#tagging this just in case bc it’s relevant >>>>

[paper-lilypie]

Last Line Challenge

Rules - In a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many as you like.)

Tagged by: @vurelly

Last line:

Better late than never.

Last art:

a scene for @okiedoketm’s time travel One Piece fic KANGVCD :))

I’m tagging @daunsun @amberluvsbugs @spookyuu @miamibice aaaaaand @noomimoomi HAVE FUN!!!!

[phantasm-echo]

Probably my favourite scene from the premiere, she was so based for kicking that droid

[heartcircus]

okay, so . the IOUs zam owes from last season:

initially, they were offered to reddoons, squiddo, 4c, and spep in exchange for their blessings/curses in the "a deal with the princezam" stream and the "deals deals deals!" stream. around this time, zam supposedly gave these same offers, while off stream, to pangi, jaron, and terrain as well.

woogie was then later offered 1 IOU when zam first revealed that he was playing on pangi's account, requesting that he didn't tell anyone about it. after that, the only other deal made that i could find was to leo for his login info on the final day.

out of all of those deals, only 5 accepted and actually completed their end of the deal. those being red, pangi, woogie, spep, and leo. red and spep's offers were bumped from 1 IOU to 3 during negotiations. however due to spep betraying during the big pb&j vs. playersTM fight, spep’s was lowered back down to 1. pangi's was done off stream but purely based on context i assume it's only 1 IOU? (or they traded login info ? idk it's one of the two).

during the finale, zam also mentioned that he offered 2 more IOUs to red if he logged on immediately to curse jumper with glowing (1:23:27 in "the finale day" roshambo vod (may 25th)) . yea .

so, from what i can gather: zam owes reddoons something between 3-5 IOUs, spep 1, pangi 1, woogie 1, and leo 1.

[fridayyy-13th]

so like the cases in each episode are relevant to the things the OIAR employees talk about, right, like Chester and Norris trying to communicate as best they can through their contents (Alice’s “what do you want? hm? who’s in there?” in ep 21 followed by the next case’s “we are[…]alone, so alone[…]help need out” in ep 22, etc etc etc).

i would like to make a guess on the contents of the next case: something that seems dead, but is in fact alive in some twisted way or another.

or it may be something more relevant to Alice and Gwen’s conversation, idk. we’ll see i suppose.

[classical-vanity]

Tagged by my lovely @thecynical-idealist, thanks so much S🫶🏻

Describe yourself ONLY with pictures you have. You cannot search or download new pictures.

I tag: @devaneiossuspensos @desideria @the-3rd-of-may @sophism @455u @margaritawithouthermaster @chapricot

[matrixwhore]

bare with me bc im fatigued but unable to sleep so i’m just here thinking and need to get my thoughts out, but i think much of louis’ passivity stems from his relationship with his mother and family. we don’t really see him become passive until claudia arrives. please correct me if i’m wrong but i believe that side of him is awakened once that traditional family structure is solidified in his home and i think the du lac family has a lot to do with why he’s like that and not just that he’s incapable of acting or choosing.

i see him and i see the child/mother that doesn’t want to repeat his mother’s failings on his own family but takes it so far to the extreme that it means he refuses to confront anything ever bc he feels he’s communicating the unconditional love he never received. he really is someone who wants the ones in his life to know they can be loved through anything. whether or not people receive it in the way he gives it i don’t think should be put on his shoulders as much it is.

he doesn’t have healthy understanding of discipline/consequences bc he was punished for things he couldn’t help like his queer identity. it doesn’t really seem like growing up he got into much trouble, again correct me if im wrong. other than paul his pimping isn’t really admonished by the du lacs bc it affords them their lifestyle. they are willing to distance themselves from it bc they get the house and the staff and the honeymoon trips etc. but they won’t overlook who he is. and it outweighs anything else. and that’s a weird thing to process being punished for bc the only thing you can do is deny yourself. but they know. so you hiding it and they know and they show you they disapprove even if you’re trying to play by their rules. it creates a complex.

