#spite is a good motivator what can I say

[heyclickadee]

Me six months ago: *reaction to seeing romantic couples in either canon or fanon is typically, "Aw, they're cute!" and moving on, actively disinterested in active shipping, interprets relationships as platonic first and romantic third or fourth* What, Milo and Kida? Nah, they're not romantically together at the end of the Atlantis movie; they have a really profound friendship. Its very sweet.

Me now: *giggling and kicking my feet every time I see cute Pheetech fanart* Listen, Tech and Phee WILL see each other again, they NEED to be space married by the end of the show, the Han/Leia parallels are there and they're both sort of Han and both sort of Leia and they're weirdly perfect for each other, I need them to have romantic pirate adventures. Yeah, I'm still trying to work out how I got here.

[ivysangel]

fratboy!dick being your first fuck, he brags about to his buddies about it and sends a photo of you asleep beside him sporting a shit-eating grin, captioning it "winning" only to drop you hours later for a new girl the morning after.

fratboy!jason is your first suck/bj in a restroom after he asks you out on a milkshake date. to spite dick, he sends an update to the groupchat with a pic from his pov where you're on your knees, busy and oblivious to the camera aimed at you, and captions it with "milkshake no.2 tastes real good"

i'm tweaking over the fact that i missed this because this is literally just too good. i've literally BEEN obsessed with virgin chasing fratboy!dick like if you looked through me and kazz's you would see many a convo about that topic.

he's literally so manipulative; he purposely befriends you just to get in your pants, feigns interest in your hobbies just to gain your trust so he can fuck you then dump you. and he preys on your naivety, knows that you're apprehensive about losing your virginity to a fratboy especially dick because he's got such a messy track record, so he makes sure to reassure you constantly, telling you that you're "different" and that he's "never felt this way before." and every time you second guess the motive behind his actions he does something to make you feel like you're the only girl in the world, stealing your heart until you finally give in and let him fuck you, stealing your virginity.

the worst part is how loving he is during the whole process. he goes so slow, asking how you're feeling with every stroke, wipes away any tears that might escape from your eyes while you're getting used to the feeling. he keeps up the charade that he's in love with you the entire time that he's inside of you, and then he just leaves and pretends that he never even knew you and the only proof that he did is the pic he took of you while you were sleeping and the $50 he venmo'd you for plan b the next morning.

nonnie, i think we're so on the same wavelength because i have BEEN obsessed with the concept of fratboy!jason being a bj lover for ages. like i even briefly mentioned it in my fratboy headcanons post, and what i put wasn't even my original idea. i was originally gonna say that he held the record for most blowjobs received in closets and bathrooms in the entire frat's history. but anyway, back to what you said.

"milkshake no.2 tastes real good" is some crazy work, and i'm actually kind of upset that i didn't come up with it but whatever. fratboy!dick and fratboy!jason hooking up with the same girl just to get back at each other despite neither of them actually having feelings for her is actually so disgustingly real. and a bitch is gonna keep coming back because the dick is great!!! fantastic!!! phenomenal even!!!

the thing with jason is that despite being in a frat, he refuses to publicly associate with them and therefore has half the school thinking he's some sexy loner with no friends when he is, in fact, a legacy pledge and incredibly well respected amongst the brothers. so he's posted up in the university library, chatting you the fuck up with his knowledgable takes and dry-ass humor. convincing you to go on a date with him isn't hard at all, and somehow, despite you being freshly devirginized with approximately one body, neither is getting you to suck his dick in the dingy bathroom of the diner he took you to.

you're on the floor, dirty, offputtingly sticky tile pressing into your knees while you suck him off, really putting your neck into it because he's hot and you want him to come back for a round two in the near (hell, even distant) future. he snaps a pic of mostly the top of your head, features barely identifiable to absolutely anybody but dick who A) either calls him immediately (jason declines) or B) blocks him because even though he didn't actually like you this still somehow breaks bro code (dick is weirdly possessive over his virgin conquests).

jason never tells dick that it was one of the worst blowjobs he's received in his life and that you used way too much teeth because the ego boost from pissing dick off is way too good.

[dittydipity]

going INSANE. what is he thinking. why did he say this. why does he do all of this. i am thinking so hard.

we know he's seeking arceus to recreate the world bc in his eyes the world is cruel and unjust and it needs to be destroyed and remade. he's set himself on a mission to create the better reality he's envisioned for his whole life.

but everything else he does. the way he spends his time on pasio making people smile with togepi. even if he justifies it as something purely transactional to get more customers, we know he doesn't really take his merchant job seriously. the way he loves his pokemon so much that they will pop out of their pokeball to excitedly tell whoever will listen how much they love volo back. him trying to capture these moments of happiness tangibly because they never last long and can be wiped away any second.

he still hangs onto hope so much despite what's implied to have happened to him. in spite of all the anger and bitterness that's festered in him, he doesn't really want to destroy everything as he says.

it all started with a wish for the world to be a better place, for the good in the world to outweigh all the cruelty. he's still trying to spread what happiness he can.

but at the same time his past drags behind him and reminds him that he can't afford to trust in the goodness of the world.

that self-assigned mission to usurp arceus's power and rewrite everything.. to him, it's his duty now. he has to do it for himself and, as he rationalizes to himself, for the world.

so he ignores the flaws and holes he finds in his own reasoning. he can't help but seek out the brightness and happiness and goodness that does exist in the world, yet he has to dismiss it to justify his goals.

... all this to try and explain to myself why volo's asking all these questions and making all these comments that seem to go against what we'd expect given his ulterior motive and plans. and it's like he's asking the few friends he has to remember him as the one who seeks joy, even when he does the worst to fulfill his dreams

[meanbossart]

A personal headcanon of mine is that Cazador had a special interest in Astarion before turning him into a vampire possibly a romantic obsession.

I was curious about what your personal thoughts were on the relationship between Cazador and Astarion?

Let me stop you right there - Yes.

Now, I'm a little reluctant to elaborate on this one, because I think it can be seen as a little reductive of the characters and their stories to condense what could be a political plot into something as superficial as another "if I can't have you, no one will" storyline - not only would that be less interesting to some people, but it once again reduces Astarion's character to his attractiveness - while the former, for once, actually made him "desirable" for his achievements and influence - even if it doomed him after all.

But at the same time, this theory compels me for that reason exactly. It sets the origins of the whole issue and what would, overtime, erupt into this complex he has of himself and how others perceive him.

I'm not a stickler for details as long as you can tell me a good story, but it's notable to me that the reasons why Cazador set his eyes on Astarion so early in his reign are never really elaborated on further. How much influence did he really have as a young magistrate, and what kind of rulings could he be passing that would affect Cazador so much for him to take such a risk in abducting someone of his standing right as he had himself come into power? Cazador is an idiot, but he's an idiot who managed to say alive and hidden for two centuries - this move was either exceptionally well thought-out, or Astarion wasn't that liked as a magistrate, or Cazador had far pettier motives to take such a risk.

Not to mention, Astarion is awfully elusive whenever you inquire about the hows and whys of his abduction. Dismissive, even. Like it's something he doesn't want to talk about. I could take that down the boring route and say "oh, the writers just didn't care to develop this part of his story", or I could do the far more fun thing and read into it.

Then, of course, there's the vague suggestions that Astarion stood out among the spawn for one reason or another - he's referred to as the runt of the litter, and yet as Cazador's favorite as well. Going through Cazador's journal following Astarion's disappearance, there seems to be something besides frustration about him leaving just as he's about to ascend - there's resentment, there's desperation. Why the fuck does Petras act as if Cazador would ever do anything good for them if they were treated as Astarion describes? How the fuck were any of them under the impression that this ritual would benefit them whatsoever, while Astarion seems to have always known better? While I have no doubt that they all suffered under Cazador's control, there seems to be indication that Astarion suffered specially badly. The question left is why.

I don't think they were ever lovers or anything like that, I don't think Astarion ever even knew Cazador well enough to give him a passing thought, but I think it would be absolutely rich for a newly born, still spite-fuelled vampire lord to make very emotionally-driven decisions. The type of decisions that he looks back on and curses himself for. For having ever had such a weak mind.

Think of it, you come into all this power after years of pain, sorrow and suffering. You set your hungry, lonely little eyes on the prettiest girl at the ball - she turns you down spectacularly. She laughs you off under thinly veiled pleasantries. You are beside yourself - you were supposed to have everything you ever wanted, to be untouchable, to be desirable, to have some sort of supernatural allure about yourself - you were under the impression that now, all of your problems had been solved and everything that life has to offer would be thrown at your feet, like you perceived it to be like to your own, deceased masted; then the rug gets ripped from under your feet. But, a moment after, you realize: when you want something very badly, you can now just take it.

