#that's why it sucks so hard

[moths-in-the-coat]

OC PROFILE #8: ORIGINAL UNIVERSE (ARMAGEDDON)

"I never asked to be born sinful. I never asked to be born at all."

✴ name: Ariel Merihem ✴ nicknames: Ari, Mayhem, Hellstar, Sparky ✴ age: Appears to be in her early 20's ✴ birthday: June 6 ✴ star sign: Gemini ✴ birthplace: Promethea, Pride Sector, Hell ✴ hometown: New Sodom, Lust Sector, Hell ✴ ethnicity: ...demon? succubus? uhh... ✴ nationality: Infernal...? ✴ languages spoken: English ✴ gender: Female (she/her) ✴ sexuality: Demisexual

ii.– appearance

✴ description: Ariel is an average-height demon with red skin, tall, sharp horns, and leathery, bat-like wings. She has golden eyes (indicative of a demon of Pride) and short blonde hair. ✴ height: 5'7 (170 cm) ✴ weight: Unknown ✴ other distinguishing features: beauty mark on cheek, cupid's bow lips, long legs

iii.– personality

✴ positive traits: courageous, unselfish, focused, clever, supportive ✴ neutral traits: stylish, outspoken, rebellious, charismatic, proud ✴ negative traits: fanciful, cunning, big-headed, obnoxious, jealous ✴ likes: dancing, fancy clothes, spicy food, shiny things, herself ✴ dislikes: angels, salty food, being bossed around, geese, her job ✴ fears: reincarnation, angels, dogs ✴ hobbies: dancing, sewing, singing, making cocktails, pickpocketing ✴ talents: singing, dancing, persuasion, swindling, melee combat

iv.– abilities

✴ status: citizen ✴ abilities: seduction, weak pyrokinesis, shapeshifting, good at fighting

v.– relationships

✴ family: Ariel doesn't have a good relationship with either parent, as she was thrown out of the house at 16 to fend for herself and hasn't been in contact with either since then. ✴ friends: Sammy Braddock, "DEXTER" (sort of) ✴ enemies: is distrustful of just about everyone, everyone is her enemy in her eyes ✴ love interest: none, single

vi.– backstory

Ariel was born in the Pride Sector of Hell out of a union between an incubus and succubus. From a young age, she was forced to be hyperindependent due to her parents' neglect and substance abuse. At 16, she was kicked out of the house and forced to live on her own with no support so to speak. She went from city to city and sector to sector working odd jobs to support herself, eventually finding her place in Kellogg's, the premier cabaret bar in the Lust Sector's New Sodom. Since then, she's been one of the headlining performers there.

…and then the fic starts.

vii.– other

✴ fashion style: burlesque, femme fatale, luxe, glam girl ✴ face claim: Marilyn Monroe (i guess?) ✴ voice claim: Jamie Marchi ✴ theme song: Material Girl- Madonna ✴ assorted fun facts: Her singing and dancing skills are completely self-taught. Her guilty pleasure is heavy metal. Despite being a succubus, she's demisexual. Most of her clothes are covered in rhinestones or jewels. One of her odd jobs was being a stand-up comedian. She loves cats.

[tapeworrmart]

What if James was always onimously soaked through as a nod to his ending

[crispinkiss]

he isn't jealous as much as he's confused really

also please appreciate the mibble

and this gay star

[heze-lavirgo]

I'm so damn pissed with school right now. I have to do a research on Massachusetts. Or however you spell the damned name.

Why. Why did my teacher think it was necessary knowing about >Massachusetts<. I'll literally forget everything about it when I finish the work. Because like, why would I remember that apparently they plant Cranberry? What even is that. I'm not from the US, I'm pretty sure I never had that fruit. Why would I need to learn about Massachusettes. I'm angry. I hate Massachusetts. The only thing I will remember is that Harvard is located there and that apparent lots of celebrities are Massachusettian? I have no idea what to call someone from Massachusetts.

[thatgothsamurai]

a lil experiment........

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[sosadraws]

"Despite their normally laid-back demeanor, STARs have a strong internal hierarchy [...] STARs will occasionally develop in-group rules involving physical punishments."

