kamishiro, The Man Who Will Defeat God With One Slash Of His Sword." I don't think he even brought his sword with him when he committed suicide. He walked into the ocean and never came back. That scene shocked me to my very core because I had believed Kabuto was just fun and games before that happened. Tsurugi had just started to adapt to normal life, too. He had been befriended by the protagonist's younger sister Jukka, and she was teaching him basic life skills. I had hope for that guy, and was rooting for him, despite how pompous and annoying he was. Plus, his combat armor was purple, which is my favorite color (I admit that might have caused some of my favor). His family's butler was really the only family he had left, and that old man cared about him as if he was his own son...

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

One more, actually. Just after I posted that I decided to watch another one, and I’m tacking it onto this post as part of the stuff I’ve watched this week.

Stuart Goldsmith – I Need You Alive (2023)

Available on YouTube.

I’ve listened to a bunch of episodes of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast lately (I realize I’ve now written about that so often that I should really start using the acronym that Stuart Goldsmith himself uses for it, which is ComComPod, but he keeps repeating it so often as a marketing/branding thing, and even though trying to market and brand your podcast is a totally normal and reasonable thing to do, it still annoys me enough so I refuse to use the acronym, and would rather type out the whole thing every time), and its host Stuart Goldsmith has a full special on YouTube, so I figured I may as well watch that. I’ve spent enough hours listening to him talk about comedy, may as well spend one hour finding out what it’s like when he actually does comedy.

Here’s the post I was writing in my head for the first 45 minutes of that hour (64 minutes, to be more specific about how much of the show is on the other side of those 64 minutes): Oh, I shouldn’t have watched this. I don’t know what I was expecting, and now that I think of it, I don’t know what could have lived up to my expectations. I’ve heard Stuart Goldsmith say so many complex, intelligent things on the subject of comedy, while talking to so many people who do comedy so brilliantly. He knows the form so well. He’s watched all these other comedians, and not just watched them, he’s taken in what they do, analyzed it, learned it well enough to be able to ask intelligent questions about it because he really understands it. I didn’t even realize until his special started that I had been subconsciously expecting all this knowledge and understanding would come out in his own comedy. That because he knows all my favourite comedy so well, he must be able to do it all. I hear him critique other people, so I think if he knows where those pitfalls are, he’d never fall into them himself. I hear him talk about the writing process – how intentional it is, how much he cares about getting everything right, about finding what works for him. So the product must be perfect, right?

He never stood a chance. No one could hold up under the weight of all those expectations that I hadn’t even properly realized I was carrying. I shouldn’t have even put this special on, I’m not going to be able to settle in and enjoy it. I’m just going to be trying to analyze it, to try to see evidence of all the tricks I’ve heard about from the guy on the podcast. It’s not going to measure up.

I worked that out and I tried to reset my expectations, I really did. I tried to acknowledge that, and then consciously change it, but it was just too much expectation to overcome. So I genuinely can’t tell whether this show is really, really boring, or whether I just think it is because I expected more. But I’m pretty sure this is fucking boring. I’m also, of course, highly biased by the fact that I’m not generally into parenting material, and I’m not generally into jokes about marriage, and this show was full of that. But that’s entirely down to personal taste. I’m not married and I don’t have kids, I find it mildly annoying how in real life so much seems to revolve around other people’s families and children, so I’m going to also find it annoying when comedy revolves around that. However, there literally billions of parents in the world, and I’m sure many of them appreciate hearing some normally unspoken bits of their reality reflected back at that, so it doesn’t mean that stuff is inherently boring. Just not my thing (again, some exceptions, see: Mark Watson and Josie Long).

So that’s on me for watching a show about parenthood when I’m not into shows about parenthood. And that’s on me for expecting groundbreaking art when he’s just a guy who writes jokes, same as all the rest of them. But oh my God, is this ever boring. I know he knows about how great comedy can be. So why isn’t he doing any of that? Why is he tells a boring story about getting the kitchen done in his house in Bristol?

