#this is really long and rambly but that's because i'm horrible at getting my point across i hope it's not too word salad

[reidmania]

sharpest tool | s.reid

(chapter eight, halloween)

‘Your hands are all over my scent, I worry for you, you worry for me, and it's fine if we know we won't change. Collect every dream in these old empty pockets, in hope that I'll see them someday. But the wreckage of you, I no longer reside in, and the bridges have long since been burned, the ash of the home that I started the fire in. It starts to return to the Earth, I'm leavin' this town and I'm changin' my address I know that you'll come if you want. It's not Halloween, but the ghost you're dressed up as sure knows how to haunt’

summary; communication is hard, especially when spencer is keeping secrets and you’re debating sticking around to find out what they are.

warnings; arguments, fem reader, reader is a bitch, horrible miscommunications, spencer is confusing, reader is hurt, they both cry, some comfort but not really, direct continuation of the last chapter, suggestive so 18+ please, mdni, there is so many mixed emotions in this, kissing, mentions commitment issues, ghosting, god they are complicated, reader is real as always.

taglist; @gghostwriter @lavonee @guiltyyassin @spencersinonlygf @criminalmindssworld @iknwreid @fortheloveofgubler @yokaimoon @sapphirecobalt-1 @eddiesdrummergf @livvyliv15 @lover-of-books-and-tea @sebastiansstanswhore @bloodredrubyrose @sp3ncelle @nemobee777 @jencole214 @hazzarules @ameerakane20 @lucere @cultish-corner @psyches-reid

“Please.” It was so quiet, so desperate, full of genuine plea leaving his lips as he hand brushed your shoulder, spinning you to face him. You looked up at him and your chest ached painfully at the tears lining his eyes. You wondered how long it would be before he no longer had an effect on you.

You shook your head, dropping your gaze down. You wanted to yell at him, tell him how shit he made you feel, make him feel the hurt he had inflicted onto you, but you didn’t, you couldn’t. It was Spencer for christ sake. You hated it, so much, that he was standing here and so were you, you hated that you were looking into his eyes and your heart was aching at the sight, you hated him so much it made your chest hurt, or maybe that was because you loved him.

“What do you want from this, Spencer?” It was shakier than you intended it to come out. You didn’t understand him, which wasn’t new since his brain was a complexity that yours couldn’t near but this was different. His feelings had always been clear until now. Why was he so fixated on making sure you knew he was sorry, why was he so worried about that when he wouldn’t provide you with an explanation, when he knew without that there was no way he could fix this.

“I just- i don’t want you to hate me.” He whispered, your mind spun with furthered confusion and honestly his mixed signals and emotions were beginning to give you whiplash to the point your head hurt and your neck ached. His hand reached out for your jaw, you snapped your head away.

“Would that make you feel better about yourself? If i didn’t hate you?” You asked, maybe the words were malicious, but your voice came out genuine, searching his eyes to see if he needed some sort of validation from you.

“No- I just- I want to tell you everything but I can’t, because you will argue with me and i hate arguing with you-“ you cut off his ramble.

“What do you think this is? A friendly discussion?”

“Closure?”

You scoffed, “No explanation, No reasoning, wont be honest, avoiding questions, getting frustrated- Yeah no this is great closure actually. I hope you feel better now.” You huffed out, tone laced with sarcasm.

He said your name, you frowned. “I don’t want you to hate me. I fucked up, i know. And im sorry i can’t tell you what you want to hear— or anything worth listening to but I care about you, so much. So incredibly much, even if you don’t believe it. I do, I do. I care about you.” He was begging in his words. You didn’t understand why.

“I hate what you did, and i hate how you made me feel, and i hate that i trusted you, i hate that you lied to me—”

“I didn’t lie.”

You scoffed, "I'll never hurt you'" you mocked his promise, "I promise" you continued. He remained silent as his gaze dropped, his hands came to run through his hair.

You were silent for a moment, before you sighed, dropping your gaze, "I don't hate you." You mumbled, not for his comfort but for the fact it was true. You didn't hate him, hating him was near impossible.

"Im sorry." He apologised. "Let me make it up to you."

"Tell me why." You argued.

"I can't." He almost begged, like it physically hurt him to say.

You shook your head, "Then can you just, leave me the fuck alone?" You were tired. Of this, of this feeling. It was as if Spencer came into your life, got close, purely for the sake of reminding you why you didn't let anyone do that. It was sickening. The hurt caused you physically sickness more times then you were willing to admit.

The nights you spent in hysterics over the overwhelming ache in your heart, the him shaped ache. Well those were nights you kept to yourself. When nights grew too lonely, or the side of the bed he had almost claimed as his own carried a hint of his scent, when you saw the hoodie laying on the chair in the corner of your room. You never wore it, you couldn't. You couldn't return it either. It remained in place in the corner of your room, untouched.

"I can't." He repeated in the same tone, yet quieter. He looked so resigned, so in his own head. Guilty.

You wanted to scream.

It was as simple as that. He was confusing, a walking contradiction. He wouldn't tell you what caused his sudden disappearance, what you had done, or what he had done, but he was acting as if he was physically incapable of staying away from you despite that.

Your eyes squinted when you looked up at him.

You weren't going to cry - not again. The fact he had even seen that was an embarrassment you would delve into later — way too late in the night and hate yourself for, for probably the next few years of your life. He was looking at you, pleading with his eyes.

You wanted to scream.

"You don't get to do that." It came out harsh, you intended it so. You could see the physical stiffness of his body. He wanted to reach out, touch you. You wanted him to stay away.

No, you didn't. Your feelings were just as contradictory as he was. In a way you wanted him to stay away from you because you knew if he didn't you may break. The tough shell exterior may crumble for him, again. You wanted to hug him, you wanted to feel the warmth of his body and breathe in his scent, but you wanted to hate him more.

"I know." He said, quietly, It was honest. He chewed at his lip as he looked at you, hands by his side, squeezing his fists together before releasing them. You wanted to walk away. You wanted to so badly but your feet remained glued to the ground, too close to him, yet at the same time not close enough.

You pulled your gaze away, looking over the streets. It was quiet, deafeningly so. If you focused enough you'd hear the music coming from the inside of the bar. You couldn't, you couldn't focus enough on anything other than Spencer in front of you.

"Spencer." You turned your gaze back to him when you muttered his name. It was stern, steady, a complete contradiction to how you felt. "If you aren't going to give me an explanation or at least tell me what i did, then i want nothing to do with you."

His breath hitched, you heard it. He was quiet for a moment then his head dropped, a mental argument, you could imagine. Then when he spoke it was quiet, earnest.

"You didn't do anything." It came out like a promise, he said it so certainly you almost believed it. You wondered if you'd ever believe anything he said again, the voice in the back of your mind screaming that he was a liar seemed a little louder than his words.

Your eyes squinted as your arms raise and fell by your side with a huff of frustration parting your lips. You were over this. So over it.

Everything you had avoided getting yourself into - for this exact reason being proven nothing more than a mistake.

You could hardly form words.

"What did you do then?" You accused, it would be a lie to say that the thought of him possibly finding another girl didn't cross your mind at least once, or a hundred times. It was hard not come up with scenarios and false accurate explanations for what he did.

He said your name, because he wanted to believe you knew him better than that, looking at you with a frown so sad it made your heart feel as if it was constricted of blood. "Nothing- I didn't- Nobody did anything wrong." He frowned.

You furrowed your eyebrows because the more he talked the more you wanted to turn around and hit your head against the brick wall, hoping maybe if you did it enough times this would all make sense. Although you doubted that.

"So you just.. lost interest?" You didn't want to ask, you wish you didn't care.

"No." He shook his head instantly, stepping forward. You would've stepped back if your feet didn't feel glued to the ground, and if his eyes werent burning into yours, as if they were trying to tell you something that his words couldn't.

"No- I am- So interested."

You closed your eyes, because you were sure if you didn't you would scream.

“I know— Thats not fair and I am confusing you— I am confused too.” He stepped closer again. You could almost feel his body heat and the height of him cascading a shadow over you, blocking the streetlight from your vision, not that you needed it because your eyes remained closed.

You sighed, dragging your hands down your face. If this situation were to happen eight month ago, you would’ve turned around on your heels and left without a second thought, refusing to let this hurt you, refusing to care for someone so deeply again, but this wasn’t happening eight months ago, it was happening now, and you did care about Spencer, so incredibly much. It was almost embarrassing. You were embarrassed about how much you cared.

“So is it a commitment thing?” You mumbled through your hands, you just needed something, the rest you could make up in your head late at night before you fell asleep, pouring coffee in the morning, you could come up with an explanation that provided you with enough comfort you made be able to live with the unknowing.

“No.” He shook his head.

That didn’t help, now you were more confused. If it was a commitment thing, you could understand, but it wasn’t and you didn’t understand.

“You do realise this whole conversation is useless right?” You mumbled, peeling your hands away from your face, and opening your eyes. You knew he was close, but not this close. His body was in front of yours, so close it was like a punishment, and torture at once because you had to refrain from reaching up and wrapping your arms around him, in search of the comfort that had grown absent with him.

You looked up at him, a frown on your lips. You wished you could walk away, he looked down at you, chewing at his lips for a moment as his eyes flickered along every feature of your face, committing it all to memory. “But it’s a conversation.” He barely whispered it.

Your heart tugged with so much ache you were sure you were going to die. “You’re hurting me.”

He was silent, his eyes looking into yours. He didn’t flinch at your words but you could see it in his eyes, he knew. Whether it was intentional or not, he knew he was hurting you, he knew what he was doing, and he looked like it was breaking his heart.

He hesitated, you waited. For something, anything.

“Can I kiss you?”

Thats not what you expected. And you weren’t sure if the butterflies in your stomach were hurt and anger dwindling around, or whether it was nerves because it was Spencer. Offering, or asking for something that only confused you more, yet you wanted to say yes.

“No- What?- Are you insane?” You asked, eyebrows furrowing.

He didn’t seem shocked nor hurt by your rejection. He probably expected it.

What he was shocked by, what you were also shocked by was the fact although your words, you leant up and your lips were on his before he could reply. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the emotions, or maybe it was just him.

You would regret it when you pulled away, you knew that. You would hate yourself for every second of the rest of your life when his lips parted yours, but right now, as his hands found way to your waist the moment he processed what was happening, tugging you in closer so your chest was flush against his own and his lips were pressing against yours, all thoughts of anything else left your mind.

His hands gripped at the fabric of your shirt, tangling the material through his fingers, using that to pull you impossibly closer, the movement was so familiar, because he always wanted you so close, he used to, anyways. You weren’t sure what you were thinking when your hands came to his neck, pressing against either side of it.

You definitely weren’t sure what you were thinking when your hands moved from his neck to tangle in his hair, encouraging him further into the kiss.

You were sure you weren’t thinking when your lips parted as his tongue brushed over the lining over your lips, hands squeezing your waist gently. you could feel the air leaving his nose against your lower lip, it tickled and if you weren’t kissing for the reason you were, you would’ve pulled away in a mess of laughter, because with him you could.

He hadn’t been drinking, not alcohol anyways, you knew that because you could taste the sugary syrup residue on his lips from some sort of soda. You were sure yours resembled the taste of vodka, not that you had drank a lot, actually only half of a drink, so you couldn’t even blame kissing him on being drunk, because you were completely in your right mind.

