#there's probably a solution to this i don't know about

[drjdorr]

Got inspired to do fan fic of a d and d game I play in(in the d and d setting) from this prompt but it was Looooong so I put a "read more" so it doesn't fill people's entire dash

Jysgo is brought out, not wearing his customarily finery since they didn't want to risk him inevitably having a hidden dagger they failed to find, to a massive arena. He nodded in something that could almost be praise, he had asked for his execution to be a spectacle, Sinabi had delivered.

The stands were crowded with spectators, while most looked at Jysgo with hatred, many even futility trying to throw stuff at him, he did notice more than a few sending a bit of that venom in the king's direction. Probably wasn't a good look doing the very thing that the giants the rebelled against did, even if it was at the condemned's request.

Jysgo gave a smug smirk towards Sinabi who fumed back in return. Jysgo was sure the human could work around this, adapt, the cleverness was something that Jysgo almost respected about the surface dweller.

Looking around the stadium, Jysgo saw the rest of the royal entourage scattered throughout. The elven Queen Maeralya of course sitting next to her husband, she looked more outfitted for court than battle Jysgo noticed, though he knew with her being a wizard looks could be deceiving. Khar along with his cult of gnolls wasn't hard to find with their distinctively colored cloaks. Neither was Zzissu with her contrasting Abeil stripes, buzzing overhead. And hard to miss the brightly colored 15 foot mushroom that was known as the Monkanid. Jysgo had to scan the crowd for the half elf Hugo, they didn't look that threatening with only a bow out, but Jysgo had seen just how deadly that bow could be. And glancing at the armored soldiers across from him, Jysgo felt no surprise seeing the dromite Kato.

"Jysgo Olar-" Sinabi began

"Spymaster Jysgo Olar, Giant Slayer, Troll Slayer, and the elf responsible for doing what was needed to save this kingdom" Jysgo corrected

"Jysgo Olar," Sinabi persisted with a snarl, refusing to use the drow's mostly self appointed titles, "for the massacre of innocent people, you have been sentenced to death by a method of Your Own choosing," He gestures around, "that being by combat against armed combatants while you yourself are armed with a wooden training sword."

"I felt like the challenge." Jysgo said to the guard holding him who seemed less than amused

"Have you any last words?" Sinabi regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth

"But of course." Jysgo said with a grin, "people of this fine kingdom, I admit it, I killed those innocent people." He let the expectation angry responses die down before he continued, "but all I did was what I was paid to do. I was paid to fix problems, and the best solution to the problem had those dozens of people die, so thousands of people could live." He emphasizes his statement by gesturing out at the crowd with his shackled hands.

"We don't trade innocent lives"

"Sure you do, what would you call it when innocent people join your army. You traded their innocent lives for them to fight to protect all of their innocent lives. How is what I did any worse?"

"Because they chose to fight to protect others, the people you killed didn't choose!"

"But do they really know what they will face joining your ar-"

Thunder interrupts Jysgo's rebuttal as Sinabi stands, "you had your trial, this is your execution! Bailiff, give him his sword!"

Jysgo could barely hide his smile as the guard pushes a wooden practice sword into his hands, he had annoyed the man and better yet, people had begun to whisper among the crowd. Didn't matter how accurate what he said was, so long as it got people questioning the current regime, though that out burst certainly didn't hurt.

As the bailiff started walking away Jysgo held up his shackled hands, "aren't these going to be unlocked?"

"I had assumed they already had been"

Jysgo shrugged as he flicked them open, "I mean you aren't wrong. Though it is interesting how you are so quick to execute the person with the most dirt o-"

"Enough," thunder rolled before he turned to the warriors across from Jysgo, "just get this over with already"

Jysgo crouched into a fighting stance as the armored fighters charged at him. At a glance he counted 9 besides Kato.

The first one arrived and swung his sword, which Jysgo blocked with a slashing motion, taking careful steps, one at a time, to get the best positions.

Wood slivers flew from his blade with every blocked strike whittling away his sword till he suddenly dodged to the side avoiding the warhammer that crumpled in the breastplate Jysgo had seen the strike coming in.

"You seem to have missed," Jysgo mocked as he began dodging the swings of the warhammer. "Slow, predictable, and," he stabbed his sharpened training sword under the armpit causing a gurgling gasp as his opponent dropped his hammer, "leaves you open." As he withdrew the blade he mused, "seems I hit a lung. I'm not use to using such off balance weapons, I was aiming for the heart." He casually side stepped a flail before closing the distance and shoving the tip in a small gap under the chest before withdrawing it to a collapsed opponent, "that's better."

He rolled away as a man whose armor was more spikes than armor tried to grab him before giving a sigh, "too easy." He ducked under the next swing of his arms, snapping one hand cuff onto him before yanking his arm to block an oncoming glaive, "not wanting to wait your turn?" He then yanked the spiked armored warrior's arm to stab his own head, "very well, I was just finishing with him," before he blocked the next swing and pinned it down with the cross guard of his training sword, running down the haft to be right in front of him and in a movement faster than the eye could follow, Jysgo's blade slid into the eye slit of his opponent.

"This is fun and all but this will be easier like this," with a few quick gestures and words he was seemingly gone. And quickly the vulnerabilities of their armors were shown to all as bleeding holes opened up on them one by one as they desperately looked and flailed around for the invisible drow, an occasional amused chuckle being all any of them had to guess on till the only ones left on the field were Kato, a young goliath with a mace, and that drow.

"On our right" Kato called out in time for the goliath to turn his shield and hear wood on metal as a smiling drow suddenly appeared

"And here I was worried that this would be boring" Jysgo joked before recasting his invisibility before an ax swung just close enough that a few white hairs fluttered to the arena floor.

"You can't sneak up on us traitor, I can smell you approach." Kato said, making sure they were close enough to the goliath to give him fair warning Also how in the hive do you smell so clean, you've been locked in a cell!"

"It's called proper hygiene. Surely with such cramped living conditions, you dromites are familiar." The sound of wood on wood can be heard as Kato blocks a strike, "and being a traitor would require I was on your side. You of all people should understand I was only ever on my side"

A few moments of silence. A small puff of dust is kicked up.

"Ignore it," Kato tells the goliath as he turns his shield in that direction, "it's an obvious mis- LEFT!"

The two quickly turn in the direction of the drow who only gives the slight crunch of moving sand as he twists past the goliath's shield and Kato feels a few warm droplets before swinging their shield and sending the revisible drow tumbling as the goliath collapses, the blade having snuck under the edge of his helmet into the soft lower pallet.

"Not my cleanest work," Jysgo said as he stands, flicking blood off his blade giving his shoulder a little roll, "your nasty trick of being able to smell me made an inconvenient-" he barely had time to jump back as Kato's ax swung were his unprotected intestines were a moment ago, the proximity to the enchanted weapon leaving a line of frost across Jysgo's shirt.

They went back and forth, Kato almost casually blocking every strike from Jysgo and Jysgo dodging the lethal swings of Kato's ax sometimes only by a hair with Kato moving in as quickly as his little legs can carry him

At one point Jysgo has a moment of time and goes invisible again.

"I thought we established this traitor!" Kato yelled, their eyes trained as close onto where they smelt Jysgo as they could, "I! Can! Smell! You!"

Jysgo didn't respond before suddenly charging at the dromite, his blade dragging in the sand, kicking it up in a clear line.

Kato had no time to guess what he was doing before the blade was picked up from the ground, Kato's shield braced when they smelled the drow go up. A great strategy for anyone who couldn't smell him Kato thought to themself as they raised their shield to follow the drow's arc before they felt a pair of soft impacts, not like wood on wood, more like... Kato suddenly realizes what's happening as they notice they're right next to the wall

Jysgo jumped off the dromite's shield and manged to grab the edge of the wall and pulled himself up

"He's making a break for it!" Kato shouted as the rest of the royal entourage moves into action.

Jysgo begins to book it ,he knows how fast they can move as he hears Sinabi order the arena locked down, no one in or out.

He ducks behind a pillar as his invisibility drops, already partway through a spell to disguise himself. He has moments before- he leaps out of the way as a lightning bolt crashes into where he was just standing. Good news, people are panicking and that can provide cover. Bad news, the abeil had found him before he could get a disguise up.

He started moving with the crowd, the worst attacks most of them had hit wide areas, they wouldn't risk firing them into a crowd. Unfortunately people in the crowd where recognizing him and moving away. Also Unfortunately from the slight rumble, the giant mushroom was approaching fast.

Suddenly a nearby section of the stands burst into flames, and then another and another. Suddenly the crowd was less concerned with the condemned criminal and more concerned with getting away from the flames. It also distracted the entourage long enough for Jysgo to slip into one of the interior tunnels along with some of the crowd.

Taking this quick window Jysgo brought up his disguise, an older human man, and especially made sure to disguise his prisoner rags. Right as the glamor finished the hulking form of the myconid entered the hall, its head going side to side, searching the crowd as a faint amount of spores drifted from it.

Obviously nothing dangerous, Sinabi would never allow it... but comunication spores he probably would. Easy enough to work around, Jysgo thought, just don't think into the group. Easy.

And suddenly the minds of everyone in that hall was bombarded by everyone else's thoughts. Jysgo watched on in amusement as everyone suddenly jolted in surprise and confusion, some clutching their heads from their minds suddenly being so filled with others thoughts. It's only as the fungus' face locked onto him and the face of his disguise was broadcasted across the mental link that Jysgo realized his error in staying calm and collected and started shoving through the crowd as in contrast it parted as fast as it could for the usually terrifyingly fast behemoth after him.

Jysgo looked for an escape route that he wouldn't be followed through and never hated living in such an accommodating multi cultural place more. And then he saw a maintenance door and moved towards it.

The slight rumble, far to quite for something of that size, told him how close it was behind him as he reached the door and went to open it. Locked. He slammed his fist against the door, locked. Again, locked. Again, it had unlocked and he slipped inside as he felt the spongy fingers barely miss him before slamming the door shut.

"Hey buddy," A gnome looked at the human(drow) who had just ran into the maintenance area, slightly out of breath, "this is a restricted area. You can't just come in here."

