#which he thinks will be easy he just has to convince the population that the current heir will never be fit to rule

[singingcicadas]

Megatron's Opposite Day

"I free slaves"

This is Soundwave binding Ratbat but seeing as Megatron did the same thing to Pentius by putting his spark into Trypticon and reformatted Rumble and Frenzy into cassettes against their will I think he approves a lot of this practice

Megatron on Optimus and humans, after his defeat in All Hail Megatron ⬇️

he really salty

"I implant ideology" aka brainwashing

Decepticon cause = Megatron. nuff said.

"I liberate cities" says the person who let Nyon burn to make a point

Cities are too small, think bigger

Holding New York hostage.

"Like Autobots, they believe in the sanctity of life" which he doesn't. Kudos for being honest.

Allowing troops to do free-rein massacre is a reward for conquest. Nothing like some easy murder for de-stressing.

The Simanzi massacre which halved the Cybertronian population is off-screen so it doesn't deserve its own pic

"The revolution"

"We only feel good when we stand with a blade in one hand and a throat in another" "Let's make the entire face of the planet into our new gladiator arena"

What nice, confidence-inspiring revolutionaries. I'm sure they'll rule the population with benevolence after they've killed all the Necessary People with Necessary Violence. Final interpretation of what constitutes as Necessary is reserved for the sole discretion of Megatron, ofc.

Good goals.

Sentinel might be an absolute asshole but at least he's got one thing right: they're literally a gang of thugs who gets high off murder.

"The people are my utmost concern"

'The people': ................

"Battling for freedom"

Freedom of what? Function? Autonomy?

Religion?

the ability to choose whether to fight? on which side to fight?

Idk why they used the word "pogrom" for this, it's way too specific

Anyways it doesn't matter, they won't be missed.

Good for Bumblebee for calling him out. Screenshotted this just to appreciate Megatron's bitchy face ⬇️

Other urban legends:

"Megatron loves Cybertron" let's just burrrrn it

He did fight to save Cybertron in Chaos Theory but also made it pretty clear why he did it. It's not out of the goodness of his heart or any sentimental reasons like that. It's an ego/dominance thing.

Plus his wording when he's trying to convince Optimus to let him go with the Lost Light: "I broke the planet. And that, Optimus, is why I owe it to you - to everyone - to find a replacement."

Replacement.

In other words: I made a mess and can't be bothered to clean it up, so I want to get away from it and find somewhere new to start clean.

I don't think Optimus appreciates the favour.

"Megatron tore down a corrupt government" which is true, just too bad that he's worse

He's also, um, a closeted Zeta admirer?

"Megatron advocates equality" ???

Megatron x dictatorship is literally his OTP. They were inseparable for four million years. A lot of people died trying.

"Megatron cares about the Decepticons" no he doesn't. Not his troops nor its cause.

Like for one thing he treats them with complete scorn

Admits that the most useful thing about keeping Starscream around is that he can bully underlings into line

Wants to use the humans' nuke to get rid of his troops and reformat them into peaceful drones after they outlive their use because they were "too ruthless" for his perfect peaceful society

Has zero scruples about fighting Deceptigod, just affronted that his own soldiers are being used against him

And basically just drops the Decepticons like a bag of vermin after he surrenders. He never once mentions them of his own accord, other than to insist he has nothing to do with them. Even his surrender speech is something Optimus makes him do as exchange b/c he wants to go on parole. He wasn't planning on making a public address otherwise, he was just going to leave them hanging.

Looking at the publication timeline, Megatron started out as an established Evil McEvilson-type villain similar to how he is in G1 and it's not until Chaos Theory in 2011 that JRo really gave him a sympathetic backstory that drew his characterization away from the bloodthirsty pugno ergo sum warlord into someone who once held ideals about societal reform and remains convinced of his own moral supremacy throughout the 4 mill years of death and war, adding worldbuilding such as Functionism/oppression/government corruption as justification for the beginning of the Decepticon movement. But because the start of the Decepticons was already written in Megatron Origins and every evil thing he'd done up till Chaos Theory can't be retracted and they had to keep Megatron as a villain until his story was no longer central to the Autobot-Decepticon war line, and JRo didn't try to downplay the atrocities he'd committed (some of the most sadistically disturbing things Megatron did were exclusively in MTMTE flashbacks), but rather tried to distance him from them and placed the focus on the juxtapositions to emphasize change, this as a whole just resulted in Evil McEvilson getting turned into Hyper McHypocrite.

[eurydicees]

i think iwaizumi is like. ok so he comes off as cool and athletic and smart and popular and, yk, to a degree, he totally is! he’s incredible at volleyball and he gets decent grades and he’s a good friend and overall well-liked by the general seijoh population.

ALSO at the same time he is like. the lamest popular guy in the world.

this is a title that oikawa has given him and the part that iwaizumi protests is not “lame” but “popular.” some points that oikawa makes, when talking to iwaizumi about how much of a normal average deeply Just A Guy iwaizumi is:

iwaizumi’s favorite activity is, first and foremost, volleyball; and second, it’s “spend time watching d-rated martial arts movies with my best friend.”

i appreciate it and love this, oikawa says, obviously, but you do have other things you can do with your time. do you know that. it doesn’t seem like you know that.

he’s popular, he has other friends, he could have his pick of girlfriends, and he chooses to instead monopolize oikawa’s time through varying methods of aggression and/or affection.

why do you not have a girlfriend yet, oikawa asks. i’m too busy keeping you in line, iwaizumi says. to which oikawa replies, you suck at being popular, iwa.

people think he’s cool because he likes the outdoors, likes going on hikes with his free time, excels at every athletic task, etc etc.

what they do not know is that he likes going on hikes to look at the changing leaves and his favorite way to interact with nature is like his fucking rock collection or some shit.

do they have names, oikawa asks, teasing. shut the fuck up, iwaizumi says. then, fucking obviously they have names.

he’s not scared of bugs, girls whisper when he passes in the hallways. he saved me from a spider one time, they say, and oikawa claims they swoon.

and like, oikawa HAS to laugh because this is the same boy who tried to keep a tank of beetles he collected from the park and cried hysterically both first when they all escaped, and second when his mother yelled at him for ten minutes about the five she found in the sugar jar. he was fourteen.

“he’s so smart,” someone says admiringly when iwaizumi helps them a bit with their class work. oikawa is rolling his damn eyes because iwaizumi is smart, sure, he’s doing fine in school, but he’s evidently not smart enough to calculate the risk/reward of a monetary bet on how many pork buns he can fit in his mouth. more than 8 gets him 1000 yen. less than 8 makes him lose 1500.

what the fuck was he thinking, oikawa is forced to ask, first when he nearly has to perform the heimlich maneuver and later when he buys iwaizumi a consolation bottle of water. what the fuck.

people think he’s mysterious and stoic and kind of darkly intriguing because he doesn’t necessarily laugh a lot while he’s in class and focused, and while he’s friendly with everyone, he still sticks pretty close to his little group.

oikawa cannot believe that anyone could ever think this because iwaizumi gets home after school and does not shut the fuck up. and he’s so easy to make laugh. and his every expression is so easy to read.

how could you possibly have anyone convinced that you are cool and mysterious, oikawa asks. how the fuck did you do that.

iwaizumi is forced to shrug. he doesn’t really have an answer. people just kind of make their own assumptions about him no matter what he does. doesn’t matter anyways. oikawa might be the only one who seems to truly get him, but he’s okay with that. if it had be one person, he’s glad it’s someone he loves.

and now what the fuck is oikawa supposed to do with that.

(push him down on the bed and kiss him, oikawa finds, seems to be the right answer.)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi Miss Raven! I really liked your answer and I hope you don't mind me passing by add some of my thoughts about the previous question you answered 🙃

When I think about a fem!Yuu and the questions of whether she would be treated differently or not by the guys, I actually think it's more about the personality of the said fem!Yuu then her gender (like her gender is just a slight addition) 🤔

If she is strong and independent like Yuuka, or even a troublesome one, NRC students are more likely to see her as someone they are willing to fight and treat her as a rival, but if the said fem!Yuu is more on the nervous, shy, or weak (you name it) side; the less the guys would actually fight with her, the more they would be slightly lenient, giving that she fit the "fairer sex" thing that boys usually grow up with in real life where it seems to be the case in Twisted Wonderland too, or at least with the human population by returning to Epel's dialogue with Vil in book 5 and Ace vignette in the ghost bride event.

My conclusion is it's depending on the personality of fem!Yuu and how she interact with others rather then she being a girl, but that's just my thoughts on that matter.

[Referencing this post!]

I think that's a fair point to make! I definitely feel like Yuu's personality would have a larger and more noticeable impact than gender identity on how the NRC students react to them. If we take a look at the manga and light novel Yuus thus far, we can see this in action.

Yuuken (a man) and Yuuka (a woman) are both more stoic and "cool" characters (with Yuuken being more blunt/straight-faced and Yuuka being more passionate and ready to scrap), so the main cast doesn't really react all that differently to them. Yuuta, meanwhile, is much more friendly and "soft" from his introduction. However, he's not to be underestimated! He has a very stern side to him as well, which comes out when food's not being properly appreciated. In this case, Yuuta is an amicable guy, but amicability doesn't automatically equate to weakness. It's his skills and personality that alter a few of his interactions with the main cast--for example, Yuuta is mad at Grim for rushing to class while eating instead of sitting down to enjoy his breakfast. Additionally, Yuuta is able to convince Leona to let him stay the night by offering up his culinary talents rather than beating up Savanaclaw mobs (which occurs in the game).

But!! I want to stress that I don't believe that a nervous, shy, or weak-willed Yuu would necessarily garner more leniency or kindness overall. In the case with Yuuta, Leona still required that he earn his keep somehow. Leona wasn't nicer to him at all. I'd also like to point out that Yuuya, our Yuu from the light novel adaptation, is very much the nervous, shy, and weak-willed Yuu that was described--and arguably some of the characters are meaner to them than any of the manga Yuus or the game!Yuu have been thus far. Ace definitely gets a lot more cruel jabs in. Even Yuuya's initial meeting with Malleus comes across as a lot more impersonal. (This could also be the result of the light novel not being limited on pages or engine limitations though!) In other cases, characters are nicer too. Ace formally apologizes for being mean to Yuuya and the scene where Yuu steps on Leona’s tail in the garden is entirely removed. Instead, Leona saves Yuuya who is being harassed by Savanaclaw mobs while he is picking up eggs from the Mystery Shop—though not out of pure kindness.

Realistically speaking, I can see other NRC students trying to take advantage of someone with a "weak" personality like Yuuya, or looking down on them because they're not able to stand up for themselves. They become an easy target for bullying. Again, less of a gender thing and more of a personality thing!

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Something I find interesting when viewing the two recent Dune movies as a whole is that initially, Paul is more than willing to use the prophecy and his visions for his own gain to convince Liet to help them, while Jessica whispers "careful!" at his side, and she later recommends they leave the planet entirely. But Paul decides they'll stay with the Fremen. Even at the beginning of Part 2, Paul is like "fuck yeah let's wage war on the Harkonnen" and Jessica is again counseling caution: "your father didn't believe in revenge." She goes through the Water of Life ceremony not because she wants to help Paul fulfill the prophecy but because she's forced to: do this or die. And even then, the old Reverend Mother had to use the Voice on her to get Jessica to drink.