But it wasn’t just the boring middle class homeowning married parent material that I didn’t enjoy. The whole thing felt clunky. At one point he went into this surreal bit about winning bread that I think could have worked if someone else had done it, or if he’d led up to it. But it clashed so much with the tone he’d already set up, of really realistic mundane stories, that I couldn’t get on board with it. That felt like he had seen all the other great comedians do interesting surreal material, and had decided to do some himself, even though it’s not really his thing, and he hadn’t bothered to weave it into the show in a way that made any sense at all.

Every once in a while he’d try to go a bit “dark”, drop in a reference to death or something in the middle of a story about his kid, and that also fell flat every time. Like he was trying to be shocking, and it just came off as someone trying to be shocking. I just didn’t quite buy it, coming from the guy with the story about renovating his house. Coming from the guy I’ve heard say fascinating, thoughtful, and analytical things on the podcast. He’s smarter than that. He doesn’t need to throw in a mention of death just to try to inject a bit of edge into a comedy routine about kitchen renovation.

The kitchen renovation story annoyed me particularly, I think. It was so mundane, and also so trite, I’ve heard the “artsy comedian doesn’t know how to talk to proper masculine men” thing so many times. It’s usually boring, but it can be good. Daniel Kitson has various bits along those lines that work because he’s Daniel Kitson and can make absolutely anything work, but every time I him talk about that, I think “If anyone but Kitson were saying this, it would not be good at all.” Which isn’t quite true – there’s an incredibly funny story about that stuff in Sam Campbell’s 2022 show. So, okay, I guess you can make that funny. Every twenty years (2002, 2022), a Perrier Award winner comes along who's so good that they can make that make that stuff interesting. But if you are not a once-in-two-decades Perrier winner, you won't be able to do it.

That was the post I was forming in my head for the first 45 minutes. Then the last 20 minutes were great. Not, like, Earth shattering or anything. Probably still not good enough to live up to my initial sky-high expectations. But the first 45 minutes dragged my expectations to the ground, and then the last 20 gloriously outshone them. The point is that if I heard those last 20 minutes without all that other context, I’m pretty sure I’d think, “That’s a fucking good bit of comedy. Wow, I really liked that. I’d like to hear more from this guy.”

It helped that he changed subjects for a while, and even though it ended on a story about his kid, the story was funny enough to justify itself. He started talking about ambition, how it waxes and wanes in life, how it feels to watch the levels of success of everyone around you. How hard it is to care so much all the time. Then some stuff about how it feels to walk around in public trying to belong places, and he connected that back to some stuff about his marriage but I didn’t even mind, because he was on such a roll and doing so well, and in that case the marriage stuff did fit naturally into the material. I guess at this point I’m just recapping, I don’t really know what to say except I thought it was great. It felt honest and well written and real and visceral and, I think because of all that, it was also funny.

I actually laughed, I think, four times in the whole show, all of those laughs came during the last twenty minutes. I definitely recommend the last twenty minutes. I also recommend going into comedy shows without mountains of expectations, especially from a comedian whose stand-up you’ve never heard before, so you don’t really have a good way to judge whether those expectations are reasonable. Some people like parenthood material, they’ll probably enjoy this.

Round-up of comedy hours I’ve watched for the first time in the last week or so:

Keep reading

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi Raven! I just saw your new masterlist (the one with the analysises) and I noticed the whole section about how canon characters would realistically handle romance which I though was funny considering how much fan content revolves around having perfect romances XD I think a lot of people also thought twst was an otome game when it was first being marketed and someone's even working on a twst otome fan game right now. Wondering if you have any thoughts on that?

[Referencing this masterlist!]

Before I comment on the concept of TWST as an otome game, I want to preface this post with the disclaimer that, in sharing my thoughts, I do NOT mean to invalidate anyone that enjoys otome games, anyone that likes the idea of TWST as an otome game, or anyone that likes making and/or consuming romantic TWST content.

