#rusty's analyses

[rustyvanburace]

I cannot help but see some parallels between the kidnapping of Akira's sister in IV and Asahi's death in IVA.

Both girls are taken into an ovoidal vessel that would ferry them along with countless others to another world as part of a god's grander scheme. Akira's sister is kidnapped as one of God's Chosen and holed up in a giant cocoon, which in the main timeline did succeed in flying her off to what would eventually become the Kingdom of Mikado. Asahi was killed and her soul became one of the many others trapped in the Cosmic Egg, which would have led to the birth of a new universe that all the souls would be reborn into. Different circumstances and outcomes, but still the same idea.

There's unfortunately nothing that states or even directly implies that Asahi is or was ever intended to be the reincarnation of Akira's sister. But when considering her intrinsic closeness to Nanashi as foster siblings, how Nanashi is always made to keep an eye on her, and even just the parallels between the cocoon and Cosmic Egg, I think there is a reasonable degree of implicity that Asahi is or could be the reincarnation of her. At least, even as pure fanon it wouldn't be a far-fetched one.

Akira succeeded in reaching the Firmament, but because of the Tokyo-Mikado time dilation and the years it took to even dig through the ceiling, he never got to reunite with his sister as she would have already died a long time ago by then. The DLC timeline note in IVA's database states that 300 years had passed on the surface by the time Akira breached it.

In a way then, Akira and his sister are vindicated when Nanashi enters the Cosmic Egg and rescues Asahi in the Bonds route. Time is a flat circle.

[beepbeepdespair]

last night i dreamt i was at a con and went to rusty quill's area but ended up doing a four question quiz where you could proceed through the next of four baby gates if you got the answer right. everyone was dressed in black robes and spoke ominously. i won and was made to rummage around inside a flat inflatable of mr bonzo to obtain my prize, which turned out to be a box with symbols on it containing jonah's eyes and a letter from him. the lights went out and when they came back on his body (as elias) was on the floor and i was forced to push the eyes into his sockets and so (probably) singlehandedly doom the world again by bringing him back. i could not refuse. oh, and i was dressed as agnes the whole time

[totheidiot]

i feel about marvin the paranoid android the exact same way i feel about breekon and hope.

[rowanthestrange]

The thing is, you could’ve made Rogue entering to “I’m The Bad Guy, Duh.” easily make sense if you’d wanted to. You’d have just written that he thinks he’s a bad guy all cool and nefarious - Rogue neither refers to himself negatively, and the Doctor says he’s cool not him (admittedly you’d still have to explain him pre-approaching the string quartet to play it, or it be magic but whatever).

You have Rogue think he’s A Bad Boy, but the Doctor be all ‘no you’re not there’s a heart of gold there’. He wouldn’t have freed himself with an I Am A Time Lord speech giving himself authority over Rogue, it would be appealing to Rogue’s good side that he doesn’t actually want to incinerate him etc. Rogue would choose to do the ‘good guy’ decisions himself, not have them imposed. He’d convince Rogue killing the birds is wrong, not just take his stuff and modify it - he’d get Rogue to reveal his better nature. The Doctor would convince him to leave his gun on the ship.

This is what would bite them later, where they’d both know, maybe with just a look, that if Rogue could have just shot the birds stuck to the glue trap, they wouldn’t have been in this mess. With Rogue then acting correctly ‘sometimes you need someone to be the bad guy’ by taking the controller when the Doctor was busy snogging him and dispatching Ruby himself.

Leading into a finale where Ruby is in a different dimension and relying on her battle-earpiece skills to fend off 5 murderous birds as long as possible, giving us an opportunity to engage with whatever her reality warping powers are but it ‘could’ just be dimensional weirdness, and if the TARDIS was still the one who programmed the teleport she knows where Ruby is, and luckily for her if unluckily for the universe, the dimensions are now all bleeding at the edges and seeping out and Doctor Who is a TV show, yada yada yada.

[applespider]

Whoever compared c!Tommy to c!Purpled saying one was drowning and the other was in a desert I hate you (<-I love you). I think it’s really fucking fascinating the way hurt characters make unfair reads on other hurt characters, characters like Tommy, Niki, Jack, Purpled, and I’d even argue, Puffy. It’s hard to say they just “don’t get it” because, well, they don’t, but the implication that they simply haven’t suffered enough is false. It’s one of those little things I like to pick apart in the shower, the way different characters are unable to provide sympathy as a defense mechanism, and the way this combines with the fact they suffered differently and that a lot of them felt their suffering invalidated!

I think Puffy’s relationship with the eggpire post-banquet is fascinating, particularly when Bad and Ant went to apologize for her. She struck me as, for lack of a better word, unfair. Unsympathetic. And I think this is a reaction a lot of characters had in order to defend themselves. Because it came off as logically unfair to me at the time, but damn if I didn’t feel that. Her care for them was abused, her attempts to help burned her again and again. A combination of flattening out the source of her pain in order to slow herself to feel it, in order to make it simple, and refusing to try again with this friendship. I was absolutely shit at keeping up with the eggpire lore so I’m not sure how their relationship developed after that, but Puffy’s streams around that time burned themselves into my brain.

Niki, and even more so Jack, do this a bit more obviously. Niki finding a singular person to blame, denying any past positive feelings for L’Manberg, isolating herself, these are all obviously psychological defenses. If she was tricked into loving something, her hurt can’t be her fault (and obviously it wasn’t but I think she was scared it was), if there’s a tangible target for her blame all this pain and fear and sadness has somewhere to go (but shoveling water out of the leaky boat doesn’t plug the hole), and being alone means safety (being alone means bone-cold nights, means no one to ask her if she’s eating, when the last time she slept was).

