#psychology ruining all of the things forever

[miley1442111]

all alone-s.reid

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summary: spencer doesn't want to get hurt, too bad it hurts you in the process

pairing: spencer reid x fem reader

warnings: spencer's a dick in this, reader puts him in his place :)

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You were the new office genius. You’d just joined straight out of the academy, but with your genius, and your experience, you’d been brought straight to the BAU. 

What experience, you may ask? 

Your psychiatry and psychology degrees, oh, and the eidetic memory, IQ of 190, and Hyperthymesia you had. 

And the experience you’d had with a certain serial killer. Your father, Jason O’Neill, had been caught a few months ago, and after that you’d been given a full-time position. You got on well with the team, though one clearly didn’t like you. Dr. Spencer Reid. Apparently he was your equal in intelligence, though you never knew, he refused to speak to you. You probably had a more bubbly personality than the BAU regularly hired, but that had been disproven upon meeting Penelope, the Technical Analyst. 

He just didn’t like you. Oh well. It wasn’t going to ruin your life. You didn’t really give a shit. 

He gave a shit. He cared far too much. 

“Spencer, I’ve got your coffee, extra sugar,” you smiled as you handed out the drinks you’d brought the team from the cafe down the road from the small police station. You handed it to him, not waiting for an answer, he never gave one.

 Emily kicked him under the table. “What’s with you two?”

Spencer rolled his eyes and went back to his book. “Nothing.”

“She’s the nicest person on this team Spencer, yet you treat her like she’s just there for decoration.”

“She’s only good for two things, getting coffee, and keeping quiet,” he snapped, not realising you were behind him. You frowned, then hit him over the head with your bag as you were walking past, not sparing him a glance. 

Honestly, Spencer was practically in love with you since the second he’d met you. You were perfect, gorgeous smile, always something kind to say, always an interesting fact on your beautiful lips. He thought he could listen to you talk forever. Your voice made his day. Your eyes on his made him feel things he never thought he’d be lucky enough to feel. 

But he’d never let his guard down again. Not after Maeve. Never again. 

He’d rather be alone, though everyday you became more tempting.

Everyday he wished he could be with you.

Everyday, just like today. 

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“Doctor,” Your voice rang through the precinct. “Aaron wants you.”

In recent weeks you’d adopted calling him ‘Doctor’, rather than Spencer. His name from your lips often went straight to his heart, he was a romantic, after all. Now ‘Doctor’ sounded clinical and impersonal. It was maddening. 

He didn’t answer, he just stared at his book, making his stand. 

“Doctor Reid, Aaron wants you,” You stated, standing beside him. “Reid-”

“Say my name,” he deadpanned, staring at his book, but not reading the words. 

“I just did,” you scoffed. “We aren’t school children, go to Aaron.’

You called everyone else by their first name, why not him? He knew the answer of course, but it still didn’t take away from his curiosity. Why had it affected you so much?

“Can you stop being a huge asshole for one day and just treat me like I’m a person and not just something here for you to fuck with? I deserve a spot on this team just like you do,” you boomed, smacking his book out of his hands. 

“I don’t think you do,” he said, standing up to his full height. 

“Well I guess it’s your lucky day because I’m leaving in a week,” you snarled back, then walked off to go back to the rest of the team. 

What? You were leaving?

Spencer caught up to you in 4 quick steps and he pulled you to the side of the corridor, shading you both from prying eyes in a broom closet. “You’re leaving?”

His eyes were frantic and… scared? You’d never seen him look at you with anything other than indifference, so this was quite the change.

“Yes.”

“Why?” He pleaded.

“Why? You are seriously asking why I’m leaving?” you sarcastically sighed. “Gosh, I guess it was that the coffee’s shit, or maybe it was the fact that I work in a hostile working environment!”

“That’s corporate bullshit-”

“No. It’s your bullshit. I have been nothing but kind to you in my few months here and every day it’s the same blank stare and shitty comments. Go fuck yourself Doctor Reid.”

You tried to pry out of the grip he had on your shoulders, but you couldn’t. He stood there, shocked and shameful at his actions. 

“I-I’m sorry,” he sighed, letting go of you to run his hands through his hair. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Yeah, you are. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

“I’m in love with you,” he admitted. 

“Pardon?” You squeaked, jaw-dropped. 

“I’m in love with you… a-and I didn’t think it was a good idea because the last time I was involved with someone like that-”

“Spencer, I don’t care. I’m leaving the BAU. For good.”

Spencer’s stomach sank. He was too late. You waited for a minute as he just stared at you. He was trying to process it, realise his mistakes,and find a way to make you stay in a 15 second window. 

“Bye Spencer,” you sighed and left him in that broom closet. 

All alone.

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criminal minds masterlist :)

navigation for my blog :) (criminal minds, marvel, top gun, challengers, the bear, the hunger games, obx+)

[internetskiff]

I've sometimes seen this sentiment, especially among reviewers, that SOMA's WAU ""monster plot"" contributes nothing to the main game's story, and that the storyline would infact benefit from the WAU's removal. If you ask me, that couldn't be further from the truth. The WAU is at the root of everything. Frankly, it's the main reason the game's moral dilemmas are.. well, dilemmas at all. If the WAU wasn't making monsters, wasn't there to warp the life around Pathos-II as it saw fit, the game wouldn't have even started. Pathos-II would've just remained dormant forever. Simon wouldn't be there, and neither would any of the obstacles he faces on his journey to preserve humanity. The main reason the WAU isn't directly beneficial to Earth is exactly because its understanding of "life" is so skewed. Its not just bringing things back - its bringing them back incorrectly. Every single "monster" we meet builds a case both against and for the WAU's continued existence.

The Construct shows the WAU's failure to understand humanity in the physical sense, shoving a Human brain scan into a misshapen robot body and calling it a day, leaving it to babble to itself as it aimlessly wanders the halls of Upsilon.

The same could be said for Carl Semken and the other Mockingbirds, though to a lesser degree - though capable of speech, they're still very delusional and oftentimes end up going insane. Still, in some ways you see the WAU's understanding of human psychology progress with each new mockingbird - they become increasingly coherent and increasingly sane, Catherine and Robin Bass being great examples. While the Construct has lost so much of itself you can no longer tell who it used to be, the other Mockingbirds have their sense of self intact. With the WAU's unreliable nature cemented, we move on to its attempts at preserving humans physically, with Amy Azarro being the first proper example Simon gets to witness.

She's kept alive in what seems to be a perpetual state of discomfort, and judging by the structure gel slowly overtaking her I believe the WAU may be slowly converting her into one of the Fleshers. Its keeping her alive, yes, but its doing so at any cost necessary - it doesn't matter if she's in constant pain as long as she doesn't flatline. Its treatment of actual organisms is practically an inversion of its treatment of the Mockingbirds - instead of prioritizing the mental wellbeing of the subject, the WAU prioritizes their physical wellbeing with little to no care for the mental state its "patient" is in the entire time.

Fleshers live and breathe, but they seemingly aren't "all there" at all. The lights are on, but no one's home anymore. All they do is wander the ruins of the CURIE and lash out at anyone who enters their territory - the WAU has basically reduced them to animals.

Terry's been driven insane from all the structure gel infesting his insides, and though his goal was "technically" benevolent (putting everyone into a permanent dream state where the WAU could make them live the best possible versions of their lives), he achieved it through incredibly violent means, conducting what was basically an attack on Theta and causing its downfall. So far, its attempts at preserving humans physically have simply resulted in increasingly grotesque and violent monstrosities - but I would argue you see that begin to change when Simon reaches Omicron.

When you reach it, you see the aftermath of a particularly gruesome procedure WAU had carried out - everyone's blackboxes have exploded, turning their heads to mush. We find out that one of the employees, with the help of someone particularly close to the WAU, had figured out how to poison it. They have been receiving "visions" and "messages" from a comatose Johan Ross - the WAU's "AI psychologist", someone it desperately tried to restore from a comatose state by manipulating structure gel with electromagnetic fields. Either the WAU deliberately retaliated when it figured out the poisoning plot, or it had simply overdone it when restoring Johan Ross - sacrificing an entire station's worth of lives to bring someone back. Either way this shows a tremendous amount of intelligence on the WAU's part - and also paints it as either exceptionally cruel or exceptionally empathetic depending on the perspective you view it from. Either it considered Johan so important to it that it was willing to sacrifice most Omicron staff, or it was willing to violently retaliate in order to preserve itself. Either way, Omicron houses what I believe to be a sign of the WAU's steadily improving understanding of humanity - Dr. Johan Ross.

He has been restored with both his physical health and mental faculties (relatively) intact. He isn't violent, and he perfectly understands what condition he is currently in - but despite that he doesn't seem to be physically suffering. He is still driven to eliminate the WAU, but it seems to be less out of personal suffering and more out of fear in regards to the suffering its other creations may go through. I believe he's an example of a semi-perfectly restored human - both him and Simon himself. They're both cases of, as Catherine puts it, "a sound mind in a sound body". But although the signs are there, there is no outright definitive proof that the WAU's creations will only continue to get better.

And that's what makes the game's final moral dilemma so compelling to me. The whole game has been providing us with both evidence and counterevidence towards the WAU's idea of restoring humanity. Now, it's up to you to act as its jury and executioner. By killing it you either stop it from torturing the memory of humanity, or you doom humanity to extinction in all senses of the word. By keeping it alive, you either doom the remnants of humanity to an eternal torturous existence, or you give the WAU a chance at creating something new. There is no way of knowing what choice is correct - because you don't know what the WAU is thinking. You never get to. You don't know its plans, you don't know if it even has the capacity to actually learn from its mistakes, hell, you don't even know if its capable of thought - but here it is. Making things. Terrible things, but there's a chance that it'll only get better with time. Simon himself is evidence of that chance. It has already managed to make what could be classified as a "complete" person. And if you kill it, Simon's going to be the last "complete" person it managed to bring back.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for faking my death to get out of an abusive relationship?

Tw for verbal + mental/psychological abuse and suicide

I used to be in a discord server with some friends, there were about 40 people in it, only around 20 who were actually active. It was a while ago I can't remember. I was in that server for about 4 months.

From the start, people would occasionally get mad at me over something I didn't do. About every month or so someone would start a rumor about me and make the whole server gang up on me, I'd tell them it was false, but everyone would still avoid me for the next couple days.

I never did anything wrong, but I was always the center of the drama, and when I asked one person, R, why, he said he didn't know and that I didn't deserve so much hate.

About a week later R was talking in the vent channel about how I had manipulated him. I DMed him to ask why, and he told me it was because I asked him if he was my friend. I thought it was fucking stupid because it's not manipulative to be paranoid, but I pretended to be sorry because I didn't want him to be mad at me.