So you do. You get a shiny new toy. Fresh off your dull, painful past-experiences it seems like this toy is all you need to bring the long-lost zest back into your life, it is your first taste of true power and control, your dear beloved, your reluctant companion, and you paint a picture of what life will be alongside it (though slightly stooped beneath you - you can't be equals, of course) decades, no, centuries into the future.

But the toy doesn't ever grow to like you. In fact, it hates you for what you are, what you chose to become and what you chose to make of, and to it. For a few years, you try. Then eventually you get bored of it.

In a few more, you begin to not be able to stand the sight of it. It reminds you of a time when you were naive, when you were stupid. Worse yet, it is now your ball and chain as you made it. The only use you see remaining for it is to tear it apart again and again and again until you've forgotten why you're even doing it. You don't even want to touch it yourself, you get others to do it for you.

I don't think Cazador harbored anything but that indifferent resentment towards Astarion through the vast majority of those two centuries, and, horrifically enough, I don't think Astarion even knew why for a good deal of it himself. I can picture him going over and over any passing interactions they ever had (if they even had any) desperately trying to piece together why me, what could I have done differently, how could I have avoided this hell.

Then, at some point, in the brief moments when his mind is somewhat cleared and after he has heard enough vague, cryptic remarks out of Cazador's mouth about his looks, about his attitude, about how he must think he's too good to do what he does, it hits him: If I had just said yes, none of this would have happened. It would have been a brief moment of disgust, but then it would have been over.

And you beat yourself over it almost much as you feel shame. You're embarrassed. Because you've now had to endure all this torment just because you said no to the wrong man - a matter of picking the bad choice at 50/50 odds. Not only that - but you were apparently so worthless to the world that this small mistake was enough to doom you for all eternity: It was, apparently, all you were worth. And he has made that abundantly clear by what he puts you up to now.

So, when someone asks you why it happened, you give them a better reason. One that at least highlights other things you were good at. They probably wouldn't believe you if you told them the truth, anyways.

[revelboo]

Transformers x Reader Headcannons- problems

Pretty much how I write and overthink their personalities, actions, and motives. Soundwave, Starscream, Megatron, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Jazz.

Starscream

• Can’t stop self sabotaging. As much as he hates Megatron, he’s his own worst enemy. Fueled by self-loathing, ambition, and spite. If every good thing is just going to be taken away, he might as well destroy it himself and take some petty satisfaction in watching it burn.

• You, though? He wants to protect this feeling you kindle in him. Even if he doesn’t truly trust that it’s real, he wants to pretend it is. Needs you to play along with him. Fiercely possessive because you’re his.

Megatron

• Exhausted all the time. With all that’s been lost, he can’t just stop at this point. There’s no peaceful end even if he almost wishes there was. The Decepticons look to him, believe that he’ll bring them home. To a better world. That guilt and responsibility fuels his hatred, keeping it going. If he fails, it’s all for nothing.

• They’re always watching. Looking for weakness to exploit. There’s always machinations among his officers, plots and schemes. You have no ulterior motives beyond survival and he can respect that. Even so, you’re willing to meet his optics even though you know who he is and what he’s capable of. Brave, foolish little thing.

Wheeljack

• Absentmindedly creating problems in the name of science. Is genuinely surprised when something blows right up in his face no matter how many times it happens. Forgets to refuel and recharge until someone says something or he just crashes. Generally avoided by everyone because of how often his experiments spectacularly fail.

• Even if he’s engrossed in an experiment, if you’re around, his attention is divided. You crash a lot faster than he does and guilt prompts him to take a break, because you definitely don’t look comfortable cheek propped up on a hand, sound asleep. He’s awful at taking care of himself, but surprisingly attentive toward you. Constantly worried because you’re just so fragile compared to Cybertronians.

Jazz

• Smiling through the stress. Seriously, he’s on a knife’s edge of anxiety all the time even as he plays it off. Everything’s a joke. Everything’s fine. Even if he wants to just scream, he keeps that easy going smile in place. It’s his armor and he needs it to convince himself as much as everyone else.

• Somehow you see right through him. You can lay a tiny hand on his plating and he just unravels. And you don’t expect him to just keep smiling through the pain. He doesn’t have to keep the act up, he can vent to you, bleed all the anger and frustration out instead of pretending it away. And he needs this more than you know.

Ratchet

• Gruff and caustic, that angry exasperation is all defense, pushing others away with sarcasm. No matter how quickly he works after a battle, the wounded just keep coming. Sometimes he’s not fast enough. A spark gutters out while his hands are wrist deep in another patient. He’s not enough. If he loses someone, it’s his fault. His burden and his blame to the point where sometimes his servos just won’t stop trembling.

• Somehow you understand that if you try to comfort him, he’ll fall apart. There’ll be time to grieve later, but right now the two of you work to save who you can, your little hands able to reach things he can’t. You don’t complain, just do what’s necessary. Later, he’ll cup you to his chassis, silent as you break.

Soundwave

• The worst part of being able to hear other’s thoughts? They never stop. It’s a constant sensory barrage threatening to overwhelm him unless he makes a conscious effort of block them out, so he’s always on guard. Can never relax or that tide of voices crashes over him. Finding out he can’t even block out human thoughts is a shock. You’re there in the back of his processor all the time.

• It’s why he needs you to sing for him. Doesn’t matter what it is, he just needs that one thing to focus on so everything else fades into background noise. The more you lose yourself in the song, the more he can relax, because you relax. Your thoughts calm.

[inbarfink]

I have… so many little thoughts about Simon’s shift in the climax of ‘Prismo the Wishmaster’. He’s so ready to give up, to resign to Death By Interdimensional Beetle Cop. And the thing that pulls him out of it, gets him to see a purpose in his life again, is seeing Fionna cry.

And this moment is so important for Fionna and Cake because this is their first moment to really process the Implications and Consequences of their magical adventure. You know, it’s not just a dream you can wake up from - this is actually a matter of life and death and the fate of their entire world.

And it’s actually, also kinda the same from Simon’s perspective? Even if he was already told they are real and have been real all along a while ago - I think seeing Fionna break out in tears is really the moment where he processed her not as a manifestation of Ice King’s madness, not as yet another way the universe is kicking him when he’s down, not as a cruel joke at his expense. But really actually as people, who need his help.

And, I think about this, also in context with this moment?

Simon Petrikov is… a dad at heart. Simon’s first focus episode in F&C starts with a prologue of him and Marceline surviving in the wasteland. Showing that despite being under much more miserable circumstances

he still seemed to hold himself together far better than present-day Simon. 

Because the need to protect Marcy and keep her happy was giving him purpose and a motivation to hold himself together. 

And this desire to help and nurture and protect is clearly still deep within him. It’s just that now he feels incapable for doing so. In both body-

And spirit -

But now, suddenly, he is once again the Only Person Who Can Help this younger person in distress.

And I think that is a huge part of his motivation to keep on going right now. I mean, just look at how quickly he goes from dismissing Fionna and Cake - into basically declaring that he has to protect them. And fully willing to sacrifice his own identity and sanity to bring magic back to their world because he knows it’ll make Fionna and Cake happy. Because the moment he saw Fionna tear up, he basically decided to Adopt her.

And that’s, you know, technically a step forward - but it is a very very imperfect step. 

Like, at the very least he’s not drinking his sorrows away while waiting for death out of pure despair and spite. At least he has a sense of purpose and a reason to open up for others again and bond. And we’ve seen how much this has been a great coping mechanism for pulling himself together through difficult times.

My guess is that after two episodes of only seeing Simon Petrikov at his lowest and very worst - Fionna and Cake are finally going to get an understanding of Simon’s actual positive qualities as his dad-instincts are going to bring them up to the surface again. 

Buuuuuuuut….

You know, tying your sense of self-worth and motivation entirely to how well you can Dad is not particularly healthy in the long run either. And it’s going to cause problems both for Simon and for F&C.

Looking at it from what's best of Simon, for the sake of protecting Fionna and Cake and making them happy by bringing magic and wonder back into their world - Simon is willing to throw himself right into the suffering and trauma that he’s been fearing all this time and has been trying so hard to get away from. I mean, it’s also about how Simon has started to miss being Ice King in a weird twisted way and how he resigned himself to being miserable in general. It’s also about that, but the part that he actually says out loud is that he’s doing this to protect Fionna and Cake.

So that’s, you know, still very Not Good. Simon can’t hang his entire ability to properly function on there being Younger People who need his protection. He can't actually move forwards by trying to relive the Better Times of the Horrible Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland. That's not a sustainable coping mechanism. And it’s an incredibly unhealthy amount of self-sacrifice. 

And on Fionna’s side… she never said she wanted Simon to protect her.

