#ok so i don't like either ending

[halflifebutawesome]

I am a good person. I am a powerful person, I don't believe in evil. I think that evil is an idea created by others to avoid dealing with their own nature. I understand my own nature, good and evil have nothing to do with it.

[scarapanna]

[WIP] Some more updates!!!

I've been quiet recently, but got a bunch of stuff in the works for y'all!!

I'm still working on those paper puppets for a little project regarding intertwined opposites (Possibly one of the most ambitious things I've ever worked on so far) and found a proper way to introduce that new au I'm working on!!

Here are two more paper puppets for the big pmv

And a few sneak peaks for the new au!!

(Doodles+notes alongside a silly little meme with a sprite edit of pewpaw)

I'm working on an info post for it, progress has been slow however since I wanna prioritize the pmv again (Started it on june, stagnated a long period, and went back to work on it. I'm dead set on finishing it this summer AND stubborn/silly).

[Personal reminder: Beetle stop starting wips when you're already busy/silly]

[ruvviks]

// oc deep dive.

tagged by; @aztarion and @devilbrakers, thank you so much!!

tagging; @mojaves, @deadrlngers, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @adelaidedrubman and YOU!

What common/uncommon fear do they have?

Nathan has a lot of fears stemming from his paranoia. Tangible ones such as getting captured or killed by MOBIUS, his friends walking away from him, or someone following him home; as well as more unrealistic ones, such as somehow ending up back in STEM, or getting stuck in a time loop, or a giant sinkhole all the way to the core of the earth opening up right at his feet.

It also happens often enough that certain actions don’t necessarily scare him, but make him uncomfortable or highly on edge (often with good reason); think of someone locking the door of the room he’s in– especially when it’s just them two– or getting too close without warning. He often fears people he gets too close to will end up treating him like the Administrator did, which is why it takes a while for him to let Sebastian get any closer physically, despite warming up to him relatively fast.

A more uncommon fear he has is waking up one morning and having lost one of his senses or his ability to speak. Aside from the mental erosion that had become a growing issue among Union citizens, MOBIUS observed a similar kind of process in its agents who regularly jumped in and out of STEM for general maintenance and the like– presumably caused by the constant changes in brain activity, which more than often led to exactly what Nathan’s fear mentioned above describes. While he was among the agents who worked both in and outside of STEM on the Union environment, he was lucky enough to never suffer the consequences.

Lastly, he is deadly afraid of Anima. Despite not having shown any other symptom of succumbing to the STEM domination process, Nathan would have started seeing her around sometime before Lily vanished– presumably got her attention after some of his escapades in the secret labs in the Marrow– and he has not been able to sleep soundly in STEM ever since. While his fear of her mostly acts up when he’s in a STEM environment, it definitely translates over to the real world as well; during bad mental health episodes he has auditory hallucinations of her, and she makes regular appearances in his nightmares too.

Do they have any pet peeves?

When people are too passive. Nathan can’t stand it when he’s expected to initiate everything, from conversations to taking action, both in a work context (scheduling meetings, deploying new code) as well as personal context (scheduling to hang out, doing household chores). He also doesn’t like having to constantly ask people to do what they’re supposed to do– though this irritation more than often extends a little too far, to things he is expecting of people but never told them about.

Loud and unexpected noises, especially when done on purpose. Fireworks would be a great example of this, and they piss Nathan off no end. He gets snippy when people raise their voice at him for no reason, or when they keep banging their fist on a surface to get others’ attention.

Getting cut off in traffic. Nathan’s road rage is easily awakened and he can get a little drastic with it. His reflexes are fast enough to brake on time to avoid ending up in someone’s trunk, but will in that same breath speed right back up to crash into them on purpose as revenge for pissing him off.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom?

A large ring binder full of old code snippets, notes from various projects he worked on back at MOBIUS, and all his research ranging from neuroscience all the way to electrical engineering. Nathan is a little old-school in that regard– he’d much rather have all his research physically with him than save it all to some online storage platform and risk losing it like that.

