#my man literally had mystery cults he was so cool

[restlesskeychains]

Dionysus. Did I mention I love Dionysus?

[remturtle]

Art WIP dump :3

Some info about the pieces for those interested:

Image 1:

A WIP of a Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler OC inspired by Lucifer Morningstar from The Sandman (very good show btw, highly recommend.) a few twists and tweaks have been added, and lore from the manga regarding demons had been taken into account as well (not much mind you, mainly Sebastian’s first appearance in the cult and his shape-shift-iness)

The relationship they share with Sebastian was going to be a metaphor for harmful drug addiction and toxic codependent relationships- but I never got around to fleshing out info and their dynamics (or finalising a design for that matter)

Image 2:

had an idea for yuu/Vil angst that was literally just yuu dying mid-overblot, never got around for finishing it but I had the idea to have their blot-infected corpse start to fuse with vil’s overblot form to create a nasty-looking abomination thing. (Twisted Wonderland)

Image 3:

A riff on the phantom of the opera - I had an idea for a world filled with old thriller/mystery/classics characters like victor frankenstien, Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula, Carmilla, Sherlock Holmes and the likes. Tbh the whole idea is a bit gimmicky but I’m having fun with it :3

Image 4:

originally created as a twst OC based on madame mim: Memphis/mimzy/mim. I came up with some twst universe lore related to malleus and his house (because I love fueding noble houses and the chaos it creates narratively). He is a type of draconic-fae but I never dug too deep into that for the twst lore. I initially struggled through several design before settling (for the moment) on this design- and thought it would be hilarious to making him the fruitiest straight man alive. And I think we all appreciate a guy whose in touch with both his masculinity and his femininity :D

Image 5:

I cannot stress enough how much I’m low-key embarassed by this but… I started playing my favourite childhood game again and was struck with the urge for fanart so I came up with a cool, slightly darker au for it. The art is of Greely and Peck, who act as the demigods/deities. Haven’t yet decided what I want them to reside over but I liked the idea of them acting as a duo because of how often they’re paired together in lore. (Yes. This is Animal Jam. The national geographic kids game.)

That’s about it, hope you enjoyed the ramble :3

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

Love Until We Freeze Ch.1 Day 0 - Breck/Reader

[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ]

Warnings: Dead dove, do not eat. No use of Y/N, gender-neutral reader, extreme slowburn, stockholm syndrome, enemies (in reader's eyes) to lovers.

Warnings that are constant, but not repeated after this: The reader is afraid but desperate, and is constantly fighting back. Many mentions of depression, loneliness, helplessness, and self-worth. Kidnapping, manipulation, gaslighting, and abuse of all kinds (will be tagged). Varying levels of consent (will also be tagged), Breck touches the reader a lot and doesn't respect their personal space (touching, kissing, grinding, undressing, etc). The other members also don't respect their personal space because of him, literally everyone is terrible to them minus a few kind people because this is a cult. Reader is always being watched, reader has very slight epilepsy and a fear of needles, reader is very cold and will continue to be so.

Wordcount: 3548

Summary: You hated the cold, which is why you weren’t excited at all for the big family trip to the ski resort hours away from where you lived, but the summer heat was killing everyone else, and they were ready to risk the cold killing you for a moment of reprieve from it. The resort was beautiful, the slopes were enticing, and the mysterious man with the business card with a small black diamond in the corner might be more than he seemed when you run into him in the lobby your first day there.

Notes: The songs I listened to while writing~ Here it is, my longest DD fic outside of YMMWS, and as promised, I'm tagging the hell out of it, and it won't be going in DD's tag just in case. I really couldn't take any of the dove out and replace it with something tamer without it ruining what happens next and affecting how the ending goes, so here it is, uncensored for Halloween because I truly love how this one turned out. This will not be a happy fic, there is no cute fluff here (for the most part), you really need to be at least okay with what each chapter's tags are before proceeding, please. With that said, if this darker story does entice you, I hope you enjoy it during this dark month. ♦️

You first saw him while your family was on vacation, it being a trip to the mountain more than a few hours away to escape the summer heat, but it seemed like everyone forgot to actually ask your opinion on the destination since you fucking hated the cold.

There’d been other places you’d wanted to go, other things you’d rather do with your vacation hours off work, but as soon as the weatherman had given the week’s temperatures it’d been locked in, and you weren’t allowed to stay home despite being an adult with your own place, a car, a decently sized apartment; this was family time, you weren’t allowed to just ‘skip it this year’ even though you were so tempted to call back your boss and tell him you couldn’t go just so you’d have an excuse to give them. In the end you hadn’t, and you’d instead had to dig through your winter wardrobe despite the sweltering heat outside, just holding the sweaters and scarves and hats already making you sweat at the thought of putting them on later when it was more appropriate.

The drive up there on its own was practically unbearable, the conversations going on from your parents and relatives surrounding you in the rented minibus making what should’ve been an enjoyable ride through the seasons a headache instead. You’d tried to pull out the book you were currently reading as soon as you’d strapped in, but one of your uncles had seen it and pulled it right out of your hands, telling you to, ‘Talk with the family for once,’ with a big laugh, and you hadn’t seen it again after that. Now you had your head resting against the cooling glass, the snow starting to fall the closer you got to your destination, everyone pointing and talking about the mountain ahead when it came into view.

It was the biggest one closest to you, you’d looked it up when you’d gotten the bad news that it was where you’d be heading in a week’s time, and the entire ski resort had rave reviews about their excellent staff both in the sprawling wooden cabin-style hotel and the instructors on the slopes, as well as the single best double diamond course the States had to offer. Your bigshot cousin, a few years younger than you, boasted about mastering it all the way there, but you highly doubted it; he had a tendency to be all talk, or all wax no wick as you’d heard it said on TV.

You slipped on your warmest jacket before the minibus even stopped, no one else taking the switch from summer to winter as seriously as they wore passable fall outfits for now; they were still in travel and packing modes, but you knew better as the vehicle pulled up to a stop just outside the grand double doors. It was a nice place, you couldn’t deny that as you grabbed your suitcase and backpack from the overhead bin and headed into the warm lobby, it already filled with people getting ready to hit the slopes now that the sun, although covered by clouds for the most part, was high in the sky. You hurried over to the receptionist’s desk to check-in as your family started piling in behind you, each opening of the doors blasting you with the cold, and you gave them your name so you could get the key to your single room and go.

The only way you’d agreed to come was being able to book your own room, you were not about to share no matter how much your parents had argued against it since your single room would be so far away from everyone else’s doubles, but you’d just played it off and acted like that wasn’t exactly what you wanted. As such, your room was on the ground floor while theirs were higher up on the floors above, all spaced out based on availability, and as soon as you were able to separate from them and bask in your solitude you felt yourself instantly relax. You might not be able to leave, and you did have to make at least one appearance outside to avoid your father’s wrath about the wasted money and the fact that you might as well have stayed home if you weren’t going to ski - which you wanted to tell them was also your desire - but at least you had this.

You unpacked your things as slowly as possible, ignoring your phone as it lit up to tell you that everyone would be meeting in the dining room for dinner in a few hours after they were all settled in. You made sure that every single thing was in its place so you could avoid leaving again for as long as you could, finding every excuse to stall until you had no choice but to get acquainted with the space outside your room. You opened up the map on your phone after pulling on your warmest sweater, it was nice inside but you’d rather sweat than take any chances, and the second you left your wing of the hotel and stepped into the lobby you crashed into a group of people waiting to take their lessons. The two you’d hit fell forward, hit two more each, everyone holding onto each other as embarrassment made you cringe and want to bail, the instructor seeing the commotion and parting the group like Moses, his presence commanding respect even as he didn’t say a word.

You noticed the vest first, highly visible to stand out against the snow and trees, then the reflective sunglasses, your face warped in the colour as you looked up at him, and when he took them off to look you in the eye you felt all the embarrassment leave as dark brown irises stared you down. ‘I hope you’re not this clumsy out there, on the mountain,’ he demanded to know, your phone almost slipping from your hand as you stared before you came back to your senses and shook your head.

‘I don’t ski,’ you told him quickly, and he looked you over pointedly.

‘That much is obvious, that’s why you’re in need of my lessons, aren’t you?’ He said it like a question but it almost sounded like a statement, you needed his lessons, you had no choice now that he’d said it.

‘Uh…’

‘Lessons sound great!’ Your head spun as your parents exited the doors behind you, your father’s hand clapping down on your shoulder, trapping you there as the impatient group grew even more so the longer they were kept waiting. ‘How much do you charge?’

‘I’m full up today, but my lessons cost nothing but the love of the powder, the scent of the trees as they fly by, bring those with you as currency and I can teach you everything you want to know,’ he told you instead of your father, his eyes never leaving you and making you feel small. ‘And, for those who want to reach the Double Black, I also do private lessons, but those do cost a considerable amount.’

‘This one’s not going pro anytime soon, we’re just here for the week,’ your father laughed, the man still not looking at him as he just hummed to him with a slight nod, ‘but if my wife and I were to try it, how much would it cost?’

‘You couldn’t afford it.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said-’ He finally looked at him, the hand on your shoulder tightening a little as those brown eyes drilled into him with a seriousness you’d never seen before, why was he so intense for a ski instructor? ‘-you couldn’t afford it.’

Your father’s hand dropped from your shoulder as he stormed off, your mother apologizing before chasing after him before his temper spoiled the night, and when you looked from them back to the man you found he was staring at you again, his group ignored behind him until one of the women tapped on his shoulder. ‘Um, are we heading out soon? It’s getting cold,’ she asked, and something flashed in his eyes as he turned his head just enough to face her.

‘If you can’t appreciate the cold of the snow you don’t belong up here, get out,’ he hissed, and she and a few others laughed at his joke before the sound died out one by one, he wasn’t joking. ‘Get. Out.’ His voice was low, level, restrained, and she huffed before grabbing her friend and leaving, the two already talking about how he was hot but not that hot as they went off to grab some lattes to warm up with. ‘If everyone else is prepared then you can meet me outside by the lifts, I’ll be there in just a moment.’

The group just did a collective shrug before heading out, it was a free lesson so the only thing they were really losing was time, and as soon as they were gone he held out his card, pulled from seemingly nowhere; you took it and looked it over, it nothing special aside from his name, which was apparently Breck Montanari, the title of Level 8 Ski Instructor underneath it, which you supposed must be good, as well as a small black diamond in the lower right corner.

‘Thanks, but- I’m not much of a skier, I hate the cold,’ you admitted as you held out the card for him to take back, but he just took it before pressing it back into your palm, his hands enveloping yours as he leaned forward just a little.

‘Then you really need my lessons,’ he almost whispered, or maybe he was speaking at a normal volume and you were blacking out under that gaze, his hands freezing over your own until your skin burned. ‘Come find me at the top of the mountain tomorrow at 8PM, under the marker for the Double Black, I’ll give you your first lesson.’

You couldn’t refuse as he let go of your hand, put his sunglasses back on, and walked outside to rejoin his group, the edges of the card biting into your palm and fingers even without him there to hold it in place.

The rest of the day flew by before you knew it, the card heavy in your pocket as you followed your family around while they toured the place, your appetite almost gone as they sat around you during dinner. You only picked at your food, as delicious as it looked, before excusing yourself with the lie of a headache despite knowing the predictable jokes made at your expense as everyone chided you for walking away. Your room felt much too dark and empty for your liking as you walked inside, stripped down so you could put on your pajamas, get into bed for the night, his card now laying on the nightstand right beside your phone.

Not once did he leave your mind, it was almost like he’d cast a spell on you, and you thought back to his request before sitting up, the blankets bunching around your waist. He wouldn’t be there now, it was the middle of the night and the lifts weren’t even running, but something drew you to get out of bed, get dressed in your warmest clothes, your family sleeping soundly well away from the sound of your door shutting behind you. Your muffled footsteps barely left an echo as you walked over the diamond-patterned red carpet, the other rooms quiet as you passed by them, the lobby still lit up for those who had their own curiosity to them, although you were the only one out there at the moment.