She might want a useful teammate or a helping hand, she might need a friend. But I don’t think she needs a Dad. Simon is surely old enough to be her father (even just counting his age biologically and not the fact he’s 1058 years old) but Fionna’s not a Literal Child like Marcy was. Fionna Campbell is a grown-ass woman in her early 30’s (Finn is 29 years old right now and there was always kinda the implication that Fionna was a bit older than him). 

(And, heck, if she IS the daughter of a gender-flipped Minerva Campbell, she is probably not in the market for a new overprotective dad. She’s fully booked out on that.)

AND while Fionna does not possess full memories of her magical-adventuring-self, she clearly retains some of her fighting and athletic abilities.

Meanwhile Cake is clearly an adult in cat years and is just as much of an insanely powerful shapeshifter as Jake was.

So where does this middle-aged scrawny nerd get off, acting like it’s his job to sacrifice his mind in order to protect them?

And Fionna very much wants to be the hero, she wants to be at the center of the action. It is no coincidence that her own idealized version of Ice King/Simon is a Tuxedo Mask.

Someone who can give her a helping hand and words of encouragement when things get rough - 

But still lets her be the main hero of the story.

And you know, right now Fionna and Cake have not fully processed the implications of Simon choosing to become Ice King… but once they see a bit of who Simon really is at his better moments. Yeah, they’re probably gonna have some objections to the idea that he should throw his entire identity away just for their own sake. 

Back when Simon allowed the Crown to slowly consume him so he could protect Marcy, it felt like a noble sacrifice. It really seemed like he had no other options. But now he has the entire multiverse on his disposal and two serious badasses on his side. Simon has to learn to see the difference between a codependent senseless self-sacrifice and something that will actually help Fionna and Cake.

So if Simon is really going to lean too hard on his Dad aspect, it’s actually going to cause some really big problems down the line. For his own mental well-being, and for Fionna and Cake. It is in a way, a step in the right direction. And I think it’s going to lead to our main trio finally becoming closer and understanding each other - but unless Simon learns to temper himself, it’s going to cause some serious interpersonal conflicts.

At least this is my thoughts about these interactions right now. I know they’ve been really short but I think they’re really full of Meaning and Emotions. But really, we’ll just have to wait and see.

[maxwell-grant]

So is Worm good from what you have read

"Yes" doesn't begin to cover it but yes. Worm is a brain-rewiring mobius strip disguised as a bible disguised as a superhero web serial that either cured your cancer or shot your dog or both depending on who you ask, and it has many extremely dedicated, brilliant scholar priest surgeons publicly dissecting it on this platform on the regular to the point I don't think I have much to add to the conversations surrounding it, even if I do have some The Thoughts about it. I had never even really seriously thought about superhero prose before and Worm isn't a thing I go back and reread frequently but it did a complete and total 180 on the way I think about superheroes and even fiction, and I've never stopped thinking about it since I've read it.

It is a monumentally impressive story with completely absolutely incredible characters that I cannot stop thinking about. No matter where it was going, even past stretches that were less interesting or more of a slog to read or worse, I could not put the story of Taylor Hebert down for one minute. Tattletale fascinated me every step of the way, I had to keep up with her. Rachel Lindt was a character I feel like I'd been waiting my whole life for. What was I gonna do, not see them through? I feel like Worm easily loses you if you don't particularly connect with the characters enough to justify to yourself the amount of time you'll spend with them, but man, I could not unglue my eyeballs from these people enough (I love all the core Undersiders, to be clear, I'd say it's Rachel > Taylor > Tattletale > Aisha and Alec and Brian, there are very small gaps between these, I just don't go berserk for the last three like I do for the first three, I'm taking Bitch and Skitter to the grave I'm dead serious)

Worm irreparably destroys your ability to engage with superhero fiction the same way ever again, as evidenced by the fact that it destroyed the author's own ability to engage with his own superhero fiction ever again. And everybody who read it has one or several gripes with it with some major dealbreakers in the mix. Tumblr's kinda the only place online where you can really talk about them at length without the spectre of John Wildbow hanging over the discussion, which enables discussion to the point where yes, maybe it does look like to outsiders that nobody can agree on whether Worm is good or what is it even about or whether it even has worms in it (it has at least one, although it's a very big one).

And it is good, it has the Undersiders in it and the Undersiders are one of the greatest groups of characters ever put together, but everyone has at least one major point of contention with Worm whether it's the timeskip or the length or the racism or the gross fatphobia or aspects surrounding the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus and etc. I'd say it has maybe the most racist vision of Latin America I've ever seen in a superhero text a hair short of pro-colonial tracts in Golden Age comics and that is a tall fucking order by any metric (part of why I started WEON4 as a project was motivated by spite, to try and make my own stories about non-American superheroes even if just as practice). It is Complicated, and that winds up making it so fascinating to talk about.

Worm has self-sustaining ecological systems of posts up here, far away from the Spacebattles and Reddit battlegrounds where it has different ones and that's not getting into Weaverdice or the sequel or Wildbow's larger body of work, which I haven't gotten to and probably will not any time soon because Worm was enough of a commitment as is. Do I recommend Worm to everyone? It is certainly not to everyone's tastes and I personally find it difficult to describe it simply enough to make it sound appealing or not like a pyramid scheme. But yes I do think it's good, in fact great, in fact, amazing, except when it isn't, and except it Plainly Sucks, but then something like Taylor vs Mannequin or Kevin Norton's interlude or "You needed worthy opponents" happens and it fucks harder than anything has ever fucked before and you don't walk away from it the same, so yes I guess "good" will have to do now.

It's certainly a lot but I definitely found it worth my time to read and then read the texts written about it here. You'll have to take my endorsement of Worm as proof of it's quality and proof of how deranged it makes it's readerbase, they're not mutually exclusive. If you can make it, Worm and the wormosphere has layers and layers to wade through and talk about and enjoy, despite how we're all so very small in the end *gunshot*.

[punkpandapatrixk]

⛩Lion’s Gate Portal to Xxx ♦︎ Timeless Pick A Card

Happy Lion’s Gate Portal to Xxx…! From X (infinite possibilities) to hyperspecific manifestation of things, events and people that are meant to inspire, excite and serve your Highest Intended Good! What collective do you belong to? What timeline of Humanity are you on?

Laced with the aenergy of the last Full Buck Moon in Capricorn/Aquarius (21 July), this Lion’s Gate Portal is ushering in a general sense of excitement like you’ve just graduated an important chapter of spiritual education~\`★_★`/

From here, you’re in a brand-new Reality offering brand-new sensations, experiences and opportunities. There is a mega-influx of high-vibe money, non-slavery work opportunities, spiritually-inclined connections and mutually-beneficial friendships for those who have taken it upon themselves to transcend above silly ego-driven drama default to this Matrix of misery. From here, Integrity is your Key to creating a perfect existence.

Enter the Neo Reality. Let the day begin!

SONG: Let the Day Begin by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

DOCUPUNK: Punk: Attitude | Full Documentary | Qwest TV

deck-bottom: 5 of Swords, Gold Astrologer (Simon Forman), Priestess of Integrity

[PAC Masterlist] [Patreon] [Paid Readings] [buymeaboba]

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – Opened a Whole Portal to a Perfect Existence!

‘Listen. I’ve got this dream. I never told anyone and it acquired dust. But I can’t ignore it anymore. I’ve decided not to look away from the innocence that is myself!’ – Get No Satisfaction! by Sakamoto Maaya

chapter of triumph – Page of Wands

Of all the Piles, I feel the most ‘orderly’ aenergy from you. In spite of passion and motivation, there’s a strong sense of ‘control’ and order in the way you’re creating your new Reality. This sense of order and control isn’t of the egoic control-freak variety; rather, it is a result of your having complete trust in the flow of Divine Timing.

You’ve entered this Reality where everything you’re able to perceive is nothing but a possibility. So yes, as long as you want it, it can be possible for you. You’re now in a flow state of choosing only those possibilities that serve your highest good whilst contributing something meaningful to your immediate surrounding. In essence, I think you’ve become a true spiritual master!

From this chapter onwards, your stories and events and rendezvous will serve as a mirror to reflect back how much you’ve grown as a spiritual being in a Human body. You will be serving your purpose more closely to your original Blueprint. Many of you will find yourself being a teacher, healer or guide of some sort in many of your daily interactions.

cells full of Light – Knight of Pentacles

And yet, here you are teaching and guiding others, but you’re also gaining even more new perspectives from the people you’re helping. So you’re both nourishing and inspiring and amplifying each other. The people you’re guiding and helping are truthfully also on their own way of learning how to teach and guide others beyond your scope.