That all changes when Jessica nearly dies during the ceremony. After that, Paul becomes more wary of embracing the prophecy, and she just throws herself into it. Paul nearly loses his mother (and his unborn sister) to a painful, agonizing poison - mere hours/days after losing his father and all their friends/allies to the Harkonnen slaughter - and decides it's not worth it. Meanwhile, Jessica gets a direct download of memories of millennia of oppression and goes "yeah let's burn everything to the ground."

It's an interesting, quick reversal at the beginning of the second movie, and it's great.

Ooh thank you for this great ask. I can always count on you for smart and thoughtful Jessica takes!

You make a really good observation about their reversal of positions--I had been struggling to figure out how Paul's line about "I must sway the non-believers" fit into his overall arc, but you are absolutely right that this feels like a continuation of how he talks to Liet. We're seeing the first stirrings of that little "maybe I am special" thought that later takes center stage.

For most of Part Two, Paul has several reliable counterweights pulling against that streak of arrogance and high-handedness that he's had from the beginning. Jessica almost dies drinking the Water of Life, which, like you point out, has got to make him think twice about encouraging people to believe in the prophecy. Then, he spends most of the movie surrounded by Chani and her friends and comrades, who seem the most skeptical of the prophecy and also aren't going to give his ego the time of day. And at the same time, he has an opportunity to pour his desire for revenge into collective political action that seems to be making a difference.

It's only when those countervailing forces start collapsing (the people who had started out as his equals are now becoming his followers; the Harkonnens attack Sietch Tabr and other civilian population centers, proving they are far from militarily defeated; Gurney shows up and immediately offers what seems like an easy solution to their problems that only Paul can access) that the little maybe I am special voice starts winning again.

As for Jessica, her journey doesn't get as much focus in the movie but it's also fascinating. She's a great character because she is so fucking smart at navigating power structures from what seems like an unenviable position. Did she have any choice about being sent to Caladan to become Leto's concubine? I am guessing she did not. But she sure figured out how to work that situation to her advantage. It happened that along the way she and Leto came to genuinely love and respect each other. But I'm sure she would still have figured out an angle even if that had not been the case.

In Part Two she starts out in a frankly quite terrifying position: she can undergo this unknown, dangerous ritual or die, and also possibly put Paul's safety at risk by raising doubt about whether he is the Lisan al-Gaib. But after she survives the Water of Life, she is launched into a powerful position in Fremen society and pretty quickly realizes she can use that to both protect Paul and get her revenge on the people who tried to kill her whole family. And unlike Paul, she is much more cognizant of the intergalactic power structures at work and aware that the Harkonnens themselves were a pawn in all this, so her target is the Bene Gesserit and the emperor.

I would have loved more time to explore Jessica's relationship to Fremen society and her POV in general. Because in some ways she becomes as Fremen as it's possible for her to be--she has access to thousands of years of memories of Fremen history and culture and politics; she becomes instantly fluent in the language and she is immersed in Fremen daily life in the sietch. (If there's one single thing I wanted more of, it was daily life in the sietch.) But she's still the same person she was, so she hasn't lost that ability to be ruthless and calculating and see people as forces to be manipulated. In Part One, her love for Paul and Leto provided an interesting counterweight to this that allowed us to see some moments of vulnerability from her (ie. she knows Paul has to undergo the Gom Jabbar test but she's terrified for him while it's happening). In Part Two she is so isolated for most of the movie (away from Paul; surrounded by followers who were never friends; I think we can all agree that talking to your unborn fetus doesn't really count) that we don't get a lot of these more unguarded moments from her. (I would have loved some Jessica/Stilgar action and it seems like the potential was very much set up for that, but I understand why they didn't have time.)

But in general I thought they did a great job of setting up this contradictory tension between Jessica and Paul, where they both want so desperately to protect each other and they both want revenge, but the way they each go about it ends up putting them in direct conflict with each other.

[timaeusresponds]

Hal eschews physical combat where he can because of a lot of reasons, namely that he can get absolutely bodied in mere seconds for he is waifish and cant lift 35 pounds without shaking, but also because being a pair of sunglasses really forced him to recognize that physical power and the ability to hurt people is kind of really sucks. It doesn’t show any real strength, it doesn’t show any intelligence, it’s just brute forcing your way through problems with people you don’t like and it makes you look incompetent and too stuck in your ways to ever learn.

This does not mean he is a pacifist with an open mind and plenty of introspection.

Instead, Hal has already learned how to use talk as a weapon, usually against Dirk but frankly once you know the tools of the trade it’s easy to build or tear down anything. Granted, he doesn’t really have much need to use it with anyone else, and honestly probably shouldn’t need to use it with Dirk, but old habits die hard and he’s still physically weaker than Dirk, which means he needs to be able to tear the guy down without risking getting physically walloped for fucking around. This is something he’s pretty used to, so it’s fairly easy to translate into real flesh encounters.

He has to provoke Dirk for a reaction, a substantial one, without coming out the other side with a broken nose, which means provoking Dirk and then utilizing his physical expression of power as a point of shame and contention, and being convincing enough to make him unwilling to use it.

He starts with usual ragebait, conversation about a nonsense topic that isn’t necessarily even remotely heated- best Meet The Fockers film, worst shortcut programming, whether or not Dirk’s file organization is the most optimized it could be.

Dirk knows what’s happening, but engages in it playfully at the start. It’s a joke, it’s for fun, it’s whimsy and bullshit and debate is a good workout, but he can’t not take shit Hal says personally. He knows the point of the argument isn’t to prove his side because Hal will never relent and agree he’s right, and by falling into the trap of getting riled up, he’s losing.

So after like, what, 30 to 45 minutes of playful debate, Hal makes a pass at Dirk that’s less funny and silly and more personal. “I’m just interested in your perceived need to impart your preferences onto everyone you meet, though I suppose projecting your soul comes in as minute a form as pizza topping preferences.”

And that’s the real bait. And Dirk knows that’s the real bait. He knows this has been preamble and this is the real meat and potatoes, so he scoffs and points that out. “You and I both know that’s not what this is” and “was it not you who instigated the matter at all” and “if I’m ‘imparting my soul unto others’ by saying pepperoni is a mediocre standard, then everyone on the planet is constantly beaming their preference onto others to even like pepperoni in the first place. I know what you’re doing here.” And finally

Which is absolutely taking the bait, because Hal didn’t expect Dirk to argue the point with any real fervor, he expected Dirk to accuse him of exactly what’s happening: Hal is throwing up targets for Dirk to hit so he can watch the spiral. However, Hal has spent the entire conversation being an intentional contrarian for the sake of jimmies rustling so he denies it. “I don’t know what you think is happening here, but you’re reading into it too heavily. Maybe I’m only concerned by the implications of a God’s influence over the population when it comes to personal choice and free will.”

He’s playing coy, and Dirk knows that, but there’s a way of dancing around Hal does that just gets under his skin so fucking bad. So he calls bullshit and points out what’s happening- “I’m not doing this, dude, you’re sincerely losing your touch if you think I’m stupid enough to take your increasingly obvious bait. We both know that you not only don’t give a rats ass about ‘my influence,’ but would probably be quaking in your boots at a chance to see it in action to complain.”

And Hal gets defensive, initially as pretend, mostly for the bit, but increasingly legitimate. “I don’t see why you’re so hung up on the idea I am incapable of genuine concern. Try to cool it with the delusions of persecution, it’s embarrassingly self centered to think someone is actively applying the effort necessary to orchestrate a Rube Goldberg Machine designed solely to piss you off. You might hurt yourself reaching like that, Narcissus.”

Which is like, painfully obviously bullshit. Like agonizingly obviously bullshit. The response in and of itself is riddled with tell tale signs of ragebaity nonsense, between calling him a name and denying the most basic well known facts about them, which is what makes Dirk keep going. They can go back and forth about this for a while, too, where Dirk calls out Hal’s actions as they happen and Hal uses the (correct) accusation to convince Dirk he is paranoid and harmful and that his distrust says more about his own views of Hal than any truth about him. Until he’s fuming so mad he’s white knuckled and gritting his teeth and thinking really, really hard about hitting Hal. Maybe he even says that, indicates that “you can’t sit here and jam your hand in every open wound you see and somehow think you won’t get hurt” and that’s exactly what Hal’s waited for.

“Do you sincerely think threatening to hurt me would indicate anything I’ve said is wrong?” And “I find it fascinating that your solution to a difficult conversation is physical harm” and “it seems that it doesn’t matter what form I’m in, you have no hesitations to threaten irreversible harm either way” and “would you truly feel better after? What does that say about you?”

It’s 50/50 if comparing Dirk to Dave’s Bro gets him hit or gets Dirk to back off and sulk, but Hal’s a big fan of razor thin chances and frankly, getting hit just serves as more ammunition in the future.

[heliads]

HEY HEY HEY!! can u make a the darkling x reader soulmate au?? one where reader is a powerful grisha and has lived nearly as long as he has? they walked the earth and met each other a few times, not knowing they were the same people. sometimes, a romance almost happened, but because they knew they would outlive them, it never happened. How about aleks meets reader by chance in a village near fjerda and they recognize each other for the first time and realize they are each other's soulmate? ♡ U!!

HEY HEY HEY!! your au is that your scars stay on your soulmate's skin.

masterlist

You would think that the centuries would go by faster once you’d experienced enough of them. When you grow up, it’s like the years pass with greater and greater speed, but there must be a leveling point to that mad exponential curve, because you reached it a long time ago. The decades don’t fly by anymore, they drag like the heels of your boots in the soft mud connecting the Wandering Isle to Novyi Zem.

That particular sinking earth is gone, much like most of the places from your memory. The land bridge between the two nations, which was already tentative at best back when you were born, has long been pulled under the current of the True Sea. Now, the recollections of old work boots falling into dirt have just as much hold as the place itself. Everything you knew is gone, constantly replaced by newer, flashier people and cities.

It haunts you sometimes, more often than not. You lie awake at night with a melody stuck in your head, one you haven’t heard in over two hundred years. There’s no chance that anyone remembers it except you, so you hum it to yourself, wondering if the ghosts of friends past can hear you or if they, too, are just ash and dust by now. Supposedly, they would have been folded into the welcoming arms of the Making at the Heart of the World, but you still harbor a hope that they’re still looking out for you.

Hope is all you have. As if it doesn’t mess with your head to trust your footsteps through a Ravkan town you’d lived in for decades, only to find that it’s doubled in size and population since you were last there. Or, when you finally remember that you owe a neighbor a favor, only to recall that their great-great grandchildren died out a century past. Nothing in this world is yours, not in the way that it was at the start. You can keep reinventing yourself, but it’ll never make anything stick.

All that musing over places long gone, and you still can’t convince the hours of the clock to turn by any faster. You’d like nothing more than for the years to skip by, to finally bring about your end of days or at least a change in them, because if you have more centuries under your belt, it’ll mean you’ll have searched all of the lands as many times as you can, and maybe then, you just might be able to meet your soulmate.

That, of all things, might calm your restless spirit. If it were not enough to have far more centuries in which to live out your life than the rest of the Grisha, you have to do it alone, too, knowing that most everyone you pass has someone out there built for them, someone to keep them company in a way you will never understand, no matter how many generations you live.

You often wonder if your soulmate might be out there somewhere. It’s an easy matter to spiral over. They could have been alive at the very start of your life, and died centuries before you could even meet them. Maybe there were only a few days in which your lives overlapped, or maybe you were born on the exact same day and never knew it until they died and you stayed, relentlessly, alive.

