#things that read like shitposts but are actually real

[wolfeyedwitch]

This just in:

I have been officially diagnosed.

As being Full Of Shit.

[poltergeist-punk]

why do i miss a home that is unrecognizable to me now, how did i become a stranger to the place a grew up

[bookwyrminspiration]

me: I wonder why I felt like I needed a break from this fic it seems like it's going great

the fic: *requires me to create seven distinct personalities out of thin air*

me: ...ah

[emily-mooon]

Me coming to the conclusion that my 70s au designs for Stacey, Neil, Kim, and everyone else I’ve drawn so far are not 70s enough, and that they look more like outfits they could have in the canon time period:

[jonnywaistcoat]

What’s your opinion on the contrast between “silly” and “serious” spaces? Do you think people can have very serious interpretations about a genuine piece of media and also be goofy about it? I’m asking this particularly because I’ve seen people in the Magnus podcast fandoms fight about people “misinterpreting” characters you, Alex, and the many other authors have written. Are you okay with the blorbofication or do you really wish the media you’ve written would be “taken seriously” 100% of the time?

And follow up question, what do you think about the whole “it’s up to the reader (or in some cases, listener) to make their own conclusions and interpretations and that does not make them wrong”, versus the “it was written this way because the author intended it this way, and we should respect that” argument?

This is a question I've given a lot of thought over the years, to the point where I don't know how much I can respond without it becoming a literal essay. But I'll try.

My main principle for this stuff boils roughly down to: "The only incorrect way to respond to art is to try and police the responses of others." Art is an intensely subjective, personal thing, and I think a lot of online spaces that engage with media are somewhat antithetical to what is, to me, a key part of it, which is sitting alone with your response to a story, a character, a scene or an image and allowing yourself to explore it's effect on you. To feel your feelings and think about them in relation to the text.

Now, this is not to say that jokes and goofiness about a piece of art aren't fucking great. I love to watch The Thing and drink in the vibes or arctic desolation and paranoia, or think about the picture it paints of masculinity as a sublimely lonely thing where the most terrible threat is that of an imposed, alien intimacy. And that actually makes me laugh even more the jokey shitpost "Do you think the guys in The Thing ever explored each other's bodies? Yeah but watch out". Silly and serious don't have to be in opposition, and I often find the best jokes about a piece of media come from those who have really engaged with it.

And in terms of interpreting characters? Interpreting and responding to fictional characters is one of the key functions of stories. They're not real people, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they do or why they do it. They are artificial constructs and the life they are given is given by you, the reader/listener/viewer, etc. Your interpetation of them can't be wrong, because your interpretation of them is all that there is, they have no existence outside of that.

And obviously your interpretation will be different to other people's, because your brain, your life, your associations - the building blocks from which the voices you hear on a podcast become realised people in your mind - are entirely your own. Thus you cannot say anyone else's is wrong. You can say "That's not how it came across to me" or "I have a very different reading of that character", but that's it. I suppose if someone is fundamentally missing something (like saying "x character would never use violence" when x character strangles a man to death in chapter 4) you could say "I think that's a significant misreading of the text", but that's only to be reserved for if you have the evidence to back it up and are feeling really savage.

I think this is one of the things that saddens me a bit about some aspects of fandom culture - it has a tendency to police or standardise responses or interpretations, turning them from personal experiences to be explored into public takes to be argued over. It also has the occasional moralistic strain, and if there's one thing I wish I could carve in stone on every fan space it's that Your Responses to a Piece of Art Carry No Intrinsic Moral Weight.

As for authorial intention, that's a simpler one: who gives a shit? Even the author doesn't know their own intentions half the time. There is intentionality there, of course, but often it's a chaotic and shifting mix of theme and story and character which rarely sticks in the mind in the exact form it had during writing. If you ask me what my intention was in a scene from five years ago, I'll give you an answer, but it will be my own current interpretation of a half-remembered thing, altered and warped by my own changing relationship to the work and five years of consideration and change within myself. Or I might not remember at all and just have a guess. And I'm a best case scenario because I'm still alive. Thinking about a writers possible or stated intentions is interesting and can often lead to some compelling discussion or examination, but to try and hold it up as any sort of "truth" is, to my mind, deeply misguided.

Authorial statements can provide interesting context to a work, or suggest possible readings, but they have no actual transformative effect on the text. If an author says of a book that they always imagined y character being black, despite it never being mentioned in the text, that's interesting - what happens if we read that character as black? How does it change our responses to the that character actions and position? How does it affect the wider themes and story? It doesn't, however, actually make y character black because in the text itself their race remains nonspecific. The author lost the ability to make that change the moment it was published. It's not solely theirs anymore.

So yeah, that was a fuckin essay. In conclusion, serious and silly are both good, but serious does not mean yelling at other people about "misinterpretations", it means sitting with your personal explorations of a piece of art. All interpretations are valid unless they've legitimately missed a major part of the text (and even then they're still valid interpretations of whatever incomplete or odd version of the text exists inside that person's brain). Authorial intent is interesting to think about but ultimately unknowable, untrustworthy and certainly not a source of truth. Phew.

Oh, and blorbofication is fine, though it does to my mind sometimes pair with a certain shallowness to one's exploration of the work in question.

[mrs-gauche]

So, I *think* I've calmed down enough to form coherent sentences about this trailer now, after watching this about a gazillion times. 😂 There is just SO much in this and I still can't believe it's all real.. I feel like people have already dissected every single frame anyway, so here are just my poor two cents (that's a lie, it's an essay lol), I'm sure 90% of this has probably already been said lol, but I just had to write my thoughts down, so there you go. 🫠

But first, can I just ask you guys this.. Does anyone else feel SO friggin overwhelmed every time something huge like this drops? 😂😭 Like, I LOVE the collective excitement and freaking out over all this with the fandom together in real time, and maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm watching the trailer live and within like fifteen minutes there are already a bazillion notifications, messages, people have already made hundreds of theory posts, edits, fanart and shitposts, meanwhile I'm sitting here still looking at the FIRST FRAME and trying to process what I'm even looking at. lmaoo Like, it takes me SO long to take it fully in, calm down and look at ALL of it in detail, while I go radio silent for like two hours, making people think I just died watching the trailer, I guess. lmaooo So.. sorry if it takes me forever until I even go on here and look at everything you guys are posting. 💀 <3

Anyway, so first of all, I'd like to just generally say... Everything about this blew. me. away.

Look. After like 20 years of watching BioWare's entire animation catalogue of the same 25 movements in every cutscene, that it would make you jump every time a character but even slightly moved differently than everyone else, we're now getting a game that is SO INCREDIBLY CINEMATIC, SO SMOOTH, unlike any BioWare game before. A game where everyone just moves and expresses emotions like their own person, making everything a hundred times more immersive and impactful!!

Not only that but there's a BioWare game now with PHENOMENAL LOOKING HAIR and REALISTIC HAIR PHYSICS. Guys, do you understand this is HISTORY??? lmao We've been asking for this for YEARS and it's happening!! 😭

And the cinematography? THE CINEMATOGRAPHY?? Just looking at that very FIRST LOCATION SHOT alone. The camerawork, the composition, the fluidity of movement, the shift of focus, the lighting, the use of MoCap, the facial expressions... As someone who spent a *LOT* of time using the flycam to make cinematic gifsets of DAI, where - with all respect to the devs - 90% of the camerawork basically consisted of "zoom in/zoom out"... this. blew. my. fucking mind.

Like, they did it. They mastered the Frostbite engine on all fronts. And it truly hurts my heart seeing people compare this to Fortnite or whatever, when in my opinion this time they actually managed to find a perfect mix between stylized and realism, in favor of making the characters even more expressive and this coupled with the use of MoCap and the incredible cinematography will make these emotional scenes hit SO hard and.. ugh, I just love it so much. 🥹❤️❤️

With this being said, let's dive into it!

Okay, so I know this is super random, but it was literally the first thing I noticed about this trailer. lol Did you noticed that it said "BioWare" *before* "Electronic Arts" in the beginning, unlike that first... controversial reveal trailer, where it was the other way around? 😂 Not reading anything into this of course (or do I? lol), but.. Idk, I thought it was.. interesting. 👀

So we start off with the first of many amazing tracking shots, with the camera orbiting around Rook in this place devoid of color or life. The note at the bottom made me chuckle "Game engine footage with some costum camera angles", I was like "Oh, so they used the flycam to make this?". lol So some shots of these will look different in the final version (what kind of spoilers are they hiding?? 👀👀).

I do hope that next shot DOES end up in the game though, because holy SHIT, that FIRST wide shot already blew. me. away.

Look at the COMPOSITION of this.

Actually, you could probably take every single location/wide shot of this trailer and hang it on your wall. lol But seriously, the way this place just looks... dead. It makes me think of "void" rather than Fade.. like an ancient graveyard. The raw Fade looks generally creepy, but this is haunting even for that. There's no life, no color, no motion. It's all broken and crumbled. Almost like it reflects Solas' feelings. People are speculating if this place might change depending on Solas' state of mind.. This is the Fade after all, but Solas is here physically and this being the place that was supposed to be the new prison for the gods.. It's probably different from the rest of it.

We also see all seven statues of the pantheon from the ritual site again. Solas "I have the high ground", *literally* talking down to Rook, while standing on two separate cliffs (how did Rook even get there, I wonder? lol), like there is quite literally a rift between them (for now..!) and Solas is keeping a distance, as always. We still don't know how that connection between the two even works, I assume Rook can only contact him while asleep? But to think that this is the place where he is trapped now, where he is even more isolated than ever before, is making me so emotional. ;-;

I love how it's just black and white though. It gives the scene a destinct atmosphere that might be important, if this is where we get to see Solas doing a lot of introspection. In the art of filmmaking, the absence of color is often used to force the audience to focus on the contrast, textures, and tones present in the image, which can evoke a deep sense of emotion.

And speaking of emotions...

"You have no idea what you have done."

We had already heard that line before, but something about that booming, echoing effect they used on his voice sent a shiver down my spine!

"The blighted elven gods walk free. And all because you disrupted my ritual."

To me, he *sounds* much more frustrated here than he *looks* when saying that. lol He looks incredibly worried though, and just so tired. A moment ago, he was SO close to achieving his goal after hundreds of years of preparation and then he failed again... and now there is this completely clueless stranger who got him in this situation, but who he has to rely on now to stop these gods, when he's unable to trust anyone, and yet he can't even yell at them too much, because he *needs* them. He must be so exhausted.