And everyone knows about Jack’s relationship with Tommy (it was so fucking good, someone wrote a post about Jack being a character who looked at Tommy in an antagonistic light for genuinely good reason. They were on very equal footing in their, admittedly very one-sided, feud. People saw the victim in Tommy, but Tommy hurt Jack and no one seemed to care, so he shut out Tommy’s hurt, to the point he so thoroughly prevented himself from seeing Tommy as a complete person at all. A more extreme version on Puffy’s reaction post-Banquet and Niki’s simplification. All the while failing to get Tommy to just fucking look at him. He could not show sympathy to Tommy because he could not find anyone to show sympathy to him. This is why his talk with Niki the day of the prison escape imprinted itself on me, these two attempting to set up a more proper friendship again, no strings attached this time.)

My mind if first, of course, drawn to Tommy talking to Jack post-revival. The way he completely brushes over everything Jack is trying to say, pulls attention back to himself, is unable to express sympathy as he’s still trying to process his own hurt. It’s a very obvious example, with Tommy’s awful experience being so fresh this defense mechanism really shows up. Tommy is a generally fairly empathetic person so it’s definitely interesting to see this side of him on such brazen display (another example being Jack’s exile death. Oh I think so much could be said about the way this comes out towards Jack specifically). Another smaller example I think of is his “tough skin” comment to Tubbo, he doesn’t want to talk about Tubbo’s hurt and more so he’s not really able to see it over his own, he’s laser focused on himself because everything in him is laser focused on keeping himself alive and relatively intact, the exact same reasoning for everyone else’s actions I brought up here.

I’m not exactly a Purpled expert but his character definitely appeals to me. For him to seems like this defense mechanism is much more ingrained. Not just overlooking others’ pain or flattening out objects of hurt, but intentionally narrowing his focus only to himself. His coldness and self-isolation are big parts of him, but what makes them incredibly engaging is every other aspect of him that slips through. Namely, that in succeeding in what previously mentioned characters only micro (or, frankly macro)dosed on, he was hit by another unexpected problem. Being super lonely actually does really bad shit to your sense of self-worth. He mastered the survival tactic but found himself craving something else, some proof of his worth (his existence). I think it’s nifty there a range from most subtle (Puffy) to most obvious (Purpled) examples of this one not great coping mechanism. Very cool.

[jay-the-fudanshi]

made my theriotypes in gacha +'Rabbit (the SELF INSERT that after overanalyzing for days made me realize OH SHIT— IM ╺⃝⃤)

Cat (like the kitten my mom had before it died ):

Rabbit (based on Smoke English Angora Rabbits)

Fox (the white was so hard the snout i struggled for an hour til i thought of this)

the rabbit is based on the mask im making IRL! :D

[randomwords247]

you can't just DROP this on me at 2 am HOW AM I GONNA BE ABLE TO SLEEP AFTER /THAT/

(JOKING BTW IM SO HAPPY YOU DID, IM LIKE LOSING IT THIS IS AMAZING BUT IDK HOW IMMA SLEEP BECAUSE I AM NOT OKAY I AM NOT OKAY)

i made an animatic bc inspiration had a chokehold on me

[theboombutton]

Bad Fictional Data vs Fictional Bad Data

WARNING: This post will include discussion of a name that might be Alice Dyer's deadname. I won't be calling Alice by this name or using it in the context of that name being a pointer to Alice, but I will be using the name, uncensored, when talking about where and why the name appeared in chdb.xls .

----

You may know that as part of the ARG, the sleuths on Statement Remains uncovered a document called chdb.xls, allegedly a list that has something to do with The Magnus Institute. There's a list of names, ID numbers, first and last names, dates of birth, and information apparently related to each person's "score" in an assortment of psychological/personality tests. Three of the names in particular have stood out in a lot of analyses: Samama Khalid, Gerard Kaey [sic], and Connor Dyer.

You likely don't know that the commonly linked version of the spreadsheet, ported to Google Docs and linked in the TMAGP ARG Masterdoc, is presented out of order. (I'm guessing they didn't lock down editing until it was already all out of order from various people messing with it - totally understandable, this is not a callout post, thank you for making this easily accessible to people.)

But let me tell you about something I discovered by looking at the spreadsheet in its original order, and the almost certainly incorrect rabbit hole of theorizing it has sent me down.

Bad Fictional Data

Until episode 2 I had the same thought about the Dyer listed in the spreadsheet that I think most people did: that it was Alice's deadname, and that she had therefore been one of the Institute's young subjects. But after Alice had absolutely no reaction when Sam mentioned the Magnus Institute to her in episode 2, I now think this is significantly less likely.

Don't get me wrong: it's still reasonable to think that the Dyer listed in chdb.xls is Alice. Maybe she had some kind of supernatural experience that wiped her memory. (It probably wasn't that Alice was too young to remember, as the Dyer on the spreadsheet is listed as being at Piaget Stage 3, which occurs from 7-11 years old; but it's always possible that the Magnus Institute was using the names of legitimate psychological tests to hide their tracks when recording more esoteric data.) The point is, this isn't hard evidence that Alice has no connection to the Magnus Institute; it just made me go looking for more evidence.

I went back to the spreadsheet to look for more clues about whether or not this was Alice's deadname. What I found instead was some extremely sloppy fake data at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

For context, here are first ten names in the spreadsheet:

Note how each ID begins with the name's first and last initial.

Now check out the last ten names:

Not only do these IDs no longer always match their subjects' names, they occur in order: CD, EF, GH, IJ, KL, MN, OP, QR, ST, UV. The first names of each pair match the first letter of each ID, but many, though not all, of the surnames don't match the second letter.

