#that is kind of impossible to do when you dont have. yknow. a self

[tiktaaliker]

but can novice do the spell again

nope lol there's literally not enough left of novice to do it anymore. the novice was dabbling in some SERIOUS shit that probably would've killed them anyways if it HAD succeeded, especially since Noxa Krov was an Eternal and significantly more powerful than a mortal could even really comprehend

[galactiquest]

Hi call me blueberry anon or just blue!

I was hopin to ask with Vash and Knives with an Angel!reader g/n.

Like you know when Vash and Knives show their true selves and reader dont give a shit because they literally have giant ass wings and multiple eyes yknow like one of those biblical accurate angel but more human.

If its too specific just ignore this JDJKDKDKDK (ps when i said show their true selves i immediately thought of those wolf alpha vids on tiktok)

Hello Blueberry Anon~ I'm sorry that this took longer than usual to get to, I promise I wasn't ignoring or forgetting this request! College woes... (´Д｀)

I think this is a super cute idea and I'm always a sucker for a chaotic angel or devil or any sort of creature really. (Probably why I enjoy writing about Vash and Knives being little beasts so much LOL)

Vash and Knives x Angel!Reader: Heaven

Content warnings: None, but the descriptions of multiple eyes/wings might be offputting to some. Otherwise just fluff!

Vash

I take Vash as someone who's really accepting of everyone else's differences--even to the point where he'll feel a sort of disdain towards his own differences because of it.

But when he learns about your otherworldly nature? He's immediately curious. He really can't help himself.

He wants to ask a lot of questions. How do you hide your wings? Are humans afraid of you? Do you have any sorts of powers? Does this mean you're immortal--wait, are you here on a mission?!

Whether you indulge him or not in answers is up to you. He won't pry (but he might whine a little if you tell him it's a secret).

Now that he knows you're different, he wants to embrace it as much as possible. He's always trying to compliment how soft your wings are, how radiant and sparkling your eyes are, etc.

I think this especially goes for the '98 iteration of Vash--the "did it hurt when you fell from Heaven" pickup line. Feel free to respond with "yeah, actually, a lot" to get him sputtering and scrambling to apologize.

Knives

When you explain it to him, he's very quiet at first, running all possible responses through his head. What he doesn't say (but is thinking) is that he's thankful you're not human (because admitting he loves a human is an utterly impossible feat!).

He also hopes, deep down, that since you're inhuman, you might better understand his intentions for a world without humans. (Of course, if you're the kind of angel who's sent to help humans, this goes against your direct orders... cue troubles!)

He has a deep respect for your otherworldly self, being not of the planet himself, so he takes a lot of time to study and understand you to the fullest.

He's especially intrigued if you have repeating features--multiple eyes, pairs of wings, floating motes of flame, spinning golden rings, that kind of stuff. He really enjoys symmetry and repetition. (Vash does, too, but he'll appreciate from afar.)

He encourages you to take your "natural" form more often, rather than sculpting yourself into a more humanoid form. If this more "natural" form is imperceptible/cosmically incomprehensible to him, he won't mind. (Okay, he might be a little sad if he can't see you in all your blazing glory, but he won't make it obvious.)

I think there's definitely a case here for a "fallen angel" type deal--you've fallen from the sins of humanity, and now you've joined up with Knives in order to restore what should have been. Or maybe you find more worth in each other...

End notes: I finished this up on mobile so the formatting might be off. I promise I'll fix it tomorrow!

[acheronist]

hello!!!! thank you so much for your tarot analysis of our beloved captain dylan ♥️🤍 i am here to say that i will be a devoted audience to any and all drw tarot content (for the next forever) but also specifically to ask about hank being the empress and sergei as the chariot, if you have time 😭 you can’t just “btw” that in the tags and expect us to be NORMAL about it??

omg please.... i am not the oracle of detroit for no reason. i have been pulling season overview tarot spreads + cards for every wings game since 2019. if i'm qualified for ONE thing on this earth it's talking about card associations to players ✋🏻

empress - 40

i know you can find a lot of shit about how the empress is supposed to be about embracing this ~feminine energy~ but i think that's kind of bullshit. i see it more as like.. tending the hearth? and being gentle and loving but still a protector and a teacher? guarding what is beloved and dear to you and carrying yourself with a sense of grace and confidence. which is very much the way hank's captaincy panned out, dont u think?

in the halls of drw captaincy, his was interesting because he wasn't a leader for years and years and years like nick or steve, but he was really crucial to the team in a transitional sort of time. the championship team legends were retiring, new guys were coming in, there was sort of a new identity getting built in the lockerroom? on top of the um *cough* questionable choices kenny holland made as gm? hank's presence on the team as a touchstone through dramatic changes is what always struck me the most about his nhl career. he was a security that fans (new and old!) had absolute faith in. that steadiness is not something you see in every random nhler yknow.

which leads me into the fact that the empress also is a card of creativity. the empress sits with a crown of stars above her head, which ALSO suits hank a lot i think. he was a rookie when nick was captain. he was captain when dylan was a rookie. that's quite a long stretch of time if you stop to think about it. he spent his whole career being surrounded by stars and players with insane levels of creativity and ability to play the game. AND HE HAD THAT ABILITY HIMSELF TOO which is why he lead the forefront of it all. the red wings weren't the red wings without the eurotwins leading them to victories for a long time.

and i think there's a very loving quality to the empress as well, which of course extended to the younger guys in the room, but really shone most bright in the way that hank took dylan under his wing immediately & still is there, post retirement and off the ice, in the way that he still mentors dylan through hard times in the rebuild. i think the passing of that torch was obvious from dylan's first game, and hank did a really beautiful job teaching dylan how to act and grow up and be the kind of captain that's worthwhile, and truly means something in this city. and that devotion / mentor / compassion ties back into the meaning of the empress in a really special way I THINK!!!!!!!!!!!

chariot - 91

oh boy where do i start... even going all the way back to his initial defection from russia, there's always been such a furious independence streak in sergei that i just know it's impossible to tell him to do anything. there's a direction and confidence and borderline audacious(!?) attitude / motivation that's been in his freaky little Sagittarius heart since he was 18. and i think when u boil him down to his barest essential traits, that's one of the more foundational ones!?? and there really is not a card better suited to that attitude than the chariot

there's also something to be said about the chariot card imagery where the driver is being pulled along by the black and white sphinxes.

yeah uh huh. yup.

but also essentially the chariot is about overcoming obstacles, having the willpower and the determination to keep moving forward, the self discipline to get better, etc WHICH ALL I CAN PULL UP QUOTES FOR PRECISELY HOW THESE IDEAS CONNECT BACK TO SERGEI.

defecting from 1990s russia and his whole family and his entire life to go to a country where he didn't speak the language because he had enough confidence in himself to become a star.

growing up learning to skate on frozen rivers until he was a child and able to outskate and outplay adults.

the toughness it took in his heart to go back to the rink every day after his best friend was in critical condition and win something that'll always be bigger and more important than his whole life as an act of devotion.

the way he didn't let getting exiled ruin his career, but instead used it as a doorway to the next great joy of his career.

the way he's only just stopped skating and yet he still is winning back to back cups and achieving records and making history in his own way.

there's a stubborn need to always one-up his own achievements that haunts him soooo bad & you dont have that drive without completely embodying everything that the chariot stands for.

[terrminallycapricious]

4, 5, 6, 7, 15

4: If you were reborn as someone/something new, who or what would you want to be?

i think, i dont know if id wanna be reborn? i've lived so motherfuckin...LONG. only way id wanna be reborn is if it was a good fuckin reason - that which is unknown to me right now. honestly if i fuckin do though without my choice, then i guess i'll just deal.

5: If you do believe in the afterlife, what kind of afterlife do you think awaits you?

i got a complicated relationship with this one. so many motherfuckin ideas of which been influenced on me when i got to earth, and what i grew up in. nature being all motherfuckin neutral, but no matter what they all have a place in the universe. i dont know if they ever think of anything other than right here in the universe - no afterthought. while i hope on some kind of paradise where everybody i knew is happy - NOT the fuckin bubbles, and or not the furthest ring where some of my alts ended up, i dont really know. i'm just holdin hope that what ive done wrong aint to bite me back on the ass. and i have a funny motherfuckin feeling, a foolish interaction with a certain motherfucker on here, might've already damned me in some ways. never was a full deal with the devil, but it was close.

6: Have you ever taken someone's life?

HAHAHAHAHA )o:

7: Are you afraid of dying?

not really, i mean, i wont know whats real out there unless i die. its almost impossible for me to fully fuckin die forever, though. but i know it could STILL happen. a body cant hold onto its stability forever, everythings gotta fuckin lie in the dirt. i feel as old as dirt my motherfuckin self. sometimes i expect how 'death' feels for me and i just deal, and sometimes it hurts cuz i got anticipation anxieties so it freaks me the fuck out. but I still get back up.

15: Has someone ever tried to severely hurt you?

oh man, plenty. way back when we were on the meteor, and nepeta- i kinda wish she did succeed in killin me but yknow how I was.

then later on, fights happened with strangers, almost died, HAVE died in some of em.

attempted assassination me bein emperor a few times now.

theres more but i aint count anymore.

[larrythefloridaman]

Also i know she said she wasnt sure why she hugged crimson and got all touchy feely with him, but i think i do. Even beyond just the above thing.