Anyways, just a normal day for Powder and company. I should have finished this drawing earlier if not because I wanted to give it better ✨characterization✨ and remade the sketch to push more the poses.

So yeah, the girls shown here are fom left to right: Trigger (leader, often de-escalates conflicts within the group), Striker ("Yes boss" type of character, frequently seen by Trigger's side), Zwanzig (Older unit transferred from another facility. Not a fan of nicknames as you can see, so others just refer to her by her given designaton), Powder (Powder) and Barrel (Newest unit who is still getting adjusted to the cadre dynamics. She has a thing for Storch units).

^^^ ...They're all weird.

[suntails]

❤️⚔️

[artuurle]

This isnt really an ask this is just me holding out my empty plate to you

More Grujaja stuff please!!!!! very yummers!!!! :D /noforce

Great news, i have a bit of unposted doodles of Grujaja cuz like i mention in other posts every time i draw smthn sad w him I cope by drawing cute or silly images. (and one other sad one oops)

the rest of the doodles are for my silly hc (honestly borderlining au at this point w the amount of images i've made for it lol) that caused this whole mess, those under the cut for the sanity of the people. [thumbs up]

Grujaja making Hector die from stress right before he tries to ascend to godhood.

bonus Capo trying and failing to pretend like he doesn't care as well. if you even cares. /silly

[harpoonsnotspoons]

Something something sword in the stone

[capn-twitchery]

i almost never mention it but it's crucial to me that grace & twitch are both aroace & whatever the hell they have going on together isn't romantic & never will be

twitch doesn't really have any feelings about being aroace-they just Are! they've never felt the need to be anything else. grace is a lot more conflicted, from being raised in an environment that expected his future to involve marriage & children. he didn't want it, and he felt like there had to be something wrong with him because of it. the future was Terrifying as someone who couldn't follow that path

both of their feelings about it are so important to me and it's even More important to me that they both find happiness & a future in eachother & whatever their relationship is, outside of what they're "supposed" to do & feel (even if it is a goddamn trainwreck at the best of times)

[cottoncandylesbo]

This is an odd question, but which controller of yours would you say is most the haunting?

dare ye gaze upon my amulet of Seaman

[sockeyesidequest]

First thing! I made a couple patterns! This is for a class, critique is tomorrow and I am so over this project. Patterns are hard to make apparently but I'm not mad at the way my fish one looks. The spooky one looks terrible and I'm so sad about it.

Physically printed these out too bcs they're digital which was kinda cool. I need to learn how to make prints and all that so it's a step in the right direction.

[blissfulrain12]

Cockpit Conversation Analysis

So I just wanted to go over my thoughts on this conversation cause I think people miss out on a few things. It's the first conversation we see between Curly and Jimmy when it's just the two of them. Before it happens we're told that Jimmy has been difficult with Anya, making her job harder and saying things that are sexual harassment (if the cartoon horse question isn't actually on the eval). We go into the conversation with the framing that Jimmy and Curly are friends. They've known each other for a long time and Curly is confident Jimmy won't bullshit him. Except on the way to the cockpit we get Curly's one and only bizarro moment and it's an expression of fear and anxiety. With this context in mind let's look at the actual conversation.

Transcript from @familiarartistname they're awesome for providing these.

I've already talked about these lines a bit but to sum up Jimmy asks Curly to fake it and Curly refuses to forcing him to go through the eval.

What I want to point out for this post is that Jimmy's not wrong in his assessment of how useless the psych evals are. I think his general irritation with the eval helps mask his disdain for Anya. Especially if being attracted to cartoon horses is an actual question in universe and not just an easter egg on the in game eval sheet. If it is I think this is part of why Curly and Anya don't take Jimmy as seriously as they should here.

I also think it's important to note how and when Curly bends the rules. He'll do Jimmy's eval for Anya but he won't make up answers for Jimmy. I think this is an example of the balancing act that Curly is engaged in as captain.