My first thought was that whoever Rusty Quill had contracted to generate these names had gotten sloppy at the end of the list, created the IDs all at once using this alphabetical pattern, and picked names to fill in that roughly matched the IDs. But hey, we could use this to our advantage! Any name that was filled in as part of a series of IDs with an alphabetical pattern like this could be removed from consideration for red string analysis - we'd know they were meaningless fakes added by a lazy contractor, and not clues or characters that might show up again later.

Scrolling back up the spreadsheet, we can see the person generating the data having more care the earlier we go. We find the beginning of the AA/BC/DE/FG/HI pattern at line 136, but at first, the names mostly conform to the initials they've been given. JK09874 "Josie Jordan" at line 154 is the first break from the "first two letters of the ID are their initials" pattern; and breaks occur more often the further you go down the sheet.

Scrolling up to before line 136 (AA09911 - Aaron Atkinson), while the pattern isn't yet at AB/CD/EF/GH levels of obviousness, the first initials are still in alphabetical order. Zoe Hart follows Yara Logan follows Xavier Freeman follows Wyatt Edwards. The data creator skips a few letters - for example Niamh Fenton is followed by Phoebe Emmett, and S and T are together in the same line in Skye Travers.

We can follow this less-obvious version of the alphabetical pattern up to an abrupt break right at line 118, above which the IDs don't follow an alphabetical pattern at all. (They might follow a different pattern, but it's not one that I've found yet.) So that means we can discount all the names in line 118 and below as purely fake, generated lazily by a contractor, and not worthy of our attention for the purposes of red-stringing. Right?

What the fuck?!

(highlight is my own, it is not present in the original document)

My first thought was that the sloppy data generator had done the funniest thing imaginable, sending everyone on a wild goose chase about Alice's deadname just by having the name "Dyer" on the brain while looking for a surname that started with D. This would be Very Funny. No plot relevance, no implications, just the brain fart that launched a thousand theories.

My second thought was that maybe Connor Dyer was the last legit name on the list, and whoever started filling the rest of the sheet in with alphabetical junk data was inspired by the "CD" initials in the first place - whoever it was went on from there.

These are both valid thoughts! But I prefer my third thought:

What if it's on purpose?

Fictional Bad Data

There is a very obvious break between the set of data that doesn't look obviously* fake, and the set of data that is immediately identifiable as such. If we assume that this was intentional - and I want to reiterate that it all being unintentional is still a very real possibility here - why would someone at Rusty Quill want the data to be structured like this?

If the sharp dividing line between reasonable-seeming data and obviously fake data is intentional on RQ's part, it would suggest that we should take the data above row 118 as in-universe real data, and the data below row 118 as in-universe falsified data. It suggests that someone, either at the Institute or after its demise, was adding nonexistent children to the roster of The Magnus Institute. Why would someone want to do that?

There are all kinds of possible reasons, but here are a few off the top of my and my theorizing buddies' heads:

Financial fraud (institutional edition). If the Magnus Institute received funding on a per-child basis, they'd have an incentive to inflate their numbers.

Financial fraud (researcher edition). One or more people on staff were blowing off their child-analysis sessions and recording fake numbers for fake children. This would be ballsy as hell if they could be fired for it, but it was the Magnus Institute, so there's decent odds they couldn't be.

Scientific fraud (faking conclusions edition). The Magnus Institute in the Protocolverse claimed to be doing research on giftedness in children, which is the kind of thing that you'd normally publish in a scientific journal. It's not unheard-of for dickhead academics to falsify data to generate statistically significant results, since statistically insignificant results aren't going to get you published.

Scientific fraud (obscuring paranormal bullshit edition). If the Magnus Institute was using legitimate psychological test names to record Fear-related test results, it's possible their results showed different patterns from what you would expect from the real tests. They could have added the fake children to balance out the dataset as a whole.

Pseudonyms. The children are all real, the Institute just started using fake names for them for privacy purposes. They couldn't go back and change the names they'd already written properly for some reason. Probably something paranormal.

Those are all pretty interesting possibilities, and if we could narrow them down, it might tell us something about what things were like at the Magnus Institute before it burned down!

And the other big question is: why did RQ make the dividing line between the two sections, the first likely-fake entry, Connor Dyer?

One straightforward reason could be as a troll, a red herring to watch fans get in a lather over. And once the community inevitably noticed all the obviously falsified entries, RQ could eat popcorn and watch us lose our minds over whether or not that's even a real entry! (That sounds really fun, I would absolutely do that.)

But let's dig a little deeper, and look at what Connor Dyer being on the border between the real and fake entries would mean in-universe. Because of its position as the border between real and fake, it would be very easy for that entry to be accidentally included in the wrong group - a real research subject discarded as fake, or perhaps more interestingly, a fake research subject accidentally reclassified as real.

Remember, if a name is fake in the context of the Magnus Institute's research, that doesn't mean that the name itself is made up. If I was trying to think of a name that fit the initials CD, and those were the initials of my next door neighbor's kid, I might just write their name in as a lark. Especially if it was my first time trying to get away with falsifying information: this is a kid that verifiably exists and lives in the area.

My theory, supported primarily by my love for The Implications instead of actual evidence

Twenty years on, after all institutional memory of the fraud was long gone, trans icon Alice Dyer applies to work for the OIAR - an institution that (according to this theory) has an unofficial preference for hiring former Magnus Institute kids.

They are very confused when Alice proceeds to act nothing like a former Magnus Institute kid. It doesn't occur to anyone that her entry might have been falsified. What reason would anyone have to do that?

----

* Of course people with a background in data analysis or statistics will see immediately that even above line 118 this is a wild-ass dataset that would raise red flags for falsification, but at least it's not "the alphabet over and over" levels of obvious.