The server also had a bot where you could submit anonymous messages, and lots of people would use that feature to make up things about me to ruin my reputation.

After a while I left the server and only stayed in contact with a few people. However, every couple days another person would tell me I'm a monster and gaslight me into thinking I'm a terrible person, and every time I asked why they hated me they didn't give me an answer.

My only real friend, T, showed me some messages from the others after I left the server, and a bunch of people were making up stories about bad things I had done to them, and people who I had never even spoken to were saying that I had abused them and was dangerous.

Once someone told me thay they understood all the things R had said about me weren't true, but said it was still my fault anyway, and even told me that R had done nothing wrong (he lied about me in front of the entire server and is the reason I lost all my friends, and he yelled at me and called me evil because I was suicidal), and then they accused me of faking having amnesia because I had flashbacks.

Eventually, only four of my "friends" hadn't blocked me, and they almost never talked to me. Everyone kept calling me a terrible person because R spread lies about me and everyone else believed him instead of me.

It was to the point where I couldn't go one day without someone sending me death threats or trying to guilt trip me with false information, and I was getting very sever flashbacks of the stuff R had said to me, and I started failing classes because I couldn't focus on anything.

Eventually I had had enough, so I tagged them all in a tumblr post about how I was going to kill myself and then logged out of both that tumblr account and my old discord account forever.

(Also about a month after I had left, I got texts from irl friends, and it turns out someone on the server found the contact info of people I knew in real life just to ask if I was dead or not. And that scared the shit out of me.)

I've left out a lot of details of the abuse because of amnesia. I have a mental disorder which makes it hard to remember things, plus the brain often blocks out traumatic memories, so I'm sorry if some info feels missing.

The only reason I feel like I might be an asshole is because once I was gone, all of them switched targets and started to harass T. They said they hated him for being on my side, and sent him death threats on anon because he was mad at them for killing his friend. They started treating him the same way they treated me, and called him a horrible person but refused to give a reason as to why, and if I had stayed around they would've left him alone.

@should-be-dead (made a sideblog so I get notified when this is posted)

[saintsenara]

How do you think memory charms work from a brain science perspective, and what might the implications of such technology be? Given the complexities of memory—how it works, its function (e.g., in identity formation, decision making, psychological well-being, etc.)—the fact that these spells are so routinely used on Muggles who witness magic—especially under traumatic circumstances—is so sinister…

thank you very much for the ask, pal! a very interesting question to think about!

as you say, memory is the central part of human experience. it's integral to who we are, why we understand ourselves to be that way, and how we function daily. without the ability to remember things we've learned or which have happened to us in the past, we don't have the ability to understand the present or plan for the future, or apply context to why we behave in or feel certain ways. memory is so important to our understanding of our own existence that many people would say losing it is the thing they fear most...

and i think there's a very credible case for jkr being one of them.

in its understanding of the body, the harry potter series prioritises cognitive function above all things.

physical illnesses, injuries, or disabilities don't upset or frighten it unduly. this is partially because its genre conventions need to take this approach to physical impairment in order for their plots to advance - harry being able to take a bludger to the head and live to tell the tale is the same as john wick being able to fall from the top of a six-storey building, get up, and keep going: they're action heroes, and the person following their exploits wants that action to continue.

but it's also because the series' central theme is choice - and, specifically, the choice between good and evil. this choice - as the books understand it - is something freely and rationally made, with no cognitive impairment preventing it.

[hence - as i've written about elsewhere - voldemort's horcruxes do not - despite common fanon - make him insane.]

as a result, injuries, disabilities, or experiences which lead to a loss of cognitive capacity - thereby making it impossible for choices to be freely made - are presented by the text as uniquely horrifying.

the revelation that frank and alice longbottom can't recognise neville after they're attacked by the lestranges brings a "bitterness harry had never heard there before" into dumbledore's voice.

lupin is primarily ashamed of the loss of rational thought his transformations bring, and the wolfsbane potion works by preventing this loss of rationality:

"As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform... I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again. "Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month."

harry thinks that "bathilda bagshot" [really nagini in disguise] is starting to forget how to perform magic, and equates this loss of function with the dark, dank, foul-smelling house in which she lives.

ariana dumbledore's trauma-induced cognitive disability gradually ruins her family’s lives.

harry, our hero, is never, ever affected by the imperius curse.

and, of course, the dementor's kiss - which canon understands as the single most frightening thing which could ever befall somebody - brings about a state where bodily functions continue, but cognitive ones are lost:

"You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no... anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever... lost."

as a result of this, canon presents memories as things which are straightforward and factual. while they may be interpreted subjectively - harry's horror at snape's worst memory, for example - they are - in and of themselves - objective accounts of events. the memories which harry views in the pensieve, for example, are not "witness statements" - subjective, personal accounts of how an individual experienced an event, which might be contradicted by another person's own subjective recollection - they are fact. what they say happened actually happened. sirius' version of snape's worst memory would be identical to snape's.

and canon understands that memories are - therefore - devoid of things like perception, assumption, imagination, habit, and emotion. indeed, these things are not only irrelevant to the memory... they are detrimental to it.

slughorn's attempt to modify his memory of telling tom riddle about horcruxes is because he wishes to soothe an emotion - shame, at giving riddle the information he needed to commit such evil and then not telling anyone - by presenting an imagined version of events in which he looks better. his attempt to apply these two things to the memory are what curdles it. what dumbledore is asking harry to do, in sending him out to retrieve the unmodified memory from slughorn, is to acquire the objective facts:

"He has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations."

in saying that slughorn's "true memory" remains accessible, what dumbledore is saying is that slughorn should be judged as having full cognitive capacity. he's compos mentis, he's of sound mind. if the true memory did not remain - if slughorn had managed to corrupt his memory to such an extent that he genuinely believed that his conversation with riddle had never occurred [rather than knowing it did but wishing he'd behaved differently and therefore pretending he had] - then he would, in the eyes of the series, be insane.

now... this - unsurprisingly - is not how human memory actually works. memory is fragile, inconsistent, and subjective. we forget things. we misremember things. we remember things through subjective lenses. we invent false memories.

but we can - nonetheless - use what we know about human memory to uncover a wizarding theory of memory formation which would explain why they think this way.

and why they feel so comfortable tampering with people's memories.

[and why this is horrifying.]

what are memories?

in canon, memories are presented as something tangible - wisps of silvery liquid. and memories actually are physical things - albeit absolutely microscopic ones - which take up physical space in the brain. they're just kept out of the way of our conscious awareness until we need them.

[basically, they're christmas lights in a box in the attic. they physically exist and they're physically present in the house, but they sit - turned off and with no attention being paid to them - until they're needed, when they're brought out of storage and switched on.]

they are made - like almost everything to do with the brain - from neurons, which are a type of cell. neurons work like the wires in a telephone exchange - they transmit chemical and electrical signals across the brain [and, therefore, across the body] in a vast, high-speed, interwoven network:

a digital model of the neural network from a sesame-seed-sized fragment of human brain. there are about 50,000 connections shown. [source]

a neuron receives a signal, which it then interprets. it then sends a response [or action potential] along its stem [axon].

at the end of the axon, there are synapses, which form a bridge to other neurons, linking a chain of communication together.

synapses are generally activated by chemicals called neurotransmitters - such as serotonin, melatonin, adrenaline, dopamine [which are likely to be the ones most people have heard of], and others.

so: neuron x receives a signal, interprets it, and transmits that interpretation as an electrical signal along its axon, causing the release of adrenaline into the synapse linking it to neuron y. this activates the connection between neurons x and y. the signal passes across the synapse into neuron y, which interprets it, and the process continues.

each neuron has thousands of synaptic connections to other neurons. and these connections aren't static - they get stronger or weaker depending on exposure. the more we use the connection, the stronger the connection is.

one way to think of this is to imagine the synaptic connection as a volume dial, which controls how loudly two neurons "talk" to each other. if the connection between neuron x and neuron y is very strong, the synaptic connection allows them to shout at each other, thereby understanding each other clearly. if the connection between neuron x and neuron y is very weak, they're only whispering to each other, are having to strain to hear each other, and will probably only partially hear the communicated information.

the brain will therefore prioritise the information it can "hear" the clearest. this is why, if you learn two pieces of information, and then revise the first piece of information every day for a month and do no revision of the second piece, you will find it much easier to recall the first piece when asked - the brain prioritises the "loudest" voice.

when we learn or experience something we create synaptic connections, linking neurons into circuits in an ever-changing map across the brain.

these circuits are memories.

remembering something is the process of activating a specific neuron cluster, thereby retrieving the information it contains and communicating it as an electrical signal to another part of the brain.

this process of remembering can be unconscious - a smell might prompt us to remember something without us actively intending to; when we write something, we're not consciously thinking about how we learned to write, we just do it - or conscious - we might sniff a particular perfume bottle in order to summon up a specific memory; we might intentionally decide to remember a day we spent writing in a particular place.

what are the different types of memory?

there are two main categories of memory - short-term and long-term.

short-term memory is the brain's capacity to actively hold onto a small amount of information [about four things, on average] for a brief period of time [and by brief we mean around 15 seconds - any memory which can be recalled after that period of time is a long-term one] in order to allow you to do things, like take down a telephone number.

long-term memory, in contrast, is something the brain possesses an infinite capacity for. it can be divided into two subcategories.

the first of these is implicit memory. this refers to recollections which are unconscious, habitual, primed, or conditioned. learned motor skills - things like holding a pen or riding a bike - which you can do without having to think about how [procedural memories] are an example of implicit memories. so are things we are conditioned to do via the association of an action with a stimulus - like pavlov's dogs salivating when they heard the ringing of the bell - and things we are primed to do by general knowledge or contextual experience - like being shown the word "bread" in a word association game and responding "butter" without having to actively think about why that connection exists for us.

the second is explicit memory, which refers to the conscious recollection of a specific thing. explicit memory has two subcategories: episodic memory - the recollection of events or experiences - and semantic memory - the recollection of knowledge or information.

i know that belfast is the capital of northern ireland and paris is the capital of france. these are semantic memories.

i know i went to a restaurant in belfast with my partner last week and that i went to watch the french open in paris with my friend this spring. these are episodic ones.

episodic memory is highly dependent on context and association - you can remember where you parked your car by thinking about the shop you parked next to - some of which is semantic memory in its own right - you can tell that your friend has misremembered a story they're telling about your teenage years because you know you were sixteen when the event took place, your friend is talking about driving, and you possess the semantic knowledge that the legal driving age in the united kingdom is seventeen.

explicit memory is the aspect of memory most clearly affected by conditions like alzheimer's disease, while implicit memories tend to be recalled for much longer.

explicit memory is also the thing most clearly affected in canon by memory charms...

how are explicit memories formed?

at its most basic level, the brain is divided into three parts - the cerebrum, brainstem, and cerebellum. the cerebrum is the thing we’re concerned with today.

its main part - comprising about half of the brain’s weight - is the cortex, which is the wrinkly surface you probably picture when you hear the word “brain”. the cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres. each hemisphere has four lobes [so you have eight lobes in total] which relate to specific functions.

