#they've been on the mind a lot actually......

[bringbackavac]

so, i was rewatching the 8x17 kitchen scene and realised that it felt like a lot of the past fights they've had??? and came into the conclusion!!! that buddie has a certain pattern in their arguments!!!

the thesis is that its rooted mostly by their character weaknesses, history and upbringing. especially, when the topic is centralised on them or affect them deeply, it usually goes atomic.

alas, this post was born and honestly i have no idea why i can't stop adding to it. i just keep having additional thoughts, or more prospects that work so well to deepen and complete the theory further. it's been a a few days and i truly need to move on to be able to function properly in my day to day T__T

but tbh i still have a lot to add more to it—especially how their families play a part in building that habit/response—in the upcoming days. i really need to stop writing in that post at 3am bcs in actuality i'm super swarmed with things atm BUT BUDDIE KEEPS INSISTING TO BE FRONT AND CENTRE IN MY MIND *sighs* i hate themmm :/

ANYWAYS i wanna know what ya'll think!! because i genuinely can't stop thinking about it and i need someone to discuss it with because ngl this feels so buddie road to canon??!! LIKE THAT FIGHT WAS INSANE AND INTENSE but that reconciliation??? got me: *grins evilly in buddie canon coming soon* :3

[crossdressingdeath]

I am once again begging people to realize that Ivenci does not in fact want to "make Antiva better", that's not why they want the Crows gone. This is someone who straight up let Treviso get occupied by the Antaam who fuck up every city they occupy (and tbh it is actually insane to me that a mage let the Antaam occupy their city after the atrocities in Ventus, which must have happened before the Antaam took Treviso because occupied Ventus is referenced in Eight Little Talons which happens before Antiva is invaded; it says a lot that Ivenci thought that was a good idea). They tried to gas the city with qamek (again, insane thing for a mage specifically to be doing after Ventus, these experienced writers did that on purpose) to remove the Crows and their supporters yes but also anyone who spoke out against the occupation too loudly. Guys, please, Ivenci wants power. We are repeatedly told and shown that they want power. They'd rather destroy the minds of half the city and give those remaining to the Antaam than not have power. Their immediate response to being told they'll be put on trial—with the knowledge of the king and merchant princes, so even if we assume the Crows don't have the legal right to do that they fully intend to cover their bases on that front—for all that treason it is at this point well documented they've been committing is "You can't do that to me, I'm the governor of this city". Them saying the Crows are bad does not mean they're right because they could not more clearly think the Crows are bad because they're getting in their way specifically.

They're not even right about why the Crows are bad; first and easiest the stuff about the Crows murdering people in the street is just straight up nonsense, there is literally nothing in any other game or this one suggesting they do that, they kill people they are hired to kill (and because they're so expensive those targets are extremely unlikely to include random people on the street) and claiming they're as bad as the Antaam (who we do see dragging people away during the first visit to Treviso) is ridiculous. And second... I've said this many times, but defending Antiva is literally the Crows' job. If the people of Treviso or Rook (or Ivenci, although they wouldn't for obvious reasons) went to the king and asked for help to free Treviso, the king would send them straight back to the Crows because defending Antiva is their duty and they do it proudly and as well as they can. Keeping Ivenci in the loop is the limit of what they're really required to do, and frankly given Ivenci is a) incredibly rude, b) wildly suspicious and c) entirely useless it's really more than they deserve, someone please replace this person with a competent governor who actually wants to help their people. Also no I won't ever be over them standing around doing nothing except insisting Crows Bad right outside the field hospital the Crows set up and are fighting to defend from the Antaam in blighted Treviso. This is where everyone involved in this situation who claims to care for Treviso should be putting their money where their mouths are and it is telling and pointed that the Crows do at great personal cost—the Crow casualties dying of blight and getting warped into monsters that the other Crows with Rook's aid have to put down so they aren't suffering and can't hurt anyone was deliberate, can people stop acting like the Crows are totally fine and untouched in blighted Treviso—and Ivenci and the Butcher don't, that was a deliberate storytelling choice and I would like people to stop ignoring it.