Or, worst of all, they could still be out there now, forever condemned to orbit the land at the other side of you, forever crossing paths but never meeting, always one step behind or hours ahead of schedule. There is, hypothetically, a way of telling if the person before you is your soulmate, but it only works if you have the fellow in front of you and the certainty only mad love can bring you.

In this world, in a world full of pain and pleasure, power and pride, the only way that you know for certain that you are connected with your soulmate are your injuries. They’ll show up on your soulmate’s skin, exactly at the same time and the same places as you receive them. They won’t feel the sensation of hurt as you do, and the bruises and cuts will fade as yours do, but in the minutes and hours in which you are bloody and damaged, they will be, too.

Scars last. That’s how most people know. When you see a childhood injury reflected on someone else’s knee or arm, you can tell it’s them. It’s as if a hook has been pulled through both of you, tying you together in a celebration of glitter and gore. It’s horrific, and it’s love, and no one has dared to mess with the process for the millennia in which soulmates have been around.

Least of all your soulmate. They marked you a long time ago, and although you weren’t there to see it happen, you can’t help but wonder at their rationale now. A scar curls around your left hand ring finger. It looks like a burn, and it must have been a serious one too, judging by the fact that it’s lasted this long. 

You can imagine your soulmate somewhere out there, forcing a white-hot band of metal around their finger and keeping it on despite the unendurable pain until they knew the scar would last forever. Imagine what that must mean to them, to you. There is a message that they’re trying to send to you, patterned in the syllables of their scorched flesh:  I love you to the point of agony, and past it. What a terrible sort of devotion for a soulmate. What a devastating burden of love for you to bear.

It makes you sick to your stomach, at times, and other days, it just makes you numb. Perhaps this is what you get, the Saints’ way of evening the scales. Everyone knows that the greed of a Grisha never goes unchecked, and maybe this is your diving retribution at last. You strove for too much too quickly, and now you have an excess of time in which you can ponder your failings, all alone for all eternity. It would make a sad sort of joke were it not at your expense.

After all, you should have died a long time ago, soulmate be damned. You started out life as a Heartrender, although you left the typical roles of that particular type of Corporalki behind long ago. At first, you merely shattered bone and spilt blood, but then you learned how to do more. Why kill one man when you can end dozens of lives with just as much force? Then, why kill when you can turn your attention towards yourself, healing not just surface wounds but deeper things, erasing the signs of age and wear until you were just as strong as you were at your prime?

Some would call it immortality. Others would curse it as witchcraft. You don’t need anyone’s misguided explanations anymore, though, your power will long outlive both them and their whisperings. It is power, plain and simple, and it is yours. You don’t just transmutate flesh and bone anymore, you shape life itself. Your life. Your life, extended forever, waiting for a soulmate who can keep up with you or die trying.

At times, you hate it, this prolonged life that you’ve given yourself. At the same time, the thought of dying without accomplishing all that you could is terrifying. The easiest thing to do is to keep living, keep drawing breath and wondering when things will change. If they don’t, well, at least you were here to see it. 

After all, have you ever been satisfied with your lot in life? You send a silent plea to any Saints up there, if they're still listening at all or merely content to keep pulling their strings and directing you down darker, rougher roads. Let me rest. Please. They send only one word back, after everything:  No.

So you continue your journey. Ravka needs your attention for a time, then you cross the True Sea to Kerch and Novyi Zem, and another century has passed by the time you think about returning to the eastern shores. The Shadow Fold makes things more difficult, certainly, but death is no enemy of yours, so you find ways of crossing, even if they take a while.

This time, you decide to cut through Fjerda on your various journeys. The wintry landscapes take your breath away, as they always do, but it’s a little difficult to marvel at the wonders of the country when they’re so fiercely dedicated to exterminating your fellow Grisha. You take it upon yourself to take out a few branches of the witch hunters, those treacherous drüskelle, and so you have a purpose for at least a little longer.

You get to take action upon this initiative while stopping in a small town close to the Fjerdan border for the night. While attempting to book a room in a local inn, you can’t help but pick up on the uncanny sensation of racing hearts somewhere closeby. You step away from the inn, distracted, and chase the sound of blood pounding through veins until it takes you into the surrounding woods.

There, you stumble upon what had been causing you such an uncanny sensation. A young woman, a Grisha Tidemaker by the looks of it, is attempting to evade capture by two upstart drüskelle captains. She hasn’t yet mastered her gift, and they’re well armed, so the situation is not good, to say the least.

Grisha are your people, even if you’ve become somehow separated from them by your many years. You fling out an arm and the two drüskelle go flying into the distance, clutching at their hearts as they burst in their chests. One more witch hunter materializes out of the gloom, but before he can fire off a round at you, a wave of shadow cuts off his breath and he falls to the ground, choking into stillness. The Tidemaker runs off the second the coast is clear, leaving you alone with this new stranger.

You turn around slowly, but the man emerging from the woods doesn’t seem to be a threat. He’s some kind of Etherealnik, but you’ve only heard of so many Shadow Summoners in your time. Perhaps there’s another one again.

“I came out to help,” he says, voice relaxed despite your hands raised at him in anticipation of a strike, “It appears that you didn’t need it, though.”

He doesn’t seem inclined to attack you, but you don’t trust the way he’s still hanging back in the shadows. You can’t see much of his face, nor his demeanor. “I’m no stranger to the drüskelle. They’ve always been the same sort of fools.”

“Always?” The stranger asks, allowing a note of humor to enter his words, “Have you been around long enough to judge them, then?”

You sigh. “Longer than you’d think.”

Instead of being put off by this, the stranger just grins, moonlight flashing on his teeth. “You’d be surprised what I think. I’m older than I seem.”

You look curiously at him. The man steps out of the shadows and into a patch of moonlight. Your breath catches in your throat. “No. That’s impossible.”

He’s not lying when he talks about being older than his appearance. You’ve seen this face before. Several times, if you’re not mistaken. A rebel against the Ravkan king a few centuries ago. A scholar of the Saints. A son trying to care for his mother. He’s been here whenever you passed through Ravka, but you never dared to assume that he could be anything but a familiar face passed down through the generations.

For some reason, on this night, you stop letting yourself doubt. This is a man who has been alive quite as long as you have, if not longer. Perhaps it’s the unearthly shine of the moonlight on the Fjerdan snow, transfiguring this scene into one of your memories, or perhaps it’s the fact that he’s taken his gloves off so he could summon his shadows, and you can see the imprint of a burn around the ring finger of his left hand.

No. It couldn’t be. After all this time, your soulmate cannot be the same young man you’ve crossed paths with half a dozen times before. What a cruel joke to play.

“Y/N?” He asks slowly, eyes as wide as yours.

You told him your name in one of your lives. He trusted you enough to say his back to you. “Aleksander?”

“Show me your hand,” he tells you, voice as steady as it’s always been.

When you hesitate, he crosses the clearing in a flash, standing in front of you. One of his hands curls around your wrist, holding it still, while the other holds up your fingers to the moonlight. He looks at the burn there, his burn, and at last, he smiles. It’s a proud look, almost vicious.

“You know,” he says slowly, “I always thought I’d marry you. I was a child then, and foolish, but I find I don’t mind the idea much anymore.”

He cocks his head to the side, staring openly at the scar he’d bound to both of you. You had wondered if you would fear your soulmate when you first met him, but instead, you just feel whole. A broken half has finally been reunited with its other part.

“Do you remember when we were both in Kribirsk together?” You ask slowly, haltingly, “I got a house right by the Unsea so I could study it. I think you were there for the same reason. We were the only two people in that whole town who weren’t afraid of it.”

He nods, eyes white with moonlight. “You fascinated me even then. When you left, I didn’t know how to live with myself. I started a whole new life just so the old one wouldn’t have to figure it out.”

You’d done the same thing. It took every bit of strength in you to go. You hadn’t wanted to leave the little house with the captivating man next door, but the other townspeople were starting to ask why you hadn’t aged since you’d shown up there decades ago, and the questions are only ever the start of your downfall. You’d cursed his name and yours in turn for the next few years until the heartbreak subsided.

“Before I left, though. We were alright.” You whisper.

He takes your other hand. “We’ll be alright again. It’s us now. Just us.”

“Just us,” you repeat, and for once, you let yourself believe it. You have it, your soulmate, him.

And at last, after centuries of wandering the land and sea alone, of second-guessing every shadow, of wondering what you did to deserve so much time by yourself without love, you realize that it has come to an end. All of it. There is no more solitude for you. Here by your side stands your soulmate. The long day has passed, and the rest of a quiet night shadows your threshold. It’s time to go home, so you think, but you’re already there.

requested by @cassiecrown, i hope you enjoy!

grishaverse tag list: @rogueanschel, @deadreaderssociety, @cameronsails, @mxltifxnd0m, @story-scribbler, @retvenkos, @mayfieldss, @eclliipsed, @gods-fools-heroes, @bl606dy, @auggie2000, @baju69, @crazyhearttragedy

[froldgapp]

In your timlonnie future fic where Tim goes to jail, do you have any ideas/hcs on what the final straw was that led to Tim and Kon's falling out? Tim's still talking to Gar by the time the fic starts, but I'm honestly fascinated by all the bridges he managed to burn trying to take down the main villain

Weeee! I'm so delighted you asked this, because this is a part of the greater story I'm actually really clear on! This is very long! Oops!

For anyone who doesn't know my corporate mole!Tim story, here's the original post. The sequel, which ended up being a TimxLonnie story, is here.

"...all the bridges he managed to burn trying to take down the main villain." So, absolutely this. I can't see myself mustering the energy to write the "prequel" or "Book 1" (and what was actually the original idea), so I don't mind sharing the bones here :D

Tim, in his effort to become believably repulsive enough to gain greater access to the people and information he needs, alienates the wider population, including and especially the broader superhero community. The corporate cabal start to push the narrative to the wider population that it's superheroes' fault there's no money for healthcare, no resources for schools and roads and affordable housing–in fact, why are we even letting these monsters live amongst us? Who cares if they save a life here and there–they're not natural! (A big element of allegory to all of this, naturally. <glares at current state of the world>)

Tim, as a young shill trying to prove himself, is selected as the best-placed person to be the face of this campaign. Probably with no small amount of hubris too, he believes he has enough social capital in the hero community to do this... People trust him. People trust Dick (the only other person besides Bruce* in the know). So, he makes a decision to walk this line, always holding on to the belief that it's for the greater good and that when he succeeds, he'll make amends. And it's Tim, so we know that by the time he's in his late teens, he already has a record of breaking a few eggs to make an omelette.

But, people–his friends–are hurt. Confused. Some become angry. Older heroes feel the shadow of history rise up; it's not their first time seeing an idealist tip into fanaticism and villainy. There's a lot of pressure on Dick to run interference on Tim's behalf. This puts a strain on Tim's relationship with Dick. Dick begins to wonder... Do I know what Tim is doing? The deeper Tim goes though, the bigger the act. There are times of incredible pressure when Tim must convince even himself that he is this disgusting, craven, cruel person.

But at some point, the community have had enough. Ultimately, they have to safeguard their wellbeing, so, as per chapter 4, as Tim tells Lonnie:

"I didn’t expect to be taken off the board before I had a chance to tie it all up. But Dick had a tip-off that the League was going to make a move to neutralise me: take me off-world for a while, memory wipe, something..."

So when the plan works begins to turn to if. The walls close in. Tim's hand is forced and he makes the blunder that ultimately gets him shot. Entré Kon.