Jysgo took a moment to composed himself before replying, "I am an inspector doing a surprise inspection." He tapped the door he had just come through, "you see this door? I just demonstrated with a proper impact in the right location, the locking mechanism comes undone. That is not a secure door and you should see about getting that replaced."

"...Uh-huh." The gnome slowly responds before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a sending stone and begins talking into it, "Hey central? Can someone let Sinabi kn- ghk" he clutches at his throat which had just had a foot hit full force into it before it stomped onto the stone, breaking it.

"Today has been a bad day," Jysgo says to the slowly passing out gnome, unable to breath past his crushed larynx, "I'm usually great under pressure, but usually I'm aware ahead of time of pressure and usually it's only handling someone as dangerous as one of those guys, I've got seven." Jysgo sighed looking down at the unconscious gnome, "they know what door I went through, I'm sure someone will be here before you suffocate, maybe. Like I said, bad day, usually I'm more professional." Looking at the gnome before heading off he redoes his disguise, it's a bit taller than the gnome should be but should be good enough at a distance.

He heads into the bowels of maintenance, he knew the back areas of the city enough that he could navigate it with his eyes closed. Unfortunately the only places he could navigate in here is other places in this maintenance or the arena above as the arena was a relatively closed system and didn't connect to any other buildings through their tunnels. He would definitely have tried to change that if it wasn't for the wanted for execution thing. Jysgo smiled to himself atleast it's accurate this time and not some sloppy frame job

He finds the door to concessions and goes through. The food prep area was mostly abandoned at this point, and quite a bit of the ingredients had been replaced with flasks of a rather reactive liquid.

"You know," Jysgo turned towards the masked figure sitting behind him, silent as the grave, "you could have set off the fires a little earlier Number Two. Would have made things way easier"

The masked figure slid off his seat to stand before Jysgo and flashing him some quick signs of drow sign language <sorry sir. The abeil found you sooner than expected>

"Whatever. Did you aquire my things?"

<yes, our associate dropped them off after escorting you to the arena> Number Two handed the box of possessions to Jysgo who quickly opened it and began dressing himself in his proper attire.

"You never realize how nice that protective aura of magic is till you lose it." He wiggles his body making sure everything sits correctly as he slides his wooden blade into a loop of his belt. "Is everything in position to move to contingency stage 2?"

<yes sir>

"Then let's do it"

‐---------------------------------------

"Drow matching Jysgo's hight and build heading your way Khar" Zzissu said over the comunication spores

"On it"

The gnoll hid in wait for the drow. Seeing him, he looked like Jysgo, down to the finest detail, but Khar could see he didn't ask like Jysgo. Firstly, moving so openly looking as himself? Standing so casually when he needs to hide? Moving into a sparsely populated area when the entourage is hunting him? Heck he didn't even move like Jysgo.

Khar stepped out startling the imposter who stood tall and held the practice blade in a fencing stance. Khar could see he'd never held a blade like that in his life.

"Alright, you found me. But I will not go down with out a-"

"Where is Jysgo?" Khar interrupted, not having time for this game

"I think clearly I am righ-ugh" a wall of ice slams him into the ceiling, only his head sticking out as Khar repeats the question

"Where is Jysgo?"

"Ow. ow. I don't-ow. I think you broke my- ow everything"

"Hardly. I can demonstrate how wrong you are if I have to repeat myself though"

"I don't- ow know! I- ow don't know! I was to- ow told when I got the call to come in h- ow here, when confr- ow confronted to pretend to be- ow him, you'd go easy on me. And- ow at the end I'd get a hundred gold. I'd be set for li- ow life."

"We got fake Jysgos," Khar reported over the mental link as he left the imposter pinned to the ceiling

"Yeah, I'm starting to notice more than a few suddenly cropping up," Zzissu responded looking over the crowd in the stands

"Just caught 2 in maintenance," Kato reported

"I see one by concessions," the Monkanid passed on

"On just ran by near the main entrance, didn't approach the gate" Maeralya reported in

"Just had one try to attack me in storage" Sinabi continued the trend, "wasn't hard to catch him in his leap and it appears atleast some are in a glamor"

"Just found one mid applying the glamor by Jysgo's cell," Hugo said, "and we may have some unforseen issues. Because this was Jysgo's bailiff"

---------------------------------------

Jysgo looked down at the chaos as his imposters swarmed around the stadium his former allies trying chase them down incase it is him. And yet he easily climbed to the top of the arena once he got his magic focus for longer invisibility and his spider climb cloak.

He took out a sending stone, and checked for any pesky fliers before confirming they were lower down and speaking into it, "I believe it's time for stage 3"

----------------------------------------------

"Sir- Sinabi- your grace- sir?"

Sinabi looked at the frazzled individual, a lesser noble, important enough to have been sent to him but not in charge of anything really, "what do you need? We are a little busy right now"

"I know si-sina-your- yes I know, but I was sent to tell you the city is on fire"

"I'm sorry what, actually one moment" Sinabi switches his attention from the noble to Zzissu to communicate over the spores, "Zzissu, you have the easiest access to the sky, I just got told the city is on fire"

Zzissu zoomed up to check and looked out over the city, unaware of the drow sitting and watching invisibly so close

"Yes. Nothing big yet but there is alot of fires, all over the city. Only major areas untouched are the palace and gnoll hill."

Sinabi looked at the noble, "thank you for your warning, we will handle it" and began to head for the exit, informing everyone what needs done when the noble interrupted him

"He did ask me to pass on another message"

Sinabi stopped and turned towards the man, "who?"

"The young gnoll who told me the city was on fire and to tell you. Weirdly clean gnoll too, only gnoll I've ever seen that clean is high priest Khar." Seeing the face on Sinabi's face he got to the message, "right, he told me to tell you, 'how do you think they'll react to the placements?' And asked me to give you this. Said it would explain stuff." He pulls out a small coin marked with symbols, the same kind of coin Jysgo was fond of using as a training tool for his agents.

-----------------------------------

<so sir,> Number Two signed as they and Jysgo slipped through the city, avoiding the entourage as they fought to control the strategically placed infernos, <what are your plans now?>

"Well I certainly can't stay here, and they know where your loyalties lie. Well as much as I do atleast. Probably going to have to lay low for a decade or two." Number Two didn't voice their doubts that Jysgo Could lay low for a full decade let alone two, "but once things have calmed down enough that learning where I am will send them hunting me down? Well, there are plenty of towns, cities, and kingdoms we could rebuild in. But we're definitely going to want to get out of here before stage 4 starts itself and the people tear this place to the ground." He chuckles at the thought

A noble sentenced to die is allowed to choose their execution method. They ask to die in honourable combat against the king's knights, armed with a wooden sword while the knights have real weapons. It's been 24 hours since the execution started and the king is running out of knights.

[devosin]

SUGAR-Y INDULGENCE, them cooking, cooking together with them, food tasting, everything you want in a food related fic <3

gender neutral reader / tooth-rotting fluff / crack taken seriously / entire twst cast / Aggressive flirting? Aggressive Flirting. / Really indulgent / Can be read as both platonic or romantic . . .

01. HEARTSLABYUL

Trey sighs, rubbing his forehead as he fights the will to stare back up at Ace's hands, as he struggles to chop the peppers on the cutting board, . . "Ace . .?", he calls out as softly as he can muster, and he stares up at him, "yeah?" . . "Take off the knife guard"

Ace stares at him dumbfounded, his head tilting slightly as he looks back at him blankly, "What?" he asks, "The plastic cover on the knife, Ace.", he looks at the knife blankly, then attempts to pull off the cover, his mouth opening to a round 'O' shape, when it comes off.

"Sorry, first time using . . err, fancy knifes." he says as he sets the cover aside, moving back to cutting the peppers as slow as humanely possible, careful not to cut his hands, "Well it feels like the first time you've cut anything in general, so I don't know what argument you're trying to make here." Trey spits back, slightly agitated with his slow movements.

Cater and Riddle, setting up equipment, mainly because Trey doesn't trust Riddle in the kitchen yet, . . he also doesn't trust either of them to be alone with the equipment alone, but together, it's different.

"Trey said to boil four cups of water?", Riddle states but it comes out in the form of a question because honestly he doesn't know what he's doing, "Like a coffee mug, right?", Cater asks holding up a small mug he found on the counter, "I think so, I mean what's the difference!" (There is in fact, a massive difference.)

After setting that up, where they may or may not have spilt water all over the counter; Cater runs a rag through the wet counters, cleaning over the leftover residue, "Didn't Trey mention something about, needing some yeast?" he asks.

Riddle thinks for a moment, "I think we'll be fine, baking doesn't need yeast right."

"Yeah you're probably right", replies Cater, as he stretches his arms, "I guess were done then", Riddle nods, "Mhm, wonder why Trey didn't give us more work."

"Yeah it's almost like he doubts our abilities in the kitchen", Cater states casually, "But were so helpful", "Exactly." (The delusional speaking to the delusional.)

Y/n, Deuce, and Trey baking together.

"Ok so the soup is boiling, I think we can try prepping the bread now?", Trey asks, "Sure thing", you reply, while Deuce helps tie your apron from the back.

"Just one problem . ." Deuce speaks up, finally letting go of the strings of your apron, and looking around at the ingredients laid on the counter, ". . . We're out of yeast." . . You pause, "doesn't all baking recipes, require yeast—"

Trey blinks . . "GOD FUCKING DAMN IT."

02. DIASOMNIA

Lilia looks over the recipe book, about one whole time before he deems it useless and throws it to the side (It lands in the trash, because clearly THE Lilia Vanrouge doesn't require such things), "Okay so we need some flour, oil, water—", he continues listing ingredients while Sebek goes out of his way to grab everything he mentions as fast as possible on the table.

"—Salt, sugar, lemon", Sebek reaches into the cabinet, before muttering, "Lilia . . we're out of salt."

Lilia pauses, thinking for a moment, his inner cooking genius coming together in his head, trying to figure out a swift solution, "We can just use baking soda . . I mean they're both white powders, right?!", Sebek pauses, thinking it over, "Yeah sounds perfectly logical."

Malleus, you, and Silver were in charge of making drinks for the picnic you had planned.

"Where's Silver?" you ask Malleus, while he washes the fruits you both bought the day before, "He fell asleep, I didn't think it would be polite to wake him up", you hum in response, bringing out the chopping boards and knifes on the counter.

