#what's extremely weird about it - it's absolutely NOT what i consider the best new year night

[faith-alhazred]

today i can't shake away a feeling that it's 31th of december, and it's a work day, the last one in this year. it's dark outside and my workplace is lonely, abandoned, as everyone has left it to go home. and in a couple of hours i would go home through empty snow-drifted streets. and at home i would find the New Year spruce (magnificent smell), olivier salad, tangerines, cola, festive table, decorations... And at midnight - the chimes, gifts, fireworks, and then - whole night and winter break, when i would be left to myself, not knowing - what's next, like an explorer who just discovered a whole new land.

[asneakyfox]

i tend to be pretty cynical whenever actors start talking about how their onscreen chemistry comes from their offscreen relationship and honestly when i hear that sort of thing 90% of the time i assume it is just marketing. and in fact i did assume that was the deal with rhys & taika at first, like, i got into the show and heard people talking about how they've been besties for twenty years and my immediate reflexive assumption was "ok, so they've known each other for a long time but the idea that they're actually especially close is probably bullshit."

i do not think that anymore, because in this one case you can pretty easily look up video of the two of them interacting years before ofmd existed in contexts where they have no particular incentive to be playing up their friendship for the camera and no they are actually just like that.

so it IS interesting how this plays into the show, right? all the talk about whether rhys and taika have sexual chemistry is weird to me not only because i think they do have it but also because frankly sexual chemistry is cheap, you can get that anywhere. i can think of a LOT of tv/movie romances where the actors do a fine job conveying a sense of sexual passion but absolutely comprehensively fail at convincing me that these people actually like each other very much, which for me usually kills any chance i'll actually get very invested in it as a relationship. ed & stede i think we can agree do not have that problem.

i don't believe in love at first sight and honestly i don't even tend to find it a compelling idea in a fictional context. best friends at first sight is a real thing though, it's happened to me, sometimes you meet a new person who is so immediately on your wavelength that you're acting like you've been friends for twenty years when you've actually known each other for two hours. it turns out you can convincingly simulate this by casting actors who've actually been best friends for twenty years and telling them to pretend they just met.

anyway though the thing i wonder about sometimes is how much this is rhys & taika's irl friendship helping bring out something that was already there in the story vs how much it's the scripts being written to bring out something i suspect rhys & taika wouldn't really be able to NOT do if they tried.

david jenkins and the ofmd writers' room do seem to let the actors influence how they write characters a lot - you can see this especially with izzy and jim in s2, after they knew con and vico better than in s1. and writing ed & stede's first meeting as the two of them deciding to swap clothes and do an incomprehensible improv bit that's extremely fun for the two of them but baffles and infuriates everyone else around them when they have known each other less than an hour is a really weird choice even by contrived romcom meet-cute standards. but then you read about rhys & taika during the filming of ofmd s1 deciding to walk around set sipping nonalcoholic whiskey pretending to be drunk in order to freak out everyone else there and you have to consider that maybe it felt natural to write ed & stede that way because that is just what rhys & taika are like

[johnconstantinesdick]

A series of AAI2 headcanons

(biased towards Sebastian and using the unofficial translation names bc I am not emotionally adjusted to the new ones)

Kay bounces around between jobs for a while—she works under Lang at interpol for some time, and then spends a few years as a detective, and eventually settles into working as a PI. It gives her the free time to pursue her own investigations, and she can work with either the Prosecution or the Defense as she pleases. She does the full Yatagarasu intro every time she’s called in to testify. She adds special effects each time. No one knows how.

Kay also gets fuckoff tall. Just like. Fully over 6ft, and extremely buff to boot. Her vibes are very Gender and I can see her going on testosterone at some point, so maybe she has some scruff. Really emulating Badd.

Sebastian also gets tall. No concrete height but he must get taller than Edgeworth and Edgeworth must have a crisis about it. Full beanpole though, no muscle.

BIG fan of long hair Sebastian. Tied in an elegant little ponytail. He flicks it when he’s smug about making a point. It makes people want to punch him.

Relatedly, everyone on Team Edgeworth is a smug asshole. This is just canon. Edgeworth? Bitch energy off the charts. Franziska? She can and will mock you to your face. Small children hate her. Lang? Fantastic dude but you could NOT get through a conversation without wanting to deck him. Kay? Absolutely insufferable and she’s going to make it everyone’s problem. Sebastian? You may want to make him kind and soft because his dad sucks and he DOES care about doing the right thing and he cries a lot. However once he gets his confidence back he’s going to go back to being an arrogant bitch, except he’ll be right more often. Which is Worse. Ray is the closest to being straight up Nice. But at what cost.

Cape Sebastian. I rest my case.

Sebastian wears blue as his accent color for a long time, and actively avoids wearing red. It’s not until Edgeworth gives him a red cape that matches his suit that Sebastian puts red on again and feels like he earned it. It’s an emotional moment. Sebastian sobs through their entire shared lunch break.

Lang, Franziska, and Kay worked together really well in interpol, and went on some highly classified missions. They may or may not have smuggled political refugees out of Khura’in. Whenever anyone asks if they’ve been there, they give the exact same smile and copy-pasted response about it being a beautiful country and no of course they’ve never been! The Wright Anything lie detectors all blare alarms. Edgeworth doesn’t let them near Prosecutor Sahdmadhi when he’s in the country.

I actually think Franziska slowly leans more and more into her investigative duties for Interpol. Will she one day realize she’s more of a detective than a prosecutor? Who knows, but she fucking loves chasing down criminals. She and Lang are best friends. They will one day make friendship bracelets and cherish them for the rest of time.

Kay and Sebastian get platonic married. Kay arranged it for a case. Sebastian thought they were making a blood pact. They never get it annulled. (aro Kay and demi Sebastian ftw)

They are also SO gender and goofy with it. Kay is Sebastian’s husband. Sebastian is Kay’s wife. If Sebastian ever dates anyone (Blackquill/Sebastian my beloved rarepair), Kay is going to call them her wife’s mistress for the rest of time.

Sebastian and Edgeworth never have a formal conversation about it, but they consider each other family. They refer to each other as father/son only when the other isn’t present. Sebastian is in his will.

Sebastian and Courtney DO have a formal conversation about the same topic. There’s a lot of crying. John exclusively refers to Sebastian as his “weird brother”

Edgeworth and Courtney have a custody agreement. They meet weekly for lunches. They deny they’re friends but they ARE coparenting. Divorce rumors abound.

Conflicts of interest don’t exist in the ace attorney universe but if they did these two would have to declare one. Edgeworth would be like. Sorry I can’t work with one of three entire judges in our district. We’re coparenting a teenager together. And Justine would be like yeah. Also I think he’s a bitch :\

Sebastian goes into child welfare. He specializes in criminal cases with children as the victims or defendants, and often gets called in on cases where kids have to testify. In civil cases he acts as a Guardian Ad Litem (I like to think he was Trucy’s during the adoption proceedings!)

I see the Klavier and Sebastian highschool friends angle and I respect it but I actually think Klavier should have vastly complicated feelings about Sebastian, while Sebastian barely even thinks about him.

To expand: Sebastian is head of the class (Klavier is sporting about it but also jealous. They don’t really interact. Klavier has friends and Sebastian is an asshole.) >> Blaise Debeste’s bribery and other crimes come to light (Klavier feels a little bad for him. He doesn’t say it out loud but there is some very real level of “he should have noticed. What an idiot. I would have known.”) >> Sebastian prosecutes his father because conflicts of interest don’t exist in Ace Attorney. He cries the entire very public trial, and sometimes the court needs to go into recess because the defendant won’t stop hurling abuse at the prosecutor, but he otherwise presents a very solid case. (Klavier watches in stupefied horror. “I could never do that to someone I love,” he thinks, “no matter what they did.” He’s wrong.) >> Sebastian slowly picks himself up and builds his legal career with Edgeworth and Justine’s help. (Klavier still feels a bit of condescending pity, but mainly it’s a “good for him” kind of thing, with a small but lingering amount of distrust.) >> State v. Enigmar (Klavier takes a leave of absence. He shoves down his misgivings about the case. The Dark Age of the Law starts. Sebastian stays behind, and does his best with every case. He doesn’t run. Klavier is desperately bitter.) >> Seven Year Gap (Klavier becomes an international rock star. Sebastian is thrown to the wolves every day he practices law under the Debeste name. They’re both stained, but the difference is that Klavier is from his actions and Sebastian is from others. There’s at least one hit single based around this. Sebastian does not listen to rock music.) >> State v. Wright (2026) (Klavier’s brother can’t be guilty. Klavier knows him. Klavier loves him. Doesn’t he? Did he miss something or was he kidding himself? Klavier begins obsessing over Apollo Justice. He and Sebastian work in the same office again. Sebastian feels no particular way about this. Klavier hovers outside his door when no one else is around and thinks about guilt. Did you know? Did you suspect? Did you care?) >> State V. Tobaye. (Another betrayal. Will all of his loved ones abandon him? Did they think he was that stupid or did they think he loved them enough to look past their crimes? Which is worse? Klavier does not knock on Sebastian’s door.) >> State V. Misham. Sebastian takes Klavier aside and tells him not to hold himself responsible. Says that he can’t be blamed for not noticing, and that he just has to try and build himself up again. Sebastian tells him his door is always open. Klavier says thank you but I’m okay. (Klavier thinks “Maybe you couldn’t have known. But I could have. I should have. I was not supposed to be the fool.”) >> Klavier goes to Edgeworth-mandated therapy. He comes to terms with Kristoph’s betrayal. He realizes he has been obsessing over someone he barely knows from high school for over a decade. He wonders if this is a crush. If he had a friend to tell this to, they would say that this is actually just an externalized form of self-loathing. He does not have any friends. His therapist tells him this instead. >> Klavier knocks on Sebastian’s door. They proceed to have a series of very normal conversations. They become friends. Klavier is too mortified to ever tell Sebastian about any of the above.