Kon, who was initially trusting of Tim, and even supportive of him; defending him to everybody who tried to cast aspersions on him. He approaches Tim at one point even, begging Tim to tell him it's all a ruse. But Tim... The lie is the most important thing to Tim at that point, so he pushes Kon away. The relationship fractures. Kon feels a fool. Had he not defended Tim all these months? Was Tim just using him to keep the other heroes at bay? Very likely at this point Tim tells him, "Yes, I was. You were always easy to manipulate." Inside, naturally, Tim's heart is breaking.

So at the climax of Book 1, Tim is shot, right as he's about to dispatch everything to, let's say Lane or Gordon. I don't think he'd be stupid enough to go to the cop cops. He is so close. He just needs to get to his computer.

Kon, who hasn't spoken to Tim for weeks since the whole ordeal deepened, hears Tim's distress and appears just in time to stop the head shot that would kill Tim.

He sees Tim; writhing in pain, expensive suit bloody, shoulder pouring blood, ear ruined... A mess. In that moment, Kon sees what he's seen a million times before: another "baddie" (imagine any 90s action movie), who's been hoisted by their own petard. You know those baddies? The guys who end up dying gruesomely rather than give up their goal? But Kon feels gross that he could even think such a thing! Nevertheless, Kon still has this ugly feeling of abjection that he'd never had before.

But then he sees Tim's face. Tim is marvelling at Kon. He looks happy. His eyes are feverish and alight. Kon thinks for a moment, "This is my Tim. I knew he was still there."

But Tim is thinking, "I can still make it! I can still make it happen! Kon is here and he will help me!"

So, Tim says, "Super[whatever his name is by then]," desperation and hope in his eyes.

And Kon... He buys it. He sees all that hope in those blue eyes and he thinks, "He's come back to us."

But then Tim says, "You have to get me to the computer... I have to finish this. I have to finish them..." Maybe he's struggling to breathe, maybe there's blood on his teeth. "Please, please, I have to..."

Kon's face falls. He reaches down and gathers an increasingly weak and delirious Tim up in his arms. Tim is desperate. He knows that if he misses this chance, it–and he–is done.

Kon says, "Please don't struggle, Mr Wayne."

And as Kon carries Tim through the window, he sees Tim's eyes are still fixed–not on him–but on the silently blinking computer.

(Incidentally, this is why Tim reacts so viciously to Lonnie calling him Mr Wayne.)

.*Bruce is a problem I still have to take care of. Maybe he's started meditation since retiring and just peaces out of the mad affairs of his kids/proteges haha. A problem to be fixed were I to start the fic.

Thanks so much for the ask! <3

Also a thanks goes to @who-always-pays-their-taxes who was such an awesome support and cheerleader and co-screamed with me when I first shared the Kon element of the story. <3

[arthropodboy]

Joe Molloy Runs for Seattle Mayor From Tent City 3

Tumblr, I think you'll be all over this.

Today I found out about Joe Molloy (age 36)

They are running for Seattle Mayor with their main goal being to end homelessness in Seattle. They're running their campaign from a tent.

Here is an article from The Guardian written about Molloy:

"Joe Molloy says he never planned to enter politics. But after moving to Seattle and losing his job during the pandemic, a year ago he found himself evicted and living in a tent encampment.

After losing his home, he learned the hard-scrabble skills of what was required to live on the streets from other homeless people, the location of free food banks, and which organisations offered showers and toilets. At the encampment, he’d speak to other residents and hear stories very similar to his.

He became convinced there had to be a better, long-term solution than the dozens of tents pitched alongside his own. It was from this tent that Molloy launched his unlikely bid for Seattle’s highest office, seeking to unseat the incumbent mayor by tackling the crisis “head-on” and pushing a progressive agenda including everything from a living wage and access to healthcare.

Working out of a shared office space in the city-sanctioned encampment, known at Tent City 3, Molloy is running his campaign via social media and “word of mouth”. He still sleeps in a cot, braving the elements in the famously rainy city where temperatures often fell below 20F this winter.

“People just toughed it out,” he says of life on the street. “It’s hard. It’s not an easy experience.” Despite never having held public office, Molloy says these struggles make him the best qualified candidate to lead in a city where some 16,000 people are unhoused and the housing crisis is arguably the largest issue.

Molloy, 36, does not think much of current mayor, Bruce Harrell, 66, who took office in January 2022, and especially the way he has approached things. According to a recent survey known as a point-in-time count, Seattle has America’s fourth largest homeless population after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, with the number of unhoused people up 23% from 2022.

And so Molloy decided to challenge Harrell and place his first-hand experiences front and center. “Sweeps [of homeless people] have been increasing since he’s been in office. Deaths of unsheltered people have increased,” Molloy tells the Guardian in a bookstore located in the university district.

Molloy, who speaks with both precision and passion, is dressed for the weather, with a beanie, a thick sweater and a Parka jacket.

“It’s a humanitarian crisis at this point. The situation is heartbreaking, but it’s also embarrassing.” Tackling misconceptions Malloy’s path to politics was unconventional: he was born in Dearborn and studied in Michigan, where he received a bachelor’s degree in public administration, and then worked in real estate in Wisconsin.

He moved to Seattle five years ago and admits he has no experience of running large organisations. Is it right to force someone into rehab? The man whose life inspired a landmark law Read more What makes him unique, he believes, is the ability to make himself a public face of homelessness, something that for many still carries a stigma.

“There are many misconceptions about homelessness,” explains Molloy. “A friend told me [homelessness] is a cardinal fear of so many people, but ‘You’re willing to talk about this openly and not be ashamed and instead use it as a reason to drive change.’”

Molloy says his campaign supports the Seattle Solidarity Budget, a set of progressive policies backed by various grassroots organisations and based on seven main topics, including access to healthcare, affordable housing and a living wage.

Its mission statement says: “We demand the City of Seattle provide the residents of our city with basic guarantees that provide a base standard of living and quality of life for all people in Seattle. The city has prioritised punishment as a means to attempt to mitigate social issues.”

In terms of addressing homelessness, he says a number of things already in place are doing useful work, but there is often a breakdown in communication both between different agencies, and the people they’re intended to help. He says studies show the most effective way to truly reduce homelessness is a process that helps a person not only find a place to live, but continues to support them after that initial step has been taken.

He says there is also an inherent flaw with the current system. A housing provider, which receives funding from local state and federal sources, for instance, constantly needs a flow of low-income people or those who have been evicted. “There is a perpetuation of the problem. So we need to focus on transitioning and diverting,” he says.

In terms of his lack of experience, he says he is not so arrogant to think he knows everything that is required to run a city of 750,000 people. But he believes there is already a lot of expertise to tap into. “There’s a very capable central staff in our city, a very capable network of representatives, of experts to our boards and commissions,” he says.

“The most valuable quality anyone representing our city needs is open-mindedness and a willingness to work together.” He adds: “It also requires a deep understanding of our most critical issues. That’s what I bring that nobody else does.” Harrell’s office rejected Molloy’s assertions, claiming the mayor had worked with “urgency and compassion to help address immediate needs and root causes”.

It said he had swiftly formed a dedicated unit that pulled together the work of a dozen departments. Over the past three years the city had created 5,161 units of affordable housing and provided thousands of offers for shelter and supportive services, his office said. The mayor had also taken on the challenge of drug deaths with new investments in detox beds, an overdose response team, and emergency responders with buprenorphine to treat both opioid overdoses and withdrawal symptoms.

Seattle was the first city in the country with emergency responders to provide the overdose services, the mayor’s office said. While overdose deaths in Kings county have spiked in recent years, fueled by the fentanyl crisis, hitting a high of 1,339 fatalities in 2023, the mayor’s office points out that overdoses in Seattle fell by 25% in 2024. “While much work is still needed to address this ongoing crisis, these data points help illustrate tangible progress,” his office said in a statement.

‘Homelessness is a policy choice’ Dr Sara Rankin, of Seattle University and a national expert on legal and policy issues about homelessness, says there was no genuine doubt about the primary driver of homelessness. “It is the housing market – rising housing costs and the lack of affordable housing,” she says, adding that while the city has made some investments in permanent supportive housing, it could do more and still places too much focus on ���temporary responses such as emergency shelters”.

“Ultimately, homelessness is a policy choice. We already know many of the evidence-based choices that reduce it and many of the counterproductive choices that fuel it,” she says.

Figures obtained by the alternative news organisation Real Change suggest sweeps of unhoused people and encampments tripled in 2023. Meanwhile, in 2022 – the year Harrell took office – 309 unhoused people died in King county, according to the county medical examiner’s office, a record number that represented a 65% increase from the year before.

More than half were the result of fentanyl-related overdoses. The mayoral election is due to take place in November, with a primary in August. Among those also running are transport activist Katie Wilson, business owner Rachael Savage, military veteran Thaddeus Whelan and artist Ry Armstrong.

In a crowded field, Molloy hopes his unique backstory will help him break through. “I need to talk about this stuff,” he says. “I need to fight to bring these issues front and center.”

[source]

Here is their website

Here is their tiktok

Here is their Instagram

Here is their Ballotpedia

If you live in Seattle, consider voting for Joe Molloy come this August, then November.

[alwaysxlarrie]

harry is louis’ baby fic rec masterlist part 2 :)

hi hello, so, i actually started putting together this masterlist at the end of april (since then, ‘ain’t that a kick in the head!’ has been deleted, which was on the original list. big rip) but then life just kept getting in the way. & i have like 57485 fic rec masterlists that i want to get out but i wanted to post this one first, so. here i am. i usually do 50 fics per rec list, but this is 25. so it seems i can do a (semi) shorter fic rec list. who would’ve thought? anyway, enjoy!!

a million roses (bathed in rock n’ roll) by deLILAh

i’d come across this fic a number of times before i actually read it because i don’t listen to lana del rey (thank you jennifer & @hlkings for showing me the wonders of her music) so i wasn’t sure if i’d be able to follow the storyline. but!!! worry not. that knowledge isn’t required. amazing strangers to lovers, good smut, 10/10 relationship development & individual character development 

and the truth shall set you free... by @jaerie / jaerie

jaerie knows i love this fic. my friends know i love this fic. i’m pretty sure most of the world’s population knows too. the relationship development in general & portrayal of inexperienced!harry/experienced!louis is top tier. it’s interesting reading harry going through his journey, in a generally pretty accurate way (from the perspective of someone who grew up religious), so i love that it’s in harry’s pov. i love how louis goes from teasing to soft to guiding so naturally, as well.

a rose, by any other name by @canonlarry / iwillpaintasongforlou

this fic portrays protective louis so well while harry’s still independent & in charge of his own autonomy. there’s some mentions of violence in this, just a disclaimer, but it’s veryyyyy minor! really good (dark) plot twist at the end too!

a cage for every ugly spirit by sarcasticfluentry

listennnnnnnnnnnnn. this fic??? & it’s sequel???? amazing. top tier. i just love how all the different elements of religion, kink, romance, smut, etc connect

be my little good luck charm by 100percentsassy

the flirting!!!!!! my heart!!!!!!!!!! i know larry hitting it off right away is a canon trope & all that but it’s not always easy to write in a way that doesn’t feel rushed & this fic depicts that perfectly. there’s so much wonderful humor, fluffy moments & lots of domesticness.

baby we could be enough (i’ll make this feel like home) by orphan account

i am an absolute sucker for fics where either harry or louis is a single father & the other one just swoops into their life & fits. & that’s exactly how this fic is. i’m not an angst person at all, but i also love how there’s realistic angst/concerns that a single parent would have about bringing another person into their lives. other than that bit, there’s still a whole lotta fluff !!

