#the entire perspective thing was a nightmare (A NIGHTMARE i tell you) but i wanted to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone
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delulluart Ā· 1 year ago
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after work hours (or: I got annoyed by people depicting him as an old man who uses his phone like a grandpa and this entire thing got completely out of hand)
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keiriiz Ā· 7 months ago
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Chrollo Relationship/Romantic Headcanons
Now for these headcanons, this is where my opinion might really differ from the rest of you guys. Of course this isnā€™t all but just some of my favorites. I will be putting a clear NSFW warning for when I start to talk about him in bed. šŸ”ž
I do want to add that some of my headcanons would change depending on his partner. If theyā€™re a Nen-user or not, exactly what their ability is, if theyā€™re in the Phantom Troupe, and how long heā€™s known them, etc. These are just as neutral as possible haha. Even some of what I say here contradicts how Iā€™ve written him in certain ships because I knew exactly how he would act for those specific love interests.
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āœ„ Right of the bat, Chrollo is bi-romantic, having very little preference of gender when it comes to his s/o. And sexuality wise, heā€™s definitely on the demisexual spectrum.
āœ„ Chrollo never really planned on being in a long term relationship or ever settling down with someone when he created the Phantom Troupe. It was just another aspect of life he was prepared to sacrifice. So giving a genuine relationship a shot heā€™d have to really love the other person.
āœ„ It would take forever for Chrollo to actually recognize he was feeling romantic attraction to another person as the entire thing is foreign to him.
āœ„ This manā€™s charisma goes out the drain when trying to flirt with someone heā€™s genuinely interested it. Tapping his fingers as a stim while he awkwardly flirts. Itā€™s painfully adorable.
āœ„ Before making things official, he may do extensive research on his s/o. Background checks, verifying friends and family members, overall borderline stalking. Itā€™s a safety measure. He doesnā€™t want to risk falling for someone who works for an opposing group or who might betray him.
āœ„ In a relationship, his s/o would be a source of comfort, especially if the relationship is long term. Heā€™ll relax in their arms after a heist or cuddle up to them when he has a nightmare.
āœ„ I said in my last post but Iā€™ll say it again here. Chrollo is a little spoon!
āœ„ Itā€™s not too often Chrollo will verbally tell someone he loves them, his main ways of showing affection are quality time, and gift giving. And for his special someone, he wouldnā€™t just give them random things willy-nilly, heā€™d put thought behind each one. Say his partner mentions needing new shoes because their current ones are really worn out. You bet next time Chrollo sees them heā€™s bringing two pairs of brand new shoes.
āœ„ He loves to be able to lay his head in his s/oā€™s lap and have them play with his hair while he reads. He might even purr if given the right setting.
āœ„ Chrollo can be touch avoidant in general. If anyone touches him and he hasnā€™t given that person mental permission he will move away, shudder even. So if heā€™s actually allowing another in his space it really is a sign of fondness.
āœ„ This man definitely takes notes from romance novels heā€™s read when it comes to dates with someone heā€™s head over heels for. It can be cheesy.
āœ„ Chrollo isnā€™t a chef by any means but on occasion heā€™ll attempt to cook for his s/o when staying in. Might as well put some of his cook books to use after all.
āœ„ The times Chrollo is with his partner, things can be quite pleasant. However he can still be emotionally distant. He often wonders what he did to deserve all of this. To be able to love and be loved. Itā€™s a mental battle he might struggle with quite often in the relationship and he wouldnā€™t be too open to communicating that, leaving his s/o confused. Just some general reassurance could go a long ways.
āœ„ I feel like a lot of people go for the idea that heā€™d like others with similar interests or are like him in general, and I could see potential in that mindset however I much prefer the ā€œopposites attractā€ trope. I think Chrollo might have a bigger interest in someone different than him who can really show a different perspective on certain things. Or even test his mindset and show him new interests.
āœ„ Heā€™s protective of his s/o, knowing with the life he has, anyone might try to hurt them to get to him so Chrollo wouldnā€™t be one to really ā€œshow offā€ his partner unfortunately. They relationship could be pretty private.
āœ„ Assuming his s/o isnā€™t in the Troupe, Chrollo may ghost them while heā€™s away on the job. Heā€™ll let them know heā€™s working, but no calls or texts while heā€™s away. He wonā€™t even give a location. He wants to keep his personal life separate and doesnā€™t want to risk revealing to an enemy his relationship or possibly get distracted.
NSFW BELOW ā€¼ļø
āœ„ Before the relationship, Chrollo didnā€™t really like sex (as I mentioned him being demi), he viewed the act as a chore used on jobs to get information and didnā€™t find it all that gratifying.
āœ„ With his s/o, Chrollo much prefers to make love as opposed to casual sex. He likes the intimacy of being with someone he truly loves and not just an act of pleasure.
āœ„ He prefers bottoming though is open to being a verse. Acting as Boss all the time he really just likes to relax in his personal life so in all honesty it wouldnā€™t be rare to catch him being a pillow prince in bed.
āœ„ Chrolloā€™s not the biggest cock wise, probably just reaching average. Heā€™s uncut being from Meteor City but trust and believe he keeps that shit clean with his pubic hair trimmed.
āœ„ Heā€™ll almost never out right ask for sex, heā€™s honestly fine if his partner doesnā€™t have any interest in the act either. Though if they make a move heā€™s more than happy for a session.
āœ„ Heā€™s got VERY sensitive nipples. Give them a little tug with your teeth and heā€™ll mewl.
āœ„ Aftercare is always a given between him and his s/o. If Chrollo just got done bottoming, cuddles and praise are a must. Heā€™d especially melt if given a massage.
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thecoffinsys Ā· 7 days ago
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Slay the Princess is the perfect demonstration of trauma, dissociation, and systemhood.
I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT THIS. And it's NOT just for the reasons you may think. Yes, it is due to the multitude of voices, but that isn't all there is to systemhood. Slay the Princess dives into almost every fundamental stage of grief, trauma, stress, and body sensations regarding traumatic events that we as a collective have ever experienced. Stay with me.
SYSTEMHOOD
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Not only does Slay the Princess display systemhood through the multitude of voices, inability to come to a conclusion on outerbody decisions, and having different methods of how to survive specific situationsā€” it also displays systemhood through loss of time, depersonalization, loss of identity and sense of self, alters having abilities over the body that others do not, looping the same trauma over and over again, and rapidly splitting due to traumatic experiences ā€” even down to not being believed by family members when you tell them something horrible happened to you.
The entire idea of jumping from one alternative world to the next after dying or making the incorrect choice perfectly displays a repetition of the same traumatic memory over and over again, the mind trying to logistically think of what could have been done differently as a means of coping with what really happened. When you fail to save the world in one reality, your mind restarts the entire scenario again, trying to find a better option to the mistake you've already made.
The Stranger rout perfect displays depersonalization, dissociation, loss of self and identity, and confusion regarding time. The second you step down a staircase, you completely and utterly forget yourself in the mundane action. Forgetting who you are, where you are, what your purpose truly is - and sinking deep within your own mind, until suddenly you're right where you are meant to be and have no memory of how you got there. It's so perfect in how it shows the confusion and distress.
This game is about becoming. whole. Gaining. A sense. Of self. And purpose. Gaining more perspectives, more understandings of what it means to be a person. (Oh my god I'm screaming)
In The Nightmare, the voice of the Paranoid displays perfectly symptoms of not only paranoia regarding trauma, but symptoms of OCD due to trauma. He has an ability that no other alter has, which is to keep their organs running by participating in his own compulsion. Which really displays how some alters have abilities that other do not, because to be a system, you must be fragmented. Several shards of glass attempting, to the best of their ability, to be a functional mirror- but never having the exact strength. And different shards will hold different capabilities than those who are smaller, weaker, and carry smaller and/or more specific burdens. Paranoid is a very big shard, I think.
Following that ā€” mirrors are a huge motif of the game. Not only do you continuously see them in every rout, but you end each rout by finally looking at yourself and seeing you for you. And the more perspectives you gain, the less "you" you truly feel. You become tired, withered. But it is all in the efforts to "become whole". To make this being of perception finally understand what it means to be more than just broken worlds creating branching understandings.
In A Moment of Clarity, dozens of voices begin to cloud our understanding due to the very traumatic thing we experienced in the last world. A rapid split because of trauma! We become more broken; "losing ourselves". Now there are even more conflicting thoughts, feelings, and opinions regarding how we should go about surviving- and it displays our further descent from our sense of self. Which is ironic given the name of the ending!
And finally (but most definitely not finally, I could keep going on and on but no one would want to read all of that), The Narrator never believing you when you tell him you've been here before, have experienced horrors that he could never imagine, and have been through countless nightmares. But not only does he not believe you, he will also ridicule your idea, and go on to say "you failed because you didn't listen to me" or "you damned another world because of what you did". Puts the blame on us, once again. It's the same thing a lot of systems do experience in the real world. You try to reach out, you try to explain to someone you trust that something horrible happened to you, but you're met with disbelief and shamed for your own trauma. Made to feel like the guilty one when you are in fact the victim- the survivor. That one stood out to me very personally.
. . .
I really want to go on but this is already a billion paragraphs and I worry no one will even get this far. But this game means a lot to us as a system and as someone who experiences things very similar to what is displayed in the game on a daily basis. Slay the Princess might be one of our all time favorite games as of right now, especially considering the guy who traumatized us for 200 episodes straight is the main guy voicing the entire thing- that also helps with sentiment-
Uhhhh thank you for reading if you made it this far :]
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tippenfunkaport Ā· 2 months ago
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Today Variety (see above) had an article naming Heidi Schreck as the new writer for the live action She-Ra series at Amazon that was announced back in Sept 2021 and, after seeing dozens of terrible takes and people who are fans of the Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2017) freaking out, let's talk about this, shall we?
Disclaimer that I do not have any insider knowledge of this project specifically, this is just my educated perspective from my experience with IP and TV.
First and foremost, I will believe this project is actually happening when it is showing on my TV and not a moment sooner. Let's just say that.
Now assuming it IS happening, here's what you should understand...
IP is usually use it or lose it. If Dreamworks wants to keep the rights to make She-Ra content, they very likely must have something in active development or risk listing it. If Netflix isn't willing to make more of the animated series right now, then the Amazon deal is all they have or give She-Ra up entirely.Ā 
If you're an SPOP (2017) fan, you're in favor of Dreamworks retaining the license over losing it because, so long as they have it, the door is always open for more of our SPOP in one way or another. This reboot doesn't negate the possibility of a continuation of the animated version or vice versa. (Fans of frequently rebooted properties like TMNT and MLP would be happy to tell you about how there's been content for multiple gens at the same time.) It's not like the new version erases the old. If anything, a reboot often makes it more likely you get content of a past gen because of renewed interest in the property as a whole.
"But what if it's sexist trash!" The biggest fear people had about this reboot was that it would be some male gaze disaster made to please the worst kind of people who hate all kinds of diversity. Obviously, we'll see what we get, but the fact that they specifically got a feminist playwright as the writer is a big thing should alleviate some of that fear.
"But will it be gay????" I've seen lots of freaking out that Adora's going to kill Catra and marry a man on her grave and other equally unlikely fears. And the fact is: We don't know if it will be gay! With this writer, the gay door certainly isn't closed, but that doesn't mean it's open either. But honestly the real question you should be asking is: will it be explicitly gay? Because the rainbow homo-eroticism is baked right into She-Ra OG so even if we don't get an explicit same-sex kiss on screen... it's likely still gonna be pretty gay.
Even a bad or infuriating reboot will revitalize the fandom and bring new fans to SPOP (2017) AND increase the chances of continuation. Say the new show is terrible. Say they annoy everyone by giving Catra and Adora a supercorp queerbaiting thing and then never make it canon or make Catra and Hordak in love and everyone is mad. (Which I feel obligated to point out is *extremely* unlikely as this is literally still Dreamworks' show. They are the same people that gave you the gay. They are keenly aware of what their audience wants so, even if they are reluctant to make it canon, at the least they are probably going to tease it.) But even in the worst case scenario of the straightest possible version of She-Ra, what are people going to do if the new show pisses them off? Turn back to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, create more fanworks, interact with what's already there, keep the fandom alive for everyone. You want that!
"Well SPOP (2017) was perfect and they should never be allowed to make another version of She-Ra again unless it's just like the thing we just got!" Wow, where have I heard something like that before? Oh yeah, that's exactly what the nightmare chuds said about Netflix's She-Ra and if they had gotten their way, we wouldn't have had this show we love. So maybe take a nice deep breath, chill tf out and look at that fact that there is no reason yet to see this announcement as anything other than a good thing for both this new reboot and the animated version's future.
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serene-faerie Ā· 2 months ago
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Okay, but imagine the Darkening of Valinor and the very First Kinslaying from the Teleri's perspective. It's almost a straight-up horror movie.
(This turned out to be longer and more fic-like than I thought, so I put it under the cut)
It's another ordinary day in Alqualondƫ. You've just spent the whole day sailing, and you've just returned to the harbour. The city is sparkling and beautiful in the evening light, and you're excited to tell your family about your day at sea.
You stop to chat with friends, trade stories and laugh before you continue on your way home. You are completely at peace, ready to end the day with a nice dinner.
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, an all-consuming darkness falls upon the world. The beautiful light of the Two Trees has suddenly been extinguished. You can't see anything, not even your own hands in front of you.
You hear people crying out all around you in a cacophony of shock and terror. Your heart is racing against your chest. You don't know what's happening. Why is it so dark? What has happened to the Two Trees? Where has the light gone?
People stumble to light torches and candles and lanterns; anything to break this pitch darkness. Eventually, there are lanterns and torches lit up around the city. You've managed to find a torch, and now you can see in front of you again. But you're still scared. Everyone is just as confused and terrified as you are. No one knows what exactly is going on.
And then you start hearing news.
The Two Trees are dead. Melkor has destroyed them with the help of a terror named Ungoliant.
And now Melkor has just slain High King Finwƫ in Formenos.
You're horrified by the news. This is the very first time someone has been slain in Aman. And that too, Melkor, the most powerful Vala, has fallen to evil.
But the nightmare is far from over.
Not long after the news of Finwƫ's death has spread, an entire army comes marching to the gates of your city. It's an army composed entirely of Noldor, all of them carrying blades and spears and wearing helms upon their heads. You recognize some of your Noldorin friends in this army, but they may as well be strangers right now. Their eyes burn with an all-consuming anger and determination as they draw closer to the city.
And at the very front, leading this army, is FĆ«anor.
The sight of him scares you. His eyes burn with the fires of madness. It's obvious that he's grieved by the death of his father, but you don't like how he stares at your swan-ships, how unhinged his words are.
Then he demands to take your ships.
His demand leaves you speechless. Your friends are just as speechless, as is your king Olwƫ. The weight of Fƫanor's demand is absurd. He claims that he needs them for vengeance. They need to get to Middle-earth so they can exact their revenge upon Morgoth and take back the Silmarils that he stole.
But the swan-ships are the pride of your kindred. You and your people have spent many long years crafting them and making them beautiful. And above all, your ships are vital to your daily lives. You need them for fishing, for sailing. The ships are as precious to you as the Silmarils are to FĆ«anor. And the Noldor don't know anything about sailing, and you don't want to see them wreck your creations that you worked so hard to make.
And that too, you do not like the prospect of waging war against Morgoth. It's obvious that FĆ«anor and his army aren't fully prepared for a war against a mighty fallen Vala. A campaign like this would need lengthy, proper planning.
Olwƫ tries to calm things down. He tries to talk sense into Fƫanor, tries to dissuade him from his rage. But Fƫanor is too far-gone to understand reason. And now he and his people start to insult you. They scorn you, claim that you would be nothing without their aid in building Alqualondƫ. Worse, your Noldorin friends are hurling similar insults. The words cut deep, and you're astonished. Are these really the same people whom you gladly received in your own home? Is this what they really think of you and your kind?
And then you notice some of the Noldor rushing towards your ships anyways. You and some of your Telerin friends rush after them, try to block their path. The Noldorin soldiers push you, insult you, and enough is enough. You spit in their face, and push one of them with all of your force.
"Get you gone, thief!" you shout. "You will not touch our ships!"
That's it. Swords are drawn, and FĆ«anor's shouting something you barely hear.
And then, the host of Noldor charges.