Ivenci is not insisting the Crows should stay out of it because it's not their job and they're overstepping; they're saying it because it is the Crows' job and they are interfering with Ivenci's plans, which is in fact evidence of the Crows working as intended in their role as Antiva's defenders (which does make the argument that Ivenci's right about the Crows being bad for Antiva somewhat ironic, given they're walking proof of the Crows being pretty good at their role even while being actively sabotaged and before anyone suggests Rook's doing all the work I'm saying right now that that's not the case, the Crows are clearly doing a lot when Rook's not around, and if you claim it is because we don't see them doing it you'd better be claiming that literally every faction is completely worthless because that argument does not apply to just the Crows). I am begging people to use their critical thinking skills, people saying things you agree with in broad terms and people being right are two entirely different things.

[ifistayitwillbedouble]

hey, i love ur arcane pfp!! it's cool to see another byler/arcane fan lmao. i was also there for klance :/ and don't even get me started. like that was actually what kept me from fully believing in byler for years cuz it was just so bad. i kept telling myself to never fully hope for queer rep until i saw it just 'cause it didn't seem to matter how bad the writing would be or if it didn't make sense for the characters to not get together, the writers/executives could just not do it anyway. but it was lowkey kinda depressing thinking that way :/

but byler was the first time that i really ever broke out of that and it seems like u and i might have been in like the exact same position lmao so if you want, i can try and tell u what changed my mind.

ultimately it wasn't any of the theories or the textual evidence even though that was SO good. it was kinda like i just needed to believe that the writers were going to act like writers without letting homophobia get in the way, then i could believe all the analyses on writing tropes and all the logical arguments i saw.

so the biggest thing to me is that the duffers and their team say they care about uplifting minorities and outcasts and while they've done that before, they also seem to do it on a deeper level than other shows that i've seen queerbait. plenty of other shows say they want to do that stuff and then crash and burn spectacularly at it *cough cough* voltron *cough*.

like even for voltron, besides klance, they also had weird mentions of race where it was kind of joked about and whatnot. like it kinda felt like it was brushed off and not given much of a focus at all. but stranger things as a show is completely centered around minorities and outcasts and because of that the writers are specifically interested in them. like it actually gets taken seriously. one of my favorite examples is the bathroom scene with robin and steve. it isn't cliche or boring in the way a lot of mainstream shows write queer storylines (because they don't fully understand them or refuse to put in the time to). it specifically straightbaited the audience and reversed cliche tropes AND the writing?? was so much deeper than i've ever seen mainstream shows go?? the stuff about robin being obsessed with and yet hating steve because she wished the girls would look at her instead. like that's more complex and required way more effort from the writers than if they had just gone for "diversity points". it was something that resonated with a lot of queer people that i've talked to irl and online which is always a good sign. also there were a lot of people saying that it was robin's actor that decided to make robin a lesbian, and the actor actually came out and said that was a misunderstanding. the writers already had that and her coming out planned before!

okay so, this was where i started to have hope for queerness in ST because we have the evidence of a full scene/character that was done well, but it'd another thing entirely to have byler. they're like MAIN main characters and i love robin, but she hasn't been there since the beginning like they have. so they'd have to take another leap with bringing queerness to mike and will.

and they've already kinda done that with confirming will as gay and in love with mike which is wild, but it's what we got. that just leaves mike so then the question becomes, even though we have a lie keeping m*leven together (the painting lie), what if they just like,, sideline will and byler anyway?

but then i read the duffer brothers saying in an interview that will was a main character next season and that they wanted to use his "emotional arc" to tie up the whole show and i was like:

will byers! my boyyy!!! they're putting the spotlight on a character they just confirmed as gay and not only will he be relevant for plot reasons, but they're also gonna heavily focus on his emotional arc?? which for the entirety of the last season was about how much he loved mike and how much it hurt him to push mike towards el?? so they're gonna tie up that emotion? that's the setup with will we get before we get his main character emotional arc in the final season?