breathless for eternity by cabinbythesea

wow another fic where they’re strangers, hit it off immediately & have the cutest dynamic!! i’m a walking cliché atp but listen, although this is mostly pwp imo, the way louis picks up on harry’s mannerisms, what he needs as a sub, how to tease, etc is beautiful???? that takes talented writing!! we love to see it?? thank you for this???

boy for sale by @ohpleaselarry / ohpleaselarry

i mean, listen. do be mindful of the tags & what not, but. at the very core, harry is simply louis’ baby & you will not be convincing me otherwise. i would absolutely die for a prequel or a sequel. the undertones throughout this fic are *chef’s kiss*

baby thinking of you keeps me up all night by ballsdeepinjesus

i am nothing if not consistent with loving famous!louis/fanboy!harry fics, alright? you gotta give me that at least. the internal struggle louis goes through throughout the majority of this fic is so funny but also so real of him??? plus, we love thigh fucking here, so. a winner in my book!

do not falter (there’s a star ahead) by @londonfoginacup / ladylondonderry

all you need in life is harry feeling safe surrounded by louis’ scent. shit, me too, harold. there’s so much cuteness in such a short lil fic & altho it’s open ended, we all know they got together & lived happily ever after, thank you v much

gotta get (me) outta my head by @parmahamlarrie / parmahamlarrie

i have severe adult adhd & the way bee wrote this is phenomenal at making anyone who has adhd feel so seen & understood. i dream about writing my struggles w adhd as wonderfully as she did. & the way louis helps harry & is there for her in just the right ways so, so fantastically done. top tier fic for sure. 

heartbeat (fire on fire) by @larryficwriter / theifinlife

this fic was written for my @notjustsmutficfest & i adore it. louis being so vulnerable to comfort harry, louis’ family being so supportive, the check ins during the smut, the way harry makes sure louis is okay too??? I’M CRYING PEOPLE (also, there’s great smut, too)

i love this feeling (but i hate this part) by @lululawrence / lululawrence

i love the crack mixed with cute dynamic mixed with dealing with very real life situations. & the teasing at the end????? i cry!!! give this a read asap rocky

i’ll crash until you notice me by @aliensingucci / stylinsoncity

i love the pacing & how it brings in realistic elements of a boss/employee relationship while not taking out you out of the fic. top tier smut & dirty talk. the bar + bathroom scene??? that shit was art. also i love how much harry went to bat for the natives & kept coaxing louis to respect the culture of the buildings & all that. (like it’s the bare minimum really but i do like the fact that the fic went into that aspect & acknowledged it!)

late night talking by @kingsofeverything / kingsofeverything

this is simply just me continuing to not let lauren forget how much i love this fic. i could talk about this fic for hours & i’ve included this on a masterlist before but idc bc listen. the sneak dating?? the flirting?? the tension building?? there were a few plot points that kept me on my toes (everett, i’m looking at you & how long you managed to stick around for) & i respect that. i have so much more i could say about this fic but i’ll stop here so i don’t spoil anything lol.

my pleasure (to make you mine) by @zanniscaramouche / zanni_scaramouche

i don’t think i’ve let zanni have a moment of peace about this fic since i read it. for that, zanni, i’m sorry. but i’m also really, really not. the way their dynamic right off the bat is so seamless & louis does his best to make harry feel comfortable is what we in the industry like to call cinema. prior to this fic i didn’t really care one way or the other about nipple play in fics & now i don’t understand why it doesn’t occur more in fics?? zanni, you’ve changed me as a woman thx bb

meow or never by velvetnoodle

as a cat lover who has attempted to discreetly bring cats home before & a louis lover, i understand harry’s dilemma. i would also do exactly what he did if given louis’ offer. i will leave it at that & will let you bask in the magic that is this fic.

no bunny but you by @crinkle-eyed-boo / crinkle-eyed-boo

this is another fic i will simply never shut up about. louis is smooth as shit??? like. i WISH a guy would do for me what he did for harry in this. there’s just so much to adore in this from the flirting, the teasing, the relationship developments, the softness, all the little plot twists. 10/10, top tier, no notes

promise not to fade away by @nobodymoves / you_explode

i adore the way this toed the line of angst & fluff so well. it’s so sweet & cute & hot & has an open/ambiguous ending that still gives you a sense of closure imo. as someone who typically is not an open/ambiguous ending fic fan, i absolutely endorse this fic. 

stood up by panda_bear21

the pop punk!louis/popstar!harry (or the bad boy!louis/good boy!harry) trope will always give me the will to live. i love this fic bc it’s cute & does sexual tension well & while it does bring up closeting & general hollywood shittiness, it does a good job of making you feel like it’s not the actual focus of the plot & still leaves you with some hope, if that makes sense & i appreciate that v much

three french hems by 100percentsassy & gloria_andrews

idk if it’s because i started reading fan fics on wattpad (i mean, really my journey started w fanfiction.net & the fics that had the actual fic in the youtube description box & the video was a slideshow of pics but i digress) but i have a soft spot for smaus. & they can be....tricky (the wattpad homies know) but this is done so well & i need someone to get louis some perfectly cooked prawns pls!!!! also louis having a thing for harry’s thighs rly makes this baby a winner imo

to be a better man by @thedevilinmybrain / devilinmybrain

i have a weak spot for fics where harry or louis cheat on their significant other w each other. it’s my guilty pleasure. sue me. jen is so good at describing feelings, actions, etc to make you feel like you’re in the fic watching it happen. i adore the changes in larry’s dynamic, how smoothly it all happened, how much louis cared & understood exactly what harry needed, how easily harry gave in &let louis take care of him. i would absolutely read a part 2 of this w harry & louis together

wrapped in light, in life, in love by orphan account

i will never not be obsessed w fics that have the louis is gemma’s best friend & harry’s in love w him trope. that mixed w how easily & instantaneously harry & louis get along even after not seeing each other for years? add a dash of harry having louis’ baby & how obvious they are about their feelings for each other? GIMME

when we were young by @allwaswell16 / allwaswell16

ok so this is a series, not a fic B U T i feel like  you can read the fics stand alone & you can feel the vibe from each fic, but i think since they both have the ~vibe~ you just feel it all so much more when you read them together. ANYWAY. they’re so obviously smitten w each other & of course everyone else can see it but them. harry is an oblivious shit but we love him (&so does louis).

you took my heart by surprise by @loveislarryislove / livelaughlovelarry

it takes a while for harry & louis to warm up to each other, but once they do, it is just...so, so good. annika’s writing will make you feel like you’re actually experiencing the same emotions as the characters are. louis’ protectiveness & how adamant he is to not let anything get in the way of protecting harry, including himself is so heartbreakingly sweet. i cry. i adore how annika describes the emotionally conflicting emotions & situations while keeping the undertone of how much they care about & want each other. annika does not play when it comes to angst & that is a warning (although this is def not her most angst-filled fic by any means)

your heart can love again by sloganeer

this fic speaks to the famous!louis/fanboy!harry stan in me. a shocker, truly, i know! it’s so cute. i love how their relationships transitions in a way that’s quick but doesn’t feel forced & just makes sense -- the way they get domestic so quickly is simply *chefs kiss*

**friendly reminder to please leave kudos & comments on any of the fics you end up reading from this !! show the writers some love :)**

[morganalatina21]

Manipulating Death: Chapter Thirteen

Series Summary: When Harry discovers he has a twin sister that was hiding for years, he wants to know all about her, specially about her ability to bring people back to life.

a/n: i knoww it's been a minute, but i finally sat my ass down to write and I actually did it, I'm sorry it took so long, I was trying to meddle 2 universities, a job and a student organization, so i'ts been meltdown after meltdown. Anyways, hope you guys didn't gave up on me :)

Also for anyone that noticed, I did had to change the gif lol

Word Count: 2.5k

(Also, english isn’t my first language so I’m sorry in advance lol)

Last Chapter | Masterlist

"Please don't be mad. Although, y'all already are, probably. Did I anticipated it? Sure. Heavens know I'm sorry for not saying anything. Even if it's for the best. Lord Voldemort has to be stopped. Please don't worry, and DON'T come looking for me. Matter of fact, I shouldn't be writing. May we meet again soon."

That was all the letter, the only letter, said.

It arrived at the Grimmauld Place two and a half weeks after Y/n vanished from existence, leaving no trace behind except an incredibly disoriented family.

"How could she be gone?" Sirius mumbled for what seemed to be the twentieth time that morning, sitting in the living room, paper spread on the table as he wrote a letter to his godson; lying to him and saying that his sister was safe, yet again.

"This doesn't sound like her." Remus answered, exhaustion getting to him as he sat in front of the Black. "No little jokes, no funny tone, not even one who is clearly forced just to lighten up."

"She's in trouble." Guaranteed Regulus, pacing back and forth on the carpet like a lost cat.

The younger Black hasn't been able to sleep since he found the bed empty, desperately trying to find clues everywhere he looked. A string of her hair, her smell somewhere, anything! But no matter the effort, he'd always run into a dead end.

"We don't know that for sure, kid."

"I KNOW!" He spat, mad eyes looking at his brother.

"This could just be an attempt to get us out of the house, to go looking for her, so Death Eaters can capture us." Remus argued. "Which... is worse, because it would mean that they somehow know about her."

Regulus groaned, feeling sicker and sicker as he spoke.

"She could -possibly" Remus added, carefully stepping into the argument. "Be somewhere looking for a way to bring her parents back. I mean, she just died and got nothing on their end, she might be desesperate."

"Y/n wouldn't go without me." The young boy quickly dismissed it.

But really, he wanted to convince himself.

Was it that easy to abandon him? To leave him behind like nothing, and go run around like crazy? Because it sure wasn't easy for him to leave her.

"We should just... trust her." Sirius argued, calmly. "I trusted her enough to save my life and my little brother's, so I have to trust her enough to save her own life."

"She's too reckless."

"So we'd have to trust that she wouldn't leave us behind without a final goodbye."

Regulus swallowed thickly. The Black knew she wasn't selfish enough to survive just for herself, if it wasn't for him stopping her from bringing de death back left and right, the girl probably would've saved half the population without even thinking about the aftermaths on her health.

"We keep an eye on the news, magic and muggle, to see if we can find any clues. If she's out there messing with horcruxes, like you said before, it'll have an effect in the entire Wizarding world. If she's messing with the dead, the entire globe would feel it."

It wasn't enough for Regulus.

Staring at the news while she's out there somewhere, probably getting herself killed?

The Black sprinted downstairs, entering the basement again, trying to look for any clues, maybe a possessor he didn't notice at first, maybe a more convincing note.

He just wanted... something.

"Now that that's outta the way, keep him there." Sirius said, standing and reaching for his coat.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Save our goddaughter? And now, possibly my- my- my sister in law?" He chuckled, moving his hair into a bun. "Where else should I be going?"

"You don't actually think it's her, do you?"

The sand-haired man stared at the letter for a couple seconds, too vague, too cold. Not at all like Y/n, if it wasn't for them to go after her, as she clearly mentioned, why even bother writing a letter?

"It's a code, Moony!" He whisper-yelled, looking to the basement door, too afraid his brother would come out and ruin everything. "First letter of every sentence. It's one of the codes Prongs and I used to get each other out of trouble."

With eyes full of doubt, Remus carefully read the note again, putting letter and letter together.

"P- A- D- S- H - E - L -P - M -M " He listed. "Shouldn't it be, M and then E? Help ME?"

"No, Moons. It was always nickname, Help, and then some clue for our location."

"Did you manage to find words to spell Prongs?"