And yes, it is kinda funny how they put "elven gods" in quotation marks. lol

Thank god he still has his freckles though. ❤️ We're actually seeing a lot more texture on his face here than in the gameplay showcase. And yes, not only did he get his eyebrows microbladed but apparently he's also sporting eyeliner and lipstick now. 😌✨✨ The only downside to the lack of colors here is that his super purple eyes are not poppin' anymore. lol

"You battle against gods. They will not rest until you are on your knees. Fearful. Cowering. Helpless in the face of such power."

I love how they play this line so early on in the trailer, that it makes you go "WAIT... IS THAT- NO WAY" and not until the end do we get the confirmation with the most amazing entrance ever.

We then get a shot of what I think has to be Treviso in flames and Ghilan'nain symbolically coiling her tentacles around a crow statue's head, as she's probably about to take over the city. 👀 *falls on my knees the second I meet her in the game* lol

Then there's the shot of this horrifying Blight.. lump.. growth thing that has completely devoured an elf (and several other bodies it seems) with a hair style that has everyone wondering if this could be Felassan! 🥺🥺🥺 As much as I would LOVE for Felassan to make an appearance.. I kinda hope this *isn't* him.. because good god, whatever happened to this persom here must be pretty traumatizing (are they even still alive?) and also, how do we get them out of there? lol Either way, seeing as there are Harding, Bellara and Neve accompanying Rook here, this might be earlier in the game (and this is them dicovering that the Blight is already spreading rapidly?) and yet it already shows us that this Blight is on a whole other level than anything we've seen before, and it's taking every living thing.

Then we see another snowy place (or might this be within the same area?) that's also in huge parts taken over by the Blight. You can also see a dead(?) dragon lying on the ground at the bottom right corner? 🥺

Then Elgar'nan literally pops up right next to Ghilan'nain, and btw, I love how I can't even tell where her body begins or where it ends in this shot. lmao What ARE you, Ghili?? 💀

It looks to me like maybe she was struck by a bolt/spear from a ballista or something? The Grey Wardens tried to take her out maybe? Looks like the power of Elgar'nan's mere presence blows the Wardens away then lol, like they're just insects to him.. and in the blast we can see a person that looks like Evka?? <3333 (please don't die here though 😭)

Then we're getting a first glimpse of a dragon that shows up multiple times in this trailer. Also, to me, it looks so much like the dragon from the Golden City vinyl cover, which has me like 👀👀👀👀

Next there are a few scenes from the prologue we've already seen in the gameplay showcase, but it's coupled with new lines from Varric, that have me super worried. :(

"Rook, you've got this. I've seen your work. You're clever, adaptable. And you don't know when to quit.

My first reaction to this was "Oh god no, that sounds so much like a "passing the torch" kind of dialogue to me" as in Varric either dies (PLEASE NO but it IS super suspicious how he's not seen or mentioned in any other scene so far) or retires his role as the leader of this group and hands it over to Rook. And he just sounds... weary. 🥺 I wonder what he means by "your work" though? Is he talking about things Rook has done before Varric recruited them? Or is it maybe later down the line, after Rook has already proven themselves to be a great leader? 🤔

Then we get another shot of that one dragon and our first look at Harding with the bruised face (whoever did this, come fight me!) and some poor person tangled in.. something, I'm not sure. lol

Then there's a super quick shot of the floating building in Minrathous, followed by Rook opening a gate Aragorn style, which leads me to believe that this is actually somethere IN that floating building maybe?

But the fact that Rook and everyone else seems to be wearing casual clothes in the following shots, plus the architecture in the background has me wondering if they might be at the Lighthouse actually? 👀

Especially because in the very next shot we see Rook, Bellara, Neve and Harding all in casual clothes again in front of a giant eluvian and I wonder if that's the mirror that we've read about in the Game Informer article. The special eluvian at the Lighthouse that can take you anywhere? :o

Speaking of the Game Informer article, it also told us that Rook, Harding and Neve went back to the ritual site after what happened in the beginning, which is probably what we're seeing here!

"You want allies to go after the elven gods. I've got places to look."

Well, good thing we have a clever detective on the team that apparently knows people who would willingly fight some gods. lol Notice how Harding's face is still injured in this scene. 👀 So I assume whatever happened to her must've happened at the ritual site? Btw, I love how the trailer makes it look like they're all in casual clothes and the second they're stepping through the eluvian, they're in full gear? 😂 (I'm sure those two scenes take place at different times though.) It's crazy how much different the Arlathan Forest looks now, without the cataclysmic storm and all. I love the lighting, the colors and the soft rain! :3

Then we get another gorgeous location shot to hang on the wall. <3 My guess here is definitely Anderfels, given the landscape and those "pillar ring" things we've seen before (I still have no idea what those are, the funniest guess is still griffon training flight path 😂 But something tells me those things will be important.).

"I'll be damned! A griffon!"

Davrin and Assan!! <33333 And the dialogue makes it sound like this might be the first time they meet each other?? 🥹🥹 Followed by a scene of Davrin taking care of business and what might be the return of children in DA?? 😭 Seeing that little girl made me so happy, because that was actually one of the few things on my wishlist for DA4, because I always felt like children make the world feel SO much more real and immersive and besides Kieran, children were completely absent in DAI.

Am I trippin or does it look like this child is smiling here, while running away from a horde of darkspawn?? 😶 Kids in the Anderfels are build different, I guess. lol

"In war, victory."

CHILLS!!

Then we see Assan again, who is pinning down a.. thing I can't identify. lol I'm very curious about all those cages in the background though.. 🤔

We then get one of the shots that made me freak out the most, because it's a flippin *underwater* shot of elven ruins??? 😱😱

We know it's elven because if you look very very closely, you can see a Halla statue in the distance, to the left side. I'm immediately reminded of the stories about Arlathan having sunken to the ocean floor! There's also still all that mention of Ghilan'nain's grey "goop" that smells like the ocean and another shot later on of a dragon (Elgar'nan?) emerging from the ocean! 👀👀👀

And aside from all that, it's just such a sick level design!! 😍 What do these ruins look like if you enter them in the game? How do we get there?? There's an eluvian in the middle of the ocean on the newest map that's included in the Collector's Edition! 👀👀 If that one flippin theory of mine actually turns out to be true and there are somehow two parts of Arlathan, one on the ocean floor and another in the center of the Fade/the Black City, I'll do a triple backflip. lmaoo

Then Lucanis jumps in with some incredibly smooth fighting moves against the Venatori... and PURPLE WINGS!! So we were right with our speculation about the reveal trailer! Why does he have them? Is it some connection to a pride demon that revived him? 😂 I don't know, but it looks SO cool!! And after showing off, we hear his first line "I'm ready" with that sweet sweet accent, which is just the cherry on top!! <333

What the heck is up with the sky in this one?? My first thought was the Lighthouse?? 😍😍 Because if you look closely, there are a few wolf head ornaments on the walls? 👀 And this could be in the Crossroads and just like a real Lighthouse, there's a light on the top..? 🥹

Then there's Bellara using some magical device, that looks super similar to the things that were next to the big eluvian in that other scene!

Which makes me think that this might be where we help Bellara find this artifact in order to get the eluvian at the Lighthouse to work properly (since it doesn't seem to work right without Solas, according to the Game Informer article).

"I've never seen this before. There's something kind of exciting about it!"

Not gonna lie, that line and that weird looking device gave me Peebee flashbacks from Andromeda, which I honestly wasn't the biggest fan of. 😂 But Ghil Dirthalen (member of the community council) responded to me a few weeks back on twitter and confirmed that Bellara is nothing like Peebee at all. lol So that's a relief. 😂 I'm really looking forward to learn more about her and every time I see her magical gauntlet, I'm reminded that we're *definitely* not in Ferelden anymore. lol

Anyway, we then get a few shots of the Deep Roads?? Kal-Sharok??? 👀👀 And of course, there's Harding's big reveal of her new magical powers! The animation on this looks sooo amazing!!

Like many suspect, the Titans' awakening might have something to do with this! I totally agree with what Ghil Dirthalen said on twitter recently and, rather than this being Harding having Solas' petrification powers, it's actually Solas who has the powers of the Titans/stone sense/whatever Sandal did to those ogres back then lol. (I need Sandal to return and be her "teacher" or something 🙏❤️) We know of Solas' orb, which was likely created by obtaining the heart of a Titan. And if the Titans are connected to the Forgotten Ones, Fen'Harel was once considered their ally in Dalish legends. 👀

Also, if you look closely, you can see that the moment her powers are triggered, we see the blue glowy effect all over her body, like glowy lyrium veins almost?

And that in turn could hint at something in connection to her blood? So that big injury we see on her (which is still visible in this scene btw!) was maybe the moment her blood came in contact with something that awakened these powers? (We need Valta back to explain! lol)

"What is happening to me?"

That delivery gave me chills again... She is frightened. Ali Hillis is so good. 🥺🥺🥺

Next up is the Grand Necropolis and people have already pointed out that the ceiling we see at that entrance hall or something looks like a GIANT rip cage?? 💀 (What kind of creature would be THIS big???)

First look of Emmrich in-game!!! And he's wearing a fancy new outfit!! And I paused at the perfect moment to catch Rook already falling in love with him, clearly. lmao

There are two characters next to the gate that could be anybody, really. Myrna from Tevinter Nights or Joanna from the short story "The Flame Eternal"? The guy on the right is actually giving me Executor vibes?? 👀👀👀

Then there's Giant Skeleton Monster (Manfred's mom?), and don't even ask me what this could possibly be. 😂 I just hope we don't have to fight THAT (we totally will 💀). I got flashbacks of the Human Reaper endboss in ME2. 😭😭

"Let the Fade draw close!"

There's something kinda... posh about the way he says this? 😂 Like, he's not really intimidated by Giant Skeleton Monster and it's just another Tuesday in the Grand Necropolis and Professor Volkarin is just doing his every day job. lol

Then there are two shots of what I think is somewhere in the Anderfels but snowy again, like that area in the beginning where Elgar'nan and Ghili showed up? And a destroyed watchtower that is occupied by the Wardens. Then we get a *third* and final shot of this beauty again.

"Draw the dragon out into the open. Then attack."