What follows is a horrific bloodbath. All around you, your kindred are being cut down by Noldorin blades. Their blood spills through the streets of Alqualondƫ, into the harbor. Their cries of anguish fill the air. You have nothing to fight back with, except your hunting knife. You try to fight back as much as you can, but the Noldor have the upper hand with their weapons. You watch your close friends get cut down, their bodies thrown off the ships they're trying to defend.
It hurts to fight back. You've never fought like this, so your movements are clumsy. Nevertheless, you manage to defend yourself. But your former Noldorin friends don't hesitate to fight you, and they leave you with many injuries.
It's a blur of chaos and bloodshed. At some point, a host led by Fingolfin joins in on the fray and you're all but outnumbered. In the end, your ships are stolen by Fƫanor and his army, and they've left Alqualondƫ a ruin.
By some miracle, you've survived. But it doesn't feel like a miracle.
The air is heavy with the smell of blood and death. You hear the cries of your kindred all around you; pure, anguished wailing that shatters your heart. You stagger through the blood-stained streets, seeing the slain bodies of the people you know. You find the bodies of your friends floating in the harbour. Tears run hot down your cheeks, and you begin to weep. Your cries join those of your kindred as you collapse to your knees.
Other survivors find you. They take care of your injuries and bandage them. You help them, heal their wounds as well. But there's nothing that can heal the wounds dealt to your very heart and soul.
Then you learn that FĆ«anor has burned your ships. Those beautiful ships that you and your people have spent so many years crafting, they're gone forever.
It's another wound to your shattered soul.
You aren't alone in your grief. Lady Uinen has unleashed her own wrath upon the Noldor, sinking the stolen ships into the sea in her grief. The Valar also grieve for you, and NƔmo proclaims the Doom of the Noldor, barring them from returning to Aman. The Sindar, your kindred in Middle-earth, are just as furious on your behalf when they hear the news.
But it's all a cold comfort.
Eventually, you begin to heal. You help your kindred rebuild your ships, make them as beautiful as before. You sail them everyday, care for them, use them as they were meant to be used. But no matter what, it will never be the same.
Your community heals gradually. But the horror of the kinslaying still lingers in Alqualondƫ like a shadow; a festering wound that won't truly go away. They say that Morgoth is the ultimate evil, but what the Fƫanorians did to your kindred was just as evil. Nothing can possibly erase the horror of that night, when blood spilled through the streets of Alqualondƫ.
You will never look at those Noldorin friends the same way again. You become very protective over your city, and your ships. Every year, your community holds a memorial, setting lanterns afloat in the water to remember those who died in the First Kinslaying.
You swear to never help the Noldor, even if they plead for forgiveness. It will be a lifetime before you're ready to forgive the Noldor for their betrayal.
And nothing they do can ever change that.
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actuallyjustabiscuit Ā· 6 months ago
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The Fear of Being Forgotten
Ok, itā€™s time I talk about Pomni.
Thatā€™s right Iā€™m doing another character analysis! Really itā€™s more of an analysis of episode 2 from her perspective, but I have a lot feelings about how they are handling her character so far.
I know weā€™re only on episode 2 and I donā€™t want to get ahead of myself so Iā€™m gonna be keeping my speculations about this character to a minimum and focus only on what the show and Gooseworx has given us so far.
So I think everyone and their cat knows by now that Pomniā€™s name roughly translates to "Remember". Of course the irony being that itā€™s a name that was randomly given to her in the Pilot to replace the one she doesnā€™t remember.
So in a very meta sense, Pomniā€™s name is a joke, one thatā€™s given at her expense.
Now, her entire motivation in the Pilot was centered around escaping this new reality that she suddenly finds herself in. And for the first half sheā€™s kinda in denial, using the ā€œdreamā€ excuse as a flimsy way to rationalize everything, but still remains vigilant in finding a way out of this ā€œdreamā€. So when Caine asks her what she wants to be called she tells him ā€œI donā€™t care just pick anything.ā€, because sheā€™s still convinced that whatā€™s happening to her is reversible in some way. So what does it matter what sheā€™s called in this new fictional place?
But in the end, it dawns on her that she is, in fact, trapped. No waking up, and no getting out. The Circus is her new home. And "Pomni" is now her new name. Whether she likes it or not, this is her life.
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It really adds to the identity crisis of these characters that they know who they were but they just donā€™t know who they are. They donā€™t have full on amnesia when they enter the Circus, they just lose their identities (their names AND their physical appearance). And since itā€™s just their names that they completely forgot, that makes this scene
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far more eerie.
Because just imagine how weird it is to suddenly find yourself looking at a face that is not yours. You know what youā€™re supposed to look like but your reflection is not showing that. Brain cannot compute.
(Actually Iā€™m sure there are lots who relate to that specific feeling.)
So we know that these characters cannot ā€œdieā€. They can get squashed, stretched, stabbed and suffer all other manners of bodily harms via cartoony physics without any lasting consequence because their bodies arenā€™t real. Their minds are the only part of themselves that is. Which is why Abstraction is the only major threat to be feared in the Circus . Itā€™s the threat, because at that point, they lose what little else is left.
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I love the different abstracted designs that fans have come up with, but this makes a lot more sense. You are no longer you when you abstract. And itā€™s irreparable. A broken mind creating a broken body. Caine, being an A.I., treats the abstracted like theyā€™re just a whoopsie, sweeping them away in his cellar to be ignored. They are no longer considered characters. Theyā€™re arguably not human anymore either.
After they abstract, theyā€™re nothing.
So the opening for episode 2 establishes Pomniā€™s fear of this right out the gate.
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Sheā€™s not just trapped, sheā€™s in danger of completely losing herself in this place. But this little scene does so much more than that. Because the choice in dialogue here is sooo interesting.
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Pomniā€™s dream/ nightmare interpretation of Ragatha is someone who is mocking her for not being able to handle living in the Circus for more than a single day. Ragatha has managed to at least maintain this facade of cheerfulness, and everyone else has survived for years in spite of it all, yet here Pomni imagines that her mental health is so fragile that she couldnā€™t even last very long before suffering the same fate as Kaufmo.
And then we have NightmareJax chiming in about how he canā€™t even be bothered to remember her name, the new fake name that sheā€™s had for only a few hours.
So this tells us two very important things about Pomni already. 1: She has very very little faith in herself and 2: Sheā€™s terrified of being completely forgotten. Both pretty reasonable and relatable fears.
Of course, we know this is just a dream cuz Ragatha wouldnā€™t be this callous. And we see this not a minute later after Pomni wakes up when she personally comes to check up on her immediately the next morning. With none of the quiet awkward tension from the day before, just normal awkwardness because Ragatha is too gay to function still trying too hard to make Pomni feel at home.
Now, I love Ragatha very much. I love her because sheā€™s such a sweet person while being absolutely TERRIBLE about consoling people.
She speaks to Pomni but she doesnā€™t talk to her about what happened the other day. And this distinction is very important because what happened the other day was awful in many ways for both of them, and one of the first things she says to Pomni is
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You canā€™t do this. You canā€™t undermine a traumatic event by calling it something like this. Pomni lost her home, her name, and her hopes of escape all in one day. Not to mention she has witnessed someone becoming a monster, getting seriously hurt, and being shoved down a hole with no regards to who they used to be. Nobody has really addressed her directly about all of that until now. And it was all condensed in one silly little word. (I love how this frame shows how Ragatha is fully aware that what she just said was BS)
And when someone tries telling you that what happened wasnā€™t so bad (when it obviously was) it makes you feelā€¦shitty. More specifically, it makes it look like you were not personally capable of handling the bad thing that happened.
ā€œYouā€™re feeling bad not because the situation was bad, but because you are lesser for letting the situation affect you the way it didā€
We already know Pomni thinks very little of herself for believing that abstraction will happen easily for her compared to the others, so hearing this definitely didnā€™t help.
To Ragathaā€™s credit, she tries to reassure her that there is no ill will between them by affirming that Pomniā€™s thought process for abandoning her was ā€œunderstandableā€. But it unfortunately comes off as a little passive aggressive. We know Ragatha is being sincere, because we as the audience have the benefit of hindsight, but Pomni doesnā€™t. ā€œUnderstandableā€ does not mean ā€œacceptableā€. Jaxā€™s destructive behavior towards the others and everything else in the Circus is ā€œunderstandableā€.
Abandoning Ragatha a second time after promising to come back to help her was not ok. Did it make sense in the moment, yeah. Was it still kind of a dick move, yup. And Pomni is very well aware of this. So itā€™s likely she doesnā€™t 100% believe Ragatha when she says shit like ā€œthereā€™s no hard feelingsā€ nor can she think of her as a friend (yet) because sheā€™s still not ok with her situation. Sheā€™s not terrified anymore and sheā€™s past the bargaining phase that thereā€™s still a chance for escape, now sheā€™s just more or less resigned to it (and only after one day which is remarkable).
What also doesnā€™t help is that for the majority of the episode Ragathaā€™s attitude comes off as a bit patronizing.
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So. Yeah. She wouldnā€™t appreciate this level of infantilization from someone she had previously dreamed was making fun of her.
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Whatā€™s sad is that Ragathaā€™s not acting like this to be deliberately condescending towards Pomni. She really is just this into the adventures.
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Bless her heart
Unfortunately, Pomniā€™s not having any of it because itā€™s gotta be kinda disheartening to know that your new eternal life just amounts to playing make believe with a bunch of maladjusted adults.
One of my favorite scenes that I havenā€™t seen a lot of people talk about is this one
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Because I caught how she didnā€™t start looking away all irritated until Ragatha said ā€œsome way you could helpā€. Now I interpreted her reaction in two ways: Either she really doesnā€™t feel like getting involved in the adventure and is frustrated that Ragatha is still trying to push her to participate or (my personal favorite read on it) she thinks Ragatha is subtly rubbing it in her face how useless she was at trying to help her the day before.
Remember, Pomni actually went to a lot of effort to find Caine before she saw the ā€œExitā€ door. We donā€™t know for sure how long she spent looking for help, but it was a valiant effort on her part to explore the Tent on her own, only to fail at the end. Both at helping and not finding a way to leave.
She is two for two on the girlfailure checklist. And Iā€™d imagine her self esteem would continue to decline with every little reminder that anything she tries to help herself or anyone else is futile.
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Which is why her conversation with Gummigoo becomes such a turning point for her. It also shows how much better Pomni is at talking to others by allowing herself to be vulnerable.
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She doesnā€™t try to make what Gummigoo is going through a lesser deal than it is. I also think the purpose of Gummigoo as a character was to be a sort of parallel narrative to Pomni.
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The extreme wide shot of them sitting together under the map of his fake world makes them both look so small and inconsequential. And then it pulls back into a full shot of them with Pomni trying to convince Gummigoo that he does have value because he has people that he cares about and that care about him. (It wonā€™t be until the very end where Pomni realizes that sheā€™s in the same position as he is).
Gummigoo makes the argument of why should any of that matter when he, as an NPC, doesnā€™t have the luxury of having what little he has (his friends and his affection for them) when it will all go away as soon as the adventure ends. He was only designed for a single purpose, and that purpose ends with being forgotten.
Now we already know how Pomni feels about that, so she gives him what sheā€™s been wanting: a way out.
She offers him a chance to be something more than what he was designed to do, where the fear of being forgotten doesnā€™t have to come into fruition (at least not in the way he would have to worry about)
And then he asks her the very fair question of why does she even bother helping him if heā€™s not even real, and her answer helps to further establish Pomniā€™s overall character. Itā€™s not just a short term goal like wanting to find a way out of the Circus, itā€™s her defining motivation that will encompass her arc for the rest of the series.
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Even in the Pilot, she proved to be a compassionate person when she chose to help Ragatha (both in offering her hand the first time and choosing to go back for her later). So I imagine she will start to actively be there for the other cast members once she grows more comfortable with them. Pomni has the benefit of being the newest addition to the Circus so sheā€™s able to look at the others more critically by just passively observing them. Then calling them out on their behavior, not out of malice, but out of altruistic concern. These people have issues, she may not be able to fix them, but sheā€™ll be willing to listen.
(This might be nothing, but a little detail I noticed after Gummigoo agrees to go with her is that she asks him for his name (and itā€™s also the first time we ever hear it in the episode itself) but he doesnā€™t ask for hers. In fact, he doesnā€™t call Pomni by name at all in the episode. Which could have an indication of some serious death flags. Again, I could be wrong about this and Iā€™m giving it way more significance than it deserves. Just a stray thought.)
Anyway, Gummigoo gives Pomni the lead to get them both out and itā€™s telling how little she believes in herself the way she keeps downplaying her own ideas.
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Because up until this point, Pomni has felt rather useless. So in her mind, the chances of something going right for once were slim. Thatā€™s why when her plan works as intended and manages to save not just herself but her new friend as well, she visibly starts to feel better. Sheā€™s actually smiling, sheā€™s a lot friendlier towards Ragatha, and begins to act like living in the Circus might not be so bad.
ā€¦yeahā€¦about that.
I think we are all in agreement that Pomni is a girlfailure. And she is, but not in the way weā€™ve come to understand it.
What I mean is that Pomni fails. A lot. Not because sheā€™s an anxious mess or due to general incompetence, but because the narrative consistently prevents her from winning.
She tried to get Ragatha help -> Caine was nowhere to be found, abstracted Kaufmo was hot on her trail, and the door shows up to entice her to leave.
She goes through the ā€œExitā€ door believing itā€™s the way out -> She wastes an indeterminate amount of time going through countless doorways that lead to nowhere and is told in the end that the ā€œExitā€ was never real.
She tried to get Gummigoo to join the Circus -> Caine obliterates him Thanos style.
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That is the face of someone who thought she was doing something right for once, and was abruptly proven wrong. God really said ā€œLOL nopeā€ to this poor woman. (I also love how Pomniā€™s trauma response is laughter, really leans on the whole jester imagery she has)
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That she did, and it amounted to nothing. Pretty on brand for her really.
Yeah, it seemed like Pomni was not gonna catch a break. And once again Ragatha immediately tries to undermine what just happened, with Pomni going back to being paralyzed with shock at the utter insanity she had just witnessed. Homegirl is not ok. And she would have stayed that way if not for Ragatha actually being real for once by inviting her to grieve with them.
The ending of this episode truly caught me off guard.
Not poor Gummigooā€™s ā€œdeathā€, that I actually expected, but it was still shocking to see.
No. much like Pomni, I wasnā€™t expecting the others to actually throw Kaufmo a funeral (and apparently this is a custom that they do regularly, which is bittersweet). And I wouldnā€™t have blamed Pomni for believing that they donā€™t really care about each other because all of them saw Kaufmo be thrown into the cellar and then the they all proceed to just eat dinner as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Iā€™ll be frank here, I didnā€™t get emotional from that scene because of Kaufmo. He never had a speaking part or even an actual on screen appearance; the man had no character outside of telling bad jokes and that had to be given through exposition, so there was no resonance in his ā€œdeathā€. But that is clearly intentional because they didnā€™t even bother making the otherā€™s eulogies about him be audible. Pomni has never met Kaufmo, she never knew him, so her attending a funeral for someone she had no real connection with is odd.
And thatā€™s because all Pomni needs and by extension what we need to know is to see that he clearly meant something to the characters we HAVE been spending time with. This funeral was less about mourning Kaufmo and more about putting Pomniā€™s fears to rest that even if she were to abstract, she would not be forgotten. And even more importantly, these people genuinely do care about each other (Jax is still up in the air, but 4/5 ainā€™t bad). So if anything could make Pomni more comfortable in her new home, itā€™s the affirmation that sheā€™s not alone (Hence the title of the theme that closes the episode). So abstraction wonā€™t come as easily as she previously thought.
Itā€™s remarkable that the writers managed to make a FUNERAL feel like we were ending on a high note compared to the dread that the ending of the Episode 1 evokes. And I really like that because everything from the gentle music, to the visuals of everyone being sincerely doleful, to Pomniā€™s small smile at the end really stresses how this show isnā€™t trying to be nihilistic with its premise. That Pomni, in spite of everything, is going to be ok.
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leonw4nter Ā· 5 months ago
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Sharp Teeth and Sandy Woodland
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RE2R!Leon x GN!Reader
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!! CONTENT WARNING : Graphic description of bones and muscles making unsettling noises. Don't proceed if you're not comfortable with that!
