#when they're sad I cry

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Don't mind me. I'll just be over here crying over a suitcase for a week. No big deal. This is fine. I'm fine.

[ddrawful]

I challenged myself to do all three templates and proceeded to destroy my shoulder, but here's my Touchstarved MC Vesper! They definitely won't cry if you call them a nerd (yes they will).

Illustrations by themselves below the cut!

[divineandmajesticinone]

4 MINUTES (2024) I 1.01 "I'm sorry. My dad wants me to go home now. For dinner."

[paracosm-draw]

He's so pretty so pretty so fucking pretty i'm gonna die look at him with his perfect face

[mirellapryce]

I am thinking about how Edwin asked Charles if he'd been crying, when they were in the Devlin house. Something about it seemed to me like this wasn't something Edwin was unfamiliar with.

So please picture, it's the early 90s, and for two ghost boys things are going pretty swell. They have their freedom, this blossoming friendship, and a detective agency they're starting up. But also remember that Charles is a 16 year old boy. No one can see him or hear him. He can never go home. He'll never hug his mom again. His friends killed him. He can't sleep. Or sometimes it's the little things, like not being able to taste his favourite foods and drinks. He is 16 forever now, and in those early years sometimes it hits him that he's dead, and the grief just knocks him down.

Edwin may never be comfortable with the emotional outbursts but he is understanding. Edwin didn't have time to grieve his own death, and he has no one on Earth to miss, but Charles had a life, and he had people, and things that brought him comfort that are beyond him now. So when Charles cries and grieves his own death, and says it's not fair, Edwin doesn't argue. He just tries to be there for his new friend as best as he can.

[cecoeur]

it's hell on earth to be heavenly them's the breaks, they don't come gently

[ambigrueity]

Incredibly long post about Trey and Riddle's Relationship that I vaguely said I'd do in the tags of my posts somewhere

Disclaimer: this is not intended to be shipping in any way I very much view them as family, even more so after these updates. To start with I'm going to separate their relationship into 3 distinct stages and focus on their perceptions of each other at each stage. I think their relationship is wonderfully written As usual, I ramble so sorry in advance, but I really want to analyze how complex they are.

Stage one: Childhood: ||Riddle|| A friend: Trey and Chenya were Riddle's first friends. Riddle had spent his whole life knowing the four walls of his home and his mother and both Trey and Chenya were his gateway to experiencing the world outside his windows. As such, they're immensely valuable to him. Under his mother he had no other way to grow socially, so when provided with a logical reason for going out and playing (Chenya stated his grandpa believed play is a form of study) he jumped at it because he wanted that connection. Trey specifically was his ideal. I think he looked up to him a lot. Normal home life. His mother didn't confine or trap him in any way. And he could eat whatever he liked. That's why when Trey said that one or two slices of tart wouldn't hurt, it was good enough to sway Riddle. All his life he'd grown up hearing about sweets being poison. But Trey seems happy and fulfilled so surely it's not as bad. However, breaking his mother's rule made him lose everything. The momentary friendship he'd built and any chance of freedom. It impressed upon him the importance of following the rules because breaking them lead to loss. And on top of that, it left him with guilt. I talk a lot about Trey's guilt in this situation (and I will talk more) but Riddle has his own guilt too that just manifested in a different way. More on that later.

||Trey|| A brother: While Riddle might have viewed Trey as a friend (no doubt because he was an isolated only child with a different perception and a lot of baggage tied to the world family), Trey saw him as a brother. He expressly states in his dream that Riddle was smart enough to identify plants and flowers and had enough magic control to get their soccer ball out of the trees, and he felt proud to have a smart little brother. And this sort of label is easier for him because he comes from a rather healthy family with siblings and has a blood brother around Riddle's age. Instinctively, Riddle became someone he wanted to care for, spoil, and cherish. That's why after knowing Riddle wanted to try a tart he wanted to let him. Later on, he tries to dismiss or come to terms with his actions in various ways, stating that it was not his place and of course anyone would get upset if their house rules and dietary restrictions weren't being respected. He tries to make it out into a joke, saying it's become a family incident of sorts that they just laugh about. "Who gets that mad at children playing." But underneath all those attempts to bury his own trauma, lies guilt. Because he feels, deep down, that as a brother he should have protected Riddle better. And instead, after just 2 months, he had to see everything that made Riddle happy stripped away again. More on this later. Stage 2: Riddle's First Year