Even the bar patrons had gone to bed over an hour ago, the time on the large ornamental grandfather clock by the entertainment wing’s door showing it was just after 2AM, and you wondered if maybe you’d be locked in when you tried the front doors. You pushed them and they gave way, letting in the most bitter chill you’d ever felt in your life, your scarf covering as much of your face as you could manage, your hat pulled down so low that it was brushing uncomfortably against your eyelids. It was freezing out, it was pitch black, and still you followed the lit up path to the lifts, the currently falling snow covering up all the prints of the day.

You were right, of course you would be, the lifts weren’t moving and it was impossible to walk up the entire mountain so you didn’t know what you were trying to do here as you swore to yourself, sniffling away the burning cold as you attempted to rub some heat back into your arms. ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ you asked yourself, your voice so quiet even without anyone around to cover it up with their own idle chatter. ‘I need to get back inside before I get frostbite, this was so fucking dumb.’

‘What’s dumb about wanting to watch the snow fall?’

You jumped and slipped on the lightly packed powder under your boots, your body landing hard on the shoveled piles behind you, your eyes scanning the darkness until you saw the light reflecting off of his sunglasses. He wore a warmer coat, a hat on his head and gloves on his hands, but he looked like the cold wasn’t affecting him in the slightest, moved like he had no chill whatsoever, this was normal to him. Breck, you refused to call him Mr. Montanari no matter how high his level was after seeing him in that vest, walked up to you and extended his hand for you to take, and you almost refused before you felt the ice seep into your legs, the cold starting to burn the longer you were sitting down.

He pulled you up with ease, your chest colliding against his and trapping your hands together between them, and you didn’t know if it was just the material of his coat or if he was even colder than the snow. ‘The doors lock at 2:30, after the bar closes down, so no one drunkenly wanders outside and gets themselves killed,’ he explained without letting go, fear starting to overtake you at the thought of being trapped out there until dawn. ‘The other… instructors and I have our own place up the mountain, away from the hotel; I can take you there, if you’d rather not freeze to death tonight?’

‘You sure there’s no way inside?’ you couldn’t stop yourself from asking, and when he smiled at you you noticed that his right canine stuck out a little further than the rest, it catching on his chapped lips.

‘I’m sure.’

‘Then let’s go, please.’ You knew this was even more stupid than coming out in the middle of the night, but he worked there, your parents had seen him talking to you, his card was on your nightstand still, if he did end up killing you on this mountain then he’d never get away with it. That thought didn’t ease you though as he brought you to an idly running ATV, how you’d walked right past it you didn’t know, but the inside was at least a little warmer as you shut your door and strapped in your seatbelt. The heat was on a low setting and you stared at the dial, willing it to turn as he sat down next to you and started the engine back up, and you were sure he noticed you staring as he let out a small chuckle and just started driving.

It was pitch black and the snow gave him such little visibility but he still knew where he was going, following a drivable path up the mountain just for his vehicle as well as his co-workers’, the hotel quickly disappearing behind the sheet of white and black in the distance until all you saw was what the headlights showed to you. It took a good half hour, maybe longer, you didn’t know as you shut your eyes and bunched up to try and cling to your remaining warmth, but he did eventually reach a secondary building high up on the mountain as promised. There were many other vehicles already parked there, but he drove past them as he rounded off to the side where a garage was waiting; he clicked a button on his keychain and the middle door lifted open, a space waiting for him with an owner sign of nothing more than a large black diamond on the wall at the end.

He parked, shut off the engine, and then got out, not even waiting for you to follow before leaving the garage, the lights turning off one by one the longer you waited. As soon as you saw what was happening you scrambled to get out before you were plunged into complete darkness, your phone unable to provide a light since you’d stupidly left it on your nightstand in your hurry to leave, and you just managed to reach the door on numb legs as the final light shut off. You threw it open and fell to the ground on the other side, your hands shaking as they hovered over the cement and tile floor, the wet footprints of Breck leading to his boots as well as two others as you slowly looked up, the strangers wearing gray sweaters with blue squares right in the middle standing above you without saying a word.

‘You’ll freeze down there, the floor isn’t very insulated,’ he simply said as they all stared at you, and when you were too stunned to move he motioned towards you, the two lifting you up by your arms and helping you stand. ‘Your room is this way, it isn’t as nice as back at the hotel, but you don’t have much of a choice up here, all the good rooms are for the Black Diamonds,’ he explained as you were all but dragged down the hall, your feet unable to keep up with them with how much the numbness was spreading. You’d never been this cold in your life, the winters back home didn’t even feel this bad, but it also could’ve had to do with the fact that you were so afraid of what was going on that you were finding it hard to move regardless.

He stopped outside a long line of doors, the numbers going up the only indicators of what was on the other sides to those who understood, and he flipped to a generic key on his keyring and unlocked it, your fight or flight finally kicking in at the sight. You tried to fight them off, needing to put some distance between whatever the fuck he intended for you inside that room and yourself, but when he grabbed you by the scarf, pulled it right off from around your dry throat you froze, staring up at him as he handed the scarf to the person to your left. Your hat came next, then he was undoing the zipper of your coat, and as soon as you heard the sound echo down the hallway you yanked yourself free and fell, your hands coming up to pull it closed again.

‘Oh, just what do you think I’m going to do with you?’ he asked, but there was a dark playfulness behind his words that hadn’t been there before, one you couldn’t trust as you were lifted back up again and carried inside. The room held a single bed with only a pillow and a sheet that definitely wouldn’t keep you warm, as well as a small bedside table with a single drawer, and a square table pushed into the corner by the door with only one chair; it looked like a slightly comfier prison cell than a spare room, and you looked back over your shoulder at him as your chest started to heave.

‘Will you bring me back tomorrow?’ you tried not to plead, and he just grinned at you before putting his sunglasses back on even though he was indoors and it was the middle of the night, although his eyes offered you no hope before they were hidden from sight.

‘You still need your first lesson,’ he smirked, and when you were dropped on the bed you bounced a little and tried to crawl towards him, your aching legs instantly sinking into the thin but comfortable mattress.

‘But you said I couldn’t afford it,’ you panicked, the two leaving the room so he could grab onto the handle.

‘I said your parents couldn’t afford it, you still don’t know what the price is.’

The door started to shut, and it took you a moment to realize that the light had never been on, and the window was up so high and was so small that once the door was shut you’d be back in that darkness again.

‘What’s the price? Just fucking tell me and I’ll pay it!’ You were getting desperate, you wanted out, you never wanted this, but this time he didn’t answer as the door clicked shut, his keys jingling again as you were locked in.

[cantfuckbracket]

Can't Fuck Bracket - Group Stage. Group 8: The Mysterious Benedict Society (TV) Characters

LD Curtain versus Jeffers versus Dr Garrison

[ID: The unfuckable pride flag overlaid with the "no bitches" meme. Over it are pictures of the contestants. They are all tanned white people. Curtain has hair slicked to the side and is shown pursing his lips and throwing his hands back; Jeffers has a moustache and is grimacing; and Dr Garrison looks like she's about to sneeze. Over them are sparkles and a heart with a butt, and in between them are peach emojis crossed out with the word "vs" in them. End ID]

Propaganda:

LD Curtain: "He's both a cringefail loser (See: 1. repeatedly beaten by a group of literal children, at one point even saying "they have proven to be my only worthy adversaries" (<- man talking about a group of eleven year olds), 2. screaming at a child, while visibly tearing up, "I AM NOT SAD! I AM *FINE!*", 3. genuinely thinking he can simply say no to having narcolepsy, 4. keeps little painted figurines of his brother and co and does magic tricks with them to intimidate an eleven year old, sincerely thinks this is an extremely cool thing to do), a bad dad (terrible both in the sense that he's emotionally abusive and in the sense that he thinks he's doing suuuuuuuch a good job and he very much isn't), and just like. evil?? but not in the sexy way. and also he's in denial about it which makes it even LESS sexy. Negative sexy if you will. "I'm not bad. who thinks that" sir you are standing in your mind control machine. "Sticky! Friend! Evil is a bit harsh!" sir you psychologically tortured him. anyway he does stupid little magic tricks and is a complete failure but somehow manages to convince everyone that he's charming and actually very cool. while obviously like, starting a cult or being just visibly a cringefail maniac two seconds from flying off the handle. anywya this got out of hand the point is: UNFUCKABLE."

Jeffers: "he's just. a sad little man. the biggest loser i've ever seen. [shrek voice] he can't even secure a perimeter! no but seriously the way he just like. fails at literally everything he does? he even annoys CURTAIN with his incompetence/general loseritude. if he tried to have sex i think somehow the bed would end up on fire and he'd have to leave literally with his head hanging. somehow his dick would just fall off and bounce on the floor like a sad little worm on a string. i'm so sorry for giving you that mental image and if you want to kill me for it i understand"

Dr Garrison: "Dr. Garrison is *the* representation for unfuckable insane women in STEM we’ve all been waiting for. She spends the entirety of the show conducting unethical experiments. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if she’s ever heard of the concept of “relaxing” or “having fun.” She has the energy of “someone who should’ve had a girlboss villain arc and had a midlife crisis instead.” Actually, that is literally what happens. She was fired and framed by her boss and she *should’ve* had her hot girl divorcee revenge arc; instead, she’s hiding out in a root cellar paying off a gang of teenage lesbians to kidnap a 7 year old that she needs for further unethical experiments. The last time we see her on screen, she’s sobbing collapsed on a table as the 7-year old her lesbians kidnapped administers what I like to call “malicious therapy.” It is important to note that she is wearing what appears to be a potato sack throughout this entire encounter.

Basically, her cringe fail swag combined with her “never heard of the concept of fun” energy as well as her impending midlife crisis combine to create an incredible aura of unfuckability. (However, I am a fool. I could fix her <3)"

[gopped]

so… remember when I said I wanted to create the most 2015 out of character most cringe fanfic about durgetash and I had that pole asking if I should actually write it (as well as some actual serious durgetash which I will.) well…. I did it. Any bad use of grammar/ spelling are 100% on purpose, this is not a serious fic aka please don’t think this is how I actually write.

enjoy 984 words of pure torture.

Hey my name is The Dark Urge but everyone calls me Durge for short. I’m really poggers and epic because I was born from the blood of Bhaal, yeah Bhaals my dad, suck on that posers. I have ivory-white scales and eyes the color of blood being splashed on the deepest of rubies. And I’m a storm sorcerer, studying to do magic is for losers! Plus I have this super cool slayer form that literally makes me so badass. As the true spawn of Bhaal you could say I have it all, I have a whole cult at my beck and call, all the different corpses I can eat… but there’s one thing I don’t have yet. There’s this one guy….. The chosen of Bane, we made like this pact thing that says I can’t harm him but it never said I couldn’t fuck him. And by the gods I will. I want him to be my shmoopie snuggluffagus cutie pookie patootie pudding muffin, but my dad is like a total buzz kill so I have to apologize for even thinking about putting a ring on that. Anyways his names Enver Gortash but he prefers for me to call him Enver because we’re close like that and I’m special and all that fun stuff. Plus I’m so much better that the depressed pile of dust and bones we also have to work with, ugh he’s such a boomer.