[mayabruhbruh]

What do you think of the possibility of Will and Chance happening? I feel like it would be really poor writing tbh but I feel like they will give Will a different love interest because they’ll try to make all of the audience „happy“ But that would just truly not align with the writing so far I feel like.

Love your analyses btw<3

THANK YOUU! That's so kind :) And great ask! This is definitely a topic that the ST fandom needs to discuss.

The default question when people have little to no hope in Byler is, well, who the hell is Will going to end up with? Because it’s become increasingly evident that they’re trying to set him up for a romance. The “im not gonna fall in love”, the “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls”, even the gif shown above. It all can be interpreted to mean that Will is going to find his person soon.

So... to be completely honest, I had no idea who Chance was until this ask popped up and I had to look him up💀. It’s been a while since I’ve been on here, so I’m a little rusty on the deep lore lmao. So, in the off chance that others might also be confused, here’s a (rare) gif of him I found.

I think that’s him with the Hawkins cap on the right. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m not sure where the rumors that this guy was going to become a bigger part of the show came from, but that seems highly unlikely to me. I feel like they would have either hinted at it in the fourth season (like how they’re giving Patrick here quite a sizeable role so that he’ll be memorable to us later when he gets vecnafied) or they would have announced him as a more prominent character already like how they did for s5 with Holly, that one new kid character, and also how they did Amybeth for s4. Idk, maybe it’s unreasonable to think they would have to do that, but it feels quite too out-of-the-blue. Especially for a character that would take on the role of becoming our central character’s love interest, which is a BIG DEAL. Especially if it’s queer lol.

Secondly, I firmly believe that it would be a disservice to Will’s own desires to meet someone new.

Will said this explicitly in the van scene, and as of now, we’re still under the impression that Mike is his person. Forget about Mike’s issues and feelings for a second, and think about what Will is saying here. He feels like a mistake for being different, but Mike makes him feel like he’s not a mistake at all, that he’s better for being different. Mike gives him courage to fight on. Fuck. Tbh, it makes me wonder how long he’d felt this way. As a byler, you might be inclined to think his feelings have been on for forever, but narratively, he could have easily just realized his own feelings very recently, most likely sometime between season 3 and 4. It doesn’t mean the feelings weren’t there before, but realistically neither Will nor the general audience were aware of it before now.

Moving on.

Has anyone heard of the rule of Chekhov’s gun? It’s an incredibly clever and widely-used tool in screenwriting and storytelling in general that helps to clue the watchers in for what’s to come next.

Think of Lucas’ wrist rocket in season 1. When they introduced it as a flimsy-looking, no-good weapon that he’d put too much pride in at first, it gives us a good laugh and we move on. But really, it very meticulously set us up to subconsciously anticipate to see it again later. That’s what Chekhov’s gun is all about. Set-ups, foreshadowing, hidden treasures.

Another great example would be the painting reveal of s4. Obviously, after finding out that Will was painting something, bylers immediately figured it was for Mike and BEGGED and HOPED and PLEADED that we’d be able to finally see it, but to the general audience it was just another something that they’d have to pick apart and realize was actually of importance as the season progressed. (It’s also a good way of showing that the writers are fully capable of engrossing the entire fan base and general audience in his and Mike’s story. Just knowing Will had painted something and that it was for Mike created this sense of PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IT IS AND WJATS GOING ON and whatnot that watchers are simply so susceptible to it’s insane.)

Okay, back to the van scene. Will’s confession.

Now, I’m not saying that the writers intentionally used this foreshadowing tool for us to find and understand immediately. There are plenty, plenty of instances where writers use Chekhov’s gun principle and it flies over peoples heads purposefully. What I’m trying to say is that, thematically and narratively, they would never have introduced Wills feelings for Mike if not for it to have importance to the story, or for nothing to happen with it at all. It’s a set up. And a maddeningly good one, at that. Because queer stories already do tend to fly over people’s heads, and also because there’s the added drama between Mike and Eleven that makes it seem quite impossible for any of these feelings to be addressed in the midst of such emotional chaos. But whatever. I think I’m rambling.

Basically, whether they end up together or not, whether Mike reciprocates these feelings, Will is forever established to be in love with Mike. The confession was simply too grand and emotional and earnest for him to just switch up abruptly next season when he meets someone new that he might have a better chance with. Even if there were to be a whole new arc for him where he learns to let go of Mike or something crappy like that, it would be terrible writing on their end and poor use of a well-set-up Chekhov’s gun reference. It would be like introducing the gun in the display case in scene one, then two scenes later just tucking it away into a storage closet for the remainder of the story. Like… what?

And plus, it’s HIGHLY unlikely that Will would end up with that sort of storyline next season when he’s literally WITH Mike for presumably a majority of the time (based on the set pics so far).

So that’s my debunking of the Chance rumors :) and I didn’t even get to mention how incompatible they’d be just naturally as characters. Chance, a Jason-following jock that hates Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy and nerdy things, and willingly assisted in beating up the Hellfire Club when they were trying to find Eddie. What about that at all screams Will’s type? And if you’re thinking “unconventional couple enemies to lovers”, just don’t. This isn’t a rom-com, especially for a queer plot line lol. I think it’s safe to say there’s no “chance”😉 that they will ever happen. And either way, it’d be a bummer if they did. Cus it would just be Will defeatedly settling for someone that isn’t Mike.

UGH! It makes me sad that the one thing that is firmly being teased by the writers (Will’s love playing a major role in the plot to come) is constantly being questioned and framed as different questions. “Will Mike reciprocate?” “Does this mean Mike and Eleven break up?” “Who will end up with who?” SHHH Frankly, to me this is already a win. It’s become obvious that Will having feelings for him will come up again soon, and the rest of the evidence that accounts for Mike’s end already speaks for itself, so I prefer to just sit back and watch it all unfold.