[here's a video of a dissection of a real human brain - if you fancy it - which goes into its anatomy in more detail]

nestled in each hemisphere of the cerebrum are several deeper structures.

in the temporal lobe, we find two of these structures - the hippocampus and the amygdala - which are crucial to memory formation. we have one of these in each hemisphere [so two hippocampi and two amygdalae in total] as part of our limbic system - a group of brain structures that regulate things like our sense of smell, emotions, memories, and autonomic behaviours [heart rate, breathing, sweating, etc.].

[here's a dissection of the limbic system, again - fair warning! - using a real human brain]

the hippocampus

when our brain decides it wants to hold onto a piece of information, it's channelled from the prefrontal cortex [in the frontal lobe], which controls short-term memory functions, to the hippocampus, which is then responsible for linking all of the relevant context surrounding the information together - like it's making a patchwork quilt.

let's go back to the example of being asked to take down a phone number. and let's imagine that the person who asks us to take down the phone number is also our fandom-style soulmate. several pieces of information will be created in the brain at once - the memory of being asked to take down the number, the memory of physically doing that, the sensory input of what our soulmate looks, sounds, and smells like, other sensory inputs [what the broader environment looks, sounds, and smells like; the fact we're drinking a coffee; the fact we're wearing a scratchy jumper], the emotion of knowing we've met our soulmate - which are then sewn together by the hippocampus into a coherent, linear account of what occurred.

the hippocampus is selective - it's more likely, even in an episodic memory as emotionally powerful as this one would be, to hold onto information which is comprehensible to it [so, for example, if a song is playing when you meet your soulmate, but its lyrics are in a language you don't understand, it's less likely to retain that as a key part of its account than if it's a song you understand and, especially, a song you already know and like].

it's also inventive - it will fill in gaps in the recollection of an episode. these inventions are often logical and based on both your semantic knowledge and parts of your implicit memory. for example, in the memory of being a child and going to hospital to meet your new baby brother, he is likely to be wearing a blue hat. it is highly unlikely that you actually remember the colour of the hat he was wearing - especially if you were quite young - but your brain settles on blue to fill that gap in your recollection because it knows you were raised in a culture which associates the colour blue with baby boys.

but they're also subjective. you may, for example, have more than one memory of the same event - with each memory's patchwork quilt having a slightly different pattern. to go back to the memory of meeting your soulmate, you might have one version of the memory which was stored by your brain on the day you first met, in which the thing you primarily remember is how nervous and awkward you were and how you were worried your soulmate didn't actually like you. you might then have a second version of the memory which is altered by contextual information you learned after the first version was created - after your soulmate asks you to marry them, for example, you are less likely to dwell on the parts of the first memory which are about worrying they didn't like you.

while the hippocampus is integral for the formation of long-term explicit and implicit memories, it's not the place where these long-term memories are permanently stored. instead, long-term memories appear to migrate [or awaken] from the hippocampus throughout the cerebral cortex, and to become progressively more independent of it over time. when it comes to explicit memories, the older, stronger, or deeper a memory is the more likely its independence from the hippocampus will be.

we know this because of a man called henry molaison, who had most of his hippocampus surgically removed in the 1950s in an effort to treat his epilepsy. following his operation, molaison was only able to form new episodic memories which lasted for less than a minute before they vanished forever from his consciousness, and essentially lived every single day as brand new, with no context surrounding it. the exception to this rule was that he could recall memories relating to significant experiences in his life which he'd formed years - and often decades - before his surgery. he could also recall certain facts - semantic memories - which he'd already known, but he couldn't form new semantic knowledge.

semantic memory also appears to become progressively independent of the hippocampus over time, much like implicit memories we have acquired through conditioning or priming. for example, the memory of the first time we drank a coffee while tired transforms into the general knowledge that drinking coffee generally helps us with tiredness, bolstered by the semantic knowledge that caffeine is a stimulant.

the amygdala

in the analogy of memory formation as being like creating a patchwork quilt, the amygdala is responsible for one of the most important squares the hippocampus sews together: the emotional significance of the memory.

this is one of the most important bits of context which the hippocampus applies to its account of a memory. the more emotive a memory is, the more likely it is to be remembered.

and this isn't just the case when it comes to specific episodic memories - such as remembering your wedding day, or the time you were in a car accident. it applies to semantic memory - if i tell you that paris is the capital of france and then punch you in the face, you'll remember it - and to implicit conditioned and primed memories.

imagine you are three years old, you're in the park, and you meet a dog. the dog is on a lead, calm, quiet, and well trained. you are asked if you'd like to pet it and you say yes. the dog is happy to be petted - it wags its tail and it licks your hand - and you enjoy the experience and start laughing.

the hippocampus takes care of the "bullet points" of this event - the actions and the order in which they occurred, where they took place, and so on. the amygdala assigns an emotional response to the specific episodic memory - that is, when you recall it later, you will feel happy - and to the implicit memory you have accrued from the experience - that is, the next time you see a dog, even if it's not the dog you petted, your brain will be automatically primed to feel calm, safe, and happy.

and now imagine you are three years old, you're in the park, and you meet a dog. the dog is loose, agitated, barking, and much bigger than you. it bounds up to you while you're playing and knocks you to the ground. it growls and you see its teeth. you're afraid and start crying.

the same process occurs, but with a fear response. the hippocampus remembers what happened and in what order, the amygdala remembers how the specific memory made you feel and extrapolates from this to assign that feeling to your implicit memory. the next time you see a dog, even if the dog is on a lead and behaving perfectly calmly, your brain will be automatically primed to feel afraid.

and this reference to fear is important. as i've said, the brain prioritises remembering emotional memories… but it prioritises remembering stressful and/or frightening emotional memories above all other kinds. and it also tends to really cling on to things we have acquired by fear learning - the process by which we unconsciously associate a stimulus with a frightening event.

to return to the scenario above, if you met the nice dog first and then met the frightening dog later, your brain would prioritise the memory of the frightening dog. if you met the frightening dog first and then met the nice dog later, your brain would still prioritise the memory of the frightening dog. and even if you lose the ability to recall the specific episodic memory of meeting the specific frightening dog, your brain would still remember that it was afraid of dogs in general.

the amygdala plays a major role in this fear learning and fear-based recall. and it does this via channels of communication which don't need to involve the hippocampus - it communicates bi-directionally with the cerebral cortex, both with and without the hippocampus also being part of the conversation.

and this has an enormous implication for our wizarding theory of memory.

and so - at last - we come to...

the neuroscience of memory charms

we know from canon that memory charms focus on the removal of explicit memories - and, specifically, the explicit episodic memories which the series understands as objective snapshots of events.

we also know that short-term memory and implicit memory can experience collateral damage when the explicit memory is removed - especially if the charm is performed poorly. we learn in order of the phoenix, for example, that gilderoy lockhart lost the ability to write [an implicit procedural memory] after his charm backfired, and has had to undergo something akin to physical therapy [the way someone who'd received a head injury would] in order to regain this motor skill:

"I'm very well indeed, thank you!" said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!"

we also know that the recovery of an implicit behaviour - his fondness for signing autographs, a response based in an unconscious assumption he makes whenever he meets anyone [that they're a fan] - is taken by his healers as a sign that his self-perception is stabilising:

"He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be coming back a little bit... This is our long-term resident ward... For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement... Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself."

crucially, we see here no expectation that any specific memories - episodic memories, canon's factual accounts which prove someone to be of sound mind - will return. what the healer means by "his memory might be coming back a little bit" is something general. a memory charm - as the text understands it - affects something discrete.

but lockhart also shows us that the specific episodic memory impacted by a charm isn't deleted from the brain. it remains in storage - and, therefore, retains the potential to be reactivated.

and he also shows us that this potential reactivation is very likely to depend on an emotional stimulus, especially a negative one:

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart’s face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, "Haven't we met?" "Er... yeah, we have," said Harry. "You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?" "Teach?" repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. "Me? Did I?"   And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming. "Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!"

lockhart clearly associates a stimulus - something to do with harry - with a fear response [probably from being frogmarched at wandpoint and forced to jump into a hole]. this emotional context calls out to an episodic memory it has been severed from, but can't get there and falls silent again, drowned out by the louder activity of the implicit memory, telling lockhart to talk about autographs because these are fans.

so lockhart hasn't lost this specific episodic memory - he just can't access it. from this, we can conclude that memory charms block communication across synaptic connections, thereby preventing a memory from being retrieved.

and we can also conclude that - since wizards regard episodic memories as objective, factual accounts of events, which are unaffected by things like perception, assumption, imagination, habit, and emotion - they only understand the formation of these memories as they happen in the hippocampus. and, specifically, that they understand memory formation only as the hippocampus ordering events into a coherent, linear account - which they regard as objectively correct. we can further conclude that they do not understand anything other than this ordering of events as forming part of the episodic memory process, and, therefore, that they do not understand memory charms as needing to affect anything other than these "factual" snapshots.

which means that a memory charm will block the retrieval of the "bullet points" of an episodic memory from the hippocampus - and, therefore, someone whose memory has been modified won't remember the specific order of events surrounding the memory.

but it won't block the other bits of information - other patches of the quilt of the memory - from being retrieved. it will just remove them from their context.

and - right on the canon page - we learn that this failure to remove anything other than the bullet points, even in memory charms which are accurately and skilfully performed, makes the experience of having a modified memory profoundly disorienting to the person affected.

we see this - for example - in the case of morfin gaunt:

"So the Ministry called upon Morfin. They did not need to question him, to use Veritaserum or Legilimency. He admitted to the murder on the spot, giving details only the murderer could know. He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years. He handed over his wand, which was proved at once to have been used to kill the Riddles. And he permitted himself to be led off to Azkaban without a fight. All that disturbed him was the fact that his father's ring had disappeared. 'He'll kill me for losing it,' he told his captors over and over again. 'He'll kill me for losing his ring.' And that, apparently, was all he ever said again. He lived out the remainder of his life in Azkaban, lamenting the loss of Marvolo's last heirloom, and is buried beside the prison, alongside the other poor souls who have expired within its walls."