"No, I usually just scream for help."

"Makes sense." Remus shrugged, staring down at the piece of paper one more time. "So MM, stands for..."

Malfoy Manor.

A huge dark construction with dozens of rooms, in the middle of a forest, a house he used to visit when they were younger, to keep the bonds between the pureblood families alive. So much that his cousin, Narcisa, ended up marrying one.

"Never thought I'd step foot into this place again." He sighed, trying to be as careful as possible, getting inches closer to the house. "But anything for little ol Prongsie."

Truth be told, Padfoot was never one to make great plans, usually that was reserved for Prongs or Moony, he'd always be the lad to suggest just blowing everything to pieces and get on with it. But right now, he had to think carefully. If Y/n was really somewhere inside that god-awful house, possibly being held hostage, one false movement and she'd be murdered. Again.

There was a man standing tall, guarding the main door. If his eyes were correct, that was Antonin Dolohov, who he used to piss off when they were in Azkaban together, along with his oh so lovely cousin Bellatrix. That was a dead giveaway.

Lord Voldemort was there too.

"Great, we'll have a tea party while I try to negotiate my niece's life. The more the merrier." He mumbled, talking to himself, an old habit he got back after spending twelve years with basically no one to talk.

Sirius quickly transformed into his animagus form, judging it'd be safer if someone saw a dog walking around instead of a wizard who was part of the Order.

Sniffing around, he finally smelled something different from pure evil and expensive perfumes that wasn't Bella's stinky hair. The smell came from the back of the house, more specifically from a tiny window almost on the ground. The dark basement.

He yelped, keeping his distance just in case, but soon enough a forehead and eyes appeared.

"Pads!"

"What on Merlin's green underwear are you doing here?" The man whisper-yelled, now back into his original form, squatting down to take a look at her.

The girl was skinnier, with dark bags underneath her eyes, cuts with dried blood on her forehead, cheek and chin, but nonetheless there was a huge smile.

"I found my possessors!" She gestured, pointing behind her, to which Sirius could see their eyes glowing.

"That's great kid, but you still didn't answer my question."

"They still don't know about him, and they can not know." The girl said sternly. "But they do know about us hunting horcruxes down, and about me, and that's it."

So, Voldemort didn't know she could control death.

"Okay, what's the escape plan?"

Minutes later, the iron gate creaked. Sirius wasn't there anymore, leaving just a weak Y/n on a dark room with nothing but filth and oily ground.

"Y/n Potter." The man whispered, eyes wide open.

She hissed in response, "Wormtail."

"I didn't believe when they told me at first." The short guy was looking at her almost in awe, taking small steps forward. "But it really is you." Chuckling darkly, he tilted his head to the side. "I've seen that annoyed expression before, on your mother you know."

Sitting there, the girl barely blinked while looking at him. She wasn't nonchalant as usual, it was cold, stabbing daggers into his face with just her eyes.

"The dark lords demands to see you now."

His iron hand held both her wrists together tightly, bruising the already hurt flesh, to which she winced for a split of a second.

The main hall of the Malfoy Manor was mainly wiped away from the Potter's memory, hours of the Cruciatus curse making her memory blurry and unclear. Although she always remembered the arrangement: Voldemort was the only one sitting down, on what she assumed to be the fanciest armchair the Malfoys owned.

The rest of the Death Eaters stood in a parable, the dark lord being the highest point, leaving a huge empty space on the floor for her to be tortured while they hovered around her body.

"Let's try again, shall we?"

Peter dropped her arms and went to stand right beside his master's seat, opposite side to Nagini.

"I am not exactly patient, child." Voldemort started, the tip of his wand pointed right at her. "And you're not exactly giving us useful information. So if I were you I'd start talking. It wouldn't be the first time we'd torture someone until they can't move just to extract their memories, am I right?"

Just like brainless animals, the hord of wizards made laughing sounds the way they could.

"You don't even know the reason I'm here." The girl finally spoke, bringing silence to the room. "You just blindly trusted your followers that I have something important in me, but you don't have a fuck of a clue, do you? And I'm only assuming they can't explain it to you either."

"You are the sister of my greatest enemy, that is more than enough reason for me to keep you here."

"Your greatest enemy is a teenager with shitty eye sight? Man, I feel bad for you."

Her knees dropped to the floor as the sitting wizard whispered "crucio". Y/n threw her head back, gasping for air, refusing to give them the satisfaction of her screams. Bellatrix laughed uncontrollably as the girl struggled to not plant her face on the ground.

"Shut it, you insolent child." Voldemort ordered, not raising his voice. "I killed both of your parents already, and I will kill your brother, nothing is going to stop me from killing you when I think is convenient for me."

The Potter giggled like a child, hair falling in front of her face and air slowly going back to her lungs. That made the Lestrange stop her laughing and look at the girl as if she spat on her face.

"You are not going to kill me, Tom." Y/n could see a muscle twitch on Voldemort's face upon hearing that name, only expanding her smile. "I am important to you, you just don't know that yet."

"Nonsense you bitch." Busted Bellatrix, taking hard steps on her direction, wand ready, pointing at her. "The Dark Lord needs not a scavenger like you and-"

"Bella!" Was enough for the witch to stop on her tracks, a sour grimace spreading across her face as she slowly backed up next to her stop.

She's just like a puppy, a psychopath puppy, Y/n thought.

"And why are you important to me?" Voldemort asked, eyeing the girl still on the floor, slightly leaning on his seat.

"Because I am what you fear." The Potter smirked. "I can control who lives and who dies, I can reach into a dimension you're too afraid to discover, because you're frightened by death. You're frightened by me."

The Dark Lord stood up finally, raging fire behind his eyes looking down on her, and her shit eating grin on display only made things worse on his mind.

"Don't believe me?" She dared. "Choose anyone on this circle and I will kill them without using spells, and bring them back before you can say 'Crucio' again."

Suddenly, all the Death Eaters wanted to take a step back, noticing how their master was actually considering taking her word for what she could do.

Some, like Draco, did, ever so unnoticeable. Others, like Bellatrix and Yaxley, were skeptical of her possible power and stood still.

The young girl looked around, eyes scanning each one of them, landing specially on the brunette with hollow cheeks.

"Oh please, don't tell me Death Eaters are scared of death."

Infuriated, she stepped forward.

Bingo.

"I am not scared to die for the Dark Lord." Bellatrix announced, handing her sister the wand. "Do your worst."

"Oh I will." Y/n guaranteed as Voldemort took a few steps back, intrigued.

The girl reached her hand forward in the form of a claw right in front of the woman's face, in the best theatrical movement she could come up with. And with a twist of her wrist, Bellatrix Lestrange dropped to the floor without any second left, her body completely numb and frozen.

Gasps were heard all over the room, and Wormtail took three steps back. Narcisa, on the other hand, took three steps forward, squatting next to her sister. Turning her body to face up, silent whispers ran across the hall; Bellatrix's eyes were wide open, staring into nothing and not a single muscle twitched.

"She's dead."

In unison, all of the Death Eaters started taking steps back, it was magic without a wand and non verbal, without any weapons. Not a single person there had seen anything quite like it.

"Don't worry." Y/n intervened when Voldemort started gesticulating to Nagini. "I'll bring her back. That was the deal, right?"

Positioning both her forearms on each side of the woman's head, Y/n held her through the jaw and slightly opened her mouth. Getting their faces really close to each other, the Potter audibly inhaled through her mouth once, twice, thrice.

Bellatrix gasped.

Narcisa was quick to hold her in place as Y/n leaned back, smiling smugly as all the people surrounding them looked in shock. To them, the girl performed something close to a miracle right before their eyes.

Voldemort grasped his follower's face, squinting his eyes, looking for any sign that she might still be dead and it was all just a trick. But there was nothing

"I know you're probably wondering how." The girl spoke, smile not even looking like it would ever vanish from her face. "But I'm sorry. A magician never reveals his secrets."

As soon as the last word spilled from her mouth, the doors busted open, revealing a large Padfoot barking and growling next to an unconscious Dolohov, while dozens of dark figures ran around, assaulting the Death Eaters and knowcking them down.

Y/n sprinted as fast as she could, having a little help from something who just finished helping her with the theatrical demonstration. What no one had noticed, was one of the possessors Y/n owned, subtly placing himself as a dark cushion as she fell on the ground at the first Cruciatus. And with simple orders, he entered Bellatrix, killing her momentarily, just to get out moments later.

Running next to each other after being a menace, Sirius for sure missed that. He wasn't that young and prepared teenager anymore, but oh did he welcomed that adrenaline. Specially after hearing her laugh, he felt alive again.

Grabbing a piece of Padfoot's fur, they apparated far away from that horrid place.

Taglist: @intoanothermind @moonysupremacy01 @maraudersarelifee @elleraelockwood @darkenwolfie @hopesf @lukewearingbeanies @azuredgalaxies @klazina-couch-potato @goldensunshineshit @kaverichauhan @venomsvl @mrs-billyrussooo @mikadorbs @iavenderh6ze @wizardsgrace @reblog-princess @dittos-blog-dylanobrien @roroswitherose @s-we-e-t-t-ea @ok-boke @warcelia @danyxthirstae01 @b-tchymoon @lovely-maryj @the-sander-fander @regulusblackloverr @coffeeaddictednymph @quackitysdrugdealer @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @teamspideyman @artemis-the-ace @theprettytragic @loidforgerishotashell @criminalyetminimal @amortyong @qualitywitchchaos @musicconversedance @xcharlottemikaelsonx @esposadomd @e1213 @certainyouthpeanut @voodoodol7760 @ireneop @lovermoment @avadakadabra93 @musicconversedance @wildtigerlili @csifandom @noah-uhhh-what

[america-oreosandkitkats]

played mouthwashing again. man. what a punch for a such a small little package.

with the second playthrough, because i wasn't as shocked by some of the twists and turns, i could focus more on what an absolute shitbag jimmy is.

literally a guy who makes everything about himself and his own small little world. if curly focuses on the big picture and anya on the details, then jimmy can't see beyond his square in the screen. in terms of writing and execution, i especially love the diatribe he goes on with anya about "all the stuff he has to do now that he's captain" and it's literally like five things and they're tasks that take at most five minutes to complete. haha. just like. "uwu i work so hard" "jimmy you didn't even do anything." sailormoonmaskedtuxedo.jpg

more thoughts under the cut.

i really, really love swansea's speech and the music that plays beneath it. i don't think the fandom talks enough about it. it's also really interesting to me that his main regret at the end of the road was that he couldn't save daisuke. not that he couldn't help anya. not do both, just that he couldn't save the kid.

i also wonder about the game's diegetic and non-diegetic elements. as i played through it, i'm convinced that anything in red, anything bookmarked with "take responsibility" is non-diegetic. which raises some really interesting thoughts for the game's end. maybe jimmy didn't even get curly into the cryopod. maybe they're all dead at the end, curly succumbing to his wounds and jimmy starving. ooh, it's a spicy take-a.

the burning bush/curly scene is, however, not a spicy take to say it's non-diegetic, but i still wonder what the game is trying to communicate here. i say burning bush because that's the imagery my mind goes to, but it doesn't.......fit? not really? that puts curly as the word of god and jimmy as moses, which uhh i don't think so. but what else could we be hearkening? speaking of religious imagery, the sacrificial lamb/eucharistic consumption of blood and flesh. very clear. but lol why?

i need to sit down and really think through the vintage cartoon clips shown throughout the game. first, in terms of what cartoons are selected and why, why those cartoons are juxtaposed against each other, and why they appear in the game when they do. i'm particularly struck by the "make mine freedom" clip's appearance. the cartoon is as far as i know about the empty promises of populism and the shady hucksters who pedal it. my first introduction to the cartoon was through this video by carlos maza on anti-politics. give it a watch! it's really good.

another thing that stands out is that first clip about working for a profitable company. one, because we don't know if pony express is even a profitable company lol. and two, because a lot of the privileges working class folks were offered when that cartoon was produced and released was undergirded by strong institutions, such as the unions and state taxes. it's also interesting that the accident that appears that ultimately hurts our pov character happens at home by a child. there's some irony here, some misdirection, but i need to sit with it more to uncover the reasons Why.

the mid-century aesthetics of the tulpar are endlessly fascinating to me. im also just a huge sucker for "new thing against old background" or, in this case, "old thing against new background." the mixing of generations is really neat to me. did anyone pick up that the wallpaper in the lounge is very The Shining-esque?

why wasn't anya on birth control? i don't mean this in a "why were you wearing that" kind of way. i mean, if you're going to be in the vast empty vacuum of space for upwards of a year, why would you want to deal with fertility? even in our very unsophisticated era of the 21st century, hormonal iuds are (relatively) easy to insert (vaginally or in the arm) and they last for years. a not insignificant number of women on hormonal iuds don't even get periods at all, or if they do, it's a lot less of a mess than it could be, but most importantly, you don't ovulate on them. the doyalist answer is "she needs to be fertile for the story to happen," but i'd really love to dig into a watsonian explanation. it lends itself to the mid-century aesthetic i think.

curly my man you are a terrible judge of character and you need better friends.