So here I am walking into Moonrise Towers so we can start discussing our super foolproof evil plans for how to take over the world. My super platform docs stomp against the stone steps to enter the tower, I glare at a few of the various subjects of other cults, idk which ones though, all I know is they’re not as cool as I am. Their probably posers and preps for all I know. But again, I don’t care. I make my grand entrance into the throne like room, doves flying behind me as light shines behind me, I’m just that important to like the world and stuff. I whip off my super cool angular anime sunglasses and I look around the room I see my pookie schmookie goth fantasy man boo-boo bear sugar goober standing off to the side and I see the old decaying grandpa corpse sitting on the big chair at the end of the room. Ugh, he’s the worst, and not even in a fun way, he won’t shut up about how his daughter doesn’t want to talk to him anymore and how he’s literally only here because of her, like how boring can a backstory get? He begins to speak. “Ah how nice of you to finally join us, you’re over an hour late.” He grumbles out, I swear theres like a moth living where his brain should be doesn’t he know that you have to be fashionably late? “Umm yeah.” I say, “that’s the point, what kind of nerd actually shows up on time.” I say rolling my perfect blood red eyes, making sure I show my sharp teeth as I scoff at him for extra effect. “Whatever, let’s just start the meeting already.” The reanimated corpse groans out, bones cracking as he repositions himself in his high chair. I cross my arms over my chest because I’m mysterious and awesome as the guy begins to speak, I don’t pay attention my sister is probably around here somewhere I’ll just ask her for the spark notes version. Gods I want to kill someone. Like I don’t have to, but I’m bored and it’s something I enjoy doing. Then I notice something in the corner of the room, while the old man goes on and on I go and investigate, the something I noticed was a cultist, not one of mine of course, they knew better. Upon further inspection, they don’t even seem to be a cultist, their robes look homemade with no reference to what they’re even supposed to be wearing. And they seem to be snooping around too, ugh it’s probably some Harper spy or something. Well, might as well get my kill count up while I’m here I guess… I approach them and before they could even begin to utter an excuse I shove my dagger in their mouth, dragging it against the roof of their mouth and tongue and pushing it down their throat. I watch with glee as the fear in their eyes gets worse as they start to choke on their own blood. I wiggle my blade, making the gashes in their mouth wider as I do so. I could stop there, but where’s the fun in that? I pull my dagger out to watch them cough and sputter out their own blood, uselessly clawing at their throat. Ugh, what a poser, I bet that even before I did that they wouldn’t be able to name 3 MCR songs.. I shove the spy onto the ground as they look up at me almost pleading with their eyes. Ugh it’s disgusting. So I take my dagger and I begin to hit them, it’s at this point I notice that the boring guy stopped speaking and the room was silent except for the occasional blood gurgle. I pull out the persons intestines and that’s when Gorts and my eyes meet across the room. It’s like so romantic like I swear someone casted like stop time or something… him and his pepsi dark eyes… I tuck some of the blood around my tympanum, gods he’s like so hot. Like the hottest I’ve seen in my 40 years of dreadful existence. Then he walks over to me and my heart goes doki doki he knees beside me on the other side of the now corpse and we start making out. No lips no tongue, all teeth. And then we took control of the netherbrain and got married.

The end.

[rabbitholeresearch]

The Diagnosis of Chris Redfield

It all began in the spring of 1998. Raccoon City had a case of cannibalistic murders and mysterious animal attacks, both on hikers and residents that lived near Raccoon Forest. The city’s police department guess a satanic cult of some kind, probably on narcotics of some kind, given the extent of the violent attacks. However, as the investigation continued, they guessed the base of operations for this cult was somewhere deep within Arklay Mountains, about northwest of the city. With public pressure, the RPD gave in to and put a specialized task force on the team known as the Special Tactics and Rescue Service, AKA S.T.A.R.S., led by Captain Albert Wesker.

Shortly after STARS is put on the case, they send Team Bravo into the suspected hideout deep within said mountains in the mid-summer. Radio contact is lost. Alpha Team went in, finding out that Bravo was attacked, and fled into the mansion and split up.

And it’s here. It is here that young Chris Redfield’s life takes a turn for the worst. Without getting too into detail, he straight up is thrown from the world of a young cop who just had fun little shooting competitions with his friends, to a gritty, beefcake, boulder punching man who lost his memory at one point due to a concussion caused by a fake Ada Wong, regains those memories, and eventually finds the origins of Oswald Spencer’s research and destroys the origination of the Mold.

But that’s just it. How does he stay this cool, badass character that just shows up and sprays down zombies like it’s nothing? Well...he doesn’t. I think the leader of the Alpha team has severe PTSD.

Please note that this post will be talking about severe trauma from a psychiatric perspective so please, if you see or think anything might affect you, I beg you to turn away. This post will also have spoilers for the recent Resident Evil 8 game for those that haven’t played.

–

So let’s start by defining PTSD. According to the American Psychiatric Association, PTSD is and I quote: “A psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, or war/combat.”

Okay so at the very least, Chris Redfield is probably already a qualified patient. “Terrorist act”? Check. I would absolutely say that the events of Resident Evil 6 count as that. “War/Combat”? We saw that for the most part in RE5. “Natural Disaster?” Aaaaah. Maybe six or seven? That one’s kinda weird to be honest. But serious accident? Yes. Absolutely! Why? Because, referenced in Resident Evil 5, we see Jill Valentine, who is basically his sidekick/best friend from the very first game, and even survives on her own for a bit in Resident Evil 3, falls out of a window after attacking Albert Wesker who betrayed STARS and was infected with some form of the zombie virus. Chris presumed her death, only to find out she survived the fall through, ya know, video game logic, and was experimented on by Wesker.

Which honestly, I was surprised he didn’t come back too. I mean, in Resident Evil 5, his last hoorah is literally in a freaking volcano! What is up with that?! But his son, Jake Muller (who until RE6 didn’t even know who his dad was), appeared and I really expected Wesker to just pop up like “Hey son. I’m back with those smokes. Also, you’re immune to the C-Virus so congrats. My zombie body helped make you with your mom--” Alright that got too weird. ANYWAY.

We’re here because Chris, in all fairness, has trauma. But let’s try and figure this out. The A.P.A. states that PTSD symptoms, though they can vary in specificity, fall into four categories:

Intrusion

Avoidance

Alterations in cognition and mood

Alteration in arousal and reactivity

Now I will say I actually have PTSD of my own. Avoidance and Intrusion are absolutely symptoms I got through, as well as Cognition and Mood alterations when triggered.

Something I noticed is Chris definitely doesn’t avoid anything so we can go ahead and cross that off. Chris Redfield always dives in headfirst cuz well...he’s the American Boy. He’s the definition of charge in and be the American hero because human lives are at stake so the second one is crossed off.

Now the third one, Cognitions and Mood. This basically means important details of events aren’t remembered, everything’s kinda blurred, which results in detached behavior and Survivor’s Guilt. Now while Survivor’s Guilt is often a result of PTSD, it isn’t a form of PTSD. It’s just another symptom. It’s basically kinda like when you eat way, way too many blue gummy bears and then your poop is blue. It’s blue because of the gummy bears. If you didn’t have the Gummy Bear, you don’t have the blue poop. 

Fun fact, that’s an actual thing that happened to my dad one Easter, but I think it might’ve actually been jelly beans. I can’t really remember.

Survivor’s Guilt could very well be something Chris suffers from, dating all the way back to the Mansion Incident in the first Resident Evil. He was one of few people who survived that entire incident and what happened afterward? Did he take a mental health break? Nope! Chris takes on a mission in Europe, as seen in Resident Evil 2 when Claire is going to Raccoon City to try and find her brother. 

Now let’s think about this. Rather than rest and recover from this event, he proceeds to pursue his investigation of the Umbrella Corporation. Chris is treated at the hospital and, despite trying to report their findings to the police chief, Irons, STARS is ultimately shut down. Chris then reports everything he needs to the FBI and even assaults a fellow officer.

The RPD tells Chris he needs a break and he says he’s going to Europe for a “vacation” but this was just an excuse to get to Europe in order to enact his vengeance on Umbrella for all the Hell it caused his city and possibly even the world.

That’s nuts. I wish I could do that at my work and get away with it. Just fight someone on the shift and then go to Corporate armed with nothing but a fry basket, ready to take them out.

This leads me to that fourth category: Alterations in arousal and reactivity. This is defined as reckless or self-destructive behavior, angry outbursts, hypervigilance, and even trouble sleeping.

This is entirely reckless. I mean, I get it. Going rogue because this company is obviously evil and has a hand in bio-terrorism. Yeah. That’s fair. Let’s take them out. But if only it were that easy, as we can see throughout the franchise. Despite Umbrella BARELY hiding their attempts at world domination, as seen in RE6, no one really flinches. They’re somehow still in the running.

Having said that, in Resident Evil 4, three years after RE3, Leon actually says in the introduction that Umbrella was wiped out by the investigation. Without digging into this, I’m presuming this is because Jill managed to escape Raccoon City and was able to report her findings as one of five survivors, six if you count Ada Wong. Which does make me wonder how they’re still hanging around like a more gruesome Team Rocket.

And the last category is Intrusive. Now, this is where this unravels, actually. Intrusive is basically intrusive thoughts. Those little thoughts or images that flash through just enough to unsettle you and if you’re like me and have diagnosed OCD, then you play these thoughts over and over in your head.

It’s like you want to go to the park. Okay, great, the park is outside. Nice. The outside is where people are. People aren’t that great, in my perspective. Bad people exist. Bad people like to hurt people. I’m a people that could be hurt by a bad person. Because of that, I can’t go to the park now. 

It’s like being stuck in a loop that wants you to be sad. Like, thank you brain. I just wanted to get stuck in the baby swing but now I’m going to sit on my phone and scroll through TikTok and be sad.

Intrusive thoughts are what had me curious. The intrusive category is actually where most people are commonly confused about what PTSD is as this is where we find that flashbacks fall into. A great example of a flashback in Resident Evil is actually in the fifth game. This is where Jill Valentine doesn’t really become Chris’ partner. We learn that during the last bout, they had against Wesker is where she’d fallen out the window as I mentioned earlier. This is explained in a flashback.

That’s interesting to me. Yes, from a storytelling perspective, it makes sense, but Chris remembers such vivid details, even Wesker’s eyes glowing.

But what’s interesting is, this event, in particular, seemed to affect Chris the most. Despite that his sister has been kidnapped by people affiliated with both Umbrella and Wesker, Jill’s ��death” shook him up the most, which is fair. His best friend and partner throughout the entire thing, someone he shared his trauma with and even started the BSAA with was just gone. No even a body. Three months and nothing was found before she was declared dead. He dove into his work head-on, taking every mission he could!

This is why he takes deaths so personally. This is also shown in Resident Evil 6 when Piers, a young soldier who looked up to Chris and helped find him after he lost his memory after an incident with a fake Ada Wong, is infected with the zombie virus, he holds onto his humanity in order to save Chris, but ultimately does die in the underwater lab facility, supposedly by water pressure before losing his mind to the virus.

The former Alpha Team consisted of the following:

Chris Redfield

Albert Wesker

Barry Burton

Brad Vickers

Jill Valentine

Joseph Frost

All members of the original team that infiltrated the Spencer Mansion in RE1. Let’s go ahead and cross some people off.

Wesker? Dead as of Resident Evil 5. Good. Stay dead. You suck! You’re like the Capcom version of Ganondorf, just stay dead, dude!

Burton?  Alive, but hasn’t appeared in a main RE game since the first.

Vickers? Dead as of the third installment of the game. He was the pilot who sacrificed himself after being bitten during the attempted escape from Nemesis in Raccoon City before the place was blown sky-high. You actually see him later again in the third game attacking the cop you meet in the second Resident Evil, interestingly enough, but what’s sad really is that he still has some semblance of his humanity and ends up groaning out the cop’s name before attacking and infecting that man. Poor guy. Really was just a poor soul.

Moving on. Jill Valentine? Still alive and definitely kicking but she’s become more of an iconic character for the movies. So from a lore perspective, as of the end of 5, she is no longer in the main series that we’ve seen. Mostly just referenced. This might change however later on as I do believe there will be a ninth installment coming soon if not already in the works as of writing this.

Frost? Dead. He was actually the first to die as soon as they touched down at Spencer Mansion, by zombie-dogs, no less. He stood no chance.

That means, of the original team, Chris is the only one still active. This means that he is the most trained to handle situations from a tactical perspective, but not an emotional one.

I mean, we see him really weighing the whole situation in Resident Evil 8. He’s seen smoking a cigarette, clearly stressed out and tired of dealing with everything, despite creating an Anti-Umbrella team called Blue Umbrella. Yeah. Not that creative, my guy. But he’s tired of hearing and seeing people die which...is fair.

I’d say he does have PTSD and it is Survivor’s Guilt.

Yes, he and his team are ready to die, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s losing people he’s had long nights with, sharing beer, shooting pool, busting bad scientists with, and he still loses them.

In the military, a soldier doesn’t fear his own death but the death of his comrades.

Survivor’s Guilt is really just a terrible thing. I’d say actually several characters in the Resident Evil franchise have this, including poor Mia Winters!

Chris might have it but uses it to his advantage. He uses the knowledge he’s gained from staying alive in an attempt to help others stay alive and ultimately bring down the Umbrella Coorporation.

Ultimately, Chris Redfield seems to be wanting to make up for the lives lost to this organization.