Again, thanks so much for the ask!! This was so fun to dissect and feel free to keep sending questions into my inbox. It might take me a second to post my response but I’m determined to get through all of them. Love you guys!! <3

[circeyoru]

Cannot Compute _ Part 2

[Alastor x Robotic Demon!Reader]

Part 1 — Part 2 (here) — Part 3

The worst realization was when you were looking for Alastor after the battle against the exterminators

Alastor took up the task of fighting against Adam while you were to provide support to the others, according to Alastor, there was no point in putting the strongest individuals together. It just wasn’t smart when it came to a war with those angels. So you complied, as a former assassin, you weren’t rusty in any way, after Alastor’s barrier got broken by Adam, you opened your virtual reality that isolated the rest of the angels so that Charlie and Vaggie could go for Lute

You knew something was wrong when you felt Adam attempting to destroy your reality from the outside with his angelic powers. While no one could enter and exit your virtual reality because it was non-existent, one could attempt to destroy it from the outside if they knew where your general area was. Since your virtual reality was a data copy of the landscape you’re in, only technological to give you an advantage

With Charlie’s shout, you let down your virtual reality and released everyone. Confused as to why Adam was still living. Your system went overloaded as fear came to you that Alastor was gone. That gave some angels the gap they needed to tear your arms out and damage your legs to at least immobilize you, you were too much of a threat to them

When the battle was done, you searched for Alastor since everyone knew you couldn’t help much on the renovations. You had a metal pipe like a walking stick before limping on your way

Alastor was having a meltdown. He cared, was caring for those sinners in that inferno hotel! He! The Radio Demon! Said to strike fear and terror to the listeners of his broadcast! The Overlord that rose in ranks by night! How could he be weak? He had to cut off the root. No issue for Charlie and the others

But there was you. You are the one that he found entertaining at first with your gaming demon form and based powers, teenagers of the modern era. Despite the different time periods between you two, you guys clicked slowly and he enjoyed it

That was exactly the issue. He liked it. He liked you. The Radio Demon doesn’t like anyone. Attachments serve to bring him nothing but weakness and ruin. Just look at the relationship his dear mother had with his accursed father. He tortured his father after finding him in Hell, thankful that his mother was in Heaven. “Cut the ties. All that piece of metal is good for is that soul with so much power.”

You nearly wanted to shut down the moment you heard it from Alastor. You ‘unlocked’ angelic healing, basically a strong healing power, after you analysed the corpse of more than a dozen of those angels, not to mention Adam’s body. You wanted to heal Alastor after finding out he was alive

You tried convincing yourself he just needed time after his defeat. But your heart broke. You can’t take it, you needed to recover anyway, the healing only worked with body parts, not robotic parts. But who was going to fix you, never had you been injured to this degree?

Vaggie got you Carmilla Carmine’s help. She offered to remodel your figure and your unique fashion sense that matched your demonic form as a robot or artificial intelligence. She admitted she was going to experiment on you a bit as well to see how far she could make you a force to be reckoned with. Later using you as inspiration for her weapon designs. You agreed since it was advantageous for both of you

“Lady Carmine, tell me, what if the one you love, the one you were fighting for, broke your heart?” You asked before your upgrade, as you saw it. You were there when Vaggie was getting trained by Carmilla before the battle with the angels and heard her lecture on fighting for love. Yet you wonder if you can now that you learned Alastor’s true thoughts on you

“I have an inkling that you are implying something. Have you been in love? Or any form of love.” Carmilla would ask as she walked around, preparing the tools needed and the blueprint for the operation. “And you can call me Carmilla, little AI.”

“I can’t say that I did. I don’t know what love is like, I don’t know what it feels like. Is this what a broken heart feels like? I don’t like this.” Your voice glitched out as your system warned you to calm down or else risk a power outage. You controlled yourself as she watched with pity in her eyes

“There were a lot of ways to deal with heartbreaks, you can seek revenge, and/or find new love, but I think in your case. You might try something else.” Carmilla spoke, she gave you suggestions but put the ball in your court because you knew what was best for you. “Shall we begin?”

You closed your eyes preparing to shut down for a short timed duration, while Carmilla works on you, you can think of what to do in your situation. “I’ll be in your care, Carmilla.”

Note: Part 2~ One more to go! After that is Collector time

Circe Y. 

My Works: MASTERLIST

Taglist: @aconfusedwonderland @crowleysthings @donustellaron @mistpurpl3 @lucifers-silhouette @fluffy-koalala @rerarlo

[daisyswift3]

Oh wow I never noticed this. I wonder if cruel summer could actually be related to songs like MAATHP, DBATC, CIWYW, etc where she mentions a storm and windows boarded up (“love blackout” in glitch) and this is why the opening song for the eras tour MAATHP is followed directly by cruel summer. Did we ever establish when exactly cruel summer takes place? Or if those songs are related?

https://twitter.com/swifferwins/status/1649936151766081537?s=46&t=_nHPSvk758DwvkIPSaw36Q

The stage in lesbian flag colors during the bridge is so vivid and bright. It seems to change to the dark clouds (or black/white) after she sings the “keep secrets just to keep you” part. 🤔

love this view of it!

[rustyvanburace]

I think one of the unsung morals in SMT IV Apocalypse is the danger of placing all your hopes or entire worth into another person. What might be called a parasocial relationship.

The Real Flynn is by no means self-centered or hostile since he does very much care for the people of Tokyo. All the same though, while good and necessary that he revived their hopes in IV's neutral route, his celebrity status posed a problem as people began investing all their hopes and expectations in him. That when he was kidnapped by Krishna, it immediately led to defeated anguish and fearful uncertainty. It also motivated some Hunters to take action, but there was nonetheless a permeating sense of doubt and loss of direction.