morfin's verbal tic is a manifestation of a emotional response which now lacks any other context - the fear caused by his nephew visiting him, on the day the riddles were murdered, and incapacitating him [in a way which would allow him to steal his wand] just before the crime took place. in repeating it, what he's saying is "i know i didn't do this, even though i confessed, but i can't explain how i know this, and i am afraid".

and we know that dumbledore is able to use this emotional clue as the end of a line of string, which he can then follow back across deactivated synaptic connections to the suppressed [and, in canon's view, objective] episodic memory of tom riddle meeting his uncle:

"But he had this real memory in him all the time!"   "Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him," said Dumbledore, "and why should anybody delve further into Morfin's mind when he had already confessed to the crime? However, I was able to secure a visit to Morfin in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past. I extracted this memory with difficulty. When I saw what it contained, I attempted to use it to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban. Before the Ministry reached their decision, however, Morfin had died."

we see something similar in voldemort's treatment of bertha jorkins:

"But Wormtail - displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him - convinced Bertha Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her... he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams... for - with a little persuasion - she became a veritable mine of information. "She told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be only too willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things... but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her."

something we are told about bertha jorkins across goblet of fire - including by both sirius and dumbledore, characters the doylist narrative of this book trusts to be telling the truth - is that she loved gossip. and this - feeling intrigued in, scandalised by, and excited by a piece of information - is an emotional response.

voldemort - like dumbledore - seizes on this emotional component as the end of a line of string. bertha provides him with a piece of semantic information - the triwizard tournament is to be played - which makes her think of piece of general information - she knows barty crouch sr., who is organising it - which causes an emotional response which places the string in his hand - barty crouch sr. = scandal. voldemort then follows that string across deactivated synaptic connections to the suppressed [and, in canon's view, objective] episodic memory of bertha discovering that barty crouch jr. [about whom she possessed various contextual information, such as the fact that he was found guilty of being a death eater] was alive.

ergo, memory charms block the point-by-point recollection of specific episodic memories, unless someone is determined either to do a lot of careful forensic work or to commit murder.

but they do nothing to block the additional context - above all, the emotional context - which is so important to memory formation and recollection. and this is what makes the casual use of them - especially the casual use of them on muggles - so terrifying. because their efficacy is dramatically reduced in circumstances where a memory has an emotional context.

and witnessing someone performing actual magic would undoubtedly inspire quite a strong emotional response...

the circumstances in which they work well will be those like tom riddle sr.'s run-in with morfin. the ministry response to the incident is speedy, which means the memory hasn't been consolidated for long-term storage beyond the hippocampus. the incident seems to be the first time riddle ever interacts with morfin - meaning that he doesn't retain a conditioned implicit response that morfin is frightening or dangerous. riddle talks about the gaunts in a way that suggests he thinks they're funny and ridiculous, laughs at bob ogden as he's chased from the shack, and is happy riding along the lane where he was attacked, which shows that he didn't develop a fear response to the incident [nor, indeed, any significant emotional response at all]. preventing him from recalling this memory is simple, and it has no repercussions.

[in terms of his brain health, that is. obviously, it has a major repercussion in that it removes any pre-warning he might have given himself about merope…]

but outside of this context - in which the ministry essentially gets incredibly lucky that riddle sr.'s brain reacts in the only way which actually makes them viable - memory charms are clearly nowhere near as effective as wizards seem to think.

because, when it comes to people's strongest, deepest memories, the only thing being removed is the ability to run through the summary of events - to go down a checklist of what happened, and to contextualise an emotional response [for instance] by situating it within the account of the event which triggered it. the emotions these memories provoke, and the way in which they're bound up into the knowledge which helps us understand our place in the world, remain. all that happens is that these feelings can't be situated in a point-by-point context which explains how they might have occurred.

and so, to come to the memory charm the series thinks is noble and benign... what hermione does to her parents is remove the bullet points surrounding the most important memories of their lives from their heads, leaving profound, lingering emotional responses, which respond to stimuli even though the grangers can't understand why...

when she says that they don't know they have a daughter, what she means is that they don't remember the list of events which proved that fact to be true. mrs granger doesn't remember that she took a pregnancy test which was positive, mr granger doesn't remember that he witnessed hermione being born, neither of them remember taking her to the cinema to see the little mermaid, or buying her first school shoes, or taking her to see her grandparents on her sixth birthday.

but the evidence of canon is that the emotions attached to these events - and the unconscious knowledge which emerges from them - would remain.

and this is why hermione's modification of her parents' memories is an example of the series' black-and-white, protagonist-centred morality which i absolutely loathe. not because the watsonian text isn't horrified by it [why would harry know how memory charms work] but because the doylist text handwaves it away as something easily reversed [via jkr saying that hermione immediately restored her parents' memories the second the war was over] which left no adverse effects.

because - sure - i'm not quibbling with the need to think of hermione's decision to wipe her parents' memories as necessary, but it needs to be understood as one of those horrific choices which only become necessary because the alternative is worse.

and this necessity doesn't erase the fact that what hermione does to her parents is meaningfully no different from what bellatrix and company do to the longbottoms. we see that alice longbottom retains the emotional context to a memory - she knows that she loves neville and wants to give him a present - even if she no longer remembers who he is and what his relationship is to her. the same thing will have happened to the grangers.

and so "monica wilkins" might have found herself driving down a street in suburban melbourne one december afternoon when a christmas song came on the radio… and for reasons she doesn't understand, she burst into tears… and she went home and started making dinner… and she'd adapted the recipe she was using so it didn't have any coriander in it… but she doesn't know why, because she likes coriander just fine, and so does her husband… and then "wendall" came in, and she told him about her strange experience… and he said that he turned on the tv and meet me in st louis was showing and he had to change the channel because he thought he was going to cry… and this made them both intensely uneasy… because they've got no reason to behave so strangely… so irrationally... they don't have any memories associated with that song or that film… right?

but that's because they don't remember the facts of how their only daughter - who's got the coriander-tastes-like-soap gene - only lasted two days of a family skiing trip in december 1995, even though they hadn't spent any significant time with her since august 1994, before she swanned off back into a magical world which seemed to be robbing them of her piece by piece.

they can only remember how sad it made them feel.

[austin-chr-2-0]

Okay; so I have like a teeny little HC that Jason likes to collect broken toys, dolls, ruined teddy bears, etc. And I wanna tell you all why I think this.

Jason’s fixation on collecting broken toys and dolls likely stems from a deep psychological need to repair and protect things that are damaged. His entire life, especially as a demigod, has been centered around the expectations of perfection: always presenting himself as the ideal hero, the leader, the one who holds everything together. Collecting broken things gives him a sense of control over imperfections, perhaps because he feels a parallel to them.

Broken toys and dolls, especially, represent vulnerability—something Jason may struggle with. These objects, once whole, have been discarded or left behind after they were damaged, and by collecting them, Jason projects his own fears of being seen as “broken” or discarded if he doesn’t meet the ideal standards set for him. Fixing or simply preserving these broken items gives him the power to make them valuable again, almost like a metaphor for his subconscious desire to be valued beyond his heroic exterior.

The main thing Jason likes to collect that’s broken would are dolls or teddy bears. Dolls are often symbols of childhood innocence and vulnerability, and collecting *broken* dolls could reflect Jason’s inner struggle to reconcile his own lost innocence with the roles he’s been forced to play. Dolls, being representations of people, might also tie into his need to protect others—people who are emotionally or physically "broken." It’s his way of caring for something he can control, something that doesn’t have the complexity of real relationships, which he may fear due to his need to appear perfect.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason had dolls that looked very similar to the people in his life and he just likes having them around, caring for the dolls, changing their outfits daily, etc etc. I also think he’s fascinated with the idea of brokenness or something being broken, something that was once whole but then suddenly fractured. His fascination with this extends to people, being naturally drawn to people who have imperfections or are “broken” in a way. People who are damaged or vulnerable.

Ironically, Jason has an immense fear of being broken himself. If he can’t meet expectations, will he be discarded? His greatest fear is becoming like one of these toys, forever discarded or broken or lost.

I’m torn between the idea if he likes to play with them or not. He definitely gives them stories on how he thinks they became broken, names, etc etc. He also has the hugest soft spot for teddy bears.

Just had to rant there.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

A summary of the Guapoduo lore today because my heart is in tatters

Roier and Quackity are doing a bit and fighting each other at the Oxxo. Roier says "Help!" in chat. Cellbit sees it and gets worried, asking where he is.

Roier doesn't respond, so Cellbit gets even more worried. He starts checking the map to see where Roier is despite the fact he's in a dungeon with Forever

Eventually, Cellbit warps over to the Oxxo to check on Roier (he's fine). They have some banter, and Cellbit says he wants to talk to Melissa / the psychologist about something. Roier asks why he wants to talk to Melissa instead of him, and Cellbit says it's just because he wants to get something off his chest.

Quackity says he knows a doctor and relogs as Doctor Simi. They go to Roier's psychology office and ask Roier to wait outside so Cellbit can have a private conversation with Doctor Simi (Quackity).

(Roier secretly stays outside on the roof and listens to the conversation)

Cellbit confesses that he and Abueloier (Roier's "Abuelo" who visited the Island for the wedding) got into a fight because Abueloier was trying to stop / ruin their marriage. In the first incident, Cellbit was triggered by a cellphone and jail cell (which reminded him of his past) and he says he "accidentally" stabbed Abueloier 7 times. He says Abueloier pulled a chainsaw on him next, which triggered him more because Cucurucho attacked and tortured him with a chainsaw, and he stabbed Abueloier again and then buried his body

Doctor Simi (Quackity) tells Cellbit to lie to Roier, but when Roier comes back inside, Cellbit tells him the truth. Roier says he already knew, but he's disappointed and sad and doesn't want to talk to Cellbit.

Roier says he seriously needs to consider whether he still wants to marry Cellbit, and runs off.

As Cellbit is about to warp away, Doctor Simi (Quackity) attacks and kills Roier. Cellbit cancels the warp and runs to protect Roier, but Quackity is able to get around him and hit Roier one more time (killing him) then logs out.

Cellbit sets up a spawn trap and tries to kill Quackity when he logs back in, furious that he tried to kill his fiance.

Eventually the three of them all meet up again, and Quackity tries to help smooth things over (and even resorts to flat out lying and saying it's a cultural difference). Roier says he needs to find his Abuelo's body.