You settled for blaming emotions instead.

You were hyperaware of everything, every touch, every small breath, every movement of his lips, every soft grace of his tongue, of his scent. His scent was suffocatingly familiar, and sickeningly comforting. Your chest was constricted and you weren’t sure if it was from the messiness of his kiss as his lips pressed and moved against yours, or if it was from how you knew when you pulled away you would regret it.

When your hands tugged gently on the strands of hair tangled in your fingers, a slight groan left his lips straight against yours, the sound sent your nerves into a frenzy, and all common sense went out the window. His hands were everywhere, your back, your hair, your shoulders, your thighs.

“We are in the middle of the road.” He mumbled against your lips, not pulling away. You think he knew just as well as you did, the moment it slowed down you’d have too much time to think about it.

“Oh” you mumbled back, pressing your lips against his again, but also very aware that this was very public, although the street was dead, and quiet as the minutes ticked to a later hour, you did not necessarily want to be seen as the girl kissing her ex almost boyfriend in the middle of the street.

“How’d you get here?” He asked, his lips left yours yet before you could even have time to regret kissing him in the first place, his lips connected with your jaw, and your head and common sense remained up in the clouds, you stayed right here with him.

Your breath was heavy, chest rising and falling as your eyes fluttered closed, head tilting to allow him more space as his teeth brushed ever so gently against your jaw before his lips continued against your neck. “Uh” apparently your ability to talk was up in the clouds with the rest of your dignity.

“Uh?” He mumbled, he was teasing.

“Penelope.” You huffed out as your head tilted further, hands still in his hair, his hands still on your waist.

He hummed as his hands slipped under your shirt, pressing gently against the soft skin of your back, the touch sent shivers and goosebumps everywhere. You could feel him everywhere, you were utterly consumed by him in every aspect. “How much have you drank?” He asked.

What a question, because although you were sober and unaffected by the half of a drink you had, admitting that would mean you wouldn’t be able to blame whatever stupid decision you made on alcohol, but you knew if you lied, and said you had more than you did, he would be pulling away and making sure you got home safe.

No option was a good option but one saved your dignity and the other deprived you of him.

“Half of one.” He hummed in response.

“Do you want me to take you home?” He asked, pulling away to look down at you, one hand left your back to reach for your jaw, his thumb brushing over the soft skin of cheek. Any regret in your chest seemed to be overtaken by the gentleness of his touch and the familiarity of his offer.

But you shook your head, “No- you’re not coming to my house.” You mumbled, your lips were still tingling with the sensation of his, you didn’t want him at your house, not anymore. It had taken you a while to even let him there in the first place, he had lost the right to your home. Apparently he would always have the right to you though, even if it was embarrassingly so. “Take me to yours?”

[klerothesnowman]

The Sith are Nazis and it's never been subtle

This one ended up being really long. I spliced in some images when I could to break it up easier.

One of the things that causes the most friction in the world is the idea of morality. I know, that's the most water is wet statement ever said but I think people really miss just how much the nuance of morality goes over people's heads. Subjective, objective, relative, from a baseline we understand that there are different types of morality but I don't think people really grasp how much a persons personal morality can be wildly different to any another given person's, especially among people who share spaces like fandoms. Morality is shaped by personal experiences, there are personal experiences that are 99% ubiquitous among humanity like "Pain" that form the basis of everyone's moral compass, then there are the major cultural touchstones that no matter what your morality will be affected by, religion, nation, race, all that what have you. Everyone has an opinion on the Christian Church and that opinion is informed by your morals. People who have been abused by members of a church will have a very different view of the morality of a religion compared to people who have been raised Catholic compared to someone who was raised agnostic compared to someone raised agnostic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer and is also rich and so on and so forth you get it.

Morality is not a binary thing, and it's not a nine point grid either D&D, it's more like one of those circle charts that Jojo Stands get ranked on. You know the ones that always seem to show up in anime? I don't know what they're called. Except instead of a circle it's more like a ball, and everyone has this horrible looking 3D balls covered in bumps and spikes and dips and holes.

Why am I opening this ramble with a ramble about morality and religion? Because I'm on tumblr. When I decide I want to ramble about something I read the tags and see what the vibe is, see what people are saying about things. I'm not part of the "Fandom", I don't know the discourses, I see that there's Anti-Jedi and Pro-Jedi and "Stanikins" and all of these different labels and battlelines, and then I read about how people on either side are feeling attacked and harassed by people on other sides. I have no idea how real this is, I have no idea what kind of minefield I'm about to walk into. I'm just rambling about my thoughts and feelings about Star Wars because I like it and I'm a little extra aware that this one is going to ruffle feathers.

Because people are fuckin' worked up about Jedi. There are people who are making it part of their identity that they are anti-Jedi. And it's been happening for years, decades even. Because the experiences and trends of nerd culture has been pushing against systems and religion since I was a baby. Nerds being obnoxious atheists and smugly telling people "God isn't real" was basically the norm when I was a teenager, and before I was born nerds were dealing with being called evil and satanic. Nothing I'm rambling about here is new, in fact using D&D as a touchstone I think the current trend for nerddom's interaction with religion is ambivalence, despite faith and divine power being such an important part of D&D, there's basically zero interaction with divinities in 5e, and when there is it's hostile and has an asterisk against it. I'll do a ramble about this one day too

But the Jedi stuff is interesting to me, because there's a lot of directions people come at for it.

There's people who argue against just Jedi because they're a religion. There's people who argue the Jedi are slavers or kidnap children. People think Jedi are super beings who lord over everyone with their power. People think the Jedi force people to suppress their emotions and personhood. There are people who think Jedi are moral supremacists who silence and kill anyone who thinks about the Force differently from them.

I have some "Pro-Jedi" arguments to make but I'll save them for a different ramble, because this one's supposed to be about another group of people.

The people who think, from their point of view, the Jedi are evil.

The reason I rambled on so much about people being Anti-Jedi is because very often, these people end up being Pro-Sith. It's an obvious leap, if the Jedi are the problem then the people opposed to the Jedi might have the right idea. If your issue with the Jedi is that they disallow "Attachment", then here's the Sith who are all about Attachment. If your issue with the Jedi is that they suppress their emotions then here's the Sith who are always tapping into their emotions. There is an immediate appeal there.

Then there's the Sith Code, let's give it a read.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

Pretty sweet, Passion is pretty positive, breaking chains and freedom. I can get behind that. The rest of Sith Philosophy is pretty swell too. It's about improvement through conflict. Your struggles make you stronger, makes you better, removes your shackles and lets you be free, but also recognizes that you will have to do whatever it takes to do so. The Jedi seek to wipe out the dark knowledge you attain, so you must sequester yourself and hide when you must hide, and strike when you must strike. It's stance could be summed up as something like... "The sacred mission of a Sith is to preserve the Sith Order's most valuable elements as you raise yourself to a dominant position, and all who do not are chaff."

There are people who are really into this. Like, really, really into this. They talk about how they apply this mentality to their real life. They describe themselves as Sith. There are also people who are only kind of into this, they think about positive Sith characters and make headcanons about the good things Sith do.

I need to stress, for those people, that what I am about to say is not hyperbole. I will provide sources.

The Sith Code and Philosophy is Nazi Propaganda. It is literally lifted from Mein Kampf. That quote I used to sum it up is a paraphrased quote from Britannica.com. That's Hitler.

The Sith Code was invented to be in opposition to the Jedi Code, its purpose is to twist a preexisting code to make you think the alternative isn't so bad and it uses codephrases to do so.

Passion, Strength, Victory, Chains, being Free, these are words that we have presubscribed meanings for, but what do they mean in the Sith Code? What IS Passion? What IS Strength? What IS Victory?

Most people I interact with see Passion as Love, passionate, exciting love, the exact thing the Jedi reject. But that can't be it, where's Palpatine's love? Where's Maul's? Where's Vader's?

Passion is obsession. The kind of obsession that will lead you to burning everything down if you don't get what you want. It's not letting anything stand between you and your goal, even if that thing is your goal itself.

Let's break the code down here.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. We start with the obvious twist on the Jedi code, an immediate refutation of the Jedi's first line. It stands in opposition.

Through passion, I gain strength. We've already done Passion, it's a nice little dressing up of "Being a raging psycho"

Through strength, I gain power. Strength is often intermingled with power, but it's often spoken of interchangably with being able to set aside morals. The Sith isn't an amoral monster who just killed a bunch of kids, he's just STRONG enough to do what needed to be done

Through power, I gain victory. Power isn't a code word. Power is Power, Power is what it's all about and there's no hiding it. In the Sith way the only thing that matters is that you are powerful enough to kill your rivals and stand on top.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I think the notions of breaking chains and being Free is the cleverest part of the Sith Code's propaganda kit. It's still seeing use in The Acolyte and it's still convincing people that the Sith are right, even when the guy who's calling for freedom mercs a child then and there.

The Sith are not misunderstood heroes. They're Nazis. They're facist might makes right would be autocrats trying to convince you they're right so you'll validate them and prove them right.

Sith Philosophy is self defeating. Following the Sith Code means you need to define yourself on your conflict, meaning your conflict can never end. For all its claims of being free and breaking chains you can never be free of what drives you or you will lose the strength it gives you. To break your chains you need to hold onto them tight, and you can never let them go.

[thebibliosphere]

Sorry if this is an obvious question but with the impending doom stuff- how different is that to. Hm how to phrase this. I have a sort of long term foreshortened future thing going on with my illness where I'm Always certain I'm going to die soon, and sometimes I get periods of Oh it's Getting Closer. I don't really feel afraid, but I tend to seek medical help anyway just in case- and in most cases something is wrong. Usually I have a virus.

But I don't really know how to categorise that feeling seperately from depression? And people talking about calm acceptance in Sense of Impending Doom resonates with me. But I'm always worried about mentioning this certainty to doctors because they tend to already think I'm making shit up/overdramatic.

Sorry for rambling. Point is- do you know much about a longer term "sense of Impending doom" ?

Possibly. Hm, let me see if I can put this in words.

So, my near-death experience in 2019 was a slow, drawn-out process largely facilitated by medical neglect. I knew something was Wrong in my body, and no one was listening to me. I knew it was going to kill me soon, but again, no one was listening, so I just kind of... quietly got my shit together. It felt gradual but inevitable. Creeping. With hindsight, that was my organs slowly winding down. Horrible feeling.

But that was very different from what I will now categorize as Immediate Impending Doom, which sort of hits like a tidal wave. It's weird to say it's an urgent-calm feeling, but that's what it is.

It's a very now feeling. Like, death within the next twenty minutes to an hour. It's the difference between "This will happen soon, get your affairs in order," and "This is a medical emergency; pay attention. Now."

Which I also have to differentiate from the "something is wrong" feeling I get as a chronically ill person when something new pops up.

I sometimes get what I think of as "warning flashes." My immune system is overreactive thanks to my mast cells being little malfunctioning bastards, so when I get sick with something else, it kicks off my fight or flight due to adrenaline and a bunch of other hormones being thrown into the mix like a Molotov cocktail.

I've had to learn to distinguish that from anxiety/depression because of the nature of my illness (can it be remedied with my meds, does doing grounding exercises help, what are my vitals etc), and I imagine it's the same for other chronically ill people, even if they don't have my specific immune problems.