This response is meant to be a critical analysis of the otome genre and how well or not well it fits with the lore and the characters presented to us in TWST.

As someone who has admittedly played a number of otome games and dating sims in their lifetime, I think TWST would function poorly as one. This ultimately comes down to two major concerns: the story and the characters.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that the writing for all otome games is bad, but it’s certainly difficult to find a well-written one, even in today’s highly saturated market. I think the issue with otomes is that, by virtue of being a genre that focuses on developing an explicitly romantic relationship with a character of your choosing, it limits what the story can do and where the story can end. You can anticipate some bumps here and there, but you also expect the guy to be head-over-heels for you and you expect a happy ending where you kiss and live happily ever after with him by the end of it. There are only so many times you can follow this formula without it getting stale.

There are also a lot of tropes (as well as subversions) commonly associated with otome games, and it is extremely difficult to avoid them or to put a fresh spin on them when writing. This can make routes entirely predictable so long as you know the basic archetype that a certain character falls into. For example, how many celebrity characters have storylines which involve obsessive fans bullying the poor main character out of jealousy, or the paparazzi getting involved and blasting a secret relationship all over the news? I can almost guarantee you that this would also happen if someone like Vil got an otome game route. In fact, I could sit here and rattle off tropes I can expect to be in every TWST boy’s route, simply by virtue of how ingrained some of them are in otome culture. (It’s not even that I’ve played a lot of otome games, but I’ve certainly seen enough to notice the patterns with little to no changes across various titles.)

The other big problem is that otomes tend to focus on the protagonist--on making them feel loved and important. What usually ends up happening in order to achieve this is that all character development for the potential love interests hinges on their involvement and interactions with the protagonist. Not only does it create this unrealistic expectation for romantic love (ie your S/O will come into your life and fix all your problems), but it creates the weirdly codependent implication that you cannot improve or be a better person without romantic love. It also downplays the significance of platonic relationships with family and friends in favor of propping up romance. It’s not uncommon in otome games where literally no one but the main guys and the protagonist get unique artwork, signifying that the only important people are the ones involved in the romance. No one else matters. Sometimes the parents are just written out entirely, or the friends are jealous, or the family and friends exist SOLELY just to push the romance (“when do I get to see you marry”/“wow, why are you still single, do you need my help?”) Nothing else matters but figuring out how these faceless blobs can be stepping stones for the route. What would become of companion characters like Grim? He would lose his importance in the story. What about Ortho, who is considered too young to date? He’d be made nothing more than a wingman for Idia.

Speaking of the characters, it’s not just the side characters and NPCs that would be watered down; I feel that the TWST boys themselves would also be done a disservice. Since the nature of otome games is to endear you to a character and have them fall in love with the player/protagonist by the end, it would force a lot of the boys (most notably the “nastier” ones) to forego their wrongdoings by the end to shower the player/protagonist with love. Like... you can’t really write the TWST boys being assholes the entire time through because it would harm the player’s enjoyment of the story even if it would be true to the boy’s character. For example, let’s look at Ace. He is the only boy to have canonically been romantically involved with someone. He ghosted his ex-girlfriend. It’s possible he may do the same again--but even if that’s something Ace could very well do, a TWST otome game would probably avoid it altogether because being ghosted in a game doesn’t make the player feel good. In TWST as it is now, the characters are allowed to freely be assholes because their personalities aren’t constrained to being nice to the protagonist all the time or by the end of a chapter. The boys still maintain a lot of their rough edges in spite of gaining some new epiphany, and other boys won’t have changed at all. But in an otome, a lot of the less savory aspects of the boys’ personalities would have to be significantly sanded down to entertain the player’s fantasies. Alternatively, those unsavory aspects could still be included, but it’s more likely that they would be written in such a way that they would be completely gone or not even an issue by the end of a route, OR they would be written such that the nastiness is ONLY directed at anyone that ISN’T their love interest. It’s just kind of odd, and it hampers the boys’ characters, as well as limits how they are able to change throughout their routes.

