#ramble over anyway ehe

[room-of-lies]

Mapiley and Naosara for the ship bingo?

surprise surprise i got a bingo on these two fghdsfgh <3 nankidai himself could provide canon evidence that miley hated maple and i'd still find a way to make it gay i'm truly mentally ill about them

ouuuhghg these two are. complicated, I think about massacre ending a lot and it's rly the only context I could see the two actually getting anywhere close to a "relationship" and even then I doubt they'd ever communicate about it or acknowledge it, just sorta live eternally in this guilt-ridden dependency on each other

[sunnymainecoonx]

I know damn well I misunderstood the assignment but we roll, I'll understand it some day

It's killer and dust btw. If you couldn't tell. Which you probably couldn't.. forgor to say but shhh 🤫 Killers having a convo with himself..

..I kinda wanna change my url but idk to what

[silverware-is-interesting]

i've never really made a comic before, well, i have, but nothing i had intention to show anyone else

[moonlit-dreamers]

honestly im really enjoying the plot in mgafs but especially bc of eclipse and how he is as a character

hes become something more neutral. he isnt a villain nor a "good guy". hes just. a guy. he doesnt even want to be here but he doesnt have much of a choice. he tolerates ppls existence as much as he can without exploding. he does care about ppl but he hides it under a guise of "im doing this for myself and anyone who benefits from this is just a side effect" and honestly i love that so fucking much. like. he very much gives a shit about earth and at one point emphasized that she would not get hurt. tho when questioned about it he dodges the question. in fact, every time someone brings up earth and how defensive he is he avoids it. i feel like not even he himself wants to confront how he feels

then theres also puppet. their relationship is like the extrovert adopting the introvert type thing (its also like that with earth but puppet is more forceful and the more "ur never getting rid of me" type). he, again, doesnt admit that he cares. and honestly he probably didnt give a flying fuck about her in the beginning. the main reason he even went on the whole quest to help with the other puppet was bc he would also be effected, even if he was in another dimension (also bc he didnt want it to hurt earth but shhhh). but now he does seem to show some form of concern towards puppet at certain times. its also incredibly entertaining to watch puppet keep pushing at his limits. makes me think of that one video where a crow kept fucking with an eagle. just kept nipping and getting in its face then running away. thats what it feels like lmao

also like. almost every time he defended someone theres always been some kinda excuse he could make that gives him an out with saying that it was also for his benefit. probably the only time he defended someone and wouldnt get personal benefit out of it was when he confronted ruin and told him to keep earth out of it. tho, luckily for him, nobody was there to witness it and question it (unless moon was there bc i dont remember it exactly >.>).

which, yes, probably a lot of things that he does is for his own benefit. but he'd be completely fine with abandoning the ppl he was helping. in multiple situations he didnt have to help them. he wouldve been just fine and able to get out of the situation without them making out with him. and yet he did. and yet he purposely made room for them to follow.

idk man. just watching him develop as a character and going from someone who didnt give a flying fuck about anybody into actually giving a bit of a shit is fascinating. also even more entertaining to see just how desperately he tries to hide it

[sodapopcurtis-dx-asks]

Boy…I think you got that ADHD

HAHAHA! You and everyone else, buddy!

Soda scoffs, clicking his pen open and closed a couple of times before writing more.

My teachers would always bitch to Mama about how I could never sit still, or how I talked when I wasn't supposed to, or how I couldn't ever "listen right". She never bothered to get me tested though. Said it was just fine for a growin' boy like me.

Which ain't necessarily wrong, since it runs in the family to be pretty... hyper at times. But compared to everyone else in my class or in the gang, I'm probably one of the bounciest ones.

I mean, if I do, then... I dunno. Congratulations to me maybe? I don't think a mental illness makes me any different. I'm just... a few pinches extra, is all. That's what Pop would say. :)

[tariah23]

🗿

[daz4i]

yknow. 3.2 does imply that had mydei wanted to, he could still just. die. so does that mean hitting his weak spot makes sure he won't be able to come back? and, does it mean if he gets corrupted by the black tide his very soul will also lose its sanity - but not enough to forget to climb out of the river of souls - which is why he needs phainon to kill it for good?

also, does his soul return to his body? what if his body gets blown into smithereens or completely crushed and there's nothing to return to (i mean. one could argue such a case hits his weak spot probably lol)?