then there’s paul. he’s the only one who really took it on to take care of paul and establish a relationship with him. i think florence probably didn’t push back against his institutionalization and grace seems to agree he belonged there. louis was the only one who saw how it negatively impacted paul. he loved paul that was his favorite person and then he killed himself and florence blames him for simply being there. this is where he starts to go from the favored son to the scapegoat which is a fucked transition to experience and i think its super underestimated how badly louis is impacted by it. it also happens when he starts to openly entertain lestat so it’ll never matter that his last moments with paul were expressions of love bc his all florence sees is that he’s been acting in sin and so of course he must of done and said something to kill her baby who he was raising and caring for in her place btw. when paul was upset he went to louis not florence. the last thing he ever said to paul was he loved him and he still died and florence blames him for it. he’s always punished for loving as far as he’s concerned.

then he does make “a choice” to become an immortal monster/companion/wife, which given all the circumstances is very much not much of a choice on his part, but he decides to go with what he wants and that choice is at the center of the unraveling of almost all the things he cares about and links to his human identity. and he clings to his human identity so i believe that fucks with his ability to trust his own decision making for sure. it’s the loss of his role in his family slowly but surely and everything he did he did for them. he always struggles with his decisions about how he supports his family and how he copes w the impact it has on his community. so if in choosing his own desire to love and be loved for once strips him of his family and his community what does that say about the decisions he made along the way? what was it all for? and then on top of that he didn’t even know what he was choosing in choosing immortality with lestat. he’s rocked by being faced with the reality of his choice so much so that he forgot his brother died for a moment. he’s probably developed an inability to take a step in any direction bc every step leads to a new rock bottom and he doesn’t trust himself anymore. that’s a very real thing that happens.

so how does that manifest when he has his own lil nuclear family?? well

with claudia he doesn’t ever want her to feel like she could ever lose his love for her for any reasons. like his family showed him. so bc his own punishments were correlated with who he was and not things he did really i don’t think he’s able to see disciplining claudia as guiding her towards better actions i think he sees it as punishing her for being as she is which he blames himself for and also for loving (where charlie is concerned but i’ll get to that…). it was his choice to bring her into this life so how can he trust himself beyond loving her unconditionally. that’s what he wants so that’s what he gives. claudia does what she does bc she’s a vampire and she didn’t choose that. he did. so he retreats when the consequences of that crop up and becomes passive. he doesn’t want to take a step in any direction on top of the patriarchal structure that the father is the law of the house, but then charlie happens.

claudia didnt kill charlie out of maliciousness. it was young love with all the demanding of the insatiable hunger of a vampire. even lestat recognizes that she got carried away so to louis punishing her or even makeing her feel bad for the action was too deeply entwined with punishing her for loving at all and that is a sensitive thing for him. he doesn’t handle it better than lestat that’s not what i’m saying what i’m saying is he doesn’t have the tools to guide her through this. what he has is the desperation to not repeat what harmed him growing up. it’s after this that he decides lestat cannot be the law of the household where claudia is concerned until he realizes his approach seriously blinded him to the fact that claudia ,yes is a doomed child vampire, but she’s a doomed child vampire making decisions and her actions have serious consequences for all of them and he doesn’t have the tools to guide. he can love her through anything, but how can he of all people really guide her. this isn’t as simple as no running in the house and listen to your elders. the mother is learning her daughter is her own person (and vampire) not an extension of her and with character traits like her father too. (plus the mother has to realize that she can’t heal herself through her daughter) whew. so louis decides to step back and to let lestat be the law again and then claudia LEAVES and on her way out she challenges his decision to turn her at all (with good reason. these two vampires should not be raising a baby!!) louis is literally so distraught he wants her to come home but he can’t bring himself to go after her and bring her home. he doesn’t want to take a step!! he doesn’t want to decide. it never leads to what he thinks it will. i don’t think he believes he can trust himself to make good choices. so he loves her unconditionally on broadcast for every vampire within radio earshot to hear because that’s what he can do. thennnn she’s harmed while she’s gone and i’m sure he’s feels in a way responsible. he wanted to be her protector so badly (when actually she’s his but i’ll get to that in a bit) and wasn’t able to. and of course there’s that scene™️ in ep5 with being put in a position where he was pressured to choose between lestat and claudia and because it LOOKED like he MIGHT choose claudia and because he didn’t IMMEDIATELY choose lestat disaster ensued. that’s a lot. fuck.