You knew that something was wrong with your fellow Raccoon City survivor Leon Kennedy when he began exhibiting bizarre behaviors shortly after the government discovered both of you, along with a kid named Sherry and a college student around your age range named Claire. He seemed to be more thirsty than usual, his throat and eyes parched more often than not despite the amount of water he consumes daily. The food served at the temporary housing that the government gave you two wasnā€™t too bad or dry, for you at least. The rookie cop with you, though, disagreed and expressed dislike for certain starchy and grainy dishes.
ā€œWhat happened to self-proclaimed ā€œMr. Not A Picky Eaterā€?,ā€ you jokingly ask after Leon complained about the potatoes making his mouth feel dehydrated. ā€œYou were telling me to suck up those bitter herbs but now you canā€™t even handle potatoes.ā€
Leon groaned after finishing an entire bottle of water, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ā€œNot sure. I could handle potatoes just fine back then. Probably just adjusting to the temperature differences.ā€
You nod, taking another forkful of the meal as you watch Leon grimace before shoving another spoonful into his mouth. Swallowing looked a little uncomfortable for him so you assume that he mustā€™ve been coming down with a sore throat or some sort of nasal malady.
ā€œYou could use a trip to the doctor, I think youā€™re going to get a cold.ā€
ā€œYeah, probably.ā€
A day or two after that conversation, Leon came home with a normal check-up result. He asked the doctor if he was coming down with an allergy but after doing the RAST and the skin prick test if he somehow developed allergies during his short stay in Raccoon City, the doctor confirmed that he had no allergies, which concerned both the patient and doctor. He didnā€™t wish to reveal and explain the sudden speedy growth of body hair and the presence of it in places that it has never grown in before, like the back of his hands and lower back. He kept other bodily changes to himself, not wanting to alert you and bring unwanted attention which would cause some complications with the protection and surveillance that the government placed you two under. Sherry would also somehow be dragged into the mess heā€™d create if they found out about him and that is the last thing he wanted the 12-year-old to experience; sheā€™d been through enough and officials were being odd regarding her custody.
Months later, you would notice that his blue eyes also reflected back light, like an animalā€™s eyes; you shot up in the middle of the night, rattled and drenched in sweat after another nightmare. In your dazed state, you reached for a flashlight and the nearest thing that qualified as a weapon at that momentā€“ a bedside clock. Your roommate shot up as well, getting on his feet and on high alert when he heard your screech of terror, ready to defend you and himself from any threat in the dark. You pointed the light source to the source of the thudding noise, the bright beam pointed straight towards the blondā€™s eyes. Due to the angle of the flashlight relative to your perspective, you easily saw the greenish-yellow orbs glow which you confused for a threat and sent the clock in your hand airborne, aimed towards him. Leon cursed, rubbing his shoulder that was hit as he looked back at you to clear the confusion clouding his mind. You turned the lamp on, trying to make sense of everything that has just happened as you sink to the side of the bed and attempt to level your breathing.
ā€œAre you okay?!ā€ Leon springs into action, forgetting the ache in his shoulder as he walks over to help you try to calm down. ā€œPlease tell me what you need, youā€™re safe now.ā€
Your gaze averts his eyes, not wanting to relive the fear that overwhelmed you by surprise when they glowed in the dark. You shut them, hanging your head low but still paying attention to Leonā€™s soothing voice and instructions, counting to 10 and raising your arms over your head as you gradually calmed down.
ā€œNightmare?ā€ He asked in a soft voice full of concern, pity expressed on his weary features. Many times he had also woken up like this, needing consolation from you while he shook and sobbed in your arms.
You nod, suddenly aware of the sweat you accumulated and Leonā€™s fever-like temperature. The concern you had shifted, going from trying to regain your bearings to the disquietude for his health.
ā€œOh my God, Leon, youā€™re burning! Get in bed, Iā€™m going to try and get your fever down.ā€
ā€œFever?ā€ the 21-year-old echoed, fogged. ā€œIā€™m fine? I donā€™t have a fever, nothingā€™s wrong with me. Promise.ā€
ā€œPlease just get in the bed,ā€ you gently pleaded as you helped him get up and walked him to his side, pushing the thoughts regarding his eyes aside.
Not wanting to argue, he follows you and lays down like heā€™s instructed to do. Taking his dampened sleep shirt off, he chucks it to the side and sits up against the headboard, the solid frame cool against his searing skin. You emerge from the bathroom with cold water in a bowl, a towel drenched inside. Your face is also splashed with water, some hairs sticking to your damp forehead. You walk to his side before wringing the water from the towel then placing the towel on his forehead, checking the time and subtracting by your estimated amount of minutes that has passed since he helped you calm down from the panic attack.
ā€œCā€™mon, I donā€™t have a fever,ā€ he carefully reasons, yet he continues to stay still. ā€œIā€™m always warm, you know that. Donā€™t worry ā€˜bout me, Iā€™m strong despite being a rookie ya know.ā€ He throws in that cockiness, smirking to get your worry down.
ā€œYouā€™re not just ā€˜warmā€™, youā€™re burning up. Stop whining, Iā€™m going to sleep beside you so I can monitor your temperature.ā€ You say as you get comfortable beside him, maintaining a respectful distance before you can lazily drape your forearm over your eyes and try to get some sleep again. ā€œOh, yeah. Iā€™m really sorry about your shoulder, I was terrified and I just did what felt like the most logical thing at the moment.ā€
He chuckles, clearing his throat before he speaks. ā€œItā€™s fine, been through worse. Sleep well, weā€™ll need it.ā€
Exhaustion claims you, lulling you into another slumber but deep down you know itā€™s only a matter of time until the images of death and decay flash on your shut eyes then itā€™s time to wake up with your heart rattling against your rib bones, adrenaline pumped through your veins. Sometime in the middle of the night, your body nears his and coddles against his side where you feel his warmth the most. The feeling of hair brushing against his skin causes his consciousness to toe the line between sleep and waking, vaguely aware of your body near himself. His consciousness crosses the border of sleep and into waking, his lids slowly lifted like the red drapes of movie houses. He takes the towel off of his forehead, carefully placing it back inside the bowl you set on his bedside table. His tired gaze falls on your sleeping form, his person overcome by the feeling to tuck you against his body, huddling up, and resting his head against your chest to hear your heartbeat. The feeling is strong, too strong, and at the realization that heā€™s trying to quell these bothersome impulses, he whines like a desperate dog.
As quickly as the embarrassing vocalization leaves his lips, he wraps a hand around his own mouth as his cheeks burn pink in shame while he sits up and rethinks every single decision heā€™s made in life. He looks at you, registering the faint sounds of your breath in sync with the slow rise and fall of your chest as you sleep; he wonders if youā€™ve always breathed that loud, maybe he should ask tomorrow if youā€™ve got any difficulty breathing so he can accompany you to the doctor to get it checked. Running his calloused palm down the side of his face, he adjusts himself to properly lay down and try to catch some shut eye before he starts to hear the first bird chirp. He can only hope that you didnā€™t hear him make that canine noise.
The morning after was definitely awkward, not because of your panic attack but because of you seeing Leonā€™s eyes reflect light and him thinking that you mustā€™ve heard him whine. Breakfast was silent, save for the clanking of silverware against porcelain and him asking if youā€™d like some slices of his fruit. Well, your silverware since he opted to use plastic utensils because the silverware left itchy red spots on his large palm. You were trying to piece his eyes glowing together but nothing made sense; only animals have the membrane that causes light to bounce back and the membrane also helps with seeing in the dark. Humans donā€™t have it and itā€™s impossible for a human to be having one since we canā€™t just develop one randomly so Leonā€™s eyes definitely threw you off. His temperature was still unusually high but he didnā€™t look or act ill, he ate just fineā€¦ as fine as drinking 3 bottles of water in a single hour can get for him. Leon avoided eye contact, ashamed of the fact that you probably see him somewhere near a mutt or a sex-crazed freak who canā€™t hold his urges back. He can try to convince you but he thinks that heā€™ll look even more creepy and defensive, making your perception of him worse. The blond decides to wait until you say something about it or a future conversation will lead to this specific topic. In the meantime that you donā€™t seem ready to speak to him yet, heā€™ll go to a local grocery store and buy some waxing strips. Itā€™s for them, heā€™ll say if an agent follows him to the local grocer like he expects one to and wants to know the reason for him buying such a product. He canā€™t have anyone know that this is for himself, to try and rip out the ridiculous amount of hair growing in the dip of his spine because shaving isnā€™t doing the job anymore. Maybe even find a nail file to try and blunt the equally speedy growth of his nails so he wouldnā€™t accidentally scratch himself or you or anyone.
The breaking point came for Leon after three months since the first symptom, a month away from his deployment to a bootcamp to begin his specialized training before being assigned to work under USSTRATCOM. He woke up feeling crusty, his joints sore and achy like heā€™d ran and ran until the sun took the place of the moon and stars in the sky. He was also coming down with a sore throatā€“ no, not a sore throat but the driest, most dehydrated mouth heā€™s ever had. He had done nothing all day but locked himself in the empty storage room of your apartment with a bag of different cuts of grilled meat, scarfing them down like heā€™s never eaten in all 21 years of living. Despite the room having a working bulb, he didnā€™t want to turn it on because he found it too bright and irritating for his sensitive eyes that were more suited in a dark environment like heā€™s currently in. With each bite, he felt like he was going crazy and was slowly losing himself, becoming more crazed and desperate to start running barefoot.
You had already given him a weird look after he came back from the store with his food, bolting to the storage room and telling you to not disturb him; you had the feeling that he was feeling a lot more than he was letting on but you let him do what he wanted to do but you were ready to step in if he needed something. He let out a yelp and placed his food back in its container, a hand coming up to rub the spot of his cheek that he accidentally bit. He ran his tongue to soothe the area, tasting a metallic tinge as the muscle made contact with the tiny cut. The wound stung more than it usually did on the occasions that he accidentally bit his cheek so he felt for his teeth if they were truly that sharp to be causing him that much pain; his canines and incisors were pointier than he remembered them to be.
He ran a finger along the edges and poked the pointy tips on the pad of his finger, the edges of his teeth less smooth and more serrated; he knows that this change is recent because he always kept his teeth in good condition and made sure to brush and floss daily, keeping his sugar intake to a limit to prevent cavities. Now that he is not eating, he observed that the gums in the base of his canines were slightly sore but not overly bothersome. His mind is going into overdrive, worried that all these bodily changes were the symptoms of another virus strainā€™s infection. He wanted to turn himself in to the government so he could stop himself before he lost control of his mind and dared to put you, Sherry, and Claire in harmā€™s way but he also didnā€™t want to; he was afraid of what they would do to him, what they would do to you since youā€™re the one living closest to him. He knows the might of the government, what they wish to do with him if he happens to fall on the side of what they viewed as their enemy. They bombed Raccoon City despite knowing that there could still be survivors who havenā€™t gotten the chance to get out, what more could they do to a possible lycanthrope under their custody?
ā€œLeon? You okay in there?ā€ your voice comes out from the other side, knocking softly with your ear pressed against the wood of the door. ā€œYou havenā€™t gone out in a while and it's dark out. Youā€™re not locked in there, are you?ā€
His bones begin to bother him again, aching and draining all his energy. He lays on the floor, taking deep breaths so you wouldnā€™t hear him growl and yell out of pain.
ā€œā€˜M fine,ā€ he hisses. ā€œJustā€¦ goā€¦ I-Iā€™mā€¦ fineā€¦ā€
You barely part your ear from the door when you hear the crackle and pop of bones, eyes widening at how loud and spontaneous the crackling was. A borderline animalistic growl follows suit, now accompanying the nasty cacophony of bones sounding like they were being rearranged and clothes ripping.
ā€œLeon!ā€ you exclaim, palm pounding against the door. ā€œIā€™m gonna get you out! Hold on!ā€
You run to your room and open the lowest drawer, taking the storage room key and speeding back to the door that separates Leon from you. To and from your room, the nasty blend of grotesque noises donā€™t halt and neither does the pained growls, hissing, and whining coming from Leon. Thanking the gods for pitying on you and your roommate, the knob isnā€™t jammed and easily unlocks with a tilt. You expect a scene of gore to unfold, a deep red adorning the white walls like an abstract painting or pieces of pink flesh that contrasts the brown hardwood floor but you are not greeted by any of those yet the sight before you still made you feel whiplash, your heart pumping fast to push liquid fear into your veins and petrify you on the spot; a large wolf that you estimate to be 6 feet long with light brown eyes stares back at you, its body curled away from yours and is backed into a corner by the wall. The wolfā€™s fur features a sandy brown foundation with patchy highlights of blond, its coat resembling a sun-dappled forest floor. Drool drips from the side of the beastā€™s mouth, fangs bared towards you.
Underneath the thick and rich coat, you spot Leonā€™s coat and pants that have been torn to bits, the fabric indiscernible from its former state as clothing. Too terrified to scream, you simply back off and slap a hand around your mouth, tears obscuring the large wolf in front of you as you try not to think and visualize the worst: Leon in mangled bits inside the canineā€™s stomach. You turn around and leap atop of furniture, getting your phone to call animal control with a shaky hand. You donā€™t know how the animal got here and how it ate Leon without making a mess of his flesh and bones despite the snacking it did on your unfortunate friend but youā€™re desperate to get it out and properly grieve. You turn all light switches you pass by on, trying to blind and irritate the wolfā€™s vision but it beats you to reaching the room, the beast pouncing on you, and pinning you to the cold hardwood floor as nasty drool drips on your collarbone. You try to kick yourself free and push what felt like a hundred pounds of weight from your legs away, screaming and crying but the wolf doesnā€™t budge and instead, digs its snout in the right side of your neck and inhales deeply. You truly acknowledge keeping wildlife safe, you really do, but all rational thought escapes you and your brain is focused on surviving so you smack the canine on the side of its head, stunning it for a moment before you crawl to safety.
The discordance of bones cracking, loud whining, and claws scratching the floor once again resumes, freezing you in your spot as you watch the sight a few feet away from your legs. Collapsing on its side, the canineā€™s body shakes violently as it growls and howls. Bones and muscles reorganizing itself poke lightly through the skin, rippling the fur; inky black pupils constrict into tiny black dots, milky chocolate irises shifting to an amber shade and amber changing to hazel before settling on blue shocks you out of your state of being frozen still, finally reaching your phone and contacting the local animal control to come pick the animal up. After coordinating with officials and telling them about Leon, you share your address and hesitantly hang up the phone. The vile noises finally end, silence coming in to fill the soundless gap before the next disturbance, which prompts you to carefully inch your door open, a tiny gap before fully holding it open.
It takes you more than a few moments to properly comprehend the sight before you, rubbing your eyes, and pinching yourself to check if youā€™re really awake and all this is reality; it is and now a small flushed welt is on your left forearm. Leon is on the ground, butt-naked, and laying in a pile of patchy brown and blond fur, some of it sticking on his sweaty skin. Heā€™s unconscious and very unusually pale, posed in the same way as the wolf was before you called. As for the wolf, the wolf is gone; it didnā€™t leave trashed furniture and more scratched tiles in its wake when it saw itself out. It just disappearedā€¦ or turned into Leon insteadā€¦ or was it the other way around? You pick Leon up (with much difficulty), placing him on his bed before covering his lower half with a blanket and wiping the sweat from his body. Deciding to check up on his vitals, you shine a light through his eyes and relief joins in the adrenaline coursing through your system when they dilate under bright light and return back to a normal size when you take the light away. His pulse is still heightened but theyā€™re in the normal range otherwise. Heā€™s still unconscious but you swear you can see atypically sharpened canines poke out from pale pink parted lips; drool appears to be dried from the side of his mouth, going down into his jaw, just like the wolfā€™s.
Sitting by his bedside, trying to calm down as you drink a glass of water to recollect and try to process what just happened, you remember all of Leonā€™s peculiar behaviors prior to now and it all makes sense that Leon could be the wolfā€“ a constantly dry throat, increased gusto for meat, reflective eyes, abnormal speed of hair and nail growth, added strength, and dislike for things with silver. You call back the animal controlā€™s number, telling them that everythingā€™s okay now and that you were simply seeing things, apologizing profusely for wasting time and effort. Setting the phone down, you gaze down on Leon and enumerate the things youā€™re going to tell him once he wakes up: ask him if heā€™s a lycan and what you can do to help him now that his lifeā€™s changed. In the meantime, you wonder how Leon will fare in the military bootcamp a month from now if this is going to be a regular occurrence. If heā€™s the wolf. If youā€™ll accept that heā€™s a werewolf. If theyā€™ll find out that heā€™s a werewolf.