The Klavier and Sebastian analysis could have been it’s own post but I got in too deep. I think Klavier should get to be an unfair bitch sometimes, even if he never says it out loud.

Alas, this post is now too long for me to expand on my Blackquill/Sebastian thoughts. Of which I have many. There’s 7k of fic written in my notes app. Blackquill thinks Sebastian is pushy and confident and the hottest person he’s ever seen. Sebastian thinks Blackquill is extremely pretty and kind to small animals and children. No one comprehends their views of each other.

[ninadove]

Omg I nearly missed this HAVE SOME ASKS BELOVED 💜💖💙 3, 11, 17, 24, 34, 38

MWAH MWAH MWAH 💌

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

I’ll give you the three pillars of my childhood!

First one is Tigger’s movie. My beloved. It has everything including the found family trope and a great sibling relationship and even identity fraud shenanigans. I rewatched it last year and then streamed it a few months ago for my Anarchist Gang friends and I was hit by how well the writers and animators conveyed the logic of a story invented by a little boy! Absolutely all the songs are iconic and I cried all over again.

Then you have two straight-to-DVD Disney sequels that are basically the same film: The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea and The Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s adventure. I actually didn’t see the originals until years later and when I did, I was sorely disappointed (DO NOT HATE ME. I KNOW NOW THAT THEY ARE GREAT MOVIES.)… They’re both stories about freedom and finding yourself and reappropriating your origins and what it means to be a family, and they filled me with neverending wonder as a little girl! ✨

11. What do you consider to be romance?

Ooooh what a big question… I expected nothing less from you 💌

I’m going to be so cliché: romance, to me, is healing.

Maybe you didn’t grow up in the best environment. Maybe the people around you made you feel like you were weird, or too much, or like you didn’t belong. Maybe a previous partner screwed you over… Maybe all you’ve ever known is sharpness, so that’s how you behave, without even realising it.

Romance is the arrival of someone in your life who knows exactly what you’ve been through, but experienced it a little differently. Someone who is both extremely similar to you and extremely different. Someone who forces you to rearrange your worldview and who rearranges theirs to include you… Above all, someone who is gentle with you, and a little bit crazy about you, and makes you a priority always.

I just described Feligami, and that’s not a coincidence. I think I didn’t realise exactly how much I wanted this for myself until I saw them onscreen… BUT ALSO!!!!! How much I literally didn’t want anything less than what they have, which was a huge revelation. I’m demiromantic, I could perfectly live my entire life on my own and be very happy: if I’m going to make room for a partner, they’d better draw hearts on my window and rescue me from exhausting social functions and be ready to cause a car accident to get me out of a villain’s claws.

Now if you asked me what love is, that would be a different story! 💌

17. Name 3 things that make you happy!

You, of course! 🖤🪶⚔️💌

Outside of the obligatory “my loved ones” response… Reading in a café, or in bed with the rain battering against my window. Waking up to the seagulls’ cacophony song. Re-reading something I wrote and being goddamn proud of myself. Also, I watched the new Miraculous episodes this morning (or rather only episode 2 so far, which is the first they aired, go figure), and THEY GAVE RYUKO LITTLE HAIR SPIKES. MY GIRL. SHE HAS LITTLE HAIR SPIKES. HOW DO YOU EXPECT FELIX (and me) TO BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS AAAAAAW ❤️🐉

24. What’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for?

I think I’m good at reevaluating when I’ve been wrong without wallowing in guilt. Critical skill, me thinks. You don’t actually learn anything from shaming yourself ad nauseam.

34. Any pet peeves?

MANY OF THEM BUT I SHAN’T SAY HERE. I’ve told you of the one that comes to mind first but I have not expanded on how weird I am about it. I’LL DM YOU

38. Fave song at the moment?

Would You Fall In Love With Me Again… This, too, is romance…

… But what if it wasn’t though. What if it was about siblings. @dragongutsixofficial and I have so many thoughts about this one let me tell you.

Thanks for the ask, beloved! Jasmine flowers be upon ye! 💌

[eldritch-bf]

Herbert West identity related headcanons:

ftm (obviously) gay and demi

if he’s 24 in 1985 then he was born in 1961 oof

I’m also using some info from the novelization as canon so he is Canadian and his parents died in a chemical fire in the house when he was 12-13

was forced to take ballet when be was 5-10 (something Jeffry Combs joked about in the commentary from Bride)

his parents were neglectful of him and didn’t really care about him wanting to have short hair or boy clothes plus they chalked it up to his presumably undiagnosed autism

realized he felt weird about the older boy in the foster home (13-18) but didn’t really understand it; mostly he is jealous when girls take away the boy’s attention; closest friend he ever had as they were alone together but Herbert knew he could never act on it so he kept those feelings to himself

he wants sex but only from someone he’s emotionally connected with which itself is rare and at the same time intellectually he considers sex to be debasing, while also being curious about the sensation and knowing the benefits of the chemicals produced during orgasm

this is coupled with the fact that at least before starting T any thought of sex or masturbation made him extremely dysphoric and repulsed so his whole relationship with sex is very complicated

he is deeply repulsed by femininity bc it reminds him of his childhood spend as his agab and the stupid gender norms his parents thrust upon him including dismissing him being a scientist just because he had the wrong parts

he is canonically annoyed by pretty much all sounds and I suspect higher pitched sounds including women’s voices are worse; lower register sounds like thunder and men’s voices can be calming to him

upon moving from Canada to the U.S. as a student at NYU he used his new name on everything and making a clean break from his old identity was a big reason why he picked a different country to study in

hated NYU and the only good thing was it was easy to synthesize testosterone

T made him so fucking horny and also eviscerated his dysphoria; man was cranking it fucking constantly for a year straight and did some of his best work before moving to Switzerland for 3 years

Dr Gruber immediately figured out what his deal was but didn’t say anything and just treated him normal and for that Herbert was extremely devoted to him; Dr Gruber also did his top surgery in Switzerland despite having never done such an operation before

Dr Gruber was the one and only member of his support system the only person who knew everything about him and understood him and accepted him, losing him was a devastating blow and Herbert decided he would keep himself closed off

Also Dr Gruber didn’t have anyone either and adored Herbert and according to the book fucking left Herbert his money when he died which paid for his tuition and moving costs etc

if I didn’t genuinely like the father/son dynamic they have, I would absolutely say he was fucking that old man

So he was cool and clipped to Dan when he first met him and when he moved in trying to keep Dan at arm’s length away but he saw how smart and hardworking Dan was and he knew how difficult it was to conduct this research alone and he desperately wanted the company

and Dan reminded him a lot of the first boy he ever had a crush on and it would give him a certain satisfaction to vicariously have his first crush through Dan yet also knowing that Dan is way better than the idiot teen boy he was in the foster home with who never gave him the time of day; he’s also pleased with the idea of dragging Dan (normal, supposedly heterosexual, law-abiding) down with him; he’s pulling the brightest kindest handsomest hardest working med student out of Miskatonic into his orbit and making Dan’s life revolve around him

literally “look at the bad bitch I pulled by being a little freak” absolute nightmare Herbert West takes personal pleasure in ruining sweaterboy Daniel Cain’s life

the chaos of everything they do is so much more important that when Dan finds out Herbert is trans and gay it doesn’t even phase him.

(Daniel Cain is bisexual and basically decided it was just easier to be pretend to be straight and get a girlfriend so he ignored his feelings for men. But now with Herbert he doesn’t have to.)

he is completely shocked by sex with Dan however despite knowing that Dan is experienced he was not prepared nor was Dan prepared for how awkward yet demanding the virginal Herbert West would be, yelling at him one moment before becoming cock stupid the next

[creativity-deficient]

So, in defense of Stanford Pines

As the gravity falls fan in me has awakened once again per the release of the Book of Bill, I wanted to write a quick character analysis/essay on one of my two favorite characters in the series, Stanford Pines.

Now it’s important to note that Ford is in fact, a very flawed character, and this essay is in NO means meant to downplay that. He’s absolutely an egotistical asshole who was way too in his own head and focused on the end goal to fully appreciate the people and things he has around him, which ultimately ended up playing a huge part in his downfall.