I assume that's Taash?? Sadly, that shot of her drawing her weapon is all we got from her in this trailer, but she looks awesome!! <333 We're gonna be Lord of Fortune buddies, even though we might disagree on the matter of dragon hunting lol (look, I don't want to *fight* dragons, I want to be *friends* with them 🫠😂❤️ I want to see them live their best lifes.. for the most part (I get to the Elgar'nan dragon and the blighted "twin dragons" in a second lol))

We see the docks of Minrathous for a split second and then a first glimpse at a romance scene between Rook and Neve? 👀 At the Lighthouse maybe?

"You and me Rook. Maybe that's what scares me."

What does she mean by that exactly? Does Neve have commitment issues? lol Or is this more like a "We're a dangerous match, Rook. We'll be too powerful of a couple. Like Bonnie and Clyde." kinda statement? 😂

And THEN... Well, then we get probably THE most badass looking introduction/entrance of any character in DA yet. lol And YES, I freaked out SO hard.

SHE'S BACK. Returning like the QUEEN that she is. 🙏 And of course, she has to come down a flight of "stairs" again. lol (And no, Claudia Black did not lie, she just wasn't contacted at the time. 😁) Gosh, that transformation is so SMOOTH. I could watch that forever, it's so darn beautiful. 😍 Again, the way this is done, cinematically.. just *chef's kiss*.

In retrospect, it seems almost like a given that she would be back because.. well, everything about the way DAI ended. lol Flemeth wanted her to inherit her "godhood", and she looks more than ever like her mother now. Remember the designer notes on that last scene in DAI.

Flemeth intends to let Solas have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.

So, what exactly is she now? Did she receive whatever Flemeth sent through the eluvian at the end of DAI? Does she carry Mythal now?? If so, does Solas know (I NEED a conversation between those two technically "half-siblings", because Flemeth/Mythal is both their "Mother"? 😂)?? Remember when I said that this one dragon that appears multiple times here reminds me a lot of the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Golden City, which is very likely Mythal? So my very first thought was that the dragon is actually Morrigan?? lol Just throwing that out there.

It seems to me that she is with the Dalish/Veil Jumpers in the Arlathan Forest now? (Btw, if you look closely, you can see elven mosaics in COLOR in the background? :O)

"These are the times in which legends are born or slain."

That line goes so HARD aHhhh. Also, speaking of slain, that new outfit is slaying too. <33 Her return also means that the Well decision and potential consequences are back on the table, which will definitely keep me up at night again. 💀

That moment right there. She is everthing. ❤️❤️❤️ I wonder if we're gonna see Kieran again?? 🥺🥺

We then get the most impressive tracking shot and choreography of what I think is Teia and Viago fighting some Venatori?? <333333 Like, seriously, the way the camera is following his movements in this shot without a single cut, makes me think of something like flippin Games of Thrones' Battle of the Bastards. 😱 And those hair physics on Teia as she's swinging around?? Absolutely amazing.

Followed by Lucanis and.. is that Zara Renata (the character with the best name ever lol)?? Fighting over an ominous glowing staff. lol We know these two still had unfinished business with each other after the Wigmaker Job in TN.

Then we get our first in-game look of my man MANFRED (🎉🎉🎉🎉), proving yet again to be the most fashionable character in the whole game, using his pelvis effectively. lol I love him so much.

Then there's another terrifying shot of Giant Skeleton Monster, which almost looks like it's in command over the crowd of people here, like they're possessed or something? Uhg.. As if this thing wasn't scary enough. 💀

"Our gods are back. Our gods! How do we stand up against that?"

Again, CHILLLLS!! Chills all over. It's gonna be so interesting to hear what the Dalish, Bellara or Davrin think about all these revelations!

Then we see the Wardens again, confronting one of the super duper blighted "twin dragons" we see at the end (more on that later).

We see Neve using a barrier or something against a guy who wears the same armor as her, so maybe the Shadow Dragons are corrupted, too?

Then we see Rook dramatically tossing a sword on a table at Weisshaupt? And holy moly, Davrin in that new armor here looks FINE. 😍

Back in Treviso, we see a cool finishing move from Rook, obliterating a poor Venatori guy. That bow on Rook's back though (I need it)! :O

"I believe in all of us. So let's get it done."

That little pep talk from Rook certainly worked for me. lol Like, whatever it is we're doing here, I'm so pumped, let's gooooo!

Then we get literally a millisecond of a frame, where you can see Ghili lying on the floor.. with the lyrium dagger stuck IN HER CHEST??

EXCUSE ME?? They wouldn't just spoil her death like that, right?? lmao Also, that adds another billion questions about this damn flippin dagger and at this point the list of questions is getting so long that I've completely given up speculating. 😂💀 We see how Rook tries to retrieve(?) the dagger but the power it emanates pushes them back?? What the heeellll.

And then I died. No, really. lmaoo

What can I say.

I cried. I screamed. My soul left my body. It happened. We FINALLY saw him. The Dreaded Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone, Roamer of the Beyond, God of Rebellion. The one everyone's been talking about since flippin 2009. And by GOD, he lives up to his NAME.

He's dreadful, he's horrifying. He's a monster, a nightmare. He's perfect. And just like Solas, he's just a Little Guy and bald. 😭😭😭

...At least in comparison to this dragon!! Look at that friggin SIZE DIFFERENCE. Someone measured the size by comparing them to Rook, who we see for a split second before Fenny leaps in. So, make no mistake, Fen'Harel IS the size of a high dragon, like he was described in Tevinter Nights... It's just that this blighted dragon is HUMONGOUS. lol That dragon, let's call him Elgar'nan, because we all KNOW, right?? Who else could it POSSIBLY be?? He's got the horns, he's the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Blighted Black City, he's ENORMOUS!! I've been saying this forever. Fen'Harel vs Elgar'nan, Battle of Gods was all I ever wished to see and FUCK, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WISH CAME TRUE. 😭😭😭

And look WHERE they are fighting!! It's Minrathous, you can clearly see the floating building in the background!! Which means the Dread Wolf is OUT. He's no longer trapped, or in the Fade. Remember Sandal's prophecy "When he rises, everyone will see". And he HAS RISEN. lmao And look at the lighting!! It's the same dim, gloomy RED we've seen at the end of the reveal trailer with the eclipse. "AN ECLIPSE AS FEN'HAREL STIRRED". IT'S HAPPENING. Remember the 2020 teaser MURAL.

Is this the Black City or is it the floating building?? Either way, it's BLIGHTED. In the trailer, Minrathous has clearly been completely taken over by the Blight. "All the world will soon share the peace and comfort of my reign", that's what Elgar'nan said at the end of the 2023 teaser, and what better way to take over the world than to start with the biggest capital in Thedas, a nation which built their own empire over the ruins of Elvhenan, ruled by the most powerful mages!

And I am SO scared. You can see Elgar'nan snapping Fenny. The dragon is blighted, and maybe so is Fen'Harel. He's also clearly been through so much. "The Wolf chews his leg off to escape the trap.", is what Cole said in Trespasser. I don't think he always looked like that. In the murals and the 2022 cinematic, he has a lot more fur. And I can't help but think about the devs saying that Solas wasn't always bald either. lmao How are they connected.. are they one and the same.. are they bound to each other.. we still don't know. But I'm SO. F*CKING EXCITED. TO FIND OUT.

Those few seconds of this scene were breathtaking and whoever made this trailer knew exactly what they were doing, because the editing is so perfect as Fen'Harel charges at Elgar'nan in slow-motion and the music cuts out completely while that beautiful wolf howl can be heard and you can almost HEAR everyone's jaw dropping on the floor. lmao THAT's. how. you. do it. *standing ovation* *sobbing*

Okay. Breathe. Moving on. We gotta get to the end. lol

The very next shot is SO funny to me, because we literally just got to see Elgar'nan, the biggest flippin dragon we've ever seen in DA and it's followed by a shot in which Elgar'nan looks SO tiny next to Ghilan'nain. lmaooo

His ego doesn't allow to appear small though, I guess, so he f*cking levitates to top her in height. lmao These two ancient clowns are already killing me.

What's interesting though is that this is the exact same angle from which we left off in the gameplay showcase. And Solas is nowhere to be seen, so... did he literally just "poof" away right there into that Fade prison?? lmao

We get a quick montage of all the lovely monsters we will face. Like I mentioned, there's the Elgar'nan dragon taking a swim in the ocean, I guess? (I hope he drowns. lol) And a shot of what I think is Irelin (from TN and The Missing) doing.. something with some magical device. Someone fighting a magical "automaton" in the Arlathan Forest. lol Harding doing her THING again, acting like Toph from Avatar, literally bending the flippin earth, like a true Child of the Stone!!

And right before the end, there's one of my personal favorite shots, Rook basically bitch slapping a Pride demon into full K.O.?? lmao

The trailer ends with a final beautiful shot of Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. lol No, seriously. A SUPER blighted pair of angry dragons, seemingly at the same snowy place that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain popped up earlier in the trailer. 👀👀👀

So, they might have something to do with this? There was a dead dragon lying on the ground in an earlier shot, so maybe the elven gods revived them? If I see Blue and Red, I'm of course immediately reminded of lyrium.. whatever that means. Or, given that they seem to be attacking Grey Wardens in this place... maybe we are looking at an altered form of Archdemons?? Or something similar to Corypheus' dragon? 👀 There is an interesting theory floating around that Ghilan'nain might look like *that* because she somehow merged with her lover Andruil. As I mentioned in the beginning, Ghilan'nain seemed to have been struck by a spear or something.. and in this shot, you can see that the red dragon is pulling a spear out of its body! Sooo... maybe that actually IS her?? And she somehow transformed into two different blighted dragons, representing herself and Andruil??? The tinfoil hat is strong with this one. lol

ANYWAY. The release date is revealed to be 31st of October, making this the best Halloween of all time!! Not only is it perfect because of its origin, Samhain, the thinning of the Veil between the living and spirits.. But also because we all get a chance to dress up as Manfred, walk into the store, buy the game and then go Trick or Treat (but mostly trick) in the name of Fen'Harel, the Trickster God. 😂😂💜💜💜

And that's it!! Now we only have to wait two months before we can all lose our collective shi— NO WAIT, OF COURSE WE'RE NOT DONE YET.

WHAT THE HELL

IS THIS

EXCUSE ME, how do you throw this in there in the background at the very last second, HELLO??? A rocky object, split in half. HUH, WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THAT BEFORE.

Oh, you sneaky sneaky people. The mural depicting a Titan's death.... Remember the description of this place in DAI's files.

