#the monsters know what they're doing

[crash-likes-cookies]

Phase Spider Tactics

Analysis of traits, comparison to real-life animal behaviour and extrapolating missing info from these. Conclusions of tactics that are both realistic and in accordance with the rules.

More? The blog has entries for several monsters and the author has published books filled with them, available through the same site.

Never to late to find treasures like these...

[ghoulie-gal]

The Lover's Lake has got me feeling things I cannot quite identify... LOOK AT THEM....

ONE OF THEM IS SO CLEARLY SOMETHING OTHER AND TWISTED AND STRANGE BUT. THEY ARE IN LOVE SWANS IN LOVE IN THE LOVER'S LAKE.... stares at the MC

stares at the ghouls

C'mon. C'MON

[pirateshelly]

I think what irks me the most about a lot of the people who vehemently despise Armand is that they talk about him as if he's not even a person, when the show itself has gone to great lengths to make his motives for even his worst actions incredibly human.

It's like. His most genuine and vulnerable moments are just pure manipulation in order to earn Louis' sympathy, actually! No, of COURSE he couldn't possibly just want to, you know, find basic connection and understanding and to be truly seen by another person. Because he's NOT a person obviously, he's just a soulless creature poorly masquerading as a human. He's a tiger. He's a megalodon. If you try to see the human he was before becoming a vampire behind the person we meet in the present you're just naive and also falling for his tricks 🙄

Like there are plenty of reasons to not like him, it's fine, really! But god can people a least allow him some humanity??

[kismetconstellations]

"Please! We come from a peaceful planet! We mean you no harm. We're unarmed!"

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

i somehow doubt that the noldor didn't tell the sindar about the first kinslaying out of malice. they weren't rubbing their hands with glee, cackling and mwa-ha-ha-ing, they weren't trying to sneak into the sindar's good graces to betray them all or whatever the fuck. i think it was more -

it can't have been deliberate. they were the children of a world without death, part of a culture that holds slaying another elf as the worst crime a person can commit, only one of them had ever raised a weapon at someone else in anger before. i think here, before their doom proper even began, the idea wouldn't have even occured to them; if it did, it would have been dismissed out of hand as obviously insane. i suspect what happened is that fëanor came up with some ridiculous cockamamie plan to steal the ships - literally to steal them, like they were going to sneak into the harbour, climb aboard the ships, and sail away without anyone noticing somehow - and of course they were discovered almost immediately, and then -

the sky was dark for the first time in almost all of their lives. as far as anyone knew, the entire world was ending, and a ton of people - on both sides - had grabbed sharp things in case of giant spider. everyone was on the edge of panic, negotiations had conclusively broken down and yet nobody was backing down, the valar were conspicuously absent, nobody could see worth a damn without the trees, nobody really knew what was happening -

that, to me, doesn't sound like the army of professional soldiers the noldor aren't yet massacring innocent fisherfolk. that sounds like the kind of situation where, if they had guns, someone would have fired a shot, and no one would ever find out who

it's chaos. the noldor somehow get out of there with the swan-ships, but not a single one of them could tell you how it happened. they don't even really start processing what they've done until they're already fleeing up the coast in a disorganised mob, and then...

children of a world without death. born to a culture that holds kinslaying as its highest taboo. there is no possible way the realisation they had just barrelled over every ethical law they had didn't hit them as hard as the trees going out

so no, i'm not surprised they didn't volunteer this information to the sindar. i mean can you imagine opening relations with thingol with this partially it's the guilt, partially it's the shame, partially it's the fact that the first thing they did on their heroic quest to reclaim their stolen masterworks was somehow actual kinslaying, that's gotta do a number on your self-image, partially... i think they were still having trouble processing it, especially early on. how do you come to terms as a culture with having done something like this, when nothing like this has ever happened before?

(and maybe - they're never going back, right? mandos was pretty clear they'd never be welcomed in valinor again, and the teleri probably aren't gonna come chasing after them seeking vengeance. whatever... that was (because they don't have a name for it, not really, everyone who knows about it was either there or learned about it while the blood (don'tthinkabouttheblood) was still drying, how do you even give a name to such a crime?) all its consequences are on the other side of the sundering sea, and chances are they'll stay there)

(so maybe. maybe if they don't mention it. maybe it can stay back in valinor, with the valar and tirion and everything else they'll never see again)

(maybe, it'll be like it never happened at all)

[heal-the-ashes]

I feel like Hershel and Desmond would both be afraid of themselves.

If they stop and look at themselves. If they realize what they're doing came from years of pain. Would it all lead to a question of "Who else am I going to hurt?" "How many people have I unintentionally hurt because I never realized what I was really doing?" "How many things of my life have I missed because of this?" "How many things do I—or will I—regret?"

I feel like Layton self-sacrifices to a fault. That others get hurt trying to protect him. That he unknowingly drags other people through pain to get to where he thinks he needs to go. To solve every mystery there is. To get rid of his pain from outside sources, he needs to make as much of it himself under the titles "Determination" and "Amazing at solving things" and "Helping others" because then, how could those things ever hurt him? How could they ever be seen as pain? They're not like his (other) traumas. They don't cause pain at all. Not to mention what he thinks about danger. Danger? What danger? There's no danger here. Just people who are willing to hurt others to get what they want—Which is very sad and shows their pain and he'd very much like to help them in any way possible, if possible. If they show that they don't want to be helped, then it's better to leave them be.