Research links:

Coping with survivor’s guilt: https://artherapyinternational.org/blog/traumatic-events-coping-with-survivors-guilt-afterwards/

What is PTSD?  https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd

Chris Redfield Bio https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Chris_Redfield#Biography

Symptoms of Survivor’s Guilty: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325578#symptoms

[gay-dorito-dust]

Leon intellectualizing me mes just comes with the man. It'll go straight over his head and the interrogation will start. It's not to prove his point, but like you said, he's unnecessarily philosophical.

..ngl 🥺 I am too. It's the dance between rubbing my forehead and walking away or over-analyzing with him. 🤡

~~~~~~ incoming rant ~~~

"I made it everyone's problem" ahhhh 🤣🤣🤣 good work solider. Lmao I love that.

That's the thing there was never a point to them! They barely did their jobs and they kept fucking over groot, grouch, gruis, whatever the hell his name is. They're not even useful henchmen. They couldn't even do the one job they had ➡️ ELECTRIC CHAIR!

*clears throat and fixes hair*

Sorry for the rant. I genuinely despise the minions and think they dealt a hand in the extinction of humanity. I've seen the original concept art, BUT that's not what we got. Whoever dealt out a soulless, lazy, bootleg version deserves the smite of every horrific eldritch god.

~~~back to Leon ✨️🥚~~~~~~

You know when he reads it he's gunna squint and then pull out his readers (that sit on his nose cuz he's cool like that 😎).

Omg!! Say it louder for those in the back because they really love depicting Leon like a suave, charming, mysterious, badass. As much I eat that shit up. He is a badass but bb he's goofy, awkward, and believes he's a cool kid.

"Where did everyone go? BiNGo?" 🥴

"I’m sure you boys didn’t just tag along so we can sing kumbaya together at some boy scout bonfire." 🙃 Leon, get out. You're walking the rest of the way.

Ashley deserves more credit after surviving a murderous cult AND Leon's one liners. I know I would've accidentally hurt his feelings by the 6th one liner.

I over analyse stuff too much and it’s grown into a game of ‘is it something deep? Or am I just trying to find something that wasn’t there in the first place?’

Mate, Leon was saving that ‘where did everybody going? Bingo?’ One line in his back pocket and he found the opportunity in the WEIRDEST way possible.

Which leads me to think that Leon has shit comedic timing.

Plus his one liners only hit with those who like that type of shit. (guilty as charged.)

Tbh I’d let him speak his one liners, tell him out of pity that they’re good whilst dying inside from how bad they are. (cuz I have the backbone of a chocolate eclair. What a twat.)

I’d only be encouraging this behaviour of his and for that I must apologise…for making everyone else suffer alongside me. ❤️

-extremely short rant-

The minions were only there to be made into toys for kids and comedic effect with their running gags of fart gun/bananas and literally nothing else.

-rant over-

Leon be like;

Ashley is the bravest solider cuz I wouldn’t be able to do it. Not a chance. I’d crack and be like to the weird cult ‘kill me now thnx.’

Leon: *after cutting off an arm of a villager* looks like you’ve been disarmed 😎

Ashley:

[incohorace]

Tell us about fitzgerald air!

hi yay!! i get to talk about fitzgerald muahahaha

so fitzgerald air (temporary name) is set in an alternate 1920s london in which an immortality-obsessed airship magnate competes with a fanatical cult to awake an ancient, powerful pantheon from where they lie dormant beneath a monolith in the centre of westminster. yeah. such a slay

it's centered around unemployed engineer elias digby, who has finally been released from the grip of his family; an airship pilot named andrew spencer who is on the run after discovering a dark secret at the heart of the famous company fitzgerald air, which has a monopoly on airships and is headed by sir hugh fitzgerald, who is incredibly rich and influential; nora atkins, a wealthy and glamorous heiress who also happens to be a mathematical genius; adrien bennet, the owner of a motor car company called merlin motors who are attempting to improve the design of the airplane so it can become a rival to fitzgerald's airships.

after stumbling upon the scene of a seemingly sacrificial murder, elias, who is bored and smart and has nothing better to do, starts to investigate, and gradually uncovers a secret and terrifying cult who worship a mysterious, ancient being.

meanwhile andrew, on the run from fitzgerald's hitmen, hides out with his close friend nora (because she owns two whole mansions) while attempting to decipher some strange blueprints he stole from fitzgerald after a fellow employee's death, as well as a map, centered around westminster monolith (where big ben is now) with what seem to be ley lines stretching out around it.

eventually the three join up, and adrien bennet enlists their help to bring the two organisations down and stop them before they've awakened this sinister eldritch entity, which could endanger the fate of humanity

and also elias helps adrien design a new and improved plane which is cool

it's not the most developed idea as of now but i'm kind of obsessed with it <3

elias digby – sarcastic, smart, talented engineer, SO traumatised, can quote shakespeare any day, internally screaming every time andrew or adrien so much as looks at him (he has a type)

andrew spencer – THE bisexual, flirt, literally has never taken anything seriously in his life (not true he loves everyone around him very fiercely), reckless, loves flying as in he can't live without it, for someone who seems so confident and sure of himself he sure blushes a lot whenever he makes eye contact elias......

nora atkins – fashion icon, mathematical genius, somehow manages to keep andrew in check (how does she do it), actually SHE'S the bisexual of all time and i'm obsessed with her, she owns a motorbike which is hot

adrien bennet – a bit similar to andrew but with more mad scientist vibes, he's also a very charismatic leader and just generally really good with people and makes friends easily

and here's the opening paragraph because it's one of my fav things i've ever written:

That morning, London had awoken to a great downpour, the first storm after a long, dry summer, but it was evening now and its inhabitants were grumbling about the weather as if they were well into autumn and had been wearing their raincoats for weeks, trudging along rain-soaked pavements and dodging puddles with the ill-tempered resignation of a country famous for its rain. The walkers’ umbrellas groaned and sagged beneath the water that tumbled from the sheet of grey above, and they cast envious glances at the occasional passing motor car. The airships trundling high over the grimy streets suffered a similar fate: the water washed over their sloped tops and surged down their furrowed sides, collecting in gutters and gurgling down rickety pipes or simply streaming down and onto the people below. An airship hung heavy in the sky above one construction site, shielding it from the pouring rain like a great, ungainly umbrella, and a young man stood a little way from the ramshackle scaffolding, a dark blue bicycle propped up against him as he rummaged around in his pockets. He was lean and serious and his eyes sparkled with intelligence, though his face was a little pinched and his chin rather sharp; his black hair was sopping wet and flattened to his forehead, sending a steady stream of water down his nose. He payed it no mind.

[bramblewatchescharmed]

s1e8 "Bug a Boo"

Thoughts after watching Charmed (2018) s1e8 "Bug a Boo":

For a show whose marketing was very pointed about Mel being a lesbian, it is, uh . . . Not a Good Look when it kills off a white gay man in an interracial relationship as the Victim of the Week.

It's also not a good look that all the cicada demons in this episode are played by Asian actors. Yes, there's a point to be made given the demons are running a dating app and one of them makes the comment on his date with Macy about Asian guys being statistically underrepresented and less likely to be chosen, but uh... that seems undercut with the reveal that he's, y'know, an insect demon.

Gods, the CGI for these bug demons makes them look absolutely disgusting and I am not here for it. Yeah the original had some questionable choices for demons and dodgy CGI, but Masselin was absolutely terrifying. Here, I'm just majorly grossed out.

Yeah, Parker and Maggie have been dating for five minutes so why is she talking about spending the summer with him?

Also, again, they've been dating for five minutes and he asks her for a plasma donation? (I know it's because she saw him shooting up and went with his cover story that it's a rare autoimmune disorder, which . . . I mean, yeah, you could say that, but ???).

Jada and Macy are the only likeable characters in this whole show, tbh. Jada's cool as fuck with her witchlighter powers.

Though it's kind of hard to take Jada seriously when she goes so very hard on the Mysterious Witchy Goth thing.

The Sarcana coven all in black, the Elder witches all in white . . . yeah, I'm saying it now: they're both very different types of cults, and Mel is a dumbass and manages to completely misunderstand both of them.

LMFAO at Mel walking into the Sarcana's lair and immediately being whacked upside the head with a wooden plank bc she walked in like a total noob. (She really is a dumbass, holy cow.)

I sorted at Galvin being hit by a car out of literally nowhere and that's how the episode ends.

Oh, for a rewrite of this whole season where the Veras have to figure shit out on their own and didn't go running to Harry and the Elders for every fucking little thing.

Though gods, as someone who is very gladly single, this episode makes me never want to use dating apps ever.

There is also way too much going on in this whole season thus far. I mean, you've got Mel still trying to figure out her mom's murder, the Elders vs the Sarcana, Fiona (Charity's sister), Maggie doing... whatever with her college campus and sorority, and Macy's subplots with Galvin and the university's genetics lab.

Actually, wait, I thought Macy worked for Hilltowne University as part of its genetics research lab? So why and how would a third-party company (Morningstar Biotech) move in and completely take over the lab? I don't remember if this was ever explained or not. (Yeah, the Vera-Vaughns vanquished the previous head of the lab/department, but still.)

"We all know you and Charity used to date," Mel tells Harry, except uh . . . outside of this episode it was never obvious that they used to be a couple, and the one time Harry/Charity do have a moment, it's when they're alone and the Vera-Vaughns are nowhere to be found. So how the hell does Mel know that Charity and Harry used to bang?

It's also never really made clear in this universe why witch/Whitelighter relationships are forbidden, but damn at Jada saying the Elders called her an abomination simply for being born.

Again, the Elders in this show are even worse than the Elder Whitelighters in the OG, and that is saying something, considering these Elders are all cis women / female witches.

I snickered at Hunter calling his and Parker's demonic dad "a three-thousand year old douche". This whole demon family is.... oooh boy, but at least Hunter sticks up for his younger brother.

"I'm still getting over my ex," Mel says while infiltrating the dating-app building on campus. Uh-huh, I'd have a better time believing that if she didn't literally only grieve for Niko for, like, five minutes.

[jupitermelichios]

(spoilers for the ending of assassins creed 1, and i guess technically the whole franchise)

Her name was Helena Petrovna Hahn von Rottenstern, aka Madame Helena Blavatsky, and she's one of the most influential people of the 19th century, and for some reason we don't talk about her

in response to being married at 17 to a man 40 years older than her, she ran away and travelled around for a bit (we do not know where, because she lied about literally everything all the time and 99% of the things she said about her own life were probably bollocks - we only know for certain when and where she was born because her mother was a reasonably well-known writer and her life was therefore documented by people who weren't compulsive liars!). She claims these travels included going to tibet - as it was a closed country at the time which did not allow foreigners to visit, this is probably bollocks, but who knows

eventually she washed up in america in the 1870s with minimal money and a hundred-a-day smoking habit to fund, so she immediately starts running the popular scam at the time of pretending to be nobility in hiding so people will let you stay with them for free (she was from a noble family, but a pretty minor and unexciting one). While doing this, she encounters spiritualism, and claims to be an immediate convert. Actually, she's just spotted a good grift.

she works as a medium for a few years, conning people in a very mundane and kind of sad way, and then has the genius idea that actually the best way to make money from this would be to start a religion, so she does.

it was called theosophy, and it was mostly based on the Edward Bulwar-Lytton novel fantasy novel Zanoni, which she was very familiar with because her mother did the russian translation for it, with a big dose of spiritualism and orientalism on top, and its big innovation in the cult and spirituality space was the "secret masters"

see actually madame blavatsky wasn't a fake medium, she was the student of an immortal enlightened being from tibet (because being a closed country meant it was cool and mysterious and also you can't prove it's not full of immortal wizards) called koot hoomi, who was part of an order of ancient beings who had been guiding humanity from the shadows for centuries. (in some accounts they specifically lived inside the earth which was hollow, but i can't remember if she introduced that or one of her followers later on. probably once tibet opened its borders and everyone realised it was just a normal country full of normal humans)

for the low low price of massive donations to her cult, and also maybe moving to india to live in their compound, you too could become a student of the secret masters and learn the wisdom of the ancients!

my favourite thing about this grift is that she had a papier mache koot hoomi head which would get pulled up on a wire during seances to convince people he was a) real, and b) physically mannifesting in their house.