and when the nature of his relationship with claudia shifts more to siblings because she’s getting older, wants more agency and claudia realizes she is also a replacement for grace, this is where the passiveness that is the result of his relationship with grace developed. bc while its true claudia takes over for grace, she is the sister to louis that grace never ever was. on top of the fact that her solution for their issues was “you’re dead to me,” grace never actually accepted and supported his queer identity truly like claudia and she definitely never protected him like claudia either (defending mama du lac in regards to paul comes to mind and also her husband being the replacement son). and louis needs and wants both those things as well as someone who won’t abandon him like grace did and he let’s claudia be them but takes it to the extreme where the last two are concerned. Louis doesn’t think he can save himself from his situation and claudia believes she can save herself and him. she isn’t gonna leave him behind. he leans into that heavily. it’s not just that he can’t and won’t make choices to get them out of their situation it’s also that he’s traumatized by his past choices and also he’s also loving lestat unconditionally as well on top of that (in the way he’s able to). i don’t think louis could see a way out like at all. he was shrouded in darkness. the best he could do was compartmentalize his love for lestat to protect himself when things were at their worst that was his flashlight in that darkness. but like when it was necessary for the success of the plan that he allow himself to love lestat fully he said if i feel it there’s no way out of this fr fr. he knew he wouldn’t make good choices. choosing lestat is the decision he will always make for better or worse. but that’s at the expense of claudia on top of choking her.

like idk we joke about his inability to make decisions but that trait in him is drenched with trauma. and his family is a huge part of why imo. i just get so upset when i think about them. i really rambled on and on here. not sure how much sense this makes but i guess this ties into my feelings about this as well. but yeah not choosing as a trauma response and not just as a way to get out of confronting his problems even tho that is a symptom. if that makes sense. idk. my brain is mash potatoes right now.

[desperatepleasures]

for months I've been thinking about how whatever my next fic ends up being is going to introduce the Chubby Kantarou tag into the ao3 ecosystem but now I'm strongly considering just. not tagging it at all and just acting as if readers should expect it. do you think I could gaslight pple into thinking that that's widespread fanon and not just my own personal headcanon? do you think I could gaslight readers from outside the fandom into thinking it's canon? not tagging it could grant me unspeakable power....

[mikodrawnnarratives]

Probably unpopular opinion:

I would have preferred Narcissa to get the "some people were always meant to be villains" plot line and Magpie to get the actual plot relevance ngl

[stardustdiiving]

My friend today was like you know fern I think your genshin favs are really funny because to me they’re all very tame green flags that have good vibes and then there’s zhongxiao which everyone hates. And I was like. WELL…..YES….SNUCHFJFJCNC

[hauntingblue]

I love this movie about.... zoro's past boyfriend being taken over by a curse

[obstinaterixatrix]

see like 90% of the time I fall off a series when there’s an extended flashback but mdzs is like half flashback and gripped me by the throat the entire time and I think it’s because the flashbacks were context for the relationship (and contradicting wwx’s biases) (lol), like there was context for politics and worldbuilding but it was done mostly with the relationship as a focal point… meanwhile with uncanny charm there was a flashback with the brother and his little brother and the underworld guy which is all tangentially related to the main character but that was like. 7+ weeks without the mc + li like if I’m reading a romance I’m reading it for the romance. and I need to get back into legend of the fox bead which had like, I dunno, 6 weeks of li backstory but it’s not context I particularly care about because it’s primarily relationship context with the li + someone from the past, which does give an idea for why the li is who she is and also why she’s a spirit, but if I’m honest, I don’t particularly care. I think mdzs did it best because it’s very frustrating for the reader but still pulls you in, it’s a good balance of tension + momentum and it’s all relevant. a while ago a pal told me ‘yeah a lot of people hated the novel’s structure’ & I was like ‘????? tasteless. enjoy the hostile puzzle feeder of mxtx’s narrative.’

[lanliingwang]

jiang ziya and arjuna having a wuxia/xianxia-esque rooftop fight...all the hints of ship tease that can be involved too...