they just care way too much about will, who they had planned to be gay and have "sexual identity issues" from the beginning, and pay way too much attention to him for me to think that they're planning on doing him dirty. they chose to focus on his love for mike all of s4 and then to make him a main in s5 (and they've chosen to have the painting lie "pay off"). they didn't have to choose that, but they chose to. all the other queerbaits i've seen never put in the time/effort/care into the sexualities of their characters like they have with will.

anyways, there's a bunch of other small things that i've seen that helped give me even more hope, but this post is getting super long already (sorry about that!). i just wanted to sort of walk through what i went through and it ended up being a lot to explain :')

byler would also be a seriously failing queerbait if it was meant to be a queerbait, ngl. the whole point of queerbaits is to be profitable and dangle smth the audience wants in front of them to do so, but byler is so controversial. if they wanted a good queerbait they could've just gone for steddie or even stonathan (i mean the actors literally kissed for a video before lmao) or at least smth that didn't threaten m*leven which many ppl still see as the "main ship", but they chose byler instead

also, the duffer brothers have said that they've had a large portion of the show planned from the beginning and that they lied to netflix about it appealing to a general audience to get it greenlit. from what they've said, it seems like the intended audience was never the general audience we have today and that was more of a happy(?) accident

Hello old friends!! Been a lot time since I’ve made a byler post.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I have byler doubt yall. I don’t have doubt in us, like I know our analyzing and theorizing and everything is correct and I know that byler makes logical sense. But I have doubt in the writers actually having the balls to do it. Like this is a show that spends a lot of time on their straight romances and love triangles, it’s marketed towards a general audience (most being straight people), and even though their writing sucks, m*leven is at the center of a lot of the marketing. I mean a gay romance plot twist in the last season does sound kinda crazy in hindsight (although I do understand the decision to make it subtle until the last season to ensure the show’s survival). I just don’t know if I can see two presumably straight(?) men willingly pissing off half their audience to make the gays kiss. Don’t get me wrong, I want it to happen. Like a lot. I’ve basically built my whole acc off of it. But idk. I’ve seen destiel and klance and every other queerbait ship and just can’t help but wonder if we’re falling into the same trap.

So anyway. Reply or reblog to help bring my confidence back. Or don’t, idk. Maybe it’ll be better to go in with lower expectations so I don’t have the entire show ruined for me, but believing is so fun yknow?

[cat-b0t]

Thought of a CRAZY taiga x romeo idea....... ... Romeo... Cleaning... Taiga's face....because I know that guy is too lazy to do it himself.... Ggrhrrrr

[prismbearer]

Idk why there's disbelief over Mark S/Helly in terms of motivation. Helly is just as capable of cruelty and selfishness as Helena. They are at the core of it, the same person with different memories/experiences. They can be two perspectives worthy of indulging their own dreams and desires and also be the same person. Narratively here especially, this isn't about morality, it's about human nature.

Helly was never cruel, sure, of course. Helly felt like she was the same as the other people in MDR. But Helly has something right now that she never even achieved as Helena. Someone who loves her. Someone who is choosing her. Helly is Winning over Helena here.

Jame Eagen wanders down just to be a freak and reinforces the reality of it. Helly is "More" than Helena, hasn't been worn down by the weight of experience and the world (and their cult and corporate bullshit). She still has, in some way, the innocence of youth and lack of experience with the world. She doesn't have the same fears and burdens or triggers as Helena in her conscious experience. She still has the ability to express her passions and outrage and defend herself. And to love and not feel sorry for it.

Severance gave Helena a chance to exist without the learned perspectives and burdens of the Eagens and she is able to be free with herself and her passions and desires-- whereas Helena was likely drained of any dreams for potential beyond a strictly guided future decades ago.

Of course Helly is feeling a rush of joy and satisfaction over Mark loving her. Mark choosing her. She tried to do the "right thing" by being logical with Mark. "I'm her." Even outside of Lumon, if they bring it all down, there's no hope for an Eagen and an ex-severed employee in reality. In the Real World they will never be together. Mark couldn't love Helena, how could anyone love an Eagen? (Poor Helly really with like, the enemy is within etc, but that's kinda the situation framed by Lumon for everyone by setting the stage with your Innie isn't human kinda rhetoric.) (This was also reinforced by Helena trying to get close to Mark to see if he still had feelings or chemistry with her and finding out they were not going to work outside Lumon.)