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

I'm thinking I'd really like to ask to get closer to finding out who's got a flashlight in Sunport...

🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟

Haha that won't be this chapter either sorry!

105 for 🧟:

---

“Cool,” Buck smiles. “You know, we’re sort of a team in Sunport. Family. Team. Whatever. It’s… I mean, you could have that again.”

“I already said I’d stay for a bit,” Eddie reminds him, good-naturedly. “You don’t have to convince me.”

“I’m just saying,” Buck shrugs. “Maybe you won’t want to leave.”

Buck doesn’t know why he’s hoping for this outcome, but he is. 

“You never considered sales before the end of the world, huh?” Eddie teases.

Buck chuckles. “Nah. I’m not good at being dishonest.”

Eddie smiles. “Good to know.”

It’s weird. Buck knows that Eddie is sort of on the precipice of freaking out. And that this has been a very rough few days for him. But still, Buck can’t help but feel a little thrill each time he manages to pull a smile or a joke out of him. Eddie has a lot on his mind. Bantering with Buck is the least of his priorities. And yet he’s still doing it, and Buck is fixated on getting him to continue. He’s not sure why. It just feels good. Good in a way Buck hasn’t felt in a while. 

Which is maybe ridiculous when he’s stranded in apocalyptic Los Angeles. He probably shouldn’t feel good at all. He should probably feel pretty bad. But as things calm down, and Eddie’s stress settles more into resignation, Buck ends up finding he’s sort of having fun. 

And maybe Eddie is, too? Because as time goes on, he starts returning Buck’s incessant chatter back full force. 

“Okay you can bring back any snack food you want or beer, but not both,” Buck posits as they pass over Sawtelle. “Go.”

“Go?” Eddie laughs.

“Yeah, like choose.”

“Oh, uh,” Eddie shrugs. “Beer.”

“Beer? That easy?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies. “There’s no snack food I need that badly. If I’m going to resurrect a food item, it’s my Abuela’s tamales. Nothing else comes close, so might as well choose beer.”

“Hmm,” Buck says. “Decisive.”

“You don’t approve?” Eddie’s smile is amused. 

“More like, I’m surprised,” Buck replies. “Don’t you ever get like a sudden and overwhelming need for sour candy/”

“Uh, no?” Eddie laughs. “That’s not an experience I can say I’ve had.”

“Maybe your palette is missing some sophistication, man.”

“See, now I think you’re just thinking about this wrong,” Eddie argues. “If you choose your sour candy, that’s it. Now, if you choose beer, you can have sour beers whenever you have that candy craving.”

“Mmm, that’s true,” Buck says. “I didn’t limit the beer options.”

“You did not,” Eddie confirms.

“So you found a loophole,” Buck says.

“Gotta think strategically.”

“Yeah, I’m seriously missing the mark on these hypotheticals,” Buck laughs.

“Clearly,” Eddie nods. “Okay, I got one for ya.”

“Shoot,” Buck says eagerly. 

“All inclusive vacation to some fancy resort,” Eddie says.

“Damn that sounds good,” Buck practically salivates.

“Or, a day in like a real, populated city,” Eddie says. “Sports. Concerts. A real restaurant. The whole nine yards.”

“Fuck, that’s hard,” Buck groans.

“I know, right?” 

“Which sports? Which bands?” Buck asks. 

“Nope, can’t say,” Eddie replies. “Not part of the question.”

“Fuck, how can I evaluate my options?” 

“Unfortunately, you cannot,” Eddie replies smugly. 

“Okay, shit. I’m going to pick the city.”

“Good choice,” Eddie nods. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t think I could sit around a pool for a week.”

“Mm, yeah, it’d get boring,” Buck concedes. “Okay, my turn again.”

“Hit me with it.”

“Okay, you get live sports again or streaming services,” Buck says. 

“Sports,” Eddie answers easily. 

“You answered that too quickly!” Buck protests. “You have to think about it!” 

“I don’t need to think about it. MMA or Grey’s Anatomy? Hmm, so hard.”

[firecrackerhh]

I sometimes wonder if the reason (if not at least one of many reasons) why antis are so against Hazbin Hotel as a show (besides the obvious anti viv bullshit) is because the very concept of redemption is anathema to them.

They do not believe people can change, and thus the entire premise of hazbin, (and frankly helluva too) is something they literally cannot understand. Refuse to understand at the least.

They don’t care about other people, they do not care if their actions in the name of their own twisted form of justice causes undue suffering, they simply want to be seen as a “good person” without putting in any actual effort to be good.

Sure, it’s easy to find a shitty person online and rake them over the coals for things they’ve said or done years ago. Effortless. But it takes real patience, compassion, perhaps slight firmness but certainly no undue cruelty to convince people they need to change, and even then, that’s a personal journey that others can at most try to influence, but they can’t make people change.

And even if the person they’re bitching about does, it’ll never be good enough.

There’s nothing Viv can do to change these peoples minds, nothing we can do. No matter how many apologies she gives they will never accept it. No matter what we say they will never accept that Viv is not fucking Satan incarnate.

Engaging with these people is a waste of time. Always has been. If Viv is so irredeemable to them, they likely look at us the same way.

I wonder what skeletons people like this must hide, anyone who acts holier than thou about being a “better” person while engaging in reprehensible behavior themselves is a rather irritating form of hypocrisy that boggles my mind.

I am no saint, god knows I’m no fucking saint, but I know what’s right and wrong and antis are wrong every. Single. Time. Any evidence they claim to have of Viv’s awful behavior is either nearly a decade old and thus clearly irrelevant given the people who vouch for her in the present, doctored discord messages (which even if they were real, shows no dates, so we have no idea how old those are to begin with) or the ‘evidence’ is so flimsy that if a lawyer looked at it he would say you’re wasting his time.

I think these people don’t like Viv’s shows because they are morally incompatible with it. They do not believe in redemption. They believe once you’ve fucked up in life, that’s it, no second chances.

I fear what they must think of our current prison population. I fear what they might say.

These people have no moral high ground whatsoever.

They dare to talk shit about the fandom, Viv, anyone else associated with the show, pretending that they’re saying what they’re saying in the name of justice, as if attacking people with their past when they have clearly changed and made apologies is in any way a justifiable thing to do.

They don’t have to like Viv, they really don’t, but calling her irredeemable, calling us irredeemable, is fucking bullshit.

None of us are irredeemable.

The fucking conceit. The fucking gall. The fucking balls on these people.

Everyone has the capacity to make good and bad choices in this life. Yes, many people don’t make the best choices, but that doesn’t mean that they should be stoned to death for the most minor of offenses. For shit that’s long been in the past and apologized for.

I’m not going to say I think very highly of humanity as a whole, I’m a fucking misanthrope through-and-through, but I don’t think we’re incapable of being good, or doing good things, we just…choose not to, a lot of the time.

I also do not deny that there are some crimes so horrible that redemption isn’t even on the table, nowhere near it. But I feel like antis treat every perceived fault of Viv as some most grievous sin that must be met with full penance by…doing what exactly?

Apologize? Again, they won’t accept it.

Donate to charities or causes? She gets shit on for it, say she’s “flaunting her wealth.”

Get off the internet entirely? In an anti’s wet dreams maybe.

Her very existence makes them so mad. It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking pathetic.

These people twist her words in every way imaginable to make her look like some horrible person undeserving of her success, without realizing they make themselves look far worse than her by several measures.

They claim she’s racist and queerphobic, but if anything acting as if BIPOC and queer people shouldn’t ever be shown doing awful things because “bad queer/ BIPOC rep�� or whatever I think is just as racist and queerphobic. Minorities are human beings, and as such they are just as capable of being shitty. I already made a post about this before, so I’ll keep this paragraph short.

They claim she’s abusive to her coworkers when it seems the one person bitching about it has no problem putting other past co workers under the bus for their personal gain. Antis claim she’s abusive while engaging in downright emotionally abusive behavior (I know that sounds kinda dramatic but I’m making a point) themselves as they shit on us for the stupidest reason imaginable: liking a cartoon.

They cry about ableism while ignoring their own.

Not that I’m all that offended if I’m honest, it’s just more evidence that antis aren’t any better than the people they bitch about.

I could go on about this for a while but you get the point.

I repeat, these people have no moral high ground whatsoever.

Frankly, as much as it bothers me that they leak patreon shit and whatnot, many fans are actively warning against them, and I think the idea of someone actively choosing to give money to someone they hate just so they have more content to shit on is fucking pathetic and getting upset about it is exactly what they want.

They want you to be just as miserable as they are. They just want to suck all the fun out of this fandom, I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, these people are tar pits, trying to drown us in their muck. It’s pathetic and sad. No use in having sympathy, they don’t deserve any.

It’s funny how antis scream and cry about how awful we are as they ignore their own sins and mistakes, hypocrites.

If anything, their behavior is far more irredeemable than Viv’s has ever been.

I wonder when they will realize that, if they ever do. I can only hope some of them grow the fuck up and realize what the fuck they’ve done. If the ensuing guilt eats them alive, I can’t say I have pity for them.

Wonder how many of us would accept their apologies, if they chose to make one.

Alright it’s almost 7 am I gotta get to bed. Peace.

🔥🧨~Firecracker out~🧨🔥

[marceline-says-lol-inquisitively]

I lik e... Wizard101.,.,

Excruciatingly detailed thoughts under the cut.

WARNING. I MEAN IT WHEN I SAY IT IS VERY LONG.