Cellbit tells him it’s fine if he doesn’t want to talk or if he needs time to think and asks Roier to remember one thing, and then he hands him an Amaranth (a flower that means eternal love -- the same flower he left in a chest for Roier when the Federation infiltration plan went wrong)

They part ways, and Richarlyson hunts down Roier to talk to him. Richarlyson: He loves you very much, he was just scared that Abueloier would try to ruin the wedding. Roier: My Abuelo didn’t ruin our wedding. Cellbit did. There is no justification Richarlyson, imagine that someone came and tries to kill your dad. Richarlyson: But he’s sorry Roier: Yes, it’s fine, and I already forgave him, but right now I don’t want to see him, and I’m not going to marry him. First I want to know where my grandfather is. Richarlyson: But if you spend a lot of time away from him, he’ll be sad Roier: And I’m sad too

Ultimately, Roier says he still likes Cellbit, but he's sad and he wants to be alone.

Roier warps to Cellbit's castle to drop off Richarlyson, and barely says anything to him. Right as Roier is warping away, Cellbit says "I love you." Roier doesn't hear him.

Richarlyson chases down Roier to tell him Cellbit said he loves him. Cellbit chases after Richarlyson and tells Roier he doesn't want to pressure him. Cellbit: I just wanted to talk... I don't want you to feel pressured, I understand if you don't want to come back. [...] Even if you change your mind, I want you to know that the time I spent with you was very important to me, you were the only person who trusted in me. You were there when no one else was. Roier: Thank you. Thank you. Me... Me too Cellbit, but right now I'm sad, and angry.

Cellbit says goodbye in the usual way, calling Roier guapito and Roier responds saying “Goodbye Cellbit,” not calling him gatinho.

[Roier's POV] Roier wonders if he'll ever be happy again, and that Roier cubito being happy isn't canon. Roier: First the tacos, then Bobby… and now gatinho… what’s next? [...] Roier: Today they betrayed me again, they stabbed me in the back once more. Today, I’d put on my old clothes (Spider-man outfit) because I felt good… but not anymore.

[Cellbit's POV] Cellbit asks Dapper if he thinks he can revive Abueloier with a Death Totem. Bad doesn’t like the idea and is trying to discourage them, but Cellbit says it’s the only thing that can fix his marriage

Cellbit says he’s willing to sell his soul, to do anything to get Roier back, saying "There are no rules when you consider love" and "I WANT TO BE GAY MARRIED WITH MY HUSBAND"

Dapper says he may need someone related to Abueloier, so Cellbit says he’ll hold off the occultism until Roier comes back online.

Cellbit says he’s willing to sell his soul in order to get Abueloier back and make Roier happy. He says he will make this marriage happen – then elaborates and says, "but only if Roier wants to," he wouldn’t do it without Roier’s consent.

That's about it for now! We'll have to wait and see what happens next.

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Who would you think would most likely to baby trap their barling in Obey me? Take your top four pick and why?

The tactic of baby-trapping is a hefty one. One that pales in comparison to these devils' powers and connection to you with their pacts. In the devil dom, they already have an advantage over you anyway so this is more of a psychological thing. Whether it's to satisfy his psyche or to control yours these are my top picks…

Mammon

He is the avatar of greed 

who better than he to own you in a way that actually manifests a child

“Better off sticking with me! You’ll need my help to raise the coolest little copy of me!” 

Its honestly probably an accident 

But as long as he gets to keep you by his side so be it

At first, he’s just not fully aware of the responsibilities that come with having a baby

And boy is he winded

He can’t run out because you and Lucifer are willing to chain him down to help

So he’ll suffer the long nights and the wailing as you both just get used to raising an infant

But once he gets past the dread he’s elated

Not only does the love of his life stay by his side forever but he has a cute kid to prove it

He won’t tell you that though

“Hah?! Love ‘em? I tolerate the little booger at best! Hey! Don’t hold him like that, you’ve got to be gentle!”

A doting father to the max 

and even being more attentive if not more obsessive with you

“I bet you thought the great Mammon would leave you to rot! Fear not I only left to get takeout…and diapers.”

“Mammon!”

“...and the heads of those demons that were talkin’ bad about ya…”

“Mammon!”

“What?! It was on the way!”

Asmodeus

Oddly enough he does it because of self-esteem 

Whether it's yours or his it's up to you

If it's yours he’s just tired of you looking down on yourself

And using it as an excuse not to be with him

Well if you're so certain you're not the most gorgeous human in existence then why are you pregnant with the child of the most beautiful devil in devil dom

If it's not your self esteem it's his 

Your divine.

He knows it you know it

And so does everyone else 

He’s not afraid of you beating him

He’s afraid of the crowd that follows

“Wow (Y/n)-chan your so popular…they seem to like you an awful lot...”

He’s never felt so insecure about himself before

How will the world know your his 

…better than with a product of your bond

“Wow! Aren’t they the cutest?! They’ve got my looks!” 

Youtuber kid all the way

Your child is more likely to be on more magazine covers than their father himself

Which makes it harder to escape if that was ever an option in the first place

But that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t feel the need to pick off your most avid fans

Especially the fans and theorists that notice your worried gaze and the possessive hold on your hip

“Oya you really captured their emotions that way! Too bad we can’t have you ruining their Winter debutant. Don’t be too sad! You are having the most beautiful demon be the one to end your worthless ugly life.”

Barbatos

Even with your summoner status, he’s a tough demon to beat

The power of time and teleportation are on his side

Which can make for a maddening punishment if you try to escape him

“Oh, so you insist on running, then? Fine but I’m not privy to keep doing this with you.”

Its also just easier to keep your mind on him this way

Since you're so insistent on trying to run he might as well make it impossible for you to do so 

Emotionally at first

This doubles as his claim to ownership and a way to halt you from running ever again

As a butler to the king, everything he has is to serve his master

Even you are allowed to be in his possession its because his master lets him or doesn’t know

But a child

His and your child 

That's something he can fully own

It works with your mind as well

Leaving you to either make the heartless decision to abandon your child 

or to stay and have no choice but to grapple with this constant piece of him 

That is if he lets it get that bad

Again with time as a tool, he can make it so everything he says and does makes perfect sense

“Let’s have a baby, my love. It’d be death all over again if you won’t indulge me.” 

“Oh Barbs, I was thinking just the same!”

Diavolo

Has to be given the idea

It's not going to be his first thought

“Won’t that be cool! Then we could be together all the time! Just the three of us!”

Whether its Barbatos or you scoffing at his behavior something gives him the bright idea

Like most things, he’ll be upfront

He doesn’t really need to stake his claim 

He’s the prince of devil dom 

The very clothes on your back say you belong irrevocably to him

it's more like he believes it’ll make your relationship better

You’ll be more willing to have fun not run if your child demands it

Right?

“Wow! Good job you managed to get them all in perfect order!” 

“Good job!? They killed half the staff for a demented dominoes game!”

“...”

“That's a bad thing!”

“R-right! That's a bad thing just like your mother says!”

[pinene]

Like the fact that american public education is so abysmal HAS to be intentional. It cannot be this hard to figure out how to effectively teach young people, in a psychologically safe and enriching manner, what they need to know to be an adult--and more importantly, how to learn.

But in reality, that's not what its purpose even remotely is. It's to allow parents to go to work every day, create a population which is used to powering through long stretches of unpleasant engagement and glancing at the clock (useful for hourly workers), and most importantly, create a population which doesn't actually know how to learn, and oftentimes even grows to resent learning itself.

Think about the things public school ruined, forever associating them with stress and confusion and profound adolescent resentment--reading, math, exercise, language learning, research, writing... All incredibly powerful disciplines for a populous to wield. Some countries simply won't LET people learn these disciplines, but this often creates an uprising of people who want to learn anyway, and will find a way to.

The USA has done something far more sinister and brilliant. It's convinced the populous that learning these disciplines is deeply unpleasant! It 'teaches' them to you in a grating, exhausting way, and then reminds you that the second you are an adult, you'll have the absolute privilege and RELIEF of never having to pursue them again if you don't want to. Which, of course, you probably won't!

And so not only do you have a population without the tools to intellectually challenge the system you have in place, but a population that is PROUD of the fact that they can't

[forwhump]

a/n; as per usual : sorry I’m posting & also WHAT THE HELL TO EVERYBODY THAT HAS BEEN SO SO SO NICE TO ME ABOUT MY LITTLE GUYS 😭😭😭 bffs forever no take backs

& in honour of being bff’s have another point thing >:) as a treat

tw/cw: dehumanization, rape, noncon, transphobia, misgendering, captivity, kidnapping, psychological torture, sexual violence, grievous bodily harm, skinning

creepy whumper, living weapon whumpee, kinda implied violence against animals but “the dog” is actually a man

That fuckin’ dog massacres ten of Point’s men before he puts enough bullets in its brain that it finally stops moving.

Ten.

He stands amongst carnage, the ruin of his men smeared across the floors and walls of the unit. The dog is dead at his feet, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’ll be back, ‘cause it always comes back. It’ll be taken to see the fuckin’ Pet Sematary poindexters and they’ll bring their precious sack of shit back to life.

Point’s men will all remain dead. The dog kills ten people, Point’s people, innocent people, and it doesn’t even get put down, not really. Point’s men work guard detail, they’ve never killed anybody, and they don’t get a second chance. They’re all just dead.

He lifts his head slowly, looking at the insubordinate super freaks through red mist. How fuckin’ spoiled. How fuckin’ ungrateful. Looking at him now, eyes wide with terror. What a fuckin’ joke. They saved these people, each of them. Sincerely. The girl’s brother was a crackhead, for fucks sake, and now he’s got all his teeth. What does he have to complain about? The dog was pieced together with scraps from death row. Maybe that’s where they went wrong with it. Maybe the meat was always rotten.

He takes a breath through his nose and it smells like a butcher shop. He looks slowly at the girl and he can barely look at her. He’ll make her cry, but he thinks she’s gonna be face down while he does it. “I told you,” he says slowly, “to keep that thing on a shorter leash.”

She isn’t looking at him, but at the carcass of her dog. It’s disgusting, her fuckin’ fetish for that thing. It’s a fuckin’ dog, and even then, just barely. “You’ll pay for what it’s done,” he says.

She lifts her head slowly. “Darren,” she breathes, and he can’t help the disgusted noise he makes. He’d only told her his name because in the moment, he’d wanted to hear her say it. She abuses the right, and she’ll be punished for that, too.

He looks away, back down at the dog, but instead, he’s looking at hardwood.

“Darren,” she repeats, and her voice is weird. Her accent is wrong.

“What?” He says, and lifts his head, and he’s looking at his wife.