However I do want to talk a little bit more about his side of things, as this is something I feel like isn’t quite done enough justice in the series, making it easy to just see him as a jerk or take Stan’s side in the fight between them, and has always been something I’ve really appreciated about both Journal 3 and now, the book of bill, both providing a new perspective on his character and exactly WHY he turned out the way he did.

I want to start from the beginning, by delving a bit into Ford’s childhood.

It’s a common misconception in the fandom that Ford had a good relationship with his father. He was the loved child, while Stanley was the unloved child. Now there’s no denying that Stan’s relationship with his father was…considerably worse, but with how deep Ford’s own insecurities and his obsession to “be the best” lie, I find it very hard to believe that his own relationship with his father was a healthy one either.

Filbrick was considered a VERY strict man, who was not easily impressed, making it very likely that Ford was either groomed into thinking, or at least at some point convinced himself that his smarts were the only worthwhile thing about him, especially since he pretty much already felt like a freak because of his fingers.

It’s even mentioned in the book of bill that his father wouldn’t want him returning home without millions. I mean, does that SOUND like a loving father to you?

And that brings me to his falling out with Stan. Yeah, EXTREMELY dick move to let your father kick out your teenage twin brother over some dumb mistake, however, it’s always felt a bit weird to me, like there was much more going on then just “you destroyed my project I’m throwing out our entire brotherly bond we spent the last 17-18 years building fuck you” because let’s face it, huh??? Kicking your own TWIN BROTHER, who you have been best friends with all your life, to the curb for some dumb school you literally learned about DAYS ago was something that never made sense to me, and I always struggled to understand why and how it even had to come to that.

But, let’s look it at this way. To Ford, Stan was the only person he had. They were the only people each other had, the only people that truly got each other. Ford considered Stan the only person he could trust at that point in time, this only person who wouldn’t treat him differently than others. And what does that person do? Completely betray that trust and destroy his project. Yes, we know that it was an accident, but Ford didn’t. Was he wrong to automatically assume that Stan did it on purpose instead of just, you know, talking it out? Oh absolutely, but we already established that he clearly doesn’t have healthy coping mechanisms, and all things considered, I don’t think Stan really helped his case when it came to proving his innocence, as both before and even after the confrontation, all he can seemingly think about is their boat. All things considered, I can’t completely blame Ford for thinking it was an act of betrayal. Does that completely justify his response? Oh absolutely not. But I DO think the situation goes a bit deeper than people assume.

Then we have his time in gravity falls. It’s hinted at a bunch throughout the series, journal 3, and the book of bill that Ford, despite his anger, truly missed his brother, and regretted his actions towards him (the swingset and stan o war in his dreamscape, holding on to that photo of him and Stan as kids all those years, not being able to think back on his childhood at glass shard beach without growing sad, etc).

“Well, why didn’t he just contact him then???”

Well, to be fair, he kind of had a lot going on, and by a lot, of course, I mean Bill.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the relationship between Ford and Bill was EXTREMELY toxic. Bill, doing what Bill does best, leeched onto Ford’s already deeply set insecurities to led him into a false sense of security, one where bill and ONLY bill truly understood him, and that everyone else was out to get him and couldn’t see his true potential, effectively isolating him from his friends, family, and even society.

Ford went through HELL in this period of time. He was left alone by bill for long periods of time until he was desperate and dependent enough to lash out. He was gaslit and manipulated into pushing the people he cared about away. When he decided he wasn’t going to do bill’s bidding, he was literally TORMENTED for it. In all fairness, I don’t really think he was in the right mindset for ANYTHING during that time, losing himself in BOTH his own stubbornness and this endless cycle of abuse.

Despite this though, despite ALL of this, all the manipulation, their falling out, etc, Stan was still the ONLY person (apart from Fiddleford) Ford thought of to take the Journals, the only person he considered to be trustworthy. Yes it was petty of him to bring up the project yet AGAIN (let it go my dude), but I do think it is important to acknowledge that he still thought of Stan pretty highly at the time, or else that wouldn’t have been the case.

“Oh but Alex he told Stan to get away from him yadayada!!!” Uh, no he didn’t. He just told him to hide the journals, not that he couldn’t come back afterwards, that was just Stan assuming the worst.

On that note, I do think it’s important to also acknowledge that while Stan is definitely, in the eyes of a lot of people as well as myself, the more sympathetic of the two, he’s definitely made his fair share of mistakes as well. I don’t think there’s really truly a right or a wrong in this argument, I think instead both of them are two very complex characters who had both been through a lot at that point, and both have made their mistakes (even if Stan’s were a bit more justified in most cases)

Then of course, he gets pushed through the portal, and spends the next 30 years between dimensions.

Now for anyone who hasn’t read journal 3 (spoilers ig? The book is pretty old atp but I figured I’d give one anyways) Ford is basically told by an oracle that he “has the face of someone who is destined to defeat bill” (a lot of people call him egotistical for assuming the oracle was talking about him and not his brother, but I digress. If an oracle looked YOU deep into your eyes and told you you had the face of someone destined to save the universe, be honest, would YOU think they were talking about your sibling??) Ford then proceeds to spend the next 30 years building a weapon to effectively defeat bill, and just as he’s about to finally use it, he’s sucked (not literally) back into gravity falls, not ONLY effectively erasing all of his hard work and progress, but risking weirdmaggedon in the first place. On TOP of it all, he also learns that Stan has been using his name all these years, and that he now has a pretty extensive criminal record.

Yes, Stan did it all in his best interest, and Ford could’ve absolutely shown more appreciation, but all things considered, I’d be pretty pissed off too.

But, all things considered, at the end of it all Ford still has those he hold close to his heart. He missed Stan all those years, considered Fiddleford a true friend and was super appreciative to have him there while they worked on the project together, he’s joyous to find out he has a niece and nephew, etc, and when he realizes he’s hurt these people, namely his brother and former lab partner, he feels immense guilt, and does everything he can to atone to it.

I truly think Stanford’s character development is one of the best in the series, as he finally learns to appreciate what he has instead of trying to chase down an unachievable end goal, and it’s definitely something that I feel goes unnoticed in the grand scheme of things when it comes to his character.

Now, what was the point of this 1 am ramble?? The point was the highlight the wonderful complexity of Stanford Pines’s character. Yes he was an extremely flawed man. Someone who pushed away those he loved him pursuit of greater things, and let his own pride be the fall of him. However, at the same time, he’s also a man who bears a lot of scars, both metaphorical and literal, and an extremely complex character who deserves a lot more than to be characterized as this “cold, uncaring asshole” something I’ve seen WAY too much of. I feel like it’s important to acknowledge that he’s made mistakes while also recognizing the complexity of a lot of it too, as well as acknowledging that he did indeed, learn from those mistakes.

[jetiisyandereclones]

Hey! I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your blog! Your writing is truly incredible and inspires me so much! Thank you for being here ❤️

OH MY GOD!

I havnt heard from you in ages! (Mostly my own fault.)

Life's been hellish this past year and I'm gonna take this opportunity to explain myself for why I've been so silent and non existent.

The year 2024 has tested me.

In the beginning, my brother in law had a mental breakdown due to a run in with the cops, threatened suicide (he's okay now) amd because of the association with the place he was living he decided he absolutely had to move.

Now, what this has to do with me is that I was boarding with him and my sister, in their spare room.

And i don't know if anyone here is familiar with Australian community housing, but you can't qualify for housing if the total income of the residents is deemed too high.

Because I had a job the income of the household was considered too high for my sister and brother in law to qualify for a new house so I was told that I would not be allowed to live with them any more.

So I had to make extremely last minute arrangements and ended up in a co tenancy in a week.

That turned out to be a bad decision as my housemate was in with... a bad crowd.

She also wouldn't pay any of her rent or bills on time.

By month 5 I had had enough and decided I would be leaving the tenancy at the end of my lease.

At the end of month five I got a knock at the door from the police telling me suspected drug runners had been seen peeling out of my yard.

I'd seen those bikes before, and they were definitely friends of my housemaid, although I am not sure just how deep in she was with all that mess (I suspect fairly deep, but I have no actual evidence)

I told the police I was just her housemate and worked nights so we didn't cross paths alot, and that I was planing to move in a month.

He basically told me that they were gonna be back to turn the place over, and that if I was leaving, I should leave sooner.

That was my 13th reason why. I quit my job at the petrol station, packed up my car and with the help of my sister and BIL was out of the house the next morning.

I moved back into my dads place where I went for my licence (and got it on the second attempt) and started job hunting. At that point I was looking for something with some actual perks so I looked into remote work.

A couple of months after applying around for any remote work I could find that included housing, I got an offer to work as a Cafe supervisor in a community in remote northern Territory and I jumped on it.

They flew me up to the other end of the country after my interview, for a recruitment trip so I could see where I would be living and working. At that point it seemed okay.

A month later I was moving and two days into starting my new job I realised I hated it and was horribly ill suited to do it.

So I spent about three weeks going through the right channels to figure out an alternative arenagement.