These next lines are interesting to me. One is that Curly seems to take separation of what PE needs to know and not know. He makes it clear that whatever Jimmy says here is not going to be repeated to the company. He does something similar for Anya when he thinks she took the gun during a breakdown over the layoffs. Notably he doesn't open up to Anya during his own eval. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason he doesn't is because of a lack of this distinction. This is also another example of Curly doing that balancing act of being a captain. Managing what the company should know while protecting his coworkers' mental health.

The other interesting part is Jimmy's answer to the question. He likes it cause they're in control here. I think Jimmy is the most positive about working for PE and it's all because he feels in control. I think people miss it but Jimny is happy for the most part pre layoff. He's in control what more could he want?

I think it's interesting that he says this because on paper Jimmy's not in control. I've seen people call Jimmy Curly's co-captain but he's not. He's just the co-pilot and by the looks of things isn't actually of higher rank than the rest of the crew. Post crash it takes 2 months for him to take the captain title and he gets push back from the others. If he did outrank them or was co-captain leadership would have instantly passed to him but it doesn't. Yet Jimmy says "We're in control" because Curly's control is his control because he controls/leeches off of Curly. I think this line is our first warning sign that something's not quite right with their relationship.

This part of the conversation has a lot going on even though it's so few lines. First it tells us that Jimmy liking the job is unexpected because he's struggled in the past and people praise Curly as a captain and Jimmy doesn't like that.

Focusing on Jimmy's line I think this is the first line that people pick up on that their friendship is strange because who tells their friend people praising them is annoying? If you look at the flow of the conversation there's no reason for Jimmy to bring this up as well. It goes "How are you?" "Great" "That's unexpected because of your past" "Yeah well people praising you is annoying". They're not talking about Curly or how people see him as a captain. Jimmy brings it up and calls it annoying simply to hurt Curly.

Jimmy takes Curly bringing up his struggles as an attack so he attacks back by making him feel bad about something good. Remember that when Jimmy brings this up during the birthday scene he misquotes Curly as saying "struggle of a life" when that's not what Curly said at all. That's how Jimmy felt about it though. This also isn't the last time Jimmy uses Curly's success as a captain as a weapon against him either. The way Jimmy does this is also very emotionally abusive. Jimmy isn't just framing praise for Curly as bad but bad because it upsets Jimmy. It might not seem like much but comments like these are links in a chain, they add up together.

For Curly's part of the conversation I've seen interesting interpretations of what those "struggles" were but I think we do lose some context sometimes. It's important to remember that Curly thinks Jimmy's struggles would've led him to dislike being a freighter pilot. Meaning his struggles are most likely more personal in nature.

So Jimmy switches topics again by asking Curly what's bothering him. Jimmy also does this during the birthday party scene. He seems very intune with Curly's emotions able to see past any attempts to hide it and see that he's upset. Which does indicate their closeness and friendship.

As for the last line looking at this transcript made me realize how much the fandom associates this suicidal imagery with Curly even though it's Jimmy who says it. In fact I don't think Curly ever describes his feelings like this it's always Jimmy who says it about Curly. This is a very odd way to ask your friend why he seems upset and iirc the next time Jimmy brings this imagery up to Curly is right before he attempts a murder-suicide.

(The line "And that's bad?" should be green as that's Jimmy.)

Curly's answer to Jimmy's question is very interesting because it's not uncommon for people his age to feel this way. We spend the first part of our lives growing into, discovering, and establishing the people we're going to be. When we hit our 30s/40s it's natural to look over who you've become and what you've made for yourself and ask "Am I satisfied with this?" I think for Curly he's leaning towards "no".

It's not that Curly thinks he's above his job, he's just not satisfied in it. It's like how Swansea isn't satisfied with the life of a family man even though society says that's the "right" way to live. Curly is weighing the risks and benefits of staying in a steady job he's successful at vs starting over with something that will satisfy him even if he's not conventionally successful at it. It's a heavy decision to make and we know from the dlc for How Fish Are Made that Curly regrets not changing sooner.