She smiles down at him, hands folded under the prominent swell of her stomach. He’d completely forgotten she was even pregnant. He’d been under for a lot of months this time.

“Still waking up a little bit?” She teases. He’s sitting on the couch in his living room, in his home above ground, sunlight filtering in through the windows. The world always feels way too bright for the first few days.

“I guess so,” he says.

She laughs, pushing his hair back as she presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I think we should start talking names when you’re a little more awake,” she says. “Just in case you’re not here for the birth.”

“I will be,” Darren says. He adds, anyway, “I’ve always liked the name Wren.”

“Wren?” She repeats, and tilts her head thoughtfully. “That’s so cute. How’d you think of Wren?”

He forces himself to smile at her. “You don’t think I can come up with cute names?”

She laughs again. “I just didn’t expect your one suggestion to be such a knockout,” she says. “Wren might be a strong contender.”

His smile is a little less unnatural this time. “Good.”

The girl chokes out a sob, and Point grins a little wider. “You’re doing so good,” he coos softly. “You’re being such a good girl for me.”

She tries to turn her head and he grabs her by the jaw. “You look at me when I fuck you,” he tells her. She sobs again. It makes him smile, and he smiles until he lifts his head to look at her dog. There isn’t much left of it, but it’s still snarling. Spirited, that thing. “You,” he tells it. “Look at me, too, when I fuck her.”

The dog tries to lunge and a meat hook rips a huge chunk of flesh out of his left side. The dog howls, and the girl sobs so hard Point can feel it in every nerve ending in his body. He groans. He can’t help it.

“Please,” she sobs. She presses her bound hands into his chest and the gentle touch, the unusually nonviolent touch makes him groan again. “Please. You’re hurting him.”

“He’s hurting himself,” Point says. “I have no hand in that.”

“Please,” she sobs.

Her dog is feral. How is that any fault of Point’s?

It had been stored in this room for a long time, out of the way, out of Point’s hair, where it wasn’t a danger to anybody. The girl had been missing it, and Point had been paying it visits, so he knows it missed her, too.

He thought it might be nice for it to see her again. He was doing them both a service, really.

It’s pulled most of the meat out of its left side and it’s skinned nearly everything else in its desperation to get free. It’s a big dog, strong, feral and bloodthirsty, and even down here, even alone, they didn’t trust it. It had been held to its place against the wall with meat hooks, with steel cables woven through the gaps between its bones. It pulls, it breaks bone, it peels skin away from muscle and meat and away from bone but they’d be so careful with it. It mutilates itself but it does not get free. It will bleed to death before it does. They’d been careful to make sure of that.

He watches it bleed all over the place, and then he looks down at the girl, at the mess she’s become beneath him, flush with crying, pleated skirt pushed up around her waist. She’s fuckin’ unreal, this girl, and he shouldn’t even have to fight that thing for her. What kinda hot girl fucks dogs? Point always finds himself falling for the crazies.

He looks at her dog again. He can see through its rib cage on its left side. “Sit,” he commands, and whistles it through his teeth. “Down, boy. Be a good dog and watch how good your girl takes my cock.”

Its lip curls back from its teeth and it might paint a frightful picture if it weren’t hardly more than howling, twitching meat. “You’re a fuckin’ freak,” it snarls, and he might as well have doused Point in lighter fluid for how immediately Point is consumed in smouldering, white hot rage.

“The talking fuckin’ dog thinks I’m a freak?” He spits, and the girl cries out from beneath him. “Shut up,” he hisses at her.

“Please,” she tries again, but now he’s not happy. If this girl had a fatal flaw, it would be her stupid, sack of shit mutt, that’s for sure.

“Shut up,” he snaps, and leans his weight on one forearm so he can crack his fist into her wet face.

He puts too much weight into it, and her head hits the concrete beneath her too hard. She goes limp, and that’s not what he wanted at all. “Fuckin’ whore,” he snaps.

The dog roars and Point doesn’t look at it.

He pulls out of the girl just long enough to turn her onto her stomach. He pulls her hips up and her skirt down and lifts his head to look at the dog as he pushes back inside her. Its desperate, howling sounds are starting to get really wet. It shreds more of its flesh.

“Get the fuck away from him,” it snarls, and Point still isn’t happy, but he grins.

“What are you gonna do, big guy?” He asks. “Bleed?”

The muscles of its chest are almost all visible, and the way they move as it pants is kind of a turn off. He has to look back down at the girl, only ever this well behaved when she’s unconscious.

“I’m not gonna kill you,” the dog tells him, low and rough. “But you’re gonna wish I had.”

“Is that what you think,” Point asks, “tough guy?”

He lifts his head, looking up at the nurse, her eyes crinkled above her pink surgical mask as she lowers his newborn son into his arms. He’s bundled in a blue blanket and a little blue beanie, stitched with the name of the hospital in white. He looks like any other baby Darren’s ever seen, small and unexceptional.

“Congratulations,” the nurse says, and he smiles like he’s supposed to. “He’s beautiful.”

“That’s because he looks like his mother,” he says, and her eyes crinkle again.

“C’mere,” his wife says, weak with birth. He turns to her and her arms are outstretched from the bed. “Let me see my baby.”

“I’m right here,” he says, and she laughs softly.

“C’mere, baby.” She pats the spot next to her, and he settles at her side, their youngest son cradled in his arms. She leans into him, cheek against his arm as she peers down at the baby. Darren doesn’t really know what there is to see; it’s not their first baby, and he looks the same as all the other ones. His wife kisses his arm before she coos down at him like he’s something special, reaching out to hold a tiny foot through a pale blue blanket. “Hi,” she coos to him softly. “Hi, my baby.”

“We make some beautiful babies,” he says, even if they don’t, not especially. “Don’t we?”

“The most beautiful,” she agrees, looking up at him slowly, and she leans up to kiss him before she leans back down to kiss her son. “Right?” She coos to him. “Aren’t you the most beautiful baby in the whole world?”

Point, exhaling softly, says, “fuck. You’re so beautiful.”

The girl looks up at him from his bunk with wide, wet eyes. She’s wearing this little satin slip he’d stolen from his wife ‘cause he thought it would look better on her and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. He was right.

She has this wide eyed, dazed look to her she always gets when his men were particularly unkind to her. Her mouth is swollen and there’s come tracked down the insides of her thighs, smeared across the dark sheets. She looks holy. She’s the most beautiful thing Point’s ever seen.

“Please,” she says, her voice rough with crying, probably with screaming, too. “Please, I want —“

“I don’t give a shit what you want, cowgirl,” Point tells her, pulling his belt free.

She tries to cower away from him, but there’s nowhere she can go. “Please,” she says, quick and breathless. “Please,” and she sobs. “I’m —“

“I don’t give a shit, cowgirl,” he repeats. “What do you think this is?”

The rise and fall of her chest is enchanting. She’d had her tits surgically removed, for whatever reason, but she’d never been able to fill out the Barbie doll curve of her waist and the way the satin pools in it now makes Point’s mouth water.

“Please,” she tries again, and he doesn’t look into her face but at her stomach, slightly concave, now, beneath the shimmery material. She’s starving again, and something’s gonna have to be done about that soon. It’s hard to keep her fed — if she doesn’t refuse to eat, she doesn’t keep it down.

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells her again, because he can’t really help it.

“Dad,” his son says.

Darren looks down at him, standing in the grass in their obnoxious front yard. This one’s the second oldest, but he doesn’t know how old that is. He can’t tell how old kids are. Somewhere between two and eighteen, probably. This one looks the most like him so Darren likes him the best.

“Yeah?”

The kid is playing with the hem of his shirt, peering up at him from a face framed with Darren’s hair. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is too bright. “Do you have to go back to work soon?”

Darren crouches in front of him slowly, heaving a sigh. He pushes the kid’s hair back from his face. “Yeah, buddy,” he says. “Couple more days.”

“And you’re gonna be gone for a long time?” He asks.

He nods, doing something with his mouth that he thinks looks regretful. “Yeah, buddy,” he says again. “When I go to work, I go to a really secret place really, really far underground. It’s really hard to get there and it’s really hard to come back, so that’s why when I go, I go for a long time.”

“I don’t like when you go for a long time,” he admits.

“I’ll always come back,” Darren tells him.

“What do you do at work?” His son asks. It’s not the first time he’s asked.

“I told you,” he answers, “I do all kinds of things. I work for the government.”

“Can I come to work with you one day?”

“Maybe one day,” he says as he stands.

He looks down at the bleeding mess of the dog at his feet. This stupid, belligerent mutt. This ugly, worthless sack of shit.

“You’re a waste of the skin we made you with,” Point spits.

It’s flat on its back and when it coughs up blood, it almost drowns in it. Point watches closely and revels in its pain.

It had killed six more of his men. Six. His numbers are dwindling and Point doesn’t think he’s ever hated anything as much as he hates this fuckin’ thing.

It bleeds at his feet. Both of its arms had been nearly severed at different points, but still, it lifts a trembling hand from a dark pool of blood, and raises its middle finger.

Point can’t believe the fuckin’ nerve of this thing.

“Once you’re dead,” he says, “I’m gonna carve you open, and I’m gonna fuck your girl in your carcass. I hope this was worth it.”

And he empties his gun into the dog’s face.

[mxtxfanatic]

Book of the Week: Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage

Author: Qian Shan Cha Ke (千山茶客)

Genre: ancient setting, josei

Rating: M (very mature, dark themes but not too graphic of depictions)

My Synopsis: What happens when a girl gets tired of being nice and decides to go apeshit? You get Shen Miao, our adorable 30+ year-old protagonist recently stuffed back into her 14-year-old self and ready to eat the flesh and drink the blood of her enemies! Using this new lease on life, she’ll methodically and maliciously ruin every antagonist’s life using the tools in her versatile skillset, including: knowledge of the future, a psychological understanding of assholes, weaponized gender stereotypes, and men. And lest we forget our love interest, Xie Jing Xing: the boy/man (cause god forbid the author know how old anyone BUT Shen Miao is…) who thought he had it all figured out until he discovered that Shen Miao is a horny drunk. See just how far they’ll go to bathe in the blood of their enemies while keeping their loved ones safe in this very long but extremely satisfying novel.

My Actual Review: It’s so satisfying to see a previously downtrodden character scheme her way into a happy ending, and Shen Miao fucking deserves it. Some reviews that I’ve seen have claimed that the LI eventually takes over her revenge schemes, but I didn’t see it. They just partner up and she uses his manpower to do what she wants. There are also places where their separate goals intersect, so it just makes more sense for him to do the cleanup. The thing about Shen Miao is that she has no issues with letting others do the work for her, especially if it’s against people she wasn’t invested in putting work against to begin with. It’s the empress in her, I fear. As for the main pair as a couple, I loved their every interaction, and their descent into romance felt natural and gratifying. Greatest thing about this romance is the fact that it truly kicks off because Xie Jing Xing did not know to guard against horny drunk Shen Miao lmao!