I believe that character development that relies on being in love with the protagonist fundamentally clashes with what TWST is. In Twisted Wonderland, characters don’t grow only because of Yuu, they grow because of the intervention of many other characters, as well as them coming to realize the faults of their own actions, learning to take responsibility, and making a conscious, active decision to better themselves. What’s more, characters take ample time to recover and learn from their errors, and even 6 episodes into the main story, we still don’t have concise or clear conclusions to anyone’s character arcs--because the characters are continuously changing, and there technically is no end to their development. They help each other out. They feel organic, they feel real--but it wouldn’t hold true for an otome game.

As an example, in episode 1, it was Ace and Deuce that challenged Riddle to a duel because they couldn’t stand his tyranny, then it was Ace that decked Riddle and called him out, and Trey who negated Riddle’s magic with his own when the dorm leader was on a rampage. Riddle eventually realizes that he was being unreasonable and breaks down post-OB, confessing to all the normal things he wants to do instead of so strictly following the rules. Yuu didn’t do much of anything. Even late in the main story, characters are helping each other develop, and some scenes exclude Yuu entirely. Deuce got his unique magic after a compelling conversation with Epel on the beach--and Yuu wasn’t even there to overhear that talk. In episode 6, Riddle-Azul and Leona-Jamil had major moments of growth through their clashing characters AFTER they had split up from MC and Pomefiore.

If TWST were an otome, Overblot battles would be resolved with the power of the protagonist hugging the boy and confessing their love, or the OB boy snapping back to their senses when he realizes he had hurt his S/O. Deuce’s character development and even his unique magic development would be walled off until the protagonist meets all of the requirements to get to the proper happy ending. The same would go for Azul, Riddle, Leona, Jamil, Vil, Idia, and Malleus’s growth. Other characters would not be given as much spotlight or screen time, because the focus would be squarely on the protagonist and their developing relationship with the boy of their choice. The flexibility of the story would be greatly hindered, inorganically railroading all progression and locking it behind one fact and one factor only: the protagonist’s presence, their love. In an otome, all the growth that a character goes through only happens because they found a S/O.

For characters who have particularly sad backstories, it can be difficult to write their route in such a way as to not come off as... insensitive? There’s really no other way for me to put it. Like... especially for the OB boys, a lot of the issues they have cannot be solved with a smooch and positive affirmation. You cannot just tell Riddle’s mom she’s awful, tell Leona it’s okay that he’ll never be king because at least he’ll always be “king of your heart”, tell Azul that you think his octopus form is cute and he should have more confidence in it, free Jamil from his service to the Asims, tell Vil that he’s fairest of all to you, bring back Ortho for Idia, etc. That will not solve their issues. A lot of these traumas are deep-seated (to the point where it has obviously had a major impact on their current personality), or extend to systems a single person cannot influence, or even society itself. The characters would have to realistically work through their issues over a large span of time, and with the proper therapy and other professional resources. People don’t just change overnight or the instant they get a romantic partner, they need time to process and to heal, sometimes by themselves if necessary. To think that “true love can conquer all” can easily oversimplify very complex issues and can do a great disservice to the characters going through these problems. Sometimes it can feel like the main issue is tossed aside in favor of addressing the more “important” thing: the romance--and that can honestly hurt.

Of course, it’s great to have a positive and loyal support system there to help you! But at the same time, it is NEVER someone’s responsibility to be a therapist for their partner, and nor are they responsible for the wellbeing of their partner. This then circles back to the concerns I expressed earlier about the implications that otome games tend to perpetuate (that a S/O can come in and fix all of the problems).