Now, getting people to work remote is a bitch and I was already up there so I was pretty confident that the company I was hired by was not gonna cut me loose, and they didn't.

I was moved to an office job where I was much better suited.

And I'm just gonna speed run what's happened over the last few months since moving up north (keep in mind my closest family is clear down the other end of the country, 5000 kilometres away, so it's just me up here)

I damn near fell in love with my team leader, and never said a thing about it cause I wanted to keep things professional and not weird in the office.

He has since left for a better paying job elsewhere.

I made best friends with a co-worker who has since been moved to the kitchen supervisor job that I didn't want, and she's so happy doing it.

One of our travelling support officers has left the company to work for a different business in the community where I live, the other Travelling support officer was moved to her next assignment.

All this left me the most senior staff member I. The office after only a month and a half. The only other staff member is also fairly... useless.

In my personal life,

My sister, who i lived with before is getting divorced soon, as she has had enough of him using her for free labor and not treating her with respect.

My brother is probably engaged to his boyfriend (who is a lovely guy) but I havnt heard any official confirmation

My mums had a health scare due to suspected complications after thyroid surgery. But she refuses to go to hospital cause she's the main carer of my young, disabled neice, and I suspect she's afraid she will be deemed physically unfit to care for her and my neice will be removed.

So yeah. After all that I managed to stumble my way into an extremely challenging, but very rewarding and secure full time job where they pay for all my housing and bills.

So... still got shit going on in my personal life but I'm in a much more secure situation now.

Between all this i just have not had time or energy to write. And I can't make any promises of anything coming out any time soon, but I still massively appreciate all the likes, comments and reblogs.

They really do make my day when I see them.

[inchidentally]

https://x.com/safeforlando/status/1750936311563723024?s=20

I don't need to add anything. The best driver duo on the grid without a doubt <3

you're so right to say there's nothing more to say, anon. and yet ! lol

(behind a cut so no one can think I'm literally reporting facts here or that I'm living and dying by my own weird and pointless takes I'm just enjoying over-analyzing for fun)

(I am fully switching off RPF/narrative here)

so temporarily switching off friendships or any kinds of ships and focusing solely on driver partnerships, I love how certain Lando's always been about what Oscar has done for his (Lando's) performance. I think this is where age and generation play some part bc Carlos and Daniel are both firmly in the same age group and separated from Lando to a certain degree bc of that. they both viewed Lando as a little brother type of teammate and their careers were never perceived by themselves as especially tied to McLaren or to Lando. they'd both kind of become the lone wolf type by then which is honestly how most drivers have to be. (even moreso in the Max/RB dominance era)

whereas Lando isn't just toeing the line by saying he's a big team player, he adores working in groups in absolutely every area of his professional life and even having hobbies that put him with a minimum of 3-4 people. he also needs to feel the safety of a support network to be at his best. he's the very opposite of a lone wolf. hell, he literally said 'it took an actual village to raise me'.

he very intentionally developed the shared interests with Carlos and Daniel to create those kinds of bonds and familiarity (that's The Lando Effect). and while it's too much of a leap to say for sure, I think it's likely - at least at the start - that Lando felt like they might each have been his teammate for longer than they were. either way, the shared hobbies and friendly bonding didn't really translate to his time time spent with them in team meetings, speaking to the engineers or in development back at the factory. Lando has said he and Carlos were on completely different planes of experience and ability and Carlos was one foot out the door after what, the first year? and well, we know the lack of synchronicity between Lando and Daniel as drivers that started to set in not long after that first season together.

so when it was announced Lando's next teammate would be a rookie and also younger than him, he didn't really hide that the swapped dynamic worried him - even if he was half-joking. and then Oscar being so quiet and independent a person definitely threw him. he even describes their pre-season interactions as friendly but only really having time to say a few words. Oscar had his own work cut out as a rookie (and as we found out, wanting to prove himself most to the engineers and folks at MTC) and Lando already had a full life running alongside his racing career.

and it sounds all projection-y and armchair psychology to say this but genuinely it's clear to state that unlike the usual PR push that a lot of new teammates partake in, Oscar's been notably disinterested in any of that - not even just overplaying a friendship or a bromance with Lando for the sake of the cameras. that's an especially unusual choice for someone who could really have used the Lando Effect boost to his own image after contractgate with Alpine and the hoards of Ricciardo fans/McLaren fans ready to hate someone they saw as a snake or a pretender (usually both). especially considering Oscar pre-F1 was extremely active on social media and had his own viral moments and a much more colorful, fun personality than what he's allowed F1 fans to see so far - it was a pretty deliberate choice to not carry that over right away to selling the partnership with Lando.

we might be able to glean through the murk of Netflix's highly questionable editing of this upcoming season of DTS how much was really going on behind the scenes between Lando and Oscar around this time. but it really seemed like Oscar was more focused on letting his loyalty to the team and his own driving do all the talking (and Mark Webber often said as much). when you compare a lot of those early Lando and Oscar videos and challenges to his Prema ones, he's so unusually quiet and reserved. so he had absolutely no interest in trying to sell himself as a persona or a character to F1 fans. he was perfectly sweet and polite! and boy, did Lando enjoy having someone with endless patience for him lol.

but it's very marked how, despite whatever was or wasn't developing between them as teammates, Lando has consistently always said the same as he has here about Oscar being so talented and giving Lando that "push" and how "you hate and you like it" bc it made him (Lando) take his own driving to the next level. that healthy competition and 'wow, this guy is bringing it' seemed to strike him immediately. Lando can't lie for shit so if he'd found Oscar to be a crappy teammate in any way there's no way he'd be able to choke out any praise for him even for the sake of the team alsgfljasgfa.

and I liked that here in I think March? he said how he planned to get Oscar into all his own hobbies and bring him out of his shell, but apart from one last minute invite to golf that never really happened. we know they spent a fair amount of down time together but it was always mentioned in passing rather than posting about it online or having anyone film it (that we know of yet). the reason I like it is because Lando went on to say how Oscar has reminded him by example to "keep calm and be yourself". and in this interview he'd said how he considers himself and Oscar to be pretty similar people in terms of their approach to their F1 careers. so instead of them bonding through hobbies and interests or both of them being chatterboxes, I think they bonded (if that's the word?) over not being stereotypical extroverted drivers in terms of their personalities and also that they've so adamantly never wanted to have driver in-fighting make life harder for their teams (and themselves). plenty of guys from F2 and F3 can attest to that for Oscar and of course there's The Lando Effect as far as Lando's concerned.

you could almost say they both needed to be teamed up with the other bc for all that Oscar projects Just a Guy, he also finds himself incredibly awkward when it comes to everything about his job outside of racing the car or talking about the car. Lando's just as much the same but he's learned to charm his way through it. he's still awkward as hell even in Quadrant promo videos and he's been doing those regularly for years now, and with all his friends there! they're both enough off-center that they either need an extroverted teammate to lean on or in their current situation, someone who can sympathize.

which I think considering how much loyalty to the team and a sense of 'home' and consistency are for Lando, it makes all kinds of sense that Oscar was the teammate to show up and really form that partnership that he considers to be 'the strongest' on the grid.

they're the same generation, have the same ethos when it comes to their racing careers and Oscar not only went through a court case to get to McLaren he then extended his contract to 2026 the second McLaren made the offer. Lando's got stability as well as a serious challenge from Oscar. he's more poised than ever for that win(s). and now I just hope he listens to Oscar in other ways like not self-flagellating in front of the cameras so much and focusing on where he has done well.

[lea-andres]

Okay so @iamapoopmuffin I will try to really boil this down into layman's terms for ya but let me know if I lose you anywhere lmao. But here's my FNAF OC!

So... I'm the most fascinated by the FNAF series in its later years (2030s according to the timelines I was looking at last night), when it's got fucking pizzeria complexes and training simulator programs and it's after William and Henry are in charge of the company and alive(ish... you know what I mean) so at that point I imagine Fazbear Entertainment has a corporate board running it up at the top who are sure dedicated to finding the line between "the bare minimum" and "absolute jack shit" lmao.

So... it's no surprise Fazbear Entertainment is a fucking dangerous company to work for. Murders, Bites of varying years, malfunctioning animatronics, fruitshark has a series on mostly TikTok (some on YT too) where she finds all the OSHA violations... These guys suck lmao. Also there's been a long history of dismantling, setting on fire, and leaving animatronics to rot so... They're not happy either lmao. (And that's ignoring the ones that had corpses stuffed in them or the child souls possessing them, but we'll come back to child soul possession shortly)

So Fazbear Entertainment went "We totally hear you guys and all of your issues! Look, here's our new Human and Animatronics Resources manager! Take her issues to her, and she will do the best she can to solve them! :)"

Enter Lydia DuPont. I don't know where Fazbear Entertainment found her, but this stupid bitch (/aff) missed EVERYTHING. She knows nothing about Fazbear's history. The murders, the Bites, none of it. Combine that with the extremely limited budget FE gave her to work with, and... Lydia's trying to fix deep seeded psychological trauma with pizza parties and stickers. She MEANS well, she sure wants to help, but... Most of the employees and animatronics find her annoying and off putting lmao. They side eye her while she's running "wellness questionnaires" at best, worst case scenario they're fucking with her by bringing up the terrible things that have happened and watching her squirm with the knowledge she can't fix this with smiles and sparkles.