Dani is someone who is prone to needing to verbalize her thoughts and feelings and actively consider them to successfully sort and identify them, otherwise she tends to act sort of... instinctively, even when it comes to her words. Her filter is shit and she needs to put things back through the filter On Purpose to catch the Implications Of What Shes Saying and Doing, sometimes. she is, despite her arrogant coolgirl facade, a blindly sincere, almost naive person who will put her foot in her mouth spitting out her first thought without consideration for how it sounds and commit to it even if what she said sucks as a matter of pride if she's not being Very Intentional and Conscious about herself. Which would be exhausting to do constantly! so sometimes, she just doesnt, and sometimes, this leads to her saying and doing cruel things she doesnt mean when these lapses in her judgement and the constraints of this persona unfortunately align. And the godkiller reputation inflated her ego and by extension this persona to the point its hurting her and people she loves and shes often tempted to wield power and cruelty like a cudgel under sufficient stress to impair her better judgement.

Crimson, and the gods, sit in a mental category of 'monster' to her- dangerous, powerful, an Acceptable Target and a Threat she is Uniquely Qualified to Disarm, that Mortals are occasionally able to convince to work in their favor, Chartreuse in particular i think being processed like. more of an exception to the rule than proof that these categories, this mortals vs. Gods (monsters) type us vs. them mentality about these things dont work, especially when she, yknow. stops being a god.

And Dani... the thing about the hug is that in that interaction, in crimson's unintentional confession and the subsequent conversation with Prism, i think Dani is made to realize 3 things-

Crimson can't be written off as just a monster, but also cannot be fully seperated from his monstrousness- he was raised by a 'monster' (in both the not human and ethical senses of the word,) who insists she isnt one, and hes like this for very specific, very 'human' reasons and he still has enough heart left to know that he's done wrong and that other people do not deserve what hes gone through, enough to warn her, someone who's threatened him more than once, and so little self-respect left he can't extend himself the same basic compassion, every scrap of 'humanity' shes seen from him in the time shes known him were the sincere part, the monster is the lie, but also, he unavoidably did try to take over the tournament, kill someone, tried to kill other someones, possessed multiple people, and is older than the goddamn sun and his nature is infinitely more complex than the average mortal mind can fully wrap their head around. And yet hes also still just some aggravatingly normal vain little prick with a black hole for a stomach and a trash mammal mentality picking fights with randoms you could meet by chance stealing extra ketchup packets from a restaurant

She has failed to be the kind of person who feels safe to talk to about things with this kind of weight. Crimson's confession is largely matter-of-fact, blunt and without melodrama or self-pity, and Crimson's first assumption remains that she's going to call him a crybaby for admitting he was abused in a private setting where he has nothing to gain. And considering her genuinely unhinged flippant comment about how she hopes cobalt doesnt have kids because distributing their match might qualify as emotional child abuse in The Very Same NCCT, I Get Why He Thinks That! Its a subject matter she throws around like it doesnt mean anything! She has an impossibly high standard for herself she clearly hasnt made clear enough she applies to noone else and she lashes out at others when her real problem is internal! Even knowing shes kinder than that, everything about how she presents herself to other people screams that her reaction to something like this would be 'tough shit. just handle it.' Her compassion surprises crimson, catches him off-guard, he freezes up in shock for a moment before relaxing into it. could something have been done sooner? Had crimson had people he felt truly safe with before things were done that could not be taken back, would anything have been able to change? These are questions that dont need answers, the past is the past- but theyre worth asking. We learn to make our futures better through examining our pasts and presents.

With just a bit more bad luck... different circumstances... she couldve been a lot like him. Many times over. She asks why some deaths are treated with more weight than others, and Prism lets her know she was all too ready to kill him, and tries to make it all okay with the fact that none of them are real and the suggestion that some lives simply dont hold the same weight. The Grunk, crimson's victim, has killed without regret or mercy and expects celebration for the act. She couldve killed monday mark by accident if cobalt were not there to warn her how close she was. The Grunk's death was an accident, crimson talks about it flippantly now but in the squad strike he speaks of the incident as 'messy' when caught off-guard with the topic, tone a bit nauseous as he says he 'doesnt want to do that again.' During orange he is distinctly, noticeably more openly self-loathing than usual (intermittently alongside comical performed ego, he 'shamelessly' expresses that hes trash you shouldn't associate yourself with,) as he siccs an ineffective assassin on his partner in crime looking at birds a thousand miles away just trying to not get trapped in him again because cobalt couldnt just drop it when Prism let him out. Dani is swept up in Prism's manipulations terribly easily, and the cruelty that came out of her mouth after just a taste of what prism can do compared against an impossibly long lifetime of the same- its a wonder, a testament to his resilience and will, that crimson has any compassion or standards left in him at all. Crimson is a bitter pragmatist who laughs at the absurd cruelty of it all to make it through, not a heartless senseless killer and manipulator who derives joy from random meaningless suffering. He values life. He's technically saved more people that we've seen than he's killed! He's calm and realistic and organized in a crisis situation where survival is on the line. hes good with children and animals and they love him. He has redeeming qualities. And Dani is beloved too- her training partners respect and admire her, her friends love and support her (even if larry can be an obnoxious little bastard at times. lol,) and no amount of prism appealing to her fears of failure and desire to win and her difficulty treating certain things with real weight can win out against the fact she thinks people should be free to live their lives, because SHE values life more than she fears loss.

Crimson and Dani arent even two sides of the same coin- theyre the same side of two different coins tied together in the trunk of prism's adorable rainbow barbie car, they both regard themselves as too Special for their own good, Dani uniquely above others even if it hurts and doesnt make sense and Crimson uniquely below others even When it hurts and doesnt make sense, and crimson's the only one who knew what was going on there for a while and was too busy ruining his teeth trying to chew through the ropes to ask for help? This metaphor's gotten away from me

And she hugged Crimson because, when these things all click into place, her instinct is to extend sympathy. They call it pity. They both call it pity. But its compassion for the other side of the mirror. Its understanding.

And all this being what it is, I think these realizations have guided a subtle growth in Dani. Shes learning that she needs to be more Intentional. To tell people what she thinks and that she thinks it, and not just assume people know how she feels about things and why just because she thinks it and feels it. She needs to make herself a Safe Person. In ncct2, she manages to win, just barely stopping Danthony from getting a reverse threestock, telling him never to try that again, offers him tissues for the tears when she takes the win. All very mean, very unsportsmanlike, very... spiteful. Even if shes just acting on anger at herself, its kind of hard to watch.

But then... after some time for the emotional contents of the last dream to settle into the dreamers minds, danthony gets past her. she has her tantrum in ncct3 when danthony surpasses her in the tournament, and then, once she's cooled down... and, if i recall correctly, after Danthony's tried to confront Prism on her behalf... well. She considers. She reflects. She wonders if Danthony really understands how proud of him she is. She decides she has to tell him how proud of him she is, despite how much losing got to her, still gets to her. Will keep getting to her. She needs to make her feelings known. She cant just hope he can sense it, she cant just assume people understand how she feels about things without her communicating them anymore, the illusion that that was ever enough has been broken. So she gives him a hug and tells him exactly that. And THATS when Danthony cries <3

Smthn about dani i think is fun is how she simultaneously kinda unconsciously puts people into black and white competing categories/'teams' (winners and losers, people and monsters, etcetera) while also seemingly being most drawn to people who confuse and baffle them. Her old friendship with larry, her new friendship with bing (who she fondly describes as having a mind she Does Not Understand,) prism at first, Chartreuse, definitely Crimson shes slightly obsessed with that little freak i dont even mean this in a crimtoinette way at the moment i mean this in a 'she jumps at pretty much every chance she gets to fight him again and seemed really bored at the raid (aka not a crimson problem) before things broke bad for her but was Very Eager to jump in when she heard about Crimson getting up to some shit again before it blew up in his face and The Arm Thing was pretty directly prism punishing her for focusing on and caring too much about him potentially causing problems rather than enjoying their little popcorn date in the stands seperate from it all before quad stepped in to check on them and then she jumped to rescuing him from the closet peppermint had him cornered in' way. She likes weird people. She is very sure shes winning the being normal and fine contest but she very much likes weird people. Its why she likes cpu kerfuffle and also feels the need to be away from it 90% of the time.