A virus or something else will absolutely stress out an already stressed nervous system, and it can send you into a feeling of fight or flight, which can feel a bit doom-y.

But the Impending Doom they talk about with heart attacks, strokes, anaphylaxis etc, etc, is a very immediate and all-consuming feeling. The "soon" you seem to be describing seems to be "it'll happen sooner than later" but the Immediate Impending Doom is "right the fuck now." Is that right? Did I pick up on that, or am I way off?

Gah. I'm still probably doing a very bad job of explaining this.

[just-null]

your yan!noritoshi is so wisnwonwpwjw RAAAHHHH going absolutely feral ... i want him . ive had so many thoughts abt him as like a yandere n then i saw your art n absolutely lost it /pos

IM ALL EARS, BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

GOD FUCK OKAY, HOLD ON, I ALSO HAVE SOME RAMBLES AND THOUGHTS ABOUT YANDERE NORITOSHI BUT IM GOING TO PUT THEM UNDER THE CUT.

I AM IN NO WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR UNLEASHING MY TJOUGHTS OFFICER. IT WAS MY GLORIOUS CULT MEMBER RIGHT HERE.

MERRY OCTOBER YALL

[disclaimer: im not a writer, but I want to get better. think of this as my practice. it ended up being so fucking long, but i swear it's just rambles, not a fic]

[warning for blood under the cut? keep that in mind for future posts]

OKAY LETS GO.

Bro ok so. if I'm not too delusional (yet) and don’t see him as a yandere, then this guy (Noritoshi) is still a strict fuck. he'd put you on the same level of importance as his clan if not a bit higher. but only by a bit. Your relationship would gradually bloom into something meaningful to him that he’d cherish you wholeheartedly. Only then would you grow in importance to Noritoshi significantly. He'd keep his resolve and all those healthy green flags. Because honestly? Noritoshi is just a green flag, he's so sweet..

But let's twist that into a yandere setting. I don't even need to twist too much, Noritoshi as a yandere is way too fitting.

Noritoshi was abandoned by his mother as a child, thereby fueling his lifelong goals to do as she said and bring her back. He didn't even think on his own accord, nor did he try to find a different way, or even follow her! He accepted his fate and made it his mission to accomplish the goal he was given. Despite the intense pressure of his worth being determined by an ability he was born with and the high expectations from the Kamo clan, he perseveres. That is until [spoilers] Noritoshi is exiled by his clan because of some Kenajku shit. All his hard work and future goals were ripped away from him without a second thought in an instant. Noritoshi was always the second thought time and time again, and now left as a man with nothing but the failure of his desired future.

That wasn't even the yandere part, that was all canon, what the fuck.

Yandere Noritoshi is the type to cling to scraps... He reminds me of an obsessive and protective yandere. obsessive about you because you become his everything.. his goal, his will to keep going, the light at the end of the tunnel. he wants all of you, from the best parts of you to your worst. He's also protective, because he cant handle losing yet another person so important to him. He'd rather tear himself apart than lose you.

He also seems mostly self-aware but can overthink to the point of delusion. For example, you pat him on the back and tell him he did a great job on something. He knows it's nothing to dwell on, but why does he feel like there's more to your words? Should he read in between the lines? but there's only one line! From then on, his mind would reel until he landed on a favorable conclusion. You meant that he was the only one who did great. The others paled in comparison in your eyes therefore you must favor Noritoshi in some way.. right?

Since Noritoshi was pretty deprived of any emotional support, you won't even have to try too hard to get his heart thumping. If you were to give him even just a bit more attention and care than the average person, like making sure he's eating alright or remarking that he's paler than usual after restocking his blood bags, he's hooked. He's self-aware enough to realize his blooming fondness for you is one-sided, so he simply admires you. that is, at the start. Note that Noritoshi is still new to these feelings so he's.. awkward. It's really cute.

Though these moments were cute to you, they slowly became horribly blissful to Noritoshi. Poor you, completely unaware of how you're slowly corrupting him in, what he thinks, is the best way possible just by giving him your attention. He thinks you're the last and only person still believing in him, so much so that everything and everyone else slowly becomes minuscule in the grand seam of things. He feels happy around you, like he matters, like he has someone to trust, like he has someone who won't abandon him. Because of this, he sees you as a new goal. A new hope. Failing you is not an option. Disappointing you is not an option. Hell, even a frown from you is unacceptable in his eyes.

Noritoshi tries to cling to you at this point in his own way... He enjoys it when you speak to him, or even sit next to him, so much so that he seeks you out when you're not there. You'd feel eyes boring holes into the back of your head, a sense of being followed, sometimes seeing your shadow accompanied by another, every time you turn around to be surprised by a familiar face. His footsteps are so quiet that you barely notice Noritoshi walking around.

Unfortunately, due to Noritoshi’s inexperience, the only way he knows how to impress people is by being “perfect” a.k.a. his strict, pain in the ass, annoying heir shtick. He would be the type to get on your case, scold, coddle, nitpick, correct you, and practically look like he's trying to bully you when in reality he's trying to hear praise from you for "helping" you. He’s waiting for you to see the affection and adoration behind his nagging, is he not being obvious enough? oh well, at least your eyes are on him for now. When most people in Noritoshi's life have either put him second or flat-out abandoned him, he's satisfied with anything he can get from you. Though he'd prefer praise, the thought of your attention being given to another even for a second makes his stomach feel like it's tying in knots, so he settles for your annoyed tuts and glares.

Of course, after a while, you'd get tired of this and tell him to knock it off. Or some variation of what a decent human being would do like, “Do whatever you want, but don't meddle in people's business.”

You KNOW he's going to be picking that apart in the middle of the night while looking up at the ceiling. What did you mean by that? Do you mean ANYTHING he wants? As long as he doesn’t bother anyone? Were you talking about yourself and everyone in general? Were you talking about someone specific? Did you leave it up for him to decide? Thoughts and questions circle in his head until he twists your words enough into something that he favors again. Ah, you allow him to do whatever he wants so long as he doesn't get in your way. But he wants to be alongside you... Did you mean in your way to the point of annoyance? Noted. From then on, Noritoshi's strictness softened into light nagging and bearable hovering. He'd knock it off completely through gritted teeth and furrowed brows if you threatened him with the silent treatment. He'll slowly start it up again until you begin ignoring him, only then will he get the hint and relax a bit. only until next time, of course.

The intensity of Noritoshi's coddling can fluctuate depending on your actions. (recklessness, obedience, shyness, etc.) it's his love language.

It's a completely different story if someone else decides to nag you as Noritoshi does... If someone scolds you, Noritoshi's on the offense. He's known for his occasional bluntness and sassy remarks, but this time... He's contradicting himself all in an attempt to get the other person to back away. If the one scolding you brings up points Noritoshi used in the past, he firmly denies them all and stands by your side. He'd rather sound hypocritical than let someone else care for you the way he does. Noritoshi stands in front of you, almost guarding you with his body and begins his barrage of deflective comments through his clenched jaw such as “That's not your place to say” “Shut it, they did no wrong.” “You don't know the reason why they did so, leave them alone.” and other things similar to that. Jeez, take your advice Noritoshi.. He’d argue and become antagonistic towards someone scolding you, even if it's exactly what he was about to do.

The same goes for someone who tries to be gentle with you to a lesser degree. It's nice that people see how wonderful you are, but having your smiles and kind words directed at anyone else other than Noritoshi is... Upsetting. The resentment gradually pools in the pit of his stomach and suddenly finds himself impulsively moving towards you and this "friend." He stands in between you and the kind person, trying his best to conceal his sneers. He wants nothing more than to have the third party get swallowed up by the ground or hit by a car, but he keeps his composure. Noritoshi sternly states how he’ll handle everything from then on and gives the third party a glare that's much more hateful than usual… Finally! Noritoshi has you to himself again! All is right in the world once more...

Noritoshi has always been on a very tight rope... Any wrong step and it’s going to snap. The more Noritoshi gets attached to you, the easier it is to convince himself that it's okay to cross certain lines to make sure you're safe with him. Even if that line he’s crossing, includes murder. It'd happen quicker if he caught feelings after the whole incident with the Kamo clan. You'd be the only thing he has left, the only thing he'd cling onto with every fiber of his being, emotionally and sometimes physically.

And like every fairy tale, a problem unconventionally shows itself much to Noritoshi's dismay... Noritoshi is shown to be prideful at times. Because of this, he'd try to conceal his more embarrassing emotions and reactions towards you. He wants to be seen as someone strong you can rely on, a steady pillar to your stability, someone who will do anything you wish at the drop of a hat, but it’s almost impossible to execute when he feels like he's nothing but putty in your hands at the slightest sign of positive reciprocation.

If Noritoshi felt his face heating up because your laugh caught him off guard, he'd turn his head to hide how that simple action made him nearly melt into mush. If your hand brushed against his, he'd quickly swipe it away. Not because he doesn't want to touch you, but because you'd feel how shaky and sweaty his palms got with just a graze. Noritoshi's gaze always lingers on his bow if you ever touch it causing his aim to decline in accuracy significantly.

He mentally curses himself out every time he pulls away from you because he knows he's sending mixed signals. Noritoshi loves you endlessly, but please spare his fragile heart. Your presence overwhelms him like no other, and he's utterly conflicted on how to act. He can handle being by your side like he wants, but the second your 100% focus is on him and only him, he’ll start to squirm under your gaze. Noritoshi wants to impress you! Stop being so mesmerizing for just a second so he can gather his thoughts and not embarrass himself! A-ah, but don't look away!!!

Tl;dr Noritoshi as a yandere is needy and petty as hell, but will explode if he gets an ounce of affection! He’s also! A creepy hopeless romantic who sends you mixed signals!

[diabolicalworldwriter]

Jesus, I just got to the point in Words of Radiance where Kal is in prison and Dalinar basically says "You're not going to end racism by being radical and acting upset about it. You can't just expect us to treat you like an equal because you're not one. Play nice and maybe the racists will grow to respect you"

I.

Buddy what the fuck

In general I think I've found that I'm... Not as fond of Dalinar as I used to be. Don't get me wrong, he does some great things and he's constantly trying to improve and I appreciate that. Flawed characters make stories interesting and I think Brandon does a fantastic job of writing him. However, he is overly strict and judgemental (Still not forgiving him for hating on Adolin for trying to express himself a bit more through style in ROW; let my boy dress up a bit if he wants), he struggles to accept other ways of doing things (we could look to Adolin again, being "too friendly" with those he commands and Dalinar going "noooo they might respect you less if they think you see them as an equal individual"), and while he talks about how he wants to change how everything works, if someone tries to defy convention in a way he doesn't approve of he shuts them down. (Kaladin pointing out very fair issues with how dark eyes are punished severely and light eyes get away with everything only to be talked down at until he shut up and fell in line, for example.) He wants change and has power to bring it about but won't do anything too radical for it, I guess, and that frustrates me. He tends to support systems as long as they work for his own goals, even if they're still exploitative and deeply unjust, while also complaining that everyone else is being exploitative and unjust. I dislike that he acts like he's doing Kaladin such a favor by treating him as almost an equal. "I'm sticking my neck out by treating you like a human, act civil and don't try to speak too loudly about the injustices yet, you might make the others uncomfortable." Dalinar isn't like other light eyes, he's so quirky and different and sometimes acts a bit less classist and racist!!! Aren't we lucky!! Idk maybe I'm stating my point a bit too strongly but damn. He's giving "yeah I'm a stubborn old man but really I'm quite progressive, I don't even go out of my way to hate crime people"

Words of Radiance, while I enjoy it, is rather difficult to get through because it's just so many main characters who I generally appreciate being awful to/supporting or ignoring awful behavior towards Kaladin and if he reacts they're like ":0000 how dare he attack first" (I appreciate Zahel chewing out Adolin for antagonizing and then fighting Kal in shardplate because goddamn Adolin I love you but that sucked.)