how long does this process take? because, 3.2 also made it seem like it takes awhile, but since he managed to fend off nikador for like, days, and he surely must've died a few times during that battle, it implies he fought them nonstop, aka he came back to life instantly. does that mean time doesn't matter in the river of souls? that it can feel like days or years but no time has passed in the real world at all?

what does that project onto the implications that time in amphoreus is generally weird and the flame reaver (most likely) experienced the past and the future at the same time (for lack of better quick way to descibe it)? it seems the nether realm is at least separated from the loop process, given that polyxia remembers her past while calypso (and probably gnaeus) didn't? does that apply to the river as well? if so, has mydei unknowingly met people from previous loops? are the people of styxia even from the loop we're currently going through, or could they be there since the last one?

and that also raises a question I've been wondering about. are there even more than 2 existing loops? let's refer to them as the calypso loop for the previous one and the anaxa loop for our current one. if time is indeed frozen in the nether realm, then did polyxia kill the previous incarnation of thanatos back in the calypso loop? or did that version of thanatos just disappear on their own? she's the only one in the nether world when cas gets there, after all. but we see that castorice didn't need to kill her sister in order to inherit the coreflame. and their conversation - polyxia asking that castorice won't forget her in the next loop - implies that at least those 2 will exist in each one regardless, so at least thanatos's cycle repeats those same 2 loops each time which. given the frozen time implications. is a bit odd, isn't it?

as mentioned polyxia does remember her past life so this implies that at least those two loops are connected, but her fearing that cas will forget her implies that they don't go both ways, if that makes sense? as in, from what we currently know at least, there's a calypso loop -> anaxa loop data retention, but not an anaxa loop -> calypso loop one (or maybe polyxia just said it due to being emotional in that scene. that also makes sense lmao. but bear with me here)

sooooo essentially i think it's less a separate calypso loop and anaxa loop, but combined into the same run. if flame reaver is indeed phainon (and not khaos, which, given that he showed anaxa his memories, means he's probably still kephale in some way) that means he did come from a different run. which means that other characters in the anaxa loop existed in previous runs, but possibly not in the same the way the twins did (as in, they simply didn't have the roles they do now, for some reason. dw i'll get to that). so. i don't think amphoreus resets whenever all coreflames are returned and the demigods befome the new titans. i think it resets after it happens more than once - after the anaxa loop, where phainon, the flame reaver, comes from.

i don't think our anaxa loop chrysos heirs end up becoming the titans - i don't think they existed in the calypso loop at all (aside from castorice of course). the fact the titans still keep the same names through every loop (as we see calypso and polyxia refer to cerces and thanatos by name and separate from themselves) despite it supposedly resetting implies that they are a fixed being, almost like a class in an rpg rather than an actual character, except only one person can equip it at a time which is why you have to kill the previous one in order to become it yourself.

if amphoreus is some kind of experiment, to see if you can recreate a world from memories, then. maybe the creators of this experiment (the organization black swan mentioned...?) simply couldn't extract the right memories from flame reaver!phainon. our current phainon seems to doubt his memories, after all. maybe the black tide is actually a corruption of memories that came from him, as he said (tho not in those words 😩), memories can't create a perfect replication of a whole world. maybe the black tide overtook everywhere else in amphoreus because a previous phainon only got to see okhema. maybe aedes elysiae was a new addition made by the creators of the experiment for the current run, and it got overtaken by the black tide bc it didn't have memories from phainon to back its data up (maybe the flame reaver broke from it bc it was simply a weak spot in the system that he could break through).

is kephale means "head". and kephale essentially holds the memory of the entire world, then. yeah that name makes sense. "khaos" being the name of the previous incarnation of them is very interesting tho, since it means void or chasm, nothingness etc. which can connect to march's current state somehow, too, as black swan described it as nothingness. I've seen ppl say she's cyrene, or that she'll inherit oronyx's coreflame instead of tb, but what if she's related to khaos somehow? (i don't think she IS khaos since iirc the others referred to him with he/him lol but maybe, if i'm wrong abt the 2 loops thing and there ARE more, maybe she was kephale before him...? maybe the messenger had to block her memories because they literally contain an entire world and who knows how that'd affect someone outside the experiment) or what if the hijacking of her mind is like the black tide? if we go by the idea that the black tide is created by gaps in memory, and we know that it can spread and overtake other things, maybe that's simply what is currently happening to her? the mark of kephale is what's used to purify it, too... hmm.