[randombubblegum]

When do you think awsten really started to change? Like right after Fandom? I haven’t been a fan long enough to see the change, I just know he’s more annoying than ever and he makes fans mad. I’m surprised I’m still here 💀

I also don’t understand why he said in an interview that he’s doing so much better than he was prior to GH, yet I feel like GH has way more references to self-hatred and death than any of their other albums. I get his whole “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality regarding his confidence, but I can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake, and I’m sure other fans feel the same way. I know this is probably old news especially since GH has been out for almost a year now, but I’ve only recently started watching their interviews, recent and old, and I really do see a big difference

its hard to say exactly but id put him Changing For The Worse actually BEFORE fandom, like in early 2019? thats when he fell in with super annoying nasty twitter funnymen™ in la and it made him a JACKASS. like SUCH an asshole holy shit it was awful. hes cut all of them off now (with dog girl being the last to go actually lol) but the very observable change in how he acted online from “funny chaos-loving endearing jokester” to “self-absorbed asshole with mean jokes and cruel clapbacks” happened shortly after he befriended elijah daniel and company.

and then THAT comically self-aggrandizing attitude carried him through fandom and only snowballed from there….. before fandom he used to joke with otto and geoff like “WATERPARKS IS THE RICHEST BAND IN THE WORLD WERE SOOO RICH” and it was funny bc they were clearly an up and coming band so it wasnt like that!! but it was so endearing and funny you couldnt help but root for them!!!! but then when fandom era hit awsten was like…. not kidding anymore about wanting to be rich and famous and the vibe shifted noticeably. the whole “i want a big house i want nice things” motif mixed with the “its the FANS fault i dont have those, they wont let me be successful like i could if i were a rapper” kind of……. like entitlement isnt exactly the right word, but something close to it, started coming through.

fandom was honestly NOT an insightful or good commentary on fandom itself but it rly set the stage for awsten to be a huge self-centered braggart lol….. all this whining about how his fans like him too much or not enough, dont respect the boundaries online he actively rewards them for breaking, how hes not rich enough, etc etc all started there imo. and fandom did better than any album before it, partly because hopeless records put a lot of work into its promotion and partly because they were doing so well touring after entertainment….

and then it all fell apart honestly. awsten channeled the same shit but worse for gh and kept getting nastier and nastier with his attitude. like interviews are really the best way to judge this for yourself and i think youll see EXACTLY what im talking about when you do: they went from being cute funny character showcases of all the members, awsten cheerful and friendly and cracking jokes, to like….. awstens the only one talking. awsten going on about how great he is. awsten saying his music is the best in the world with no hint of joking exaggeration. geoff and otto go from being silent in the background to just not being there at all. it fucking sucks and i think its VERY clear why so many fans feel upset and let down when u watch the interviews all together

as for the last part of your ask yeah i think awsten is way worse off mentally and emotionally in the gh era than he was even during fandom. hes always had this self-aggrandizing overly confident abrasive persona he puts on to, yknow, be able to perform while also shielding himself from vulnerability, and thats normal. everyone used to like it even, since it was so clear he was puffing his chest up and faking it till he made it. now its become impossible to determine where the asshole braggart narcissistic persona STOPS and awsten the real person STARTS…… and the absolute worst part of all of this is that, based on how he treats his friends and partners when the cameras are off, it might not end at all. they legit might be one and the same at this point

[vampiremourning]

yall okay so im. okay u know that writer thing you do where whenever you have an Experience in life you keep like. tabs and notes on it in a semi-dissociative state to file away for future reference in case it ever pops up in a story and you need to descrbe the emotions and experience? ive been thinking of vampires and Food. (this veers into ED territory so im gonna drop it under the cut just in case)

(this is copy pasted from discord for my own filing purposes )

 so mitchell, in case this was missed, is a former sufferer of a restrictive based ed. i only say former bc yknow, vampirism makes food impossible now. it was definitely a way she felt like she could control her environment and possibly conform to enough beauty standards to be deemed memorable and worthy of attention. i think being the odd one out personality wise gave her a complicated fixation w surface level beauty. she's underweight at the time of her embrace and it shows, tho she wasn't at hospitalization level yet--just kinda felt bad overall (brain fog, mood swings, anemia, vertigo, bad circulation, etc.) 

 and i think that like, while she knows now she looks visibly unhealthy, she's also got a distinct part of her brain that enjoys the fact that she got to be frozen in her illness? it's not progressing so there's no danger, she can just enjoy what she's hazardously cultivated. she also can't grasp that there are fledglings who miss having to intake food. it never tasted good enough to motivate her to eat, the mental energy and willpower was rarely there for cooking, and most textures were abhorrent to her. there's a period where she's more ashamed of the fact that drinking blood is somehow easier than eating ever was, and shouldn't she feel like a monster for that? isn't she supposed to mourn the fact that something so human was forcibly removed from her?

shouldn't she want to look healthier to keep up the illusion of humanity? 

 but like the thing is she doesn't lmao. she definitely wasn't at the stage where she was ready to get Help when she was embraced, but she did have enough self awareness to know she was playing with fire--she was just unfortunately too busy enjoying the suffering. i think on some level she believed that if she struggled enough, she would be able to assimilate & gain some sort of social status in her life instead of being alone constantly. 

 i dont think she would talk about this with other kindred tbh. she likes the fact that she's retained a high humanity level and the type of kindred who revels in the blood consumption typically hasn't been the sort she wants to associate with. she just can't relate to everyone else & would rather process that quietly over the risk of being ostracized again. she swings wildly between feeling as though she should have wanted to recover more/still want to recover now, vs feeling kind of relived that she never had to deal with it.

im honestly not too sure where i was going with this meta lmao. but it definitely carries through with mitchell's motif of being constantly torn about how she views herself & going between self flagellation and neutrality. at this point, her version of recovery would likely just consist of making peace with what's happened and that she doesn't need to carry forward a different version of her previous consumption-based guilt.

[alien-enjoyer]

actual thoughts (DO NOT READ IF YOU INTEND TO LISTEN!!):

i’m gonna have to relisten to volte face because they dropped the entire worldbuilding there. and as always i am FAR MORE INVESTED in the logistics of this world than i probably should be. just as much as i am the characters, maybe even more so. moon landing in the 50s? soviet union got the first aircraft(?). still a few unanswered questions, like, “why is travel that clearly exceeds lightspeed called a SUBlight arc” because that makes no sense. dont know how they got communication to be instant across any distance either! we did get a single-sentence explanation on what a pulse beacon relay is but that’s only useful if you set those satellites up. and it doesnt explain how it works. can you tell im like, weirdly invested in the technology here? how did they get the hephaestus up there in the first place? was it autopiloted? was it rhea who did all the setup? did they send up another team before lovelace? was it lovelace? i doubt it. (and also speaking of rhea why didnt she have a voice? technical issues sure but these people are clearly MUCH further along in their technology than us and yet no one thought to like, hook up a vocaloid or something? you dont even have to source from a real person’s voice. or if you really want it to be a real person, we’ve got voice banks like siri and whatever.)

as for the story itself. did not go where i was expecting it to! i had a whole symbolism idea of it being , yknow, hera and hephaestus. and i suppose, yes, the hephaestus was cast into the fiery pit (the star) and i suppose hera did have a small hand in it. like the myth. but that wasnt the point of the whole thing.

to erase a whole character. our main character. you don’t see it done. i’m impressed. he’s got his logs and his friends to help him but only for as long as the journey to earth takes. who knows whatll happen to them after that. and hera, what’s gonna happen to hera??

fundamentally this story was about who people are. and what makes a person a person. hera, the ai, created and yet absolutely without a doubt her own person. she goes so far as to break through her own coding, fighting tooth and claw, to prove that. lovelace, who was human once, and who still believes she is even when proven otherwise - the only one who ever fights her on that is jacobi, and even he comes around eventually. price and cutter who have replaced so many parts of themselves, and rachel who has reinvented herself in other ways. they’re so detached from the people around them that to call them people is outright denied. hilbert is shown to do something similar to them, but he’s not as far gone. he’s a scientist, is all. a determined one. even minkowski comes into her own person when she takes control from lovelace.

and finally, doug. the story ends with him being erased. but he’ll find himself. it won’t be the same self, he’ll be someone new. but this story has proven time and time again that people will always find a way to be people, even under impossible circumstances. communications officer douglas eiffel is dead. doug eiffel is alive.

less important thoughts:

keplar’s voice was really nice . i think out of all the podcasts ive listened to keplar’s voice is my favourite.

hera is the character ever but im worried about what happens to her now. also what was eiffel gonna say to her. ughhhh 💥

price and cutter is just team rocket but genuinely actually competently evil to me. he’s gay shes lesbian and their marriage will change your perception of love forever. also rachel is here. i think it’s underselling her to call her meowth though.

minkowski having a harpoon is the funniest possible weapon to have on a space station why a harpoon how does she know how to use it? maybe she scuba dived in her spare time. harpoon fishing. that does seem like the kind of thing she would do.

OH speaking of the harpoon. the symbolism. of the plant monster. and the hephaestus crew. they became the plant monster in the end. they literally tried to negotiate the same terms with cutter as it did with minkowski. we leave you alone you leave us alone. and then they got told to step it up a notch. BUT! they are the same. it was all foreshadowing huh. it’s 8:30am but i swear im not making this up.

anyway good podcast everyone go listen to it if you havent listened to it i spoiled it all in here so .

finished wolf 359

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT !!!!!

everyone go listen im,ediertyly

[fluxedbuds]

can you go off about lalnable

ugly bitch idiot becomes a serial killer instead of going to therapy

But seriously, my take with Lalnable has always been more on the ‘fuck this guy’ side than the ‘poor sympathetic monster’ side. I don’t like seeing this guy woobified, especially because it tends to go some really concerning directions. I won’t get into it, because that’d be like slapping a label that says ‘come have discourse at me’ on my face, but let it be known, this guy ain’t got any excuses.

I’m not touching Lalnable’s potential childhood, because THATS a whole mess with no canon answer, but I do think he started out as pretty much a regular Lalna. Keep in mind, even the nicest, softest Lalna, FB Lalna, thought it was completely fine to repeatedly dunk a live bird in molten metal, because it didn’t die. And I think it’s pretty much still the state he’s in when he gets hired into Yoglabs.