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NOTE - YOOOO YA GIRL IS NOW ENROLLED IN A NEW SCHOOL RAHH!!! I've taken another step towards my dream of becoming a doctor but at the same time, I'm still a long ways to go but we got this yk!! That aside, I decided to write a werewolf!Leon fic because I remember coming across a fluffy werewolf!Leon fic on AO3 and I rlly loved it so I had to contribute smn to the werewolf!Leon works (that aren't smutty, which is super few). Requests are still open so feel free to continue to drop them :)) I wanna write something angsty next but then I have another fluffy fic idea in my head so the angst will have to wait >:) Anyways, that's it and thank you for reading my fic!!!!!!!!!!! I <333333333333 UUUUUUUUU AND HAPPY PRIDE TO MY QUEER READERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The star dividers are from @saradika , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).
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primus-why Ā· 12 days ago
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I Feel TFOne Could've Handled This Better...
Hot take but I feel like folks have been really generous with the take that OP was unable to find ~the perfect words~ in the heat of the moment (and thus should be given some grace) when he told D to stand down and "not be like Sentinel"... namely cuz I don't feel that the narrative supports this?
Like-- after all is said and done, OP doesn't reflect on that part of their split. He doesn't have a moment where he seeks validation or voices his regrets over the choice of his words, it's actually cut-and-dry. The narrative (as it stands) supports that OP saw D-16 acting up, so he called him out and stood on business, down to the last scenes where he's basically like "yeah it's a shame but y'all knew I had to do it to 'em."
It didn't have to be much! I'm not saying to absolve Megs, just show OP looking at things from a different perspective/contemplating a bit on that tough choice and the morality of the moment. Some examples of what I wish we had:
B-127 straight up blurting the obvious by later chatting with Orion like, "Wait so you told your best friend that he was acting just as bad as the guy who enslaved us for our entire lives and was torturing him like an hour ago? Oof. Seems kinda harsh." Then have some of OP's regret show on his face.
OP asking Elita-1 after Megs is banished if he did the right thing. Have Elita back his choice up, saying, "You should have seen what he did after you were... gone. It was terrifying. I know it was tough, but you made the right call." OP is grateful for the support, but a conflicted look still flashes across his face before he steels himself to look out towards the horizon... and the future.
Have OP walk past other mechs/former miners who didn't go with the High Guard saying stuff like, "Wish I could've given Sentinel a piece of my mind!" "Yeah, but I'm glad he's gone for good." "Ugh I miss everything." "Oh, it was crazy! Megatron picked him up and then he rrrrriiipped-- oops, hey there, Mr. Optimus... Prime... sir?" And have OP wave hello, looking a bit sick when they leave.
Post-credits scene with Starscream going on and on, asking Megs when they'll be back to teach the upstart Prime a lesson. Megs grabs his face to shut him up. "Patience, Starscream. The Prime thinks I'm no better than Sentinel... but I'll show him. He wants Iacon? He can have it. In the meantime we'll take the rest of the planet! Then I'll come back, crush Prime under my heel, and we'll take Iacon too. Sentinel's reign will barely be a footnote, because I'm about to become Optimus Prime's worst nightmare." The vocal performance would really need to sell this-- like picture Megs saying something like that from a place of anger and hurt, not so much a place of genuine evil or malice.
Basically instead of Orion's assertion being backed up as black and white/good vs bad, I wish we had some different opinions/reactions from the characters sprinkled in there. Like you can't tell me out of allllll the miners who weren't strong enough/willing to go with the High Guard and ended up sticking around that NONE of them were like "eyyo honestly?? Kiiiiinda glad Sentinel is dead. Wish I could have helped, tbh." like come onnnnn...
And you can't even argue that he's not an active threat-- I don't think everyone would see things that way! It's not just about the threat he physically has, but the threat he represents and is very likely to act upon if given the opportunity! He has a proven track record of not only being sneaky and conniving, but also capable of dealing some serious damage/killing people bigger and stronger than him, plus he has the backing of the Quints. All he'd need to do is wriggle his way out of jail and run off to his sponsors, then he'd probably be back to hurt more people! (If the Quints didn't just kill him out of incompetence lmao). There's a lot of "ifs" here, but I think it's a valid argument that not everyone would agree on what is the right or wrong way to handle Sentinel once he was down long enough to, like, do something about him.
I feel the situation needed a bit of nuance. In some way I wish they had kicked the can and had D and Orion bicker while Sentinel escaped, then have D get frustrated enough by the loss of Sentinel to point fingers (and his fusion canon) at Orion, who then falls and becomes OP. (Megs could still show some of thar emotion/remorse right after he does it too.) Not only would this open the door for a sequel, but tbh the Quint might have just killed Sentinel anyways and sought to deal with the miners uprising themselves lol. (Maybe that could have been an after credits scenes too instead of the B-127 bit??)
Would love to see a moment in a sequel where they have a calmer moment after arguing for a bit. Have OP mention how Megs was out of line, that it hurt and even scared him to see him act that way, and Megs can quietly point out "you said I was as bad as Sentinel... is that really how you see me? After everything we went through?"
Then OP can fumble the bag again lmao like "D, I... I'm sorry, that didn't come out right... but you still took things way too far..."
"Why am I not surprised-- your opinion is what matters the most! Maybe that's why you became a Prime, since you're so good at acting like the world revolves around you--!"
*gets interrupted by someone else before another yelling match ensues*
#rambling#transformers one#tf one#tfo#i'll be honest a lot of this stems from how rushed i felt the last like... 3rd of the movie feels#i feel Optimus is so dismissive of Megs!! like basically the whole movie but ESPECIALLY after coming back to life as a Prime???#your best friend is Going Through It. clearing having an Emotional Breakdown.#He drops you. In the moment it mattered most he chose violence... but notice what he says right before that?#Megs says ''I'm done saving you''#Like??? y'all don't wanna delve into that a little more?????#i half expected Optimus to pop up and be like ''excuse me. i wasn't done talking. what Did You Mean By That??''#instead he comes up and IMMEDIATELY has already written off this entire relationship as well.#Megs dropped him. it was a aplit second decision. we see in the movie D leaning into these bad impulses.#Orion is supposed to mature gradually so he's more level-headed by the end. why does that equate to abandoning the friendship??#why does he suddenly wanna drop Megs too? wouldn't this be the time for ''please listen to me'' part 2?#''it doesn't matter who has the matrix. we can make a change for the better! please listen to me'' etc#also minor nitpick but lmao why was OP Talking Like That after becoming Prime?#like he goes from ''haha hey guys hows it goin'' to ''You have used your gifts for Evil and Betrayed the entire planet''#babes what. Cybertron?? we went on a 2 day road trip on foot the fuck you know about Cybertron.#like betrayed Iacon maybe but idk maybe the guys in Tarn would be cool with Megs you dont know! lmao!#if my friend and I had beef and they started talking to me like the queen of england i would literally ask where they got their soapbox.#ohhhh you think you're morally superior? stop speaking for the whole planet lmao!! already named prime and letting it go to his head!!#strange dieties lying in the core of the planet distributing magic baubles that bring you back to life#is no basis for picking a planetary leader#this has been Orion Was Right: The Movie#when i wish there was a bit more.#maybe another 20-30 min would have helped me idk hhhhh#but Megs turn felt sooooo fast... then things just kept escalating from there.#''some transformations are permanent'' sir it's been like 48 hours since y'all learned you lives were a lie.#you *really* don't think Megs could ever cool down and apologize/change his mind?? you too??? tf???
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n7punk Ā· 3 months ago
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ā€œSlipstreamā€ Fic Notes
Slipstream is done after growing far beyond the ā€œsimple hacker ficā€ concept and honestly Maraā€™s so cute I canā€™t even be mad. Fic notes below.
Playlist:
Iā€™ve got the playlist here, but other honorable mentions I listeded to on repeat during this just because I wanted to: The Sex Was Good Until It Wasnā€™t album by XANA (it dropped in May and that shit is still on repeat), SUCKERPUNCH album by chloe moriondo (for chapter 6), PVRISā€™s entire discography (I was going through something).
The Kicker ā€” XANA
Good Luck, Babe! ā€” Chappell Roan
Diet Heartbreak ā€” chloe moriondo
TRAUMA BOND ā€” poutyface
Albi ā€” XANA
Rly Donā€™t Care ā€” chloe moriondo
Chaos Is Love ā€” K.Flay
Teenage Nightmare [unreleased demo]
Whatā€™s My Age Again? ā€” Emilia Ali
Late Bloomer ā€” Allison Ponthier
Holy Revival ā€” Maisie Peters (ignore the verses)
Femininomenon ā€” Chappell Roan
Mercury In Retrograde ā€” Avril Lavigne
NIGHT IN JAIL ā€” Rachel Bochner
my best friendā€™s ex ā€” emlyn
Even If It Kills Me [unreleased demo]
Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl ā€” Chappell Roan
Sirens (feat. Sophie Powers) ā€” MOTHICA
Homewrecking Era ā€” XANA
Obsessed (feat. Ashley Sienna) ā€” Sophie Powers
Obsessed ā€” Astrid S
Look At Her Now ā€” Selena Gomez
Pretty Girls ā€” Renee Rapp
Cruel Summer ā€” Taylor Swift
Picture You ā€” Chappell Roan
Epilogue Life:
It takes a few months for Catra to feel like she has any handle on ā€œparentingā€ or any right to even think that term about herself when sheā€™s still a newcomer to Maraā€™s life, but Mara has accepted her at that point, itā€™s Catra and her own lack of a parental figure that is stopping her. She never would have accepted someone trying to come in and parent her after being so jaded from the first few years of her life (see herĀ  relationship with Adoraā€™s parents in high school), so sheā€™s expecting Mara to be a lot more hesitant and take ā€œconvincingā€. She wants to give her the time she needs, but Mara had a loving parent growing up and doesnā€™t see adding Catra to that role as a bad thing.
Mara also has a little kid understanding of the world, so to her the instant Catra and Adora are dating sheā€™s her stepmom, not because itā€™s that easy, but because obviously dating = will get married, so there is no point ā€œfightingā€ something that is inevitable. Even though her parents donā€™t talk to each other, it doesnā€™t occur to her that people break up under normal circumstances. Her dad has hurt her mom and her a lot, heā€™s a bad guy, and Catra isnā€™t that, so why would she ever leave. Theyā€™re both girls and gay, they have no need to breakup. Life isnā€™t that simple, but it does make their relationship transition pretty smooth from Maraā€™s perspective.
Catra still insists on the stepdad thing and it becomes a family joke. Catra tells Mara itā€™s because it would be too confusing if they were both mom and Mara accepts that without question, because she is actually right. The reasons for stepdad are multi-layered, like this addition which helps Mara accept it: Mara wants someone good to replace the force of rejection and imbalance her bio dad was, so sheā€™s more than happy to have Catra take that mantle instead. Catra wants to replace him as well, for many reasons including her own selfish hatred of him, but also her own insecurity. She knows she can be a better parent than Falcon, but she doesnā€™t think she can ever be equal to Adora and thus an equal mom. Adoraā€™s parents werenā€™t 100% wrong when they mentioned the butch thing either because it is my headcanon Catra is a little GNC at times. Not really anything deep or strong enough for her to identify any particular way, just something that means she wouldnā€™t mind stepdad or ā€œsirā€ even without all those other layers. Eventually a lot of those factors stop seeming like such a big deal but at that point it is just a family joke that never really dies. Occasionally once sheā€™s in high school Mara calls her mom, but mostly Catra is ā€œDadā€ or ā€œmy stepdadā€ when being referred to singularly, and then when Mara is referring to both her parents she calls them ā€œmy momsā€. Which does confuse people and Catra finds that funny.
When Mara is in high school and the age Adora and Falcon were when they started dating, Falcon finally tries reaching out again. That was a phone call Adora never wanted to get, but heā€™s not coming back to the country ā€” he does still have those debts waiting for him, after all, and unable to pay them back, the stress would take him right back to that mental state he fled ā€” and heā€™s not trying to rejoin their lives, he just kind of wants to know what happened after he left. Adora is angry and tells him he doesnā€™t have the right to know that after what he did ā€” and sheā€™s right ā€” but later she still regrets it and, after talking to Catra (who also tells her she was right and she shouldnā€™t call him back and open that door back into their lives for him, but sits by her side when sheā€™s on the phone to support her when she insists on going through with it), she calls him back. She only gives him the very high level stuff: she started dating someone right around when he disappeared, and theyā€™re married now and happy, and she has become Maraā€™s new stepdad ā€” something Falcon thinks she says as a pointed jab not knowing thatā€™s really what Mara calls her ā€” and Mara is doing well despite Falcon messing up her sense of trust and safety as a little kid, and definitely doesnā€™t need him fucking with her again by trying to contact her now. Adora makes it clear this is a courtesy she is giving him with the understanding that, now she has volunteered the information, he isnā€™t going to seek any more out or bother them.
That holds kind of true. He checks in with Adora around high school graduation just to make sure Mara made through it okay ā€” he canā€™t help but remember around this time he was ruining both their lives ā€” and to see if she plans to go to college, which she does, and then he calls again three years later just to see if sheā€™s still on that track, which she is. He never calls again and Adora never knows if thatā€™s because he moved on, or got closure, or lost their number, or died. Mara knows he called to check in on her once or twice but Adora didnā€™t tell her until she was an adult because she worried about reintroducing all that old uncertainty and fear back into her life, and at least now no one can force her to see Falcon if she doesnā€™t want to.
Catra seriously considers hunting him down after he goes dark, but she has done what she can to close the illegal chapter of her life and she knows Adora wouldnā€™t be happy with her reopening it ā€” especially when sheā€™s a little rusty ā€” for their own closure with him. Catra didnā€™t exactly succeed in turning over a new leaf overnight, but she did greatly reduced her law-breaking, leaving only little slip-ups that happened every few months until she managed to stretch a gap long enough for it to become permanent, the impulse no longer second nature and her episodes of feeling untouchable either more rare or focused on something other than being unafraid of the government. She does stay in the cybersecurity sector professionally for a long time and works alongside Entrapta several times throughout the years.
Iā€™ve kind of talked about this before and even included it in the concert scene, but Catra and Entrapta do kind of keepĀ  referring to each other as partner occasionally and honestly neither of them are really sure how they mean it. They never formally said ā€œQPR overā€, they said ā€œno more physical affection (sex)ā€ and they remained very close, though it felt like it did end more definitively when Catra eventually moved in with Adora. That took her longer to do than it usually does in AUs due to both her happiness/comfort with Entrapta, trying not to ā€œupsetā€ Mara by forcing the change on her, and Catra still needing the ability to get distance from them for the night sometimes while dealing with her own demons, but those slowly disappear as Mara lets her heal her own childhood and she sees she can be a good parental figure with experience.
Chapter 1:
ā¦ ā€œSlipstreamā€ was once again a temporary placeholder name that became permanent. Itā€™s a reference to the hacker Slipstream, one of the names behind the Nintendo gigaleak.
ā¦ Entraptaā€™s daily energy drink limit is by no means her daily average, but any day drinking seven energy drinks is a bad one. She doesnā€™t actually drink Monster every dayā€¦ Just like 95% of them. And she is a lot more likely to drink 1-3 than 5.
ā¦ Okay Iā€™m like half bullshitting the tech speak in this fic. The 20 minute decryption Waffle House thing? Yeah thatā€™s actually optimistic. The kid who hacked the CIA did that exact thing and took 30 minutes to log on and he still eventually got caught.
ā¦ Close followers of my Tumblr will already know Adora Maria is reference to some terribleĀ  ā€œwrongā€ trivia answers to a question about She-raā€™s names.
Chapter 2:
ā¦ Steps (loosely): 1) Identify absolutely necessary files and save them, 2) Paste contents of other important word/text files into empty cloud documents she can download later (cleaning metadata), 3) Create a new encrypted email on a totally different machine (in this case, Catraā€™s clean laptop she had with her), 4) Forward absolutely necessary emails to new address (being very selective), 5) Delete what accounts itā€™s reasonable to just nuke, 6) Completely wipe computer and reset it, 7) Change first the associated email and then the password of all other accounts in a closed environment (Catraā€™s laptop) and turn on two-factor for absolutely everything that has the option, 8) When all information has been reset, delete old email in closed environment as insurance.