But then again, nothing can ever be someone's fault other than his around him. I think he goes over betrayals thinking, "There must have been something I could have done." or "There must've been something I did." or "If I learn from this, I can make sure it never happens again." or... ... I think he has a hard time accepting that things really aren't his fault / there's really nothing he can do about some situations. Actually, when it comes time for Unwound Future and the whole Evil Layton arc... The only time in which he actually raises his voice is at himself. Is at the version of him that betrayed all of the morals in which he's held onto for so long. But a part of me thinks that, if he knew things were actually his fault, he'd have a problem with that, too... I mean, look at how he reacts to him getting puzzle answers incorrect in CV. In CV. In the 4th game of experience that he's had with puzzles. And a movie. With all that experience and he gets something wrong... he's disappointed in himself. Going back to the UF/LF thing... "I demand an explanation!!" I don't think I'll ever forget that line. I think, from his journal... We know he was trying to think of reasons why he would do something like this. Idk. I'm. Thoughts are not thinking anymore. Um. Wow I really lost my thought process. I was also gonna talk about Desmond. But I guess that's not happening at the moment.

[rustedleopard]

Still thinking about how Clover on the No Mercy Route likely would've given up their quest for vengeance and lived with Martlet had Axis not told them that he killed Integrity. The only real difference between Aborted No Mercy Run Clover and No Mercy Run Clover are a few more destroyed robots and the knowledge of what Axis did, which sent their LOVE skyrocketing to LV 19.

Look at them. They can't even look Ceroba in the eye after they inflict the final blow.

[redvelvetwishtree]

[moeblob]

OC again gomen ... (her name is Yuma)

[spidey-555]

UNHOLY ALLIANCE SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

I have never been more enraged by a sentence in my entire life.

They aren't unique. At all.

They all follow the same formula of: bishop feels homesick so they ask the Lamb to take them to their domains -> they become a demon to accompany you on your crusade -> you get to their temple -> you give them their relic back (or don't, I know know what happens if you do that) -> they drop some lore, most of which was already figured out by the fanbase -> they ask to take them back to the cult.

And speaking of those lore drops, they aren't that good, imo

Literally the only bishop who even mentioned the genocide was Kallamar, and he didn't even mention it by name. (He said something like "when Shamura stated what we had to do to survive, I also didn't want to listen")

The fandom already figured out that Narinder's sin was resurrection, so I guess Shamura was here just to confirm that.

I already forgot what Heket said other than "There is no justice in these lands" or something like that. (Which again, most of the fanbase already figured out that the lands of the old faith sucked to live in)

Leshy said something about preferring chaos to planning and schemes and that he didn't know the extent of Narinder's or his siblings plans.

I will say, I do like how these quests give us some info on the mindsets of the bishops (the aforementioned bit about Leshy preferring chaos to planning, Heket calling herself and her family monsters, Kallamar being self aware of his cowardice, and Shamura's whole line about "death must be the end, if not, what use do mortals have for gods")

Now you may be saying "well, this probably isn't the end for the bishops, Jojo probably has more stuff planned for them!" And to that, I say that if that were the case, I wouldn't be making this post.

So let's look at the patch notes, shall we?

How lovely, there was clearly a lot in this update!

Wait, what's that 7th bullet point?

Unfortunately, you read that right

This is the final quest line we're getting for the bishops

This is probably the last time we will see any of them get dialogue

This is the last time the devs are going to do anything with the bishops

And this is how they send them off

Such wasted opportunity, in my opinion.

EDIT: So I recently got the little conclusion that Narinder and his family has. And I liked it... at first.

He essentially just says "I'm not going to go on a speech who's fault it was. The world will go on." Or something like that, and it honestly feels less like Jojo was trying to write a good conclusion, and more like they were hastily trying to get Narinder and the bishops out of the way so that they can focus on their ✨️precious and flawless Lamb✨️

I don't really know what else to say without the entire fanbase hating me more than it already does.

[random-autie-fangirl]

I drew another Chara- living with the Dreemurrs edition

"The King and Queen treated the human child as their own. The underground was filled with hope."

I don't like this as much as the last one but oh well... I ended up rambling a huge amount in the tag, so if you want details and headcanons about the actual drawing again, you'll have to look pretty far down this time, sorry (Also, I ran out of tags after a while. Tumblr is tired of me, lol. I might reblog this more tags later if I remember what I was going to say.)

[knownsome]

let's watch the night explode / just hold onto me

i'll whisper you this truth / uncompromised

Sometimes, the storyteller puts a pretty boy under a cardboard box propped up by a stick, and, well, your little guy just runs headfirst at him. What can you do?

When Simon Albescu and Caius Lennox really saw one another, the world stopped for just the briefest moment.

It's too bad Simon's on a cargo ship back to Budapest, but what's a Gothic Vampire Romance™ without some extremely dramatic long-distance pining?

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[winepresswrath]

also i'm still so curious about what reintegrations looks like for people who are at odds with their other selves we have the obvious candidate (helly can go to heaven but can hellyna? also they want each other dead) but even something like irv v. irving is so wild. can irving look at irv's naïveté with affection and respect? can dylan g. empathize with outie dylan's failure to make the most out of his embarrassment of riches? despising yourself being appalled and confused by your own choices hating your own weakness alienation of the self let's gooooo.

[fuckmeyer]

girl please, Charlie Swan is Team Werewolf and you know it

[outlandish-dreamer]

Look y'all it's not my fault that I make so many ships poly. It's just. It's the voices. They make me, and I can't stop them