Now, this is where you might start to think, ‘well gee, tumblr user Fluxed Buds, wouldnt it be easy for Yoglabs to twist that lack of moral understanding into something worse? wouldnt it mean its not his fault?’ And you’d be like, five percent right! The thing is, though, even Bird Torturer Lalna wouldn’t be any kind of okay with the kind of shit Lalnable ends up doing- there’s no boiling the frog situation possible, because there’s NO easy transition point into being the kind of person Lalnable becomes. At least one Lalna has quit Yoglabs because it was too evil, theres no reason Lalnable wouldn’t have been able to do the same, or at Least escape somehow. What I think happened is Yoglabs provided an environment where Lalnable could get away with doing horrible things extremely personally, and Lalnable took that and RAN.

There’s no evidence that Honeydew, Xephos, or any of the testificate scientists end up doing the shit Lalnable does. This isn’t an environment that’s forcing people to become like Lalnable, it just doesn’t provide many roadblocks. So, like Xephos lying about Lalnable being a clone, he’s lying about why he got locked up. Employee death is just an inconvenience. Lalnable got locked up for disagreeing with how cloning should work. I’ve had a post about this in the works for a while, but my theory is that Lalnable thought clones should be a brainless workforce, mostly because he Absolutely Could Not Handle the idea of another him running around without being under his control. Which, yknow, isn’t super weird of a hangup, pretty much every Lalna has it, and I’d wager a lot of real people would have similar objections. The problem is, Lalnas are stubborn little fucks, and when Xephos wouldn’t listen, Lalnable went ballistic and started fucking Everything up. So, stick him in a cage, pry him for info until you don’t need him, then put him in stasis for stable DNA.

So, the one thing Lalnable is justified about is being pissed about all that, because Xephos was a jerk and betrayed him, and also fuck Yoglabs. And thats one of three times Lalnable has ever been right in his whole life!

So, yknow, once he’s out of Yoglabs, he’s super got no excuse to kill/kidnap/enslave entire towns and whatnot, so any chance of him being sympathetic is long gone. Dude’s a piece of shit and won’t wash his goddamn clothes. But he does have some interesting psychology I can pry apart at this point!

So, first off- the name and aesthetic change, the color contacts, the voice changer- He’s trying to force control over the clone situation. He knows he doesn’t have any hope of controlling his clones, so he tries to fix it for himself by trying to make it so there aren’t copies of him running around, because he’s now different from all of them. But that sort of evolves into hatred of his original self, his real voice and name and appearance. So, that’s a little sympathetic, but he could’ve decided to be like properly goth or something so I don’t feel bad for him he looks like an idiot

Lalnable doesn’t care about justifying his actions, which does mean he’s a lot more powerful than some other yogs villains. He’s got nothing holding him back, his only setbacks are directly caused by other people fucking with him. Lalnable is legitmately a scary threat! It’s easy to forget that when we get to see so much of him being a complete failure idiot, but he’s good at what he does, and what he does is crimes and evil.

He’s also excessively focused on revenge, which I think is kind of why he ends up abandoning it in the end. He was so focused on the concept that he didn’t even realize how generally impossible and ill-advised it is. Besides the obvious issues of time loops, after he creates Five, if he actually succeeded, he’d delete Five. And for once, he doesn’t Want to destroy someone. FB4 really skipped over so goddamn much of his development, and thats REALLY annoying, but it doesn’t seem like a wholly illogical endpoint. He’s kind of driven by an impossible goal- control over everything about how the world sees him. At some point, he probably realizes that destroying every single one of his clones wouldn’t bring him any more joy than just torturing the shit out of some rando! Or, at least, it’s not worth more to him than Five.

I enjoy the Lalnable-Five father daughter dynamic a lot (because it’s literally canon Lalnable says he’s her father dont TRY me), but it takes a while to really get to that point. When he first makes Five, he’s making her like any other clone he’d make for spying. She’s just another tool, a frail attempt to steal Nano from a clone who doesn’t deserve to know her.

Oh yeah, the second thing Lalnable has ever been right about! He seriously thinks Nano is cool as FUCK. Which she is! It’s not a romantic interest for sure, I’m pretty sure Lalnable hasn’t thought about romance in like 10 years, it’s more of a fascination. I don’t think he’s really interested in friendship, but he wants that kind of power on his side, he wants to see how it works, and most of all, he doesn’t want some clone getting to even be near it. Five offering the side-switch deal to Nano was something both the Baddies agreed on.

Anyways, back to Five. While she starts out as a tool, they do end up growing closer, and for once, Lalnable isn’t a total bitch idiot about it. Unfortunately, he does spend a lot of time pointing out how Five is better than Nano because he made her, and through that making Five obsessed with Staying better than Nano, because if she’s not, Lalnable might abandon her. So, he’s Dad, but he starts out as a truly awful dad that should be dropkicked. I think Five’s confusion and fear over how absolutely focused he is on destructive and impossible revenge is part of what makes him reconsider too, although I guess we’ll never know for sure. They’re both still comfortably evil as all hell, but it’s settling into a weird sort of manageable space for the buddies, and thats probably the best we’re gonna get. Lalnable has no desire to be a good person and he never will.

The last thing Lalnable is ever correct about, is loving and appreciating Five for who she is as herself.

And then he wears those sunglasses and he stops being correct for the rest of his life.

TL;DR: serial killer develops identity issues, gives daughter identity issues, trades identity issues for a second daughter and disgusting sunglasses

[lesbiskammerat]

im really curious how you think lack of gun legislation is gonna accomplish anything... like. okay try the armed revolution or whatever, you know the other side has tanks and nukes right

also sorry fam but the stats really dont lie, america is the only country where this happens nearly this often. i absolutely promise that basic background checks and such helps. i really feel its way more practical to consider how many schools are shot up a year over a hypothetical revolution that you'd lose, because, yknow, tanks, nukes, drones, ect. this is just a leftist twist on the "good guy with guns" narrative.

Normally I wouldn’t bother responding seriously to this kind of bad-faith anonymous message, but why not. This is a pretty serious issue so it demands more than a dismissive joke response. You’re right that the US has a special problem with white supremacist vigilante terror, it happens much more often there than anywhere else, but that fact on its own tells us nothing about what specifically is causing that problem. Switzerland has very high gun ownership, but has no shooting epidemic like the US. 

Now, it might be true that if the US government attempted to heavily restrict white supremacists’ access to guns, these shootings would decrease in frequency and severity, but is the government going to do that? No, it isn’t. As we’ve seen previously, the 1967 Mulford Act being the obvious example, US gun control legislation is used to combat black radicals like the Black Panthers, not white supremacists. Whatever background checks would be implemented would not target them. At best they would probably target the nebulous category of “mentally ill,” which is sure to solve the problem. Even if you somehow managed to create and pass a piece of gun control legislation that was specifically targeting white supremacists, it would still have to be enforced by the racist police force. The US has no real interest in combatting white supremacist terror, especially not when it also conflicts with the interests of weapons manufacturers.

And I never argued that gun control is bad because guns are needed for The Revolution. What I would argue is that guns are needed for the very immediate self-defense of otherwise vulnerable groups, such as black people, women, trans people, Jewish people, and so on. We’ve already seen this militant tactic successfully demonstrated in the past by the Black Panthers, until it was defeated by, among other things, gun control. This need for self-defense is especially urgent now with the rise of white supremacist vigilante terror. And if that’s simply a “leftist twist on the "good guy with guns" narrative,” where the “good guy” is a Black Panther, then your argument is just a liberal twist on it, where the “good guy” is instead the US government, or rather its police force.

As for revolution being impossible because the US military is very powerful, you can take a look at a number of extremely asymmetric conflicts involving the US or other large, experienced militaries. Why did the US lose its war on Vietnam? Why hasn’t it wiped Cuba off the map yet? How did Cuban guerillas win against Batista in the first place? Why is the US still not winning in Afghanistan? Why did Russia struggle so much in the Chechen wars, when it has tanks and nukes? Your argument is essentially that asymmetric conflict is categorically impossible to win for the smaller party, which is clearly not true.

[rebo-chan]

Hope, this conversation is slowly eating me from the inside out. its making me SO unwell.  It feels nice to get out all my Tsuna thoughts tho. <3 

But yes, Amano having Tsuna wake up in a coffin?? Utter power move. No other series has made me actively freeze up and age like 50 years trying to figure out the fucking implications of that. When Tsuna asked TYL Gokudera why he was in a coffin?? As dumb of a question as that way, I was also “YEAH?? GOKUDERA? WHY? SURELY IT CANT BE THAT HE’S DEAD. THAT WOULD /NEVER/ HAPPEN. RIGHT?? RIGHT? GOKUDERA TELL ME HES NOT DEAD” 

Yknow what? I never considered that second point of TYL Tsuna always being the POV of someone else. But, you’re absolutely right. Lal thinks he’s not the kind of man who would make a decision like that, Irie believes he’s the kind of man who would make a decision like that if the situation was that dire. And then we’ve got characters like Hibari who are all “You’re finally getting closer to the man who sends a shiver down my spine” Like WHAT. /WHAT/ It’s really interesting to me that he’s both this kindhearted gentle person, who has the ability to put his “send shivers down Hibari’s spine” like what kind of person is that. LET ME *SEE*, AMANO. Now, I spent like an hour looking for this fucking panel and I just can’t find it, I’m beginning to think I hallucinated it but I remember this scene where Present Day Tsuna is thinking about everything that has happened and he gets angry at TYL Tsuna’s decisions. He says something like, “what was the older me thinking?” THIS PANEL IS REAL I KNOW IT I DONT HAVE IT TO SHOW YOU, BUT IT IS ITS OUT THERE SDGNSKGJSN. But, I think that adds to your point, like we really don’t know what kind of person TYL Tsuna is and present day Tsuna doesn’t understand it either. He’s become altered in a way that Present Day Tsuna can’t fathom himself.  Future arc was undoubtedly about pushing Tsuna to his limits physically, mentally, and emotionally until he has no choice but to improve to survive. Many times during the arc, Tsuna realizes that he can’t remain the way he is if he wants to survive in the world ten years later. The fact that present day Tsuna can’t fathom who TYL Tsuna is and how he could have made the decisions he did has to add to that theming I think. That was ALSO a Tsuna pushed to his limits, until he had no choice but to improvise to survive. 