ā¦ Adoraā€™s scent changed some with pregnancy and then the rest with lifestyle changes.
ā¦ Mara comes out to check on them because Adora told her an old friend from high school was coming over and she wasnā€™t making the happy sounds she makes with her friends. When she realized Adora was stressed she got worried, doubly so when she said it was grown-up stuff, because that grown-up stuff could be Mara-related ā€” especially since she knows Falcon is causing problems with child support even if Adora tries to keep her from hearing about it too much ā€” which is why Adora invited her out to see itā€™s really okay.
Chapter 3:
ā¦ Originally when I wrote the group chat there was nothing differentiating who was speaking, but I had the idea to use emojis like profile pictures to make it more clear. The scorpio icon was originally head-in-the-clouds (high af emote), the star was originally just a sassy emote, and the dragon changed the same. I ended up changing them because a reader sent an ask letting me know that the emotes wouldnā€™t translate to epub format and the Scorpio and star ā€œemoteā€ are part of the standard unicode colored symbals, so Iā€™m hoping theyā€™re included, but I also donā€™t have any way of checking without just uploading the thing so this was my best effort. I kept the dragon even though itā€™s not included because I was too attached and only one person missing an icon would at least differentiate it from the others still.
ā¦ Adora named Mara after her old teacher Mara because she was the only out lesbian she (knew) she had ever met. She was pretty quiet about it to not get harassed by parents, but she wasnā€™t about to lie about it, and she would talk about Hope when prompted. Adora admired that back in high school thinking she just Respected Her Idealsā„¢ļø and later realized it was more than that.
ā¦ Catraā€™s conflicting feelings looking at Mara hugging Adoraā€™s hip are actually less because sheā€™s remembering her father and more remembering she was doing that to feel safe and she doesnā€™t like to think sheā€™s making a kid feel unsafe too.
ā¦ Adoraā€™s habit of rubbing at her tattoo (versus something like the back of her neck) started when it itched a lot while healing. She has terrible tattoo discipline and really shouldnā€™t get another one because she couldnā€™t leave it alone.
ā¦ You might be able to tell here, but originally Mara was intended to be older (8-ish or something) but I didnā€™t want them to separate that long. The timeline is already kind of screwy because even with Adora a year older Mara should actually be four with pregnancy time, but shhhhhh.
ā¦ Oh my god I wish more people knew the difference between the deep web and the dark web. People act like theyā€™re interchangable when Facebook qualifies as the deep web. Catra is a deep web miscreant, not the dark web.
Chapter 4:
ā¦ Perfuma doesnā€™t know theyā€™re cyber criminals but given the jokes about felonies she can guess thatā€™s the only thing that makes sense, and then she elects not to think any more about it because theyā€™re really important to Scorpia and she wants plausible deniability.
ā¦ Obviously Catra hadnā€™t said Adoraā€™s name yet, but Adora is such an Entity in her mind it feels like everybody should think about her as much as Catra does.
ā¦ Perfuma would have to be totally oblivious to not pick up from the conversation that Catra had a crush on Adora in high school, and knowing what she does about Adoraā€™s comphet she just kind of assumes it was the classic ā€œcrush on a straight girlā€ that went nowhere until Catra left school. Sheā€™s not about to embarrass Catra by bringing that up to Adora, but if she knew how serious it was and had a hunch how Adora felt she might interfere.
ā¦ Table break lore. I wouldnā€™t say this is a reference so much as a shared headcanon that previously came up allllllllllll the way back in Drawn Into The Music, where Scorpia breaks a table trying to lean on it while drunk because Biceps.
ā¦ Maraā€™s set up is basically what I had as a kid. When we were little we had the ā€œkid computerā€ which belonged to someone back in the day when it was actually considered a good machine. It didnā€™t have internet and was just for playing games (which were all offline at that point in time). When we got old enough for the internet we had aĀ  software that only let us browse for like 30 minutes each day and I think had an automatic filter of inappropriate sites? If it did, the site list was very minimal and I never ran into any issues personally, but a software that blocks pornhub isnā€™t a bad thing for a five year old to have even if Iā€™m generally against online surveillance lmao. Itā€™s not making a list of sites she visited for spying purposes or anything, and generally Adora tries to be in the room with her when sheā€™s online (in-game or not) because you know. Super young. Sheā€™s really busy though and sometimes has to rely on the idea that the parents of Maraā€™s friends are doing the same thing and monitoring them so they can keep safe. That is not always true.
ā¦ Adora tousles Maraā€™s hair and pets her so much because that became one of the ways she knew how to express affection with Catra and now itā€™s just ingrained as a part of her.
ā¦ Semi-related, she and Catra didnā€™t actually meet until middle school in this ā€˜verse and had about five years together before Catraā€™s breakdown.
ā¦ Adoraā€™s tattoo is the season one sword in a deep maroon and then the gem in the center of the hilt is the sunset ombre from the lesbian flag. Catra just thought the lines were black because she couldnā€™t see that shade of red.
ā¦ ā€œThe breakupā€ here is code for ā€œuncomfortable sex experienceā€.
Chapter 5:
ā¦ Catra was about to say she doesnā€™t get on her knees unless a pretty girl asks nicely before her brain caught up with her mouth.
ā¦ Adora was absolutely not going to interrupt because she was smitten watching them interact. She never in her wildest dreams thought Catra would do more than tolerate her child at best, but she forgot the factor of her kind of outweighed the factor of child.
ā¦ Uhhhh. So. Alright fuck it. Catra was in a mania fit when she broke into the mall. That can come from a couple things and Iā€™ve experienced it once I think, but yeah she really should be on mood stablizers and just refuses to see a professional about it. Once her life stabilized and she essentially had Entrapta as a safety net, knowing she wasnā€™t going to kick her out if her work lapsed, it made things a lot easier, but her constant vigilance against authorities could just as easily be seen as appropriate vigilance as it is paranoia (primarily socially-unacceptable anxiety).
ā¦ Catra doesnā€™t know how to categorize her emotions outside of bad criteria so any strong emotion gets categorized as ā€œbreakdownableā€ or not but thatā€™s definitely not what sheā€™s feeling here, having emotions just feels like sheā€™s dying.
ā¦ Bella Sara supremacy !! šŸ—£ļøšŸ—£ļøI donā€™t think it was available on the Vita lol but it was in THIS universe.
Chapter 6:
ā¦ Catra was, subconsciously, still trying to delay the inevitable of Adora and Entrapta meeting by meeting with Adora and Scorpia downstairs. When they finally came home and it was time, Catra basically tried to get everyone settled in the living room and her own bedroom without ā€œbotheringā€ Entrapta, but she did vaguely greet them when they got home. Their first real conversation was the one in the bed, though.
ā¦ Adora is the type of drunk to try to perpetuate her own existence. If you look away from drunk Adora for a second sheā€™s doing another round of shots and trying to get herself hospitalized.
ā¦ ā€œAdora shouldnā€™t be worrying about thisā€ yeah this reaction has nothing to do with cheating, Catra, thatā€™s just all she can do with her jealousy reasonably.
ā¦ The Scene (1)
ā¦ Belgian Boys mini pancakes my beloved
ā¦ Okay so ā€œcheatingā€ per se isnā€™t so much a thing in their relationship, but by the idea that there are rules and they have an understanding which involves not messing around with other people without notification/permission, then yes cheating is a thing. It wouldĀ  be shitty for Catra to do anything without letting Entrapta know she intends to, which is the entire point of the fun pass.
Chapter 7:
ā¦ Catra didnā€™t really have a sex addiction or anything she was just really, really lonely, knew people found her hot, and needed reasons to stay at other peopleā€™s places, so it ended up as a perfect storm.
ā¦ ā€œPut the kid on and let me talk to herā€ from Catra ā€œIā€™m just tolerating the kidā€ Meow Meow.
ā¦ Yes I know that ā€œbludgeoning weaponā€ was not at all correct. But it sounded good, and thatā€™s what writing is sometimes.
ā¦ ā€œShe tells herself Mara would miss her gifts and then immediately questions why she needs to tell herself anything at all.ā€ Idk Catra I think Mara might miss you as a little more than a gift-giving source. She might be really broken up by you not coming around. (You would also miss her but Iā€™m not even going to pretend youā€™re open to that idea)
ā¦ IDK CATRA MAYBE THE KID WANTED TO BE AROUND AND TRUSTED BY YOU. IDIOT
ā¦ The Scene (2)
Chapter 8:
ā¦ Turnaboutā€™s fair play and weā€™ve gone from Adora thinking she canā€™t stay over to Catra thinking it. These two lesbians just need to accept theyā€™re equally needy.
ā¦ ā€œHoodwinkedā€ agenda !! In all seriousness I havenā€™t watched it in years so Iā€™m not sure if it holds up, but I loved that movie as a kid and so did my mom. I watched it so many times.
ā¦ ā€œTax-freeā€ is in reference to the final line of the chapter, where Catra has some (minor) dues to pay for how she has lived her life, but itā€™s nothing more serious than what she has already done, because as awful as she often thinks herself, most of what she did was just surviving under hard circumstances.
Chapter 9:
ā¦ Adora has it right with Falcon. To him, he and his girlfriend had sex bad enough for her to realize she was gay (he was not being a good partner for that because he didnā€™t notice she was uncomfortable, he was just thinking three years together made it about time), he suddenly has a kid at only 19, and his now-ex he was planning to marry canā€™t even look at him. He already had gambling tendencies and really fell on it with the stress of college and navigating the kid situation, and then everything snowballed because the debt got bad enough he couldnā€™t make tuition and his stress went even further through the roof when he was forced to just get a job to pay what child support he could, and then he starts getting these threats and at that point completely starting over is looking pretty attractive. Whether or not he was in the right has no effect on how his brain was able to handle it and Maraā€™s inception turned out mildly traumatic for everyone involved.
ā¦ ā€œThe fact that Adora is right to have her suspicions is annoying.ā€ Thatā€™s a little thing called guilt, kitten.
ā¦ I donā€™t know what my thing with Albuquerque is but whenever I think of someone going into hiding/leaving the country I think of them doing it there. Iā€™m sure it was used in some piece of media I consumed when I was young and thatā€™s where it came from because to my knowledge itā€™s not an international flights hub.
ā¦ Glimmer is one of those people who will drop in the group chat like hey who wants to see a show in two weeks and then just buy tickets for everyone. This was actually arranged months ago, hence the Star siblings not thinking about the timing and having a conflict, and it was before Perfuma and Scorpia even started dating.
ā¦ Melendy Britt was a voice actress on the OG cartoon and like a third of the female characters, playing Adora amongst others. She was recently at the MOTU SDCC panel.
ā¦ In most ā€˜verses I think Catra loves music, she just has a specific history in this AU that makes it a weird thing for her because she knows it was robbed of her but canā€™t try to get into it now because thatā€™s acknowledging everything she has lost.
ā¦ The brain development thing is actually a myth and it varies wildly between people, but Adoraā€™s parents are also the kind to sincerely believe youā€™re only using 10% of your brain at any given time.
Chapter 10:
ā¦ When I was initially figuring out what to do with Falcon, I wasnā€™t really sure what to do with him. I wanted to get him involved in criminal stuff Catra could uncover so he couldnā€™t be around Mara anymore, but I was also hesitant to do that because Adoraā€™s life is in a precarious place without the child support. I also didnā€™t want to make him into this caricature of awfulness when he was once Adoraā€™s longterm boyfriend and thus at least seemed decent. Then I remembered Catra has a tech sector paycheck and I could easily just run him off at that point.
ā¦ Honestly, now is probably the time to admit that every third time I went to write Falconā€™s name I almost wrote Sea Hawk just because theyā€™re so similar, which makes sense since Falcon was invented to be Sea Hawkā€™s ex, but it was a struggle the whole fic lol.
ā¦ Okay, but what did happen with Falcon and the money/threats? Well, Catra had it pretty right: they were sketchy people, and criminals sure, scammers definitely, but they werenā€™t actually going to send hitmen after him or anything. He was never in any danger. Leaving the country did actually give him a new leaf though and he was a better person with it, managing to build something even though he was still struggling with his gambling addiction. He wasnā€™t able to keep any kind of savings going as a result but he at least learned not to spend money he didnā€™t actually have and get in debt. He managed to find a small pension job and get help for his anxiety, which let him at least a small modest life.
ā¦ Mrs. Bee is Sweet Bee.
ā¦ I meant to have a conversation about swearing they never ended up having. Basically, Adora vaguely tries to censor herself, but things like ā€œoh starsā€ come naturally to her from her parents, ā€œfuckā€ just also comes naturally from everyone else in her life lol. Mara knows kind of what swear words are and that theyā€™re ā€œadult wordsā€ you need to be older to understand the impact of, so when Catra (or Adora) does inevitably swear in front of the kid, itā€™sĀ  not much of a big deal. Catra ends up making it out to be a bigger thing in her head and putting more effort into censoring herself (read: any effort) than Adora does or cares. Eventually they do talk about it when Catra takes a bit more of a parental role in Maraā€™s life and is trying to figure out what that entails.
ā¦ Thereā€™s this tendency for people talking to kids to refer to their parents as ā€œyour momā€ rather than like, their name which you would be using in any other context. Catra has had a secret rule ā€” secret even to herself ā€” that sheā€™s going to keep Adoraā€™s name and not do that ā€œyour momā€ shit. Well, here she is doing that shit, and itā€™s because she feels a lot less like she needs to distance herself from Mara ā€” and thus the concept of Adora having kids ā€” than she did at first when Mara quite frankly terrified her.
ā¦ ā€œI didnā€™t remember your phone number-ā€ a straight up lie, ā€œ-and I wasnā€™t about to go back home under any conditions to ask your parents what you were up to,ā€ will turn out to be a lie.
Chapter 11:
ā¦ ā€œItā€™ll even look bad on Mara by the time of their next zoo visit.ā€ Oh? Are you planning to be part of that visit, Catra?
ā¦ (I am not personally a big fan of bucket hats but there are times when they look really cute ā€” yes even on adults ā€” Catraā€™s just a hater)
ā¦ Catraā€™s description of how the magicat crowns work is actually how her mask works on her official doll. In the case of the magicat queens, though, the hooks were more like a fallback because the mask was made to be so perfect against their face its weight was distributed over the entire thing and the small hooks just kept it from getting out of place.
ā¦ Catraā€™s freakout is very funny to me because kids will play with literally anyone they like but Catra has so little experience she thinks this is what fatherhood is. Not that she isnā€™t a Trusted Adult to Mara but most of her ā€œsignsā€ would be there whether or not they were dating.
ā¦ ā€œItā€™s also partially that she isnā€™t ever going to be a father to anyone, and thus using it has more joking distance that feels marginally more acceptable.ā€ Sheā€™s a dad within six months lmao.
ā¦ Being a parent doesnā€™t come naturally to a lot of people, and Catra is one of those, so for most of the fic you donā€™t really get to see her in ā€œparent modeā€, and I do worry where it leaves off some people will see her as not a good step-parent for Mara, but thatā€™s a slow process for her to reach. The fic would have to drag out a lot longer before it could reachĀ  the point where itā€™s natural for her. For most of the first year she feels like sheā€™s horribly flailing during every interaction with Mara, and that doesnā€™t change with this chapter, but she does internally accept that this is a role sheā€™s going to have and wants to takeĀ  up, so while she still jokes and occasionally slips up, she does love the kid and is doing her best.
Chapter 12:
ā¦ Iā€™m basically picturing the Home Alone house for Adoraā€™s parents but I donā€™t remember it from the movie, I remember it from the LEGO set. So do with that what you will.
ā¦ Marlena knows what sheā€™s doing and sheā€™s just trying to feel Catra out because she never would have pictured her becoming a parent in high school, but she also knows, both logically and from her phone calls with Adora, that Catra has grown a lot.
Original Outline:
I actually have my original idea for the fic still written down from a Discord conversation with a friend so here it is in its entirety:
vague idea is catra + entrapta are a hacker duo and theyā€™re a thing. adora's organization is data compromised, forcing catra to get back in contact with her to help her fix it (vaguer idea is adora works for a nonprofit or something. dont hold me to that) like catra independently finds out there's a security vulnerability and is like fuck i have to be a good guy about this Maybe Catra tries to hack them to spy on adora because she misses her and then she gets way too much way too easily.