(she also convinced her followers she could teleport, and to do this she'd pay their servants to drop cigarette buts and ash in their houses and then tell them they were from her cigarette when she teleported in earlier. no really, she was here, she left just before you got in. the 'i have a girlfriend she just goes to a different school' of fake magic powers)

my least favourite thing about the grift is that a group of her followers calling themselves the order of the star in the east became convinced that the son of one of the compounds gardeners in india was actually the messiah so they basically purchased this kid off his dad and raised him in the cult to be the messiah, and she was cool with this. (he ended up shockingly well adjusted, basically did a press conference when he turned 20 where he publically announced that he was definitely not the messiah, and moved away to the country to live a pretty normal life)

the big long term effect of theosophy is a) every modern cult that isn't just 'existing mainstream religion but real extreme' is just theosophy in a funny hat, and b) the idea of this super intelligent powerful ancient race that taught humanity everything they know and you too can gain their knowledge for the low low price of loosing all your friends as you fall down a conspiracy rabbit hole caught on in a massive way.

this leads to a whole of lot very bad nazi and nazi-adjacent beliefs (the nazi spin is that the aryan race were the secret masters and all blonde people are their direct descendants). then in the 50s you get roswell and the alien sighting craze, and suddenly everyone's asking 'but what if the secret masters were aliens'

that gets us to another horribly influential terrible person, Erich von Däniken, who publishes Chariots of the Gods in 1968 about how ancient brown people were too stupid to do anything and actually everything cool they did was done by aliens who visited them (and probably looked like white people - not all ancient astronaut belief systems are racist, but like 99% are)

this book became massively popular and pushed the secret masters idea fully mainstream, and you started getting a whole lot of pop culture stuff based on it (so much of marvel comics. so much. jack kirby fucking loved that stupid book. the Eternals are literally just chariots of the gods fanfic)

from there, it's a straight step to Assassins Creed, a game about how the bible and also greek mythology is actually just describing a race of super-advanced immortal aliens who have guided humanity and gave them technology etc etc (if you did not know that's what those games were about and instead thought they were about being a cool assassin doing stealth missions, sorry for the spoilers. this tumblr post is allowing you to experience first hand how fucking jarring the final act reveal of that game was without needing to spend $20 and 30 hours playing it - a bargain!)

and then michael fassbender made one of the worst decisions of his whole career, and now I have to get jumpscared by a 19th century conwoman and her stupid papier mache ghost when i'm just trying to learn about d&d mechanics, lmao

tl;dr - conartist creates a cult around the idea of secret immortal beings guiding humanity, second different conartist goes 'yes but what if they were aliens and also racist', this idea goes on to be central to way too many marvel comics and also the assassins creed franchise

i was watching a video about d&d and the creator said he thought it would be cool to have a setting where elves are a lost race of powerful ancients rather than a current-day player race, so now i'm thinking about how much of modern pop culture wouldn't exist without one specific 19th century conartist again

(also cults. so many cults. minimum 50% of modern cult belief systems wouldn't exist without her)

[weirdplutoprince]

One thing I find very amusing about fruits basket is that although we very often comment on how Kyo and Tohru are like, deconstructions of some classic shoujo archetypes ( the gentle girl, the tsundere boy) i dont see the fact yuki is also a big subversion of the ‘charming prince’ type being discussed as much? Like, really think of it for a moment.

The guy starts off as like, the sparkly, polite school prince type and everyone wants to know him carnally. He’s flirty, sweet and seems to be somewhat pursuing Tohru from the start. He’s also got this weird fanclub, also pretty common for the archetype, very jokey but ‘normal’. And then he’s got this vulnerable, lonely side which is sold as ‘unexpected’ but its still fairly predictable for this sort of character, cool. Great. So you have all this, and you probably start thinking this is more or less we’ll get from him during the manga but like NOPE. This is the fucking tip of the yuki iceberg and hes actually so much more WEIRD. Because the more you find out about his character origins and his backstory, the more it recontextualizes his behaviour in a tragic but also incredibly funny way LIKE

He is the early 2000���s japanese equivalent of a sickly victorian girl, if she were raised in a cult, and also happened to be possessed by the spirit of a mouse. Literally every fricking yuki fact sounds insane. Like, yes growing up sheltered is expected, but not in the hyper specifc scenario of being sold to the main branch of your evil cult family clan, and being assigned playmate of the worlds most evil 12 years old. Yes he had mysterious respiratory diseases. Yes he was plagued by visions of death. Yes, his most consistent childhood friends were two of his fucked up cursed cousins - ONE WHO DID NOT EVEN LIKE HIM. And then you’re like, ok, that’s a lot, but im sure that can recouncile with the Yuki we know today- NO!! There’s more!!

Because before you can make sense of that, theres also the overwhelming evidence that his way of coping with this was not only moving in with his unreliable straight cousin, but also mimicking his self centered social butterfly older brother for everything!! Think of it!! Where did he learn to put up that princely act!! Who could he have possibly gotten it from!! This mf lived half of his life surrounded by socially inept children and evil old ladies!! It has to be Ayame!! So you’re looking at little yuki, getting his first fricking chance in the real world and literally his first thought is I Need To Be Liked and his only parameter for that is his self centered evil older brother!! So this little guy whose literally only friends are his mentally scarred distant cousins tries to put up a persona which he thinks will make him likeable, and accidentaly speedruns his way to the top of the school’s social pyramid!! Fuck!! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!!

So by the time he actually meets Tohru he’s so deep into this shit he literally has no paramater of how to interact with her outside of either his sickly victorian girl self, or the toned down version of Ayame he constructed for his outside world life!! And this is incredibly funny and tragic because he’s literally friends with her for month before his mind starts going like ‘I feel some form of affection for this girl who moved into my house.’ and it IMMEDIATELY jumps to I MUST BE DESPERATELY IN LOVE WITH HER. So he plays the fucking part!! SDUHFSFD Every time Yuki flirts with Tohru before the mommy confession is literally just his brain going ‘ i care her’ but having no other way to express it other than court her like a fucking shoujo character. Yes, it’s sad compulsive heterosexuality and pretty tragic when put into context, but it’s also hilarious!! dhufshudf Little boy makes one female friend and is so unequipped to deal with it he fucking roleplays being in love with her.

so yeah just *sighs dreamingly* yuki, man...

[commander-snacks]

Hey who IS that husband-man? Is he an elden ring? A dark souls? What’s his whole vibe? Like, what’s he workin with?

YES! he is a elden ring :3

But here I can explain pretty much everything we know about him!! He and apostle dont have a ton of lore but what we do know about them is really cool. Ill include some info about the Apostle as well since their lore is interconnected

Generally, the Godskins are a mysterious type of creature (literally how theyre referred to in-game. They only appear human but are far from it). We see two types of godskins in-game, the Apostles (tall n skinny) and the Nobles (my hubby) They once served an as-of-yet unseen character called the "Gloam Eyed Queen". Since their queen was defeated long ago, theyve scattered all around the lands between. Their goal, simply put, is to kill the gods flay them, and wear their skin as a trophy.

More info under the cut!!!

-The godskins are masters of the art of black flame, a flame that was once capable of killing gods. Since death was sealed away by queen Marika however, this power has been lost. Black flame will still fuck you up good though.

-Since this power was lost, they now resort to flaying humans and albinaurics alike.

Unique twinblade wielded by Godskin Apostles characterized by its disturbing design. One end features a sickle for slicing attacks while the other boasts a winding spike for boring into flesh. -Godskin peeler description

-Most godskins seem to still be loyal to the gloam eyed queen even if she isnt around, seeking to unseal death and hunt gods again. However some have found themselves new masters, one Noble found in the volcano manor is believed to now serve Rykard instead

-The nobles are the most ancient of the apostles. Theyre a higher rank than them which is shown by their "seven-faced apron" theyre adorned with. Since the gloam eyed queen was defeated so long ago, we can assume the nobles are hundreds if not thousands of years old.

Nobles are the most ancient apostles who are said to have assimilated inhuman physiology -Godskin hood item description

-The "assimilated inhuman physiology" is proven by their reptilian features, see their big scaly tails:

-Their bodies are also almost clay-like in nature, able to squash and stretch at will. The apostle can stretch to great lengths, and the noble can expand himself tenfold

-Even though they appear only as a cruel human-slaying cult, theres a consistent theme of parental/maternal love in their origins. The godskin swaddling cloth is an obvious one, but also the fact that a noble is found guarding the serpents amnion (a literal womb)

The Gloam-Eyed Queen cradles newborn apostles swaddled in this cloth. Soon they will grow to become the death of the gods. -Swaddling cloth description

-With this knowledge we know the gloam eyed queen had a very personal relationship with the godskins, possibly even creating them herself.

-The nobles in particular are extremely skilled in swordsmanship, clear in their actual bossfight and also the description for their sword

Elegant piercing sword with a celadon colored blade wielded by Godskin Nobles.

The nobles possess skill with the sword unmatched by any lowborn. Despite its size, successive attacks from this weapon are swifter than the eye can follow. -Description for the godskin stitcher

-They are HUGE!!!!!!! They only look human in their proportions from afar until you get right up next to em. The nobles foot is the size of my whole torso and apostle is so tall its hard to even keep him in frame

-The godskins are unique in the fact that theyre the only mandatory bosses that can be put to sleep. Its unknown why this is, but it sure is cute

Aaaand thats all I can think to add right now!! oh, and theyre also the baldest mother fuckers youve ever seen in your life. Like on god

[spicyicymeloncat]

Okay Ninjago hot take

S8-S9 is a good season, but it’s got some flaws too…

Mostly I think the villains of this season are kinda lack lustre…

(Disclaimer I did enjoy the season and this post is all my speculation and opinions. It’s all for fun)

So s8-s9 try to put a spin (pun intended) on the main series by having the plot be notably darker and mature, I assume to keep up with the aging audience. We have a biker gang (the association with rebellious and counter culture teens), Harumi rebelling against the government which are also her parents, demonic cults, the romance drama with Lloyd and a proper dystopian setting touching on authority manipulation (Iron Baron), news manipulation (Ultra Violet’s show) and the important of faith. We have 3 characters die in the second episode. We literally have Wu grow up throughout the season, and the focus of Lloyd growing up. And this is really cool and well thought out!

I just think the villains were lacking in something. Not to be like “the other seasons were better” but I do think former villains worked well in ways that didn’t happen here. Maybe I just found them more charismatic idk. Like Pythor is downright creepy because he’s like, a cannibal. Chen is one of the best written villains because he’s like the joke character who is actually powerful but villain form. His silly ness, combined with the fact that he STILL had everyone in the palm of his hand, makes him a good villain because you feel you’ve greatly underestimated him. Also he funny. Him and Clouse have such a good dynamic. Morro is also iconic because of his connection to Wu. Heck I think Nadakhan and the Time Twins were decent. Nadakhan had a unique style of villainy and I also liked the twins dynamic, although they are a little generic. (The overlord is boring we don’t talk about him, there’s a reason cryptor was in DotD and not him).

My problem with the SoG, is that most of them are undeveloped, and Harumi could’ve been more. I think the standards are higher because s8 really sets the tone that things will be darker. But Killow, is just the strong one, and Ultra Violet is just crazy, which would be cool if it wasn’t her only character trait. At least Mr E gets an excuse because he’s a mystery, and generally he played a more prominent role. The characters don’t seem to have much of a relationship with each other and we don’t even know why any of them joined a demon biker cult gang, or why they like Garmadon (save for Harumi).

And Harumi. Wow. So while she does have one of the darker backstories, idk it still feels tame in spite of the season. I think it’s cool her story links to the start of the season, her hate for the ninja isn’t reasonable. Like they were trying their dang hardest to kill that snake, and Lloyd was her age when it happened. Why does she want to resurrect an evil Garmadon when the Garmadon who defeated the Devourer did it out of good. She resurrected a Garmadon who didn’t care for his family when the familial side of him seems to be the only appeal for her. And like, yeah the royal family didn’t seem too fun, but like at least she was adopted, especially by rich people. If she was anti- the emperor then why’d she bring back a worse one? I mean I feel like they could have capitalised more on the ninja’s found family vs Harumi’s “for the publicity” family. I think her story isn’t tragic enough considering how casually dark Ninjago has been so far. Like it’s not dark enough to make up for the fact that her motives barely make sense. Harumi has trauma and a cool aesthetic but she doesn’t make much sense and her redemption felt rushed.