What if the equator is a building that could be a continent? Can be their whole world? They're choosing to live Now. Together in the present despite knowing that with their half lives, they could be brought to an end at any moment. It's very willful young love of them. And why wouldn't it be? This is their First Love. They haven't even been "alive" that long or have any memory of romance beyond their current infatuation. They don't know the world or it's places, and maybe that's okay, maybe they can exist in this space so long as they have love and the others.

It's completely human for Helly to accept Mark choosing her. To run to him just to see him for maybe the last time. It's human for Mark S to run to Helly. It's human for poor Gemma, who doesn't even know her fucking husband is severed, to be pounding on the door.

But this is their Final Day to Mark and Helly. Maybe the very end of their world. It's Judgement Day. Of course they'd have them holding hands and running back to the unknown to face the end together. To die together.

There is also zero fucking chance Mark Scout would risk his life and brain continuing reintegration once his wife is back. Mark Scout is going to choose his wife. Mark is choosing Love on both sides here.

All of it is reasonable.

[xxactlyperfect]

Oh, Betsy, here we go. Just ignoring all these people I mentioned, apart from two. Acting like whatever they've done ain't a big deal. Alright.

I'll first address your rant, before addressing the video:

"it does seem like y’all are turning a blind eye to femicides though - i don’t see a lot of TERFs on here posting about reproductive rights (you know, women bleeding out in Texas parking lots) or domestic violence, unless there’s an angle to make it about trans people" - False. You just don't reply to those posts because they're not about trans people. Oh, the projecting. A bunch of shit on my blog isn't about trans people. But when you're a TERF, of course everyone will fly to you, talking about trans people. Trans/gender ideology is also one of the biggest issues right now. I can multitask.

"That’s the appeal of TERFism - you get to stick all of your problems on one group." - Yeah. Men. Aren't you a self-proclaimed feminist?

"you *define* women’s rights as by nature opposed to the rights of trans people - which is illogical and irrational. there’s a reason that studies of TERFs show that they act in very similar ways to other alt right groups" - Someone decode what the author had in mind when typing this out. And what rights are we speaking of? Are trans people missing their human rights? Spoiler: free plastic surgery is not a human right. And then you go on blabbering about the alt-right, despite radfem ideology being a leftist ideology. Lol. Lmao.

"it also feels good because you are on the same side as the well funded conservative fascists" - In what world? You do realize these "conservative fascists" literally hate women?

"you get that little feeling of power from getting to be on top for a bit - that while you may be oppressed for being a woman, you get to turn around a get that “high” from being shitty to trans women" - Can I apply this logic to TRAs? They get their little high from sending us rape threats and death threats, and harassing us. Something, something, “the most dangerous patriarchal men are those who are oppressed but who want to oppress"?

"you take as axiomatic that trans rights are *inherently* opposed to trans rights - almost starting as a religious point of faith for your little cult" - You reading over these replies before posting them? I'm guessing you wanted to say trans rights are inherently opposed to women's rights. Again, no one deserves a right to free plastic surgery, sorry! Also, look at you stealing our slogan, tsk, tsk. You evil little TERF.

"IRL - i yelled at some anti abortion fuckers this morning - what have *you* done for women’s rights today?" - Didn't starve myself or self harm in a way that would please the patriarchy. Been living naturally as a woman without the need to have surgeries or take cross-sex hormones. No shame in being a woman.

OVER TO THE VIDEO...

You linked a 2,5h long YouTube video from a bloke who also got a video on JKR and couldn't help himself but bash her like... literally 30 seconds in. I'm not even joking. I was sort of expecting you to send me one of those Innuendo Studios videos you love to distribute around. Can't have everything we want, I guess. How ironic that you have the guts to be sending me your crap, when actually we all know that if I sent that to you, your ass wouldn't watch it. Because you love ignoring points. I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and think that maybe you just overlooked them by accident, as I sometimes do, but no, it's a pattern with you.