I'm finding Elhokar a lot more unlikeable on this reread as well. He's meant to be unlikeable of course, so good job on that, but Jesus he can be the worst. Honestly standing beside my past thoughts that what Moash did wrong was not in turning on the system that oppresses him and all the dark eyes, but just that he knowingly hurt Kaladin and other people who cared about him repeatedly and severely to do so.

I'm on board with killing horrible leaders (especially if it seems the only way to remove them and stop them from causing harm: people shouldn't have to suffer and die as part of a leader's learning curve and character growth, and going "they're working on it" when people are actively suffering is garbage. I'm still sad at Elhokar's death but I'm not sad that he's no longer king) but I draw the line at abusing and killing one's friends and I am just hoping he comes to terms with what he has done wrong and improves in book five.

Anyways that was long and scattered I'm sorry lmao you should have heard my rant to my poor cousin, I was rambling for like half an hour.

[genderqueerdykes]

Hello, I’ve got a long winded request for advise that I’d like to ask from you (if you’ll give me a year in advance to ramble lol).

Would just like to state first off that this was something I spent half an hour on cycling between the thoughts of “this is horribly offensive” and “who better to ask” due to some of your posts and because I commonly enjoy and trust your opinions to be at least honest. I know you aren’t obligated to answer this ask but I’d really appreciate it even if it’s simply just a “AITA?” “YTH” situation.

I’ve had an issue recently where I am being ridiculed for making choices for my body and its appearance. The choice is losing weight. I’ve lived my entire life so far as a fat person, for the last 13 or so years I was well above the “class 3 obesity” threshold, right now I’m sitting in the low end of the first class. I don’t really like it, but when I was in the overweight category (I haven’t been an average weight since I was 5, a little more on that later) I got told that by losing weight I was being inherently fatphobic and making other fat people uncomfortable.

I know dieting and the likes can be an uncomfortable topic in general but I never brought it up except for rare mentions of my weight loss, mostly because I was proud of my progress. I’m not wanting to be “thin, “skinny,” whatever etc etc, I would just like to be in the middle of the average category with some visible muscle mass. I was shamed so much that I put myself back up into the obese category, and I’m all for body positivity but it’s not working for me when I know what I want my body to look like. I’m neutral on my body and its functions in general but I’m uncomfortable with the gain I didn’t want and the knowledge that I was on my way to a point of comfort.

As I said before, I haven’t been an average weight since I was 5. That’s because I developed severe binge eating disorder due to trauma. My weight gain was uncontrollable and made me uncomfortable for over a decade. Now that I have some control and a sense of body neutrality, I would like to lose what I gained from my disorder. Not all of it ofc, I’m an adult now and I want a healthy adult body, but I want to be able to make the choices and changes to put my body back into the average weight that I feel was “stolen” from me.

I suppose those thoughts could be considered fatphobic from a certain viewpoint but to me my binge eating disorder and obesity are/were things that I feel the need to heal from. I don’t have these thoughts about anyone else. I don’t want anyone to lose weight if they don’t want to. I love fat bodies. I just want to have the choice to lose weight myself without being considered a bad person.

Do these thoughts and feelings make me a bad/fatphobic person? Does losing weight make me a bad/fatphobic person? I genuinely just want what I believe is best for my body.

Thank you for your time. Stay well.

i have a lot of feelings on this sort of topic, so i appreciate you sending an ask like this, because it's one of the most nuanced, complicated discussions i've tried to have with people recently and a lot of people do not understand the distinction. i'm going to try to break this down to have it make sense to as many people as possible

first of all, people have the right to choose what weight they want their body to be at, so long as it's not causing genuine harm, especially permanent harm. losing weight is not inherently evil, the thing is, a lot of people either need to lose weight or choose to do so for good reasons. i was very heavy at one point, 360 lbs, and i was starting to get new pain i hadn't experienced before. it was hard to stand for any period of time. i couldn't walk much.

after i started walking around the neighborhood and losing that extra weight, that pain went away. i feel a lot better having less of that weight on me. i gained weight in a very unhealthy manner during this time, mostly by not eating well for my dietary needs, sleeping excessively, no exercise, and so on. the thing is that we have to take care of our total health and not everyone who is fat is unhealthy, but some people can and do put on weight that impairs their functioning or health and it's not good to ignore that this is a thing that can and does happen

you're allowed to decide what you feel your body should look like especially if you are not taking this to extremes. i like to keep my weight below a certain range, myself. i keep a close eye on it. fortunately it's easy to stay around a certain healthy range for my body because i cook a lot of meals at home and i mostly eat vegetarian food and fish due to allergies and digestive issues. i'm still about 311 lbs but it's in a much healthier configuration for my body

weight is a complex conversation. both thin and fat bodies are stigmatized. we need to drop our obsession with body image and let people be the arbiters of their own weight, at least, letting people express what they want and helping them reduce harm and find ways to achieve that goal realistically in a healthy manner. shaming people doesn't work. we've proven this decade after decade. shaming skinny people doesn't work. shaming fat people doesn't work. shaming anyone doesn't work

dieting is a very specific thing. everyone's diet is 100% unique to their body. your digestive system works different than the person next to you's. you may not metabolize nutrients as well as someone else. you may process fats and proteins differently. you may need a lot of electrolytes. you may not be able to digest fiber. you may struggle with fructose, glucose and other sugars. you may not be able to eat any meats at all. you may need lots of fruits. it will depend greatly on who you are

it's best to work with your body than against it. you are allowed to decide what weight range you want to be within. best thing you can do is attempt an elimination diet to see if there are foods that just don't do your body any favors, these can and should be done very slowly with one food at a time. but i'm not a health professional, so that's just a suggestion.

either way good luck, i don't like when people try to boil this down to "this is good" or "This is bad". there are good and bad things to all of this. it's worth discussing both sides of that. i hope this helped you in any way

[thebramblewood]

I was tagged by @retrotrait, @simvanie, @moonwoodhollow, @aheathen-conceivably annnnnnd @salemssimblr to post my top 24 screenshots from 2024, but I jumped the gun on posting a retrospective earlier this month.

I still wanted to do something, though, so I'm going to take some inspiration from @elderwisp and talk about my favorite story scenes of the year specifically - since there's nothing I love more than yapping and reminiscing.

Before I start rambling, I'll tag @living-undead, @esotericas-sims, @fallstaticexit, @simsdaughters, @biffybobs, @whyeverr, @kissalopa and @earthmoonz! I'm sure some of you have already done this (and no pressure if you don't want to), but I'd love to see you reflect on your year in whatever way suits you!

Good food and hard truths with Grace Anansi (one, two). I think this is quietly one of my favorite moments in the story so far because it revealed so much about Caleb's past that until this point had only been hinted at. It also gave him a friend and confidante, which he sorely needed. This was an extremely lengthy and exposition-heavy conversation, so it was challenging but rewarding to write, edit (endlessly), and execute in a compelling way. Plus, its final moments had to lead seamlessly into...

Party like a spellcaster (one, two). I think this was the first flashback in the story, so it was a pretty big deal! It was also the point where my ambitions started making scene preparation increasingly complicated. I spent a hell of a long time converting broomsticks and potions into pose accessories, but I was so pleased with how the vision came together, and it taught me a lot of skills that have become indispensable as my ideas grow more elaborate. Overall, it was a welcome moment of levity and joy for Caleb, even as we know tragedy looms in the future.

Lilith does a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. Turns out once I started doing flashback scenes, I couldn't stop. You guys have no idea how it felt to sit on this particularly nasty secret for months. I wanted it to be a shocking reveal that fully established Lilith's villain status, but I also knew I would have to get her back into Helena's - and our - good graces eventually. It's been interesting to write a character like her who you love and hate at once. Ultimately, I want all of us to be on the same rollercoaster ride as Helena, equal parts repulsed and fascinated. This was especially wild to bring to life because it felt pretty surreal to be adding a whole new layer to this idea that originated years ago in my legacy!

Helena Zhao can't come to the phone right now. I was very proud of this scene because it was the first one where I made all the poses myself. It was also a major turning point in Helena and Julia's relationship, where their sisterly bond is deeply tested. I may have cried a little while writing and shooting it. I really enjoyed the brief moments we got to spend in Julia's perspective, and I hope to bring her back if the story calls for it. Although she was in extreme shock at what her sister had done, I imagine she'd eventually come around to having a bit more compassion for her situation. She'd probably be open to reconciling someday, presuming Helena ever sets foot in Copperdale again.

Reunited and it feels so... good? (one, two). I didn't even realize I posted Helena and Lilith's reunion on April Fool's! Everyone was waiting with bated breath to see if they would ever cross paths again... and who are we kidding? Of course they would! I had a very good time writing this conversation and giving Helena a chance to finally get everything off her chest - though, of course, she couldn't help but be worn down by Lilith's manipulative charm in the end. And then Caleb got his comeuppance for keeping the truth of what happened a secret for so long, reminding us once again just how scary Lilith can be.

Plasma Pals! As dark as this story is, I enjoy weaving in moments of comedy and lightness when I can, so it was really fun to portray Caleb and Helena's evolving friendship through the lens of a cheesy sitcom. I wasn't sure it would hit with anyone other than me because the funniest things I write are usually accidental. It's hard to be funny on purpose! But it ended up being possibly my most popular story post ever, so obviously I did something right.

Lilith teaches Helena the true art of supernatural seduction. I wanted this section of the story to be all about the two very different approaches Lilith and Caleb take to teaching Helena. This was one of my most technically challenging scenes. I shot the entire attack sequence twice because I was underwhelmed the first time. But in the end I'm glad I took the time to do that because it contains some of my favorite screenshots ever and really conveys Helena's internal struggle. But will she be able to resist when it inevitably happens again?

The night where it all began, part one. I love this entire series of flashbacks, but I'm particularly fond of the opening because we finally get a glimpse into what Caleb and Lilith's relationship was like as humans. It turns out they liked each other! And only bickered in a light-hearted way! And conspired and giggled together! This was another scene where I made all the poses. It was exhausting, but these flashbacks to the Vatores' vampire origins were so important for me to get right. I'd been thinking about them for a long time, so I wanted them to be as perfect as possible.

How Caleb was transformed, one and two. Again with the flashbacks! I think part of the reason I like them so much is because, as much work as they are, they always offer a change of scenery that refreshes my creativity. This particular scene was one I was obsessing over for months, so I had cultivated a very specific vision of how it would play out and didn't want to compromise. I'm glad I had the foresight to start learning posing far enough in advance that I felt ready to take it on. If I had to choose, this is my single favorite scene of the year. Everything came together exactly how I wanted, and it gives me chills every time I revisit it.