A jigsaw puzzle, made entirely out of different pieces that he’s collected over the years (stolen from others’ puzzles, found in various locations, stolen directly from the store, etc). The full piece would total up to nearly 2000 pieces, though it is still missing a large chunk in the center; the result is an abstract piece containing mostly darker colors, though with various bursts of color scattered around like flowers in a field. Nathan isn’t the artistic type, but the project keeps him busy and he considers it a type of self-expression.

The knife he killed his parents with when he was sixteen years old. He’s not entirely sure why he kept it all those years– perhaps to remind himself what got him to where he is now, or because it’s the only thing he still has from that time of his life. Either way, it’s kept safe in the top drawer of his nightstand, easy enough to reach in case someone breaks into his apartment.

What do they notice first in a person?

First: State of mind, overall mood. How approachable do they look; can he afford to lower his guard or does he need to tread with caution, can he get close without worrying about a knife to the stomach or should he keep his distance? Nathan rarely shows immediate interest in someone’s overall personality, he would rather want to know which of their emotions he’s gonna have to deal with during their interaction(s).

Second: Body language. Ties in with the first thing mentioned– cautiously watching for threats, waiting to see if they make a move to touch (or harm) him so he can step out of their range. But it also extends a little further; Nathan tends to mimic others’ body language in conversation to make himself appear more approachable. If someone gestures a lot, he will do the same.

Third: Their smile, if relevant. Smiling is an eye-catching action to him, since he’s not one to quickly do so himself. It’s attractive to him; if someone smiles at him, you’ll be able to catch him staring.

Fourth: Scars, and other (skin) details. Nathan isn’t one to ask about them, of course– but they’ll catch his attention anyway, for a brief moment, since some of them already tell a story on their own even without words.

Fifth: Nervous tics, if relevant. By this point he’s been in conversation long enough to pick up on the little details– a slight thrill or shakiness to their voice, a thumb running over the side of their index finger, a nose twitch. In some cases it eases his mind, knowing the other person isn’t confident in their conversation either; in other cases it sets off alarms in his mind, and makes him wonder if there’s more going on than what they’re showing or telling him.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

Physically: 7. While he doesn’t quite look like it, Nathan can take a hit or two. Most of his injuries happen in STEM– though with the way the technology works, the pain is very much real, and in some cases the scars are lasting even in the real world despite the damage having been sustained in STEM. To an extent, Nathan even enjoys the pain; it’s grounding for him, and keeps him from dissociating. When it gets too much to handle he simply drinks it away.

Mentally: 10. Nathan’s life has been a constant downward spiral; sent to a youth detention center after being wrongfully accused of killing his younger sister, and he was bullied relentlessly there, which continued until long after his release both at school and at home. At MOBIUS, he was required to work shifts in their HQ as well as in the Marrow, in the Union STEM environment– he was required to be mentally strong, or he would have already started suffering from mental erosion by long-term STEM exposure after his first few trips in. It takes a lot to break him (or so he likes to believe).

Emotionally: 4. Once you get past all the barriers, Nathan is pretty sensitive. He doesn’t deal well with rejection or misunderstanding, and is prone to assuming things are all his fault the second something goes wrong. It’s easy to upset him, though he won’t easily show; but the damage often takes a while to repair.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (Or freeze or fawn?)

Fight, more than often; though it may appear as flight at first, since Nathan’s favored combat approach is stealth and he will always find cover before doing anything rash. In certain cases, however, he would be more likely to freeze; especially anything related to Anima or an enemy type like her, where fighting is out of the question, and he knows that a single wrong move can mean his demise.

It translates to non-combat situations too– often willing to talk to people but his initial response is to get defensive and close himself off, and if not given a moment to regain himself it can lead to either fighting or freezing; biting back with similar ferocity or shutting down altogether, unable to pick up his rational train of thought in the heat of the moment.

It really depends on the type of confrontation, though; taking his own state of mind and who else is involved into consideration. He’s known to fawn when a situation starts feeling a little too familiar– generally surrounding the abuse he suffered from partially his parents, but mostly the Administrator.

What animal represents them best?