The translation is pretty good outside of some clunky grammar, but once you train your eyes to glaze over the the five-millionth time the translator inserts directly into the story to complain about how often the LI is described as hot (unlike every other character, I guess???) as if this book is their early 2000s fanfic, it gets even better! Another thing that may or may not be here nor there is that this author is really weird with age consistency. Like, “MC is forever un-aging while everyone else ages 2 years every few months” weird. Shen Miao is forever 14 until the time skip in which she is forever 16, while Xie Jing Xing goes from “the same age as the students” to “17/18ish” to “vaguely in his 20s” during the same course of time where we literally never see Shen Miao acknowledge a birthday in any year. As for more serious content warnings, this story involves underage relationships (including non-explicit sex, marriage, and pregnancy), rape as a weapon, (assumed) incest between cousins, child abuse, and described but not explicitly shown torture. Though there are some humorous parts, this is not a lighthearted story. Read if you want something dark with an ultimate happy ending.

Translation: complete

[asoulwithadream]

(beware, beware, spoilers are here, the doctor is our favourite guy, for rogue you will cry)

The Doctor and his D&D boyfriend (who eventually dissapears into a random alternate dimension) try to stop a family of birds cosplaying Bridgerton and taking over Britain whilst Ruby teaches a debutante modern day slang and serves cunt.

I am currently writing this through tears because I think that Rogue has fundamentally and psychologically changed me. The amount of changing, rapid-fire emotion that I went through in the span of those forty minutes is probably unhealthy. What do I even say about this episode? It started off brilliant and amazing and then cycloned into a heart-wrenching yet light-hearted and ever so confusing ending which has left me mouth wide open. It really displayed the best side of all the characters in a way that was so incredibly smooth.

The Doctor was charismatic and suave and had a rapid mind which turned from teasing to flustered to desperate. He cares, he cares so much, maybe even too much, that he'd rather lose himself in a kiss than save the world and banish his best friend forever. And Ruby Sunday, with her own mind to speak her own truth, captivating effortlessly with just her thoughts. She's quick thinking, able to defend herself and seeks perspective—Ruby, who sees straight through the Doctor's wall, and pressures him to just at least hug.

Where do I even begin with Rogue himself—he was instantly likeable, with his arrogancy and his gentle descent into a soft dare-devil who just wanted someone to argue with. His relationship with the Doctor was (*for the lack of the proper word imagine me biting my hand and silently screaming*).

Once more, Millie, Ncuti and Jonathan are actually my loves and they should have all travelled together in the TARDIS, change my MIND.

Some of my commentary:

JONATHAN GROFF? WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY DOCTOR WHO EPISODE

You could never make me hate you Ruby Sunday

The homoerotic tension is insane.

I just want to talk about that little "okay!" Ncuti's way of portraying the Doctor is so human; he's never perfect, he makes mistakes, he has reactions to things that make it so relatable and Ncuti so likeable.

You could never, EVER, make me hate you Ruby Sunday

"My name's Bond, Molecular Bond."

ROLL FOR INSIGHT. NO FUCKING WAY. NO WAY.

THEY HONOURED KYLIE MINOGUE. LONG LIVE ASTRID PETH!!!

"Flustered suits you, Doc," JONATHAN.

Ncuti is the suavest man on this side of the Universe. (Jonathan's the suavest on the other side.)

"Let's argue across the stars" Sure I didn't need my heart anyways!

THE SPOTLIGHT

"Find me," babes you just emotionally ruined both me and the Doctor actually stop.

"Onwards, upwards, new horizons." bestie please go to therapy

I usually try not to watch the teaser at the end so I can be as surprised as possible, but I inadvertently glanced at one scene accidentally—so... SUSAN TWIST RECOGNITION EPISODE LET'S GO!!!!!!!

[astheworldgoesonitswickedway]

I don't like the ASoUE movie with Jim Carrey. I don't like it at all. But I really wanted to! Let's be honest, it's a mess in so many ways, but didn't it have so much going for it? (Although, its worth mentioning, the choice to put three books in one movie was just horrible, will always be horrible, will never ever work no matter what series you are adapting and that was set to ruin everything from the start because, how could you include all the necessary plot, and if you did, how would you give it the necessary screen time to do it properly???!!!) Anyway, the series is comedy and Jim Carrey is so famous for his comedy, and he looks a bit more like the book description of Olaf then Neil Patrick Herris (though Netflix did great with his look too) The sets were beautiful and really fulfilled the gothic vibe. The cast mostly fit my exact vision of the characters, and the costumes were beautiful, if a bit steampunk. (though I will forever hate the decision to take away Klaus' glasses???!!! I mean, what was their plan for the Miserable Mill, SKIP IT???) It should have been good right? But there was such a fundamental lack of understanding the true plot and the meaning behind it. Which is the main problem behind every noticeable problem the movie has. They took a dark story and repeatedly tried to make it less dark? Overwhelming the script with Jim Carrey humor (which I usually like) and taking away the proper dry humor that EMBRACES the series' tragedy. And "punishing" Olaf only for him to escape? Why bother? This meant the entire plot got muddled, and things didn't make a whole lot of sense. Speaking of muddled plots, seriously why did the train scene even exist? Why was the marriage at the end of the whole thing? Acting like the whole series is over by "consoling" us about the Baudelaires in this confusing dialogue about them "having each other" only for it to all end up in the air? Don't we want an official cliff hanger if there will be more movies? Why did we need that? And are we seriously trying to say V.F.D. only existed as a group of people trying to figure out who was responsible for a few fires? Olaf was never a part of V.F.D. but instead the reason it existed? Not a multi-generational, trauma-filled, child kidnapping secret society that suffered a great schism? All this might have been excused, well not really excused, but maybe I could have still enjoyed it in a way, if they had only gotten Olaf right. What I'm about to say may be controversial, but, I feel like he is kinda the main character. I know we see more of the Baudelaires, I know we are rooting for them and Olaf is horrible. Being the main character certainly doesn't change his status of villain, but the entire plot of all thirteen books is kept in motion by his actions. Olaf's character is ridiculous and Jim Carrey certainly delivered on that, but unfortunately, in all the wrong ways. I don't know, maybe it was because the script they gave him. Olaf is ridiculous because he wants to be for a variety of reasons, not because he is a genuine idiot. Violet remarks that he is a CLEVER, unsavory, drunken brute. Beneath his exterior of chaos and stupidity is supposed to be an undercurrent of devious cunning and above all, cruelty, malice, and hatred. We are meant to see and hear that underneath about everything he says and does. All I see in Jim Carrey's performance is an idiot who is selfish enough to do anything to get what he wants. Which is something that certainly applies to Olaf, but he is meant to be much more. More wicked than someone who is simply willing to do horrible things and laugh about it, someone who takes deep, psychological and messed up pleasure in hurting others. Someone who hates the Baudelaires for a reason. (Though not a good one) I'm not saying Jim Carrey is the entire reason the movie failed. Again, the problem might have been the script and dialogue, maybe he could have delivered that menace if given the chance. But all in all, the way it turned out just doesn't work for me.

Also, I don’t mean to bash Jim Carrey, he is a great actor. Just maybe not the right fit in this instance.

[adrianfridge]

Not me having existential thoughts about forgiveness, redemption, and being beyond redeemable from watching the newly released Llamas with Hats epilogue

For the uninitiated (or perhaps you only saw one episode over ten years ago), here’s the full 12 episodes (~18min long)

Who would have thought an edgy comedy turned psychological horror would then turn into such a masterful surrealist philosophical journey

Here’s the epilogue (~20min long)

Spoiler comment under the cut from someone who rewired my brain with their analysis…

[Image ID: Screenshot of Youtube comment by @aeiouvy

“the series stopped being as comedic without paul there to react to carl and for carl to bounce off of. and that was the POINT of llamas with hats, it was both of them! and once paul left, carl had nothing that truly fulfilled him. he just engaged in meaningless destruction that we, the audience, don't even get to see, because it's not even interesting at this point. he nuked a city. he made a portal of baby hands. he made a meat dragon. paul was over it, and so was the audience, but carl just wouldn't stop. he was never going to stop. he kept going and going trying to chase the feeling of gratification and companionship that paul gave him to the point of pretending a mask was paul just to have something to bounce off of... until he realized paul was dead, likely killed by one of the many disasters carl set upon the world.

carl could no longer go on in the empty world he created, there was nothing left for him to destroy. he has no reason to be alive. buildings and society are nothing but ruins. the sky is choked with smoke and dust and seemingly trapped in an endless blazing vortex. everything was destroyed and nothing will change- not even day to night. so he kills himself, because there's nothing left for him to want. episode 12 is a perfect ending to the story, because there's nothing more to see and nothing more to tell. it was never llamas with hats once paul left, anyways, episodes 6-12 were just showing carl finally realizing that far, far too late.

even in death, carl could think of nobody but himself and what he wanted. he wanted forgiveness because he wanted paul back. he didn't want redemption, he wanted to STAY CARL. remain who he is at his very heart and soul. every time he ate from the meat tube, he refused the truths it was telling him and become more and more warped and distorted, more visibly resembling the twisted creature he is, until he is crushed by the weight of his sins and becomes a puddle of gray carl fur and face. it's all about him, what he wants, his whole world- until he finally encounters his memory of paul's skeleton and is drowned in a violent red, nothing but his face remaining. he isn't a person (llama,) he is nothing but the violence and harm he caused. and there's no going back. whenever he tries to go back, ‘be forgiven.’ it's always only ever for himself. carl wants to keep selfishly dragging paul towards him, demands paul forgive him. but there's nothing but him. there will never be anything but him.

when carl finally understands and accepts that what paul needs is for CARL to stay away, he stops warping and twisting. he stops trying to selfishly force the universe to give him what he wants. the only way forwards for him is complete ego death and rebirth/ reformation into an acorn. NOT redemption, NOT forgiveness, because there is none of that for him to have. he has to destroy everything ‘carl’ ever was. CARL killed paul. CARL destroyed everything.

and like paul asked, CARL goes into a hole in a desert, far away from anyone and anything he'd ever hurt or destroyed. even still, the living thing he is now flourishes, perhaps content in this new state. it's a sign of life in this empty desert expanse. the sky is clear and a beautiful starry night finally comes, along with the moon that reminded carl so much of paul. to the tree, the moon and the sky are forever unreachable and unobtainable- but still, they're back. the horror and destruction is all over.

episode 12 was a perfect ending and perfect way to show that it was all over.

and this is a perfect epilogue: it shows something extra after the end. it shows that they've finally found peace.