(in the context of the AU I mentioned before, it's their first meeting bc of a mutual misunderstanding,, they do clear it up over tea and dinner at a nearby inn later though! and their relationship develops from there)

[turtle-trash]

I don’t have the mental capacity to draw it out on my phone nor do I want to pull out my sketchbook to draw it but. I think another type of Ecolo and Ringo dynamic that I think is neat is a Betelgeuse and Lydia type dynamic (just. Yknow. Not weird and gross), to elaborate it’s kinda like. A mix of the cartoon and musical versions (listen to say my name. It’s so them core [to me at least])

[don’t tag as Ship pls. Saying just in case]

[activatingaggro]

3, 9, and 15 from the fantroll ask meme!

3. Which of your fantrolls is your favorite? Why?

I started answering this FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO and then never finished it, so tossing this out of my drafts four fucking years later. Luckily, my answer has not changed, hahaha.

SIPARA: because she’s an extra, extra doll, and a fascinating chance to write someone who loves plenty of people, but whom is ruthless enough to fuck you over without hesitation anyway, and who - despite that - is still such a fucking kid. Sipara’s the most sheltered and the most genuinely young of my fantrolls, which’s fucking delightful to me.

She has the biggest ambitions of any of my characters! She has the worst intentions of any of my characters. Sipara wants to change the word for the betterment of her people. She sees society’s flaws, and she thinks she knows how to fix them, but the world that she holds is a better one wouldn’t be better for anyone but she and hers. And she’s fine with it, because as far as she’s concerned, they’re the people that matter. She’s going to make things better, for them and for everyone that comes after them.

Even if she has to sacrifice them, or sacrifice herself, to guarantee it.

PHERES: My second fave! Pheres is a conglomerate of every fucking disaster I knew in my adolescense, shaken up thoroughly with some altruism and self-loathing. Pheres is familiar as an old shoe to me and super fucking easy to write. He’s not sympathetic, but he’s nostalgic.

And he’s also my favorite character for the fact - Sipara doesn’t particularly change over time! She’s been the same person she will always be from age six to age twenty four, but Pheres is malleable. He changes with his circumstances, and as a result, the Pheres that existed in 2015, at the start of play, is not entirely the same character as the Pheres of 2022. Their core is the same, but their goals, their dreams, what they’re willing to do to achieve them, and at the core of it, how much they value themselves has changed as he’s grown and healed up over time.

Which of your fantrolls have developed ancestors?

MEDEIA DYSSEU/CUCKOO: anxious, eager-to-please, wants to be your FRIEND ancestor of Pheres Dysseu/Rmeros Cuckoo, functionally speaking. Former helmsman that got picked up by the Summoner’s rebellion. She used her knowledge of the industry to infiltrate Daedal’s university of helming by getting hired on as her personal assistant. Unfortunately, when the rebellion sprung to life, Daedal realised that Medeia was a spy. Imperial soldiers arrived, Medeia was killed..

.. and in the split moment between life and death, she discovered her bodyhopping abilities, fleeing into Daedal’s body. After that, it’s ambiguous what happened! “Daedal” was revealed as a spy, and executed. Medeia was presumed dead in the process. It might even be true.

Medeia’s linked in with Rmeros and Pheres, thematically in their desire to survive, but while Rmeros has limits and Pheres has martyrdom carved into his soul, Medeia was willing to do anything to stay alive. Morals are something you can’t witter over if you’re dead.

It makes her really fun in the hemoswap AU, which is a side setting we end up writing every six months or so. In that, the Summoner’s revolution succeeds, the hemospectrum is overthrown, and through murderous political gambits, the Dysseu/Cuckoo lineage ends up at the top of the heap. Medeia’s a kind, well-intentioned leader of the species that has presented herself as a god to the population.. and having stolen one descendants’ body already, has kept and raised her remaining two descendants as additional manifestations of her divinity, a trinity-esque Three in One. What does not live cannot die, and the Sun does not live, for it is fucking eternal.

Her descendants are less than keen on their role as spare parts, but Medeia’s my favorite ancestor for the different flavour of dystopia she offers. "They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas.”  What are characters willing to sacrifice for a world that benefits them? What should they be willing to sacrifice?

DAEDAL: Sipara’s ancestor, a grouchy, apathetic Ron Swanson-esque bioengineer who helped found the field of interstellar helming, and ran a major university in her time. Had a blueblood matesprit in space, had Medeia as her sidepiece, and was hemoloyal enough that her death-by-bodysnatching was kind of inevitable.