"A final eluvian is situated in a beautiful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen'Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing. This place was the breaking point for him that turned him against the gods."

Whatever this is... I think it might be the very reason why all of this is even happening. The Evanuris mined the Titans' blood and "something else" before they collapsed and sealed the Deep Roads with stone and magic.

"Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast."

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

I'll leave it at that. I'm so so so flippin excited. I want to thank all the devs involved, I'm so full of joy and can't wait to finally return back to Thedas in October. 🥹🥹🥹 (And if anyone wants to get me that "Rook's coffer" collectibles thing for my birthday two days after release, my address is— naah just kidding!! ..or AM I?? 👀😂😂)!! 💜💜💜💜💜

[lesinquietes]

But can you imagine being on discussion boards talking shit about the League of Villains after the whole Overhaul situation like “lol still got fucked by all might at kamino tho” and that being the ONE comment Shigaraki reads that sets him over the edge???

Inspired fic

⚠️ mdni. death (minor), degradation, kidnapping, mind break, noncon, oral, stalking, yandere.

Like, my man just fucking loses it, totally seething at the notion that there are still people out there who don’t take him seriously. So he doxes you and finds out where you live. If you don’t reside by yourself, god help your partner, roommate(s), or family members. Your pets, too. They’re all dust. He waits for you to get home like a parent catching their kid in the act of sneaking out.

And of course, you never thought your shitposting would result in this — the leader of the League of Villains showing up and committing personal crimes against you. You’re flabbergasted when you return to your residence and find him there, amidst the carnage he’s left. It destroys your mind. You’ll never be the same again. You’re wracking your memories, trying to recall if you ever had an encounter with Shigaraki. It’s only when he cackles hoarsely and grins beneath that big, ugly hand that you make the connection.

“Still don’t think I’m the real deal, sweetheart?”

He takes a daunting step towards you. You’re paralyzed with fear. He wants to teach you a lesson. He thinks he’ll remove a finger; maybe a limb. He’ll keep you alive so you can remember what he did to you.

But as he gets closer to you… he realizes you’re actually pretty cute. No, that’s not the right word; you’re fucking hot. You look like one of his favourite porn stars. It’s your face, it’s your body — he didn’t think you’d be this attractive in person. In fact, perhaps he’s been approaching this the wrong way.

You finch when he grasps your chin. He purposefully keeps one pinky dangling not too far from your cheek. If he wants to, he can kill you. The way your lower lip trembles oh so adorably tells him that you know how vulnerable you are. You have no clue he’s decided there’s a higher purpose for you. His crimson eyes narrow with cruel glee.

“I wonder how the world would feel if I took an innocent civilian as a pet?”

It’s the perfect plan. He has a pretty face to come home to. He has a warm hole to fuck whenever he wants. He corrupts you for society to see. You’ll be humiliated to the point of losing yourself, descending into madness as a martyr for all who doubted him. Yes, he thinks keeping you is a way better idea than dusting you.

The heights he goes to ensure you know your place are higher than you ever thought they’d be. He forces you to worship him. He makes you kiss and suck on his fingers — the very things that could end your life in a breath. On various occasions, he coaxes you into sucking him off on camera, so he can make a montage for when he reveals your broken mind to the world. It’s sick; he doesn’t debate that. He wants to put you through the worst. Not only does he get off on degrading pretty sluts like you, but he can wear you down this way.

Braindead and willing is how he wants you.

Braindead and willing is how he’ll have you.

[joltai-showa]

still thinking about Obito's tendencies to hang upside down so why not talk about something even more funny

now Obito is obviously trolling the Konoha squad in that moment, acting like a complete idiot and weirdo and all, usual stuff for Tobi. Obito is being a weird little bat on purpose, it's all an act

you know who among Akatsuki, a very scary and a totally serious organization, also acted like a weird little bat, but without it all being an act?

allow me to introduce you to the final page of chapter 238

Kishimoto, why is Deidara's first appearance is him being upside down during Akatsuki's zoom meeting?

(which is supposedly the first one in 7 years since Orochimaru ditched them, but whatever, no fucking way these guys can remain semi-organized without a good old online meetup, I do not care for canon's opinion when it conflicts with my funny headcanons)

But seriously, it's been almost 10 years since I read the manga for the first time and there's still no explanation as to why Deidara did that LMAO. Logic dictates that it's simply Kishimoto not finishing up the designs for his new villains (rinnegan's design wasn't finalized until, like, Akatsuki Supression arc, I believe? there's someone TOWERING over Kisame who is 195cm already and at the end of the day remains Akatsuki's tallest member, etc etc), but I've got a PhD in overthinking Naruto details and turning them into shitposts that sometimes also turn into fanfiction, so I will take this one tiny detail and make myself laugh until I cry.

To me this moment is just so precious because it's actually a scene from OG Naruto, meaning that it's pre-timeskip, so Deidara here is only 16. And this just proves to me that Deidara's puberty (there is no exact indicator as to when Deidara was abducted recruited into Akatsuki, but I assume it happened sometime when he was 12, because during his recruitment we see Itachi (and we know that he joined Akatsuki after the massacre, so he was 13 and he's got a 2 year difference with Deidara), Kisame (who, judging by his pre-death flashbacks, joined AFTER Itachi, meaning some time had to have passed since the massacre) and Sasori (who wouldn't have a partner after Itachi joined because Orochimaru just couldn't resist trying to get that Sharingussy, but Akatsuki don't operate on their own in general, so I doubt Sasori would have been left without a partner for a long time, a year max) and during this zoom meeting 16-year-old Deidara speaks like he's very much aligned with Akatsuki's goals and grudges which would be very weird if he joined them against his will just recently, so a year or more would have to pass between Deidara's recruitment and the OG Naruto zoom meeting) was arguably one of the worst things that organization as a whole had to go through because teenage Deidara was JUST BUILT DIFFERENT.

Don't mind the fact that even as an adult he starts tweaking if he doesn't get to explode something every few hours (I would imagine that teenage rage and angst would only exacerbate this issue), but he would also just want to "look cool" and wouldn't listen to anyone in any position of authority AT ALL. Going back to this scene of Akatsuki's zoom call, we can see (and for certain characters assume because once again designs here are kind of wack) that these overly serious members like Pain, Konan, Kakuzu and Sasori are PRESENT and just... don't do anything about Deidara's antics? They just gave up at some point LMAO. And a while ago, I presume.

16-year-old Deidara, proud and puffed up as a lion: You can stay on the ground as boring old men you are, but I'm going to hang upside down today, hm!

Pain, the acting leader of this very serious and lethal organization that for some reason took in a 13-year-old and a 12-year-old because, I dunno, the real leader thought it would be funny, sighing: okay, Deidara...

I also don't believe that it was ever specified how Nagato's zoom jutsu works, but I think Akatsuki's members simply sit in whatever position they want and their projection is different from their actual position which means that. yeah. Deidara does a bat cosplay. because he wants to. baby why are you like that.

but I also like to imagine Deidara actually hanging on the ceiling during the meetup and the gang just going

Pain: Sasori, can't you grab a mop or something and swat him off of there?

Sasori, in the most dead inside voice imaginable: you are not paying me enough to do that. in fact, you would not last a minute in the asylum I'm living in. you can't give me 40 minutes of peace, can you?

honestly props to Onoki for finding a way to both continue using Deidara's skills for his goals (by just fucking paying Akatsuki and calling it a day) and keep the village intact, teenage Deidara just seems like the trial version of what Akatsuki members could expect on their missions. like, if you can't manage the stress of dealing with the (pony)tailed beast, you have no business trying to fight an actual tailed beast.

I'm also thinking that adult Deidara aka Shippuden Deidara would think himself really cringe for doing this shit when he was younger and feels kind of embarrassed in front of the other members (who unfortunately besides Hidan were there to witness his cringe bat phase of growing up in your local terrorist daycare organization), so he's pretty quiet during the zoom meetings when we get properly introduced to him.

That's, of course, until Deidara gets partnered with Tobi.

I can imagine the two of them competing who can last longer hanging upside down and now Pain really can't do anything to stop this bullshit because it's his actual boss and his clueless partner making their own bat nest during their zoom meeting. He just tiredly glances over at Konan who gives him a "I told you Yahiko was right and we shouldn't have joined forces with this guy, but when do you ever listen to me" look.

The gang would be discussing something like Kakuzu and Hidan brutally murdering Asuma (who's Obito's classmate btw and whose mother he already killed a while ago) and trying to steal his corpse to sell for some cash and in the background above them Tobi'll be yelling something like "senpai, watch what I can do" and start turning cartwheels on the ceiling.

tl;dr Obito and Deidara match each other's freak when it comes to doing weird shit for no apparent reason other than to fuck with everyone while on the job. thanks for coming to my TobiTalk

[thecoolerliauditore]

Pls tell me about Scott's views on women in general pls I'm begging you

o7 and I'm sorry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

fyi, the post itself isn't NSFW, but I'll be getting all gender theory in this bitch so I'll be referencing a lot of things and putting in pictures of naked ppl sometimes. maybe skip this one if you don't like that

(long post)

Disclaimers

An explanation for the tweet up there

I usually don't write these because I assume the people on my blog have enough sense to realise when I'm talking about the characters vs the CCs or are comfortable enough being a little confused, but I feel the need to extra-clarify here and expand on how I specifically view C vs CC because I think it differs a little from the average person.

To me, C and CC are two separate entities but not entirely disconnected. What differs (e.g. the exclusion of irl relationships -- their wives, kids, etc.) is poignant enough to severely detach them from the people they originated from, at least in my eyes, but there's also the fact that these are not scripted characters, just creators being themselves with a hint of behind the scenes drama-adding and improv thrown in.

For example, CC Pearl is a car nerd. So I assume her character is too.

This is where I state very clearly that yes, a lot of these thoughts come from things I've seen on Scott's twitter, which is undoubtedly the CC and not the C. However I, to me, am still talking about the C because any observations/judgments I could make on actual irl youtuber CC guy Scott Major would be tabloid at best and slightly invasive at worst. I'm seeing these statements within the context of "the death game guy would say this too and I'm writing this based on that", not "this is the inner psychological workings of the youtuber because I, as a fan, can totally tell".

TLDR I don't consider this post RPF but you might. This is a little more RPF-y than my usual stuff. If you don't rock with it we cool.