man. this is one of my least coherent "theorizing" posts. idk how much i believe in any of this^ tbh (i do lean towards the 2 timelines thing tho. even if i can't fully explain why it'd be that way. yet) everything might get refuted by the next patch for all i know lol. this is more me asking questions this patch made me think about and it getting out of hand as i kept typing lmao. anaxa would be proud

[pixelkip]

So I'm looking for fabric for a Sumireko plush and I Realized something

Sumireko's dress pattern changes between ULiL/AoCF and Violet Detector. And frankly is much more garishly bright and sorta clashy with her cape in VD (but luckily it gives me more wiggle room in terms of what fabric I get bc i have the excuse of Well her dress doesnt ALWAYS look like that)

Notably, her dress is not only much more pink than in the fighters but also has a much more distinct neon-looking grid pattern in VD. Not to mention the grid being added to her socks and bow.

wait. Grid pattern? A striking pink grid pattern?? Where have I seen that in touhou before?

OH WAIT

ITS THE FUCKING DREAM WORLD.

BECAUSE THE ENTIRETY OF VIOLET DETECTOR TAKES PLACE IN THE DREAM WORLD.

ZUN YOU SNEAKY MOTHERFUCKER.

Her fighter game design also sorta looks like it? Or at least has similar colors, but the VD design is pretty blatant about it. Even the overlapping layers of it make it look more like plaid!! Likely another case of zun changing the player character design to match the game's setting.

I take it back the VD design is super smart and probably the second best part of violet detector behind sumireko's dialogue being precision designed to instantly kill any touhou fan not strong enough to handle an obnoxious teenager being obnoxious.

And also probably 2 of the only redeeming qualities of violet detector.

[fishparasite]

quite genuinely i am in awe of smut writers. i tried it once and nearly died of embarrassment and i'm not even particularly shy about sex.

[yuwuta]

i need u to post more of your opinions bc everything you’ve posted recently has had me nodding my head. like what u said about those tiktoks people make about people’s profiles on dating apps and the surveillance state and how whiteness is the standard in a lot of self insert fanfic/fanart or just fandom in general to the point that people don’t notice how they box brown and black people out of participating. i’ve been thinking a lot about stuff like this recently and it’s kinda consuming me. like i really hate how racism is still so prevalent in fandom. the other day this fanartist i liked (not anime) deactivated bc people asked her to draw nonwhite and not skinny characters and she went on a colorist crash out bc she only wanted to draw her characters with paper white skin which then opened the doors for her followers to be racist. then “her sister” posted her ai generated apology that uses her bad mental health as an excuse while people became even more racist. like it makes me want to tear my hair out

SHJSDKD i’m happy to hear you like my annoyed rambling posts and i feel you, the rage is extremely consuming. not even joking, for both of our sakes, we have to remember to breathe and count the blessings around us bc it really is so easy to be mad at everything all the time always 😭😭 sometimes i believe in the benefit of the doubt, as in someone who isn’t black/brown and/or darkskin might be used to the way the world presents content, particularly content surrounding love and entertainment, and might have inadvertently been taught to mimic that isms so deeply engrained in it, but you can always tell by their response to being correct, and a colorist crash out and ai apology is absolutely crazy work omfg

[johnandrasjaqobis]

Sooo I did say I needed to write up a summary of Joseph's ending (including screenshots for funsies and to break up the inevitable wall of text)

but of course to do that I need to set some Context (only the relevant parts, I swear) SO my idiot son, fresh off the Nautaloid, negative memories, +1 tadpole, and also somehow eldritch blast ??

(he was a fighter of some sort before, I think, I had been considering paladin for this run but it didn't make a whole lot of sense to have divine magic when you start out with Nothing, so I figured the desperation of that situation is the. perfect opportunity for some outside force to Help.)

and, of course, this will be long so UNDER A CUT IT GOES

He had zero idea what exactly was giving him the powers, but there was so much going on it wasn't really a priority to look into for the first good chunk of plot. Joseph just barreled his way through looking for literally anyone who would give him any fucking answers, and was legitimately kinda being dragged into being a halfway decent person with the party's influence (if there is one constant about this man, he is far easier to manipulate than he'd ever admit). Still used every tadpole they came across because there was the constant feeling of being so much weaker than he should be, and the tadpoles gave a not insignificant edge in combat. Thanks to the weird accidental connection to the zaith'isk, he was very good at it - and for a guy who feels like he's not very good at much of anything anymore, it was a lot.