You both started cutting mindlessly, while chatting away, "So, what are we making anyways?", he asks curiously, "Just a virgin cocktail of sor—ow—fuck!", you drop the knife, "Are you okay?" Malleus asks, ushering to your side.

"I'm fine, it's just a small cut, do you have a band aid?", Malleus nods, "Let me go get it!" (He proceeded to do everything alone until silver woke up and choose to finally help with cutting the rest of the fruit.

The picnic was outside, everyone helped set up the area.

"Lilia . . what's this?", you ask curiously eyeing whatever baked good was on your plate . . (It shouldn't even be called a baked good), "I don't know, I just mixed a few things and threw it in the oven, it's good no?", he asks curiously.

"I can tell", Silver mumbles, as you bump his shoulders slightly, "Ah yes, so good—So good in fact, I might just save it for dinner . . I mean Crowley, and his underpayment—"

"You can take all of it back to Ramshackle", Lilia suggests, "NO!—I mean, I couldn't—really . . it would HURT me." (He delivered a basket of baked horrors to your dorm the next morning.)

03. SAVANACLAW

Ruggie draws out his sigh, a scowl permanently placed on his face, as he stares at your pathetic attempt at cutting meat, "No—not like that . . you're wasting so much good meat", he mumbled the last part, he's trying to be nice, really, but there's only so much patience one can maintain at your mediocre cutting abilities. 

"You're massacring the meat!", he states firmly, as he finally shoves you away from the cutting board, and takes over your job, leaving you no choice but to move aside and let him have his way, "You know, this wouldn't happen if you . . just taught me how to cut the meat . ." you mumble out in protest, your hands laying at your sides. 

"I did", he responds dismissively, "No, you just handed me a knife and told me to cut", "Exactly, it's called immersive learning, something you're clearly not good at." 

You hold up your middle finger, "Fuck you", you bite back, but Ruggie doesn't respond back this time, focusing more so on cutting the expensive cut of meat he got off of Leona's Credit Card.

Leona enters the kitchen while you both were well near finished with kitting the meat.

"Morning", he yawns out, "So close, it's the afternoon", you blurt out, rolling your eyes at his overall casual demeanor, meanwhile you've been dealing with star michelin chef Ruggie's nagging all morning, from your cutting game, to how you can't just eyeball salt levels. 

"Close enough" he shrugs, looking over the counter, "Watcha' making?", he asks blankly, "Minced meat, clearly", Ruggie says in the most deadpanned way possible, pointing to your mess of cut meat, "Oh shit, who massacred the meat?" Leona asks, Ruggie looks at you. 

You cough, and look away, "I tried teaching them", Ruggie says in the most distraught tone he can muster, "Well clearly not well enough", Leona states bluntly, and you let out a small chuckle at Ruggie's expense.  

Jack comes in, awhile after Leona leaves the room, he greets you both and looks at the cutting board, one side of minced and mushed meat, and the other with perfectly diced meat, "Who fuck up the meat?", he asks bluntly, and Ruggie looks at you again, "Seriously, is it that bad!?" 

04. POMEFIORE

"Are you sure I'm doing this right?", you mumble out, as you continue mixing away, "You're doing amazing, trickster!" Rook exclaims, way too fucking energetically for it being 3am in the goddamn morning, your arms were practically falling apart, already aching from the school day, and now you're stuck on mixing duty, of all things that are involved in the glorious process of baking, mixing is the worst part. 

“Ah—I think we need more apples, give me a moment”, Rook walks out of the kitchen, and Epel finally lays back, stretching his arms, before looking at you, a chuckle escapes him at your expression, ���You look like shit”, he says blankly, “wow, I didn’t ask”, you respond back, staring at him blankly, as he moves closer to you. 

You guys stare at each other for a brief moment, before he smiles and flicks your forehead, “Cheer up, you look like the goddamn walking dead”. 

You blink, and a smile takes over your features after probably hours, “Fuck you”, you mumble out, under your breath, but he doesn’t take any offense, moving back to his original spot. 

A couple hours later, the pie was in the oven, the lights were off, Epel was on the counter, you sitting down beside the oven, while Rook was busy mixing some sort of cocktail or something, surprisingly he’s good at mixing drinks.

“So anyways, Ace was like, ‘he doesn’t even have a hairline, why does he need a comb for’—”, you speak, moving your hands around as you recount your story, when something enters the room, something green, and your oven alarm goes off, ‘ring, ring, ring’, and the next thing you know, you, Epel were screaming and running behind Rook. 

“Oh, Good morning Roi du Poison”, Rook says in his cheery voice, and you both turn your face from him to the figure on the door, and then Vil flicks on the lights, groaning, “Why are you two still up, and why are you YELLING!”, Vil says, trying to stay as calm as humanly possible, turns out he gets up at the ass crack of dawn, and that his morning mud mask is a putrid green, things to note. 

05. IGNIHYDE

Ortho, sets the flour on the counter, you'd be surprised at both his speed and strength if you didn't know he was a robot, and you're also not in the position to focus on him right now. 

"Do I need to wear this?", Idia asks softly, as you tie the pink apron on him from the bow, making sure the strings come together in a bow, "don't you want to make your brother happy?", you tease softly, a chuckle escaping you as you watch his shoulders slump and he mumbles out a soft, "yeah . . ", the tips of his hair burn pink, he’s embarrassed. 

"Do you need help with yours?", he asks pointing to the white apron on the counter, you'd usually say no, but who are you to refuse when he already seems flustered over asking in the first place, "Yeah." 

Idia fiddles with the straps of the apron, struggling to tie a proper knot—"This isn't too tight, right?", he asks softly, and you nod. He ties a messy knot, that somehow holds together, you don't have to look at him to know he's embarrassed, you smile loosely, walking closer to Ortho, “Shall we start?”. 

06. SCARABIA

Kalim sits on top of the counter, headphones on, dangling his legs (he’s just a girl . . jkjk), as he watches you and Jamil cook. Too bad those headphones were soundproof, because what he thought was a cute interaction was actually World War 3 for you, “You call this a roti?”, Jamil asks you, trying his best to remain calm (he’s failing horribly), “Well it’s technically a roti . . “ you try and reason, the ingredients were the same . . technically. 

“. . .”, he pauses, taking a few deep breaths, trying to control his voice, which wasn’t working, “THAT’S A GODDAMN TRIANGLE”, you stare at Jamil blankly, “The roti has a good personality!” 

Jamil lifts the big pot full of water onto the stove, and sets everything up, probably because he didn’t trust you with many things, except pouring water into the pot, though he eyed you through the entire process, which at that point he could just do it himself, “Now put in the spices”, he says, as he watches bring out the turmeric jar. 

“How much?” you ask, as you take out the measuring spoons from the cabinet, “As much as your heart desires, only stop when your heart tells you to stop.”, he replies in the most serious way possible that you almost believed him. 

“Jamil?” you ask, “Yes?” he replies, straightening his back, “I meant the spices, not my love life, I don’t need advice from you of all people.”

“ . . . “ he pauses, “get the hell out of my kitchen . .” (He’s about to blow, actually), "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY—"

07. OCTAVINELLE

“Are you sure this is a reputable idea?”, you ask Azul as he looks through the ingredients Jade brought in for his new recipe idea, you don’t exactly understand why they asked you for your help, he has a multitude of workers to select from, but who are you to deny a cash offering, that’s just silly, Azul shakes his head, “Jade’s tastes are surely questionable, but he never fails when it comes to the Monstro Lounge.” he responds with a smile, his pen checking off everything in his list. 

“Why is Shrimpy here?”, Floyd asks curiously, leaning into the counter, placing his head in his hands, “To help, I guess . .” You respond, and Floyd shakes head, “No . . you need to eat”, Floyd says bluntly, “What? I ate!”, you snip back at him, confused at the sudden shift in topic, “No yeah, that’s why we asked you to come here, Floyd said you weren’t eating properly.”, Azul shrugs, as if this was just the most normal thing ever. 

And now you're here, on the table, eating something they served you, while Jade keeps you company, because apparently he’s not allowed in the kitchen for a month, after last week’s incident, which honestly you don’t want to know about. 

You take a bite of the pasta, they gave you way too big of a serving if you were being honest, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer, so you gave up trying to shut them down, you look up, and find Jade staring at you, “What?” you ask him curiously. 

“You have something on your face”, he says blankly and you quickly rub your face, trying to get whatever it is off, and he chuckles, “Kidding, you’re really easy to trick”, you frown but continue eating the food in front of you, “Hey . . Do you happen to know why Floyd calls you shrimpy?”, he asks, eyeing you curiously. 

You shake your head, no, "You wanna know why?", he asks casually, almost comfortingly but you try not to misread the situation, you nod, "Why?" 

"Because you're like a shrimp, tiny and weak, on the lower end of the food-chain—", you throw a piece of bread at him, "I'm kidding—Stop wasting the bread!", he says, as he moves away before you can throw more at him, "What's the real reason?", you ask again, "Because you seem weak and sad, I mean with how Crowley treats you and all—", he pauses, “he didn’t explain more than that, but you seemed lonely, like a lot of shrimps.” 

And that's when it hits you, like a truck, these fish breath assholes, care . . a lot . .  more than you give them credit for. 

commissions / discord server / (limited time only) personalized advent calendar

@ devosin , do not repost, plagiarize, translate, or adapt my work/theme without prior permission and or confirmation.

[explaintome]

Dear Mouthwashing fandom, explain to me, why next to the incredible fan art, I find a fuck ton of shipping content, especially between characters where this is highly problematic? SPOILERS FOR MOUTHWASHING AHEAD CN for talk about sexual abuse, death, suicide & violence

DISCLAIMER: I do not shame the general practice of shipping at all. I am a shipper myself and I think it makes up for a lot of interesting dynamics and narratives outside the canon. Shipping is an important pillar of fandom communities and I am unable to forbid you to do it. HOWEVER, in the case of Mouthwashing I want to talk about what, in my opinion, feels tone-deaf to the themes and the canon of the game. But let me start with a short summary of the game before I get into it.