Lydia's only made progress with one person so far. Well, animatronic really: Helpy.

Ya know, this guy (skip to about :50 to watch Mark abuse the shit out of Helpy lmao):

So... Helpy is very puntable lmao. I could've sworn I saw SOMEWHERE that employees abuse Helpy on purpose for funnies. I can't find it now, but I do what I want lmao. Helpy's puntable, and doesn't like being puntable. Only Lydia is nice to him and uh... That's starting to turn into its own problem with Lydia. Helpy has declared Lydia his mother (we've seen lots of instances of animatronics latching onto kids in various manners, I think it'd be fun to explore the reverse and have one latch onto an adult), and is DEFINITELY too clingy with her. And Lydia is... encouraging the behavior. Probably too much. So NOW anytime you have a "wellness chat" with Lydia, Helpy's there too! STARING at you while Lydia holds him (he wanted uppies and gets upset when she puts him down lmao). So yeah, no one likes Lydia all that much. They want her to take her weird robot son and take a long walk into the trash compactor. 💕 (Also definitely no hurt feelings floating around regarding the child soul possessed animatronics watching Lydia baby fucking Helpy instead of like... any of the actual children lmao RIP)

@doomzday-zone helped me decide last night what horrors I wanted to subject Lydia to (because I wanted to but *gestures at FNAF* there's so many horrors to subject her to lmao). Vanny seems most appropriate considering FNAF timeline era AND *checks notes* maximum amounts of evil toxic yuri attainable. Anyway, so TL;DR Vanny thinks fucking with (in... multiple senses of the term 😏😉) the loser clueless hr manager would be really funny actually, but there's uh... Helpy sized elephant in the room preventing that. And it won't GO AWAY-

If I possessed the power to make a game of this (maybe I'll dust off the text adventure game maker someday)... it'd be a Tattletail/FNAF blend style of the Horrors™ are trying to separate Lydia and her Shit Son™ so Lydia can be subjected to the terrors. 💕

But yeah, that's Lydia DuPont. I love her, I love her awful relationship with Helpy, and I want her to experience the horrors.

[kuruna]

OC rambling... putting this under a readmore cuz i predict it'll get long

I've had it so that if Xan appeared in the game he'd be a "post-game dlc" type character, but lately ive been thinking about what kind of role he may have if he were in the main story! namely i've been picturing a scenario where he frees AZ from the team flare lab 😭 sneakily following behind the protagonist... overhearing AZ telling the story of what happened during the war from his own POV (Xan would tell the story slightly differently as you can imagine) .... maybe when Lysandre goes to leave he gets jumped off screen so Xan can acquire a device needed to open the weird little cage/jail cell/illegal holding facility AZ is in.

(I also considered Xan entering WITH the protagonist and them doing double battles together which is cute, but there is No situation in which I can see him willingly using the spin-pad thingies. This scenario would also require Xan staying back a liittle while the protagonsit goes to confront Lysandre here, because I don't think AZ would say all that he does if he knew Xan was listening in on it. At this point in time their relationship is a absolutely better than it was near and immedietly after the war, but they're not at a point where they can actually discuss these difficult topics with one another yet)

I like this idea bc I think it could make for a really sweet scene. Something important about Xan is the lengths he'll go for his brother (even to his own detriment, sometimes even to AZ's detriment if it's a scenario where Xan thinks he knows best). But of course this is a scenario where it's just a very caring gesture. Something with AZ sorta tiredly stumbling forward and hugging Xan 🥺

I do like the idea a lot, but I would have to figure out why Xan is in Kalos to begin with 😭 for AZ the implication is that all his years of searching have finally led him back to Kalos. Xan isn't searching for Floette, he's a pessimistic and doesn't think she'll ever return (though he never says this to AZ, because he knows it would be cruel to admit what he thought deep down), so that couldn't be his reason. Of course it could just be a coincidence... something where during a conversation with the player he mysteriously goes "Hmm? You met a man my same height not too long ago? ...Hah. We two always end up in the same place, eventually..."

waaaiiiittt now that i'm thinking about it, it could be something as mundane as "yeah there's a mysterious super tall guy whose our neighbor. yeah it seems like despite living here for decades he hasn't aged at all. but he's really nice (if a bit overly serious and humourless and pushy) and likes helping out so everyone's pretty much gotten used to him." I actually do like this idea a lot, it's simple but it works... a point of contrast for AZ and Xan is that like... while AZ has been essentially deified, Xan is extremely, painfully human. Even when he's at his angriest he reacts in a very human way, he doesn't have the capacity to do such huge and horrific things like AZ does.

Anyways. I keep thinking about how I would handle the parade at the end if I did go this route because it's such a big moment for AZ and I don't want to lessen it for him or take the spotlight off him! But also "King-brothers AZ and Xanthos would like to battle!" is very charming and a good way to show the start of a new beginning for both of them. also something very, very sweet about the idea of floette returning to him in this context too, AZ choosing to stand besides his brother is very tangible evidence of him finally letting go of his anger.

[dazzlingskydreams]

I made a fan kid!

So this is Takahiko, my Arukenimon/Mummymon fan kid at about 7 years old. He's pretty sulky and doesn't smile much with people he doesn't know. This boy is much happier reading in a quiet room than dealing with new people. He's not a bad kid though; if he cares about someone, like his parents, he gets pretty attached to the point that it can be considered by some to be clingy. If he befriends someone he will help them out any way he can. His emotional empathy is also surprisingly high, so if someone he cares about is sad he'll do his best to cheer them up in his own way. Plus he has an extremely warm smile that can be disarming to people that aren't familiar with him! (I purposely didn't draw it so his default personality with strangers comes through more. Maybe another time!)

Takahiko's a really musical boy. He plays the recorder really well and, if necessary, can use it to obtain some level of control over insect digimon like his mother. He also can make spirit needles, from the darker hair surprisingly, but since there aren't any more control spires he has no idea what they're for. He occasionally just makes them, looks at them a bit, then leaves them on the table and heads away. (Honestly though even if the control spires were still around; this kid would only use them to make a dog to play with.) He also has the entirely unique ability to communicate with the Oikawa butterflies to some extent, to the point that he's aware that they used to be a single man. He calls him the nice butterfly man. Other than music, he loves the stars since his dad loves horoscopes so much and spends time looking at constellations. He is absolutely terrified of bats though and vampires of any kind, even cartoon ones, leave him in floods of tears. This is probably a subconscious response to the trauma his parents experienced in a certain dream world that got imprinted on his dna somehow.

His darker patch of hair is where Mummymon's data is more prevalent. That area of his face, his right arm and left leg are a similar shade of grey. He also has only the one eye but, unlike Mummymon, the other eye is kinda there just permanently closed. This doesn't bother him though. He can see just fine and he thinks his grey patches and weird eye are really cool! Plus he's so well wrapped up clothing wise, that it isn't really apparent. He is ambidextrous and can summon a sickle, which is connected to his digimon form, but he usually isn't in a position to need one. Also he loves his purple scarf. Seriously, don't try and take it away from him.

Takahiko is unusual in that he picked out his own human name. He couldn't actually turn into a human until he was around 4. Until then his parents just called him by his digimon name(s)/pet names etc; but then one morning they get up and the kid is just standing there in human form asking Mummymon what's for breakfast. (Yes he was originally an egg, but it's more complicated than that and I won't get into it here.) Anyway, once he realises, he decides his human form needs a name too because all his evolutions have specific names. So he looks through his books and picks one he really likes, and is pretty determined to use it. Arukenimon takes a look and sees that it can be written with the kanji for 'resolute prince' and decides 'Yes, that's a suitable name for my son' so she agrees to it. Mummymon gets no say in the matter but is too proud to care.

I know there are other well established fan kids for the pair; but I'm so happy to finally have one of my own that I just had to talk about him at least once! Seriously, I have had no idea what their kid would look like for years, to the point that I was semi-convinced that a child was impossible for them and to have this cute little guy just come flying at me makes me so happy! I'll leave it at that because I could write a lot more about him. (This is a *severely* cut back version of the full bio I wrote for him.) I might put some more stuff in the tags though. If anyone is curious about him feel free to ask. I know a bizarre amount about this kid!