So this is the kind of Neo Reality you’ve stepped into. An almost immaculate circle of good souls empowering and teaching each other. You’re actively building a more positively-oriented Reality that on a spiritual level goes far beyond what can be seen on the physical plane. This is your Soul Work, in essence.

From here, I see that money and other ‘types of abundance’ that will make Life easier on a material level will naturally trickle down your Reality in tandem with how you’re redefining your ‘sense of place’ in this new world. This new world where most of us are wired towards healing and becoming a much more joyful, psychologically-liberated versions of ourselves~

shifting straight into Xxx – 7 of Cups

There’s a sense of needing to choose your Reality. I should say, a sense of needing to choose certain elements and aspects of your Reality. At this point, you don’t have to worry about choosing wrongly. There’s practically nothing you could choose wrongly. Everything is a possibility, of which purpose is to be manifested and experienced.

Whatever happens, that’s for your highest enjoyment in this theatre of a Human Life~ Many of you will soon or probably has realised that quite nothing in this Universe is as serious as it seems. It’s all a play. This world is an illusion just like movies aren’t real. Just like video games aren’t real. We’re playing in it just for our Soul’s pure enjoyment.

The moment you become crystal clear about this is the moment you become absolutely clear about your manifesting abilities. And from there, you’re Doraemon. You can literally call forth any kind of experience or a sense of adventure by reaching into the pocket of your subconscious mind~

What’s contained in the subconscious often comes through in daydreams and fantasies, right? ;) Those are all your possibilities. You can entertain whichever you want and it’s yours!

DESIRED REALITY🔻🧡

collective dharma – Red Magus (Edward Kelly)

unmatched charisma – Priestess of Fertility

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Pile 2 – Held on for Dear Life, Now, You Can be Happy, Shorty~

‘I want to have more faith in myself. Someday, just like a flower… I want to offer a prayer to my future self. May you be happy.’ – Remedy by Sakamoto Maaya

chapter of triumph – King of Swords Rx

This collective is one that has had to learn to tackle the shackles of their logical minds hahah Too much logic means little to no magic! You got it? I’m reminded of this idea that ‘you can’t plan around Luck’. Luck comes to your aid when you have complete faith in your endeavour. Lady Luck loves those who are confident and courageous.

That’s been one of your biggest life lessons in terms of your spiritual evolution. At the present time, I’m getting that you’ve pretty much managed to let your logic take a backseat. Of course, it’s still there and it’s very necessary for rational reasoning! But your logic is an observer who tends to counsel you when you need to be realistic about your next steps.

At this present time, I see that you’ve managed to let your higher heart—your intuition—take the wheel of your physical fortunes. You may be seeing a lot of angel numbers and other signs of SYNK. You’re in sync with your Higher Self and team of Spirit Guides. Your faith in them—and in where you’re going—is actively opening many pockets of Luck in your current timeline!

cells full of Light – 6 of Wands Rx

Part of why you clung to so much logic before was that you lived amongst super judgemental bitches. Basically, society. Society for the most part comprises of very small minded, jealous fucks who don’t get happy when someone they know is met with fortune, right? That’s why society has a tendency to mock or underestimate those they deem ‘lucky’.

Society hates ‘lucky’ people; they instead LOVE those who struggle and suffer. I think in many ways you’ve had to deal with so much difficulty because you either let those types of mindsets affect your flow of manifestation, or, you yourself wholeheartedly believed that your manifestations and visions and goals could only be worthwhile if you crawled and worked under immense duress to get them.

That’s all in the past now. You’ve let all of that silly mindset become part of a dying paradigm. You ain’t playin’ like dat no mo. And those who can’t understand your level of chill can also die in that old paradigm. You aren’t the least bit concerned about what’s ‘normal’ anymore. From here, your Life is magick! And those who can understand you, will only find you inspirational, if not aspirational😉

shifting straight into Xxx – 7 of Wands

So there’s a sense of having ‘worked so hard’, but you understand that this is mainly your having worked so hard on shifting your internal paradigm. You held on for dear Life! Now, you’re in a completely different bandwidth of Reality. Upon finding this PAC, you may still be dealing with a feeling of always being ‘close’ to your goal. Just about there… Or, not enough effort yet… Not quite there yet…

But literally, this is just an echo of how you used to think about when and how your manifestations should come to your doorstep. Sooner than later, you’ll find yourself not caring anymore about the when or the how things are going to be presented to you. You’ll simply have the faith—the knowing—that what’s meant to be yours will never miss you.

Right now, if this is your main pile, you’re being advised to take it easy and plan little by little. Take as much time as possible to recover first from the stress of survival before you push yourself towards your goal again. From here, it’s not a warzone. It’s no longer you vs the world. From here, it’s Animal Crossing’s flower gardens LMAO Enjoy where you are. Enjoy this Reality you’ve worked hard to arrive at!

DESIRED REALITY🔻💜

collective dharma – Gold Astronomer (John Dee)

unmatched charisma – Priestess of Luck

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 3 – Stepping Out into the Open Sky, It’s A Brand-New World of Comfort

‘Blessings flowing over me, glowing, rolling over and over. Never want to go back to the way it was before. I hear someone whisper into my ear. I turn around but find nothing there. Until I look up and see colors of love raining down on me.’ – Colors by Sakamoto Maaya

chapter of triumph – King of Cups Rx

This is the Pile that previously dealt with an insane amount of psychological drama, karma, and trauma. It’s possible that you’ve indeed been given so much trauma by this world—this disappointing, disappointing world—but the main thing I’m getting is how you’ve triumphed over so many different streams of crazy in your head. I hope that illustration makes sense to you ^^

You’ve calmed down a lot. You’re no longer slave to your intense emotions that had often caused crippling anxiety. You had a lot of fears. You were possessed by so many demons. None was your fault tho. The world had given you so many reasons to be doubtful, and that made you incredibly fearful about some certain things that people take for granted.

But dang, you’ve simplified, haven’t you? You’ve learnt to do less. You’ve learnt to expect not so crazily—from yourself and others and even the Universe. You’ve truly learnt spiritual detachment, or soon to master it. You’ve realised now that you’re only responsible for how peacefully you can live your day to day every day~♪

cells full of Light – 6 of Swords

I see that you’ve left a lot of things, people, situations and places in the past. Do you feel somewhat lonely? It’s only normal but just so you know, you’re sailing above calmer waters, and by the end of this sailing, on some new land you will be meeting your Soul Tribe, and possibly even your romantic Destined Person ^^ So this is really only temporary no matter how long you feel you’ve been sailing in this ‘isolation’ mode.

‘Feel the world around you. Feel the world surround you,’ I think my music is saying that XD (I think it’s Ciggies After Sex) Truly a lot of things have changed and that you’ve become much stronger both in faith and your conviction. You jumped a fucking timeline and you’re not even existing in the same bandwidth of frequency as those things and people that used to scare you so much.

Just like The Fool in major arcana, you’re crashing and falling into this stream leading you towards true spiritual happiness and abundance~ There is nothing from the past that can follow you because the frequencies are simply different. And when you look up you’ll see the colours of Love raining down on you ^^ All is a shower of blessings from your Higher Self, Spirit Guides, Ancestors and Soul Tribes, as well as your Destined Person ♥︎

shifting straight into Xxx – Queen of Pentacles

For all of the spiritual work that you’ve done on yourself—which really echoes throughout the ages back and forth, affecting the past and the future positively—material abundance is yours to access. Some people who don’t truly understand ‘spirituality’ may think it’s funny how spiritual work is rewarded with money and other material possessions, but I’m sure you know better that we live in a material world XD

Having an abundance of munny, of currency, is proof that you’re living peacefully in the currents of chi. There is not so much resistance now between you and the whole of the abundance of Gaia. Best you do is maintain balance so you don’t fall out of the currents, right? Yes, as long as you maintain balance, in everything that you do and think, this material abundance is always going to be yours. Just…don’t go insane like those overnight millionaires who’ve ended up bankrupt in just 2 years. YKWIM?

I’m sure you already know how to strike a sane and sensible spiritual-material balance now and that’s the reason you’ve shifted into this prosperous paradigm. I see that you’re now able to afford whatever whenever you want. Keep reminding yourself of this: ‘My money bags refill faster than I can spend.’ Being financially abundant is such a beautiful thing because when you have more, you have more to share as well ^o^/

DESIRED REALITY🔻💗

collective dharma – Gold Historian (Raphael Holinshed)

unmatched charisma – Priestess of Enchantment

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

[PAC Masterlist] [Patreon] [Paid Readings] [buymeaboba]

[bonefall]

the worst parent poll made me realize just how many ppl in the fandom are willing to jump straight into abuse apologia. bc on one hand you have ppl dumbing down crow's abuse to "him just being mean" and on the other end you have ppl saying that curlfeather didnt abuse frostpaw because she sacrificed herself and frost + her siblings love her so she couldnt possibly be an abuser. truly mindboggling stuff take these serious topics away from the fandom asap.

