#they're free in that sense

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

cool!! and what about like each day, time they get out of their cells? is there like a specific curfew or anything they have time to follow?

(lmao sorry for the questions baha-)

Basically, the schedule is thus (unless there are special occasions or surgeries or whatever):

6:45 AM: Cells open and the Patients wake up

7:30 AM: First meal

9 AM: Short check up (most of the time done by Thatcher)

1 PM: Second Meal

6 PM: third meal

10:45 PM: Lights out (time to return to cells)

As for everything in between, it can be. whatever, really. Patients are free to roam around (certain areas of) the facility, including rooms like the rec room (where they have activities they can do like draw, watch TV (whatever tapes are there anyway) and other small things), the gym, the courtyard (only open to them between 10 AM and 3 PM most of the time), etc.

The schedule can also change depending on if they're scheduled to have a surgery or something. for example, someone having a surgery may not be allowed to eat for a bit before said operation to prevent complications.

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[spoonietimelordy]

..........

[stealingyourbones]

Short DPXDC Prompts #1005

the entire town of Amity suffers from lead poisoning (contaminated drinking water. Oddly for them, this also makes them harder to detect via Kryptonian senses.

[transxfiles]

i walk into the across the spider verse spider society lobby right as everyone starts trying to kill some teen. i walk past whatever weird chase scene shit is going on. i walk directly into the free gender clinic and talk to the spider physician about starting hrt.

[puppetmaster13u]

I am pondering cryptid batfam but like. Eldritch. Starts out human but Gotham (or something Else) slowly changes them over the years as they search for an learn unspeakable information, as their minds expand more than a mere human could.

Pretty much becomes not exactly city spirits but Aspects of sorts if I am making any sense. And usually people can tell something is... sort of off, but it's easily dismissible, like a cold spot in a room that you can ignore if you aren't standing in it.

I honestly might draw the ideas for designs I have but idk.

[hopeswriting]

daily life arc miura haru. does anyone know who i'm talking about. do you guys remember her. i still can't believe what happened to her 😔

[pinkd3mon]

Gardening pals

[sarahlancashire]

dyke-onic carla connor quotes:

"high maintenance, annoying, nearly fifty divorcee seeks ..."

"you mustn't put yourself in harm's way [...] not just for betsy's sake"

"lisa? lisa??? can we talk??? [...] i can wait!!! we need to speak about last night!!!"

"you think i'm a tourist, right? [...] surely that does us both a disservice, thinking that?"

"you need to stop using yourself as a punching bag"

"oh, well, if you're exhausted, you can always [apologise] another time"

"lisa, that's not going to happen [...] i'll make sure of it, alright?"

"these all your crisps?"

"don't get dressed"

"it's a good job i'm an angel, then"

"you can't apologise for living your life"

"i am not going to apologise. betsy, you get one life, and it's short, and what is so wrong in trying to wring some joy out of it?"

"oh, great, terrific, just what i need!"

“you can tell me anything, any time, know that”

“no visitors!!! [realising it’s lisa visiting] […] do i look alright?”

“get me those, erm… things… i needed”

"what if i've changed my mind?"

"... and they say romance is dead"

[qoldenskies]

I want you to know that Leo bringing out the pet names for Donnie gut me every time and I am always laying dead on the pavement /pos Keep at it!

INSTANT KILL

[hotasfahrenheit]

one of the things that is catching me up over and over and circling in my head about Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo is the way that Do Hoe keeps telling Ju Yeong to leave, and how at no point is it because he doesn't like Ju Yeong or doesn't want him around- he usually tells him to leave when he talks about leaving himself, even- but it's the looming, inevitable feeling that it is only a matter of time before his father hits Ju Yeong like he hits Do Hoe and all the other boys, and the fact that Do Hoe wants Ju Yeong to get out before it can happen.

there's such a feeling of resignation about it when it comes to Do Hoe expecting the abuse for himself, in carrying the weight of knowing he can't protect anyone else either. and he knows that the bubble of safety that Ju Yeong arrives with because of his family and his mother and his situation can only last so long.

and the way he looks absolutely crushed when he realises that it's already happened and that Ju Yeong is hiding his wounds because he doesn't want Do Hoe to know and add to his guilt just in turn crushes me.