Mouthwashing is basically a visual novel that takes place on the Tulpar, the last manned cargo ship of the company Pony Express. The crew, consisting of Caption Curly, Co-Captain Jimmy, Nurse Anya, Mechanic Swansea and his intern Daisuke, is confronted with a crash against an asteroid and the consequences following it. The story is told out of order to reveal the truth bit by bit. What caused the crash, what happened and how the crew deals with the time afterward being stuck on the ship. Revealing sexual abuse, tragic backstories, the horrible side effects of late state capitalism and the neglect of people in command towards the people they are responsible for.

To boil it down we have two men who, out of societal misogyny, hurt the only woman on their crew by assaulting her or not acting as they should have in their position of responsibility. All of this would not have happened if Jimmy didn't rape Anya and impregnate her, and if Curly had disciplined Jimmy in a capacity possible on the ship and in Jimmy's position as co-pilot. To be honest, with the amount of automatization the ship has, I don't think they need Jimmy if it is not a case of emergency, but I digress. Jimmy is the perpetrator of the story, but Curly is an accomplice in putting his aim of finding a solution and compromise over punishing his subordinate as he should have.

And now to my actual point: I am a big fan of the game, the narration style and the utter tragedy of 5 people losing their lives in the isolation of space, with their company not giving a shit about them. Otherwise, they might have been rescued much earlier or at all. Or had enough cryo pots in the first place. Or a nurse with experience. Or any amount of better equipment and not the most cheap shit that somehow made it through a resemblance of regulations. There are probably no regulations.

Being a fan I, of course, looked into the hashtags on several social media sites, and between the incredible art and analysis of the game, I quickly found shipping content, and I have no idea why. I have literally no idea how that narrative speaks to you in a way of shipping characters romantically/sexually. Especially three shippings really rub me the wrong way.

ANYA/JIMMY

Are you fucking kidding me? Literally, what is wrong with you shipping a victim with their abuser? There was not one interaction between them, that suggest that there was consent or affection, that Jimmy has any sympathy for Anya. He knows what is going on, he knows that Anya is pregnant and takes no responsibility. Even worse, his idea of FIXING this was to kill everyone, at least himself, to avoid responsibility! Same goes for AUs where she kept the baby and is somehow okay and happy? I get the urge to fix it, but that is not a good fix. There is no good fix if you are pregnant due to rape.

ANYA/CURLY

A lot of argument I hear for that is that "at least Curly is her friend and was nice to her" and if that is your whole foundation of argument, I want to ask what your standards for a relationship are. Please know that you deserve more than the bare minimum. Another question in that context: Is Curly really Anya's friend? His friend was abused and instead of protecting her, he tried to reason and help her abuser! That is not the behavior of a friend! There is no "but Jimmy is his friend too!". If your friend is an abuser and that does not make you stop being their friend....why?

JIMMY/CURLY

It feels like it is a law on the internet, that two men who look at least averagely handsome will be shipped, especially if they have the tiniest of connection to each other. I am not even sure if I would call them friends in the first place. It appears that Jimmy, whatever his bad life before that job was (thanks to the developers for not giving us a backstory), he is still absolutely unsatisfied with that he has. He is jealous of Curly and his position, seeing how quickly he takes on the Captain title after the crash and only realizes far too late how hard the position actually is. Curly on the other hand feels a bit like a people pleaser to me. He probably had pity for Jimmy, took him under his wing to help him? Fix him? Whatever it is, it made him ignore Jimmy's bad side to a fatal degree. I respect the toxic yaoi but are you sure?

TLDR; I am worried about how the practice of shipping developed, from a way to extend the canon, explore queerness in cis/straight dominated media, into a compulsion of where some people can't look at any form of media or constellation of characters without immediately smashing them together like dolls. If you do this, maybe step back for a minute and ask yourself if it is appropriate. On that note, same goes in case you defend Jimmy. Why?

[ellecdc]

“yes the both of you look adorable, but can i please have my clothes back now?” With MoonKiller? (I think that’s the ship name for Remus and Barty)

oooooh a moonkiller! don't mind if I do

poly!bloodmoon x fem!reader who steal Remus' jumpers [352 words]

CW: whale vomit?, slytherin reader, barty and reader cannot be left unsupervised

Remus probably should have known better than to leave the two of you unsupervised in his dorm for any amount of time; this really was likely his own fault.

“What are you wearing?” He asked both of you as he stepped into the Gryffindor common room after his prefect rounds, the rest of Gryffindor long in bed and the two of you opting to leave his shared dorm to his roommates. And they said Slytherin’s weren’t polite.

You were the only one who answered him, though. “Chanel No. 5! Do you like it?” You responded cheekily, eyes shining with mirth and maybe a little bashfulness. 

“That has whale vomit in it, you know.” Barty interjected lazily. “You’ve doused yourself in whale vomit.” 

“Junior, why must you make everything disgusting?” You whined then, and Barty gave you an incredulous look.

“I didn’t put the whale vomit in it; ask Chanel.” 

“Okay,” Remus interrupted what he could tell was about to become an argument, “Junior, what are you wearing?”

“Probably some Chanel No. 5.” He offered quickly with a satisfied smirk. “I think it sort of rubbed off on me.”

“You’re wearing whale vomit too.” You snickered, blowing Barty a raspberry that saw him lifting you off of the ottoman you’d been kneeling on and folding you up in his lap with no shortage of delighted squeals from you. 

“Are both of you wearing my jumpers?” Remus finally asked, realising he should have started with the direct approach right from the get go. 

“Yes!” Barty answered excitedly. “Don’t we look cute?” 

“Yes, the both of you look adorable.” Remus deadpanned, though he knew his expression probably fell far softer than he was going for. “Can I have my clothes back now?” 

Your bottom lip jutted out comically as you began to pout at him, but Barty - ever the problem solver - offered him a solution.

“Lupin, Remus, Moony, darling light of my life; let’s not go to extremes, yeah? Why don’t we make a trade?” He countered rather conspiratorially. 

And whilst Remus wasn’t really a fan of quidditch, he did look really good in green.

[delta-lethonomia]

ok depresso week is over, back to deliberate hyperfixation on bg3:

It is absolutely wild to me that people take Astarion to the foursome with the drow twins (romanced, spawn, post-cazador) and are shocked, shocked I tell you, that he has a bad time. But it leads me to think that there's an interesting conversation to be had here about morality applied to video games. I'm going to be using what's a bit of a strawman tbh, what I would consider an archetypical, "good person" gamer for this niche example.

(3k essay under the cut about irl morals vs video game behavior, my take on why Astarion agrees to the orgy, beating the dead horse of Astarion discourse now that the fandom has cooled off enough I might not get flogged for it, and all my election stress being translated into an increasingly bitchy narrative voice that I hope is at least mildly amusing.)

"Good Person Gamer" romances Astarion. They're probably female, which I am mentioning exclusively so I can turn that into "Good Girl Gamer" 😏, or G3. G3 picks nice dialogue options. G3 tries to support their companions, and finds diplomatic and moral solutions to problems. G3 saved the tieflings. G3 still romances Astarion because he's hot, and vulnerable, and it's not like he forces you to be evil - he just complains a bit when you save kittens stuck in trees, but you get that approval back anyway just by being nice to him. Talk him out of Ascension and you've proven to yourself he's got a good soul under all that attitude anyway. He'd healed! You banged on his grave! It's all good now!

The brothel is fun. The drow twins are hot. It's always fun when games lets you do spicy things like have threesomes and orgies! We're sex-positive! Look, the drow twins said they love their job! It's totally fine! G3, as most people, probably does not do these things in real life, but that's the fun in video games: you get to be someone you're not.

And then Astarion noticeably dissociates. He throws himself in the center and lavishes everyone with attention; he's a professional, you know. Even an unromanced Tav/Durge notices something's off, and Astarion replies something along the lines of "you don't have the right to look at me like that," presumably with worry, distress, or sympathy.

G3 is upset. They did everything right - they didn't want to hurt him, and Astarion himself said he wanted this. Why couldn't they stop midway through and remind him that he doesn't have to hurt himself? Why couldn't they talk about it afterwards, and clear the air? LARIAN WHY DO YOU HURT ME

Now, to all the G3's out there: if you were dating a person with extensive sexual trauma, having been raped literally thousands of times, would you suggest having a threesome/orgy? With prostitutes, if that's better or worse? Putting them on the spot before your mutual friends? Would you wait a few years to mention the idea, or would you do so only weeks/months into a relationship? Your first "I love you" might have only been yesterday.

And most people, I think, would say "No." Writing that scenario outside of the lens of a video game makes it sound insane - of course you wouldn't! I'm not saying that they should never have group sex or that it can't be done, but I think most people instinctively get how that would be a shitty thing to do in that context, especially without discussing it in depth beforehand and making sure you're both on the same page.

And this is the meat of the issue. Most gamers play good-aligned characters: there's a strong culture of wanting to play the hero and saving the day. But tied into that cultural monomyth, in society itself, is the idea that sex is a reward at the end. You get sex at the end of the romance arc. The date where you have sex is one of many milestones, and you're not really dating if you haven't done it yet. Some people don't have sex until their wedding night. Threesome scenes especially are a video game classic: old-school God of War, for instance, had a hidden room in every game with scantily-clad women just waiting for you to button-mash away, a little treat for the player's keen puzzle-solving abilities.

Not all romances in BG3 have sex or end with sex, (some even start with sex), but that is because BG3's character writing tries to ground itself in reality despite being a medium people utilize for fantasy. Role-playing a "good" character is mostly easy: you typically know which dialogue choice is the ethical choice, can chide Astarion for being racist, can save the numerous children with moral ease - and BG3 rewards this: a good playthrough is more fleshed out, because you haven't killed off half the cast. You get better gear. You have more allies, better allies. You know what to do.

Or, well, mostly. BG3 is kind of special imo because even the good choices have a lot of nuance, where two people can make different choices but still feel like they both picked the most ethical one. Take Shadowheart's parents, for example: they beg for her to let them go so they can die and save their daughter. Saving them leaves Shadowheart in Shar's clutches - she will experience pain for the rest of her life, but regains her parents, and with luck, Selûne will claim her soul when she dies. Kill them, and Shadowheart is free - truly free, to live her life on her own terms, free from Shar and Selûne both. Both can be the ethical choice, depending on your morals.