(he also tried to pass the tadpole stuff off as warlock abilities, with marginal success, it did involve casting shatter centered on himself once and knocking himself out, that's not important)

all that to say when the Emperor offered the astral tadpole, there was some temptation; the main thing that made Joseph keep pushing back was the fact that Lae'zel hated the idea of it. but (and here is where I wave fondly to fully canon events as they pass by) good ol' Empy chose this time to try and press in on the fact that Joseph had already benefited so much from illithid powers. Moreso than he was fully aware, in fact. since the Emperor was technically his patron.

(sometimes you see this absolute feral little asshole of a man who, unfortunately, is a rather important part of your plan, and realize that he can't do shit anymore. so sometimes you gotta sigh heavily and give him a hand. or tentacle, perhaps.)

anyway when it came down to it the DC was 21, Lae'zel was pissed, and lo and behold

fast forward a bit. the Emperor is a bitch, they do not get along, but mostly mutual goals so whatever

and then we get to Baldur's Gate. Joseph has one (1) meeting with his ex, who is incidentally the first person who has actually given any actual answers, and every chance of some kind of redemption arc is immediately thrown out the window

because. yeah, remember that mention of being easy to manipulate? pre-tadpole Joseph wasn't much different in that regard. His loyalty is a character flaw at points, and his loyalty to Gortash was second only to Bhaal himself (and even that divide was being pushed at, which terrified him, obedient son that he was, forgive me father indeed)

he learned why every high ranking person in this dammed cult seemed to know him. Why the Absolute itself seemed to revere him. Why Stillmaker felt so familiar. And he fell right back into the old patterns and the old plan.

proceeded to lose multiple friends for it, too, there's only so long the whole "I'm just staying on his good side to get information" excuse is obviously, how you say, bullshit. Karlach and Wyll both left after they got Gale back from Orin. Shadowheart stuck around a little longer, but eventually having to help kill the little group of Gur after watching a ceremony that killed thousands just tipped things too far.

Joseph went into the finale with like. three friends: Astarion (freshly ascended), Minthara (delighted by the opportunity for power grabs), and Lae'zel (increasingly skeptical and disappointed by her idiot amnesiac boyfriend).

(and god the situation with Lae'zel hurt. Karlach definitely tried to warn her of how badly this was all going to go to shit before leaving. there was a moment with Shadowheart with the very weary "I do think he loves you. I just don't think that it's going to be enough." getting to watch as Joseph just fully clicked with this man he so obviously had history with. like give this girl a break.)

but again, that loyalty, which meant he definitely did get the Orphic hammer because he wasn't about to just turn his back on Lae'zel's whole mission, and also fuck the Emperor actually

however, speaking of the Emperor, that does require a bit of a backtrack because Joseph did have to kill his sister and then also said fuck you dad, it's your dream not mine, etc and was exsanguinated for his troubles. only to be pulled back again by the weird skeleton guy who refused to stop following them around.

See friends, I think there's something...a little extra, in being killed by a god, especially when it was the god who created you to begin with. Bhaal might have aimed a little poorly, only fully destroying the Urge side of things, but the god of murder murdering you holds weight. As does being pulled right back out of death by the now unemployed god of death.

That whole situation might have. Severed some connections. Formed some new ones.

Fast forward again.

Holy shit the brain is big.

but they had the plan, perhaps a little trickier now, but they'd get the brain back under control and split the stones again, Minthara can wield the third, Astarion can help run things with his own newfound powers, Lae'zel can use whatever resources from this plane she needs to go kill Vlaakith, there's a plan

and I mean. we all know how this part goes. Larian I just want to talk.

In a very fitting "dice telling a story" moment, after Gortash fell I rolled three consecutive 2's. (Minthara tried revivify immediately, of course she did, but maybe it was the splitting migraine they were all fighting through or maybe something the brain did, or maybe Bane himself wouldn't allow it, but nothing would take.) Joseph doesn't remember screaming, but by the time Empy yanked them into the prism, his throat was definitely damaged.