A very vampiric dinner date, part two. This entire sequence took so much work to complete from beginning to end! But it was the first big outing beyond Forgotten Hollow in a while, and I wanted it to be special. I enjoyed being able to put a bunch of pre-mades into compromising positions with your guys' vampires. As much of a pain as it is to pose multiple Sims, the end results are always worth it. And then, of course, the sequence resolves in Helena and Lilith having a genuine moment of intimacy for the first time since Helena was turned, which had us all squealing.

Helena is horny and confused. Can you believe this is the only Ulrike appearance of the year? 😭 I'm really glad I managed to sneak one in. Even though they broke up before she was turned, Ulrike is the ultimate reminder of Helena's human life, of everything she left behind and of what could have been. Other than her family, Ulrike is who Helena misses most when she thinks about the past. This scene was pulled together quickly based on me finding the pose pack. I wasn't entirely sure if it would even work as part of the main narrative. But I feel like the spontaneity made it feel extra special, even if it is a smaller moment.

Forgotten Hollow 101. If anything, the theme of this year has been taking an increasingly long amount of time to finish every post. This is in part because I got busier in the second half of the year but also because I can't stop thinking up crazy complicated ideas. This one took me a month more or less. Even though each vampire only had one picture, it required a lot of effort to get them all in game, find poses, set up locations, etc.! But it was so important to me to do justice to your guys' vampires, so I was happy to take the time, even in the couple of moments where I began to feel burned out. I hope to keep showing off your lovely creations next year!

[snazzydwarf]

I watched Transformers One last night, and now that I've let it sink in over night I have some WORDS (In a positive way, this movie SLAPPED and I just wanna ramble haha)

I'll just be going over the main 4 however!

So Spoilers under the cut!!!

Okay straight off the bat I wanna preface that I'm not the most knowledgeable about the TF franchise, I'm more of a casual fan. I've seen some of the Bay movies, Bumblebee 2018, and a little of bit of a few of the TV shows. (I'm starting to read the IDW comics, but I'm not far)

So as a casual fan of the franchise this movie was EVERYTHING.

It's just so... refreshing to have a simple "friends to enemies" story line that doesn't try to get complicated. You can tell that the people working on the movie really fucking loved the franchise, and that they took the time to refine the movie.

Megatrons origin story is very believable and well paced, at time's I went "YEAH BEAT HIS ASS D" outloud. OOOOO AND HIS OPTICS CHANGING COLOURS SLOWLY IS AWESOME!!! I can't remember the exact scene (I have horrible memory) but there's this one frame of Orion standing up after being pushed away, and you can see D-16 standing up in the background behind him... and he's just covered in shadows, his optics are a muddy orange. No longer the bright yellow like they were in the beginning and UGG THAT WAS GREAT!!

Chris Hemsworth was actually really well cast as a young Optimus. I don't think he would suit a more war-torn and older Optimus Prime, however as Orion Pax I think he hit the nail on the head. He sounded young, hopeful and full of curiosity that it makes the broken friendship between D-16 and Orion Pax more impactful.

They spent the whole movie being at each other's backs, even when you can tell D was getting sick of his shit, they loved each other. D saying "I won't ever follow another leader" oof- and with his "the only person I can trust is-" being cut off short is GREAT foreshadowing.

At that point in the story I don't even know if he would have said Orion, or himself. Their bond is straining, tensions are rising high and they have hit a split road.

Elita I think, while not being as stand out as the other two, was pretty great in the movie as well. She had a more low-key character Arc, going from a stick in the mud looking for her next promotion, loosing it all because of Orion saving another bot (Jazz!!!!), being mad at him and willing to do anything to get back up the rank, having her whole world fall... and then finding hope within the last bot she would ever thought she would.

She is a figure head, someone who leads and gives commands, yet is bound and confined by rules and her superiors. I don't think she was every truly happy, but seeing Orion try his hardest and never loosing the spark of hope and bullheadedness inside him inspired her.

I believe that scene of her giving back the map to Orion was the first sign or her beginning to trust him, in addition to her not taking back the map later on.

OKAY NOW... BUMBLEBEE... well B-127 BUT MY LITTLE BEE!!

Oh you poor bastard, look at you! You're not mentally well honey, and the war has JUST started!!!! I really liked him in this film and I will defend him to the end.

Was he a little annoying? Yes. BUT it fits and it works. He's been alone for Prime knows how long, he's desperate for friends and companionship that he can't shut up now that finally, finally he has someone else to talk with.

I liked his jokes throughout the film, sure others can find it annoying (god knows the D, Elita and Orion kinda did) but underneath all of that is just a profound sadness.

You can see this when D-12 is standing up to Sentinel, he tells D to stand down, to kneel. Because he's afraid, he's afraid he's gonna watch as one of the first friends he's ever made be killed right in front of him.

He's also not as dense as other's think he is. He may be optimistic, loud and ever the chatter box who lacks the social ques of someone who's been alone for far to long, but he knows when to calm down. He was quiet when they found the bodies of the Primes, he was the one who had the Energon cube to give to Alpha Trion and he did that in a quiet and careful way cuz he knew that this was serious.

He doesn't crack a joke when they see the demise of the Primes and Sentinel's betrayal cuz he's also as shocked as the others. He's NOT an airhead, he's many things in this movie, but he isn't dumb. (also without him, legit nothing the movie was even possible, cuz he was the one who saved the SOS message of Alpha Trion and he was the one with the Energon cube... I'm just saying-)

Anyways, this was a great movie! If you haven't seen it (just spoiled urself mate lol) then please go watch it in the theaters if you are able to. It would be such a shame if this were to "flop" and we never got to see a sequel to this time line.

more thoughts in the tags cuz this has gone on long enough!

[cinnamon-stixs]

I FUCKING LOVED MASTERMIND HADUFHHDUIDF I HAVE TO RAMBLE ABOUT IT!! SPOILERS LOL

also warning this is long as hell

-Andrealphus's house is surrounded by snow, as is his whole theme. It kinda reminds me of the mythology of hell's frozen center.

-I fucking love stella guys. I'm sorry. I hate her so fucking much and I want to shit on her dreams, and that is EXACTLY why I love her character so much. I'm so glad she's getting more development.

-Andrealphus didn't know about the deal, just that Stolas cheated. So Stella REALLY didn't tell him much.

-I like Andrealphus's peacock theming

-"Now you fucking know!" icon.

-I really like the detail of them using Moxxie and Blitz's mugshots, as well as Millie's wanted poster. It's a really good illustration of how authority figures will do anything they can against minorities, and really pushes the themes of classism and oppression in the show.

-Blitz immediately running to delete his search history, me core.

-He's so scared of going to jail again :(

-"We are going to beat you! But only a little!"

-She's exactly like her fucking dad. She cares SO MUCH deep down, but puts on that 'indifferent asshole' attitude to protect herself.

-"The shredder is jammed!!" D:

-These poor interns

-Blitz, of course, crashes immediately.

-Moxxie uses 'Blitz' instead of 'sir'

-THE MUZZLE. I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL MYSELF.

-I wanna note as they walk in, Satan is acting in place of lucifer, since he's too busy with the Hotel stuff. He claims he was in hell BEFORE Lucifer, but I take that with a good spoonful of salt.

-"Is this about the orphans?" HUH?

-Dude these motherfuckers keep deadnaming Blitz and it pisses me off! Like I get that's the point but still.

-The sloth and envy sins are here!

-I really like Vassago. It seems like he really cares about fair due process in general, but he also seems to have some sort of beef with Andrealphus.

-"Since when is ATTEMPTING a crime illegal am I right?" You stupid bastard.

-"LIES!!" STFU

-I've seen a few people question why Andrealphus would go straight after Blitz instead of Stolas, since he wants him gone so bad, but the answer is simple. Andrealphus KNOWS there's pretty much nothing he can do to demon royalty, especially since Stolas was considered above him on the Goetia food chain. Going after the imp, a member of an already extremely marginalized group, was simply a safer bet.

-I wish Ozzie and Bee spoke up more. It seems ooc, but at the same time we don't know how big the power imbalance is between Satan and the rest of the sins. (Aside Lucifer)

-"A responsible and handsome Goetic demon such as myself-" You should kill yourself, NOW!!

-They never wanted to let him speak up in the first place.

-"Put his kind to shame" BRO HE BAGGED DEMON ROYALTY.

-wtf is up with Satan and his little meditator twink assistant

-YES VASSAGO!! BRING UP THAT HE'S NOT HERE! IT'S ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT THAT STOLAS WASN'T INFORMED AND CLEARLY INDICATES ANDREALPHUS HAS OTHER MOTIVES!! YES HE SHOULD BE SUMMONED!!

-God I love Vassago I hope he's a reoccurring character

-"didn't want him to go through the trauma of facing his aggressor' is such a thinly veiled argument, but no one fucking cares because Blitz is just an imp.

-WHY IS STRIKER HELPING DEMON ROYALTY. Does he hate Blitz that much because he associated with them? Is he getting paid? Was he threatened?

-"If I wanted to kill Stolas, I would've done it myself." Good point, HORRIBLE wording.

-"oh he just fucked himself over."

-I am so sorry your boss is a fucking moron

-PLEASE Bee and Ozzie you can do better than "He probably has a good reason for all of this!"

-Bee throwing dick popsicles at Mammon, I love you girl.

-God I hate this classist piece of shit

-He KNOWS smthn is up.

-The immediate cut to a Mammon joke after our mcs are SENTENCED TO DEATH really shows how little higher class demons care about imps and hellhounds

-We obviously know They're not ACTUALLY gonna kill any of them off, but I was still biting my fuckin nails dawg

-What an EVIL move.

-Fizz and Ozzie's full conversation before this. So, Ozzie most likely had no idea the trial was for Blitz.

-Side note, but I'm kinda surprised Fizz and Ozzie dating wasn't brought up aside from that line from Mammon about Ozzie and Bee 'associating with the lower class'.

-wtf is up with Satan? If this were any other sin, Ozzie would not HESITATE to clock their ass. Just look at s2 ep7!

-"NOT THEM YOUR HIGHNESS!" What if I cried.

-"you're acting kinda ruby" GET OUT OF HERE TWINKIE

-"I suppose I created impkind to be obedient" Motherfucker those are people.

-"Just axe the mouthy one" It's so in-character for Blitz to not assume himself to be the mouthy one

-He still careeeesss augh!! He sounded so distressed

-"We'll pretend to care" So accurate! Ouch!

-"Moxxie, stop. This big red bitch never planned on hearing us out."

-HER FACE. "Just take care of Loona for me" WHAT IF I FUCKING CRIED.

-Fun fact this is the part of the episode where I started bawling like a loser

-"I love you guys" I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL MYSELF. IM GONNA DO IT FUCK

Uhh I have to reblog to continue this bc I hit the image cap halfway through lmfaoo

[lampochkaart]

1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 18, 19 and 20 for Kokichi for the character ask??? (Sorry if that's too many haha)

Woah, so many! Okay, okay, I don't mind👀

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I love him so much!! I really love how complex he is, how incredible charismatic and fun he is, how fucking smart he is... And I also love how flawed and biased he is. And how cynical and stubborn he is.

I absolutely LOVE the characters that are right and wrong at the same time. Kokichi often says something that is technically right, but at the same time his judgement is very flawed so it's impossible to completely agree with him. Or he's trying to do something good but the way he's doing it is... not great. Or has a good intentions but is being a complete asshole about it.