Part of me feels like it's because many in this fandom have a feeling that if a character's actions are abusive, it means you're "not allowed" to like them. Like there's an impulse where if you liked a character, it MUST mean they weren't THAT bad, because you'd personally never like "an abuser."

As if it reflects poorly on your own morality, as a person, that you connected with An Abuser. Understood them, even. Even if it was just a character.

If it's immoral to Like Abusive Characters, of course your reaction is going to end up being abuse apologia. To enjoy something isn't logical, it's emotional, so you will get defensive about it when questioned. When you do, it's not going to be based on logic because you didn't reason yourself into that position in the first place. It's an attack on you as a person.

I feel like that's often the root of abuse apologia in this fandom, and sometimes the world at large; "If I admit that this character/person IS abusive, it means I was doing something bad by liking them, so I have to prove to everyone else that they weren't or it means I'm bad too."

And to that I say... That's a BAD impulse! Grow up and admit you resonated with a character that did a bad thing! If that's an uncomfortable thought, sit with it!

Sometimes abusers are likeable! They usually DO think they're justified in their actions, or doing it for "a good reason," or were just too preoccupied to care. MOST of the time, people who commit abusive actions are also hurt or traumatized in some way. You might even empathize with them. None of this means their actions have to be excused or downplayed.

"Abusers" aren't a type of goddamn yokai, they're people just like you and me. You don't help victims of abuse by putting the people who hurt us in an "untouchable" category.

In fact, all it does is make you less likely to recognize your own controlling behavior. You're capable of abuse. People you love are capable of it, too. People who love YOU can still hurt you.

In spite of how often people regurgitate "It's Ok To Like A Character As Long As You're Critical Of Their Actions," every day it is proven to me further and further that no one who says it actually understands what that means.

All that said; I think it's no contest which one's a worse parent, imo.

They both mistreated their children, but Curlfeather did it through manipulation without verbal or physical abuse. She politically groomed her into a position of power so that she could use her as a pawn. It can be argued if this counts as child abuse-- but it's firmly still under the broad category childhood maltreatment, which is damaging.

(though anon I'm with you 100% at seeing RED when "but she sacrificed herself" is used as an excuse. Curlfeather's death does NOT CHANGE what she did to Frostpaw in life. I think it's a valid point to bring up when comparing her to another terrible parent for judgement purposes, such as in the context of this poll, but I really hate the implication that redemption deaths "make up" for maltreatment.)

Crowfeather, meanwhile, is textually responsible for putting Breezepaw through verbal AND physical abuse, as well as child neglect. His motivations include embarrassment from a hurt ego, revenge on his ex, and being sad because of a dead girlfriend. This abuse drives Breezepelt towards radicalization in the Dark Forest.

You could argue Curlfeather is a worse person for Reedwhisker's murder, but as a parent? It's not even a question to me. Crowfeather's one of the worst dads in WC.

[sepublic]

I remember hearing that Dana was inspired by True Crime, amongst other things and people IRL, when writing Belos. And it seems that contrary to the notoriety of True Crime fans, she actually understood the assignment.

Because she opted to demystify the serial killer as this dark, unusual psychology that operates outside of societal borders and rules, disturbed by some secret reason, and instead literally pull off the mask to reveal he’s just some white manchild who hates women and minorities to a violent degree, because he feels threatened by them and their ability to say No in his entitlement. There’s nothing special or unique about his motives.

He’s no exception to the status quo, he is it unmasked of the veneer of civility, he’s the lynch mob and the cop (all of whom inherit the violence of white supremacy and colonialism) and fittingly a lot of serial killers were clocked by women and PoC as dangerous, but cops —largely white men— dismissed their claims because look at this dude, he seems like an upstanding citizen! And that’s really how he got away.

And because his victims were people the system was less likely to believe because they both operated on the same biases, you see why a lot of cops who commit brutality are drawn to an institution where they’re given violent power over brown and/or queer communities who are labeled as ‘suspicious’, because they enjoy easy targets they know the system doesn’t care about, and are enraged by body cams and accountability.

It doesn’t matter if they’re intentionally bigoted, their support of an inherently bigoted institution makes them the same; Internalized biases and “I don’t see race” and all that. You see how Philip wanted to be a witch hunter —the prototypical cop who is not exclusively violent towards women but still has a clear slant— or colonial savior so bad, because his violence could be legitimized by the authority of the state.

He leans into it hardcore when he feels threatened by the presence of an outside girl who challenges the Christian narrative of Gravesfield, to the point of violence; It’s a position that validates killing anyone who doesn’t agree with him in general, hence Caleb and the Grimwalkers, but of course his and society’s biases slant towards women and PoC. And while it ultimately doesn’t matter whether he’s intentionally racist/misogynistic, it’s worth addressing that he very much does have the intention due to his blatant Conservative backdrop.

And seeing how charming Philip is and the portrayal of him as a little kid playing games in his youth, a perception Caleb might’ve still had which led to his death, I can see the direct line to families who find out their sons are school shooters and are in disbelief because he was such a nice kid! While ignoring the obvious Red Flags because white men are allowed to express these without being immediately scrutinized by the community, by having it brushed off. On some level cops don’t suspect him because he’s the same type of guy as them.

Part of that denial comes from the fact that he’s not an “unfeeling sociopath” who’s wired differently. Philip can feel empathy and guilt like anyone else, but he’s still a hateful prick and these aren’t mutually exclusive; Not when people can be perfectly selective about who they extend these feelings towards, or even do things in spite of these feelings, because other ones —anger and pride and hatred— exist and they choose to prioritize those. There’s an assumption that empathy and guilt inherently make you a good person, but they don’t; That ultimately comes from what you do about it, not how you feel.

You could even say Dana and the other writers wrote him too well, because true to life, we have a similar issue but on a micro-scale via the abstraction of fiction regarding a very dedicated fan base who loves to romanticize him and his actions, attributing his issues to some secret trauma in childhood, a young man failed by society! While also scrubbing him of his racism and misogyny and reliance on the status quo, to make him ‘apolitical’ and you can see the same not just with fans but also in society.

Because society doesn’t want to acknowledge serial killers as just the truth behind their white sons and the system that absolved and encourages them, because that would require them to admit their guilt in how they’re structured. Rather, they’ll say these men reflect some dark truth inherent to humanity, and don’t exist within a certain sociopolitical framework.

And so he was a ‘loner’ whose problems can be pathologized via mental illness, his trauma can be traced back to a specific incident in his youth he just couldn’t get over. So you see how school shooters are made into victims, how serial killers are also made apolitical and even alien to distance them from the status quo.

And then you can lean into how unusual they are by writing characters like Dexter or Hannibal Lecter, you can not just defend the system but feed into it via the commodification of their violence as entertainment and consumption, and thus fuel the white supremacy train by letting their violence towards women and minorities be praised as something fascinating and interesting and conveniently clean of bigotry. This is the dichotomy of the hypothetical, romanticized Fantasy Serial Killer, and the banal IRL Serial Killer.

Thus we have the same cycle of white men’s violence being praised and validated by the system, and white men feeling entitled to this fame as a delusional fantasy. Because you’ve never heard of a black serial killer; Because black people are violent, that’s just the way they are, right? But if white men are violent, this is sensationalized as somehow unusual and fascinating and worth dedicating countless books and shows and movies towards. Obviously.

And even going back to witch hunters, sometimes I wonder about the constant consideration of, What if witches did exist? What if they were evil? Things like The VVitch or The Conjuring series, which have some framing of the Salem Witch Trials’ IRL violence towards women as legitimate in another universe, because of Satanism’s genuine predatory threat towards women, and how evil women sacrifice theirs or others’ God-given gift of a child, and now threaten another white Christian family.

And again there’s the the demystifying of the real life witch hunter too when we have a historical reenactment declare verbatim that IRL witch hunters were motivated by economics and other banal factors, not by any genuine belief in the dangers of demons; And even in a setting where the demons were real, they were not the predatory threat IRL witch hunters made them out to be, and so their very real biases and ulterior motives still apply in cumulative insincerity.

Hence, the Titan correcting Luz by explaining Belos as someone who only cares about being the hero in his own delusion; The fascist wet dream of a hidden invader here to corrupt even young white men, an outside monster to vanquish and whose destruction justifies the state, when in reality the monster IS the state, and before he was even presented as a witch (much less the human truth), his system’s destruction was called for.