So yeah obviously a lot changed. Another idea was that Catra had to protect Adora from people trying to get her forā€¦ IDK, something Catra uncovered that Adora didnā€™t even know she knew (or at least didnā€™t realized was incriminating enough for people to want to cover it up), but I donā€™t really like writing action lol.
Everything changed because I had been wanting to write a single mom Adora fic too, just didnā€™t have anything written for it. In the initial version of Slipstream, I had no background for how they drifted apart, and the comphet backstory for the single mom Adora fic slotted nicely into Slipstreamā€™s empty past, so I combined them so I could write both at once, especially because (as evidenced by how little was in the outline) I didnā€™t have any kind of ongoing plot after they reconnected that I actually wanted to write (again, action ideas are fun, but not for me to write). The new story gave me a lot more avenues to explore relationship dynamics as a big element for all the characters, and thus gave the QPR more relevance and let me portray something I think is kind of rare. Entraptaā€™s relationship with relationships in this fic is really personal to me and it kind of stuck out as a little out of place in the old idea, but in this version of the fic it works into the overall themes of relationships, self-denial, and accepting that what satisfies you isnā€™t necessarily the thing that will make you happiest and thatā€™s worth whatever risks are associated with it.
I want back and forth on the club chapter and the following revolving around a few points: should they actually kiss in the club or just come close, should they kiss in the kitchen, and should they get evolved enough in that kiss for Adoraā€™s hand to reach Catraā€™s tail. I kind of knew the latter would be too far, but ultimately decided the first two were permissible within their rules.
Meta:
Adoraā€™s floorplan
Upcoming:
Next up will be an OotW oneshot. Iā€™m also working on the Lightbeam sequel fic, and lowkey another AU Iā€™ve been teasing, but I donā€™t think I'll have time for them before Sapphic September starts and I chip away at some of those prompts, so we'll see whatā€™s going to shove to the forefront first, so stay tuned IG lol
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halsaph Ā· 1 year ago
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alright whats this artdrone killbot thing
hi. You will regret asking this
The Murderbot Diaries is a series of books about a human-bot construct that was designed to essentially exist as an enslaved security guard / piece of sentient spyware. It's like if Alexa had half a human brain and a gun. We're introduced to Murderbot (the murder alexa) roughly 3 years after it's hacked the piece of hardware in it's brain that forces it to obey commands. In those 3 years it hasn't changed much about it's life except now while working as a subhuman slave it watches tv when no one is paying attention. As a series TMBD largely is about themes of personhood and discovering yourself when you have largely spent your life being denied the right to a sense of self. They also don't shy away from addressing the trauma that Murderbot has experienced from having it's autonomy stripped of it for most of it's life, with the second novella and most recent novel most heavily featuring that as an element. (Although that is a core aspect of Murderbot's character that informs its decisions throughout the entire series).
Murderbot as a character is bitingly sarcastic and witty, deeply paranoid and ultimately filled with the constant low level anxiety it doesn't know what it's doing (not necessarily moment by moment but overall, with it's freedom, with it's life). It's an excellent unreliable narrator because it only tells you exactly what it thinks is important in a scenario, relationships between other characters, physical features of itself and the people around it, it's own emotions and reactions often being completely brushed over with only occasional clues, and often outright misinterpreting people's actions, most often it's own. It has this ever present self loathing in the first several books where it constantly explains it's actions away in the least charitable interpretation possible even though we see time and time again that at it's core it deeply wants to help and protect the people around it. And we see over the course of the books as it starts learning how to make choices for itself and interacting with people who treat it with respect and develops a support system as it starts to move away from that mindset (with the exception of the most recent book but to be fair to MB System Collapse is about it being forced to confront it's PTSD and it's backsliding alot from recently being thrown back into a situation from its worst nightmares). I said before its a human-bot construct to explain that it isn't purely an inorganic being but Murderbot is a deeply inhuman character and openly has no desire to be human, and it's perspective as something that is made to be a security system and enmesh into both digital and hardwired surveillance is fascinating to read. As you know I deeply deeply love robots, they're my favorite kind of 'inhuman but still a Person' kind of character and Murderbot perfectly strikes the balance between a starkly in human way of thinking and deeply relatable emotions that draws me to robots as a whole, especially as an autistic person (and Murderbot was intentionally written with autistic traits but in a subversion of the typical ableist depiction of autistic robots so that EXTRA rings true lmao)
seeing as you mentioned it I will also explain ART as a character, ART is one of the reoccurring characters in the series (the first 3 novellas all have completely different casts outside of Murderbot itself as it hops from place to place trying to decide what it wants and who it is before in the fourth novella and beyond bringing back in previous characters and having them start to overlap throughout the rest of the series). It was introduced in the second book and is arguably the character that has the greatest impact on Murderbot as a person although I say arguably bc I would personally still say that's Mensah. Unarguably tho it is one of the most important people in Murderbot's life and has been described multiple times now by the author as the love of its life (although not necessarily in a romantic sense as Murderbot is both within text and confirmed via word of god acearo). ART (Asshole Research Transport) also known as the Perihelion (although not until the 5th book/first novel bc Murderbot doesn't bother to tell tell the readers its name until then, instead deciding its a dick so its gonna exclusively call it by an insult) is a spaceship's pilot AI, made to be sentient instead of the usual smart GPS as an experiment by the university is was made by. It was raised like a child by a pair of scientists who are now part of its crew (along with its sibling Iris) and now is a teaching vessel for students learning about deep space and also anticorporate espionage worker (don't worry about it). It's a giant pushy asshole unless you're a child (the only character we've ever seen it meet on screen it didn't in some way immediately threaten was a 16 yo). It can't watch tv without having to pause at the suspenseful bits to calm down. We're introduced to it by it threatening to melt Murderbot's mind and then pouting when it's scared shitless. It then a month later asks to do surgery on it. It fully intends to blow up a planet to get Murderbot back from a group of colonists that captured it until someone talks it out of it because that isn't effective hostage negotiation.
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gilly-moon Ā· 1 year ago
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"Telling them about their kinks" blackice prompt please?
I think nice lingerie or a collar would fit Jack (for some people being collared can actually bring comfort and it's not sexual). Also, being blindfolded with your partner show so much vulnerability and trust it makes my heart weak šŸ„ŗ
I missed writing from Pitch's perspective, but I loved the idea of Jack being blindfolded ā™” (also collar & lingerie is *chef kiss* I'm holding onto those ideas for future use lol)
āŸ” āŸ” āŸ”
When Jack came to him breathless and shaking, the last place Pitch expected for them to end up was in his bed.
The frost spirit had nearly crashed into him, staff clattering to the stone floor of the cavern as Pitch readjusted his stance to keep from falling over. Arms winding around that slight, freezing body, Pitch held the boy aloft and stroked soothing fingers into his hair. From the way he was trembling, Pitch half expected to feel tears against his neck where Jack had buried his face, but there was only a shaky stream of breaths cooling his skin.
ā€œWhatā€™s happened?ā€ he asked in a soft tone, already planning out a nightmare for whoever had left Jack in such a state.
ā€œItā€™s nothing,ā€ Jack replied - a lie so entirely unconvincing that it wasnā€™t worth either of their time to point it out. Fingers curling into the fabric of Pitchā€™s robe, his voice cracked slightly as he spoke. ā€œRemember that thing we talked about last time?ā€
Hand pausing where it had been stroking down Jackā€™s spine, Pitch stared blankly at the frost-tinged staff where it lay a few feet away. Theyā€™d met a week ago, and the youngest Guardian had seemed tense then, too. He hadnā€™t said why, only asked to be at Pitchā€™s side for a few hours. It was a typical request of him, each of them drawn to the other by their shared loneliness and a need to be seen, but the unusual mood he was in led their conversation to more intimate topics. Only after a significant amount of reassurances had Jack eventually opened up about his desires, but heā€™d vanished back to the skies before things had the chance to progress. Pitch had spent the last week trying to control his disappointment, but he was wary of the opportunity hinted at in Jackā€™s words when he seemed so unsettled.
ā€œIs that really what you need right now?ā€
ā€œYes,ā€ Jack hissed into his shoulder.
And if Pitch were a better man, he might step back and give in to his own hesitation. Heā€™d do things the right way, rather than indulging an impulsive need from a clearly emotionally compromised frost spirit. But who was he to deny Jack when he clung to him so desperately?
So Pitch found himself stepping into a shadow, bypassing the long walk to his bedroom. Prying the arms from around his neck, he dropped the boy onto black silk sheets and wasted no time in flipping him onto his front, ignoring the soft grunt as a hand pressed between his shoulderblades to keep him in place.
ā€œYou phrased it so sweetly last time we spoke,ā€ Pitch murmured, admiring the sight of tousled white hair and pale, clutching hands against the utter darkness of his bed. The delicious fear of wanting was practically radiating off that slight figure. ā€œWill you say it again for me, Jack?ā€
Turning his head aside to gasp in a breath, Jack gripped the silky fabric below him in two tight fists. His eyes were squeezed shut, tongue darting over pink lips. He seemed to struggle with the words, until Pitch was lowering himself down, using the weight of his own body to pin Jack down. The answer was exhaled on a breath that didnā€™t shake at all.
ā€œControl me,ā€ Jack whispered. ā€œTakeā€¦all of my senses. I want them to be yours.ā€
A note of pure pleasure rumbled through Pitchā€™s chest and along Jackā€™s spine. Frost appeared in curls and spirals between Jackā€™s fingers, crackling over the sheets.
ā€œVery good, Jack,ā€ Pitch purred, placing a kiss among soft spikes of hair before lifting himself up.
His hands worked in smooth motions, reaching for Jackā€™s fingers to loosen their grip. Wrists thin enough for him to snap were gathered up at the dip in the smaller spiritā€™s back, bonds of shadow coiling around them and along his forearms. Pitch rolled him over carefully, letting a hand linger on a thigh while the other slipped beneath the hoodie, dragging up Jackā€™s shuddering torso until it rested over his heart. Bracing a knee at the edge of the bed, Pitch leaned up so they were face to face.
Eyes still held determinedly shut, Jack was still panting unevenly, but for an entirely different reason now. As Pitch brushed his lips over that sharp jawline, he could taste snow and evergreens and fear. Placing kisses up Jackā€™s flushed cheek and against dark eyelashes, Pitch basked in how eagerly the body beneath him surrendered to his touch.
ā€œLook at me.ā€
Jack tensed from the order, eyes shifting in agitation beneath his eyelids. When Pitchā€™s nails dug dangerously into his chest, he sucked in a sharp breath and slowly, slowly revealed those stunning, glacial blue irises. They were watery with unshed tears, and Pitch found himself thinking how beautiful they looked like this, right on the cusp of overflowing with emotion.
ā€œSo perfect for me,ā€ he murmured, cupping a hand against Jackā€™s cheek. A single tear escaped from those pools of sapphire, and his thumb swiped out to catch it.
Removing the hand from Jackā€™s chest, Pitch drew forth a strip of shadow and slipped it over those eyes that had been offered to him, hiding them away from the world. Like this, Jack could hardly move, couldnā€™t see, even if he wanted to. When Pitchā€™s thumb dropped to stroke his lips, they parted obediently.
The less control Jack was allowed, the more he unraveled beneath Pitchā€™s hands. He had left himself so vulnerable like this, had placed an inordinate amount of trust into the hands of a man who had been his enemy once. It woke something dark and hungry in the ancient spiritā€™s gut, accompanied by a painful warmth blooming in his chest.
ā€œGive me everything,ā€ he whispered, blanketing himself over the frost spirit until they disappeared together into the darkness.
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whosthere54 Ā· 2 months ago
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Prison duo playlist analysis day 7 - Brutus by The Buttress
YES I FINALLY GET TO YELL ABOUT THIS SONG! ME WHEN!
This is mostly gonna be me yelling about the season two prison arc and also probably corruption because wow Iā€™m so normal about that specifically. From Icarusā€™s perspective mostly is what Iā€™ve thought this through same as most things- though it could be corruption arc Centross too.
Starting off strong with
ā€œIā€™ve been watching him for my entire life. I hate the air he breathes, his foolish decrees his words so contrived.ā€
They have known him throughout the first reset that they remember at that point- that being the only thing they remember from their life. They hate him- especially after they remember. They were fine around him before but when they remember their put straight back into the mindset the held during corruption and they hold so so much anger and resentment towards him. They donā€™t believe a word he says, he broke their trust no matter how little of it was real in the fist place. Why would he tell the truth now? They donā€™t believe him when he tryā€™s to tell them Rae is sick- because their so sure that Rae would tell them even when they hadnā€™t fully earned that trust back yet because why would he tell the person who tried to kill everybody here over them?
ā€œAnd I hate the way the townspeople gather outside. They cling on to every breath, cling to his chest. Home to his heart full of pride.ā€
Most people of not everyone have met Centross at this point- and most like him. Find him easy to hang out with or are just indifferent to him being there. Rae trusts him more than others, and if Centross said something most would probably believe him especially Rae at this point. Would people believe Icarus? Whoā€™s to say- especially if Jamie and Athena remember. Athena I think trusts Centross more than Icarus with that memory. Easton I donā€™t know about- I think he would be able to tell if they were lying- but I donā€™t think heā€™d trust them so easily.
ā€œThe Oracle told him beware the Ides. And Iā€™d be lying if I said I wasnā€™t wishing for untimely death or demiseā€
Mmmm. See if this was s3 ā€œThe Oracle told him beware the Idesā€ would be a great line.
I donā€™t remember off the top of my head if anyone except Centross himself was worried about visiting Icarus- so I canā€™t make the best connection here.
They would be wishing for his death- not exactly knowingly but they donā€™t want his here. They donā€™t want him to be around to hurt anyone anymore and the easiest way to do that would be for him to die. They donā€™t immediately want to do it themself- but they would be lying if they didnā€™t wish something would happen to him for what heā€™d done to the people they cared about- as well as what heā€™d done to them as much as they try to make it about everyone else.
ā€œOr am I just wishing I could be like you? That the people would see me too as a poet, and not just the muse.ā€
THIS ONE. THIS IS WHY I SAY SEASON 2.
They wished they were like him in many ways in season one- he was Enderianā€™s favorite. Her speaker, her first choice. She talked to him the most. They wish NIW that they got the same level of trust and support from others he is getting, wishing they could walk around and not have to pretend they donā€™t notice the shifting feet and fearful glances when they talk to someone, pretend they donā€™t notice when Rae talks to them different after maybe a nightmare or something else that reminded him of them then. They wish it was like Centross- where he walks around freely and can gain the trust back of the other people on the server. What they donā€™t know is how he worked for it- he built that trust back and they havenā€™t taken the steps to do that yet.
ā€œOh itā€™s not true, I donā€™t wish harm upon you. From birth weā€™ve been like brothers of different mothers. Within the spirit of the same wombā€
Even if they hate each other- they probably understand each other the most out of many of the characters on Fable. Theyā€™ve had experiences together through corruption and then have probably seen each other at their most vulnerable in both prison arcs- stretching into season 3 where thereā€™s more trust and vulnerability for it to actually be a healthy exchange.
ā€œMay the gods strike me down if I forsake you. Frater meus, youā€™re beautifully made. And to you Iā€™m forever grateful.ā€
Mmm. Me when. They didnā€™t want to hurt him at first- they just wanted to make sure he wouldnā€™t hurt anyone else.
He taught them a lot though season 1- I think. Just in their mental state really- even if it wasnā€™t a healthy environment they learned a lot about themself and what they were capable of specifically due to his help. He was part of the people who enabled them to do what they did- even if it was a bad thing. That turns into him enabling and helping them heal and do good later in season 2 and in season 3.
ā€œYouā€™re beautifully madeā€ is a line for sure. Mhm.
ā€œIā€™ll never forget that you showed me to make art. And I know the love you showered me came from a pure and noble heart. I love you, and if you want Iā€™ll call you king. But why do I lay awake at night thinking instead of you it should be me?ā€
I donā€™t want to repeat myself- but same things as I said above he taught them a lot, as well as their respect for him vs their returned lingering hatred and resentment toward him wanting to be in the place he had been from season 1.
ā€œsomething wicked this way comes. And as Iā€™m set to face it, Iā€™m unsure, should I embrace it? Should I run? What motivates me? Hatred? Is it love? Whatā€™s more wrong; that I too wish to be great, or my mother wished sheā€™d had a son?ā€
Agh- me when. Whatā€™s more wrong; that I too wish to be great, or my mother wished sheā€™d had a son?