Wolf; bordering on dog motif, but cautiously so, requiring infinite patience and understanding to win his trust. Nathan is loyal and guarding to those he cares about, but he values his freedom– his choices and decisions are his and his alone, and anyone who tries to take that away from him will suffer the necessary consequences.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

Curious, above anything else. Distant, reserved; surprisingly well-spoken, almost technical in his interactions with others as if the whole conversation is pre-programmed in his mind. Nathan isn’t necessarily cold towards others, but people would also not be quick to describe him as kind; though there is a certain warmth to the way he speaks and looks at people, despite the fact he very rarely smiles and isn’t one to quickly compliment someone else.

Appearance-wise, people tend to notice the white strands in his black hair first. They’re clustered at the front of his head, and match with the white hairs in his left eyebrow and the white eyelashes in the outer corner of his left eye. Nathan has very pale and rough skin, patchy but dark facial hair covering up most of his acne (/scarring); and part of the skin around his left eyebrow is lacking pigment, though it’s a little hard to see. He has very pale and bright blue eyes, which can be a little unnerving when staring at them for too long. Many people cannot maintain eye contact with him for very long.

Do they have any hobbies?

Nathan’s career is directly intertwined with his hobbies, and he enjoys working on code even long after cutting ties with MOBIUS. Software development, application optimization– his laptop runs on an operating system that he coded entirely himself, and whenever he has some time to spare he can be found tweaking and optimizing it and adding new features.

To no one’s surprise, he’s a gamer. Shooters, roguelikes, survival horror– he does not play all too often as his schedule often doesn’t allow for it, but he generally doesn’t have a hard time playing on higher difficulties and enjoys the challenge. Nathan has tried his hand at game design and development too, but stopped quickly when he found it too similar to developing the Union environment in STEM.

And last, surprisingly, would be writing. Journaling, some sort of attempt at poetry, or articles he would want to send in to some website or appropriate magazine but never does– a lot of Nathan’s writing is for his eyes alone, but it helps as an outlet, it keeps him grounded. For a while after leaving MOBIUS, he worked on writing tech manuals for various employers to earn some extra cash, which also ties directly into his interests.

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Harry Kim saying Naomi is lucky to be born on Voyager and that he would have given "anything" to have her life when he was a kid...

[raiiny-bay]

monster boyz thoughts...

[quarks-pussy]

Marinler wedding but when the priest says "you may now kiss the bride" Mariner dips him

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

Ok but to take the idea of the Kingdom in botw-totk seriously for a second. “Kingdom” means different things in botw vs totk:

In botw, an actual State existed with government and systems etc and when ppl sigh wistfully over it, they’re thinking of the protections offered by that hegemony, but it’s been a hundred years and they don't remember everything that that meant. they can only imagine that world— but it must have been very great! Just look at the mess it left behind!

Totk’s Kingdom refers to “the place where all Link’s friends live.” still bounded by the canyon, the desert, and the ocean…. but the return of one princess does not a unifying government make. The different peoples clearly govern themselves, and look kindly on Zelda who after all only shows up to help (accompanied by 1-5 hylians max). She doesn’t need an army, because she’s not threatening to re-subjugate anyone; she’s just here to study the local insect species, please.

Link losing his memory has more than one upside, because not only did he not immediately have to remember everyone he would feel he’d personally failed in the Calamity, but 100 years ago he was Fully Bought In to the whole Kingdom thing, and it would have been incredibly rough to throw him directly from that into this disordered, emptied place and expect him to see something beautiful.

[thesmokinpossum]

I can't believe y'all almost made me pay to go watch po*r th*ngs in theater without telling me that the whole thing revolves around a hardcore born sexy yesterday trope with a side dish of pseudo necrophilia where a woman with the brain of a litteral foetus who don't have periods or body hair (but do have boobs!) find joy and freedom by having a lot of sex with a bunch of men, shoving a apple up her vagina for some reason and joining a brothel (but it's a cool socialist brothel and all the girls looove being there, don't worry guys), all of that written and directed by two men, I'm never gonna trust you guys after this one lmao