I'm in the middle of watching, and I'll give you my response once I'm done. Hell, might even watch the entire 3 parts.

You have to be an entirely different kind of hateful to genuinely just hate trans women trying to live their lives. Every human soul on this earth is beautiful and you treating others as subhuman is genuinely horrible of you. I hope you find kindness in your heart.

Try addressing my actual views next time, because you're fighting ghosts.

[sysig]

Transitive grief (Patreon)

Bonus:

The human is practically throwing himself at DAX! Where was this when ZEX was still around!

Voyeur

[loki-zen]

This is intentionally a separate post from the one about how it always fucks up for me.

This is about assessing it at work as a tool to use in work contexts. As you know, I'm not in software. The clinicians I support can often barely use email. When what you are trying to do is assess its readiness to be used in an informative fashion by untrained people, the only reasonable way of doing that involves assessing its output when untrained people are using it!

As an aside, I am in fact testing stuff they intend to charge for, some of which doesn't even have a prompt type interface, as well as some of the more standard stuff. in a lot of these cases it wasn't me prompting it. I have been trying different ways of approaching the stuff that is prompted, but timewise most of this is at work so it's necessarily in a particular subject area.

I have *no* idea where you're getting the notion that any of these failures aren't failures; seems pretty cut and dried to me. Could you elaborate on that? I can certainly elaborate on why they're a problem.

(For example - incorrect/arbitrary use of linking words such as "however" and "therefore" can turn true statements into misleading ones, and is generally harmful to the sort of immediate comprehension that is needed when you are so strapped for time that you're considering having AI summarise things for you.

Only drawing from abstracts is useless because abstracts are already summaries, and when you apply the additional layer of non-specificity that is "summarise ten of these into one paragraph", you wind up so non-specific that you're not saying anything at all. Also, it's not what the company says its tool can do, so it's misleading the user into thinking they've done more than glance over an abstract, when that's in fact the absolute most that this can substitute for.)

Anyway: I am being fucking civil on this thread? I have posts where I am more ranty (because it's Tumblr and I may have used up my Polite for the day at work or whatever) but when I'm tryna have an actual conversation and say what I'm thinking a considered way (instead of like the uncharitable shit that crosses your mind when shit's frustrating, eg) I do not exhibit the kind of complete dismissal of other people's experiences that you're attributing to me here.

(I also think you might be confusing things a little: I don't think you guys are taken in by marketing hype. I think people I know irl, who do not work in software, are often taken in by marketing hype. This isn't because they get better outputs than me - some of what is in this post comes from me evaluating the outputs they got! I think they're taken in by marketing hype because they demonstrably have not felt the need to check!)

This - me posting about my experiences, and engaging with other people who have different ones - is me being curious! I'm not calling people liars, but I am noticing that we seem to be reporting different experiences! It would be interesting to tease out why. Is it the subject matter? Is it that you're an expert user? If so, how should that affect our assessment of the readiness of products, given that we can guarantee that most people won't be? What actually works to get better results and how do you implement that both in and outside of a back-and-forth chatbots type situation?

what i feel like people on here don't get when i wind up in these arguments is that I really am seeking out LLM tools - mostly the ones my coworkers are excited about - and testing them out. And when I actually examine their output in detail* they disappoint every single time. I think I'm actually remarkably charitable about people's claims that they're getting good and useful results given the amount of times this has happened.

* "in detail" meaning that I did one or more of the following:

Genuinely considered what I would have learned from this informative-writing-shaped object if I didn't know anything about the subject (a skill honed as a creator and editor of writing designed to inform the public about complex subjects)

Checked to see if its citations went to real publications, and if so, whether they were used in a way that would lead me to conclude that the writer has actually read the thing they're citing (the best I've ever seen an AI do on this was something I'd generously call a 90% hit rate on literal, is-this-the-right-article and-does-it-contain-that-claim accuracy - however, this was a product advertised as being for summarising research articles, and every single reference it made was to something from the abstract of the article in question!)