Speaking of her redemption, why did Garmadon care so much when she died. Wasn’t the point of him to be heartless. Because it honestly felt like he was a new born baby rather than the embodiment of darkness. Idk I just can’t believe Harumi got special treatment ig, my man Garmadon rlly enabled her toxic behaviour. Idk I think maybe it’s just that actual Garmadon was a pretty rational being, and this one feels like he came straight out of Harumi’s self insert fanfic. Idk idk.

Another thing but did anyone else not understand why Lloyd crushed on Harumi in the first place. I’m sorry but Lloyd “if I see one girl in here I’m gonna go ballistic” Montgomery Garmadon? I’m sorry this kid grew up surrounded crazy relationship drama. Firstly his mum managed to marry evil incarnate, then Jay and Cole fight over Nya, which ends up getting so bad that it contributed to the post s3 split of the ninja, also Zane’s girlfriend initially tried to kill him, Kai’s crush was originally evil, and then he found out that Garmadon had lied in order to date Misako! Like idk about Lloyd but I would consider not dating anyone in Ninjago! Tbh it would’ve made more sense if Lloyd fell in love with Harumi AFTER she revealed herself to be evil, because everyone around him DID date evil.

I think it would’ve been cool if the SoG did actually treat each other as family, maybe they were all orphans together at some point, and created a support network between themselves. It would certainly check out for Harumi and Mr E (assuming he IS echo zane) as they are both orphans. Them treating each other as family, being comfortable around each other, having caring sides to give them more dimension might be a shout. Now idk how to change the whole “why does Harumi like Garmadon of all people” other than she’s crazy (which ig is true for the show, perhaps they could’ve shown her be more unhinged). But I do feel like Garmadon doesn’t need to care for Harumi, because he has no capacity for empathy anymore. We can still have the scene where she’s like “I’ll be your daughter”, but later on when he accidentally kills her he’s just like “I’ve spent years trying to kill my family, it kinda comes with the job”. I also think Harumi’s death was rushed, like suddenly now she grows a conscience? If she was crazy but then watched her found family slowly die, then I feel like that gives her more of a reason to turn her back on the whole Garmadon thing.

So I’m gonna post a bunch of headcanons / rewrite / glorified fanfic ideas that I came up with so I can personally make peace with these seasons (jus my opinions tho)(some of them contradict the books and I’m aware)

Sons of Garmadon headcanons

Alternative Lloyd/Harumi plotline

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Into The Thick of It (1)

Loki x Female Reader

Chapter 1: The Cult

Series Summary: Her work as an agriculturist nearly takes the readers life is not for a stranger (and his weird looking dog) who later turns out to be the God of Mischief. Thrown into a completely different realm, you want to figure out a way home while trying to stay out of the way of this literal God. But fate has its own plans for the two of you.

Written for @tarithenurse and her #Taris1Kchallenge

Warnings: torture, sacrifice, undertones of rape

Word Count: I am on a break. It feels good to just breathe without dreading the rest of the day. Why is work so punishing?

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

One single machine whirrs in this dull laundromat. The light above you flickers at intervals so regular you have already made a beat out of it. The only other sound distracting enough is some old music playing on the radio at the front desk where no one sits at this hour. And that fan that seems to be breathing its last over your head. "Yeah, it's unbelievably quiet here," you mentioned in a soft tone before looking around the empty space. "I guess I'm glad I only had to stop for three days here." "What? Are you not going to explore this place?" your friend, Zaira's voice crackles through the phone. You shrug despite knowing she cannot see you. "I don't know, Zai, this place gives me the creeps for some reason. I am only hanging around here because Prashant wants to revise the reports I sent him of the soil composition before he gives me a green light to leave this place." "Damn! That bad?" "Oh! You have no idea!" You look around once again. The front desk guy has just come back in his old Chevrolet and the clock has struck nine. "Zai," you whisper in the lowest tone possible, watching the man whistle as he gets out of his car without closing the door, "there are no kids in this village-slash-town." He walks to the back to open the trunk of his car, whistling a somewhat familiar tune. "That's...not haunting at all!" Zaira's sarcasm can be heard in her surprised tone. "Well, what's more haunting is the fact that the youngest person here is an eighteen-year-old boy who keeps showing up anywhere I go and keeps staring at me funny." The man shuts the hood with a loud thump and you can see a fresh bundle of store-bought rope, a baseball bat, a bottle of some chemical-probably for cleaning- and a pair of rubber gloves as he starts walking to the entrance. "Allah-" Zaira takes the Lord's name in surprise- "no wonder they have The Sacrifice playing somewhere there." The man sets everything on the front desk, still whistling the same tune, which you now come to realise is the song that is currently playing on the radio. "The...the what?"

"The thing playing in your background," Zaira comments, "it's playing on a two strong instrument with a looping chorus. It's a pagan ritual song that is sung by some orthodox communities that still present a sacrifice to their pagan gods. We learned this in the summer session for cult studies, boo. Oh, wait. You were back home that time. The chorus basically says 'here's your sacrifice, now pay my dues'." Not a word of what Zaira said is heard after the pagan ritual song because suddenly all the materials resting on the front desk are making sense. So is the creak of the back door that opens to let the only teenager of the town in. Your body is frozen in place, your mind has gone blank. One moment you are running for the exit. And the next, you are lying on the floor with the two men hovering over you while the song calling for your sacrifice slowly fades away. . It is the discomfort from the heat that wakes you up. The sweat and stickiness all over your body slowly registers in your brain that alerts of a throbbing ache at the back of your head with a bang. Everything is a blur for a few moments; till the lights morph into fire beacons and the sun transforms into a bonfire, the figures moving around you become humans with faces smeared in blood. Your clammy skin shines in the light of the bonfire, your hair sticking to any part of you. Tears are rolling down the edge of your eyes while your brain is registering this new pain altogether from the gag in your mouth. You try to move your hand to touch your skull where it hurts, but are unable to do so. My hands...I can't move them. Your dizzy brain gives your body the command again but in vain. "She's awake!" a raspy voice pierces through the air.  And within a speck of a second, all the memories start rushing in. Y/N? Hello? Babe, can you hear me? Adrenaline shoots up in your system and your senses are heightened. The smell of kerosene is heavy in the air along with the crippling stench of burning flesh. You have been bound to a pole with your hands behind you, the bonfire in front of you, the forest surrounding you from every corner and the moonless sky on top of you. The faces in the fire are all familiar. The residents of this town, all staring at you while you struggle to get out of the ropes cutting through your skin, stop their movement to pick up the bowls kept in front of them and drink its contents. Your cries are muffled; partly because of the gag and partly because of the sobs that want to escape your throat just like your tears. Your already broken body jumps when the oldest woman in the group starts shouting phrases in a language unknown to you. And just as she begins, everyone around her takes out a dagger and starts moving in your direction. Your heartbeat seems to drop for a moment. They can see the horror in your eyes. But that does not stop their moments. The woman's chants grow heavier as her hand moments grow more vigorous. The youngest of them all skips a step or two to straight away jump on the platform where you are kept on display. He looks around once and turns to you to move your sweat laden hair strands away from your face. His pale fingers are cold, almost icy to the touch. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here," he whispers close to your ears. Your sobs turn to sniffs to hear his words and look into his eyes. Those grey irises are trying to dig straight into your soul. "Trust me." Your instinct- which has never been wrong in your life- is already moving your leg to bend the knee and get his balls. And you do. Watching him writhe in pain for one long satisfying moment as he curses you from heaven to hell. But he gets back up, with the eyes of a madman ready to kill. You are crying out still, for anyone who will listen, in heaven or hell, as he takes you by your throat. The venom in his hold is enough to take your life. "The only way out-" he says close to your face- "is through, you cunt." One last prayer comes out of you as a whimper before you wait for his dagger to meet you.  In the next heartbeat, everything turns white. . Everything is blinded by a white light. It does seem to be the end. Why did I have to die like this dammit?! A Buzzfeed Unsolved episode?! But something does not sit right.  The white light should be the end, right? Then why can feel something wet under my h- Before you realise you are tumbling down the steepness of the forest. Your body can feel every rock and every pebble on the way down the seemingly endless slope. It seems like a long while when your limbs finally skid on flat rocky terrain, bringing the ringing pain to a halt before it can bounce all over your body a bit louder in the deafening silence. The first thing your senses do is look for any sign of danger around you. The forest is dark. And apparently different than the one you were in before. The trees are taller and with trunks that would not fit in your hugs. You cannot see their ends in the sky from where you lay. Not weird at all. The silence too sends your wounded heart into an anxious stir. Not even the cicadas speak here. Am I...dead? Now that definitely stirs something out there. A twig breaks in the distance. You pause your breath and shush your racing heart. A soft rustle of leaves can be heard somewhere that lets your sweat run cold all over the body. It is hard to breathe through the gag as it is, and you are standing nowhere near a hiding spot, making your basic instincts run wild with any shadow you see in this treacherous night. So all you do is stand as still as a trembling mouse and wait. And that wait isn't long. Call it nature's mysterious ways or just a random event happening at the right time, a cool breeze stirs the air for the first time in this place. From where you stand, the breeze hits your back, tickling those sweat beads on the nape of your neck before letting you smell the odour of blood it carries with it. All the neurons inside you make you turn around and face a familiar figure emerging from the shadows with a dagger in his hand. The basic instincts inside you are already making your body break into a run in the opposite direction. The rush of the flight instinct is overpowering all the injuries and you forget for a second that your hands are still tied behind you as you speed straight ahead. But that devil of a man is fast. He has already closed the distance and his hands are grabbing your hair, pushing you both to the ground. He presses you down with his body, not giving you any room to get up or free your limbs. But he does untie your gag before turning you around and holding your neck in a choke-hold. "Please, please, please..." Nothing else is coming out of you at this point; except for hot tears streaming down the side of your face.  "Well," the bastard sighs, pressing down his pelvis on your abdomen while having the audacity to smirk when looking down at you, "we had to sacrifice a virgin. But surely it's going to work the same if I put that mouth to work." The dread of his words does not set in till his free hand reaches for the button on his pants to undo it. The more you try to push away from him, the tighter he grips your throat. Oh, Gods! Just let me die instead. He is halfway undoing his zipper when a sound cracks through the air. It almost sounds like a very quiet motor either just starting or just stopping. And the closer it gets, it starts taking the shape of a growl coming from the throat of an animal. The man is distracted now; looking for the source of the sound. Loosening his grip a bit, he turns around to let his vision get as far in the dark as it could to look for anything out of the ordinary. And while he is busy, it is you who notices its presence and choose not to make a sound. The man turns around to look right into red eyes gleaming at him from a distance of three inches, sending him jumping up and crawling back on the ground as far away from you as possible. Huge white canines visible even in this darkness are on display as this four-legged creature growls in your captor's direction. A twisted horn rests majestically on each side of its head. Paws as huge as a lion's, but claws twice as big and dark as the night are resting on either side of your shoulder. The fur seems dark and dense except for where pointed bones are protruding out on its back. The growl revving in this creature's throat is enough for the predator to crawl back further with his heart stuck in his throat. And before he can figure out what demonic hell this creature had walked out from, he comes to discover another wave of fear when he sees a shadow behind it in between two trees. That shadow seems human. Human enough at the very least until he thought he was hallucinating that figure with gleaming green eyes. "Wh-who's there?!" the man's voice starts in a scream ends up in a squeak. "Get that ugly dog away from here!" The 'ugly dog' shifts from your side to take a few steps towards the bastard, metaphorically pinning him in between the roots of the trees he was sweating in. "Hey!" he shouted again at the shadow, "can't you hear me?!" You sit up, watching the creature slowly ready itself for attack mode. Turning around, you too are able to see a figure. It looks tall and is evidently clad in something heavy. Is that a sword in his hand? But that sword is not as concerning as those illuminated green pupils. "You son of a bitch! Get the fuck out of here before I stab you and your filthy farm ani-" "Rífa hann í sundur," is all you hear in a low hum from that figure's end one second. The next, there are growls and blood-curdling screams emerging from behind you; haunting enough to make you jump and curl up where you sit but never move your eyes away from that shadow that still stands as still as a rock. Tears still fall from your eyes; your legs pulled as close to your chest as possible. The screams continue to come out for a long time...long enough for you to notice a snowflake fall on your knee. More snowflakes come after the first one. And once the screams die down, you feel something brush your hands, almost making your heart fall out, only to realise that creature standing right behind you nudging at your ropes to gnaw your hands out of them. The adrenaline rush has diluted now. The pain and exhaustion that comes with it now lie heavy in your bones. Your eyes cannot take it anymore. But they still want to see that figure which now takes the liberty to walk out of the shadows underneath the clear light of the nearest moon. Your body is ready to fall but the creature provides some support to your lifeless limbs. Its fur feels so good on your cheeks. And that pale face coming to a stop in front of you feels almost angelic. Those green eyes are looking at you with both concern and judgment but what your brain registers first is the moonlight falling on those otherworldly cheekbones framed with clean braids. You want to keep looking at that face for a few more minutes. But there is only so much your wounded body can take before everything is a blur. . You have already hit deep slumber when the God comes to stand before you. He gets down on his knees to get a close look at your face buried in the hound's face.  "What do you think she's doing here, Agni?" Agni huffs and shifts enough to let the God have a better look at the face marred with wounds and bruises. A face that still looks so serene after putting up such a fight. The long pale fingers move those few strands of hair away that are blocking your features under the light of the moons. Calculations have already been done in that mind. What's left is to figure out whether to leave you here in the depth of the endless garden or... "Agni-" that voice commands with zero emotions, still studying your features- "call out for help. We are taking this one back to the camp."