One last thing I want to make note of is that by nature of “otome” games being directed at “maidens”/females (usually straight and cis females; the word “otome” literally MEANS “maiden”), it... alienates a lot of their potential audience pool. Males, nonbinaries, non-straight people, etc.--none of them would be able to enjoy TWST if it were an otome, because most otome already assign and assume a sexuality and gender before you’ve even booted up the game. They cannot readily identify as the protagonist, and they cannot easily self-insert because of that. It’s not fair, and it’s not as inclusive as the TWST we currently have, know, and love. We also need to consider that a lot of TWST’s current fans aren’t into the game to romance the boys; a lot of people also find value in friendships with them, or being able to relate to them on a platonic level. If TWST were an otome, they would be shoehorned into intimacy they didn’t ask for, and it might make them feel uncomfortable or not able to enjoy the game at all. Otome games appeal to a certain audience, and the opposite also holds true: it repels a different audience, thus dividing the current TWST fanbase.

At the end of the day, otome is often set up for that immediate payoff, that happily ever after, because otome is generally not concerned with telling a deep, complex, or thought-provoking story. Its primary goal is to satisfy and to indulge the player, even if it means sacrificing other things, like character complexity or plot, in order to achieve that. The structure of otome is best for guilty pleasure, wish fulfillment, and escapism, which, again, I don’t think that vibes well with the friendship and character growth driven nature of TWST. TWST is allowed to explore mature themes and it is allowed to have all of its characters be equally as important because it is not restricted by the expectations imposed by the otome genre. There’s definitely still some bones thrown at the players in terms of a few main story and home screen lines, but that’s where the fanservice stops. TWST’s aim isn’t fanservice, it’s telling compelling stories with its wonderful cast of characters.

It would have to take an extremely skillful team of writers to pull off a TWST otome game that avoids all the pitfalls I previously mentioned (if the goal is to preserve the charming characters and their development despite the genre shift). You can’t just copy paste TWST’s current main story plot and add dialogue choices that increase affection with various boys and call it a day; you’d seriously need to reconstruct and rewrite literally everything to make it cohesive.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Continued from this post, Part 3 of my discussion of Essek Thelyss in the context of real-world espionage. This time: what happens to espionage assets in the long run? Do they break contact, and why? What might have been in store for Essek?

At the treaty meeting Essek tells Ludinus to his face that he wants no further contact with the Assembly, not even to learn what the Assembly discovers via their own beacon. He’s far from the first asset to try to sever their relationship, and it ends in one of three ways: they don’t manage to break contact, they break contact but voluntarily return, or (rarest of all) they end the relationship permanently. 

Most attempts don’t go beyond option 1, because intelligence agencies are not in the business of respecting their assets’ choices. Handlers are skilled in keeping the upper hand in their asset relationships and will take any further opportunity to gain leverage by compromising the asset. For instance they’ll often pay for information even if the asset hasn’t requested it, because money changing hands makes it far harder for an asset to frame their activities positively to their own side if they attempt to confess (”You expect us to believe they were blackmailing you when you got $10,000 to hand over the secret manual?” etc.) And when push comes to shove most people aren’t willing to accept the severe punishments for espionage. An asset’s threat to confess is more likely a negotiating ploy than a serious option.

Some assets, especially nervous or ego-driven ones, get the carrot: the KGB did a strong line in awarding secret medals to convince them they were doing important, well-regarded work and that the KGB would protect them - not an empty reassurance, as highly-placed moles like Aldrich Ames warranted elaborate ops involving double and triple agents to avert suspicions. And some assets get the stick: the handler tightens the screws using whatever leverage they’ve gained, implies that they’re already “too far in to go back,” or gives some time for those who were blackmailed into spying to think about the consequences of exposure.[1]

Those who get as far as option two, breaking it off and later returning, are usually driven away by fear but back by finances. Fantasy spies have all sorts of motives but in real life the majority are in it for the money. Assets, as you might imagine, make bad choices. About half start selling secrets just to stave off massive debt from overspending and poor financial decisions (the rest feel underpaid.) So even if these assets stop temporarily, the circumstances that drove them to espionage in the first place are still very much present. In these cases all a handler has to do is shrug and say, “You know where to find us.” Infamous FBI mole Robert Hanssen broke off contact with his Russian handlers when the Soviet Union collapsed, fearing he might get outed in the chaos, but linked back up with them just 10 months later when, surprise surprise, he needed some cash.