Absolutely, yes tho!! TYL Tsuna bringing Present Day Tsuna to the future was the kindest thing he could have done considering what Byakuran would’ve done to him if he got his hands on Tsuna first. TYL Tsuna knew that his present day self was in the best place to improve, seeing as he had access to the Vongola Rings still. and UGH I just thought of this, but the fact that TYL Tsuna tried to avoid this conflict entirely by destroying the Vongola Rings in hopes that would deter Byakuran by rendering it impossible for him to complete 7^3. He TRIED. He tried the most intense choice he could, to avoid having to do this to his younger self and his younger family. But he ended up backed into a corner when he realized that Byakuran would just.. drag his younger self to the future anyway. I can’t imagine the pure mental anguish he was in. 

I also headcanon that Tsuna agreed to Irie’s plan only days after Reborn’s death. After that, he would have had no kindness left in him. That was his best friend - The first member of his family taken away from him. Permanently. Tsuna only knew Yuni for a bit and destroyed Byakuran for her death. He also /nearly/ became Vongola Decimo for Yamamoto. But?? Reborn’s death?? Oh he needed to make sure Byakuran would 1) die 2) Ensure the mare rings were permanently taken away from him 3) Erase Byakuran’s entire interference on their world. Which isn’t something we discuss as a fandom either LOL. Like the Byakuran we see in Rainbow arc, I’m PRETTY sure that’s a Byakuran from a different world seeing as he talks about how Yuni came to go “get” him and rescued him from his loneliness. But yes, he needed Byakuran to suffer, and more importantly he needed his best friend back, and his friend’s dad to come back, to ensure his parents were safe, to allow his friends to return to THEIR families. I think it’s really interesting that at the end of future arc, he walks up to his coffin to read what his past self said in that notebook. He absolutely felt bad about the whole situation, but seeing that everything turned out okay.. It must have been a lot of relief on him. 

As for the Yamamoto thing, yeah he absolutely would’ve lashed out if it was any one of his guardians that got attacked but Yamamoto is so... gentle. In his head, Yamamoto could not have done anything to have deserved that. Even without understanding the situation at whole, Tsuna got the idea that Yamamoto was mercilessly attacked (Which he was LOL) because Yamamoto would not have provoked someone like that. Again, in his head, the attack on Yamamoto was cold blooded and without cause. He needed to retaliate, because Yamamoto was innocent. At least that’s my analysis of it ~

Tsuna’s character is so fun to pick apart, from start to finish. It’s really fun that at the end of future arc, esp in the anime, the last look we get from him is one of confidence, completely different from the start of the anime or even the start of future arc. TYL Tsuna knew what was up when he said that that Tsuna was the one with the most potential to grow. Good on him <3 

HI HELLO, I FELT BAD CONTINUING THE CONVO IN THE POST BUT OOOOOHHOO YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE FEELING UNWELL ABOUT TSUNA HOPE. I AM INSANE ABOUT HIM.

FIRST OF ALL, I checked the link you sent and oh my god SAME "The Truth Revealed" is an INSANE CHAPTER TO ME. Tbh Future arc is one of my favorite arcs in KHR all together. I don't think I ever recovered from Tsuna waking up in a fucking coffin. Like I think that irreversibly altered my brain chemistry I havent been the same. My brains been spinning since i saw that. To find out that TYL Tsuna planned it in the Truth Revealed??? Like WHO is TYL TSUNA. WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM. Like you pointed out that Lal yelled out at Tsuna wasnt like that, but to find out he was?? oh my GOD. Like it makes me wonder how much stress TYL Tsuna was under or how he came to the point that he felt like this was the only solution they could pull off. I think there's an addition that Irie did say that Byakuran would've found a way to bring the younger gang to the future anyway must have absolutely added to TYL Tsuna's stress and desire to get his younger self ready before Byakuran decided it was time before he was. Like I need to know IS HE HAPPY LIKE YOU SAID. I HOPE THIS MAN FINDS PEACE GOD KNOWS HE DESERVES IT. This is more of a headcanon than any solidified proof, just a GUT feeling. But I have to feel as if TYL Tsuna's actions being so... like that had to do with TYL Reborn's death. We know that they're close and Rainbow arc shows us that Tsuna would lift the entire world on his back if it saved Reborn. I can't help but theorize the mental state TYL Tsuna was in, after losing Reborn. Seeing how..hotheaded Tsuna can get about Reborn in Rainbow Arc and how he willingly goes to the Inheritance Ceremony for Yamamoto.. I can see him conjuring a plan like this to fuck the shit out of Byakuran post Reborn death, or even just for the possibility of getting Reborn back. But this is just a headcanon again. Either way?? Im FOAMING at the mouth with you.

As for the rest of our discussion, first of all I lost my shit when you sent the manga panel of Reborn looking shocked but holy shit i didnt connect those dots that Reborn was ?? shocked?? that Tsuna was going along with it. And that its coming from a place of anger and vengeance from Tsuna, which isn't usual for him but fuck they attacked his family. As you mentioned, they crossed that firm line drawn in the sand and Tsuna was going for their throat this time bc how dare they? When, in Tsuna's eyes, Yamamoto was done NOTHING wrong to his attacker. As for Tsuna becoming Vongola Decimo and how he would've been shackled, this is actually something we discussed in our server as well. The conclusion I ended up coming with is that in the end it didn't matter to Tsuna. He was seeing red. He was furious. He was willing to sacrifice everything, even his own freedom from the Mafia to avenge Yamamoto. It's either that he was so blinded by rage that he didn't consider the consequences of his actions, or even worse he was willing to take up the mantle of Vongola Decimo if it meant catching the person who did this to Yamamoto. For Yamamoto's sake, he would be Vongola Decimo. AND THAT IDEA??? OOOHHHH. UGHHHH. THERES SO MUCH TO TSUNAS CHARACTER AND IT DRIVES ME MAD BC HE SEEMS SO SIMPLE AT FIRST LOOK. AND IM??? IM AAAAH YKNOW??

[follow up to this post]

the future arc isn't personally my favorite, but i totally get the people for whom it is. the writing for it is really solid and really steps up from what we had so far, and i DO love so much that first part of the arc up to the end of the merone base raid.

you know, at times like this i wish i'd remember what my reaction was to it the first time i read it too, but my memory is shit lol. but i don't need to to agree it was so iconic and insane of amano to make tsuna appear in the future in a coffin. like not only it's the first thing we learn about the future, but also the first thing we learn about his future. that ten years later he's dead. absolute fucking power move from amano, like hello??

but also, while we're on the subject... this literally just came to me so idk if i'm going to be articulate about this lol, but i think there's something to be said about how the first thing we learn about tyl tsuna is that he's dead. and then he stays dead throughout the arc, mentioned and talked about, judged and defended, praised and blamed, but it all happens through other people. everything we learn about him, every choice (or lack thereof) and decision attributed to him, every glimpse into his personality and what kind of man he was, we learn all of it it through someone else's words. through someone else's eyes, and tho we're given no reason to doubt they're saying the truth, they can only be biased as they say it. like, amano could have made him appear through flashbacks, but she didn't. she gave him no physical appearance, no face, no voice. and then when she does do that (tho even then she still gives him no face), he only talks about his present self. has only words for him. and idk what is there to say about all that, but i know it's relevant to the themes of the future arc.

I think there's an addition that Irie did say that Byakuran would've found a way to bring the younger gang to the future anyway must have absolutely added to TYL Tsuna's stress and desire to get his younger self ready before Byakuran decided it was time before he was.

you're right! i tend to overlook that bit of information, but it is canon that either way, the present 10th gen would have found themselves in the future. so for tsuna to decide he'll be the one to make it happen and have control over it instead of byakuran, was of course the right choice to make. the safest one, both for them and their present selves. as well as the kindest ones, because of course, tsuna didn't just bring them to the future to leave them to die in it, the way byakuran would have done. he came up with a plan to make sure they were ready to face the future like you said, and would be strong enough to see it through. and the plan was still harsh and painful and arguably cruel on them, but it still was kindness from tsuna at the same time. consideration for the situation he had no choice but to get them involved in. it was him taking responsibility for it and sparing them the worse of it as much as he could and as much as realistically possible. and maybe it made little difference, but it's still more than byakuran would have allowed them for sure, and it did play a non-negligible part in them not only surviving the future, but coming out on top of it.

you know... for some reason i've always thought tsuna was level-headed when he agreed to go along with the plan. like of course his hands were being forced as he was backed against a corner, facing a hopeless and desperate situation, but in my head he still had himself together somehow. sat and considered the pros and cons of the plan with a cool head, before deciding it was worth the gamble.