Where the LLM task was to describe or summarise a piece of writing, actually opened that piece of writing to compare it to the summary

Checked whether the tone/structure of the output was appropriate to its context - for instance, when asked to summarise a number of specific research papers on a given topic, does it sound like it's instead giving a broad overview of the topic?

Checked whether the grammatical and semantic elements actually pair up. For instance, if it starts a sentence with "however", does the content of that sentence in some way contradict, contrast or recontextualise the contents of the previous sentence? If it says that x or y "highlights" or "further demonstrates" z - does it?

Checked its implications. If it says that "these findings suggest a need to begin incorporating considerations of X into our models of Y, in contrast to traditional Q-based models", is that a reasonable thing to say or have our models of Y actually been largely X-based for fifteen years now?

In many cases, IMO - actually read the output! Like actually read each word and each sentence, attempting to construct meaning from the sequence of characters displayed upon the screen

To me these seem incredibly basic, and yet every single time it turns out that I'm the first one to examine it in this much detail before raving to my colleagues about how great it is. I feel like I'm being gaslit.

[secret--history]

the whole 'there are not very many Great Causes worth fighting for these days' from Julian scanned as WAY more out of touch than the moon landing thing for me the first time i read tsh

[this-user-has-been-erased]

I really wish Nintendo would have had the courage to make Link an actual character in BotW/TotK. And no I don't mean have other characters TELL us about his personality or whatever. Allow him some facial expressions at least. I understand why he was so stoic in the memories in BotW but it would've been nice to have a memory that's just about Link himself. I'm still annoyed that the ONLY reason we know about Link's father being a knight is because Zelda mentioned it briefly in one memory. Not a SINGLE other mention of him.

I believe the reasoning for why Link has no personality in BotW/TotK is because he's supposed to be like a blank slate for the player to project onto, but.. in past games Link isn't a cardboard cutout, yet people project onto him just fine. For instance in WW, no one needs to tell you Link's personality, because it's SHOWN to you. The game does not have to tell you that he cares about saving his sister, because you can SEE it in his actions. Compared to TotK, it feels like Link doesn't really care at all about Zelda, especially after getting the final tear and he just stands there like... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know people like to bring up the in-game dialogue options that show Link's personality, and I agree that at the very least we have that. But a lot of that is skippable, and there are choices that the player (not Link) picks from. You could argue that his personality is different depending on who's playing the game, because ultimately people love to project onto him and pretend like that's his canon personality. Or his entire personality is just "I <3 Zelda."

I just want to know, what does Link HIMSELF think about having lost so many of his memories, his identity, and his friends and family? What does he think about his arm being destroyed and then replaced with Rauru's? What does he think about the MASTER SWORD being shattered???????????? Because you know it's HIS sword, that was literally CREATED to fight Ganon.

Anyway this just annoys me so much, that past LoZ games had fairly simple yet meaningful stories, and actually good, FUN characters, even if they weren't particularly fleshed out. And now apparently open-world games can't have decent stories or good characters. There's maybe a HANDFUL of characters from BotW/TotK that I actually like, and the rest are bland and boring. I really hope the next game does better.

[byanyan]

thinking about... byan making friends with all the pets of the foster families they've stayed with. them at a certain point finding more comfort in those friendships than any relationships they have with the family. ...thinking about at least one home where they were treated about as well as the dog, so when they ran away... they took the dog with them

[threadpull]

Edward can feel the tenseness in Crane's body, hand having never left his shoulder. The scowl, the bite of the jaw, the distant look - it's maybe the least horrifying thing Jonathan has done all night. Even as Edward gets the inkling that there may be consequences for asking, it's familiar. They know what to do when someone tries to fight and hit and scream. But it doesn't turn into that. Instead, it turns into that dejected look (scary) and another request (terrifying).

What could be more frightening than confronting the truth? Few things, for Edward Nygma.

They straighten back up, stand tall, retreat. That hand remains on Jonathan's shoulder. There's a second where it nearly pulls away too, pressure lightening, but Edward thinks twice. Jonathan is grounding. This is something Edward is greedy for. So perhaps they will take and take if it's available?