Tell me thatā€™s not so Icarus coded. Or my mother wished sheā€™d had a son- because- was Icarus ever rally her son? She was their mother, yes, but Icarus was always Creations child. Always in fables shadow, his mini me, his perfect golden child that would do whatever he say. They looked like him too- the spitting image of their father taking on his temperament too.
Skipping a bit because- Iā€™m so normal about this part-
ā€œMy name is Brutus and my name means heavy. So with a heavy heart, Iā€™ll guide this dagger into the heart of my enemy. My whole life you were a teacher and friend to me. Please know that my actions are not motivated only by envy. I, too, have a destiny. This death will be art. The people will speak of this from near and afar. This event will be history, and Iā€™ll be great too. I donā€™t want what you have- I want to be you!ā€
Oh me when they nearly kill Centross. Iā€™m so incredibly normal. About that in particular.
ā€œPlease know that my actions are not motivated only by envyā€
They didnā€™t just do this for what heā€™d done to them- at-least thatā€™s what they tell themself- they do it to protect their family. The only people they care about that he hurt. Their actions are not only motivated by their care for what happened to them, but for what happened to the grove.
ā€œI donā€™t want what you have- I want to be you!ā€
Now- contradictory to my last statement- this is about them. About the lingering mindset of corruption that has them in the same place of envy and anger and want that they were stuck in before. They want to be him now- wanting the respect of others like he had, wanting people to care about them in the same way- trust them and believe them the same way they do him. They want it to be easy- to not have to be looked at like theyā€™re crazy or with pitiful gazes lines with fear and panic when the people they love look at them like theyā€™re a monster.
ā€œI always knew I could be the one. Though I feel the endless pain of being, and I am scorched by the sun. Of humble origins and born of the cursed sex. My name is Brutus but the people will call me Rexā€
NOW THIS IS THE LINE IF BEEN THINKING ABOUT ALL DAY-
ā€œMy name is Brutus but the people will call me Rexā€
They donā€™t know their name at this point so I am not going to say it here- but- ā€œMy name is Sherbert but the people will call me Creation(Creationā€™s child)ā€ BECAUSE HEAR ME OUT- Fable was a military guy, he probably taught them a lot about war strategy as a child of them sitting in the war room as a little kid is anything to go by- and heā€™s a killer though they donā€™t know that yet. Following in their fathers footsteps, theyā€™ll hurt the people they care about the most when trying to do something they deem as good for the people. Good for a kingdom, or good for the grove. And then end up with angry looks and sharp words that they didnā€™t want- that they did this to try and *avoid*
Just- me when theyā€™re called Creationā€™s child and they follow so closely in his footsteps that sometimes it almost makes the lines blur between the two- even just in their tone of speech. Their tone of speech during the S2 arc and also the corruption arc nearly recreated Fables sharp and angry tones he speaks in and I just. Mm. This is all Iā€™ve been thinking about right now.
Thatā€™s all Iā€™ll say- Iā€™ll cut myself off here but I have so many thoughts about this and the season 2 prison arc specifically- hence my whole playlistā€¦ itā€™s fine- Iā€™m normal guys totally.
Anyways!
The image chosen from my prison duo Pinterest board today is-
Tumblr media
Iā€™ll leave it at that.
You are loved! Go take any meds if you need to and Go eat and drink water if you havenā€™t already today <3
Have a good rest of your day/night :]
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pfffsfic Ā· 4 months ago
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Post-Fall Falls False Starts- Chapter 7: The Encounter
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Sarah's story had included- among many, many other things- a detailed physical description of the demon in question. Rob hadn't exactly been lucid for that, and he certainly wasn't entirely lucid now, so the information was locked behind two invisible mental walls that he wouldn't have been able to break even if he had known the information he needed was beyond them.
"I'm Rob," he said with trepidation.
"Rob, huh?" said the triangle. "I'm Bill."
"Bill?"
Rob's eye didn't meet Bill's directly, instead gazing absently at the demon's bow tie, then his hatā€¦ and then the mental walls crumbled in turn, first with a faint memory of the outfit Sarah had been wearing earlier and second with a surprisingly robust memory of a previously-forgotten section of the monologue for which he had zoned out. His retreat into memory was abruptly broken up by Bill snapping loudly in his face a few times.
"Sheesh! It takes a special kind of foggy head to zone out in the dreamscape, and I don't mean that as a compliment!"
"Bill Cipher?" Rob asked.
The demon's 'face' contorted for just a second into a red one of seething rage and confusion that faded just as quickly as it had arrived.
"So you know the name. I'm honored, really." He didn't sound honored. "How much else do you know, kid?"
"I know you're a demon."
"By some definitions! And?"
"Andā€¦"
The aid his newfound memory granted him quickly reached the end of its usefulness. Either Sarah hadn't brought up anything about Bill's personality or Rob had been so lost for that portion of it that he couldn't salvage the information.
"You're a demon, you show up in dreams, and you can be summoned. ā€¦That's it."
"Excellent!" For the first time in the conversation, Bill sounded like he meant it. "Tell me, do you do a lot of traveling?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I haven't left my dimension in ages. Work-related concerns, and all that. I'm trying to live vicariously through you- is that so wrong?"
"Uhā€¦"
"Let me tell you, the Nightmare Realm may be a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there!"
"The Nightmare Realm?"
"Either you're stupid or you're playing stupid," Bill sighed, "One's hilarious, the other not so much. C'mon, make me laugh, would you?"
They shared a tense gaze, and then Bill let out the world's least sincere laugh, giving Rob's the world's least sincere friendly shoulder pat by stretching out his arm.
"Lighten up, kid! I'm messing with you! You know, you're kind of a wet blanket. Squishy, full of water, and unresponsive when it comes to banter." As if to prove his point, Bill poked Rob in the cheek and discovered with a shiver that it was not, in fact, squishy. "Well, at least those last two."
"Oh, excuse me if I'm not suddenly chummy with you, okay? We just met for the first time one minute ago!"
"On the contrary!"
Bill's arm snapped back to its usual length and his body glowed with a series of rapid-fire images that Rob recognized from his dreams over the past week- the flashing colors of his hallucinatory episode after eating that mushroom, the nondescript classroom from his test nightmare, a few other half-remembered bursts of fantasy. Then, for a few seconds, before shifting back into its original yellow hue, it displayed the current scene in real-time from Bill's perspective, almost like looking into a mirror.
"I've been trying to get to you, kid! But every time I have an opening, you either stop dreaming or you wake up! If I didn't know any better-" his eye narrowed- "I'd think you were doing it on purpose."
"I wasn't doing it on purpose, man."
"Say what you want. Look, I'll drop the pretense. I'm gonna get into your mind one way or another, and then it won't matter if you play stupid, because I'll be able to see everything you aren't telling me."
"Aren't we in my mind right now?"
"Ha! We're in your dreams right now. The meat of your mind is elsewhere, both literally and metaphorically! This is basic stuff. Humans, am I right? Uh, 'scuse me, force of habit. Whatever-it-is-that-you are's, am I right?"
"Cyclopes."
"Cyclopes aren't made of untextured polygons and TV static, and they definitely don't dream. Those guys are dumber than a bag of teeth. Having one eye doesn't make you a cyclops, otherwise me, you, and the eye bats would all be on the same level!"
"Eye bats?"
"Point is, we're not on the same level, and you aren't a cyclops."
"I think I would know what I am."
"Trust me, I thought so, too. You're a real edge case."
"If you're so good with this stuff, what would you say I am if not a cyclops?"
"Hmmm."
Bill floated around him in a lazy circle, bringing to mind a pack of hungry wolves.
"Welp," said Bill, "I guess I'll find out when you're at your lowest! If you think I can't see through your game, it's gonna be all that much funnier when I get the upper hand!"
"My game? What on Earth are you talking about?"
"I'll be watching," snapped Bill, vanishing on a bitter note and taking the environment along with him.
"At least Sarah will be happy about this," Rob thought before his lucidity gave way to unconsciousness.
-
"WHAT?"
Sarah grabbed his shoulders and shook. Hard. When Rob had cheerfully broken the news to a drowsy Sarah, he had anticipated many possible reactions, this not among them.
"He visited YOU before ME? That's so not fair!"
She let go of him and flopped down onto an invisible fainting couch with a dramatic flourish and an even more dramatic sigh. Her eyes glimmered with an insincere sort of wetness, akin to the tears of a fairy tale princess upset about being simply too pretty and rich to relate to the common folk. Maybe she was happy in her own special way- she just didn't want Rob to know it.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm over it," she said without even a hint of the earlier negativity. "What did he say to you?"
"Just a bunch of cryptic stuff I couldn't make heads or tails of. I think he thought I was trying to manipulate him."
"And were you?"
"No!"
"It would have been really cool if you were."
"He caught me off-guard, alright?"
"Too late now. Okay, okay, so! Could you tell me everything you remember about what he said? We're gonna get to the bottom of this."
"I remember the first words out of his mouth- or, uh, his eye, I guess- were, 'who the heck are you'?"
"Interesting. Did it seem like a genuine who-are-you or an I-know-who-you-are who-are-you?"
"Genuine, I think."
"Interesting. Very interesting. He doesn't know who you are? That has some iiiinteresting implications."
"I told him my name- was I not supposed to do that?"
"First name or full name?"
"First name only."
Rob had gotten a surname for himself- Wrecker- a while back during a period of time he disliked thinking about. It was the only legal surname he'd ever had as far as he could remember (with the exception of the fake identity he'd invented to run for the school board), but it felt like a pseudonym even so. Perhaps, he thought, that was because his arch-nemesis had come up with it. If he had to pick his own evil moniker, what would it be? Would the word 'evil' with a few tweaks to the pronunciation really still cut it? Sure, he might stoop that low for someone else's name, but his own?
"I don't think he gets power over you if he has your name. That's fairies. But hey! There's a lot I don't know about him."
"I'm surprised there's anything you don't know about him."
"Well, two seasons can only tell you so much. That's why I'm here- to pick his mind and get some answers!"
"I don't think he seems like the sort of person who would be an open book about that kind of thing, but I guess you know him better than me."
"Oh, trust me, I have my ways of getting through to him. I'm like a therapist- I can get people to freak out and unintentionally say things that reveal their deepest, darkest secrets!"
"I don't think that's what therapists do."
"Well, it's what I do. Call it serapy."
"Like Sarah plus therapy?"
"Like stalking- I mean, supervision- plus therapy! Secrets beget more secrets. If they can't hide from you, they won't want to try and hide from you, and they'll tell you anything to get you to keep quiet! But Sarah plus therapy is good too."
"Sounds like blackmail."
"By some definitions."
"By all definitions!"
"Maybe so, maybe so. But blackmail makes it sound so serious!"
"Like how 'stalking' sounds so serious?"
"Don't tell me you've never done that to your nemeses."
"I spy on my nemeses. It's a villain thing- it's different. And less creepy."
"What's the difference?"
"The- the- the principle of the thing! The motivation! Hate is different from love. Have you ever hated anybody? Like really hated them?"
"I-"
"No, you haven't. I can tell from the innocence in your eyes."
"Innocence? Oh, trust me, there's no innocence here."
She leaned in with one eye to his and grinned like a serial killer in a horror movie, letting out her best creepy giggle- a laugh that sent chills down Rob's spine against his will.
"Point made. But-! it's still a different thing. You wouldn't understand."
"Whatever you say, Rich."
She patted him on the head. He didn't comment on that last thing- he was over that- he would not let it get to him- he knew better-
"It's Rob," he muttered.
"I know," she replied.
-
Against Rob's wishes, Sarah had gone and fetched more of the white mushrooms to roast them over the fire for breakfast. It took a few hours of Sarah swearing up and down that she wasn't hallucinating even a little bit before Rob finally decided eating one was worth the risk, and even then, he took small bites at twenty-minute intervals just in case. Their interactions were short, sweet, and heavy on the back-and-forth, and when one ended there would be a long period of peaceful silence before the next one started up. By the end of the day he had recounted his entire meeting with Bill to an inquisitive Sarah. Much to his appreciation (and annoyance), she was a much better listener than he was.
Rob's meeting with Bill had been heavily recontextualized by the information he learned. For one thing, Bill was a villain ('What?' he had asked. 'Why do you care? You're a villain too, aren't you?' she had replied), he lived in a decaying world called the Nightmare Realm that, much like the dimension Rob himself had once been trapped in, acted as a depository for forgotten things, he was a conman who made what Sarah called 'typical demony deals', he knew a lot of things (but not who Rob was, a fact that Sarah suspected bothered him), and he had a big and enthusiastic fanbase. That last one was less so useful info about Bill and moreso useful info about Sarah. It had also come up that eye bats were essentially eyeballs with wings (Sarah described them as 'the sort of demon that would appear on William's hypothetical shoulder if he needed to make a tough moral decision) and that Bill could see through images of his likeness and also trees- definitely birch trees, but, since there were no birch trees in the clearing, Sarah mentioned that she hoped his powers extended to other sorts of trees with holes as well. Rob plugged every tree hole in the clearing with dirt just in case. Sarah let him, but carved a little eye of providence into the bark of a nearby evergreen, apparently rendering his work irrelevant.
They discussed how one sasquatch could feed them for days, and then how to kill a sasquatch, and then how one giant ice cream cone could also feed them for days, and then the conversation topic shifted to if Rob was edible or not. He insisted he was no longer organic. She insisted they would have to try, to know for sure. Rob threatened her with the crowbar and said, 'You'll scream before I scream'. She laughed- hopefully at the quip and not because his failure to intimidate was funny.
Their final topic of the night was how that human had reacted to seeing Rob.
"It could just have been a weird little gag," said Sarah. "Somehow I doubt everybody you meet is gonna react the same way. That'd be boring, you know? But if you want to test it out I have an idea."
"An idea?"
"Yeah! I want you to go into town and try to steal a TV and a generator!"
"What, you wanna watch TV here?" Rob sat up, wide-eyed. He had been thinking about doing the exact same thing! He had wanted to determine if his own universe existed as fiction within this one. Could Sarah really have come to that same conclusion? "Why?"
"I have a DVD on me that could help us survive here."
"Like a wilderness survival show, or something?"
"Not exactly. I was honestly gonna keep it a secret, but now you know everything else and we're kind of living together like an old married couple, by which I mean we sort of hate each other but there's also love there-"
"No there's not."
"Friendship, then."
Rob sighed. Maybe there was friendship there. How long had it been since he had a friend? Was this really friendship if it was born of necessity? Did they need each other? He had survived fine the first week on his own, save for that time with the mushrooms.
"I'll go into town tomorrow. We'll see if I can steal one for you."
"You are the best. Thanks so much."
"Don't thank me! I have secret ulterior motives."
"Oooh, tell me about them."
"They're a secret," he said, and then he closed his eye and pretended to be asleep.
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brightblurr Ā· 1 month ago
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Why do you like Rau Le Creuset?
There are so many reasons beyond just weird fangirling lol.
But it is largely because his character was written that good, both of the original voice actors (Toshihiko Seki and especially Mark Oliver) brought the character to life. You can feel everything he says, you can feel the emotion behind it or the lack of. You can tell he his deceitful but he comes off charming anyway. His character is handsome, young, agile and he can seem like a mentor who is there for you. I love the complexity behind his character, and how we see so many faces of his. We never suspect that he's behind the actual war, we never really know just how convoluted he is until Mendel.
I love that he influences everything, even Destiny. His hand is a huge factor in the Destiny Plan, which would see to it that people stop suffering as they did in his nihilistic perspective. He influenced Durandal, Rey, and honestly basically Aura Maha Khyber and Orphee Lam Tao too. He was the driving force behind Kira's worst nightmares - that he can't stop war. His philosophy wasn't wrong, and it applies to real life. War is never ending, humans are selfish and desire things. Everything is difficult. Even though I don't entirely agree with his negative perspectives, I can still admire that they got this character right.
He isn't an old man, he isn't totally unattentive. And he's easy on the eyes. Like seriously. Forget Athrun, Kira and Mu. RAU WAS HOTTER.
His character was charming. He was literally, if they went, let's take Lacus, flip her gender, and give her a reason for NOT wanting to help everyone. He was talented, manipulative, charming, knowledgeable and overall capable. He could come off as a kind mentor and actually just be doing everything to ruin your life. I love it. Amazing character, amazing role, amazing voice actors, amazing design. I wish he'd continued to make appearances, especially in Kira's head, because he drove Kira's whole character way more than Durandal. He was right about Kira, about the world, about everything.