but like. knowing tsuna, it's much more likely he hadn't, you're right. that he was standing on the brink, and maybe had already fallen from it. i mean, yamamoto's dad got killed, his parents were unaccounted for, vongola's hq fell and vongola was hunted, namimori was invaded and every people there connected to him hunted too, forcing kyoko and haru to be on the run, with lambo and i-pin after them to keep them safe when they were just fifteen but still forced to take part in a literal war. tsuna had already lost so much by that point, while still being at risk of losing much more. and at the same time, he had already lost the worst thing he could lose, because of course, there's also reborn. reborn who also died, who also got killed when he's the one person who's always been by his side, who's always been his rock and anchor, who's always known how to give him strength again when his own failed him. and MY gut feeling headcanon is that reborn died not too long before tsuna put the plan in motion. maybe even died only just a couple of days before that, and that was the last straw, the deciding factor that made tsuna go along with the plan.

so like. maybe tsuna was heartbroken and crestfallen when he made that decision. maybe it was an entirely emotional one, one he made out of spite and vindictive feelings for byakuran like you said. out of fear he'll end up with nothing more left to lose, and out his guilt for letting things come to that point and not being in a position--not having the power to make things right again. a decision he made out of his grief and the desperate hope he could get back everything he lost. the hope he could get reborn back. and okay, consider this, but independently of whether it was the right thing to do or of the chances of the plan to be successful, maybe he simply agreed to it too out of the certainty it's what present tsuna would have done too. that it's what he'd have wanted too, that he would have taken any chance that might bring reborn back to him. because it's reborn. oh i'm soo normal about this and their bond.

For Yamamoto's sake, he would be Vongola Decimo.

YOU CANT JUST SAY THAT TO ME LIKE I HAVENT THE SOFTEST SPOT FOR YAMS AND TSUNA. oh my god. oh my god??? for yamamoto's sake... for yamamoto. and i mean, i know tsuna would have done the exact same thing for any of his other guardians, but that amano chose to go along with yams instead of any other guardian... like again, i do very much believe tsuna would have reacted the same way were it anyone else, but at the same time i really do very much believe the fact it was yamamoto played a part in his anger and resolve to avenge him. i really can't explain it, but like. it's yamamoto, you know?

NO I KNOW!!!! tsuna is... he's so easy to overlook and deem unworthy of a second glance, but if you DO look back at him, and then really look at him, you can't stop and can't look away, and the longer you look, the more there is to look at. which is even more insane because at his core tsuna still is truly, really just some guy. he's just a complex character in very simple ways i guess??

anyway yeah, i need to LIE DOWN now, thanks.

[creepypastashavecomittedtaxfraud]

Angst headcannons with Ben ,Jeff and Toby ? uwu

I reaaaallly dont write much angst but i’ll give it a shot ...i tried not to make it too heavy ;_;

also: I just did in general angst headcanons but if you’d like xreader angst just send another request!

Ben:

in general, when ben’s sad he much prefers to just deal with it himself. he thinks it’s better that way, but the isolation just hurts more sometimes. 

if he opens up about his negative feelings at all he must really really reaaaaally trust you, dont take it lightly, dont break that trust

he, well, self medicates . ill leave it at that

He doesn’t really remember anything before he died, but he knows something really really fucking bad must have happened cus he’s still really badly affected by it. sometimes he’ll just hear or see something seemingly totally innocuous and it’ll make him absolutely freeze up for no reason. he’s pretty good at hiding it, but he’ll probably carry around that like. painful pit in his stomach all day

it’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but other times he’s pretty grateful he cant remember. and decides if he cant its probably for a good reason.

he feels very alone some days. like painfully lonely and doesn’t really know how to cope with it well other than isolating himself further. he’ll always be okay and come back out of it soon, but when he’s going through it, it’s rough

he’s . just flat out pretty traumatized. and ill. but he’s so used to mostly being alone he for better or worse just tries his best to hash it out himself and take care of himself.

doesn’t want to bother anyone really. thinks being sad or hurt is too off brand. he’s trying really hard to be better though, and is really happy he’s in a better part of his life now

he really craves real genuine connection with people, and he’s really grateful for everyone he does actually have that with 💕

Jeff:

he lashed out much worse when he was younger. he got kind of a handle on his more angry-outburst-at-people-for-no-reason stuff . and is working on his violent-self-destructive stuff. its a process

being in a better environment and having support from his friends and his slendad made him a lot better. my jeff came from a very very bad place, other than the obvious past accident stuff, he’s just. been through a lot, even outside of that. he’s not totally over it even all these years later. he’s trying.

when he was a teen he was really difficult and outburst-y. almost impossible to get through to until ben came along and they bonded and were able to help mentally get each other into a better spot

 his kind of blunt and huge-jerk personality is mostly just a cover up. he likes being loud and the center of attention and the heart of the friend group because it makes him feel safe. helps him feel guarded.

his Number One fear is being vulnerable. literally at all ever. if anyone ever made him feel scared or weak he would just. freak out so hard. he never ever wants to be weak or caught off guard. he wants to be the strongest person in the room, even though on the inside he’s a little fragile

he’s very hard to calm down . and once he’s feeling bad he really just spirals. but he has a good support system. 

he still gets really bad trauma nightmares from time to time. less frequently though. sometimes he’ll go into the kitchen and lay down there to sleep. it’s more comfortable to him for whatever reason.

Toby:

like ben, really tries to just take care of himself most of the time. is pretty good at hiding when he’s in a bad mood. doesn’t let it get to him

sometimes gets in a really irritable mood and just goes for a walk in the woods .

some days he can’t keep up being upbeat and jokey and just wants to be alone.

he gets nightmares about his past a lot too. maybe even more frequently than jeff now. tries not to let them get to him.

goes to masky and hoody for advice a lot. or just to talk about how he’s feeling. they support him, but sometimes talking about it doesn’t cut it yknow. sometimes he kind of feels isolated.

he thinks it’s stupid but he gets really lonely sometimes. kind of feels replaceable among his friends. doesn’t know if they actually like him or not sometimes even though of course they do

gets pretty bad moodswings sometimes, they were worse when he was younger, but tries to get some control over it now. 

doesn’t have a very good outlet most of the time, and has the tendency to just bottle things up or ignore them till it feels like it’s suffocating him

just needs. a good fucking cry sometimes. has a really hard time with accepting his emotions sometimes. but sometimes he just needs a good fucking cry. someone to hold onto until he gets himself back together.

is hurt. very very hurt, like everyone else i guess. and trying to ignore it is worse sometimes.

[malakdevorak]

evens?

What got you into the game?

So. I saw this callout post for stuff in the game and I was like 'Yikes' but,the thing is that i like to form my own opinions, so being aware of what I could find,i went for the game. All the prologue felt fine,and besides some minor issues with the game I enjoyed it a bunch. Then at the route picking I picked Julian cause I love me edgy characters. But he's more charming and dorky than full on Edge and the rest is history nsfhsj

Who is your favorite route ?

Hands down Julian's, second fav is Muriel's in tie with Lucio's

Who do you play in heart hunter?

Malak ,shocking,i know

Who if the not playable LIs do you wish you could romance?

Please,,Courtier routes,please,, i beg

Opinion on Julian?

Love of my life (besides my irl bf,ofc who is pretty similar in personality)

nsdh with more detail,though

I think he's incredibly smart in the fields he's into (theatrics,dancing,music,medicine,sailing,street smarts)

I believe he was very hurt by past relationships (besides asra,i mean) and im 99% sure he has "internal" BPD

He's a very caring but unsure man who sort of always had this depression and guilt going on. yet he's caring,sweet,and incredibly respectful of boundaries, despite his inherent horny energy

Also on a more shallow note,I like extreme,Very lanky? Yes! Very chubby? excellent! Middle of the road twink-ish? nah fam. Plus,I love redheads and non bratty male subs and those tired eyes of his 💕

Opinion on Muriel?

Big mountain man is Traumatized and relatable

hes very sweet and timid despite being the most impressively built man in-game, hes the least "macho" stereotype. I feel his trauma has been pretty realistically handled so far,especially in his route. considering yknow,that in vesuvia there's no therapist and he's broke and a loner

I also believe he truly used to enjoy training,especially sparring and general fight training for self defense (who ELSE was gonna save baby asra when magic wasnt enough? he's his friend y'all)

However being in zero control of his actions,ordered around to Kill or Else is more of a trigger to him (See: the scene in the coliseum in asra's route when he FOR REAL fights)

Opinion on Portia?

Portia oh sweet lovely Portia! she's amazing but has issues with downplaying herself under her cocky outer personality

Think lucio but less traumatized and with heavy brother issues plus being Kind and loving to cope,instead of lashing out.

She lives not only taking care of others (Nadia,Julian,The palace,Pepi,the garden,hell even MC in other routes besides hers) but had to grown up being responsible and more inherently Mature than her older brother to make up for him leaving early in life. Thats a LOT of responsibility. She gave up her pirate dreams a long time ago and relegated to just be an impossible longing

Fears abandonment a lot,hence she hates lying,cause the break of trust has to be the one thing she resents the most with Julian (in her latest update,she seems not shocked that julian was in a secret dungeon,or even killed. it's the fact that he worked willingly with valdemar,and that he lied to her about it,probably in a letter at some point)

Deserves Better

Have you bought any of the official merch?

Im painfully broke

How many arcana themed blogs do you have?

Only this one!

Self insert or apprentice insert?