As for Jimmy's response, he in fact doesn't get it. It's fascinating how Jimmy took Curly's words about life satisfaction and turned it into being about career success and hierarchy. Curly's feelings have nothing to do with reaching the top of his career but Jimmy can't see this. Jimmy sees the world through Capitalist/Patriarchal hierarchies and has a habit of projecting his feelings/pov onto others. This is the closest he can get to understanding where Curly is in his life right now. Which makes sense because Jimmy comes from poverty and has struggled in the past he's not at the same life stage as Curly.

It's also fascinating that again we see imagery that the fandom associates with Curly being something Jimmy says about Curly and that Curly never expresses. The only time this imagery comes up for Curly iirc is his bizzaro sequence leading up to this conversation with Jimmy. The ladder is a metaphor Jimmy imposes on Curly. He also kind of imposes this sense of ambition onto Curly. Like it's only natural that after reaching the top of one ladder a man would look for a new ladder to climb.

There's something about the last thing Jimmy says here that is necessary to point out because I think people miss it. Jimmy turns the conversation back to himself. He's made Curly's feelings about himself and once again made Curly's feelings in opposition to his own. Curly's dissatisfaction while being at the top vs Jimmy still climbing.

Lastly Curly knows Jimmy doesn't get it. "Something like that" indicates Jimmy's interpretation isn't right and later in the birthday party scene Curly reinforces this by saying things like "what I was trying to tell you". So yeah Curly knows that Jimmy doesn't understand him but doesn't try to explain further.

Curly's last bit of dialog in this scene is him comforting Jimmy. Remember how I said Jimmy recenters himself despite the conversation at this point being about Curly? This is what I mean. Jimmy asked Curly to be vulnerable with him and Curly ends up comforting Jimmy. Jimmy gives Curly no words of reassurance here, in fact Curly doesn't even get understanding.

In comparison see my Dead Pixel analysis where even though Curly doesn't see the pixel he still believes Anya and aligns with her opinion of the screen being nice. There's no alignment here between Curly and Jimmy, they are talking about 2 different things and it's one sided in Jimmy's favor. In the Dead Pixel convo notice how Anya continues to open up to him, she goes from the pixel to the time left to the locks. Curly in comparison stops trying.

This line also establishes Curly's belief in Jimmy. A belief that even this conversation demonstrates that he shouldn't have. But it's subtle and I can't blame Curly for missing all the things wrong here when so many of the fandom misses it too. We give the conversation the benefit of the doubt because they're friends and we don't know the full scope of Jimmy yet. It's also interesting cause this is the only time Curly says he believes in Jimmy outright and yet the way he believes Anya about Jimmy brings up questions for another time.

Alright last bit and it's from Jimmy himself. So two things from those first lines. One we have Jimmy back to feeling good from Curly's belief in him. A reminder that back when he was asked how he was doing he was fine. Jimmy's feelings are the priority here. Two we see Jimmy's insecurities in here. He's insecure about how his eval comes across. He's very insecure about how he's precieved which comes up again and again through his obsession with reputation, being a hero, and being a patriarch. I also think this points to where his struggles might be in. The evals are labeled as psychological but the actual questions are about employee productivity. Which part of that Jimmy is worried about I'm not sure.

Then we get the message from corporate and Jimmy is instantly out of there. Which brings me back to the beginning. Jimmy likes it there cause "we're in control" and yet when the responsibility of that control shows up he excuses himself. Granted there may be a rule that no one else can be in the room when messages come in but that reinforces the fact that Jimmy doesn't have any power on paper. He's not a co-captain. Jimmy's sense of control comes from his power over Curly.

So yeah my final thoughts? This conversation is unhealthy and it's the nicest conversation we see Jimmy have with the actual Curly. We get a little joking around here and there but one on one longer convos? This is as nice as it gets. In context Curly experiences feelings of fear, anxiety, and isolation on his way to this conversation. It's full of unhealthy moments and the one sided prioritizing of Jimmy's feelings. The status quo for them has not changed yet. If this is an example of what their average conversations are like their relationship is emotionally abusive.

Imagine having a friendship where you have to always prioritize your friend's emotions over your own. Where if you say something that bothers them they take verbal potshots at you. Where they make you feel guilty for being more successful. Where they make your vulnerabilities about them. It's like I said it's links in a chain. By themselves it's not a problem but together over time these behaviors will do damage to a person.