Ultimately, a lot of True Crime and similar narratives are criticized for focusing more on this apparently inevitable mystique behind the perpetrators, who warrant far more attention than their victims. So when the villain is an example of True Crime, it’s worth noting how the show is so much more focused on the ‘weirdoes’ he targets, on women and/or PoC. The lives of Luz Noceda and her friends, them getting along and their psychologies, are just so much more important, and it really isn’t about that guy, who is informed as much as he needs to be.

But again, the True Crime fans dilemma; People genuinely salty at the show for not focusing on their favorite serial killer and his troubled backstory, his tragic motives and Puritan repression. The framing of his murders and motives isolated through the lens of his violence on undeserving white men, and not on the out-group he is specifically targeting and has committed much more violence on, esp if you look at the narrative’s actual framing of his impact on our protagonists, but also other victims who are witches or demons, and even his own self-professed motives; Hence, ‘Fratricide Georg’ as a joke depoliticized of his colonial violence, a violence that is not just adjacent to but fulfilling racism.

Because he hallucinated only those white men out of guilt, but that’s his biased perspective and priorities; And so you see how this is contrasted with a refusal to empathize with people like the Collector or Luz, who are put into the same situations as his white male victims via shared cinematography, yet are just as rejected. Luz is only put into this situation as convenient to Belos’ narrative, the closest replacement to a white male human he can get, but again if this girl of color says No, he tries to murder her and even does.

Yet again, people take genuine, personal insult at the creator for finding Belos to be her least favorite character to write, while ignoring that she still found him necessary to the story she was trying to tell; She just found the framing and focus should’ve been shifted to his actual victims’ deep and meaningful lives, how they matter. So people hate that S3 cares more about Luz Noceda’s relationship with her parents of color, as well as her female mentor and demonic brother, or her queer relationship with her girlfriend, etc.

And even when they get a bone of white boy Hunter, it’s still not enough; Fans inevitably gather themselves into an almost frenzied state of personal victimization, rallying into harassment of PoC who criticize their portrayal and discussion around their colonial serial killer fave, organizing dedicated trends and months to giving their white men the focus they ‘deserved’, because this is just White fandom in general.

Look at the entitlement campaigns regarding Ben Solo or Billy Hargroves deserving better, these young white men violent to women and minorities. It’s just the same thing but on a micro-scale, at least filtered via fictional characters. But Jesus you see how internalized biases bleed into everything. You’ve never heard of a black serial killer and fandom doesn’t fight for characters of color.

[heyclickadee]

I mean, I’m just going to like the character and the ship more now.

[sinvilles]

I forgot I wrote a one-shot ages ago... context is Orel and Shapey went to visit Clay for the first time since he disappeared after the divorce (maybe a year out) and Orel brings up wanting to live with him on the farm. Danielle has to explain to Orel why that's not going to happen.

Sobriety AU, Orel is around 14ish here.

Danielle guides Orel out to the patio and takes a seat on the bench, gesturing for the boy to join him.

He lets him get comfortable before he drops the headline.

"You can't live with your dad."

A pause settles between the two of them on the bench.

"I just figured that... since he's better now... and he stopped drinking..." Orel trails off, with very little hope.

"He's sobered up..." Danielle sighs, "But that wasn't the only reason he had to leave you."

"Then... why else did he have to leave?"

"It isn't because he doesn't love you, Orel. Your dad has... problems."

"Nobody's perfect..." Orel shrugs, then catches himself. "Except for God."

"True, but your dad's problems make it so that he isn't..." Danielle chooses his words carefully. "Clay is not well equipped to be a very good father to you or Shapey."

Orel stares at the ground, despondent.

"You know this already, Orel. He's not even well equipped to have this talk with you, which is why I have to do it."

"Yeah..." Orel sighs.

"I'm sorry."

"But I can still come see him sometimes, like this?"

"Yes."

"Coach... how are you able to live with him?"

"Mmm. I suppose it's because I'm an adult, and I know how to handle his attitude. And because I'm a coach, I can keep him focused on his long-term goals, like staying off the sauce for good. But the average person might not be able to live with him, no."

Orel nods solemnly at this.

"Did you fall back in love with him?"

The darnedest questions, this kid asks.

"Well, Orel... looking back, I don't think I was really in love with your daddy. I thought he could fill a void in my life. But I didn't really know who he was."

"And now you really know him?"

"Yeah."

"What's different about him?"

"He's trying to be better. He needs somebody reliable to be on his side to motivate him. Even adults need that."

"Golly." Orel contemplates this. "Well, I guess you can't choose who you love."

Daniele seems to stare at something far behind Orel's head before sighing.

"No, Orel. Maybe you can't help who you're attracted to. But loving somebody is a kind of choice you make. Because it means you commit to being in their life and trying to do right by them."

He lets Orel take this in before continuing.

"And I'll admit, there are people who might say it's foolish of me to stand by someone like Clay."

"Because... you're two men?"

"No, because he's done very bad things and used to indulged in very dangerous habits- and so have I, if I'm being honest... But I chose him. And whether he keeps sober or relapses or recovers or falls to pieces, I'll continue to choose him until I change my mind or one of us dies."

Orel's stare prompts him to add an afterthought.

"And he's just... nice to have."

"And to hold?"

The swiftness with which the boy tossed him that statement threw him off. When the meaning registered, it made Danielle smile in spite of himself.

"Yeah... and to hold."

Orel smiles back at him.

"Well... it sure makes me feel better that he has you in his corner."

"I'll keep him out of trouble. Don't you worry your little head."

[welcometohellfilm]

Hi! I recently saw W2H2 part 1 and I must say it’s pretty amazing! Even better then the first one (which I loved btw), I know you anticipated that it wouldn’t have been full done, but I still wished the animation and the coloring were completed, like the first short. Nevertheless It has its charm anyway so good job, still amazing as always ! I just wanted to ask a few questions about Mephistopheles:

1) Is Mephistopheles actually capable of being evil and doing evil things as well ? Is he the type of guy that is usually pretty chill but can get REALLY angry if you piss him off? At the end of the first act, he said to Sock that he would fired him if he didn’t complete the job… did he mean literally “to fire him” (like burn or hurt him), or just meant “fired from the job” without causing him any harm? I am very curious about this character, I find him pretty charming and interesting! (I also love his character design)

2) How long will it be before the second and third parts of W2H2 release more or less (Months, years…)? And how long each part will be? Don’t wanna put preassure on you ofc , I’m just curious but I will be patient if that’s the case!

Thank you for this amazing little cartoon! I really love the plot and the characters and I look foward to see more! I hope you’ll reply soon and thank u again <33 (also sorry for my bad english but I am Italian eheh)

haha... yeah I'm getting that comment from a lot of people. But idk, when I look at the first short it looks pretty incomplete to me! Like to me, I think having better animation and less color is a decent trade-off, but I guess for a lot of people the color really did a lot of heavy-lifting. Anyway, I know it's a little disappointing, but my options were "call it good enough and post it", or "drive myself crazy working on it until I die", I know that sounds dramatic, and maybe I could've forced myself to finish at least throwing color on it, but I don't know, I didn't want to start resenting the thing I'm supposed to be passionate about. I kinda put myself between a rock and a hard place, didn't I? Sorry for the rant! I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway, haha. UHHH on to questions! 1. Mephistopheles is complicated. Or at least, I think he is, and I'm trying to figure out what that balance is. (I have an entire wordpad file full of notes/thoughts on Mephistopheles from one of my friends who's given a surprising amount of thought to the morality of the character that I'm gonna have to reference moving forward, haha). But as for my original thoughts on the character--- I don't consider him evil, but I think he's capable of doing things we would call 'evil', just like any human is. And like humans, he can be motivated by flawed, negative thoughts and feelings; spite, revenge, jealousy, whatever. But unlike humans he exists outside of space and time, and he's not a human himself, so his perception of morality is just different. The "you're fired" comment is meant to be a little confusing... like, you come to expect these stupid hell jokes from him, but then he clarifies "that wasn't a pun". And he's the devil, so maybe he's not joking. He COULD condemn Sock to hell. So that's the stakes of the story! If Meph is serious, Sock could be in a lot of trouble. We're not sure exactly how lenient he's going to be, or how trust-worthy he is. He's the devil! Toying with people is kind of his whole thing! haha. 2. It's not gonna' be another 10 years, that's for sure!!! Most of Part 2 is already rough animated (at least as much as Part 1 has been). There's still... one or two scenes that need more animation, and pretty much every shot of Shadow!Jonathan still needs to be done. It also needs more backgrounds, but there's FEWER backgrounds in Part 2 (Hell is just a re-usable Shadow-Realmy-y void), and a lot of the stuff from Jonathan's house can be re-used with different lighting. I'll have a better idea of the timeline once I sit down and crack it open again... and it's about to get kind of busy with the holidays and all, but it should be finished some time next year! Hopefully in the first half of 2025! I'll try to keep everyone posted. Anyway thanks for your questions! Hope this helped!