Everyone is weird about women, and that's okay

One short-hand I've used in the past to talk about Scott and women is just by saying that he's "weird about women" which I'm sure isn't exclusive to him.

(shitpost I made awhile back)

I see a lot of people now who love "villains" and "evil" but when it comes to any traits resembling real life evil (e.g. misogyny in this case) they suddenly become insecure. Just a couple of days back a saw a post on twitter essentially asking for permission to continue liking CC Scott in spite of the "bad things" he did.

And I think, in order to present an analysis like this, I must address that mindset first.

This is not a judgment on Scott's morality, nor is it trying to dissuade you from liking him. This is not saying that he is any more misogynistic than any other player in the series. This is just me pointing out Scott's attitude towards women and what I read it as, nothing less or more.

The feelings that me pointing these things out - be they apathy, disgust, anger or, what I would hope to see most, interest - are your own. I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel and never will try to police that on my blog.

Scott's Relationships with Women

aka. oh yeah this is about minecraft.

Scott and Cleo || "Yeah, you can kill me."

Scott and Cleo's alliance is arguably the strongest in the entire series, spanning through all five seasons and remaining unbroken with no (serious) drama attached. You'd expect from this that they two have a very settled and stable understanding of eachother, yet this isn't a case.

Their power dynamic shifts dramatically from one season to the next.

3L's initial Widows Alliance began on fairly equal footing, built on the mutual agreement that they were waiting for their respective partners to die. Both understood they were eachothers' "plan B" and felt comfortable in that arrangement.

Come LL, Cleo does what she couldn't in 3L, and initiates that plan, going to Scott after her last alliance, the fairy fort, fell apart. Scott requests nothing from her in return.

DL is the longest the two spent as eachothers main ally. Cleo is the one who initially proposes teaming up to spite their "cheating" soulmates and Scott agrees. Cleo admits to Martyn in private that she's aware she's taking advantage of Scott (which I've always interpreted as her talking about all seasons, not just DL). Due to the time they spend together, it's here where it becomes apparent that their initial assumptions during 3L were not entirely accurate, as Scott shows a level of gameplay competency much higher than Cleo's (e.g. teaching her how to axe-crit) but despite this Scott never berates her or thinks any less of her value as his ally.

LimL is probably this pairing at their most unhinged, as Scott, despite once again asking for nothing (or very little -- I'll be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on this) in return from Cleo, allows them and their allies to butcher him repeatedly for time. He gives more time to the Clockers than he does to Martyn, his closest ally that season. Despite this, Scott is never ever considered as a "family member" by the Clockers, despite them giving that title to even temporary allies (like the Bad Boys being their cousins) -- even Martyn gets a title with Scott completely unattached.

SL is relatively more chill, but shows that the two inevitably end up teaming together even despite their oath to avoid eachother that season.

The point being -- again and again, we see Scott literally and metaphorically making sacrifices for Cleo, with the only real transaction he requires from her being that she continues having his back when times get rough. This is despite that he's aware she isn't any more capable than he is and the fact that so far it has only been Cleo in rough times (LL, LimL and SL) and never Scott.

Speaking from a purely transactional perspective, Scott is not getting a bargain here -- and even Cleo seems acutely aware of it, judging by her comment during DL as well as the way she tends to speak of her survival capabilities very lowly in general ("rubbish pvp skills and spiffy one-liners"). I'm speaking in this sense because I've seen discussions in the past about the transactional way Scott views relationships but rarely does Cleo get brought up.

This is at stark contrast to how he treats Jimmy, whose predicted death was what spurred on Scott and Cleo's alliance in the first place.

Scott assumes Jimmy is "incompetent", where he assumes Cleo is capable. When Jimmy messes up, he reprimands him, when Cleo struggles to crit him, he patiently teaches her. When LL begins, Scott's first instinct was to look at Jimmy's lives and note that he was "useless to (him)", but holds no objections to Cleo joining his alliance despite her already having enemies being a potential liability. In SL, he jokes about how Cleo and him being allied is a given and pretty much expected of them, whereas in LimL he explicitly requests from Jimmy a recognition that he still cares ("say love you back!") before he will help him.

Scott and Gem || "You HAVE TO kill me, Gem,"

In SL, Gem settles in very easily in a leadership position within Gem and the Scotts due to her trying to live up to her reputation but also due to Scott and Impulse's more laid back, passive playstyles.

Both Scott and Impulse let Gem kill them for extra health this season, although Scott is arguably much more subservient than Impulse is, with him not only insisting that she kill him in the final episode but also not fighting back (and only yelling for her to stop) when she starts hitting him with a sword during the episode where her task was to literally kill everyone on the server.

Once again comparing her to Jimmy, Scott in 3L had a tendency to brush aside Jimmy's concerns over alliances (e.g. Jimmy questioning if they could trust Cleo) while in SL Scott runs his plans by Gem (and Pearl and Impulse) in terms of who he wanted to team up with (specifically excluding Joel from the potential mounders alliance) implying he held her opinion in some form of regard.

Before this becomes less of an analysis of Scott's treatment of men vs women and more of Scott's treatment of Jimmy vs everyone else, I think it's notable enough to mention that he and Martyn also lacked this sort of communication in LimL. He would inform Martyn of his plans, but rarely was it ever framed as a request.

SL almost feels as if Scott has slid Gem into the slot he had previously designated for Cleo in 3L (his girlboss ally) as he provides her and pretty much forces onto her by the end the acts of service he'd become accustomed to performing for Cleo.

Scott and Lizzie || "You killed her! I don't.. I don't know what to even say!"

Relatively shorter section because this is the one woman he hasn't teamed with, but there's still some interesting stuff I wanted to touch on.

In LL, one of the first thing Scott does is yell at Pearl to revenge-kill Joel for boogey-killing him. Pearl does as she's told and Joel's wet miserable pathetic LL life gets worse from there.

Several episodes later, the roles are reversed -- Lizzie lies to both of them and manages to isolate and boogey-kill Pearl. Scott, instead of reacting with the anger he had for Joel, is almost in a state of shock as he asks Lizzie to let him down so he could collect Pearl's belongings. He doesn't act aggressively towards Lizzie at all, with his most antagonizing act against her being to lie about his intentions when giving her a wither skull.

In SL, he's the only one aware of her early permadeath, but keeps quiet about it almost as if he's in a state of shock akin to when he saw Lizzie kill Pearl in LL. It's not until the others have noticed when he finally brings it up.

Scott and Pearl || "Tilly death do us 'part"

I wrote a whole post just for their relationship alone so for the sake of my sanity I'll be leaving this here.

So now I get to dedicate this section to the meat of this post -- how the way Scott treats women in general impacts his relationship with Pearl and how I view his heel-turn on her as seeping with relevance to Pearl's perceived gender.

In all three of the previous sections, the running theme is that Scott is 1. kinder and more patient with women, regardless of their competency and 2. someone who likes to be in a supporting role to women, occasionally aiding them more than he aids himself and his closer male allies (e.g. Jimmy and Martyn). As shown with Cleo, he assumes that girls have it together, but even if they don't it's not a big deal. When a girl's actions are truly disastrous, such as with Lizzie's, he goes into a state of shock and doesn't really react, preferring to swallow it down and not acknowledge it.

With the amount of times he sacrifices himself, I don't think it's a reach to say that Scott values his own life less than he values the lives of his (female) allies. This specific point actually does extend to his male allies too, shown when he's happy when Martyn literally backstabs him in LimL, but just as with the Martyn post where I point out his victim status-ing doesn't end at only women but includes all the women, Scott has pedastal-ed all the women he's teamed with.

Lizzie is, once again, the exception here due to his limited interactions with her. However that's actually somewhat patched over if you look at adjacent series (such as x-life) where he definitely shows her a level of admiration and respect.

Back to Scott and Pearl.

Their relationship during LL is very standard of how Scott treats women. While the power dynamic between them is obviously more caused by the initial life trade agreement, I don't think it's a far reach to say that Scott is somewhat comfortable in the arrangement.

However, this is also the first thing that sets their relationship apart from Scott with Cleo or Gem -- Pearl is the one making sacrifices, not Scott. She is the one "sacrificing" her lives to him, just in a more non-violent way as allowed by the season's mechanics.

When viewed through this lens, Scott trying to make it up to her and wanting his effort acknowledged makes even more sense. This is suddenly uncharted waters for him. His assuming that Pearl doesn't value him as a person goes hand in hand with him valuing himself less than her.

What Scott has with Cleo or Gem, situations where the other party is clearly uncomfortable with how he treats himself (Gem) or actively aware they are taking advantage of him (Cleo), is equalized to him because he is inherently worth less. What he has with Pearl, on the other hand, looks more equal to most people (lives vs labour) but is wildly imbalanced to him.

It's one of the many factors I see going into Scott's weird decision to abandon her in DL.

An Interlude, Before We Get to DL

La Pieta, Michelangelo

So this has been a lot of words so far and some of you might be wondering at this point: why say Scott is "weird" about women when so far this has been describing how he values women more, is kinder to them, is more patient with them, etc.? How is any of this behaviour remotely misogynistic?

And I would feel horrible if I forced you to read through all of my DL thoughts before I clarified this -- Scott is not your classic wifebeater "women are lesser" misogynist, Scott is someone who subscribes to misogynistic schools of thought and probably considers himself an ally to women, when in reality his beliefs are still rooted in dehumanizing them and these beliefs end up harming the women around him as well as himself.

After all, seeing women are your superiors is still not seeing them as your equals.

I know it's a bit of a meme on this blog at this point. But. Sigmund Freud identified what we know refer to as the "madonna/whore complex", which he described as a pattern of behaviour in men who separated women into being madonnas (pure, holy and admirable) and whores (debased, sexual, deviant). We'll be focusing on the former, the madonna, as it is more relevant to Scott's character.

Freud proposed that the madonna figure was something men projected onto women as a replacement for maternal love. These women are sacred and untouchable, literally as the projection of the maternal role onto them also makes it so that the sufferer cannot feel any sexual attraction towards her (keep this in mind for later).

Scott projects the madonna figure onto his female compatriots -- they are to be protected, served and supported. They are goddesses, queens, but they are never human. The madonna role in of itself is not inherently harmful to the woman, as seen with Cleo who takes control and advantage of it. However, it is enforced, as seen with Gem who at first revels in the superiority but almost breaks down when Scott offers him up as her sacrificial lamb one last time.