||Riddle|| A stranger. Riddle's changed. He's developed some of his mother's anger. He's been confined for years. And because of that one incident with the tart, he firmly believes that growth and by extension fulfillment can only happen under the rules. Moreover, since Trey represents that period of his life where he learned that lesson rather harshly, he ices Trey out, pretending he barely knows him. After all, they might as well be strangers after all these years. Especially since Trey is banned from his house. This is a result of the guilt I mentioned earlier. He failed to follow his mother's rules and the punishment put Trey and his peaceful family that he looked up to in the crossfire. I think a part of him doesn't know how to face Trey after all that, worried that he might hate him. However, he cannot fully erase his own memories. So it is Trey he consults when he asks how to challenge a dorm leader for the seat. Even if he's distancing himself by calling him "Clover-senpai" Trey still remains someone he trusts to a degree. After Riddle takes the throne he makes a decision I find interesting. He doesn't select a vice, instead he leaves it to the popular vote. This could be read two ways IMO. Either, he didn't feel the need to have a vice because he was so confident in his own skills, but was aware that it was customary to have one so it didn't matter to him who it was. Or, deep down, he was afraid that no one would be willing to work with him. After seeing his dream, I do think it might be the latter. All of the darkness versions of his card soldiers showed some form of disloyalty. Willing to go along with the idea that they might jump ship, or that Riddle could be overpowered. It's this insecurity born from his own fear of his mother. He knows he's become a reflection of her, and he's worried how other people might react to it. In the end, he's still chasing those relationships from childhood, but is stuck believing that rules are the only way to keep what little happiness he has which alienates him from Trey to a degree. ||Trey|| A brother still: Despite the years, Trey's feelings about Riddle hadn't changed much other than being swamped with underlying guilt. Upon realizing that Riddle was going to attend NRC, his first instinct was to create a space for him. Trey generally, is introverted but excited to see his childhood friend again, he ends up talking to the people around him saying that Riddle was a quiet but studious boy and he hopes that people will welcome him. That was at least, before he saw what Riddle had become (he ended up fighting Floyd at the entrance ceremony) leaving Trey with the realization that this was not the boy he knew anymore. And worse, he was pretending not to know him. I'm sure it hurt, but even so, when RIddle asked about dueling the housewarden, he did try to accommodate him (after getting over his initial shock). The thing that gets me the most, however, is that Trey still saw the good in him. Trey in the rose maze part of Riddle's dream tells Ortho that the first thing Riddle did when he became housewarden was tend to the roses. To him that was a sign that Riddle was still somewhere in there and he was willing to support that. He would have been resigned to accepting that he was a stranger to Riddle if he hadn't been elected vice, but regardless of how Riddle felt, Trey still felt responsible for him. Both out of guilt and because he was still family.

[thechibilitwick]

bored

[kinaesthetiqueer]

"Spread across the comforter are their film strips from the photo corner at the dance... A full size picture of the four of them signing their team letter to the camera with huge smiles on their faces."

On the Run from Tomorrow, ch. 17

Last chap's up. I am getting so horribly emotional trying to write a note here, so just...

JNPR 💛🧡❤️💚 Forever

[holyshit]

.

[canon-notcanon-warriorcats]

AND WHAT IF I CRIED

[jonathanbyersphd]

Imagine being Will Byers and telling your older brother (who said you're his best friend) you don't want to be treated different or like a little kid and then you don't have a heart to heart conversation in two years

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

[yagurlhere]

WARNING:SPOILERS!

"NOOOO! LIGHTBULB!!!!! 😭"

"LIGHTBULB ANGST!!!!! 😭"

"LIGHTBRUSH ANGST!!!!!! 😭"

"THIS HURTS SO MUCH!!!! 😭"

"I'M CRYING!!!!!! 😭"

"PAINTBRUSH CRYING!!!!! 😭"

"MY HEART!!!!! 😭"

Me: FINALLY.

[swampythesweetsketch]

I think out of all interpretations of the Ishimondo angst, it's the fact that Kiyotaka could've never gotten to Mondo's room after his execution because the handbook broke hurts me the most.

Like the Sauna competition is the very thing that breaks Mondo and Taka out of their shells and bond to be friends (to never-lovers) and then after being so happy Mondo realizes he broke his handbook so he steals Leon's of all people. Just to ask the burning question- Did Mondo really sleep in Leon's room the whole time before he killed Chihiro? Or did he stay with Taka???

And after Mondo is turned into butter- Taka is heartbroken and just desperately needs some comfort but everyone around him SUCKS, you can't give Mondo's jacket to him (key items can't be gifted) and because Mondo fucked up and couldn't get his handbook fixed- Taka was doomed to spiral cause the one place he needed to be was barricaded off long before his other half was taken away.

[Edit for my now lucid ass]

THANK YOU TO CHINCHILL/JESS FOR REMINDING ME THE DORMS HAD KEYS. MY TIRED BUTT LAST NIGHT THOUGHT THE HANDBOOKS ACTED LIKE ELECTRONIC KEYS TO THEIR DORMS.

[lillybearrie]

"I won't..." go with you I have to stay here, I have to fix everything. I'm in to deep now I can't leave now. gods I want to, I want to run away with you, I want to I do, please know I do, Venear please know that at least- "tell anyone, just...be careful"

And all those unspoken things sit between them for a beat. Fortunately they are both fluent in silence

But that doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt to hear

"I kinda wish we could have been" friends, partners, lovers "something" anything

"Yeah... yeah.." me too