Unpopular opinion but self insert ALL the way, no offense to y'all with apprentices,more power to you! but I NEED to know IM the one being loved by MY LI nsdhd

If there is one thing that could be made with the arcana theme on it, what would it be

as in merch from Nix hydra? GOD a like. printed booklet of all the original sketches and concepts for the game,im So into that technical business

as for fancontent? This already exists but, art & fic fanzines! i love them! I REALLY want to participate in one as an artist,,

(and id reccomend @asrasotherbottom and @muriel-is-a-soft-boyo (and possibly @snasra-snasra if she were up for it) for writers for a fanzine)

What is your least favorite ship?

Asrian. for many many actual thought out reasons,that id be chill to talk about im DMs sometime. I dont hate asrian shippers though! not at all!

also in a silly note,I also dont like asrian cause it makes me uncomfortable because im Jealous and yknow,me,chubby real flesh, 3D shaped me, has NOTHING on Asra, a fictional kinky magical twink. I 'fear' Julian would ditch me for him in a blink ndfhjahdsjk

Thank you 💖👏

Im still taking these asks btw!!!

[houseki-no-suffering]

a lot of jumbled thoughts on ch 76

aka: shit is about to go down, oh boi oh boi, but let me ramble about stuff first 

also im late to the party but shhh we got another 3 weeks before the earth arc so its still okay

isnt it funny how we’ve spent six months speculating about Euclase’s shadiness while Phos told Aechmea they’re ‘amicable’? And isnt it funny how Phos contradicts themselves at the end of the chapter cause they’re scared Euc will see right through them? Will we ever know more about Euc? Please? Pretty please?

also, I’m surprised by the moon people’s efficiency. They have no idea if Phos’ plan is going to work, maybe they dont even know how long it’ll take for them to become nothingness if Sensei starts praying, and here they are, making arrangements to leave everything to the gems. 

Reminds me of chap 56(?), when Phos thought the gems should acquire lunarian technology. Can’t believe it was this easy and now Amethyst’s about to become a hybrid between a pilot and an engineer? Well done, Ame, nice character development. Evangelion crossover when?

Why did Phos pick Amethyst, anyway? Alex, Yellow and Padpa are incapacitated, Goshe and Cairn are unpredictable, but what about Dia and Benito? Maybe Benito already has their hands full with taking care of Alex. But Dia?

Dia’s interesting tbh. Even Phos knows that, given the choice, Dia might decide to stay on the moon. They started off as one of the main characters and then slowly slid to the background and they’ve been p much static for a long while. i wonder if they’ll ever change at this point.

Ah, the problem child. 

This part hurt, as it’s custom now with Cairn-centered pages. Yet i just adore the idea of Cairn blowing up the whole moon one disastrous experiment at a time.

ABOUT THE PROTECTIVE COATING! 

how does it work exactly? does it protect gems from cracking? does it increase their hardness/toughness? has somebody thought of using it on Phos cause, yknow, they’re still mostly made of brittle phosphophyllite and they’re going in what’s basically enemy territory unharmed?? can somebody please care about Phos for once?

“My friend has time”

That’s the face of a man who doesn’t, in fact, have time. Aechmea is every bad boss you’ve ever had, he just doesn’t care. But bribing people with pasta is smart, i know i’d hardly resist. 

Also please let’s skip over how Aechmea is putting literal guards so that Barbata can’t hit on his shiny rock wifey. If anyone still believed Cairn has made nothing but independent choices so far please stop being delusional, you’re only hurting yourself.

Yeah, uhm, i’m gonna die (and my species has no concept of death so i have no idea what that means) for this totally good guy i’ve known for at least a few months (and my species lives forever so a few months is nothing, really) and that i’ve married (yeah, still trying to wrap my head around this marriage thing. also wife. everyone calls me wife and princess for some reason). This is fine.

also, if Shittymea’s gone and become nothingness he wouldn't be able to miss you, Cairn. but has anyone taken the time to explain it to you? Anyone?  

On another note. Is it just me or Cairn’s wife-outfit is way less revealing than Cairn’s bitchy girlfriend-outfits? Even when you don’t consider the lab coat. I wonder if Cairn’s still choosing them. 

Maybe Aechmea wants them to dress in a way that’s more appropriate for a wife/queen? Or maybe his possessiveness has started to extend to something more than having Cairn surrounded by guards at all times.

FINALLY WHAT VENTRI SAID IN CH 8 MAKES SENSE! 

And goddammit, this is one of my favorite theories and you’re telling me they already used it and discarded it? Is that why the lunarians experimented on gems? is this why the gems went mad? what about the human particle? THEY’RE STILL EXPERIMENTING, I FEEL IT

what was there for the moon people to gain? they already had admirabilis to experiment on (the criminals) and they most likely breed them to keep their population stable. Why’d the lunarians need more? this explanation doesnt match Ventricosus’ and it doesn’t really hold up. 

Thought it was impossible at this point, but Aechmea just earned 10 more untrustworthy points. I wonder why he’s hiding information from Phos

HOW VERY CONVENIENT

“I’m going to do everything I can.”

So this means this is Phos’ final attempt. This is it. If it doesn’t work out they’re gonna quit. 

Shit is about to go down during the next arc, an Earth arc. And this is exactly why i think Phos’ll acquire the seventh treasure during/at the end of this arc. More about this in a future meta cause this thing is already too long.

i’ve read a couple of posts already about this sentence. The translation is a little awkward, and it’s still ambiguous in Japanese. 

Knowing Ichikawa’s stories, i’m tempted to say it’s foreshadowing, a metaphor for what’ll happen next. It might even be that the story is coming to a close, it’s very hard to say.

MORE LUSTROUS SCRIPT SAMPLES! 

sorry, my inner linguist took the wheel. Yet i’d pay to see the actual lunarian manual. and the lunarian script. nngh. 

but yeah, “it’s not japanese/chinese” confirmed, “it’s not just alex’s bad writing” also confirmed, “it’s mongolian” not confirmed. but it def looks like it. a little. a tiny little bit. i love it. 

Also let’s take a moment to appreciate everyone’s cuteness in these pages cause the end of this chapter hurts. And was Phos joking? are they really planning to call Benito? When did Benito become a main character?? I’m so proud of them

“don’t act rashly” is a recurring piece of advice among gems. Even Padpa told Phos to keep cool and think, while Cinnabar is constantly observing and Alex clings to a 400 years old hatred.

It makes sense for a society that’s as stagnant and conservative as the lustrous’ to value contemplation over action. These rocks live forever, there’s no need to rush into things after all. Interesting.

Once again, Phos is carrying all the burden on their back. A child, one of the youngest gems, they’ve lost partners and pieces of their body in a short time, unveiled unsettling truths, betrayed their family multiple times, sided with the enemy, had partners and friends turn their back on them. All for the greater good.

They’re pushing themselves to their own limits, breaking them over and over, destroying their mental stability in the process. Why are they doing this? What’s the point if every answer just elicits new questions. 

It’s heartbreaking to feel Phos’ regret. How dare they think of Sensei’s kindness? How dare they envy their old self? After everything they did, after betraying Sensei? They can only move forward now, for all the people who didn’t make it or that count on Phos. It’s just heartbreaking. I feel so much for them.

[icharchivist]

perso-rant underneath and at first i intended it to be more light hearted but welp cant dive into myself without digging the bad stuff so just ignore this as rambling.

(idk if the cut works on mobile so as usual blacklist #ichapersonal to skip it , its quite long)

its night and im noisy and all but yknow part of the reason m/lb is such a healing show for me and i rewatch it every couple of days?

i cry everytime M.arinette's family is on screen pretty badly bc i get so envious all the time. i hate my shitty family (and often can relate to A.drien's ressentment) so just seeing such a /healthy/ family being often shown litterally brings me to tears. im like C.hat in the animan episode when he stares at the family picture with a sweet smile (another detail that stupidly make me cry who allowed th i s)

like. i dont relate to A.drien's relation to his family but some of the emotional effects is often a moment of "welp. mood." and being kinda sad /for him/ even if i can feel it for myself too. but then with M.arinette's family everytime they get to be on screen i realize how happy this sort of dynamic makes me and it makes me /so envious/.

like my mom is an artist and an excellent cook but she always barred those interests from me bc it was /hers/ and it was for /her ego/ and this attitude just killed every curiosity i had and remplaced it with a complete unability to care.

i used to bake as a kid but my mom was always shutting down everything i was doing, and if i was asking for help or recieps she would just tell le "it's a secret just watch " and never letting me know tf she was doing so i stopped lmao. everytime ive tried meals since it was only for myself and with a hard mocking from family and mom saying she had a better recieps and i should just let her do so i dont even try it often. (moreeven now that the kitchen is opened to the living room and they're super judgemental when im in it)

i was messing with drawings and paints in her workshop when i was a kid but she would always point out flaws and take my tools to correct it without telling nor showing me how and it killed it, it took me until my 14yo to start doing mindless doodles and then my breakdown when i was about 20 to seriously try back to draw and do art and try different tools (until my right hand made it impossible for me to hold a tool and the failure still feels yknow)

i wanted to sew things and make clothes (at the time for my dolls) but my mom was never letting me touch the tools (that we HAD since not only she made clothes but her mom actually had a fabrique shop. like. right next door. i think it became part of my mom's trauma hating her mom and refusing us to connect with her, more so with what happened when i was 7 and we lost contact with them but still, the damn irony. and i cant remember if my grandma ever let me close her sewing material but i was a damn kid after all) so this is another thing i didnt pursue

i wanted to pick up music (piano mostly) bc my uncle is a musician but my parents never wanted to invest in that because they already gave a piano to my sister (that i wasnt allowed to use) so ye that was dropped lmao

and i started to write when i was about 11 and it was that /one thing/ i didnt need help for from anyone, completely self taught, with my own ways and tools, and my parents were always dismissive of it, never listening to me, always telling me it wasnt important, that i should focus on something else, and after other circumstances that added to that i dropped writting around my 17/18yo and it had been painful to even try to write again since.(i came back to writing around my 20yo a bit before my breakdown but after it happened it started to die out and i felt exhausted and stopped after a few months and since then i've never been able to pick up writing again ay.)