I linked this Utena AMV awhile back when vaguely talking about Scott and women, and this was the point I was alluding to.

Girls are beautiful and pure. They don't spit on the street, they don't piss on the street, they don't build hierarchies -- they subvert all the expectations of masculinity that I hate having to deal with. They are my escape.

But what about the girls who do spit on the street? The girls who piss on seats? Who build social hierarchies, who size up their competition?

The girls Scott interacts with are all painfully human. Cleo weaponizes his beliefs and take advantage of him. Scott is smart enough to know and accept this. Gem's playing into a role she has been assigned into by not only Scott but everyone around her. Scott supports the character she plays. Lizzie reflects traits he hates in Joel and Jimmy, but for her, he looks the other way.

Are they "demons", as the song says, or are they no longer girls at all?

(demons, gods, but never humans)

Weaponized Femininity and Women In Total Control of Themselves ;)

Hylas and the Nymphs, John William Waterhouse

Historically, weaponized femininity I'd argue is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling. Whether it's nymphs or sirens or witches or succubi or even more roundabout cases like Helen of Troy, there's countless stories of men's sexual attraction to women leading them to disaster.

One way to view these stories is to see them as warnings, don't let womens allure be the end of you.

There's a lot of good writing done on the femme fatale trope both in the context of weaponizing femininity and as a sexist way to argue against victims of sexual assault, as these stories often say that men who experience attraction to these "evil" women no longer have agency over their own actions.

Look at the painting above, for example - is it the nymphs who are responsible for drowning Hylas, or is Hylas climbing into the lake of his own accord?

Despite the fact we all know sirens, nymphs and succubi aren't real, the belief that men will simply lose control of themselves when encountering a particularly alluring woman persists to the modern consciousness. That there's something inherently dangerous about women and attraction to them.

(this is not 100% applicable to Ninja saying he won't stream with women, but it's the real life example I felt most comfortable putting in here)

Now, let's combine this with what's been said so far -- let's say you don't hate women. You love women, in fact, and you hate the way men treat women. You hate men, in fact.

Yet, you still believe in this inherent power women hold by being female and the loss of agency that men experience when attracted to them -- how disgusting.

It quickly becomes easily to not only demonize men for sullying the holiness of women, but also men, masculinity and attraction to women as a whole.

(apologies for using twt discourse in the meta post but this flew by my TL and i had to grab the irl example of mens non-violent attraction to women being used to frame them as misogynistic before the stupid app refreshed and i lose everything forever)

"To Venner" is a student film exploring a world set within this belief, where all the women have vanished and the men have become monstrous figures as a result of their pent up sexual frustration. fyi this is one of my favourite student films (and ive watched a bunch), but I do think its messaging is worth breaking down (especially its juxtaposition of dirty horrible monstrous sexuality vs pure and beautiful romantic love)

NOTE: this film is super graphic, lots of violence and nudity. have fun. or not

I admit this section is a bit hard to gauge as everyone in the series is gay as fuck. The closest in-series example I can think of is Scott reacting to Martyn's antics in DL with a sort of indigence but otherwise I can't really think of an example of a man expressing attraction to a woman at all, let alone one Scott reacted to. However, I do think it's still worth talking about because it opens up some interesting trains of thought in regard to Scott and Pearl.

For Scott, he himself has never been part of the picture. He's gay, after all, which gives him an edge over the bad straight men who objectify and assault women. Likewise, there's little evidence to suggest he finds the expectations of masculinity frustrating, but I don't think it's too far a reach considering how common of an experience that is for gay men and his adapting of more feminine mannerisms.

Double Life and Corruption

As mentioned in my previously linked post about Scott and Pearl's relationship, I do think Scott experiences what he would name as attraction towards Pearl, so my writing will reflect that.

Pearl is. ahem. not like other girls.

Not actually. But to Scott, she probably isn't like other girls.

She remains unaware of his different standards for her (how could she when she had nothing to compare them to), she acts out, sometimes violently, against Scott's urging (such as when she stole from Scar's wagon). She maintains their already irregular dynamic, and while she appreciates his care for her, she never quite falls into seeing him as a source of subservience the way Cleo or Gem do.

At the end of LL, right before the 1v1v1v1, she monologues to herself that she no longer has to feel bad for killing Scott. Which, in turn, implies she expected Scott to give it his all against her as well.

She entirely fails to embody the madonna with her immature naivete and her questionable morals. She is unpredictable, she doesn't take what she is owed, she is a monster in a lot of ways.

Scott, too, is a monster, to himself, for how he feels about her.

The very foundations of your understanding of yourself being ripped apart aside, let's rewind to the madonna/whore complex. To sexualise the madonna is to corrupt her and make a monster of yourself. Suddenly, you are no better than the men around you, the ones you've grown to hate. Suddenly, you are the grotesque figures in films like To Venner. You are Hylas and she is the nymph. And you are so stupid. Your worldview crumbles around its flawed foundations.

Scott is, however, immune to this corruption. This is a theme that appears in Empires as well, but throughout the traffic series he's prided himself on being loyal and kind and good. His monologue leading up to LL's 1v1v1v1 summarizes it quite well.

He can't let himself or anyone else see this side of him, but the energy needs to go somewhere. To defy fate, abandon your soulmate, is to admit you had a fate in the first place, is to acknowledge that she was your soulmate in the first place.

I've previously talked about how fate and romance are very ingrained in Scott's belief system, if it was anyone else it would've been amazing. He could've been like Bdubs and Impulse or Ren and Bigb, diving into domestic life and performative romance with a stranger. Or the world could've made his happy ending from 3L real, as he got to be Jimmy's husband all over again. I think it says something that he accepts Cleo as a "soulmate" before Pearl.

So what do you do with all that energy and tension, clearly apparent to yourself and everyone else, when you can't let them observe your feelings?

You project them.

Shout-outs to @/legally-allowed-to-slime for pointing out Pearl's comment early on in DL that she "feels like (she's) been broken up with" confirms she never saw Scott in a romantic sense. The "crazy ex-girlfriend" and "this is why I'm gay" comments really did come out of thin air, or perhaps insecurity.

Pearl is the crazy one. She's insane, because she wants me. She wants to be with me, so she does all this crazy stuff. She's lost control of herself because she wants me. She's disgusting.

I mentioned before that Scott is not your classic misogynist, but this is where the gears start turning. Scott's views of Pearl echo that of other players, most prominently Ren and Martyn, that Pearl has been overcome with some sort of corruption. She has become the witch, the demoness, the whore, in their eyes. Scott does not want to be the same as these men and I think his overcorrecting his behaviour in SL makes sense when you view it from this angle, but for now he has to rely on more traditional misogyny in order to navigate this new obstacle.

"Corruption" also implies that she had to have been pure (or at least pure-er) beforehand, something Scott personally knows is not true, but it falls in line with defaulting women to being "madonnas".

This is a Scott post but. shout outs to Ren for being all of this about Pearl but without the complexity of Scott like he literally accuses Pearl of seducing Bigb what the fuck man.

Pearl is, of course, none of that. But she plays into the role of being the witch much better than she fared playing into the role of the madonna.

Sidenote: I know I'm looking at this from a Scott/Pearl POV but I do feel like you can omit Scott's attraction if you look at it from a purely "pearl not performing to standards of femininity I expect and she makes me realise I don't view women as a whole as human which makes me feel weird so now we have to do this" POV. Like idk I think the exact reason he abandoned Pearl is going to be lost on everyone forever so any analysis I could perform is going to suffer at least a little bit of making-shit-up-itis.

I do also think there's something to be said about Pearl being pushed until she performed a role, any role and generally failing at Being A Girl tm but that's another post i think. yknow shes um. a bit. 🏳️‍⚧️ (but also very much not at the same time idk that's gonna need its own post)

anyway yeah uh the minecraft movie looks crazy huh

[astronicht]

Heya, long time tolkien fan with almost no knowledge about old english writings whatsoever here.

Could you explain what the Iron House Motif is? Saw you mentioning it in one of your posts, tried to google it, found pretty much nothing?

I mean i can kinda see what you mean about that but if you have an explanation or any examples that would be great!

Also, i love reading your lotr posts, they add so much stuff and background knowledge :)

A few people asked this regarding this silly post, and yeah it appears "iron house motif" is not a super googleable concept (i ran into it in an academic publication from 1993). Fortunately @pethaucwiar has described what it is, better than I could!

To this I'd add two things, which is that it's also pretty common in Old Norse sagas, and that iirc it sometimes also includes a house literally made of iron, so instead of burning down around your enemies, you also have the option of sticking them in a giant forge and then closing the door. This will be important later. Though honestly, you can stop here, the rest is extras.

Regarding Eowyn, there are famous variants where a woman burns her husband/enemies in a hall for revenge, in an act of self-destruction. (So-- I know she doesn't! But you see a hall, you see a woman, you get told to leave your weapons--)

The problem is, the scene I was joking about in LOTR is very much set in Rohan, and any scene in Rohan is hitting you over the head repeatedly, yelling EVERYONE HERE IS SPEAKING OLD ENGLISH. WE ARE IN AN OLD ENGLISH STORY. And the iron house motif doesn't come up much in Old English. In fact, the general fan assumption seems to be that the hall of Rohan is supposed to mimic Heorot, the hall in Beowulf (Beowulf being, famously, a story in Old English involving a big pretty hall with a king who needs an outside hero's aid; pretty clear-cut) -- over here someone argued persuasively on the same post that it's supposed to be a 1:1 comparison, and thus doesn't suggest any burning halls or iron halls etc.

A little on that! First off, Tolkien braids together his storyworlds constantly, so I'm never going to be sure that he's not going to turn a Beowulf-y hall into a burning revenge hall. But even if you read Rohan's hall as strictly 1:1 Beowulf's hall, approaching it is still kinda a stressful moment. Especially bc Beowulf is actually a really really weird example of Old English stories, where revenge hall burning feels closer than in any other OE text. For lots of reasons! None of its stories are set where people spoke Old English -- they’re set on the Continent and In The Past, purposefully referring to Germanic and Scandinavian storyworlds (where people like Eowyn, lacking any other agency, might burn down everyone). Heorot is not a normal hall, either, bc most importantly for the defense of my earlier shitpost, Beowulf's hall is literally an iron house:

"but it was fastened within and without with iron bands, smithed with crafty thoughts."