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Weekly Season 3 Reviews: Fixing Frobo/Annsterminator: More Gay Best Friends, Robots,  Mental Breakdown Rooms and Explosions than we deserved.

Welcome back all you happy people. I’m jake and I review a lot of things, and one of those things is Amphibia every week from now until it wraps up.. whenever that’ll be. Probably mid-next year. Point is we still have a long way to go and i’m fine with that ride as Season 3 continues to prove time and time again it’s the series best and dissuade my doubts of the series ending. Gee I wonder what series is directly responsible for me worrying the final season will collapse in on itself despite building up to be something good up till that point?

Point is I have faith this series will end on a high and the journey there has been excellent, with this week adding to that journey as Polly blows up a lot of things, befriends some helpful lesbians, and nearly dies for the 80th time in her short life, while Anne is forced to come clean to her parents and outrun a robot whose trying to outrun a literal death clock, and finds out her mom did not handle her absence at all healthily. Throughout it all Jeff is the best and you can find out why under the cut. Full spoilers as always. 

Fixing Frobo: 

This is the one i’ve been waiting for as we get our giant mechanical Baby Boy back! Sorta.... it’s complicated. 

So after two or so weeks Anne has finally decided to introduce the Plantars to THE INTERNET! The Best and Worst of Man’s inventions. Also a depository for cute cat videos which is what our heroes decide to spend what had to be an hour on before an explosion interrupts their good time. 

Turns out Polly’s been hard at work trying to slap our boy Frobo back together. Also it turns out this is now 100% confirmed to be the same universe as Gravity falls,as there’s a stan bobbblehead in the Boonchuy Garage, one of the same ones on sale at the Mystery Shack for an amount of money i’m not aware of but is probably far more than the 10 cents he paid for it and defintely the most dangerous thing in a garage with a robot slapped together by a five year old using whatever she could find, including a washing machine (It better be an OLD washing machine because otherwise Mrs. B’s going to do an infantcide), some christmas lights and a battery taped to his face, because apparently she learned how to build a robot from the Red Green Show. Or from Stan himself, i’m sure he teaches a course that’s both pyramid scheme and a cult. 

Despite her family having.. reservations about the slapdash robot build by an infant with no engineering experince desperate to get her little brother and best friend back, polly plugs it in. It goes about as well as you’d expect, with Frobo laser visioning all over the place like Zack Snyder made this.. “Shudders at the thought”: he destroys jeff’s one of a kind game controller, and reveals to us Jeff is a gamer, good for you jeff. Let Jeff be proof you can hav eit all: a loving family, a successful resteraunt and still find time to kick children’s asses at mario kart online. Jeff is who I wish to be someday and who i’m upset i’m not already.  Where were we? Oh alright LASER BEAMS, which also go thorugh the roof, literally, and nearly hit Domino... whose on the roof for some reason. 

Anne understandably shuts this shit down on site and less understandably her, Hop Pop and Sprig all get her to promise to not bring Frobo back till they get back to Amphibia. She promises... but then naturally borrow’s Anne’s laptop to do research to do it anyway. We’ll get back to this main conflict later but it is incredibly well balanced. 

So Polly decides to do research instead, spending two hours doing robotics research that she outright admits she’ll never get back , hitting something of a dead end till she goes on (Insert Blatant Stand IN For Youtube Here) and after watching a Canadian talk abotu Darkwing Duck and Satan,  a guy in a hat talk about batman’s hatred of rock n roll, a guy with cool hair count murders, a british person talk about adaptations, a beatufiul tattooed lady talk about that time on murder she wrote people nearly died from clam chowder and a goofy blonde talk about a rapping pumpkin, she finds what she needs for her robro: A series of how to videos on robots by a duo of girlfriends, it’s left vauge but you know me, i already ship it, who make robots. I already want a spinoff for them. EDIT: Okay I was kinda dumb here: there was a lesbian flag next to the video, pan and bi flags in their room.... the crew did everything but say THEIR GAY without having then scream it at the audience, I simply didn’t notice till it was pointed out to me. It’s a fair enough thing to miss but I shoudl’ve done a double check to see if there were hints, i’m just so used to Disney not letting there be any remote indication characters are gay that I assumed they were hiding it as usual to get past the giant statue of mickey mouse what fires lazerbeams at creators that do openly gay content. Dana happens to have a laser proof vest Alex gave her for their anniversary. Really came in handy. 

 Polly watches their playlist on how to fix them, putting on an adorable outfit consisting of a backwards hat and overalls with her tail out there, which I honestly forgot she had as it’s much smaller now and it’s covered most of the time due to her standing now or using her disguise. 

So after what I assume to be a few days work until we get a proper timeline reminder again, Polly has not only learned how to build robots INCREDIBLY well, but has built a far more stable version of Frobo using the same parts as last time. She ends up hitting a dead end though as she can’t figure out why Frobo won’t turn on or what would get him to, so she hits up the girls directly via their webcam, which they naturally provided because their good ones. 

The IT Gals are Ally and @jess-the-vampire... no wait wrong jess. Sorry force of habit. She’s just a plain old jess. Their played by Melissa Villansenor and Dana Davis. The latter I know from ironically given the earlier gag, Star VS as Kelly, and she’s done other voice work since then , most notably Lonnie over in She Ra. The former I knew SOUNDED familiar but couldn't quite put a finger on it.  Melissa is on SNL, it’s first Latina Cast Member, but I know her better from Ok Ko where she played my girl Drupe, Potato, and Mega Football Baby, which for those not familiar with the show is an actual character someone thought up and it is glorious. Well the concept MFB himself is a douchebag. Or Douchebaby I guess. Point is their great here and it’s nice to see them pop up here. Hope that happens more often. 

The Gals are indeed as nice as they come off in their videos, which I do like.  It provides a nice ballance as the last youtuber character Disney had was ItchiBoi ove rin Big City Greens. And he was a necessary character, shwoing how douchebags like Logan Paul, who he was transparently modeled after, take advantage of children for money. But it’s also nice to show that plenty of content creators are nice, freindly people who just want to make stuff for people or help them out. 

The Gals give Polly the advice she needs: She simply needs a power source from a high functioning toy or something, and a creepy as hell bear that DEFINTELY has a serial killer’s soul in it that Anne tried to give Polly as a Pollycebo proves to be perfect. The gals caution polly NOT to turn him on in her garage though, as it could be dangerous, and offer to help her rent a space. Polly ignores this though as she don’t want to wait she just wants her son-brother-robot-pal back. 

But before she do Polly wants to go get the fam who are watching star wars, with Anne annoyed the guyzos like the prequels better than the original trilogy. Anne give them time, they’ve seen what... 5 or 6 movies probably with you? 10-20 tops given the timespan. I didn’t know better when I was sprig’s age either.  Though ironically my own nostalgia is the reason I probably don’t hate the prequels as much as most, even fi I acknowledge they have issues. 

Hop Pop is angry she defied him, and the others caution her against reviving him only for Polly to rightfully snap at them: She points out it’s cruel to essentially leave her best friend and surrogate little brother DEAD for however long it takes to get back home, to ignore her hard work she’s put into breaking him, and to ignore her feelings simply because it’s what THEY want to do. 

And this is why I waited: This argument and Polly’s actions just before it highlight how much thought the creators put into this: arguments are tricky in fiction and sometimes the person who SHOULD be right to the creators ends up being horribly wrong because they didn’t think it through, making one character throughly unsymapthetic. H

Here though it’s perfectly balanced: Pollly is ABSOLUTELY right about not waiting till they get back. Frobo isn’t just some giant shiny toy they use, he’s a sentient being who has been nothing but kind to them, nothing but sweet to his big sister, and who gave his LIFE saving Polly’s. She’s here because of him and wanting to return the favor is not a lot to ask. Not only that but while the episode dosne’t bring it up, they need all the allies they can get against andrias and even without a proper body, Frobo still provides tons of intel on how his bot’s work just by existing and fixing him could give them badly needed insight into how to shut down his evil brothers or possibly turn them against Andrias. He’s too noble, too useful, and too sweet to leave dead because you don’t wanna put in the effort to fix him. 

But while the rest of the fam are indeed wrong about doing nothing whatsoever, they still have a point: Frobo is dangerous and trying to just rebuild him and hope it works because she can’t wait to get him back is just going to get them all hurt or killed and keep blowing up Jeff’s stuff. And they love Jeff, who wouldn’t love jeff. The Gals provide the best ballanced counterpoint: Their fine with experimenting and what not, as any experinced engineer would be, it takes time to get it right and you have to protoype it to get there, but they want to do it in a safe controled enviorment and not right next to where they live. Sure they probably did some on camera with their pandabot.. but it’s a small robot they know thorughly well and is in  space they clearly set aside to work in.  Polly is trying to ressurect a super fighting robot in someone’s Car Hole. She needs to learn patience and do this right, but she’s still right to want to try at all. 

Polly however dosen’t listen to reason and reactivates Frobo. This creates problemns: It shorts out the house, just as Jeff is finishing a ten hour boss fight.... can relate just ask me about metroid dread good god, because the poor dude apparently can’t have the nice things he deserves. 

It also wakes up frobo.. but in factory settings so he wants to contact andrias instead and blasts off with Polly on his back, while the Plantars run outside. THE IT GIrls show up IRL as they were naturally worried about the small child clearly abotu to recklessly actviate a robot in her garage with no regards to her own safety. They don’t care she has a tail though, I can respect that. 

Polly begs for Frobo to listen to her and he ends up shorting out his jets, leading to them both about to die. Thankfully her tears cause his brain to spark and reignite his memores in a very touching montage. He remembers her and is back to normal and puts polly in his washing machine chest so she’ll be safe. God I love getting to write sentences like that for a living. 

Our brave hero dies.. again. Polly tearfully vows to rebuild him right and apologizes for rushing while the rest of the fam apologize for being insesntive.  Pollly does get a consolation prize though as while Frobo’s new body is dead, Frobo’s head is back online, so she has her friend back. And the IT Gals are more than happy to help Polly rebuild him the right way, with Polly showing off she realyl knows her stuff, her family going back to cats and Jeff being mad he has a crater in his lawn. Is it a crater jeff.. or is it a conversation pit? Think positively my guy I know you’ve had a rough day but you just got a new robot son and a conversation pit, take your wins where you can get them. 

Fixing Frobo is excellent. It uses Polly’s lack of restraint against her, creating a tearful and intresting conflict, brings us some more intresting supporting cast members and brings my boy back as an amazing screw on head. All in all another great episode in a great season. 