Flynn inspiring hope in the hearts of Tokyo was never meant to rally people around him as their one and only savior, but to encourage them to take charge in their own lives for a better tomorrow. Nonetheless though, the former was what ultimately happened. And I think it was that loss of a savior and the desperation to have him back that made Tokyo so especially vulnerable to Shesha Flynn's manipulation.

What especially stands out to me is during Armageddon at Camp Ichigaya when "Flynn" rallies his Hunters to recklessly charge at Merkabah and Lucifer, essentially throwing their lives away out of thoughtless, blind trust. Nanashi can try to stop them, but it just angers the Hunters and gets him accused of protecting their enemies. The Hunters are not thinking for themselves whatsoever.

IVA stresses throughout the game the importance of thinking for ourselves and making our own decisions. There are many who fall victim to blindly following the angels or demons. And there are also far too many who blindly follow Flynn as their sole savior, which the Divine Powers took advantage of.

A recurring theme in IVA is possession and I would think this to be an extension of that. IVA cautions us not to deeply invest in someone at the cost of our own needs or independence. Whether that person is a celebrity, a politician, a friend, a relative, or anyone else. Even if that person isn't actually taking advantage of us, the one sided'ness and worshipping in any relationship is all the same still unhealthy and dangerous.

[hiskillingjar]

Woundfucking (Lawrence/OC)

something something, i am the wound that never heals, i am the turning knife, yonic metaphors, etc etc.  day 3: woundfucking second person, law x transfem oc (this one). cw for gore and some internalised transmisogyny

“Motherfucker…”

You took in a pained hiss through your teeth as you stared down at the open wound on your thigh, analysing the layers of skin, fat and muscle, all covered in a garish sheen of blood, like something out of a horror movie.

The scalpel did an expertly clean cut, better than any rusty knife you might have had in your collection, and your body was well numbed from a cup of Lawrence's tea, so you couldn't feel the (surely) agonising pain you were both putting your body through in service of a morbid curiosity and a twisted sexual proclivity. 

But even so, it looked diabolical.

"How do you feel?" Lawrence asked, their flat monotone strangely calm as they pulled the scalpel blade away from your skin and looked up towards you. 

There was a cold and almost analytical look in their grey eyes, without a hint of remorse or sympathy present, though that was to be expected from them.

You had begged for this for weeks, knowing they’d get as much enjoyment from it as you, so why would they feel anything close to sympathy for you?

There might have been a little bit of excitement, too, though that could be your imagination.

"It's...weird not to feel it," You murmured, feeling something close to a shiver between your temples as they set the scalpel down on their desk and keened up on their knees, the bloody tarp crackling beneath them, inspecting the open wound closer. "Like, it looks like it should hurt, but it doesn't...almost like it's not a part of me or something."

Lawrence nodded, their eyes flitting back down to the wound.

"Well...you'd be surprised how good our mind is at disconnecting us from our body sometimes...especially in a situation like this."

They picked up their phone, turned on the torch with a slide of a bloody finger over cracked glass, and began looking deeper into the cut, their eyes flicking over the flesh and bone of the exposed muscle.

“Like, adrenaline, right?” They continued, thoughtfully staring into the cavern of flesh and sticking their free hand inside, calloused finger tips stroking each layer. “It’s even better with anaesthetic in your system too. You’re not bleeding nearly as much as you should be, in this situation…”

"Fucking gnarly," You said with something close to awe, shivering again (or as close as you could manage)  when they reached forward and pressed a thumb against your thigh...well, your femur, if you remembered your bones properly. "Like one of those surgery videos."

Lawrence couldn't help but smile at that (eerie, empty, honest, the way they smiled around you and no one else), their gaze continuing to flit from spot to spot, studying it meticulously. 

"Yeah...like one of those surgery videos." They said, before looking up at you. "Can you move your leg at all?"

"No," You said. "It feels like I can't move any part of me.” You attempted to shrug but couldn’t manage it, resulting in just an involuntary twitch of your neck. “I mean, neck up, I guess, cus I can talk and blink, and...you know, be alive."

"Yeah...that's the drugs doing their thing." They said with a little nod, looking back down at the wound as their thumb sank deeper, against the bone. "I used a natural anaesthetic, jasmine and quinine and…stuff,” Their voice trailed off for a moment. “So, you're still completely conscious, but you won't be able to move a muscle without my say-so."

"Hot," You said with a little grin (probably a little manic, despite the lack of pain). "Like I'm your weird, little experiment, huh, Law?"

Now that got an actual laugh out of Lawrence, wheezing, high and deep all at once, sounding a little like they were being choked.

You didn’t mind. 

It was the laugh they hadn’t practised, after all, so it felt all the more authentic to you. Like they could truly be themself around you, without the practised smiles and laughs and gestures that made them appear normal.

“Y-you could say that," They said with another little chuckle.

"Hhh," You took in a breath, watching as their hand slid up the length of the wound and held your thigh tightly, big hands making the limb look small and delicate. "Is it weird that I like it?"

Lawrence paused for a moment and looked up at you, examining the expression on your face, probably trying to determine if your admission was just the drugs talking. Once they figured out that wasn’t the case, they laughed again, another eerie (gentle, dreamy, lovely) smile forming on their face.

"No...it’s not weird at all." They murmured. "Why do you like it?"

"It's like...yonic, right?" You laughed, nervously licking your lower lip as their fingers stroked over each layer of muscle, each fold, like they were stroking a cunt that you didn’t have. "Like...I don't have what we want, so you did the next best thing and carved one for me. It's, like, crazy intimate, if you think about it like that."