(Rutgers transl. I was not joking about it being annoying to translate; unless forced I do not translate Beowulf)

Ac he þæs fæste wæs innan ond utan iren-bendum searo-þoncum besmiþod" (lines 773-4)

So that was the joke! And those iron-bands in the walls are actually being used to keep the monster in the hall so Beowulf could fight it. (Picture wattle-and-daub, but woven with iron rods instead of reeds. This was NOT a real thing archeologically)

Basically: even if Rohan's hall is Beowulf's Heorot, it can still be a medievalist horror film moment where you scream DON'T GO IN THERE if you try hard and love the game. But truly, it was just a silly little post at the expense of CS Lewis.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Miles Morales is just like Jason Todd but pre reboot Robin!Jason Todd specifically.This includes being the second mantle holder for one of the most influential and well-known and beloved superhero titles.Jason is claimed by afrolatino DC fans for a long time now and Miles is canonically afro-puerto rican and had the offensive innacuracies in his origin story by Bendis fixed in Spiderverse.Miles Morales is the paragon of REAL teenage superheroes,what they were when they started and are meant to be and deserve to be for irl kids who read comics that they're supposed to see themselves in.Even black fake geek dudebros hate Miles because he threatens their incorrect idea that superheroes are supposed to be a racist cishet abled male power fantasy and this was also reflected in the 80s when classism was even worse which led to Jason being voted to be killed for being a street kid.Superheroes are SUPPOSED to make these kinda people angry,it's built into them-Clark Kent's first nickname was 'Champion of the Oppressed'.When they don't hate them they turn them into a Spidergigachad with no personality and all the Spiderwomen despite being written to defy black male stereotypes and misogynoir by extension by having him prioritize black women and an overpowered ghost/death deity despite how miserable he was about dying and what lingered in him as seen by how happy and well-written he is when he really gets to live.All of this is why Miles Morales is thee Spiderperson.He's like other teen heroes in the important ways,a love letter to older comics before all the reboots bullshit,but not a copy and paste like those fanon 'four' Batboys 'jokes' that aren't actually jokes,much less funny and are only made by people who can't cosume Batfam content that's not smut or shitposts,and has his own unique assets-Being The Anomaly gives him the magic of doing his own thing

[twisted-wonderland-but-gayer]

I like the idea of wholesome military Yuu. Probably accidentally makes people assume they're mean or scary but it's just a gym bro. During overblots they took everyone down so easily because of past trainings. Very cool scars they boast about but everyone looks at them horrified.

"Oh this from the time I got grazed with a bullet, very cool huh?"

"What.."

-also is it cool if I name myself 🍰 anon? I feel like I lurk around your ask inbox a lot, it's totally fine if I can't!

Please read all the dialouge in a fucking duke nukem voice.

This giant person approached Idia after they heard Idia mumbles self depreciating things abt himself himself under this breath. Idia is frozen and he hears boss music. "Hey man, stop putting yourself down, it's not cool. I know you can't see it but your character and strengths are pretty cool. I hope you can lean to see it in time." And refuses to walk off until Idia says something nice about himself, in which then Yuu daps him up and says "nice one dude"

"Hey man what are you? A dude, a girl a they?" "I don't have pronouns or gender. Those damn alien bastards stole them from me."

Ruggie being baffled at this mfer who makes bank back in their world be so frugal and down to earth. One day they say to Idia "you play retro games for nostalgia, i play retro games because i cannot afford new ones, we are not the same." And Ruggie tries to call them out.

"Actually I donate most of my millions to charities in need and enjoying sponsoring education for young children in less fortunate situations. Also, those damn alien bastards stole all of my newer consoles and deleted my save data."

They don't like Octavinelle. They're posers protecting a restaurant by Mediocre blackmail and threats of violence. "Booo where im from corporations make sure to stage your suicide by shooting you three times in the back of the head for speaking up about child labor"

They esp hate Azul. "Mindless corporations like yours forced me and my comrades across sea to commit atrocities on innocents and die over oil. You are not a cool dude, bro." Or just.

"You claim to know how to fight and use magic yet only fight against those who are weaker than you. This one is for my ignihyde friend that was bullied by you." And the trio just roll their eyes before getting steamrolled by this mfer in a real fight and almost end up in the ER. This is the same person who said "those damn shrimp bastards will pay for frying my rice and trying to break into the kitchen.

They advocate equal rights and just a good dude. Everytime they speak you hear a hard-core guitar riff. They are simultaneously the smartest yet stupidest person everyone knows. Everyone agrees that they're cool as hell tho. They hand Yuu a cold one and take off their glasses to wink, but underneath their glasses, they have another pair on.

They are just a walking shitpost

2) yeah i checked my blog and dont think I have cake (slice) anon??? Your cool, welcome aboard

[elysiaheaven]

(You definitely don’t know me from the server shhhhh)

Okay hear me out. Ronin with. With a trans guy reader who is a total fucking simp. Absolutely obsessed to the point that it’s unhealthy. Follows him around irl and in chat like a puppy

Perchance

finally a request like this. Man, i love you/p

The hum of your phone screen glows against your face as you scroll through the messages in the group chat, your thumb hovering just above the keyboard. Ronin’s last text is pinned at the top like a beacon—a snarky, careless thing he dropped hours ago. "Bored. Someone entertain me. Or don’t. I’ll live."

Your heart skips just reading it. The rest of the chat moves fast—memes, shitposts, stupid jokes—but all you care about is when he’ll type again. He’s addictive, like a song you can’t stop playing on repeat, no matter how sick it makes you.

You’re already perched on his every word like a moth to a flame, hanging on for that next little crumb of attention. It's pathetic, really—you know that—but you’ve long stopped caring.

Because it's Ronin. He breathes chaos and leaves a trail of destruction, but to you, every step he takes is gold. You follow him in real life, too. Not in a creepy, serial-killer way, no—just… close. Close enough that he knows you’re there, always orbiting him like a loyal moon to his sun. You’re his shadow, and you love it that way.

Some people would call this obsession. Maybe they’d be right. But it’s not like you care. It’s Ronin, after all. You don’t know how it started—when that fascination began to bloom and curl around your brain like ivy—but now it feels like he’s embedded under your skin, and the idea of pulling him out makes you itch.

You trail him everywhere, half on instinct. When he leaves the garage, you’re there. When he starts up his bike, you’re already climbing onto yours, a silent tail. When he’s at the diner, you're sitting two booths over, scrolling your phone with one ear always tuned to the sound of his voice.

And when he’s online, of course you’re in the chat. He notices you, sometimes—throws you a bone with a sarcastic message or some mocking pet name. The attention? It’s intoxicating.

You live for the crumbs.

Headcanons

Ronin knew from the moment you started hanging around him like a shadow that you were obsessed. And god, does he love it. He can smell your obsession from a mile away—the way your eyes light up whenever he so much as glances at you. It’s like a drug to him.

You don’t even try to hide it. If Ronin’s got something to do—whether it’s fixing a car, hanging out at the shop, or even just running errands—you’re right there. Arms crossed, wide-eyed, fidgeting with excitement as you follow him like a lovesick puppy.

“You always this clingy, or is it just me?” he’d smirk. And when you stammer, his grin just widens. Oh, he lives for the way your face heats up every time he teases you.

“I—I just like being around you…”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

In group chats, it’s even worse. You blow up the server with messages directed solely at Ronin—memes, jokes, random questions about his day. Even if no one else responds, it doesn’t matter. You’re laser-focused on him, waiting for even the smallest crumb of attention.

When Ronin finally sends a “👍,” you light up like it’s the best thing to ever happen. And ohhh, he notices.

“Damn, dude, I send one emoji and you’re already planning our wedding?”

You, typing faster than light: “I would actually marry you, no lie.”

“I know.”

Ronin plays it cool—smug as hell—but it feeds something deep inside him ego, too. He likes being adored, needed. He likes knowing that you’d do anything for him.

And yeah, it’s kind of messed up, but he leans into it—leaving little breadcrumbs just to see how far you’ll go.

"What, you gonna follow me to the bathroom too?" he says with a raised brow. And you? You'd consider it.

The power imbalance? Oh, it’s palpable. And Ronin? He owns it. He sees how much you crave him and revels in it—letting his words hang just long enough to keep you chasing after more.

But every now and then, he throws you a bone. A rare smile, a lazy “good boy” when you’ve been particularly helpful, or even a hand through your hair when you’ve been good. And it wrecks you. Completely.

“You’re so easy to please, y’know that?” he mutters, smirking down at you. And the worst part? He’s absolutely right.

When Things Get Messy…

There are times when your obsession starts to wear at Ronin’s patience—not that he’d ever tell you outright. Instead, he pushes boundaries, seeing how far you’ll bend before you break. He loves testing people, and you’re no different.

“You ever think of getting a hobby that’s not me?” he’ll ask, leaning in with that smug, infuriating grin. And you’ll just shake your head, dead serious.

“You are my hobby.”

Sometimes, he ghosts you for a day or two—just to see how you’ll react. And predictably, you fall apart, blowing up his messages and spiraling in chat until you finally get that one-word reply.

“Relax, I ain’t dead.”

You cling to that message like it’s air after drowning. And Ronin? He’s grinning on the other end of the screen.

But there’s a limit to his games. He’s not heartless, after all. If he ever senses you truly spiraling—if the obsession starts tipping into dangerous territory—he reins it in, albeit in his own way.

“Alright, kid, c’mere.” He’ll grab your wrist and pull you in close, hand on the back of your neck, holding you still until you stop shaking. “You’re not gonna lose me, yeah? I’m not going anywhere. Breathe.”

The truth? Ronin always knew you were obsessed. It wasn’t even subtle. From the way your messages filled his notifications to the way you hovered just a bit too long at the shop, fidgeting with your hands, waiting for any scrap of attention he threw your way. You were everywhere—IRL, in chat, maybe even haunting his dreams if he had any.

And the worst part? He loved it.

“Didn’t think you’d show up today,” Ronin says, voice low and smug as you stand awkwardly in the doorway of the garage. You’ve been standing there for twenty minutes—he knows, because he was counting. Just watching you fidget like a lovesick idiot until he couldn’t take it anymore and had to drag you in by your metaphorical leash.

“Of course I showed up,” you say a little too fast, cheeks burning under his gaze. “I always show up.”

He hums, tilting his head, the corner of his mouth curling into that infuriating smirk that makes your heart race. “Yeah, you do.”