Like, for example, the situation with Maki. Yes, it's a good thing that he warned everyone about an assassin since they're in a killing game. But also he was trying to separate her from the group and kept needling her even when she wasn't showing any agression to others (and also she had plenty oportunities to kill, but made no move to do it). Only willing to see her as a threat.

And, of course, he's also a very tragic character. What's even worse is that most of it is self inflicted. He isolates, he turns people against himself, he cuts off every possible friendly connection he had. He spends so much time investigating, coming up with plans. And dies in a horrible painful way for the sake of a plan. The plan that didn't work. And he lied to such an extent that people doubted even the sincerity of his last words. Absolutely soul crushing (and body crushing SORRY)

10/10 angst, my heart is in pieces💔

He's both funny and entertaining and also very tragic and I love him for it

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

Hmm... Hard to only choose one

Probably his insane acting abilities. How much he's able to control his emotions, how fast can he switch from one to another. How he's able to keep his face no matter how he feels

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

Difficult question, because I really like him. Even (especially) with his flaws

Uhhh... His bad CGs maybe? It's more of a problem with V3 in general (although some CGs from other games also have problems). But I'm just thinking about those ones from after trial 4 and they... look very weird. It might be becuase V3's production was rushed, but still

Other that that it's what I'm talking about in 19th question

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I'm gonna answer these two questions in a different ask since it would probably be pretty long answer and this post is already long enough

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

Oh, I'll take this as an invitation to ramble about Kokichi and Kaito!! >:]

I think Kaito and Kokichi's relationship is probably the most interesting in the game. They are polar opposites. They are two sides of the same coin. The are narrative foils.

It's so facinating to see their opposite ideologies clash. Kaito is an idealistic optimist, who wants to play the role of a hero, who values emotions over logic, who's willing to believe at someone simply because he wants to. Kokichi is a cynical pessimist, who likes playing the villain, who values logic over emotion, and who would rather lie, than let people get close to him.

Because of that they constantly get into arguements. And they're totally baffled by each other. Before they never met anyone like that, probably haven't even considered people like this real. How could someone be so cynical and distrusting? How could someone be so naive and trusting? They just can't understand each other's point of view because it's so different from their own. And that's just so fun to watch

But at the same time... They are very similar. Both of them are liars. Both of them are upholding an image, presenting themselves stronger than they are. Both are social, like to be around people. Both like to have fun. Both like to tell crazy stories. Both sometimes act "immature".

And also I like this little fact that a lot of Kaito's loved items are Kokichi's liked items and a lot of Kokichi's loved items are Kaito's liked items. So they even have a lot of shared interests!

It's very entertaining to watch them get into conflicts with each other. And it's because of all their antagonism throughout the game, that it's so cool to see them work together in Ch.5.

They're forced in a fucked up hopeless situation and they do their best to make the most use of it. They have a common goal: to end the killing game. So they put aside their differences and work together. They see each other in their most vulnerable moments. They hate it, but there's no way to avoid it. They put their trust in eachother. They switch roles. But at the same time the roles don't change. Kaito becomes a liar (but he was always one). Kokichi becomes a martyr (but he was always going to do that).

I love 5th case because it's not a murder out of malice, not a murder to get our and not an accident. It's an act of trust. They both put trust in each other. Even though they were pretty much enemies for a good part of the game! They both know they're dying. They both know that there's a high risk of the plan failing. But they still choose to do it. For a small chance of success. For a small chance of a happy ending. Not for themselves, but for their friends.

In my opinion Kaito and Kokichi have one of the most interesting relationships in DR. And I firmly believe that to understand one of them, you have to understand the other. Only then it's possible to see the full picture.

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

Kokichi's relationship with Kiibo. He's just constantly picking on him for no reason. The bit quickly becomes too repetetive and just unnecessary mean. Also to me it feels that a lot of things Kokichi does should have some kind of meaning behind them (sometimes even several layers of meaning). So I would've kinda expected that since Kokichi's doing this so persistently, he's trying to do something. Like maybe he's somehow trying to push Kiibo to accept his unique abilities and powers. And while that maaaybe kinda can be interpreted like Kokichi is doing it in the most weird awkward way possible. But still, it's a pretty big stretch. Without any actual payoff it's just Kokichi being mean to Kiibo and that's it. Just bullying the poor robot who wants to be treated normally

They could be friends if Kokichi was nicer to Kiibo. And I would really like them to be friends...

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

GONTA!!!

Kokichi's friendship with Gonta is so so important to me!!

I don't know, I just think it would be so nice if Kokichi would hang out with Gonta and listen to him talk about bugs even though he hates bugs. And if Gonta would participate in Kokichi's pranks. I just like to think they would have fun together. They could've been such an cool duo if they weren't in a shitty stressful situation.

I like Kokichi being friends with Miu and potentially with Rantaro and with Kaito, but Kokichi's friendship with Gonta holds a special place in my heart<3

Thank you for the ask!!<333

[echo-bleu]

Disability pride request? Two characters of your choice hanging out, maybe one using two forearm crutches and one using two canes. They can be friends or partners - I just generally love seeing disabled characters interactng with one another!

How about three disabled characters?

Once upon a time @camille-lachenille sent me a prompt about Míriel having Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. I had already sketched a disabled Celegorm with EDS in mind and, thinking about how it's genetic, had an epiphany about Celebrimbor (and the meaning of his name) and I drew him as well. So I wrote a fic about all three of them dealing with chronic pain, but I still hadn't drawn Míriel. That oversight is now fixed!

They have more in common than just chronic illness xD.

This is still titled "The EDS gang" in my files, I'm going to stick to it. Set sometime in Fourth Age Valinor, when most things are good again...

Disabled Tolkien characters series

(Feel free to send me more disability prompts! I love drawing them.)

More ramblings about disability aids that devolved into bullet-point headcanons under the cut. ID and transcription at the end, but they're also in alt text.

[CW: this is all fairly light but discussion of death and trauma and you know, everything that comes with these three.]

I do not know how to make comics. I'm sure that's very obvious but, you know, learning new things and all that. One thing I learned was that my usual style of rendering does not work with it as well so I rendered them entirely twice.

It was meant to be day 21 and 22 of my October challenge, because surely I can draw and colour a full page in a day (spoilers: no). In the end it was a combined 15 hours of work over 3 and a half days because I made it as complicated as I possibly could 😭 Still, I had fun and learned a lot.

Note: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a connective tissue disorder, affecting basically how your cells are glued together. There are a lot of different symptoms (and different types of EDS) but a frequent one is joint pain and hypermobility, and it's at least partly inherited.

Míriel:

Red was Míriel's colour first. She's not into gaudy things and rarely wears vivid colours, but almost always something red. She barely wears any jewellery since reembodiment, mostly for sensory reason (She is very autistic. That's something she gave Fëanor, Curufin, Caranthir, Ambarussa and Celebrimbor, at least.)

She died of post-partum (and general) depression and energy depletion from childbirth or something, but the chronic illness that was taking all of her energy and keeping her from her craft certainly didn't help.

Also pregnancy was horribly rough on her, partly because EDS can be affected by hormonal changes.

She's actually been better since reembodiment, because she has better accommodations (Finwë did his best but he was very lost) and also a Vala on hand who makes her very good painkilling tea.

She wears knitted compression gloves that she designed to help with hand pains.

Her wheelchair is of Noldor make, but I'm sure Celebrimbor will have suggestions for improving it.

The tapestry that she is weaving is actually this painting of Finrod that I did a while ago. I figure that she's representing calmer, nicer things now that she doesn't have to weave her grandchildren's downfall and deaths.

Celegorm:

He was in a relationship with Oromë before the Exile. After his reembodiment, it took them a while by they talked it out and forgave each other. Oromë doesn't quite get elves, but he's really supportive.

He has a pair of wolf-head canes carved by Nerdanel. He alternatively uses both, just one and sometimes none depending on activity/pain level.

He wears bandages as compression garments because this is a world without elastane. His leggings have reinforced knees for support.

He's always heard about Míriel having the same thing as he does from Finwë, and he knew that when he started showing symptoms, Fëanor was terrified that he'd fade too. So for a long time, Míriel's story was kind of hanging above his head.

That's why it takes him a while to go seek her out after he's reembodied. Celebrimbor understands why it's important to him and he pushed him to it a little bit, so Celegorm dragged him along.

They're going to get along great. Míriel is both the quintessential grandmother and also she has a twisted sense of humour that Celegorm will just love.

Celebrimbor:

Celegorm was always his favourite uncle, and they became very close when Celebrimbor started having symptoms in the early years in Exile, and Celegorm stayed with Curufin in Himlad for him.

It took Celebrimbor a while to forgive him after Returning (not as long as Curufin but still) but they've gone back to being really close.

He was really unlucky with reembodiment: while he wasn't reborn with the physical aspect of his torture, the memory of pain and the trauma made his chronic pain a lot worse than it was before, and he can no longer walk unaided.

He designed the silver ring and wrist splints back in Eregion with Narvi's help, and ended up literally living up to his name (which means "silver fist/grasping hand").

Paradoxically these were a great motivation for him to work through his trauma and go back to the forge, because he couldn't find a silversmith in Valinor who could make good enough ones for him, even with all of his sketches and specifications.

A lot of his work since reembodiment has been designing and making disability aids for people.

He uses platform crutches to spare his hands as much as possible. He invented and designed them, of course, as well as the KAFO brace that he wears here. He's also a part-time wheelchair user.

He is still wearing dwarven beads in his hair. He obviously didn't bring anything back from Middle-Earth but he asked Gimli to make them for him in remembrance of Narvi. His tunic is also dwarven-inspired.

He is pretty chill about Sauron here. I don't know if there was a redemption (I have feelings about @chthonion's The Harrowing and @mynameisjessejk's Otter Mayhem) or if he's just been through enough elf-therapy to be able to joke about it. Celegorm's sense of humour is just Like That.

Celegorm and Celebrimbor are about to try Vairë's special painkilling tea for the first time 👀

Between all of them they should really open a disability aids shop or something. They just might! Míriel doesn't really ever leave Vairë's house but I think Celegorm and Celebrimbor will keep visiting her a lot, and eventually all of the grandkids will as well.

Image description and transcriptions:

Two digital comic book pages.

Image 1: The first case takes the whole width, showing two pairs of feet with each two canes/crutches on a tiled floor, with a speech bubble saying "Do you think she'll want to see us?"

The second line has two cases in 2/3 and 1/3 format. The first shows two hands in red fingerless gloves working on a tapestry on a loom. The second shows part of a light-skinned face in profile, with curly white hair. Three speech bubbles say "My love?" "Um?" "There are people here asking for you."

The bottom part has one case off-center showing the same hand undoing the brake of a wheelchair, with a speech bubble saying "Your grandson and your great-grandson." above and one saying "I'll be right here." below. Then a full-length off-case portrait of Miríel, a light-skinned elf with shoulder-length curly white sitting in a wheelchair and pushing herself. She's wearing a pale pink embroidered dress with red accents, red fingerless gloves and elbow pad and brown boots and smiling.