[artist-issues]

also, about Anakin—I distinctly remember realizing when I was first watching Star Wars that part of what makes Anakin’s relationship with Obi-Wan so compelling is that his love for Obi-Wan is as much forbidden as his love for Padme.

I mean, here’s this kid who’s too old to be trained as a Jedi, not because he’ll be prideful or have to catch up or anything, but because he’s old enough to have already learned how to get attached. And the Council was right; he never, ever unlearns that.

But the very first person aside from Padme that Padawan Anakin got attached to was Obi-Wan. And so all through his training, as he’s growing up and Obi-Wan is growing up too, Anakin is thinking “this is my guy. This is my older brother, this is my best friend, this is the only father I’ve ever known” and just recently discovered that someone like that (Qui-Gonn) can be killed and ripped away from you.

All through his training, that fierce attachment is growing, even more steadily than his love for Padme because he’s never separate from Obi-Wan…and the difference is, Obi-Wan shuts it down. It’s obvious that they love one another like brothers, but Obi-Wan never says it until Anakin is lying like chopped-up charred hibachi on the banks of Mustafar.

I mean, imagine having a father or older brother who you know loves you, but who refuses to say so? Except through his actions, almost in spite of himself?

And then imagine yourself as someone who never gets on board and believes in the code that says you can’t attach? So you know that your father-brother-figure is a hypocrite, about, like, the thing you think is the most important and also the stupidest part of the code?

Because he can’t say it! Because he’s supposed to be teaching Anakin not to get attached—what’s he gonna do, tell Anakin “I’m so glad you’re safe” every time they escape an adventure? Tell Anakin he doesn’t know what he’d do if he lost him? Remind Anakin that he cares? And then say “but attachment is bad. Trust the Force.” No, he’s not going to do that. He’s going to keep that aloof-thing going, even though Anakin knows Obi-Wan loves him.

So Anakin, a very dramatic young man who likes his declarations of affection super up-front, never gets that from Obi-Wan. And he’s so sensitive in the Force, and they’re so connected for such a long time—he must be feeling, constantly, that Obi-Wan loves him too. But Obi-Wan never says it. And even though Anakin knows why, it’s a constant source of frustration, because Anakin doesn’t actually respect the code and he doesn’t see why Obi-Wan does.

So constantly, Anakin feels like Obi-Wan is hiding affection for him, or withholding it. Keeping something good for him back. He’s feeling like Obi-Wan is, on some level, a little two-faced. He’s feeling like Obi-Wan’s willing enough to save his life and stick up for him—clearly Obi-Wan is attached—but coming out and saying it? Admitting it: “hey little bro, I know you’re attached to me but you have to stop; it’s not the Jedi way. I know how you feel, I’m attached to you too—we’ll just have to figure that out together?”

No, he never does that. Not until it’s way too late, and Anakin has already conflated Obi-Wan’s refusal to express their bond out loud with how deceitful and two-faced the Jedi are, and they have to be enemies.

which, you know, understandable, considering who Obi-Wan is as a character. but still.

Yeesh. I love this character, I feel like he was when I first started thinking about the tangled web of character motivations and conflicts, but the poor guy.

[physalian]

The Hero with Dead Parents is not Cliché, it’s Necessary

The staggering number of protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy with dead parents grows every single year. Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker (before the retcon in ESB), almost every Disney Prince and Princess, the Baudelaire children. Beyond the realm of fantasy into action, thriller, romance, mystery, slice-of-life, and bildungsromans.

Dead parents, or parent, is the curse of being the hero of the story and for a very good reason:

Parents are inconvenient as f*ck.

Unless the mom and/or dad is the villain of the story or the entire story is about the relationship with the parent/parents, the “dead parent” trope serves many purposes and while it may be “cliché” that doesn’t mean this trope is bad or, in my opinion, overused.

It’s one less liability the hero has to worry about protecting

It’s one less obstacle in the hero’s path to their adventure

It’s one (or two) less characters to find excuses to stay relevant in the story

It’s a juicy backstory a lot of people can relate to

Trauma. Is. Compelling.

It’s an excellent motivation

And their murder is an excellent inciting incident

Living parents and guardians get killed off both for internal plot reasons, and meta writing reasons: Living parents are a pain in the ass to keep up with. You’re stuck with a character your hero should still keep caring about, keep thinking about, keep acting in relation to how their actions will be seen and judged by that parent. That parent becomes an obvious liability by any villain who notices or cares.

Living parents can of course be done well, unless they’re the villain, but they just kind of sit there on the fringes of the plot, waiting around to be relevant again and they kind of come in four flavors:

There when the plot demands for pie and forehead kisses (Sally from Percy Jackson)

A suffocating but well-meaning obstacle in between the character and their independence trying to do right (Abby from The 100, Katniss’ mom from Hunger Games, Spirit from Soul Eater)

A mentor figure (Valka from HTTYD 2, Hakoda from ATLA)

The only rock this character has left (Ping from Kung Fu Panda)

*Notice how many of my examples lost their partners shortly before or during the plot, thus still giving the hero the “dead parent” label.

Most of these are self-explanatory so I’ll say this:  I think this trope gets exhausting when the parents are written out without enough emotional impact on the hero. These are their parents and a lot of the time, the emotional toll of losing them isn’t there, like just slapping a “dead parents” sticker is all you need to justify a character’s tragic backstory and any behavioral issues they might have.

Like, yes, the hero has dead parents, but you still have to tell me what that means to them beyond obligate angst and sadness. When the “dead parents” trope reads as very by-the-numbers, usually the rest of the story is, too.

How present the parents were in the character’s life should be proportional to the death’s impact on the narrative (as with any character you kill off). If they were virtually nonexistent? No need to waste a ton of time. If they didn’t matter to the character before, they don’t need to matter now unless the plot revolves around some knowledge or secret their parent never shared.

Sometimes, the hero’s dead parents are a non issue. Frodo being raised by Bilbo doesn’t impact his character at all. It’s a detail given and tossed away. On the other hand, sometimes the entire centerpiece of the work is revenge/justice/catharsis surrounding the parent’s death—Edward and Alphonse Elric’s entire story is defined by the consequences of trying to bring their mother back from the dead.

As someone who kept one of my protagonist’s parents alive and didn’t make them villains just to spite the trope, I have all the more respect for this enduring legacy of fiction. You can of course keep the parents alive, but I don't think it's seen as lazy or cheating or taking a shortcut just killing them off, so long as you remember that your hero is human and should react to losing them like a real person.

[goldeaglefire1]

so. played the Pristine Cut a few days ago (not the first time I've played Slay the Princess, for the record; I actually got into it like a month ago and have kinda just. lurked in the background, not making any posts about it. so uh. hi guys) and. GOD this game is good for so many reasons, with even more reasons being added by the Pristine Cut, and I know a lot of people have made posts about how good Happily Ever After is already, but, since I haven't seen anyone post about it from the angle I'm looking at it...y'all mind if I ramble about how good the Happily Ever After route is from a narrative perspective. trick question, I wasn't asking; I'm going to ramble about how good the Happily Ever After route is from a narrative perspective.

so! let's talk about the Damsel for a minute. this is all fairly obvious stuff but stick with me here; we need to lay the groundwork for the main discussion. the Damsel, from a purely Doylist perspective, is the archetypical "damsel in distress" trope - the girl at the end of the villain's lair who has no agency of her own and exists purely as a reward for the hero completing his journey and beating up the villain (before you get mad, I know the Damsel is not actually like this in-universe, and that fact is actually a surprise tool that will help us later, but, again, looking at this from a purely Doylist perspective: outside the world of Slay the Princess, not in it) - fundamentally, she's there to make you happy. the Shifting Mound changes based on perception, and by treating her as the archetypical damsel in distress in Chapter 1, she actually becomes one come Chapter 2, with all her hard, unconventional edges like, to pick a random example here, "the capacity to horrifically self-mutilate herself," being sanded away for a perfect storybook ending. that's what you wanted, after all.

and, if you take everything at face value, that's exactly what you get! if you follow the Voice of the Smitten's advice and completely ignore the Narrator's nonsense about how she'll "end the world" or something, you will get exactly what you asked for, because, well. that's all there is to it! there is no deeper story here, it's just "hero saves princess, the end," end scene, move on to the next princess. but that's the Damsel route, and we're here to talk about the Happily Ever After route. and in order to properly get the Happily Ever After route, you have to horribly fuck up the extremely simple narrative presented before you. so, how do you do that? two ways - either try to question the princess's character and see what underlying motives she has, or, the method I'm choosing to focus on (both because it's the one I got when I first got the Happily Ever After route and because it better illustrates my point) - when you get near the end of the Damsel's story, right as you're about to get your Happily Ever After...you listen to the Voice of the Hero. because while the Smitten may be ignoring literally everything the Narrator says, the Hero has not been doing that, and quite frankly has some concerns about the potential end of the world thing. if she really can end the world...well, she just wants to make us happy, right? so surely nothing will go wrong if you just decide to stay in the cabin forever! it's a perfect compromise!