(and im not touching the obsessive elements bc like- the fact she does it for her crush makes it different, but the sort of things she does? taking pictures and putting them everywhere in her room when she hyperfixates, making overcomplicated schedules and such? i litteraly do that with fiction. i made a freaking timeline for this show. i am currently working on organizing codex from d.a and an approval guide for christ sake. and im not talking about my multiple fandom shrines in my room and the fact i legit have one for m/lb made from pictures found on merchs.

or also the fact i have a lot of passions i'd love to share and seeing M. play video games with her dad for exemple makes me so bitter when all i get is backhanded insults from my parents when i bring it up.)

So sometimes i see M. and part of me is just in awe, loving everything about her. the other part of me tho... i feel... a bit robbed? like she's such a creative kid, she's incredible and she inspires me everyday, and i cant help but think how i would have adored her when i was a kid. (im not even kidding, as a kid i requested my mom a costume of black cat for h.alloween and a l.adybug costume for the carnaval. i have pictures of that at my dad's place sadly it kills me. also my room when i was a kid used to be covered with l.adybug stickers like. HELL my mom doesnt care about my interests but last year she bought me a M/LB winter callendar (bc its been years i was mentioning i wanted one, a selfish whim but oh well) and i had a huge double take bc i was certain she didnt remember me talking about this show- and she did not. when i asked her why, she legit told me "because she reminded me of you as a kid with your pigtails your obsession for l.adybugs". like!! i cant even stress how kid!me would have adored this show and especially LB./M.) (the pigtails too this time i have proofs around there i used to carry them all the time until i was bullied for it at school. (bullying at school instead of good friends also adds to the difference in question tbh lmao))

there is something so... weird into seeing the parts of yourself that you cut yourself from in a character, and see that the main difference is because of how the family (and bullies) treated those elements so drastically differently.

my family was always neglectful but differently than A.. the things i relate to with him is how he specifically still holds on hope that his father will do better at least just for one day and his reaction when he's left down saying he's just used to it. and like normal, not every kind of abuse are the same and all but i still relate enough to feel sad.

but M. is always a whiplash of feelings like i could have been this sort of girl in a better environment.

at 13/14yo she was already making stuff up, baking, designing clothes, doing art, she was doing so many things, even forgetting the superhero part. she was being happy being a creator at her pace and with encouragement. at 13/14yo i was starting to show concerning signs of d.epression because i was trying to handle my parents's divorces and the multiple trials that followed that /i/ had to handle by finding middle grounds, allowing some of my father's blackmail to avoid worse, and by litterally having to collect infos from mails everytime to prove against some of his arguments to the judges. and my sister refusing to talk to us for a year, which caused us basically to feel very bad thinking of the eldest sister who ran away from home, and having to handle my father's harrasment and emotional abuse of constantly belittling me (fuck this was the age he legit told me i would probably end up a p.rostitute so ye!!! fuck that!!!) andd the fact my mom was also falling apart from all of it on me and i was always supposed to cheer her up while i was having a hard time in a new school and new environment away from the very few friends i had and again feeling abandonned by my sister which freaking sucks after already had suffered that from our eldest one.

but M. makes me cry every. goddam. rewatch. its like maybe the ultimate wish fufilling story of just how i would have loved my family to be. of how i think i could have turned up.

and that realization hits so badly everytime.

there's a thing with my hyperfixations where i'll always find a way to tie it back to my traumas. i dont know if im pulling straws, or if the things are there. for having watched m.lb when it came out unfazed and only got hit with that realization upon rewatching- i feel it was more me realizing "there is something there that is touching me more than before" and having an introspection to get it.

and i think the difference is that- before my breakdown the characters and stories i related to where the eternal optimistic-yet-damaged "never give up!" type of characters. When things started to go downhill to my breakdown and since then the fictions that talked to me the most were all dealing with guilt coming from toxic environment that werent your fault per se but you pierceved that way. my way to relate were to characters who felt deeply connected to their guilt (peak being c.loud of f.f7 that even topped it with the deadly skin disease making him lose will to live (because ye that happened. still hate to watch out for that so ye), and memories issues, you would have told me at 13yo when i first watched that movie that this would be what i would relate to him about 7 years later i would have laughed at your face.), which translated with pushing people away and self destructing habits.

and i know i watched m.lb the first time around that time, when i was 20/21. and that may be why i didnt feel that. that my concerns were too elsewhere to realize that. That i was too focalized on how i felt like i failed by suddenly breaking under the pressure, having all the things i've kept burried kicking me out at once, and that i couldnt afford to be a burden to anyone. and it translated with me loving characters like that because in most cases their friends ended up reminding them of what was important - and sometimes just getting frustrated about your fav being as dumb as it forces you to pull yourself back together lmao. not always working but it was there.

now im 23. i cut ties with my father for about 3/4 years now, with all the shitty things that ensued out of the last trial where he sued me and his still-happening harrasment (sometimes silly sometimes scary). My mom and step dad are suffocating me more and more everyday. my health had become so disastrous i cant even manage to go school or find a job. And more than ever im frustrated and angry.

and i think it may be a shown of recovery? perhaps linked to therapy? of while i still have guilt of falling apart- /they/ are the reason i fell apart. and I'm yet to have proper apologizes for it. i grew furious at my family. of how much i feel robbed.

lately im so angry at everything i lost, was taken of, stolen childhood all of that- because of my parents, mainly. (hell even the bullying at school - in primary school it apparently started bc of gossips about why my eldest sister ran away from home, and in middle school it was first bc my parents insisted on sending me to private school where i was an outcast. which then had me truly embrassing the outcast persona that had made it impossible for me to be at peace in the two others middle schools i went to. highschool saved my social life tbh).

i think it's therapy and recovery that is making me shift the blame and feel so angry at them. so bitter. and suddenly i see in an innocent kid show a "what could have been". same starting personality, different people to channel this.

and this is. frustrating.

but it makes me love it even more. idk if its driving anything else than ressentment but at least for the time of an episode I'm in a bubble of a.lternative universe where i can forget about my life and feel satisfied at once.

like finding a piece of myself that i deliberately broke and burried to never think about it again, and realize far later how it missed to the whole, and how damaged this piece is now, but still is.

and there is something incredibly healing about that. i would never have thought there would be this much healing out of this anger and yet satisfaction. what a strange feeling.

fiction is funny that way. the things people can get out of it to deal with their own psyche are so different one person to the next.

it's just so weird for me to go from "i relate to the horrors this character went through" to "and fuck those horrors. let me think about what could have been if this didnt happen."

even moreso knowing i had this piece of fiction before and didnt approach it that way. there's a time and a mindset for everything. apparently now was the best mindset for me huh

.......

so ye apparently i cant like something like a normal person and have to go on about how it connects to my deeply rooted traumas lmao.

anyway it's been eating me up for weeks now and it's 4:45am i have absolutly no impulse holding me back. if you sat through this piece of work im sorry. just needed it to get it out of my chest.

i'll go back to hugging my cheap-yet-lifesaving c.laire's l.adybug pillow now

good night o/

[sweet-little-dude]

OML NOOOO DONT SAY THAT, if the girl is happily replying to your letters without complain then that means that she would def not mind talking to you! BUT please not the crucial silence.....you gots to hype your self up a bit! i mean cmon someone pretty and kind +someone kind and cool PLUS great at art = a great friendship periodt. and if she rlly thinks ur that much of a bother (which ik she wont) then she would have told you directly or gave subtle hints.

and Doritos stuck in your head cant be THAT bad. It just means that you have great taste when it comes to choosing chips!

Plus ofc ur cool tf. Like you do theater even tho you get nervous. but you still get over with it and have fun. Thats like..impossible for some ppl! so mega respect to u.

also did u read the new tr chapter....bcs honey....i shook to my bones.

NAH THE CRUCIAL SILENCE WAS SO NEEDED IN TELLING THIS STORY, I COULD PRACTICALLY HEAR THE CRICKETS. YOU THINK IM GOOD AT ART????? DARLING YOUR TOO MUCH ILY HELPPP <3333 ig you’re right on that …….

NAH DARLING IT WAS THAT BAD, I HAD MY HAIR OUT AND WHEN DORITO CRUMBS GOT STUCK IN MY HAIR I WAS LIKE “’m sorry” CUZ I WAS STILL CHEWING AND SHE WAS JUST LIKE “it’s ok 😐👁” I HATE IT IT WAS SO EMBARRASSING.

AWWW TY <333 I just choose to get it over with since this is smth i rlly enjoy and i‘ve worked so hard to get to this point, so there’s no point pussying out now yknow?

THE NEW CHAPTER WAS GREAT IMO. like bro the flashbacks………fr hurt my heart :(( AND THE PRETTY HINA IM <333