[kirbles]

Why do you like Mystra so much? I prefer dnd mystra to bg3 mystra, so I'd love to see a new perspective :)

hi :0 oouuu this is kinda hard to put into words but i'll try my best!

i'll preface this by saying i have literally 0 dnd knowledge, i've never played it before. bg3 is my first real 'venture' into it. all my knowledge of mystra comes from gale's personal quest/origin story and living on mystra's wiki pages for a few days.

rambling under cut oops. it's gonna be a lot of my own interpretation, headcanons and opinions so... if you read it and don't agree w me pls be nice i'm just a lil guy who likes morally grey women.

firstly. i can understand why it can be hard for ppl to view gale and mystra's relationship with nuance when we don't have the basis of mortal/deity relationships irl to compare it to. i don't doubt gale's adeptness in magic wasn't cultivated to be of use to mystra by her for the majority of his life, but to see it as starkly black/white i think fails the narrative that larian tried to establish.

mystra as a goddess isn't inherently evil at all, or purposefully seeking out to be malicious towards gale. imo she is indifferent and self serving, which honestly? i think is far worse in the context of a romantic and sexual relationship between mortal and deity. i can imagine gale falling in love with her after years upon years studying under her in her domain, and being so worried she'd cast him away because he has feelings for her. but in the grand scheme of things that is redundant to her. she cares about what he can provide for her and that he doesn't overstep the bounds she has set for him and every other mortal.

i have absolutely no doubts that mystra cared for gale in her own weird way, he WAS her chosen after all. but she is a god, incapable of mortal thoughts and feelings. any love gale felt towards her was not returned in the same capacity. it is more narratively appealing to me that she would encourage their relationship developing to what he wanted it to be because it made gale a better wizard if they're 'in a relationship'.

she made the mistake of allowing gale to stand beside her at the absolute crucible of magic. he, a man hungry to learn more and be better, got to witness the magic that he would never be able to wield. and when he begged mystra to allow him, that it would be put to good use and he wasn't like other mortals, she told him to be content with what he had.

she, the goddess of magic, wanted to keep balance in the realms. gale, her chosen, who was a prodigy, was not allowed special treatment because she had to keep the status quo.

gale himself did the research into 'a lost piece of weave' and he incorrectly assumed that it was a piece of HER weave that she had lost after the second sundering. he went out of his way to get it, not because he wanted to benefit her, but because he wanted her to be SO impressed by him and what he was capable of achieving that she would disregard the bounds she put up and allow him access to the power and magic he deserved.

but this isn't me hating on gale at all. on the contrary, his hubris is extremely fucking human of him, and something mystra could have dealt with in a FAR more gracious way than she did. consider the weave in the book he found was karsite weave, that was made with the intent to destroy mystra's weave. that would scare her absolutely shitless!!! but is it not petty that she did not think to tell gale that it wasn't a piece of her? not even warn him it was dangerous, BEFORE he opened it and had it latch onto him??

she had told gale, her chosen, to be content with what he had. (and he had a LOT more going for him than most mortals or wizards could dream of.) instead of listening to her, he went out of his way to seek it out anyway, completely disregarding the order's of his goddess. she likely felt justified in punishing him in the way that she did, even tho it was overkill.

mystra herself is not without blame. while she may not be out to get gale, she was clearly VERY petty in how she went about punishing him for a very, very human act of folly - a folly that, had she immediately alleviated from him, he might not ever endeavour to repeat again.

and in peak petty fashion she banishes him. he is no longer considered her chosen. his magic is slowly being drained by the netherese blight in his chest, which he still has no explanation for when you keep in mind that he thought it was MYSTRA'S weave in that book. so why was it eating at the magic inside of him, when it belonged to the goddess he adored all his life? mystra purposefully hides the truth that it was karsite weave from him, even though she knew from the start. she let him suffer the aftermath as the orb ate his magic when she honestly could've cured it the entire time.

she only bestows the charm to halt the magic feeding from him to instead feed on her weave, when she is under the impression that it is temporary, and that gale will utilise the bomb in his chest to get rid of the crown of karsus that threatens her very existence. which, by the way, she purposefully dressed it up in the term 'the heart of the absolute' and did NOT mention it being the crown of karsus - something gale learns RIGHT before he has to make the decision to blow himself up.

she paints it as a holy missive to make him feel important and bestow forgiveness she has no right to grant, just so he will do it. because though he is no longer her chosen and he is lost, he is so clearly devoted to her still and she NEEDED that devotion in that very moment! his existence was incredibly convenient, and she was willing to 'forgive' him if he followed one last order from her. for was it not his disregarding her order that got him in this mess in the first place? the weave was lost once before, it would be detrimental to everyone if it were to happen again.

it was gale's own hubris that lead him to possess the orb, and i think gale fans that focus more on him being a victim do his character a great disservice by not recognising that his want for more power, whether for mystra's benefit or not, was his own undoing. it's a complete disregard to his character to just say 'mystra groomed/abused him! he did nothing wrong!' when he was a grown man who ignored the warnings from his goddess.

but also. mystra had no empathy for him. he made one mistake and she punished him and withheld information from him, and when she does begin communicating with him again its through a messenger. even in act 3, mystra commands gale to come to HER. as soon as he made one simple careless act she discarded him. but i think that's what makes her so interesting to me is how fucked up and flawed she is.

mystra and gale are both flawed and not faultless, but gale was absolutely taken advantage of, and while his act of hubris was the result of his own hunger for power, he was also weighed down in the same environment for decades, with an overbearing goddess that he dare not disappoint.

mystra (and i think by extension most gods) may not be 'evil' but they are so very fucked up in how they use mortals for their own benefit with almost no regard for their mental and physical wellbeing.

the ketheric thorm quote 'we are copper pieces in their belts, tokens to be traded for scraps, you may have beaten me, but the gods beat me first.' it's so very, VERY raw and real because it relates to majority of companions. but especially so in gale's case.

ugh this got more rambly than i intended it to. it's hard to talk about (bg3) mystra without talking about gale too and vice versa because their stories are SO interwoven. i only rly talk to a couple ppl abt her but. she is just so very interesting when you look at her as a former mortal turned goddess who cares about self preservation and will use her devotees as a means to an end, as opposed to boiling down to gale's crazy ex gf. idk idk she is incredibly flawed and fucked up and i just think she slays

[raisedbythetv89]

Keith Mars in You think you know someone:

Veronica I am so shocked and disappointed that you’re acting weird and not at all welcoming to me dating the closest thing you have to a therapist from the school who’s been nothing but cruel to you! You’re usually so warm and welcoming to new people! And this one is gonna replace your still missing mother whose disappearance is still a mystery! And this woman is clearly extremely desperate for your acceptance and approval making literally everyone extremely uncomfortable with her desperate plays to gain favor with you putting all sorts of weird pressure on you and was careless enough to call the house and leave a message which is how you found out which isn’t traumatizing for you at all!!

Like bro forgot who his daughter was and what her life has been like for the last year for a whole episode.

And the way he yells at her??? calls her snotty and is basically all HOW DARE YOU and claiming they considered her feelings when they absolutely did not 😹 they kept springing Mrs. James on her first at work and then at her house where she was just by herself for Veronica to find?? Basically just being like BE COMFORT WITH THIS BECAUSE WE WANT YOU TO BE. Only to end things after all that! Making Veronica feel INCREDIBLY guilty and like it’s her fault for taking happiness away from her father when he is the one who handled things horribly just like he did with Lilly’s murder investigation.

I genuinely CANNOT listen to him interviewing jake and celeste 😭 he’s being SO WEIRD and creepy and uncomfortable. Like bro there are about a billion better ways to handle knowing they’re lying that aren’t terrorizing powerful successful suspected murderers who just lost their daughter 😭

The older I get the less and less I like Keith Mars and the more I connect his behavior to making Veronica’s life so much worse

The show is all about criticizing the wealthy elite yet Keith Mars every chance he gets is pushing Veronica to become one!! “Got to and ivy league school and get a high powered corporate job and never think about private investigation again in your perfect life”

First of all thinking her life will be perfect just because she has a well paying job is CLOWNERY. Her best friend was murdered and her alcoholic mother abandoned her in the same year and she lost all of her friends because of how poorly Keith went about investigating said murder AND she’s sa’s twice in the same night once by her ex she gets back together with and a future mass murderer. Those are not the usual childhood things to happen to a person and a high paying job isn’t what’s gonna magically make her happy and give her a good life. It’s so frustrating that we get “oh my god they care more about spring break business than saving lives that’s soooo fucked up” yet Keith is like YOU MUST PLAY THE CAPITALISM GAME AND WIN OR YOUR LIFE IS A FAILURE every chance he can.

And when he finds out she helped Duncan kidnap his daughter and he’s like “I wouldn’t survive if you went to jail or something happened to you” ummmmmm codependency with your child much???!!!!?!?! Again SO MUCH PRESSURE ON HER telling your child can’t live without them is so inappropriate on so many levels because you’re literally saying my well-being is tied to yours which is literally the definition of codependency. So he forms this codependent relationship with his daughter but then is sooo disappointed with her that she wants to stay in Neptune and work with him like the mixed messaging is INSANE.

And while I don’t really view Lilly as the good person the show paints her as she was really good for Veronica because she helped her push back against a very overbearing, overprotective father which is really important for childhood development.