Joseph nearly passes out and does end up just staring at the body (because at least Empy was polite enough not to just leave Gortash there, god can you imagine) for. some amount of time.

of course he'd lose this, of course it's the one person who really knew him before, who was still perfectly willing to work with who he was now, who gave him a purpose that was more than just killing literally everyone, who appreciated the skills that came with said killing but appreciated the skills that had nothing to do with it, who Joseph trusted despite literally every bit of common sense

Fuck that, actually.

The Emperor snaps at him that they don't have this kind of time, Joseph snaps right back that they're in the fucking Astral Sea, time passes differently, they've got a moment.

He asks the others for a moment, just go regroup a bit, he'll catch up, and this has happened enough over their travels that they don't hesitate too much before leaving him alone

and then he starts calling for Withers. First just mentally, then out loud, then enough to make him taste a little blood again, because Jergal you fuck I know you can hear me

takes a moment, but. he does show up. just so casually stepping out from behind a rock, good ol' Peepaw, Withers, literally Jergal himself

and also Joseph's fairly recently self-appointed new patron

(he'd had suspicions for a bit, the fact that he and the Emperor had been at such odds recently, especially the fact that he could complete the whole "heist" from the House of Hope with absolutely no consequences, there was a pretty solid feeling. this just confirmed it.)

"Bring him back." "No."

but if warlocks are known for one thing, it's making deals. how invested are you in seeing this Absolute stopped, huh Jergal? In sticking it to the Dead Three? You've already yanked one of their Chosen back, what's one more?

"I could try -- do my godsdammed best -- to stop this thing for good. Just like you want. Or I could use these stones and burn down the fucking world."

and it's a good thing they're in the Astral Sea because the silence is long. but eventually there is. a very reluctant agreement.

after, of course. after the Absolute is destroyed (if you die in the process and it enacts the Grand Design, not much else will matter anyway, if you succumb to the temptation and take control, there's no bargain to be fulfilled).

So. Somehow, in fate's favorite sort of irony, the guy who pulled Joseph off of any sort of path toward redemption ended up being the reason that kind of forced his hand there anyway.

They destroy the brain. Astarion and Minthara are expectedly disappointed, but can kind of appreciate the impossible task that it would have been to control that thing indefinitely. The tadpoles are evaporated (Joseph is left with scarring because you can't tell me that level of change being stripped away so quickly leaves you without a mark). The city is saved.

And Enver Gortash gets to wake up, inexplicably, on the docks and go through seven stages of grief as he realizes what happened to his plan. (The plan got you fucking killed, you absolute dumbass.)

implications beyond that are mmmmmm many and complicated. but. hey, there's always the next plan.

[ragnars-tooth]

One of my big compulsions is taking a fuck ton of screenshots Just In Case a piece of information is important in like 4 years and I can't remember it (sometimes the information is an instagram post that I might not remember later and of course needs to be recorded everywhere (I will Not be looking at that again)) so today is my transfer 16000 images off my phone admin day (woo)

Like yeah I never looked at any of them and they were completely irrelevant to my daily life, But what if I need them ✨️ later ✨️ (you'll see that the idea of Later is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) OR what if there's a vital piece of information in the mix somewhere that I'll lose forever if I delete them? So: onto the external hard drive they go

This is one of those cases where. Yeah. Ideally I wouldn't take 16000 screenshots in half a year. And YEAH ideally I'd just delete them and not transfer them somewhere else to never look at again. BUT at least I get a clean slate and I can maybe not mindlessly save everything for 2 seconds. It's like. Small wins? Progress. Yknow.

[as-dreamers-do]

how do you tell if problems are 1) life being not perfect bc we live in a fallen world 2) correction from God for sinning 3) trial from God for growth 4) spiritual warfare

asking for a friend

[silverselfshippingchaos]

One thing I appreciate is that he's one of the few characters in the series that calls everyone out on how much they smoke

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

for the first time ever it occurred to me i could look up my AO3 username (which is diff than my handle here--JadeLavellan/Jadestone) and see if people have linked/talked about my writing here before and LMAO. sorry everyone who really loved Provided It Tied You Down First and the fact that absolutely nothing else in my fic writing is that vibe

[scrawnym4]

ive been thinkin recently on if im aromantic. now i don’t care about that because i wanna get to understand myself and my identity better but because itd be be really funny if it turns out i was. guy who draws romantic couples in his freetime is actually the enemy of cupid