[fairylando]

don't ask me why, but me and my friend were talking about how carlos is going to be free from fraudrrari in less than 20 days and we ended up comparing him to the virgin mary (i swear it will make sense and we both grew up in christian italian families as atheists) and... how her given festivities actually add up with some of his important dates ??? buckle up!

‧˚

⭒ "Festa dell'Assunzione di Maria" — august 15 she was raised to eternal life without bodily death, and very close to it carlos announced he signed with williams.

⭒ "La Natività della Beata Vergine Maria" — she was born on september 8th, he was born on september 1st (BOTH VIRGOS)!

⭒ "L'Immacolata Concezione" — december 8th, "from the first moment of her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of Mankind, kept free from all stain of original sin."... and what happens on december 8th? his last race in fraudrrari, exactly.

she was the lightly brushed by melancholy blue print after all!

[transmechanicus]

Really fucked up that two ppl can care about each other and make their best efforts to communicate and still end up hurting each other so badly they cannot stand to be in the same room.

[zaacoy]

crawling out of my grave for a day-

started watching the moomins, have crossover work :]

[wouldtheybecomeafearavatar]

Can I ask—what’s the difference between “by coercion” and “unawareness/conditioning”?

Yeah, sometimes I wonder if the wording is a bit confusing. As it's put in the intro post:

Yes, by coercion: they would go through with it, but only if threatened with a loved one's life or something along those lines.

Yes, by unawareness or conditioning: they wouldn't realize until it's too late or would be raised to be an avatar, unaware their way of existence is not normal.

To explain a bit further (spoilers for several character arcs in TMA):

Coercion means the character would be forced or manipulated into it by someone or something. It requires a degree of awareness of what is happening (otherwise they'd go under unawareness).

Robert Montauk being forced to work for The People's Church of the Divine Host to get his wife back could be an example, though I'm not sure he ever achieved full Dark avatar status.

Basira would have ended up in this category if she'd continued to work for the institute long enough to become an Eye avatar, as Elias forced her to sign the contract under threat of Daisy's life.

I'd probably put Martin in the coercion category too, since he was going along with Peter Lukas and The Lonely to potentially save Jon.

Conditioning means that the character was groomed into it by someone from a young age, or born to be an avatar. It should be noted that this only applies to people or beings who under other circumstances could have made a different choice. A being that came into existence as an expression of a Fear would be manifestation instead.

Agnes Montague is kind of the defining example of this category, though members of the Lukas family being raised into it also count.

I think Gerry Keay could be another example of this. Eye avatarhood specifically wasn't a foregone conclusion for him, but he never really had a chance at a normal life. Willingly may be more accurate; he didn't choose to get involved with the Fears, but he did choose The Eye.

Unawareness is pretty self-explanatory, though I would point out this doesn't mean that the character never realises they are transforming. That (strictly speaking) wouldn't actually work, since becoming an avatar does require an active choice at some point. In this case it's more that the character doesn't realise until they're at the point of no return and the choice they are making is between death or becoming an avatar. If they refuse once they realise it'd be "go along but stop before transformation".

Jon is an example. Coercion could also be argued, given that Elias was definitely pushing him to go further and further using the (false) threat of the Unknowing, but I think Jon was too unaware of how he was being manipulated to go in coercion.

I think Michael Shelley would also go into this category. He was manipulated into it by Gertrude, but he had no idea what was going to happen. His case is a bit of a strange one in general though, I'm not sure he even had any affinity for The Distortion to start with.

At the end of the day, these are just my opinions and you can vote however you want, but I hope this helps answer your question! (Sorry for the essay)