"But if Astarion didn't want to have the threesome, the game should have let me stop midway through/made it clearer that this would happen. He said no before Cazador - why couldn't he say no again? Why would Larian put me in this position and make me feel bad when I thought everything was alright? I wanted to be good and have fun, not feel like I pressured my boyfriend." - Strawman G3.

Because BG3 treats it's characters like people. Multiple companions make choices outside of what the player character decides for them - Shadowheart's decision to save or kill her parents, kill or save the Nightsong, or Gale, to go for the crown or not depend on what events they are there to witness personally, or can be informed by conversations you have in camp about unrelated issues. You can fully let them make their own decisions and be surprised each time as they develop into different people with each successive playthrough. A lot of people are surprised when Gale goes for the Crown of Karsus without their input. In my last multiplayer playthrough, we could not prevent Shadowheart from wanting to kill the Nightsong, and so we were forced to kill her.

Astarion is not like that. The way he talks about Ascension changes depending on your relationship. If you're merely friends, he acknowledges it's probably a bad idea, even, in direct contrast to the somewhat obsessive and frightening way he pursues it in a romantic relationship. But Astarion can't decide what to do at the end: he has no hidden point system, no hidden flags - he will always pursue Ascension even if he knows it's a bad idea, because Astarion does not trust himself, has no experience trusting himself, and needs help. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, he needs support to make his own decisions, because in that moment, he cannot be objective.

(If Astarion is ever objective is another story....)

So much of Astarion's reactions and opinions are instinctive and unthinking. "Don't let the pixie out of the lantern, are you an idiot?" -> "A pixie! And honest-to-goodness pixie! *giggles*"

"We don't need a urchin hanging around." -> Astarion approves if you help Yenna

etc. etc. etc. There's so many times he says one thing, the cruel thing, the "fuck everyone else, I've got mine"-thing, and then approves when you do the good thing. Astarion does not live in line with his values (besides pursuing a growing need for freedom) and he frankly does not really know what his values even are.

Astarion doesn't react with glee to finding all the people he seduced - who inadvertently raped him, though they didn't know, some lowlifes and scoundrels and people having a bad day and even some sweet, naive virgins like Sebastian, who took that smoking hot Elf on his word and followed him home, probably in disbelief someone so gorgeous would pay them any attention at all - tortured and locked in a dungeon underground. He's crushed by guilt. He's in pain. Astarion delights in you causing others pain (the torture scene) because it aligns with his worldview, the joy of seeing someone else suffer for once. But he's not a cold-hearted murderer. (And yes, I am differentiating between "adventurer kills a bandit" murder and "deliberately killing someone you know for reasons/no reason" murder.) He doesn't hurt anyone in camp - Shadowheart and Lae'zel are far more dangerous than him. You never have to stop him from drinking anyone else to death. Even if you never feed him again, never use his bite attack, he never bites anyone in camp. Despite being a vampire, Astarion is, effectively, harmless. (Bite night was about checking whether or not Cazador's old command's still worked. It's his first real attempt at freedom, proving to himself that he's free from compulsion. Hence why the roll to get him to stop is a 5, giving you a 75% likelihood of succeeding. He doesn't actually want to kill you. And you get two chances!!!)

Astarion doesn't enjoy death for the sake of death. He's terrified if you side with the goblins and kill the tieflings despite goading you into doing it. I don't doubt that he could hurt others (god knows he's got enough feelings to work out that way), but there's a significant difference between a little knife play and condemning thousands of people to be tortured in the Hells for all eternity. Sacrificing his siblings is different, because they, like him, are guilty, and deserve their deaths. He agrees to sacrifice his fellow spawn as an act of self hatred, of self harm. But all those other people stupid enough to want to sleep with him? Given a day to think about it, I think Astarion would agree that that's not right - and that's why he thanks you for preventing his Ascension. That much murder isn't him. He can be thoughtless, cruel, and unkind, but Astarion isn't a psychopath.

Take him to the brothel, and slipping back into that role, the seductive rake, it as easy as breathing. I don't think Astarion has ever thought about if he's the type of person to enjoy group sex, or even if he wants it. I don't doubt that Astarion enjoys sex, that he wants to have sex (he is, after all that, still shockingly horny), but he's just discovered the idea of having sex with someone he loves. He's riding that high. Of course he says yes: not only is he a different man now (he's free!), it's something he's done a thousand times already - maybe it'll be different this time, maybe something has changed - or maybe, an orgy was on offer, so of course Astarion is there. It's his purpose. He's been doing it for 200 years. Where else would he be?

What I'm saying is that Astarion didn't think about what sleeping with the drow twins meant for your relationship, or how he would feel about it at all. He just went for it. He had a bad time. You then don't discuss it because that would mean admitting that he finally made a choice by himself and it backfired. He didn't think, or maybe he did, and it turns out he just doesn't know himself. Why discuss it? A relationship with G3 apparently means group sex. They probably asked twice. They backtracked all the way to Wyrm's Crossing post-Cazador. Will they ask again? How many times can he say no?

In reality, in the real world, the act of asking can be the problem in and of itself. If your significant other/spouse/lover asks you to do something you don't want to do, be it a threesome, anal, opening the relationship etc, these actions have consequences. The act of asking doesn't happen in a vacuum like it does in video games: there is a cost associated with it, a gamble, and while it may pay off, it may not. Some people get worn down and agree to things they don't want to do. Sometimes you break up because the act of asking is so inherently disrespectful you can't reconcile your differing wants and needs. If you're dating someone who has experienced the gut-wrenching pain of being cheated on, you don't ask 2 months into a new relationship if you can fuck other people. This should not come as a surprise to you, to G3, to anyone. It's common sense.

BG3 giving you the opportunity for a foursome with Astarion not only to give the player their hot'n'spicy sex scene (then playfully bops you on the nose by making it a fade-to-black, you naughty little perverts, you), but also to continue its theme of treating the player like a mature adult, who is dealing with other mature adults, and who can and should live with the consequences of their own actions. Subsequent patches have watered this down, I admit, but I do believe that that was the ethos guiding their work from the beginning. BG3 wants you to interact with the characters like people. If you roll over and tell them what they want to hear, you will Ascend Astarion, and he'll enslave you in turn. If you agree with Gale on everything, he will kill himself and you - or, he'll become a god, becoming the exact sort of god he used to rail against. Agree with Karlach, and she will rather die than go back to the Hells. You get my point.

"But Larian could have let me check in on Astarion midway through. Maybe it was a mistake to ask, but they should have let me check on him and stop it all if he wanted. I was trying to trust him to make his own decisions." - Strawman G3

Ok. We add a dialogue option. "Astarion, love, are you alright? We can stop at any time if you want."

Astarion disapproves (-5)

He's not backing out. Thank you for asking, darling, but fuck off. (I don't think he'd actually say fuck off but the implicit message would be there. I can't see Astarion stopping midway through, nor appreciating you doubting him. Nothing changes.)

"But I still feel bad." - Strawman G3

And I completely understand that. It's a video game. Don't worry! Of course you should get your sex scene - it's a reward! You got their approval high enough! You have enough charisma points! In DA:O, you can also have an orgy, unlocked by giving your companions enough gifts! It's a game! You have enough points, you get the thing!!! You killed Cazador - you win! Have your cake and eat it too! Congrats, you unlocked your hot slutty vampire elf who's basically a trained courtesan, who needs you to be his moral compass, who will never leave you so long as you don't actively rape him - enjoy all the fun orgies in your future!

Your actual choice - the choice the game gives you - is to realize that taking what's essentially a human trafficking victim to a brothel is a dumb idea, but they didn't want to punish you for it.

"Well, Astarion should have said something then. He said no before, he can say no again." - Strawman G3

If you go through life pushing peoples boundaries and expect them to verbally tell you what you're doing wrong, you're gonna be friendless and have a bad time. This ties back to both Astarion having difficulty knowing and defending his own values, BG3 trying to let you make your own decisions without setting out a clear "good or bad" path on occasion, and the hope that you'd use your own morals to make decisions. G3 would never behave in this way irl, and that's where the shock comes from, the guilt from committing an action they thought was without consequence in a risk-free fantasy scenario, and then feeling unpleasantly surprised when called out.

But it's a video game, and you didn't get the little zap, the little sting of an Astarion disapproves in the corner that told you you made the wrong choice. In fact, because he doesn't disapprove, it's not actually the wrong choice!

It really was mean how the Narrator made G3 feel bad, wasn't it. They didn't mean to hurt him. Astarion doesn't mention it, so it's probably fine.

... have you talked to Halsin yet? Surely he had a good time. Right?

CONCLUSION

People think they're good and moral and will typically behave "heroically" in video games. Games support this and reward players for doing so. The "good path" is expected to be clear. However, video games are not real life no matter how much they play at immersion, and multiple games have trained players in a linear "do x, receive y" type fashion. Sex is a reward in games, and is treated that way in real life as well, so players expect the Sharess' orgy scene to be a reward, and are then shocked when Astarion/Gale/Halsin etc reveal during or afterwards that they had a bad time. This is because Larian wants you to treat BG3 like a role playing game and interact with it seriously, and isn't afraid to boop you for your actions in ways that mimic real life relationships. This ethical dissonance makes people uncomfortable especially when they play games to role-play as someone better than themselves, and are surprised when they aren't herded down predetermined "good" paths via instantaneous approval/disapproval mechanics or unlockable "ideal" dialogue.

It is absolutely possible that someday Astarion might be into meaningless group sex with prostitutes for fun and pleasure. However, that is the sort of thing you'd probably either wait for him to bring up by himself organically, or discuss in a long-term trusting relationship after he's had potentially years to process the idea of not immediately hopping into bed with someone, as well as disentangling his instinctive "beaten-in" sexually available behavior from his actual desires. People much more emotionally mature and undamaged than Astarion have destroyed their own relationships by inadvertently pushing a partner (or themselves) into various forms of group sex or other sexual acts. It's not something you do on a random Tuesday on a whim.

Or maybe it is, and I'm just chronically boring and surrounded by boring people lmao

TO THE POSTER THAT INSPIRED THIS: I'm so so sorry if you ever see this, not trying to call you out at all hence no linking, I just wanted to pick apart why I think you felt that way. The thoughts just finally bubbled over after a year+ lol

[cripplecharacters]

Do people with contracture scars from burns that severely limit movement and function of a limb but pose no other immediate health risk ever choose to get the limb amputated so a prosthetic can be fitted in its place? Or are there other easily accessible options with more minor surgery or treatments?