Annesterminator:

So we open up with a “look at my cool new shit” montage as The Annesterminator has replaced it’s broken parts, adding the shovel arm we saw in the trailer, a sawblade leg, and a NAILLLL GUNNNN TAILLL GUNNN

So he’s already to go try and kill a teenager again... only to get a call from Andrias. He apparently hasn’t checked in the whole time but it does make sense: The Annesterminator is a stealth robot designed to kill anne before anyone finds out about his invasion. If he keeps calling he runs the risk of calling the thing WHILE it’s killing anne or among humans. Not only that the whole point of using it instead of attending to this himself was that the Annesterminator would take care of the problem while Andrias focused on building his army and whatever horrible thing he does to marcy involving his master.

So naturally he’s not pleased the robot failed to get him the right book.. and more importantly has failed to kill anne in the span of two and a half weeks.  So being an evil dick, Andrias arms the robot’s hidden self distruct and gives them one hour to kill anne or literally die trying. He then signs off goofily

What I like about this scene is it shows off just how much of a strategest andrias is: Sure he’s doing the classic evil overlord schitck of murdering your minon for their failure.. but he’s doing it SMARTLY. He gave his minon plenty of time, accounting for it needing to use stealth to avoid tipping off. The annsterminator is a walking arsenal including razor claw, stretchy limbs and drones and can repair itself with enough time. He’s simply cutting his losses, realizing this model of bot just won’t due and he needs something stronger to kill Anne if she surivives this last attack. He’s not even wasting the Annsterminator either: he’s giving it one last chance in a way that can’t help but benefit andrias: if it wins and kills anne, than he gets what he wanted and said robot can be used again. If it looses.. then it’ll still likely be close enough to take out Anne in the ensuing explosion> Either way he has a pretty good chance of killing anne and the onlyt hing he looses is a minon that he can likely replace easily and whose proven unable to do it’s job. He’s also playing it smart by scraping this plan NOW while he still can: He knows Anne isn’t a threat YET, but she could easily become one and will be actively working to get back to punch him in his smug face again. So rather than simply waste time on a plan that isn’t working, he scraps it in a way that has no downside, then if she somehow surivives he can come up with something else while there’s still time. Ther’es a DAMN good reason why this guy has won so far and it’s not his sexy keith david voice.. though that does help. 

So back at the Boonchuy’s Frobo has now fully inegrated into the family, with Polly using him as a seat while both watch tv with the rest of the fam and Anne takes care of Chores. Her parents laud her for how far she’s come: no more lying or doctering report cards (Turns out they knew, which.. of course they did this is 2020, they can probably look that shit up online). She’s totally honest with them. 

Except for the whole evil king trying to murder her thing, which has Anne feeling super guilty in the kitchen.. and deciding to come clean. While the lie was justified at the time to protect the plantars she can’t lie forever. She’s hurt them enough just by disappearing. So she goes to tell them... and naturally AS picks this time to burst through the windows and chase them up the stairs, with the Boonchuy-Plantars taking refuge in the work out room.... which.. uhhh...

Yeah. I especially love everyone’s expression here. Anne just has a thousand yard stare, the plantars clearly can’t process this and Mr and Mrs B are like “Oh right the horrifying shrine to anne built out of grief” 

This is both heartbreaking and hilarious. Heartbreaking because obviously, Mrs. b didn’t take thd siappearnce well and instead made tons of creepy effigies of anne and what she could’ve become (a doctor a lawyer, a student at a good college... aka things that make Anne feel she’s REALLY not living up to expectations), and clearly having spent the last 5 months having a slow motion mental breakdown. It’s hilarious because of just how over the top it is, as well as the fact ther’es a plant one, which can’t help but remind me of the simpsons. 

Easily my faviorite scene in the entire show.. and  exactly what happened when Jeff found the FIRST shrub Anne. 

Anyways the Annsterminator is naturally not stopped by stairs and instead burts up.. but thankfully the other anne’s confuse it’s censor so the Boonchuy’s have time to offscreen teleport to the car leading to a car chase. 

It also leads to Anne’s parents rightfully asking what the junk baby girl? She dosen’t have time to explain as you know, car chase, and the most she can say is the king is mad at her. Hop Pop ONCE AGAIN does not help by not only mentoining she punched him, but also bringing up the fact they’ve seen the robot before and have been hiding it from them. Still the main focus is on the chase which is just gorgeous as Jeff proves to have some mad driving skills and Anne finds the perfect solution to hold the Annsterminator back. 

... using her gear in the back of the van to lob balls at him.. and also get criticized by her dad for her game being off. Jeff she’s being hunted by the frog version of skynet nows not the time to be a tennis dad. 

IT barely holds it off and leads to the Annsterminator going around the front.. .only for Jeff to RUN IT THE FUCK OVER. I haven’t said it yet so I shall: Jeff is a national treasure and we must protect him at all costs. God bless him.

So our heroes finally catch a break by hiding at the city dump trying to find a plan.. but before we can get to that we have to get to the painful scene we’ve all be dreading since we learned Anne was keeping True Colors a secret: Mrs. B confronting her over lying. Despite Jeff TRYING to get her to see that it’s likely more complicated, Mrs. B tears into her daughter for lying, feeling she hasn’t changed and not having full context as to WHY she’s being hunted, assuming (a bit unfairly) that she did something to honk off andrias that wasn’t trying to stop him from conquering the world. The most painful bit is she asks when she’ll stop being irresponsible... which results in a painful shout of “I don’t know!’ from Anne who breaks down, admittnig she’s sorry and that she was just trying to protect the plantars.. and still needs to and dosen’t know if she’ll EVER be the daughter Mrs. B ACTUALLY wants. The acting here is some of the series finest with Song and Braley both just doing their best. On continues to impress and I genuielly hope she takes up voice acting for more than her son’s show. She has a talent for it. 

But the robot’s a coming and whatever issues they have have to wait .. and Anne actually has a plan, asking her mom to craft more fake hers which she does INSANELY fast (It’s all about the rhythms baby”, god I love this woman), allowing our heroes to confuse the close to the end of it’s countdown annsterminator and ambush it, with anne usin ga stop sign on it before impaling the fucker> it dosen’t stop it btu Mrs. B pulling a NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH does , as she puts the hamme rdown and gives it hell, removing the rest of the annsterminators limbs. When asked if he’s suprised by this side of his wife, Jeff simply whispers no. 

So with that the dust has settled.... except oh right the bomb, which the robot is more than happy about. Thankfully Anne goes super sayian god super sayain again and for the first time INTENTIONALLY and chucks the thing into the sky, saving her family. She also passes out again. 

So we get the incredibly hearwarming wrap up: Hop Pop goes to bat for Anne saying she was just trying to protect them... only for Mrs. B to cut him off... she knows she was just trying to protect them and having calmed down now has likely processed things, realizing her daughter lied so her family could have a home, and that Mrs. B would do no less to protect her or jeff..... and warmly tells the rest of the plantars that whatever they and anne need to do, she and Jeff are with them and group hugs them, confirming what was already increasingly clear: their family, all of them. Jeff is bummed he dosen’t get in on the hug, poor jeff. 

More worryingly though the FBI has seen the robot on survilence and calls in the mysterious Mr. X to deal with the plantars. 

Annesterminator is a masterpiece: It’s got tight, breakneck pacing as our heros try desperatley to surivive, the drama we’ve known’s been coming and in s hort EVERYTHING that’s made season 3 an utter classic so far. Amphibia has gone from a very excellent show to one of the best on television and I can’t wait to see what’s next

What’s Next: The Plantars go to the movies, Anne’s Parents try to thwart Ru Paul, and Sprig has a birthday! 

Until next week thanks for reading. If you liked this review a lot follow for more, at least 4 a week including new amphibia reviews every week and if you want more content head over to my patreon

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It has exclusive reviews, and 5 dollar patreons get a review a month but you can get everything for just one dollar a month. And if you enjoy my work consider joining my discord. 

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[piper-williamson]

my hoa ranking of characters — least favorite to favorite

not all characters are on this list but the ones i felt like i could rank as of rn. there’s too many minor characters i don’t care for and it’s not that i particularly care for the others i just remembered them enough to rank.

~~~~~~~~~~

rufus — -70969943853/10

kidnapped patricia. and jerome. and trudy. willing to commit human sacrifice of a kid. threatened them with electric bees or whatever. have had nightmares about him. thrilled that bitch is dead

denby — -10/10

so threatening with her words but she’s all talk. no action. kinda makes me hate her more? but in a different way. storyline is so messy like how did she even find out harriet’s destiny and how did she then decide she wanted to awaken a >hundred year old man and basically a hell demon?? like girl just go work for donald trump or somethin

vera — -6/10

not as annoying as denby but still like what did she even want? to be with rufus? why?!?? creepy af the time she was frozen dead but like not.

mick — 1/10

just,,, there. all he does is be in love triangles and play the sports. half of his storylines are just him leaving. patricia says there’s a man in the house (rufus) and he eats a banana. n who gives their gf and “just a friend” matching bracelets?!? 1 point for not being evil.

victor — 1.5/10

as much as i wanna put him above mick, he yells too much. calm down old man. 1 point for caring for the kids enough to not carry on when he found out about the whole human sacrifice thing. also saving joy in s2. y’know what he gets half a point more than mick.

trudy — 4/10

trudy is heartwarming but holy shit is she oblivious. Is Just Ok with “robert smith” being there even when she has no confirmation of his identity. very loyal to the kids and does protect them from a lot of shit. writers did her dirty a lot of the time.

mara — 5/10

ok listen. i don’t dislike mara. i just tend to favor the sibuna mystery storylines, and all of her stories are more realistic scenarios. that being said i love her helping poppy and i also love the sisterhood thing in s3. but also mara why the FUCK would you fall for mick like he’s mick??!?

kt — 7/10

written into hoa way better than on shows like h2o where there’s just one sentence about emma being gone and that’s that. she wasn’t just nina’s replacement, she was her own person. love her personality and her friendship with eddie. 100% a lesbian. only reason she’s so low is cuz no matter how good she is of a replacement character she still kinda is one and i don’t do well with those. i’m working on it.

nina — 8/10

i love nina so much. fabina is so cute together. i think the only reason i have her so low and don’t wanna put her higher is cuz i always hate main characters, even though i don’t hate nina. my mind is strange.

amber — 8/10

dumb blonde stereotype but who cares i love her. provides much comic relief for me especially in s2. ping pong queen. also love her bday episode. ungrateful for alfie at times. also liked mick but it’s a little more understandable cuz Hot Guy cliche. but was also mean to mara about it. but also a lot of that was mick’s fault #blamemick

alfie — 8/10

class clown who’s loyal af. Actually completes amber’s bf trial list. would go through hell for her. always feeling like he has to prove himself to the group but he’s always been an asset. we love him.

willow — 8/10

was such a comfort character when i was little. for some reason rewatching she was less of one. still absolutely so pure of heart and lovable. somebody get this girl a hedgehog.

eddie — 9/10

cool dude™. top notch bf. peddie is one of my fav ships ever. he kinda gets all heroic in s3 but s3 has a whole set of issues. plot twist reveal of his daddy issues. great development while being a great character the whole time.

fabian — 9/10

such a solid dude. guy-falls-for-girl-first trope to the max. he’s awkward and nerdy but not really cocky or annoying. fabian defense squad for life. point off for kissing joy like dude besides the outfit she looks nothing like nina come on.

jerome — 9/10

terrible person at times, but great character. comfort character of mine. his flaws allowed him to be developed throughout the show. he feels very real and human and i love him.

piper - 10/10

obsessed w her cuz i’m also pretty similar to her. both of us go (went) to music school and love patricia. not that i think she’s a BETTER character than a lot of the characters lower on this list, but this is a ranking of my favs so she has to be above them.

joy — 10/10

also a comfort character. i honestly feel most like joy out of all the characters. similar to jerome in that her character flaws lead to richer development. i live for it. was Literally held hostage by her parents and forced into a cult in s1. most of anubis house seemed to just brush that off. that doesn’t excuse her actions, but i love her growth throughout the series. not higher cuz she was kind of a dick to nina for a long while.

patricia — 10000000000+++/10

again i wish there were an infinity symbol. do i even have to say anything? witty and sarcastic and says what’s on her mind. i wish i were eddie cuz i’m in love w her. i know amber’s the one who went to fashion school, but patricia is a style icon. my gay awakening.