...but also, it's toxic doomed yaoi”

/end ID]

[spaciebabie]

As a certified Springtrap simp, which backstory for William do you prefer: one where he was a good dad driven mad maybe by jealousy or the loss of his youngest child, or one where he was always an abusive narcisist that cared for nobody but himself?

i feel like the, "im evil so i must also abuse my creations and/or children" has been really overdone. like idk im just tired of seeing it personally. and the whole "haha!!! im craaaazy!!" thing we get in the comics also rubs me the wrong way b/c. thats not. how he's portrayed in the games at all. esp hearing him in sister location he feels like he would be a calm sort of madness. he seems like a rational guy. he doesnt talk like that. he doesnt act like that. it seems really contradictory

i feel like him being a good dad (or at the least caring deeply for his children) gives him more urgency and like,,,,makes sense w/what we're given. it aligns the most w/the theories we have asta why he started killing etc. i also just enjoy the tragedy of it. he started out as a good guy w/good intentions and then was twisted inta something unrecognizable b/c he was so focused on tryin ta reach his goal. personally my hc is that he was jelly of henry and then the death of crying child tipped him over the edge and started his whole killing thing. imo its better than, "hee hoo i was evil FOREVER!! im PURE evil and have always been EVIL!!!" like. okay. wheres the subsistence?? give him depth dammit

why would he build a robot for his daughter if he didnt love her. why would he tell crying child he would put him back together if he didnt love him (not really cemented as something he said, but i mean who else would say it?? certainly not michael he was a boy. i think as a fandom we assume its heavily implied). it makes the afton kid's deaths so much more impactful. the prospect of this man losing pieces of his life bit by bit and being driven insane by it is enthralling

i love a good chaotic descent. i love thinking abt him being consumed w/a need ta revive his own son becoming obsessed w/life and death as a result. oh the irony of loving your own kid so much you would take others children away from them, knowing how losing your own felt. and the twisting of emotions as he sees his son michael someone who he would've died for, try ta stop him. b/c hes not understanding, they need ta b together again. thats all hes tryin ta do. get his family back tagether. and all these fucking obstacles are in the way of his only goal. and the manifestation of hatred of his own son b/c of this. b/c hes getting in his way. like, talk abt juicy. i want that man ruined. it just adds a layer of psychological torture that i just adore. william fucking ruined everything. he ruined his own happy family, he ruined his own life, and if he actually mourns that? chefs kiss.

my thought is, why even have him have a family in the first place if they're just there ta demonstrate he's evil? seeing the afton family purely as a plot device, we already know afton killed kids. one can assume a person who kills kids is a bad person (maybe? see this is where the juiciness comes in w/him caring for his children. is it really bad from his perspective if hes trying ta save his kid? or is it noble?) so we dont need ta b demonstrated ta that hes a bad person again. if hes just pure evil from the get go it doesnt make sense ta me ta have the afton kids be prominent in the story (besides michael, but even then he could probably be replaced by one of the victims family members) when you could illustrate the same point by focusing on the kids hes killed and their families. why do the afton kids matter if he treats all children the same. why are we focusing so much on the afton family and what appear ta b major story beats in their story, especially since the children he has killed do not get as fleshed out as the aftons do. i feel like if his family wasnt important ta him we wouldnt hear abt it at all. you could achieve the same message by making him single and childless.

do u kno how many stories there are of "Righteous Child Of A Horrible Guy Who Hates Everything, Even Their Own Family, Goes Out Ta Stop Their Parent And Save The Day" there are? its b/c its too easy!!! its too easy for u ta assume that a character is the worst and has been the worst forever!!! its too easy ta assume that an evil character would abuse their family!!! its too easy ta assume an evil character wouldn't have traits besides jealousy, hatred and narcissism!!!!

[meta-squash]

I reject Owen Harper's absolutely nonsense canonical timeline and substitute my own.

According to canon, Owen was born in 1980 and died (power plant) in 2008, making him barely 28 when he died. But also according to canon, he did 7 years at medical school, then was junior houseman for a year where he met Katie (but then a different canon book says he met her when he was 21). Then he was engaged to Katie and she died, and he was with Torchwood for 2 years before Gwen joined, and a Torchwood employee for a total of 4 years.

It literally cannot work. If Owen did 7 years of medical school and one year as a junior doctor, he'd be 26 (maybe 25 if he gotten into med school as early as possible at 17) by the end of his first year of being a junior doctor. But he died at 28, and was at Torchwood for 4 years before that death. Again, I know I'm being nitpicky about a show that's had some type of media around since 2006 and a billion different writers and clearly no one looks back at old canon details. But still. Would it hurt to at least make things vaguely plausible?

So. My version of Owen's timeline:

Owen is born in 1976 or 1977. He does 7 years of medical school starting at age 18, during which time he meets Katie when he's 21. He's 26 when he becomes a junior doctor, and has about 2 or 3 years actually working as a doctor (I've always imagined it was in A&E or something equally varied and "interesting" which fits with his sort of jack of all trades vibes in Torchwood). He proposes to Katie in 2003, and a few months later she starts getting sick, but they continue to plan their wedding. She dies. He works for Torchwood for 4 years and dies at age 32 or 33 in Exit Wounds.

First of all, it now makes sense time-wise in terms of actual linear time.

But also, Fragments gives a glimpse of just how much losing Katie fucked Owen up entirely. I think the loss of not only his fiancee but also his actual career (since everyone seems to think he's gone mad with grief or whatever) would fuck him up far more intensely if he'd been dedicated to both for quite some time. The Owen we see in Fragments is nice, is loving, clearly cares, and is good at his job in a way that means he's respected by his peers in general and not just for his skills. Compare that to Torchwood Owen who is sarcastic and spiky and a bastard and good at his job but doesn't want to let on that he cares. That's the kind of drastic change you make after a loss of something you've had for a long time and you cannot emotionally or psychologically afford to try and form those kinds of connections again (case in point: Diane).

Like, Owen and Ianto have such incredibly similar backstories, but one of the reasons I think Ianto bounces back from his loss of Lisa and the trauma of Canary Wharf is because he's young and because his job/relationship was not a very long one and therefore had not settled into this comfortable thing where you deep down expect this same thing in the future forever. Ianto hadn't made a life for himself yet when he lost Lisa at 24. So there was room for him to change, to move on, to find someone new in Jack. Owen had already made a life with Katie and his job as a proper doctor, and losing it totally ruined him.

[h4venpha]

↳ 𝐂𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 — aiku oliver

toxic romantic dynamics, hes mean and manipulative but we (i) love it

do not read if triggering!!

When the last bell rang, you were finally shaken out of your thoughts. Looking down, your notes paper was blank other than your name and the date scribbled out at the top corner. Even though you usually enjoyed psychology class with your favorite professor, your mind was elsewhere.

You shoved your blank paper into your backpack without a care. Swinging your bag over your shoulder, you hurried out of the lecture room. You pushed through the other students and so you could get back to your dorm before he found you in the hall. Just as you passed the door frame, you broke into a brisk walk as you made your way back to your dorm.

No sudden, quick hands pulling at your forearm, no deep voice calling out your name, just other students who haven’t ruined your life unlike a certain someone.

You entered your dorm building and relief spilled throughout your body. Going to your own dorm room was strange after weeks of going to his right after class. You shoved that strange feeling down as you fiddled with the keycard in your hands as you began to reach your door. You turned the last corner and you were met by the person you least wanted to see.

He leaned back against the wall directly opposite from your door with his phone in his right hand while his other was tucked in his pocket. His dark hair fanned over his eyes with his head tilted downward while he scrolled, his neongreen hair sticking out over the back of his neck. Just seeing him made your blood boil and it hadn’t even been 24 hours since you last saw him. But still, a small, unwanted sliver of pain struck through your heart.

“Oh hey,” Aiku greeted casually with a grin as if you two didn’t spend the entirety of last night claiming to never talk again.

You don’t spare him glance.

“Why are you here, Aiku?” You asked and made your voice completely monotone as you swiped the keycard. You unlocked your door and propped it open with your foot. You leaned against the door frame and tried your best to glare intimidatingly at his smug face.

He pocketed his phone. “What’s with the sudden formalness, Y/N?” His grin only widened as he easily reached up to hold the top of the door frame before he leaned in close.

Of course it was strange to call him Aiku after so many weeks of calling him Oliver. But the events that unfolded yesterday night were unforgivable. You were so sick of his antics; you pledged to separate yourself from him forever.

You didn’t answer him.

“You’re not still mad at me are you?” He pouted with faux innocence. “C’mon, let’s kiss and make up,” Aiku half-jokingly suggested with a smirk.

“…I don’t want to make up this time, Oliver. What you did last night was fucked up,” You felt tears well up in your eyes as you looked down. “and you crossed so many boundaries that you promised you wouldn’t.”

His fingers suddenly lifted your chin up to look into your watery eyes.

“I know, I can be really mean sometimes, can’t I?” Aiku jutted his lower lip out as you hesitantly nodded. “There, there,” He cooed softly and wiped your eyes with his thumb.

And you let him comfort you. You let him dry your eyes. The same man you said you hated with everything you were just hours ago, you relished in his smallest touches.

“Feel better now, you poor thing?” Aiku gently rubbed your cheek as he leaned down closer. You knew what he was doing, and you wanted to yell and push him away, but you kept your arms by your side and began to lean in.

In silent agreement, you and Aiku met in the middle. His mouth softly captured your bottom lip as tingles erupted all over your body. Somehow the argument and sudden breakup made you crave the kiss even more, it enhanced the lightning you felt shoot down your fingertips.

You reached up and pressed your fingers into his wrist as he held your face in his hand, deepening the kiss. You shivered when the familiar taste of his tongue licked into your mouth. His touch always managed to rub the anger and frustration away before he pulled his lips back from yours.

“I promise I’ll do better this time okay?” Aiku leaned down to your level and playfully pinched your cheek. “Plus, you can’t really stay mad at me forever can you?” He smiled and gently pushed you into your dorm room before he followed after and closed the door behind him.

Every time you let him do that. Petty arguments that started from nothing, turned into fights and eventual break ups. Every time you would run away and he would always drag you back right where he wanted you. You couldn’t help that each time he found a way to capture you back into his life, you let him. You couldn’t help that you enjoyed the game of cat and mouse you and him played. He was addicting to say the least.