[two-person-job]

hi it's been a month and a new . hold. is over me. it's called hollow knight. and. I have. like. 50 hours in it. in the past two weeks. 150ish total. and i've almost 100%'d it achievement wise. I already got the pure completion/112% completion achievement the only thing I have left is um the p5 ending which i've gotten really close to. I got to abs-rad last time which is funny because the time before that I got to pv before dying and that's also funny because the time before THAT I got to nkg so each time I only got one boss further so hopefully next time if I make it past pv again i'll beat abs-rad (ofc I need to practice against her but yk (I'm so bad at fighting her)) ALSO tiso is my favorite character he's the best he's my favorite ant EVER second place goes to god tamer she's cool. I hate fighting her tho she actually can ruin my p5 run. boooo. grimm gets me my health back tho he's real one. anyways ig unpopular opinion but I LOVE godseeker idc that she hates ghost in a normal playthrough I heart her she's the best :) and I like cloth a lot too that's a normal opinion I think cloth is really neat! hive knight is also my second favorite character. I loveee the little bit of lore we actually get about him and I like how he goes "bzzz huzzah!" because that's so real hive knight!! huzzah!! and pure vessel. pv. oughh they're totally my favorite fight with hive knight being my second. pure vessel is so much funnn like idc that they already deal double damage like. they're soo much fun!!!! and speaking of vessels lost kin is also the best lost kin makes me want to cry sometimes. ough the nod after you finish the dream battle I KNOW THE LORE I KNOW WHAT THAT NOD MEANS RAHHHHH. I also like monomon and quirrel a lot. jellyfish and pillbug combo my beloved.. I want. the next username I need to make. monomonn. because I love her. and I think her name is super neat. also nkg is pretty cool but like his name is kind of. middle schooler. nightmare king grimm.. muah ah ah... but he's a fun fight he's an enjoyable fight. idc that he's also double damage it's fun!! it's so much fun I love how. he's .pink. anyways. yeagh. bzzz HUZZAH! bzzzzz HUZZAH!

[zestyzigzagoon]

I've made this same exact post before but something has prompted it again✌️. I am such an agreeable person until it comes to writing advice posts. For whatever reason, they instill within me the kind of argumentative contrarianism that you'd see in an ancient Greek fable that warns people against being a pedantic shrew, lest Athena strike them down into a literal etruscan shrew. But it's me, I'm the pedantic soon-to-be-etruscan shrew, and the best fic writing advice I've ever seen is to do whatever makes you happy and to ignore all advice that does not serve you well.

Because, like, look. Are there conventions of writing that might make your writing more widely palatable? Sure, but that's not everyone's goal, and nothing annoys me more than 'beginner advice' that effectively just teaches new writers to mindlessly conform and to deviate from their own unique style. There is nuance to be had with discussions of fanworks versus published fiction, where palatability is a financial concern, but writing advice should not put itself forth as being the best for both of those things at once.

(Also- nitpicking the precise wording of certain advice- the only definitive is that there are no true definitives, and someone's doing to break your rule and do it well. They will ignore your 'always' and do your 'never' and make it work.)

[dreamedfyre-a]

and if i say i hate that one of the uh 5 mentions hel.aena has in f&b is about her being loved by the people in contrast to the public opinion of rhae.nyra at that point and her death sparking a riot only to have to watch her be attacked bc rhae.nyra is the only good queen allowed on the show

[californiaquail]

the observerrrrrr

[altruistic-meme]

sigh.

[monotone-artist]

just a few foster puppy pictures out of the hmm. 500 that i have

[id: nine photographs of various brown, floppy-eared puppies. first: top view where puppy is sitting down and looking up at the camera. second: sitting with his tongue out. third: laying down on her side with her head on my leg, looking straight at the camera.

fourth: laying down on her belly. fifth: sitting and leaning against me, his head quite close to the camera, which he's looking at. sixth: one puppy lays down while another rests her chin on his back.

seventh: an extremely close-up view of a puppy's face. eighth: a puppy, who notably has one blue eye, looks through the glass door. ninth: puppy stands on her hind legs, front paws on the glass door, looking inside. end id]

[candlebel]

I cared. I still do. I still think of you and I still cry over you. You were importat to me. You still are.