It’s another reason I HATE the finale of season 4 so much. She is literally EXACTLY back where she started in season 4 including being overly dependent on her dad while losing the only person who she cared for more than pleasing her father because she knew he didn’t want her to be with Logan but she did anyway because it’s what she wanted. She didn’t want law school, she didn’t want New York, she didn’t want Piz. Those were all to make her dad happy after everything that went down at the end of season 3. The movie was her finally, after NINE YEARS forgiving herself or at least letting herself off the hook for her mistakes and letting herself live her life the way she wanted again. She lived a life she didn’t want for almost a DECADE purely to please her dad.

I mean the fact that she never tells her dad about being sa’d, especially after Lamb doesn’t believe her - not because she can’t talk about it but because she’s afraid of what he’ll do/how he’ll react - that’s BAD. That is a sign of TERRIBLE parenting mistakes that your child feels the need to protect you from the awful things that happen to them.

I still don’t hate Keith and I do enjoy their dynamic a lot of the time still but Oooooooh does he piss me off especially when he’s adding to Veronica’s guilt or burden, usually in a very hypocritical way.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I haven’t actually talked about Eva on here for a while but playing as her in LBP has made me want to talk about her again so. Eva lore posting time.

Basically, she's my own take on the idea of an organic Metal Sonic, where she's Eggman's biological daughter, and therefore she's a human girl (or was a human girl, more accurately). She's a test tube baby who was specifically meant to be a heir to her father's empire (she's, very literally, a junior- that’s her deadname, and her new legal name is based off of the intended pronunciation of ivo with a ee sound that no one ever ended up using) but was emotionally neglected her entire life. She was given everything materially she could ever need, but she essentially raised herself and her only socialisation was with her tutors (not all of which had her best interest in mind). She's an absolute prodigy- arguably better than her father, considering she started engineering before she could talk and was educated in basically everything possible by the best teachers since she was able to crawl- but she lacks any form of proper social development and as such often comes across as more robotic than her actual robot canon counterpart.

She's about a year younger than Sonic, so in my scuffed timeline I refuse to change Sega can’t make me she'd have been around 10-11 when Sonic and Eggman started fighting, and she was immediately jealous of Sonic because her father actually paid attention to him, even if it was to attempt murder, whereas he barely even acknowledged Eva outside of when it benefitted him. She started trying to act and look more like him in the desperate hope of being noticed, and this cumulated in her crudely performing an operation on herself (fully conscious and without anaesthesia, I might add) to become a cyborg specifically designed to be able to kill Sonic because she thought it was the only way her father would love her. Being literally eleven and not a surgeon, this went… badly. The cybernetics are fine, she's made herself exactly what she wants, but this fucked up her physical health severely- she's basically prevented her puberty entirely (tho that one was intentional she was too scared to come out so that was the closest she could get to puberty blockers) and caused her body to constantly reject itself- when she’s not fighting, she’s in and out of hospital, she’s had to replace most of what’s left of her human body with cybernetics, and she'll be lucky to live to twenty.

Eggman, being a terrible father, is of course extremely proud of her for this and immediately lets her start murdering things without asking questions, entirely uncaring of the physical consequences. Not because he doesn’t love her- he does, albeit in a deeply unhealthy and abusive way- but because he barely saw her as a human in the first place, more an extension of himself. He treats her a lot more like Sage than in canon- he's much more openly affectionate towards her, but also very much uses her as a tool despite that, and Eva is very aware, she just doesn’t care because it’s the closest she’s come to ever being liked let alone loved.

The equivalent to Heroes here is her having a mental breakdown and running away from home, which did end up causing a big conflict- Eggman was convinced someone had kidnapped his daughter and was furious, while Sonic and friends had no fucking idea what was going on and what they were being interrogated about and attacked for (bc of Course eggman blamed them immediately). They knew Eva existed, obviously, she's fought them a lot, but they just thought she was a weird humanish robot and not his actual biological daughter. Eventually though things end kind of anticlimatically when they find her half-starved in an alleyway barely even coherent and not in any condition to fight even with her cool new upgrades. She kinda just. Bursts into tears and vents for several hours at thirteen very confused individuals before she collapses from neglecting herself. This is also how she ends up accidentally coming out, though thankfully Eggman is chill with that.

Since he couldn’t just reset her since she’s a human child with a human brain Eva instead ends up getting intensive treatment as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. She's in and out of the psych ward a lot and is in pretty much daily therapy when she is home, along with having around the clock care because she fucked herself up pretty bad. Eggman's genuinely really worried for her- more out of a feeling of ownership than genuine concern, but he is a lot less neglectful of her after this.

Meanwhile, her relationships with the people she was, y’know, trying to kill, are extremely awkward, because they sympathise with her and have gleaned from her breakdown that she's Like That because of extreme abuse and neglect and want to reach out to her and help her (which Eggman knows about but turns a blind eye to bc like. God knows he wants her to have some friends so she doesn’t nearly kill herself again) but she's also. Exactly as fucked up as canon Metal but appearing like a cyborg frankenstine little girl. She's entirely disconnected from the outside world, has no morals, and her hobbies are torturing small animals she buys with her allowance, watching liveleak for eighteen hours straight, and eating batteries. She's only ever been outside of the home she grew up with to kill people. She does however manage to get a(n extremely unhealthy) friend in Shadow, entirely bc she manipulates how she looks similar to Maria to experiment on him to try and find a way to at least live long enough to inherit the empire she was born to. So she’s also part black arms she’s so far from human at this point.

She's not a bad person, to clarify- just extremely sheltered with nothing but bad influences. She genuinely doesn’t get why sending people links to people dying is not a friendly act she’s genuinely trying to connect to them bc she’s lonely and scared. But she’s still a bizarre kid.

[badluck990]

There are Ways to Kill the Immortal

AI-less Whumptober Day 1: Drugging/Sick/Poisoned

I'm tired and will do tags in the morning,

“How many of these do we have left at this point?” Emily asked as she counted out her arrows.

“I think about 30 still, they’ve been more careful since you shut down their original operation in Riverrun.” Irene explained.

“We get it, another town, another base. Let’s just go in already.” Jamie explained, acting like she wasn’t thinking about how she should have gone home to sharpen her knife before this.

They’d been at this for about 10 years now. Irene had clones herself and like any sci-fi movie ever, they had teamed up and began traveling to take them out.

“It still feels weird splitting up is in our best interest,” Mike laughed.

“Well as long as they still got those damn corruption darts it ain’t safe to be around each other.”

“You know, except for me since a corpse can’t exactly revive herself,” Jamie remarked, beginning to walk with Mike.

“Stay safe everyone.” Irene finally called as they all parted ways.

Jamie held her dagger close as she and Mike wandered the east most hall looking for literally anything. Finding their darts would be the best outcome considering the amount of damage those bastards could cause with fucking corruption. 

The two most basic forms of magic were white purification and black corruption magic, both extremely dangerous, both the clones had dabbled in. White magic they had as a powder than a dart like the black was. They used the white as a fail-safe for their mind control work and the black essentially made beasts.

Granted finding the mind control devices and breaking those would be equally useful.

They peaked into a room they had someone from the town tied up in,

“Do you see the dart they’re loading in the gun?”

“Yeah..completely bandless…what do you think they’re trying.”

“New dart, trail 16. Subject,” The clone turned from the captive, “The bot and the halfbreed.”

Realizing they’d been heard, the two split up and ran.

Meanwhile, Emily snuck around to find the clones themselves whether for information on what their plans or to take one or two out would depend on how many were there and if she could get a good enough vantage point. No matter what, anything could be useful. She followed one of the bots to a lab room with darts & parts galore.

“Bingo.” She carefully opened the vents, readied her bow, and aimed for their weakest point. 

The stone arrowhead jammed into the neck and the bot fell to the ground sparking. Emily jumped down glancing over the darts, black band for corruption, purple for magic affecting moondust, gray for knockout serum, and…

“What the hell are blank darts for?”

“Well we can't have you finding that out can we?” Irene A Clone laughed from behind and shot Emily with a gray banded dart before she could even turn around.

In other parts of the base debated on playing it safe and hidden or trying to blend in with her mistake for information. But if her fear was recognized, she’d be interrogated for sure, granted she still had her necklace but that was only for an absolute– no other way out –emergency. She decided to wander around, trying to look like belonged there, just had to hope to find something before her enemy did. Granted it had been Mike & her’s base before all this so she did technically know where certain things were, but many things had been moved around. Plus they were doing very different things. She passed a lab room to see Emily getting knocked out.

Frick.

Not thinking she grabbed her gun hand gun & took out the clone really hoping no one was close enough to hear. Irene scooped her friend up and noticed the blank dart herself and wondered what in the multiverse they were up to this time. But never mind that, for that she did need to get Emily Safe.

Back at the entrance the four came back together. Only Irene was still carrying Emily and Jamie was on the floor, one the new darts in her arm.

“You got any ideas on what the hell these new darts are?” Irene snapped as she knelt down to take a look wondering why no one was around, unless it was a corruption dart it wasn't like them to just leave the victim on the ground.

“Poison, I saw them talking about it, but I don’t know what type, they noticed me..” Mike was pale as could be, why didn’t they run the same direction?!