Hello,

It's possible, but very few doctors wouldn't try to talk them out of it, so the procedure would be against medical advice (AMA.) An amputation is a major procedure and though it's relatively straightforward, a lot can go wrong and even if everything goes right, it is going to be permanently life-changing. Most surgeons aren't going to do a major procedure like that electively, the character is going to be hard-pressed to find someone to do it. Plus, because it's a major procedure, it's going to be expensive. Insurance often doesn't cover elective procedures and almost certainly won't cover an AMA procedure, so the character is going to be paying for the procedure out of pocket. And then there the weeks in the hospital, months of medical treatment, monitoring, and physical therapy, and then thousands of dollars for the temporary prosthetic and thousands more for the permanent prosthetic. People who had medically-necessary amputations have a hard enough time getting insurance to cover even part of all of this, your character will need to pay for all of it on their own and it's going to be, at minimum, tens of thousands of dollars.

Instead, the doctors are going to recommend a number of more mild treatments for the contracture. There are massages to get the scar to loosen up that'll probably start early in recovery, medicated ointments and steriod solutions that can be applied or injected to help, and more tame procedures like skin or tissue grafts or a z-shaped incision to help add more surface area to the skin. Of course, most of the treatment for a contracture scar is going to be preventative, treatment that takes place while the skin is healing and scarring that aims to prevent or lessen contractures. And if all else fails, the character can use mobility aids, most often a rollator or a wheelchair, to get around easier with the contractures.

An amputation is the most extreme option and probably the worst possible option, worse than just letting the scar be and trying to walk around without any mobility aids (possible depending on the severity of the contracture and the location but painful nonetheless.) If the character were to even pitch this idea to their doctor, any doctor worth their salt would immediately point out why they shouldn't do this and tell them about the more accessible options, partially due to ethics and partially because if they let them do this and recommend the unnecessary surgery and the surgeon goes through with it, there's a massive risk they'll be sued and/or investigated and they could end up in jail and lose their ability to practice medicine. In the modern day, this is probably not something that would happen (you might be able to get away with doing it if your setting is back in the times of tonsillectomies and appendectomies over mild swelling before we realized we should treat the inflammation with medication before removing internal organs, but an elective procedure like this is probably not going to happen in modern times.) Plus, getting the entire limb amputated is the opposite of common sense. I don't know one person who would say "These contractures suck, I'm just going to get my entire leg chopped off" unless they're joking. And if they did seriously pitch this idea to their doctor or a surgeon or even to the receptionist or janitor at the hospital, I can't imagine any one of those people wouldn't shoot that idea down as fast as humanly possible.

I'm sure it's something they could probably do if dedicated enough, but it's extremely impractical and very difficult. I'd recommend looking into more mild contracture treatment options.

Mod Aaron

Hi,

I personally don't know anyone who would get an amputation for this reason, which doesn't mean no one does it, but rather that it's pretty damn rare. Most amputations related to burns are either because limb salvage is impossible due to the damage, or infection setting in.

The most basic possible treatment is simply stretching and massaging the contracted joints. The goal is to stretch and soften the skin gradually, and this will be started extremely early in rehabilitation. Moisturizing helps with this process too.

Next step would be splints designed to keep the joint uncontracted. This is especially helpful if muscles are ligaments are involved rather than just the skin. Over time splints will improve range of motion (not necessarily make it good; two different concepts) to support the person's quality of life and allow them to do more activities of daily living (ADL). If the person wears a compression garment then the splint goes on top of it.

If the issue is solely in the skin, then skin release surgery is an option. It's exactly what it sounds and requires skin grafts to give the person better mobility in the joint. However, muscles that were initially unaffected will shorten with time if the contracture persists, so if your character would be getting this surgery 10 years after the initial burn, their muscles would be affected now even if they weren't before.

There are also many other kinds of treatments like tissue expanders that help with growing more skin, z-plasties, rotation flaps, and a bunch of other ones that I'm not too familiar with.

A more possible (though still really rare) reason for an elective amputation after a burn would be for the most common reason elective amputations are performed: severe pain. Severe burns cause nerve damage, muscle damage, skin damage, all things that could potentially result in something like Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. This could be a possible reason for an amputation if, let's say, six years after the initial burn the pain has largely lowered except for the person's ankle that is still at the same level as it was on day one. There amputation could potentially improve the person's quality of life. It could also not do that, but they'd find that after the fact either way. This is a very last resort scenario where everything (!) else has failed, most people will go through tens of surgeries before seriously considering an elective amputation.

Prosthetic wear however is a completely separate thing. Burns are, despite the general perception, sensitive to many things. Temperature, touch, pressure... all things you get from putting something in a prosthetic socket. Burned skin is dry; it cracks easily. It'd be painful to walk on, as you can imagine. Maybe if they only burned their lower half, they could use crutches and get by this way (which is the same thing they'd probably be doing if they had a severe contraction in a leg). After all it's not like prosthetic wear is an easy thing that every amputee can do. Many can't reliably walk in prosthetics, even if their stump is in better condition than of someone with severe scarring on it.

There's simply too many options available for contractures before an amputation, and even more before prosthetic wear. I'd probably reconsider this idea unless you'd be working with someone who actually had this kind of experience.

mod Sasza

[dorothytheexplorothy]

a few things, mostly tangential:

first (the problem): @there-are-45-chameleons has pointed out in the notes that it'd probably make sense to say 0 is not representable - since []=[][]=..., it also makes sense to say ∅=[] = 1. the empty list should represent the empty product, which is 1. you could bypass this "problem" by adding a formal "0" symbol, which to keep the recursive nature of this notation would then have to appear in every "empty" bracket - if 3 is [][[]], then to have zero and keep the recursion it would be [0][[0]]. I mean, we could still write "3 = [][[]]", but strictly speaking that would be an abuse of notation.

second (the formalisation): for fun, when I played with this notation myself (funnily enough, right before op posted this (sorry it made me feel smart and I wanted to brag)), I'd also formulated a definition of the inductive type of these expressions. I'll try to reconstruct it here -

define the type L of these lists, and the type T of the possible terms in a list, by mutual induction:

L := 1 + L×T + L, T := L/~, where ~ is the equivalence relation generated by c~c[] and a~b->[a]~[b]. explicitly, L is generated by (a) ε:L (the empty list [], denoting 1), (b) appending terms on the end (written as (l;b):L×T->L, where b is the term appended to the end of the list l), and (c) putting lists into boxes (Box:L->L, which takes 3=[];[[]] to [[];[[]]]=[3]=8). then to interpret this as a number we go over to T, whose generators are inj:L->T and the path constructors mul_1:(a,b:L)->(b=a;inj(ε))->(inj(a)=inj(b)) (this says that a=a*1, or formally a=a;ε) and boxeq:(a,b:L)->(inj(a)=inj(b))->(inj(Box(a))=inj(Box(b))) (i.e. if a=b as numbers then so are [a]=[b])

if you want an exercise to check your understanding, try to prove that while the distinct lists a;ε and a are equal as numbers, a;ε;[ε]=a[][1] and a are not.

you may have noticed this system can only represent positive integers. I've not added a way to talk about 0 or about negative numbers - by extension there's also no way to talk about fractions or irrationals. this brings us to the next part-

third (the solution?): why are we limiting ourselves to finite products? we could easily create a coinductive type of infinite "formal products" - in the same way we can turn inductive lists into coinductive streams, we can turn our finite recursive lists L into infinite recursive streams L*. we just have to think about 1 as [][][][]...=2⁰3⁰5⁰7⁰..., and we don't even need the mul_1 path constructor since we can't append to an infinite stream (therefore, a little more subtly, we don't need any path constructors, and we can define L* by itself, without a T*). in short what we get is L* := 2L*+1, with destructors tl:L*->L* ("delete the first entry in the list"), and hd:L*->L*+1 ("inspect the list in the first bracket" - returns "0" if bracket is empty), whence we define 1 to be the unique element such that tl(1)=1, hd(1)=0.

now products with only finitely many nonempty brackets are easy to understand, but how should we interpret infinite products? I suggest we can use some kind of regularisation, which lets us produce non-integers! - for example, the standard value assigned to the product of all primes (which in our system would be P s.t tl(P)=P, hd(P)=1) is 4π^2 (see e.g. Allouche's "zeta-regularization of arithmetic sequences" (pdf)). I think it's impossible to create nonpositive numbers, because every number produced by the regularisation is basically e^(another real number). we're working with infinite products as opposed to sums so it's somewhat intuitive that we'd get positive reals instead of all the reals.

I think the regularisation function isn't injective (there can be two different infinite products evaluating to the same number), so we'd have to add some complicated path constructor that takes that into account but practically it's not an issue (I don't even know if it's an issue at all, since we're just working with products of primes, not general natural/rational/whatever numbers. is it also non-injective on sequences of primes and recursively on sequences of infinite-product-powers of primes? idk). that's all I got for now; idk if these are closed under addition, multiplication, etc. one thing I am wondering though, is whether there's a "canonical" way of representing the product of all positive integers (not just the primes) in this system? the regularised value of the product would be sqrt(2π), so is there some way to choose λ_i s.t the product of prime powers Πp_i^(λ_i)=sqrt(2π), and if so is there a sense in which this is related directly to the product Πi, pre-assigning a value?

cursed number notation. can you figure it out

1 = []

2 = [[]]

3 = [][[]]

4 = [[[]]]

12 = [[[]]][[]]

0 =

-1 = -[]

19 = [][][][][][][][[]]

20 = [[[]]][][[]]

-2 = -[[]]

1/2 = [-[]]

sqrt(2) = [[-[]]]

72^1/6 = [[-[]]][[][-[]]]

5/4 = [-[[]]][][[]]

[accirax]

As of the latest episode, with all the secrets out in the open, do you have any changed opinions on the general outcomes of your “Secret Swap: For Better or Worse”?

Now that is a fantastic question! Thank you for remembering that this post existed-- I wasn't sure if anybody other than me did 😅 (And also, thank you for your patience while waiting for me to respond to you.) Here's a link to the post in question for anyone who might not know what fatherfigurefusion is asking about. As for the contents of that AU...