spoiler alert: it is not a perfect compromise. it is in fact as far from a perfect compromise as you can possibly get. makes sense, really, as there are no real compromises in Slay the Princess - you can either choose to trust the Narrator in any given route, trust the Princess in any given route, or you can choose, to quote the Contrarian in the Apotheosis, the third option that nobody wants. and the only two times the third option is any good is, well, when you're very intentionally spiting both parties - hi Contrarian - and when there's an actual third party you can appeal to, as is the case at the end of the game. every other time? you will be massively punished by the narrative for trying to find another option. try the "let's keep the princess in the cabin" maneuver in chapter 1? you get the Nightmare. try to be a smartass and avoid the "slay the princess/save the princess" issue altogether? you get the Stranger.

hell, every chapter 3 is ultimately the result of you not playing the role you're supposed to in the narrative (aside from the Razor who forces you to go to a chapter 3 no matter what but she doesn't count). if you play the role you're given in chapter 2, you'll be fine! for example - did you get the Spectre? congratulations! you get the Voice of the Cold, a cold-blooded killer - except, hmm...the princess is already dead, so no one to kill there...but there is the Narrator, who you're fairly mad at for the frankly terrible reward for doing your damn job, so how do you kill him? easy - take the princess out into the world and let her world-destroying properties do the job for you. did you get the Beast? congratulations! you get the Voice of the Hunted, a meek prey animal trying to avoid a massive predator...except, well, bad news, boss - you're the only food around here, so you're going to have to get eaten. sorry man. did you get the Nightmare? congratulations! you get the Voice of the Paranoid, a nervous wreck who, frankly, does NOT want to be here, and, well. honestly, do you expect to be able to save the world? the fact that you're even managing to stand up next to this eldritch abomination is a miracle; you might as well just let her out, because, frankly, who would blame you? and so on and so forth.

the Damsel's narrative is extremely simple. you get the Voice of the Smitten, a classic, overly dramatic, simple hero to match the simple princess you're given. your job is to swoop in, sweep her off her feet, and leave. that's it. that is all there is to it. the Narrator's talk about her ending the world does not fit into this narrative, so you have to discard it. after all, why would the hero release a world-ending monster into the world? that's preposterous! he must be lying, obviously. but, by giving the Narrator the benefit of a doubt, or trying to dig deeper into the Damsel's narrative role and find depth when there is none, you expose the cracks in that narrative...and chief among those cracks is that the Damsel is not the simple character her narrative role wants her to be.

I'm not going to do a full character analysis on the Damsel because that's not the point of this post, but even on the most surface-level reading, the Damsel has two very clear desires - she wants to make you happy, and she wants to be free. and, yeah, that's fairly straightforward, but it's more than nothing, which, ah, doesn't exactly bode well. after all, the Damsel's narrative role is that of the damsel in distress, a role most known for, very notably, having no agency, and here you are, dangling her freedom right in front of her face and snatching it away, and quite frankly, that sucks! she wants to be free! she wants to be free a LOT more than she wants to make some stranger she barely knows happy, and while normally those two desires have no conflict with each other, now they do, and while the chapter 1 princess could have done something about this situation and gone Nightmare on your ass, being a blank slate as far as the narrative goes, that's not an option anymore - you've locked her into her narrative role, now, and as a damsel in distress, she can't do shit. the worst she can do is be mildly upset but otherwise have zero objections to your proposal

luckily (or, well, unluckily depending on your point of view), that's enough for you to get your proper comeuppance in the form of Smitten. poor, poor Smitten - unlike the Damsel, he really is as simple as he appears to be on the surface. even on other routes, he is always, always madly in love with the princess, no matter how she looks or acts, and all he wants is to make her happy. a simple character for a simple narrative, who, conveniently, is NEVER forced to question the Princess' role in that narrative...until now. until you forced the fact that she is NOT the simple damsel she's supposed to be directly in his face, and that she's unhappy with your decision, well. that can't be right. she can't be unhappy, we're supposed to make her happy no matter what! something's clearly wrong here - it can't be the princess, because blaming the princess for anything is inherently not an option for Smitten; it's not in his nature. it can't be us, or at least he can't figure out how it could be us, because he's a simple character for a simple narrative, and the thought of "dangling the princess's freedom in front of her and then taking it away is a massive dick move" doesn't even occur to him, because he doesn't realize that's what we were doing. so...it must be something else. maybe the Narrator, who's been describing her as this world-ending abomination when she's clearly a maiden in need of rescue, or this cabin, because, well, why would a princess be in a cabin? she need a proper castle, obviously! he can fix this, surely, there has to be some solution here, he can make this work again...and it all begins by bearing out his heart.

or, rather, YOUR heart. which, you know, kills us. everything goes dark, and we die, etc., onto the new chapter! or epilogue, if you want to go by the title card. welcome to Happily Ever After, the reward you deserve! you goddamn bastard. this route is effectively Smitten's attempt to fix the narrative you broke - and, in many ways, his efforts can be compared to the OTHER route you get by breaking the narrative of the Damsel, that being the Burning Grey. in that route, you kill the Damsel, and, well, that very obviously breaks the narrative, so when Smitten kills you in retaliation and a new world is formed, the Damsel, now the titular Burning Grey, tries to fix it. much like Smitten can't blame her, she can't blame you, because her narrative role doesn't allow it, and she doesn't blame herself, because she did literally nothing to deserve that (aside from like. the fact that she killed you that one time but frankly if you hold that against her that's a bit of a dick move), so she comes to the same conclusion that there must be an external force responsible for derailing the story. the difference between Smitten here and the Burning Grey is the solutions they come up with: the Burning Grey, fundamentally, is part the Shifting Mound, the embodiment of change, rebirth, and death. so, naturally, the solution she comes up with is to burn down the cabin with both herself and us inside, finally being together with her love forever. by melting together her and our flesh. which, you know, sucks, but at the very least the death is...relatively quick?

the Happily Ever After route does not give you or the Princess the luxury of death. after all, Smitten is not a part of the Shifting Mound, but a part of you - the Long Quiet, the embodiment of stasis and stagnation. killing you or the princess doesn't even occur to him as an option - at least, it doesn't now that he's outside of you. and while this allows him to get something much closer to what we would associate with a happy ending, it falls apart fast. the same feasts over and over again, growing more stale and bland with time, the same games over and over again, excitement dulling into boredom as you play repeatedly with no end in sight...it's not Happily Ever After, not even close, but it's the best he can manage. after all, isn't this what you wanted? you DID save the princess, and Smitten is a simple character for a simple narrative, so, this is the only option he can think of outside of riding off into the sunset with our beloved. so, this has to be what you wanted, right?

and as for the princess? well, if she was locked by the narrative before, it's even worse now with Smitten. after all, as far as she's concerned, Smitten is us, so all she knows is that, after we dangled her freedom in front of her and took it away, and she showed even the slightest bit of resistance in response, we proceeded to make her already bad situation into a living goddamn nightmare. so, yeah, she is terrified of what could possibly happen if she shows she isn't happy with this, so she's quick to smother any and all signs of dissatisfaction in the hopes that, as long as she seems happy with all this, you can't make this worse somehow. the MOST she does in terms of resistance is wear the Pristine Blade as a necklace, which is honestly more of a vague hope of "if you won't let me free from this cabin alive, then maybe at the very least you'll let me free from this cabin in death? please? on god?"

and, well, you could in fact do that. or, hell, if you REALLY feel like being an asshole, you could decide to NOT break the facade at all. but if you really want to make it up to the princess? if you realize how badly you've fucked up and want to actually make up for your mistakes? you have to let her actually express her discomfort. you have to give her back the agency she's been denied by the narrative - the agency you took away in the first place. and once she finally has that back...she cries. in relief, because she's finally free from the hell you put her in, in sorrow because, despite it all, the facade of a happy ending was nice while it lasted, in a mix of both with the tears she'd been unable to shed for so, so long...and, at the end of the day, despite having every right to hate you...she doesn't. because you DID set her free, in the end. you realized your mistakes, you learned and changed as a person, and you actually made things right, so even though you might have made her life a living nightmare...she's willing to give things a fresh start. and whether you decide to amicably part ways or start something new together, at long last, she'll finally have her chance to dance under the stars.

this is a love story.