And putting this conversation back into context this is one of three verbally abusive moments we witness in the span of a week. And there are indicators that in each that these abusive behaviors aren't new. Curly in this conversation doesn't question Jimmy claiming control or the "praise for you is annoying" comment. None of this is weird to him and that's a bad sign. Abusive behavior was already normalized on the Tulpar, it was a powder keg waiting to happen.

[transmaverique]

amab and afab, if they were used as shorthand for the actual full phrases that they signify, with emphasis on the "assigned" part, and an understanding that they are enforcements of normative (ie, dyadic and cisgender and binary) sex, would be like. really useful. but people took the terms and started using them as shorthand FOR normative sex instead of the ENFORCEMENT OF normative sex. so when other trans people (almost always dyadic trans people) ask for your agab they are almost always asking for your Original Genital Situation. your starting point, so to say. and the reason FOR asking is also almost always bc they are trying to also enforce a certain kind of normativity within queer spaces (which is stupid bc being queer is inherently non-normative but here we are). like, you cant be a lesbian if you're ftm, bc you ARE m, so if you ARE a lesbian, then that means you're lying about some aspect of your identity. does that make sense?

it is always always always incredibly.... i do not trust dyadic trans people that use cagab terms, even moreso than i do not trust dyadic trans people that just use agab terms. agab is also coopted intersex language, but the "coercive" part of cagab SPECIFICALLY refers to medical "intervention" of intersex characteristics, such as "corrective" surgeries and hrt. i am deeply fucking suspicious of any dyadic trans person that uses those terms exactly the same as described above, even moreso if they do so bc "all gender is coercive".

like. yeah. that's true. but you use these terms to erase and overtake intersex discussions on the medical abuse of intersex infants. and i cant help but wonder why you would feel the need to do that.

[pokemon-radical-red]

I hate it when I headcanon a character who’s canonically a girl as a trans man and make ships of him and a character who’s canonically a guy and I refer to it as a gay/mlm/guyxguy/whatever ship and someone gets mad. Like omg let trans people have FUNNNNN. Why are queer headcanons and genderbends cool until they’re saying that the character is trans???

“OMGGG you’re so misogynistic I can’t believe you would erase FEMALE representation!!!”

and like half of the characters in the franchise are women, and a total of… NONE of the characters are trans men. Also, my headcanon doesn’t change the source material. If my stuff upsets you, you can block me and go engage with the source or maybe every single other fanwork, since mine is the only trans man hc for this character that I’ve ever seen.

or when people are like “WTF??? this is so transphobic!!! how dare you imply that a character who looks like that could be a trans man?!?! do you think that trans men are women or something??? she uses she/her, and you’re misgendering her!”

No, I don’t think that being a trans man makes you a woman or vice versa. That’s why it’s a headcanon, and the headcanon is that this character is actually a trans man and not a woman at all! You’ll never guess what pronouns most trans men had to use at some point in their lives, and you really won’t like it when you find out about pre-(or no-)transition trans men… or trans men who are in the closet… or trans men who don’t know that they’re trans yet.

“But the character is a kid!!! Saying they’re trans is sexualizing them.”

I’ve seen this one from other queer people. Like did you miss when all of the homophobes said this about your identity, or do you think that bigotry is only bad when it’s directed at you?

“Why would you say ‘testosterone could fix her’??? Are you trying to call her a delusional woman?”

Why would your brain even go to that first? This literally has to be a bad faith reading, because there’s no way that someone could see what I said and get this unless they were specifically looking for something to be mad at me for.

(Note for anyone unaware: “Estrogen would’ve fixed him!” was a meme going around at the time I said this. I’m not sure if it’s still super big, but this was a joke to the effect of that.)

“So girls can’t be tomboys anymore? You just wanna trans everyone?”

This is like actual real life transphobic rhetoric. This isn’t even just shitting on my headcanon, but in fact, sending transphobic hate to a trans man. Thanks 👍. Maybe you should go send JK Rowling another message about how much you loved her essay instead of bothering me.