Your stomach twists in a knot. That mix of shame and excitement blooms in your chest, and you shift on your feet, fingers drumming anxiously against your thigh. He knows, and worse than that, he enjoys it.

Ronin leans casually against the workbench, wiping his hands on a grease-stained rag, his dark plum hair messy beneath his beanie. “What’re you after, puppy? You need somethin’, or you just here to follow me around again?”

Puppy.

You hate how much you love that nickname—hate how it makes your skin prickle with heat, how your mind blanks when he calls you that like it’s normal. It makes you feel pathetic, and Ronin knows it.

But God, you don’t care. You live for it.

“I—uh—” You stammer, stumbling over your words. There’s a wrench in his hand, and somehow, he looks hotter holding it than any human being should. “I just—wanted to see you.”

His grin widens, teeth showing now like a predator cornering his prey. “That so?”

You nod, swallowing hard. “Yeah.”

Ronin chuckles, low and dangerous, and takes a step closer—slow, deliberate. He’s enjoying this way too much. “Y’know, most people’d call this stalking.”

You flinch, heat burning the back of your neck. “I—I’m not stalking.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow, clearly entertained. “So what do you call it then?”

You chew your lip, heart pounding so hard you swear he can hear it. “I—”

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” He’s right in front of you now, close enough that you can smell the faint scent of cigarettes and motor oil clinging to him. His gaze is heavy, like he’s trying to peel you apart and see what makes you tick. And damn it all, you like it.

“No,” you admit softly, barely above a whisper. It’s pathetic, really, how easily you fold under his gaze. “I can’t.”

Ronin hums, like that’s exactly what he expected. His fingers tilt your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze. “That’s cute, y’know. In a sad, fucked-up way.”

Your breath catches, and for a second, you think your legs might give out. You’re so screwed.

“Tell you what,” Ronin murmurs, his voice a low purr against your ear. “Stick around. Maybe I’ll throw you a bone if you’re good.”

Your knees nearly buckle at that.

Later, in the group chat, it only gets worse.

You: u were so cool today i think i might die fr Ronin: [🎥: “This idiot said they’d die if I breathed at ‘em.”] Uploaded to the server bot. Looping.

Angel: 💀💀💀 this is like watching a car crash in slow motion V: The simping is unreal. Stop this madness immediately. Misaki: lmfaooo you deserve this humiliation ngl

You bury your face in your hands as the bot repeats your voice for the fourth time—“u were so cool today i think i might die fr”.

And Ronin? Ronin’s grinning ear to ear, kicking back as chaos unfolds, thoroughly enjoying your downfall.

“See, puppy?” His message pings in chat. “Told you I’d throw you a bone.”

And despite the overwhelming embarrassment, all you can do is type back:

You: i hate u so much rn

And then:

You: see u tomorrow? 🥺

[hangeslefteye]

What does your favorite Aot boy tells me about you/your romantic preference????

 100% shitpost,I'm no therapist feel free to disagree.Before scrolling down try to pick 1-2 of your fave(I know it's hard D:) +I ranked them from my fave to least.

REİNER:You just want to be held,comforted and appreciated.You seriously don't want any drama and rather share some sincere,deep emotions.You really appreciate when a man shows their vulnerable side and open with you.Just as you would appreciate a man's tears you'd also appreciate their strong masculine presence.Which you definitely seek some HEALTHY masculinity in a s/o as this makes you feel safe and loved.Also you want big boy hugs that will comfort you.

PORCO:You are most likely to have a mean flirting style but you are still chill and don't want any real fights in a relationship as you get heartbroken easily .You love it when someone keeps you on your toes without being a real asshole.This gives you healthy sexual tension.Overall you want fun, love and passion at the same time.You are KİNDLY playful yet emotionally intense.You hide your feelings with sarcasm A LOT.

JEAN:You are also a very emotionally intelligent person but you might be a little bit of a hopeless romantic.You love the thrill of being in love and anything that comes with it.You still appreciate cliche/cheesy romantic gestures.At love you might be slightly masochistical and platonic yet very adoring.You have big simp tendacies and you are dreamy.When you love,you love beautifully.Literally aesthetically.You live your love like an old romance movie which might come off fake or shallow to others but actually you internalize it A LOT.

ZEKE:You are mentally fcked up.You should seriously go see a real therapist rather than trying to cope up with dark humour.You might get attracted to slightly older and dominant men.You are pursuing a toxic love life that's dangerous.You have an apetite for toxic masculinity and controlling behaviour.You do this 100% on purpose because enjoy it and not by mistake but this can be risky.You LOVE mind games and get bored from anything soft hearted.After all what is love to you without a pinch of manipulation?

CONNİE:You are the most relaxed and down to earth person ever.It's important for you to be friends with your romantical interest because relationships just feels easier and more fun like that.You really want to be able to talk about EVERYTHİNG going on in your life unfiltered.Obvious flirting might make you feel uncomfortable as you prefer to keep it playful and soft hearted.Also you want your love interest 7/24 around you but not in a clingy way.That's why a somewhat childish friendly love charms you.

EREN:You like sterotypical toxic romance.The type where couples punches walls,screams and throws things.You think this is passionate and you love your men a little problematic.You are slightly masochistical and want some drama.You also feel things deeply and somewhat hot headed.You might have an interesting urge to cling onto emotionally unavailable men.Angry sex is possibly your way of emotional bounding.

ARMİN:If you like Armin because he's so calm and kind and sympatic etc. Sorry to say,you are a little bad at reading people.Because in reality he is quite capable of heavy manipulation and hide it behind his angel face.On this matter maybe he's even more dangerous than Zeke.If you realised this but he's still your favorite then you too love mindgames and passive agressive drama in a relationship.You think intelligence and sophistication is the sexiest thing about a love interest.You love subtle manipulation fights in a relationship.

For girls edition

[peripaltepsy]

You said you had tips for dealing with hypochondria, right? - Entity

yeah, sorry for the late reply !

So, first of all, check on your necessities as soon as any panic starts. Are you thirsty, hungry, need to use the bathroom, tired? Fulfilling your needs will help a lot

I had 4 stages of recovery.

First stage: actually believing that I had x condition; I wondered if it was just anxiety but the fear was winning.

-> I would google not the symptoms I were "feeling", but the actual condition I thought I had. Notice how most conditions, when acquired, will take some time, like 3 days before onset. I'd think to myself, there's no need to stress right now; if I do feel these symptoms in 3 days I'll worry only then. (And then the symptoms never occurred lol)

-> Identifying triggers: literally anything can be an anxiety trigger, even things you'd never think of. I got anxious at a specific time of the day: 4 pm to 6 pm. Foods with white flour can trigger anxiety too. Chocolate also triggered it for me. It's up to you whether to avoid or deal with stuff (I for example, chose not to avoid chocolate since I already rarely ate it.) If you choose to avoid, keep in mind it's only temporary and you'll be able to expose yourself to these triggers someday

-> THE FAKE SYMPTOMS YOU'RE FEELING ARE EITHER THE ANXIETY OR NORMAL BODILY STUFF THAT YOUR HYPERAWARENESS IS PATHOLOGIZING.

Example: heart racing? Anxiety. Shivering? Anxiety.

I once got super worried because some parts of my face were warmer and others were cooler. But this is literally NORMAL.

I also worried because I felt the moisture inside my mouth and throat. It's NORMAL AND NECESSARY FOR SURVIVAL

-> If you're able to, go to a low-stimulating place. When I was in school I'd go to the bathroom and play music. It was just a 3 minutes break but I needed that. At home, I'd also lock myself in the bathroom but I'd watch latino shitpost compilations :)

-> I think one of the best forms of distraction is comedy. Have some youtube channels and tumblr pages etc bookmarked.

-> Remember, how many times did you really have the condition your hypochondria was telling you? Zero. ZERO!!!! IT WILL ALWAYS BE ZERO!!! THAT BITCH IS A LIAR!!! XD

-> You can ask friends to help ground you and remind you that the anxiety is wrong

-> sometimes anxiety is developed out of nowhere, but if you can find a "why" you developed it, that's good

Second stage: Knowing it's just anxiety, but the fear of having x condition/dying was still in my mind.

-> thats because your subconscious doesn't believe that your anxiety is caused by a concrete perceived thing; it still assumes its caused by a nebulous grand illness or something. Keep talking to it and asserting its not an illness but actually just X trigger. It'll take time but YOU'LL SUCCEED

-> There's not much to do. Just distract yourself and keep fighting the anxiety saying it's wrong.

Alternatively, if you're confident enough and grounded, you can be the bigger bitch. "Yeah so what if I got x?" "I don't fuckin care" "wow I'm so scared /s"

-> Activities that require active focus like doing the dishes are good distractions as well

-> Panic attacks = anxiety of anxiety. You can't force them, so if you confront something potentially triggering heads on and are aware of your anxiety coming up you'll be able to prevent feeling Real Bad.

Example: you're going to read an article about an illness and know it's gonna trigger you. So you click on it, you're not afraid of feeling anxiety, you're just aware of what you're gonna feel. You start noticing your breathing becoming shallower and think "the anxiety has begun". After reading it you go relax a little with the yt channel you bookmarked, for example. You're aware that your anxiety could use that new knowledge against you (aka it can be a new trigger) but you don't care because YOU'RE the one in control, YOU'RE the bigger bitch and won't let it dictate what you should do or not.

-> KEEP THE GIGACHAD MINDSET : Despite being neck deep in the hypochondria ocean in high school, I wanted to study stuff relating to healthcare in college. I didn't care that I could potentially get triggered everyday, I'd find a way to deal with it. And then I managed to beat hypochondria before entering college!!!

-> Ultimately, (and this may not suit you) what led me out of the second stage was a buddhist meditation called Maranasati. I used to do other types of meditation as well; maranasati is "death awareness meditation". Basically you just confront death and illness heads on and learn to be at peace with them.

Third stage: Knowing it's just anxiety

-> On this stage, the "health anxiety" part of your anxiety is gone or almost gone.

Just ride the bad vibes until the anxiety symptoms subside. And use the coping mechanisms and distractions as well.

Fourth stage: I got so evolved I can cut panic attacks as soon as they start

-> on this stage, I can immediately identify when something is making me anxious and think "oh, X thing is making me anxious"; and the panic symptoms immediately quiet down and stop; since the knowledge that yes, that concrete and perceived thing is the cause of our anxiety is anchored in my subconscious.

I hope anything I wrote can help you, good luck, beat that bitch into a pulp :)