... Does Jonathan need a hand on the shoulder? For once, they're actually considering what might help him instead. In their selfishness, they just made the older man relive something deeply upsetting. Frankly, they didn't care how inappropriate it was to ask. But maybe they should. That hand stays, rubs a thumb gently. It still might be more for Edward than for Jonathan, but at least they're giving the poor doctor some consideration.

Another thing they think to do, though it's not in their nature: "Apologies, Jonathan." They have to consciously think of this, of looking Crane in the eyes again when saying it. "That's... That's why I asked," they admit. And their lips form a tight line as they think. How much do they say? Again, they've made Jonathan share. A lot. This time, clearly not as easy a thing to do. They're certainly are a taker, that's for sure. "It wasn't like that for me."

Quiet. Consideration. That same way they can't seem to look Jonathan in the eyes when it's too much. "It's just... Different." They won't say harder. That's insulting, even for them. Jonathan clearly has been through a lot. Perhaps it being worse for him is simply that: worse. Maybe Edward shouldn't be thinking ridiculous things about how they wish it were simple, like what Jonathan had.

The next they speak, their voice is so soft: "I hate him for not loving me enough. But he can't love me more if he's dead, Jonathan." That thumb has started rubbing just a bit more firmly. Their gaze finds Crane's eyes, searching for something. What? Validation? They're not really certain. Maybe they just want something to reassure them they're not crazy. Which they aren't. They're of perfectly sound mind, of course. But it would be nice to have confirmation, that's all, isn't it?

The touch brings Jonathan back to the present. It's regrettable, he could spend hours thinking about Keeny's death and be perfectly happen. Her death has been the only thing that made extreme isolation in Arkham bearable the times that he's been thrown in there. He looks to Edward, surprised at how close they got while he's been recounting his great grandmother's death.

"A single fond memory?" A soft repetition with a pinch of confusion.

Has he? Can he think of even a single thing done for him from those days? From Keeny? From anyone? The fear monger frowns and really considers it. There was- hm. Wasn't there? His frown deepens and his jaw clenches, eyes narrowing not at Edward, but something just past them.

"I don't think I even once so much as saw her smile." Inflectionless? No. Flat? Bitter. As happy as he was before melts away into something cold and dark. He wants to lash out, to unclasp his hands and ball his fists and beat the nearest living thing to a bloody, twitching corpse. His hands remain clasped, clenched in a tight grip of each other. He practically snarls, a slip where Scarecrow nearly surfaces, nearly attacks.

Then it's gone in a deep, slow breath. Scarecrow recedes to the darkness. Crane's relaxed pose melts into something deflated, defeated. He focuses back on Edward and tilts his head. "Tell me about why you're so hesitant to kill him." Not accusatory, just quiet.

[businesstycoon27]

we do research for our dating games? That sounds super fun XD

thank you! :D dating games have been rotting my brain since i was a child so i really wanted to make one at some point

the basic idea is mc moving into a haunted apartment and getting to know the ghosts from different time periods.

one of them is a byzantine nun from the 12th century who is really into romance stories. the other is from 18th century france who is involved in a postal service/letter writing/gambling (it's not so clear yet but those are the topics i wanted to explore within that period). the third one is from a hungarian fairy tale, where the character's special talent is throwing peas through keyholes (and gets into beef with the former king matthias corvinus) (this one is just personal vendetta).

it's a bit of a mess but i wanted to see how they would interact/what similarities/differences they have. at first i wanted them to be dateable but i think it's just a story about gals being pals. nothing warms my heart more.

the folder name just stayed bcs of the initial idea sorry is this clickbait? :D

[uncanny-pigeon]

I usually appreciate when genshin makes quality of life updates because they tend to be much needed and long overdue, but I feel like most changes they've made in the past several months have just made the game more annoying 😭

[autumnrory]

i still want sailor moon on dvd but that's clearly impossible without shelling out a ton of money

[tizeline]

TSAU Season 2 Finale - Part 2

Click here to get to Part 1

So Leo and Raph portal to Big Mama's hotel, Raph isn't very enthusiastic about making a deal with Big Mama considering Draxum has always warned them of how dangerous she can be, but it's not like they have a lot of better options. So while Raph is contemplating how to get BM's help without completely screwing themselves over, Leo immedietly jumps in as soon as they meet her and suggests that Raph can fight in the Battle Nexus in exchange for her help! Without consulting Raph about any of this first! Uh oh! So needless to say, Raph starts freaking out a little bit about this, which is made even worse when Leo just decides to reveal that the both of them were made from Lou Jitsu's DNA! UH OH!!