“I-it’s fine, let’s just get out of here, stab Jamie in the forest and recon in a starpeak hotel.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Jamie…Jamie can’t revive from poison. We. We talked about it a while ago. We need to get back to Riverrun. Now.”

Emily woke up as they got back and was able to get an explanation while Jamie was put in bed. Mike began poison testing and she awoke just after he finished. Her head hurt, everything ached, & she felt hot. But how? She was half fire demon, she didn’t get ‘hot’.”

“Hey Jamie~”

“Fucking hell. Why does everything hurt?”

“You got darted at the base, you’ll be okay. It’s a minor poison, it should pass even without an antidote,” He lied.

She laughed slightly, “So it's basically like your damn mortal flu? If that's all, then I should pry just go home to the demon realm, so I can take care of myself better there.”

“No! I mean, we don’t know if the poison will react to the realm change, considering it's not a thing that’s ever been studied. And with you not being able to-”

“Yeah okay I get it. But still don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“Alright, alright.”

“So what are we actually working with?”

“It’s called Kyotin. The symptoms are nothing serious, as Jamie already noticed it’s meant to mimic a normal flu, but if we don’t get her help, it’s gonna kill her.”

“How long do we have?”

“About a week likely.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“Only thing we can do. Find an Antidote.”

[goatsandgangsters]

Update: I wound up sitting on the couch with @meyerlansky while they caught up, so I've now seen episodes 2.04–2.08 and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE

it was extremely funny watching this with someone who has like, deep lore. the book lore. and then there’s me like “what’s this person’s name and how are they related to everyone else” 

so here are some Updated uninformed outsider opinions, based on four episodes at the end and my incredibly vague prior impressions:

to this guard man who’s following alicent around: I don’t care how brown your big cow eyes are, you’re a little bitch and I hope your dick never gets wet again. fuck you

rhaenyra has other children right? cause her main one… kinda sucks? this instagram boy blue-steeling all over the place is kind of getting on my nerves 

conversations during hotd: “are they fucking?” “yes.” “are they related?” “yes.”

OHHHH I did NOT realize that Uncle Matt Smith is the undefeated winner in Westeros’s Dampest Wettest Man Contest 

the gifsets do not do rhaeynrera justice because HOT VOICE TOO UNFAIRRRRR

I’m very happy for her and her new gal pal, I hope they enjoy plenty of scissoring. perhaps a little strange that she was like "so here's my rape as backstory" and rhaenyra was like "hell yeah, let's make out RIGHT now" but I'm happy for them nonetheless

pleased to know that the hot gilf who died just before I tuned in ALSO had a hot man. his beautiful bastard children are also extremely beautiful. tho I question why he has bastard children if he had hot gilf like why would you ever?? unless he and hot gilf had a late-in-life romance, in which case good for them and these are bastards from a previous era. or. well. wait ARE the beautiful bastard children the bastards of hot gilf? considering one of them is on a dragon now and all? I didn’t actually ask about the family tree situation here, I was busy watching The Beautiful Man get chased around by a dragon that wants to be his best friend

I’m predisposed to like Weird Scottish Lady because I saw her in a production of Hamlet years ago and she was incredible as Ophelia, which reminded me to get Cabaret tickets before she leaves in like a month 

also I love Freddie Fox. he’s such a delight in everything I’ve ever seen him in. which ALSO includes hamlet, but a totally different production than above. he is so cunty all the time and I love him

oh I fucking STAN that twelve-year-old who just ran rINGS around everyone and pulled the biggest power-move in the history of all these adults in westeros. child, you are GOING PLACES 

sdjfkhgskfjdh blue-steel child dropping I HAVE DARK HAIR, BLOND HAIR IS RECESSIVE, I’M BASTARD, like damn that took sean bean all season to figure out  

OHHHH GRANDMA WARCRIMES IS BIIIIIIIIIG!!!!

“antlered human-shape clip-clopping” I fucking love subtitles wtf

I think maybe it sucks that they’re killing all the dragons. I know the point of this show is “this stuff happened and all the dragons died” and I know that there’s a thread of environmentalism throughout GRRM’s work but I just think, what if you didn’t hurt the dragons

I got really confused when haelena mentioned being queen cause I was like "now hold up. that's not how monarchies work. because if aemond's aegon's king and they're siblings, that Does Not Make Her queen" and kara was like "no they're also married" and SOMEHOW I DIDN'T OSMOSIS THAT PLOT POINT AT ALL?

kara: do you want a correction on this post. aegon's king me: GODDAMMIT. WHY DO THEY HAVE THE SAME NAME. I CAN NEVER REMEMBER me: okay. here's my mnemonic. the one who's like >:3 is aeGON because he would Gone Girl someone kara: wrong! that's aemond me: GODDAMMIT!!!!!

I liked freddie fox being like "hello I'm here to be cunty and kill you" and cow-eyes was like "go ahead. life sucks. I'm suicidal." and watching freddie fox just cuntily be like "uuugghhh I don't caaare about your feeeelings but now there's no joy in killing you, this is so awkward and uncomfortable ugh"

I’m a little bit concerned about this child running around on the moors trying to horsegirl a feral dragon, but I think it’ll probably be alright because I’m genre savvy about how horsegirl books work 

I just don’t understand why this elder brunette child looks like this in every scene 😗

THE NON-DRAGON BEAUTIFUL BASTARD SON WINS THE MONOLOGUE AWARD!!!! 

perhaps I would feel differently if I hadn’t just… plopped down to watch a handful of episodes at the end, but that did kinda feel more penultimate than finale? I thought there were gonna be more dragons going pew pew at each other in the sky. I thought "dragons going pew pew" was like, their whole deal

anyway, I’ve seen Exactly Four Episodes of the show, I know marginally more names now kind of, I still have a very loose grasp of this ouroboros family tree, but it does not matter. because there were dragons.

I tried to summarize what I've osmosis'd about house of the dragon purely from my dash & my partner and decided to post it

caveat: I am horrible with names and I did not fact-check the spelling of a n y o n e ' s name

so. first of all. lesbians.

there’s Alicent who is “a repressed lesbian who’s never had an orgasm in her life” (quoth @meyerlansky). I don’t think she knows this about herself, but it’s true. there’s also Rhaneyra who is Extremely Hot and bisexual. (this I know to be factual!! I saw the kissing gifs with that other woman!! I saw them!!) anyway, Alicent and R had an adorable childhood first-love situation that they didn’t realize was them being in love but They Were In Love. then it all went to fuck, because Alicent had to marry Rhenyra’s… father? stepfather? some crusty old relation of hers? and this was bad for them, because Alicent is a lesbian and was also STILL TINY, so marrying your bff/love-of-your-life’s crusty old man relation is Not A Good Time For Either Of You 

Rhaenyra—I’m just gonna spell it different every time until I figure it out, but I think this one is right—anyway Rhaenyra is married to Matt Smith but I don’t think he like… matters? I get the sense he’s kind of one of the Main Dudes but I also don’t know anything about what he like. Does? oh also he’s her uncle 

there are……… three children. I’m not entirely positive whose children they are. I think they’re Alicent’s children. There’s—oh god—ONE OF THEM is Aemond and one of them is Aegon, only I’m not sure which is which. this is super embarrassing because @meyerlansky 's fave is “whichever is the one with the long hair and the eyepatch” so I SHOULD know this. but I'm bad with names and I just call the one who is their fave “three-mouth” bc he looks like that meme of the cat going >:3 at a knife. there’s also Helena, who was a small weird child who likes bugs, and whose name is definitely spelled differently than that 

anyway. Ae-something (the one who looks like this >:3) has a dragon who is old and senile and her name is Grandma Warcrimes. and she accidentally (?) ate Ae’s couuuuusin, his name is Lu-something-or-other. this was a very significant thing that happened 

Alicent’s Squad and Rhaenyra’s Squad have Major Significant Beef with each other, only I have honestly no idea what it is, other than like… their unresolved sexual tension

there’s also. okay wait. someone has a gay husband, yes? there’s a handsome Black man who is gay? was heeeee WAIT WAIT. Handsome Gay Husband was Rhaenyra’s husband, but she was fucking around with Uncle Matt Smith, so all her kids are… Uncle Matt Smith’s? and then Handsome Gay Husband died (was killed? for being gay maybe?) and then she married Uncle Matt Smith instead? 

OH! WAIT WAIT WAIT. I’M PIECING IT TOGETHER I THINK. SO THE BEEF. Grandma Warcrimes ate Cousin Lululemon, who was…. like one of them is Alicent’s child and one of them is Rhaeynera’s, so the beef—in addition to the rampant lesbian sexual tension—is also about “your kid killed my kid on the playground” kind of an issue? (see now I’m second-guessing myself whose kid is whose based on hair color but whatever) 

there’s also a GILF. she literally Just Died. which is sad, because she was hot rip 

so yeah. that's all I got. that's all I've absorbed. this show is about lesbians and dragons and people are mad at each other for Reasons. I don’t know what those reasons are but they sure are fighting and killing about it!