And then there are the rare handful who stop completely. There’s a bit of survivor(?) bias here because anyone who passes along secrets, breaks off the relationship before being caught, and manages to get away with it is by definition someone we don’t know about. Those who do manage to break contact long-term are usually able to do so because they left the situation that gave them access to interesting secrets and therefore the controlling agency determined they were no longer a useful resource and not worth pursuing. But even if an asset stops working for an agency, they’re far from forgotten - and far from off the hook. Names and evidence of their espionage would be kept on file for potential use as blackmail, leverage in state-to-state negotiations, or expendable material to prove bona fides in ops involving fake defectors or triple agents. A surprising number of spies are caught/outed years after their espionage ended.

Very few assets permanently sever their espionage relationships the hard way: making a genuine confession and accepting punishment. But it’s not unheard-of, especially if the espionage was brief and the asset believes the damage can be repaired. In 1989 Army signals analyst Michael Peri disappeared from his post in West Germany along with a portable computer containing numerous classified documents. Eleven days later he returned to his previous post with the computer and voluntarily confessed to the theft and sort-of defection to East Germany. When interrogated, Peri - who had been a model soldier until that point - said he felt overworked and underappreciated by his superiors, though he couldn’t entirely explain his decisions either to leave or to return (a sexy female Russian agent might also have been involved). He received a 30-year sentence.

Marine Clayton Lonetree, a guard stationed at the US Embassy in Moscow in 1985, was blackmailed over an affair to hand over details on the embassy compound for a year, but his conscience finally got the better of him and he confessed in late 1986. Being a Marine he faced the very real prospect of death by firing squad, but the court martial ended up giving him a 30-year sentence. It was later reduced to 15 after the Marine Corps Commandant wrote a letter to the Navy Secretary on his behalf attributing the young Marine’s actions not to treason or greed but to loneliness, naivety, and poor judgement.[2]

Going back to Essek’s case, he’s already in the minority of espionage assets because he doesn’t want money in return for the secrets he passes along; though the knowledge the Assembly promises him in return fulfills a similar desire, Essek doesn’t need that knowledge to pay off the equivalent of debt or to maintain his lifestyle. He has no pressures at home that force him to continue spying. With the beacons returned, the fall guys in place, and their tracks seemingly covered, he tells Ludinus that all he wants is to be rid of the entire affair. That rules out option one (he sincerely means to cut the Assembly off) and option two (he won’t be driven back by need.) 

Essek is also in an unusual position in that the worst of the damage he caused is repairable - just return the beacons.[3] A secret, once compromised, can’t be un-compromised. If an asset hands over a cipher machine they can’t fix the situation by stealing the cipher machine back; the foreign agency they sold it to has already studied the machine and learned its secrets, meaning it’s now effectively useless. But returning the beacons restores what the Kryn lost. While keeping dunamancy secret gives the Kryn a tactical edge, and I’m sure the Dynasty would prefer to keep the magical soulstones of their elite hidden from their long-time rival, the beacons don’t need to be secret to work. Essek therefore has a much better chance than most to simply repair the damage, cut off his handlers, and try to forget the whole affair ever happened. He might even think that, now that the Assembly has their own beacon, they’ll have no further use for him and will just leave him alone.

But from the Cerberus Assembly's perspective, this fruit still has plenty of juice in it and they risk nothing by continuing to squeeze. Now that they have their own beacon Essek’s knowledge becomes even more valuable. He has access to hundreds of years of dunamantic spellcrafting - and more importantly the rite of consecution, since the Assembly were probably after beacons in the first place to make themselves immortal. If Essek is caught, it’s treason for him, but the Assembly doesn’t suffer; they were doing it for the good of the Empire, learning about dunamancy to help the war effort. So if he refuses to keep spying voluntarily for the Assembly, they’ll just have to find another way to motivate him. 