Daedal doesn’t really have much of a deal! She’s Sipara without the social connections, and without the inherent altruism that powers at least some of Sipara’s motives. Sipara values those around her, even if she’s fucked up about it - Daedal doesn’t, and Daedal views those around her ultimately as tools to be used. The only person that matters to Daedal is, ultimately, Daedal, with the end result being that she dies alone and betrayed.

BONESEER: Riccin’s ancestor, a wandering yellowblood who lived in an area that thought psionics were magic. They got plucked up by a circus, put on display, escaped.. and ever since then, lived in the woods as a witch, selling fortunes and making threats. They think they’re a tree. They are entirely sincere in this belief! There’s two or three drabbles on the backburner focused in on them and Sayiid, but I am absolutely marvelous at posting drabbles, so those will likely never see the light of day, hahaha.

Other ancestors..

ID does not have an ancestor, because he’s a random slurry output - and a troll with a face that looks like a good third of the kids in Temasek as a result, oops - but he has a currently living descendant living in one of the IEP’s creches, an unnamed Conetl from his first-and-only genetic contribution. He intentionally does not think about this, because that’ll involve figuring out a way to blow up the IEP again. Eventually, there will probably be an offshoot bloodline technically descended from Vadaya and ID, and the IPC will be very excited, and the IEP will be fucking outraged, but that won’t be anytime in play.

Calico Kuanfu is in a weird position. The Kuanfu bloodline is technically fairly common! To be named Calico from the Rickshaws’ associated caverns, a troll has to sport specific markings and come from one of several bloodlines, while falling close enough to a set range of navy that the rickshaw guardian won’t reject them. As a result, Kua doesn’t really think much about ancestors or descendants in the traditional way. Every Calico before him, despite having come from several different bloodlines over the sweeps, is his ancestor -- and every Calico that comes after him will be his descendant.

Those random Kuanfu motherfuckers, however, are just strangers blessed with an unusually gorgeous visage. =:V

With that said, he is technically an ancestor, in that the latest Calico pupa was dropped off on the Rickshaw while he was in space, and he didn’t discover it quickly enough to drown the kid before his lusus got attached. He is very pissy about this. He is so incredibly pissy about this.

Melete Etheri’s ancestor is Reba’s character, Nomizo! She’s very close to a direct descendant, with only a minor amount of genetic contribution from others, but Nomizo has always objected to that classification. His psionics are astral projection: hers are incorporality, weaker and ultimately more useless to the organisation, as well as just in general. Their relationship has always been fairly toxic. If they weren’t both bound to the IPC, it’d probably have turned murderous.

But thankfully, they’re just kind of fucking stuck dealing with each other instead. Much to their own resentment, but also to the regret and resentment of every poor fucking soul that gets in between them.

Liyiji’s ancestor is Sayiid! Hatched in the late days of the Blue Republic, and in the dim light before the Empire’s rise, she started off life as a tealblood bards’ squire along the coastline. When the Empire rose, the Blue Republic fell, and their people were scattered. Sayiid fled to the sea, taking on the life of a pirate and mercenary. In the early nights of the Empire, when even the oldest rickshaws were still just glorified boat towns, she formed and then led one of the largest pirate coalitions, dodging the Leviathan as she harried those brave or foolish enough to risk the deep waters. Her name was at every lip on the southern coast. Her people’s blade would end up at every throat on the southern seas.

Then her moirail died, compelled or drawn or lost to the horrors beneath the sea, and Sayiid lost her fucking mind. She abandoned her coalition, cast away her people, tore the symbol from her chest and the braids from her head. Death did not grace her early. She died at an old age for a blueblood, and Liyiji - her only descendant so far - views her as the biggest fucking embarrassment for an ancestor that any troll could be unlucky enough to have.

In between his living in her boat, using her weapon, copying her clothes, and viciously defending her in every historical debate that inevitably pops up when his coworkers note his last name. It’s hard to resent someone almost as much as you idolise them, and he’s not really pulling it off.