DRDT Secret Swap AU: For Better or Worse - REVISIONS

(CW for the suite of issues that we always have to talk about when it comes to the DRDT secrets: murder, death, suicide, implied homophobia/transphobia, self harm, eating disorders.)

Well, first of all, it's good for me that (other than the Xander/Teruko swap thing still not being confirmed) all of the secrets landed in the way in which I thought they would at the time I wrote that post. I would have had a lot more workshopping to do if, say, Hu had been the murderer without remorse and Levi had been the hopeless child.

I think I'll run through each choice I made individually, and then maybe try to fix any issues I encounter at the end after summing up the situation.

The Good Timeline

Eden receives Levi’s secret

Well, Eden did have a more negative reaction to Levi's secret than I initially anticipated in this post, criticizing him for being selfish in hardly even remembering whose lives he took. However, Levi also (presumably) has a more positive reaction to being approached with his secret than I feared. He was willing to share it with everyone himself, so I doubt he would threaten Eden if she were to approach him with it.

An updated summary of what might have happened: Eden receives Levi's secret, and is a little frightened, but might want more details before judging Levi fully (after all, she already knows that his family weren't the best of people). If she decides to approach him about it, Levi coolly explains what exactly his secret means. Eden's discomfort grows, which makes Levi feel bad.

Is it a fantastic scenario? Not really. But are there any better solutions to Levi's secret out there? Debatable. I think this one held up decently.

Nico receives David's secret

I still stand by this one, despite David being even more wild than initially expected. There's definitely a chance that Nico would just bluntly say the secret at some point if they determined that David was being manipulative. But, at the very least, Nico wouldn't be bringing their own drama to the situation-- just potentially elevating others' via timing.

It's a hard secret to deal with, but I still think that Nico is one of the better options.

Hu receives Ace's secret

So, this one obviously gains the new complications that we now canonically know that Ace was the killer, and that he was planning to do so basically before the motives were even revealed. I still think that Hu would probably react in much the way I "predicted" (assuming Ace's former bullying of Nico didn't already damn him in her eyes too much). But, I also don't think that hearing kind words from Hu would be enough to dissuade Ace from wanting to kill for his own safety.

Therefore, what happens to Hu after Ace kills? Is she now stuck in the opinion of defending Ace at the Class Trial, and being inevitably disappointed when he's revealed to truly be the killer? I guess that's not that different from what Hu canonically did with Nico, but it's not like that's going to be great for her mental health either. Not to mention 1) she would have been speaking up for a previously more controversial figure, therefore bringing her judgment even further into question for ever trusting Ace at all, and 2) Ace would actually die at the end, which would be worse for Hu's "wanting to be reliable and save people" bit.

For those reasons, I think this assignment is... dubious, but Ace's secret is also much more of a loaded gun now that we know that he was already planning to kill prior to the secrets' existence. I don't think there's any assignment I could make that would convince Ace out of killing.

J receives Eden's secret

This one still makes a ton of sense to me.

Rose receives J's secret

While I may wind up shuffling this one around in order to defuse another secret's problem, I think the logic behind this assessment holds true.

"Xander" receives Arei's secret

Also still makes sense to me. Let my girl rest. (But not in peace.) (Well, wait.) (You know what I mean!!!)

Arturo receives Min's secret

I don't think that any of our further explanations of Arturo's traumas would make the "poisoning the competition" secret any more traumatic to him. Thus, it still works.

David receives Xander's secret

I. Um. Wow.

I'm pretty certain I wasn't the only one caught off guard by the true extent of how much David cares/d about Xander. With the "knowledge" that David was planning on throwing the killing game and slaughtering everyone in pursuit of Xander's ideals-- taking into account that his actions may have been falsified/exaggerated, of course-- I fear that leaving David with this secret might be irresponsible.

If his emotions surrounding Xander grew even fiercer, so might his determination to bring the killing game to an end. No matter how much what David said in the Class Trial was the truth, I don't think giving him Xander's secret would have the "out of commission" effect I wrote about. This is definitely one I'd like to reassign, if possible.

Arei receives Whit's secret

Now, we have the confirmation that Arei didn't tell anyone about having Levi's secret! We still (understandably) don't know anything about Arei's relationship with her mom, though. Still, this one is looking good.

Veronika receives Charles' secret

As it turns out, Veronika actually found the secrets overall pretty boring (or at least, so she tells us), and only didn't reveal Hu's secret because of the pact she made with Hu. However, I still think that the logic behind her revealing the secret to Charles early holds, and that it's for the best that Charles learns this information on the sooner side. So, this one is still good!

Levi receives Arturo's secret

Well. We know that Levi wouldn't condemn someone for murdering a family member! If anything, if he treated Felicity's death like his own father's, he'd just forget that he ever read the secret. That's a joke, but I think I did a good job with deescalating Arturo's secret.

The worst consequences I can see here are 1) Levi coming to believe that Arturo is a bad person (which may have been the case already?), and/or 2) Levi could callously spill Arturo's secret to the group if he didn't understand the gravity of the sentiment. We don't exactly know how Arturo would react to his secret being shared publicly in a non-Class Trial setting, but given how he treated Eden in his mini-breakdown in 2-10, I can't imagine it would be good.

However, those are only hypotheticals, and I don't know if I'd really get any better by giving Arturo's secret to someone else. I still stand by most of the logic, so I think this choice would remain.

Ace receives Veronika's secret

I still think that nothing bad would happen from this assignment. Which means... Ace would proceed in his plan to kill Eden. Yay...?

Now that we finally have the answer as to who the killer is, it's really weird to look at this good AU. Every time, I'm like, "phew, we didn't do anything to give someone the motivation to kill!" But, as I don't think there are any secrets Ace could receive that would convince him not to kill, that just means that the "good timeline" is condemning Eden to die. Is that really better than some of the other timelines?

That's a bit more philosophical than I think is required for this AU re-analysis, so we'll just give this one a pass.

Teruko receives Hu's secret

Honestly, I think this one got better since I proposed it. This was probably my least favorite assignment of the original good AU. However, now we know that Hu had interest in forming a pact of secrecy with the person who held her secret.

Naturally, it's possible that she was only able to make this pact with Veronika because they had each other's secrets. I have no idea how Hu would have figured out that Veronika had her secret otherwise, barring a Hu!Mastermind situation.

However, as we saw in canon, Teruko decided to approach Rose and ask Rose about her secret. If Teruko did that in this AU, then Hu could surely ask Teruko not to tell others about her secret, and I imagine Teruko would oblige. It removes the possibility I was worried about with Hu feeling insecure about someone learning this about her; while that may still be the case, we can assume that instead of lashing out, she would just ask Teruko to keep it on the down low. This one's good!

Charles receives Rose's secret

I mean. Yeah.

Whit receives Nico's secret

Yeah x2. I do wonder how Whit would react if Nico tried to ask him for help with regards to Ace's bullying, though. I doubt that would actually happen, given that Nico doesn't trust anyone. Still, I'm curious if Whit would turn a blind eye like he did to their arguing canonically, or if that direct connection to Nico's mental health would call him to action a la Charles.

"Min" receives Teruko's secret

If David's creepy-ass smile didn't convince you that this secret should remain dead and buried, I don't know what will. This one can stay.

-

Finally, we've finished recapping the good version! In the end, I was still happy with 13/16 of my answers, which is a pretty good batting average.

But, how would I fix it? Well, as I alluded to in Rose's section, I think I would wind up giving Rose a different secret than J even though it was fine, just because Rose is a really useful slot to have. The best solution I could come up with is that Rose gets Ace's secret, David gets J's secret, and Hu gets Xander's secret.

I don't think that anyone would get mad at Rose for throwing away Ace's secret because it's pretty personal and likely not murder-related. And, Veronika was able to figure out that the secret belonged to Ace mere moments after hearing it for the first time anyways.

While giving David's secret to J is a bit of a dangerous game, I don't think he'd really be able to do much with it pre-Trial without blowing his cover. He might reveal the secret at the Trial just to throw things off track, but even when the secret was with Rose, it probably would have been revealed via process of elimination at the Trial anyways. We don't get the "take David out of commission" factor that made the assignment extra good the first time around, but that was a fluke. I don't think there's anything here that could stop David from David-ing.

I am banking on the fact that learning about Xander's suicidal tendencies wouldn't reignite any old feelings in Hu, but I think it would be okay. I would imagine that their circumstances are pretty different, and (on the surface, at least) Hu seems pretty resolute in her newfound desire to live.

As for Levi's secret, I think the best path for it would be to bury it in the "Xander" or "Min" slot and hand Eden either Arei or Teruko's secrets. Obviously, both of those are very loaded choices, given that Arei and Teruko are almost certainly the two characters that Eden is most connected to in the narrative right now.

In Arei's case, if Eden approached her about her secret, I think that encounter would play out much like the canonical clock-making scene did. However, that means that (if David is still in the area, I guess) they would also have that same rebound that would lead to Arei declaring herself Eden's friend-- albeit probably not as dramatically, given that in this universe, Arturo never attacks Eden. Of course, if Ace is still in the area, that then raises the question of whether the target would still change from Eden to Arei if Arei didn't make such a bold declaration. Which is the better scenario? That's impossible to say, because they both suck. Still, things to think about.

In Teruko's case, it really depends on how kindhearted Eden is feeling at the moment. I want to believe that Eden would approach "the killing game is all your fault" with skepticism and patience, and talk to Teruko to learn that she (most likely) has no memory of anything like this being the case. If Teruko could see that Eden wouldn't immediately turn against her at her literal worst, it would probably go a long way. That being said, it would be totally reasonable for Eden to be upset and worried about reading this secret, and to therefore begin to distrust Teruko.

Both of these situations raise enough issues that I can't decisively determine if they're better than just leaving Eden with Levi's secret. I'll leave it up to you to decide which iteration you personally prefer.

On to the bad section!

The Bad Timeline

As I said in the original AU post, it's difficult to determine which options are truly the worst when there are so many terrible options. Therefore, I expect that most-if-not-all of these options will still get a pass at least. We'll see if I wind up having enough brain cells to change anything in the end.

And, on that note...