As part of evaluating Essek before recruitment, Assembly operatives would have noted that he’s, well, highly motivated to save his own skin. Ludinus’ goal therefore becomes to make Essek see further espionage as the only way to stay alive. So instead of confronting Essek then and there, Ludinus shrugs and goes, “Okay. Sure.” Then he activates the Volstruckers, maybe leaks a little info to the Dynasty about a traitor in their midst, and sets up Essek to stew in fear, feeling isolated and attacked from both sides - targeted by the Assembly for his defiance, under suspicion from the Dynasty, unable to ask for help because of his crimes. Ludinus sits back and waits for Essek to re-establish contact on his own. Of course Ludinus didn’t know that the M9 had confronted Essek and gotten him to confess, making a return to spying impossible even if he tried.

While Essek’s motives revolve around ego, frustration, and rebellion, his situation is more like those of people who end up defecting because they’re unable to pursue their careers or live as they want to back home. He has virtually no social/family ties to leave behind, no loyalty to Dynasty authority, and no religious fervor to defend the Luxon, while the Assembly promises him the company of like minds and free rein in his experiments. Assuming no intervention by the M9 I think Essek would have ended up defecting to the Cerberus Assembly. If he did it early enough in the story he might have even joined the Volstruckers to complete the narrative foil transformation.

If the crew had confronted him at the treaty but not offered mercy I think he would have defected purely out of fear, thinking the Assembly were the only people who could protect him from both the Dynasty and the M9. He was already on edge watching the guy he'd set up to take the fall getting walked away in chains and with the Assembly's Wind of Aeons ship right there it would be the ideal time to make the move. Assuming the treaty confrontation went as it did (the crew makes him confess but lets him live) but the M9 hadn’t shown up in Eiselcross, Essek would likely have fled the outpost and gone into hiding in a bid to outrun his crimes (and probably gotten caught two weeks later given how awful he was at being “Dezrain Thane.”)

Essek is far from the first recruited asset to regret what they did even as they kept doing it. Those who can sell out their nation and not feel even a pang of guilt are thankfully thin on the ground. Most start off doing what seems to be a favor for a friend - or accepting a favor from a friend who wants to help with their “financial difficulties” - and end up so deep they can’t see any way forward other than to keep handing over secrets. He’s one more in a long line of those who compromised information out of frustration, especially through the appeal to shared professional interests (that’s how industrial assets tend to be recruited.)

But he’s also in a much better place to make up for it than most assets. Since he primarily compromised property, not secrets, returning said property can (somewhat, mostly) repair the damage done, which goes a long way towards buying leniency from the powers that be. And now I’m realizing that this post actually needs one final part, which is: how do you try someone for espionage, and should you charge them with it in the first place?

[1]  While spy dramas love sexy blackmail, and handlers will happily collect it to leverage against a balky asset, it works far less often in reality as a main reason for espionage. Social penalties for extramarital affairs pale before actual legal penalties like the death sentence for treason. On the other hand, those with foreign relatives are sometimes coerced by threats against those relatives.

[2]  Lonetree’s case for leniency got a boost in 1994 when Aldrich Ames was finally caught and some serious breaches of embassy security that had been attributed to Lonetree were found to be Ames’ work instead. In 1996 Lonetree was released after having served 9 years total.

[3] Although I did just think of a really messed-up Cerberus Assembly plan: consecute a handful of completely loyal Volstruckers, kill them, and send the beacons back so said agents will be reborn in the Dynasty and work to undermine it from within. How fucked up would that be?? Campaign 3 plot hook anyone?

(This accidentally turned into a series on Essek & IRL espionage: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)