[daz4i]

could dr. ratio originally be from the laurel wreath galaxy?

this is a repost of a theory i posted yesterday, now slightly more clean and properly tagged 🙏

in case you don't know, the laurel wreath galaxy (possibly a mistranlsation of "star system", if that changes anything) was supposedly destroyed during the emperor's wars. information about it is scattered throughout the game in very scarce ways. later i elaborate on how it went down in a more detailed way!

1. so let's get the most obvious detail out of the way first: he wears a laurel wreath 👍 at least a partial one (one leaf for every phd. maybe one day he'll reach a full head 😩)

these were common in ancient greece and ancient rome, cultures that his design, abilities, and eidolons are inspired by (both in aesthetic and language)

2. the laurel wreath galaxy was ruled by scholars - the philosopher union, until inorganic life took over during the emperor's wars. to give a very short tldr, civil war between organic and inorganic life, robots killed the head of the philosopher union, due to having no leaders the organic life of the galaxy was defeated

here we already have another obvious connection - philosophy, one of ratio's phds, that he even discusses with the trailblazer in one of his daily messages

3. one of the in-game sources about this place is the curio "rationality's fall". here is the first part of story attached to it for you to consider:

What is truth? No one truly knows. Supposing that "stupidity" is an incurable disease in this world, then disseminating knowledge counts as a treatment for the universe.

hm. we got a) truth (aka. ratio's name) b) a description of stupidity as a disease, which is something he claims repeatedly and thus seeks to cure it, in part by distributing knowledge (which is why he joined the guild, and why he's a teacher).

3.5. only other somewhat relevant part of this description is its mention of books ("Through such absurd means, books cleansed a world of its impurities once more") but that's not necessarily related to him obviously. however it's worth pointing out that one of his interactions on the express is literally all about how much he loves books and implying that they are relatively rare these days ("The touch of a paper book is a sensation I frequently find myself missing"). just a little something to think about

4. in gold and gears, there is an occurrence - cogito hair salon: intelligentsia guild - that implies that ratio is 2000ish years old. afaik these occurrences all happen around the same time as the emperor wars, aka when all the shit went down in laurel wreath

now. if you've read literally any of my other ratio theories. you know i don't quite like this, bc i find that ratio being 2000+ years old kinda defeats his whole Thing as a character. but we can't deny that it's there (tho possibly a mistranslation from what i gathered, but i can't say for sure) so i'm gonna use it for this theory 👍

5. here's where i'm gonna become full-on conspiracy brain. don't say i didn't warn you

after the whole defeat of the union, there were followers of aha who rose against the inorganic lifeforms and infected them with what's described as a "troll virus" called Philosopher's poison. i can't quite tell you if it's poison *to* philosophers (bc from what i gathered the inorganic life of laurel wreath were also philosophers) or caused *by* philosophers (implying these followers of aha were themselves philosophers as well. i like this interpretation more tbh)

what you're supposed to get from all that^ is that there was a large number of followers of aha in this galaxy, and they were wise enough to stand against robots that tried to wipe out their people, and even overthrow their army.

it's a pretty common theory by now that ratio has connections to the elation (beyond just the worm theory :P tho a lot of relevant info that i bring up here was gathered by @/b1adie in said theory which is very helpful, please go check it out 🙏) which, if he is indeed from laurel wreath, may add another layer to his past

some connections between ratio and aha, off the top of my head:

a. has an owl mask on his right shoulder, close to where aha has an owl mask located as well + his eyes fit aha's color scheme

b. refers to himself as a "side character" in the sticker book - sampo and sparkle, our known fools, do as well

c. can basically instantly disappear when characters aren't looking at him - as seen in his conversations with aventurine - which i can say for sure sampo does as well (like in the museum mission chain), possibly sparkle too tho i can't recall a specific instance to back this up

d. bows to the audience at the end of his quest, same as sampo does at the end of the belobog storyline

e. known to work from the shadows and pull the strings to make things happen or for his observation, which is how aha is described too at times, as well as their followers (sparkle is literally shown pulling strings of puppets in the "it's showtime" light cone, also sampo *gestures at literally everything he does during the belobog arc* Yeah)

f. in the herta space station, he creates a bit of a panic and theoretically puts people in danger, but in the end they all turn out okay. a similar instance can be seen in the "bestial ferocity" mission, where zhongshan, another masked fool, creates chaos for her own entertainment, which does end up hurting the people involved but absolutely not in major ways. in a way, at least in her view, she solved their problems too. while ratio probably doesn't cause chaos just for entertainment, but rather for information, you can argue these cases are similar, especially when at the end of the day they do end up helping these people in their own way. you can also claim that sparkle and sampo do similar things in their own respective arcs for their own reasons (sparkle with. the bombs. and sampo with dragging tb & bronya to the underworld. i'd argue neither of them do these for entertainment but that's an analysis for another time) aka this is a pretty common behavior for masked fools!