Image 2: A single large case shows two elves standing in a room with a tiled floor, with a large door and two tables behind them. There are thread spools on one table and a tea set on the other. One elf, Celebrimbor, is brown-skinned and slightly chubby, with long black hair in a braided bun, wearing a red tunic and dark green pants. He is leaning on two decorated platform combo crutches made of wood and metal, with a KAFO brace on his leg. He wears finger and hand silver splints. The other elf, Celegorm, is pale and has long white hair in a high ponytail with small braids, he has tattoos on his neck and arms and he wears bandages on his shoulders, elbows and wrist. He wears a green tunic, leggings and wrap-around gaiters. He is leaning on a cane and holding up another cane, pointing at the first elf. Both canes have handles carved in the shape of wolf heads.

The speech bubbles are arranged around and below them, giving this dialogue, with the speakers distinguished by the shape of the bubble (the parts in parentheses are smaller text in the bubbles):

Celegorm: "My lady, my name is Tyelkormo, and this is my nephew Tyelpë." Miríel: "I know who you are, my wonderful children. Come sit." Celebrimbor: "That would be nice, thank you." Miríel: "Vairë, my love, would you make us some tea?" Celebrimbor: "My lady!" Celegorm: "A Vala who can make tea! (I could never get Oromë to do it.)" Miríel: "It was a long domestication process." Vairë (off screen): "Hey!" Celebrimbor: "Instant hot water! That’s nice. (I wonder if I could replicate that.)" Miríel: "She makes wonderful hot water bottles." Celegorm: "Oromë just uses his hands as hot pads." Celebrimbor: "Ew, I didn’t need to know that." Celegorm: "What? Just because your Maia burns everything he touches–" Celebrimbor: "Shut up." Miríel: "You must both tell me everything about yourself. And your partners!"

[cosmicpancakes]

Hi! So I saw your post about wanting to talk about Will Solace (me too queen, me too) so what are your headcanons? Or funny little tidbits about him and his friends? Love your blog!

OF COURSE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK!!! to hear that someone genuinely loves my blog is so surreal cause like??? You like my blog?? Where I literally just say what's on my mind and ramble???

(P.S. TO ANYONE SEEING THIS!! IF YOU WANT HEADCANONS FOR OTHER CHARACTERS JUST SHOOT ME AN ASK!!!! I WILL HAPPILY ANSWER THEM ALL :DD)

Okay without further ado, here they are!!!

My Will Solace headcanons! ☀️

He has curly hair! Think somewhere between 2c and 3a

Speaking about hair, his hair is naturally brown and he dyes it blonde

ANOTHER HAIR ONE but he has a very extensive hair care routine! You'd think he would have very damaged hair because of all the bleaching, but that shit is SOFT

Only uses feminine floral perfume cause it smells better (hes right. it does.)

Despite insisting on healthy eating, he survives off of random snacks and red bulls

Loves indie pop and jazz music but does listen to a lot a country as it reminds him of his mother

Hopeless romantic. He will cry to laufey.

90% of his closet is made up of incredibly cheesy dad joke t-shirts.

Wears lots and lots of bracelets! All very mismatched in terms of colour and texture, but it adds to the charm (or so he says)

His hair is just long enough to put in a very short ponytail when he works (but a few loose curls always slip out)

He sticks out his tongue when he's concentrating on something

Clarrisse practically adopted him as her honorary little brother and he went to her highschool graduation!! (she totally did not cry when she saw him. nope. not at all.)

everyone at camp owes him atleast 5 favours except lou ellen because she somehow never gets injured??? Cecil on the other hand, owes him about 13 favours.

Friday is the apollo cabin's game night, and he NEVER wins (kayla swears austin is cheating, but hes just really good at monopoly.)

the cabin is always spotless because he despises stable duty

(This one is canon but not talked about enough) when he said he's horrible at every apollo thing except healing, he was not exaggerating. an absolutely horrid singer and he would miss a target 3 metres away.

okay that was a lie because he can manipulate light.... to a certain extent. he's working on it he swears!!

One of those people that are incredibly insistant about wearing sunscreen even tho he doesn't need it himself

And now for some angsty ones because I know you all love them:

A very obvious one, but he has pretty bad PTSD.

I'm pretty sure this one is canon, but he saw Lee die in botl (i have had a oneshot idea about thia for months, but i literally never finish oneshots so theres no point in trying to write it ☹️)

A lot of people thought him and Lee were biological siblings because they looked so similar and also because they were super close

him and Micheal were also really close, but they were a lot more distant after Lee died and they never really got to reconnect

Post botl, the apollo cabin had about 17 kids. 3 survived the battle of manhattan.

has a really bad habit of overworking to distract himself

Way too many scars for a medic. (He won't admit where he got them from, or why most of them are on him arms.)

Okay, that's all for today!! I hope you enjoyed those headcanons :)

Once again saying this but if anyone reading this wants some headcanons for other characters please please leave me an ask 🙏 love you all okay bye bye

[puffskeeter]

Hey I’m such a big fan of your art and I very much enjoy watching your YouTube channel 🤍🤍

And I want to ask you why you don’t ship the ppgxrrb and I want to hear your opinion about it which I can very much respect.

Plus another question that what type of fashion you think your au of the Powerpuff, Rowdyruff, and your Original Characters fall into between I really love how you draw them?

OMG TYSM!! I think i've seen your comments on my videos and TYSM for those too!! :D

I'll make a seperate post for my fashions/aesthetics for RRBORN characters! this one is pretty long even though i wanted it to be short lolz

Why i dont actively ship PPGxRRB:

I'm scrapping my drafted essay post about this for now because its really uncalled for and unnecessary. IDK sorry to anyone who looked forwards 2 it, but i just dont think i illustrate my point very well and more than half of it is lowkey a biased vent post and pure rambling. Either way this is the TLDR for the post you'll never see LOL.

But actually, I do ship PPGxRRB, i've just drifted away from it over the years. I think one of the biggest 'problems' i have with PPG x RRB is mainly with the portrayal of it. My main issue is with how a lot of people mischaracterize the RRB/PPG and completely deconstruct them as characters so that they can be love interests for the eachother and nothing more. One of my points in my scrapped post was that; I have no idea how an entire fandom managed to gender-bend the Bechdel test, but it is rare that i find PPGxRRB media where the RRB have actual lives, interests, hobbies, and friends that have nothing to do with the PPG. Half the time they can barely have a thought if it isn't about the PPG. As i said, Gender-bent Bechdel test.

Another point was that: ppgxrrb has gained a horrible reputation for itself over the years. Back in its "Glory" days, Toxic fans of the ships had bulldozed anything that differs from their favorite empty dynamics. Those usually being The Reds, Blues, and Greens. Nowadays i still see almost nothing in the realms of variety between creators interpretations of the ships. Almost every time i see a PPGxRRB post, it can fit into a set dynamic that the ship is already infamous for.

I want to be able to see the creators love and passion for their ships. I want to know how and why these characters ended up together. If a story is to be told, i want to hear it. I know that the majority of PPGxRRB creators are, by default, amateurs (they dont get paid and its not on a professional scale), but after seeing the exact same badly written love story hundreds , maybe even thousands of times with little-to-no variety, I've gotten bored and tired of people devaluing my favorite characters to be nothing more than overplayed dynamics and shipping fuel.

A lot of people like shipping because of the dynamics, but ship dynamics don't hook me in, and ive noticed that most PPGxRRB stuff is purely ship dynamics and nothing more. Theres nothing wrong with loving ship dynamics or being drawn to ships for their specific dynamics! I just dont care about dynamics, i care about chemistry and story. But most amateurs cant effectively show the chemistry or write the story, a lot of them can barely characterize the 2 characters in their ships.

FYI this isnt about anyone specific or even many recent fans of PPGxRRB. I've been in/around the online PPG fandom since before 2016, and a lot of my thoughts/feelings on the matter have a lot to do with stuff that happened over the years i've loved this series, and more specifically, The RowdyRuff Boys.

To be clear: When i say that they are mischaracterized, i'm not talking about HC's. I'm just tired of seeing the PPG and RRB dulled down into one-note personalities with stereotypical characterization and almost always no tangible character development. A love story is still a story, and a lot of shippers seem to half ass the "story" for favor of the "love".

I dont hate or even dislike PPG x RRB. I'm just really tired of rarely seeing people do the RRB justice, and i want these characters to be treated with the full respect that i think they deserve.

WOW this post is way to long already... still a lot shorter than my OG post. Sorry for being insane about the RRB. it will happen again.

[good-to-drive]

your analysis of paul + golden children was superb!!!! you mentioned that for children, abandonment means death. how would you say this manifested/developed in john considering his childhood (who's usually the one we think of regarding abandonment issues)?

Thank you so much, I really appreciate that!!! I always hope someone enjoys my ramblings lol. I definitely think John was deeply shaped by abandonment trauma and neglect, having had caregivers leave him, neglect him, and pass away during his childhood and adolescence, and I think you can see a mix of fear, shame, and anger connected to abandonment/rejection throughout his adult life. 

The best description I’ve read for the mindset of a child in a tumultuous family system is “Don’t let me disappear.” I touched on this here, but it all comes back to the deep, primal knowledge that without a caregiver you will die. It’s called existential fear because it’s quite literally a fear of nonexistence – it’s the knowledge that the only thing between you and death is the adult world, clashing with the knowledge that the adult world is inconsistent and unreliable. It's your survival being fundamentally dependent on a world you can’t control and, based on your experience of it, can’t trust. 

Ideally, children would never be confronted with the possibility of a caregiver dying, leaving, or neglecting them. But obviously John experienced at least two of those things, and arguably all three, and that means he was probably very acutely aware of death as a constant presence in his life. 

I know the way both Julia and Alfred abandoned him is already pretty heavily discussed, but one thing I don’t see people talking about is his life when he did live under Julia’s care.

I'm also not sure abandon is the right word for what Julia did, because I'm under the impression she may not have felt she had a real choice, but regardless it would have been abandonment to John. Children don't really understand that adults also don't control the adult world, and I'm sure he felt that if Julia wasn't his primary caregiver it was because she didn't want to be.

I don’t have an enormous amount of detail on this, but I know from this piece by Psychology in Seattle that Julia would leave John physically alone for long periods of time, particularly at night, to the point that he would have panic attacks and beg neighbors for help. And, again, when children feel abandoned or neglected it’s dying that they’re afraid of. He wasn’t just lonely and confused – though I’m sure that was part of it – he was existentially terrified. Through that experience of serious neglect, being unloved and rejected translated literally to death, which will set a horrible schema in a child's mind.

I think people might ignore this part of John's life because there’s a chance he can’t remember it, but aside from the fact that trauma can lead to early formation of memories, you don’t actually have to be able to remember something in order to be shaped and traumatized by it. And living with an early-childhood trauma you can’t remember, but which still shaped your brain and your perception of reality and your ability to ever feel okay, is a very painful and complex experience. In some ways trauma lives in the brain more than the mind, and being inside of a brain that’s been misused and twisted in a way you can’t get any clarity on is uniquely terrible. I genuinely don’t know if John could remember his early childhood, but there’s no way that experience didn’t instill deep trauma and permanently alter the way he saw and interacted with the world by instilling an early, maladaptive schema. 