Basically, I just love the character. if he were a real man, I'd probably jump him.
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threewaysdivided Ā· 7 months ago
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The Shaper of Minds and its possible consequences for a certain character
I have finally joined the rest of the internet in losing my mind over a D&D Podcast - in my case, the wonderful Dan Jones & Dragons.Ā  With Episode 26 due to stream on Danā€™s Twitch this week, I really want to talk about some of the stuff that came up across the just-finished Gala sessions because the fallout from that has the potential to be incredibly fraught.
THE SHAPER OF MINDS
The relic the Flower Crowns were going after this mission ā€“ The Shaper of Minds ā€“ is a potentially fascinating narrative device that might as well have been lab-engineered to be my exact brand of personal nightmare fuel.Ā Ā  Itā€™s a small, ornate brass key that can alter any part of the targetā€™s mental faculties/thoughts/memories at will should the wielder touch it to any part of their victimā€™s skin.
Now, on one hand, there are a heap of interesting (and even benevolent) applications for a tool like that.Ā  It could instantly grant access to skills, languages and knowledge that would otherwise take a person years of study to learn.Ā  It could be used to sort through and resolve memories that had been faded by time, muddied by trauma or forcibly supressed by magical/medical means.Ā  But on the otherā€¦
As described and used in campaign so far, the primary function of the Mindshaper is to alter memories (and the attendant personality) with the target having no awareness that their mind has been changed.Ā  Itā€™s basically gaslighting on steroids, except that where a gaslighting victim still retains their original recollection ā€“ and has to be manipulated by their abuser into doubting their own perceptions and instead accepting the alternate telling of events (a cognitive dissonance that can eventually lead the person to recognise the manipulation) ā€“ the Shaper of Minds entirely replaces the original recollection of events with the version the wielder wants their victim to perceive.Ā  There is no internal conflict between accounts, no inconsistencies that could alert the victim that someone has broken into their head and rewritten their perceived reality.Ā  The person they reshape you to be is the person you believe you always were.Ā  And all it takes is a single touch.
That is a brand of existential horror that had me on edge all throughout Session 24 (basically from the moment it was implied the key was in play).Ā  Ā Reality may be objective, but each individual personā€™s internal reality is governed by their perception ā€“ their memories ā€“ of the events in their life, no matter how incomplete, biased or otherwise skewed that personal perspective may have been.Ā  You have value just by being you because you are not replaceable, but the thing that makes you unique is, in large part, the sum total of those inimitably specific personal memories.Ā  No-one else will perceive the world in exactly the same way you do, and even a few minor changes to just a few of those perceptions can flow on to massive differences in ideals, values, priorities and future choices.Ā  In that regard, the use of the Mindshaper Key isnā€™t so much an alteration as an obliteration of the victimā€™s former self and replacement with someone new; even if that new stranger is largely indistinguishable from the original.Ā  And, again, all it takes is a single touch.
[Sidenote:Ā  This made Mister Wick an especially effective antagonist to wield the key, since his Galas functionally trap even targets who are aware of the threat within the rules of high-society behavioural expectations.Ā  Otherwise-innocuous actions like a handshake or private conversation suddenly become incredibly dangerous, while being nigh-impossible for the Flower Crowns to extract themselves from without committing an atrocious faux pas and potentially tipping Wick off.Ā  Perfectly designed stage for a psychological horror-thriller encounter.]
Which of course, brings us to a certain character who fell victim to the key in Episode 24ā€¦Ā  [put under the cut for spoiler reasons]
MORENTHAL
This poor Drow, he can never catch a breakā€¦
Morenthal may not have been the most mechanically dangerous party member to fall victim to Mister Wickā€™s manipulations although, given that the key was revealed to let its wielder read existing memories during the alteration, and that all of the Flower Crowns were fully briefed on the locations and nature of the Eversteel artefacts, him getting a hand on any of them could have been very bad plot-wise but from a character point of view I think heā€™s the one who the keyā€™s effects had the potential to be most personally devastating for.
The way things ended up playing out across Session 25 was precisely the nightmare scenario Gamb was fretting about out of game: Mister Wick forcibly implanted Morenthalā€™s mind with false memories of being his lifelong trusted confidant and supporter, then ā€“ before the Flower Crowns could reverse the keyā€™s effect ā€“ Morenthal discovered that Mister Wick had been killed in combat with Coil and Preston, leading to the Party having to physically restrain him so they could use the key to undo the damage, thus confronting Morenthal with the realisation that not only was everything he thought he knew about Jonathan a lie, but in actuality Jonathan had committed possibly the most invasive violation heā€™d ever been subjected to in order to forcibly make Morenthal into one of his loyal tools.Ā  That level of emotional and mental whiplash would be rough on any character, but for Morenthal itā€™s particularly brutal becauseā€¦
Based on whatā€™s been revealed in-game so far, the core of his character is that Morenthal is an abused child. Ā This most-clearly came up in his conversation with Gelnek in Session 14; he was a child who grew up with nothing, raised by the Bloodletter Mercenaries as a tool instead of a person, and taught to see faces only as targets ā€“ with him also mentioning to Hobson in that their ā€œcombat trainingā€ involved being relentlessly beaten down until he learned to fight back.Ā  During his Session 21 visit with the Nightmother, he openly admits that ā€œnowhere feels safeā€.Ā  From that itā€™s pretty clear to read that Morenthal has never felt unconditionally loved, safe or respected around other mortals.
(This also helps contextualise why heā€™s so devoted to the Nightmother.Ā  From what little we have seen of his visits to her, Iris is a fond ā€œadultā€ figure, who does not threaten, does not judge, asks nothing of him aside from his company, and cares equally for all the souls that pass through her domain.Ā  For a child ā€œgrowing up with nothingā€ but violence, that would have been everything.)
But then, enter Jonathan fucking Wick.Ā  And now, just for a short while, Morenthal has all these ā€œmemoriesā€ of Jonathan being there to confide in, encourage him and support his escape from the Bloodletters.Ā  Suddenly he believes someone was there for him and, while the memories might be fake, the feelings of unconditional safety they would have brought were very real.Ā  Little wonder that he started acting like a Trilby-level naive goober around Mister Wick to the point of accidentally snitching on the rest of the group.Ā  Only, then it turns out to be a lie and those memories are gone.
For me, I think one of the worst things Morenthal might end up dealing with in the aftermath of having his memory fixed isnā€™t the specific feeling of personal betrayal or the potential shame at having been caught: itā€™s the realisation that he was always alone.Ā Ā  That there was no mortal on the outside who cared or came for him when he needed them ā€“ just him and the distant fondness of a Divine.Ā  That would be awful beyond words, and yet the Flower Crowns were forced to inadvertently inflict it upon him in order to restore his mind.Ā  No wonder he wouldnā€™t look any of them in the eye before the session closed.
Worse still, the nature of the key makes it incredibly hard not only to trust others, but to trust your own mind.Ā  The players and audience above-table know that Morenthal is back to experiencing and remembering reality as it happened, but the question could very well linger for him, bringing with it a hefty dose of paranoia.Ā  Sure, Morenthal correctly remembers that Coil is a straightforward, loyal person who wouldnā€™t be tempted to tamper with his mind beyond undoing Jonathanā€™s manipulationsā€¦ but he ā€œrememberedā€ that about Mister Wick too, and wouldnā€™t that be a beneficial thing for the Party to have him think?Ā Ā  To Morenthal, people were already Not Safeā„¢, but now the one person he ever believed might be had actually violated him worse than anyone else in order to force and abuse that trust.Ā  How is he supposed to trust anyone if he canā€™t trust the authenticity of his own recollections.Ā  (I get the feeling that Morenthal probably isn't going to be capable of relaxing until the Shaper of Minds is confirmed to either be locked back safely in the Vaults of Eversteel or fully removed from the Mortal Plane by Six).
It makes it really tragic that all of this came directly on the back of Episode 23, where Gamb revealed during the above-table break chat that - even if Morenthal didnā€™t recognise why ā€“ he unconsciously trusted Trilby and Gelnek enough to jump off the airship without checking that his rope was secure, because deep-down he knew they would catch him.Ā  To go from that high-point to the whiplash of him first thinking the Flower Crowns had killed the only person he was ever ā€œsafeā€ with, then them inadvertently subjecting him to the most painful realisation he could ever experience and potentially leaving him wondering whether he can even trust his feelings about them is absolutely gutting.
I think the thing that scares me most about how the aftermath could potentially play out is another trait that Gamb and Dan have established for Morenthal:Ā he's a flight-risk.Ā  Ā He shies away from letting people get close and, if he feels unsafe enough, he runs.Ā  Itā€™s already been mentioned/implied that heā€™s considered fleeing the group at multiple different points across the sessions. Ā And with him likely not feeling safe even in inside his own mind right now, that risk is probably at an all-time high.Ā  The poor lad is staring down the barrel of a potentially-impending multi-level emotional crisis, where a lifetime of instincts will probably be urging him to run hard and fast because People Are Not Safeā„¢.
And the thing is, that instinct isnā€™t a good one for him either.Ā  Morenthal might have gotten by on his own ā€œjust living to beā€ up until Filgrove, but that feels a lot more like surviving out of necessity than having an actual life.Ā  Itā€™s pretty obvious that he pushes people away as a defence mechanism:Ā  if you donā€™t care about anyone then you canā€™t be hurt by them or have those people used against you.Ā  But if you donā€™t let yourself care and feel things, youā€™re not really living.Ā  The truly tragic part of his running being a potential foreseeable outcome is that the Flower Crowns are good for Morenthal.Ā  (I doubt Morenthal realises it and canā€™t speak to Gambā€™s above-table thought process but itā€™s interesting that one potential interpretation of Morenthalā€™s cynical, faux-apathetic, ā€œstinkyā€ behaviour is that of a former abused child quietly testing the boundaries of whether heā€™s allowed to exist in a way thatā€™s inconvenient for others, to which the answer from the Party has largely been yes provided he isnā€™t actively encouraging Trilby to get himself killed, or killing people without explaining himself).Ā  He survived alone before because that was all he knew, but I get the feeling he wouldnā€™t do so well if he tried to go it solo again after being with people (heā€™s already confessed that the idea of Feyli being gone makes him miss her).Ā  Ā Thatā€™s not a road to walk on his best day, let alone with his current headspace and tendency towards self-destructive choices.Ā 
It reminds me a lot of this article:
ā€œStill, itā€™s easier for us to keep blaming ourselves because itā€™s preferable to facing the unthinkable: the fact that our parents donā€™t love us. ā€¦Ā  Most people would rather do anything than accept this as the truth. Not only is it painful; itā€™s humiliating.ā€
So yeah, suffice to say I am incredibly concerned about how Morenthalā€™s arc is going to play out over the next session(s).Ā  Hereā€™s hoping that Gelnek and/or Coil have enough emotional savvy to keep an eye out, and enough patience to stick to him even if he lashes out in attempt to drive them off.Ā  Even if it all works out okay, I get the feeling that this oneā€™s going to be ugly.
Canā€™t wait to see how everyone chooses to play it ā¤ļøā€šŸ©¹
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starzzmissthesun Ā· 1 month ago
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Since you asked I have to tell you abt this story I came up with like 4-5 years ago and have held so deep in my heart since! The characters are literally a part of me atp. So the main character is named Margaret Lainey and the whole story is basically in the format of her diary, it's 14 entries within the month of February and let's just say I put her through itšŸ˜­. She starts off the journal entry explaining how she has to start writing in the journal as recommended by her therapist who she sees bc of a suicide attempt... yeah
And towards the the first half of the entries you see her getting better up until Valentine's day, a very pivotal part of the story, where everything just starts going down hill.
A lot of it as to do w/ her unrequited love, she's head over heals for this girl Lydia, who she believes is straight, now obviously Lydia not returning her feelings isn't the only reason she goes off the deep end, it just sets back on all the things she still hasn't healed from, considering she's been struggling for a looooonnng time.
What's a really devastating part of the story is also Margaret's best friend Jamie, now Jamie is a trans, mtf, but as the whole story is told in Margaret's perspective its unknown to her and the reader which means Jamie is dead-named and misgendered the entire time (shes still super important and gets her own story bc ive always wanted to also write a sequel for her) so Jamie is like really in love w/ Margaret, a lesbian, but Margaret thinks Jamie is a boy the whole time :(
At the end of the story the last chapter/entry is a suicide note, Margaret kills herself which is definitely foreshadowed throughout even though you also think she's gonna be better by the end, but unexpectedly it's actually a double suicide w/ Jamie so after reading the 1st part ur supposed to be like hello what!?!? Hence the sequel which is Jamie's story
I love them both sm, I have story names and outlines but I never feel confident enough to do their story justicešŸ˜“
The story names have been the same since I came up with it
Part one: Through My Eyes, Love Margaret Lainey
Part two: Through My Eyes, Love Jaime Blue
So now that background story rant is out the way (sorry its so longšŸ˜­šŸ˜­) here are some fun facts abt them
Margaret
Her favorite colors are green and yellow, she paints her nails purple and blue and black constantly and always has them chiped from picking away at them,she cuts her own hair so it's always really choppy, she's got tons of beauty marks but she doesn't like them, her favorite books are No longer human by Osamu Dazai, The Catcher in the Rye, and Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, her favorite movies are Coraline, Heathers, Thirteen, and Girl Interrupted, she enjoys reading, photography, and collecting odd things, some of her favorite songs are Cigarettes out the window, Death of a party girl, I'll die anyway, Change (in the house of flies), Ptolemaea, she's constantly humming and writing on her arms, she's got a horrible sleep schedule and bad trust issues and horrible self perception/esteem, she loves to take pictures of Lydia whenever she sees her even though she knows it's odd and she shouldn't, her loves to hang out with Jamie, it always makes her feel content
Jamie
Her favorite colors are light pink and red, her favorite books are The picture of Dorian Gray and Speak, her favorite movies are As You Are and the Corpse Bride, she also loves horror movies even through they give her nightmares and make her keep her feet strictly under the blankets at night, some of her favorite songs are Heather, Family line, I can't handle change, Christmas kids, Heart to Heart, Out of Touch, and Sailor Song, she loves fashion and wants to have an odd shoe collection one day, she paints her toe nails red constantly with a stolen bottle of polish, she likes to sit in her closet with a blanket and a flashlight with a book like a little kid, she hates looking at herself in the mirror, she loves to hang out at the park with Margaret, swinging on the swings and pretending like it's a date just for five minutes
There's sm more to say and I also have a character sheet for Lydia cause she's actually great but I think this is all it's gonna be, if you actually read this whole thing ur kinda the best cause I ranted sm šŸ˜­
Oh my GOD!!!!!! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!! GENUINELY GOT A PARAGRAPH IN AND STARTED SHAKING A BIT CAUSE I GOT SO EXCITED!!!!!! THIS IS SUCH!!!! A COOL IDEA!!! I ACTUALLY LOVE THE WHOLE DIARY ENTRY CONCEPT SO MUCH!!!!! THIS SOUNDS SO AMAZING AND COOL!! I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS SO MUCH??? GENUINELY I LOVE THE UNRELIABILITY OF MARGARET???? AND THE STORY ITSELF IS SO COOL? I WOULD LOVE TO READ THIS ACTUALLY, LIKE COULD BE A BOOK IT'S SO INTERESTING??? AND LIKE I CAN JUST IMAGINE THE FORESHADOWING YOU COULD PUT IN HERE? I ALSO LOVE HOW YOU HAVE SUCH A GRASP ON THE CHARACTERS? LIKE THEY FEEL REALLY REAL. UGH I ACTUALLY REALLY WANNA KNOW MORE!!!! I TRUST YOU COULD DO THIS JUSTICEšŸ™LIKE YOU HAVE SUCH A GRASP OVER THE WHOLE THING, AND IT'S GOT SO MUCH TO IT? I THINK THAT YOU SHOULD PICK YOUR FAV CHAPTER THAT YOU THINK COULD DO THE BEST AND START FROM THERE!!!! (also if you have any character designs lmk cause I'd draw them for you totally:D) ugh this is actually so amazing, if you ever wanna say more, feel free!! Cause id be ECSTATIC!!! Also, I really love the idea that it's almost destined for her to die, but it's so unexpected when she does. :DD
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