g. a smaller thing, but, the main part of his kit is follow-up attacks, which is aha's thing in the simulated universe

h. is his headpiece considered a mask? in his first conversation with tb on the astral express, he ends by saying "With this mask on, I intend to keep the world at bay". this is in reply to tb saying "i hope you are swayed by the express", and given ratio's main uses for his headpiece (dull his senses and block out stupid people), it makes most sense that he's referring to that here. we see him wearing it in-game precisely when he is about to cause chaos, too

also he has a mask on his shoulder. as already pointed out. so. not beating the masked fool allegations

^all this was actually to make you fall for the fool ratio theory. sorry. but i swear it's related to this post's main theory

-

so to connect this back to laurel wreath. the followers of aha used a virus. one of ratio's phds is in engineering, so he could've used that to create the virus. it might even be one of the achievements attributed to him that caused him to be recognized by the university as eligible for teaching in the first place, who knows

combining everything laid out here, you can probably see where i'm going with this - was ratio one of the followers of aha who took down the inorganic lifeforms of laurel wreath using this virus?

also, just for extra spice - this could add another layer to ratio's disdain towards the genius society, given that the one who incited the emperor's wars was a member of it

that's all i have for you for now 🙏 idk if this was intended, but i love speculating about ratio's origin and backstory, and i think this is a pretty cool option for it!

[reasonsforhope]

Upcoming Blog Thing

So I'm currently in the process of making a sideblog-for-a-sideblog for Reasons for Hope.

The idea is to use it to post mostly links/info on direct action (how to's, petitions, official government calls for comment on proposed policies, protests, info about cool things other activists are doing, etc. etc.) that doesn't fit on a good news blog. Plus informational/awareness posts, and my own activism and thoughts and takes about things that sometimes really, really do not belong on a good news blog. Or that half belong on a good news blog and half really don't, and the like.

The idea is also to create an official "format" for submissions so that people can send in posts without me having to take the time/spoons to make new posts out of ppl's asks and dms (this takes sooo much time sometimes). Then, if successful, do a similar thing for submissions on Reasons for Hope, bc I do want to make posts about lots of things ppl send me, but it would be way too much to do myself all the time.

I'd still be verifying everything and applying editorial standards, in both cases. I actually already wrote up most of an editorial standards policy for the new sideblog, too. It would include verifying and listing the sources and dates for everything, at a minimum.

I've been thinking about going ahead and doing this for quite a while now, but I finally decided I needed to go for it because uh. I just found out about something absolutely, completely fucked up that happened to my grandparents (and a lot of other people). And while I am planning to get involved in organizing about it in real life around the relevant issues (or at least flyer the shit out of relevant neighborhoods), I really need to be able to use what platform I have to talk about this - along with other issues - so I have somewhere to channel my rage and grief into activism

(You will hear more about what happened when the sideblog goes up, if you want to see know. For now, let's just say that it's been a really intense 48 hours.)

Also you know I actually have a small-to-moderate platform here and that's a hell of a lot more ability to reach people than I tend to have in person, esp with ~life~ and ~working~ and my disability shit

So yeah, heads up you have that to look forward to (if you want to engage). And there will be unique tags to filter for people who want to see the links to actions and organizing info without seeing the info about fucked up stuff.

Because I am firmly of the opinion that people can and should be able to engage with that kind of content only where and when they feel up for it, if they want, and especially if they're really struggling with spiraling over the state of things.

Anyway, let me know in the notes if there's anything you would particularly like to see from the upcoming sideblog. (I make no promises but would value information on this!) And if you have any thoughts on what I should call it because I haven't been able to figure out something satisfying yet.