It might also be a good time to mention how a schema is defined, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly done before. This article about the connection between maladaptive schemas and depression is way too long and mostly irrelevant, but this part is important:

A schema may be defined as “any broad organizing principle for making sense of one’s life experience” (Young, Kloscko, & Weishar, 2003, p. 7). While schemas can provide useful heuristics with which to organize the world, they can also be maladaptive when they involve pervasive, inflexible, and dysfunctional cognitions (e.g., Young, 1990). Expanding upon 78 EBERHART ET AL. Beck’s (1967, 1983) cognitive theory of depression, Young (Young, 1990, 1994; Young et al., 2003) has suggested that there are a number of specific maladaptive schemas that develop in childhood and are elaborated throughout life that place individuals at increased risk for psychopathology

A more straightforward explanation might be that schemas describe how you think about the world, and you usually learn them as a kid (sometimes even before you learn to talk), and everyone has them but when they’re really rigid or really negative they can cause a lot of problems in your life. One schema might be “I am unworthy of love.” That’s something a lot of people who experience early-childhood abandonment will develop, essentially explaining their abandonment to themselves by saying it must have been their own fault for not being lovable, and it echoes through their adult relationships by making love feel impossible or fake because it conflicts with one of their fundamental beliefs. A schema could also be “Most people are bad and want to hurt you,” which would make positive relationships in general very difficult to form. 

John also had his primary caregiver change early in life, when he went from being under Julia’s care to Mimi’s, which is always traumatic for children. It’s like being abandoned, except you’re also now dealing with a new caregiver who you don’t know and don’t know how to deal with. All the little things you learned for managing your relationship with your initial caregiver, the knowledge of how they usually react to things and how you can keep them appeased and thereby keep yourself safe, a sense of familiarity and the ability to know if you’re okay -- it's all stripped away, and it's utterly destabilizing and therefore terrifying. It can also make children very scared of feeling loved, because they’ve been taught on a deep level that being given love is a precursor to having love taken away. Of course, it can also make children desperate to feel loved, to be someone it’s impossible not to love. Or it can be a combination of both. 

There’s also evidence that Mimi used emotional neglect as a punishment during John's childhood – i.e. gave him the silent treatment when he did things that upset her. This is already a pretty horrible thing for a parent to do with an adult child, much less a young child who still feels (and is) utterly dependent on their caregiver for survival. I doubt I have to explain why using existential horror as a tool to torture your child when you’re unhappy with them is incredibly cruel and destructive, but it’s even worse for a child who already had a history of abandonment and neglect. And I think by reactivating his abandonment trauma in order to punish him or express dissatisfaction Mimi probably instilled in him very deeply that feeling unloved or rejected is something people do to you intentionally, because they want to see you hurt, because you've made some kind of mistake that displeased them. It would be so difficult for John to see any slight hint of rejection as anything but an intentional, malicious act meant to convey disapproval or retaliation, a conscious choice to hurt him in the absolute worst way possible because they felt he did something to deserve being hurt in the worst way possible. Because, in his experience, that’s exactly what it was.  

This would have created so much shame and self-hate connected to any kind of abandonment, as well as deep mistrust for people he loved and who therefore had the power to reject him. And for most people shame, self-hate, and mistrust are transmuted to anger and then to cruelty. I think you can see a bit of this with how John tended to react with anger when he perceived himself as rejected or overlooked (see also: John’s later relationship with George). Rejection, abandonment, and neglect were incredibly sharp tools in John’s world, both in how they were (sometimes unintentionally) used against him, and in how he himself used them when he felt abused and betrayed. 

Then when he’s still an adolescent Julia dies suddenly, and while John did have a positive relationship with her at the time of her death, it would be hard to construe it as an ideal mother-son relationship. And even if you’re past the point of wanting an ideal relationship with your parent, the fact that you didn't have one (and, in John’s case, that he’d never had a truly healthy relationship with any caregiver) will always be a source of grief. 

Not that it isn’t also horrible to lose a parent who’s been good to you (as with Paul), but it’s the difference between the emptiness of losing something wonderful and the emptiness of never having had that wonderful thing in the first place, and knowing now that you never, ever will. Even if the relationship were already dead, a parent’s death is often when you grieve what you could or should have had, and it’s like any grief in that it never completely leaves you. And the schema you build around that emptiness in order to make it survivable is usually very persistent, too. 

That being said, there’s such a thing as corrective experiences, where (usually through therapy) you reshape your experience of the world and by extension your schemas. My point being that trauma isn't fate and things can always get better.

I also think Mimi was one of these people who expresses love through control and criticism (would love to know more about her and Julia and Alfred’s childhoods, but a lot of that seems pretty opaque, which is so bizarrely universal for toxic caregivers – you know they came from somewhere, but you don’t know where, so you’re trying to draw compassion out of thin air and it’s hard). And there’s a lot to be said about how this translated to John’s relationships with women, how he was shaped by two powerful female presences in his early life who likely never made him feel fully loved, while simultaneously reiterating that being unloved is death. There are also multiple relationships with potential male authority figures that probably connected back to a perpetual state of mourning for his relationship with his father. 

I also think he’s probably like pretty much everybody who had a childhood dominated by fear in that he spent his adult life coping with anxiety and depression, and I’m guessing he was someone whose anxiety probably never dropped below about a 6/10. It’s actually kind of consistent that when people with this kind of childhood get into therapy they rate their anxiety based on their experience of the world, which is that you never really feel okay, you just feel better or worse, so they think their anxiety is around a 3-4. And then over time they start to experience moments of true calm and they realize their default state for most of their life was actually being at least somewhat activated, like a 6+, and that’s why it was so hard to think straight or keep their cool or look at things in a reasonable way. People always say you get the worst of someone when shit hits the fan, but the thing is that for some people that’s just what a normal day feels like. I don’t know how true that is for John, but I do think it’s possible, especially in his early life. 

Anyway, this is way too long, but thank you so much for the question!

[brekkie-e]

Listen, I get that a lot of people's dislike of white-haired Lavellan's comes from over exposure, which is valid and happens to the best of us. But most of the time, when I see posts about folks not liking them, the frustration centers around them being this unearthly ethereal white-haired barbie doll. And I'm sure that is also common.

But as someone who loves my dinky white haired Lavellan, and also feels like she's one of my most human characters, I want to ramble about all the ways she is not just a beautiful barbie doll power fantasy. Because my nerd is pretty. She IS. But she also has the puffiest under eyes you ever saw. Depending on the day, there may be dark circles. There isn't a cream on the market that can make this lady look properly rested. When you combine that with the near constant sunburn on her nose turning it red, she has the air of someone that is in a permanent state of allergy season.

Going from the top down, she also has a tooth gap. And while we are here, they are pretty darn crooked. Thedas doesn't have orthodontists. I wouldn't say she has horrible teeth. But she has perfectly human imperfect teeth that make for a memorable smile for all the wrong (right) reasons.

Her left ear is missing a big chunk out of it from being hit by an arrow. It gives her the same lightly ragged look of a stray cat.

She has moles. The one on her chin grows a long and shockingly white hair out of it. She pulls it out. If it's because she's insecure about it or because picking at it is a nervous tick, she doesn't even know at this point because she's done it for so many years.

The hair on her arms is very fine and white. It is also very, very fuzzy. The kind of peach fuzz that catches the light and makes itself known. It didn't bother her when she lived with her clan because she has a lot of siblings, and they all have it. But someone casually remarks on it during her time with the Inquisition, maybe in jest saying her arms look more like a dwarf's than an elf's. Suddenly, she wears sleeves a lot more often.

I am pretty attached to the bean pole frame Lavellan gets in Inquisition because it's hard to headcanon out for me when it's constantly there on screen. That being said, her legs have some hefty cellulite going on in the back of those thighs. Her flat little ass is dimpled. There are stretch marks on the insides of her thighs, and on her butt. She thinks that's unfair given her complete and utter lack of curves. Knees? Knobby. Her shins always have bruises on them from bumping into something or another.

Various other things I think about and am fond of for her. Her sword hand is calloused. It's often dry and cracked, with hang nails like a construction worker. She tries to take care of it, but how do you out self-care the kind of wear and tear constant travel and fighting does to a person.

Her eyebrows are so pale and thin that it doesn't even look like she has them half the time. Her scalp can get sunburns where her hair parts. She gets a pimple in the same spot like clockwork every time her period comes around. She has one toe that's just inexplicably uglier than the rest.

And she's still pretty. She's still little miss doomed by the narrative.

Secretly, I didn't really have a point to this post beyond wanting to talk about my character's endearing imperfections. But I'll try to wrap this up with something coherent. You can use the stereotypical "pretty" color palette and still create a deeply human character. You can also use a unique color palette and still end up with a design or attitude that gives off "this character's sweat smells like roses and peonys."

I'm not saying that white-haired Lavellan's don't come with the baggage of over-exposure or the weight of heavy handed white savior energy. I'm not saying they can't be done badly. I am just sad thinking there are other folks out there that see all the "stereotypical Lavellan" posts, and also feel a knee-jerk impulse to redesign a beloved oc to be more like-able. At the end of the day, oc's are for their creator. Nobody is going to like your oc more than you. So make one that speaks to you.

And hey. Maybe you are guilty of making your oc's perfect pretty Barbie dolls. Nothing wrong with a pretty lady (or man but that's not really the point of the post.) But speaking for myself, I fall a little in love with every oc someone gives a perfectly normal "defect" to. So next time you find yourself making a hot girl... mix it up a bit and consider giving her toe hair. You might be surprised by how much that detail sticks with you.

[bylersboy]

hey y'all I know we hate on affirmations (and by y'all I mean myself because so many of them are like "I love myself sooooo muchhhh 🎀" and it feels fake as shit and I hate it) but like honestly ive been trying to find ways to help myself cope with fuck ass moral OCD cause ya know it makes my life horrible and its been kind of fun to think of affirmations. its nice to have time to be mindful of what im writing down as well because ocd is a disorder that seeks reassurance and so just getting reassurance doesn't really do much in the long run. anyways here's what ive written in my journal so far !!

my actions do not have malicious intent

I am not the root of injustice

I spread kindness

I am allowed to enjoy things

obviously like its great to be mindful of the injustice in the world and to be conscious of the things you buy and spend money and etc etc but as someone with OCD its not a disorder where these thoughts of "you shouldn't have bought this and you should have reblogged that activism post" are helpful and mindful. these thoughts are internally destructive and they just create such horrible spirals because ill buy a nice piece of clothing and thing "wow I shouldn't have bought that someone else could've wanted this more than me and i'm a bad person for taking this opportunity away from someone" or like today I saw lots of homeless people because I was in the city and I thought "if that homeless person asked me to go into the store and buy him a water bottle I dont know what I would do because if I bought a water bottle it would be plastic and then I would be contributing to the spread of micro plastics and the deterioration of our environment but if I DIDNT buy the water then I would be a horrible person for not helping this homeless man" and so I guess my point is affirmations might not be true for every single person. someone with a shopping addiction shouldn't be like "hey its okay im allowed to enjoy things im excusing my addiction to spending money on clothes" but someone with OCD who struggles with these kinds of thoughts might really benefit from these kinds of affirmations. OKAY THAT WAS SUCH A RAMBLE. im not going to apologize cause its my blog and I can post whatever I want teehee but I do want to say that I think this blog might have more frequent posts about my mental health specifically OCD. not anything really depressing but things that are educational so if you dont want to see that and you just want your dash to be a fun thing where you look at fan art and stuff feel free to unfollow cause you have free will !! okay bye guys