Lawrence nodded, their smile growing further into the shallow, rictus grin that you liked so much, and their long, bony fingers gently flexed and curled as they continued to examine the wound, caressing the cut with the most gentleness and care.

"Intimate…” They repeated in a hushed whisper. “Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?"

"Feels like…” You added, as their fingers sank further into the wound, slicked with blood, like fluid, like semen. “M-Maybe you could fuck me like a girl like this." 

They paused then and their eyes flicked up to yours, brows knitting together, the expression on their face hard to gauge. 

"Really? You'd want that?" They asked, their empty, grey eyes boring into yours, unblinking, looking right through you.

You wondered what they could see..

"Mm," You nodded hesitantly, licking your lips again. They tasted like botanicals and rot, an aftermath of the tea that made you taste like they did. "Yeah. You should try, see if it feels good..."

"You're really too much," Lawrence mumbled, though the slightest amount of tone to their flat voice indicated a kind of fondness as they stood to their feet, plastic crackling beneath their toes. "You really want this, huh?"

"It’s your only chance of fucking a pussy with me," You said with a self-deprecating laugh, watching as they slid their jogging bottoms down their thighs and slowly worked their cock to full hardness, straddling your slack knee as their wrist jerked. “You should be jumping at the chance.”

"You don't know that," They said quietly, wrapping their free arm around your shoulders and leaning close, their cold lips pressed to your cheek. "I thought your insurance at the cafe could cover SRS...you could always ask, if you don’t know…"

"Mm, maybe…" You couldn't chase after another kiss, but you didn't mind that so much.

It felt good to play the slack doll, instead of admitting to what you wanted.

Just like it felt good to play the sarcastic trans girl who was above bottom surgery and enjoyed having a cock, instead of admitting that you wanted a pussy so badly that it made you want to scream.

"Maybe," They repeated, kissing down your face, their stubble soft on your skin. "I don’t need to jump towards anything, though…this is way more than enough.” They cleared their throat with a little sigh, gripping themselves tight. “You're…better than anyone else for doing this, you know..."

"You're sweet to me," You said with an unexpected smile, eyes flitting down to see that they had worked themself to full hardness. "It's a shame I can't feel it."

"Mm, yeah, it is…" They agreed, pressing the head of their cock against the open wound, a rush of blood coating the skin with each press. "It would...ah," They groaned as they eased it into the space against your femur, the wet slide of muscle rubbing against their cock. "It would be agony, though. You wouldn't enjoy it. It would be really distracting."

"You have a point," You said, keeping your eyes locked down. Another stream of blood ran down your skin and covered the tarp beneath the two of you, collecting pools of blood, ready to be collected and used. "Can you tell me how it feels then?"

"Mm...it feels amazing," They murmured, their head sinking down to your shoulder as they pressed closer, their heaving chest against yours. "It's not tight at all...and I can feel your body opening for me, like you're adapting for me to take..."

"Yeah?" You didn't know what the drugs were doing to your blood, but it meant your face didn't feel nearly as hot as it usually did when Lawrence treated you to this kind of dirty talk. "Wet and open, huh? Like a cunt should be?"

"I-I wouldn't know," They stammered, breathing hard against your collar bone (you could feel enough to feel the cool wheeze of their breathing). "I've never fucked anyone else but you."

"God, you're cute," You said, unable to hold back a fond chuckle. "Which hole do you prefer then?"

"Mmf," They took their lip between their crooked teeth, their bumped nose pressing against your neck as they eased even deeper, your blood smearing against their soft (very cute) belly and dying the blonde hairs at the base of their cock. "They...hah, they all have different things I like about them…I can’t pick just one."

They built up a consistent pattern of thrusting into the open wound then, rutting against your knee as they clung tighter onto you, like a babe clinging to its mother while it fucked her open wounds.

"I...like your mouth. It's soft and warm, and I," They stammered through a broken, croaking moan, pushing deeper still which caused another tear up your thigh, skin splitting and ripping up to the beginnings of your hip. "I like the way you sound when I'm fucking it."

"Mm..." You moaned, once hazy eyes widening at the torn flesh, a shaky smile coming to your face, thinking about how it was going to look afterwards. 

An open slit up your leg. Better than any other pussy any other girl could have.

"I like your ass." They then said, placing their free hand on your other thigh, tracing the holes in your fishnets, where they had been ripped to accommodate this demented foreplay. "Tight and hot and...nhhh, feels dirty, too."

"Dirty?" You asked, looking up at their hot face.

"It's not supposed to feel good," They slurred, hiding their face against your shoulder again. "Not...hah, supposed to..."

"It's where I feel good, though." You whispered, sighing as they nuzzled into you, pinning your skinny body against the chair, forcing it to rock and tilt. "It's where I was made to feel good, up there with all the shit and mess.” You breathed out, feeling an odd thrum of arousal in your unfeeling body. “Maybe it feels good, because of how dirty it is…"

"Maybe," They slurred, their face buried in your hair, masked by strands of black and green. "I like this hole too, though. I like that you let me do it."

"Yeah?"

"It’s hot and slick. It's going to scar so fucking bad."

They were starting to shake, holding onto you even tighter.

"Yeah," You smiled. "Like Rosanna Arquette in Crash. That huge fucking scar on her thigh…bodies shaped into fetish objects. That’s what you’ve made me, Law."

"They might have to cut it off, you know. If I cum inside it. Ruin the wound."

"You'd like that wouldn't you?"

They whimpered but picked up the pace of their thrusts, not at all put off by the idea.

"It's okay to like it, too. I like that you like it."

"Thank you. Thank you."

"You're welcome, baby."

[sometimesraven]

Guys.