So the reason why Draxum has always tried keeping his sons away from Big Mama is because just them being genetically modified super soldiers already makes it more likely that BM would wanna kidnap them and force them to become gladiators in her Battle Nexus. This possibility doubles triples quadruples if she were to ever find out that they're more or less biologically speaking Lou Jitsu's kids. Not to mention she might wanna take revenge on Draxum for stealing Lou Jitsu from her. All of this is to say, Draxum has always made it very clear to his sons that this is something they need to keep hidden from her. It's a big secret. A big secret that Leo just revealed to Big Mama. The one thing Draxum told them not to do? Yeah Leo just did it. What the fuck.

Listen, Leo's inital offer of having Raph fight in the Nexus wasn't quite enough to get Big Mama to agree to the deal, she needed an extra push, so Leo took a calculated risk and revealed their secret origins. From here on out it plays out basically like in canon, with Raph freaking out the entire time. They both get Lou Jitsu outfits cuz Raph is basically being marketed as "Lou Jitsu Jr". Then when the battle begins Leo also gets yeeted into the arena, it's revealed that he actually planned this entire thing, him and Raph defeat the enemies and Raph is confronted witht he fact that Leo may or may not be a tactical genius???

No one ever really realized just how strategic Leo can be, including Leo! Granted, he can also be very impulsive and reckless at times so it's not entirely their fault no one ever realized Leo's full potential. That being said, he can clearly be real clever with coming up with strategies and plans when he puts his mind to it, he just outsmarted BIG MAMA! No one outsmarts Big Mama! Raph had already started to learn that maybe he should trust Leo a bit more than he usually does when he found out that Leo was right about the whole Dark Armour thing, but this moment right here really cements it for him. But with this little side-quest over and done with, it's time to head back to Donnie, April, Splinter and Shelldon.

So what have they been up to this entire time? Well, again it's rather similar to in canon, they've just been fighting Shredder the entire time lol, April gets to kick ass using a crane! Mikey doesn't get to yeet that big boat this time tough :( since he's not even here. What does still happen is that Donnie almost gets his fucking shell ripped to pieces by Shredder (he's called that for a reason ig). Donnie's battle shell in the AU already isn't really armour and it leaves half of his shell exposed, and he's not even weaing it right now! THANKFULLY he has gotten good enough at using his Ninpō at this point so that he can use that to shield himself, cuz otherwise LEMME TELL YA he'd be fucking DEAD.

Finally they end up that alleyway where Donnie have managed to calculate that Shredder is supposed to appear in. That's when Leo and Raph return with the mystic collar they got from Big Mama, again the rest basically plays out like in canon, Shredder shows up and they manage to get the collar on him and he's finally defeated, yay! Big Mama shows up, sends him to some magic prison dimension and I'm sure this is definitely not gonna become a problem later on, yay again!

With that entire distaster prevented, everyone is now tired as fuck so it's time to go home. With all the drama going on in the Draxum family at the moment, Splinter suggest that Leo and Raph should stay at his and Donnie's home, if only for a few days if they don't feel comfortable going back to Draxum. Leo and Raph decline though since they feel a responsibility to make sure that Draxum and Mikey are doing okay, especially since The Hidden City authorites may or may not come after them now that all their crimes have been exposed. But Leo and Donnie promise to meet up again soon now that they're officially BROS!

Aaaand that's the TSAU season 1 finale! A lot of stuff is gonna go down in season 2, like all the Draxum family drama, Mikey's angsty teen arc, Shredder coming back and causing problems, Mikey maybe getting a cat, Donnie properly bonding with at least some of his brothers, and finding out wherever Casey disappeared to! So yeah, stay tuned for that!

Also bonus doodle vvv