Ace receives Levi's secret

Yeah, this one is still bad! Knowing what we know now, Ace is definitely killing if he gets Levi's secret, possibly faster. I do wonder if it would wind up leading Ace to target Levi, even if I'm not sure how he would pull that off. If Ace tried and failed, could it lead to Levi killing Ace instead? Eh, Ace probably wouldn't even try, given that everyone would suspect him if Levi were to turn up dead. "A reason to stay mad at you," indeed.

Veronika receives David's secret

The logic behind this one still cracks me up. Totally still think I'm right, though.

Levi receives Ace's secret

This one is okay. Really, the pushback I'm running into is just that things are already so bad with Ace that I don't think this extra layer of distrust would make things all that much worse. Plus, I don't know if Levi would pick up on the subtler implications of Ace's secret anymore. The question is just, "is there a better way that we can screw over Levi in this situation?" We'll just have to wait and see.

"Xander" receives Eden's secret

Sorry for kinda closeting you, Eden. But, that's what makes this selection so bad. And that's why it stays.

Arturo receives J's secret

There's no way to make J more miserable than to directly hand her secret over to Arturo. We'll continue sticking with canon on this one.

Hu receives Arei's secret

I didn't even mention in my original passage that Hu's love for her family would put her at odds with Arei's treatment of her sisters. That's really terrible, I say with a thumbs up.

Rose receives Min's secret

Tracks.

Teruko receives Xander's secret

While the whole David thing didn't really pan out, I do think that Teruko's segment still makes sense. It's possible we could do worse, but it's not like giving Teruko more reasons to hate herself is a terrible conclusion. I mean, it is, but not for the sake of crafting the worst possible timeline. You know how it is.

Charles receives Whit's secret

Charwhit angst :((((( Good thing that'll never happen in canon! Ha ha. This section is oxygen-potassium, which would also be potassium oxide (K2O), a corrosive compound! Or, you can just call it O-K.

Whit receives Charles' secret

Meanwhile, this section gets a heart from me.

Arei receives Arturo's secret

So if Arturo were in this even worse mental state after Arei wrecking his shop, possibly even being the blackened himself, would Levi also die? Because, Teruko was presumably planning on enacting her plan no matter who the blackened was, and DefaultTV would presumably always punish Teruko for it, and Levi (unless he too was too distracted by this motive) would probably still step in front of Teruko to repay his "debt" to her. However, if Arturo was either the one up for execution or too hateful of himself or anyone else to be spurred to surgery, we'd probably lose Levi too. It's even worse than I thought! Which means it's fully approved.

David receives Veronika's secret

Although this one kinda reads to me as "not that bad," it's important to keep in mind that I gave David a "not that bad" secret so that he would continue to encourage other people to share theirs. That's important for screwing over everyone else. So, I think this one will remain, but I could see blowing it up if it would help something else worsen.

Nico receives Hu's secret

This choice has always been one that I've felt was difficult to talk about, as was probably apparent by the million disclaimers I put at the beginning of it. Because of that, I'm sort of inclined to dissolve it. However, I... think it still holds up?

We also now have the direct confirmation that Hu wanted to keep her secret under wraps because she didn't want others to see her as weak or unreliable. If Nico was holding on to Hu's secret, she would likely only figure that out in a moment of stress, when people needed her to be reliable the most. My point is, she might go into further overdrive trying to prove to Nico that she really is reliable, which would only make things more stressful for Nico and more annoying for everyone else. With that additional reasoning, I don't currently see any reason why this should be changed.

"Min" receives Rose's secret

I didn't realize before that I had Rose and Min swap secrets-- not that it really matters, given that I could have just as easily given Rose's secret to "Xander." Anyways, this also tracks.

Eden receives Nico's secret

I still feel mean for this one 😅 But, y'know, that's just what life is like for a professional Eden Bully. Which is worse, threatening a lesbian with homophobia or falsely accusing her of murder for a year and a half? (/j) Jokes aside, this will remain.

J receives Teruko's secret

Guys, did you know that J HATES MURDER? Forget the theorist's "I feel like" disqualifier, J would definitely tell everyone and their annoying celebrity mom that everything in Teruko's life is worth killing for. Like a fine wine, this got better with age.

-

Unsurprisingly, after what I predicted at the beginning, I wound up approving 15/16 of these options. The only one I really had any issues with was Levi getting Ace's secret.

The worst secret for Levi to receive would probably be either something that makes him perceive a "good person" as a "bad person" or a "bad person" as a "good person." So, like, Teruko maybe for the former? And the worst person for Ace's secret to go to would probably be someone who would outright weaponize it against him, so possibly someone like Arei or David.

If I wanted to shuffle things around, I think it would give David Ace's secret and give Levi Veronika's secret. Ace's secret is also the kind of juicy insight that could still allow David to pull his manipulator BS, and David could absolutely destroy that man in the Class Trial, blackened or not, with the info when the time was right. Meanwhile, I could see Levi being like, "well, if it's stopping Veronika from hurting herself, then... her talent is a "good" thing, right? Every day I grow more jealous of you and your amazing perception, Veronika..." Honestly, I think I do like that one more than what I originally wrote. Let's roll with it.

And now, nearly two months after this ask was sent in, I'm finally done with it! Once again, I'm sorry I spent so long to complete this relatively simple ask. I hope this lived up to your expectations! Thanks for sending it in :)

[astriiformes]

My instructor for my German class copied me on a communication with my academic advisor about my attendance issues and I get it, I get that I've missed a lot of class and that instructors are frustrated by that, but I genuinely don't know what I'm supposed to do when the problem is that I've been physically unable to wake up most mornings for the last several weeks.

Like I've had similar issues before, but it's so much worse this semester (my class isn't until 10:10am, and I live a 30-40 minute train ride from campus, but that's still not that early). I specifically took this class--at this time too--because I thought it was late enough that it wouldn't be an issue, and now I'm probably going to have to end up in a meeting with her and my advisor where I bawl my eyes out about how I really am trying, and that I know it sounds like the worst excuse ever but I swear I'm not just being lazy or skipping class on purpose.

And it makes me terrified for the future, where I might have jobs where I can't set my own schedule, and especially because when your partner ended up suddenly and mysteriously sick with tired-all-the-time-to-the-point-of-being-mostly-bedbound disease, having your own fatigue issues is incredibly scary and traumatizing. We're already in such a precarious situation, we cannot afford my health going south, too.

I don't know. I'm scared and stressed about this specific scenario, but also about, like, life in general, and feeling pretty miserable.

[spinnysocks]

i adamantly refuse to accept that i can't be “productive”. i don't know exactly why. partly because of this stupid ass capitalist society that screams at me to spend every waking hour job searching? partly because i want to create i want to create i want to create but most of the time i can't? yeah bit of both. heavy on the lack of personal creativity. sometimes all i can do is wake up, eat, work on some playlists, talk about my favourite shows and characters on here and maybe just maybe have a walk if i'm up to it. some weeks are really good and i can be super productive. whatever that means. and it's so fulfilling. but then i can't get myself to do anything for a week. i don't mean it and i hate it. but i can't change it, at least not right this second. maybe i will always be this way. i will hate it always but maybe just maybe if i start to accept it, the more i will have to give

[teddybasmanov]

I hate the 'you work so hard' type of comfort audios. I don't work 'so hard', I definitely don't work hard - I barely work at all.

[brittlebutch]

it's actually so fascinating to me that Brennan has created a character that maintains a pretty relaxed and mild-mannered demeanor and has said multiple times that the absolute Core of her is "FEAR" and how often we see this Fear manifest specifically in Avoidance; it really nails a relationship to that mentality where your brain fully Stops recognizing the emotion properly out of like, sheer self-defense from the stress of having to carry it all the time

I think this is also perfectly showcased in the way we tend to see Tula swing so suddenly from 'level and steady' to 'snarling Panic' and then back again - Just because your brain has detached itself from the Conscious Recognition of the emotion doesn't mean it can Actually stop itself from experiencing it. So the Fear is always there and always acting as a stressor, but because of that inability to Identify it there's no way to recognize or address it before that final straw hits and your bodymind jumps Straight into Full Meltdown Mode; but then once again, once you drop even a Little bit below that Peak Terror your brain ceases to process the emotion; it's like the most exhausting form of Poor Object Permanence in the world

And even if Tula is aware of this happening to her, that doesn't really make it any easier to deal with / address. Even if you're able to spot the symptoms Around the emotion -- chest pain, irritation, nausea, whatever -- because the Emotion Itself is basically impossible to find, you can't really Successfully Pin Down what the problem is OR a way to cope with it. If you can't figure out That You Are Anxious, then figuring out What Is Making You Anxious is impossible, which makes Find A Way To Make Peace With That incomprehensible. That's where the Avoidance comes in: you can no longer identify what might be a Dangerous Situation, which means that Anything New has a big potential to be Really Bad in a variety of ways (ranging "I don't Feel Good" to "Fully Lashing Out bc you've entered Fight/Flight and can't get out of it" to "Actual Outside Danger This Time") and that means the Only Way you know how to be Safe is to just Avoid Doing Anything New and Only stick to Familiar Situations, because anything unfamiliar is a monster of a gamble you don't know how to prepare for or cope with

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

So, Canada has decided to stop sending arms to Israel after an NDP motion. The Liberals made major amendments to it so as to firmly condemn Hamas as well. It's kind of a mixed bag. Honestly, it's naive of me but I didn't expect there would still be so much outrage, even if the motion did call for an acknowledgement of Palestine as a state. All the Conservatives voted against it - to be fair, some of them wanted to wait for the motion to be passed because the amendments were super last minute and the Bloc Quebecois were annoyed that because of this there wasn't a French translation.

I guess it's a step in the right direction. I think it's still weak but you can read more on it here.

Source 1, Source 2, Source 3

[the-voice-of-night-vale]

u know what i've been thinking about. how the economy expects you to be, right now, at a job you've been at and consistently getting raises in for like, ten years. it's almost like the implication is "well yeah, you'll be able to live off this job in three, five, ten years if you stick with it and grow in the company" which is all fine and dandy, but i kind of need to live right now

[the-adas]

i lowkey hate the schizophrenia subreddit

[spark-circuit]

spoilers for Spearmaster campaign! (talking about hidden pearl dialogue 👍)

ough...,,,.,,,