There's a reason I've been particularly careful with my wording this time around (as opposed to other eps like Star Beast where I fuckin ripped into it).

This episode was crafted specifically to make us think. I spoke very briefly on the racism plot because it was, in my opinion, very well crafted. I did mention RTD seems to think british TV is diverse enough that everyone should and would notice the all-white cast and that he's perhaps overestimating that point. I maintain that no, british TV is not that diverse yet, but someone made a great post about how that kind of plays into the sleight-of-hand because we're so used to things being ham-fisted and unfortunate side-effects of the writing that we are more likely to write things off as accidental until they're pointed out, so I'm definitely willing to let that slide even if I'm not sure it was intentional on Rusty's part.

However. There's a reason my main criticism is of subplots, the general crafting of the episode, and unfortunate implications seperate to the racism plot. And that's because it's not my fucking place to decide the quality of a plot that isn't about me. To me, it was done very well and I'm not going to rip into anyone for thinking otherwise just as I don't think we should rip into those who did enjoy it.

Please, for the love of all that's good in the universe, don't turn this into another "us vs them" fight. This was a good episode because of these opinions. It was an episode you have to watch more than once. It was an episode you have to discuss. If we sit here on our social media and yell at everyone else for analysing something in a different way then we're literally missing the entire point of the bubble metaphor. LISTEN to each other. DISCUSS. I'm already seeing a lot of name-calling and "omg ur all stupid media literacy is dead" posts directed at people that maybe just haven't fully grasped the episode yet or have criticisms of it, or saw subtextual themes outside of the racism text.

[rowanthestrange]

Just realised how much I want the Doctor to have a Sikh companion, so they have to grapple with their ‘no weapons’ ideology versus the kirpan their companion carries.

[theboogierat]

Meriam is not a well-written mother, sorry.

It's not a surprise, either. Meriam isn't the saint of a mother constantly portrayed in Leasebound, and I argue that the narrative does her injustice several times by not letting her be a person.

Shez's backstory is far from a shounen hero arc. It's sad, and it's a prime example of Rusty not capitalising on potentially great story arcs for her characters.

To begin, Meriam's story starts when her first husband abandons her in Austalia. She gets a job as a cleaner (and takes off her hijab), as well as takes care of Shez until Chris comes along and acts super creepy until he convinces her to marry him. And then chapter 12 happens.

Chris-era Meriam I will not call a bad mother. She was a young woman stuck in a horrible situation, and had to do what she could to help her daughters and her to survive the conflict.

My biggest gripe with chapter twelve is that Rusty calls it a "shounen" arc. Her portrayal of Meriam and her situation accurately does not look like a shounen arc; it's a serious abusive relationship that they need to escape. Meriam, I'd argue, was treated as 'motivation' for Shez and her backstory at best and a figurehead for why women shouldn't partner with men at worst. Rather than treating Meriam as a character, she's often portrayed as a sobbing mess at the mercy of her husband and then later a poor victim who finally got the life she deserved after escaping.

Since the story is a recollection from Shez, you could argue that's why Meriam is portrayed this way. Shez sees her mother as someone in constant need of saving- it's why she thinks that Meriam never had a life outside her kids and her abuse.

But I doubt rusty would write that. The narrative shows Shez as a great hero who inspired her mother to take action because her mother can't defend herself without her daughter - HER FOURTEEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER- having to step in for her.

(This moment is particularly apalling; how could anyone see this as a power fantasy?!)

There are almost no healthy mother-daughter relationships in Lease Bound, which is really weird for a so-called feminist comic. Josephine and Jaden. Alexis and HER mother. And yes, Shez and Meriam.

Meriam is a deeply flawed mother. Meriam was married at a young age, had to take care of Shez alone in a foreign country, and then got abused. She will make mistakes, and she's made many, because she had no support from the outside and ultimately all she had were her daughters. That could make a strong, protective, fierce Mama bear....

...but she isn't. She's a **victim**. She's hurt, and she needs Shez to save her. She begs her ten year old daughter to help her after her daughter fights a battle for her. She needs her daughter to train to fight Chris for her. That's not something admiring, that's not a power fantasy. That is fucked up.

And that doesn't mean she needs to be rewritten! This can be good! This can be amazing, even! Meriam could be an actually interesting character, going in-depth on how her abuse didn't MAKE HER A STRONG PERSON! HER ABUSE WAS ABUSE! ABUSE DOESNT MAKE YOU STRONGER! IT TRAUMATIZES YOU! IT MAKES YOU NEED SUPPORT, AND THERAPY, AND YOU ARE HUMAN AND- GOOD GOD!

Why is she portrayed as the mother who can do no wrong because she got abused?! Why isn't she treated with a sliver of more nuance than "the victim"?! Why isn't Meriam seriously challenged, deconstructed, analysed, as anything other than "Shez's mom who got abused and made her hate men?"

That is bad writing! Framing abuse as a continuation of your political agenda instead of seriously exploring abuse and a person's psyche and how it affects someone!

And...well...that's how Meriam is written. That's how Rusty wants us to see her. And it's frustrating because sometimes- sometimes- Rusty gets it right.

This moment is poignant. It's my favourite Meriam moment because she's self- aware, and challenged by Shez. Rusty can do it- she just abandons it in favour of five hundred more pages of "trans bad men bad".

So...we explored all that. We tackled the surface of my feelings towards Meriam. What now?

I can't say more, because I feel like a broken record. In fact, go read up several other posts by incredibly talented Leasebound content creators who have made several dissertations on the story, and they will tell you that Lease Bound is, in fact, badly written, and that Rusty Hearts needs to do more with her story.

Thanks for reading! More about Meriam and Shez is coming soon, and I'll update this post when I finish writing it!