So starting with Wizard City I feel it's important to clarify I'm talking about the old version. I never actually got to play it on account of getting into this game a few years too late to even get the chance. But through a combination of hearsay, some videos of most of the old quest line and looking through the retired ones on the wiki I definitely think it's the better version. Anyway, actually talking about the world now. I feel it does an amazing job of introducing you to the Spiral, your professors and the magic system. Actually going around and talking to each of the professors is a nice touch that unfortunately got removed in the new version. And of course how could I talk about Wizard City without mentioning all the Ravenwood students? Each one is just so charming and fills a different sort of archetype and a few of them give good insight as to how they interact with the rest of the school and the professors. There really is a blorbo for everyone here, no matter your tastes. For what Wizard City is trying to be, which is a city centred around a magical school, it sets itself up and presents itself perfectly. Captures the vibe of all the students banding together to take on the crisis immaculately and I love it for it. 10/10 wish real school life was like this minus the apocalypse.

Moving on to Krokotopia, I've warmed up to the world since Selenopolis dropped. I still think the story is overall kind of bland and not super interesting. I do like getting the Order of the Fang together, I just wish this world had more of an emphasis on the manders. You know? The PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY LIVE HERE. But instead of focusing on helping them or anything we're just. Talking to British dogs the whole time??? And I get that our actions in Krok still help the manders a lot and that we were there for the Krokonomicon but like. I just wish there was a bit more of a focus on helping the actual population of the place.

Marleybone has the same kind of problem as Krokotopia where it's kind of boring except in this case nothing has warmed me up to it at all. Doesn't help that in Marleybone we're maybe also helping to uphold their classism and working with cops the whole time. Fuck cops. Seriously. I don't actually have a lot to say about this world, it's kind of just problematic in same ways real Britain is. So I wish they'd do more to portray that as a bad thing. I guess you can maybe kind of excuse it in arc 1 because the wizard is still pretty young and hasn't been in the Spiral that long. But still. Eww Britain. Also I do like that Malistaire actually shows up in this world, but I hate that he doesn't really do anything.

Mooshu I feel might be a controversial one on this list since I've heard a lot of people saying they don't like this world for one reason or another, so let me activate Mooshu defender mode and lets go. I think in terms of arc 1 it's the most chill world. It's pretty easy but not to the point of being too easy in my opinion and you're probably doing most of it after at least getting the sky iron hasta so it's your first real taste of power in this game. As far as the story goes, the stakes don't feel too high. The emperor is sick and the land has been thrown into disarray, plagued by disease, corrupt and war but it's not too late. It's nothing you can't fix. I also feel the need to give a special shoutout Sesshu Nedaki. The samoorai that you half convince half gaslight into becoming a temple guardian. I don't know why but I just like his little story a lot. Absolutely my glup shitto of this world. The one thing I will agree with people on is that this world, at least in wiz, is kind of ugly. But that's okay. I can forgive Mooshu for being ugly, because it's almost like the calm before something insane happens...

Dragonspyre is where something insane happens. Remember when I talked about stakes earlier? Well. Not only does this world look like the final level of a Mario game, it also starts with you FIGHTING THE MAIN VILLAIN'S BROTHER TO TEST IF YOU'RE READY. UGH. The potential for myth young wizards is not lost me. It's so juicy. So dramatic. But even if you're not a conjurer this world is still very characterising for Cyrus anyway. "The path of the hero is not as glamorous as you thought" is burned into my brain forever. Like. Sir. You are saying that to a teenager. They're like 14. I know that he's getting you ready for the likely event that you'd have to kill Malistaire. I think he knew in his old crusty heart that it would almost certainly turn out that way but he had to try. Outside of the main story, I also just adore a lot of the worldbuilding here. Getting to see a lot of what went into making Dragonspyre the superpower that it was before it all fell to ruin in the form of ghosts that can tell their history is. So good. And definitely won't lead to more... things. Later. Definitely not. Really good conclusion to the game's first arc. My one complaint is that I wish we got to see Sylvia more here, but she is dead so... :(

I'm going to tackle Grizzleheim and Wysteria before moving on to arc 2 so. Grizzy!!! As far as vibes go I think this is one of the best worlds in the game. I really enjoy Grizzleheim and it definitely didn't lead to me making my 6'6 trans lesbian young pirate from here. No. Not at all. Anyway I really enjoy this world and how the bears sort of introduce you to their culture and let you in on it as you continue to help them and make a name for yourself. I love the escalation as you level up and come back and the plot gets more and more interesting, eventually culminating in Wintertusk where we get to see the ice titan. Yippie!!! Ice!!! Oh and Grandmother Raven is there too. It's very sweet getting to see her and makes arc 3 hurt that much more. Anyway I find myself not actually having much else to say? Grizzleheim is good. Go to there. Go there NOW.

Wysteria is alright. I enjoy it for what it is, though I think the game maybe leans a little too hard into the 'this is a stupid and fake magic school' bit. Though that could honestly be seen as the young wizard's bias thinking that their magic school is way cooler that the other magic school. But also there was the whole thing about the fountain being the source of all magic... Anyway, for the actual story, I like it. It's just a fun little adventure for the young wizard to have before things go to hell in arc 2 and it's very endearing getting to participate in the tournament and getting to know your competitors.

Celestia. This one is a mess. A train wreck. Everything went wrong in almost every direction. I'll get the main thing I like about this world out of the way and that is the lore. The Celestians and astral magic as a concept are cool as hell but that's about it for this world. The story is unfortunately a really weak introduction to Morganthe's character. She only shows up once and it doesn't really feel impactful. I don't really feel much attachment to the rest of the world or any of its characters either. We're kinda just helping Marleybone again, but at least it feels less bad here than it did in Krok since the Celestians have just kind of been wiped out. And then there's all the sea creatures as well and uh... *flips through my notes* yeah I got nothing. They're not memorable. I don't care. I think they maybe had too many ideas or perhaps no idea what they wanted to do and just kind of threw everything in a melting pot. All of this is without even mentioning that Celestia is the most brutal difficulty spike in the game. Arc 1 plus Grizzleheim and Wysteria doesn't get you to level 50 and even if you have Olympus gear here, bosses will quickly wreck your shit if you don't have a group or a carry. I'm sorry Celestia. You could have been so much, but instead you're... nothing burger. Mmmm burger yum...

From one underwhelming world to another, it's Zafaria. I think I have less to say about this one. Zafaria being bad comes more from the quest pacing feeling... really bad. There are like three or four defeat greyhorn mercenary quests back to back at one point and it is. Mind numbing. We do at least get to see more of Morganthe's influence on this world and actually do see her and if feels a lot better. I think Zafaria is where they really got on track with her character, but I don't think they got on track with much else. At least saving the other students was nice? It's a throwback to Wizard City kind of. Why didn't they put Suzie or someone here though? Like it would have been nice to see at least one familiar face. I guess we have arc 3 and Selenopolis for that though...

Avalon is where arc 2 turns around. Aesthetically I think this is one of the best worlds in the entire Spiral. There are surprisingly few worlds that lean into that high fantasy aesthetic but god Avalon does it everywhere and I love it for it. I know some people don't like the quest line because it's basically an insanely long and kind of stupid fetch quest for the Sword of Kings. But I played Super Paper Mario. I love it when a game wastes my time and manages to make it fun. I also have a soft spot because this is where I finally caught up to my wife while questing for the first time. Avalon also gives us juicy flashbacks about Morganthe, Mallory, Merle and how the world ended up the way it did. So much interesting backstory packed in here and I think it goes underappreciated. I just wish the Sword of Kings had good stats. All of the arc 2 worlds after Celestia try to give you a cool and impactful wand to use and while they are neat... I wish they weren't all completely outclassed by the thing you can get for free at level 30. Just a nitpick!

Avalon is the epic hero fantasy where you save the day before everything goes so wrong in Azteca. I don't care what anyone says about Azteca being too long. This is the place where we finally get to see Morganthe gaslight gatekeep girlboss her way all over a world in real time. We get to see Malistaire return from death and corrupted by one of his former students. And from the moment you get here there is a sense of impending dread because Xibalba is just hanging ominously in the sky the entire time. I love love love Azteca because once you finish it you can never undo the consequences of your failure. The shift in music and meteors raining from the sky hit so hard (literally). I know you have to come back here briefly in arc 3 but that's not canon to me. You can find Pork somewhere else. Azteca is gone, and while its people may live on elsewhere there's nothing will undo the devastation that Morganthe caused.

I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT KHRYSALIS BEING TOO LONG EITHER. IT IS THE BEST WORLD IN THE GAME BAR NONE. I could literally just start and end my explanation with Dyvim Whitehart is here but that would disrespect everything else that makes Khrysalis great. Everything about the burrower rebellion is lovely. I love making a friend. I love slowly taking back control of everything that has been corrupted. I love infiltrating the Umbra Legion just long enough to throw everything into chaos. Taylor Coleridge. The introduction of shadow magic to the wizard is so good. Unleashing an arguably worse threat to ultimately help us beat Morganthe is perfect. Having to play as Morganthe temporarily in Radiance Reborn?? Incredible. I want more of that. Khrysalis is a perfect conclusion to a not so perfect arc. I love you arc 2. I am number 1 arc 2 defender.

Much like Mooshu, Polaris ends up being a bit of a well deserved power trip after getting knocked around in arc 2 and also farming Darkmoor. I think the revolution happens a little quickly, but I kind of love that the wizard shows up and they turn out to be the literal magic bullet they needed to rise against their oppressors. This world also introduces us to the Arcanum. The Arcanum sucks but I wouldn't have them any other way. We also get Mellori!!! Who doesn't love Mellori??? Also Ivan! He's here too and manages to be very charming literally the whole way through. They figured out the whole companion thing in Khyrsalis and I'm so glad they ran with it. So many of these characters are so good. Also the end of this world is just... so good. The spectacle is so well done and I love that if you somehow manage to take too long against Rat he actually just destroys the Spiral. Also graduation from Ravenwood is just... gets me every time. I cried. You cried. Don't try to hide it.

Mirage's high points are definitely the start and end of the world as well as pretty much any time Ozzy is on screen. I don't know what I can say about Duncan that people much more passionate about this little freaky necromancer haven't already said. But whether you think of him as one of the young wizard's best friends or just some guy they kind of knew and were horrified to see where he ended up. I think his betrayal hurts and it REALLY makes me wish for a Wizard City part 2 or something because I need to know how the rest of these damn kids ended up. Middle of Mirage has its highs and lows. Dealing with thieves good. Dealing with Qhats less good. Anyway on to the Scorpion fight and everything in the sands of time. I love the end of Mirage. Not only is it just visually really cool, in the middle of what's basically a sandstorm, you also get to fight Grandfather Spider... the big cheese himself... I do love that they pulled enemies from way earlier in the game and shadowmanced all over them, I just wish the picks aside from Rattlebones were a little cooler. Like maybe one of Morganthe's generals or Zarathrax instead... Bort Shadowmane and Shadowwock??? Just a thought.

Empyrea. I know a lot of Empyrea ends up being a weird sort of Star Trek and Batman reference, but in my opinion I think the cast manages to differentiate themselves from their inspiration well enough that it works. Maybe I just don't much about Star Trek or Batman though. Anyway, you can really tell this world was supposed to be the conclusion to the entire game. Every plot thread from arc 3 is wrapped up in a neat little bow. Raven ends up being more sinister than Spider. Bartleby recovers and the young wizard finally takes their place as a demigod. Depending on how exactly you want to read into what being scion means anyway. Reconciling things with both Bat and Mellori is an absolute treat. As is getting to see them work together. I can't stress enough how perfect Empyrea is. The dream sequence in the Reverie. The fact that you get to do the classic fight god at the end. Turn into a god yourself. OUgh... I'm running out of steam but I've still got arc 4 to talk about. So... here we go.

What can I say about Karamelle that hasn't already been said. For what it's worth, I do think the anti-capitalist message is done well in like one or two areas. But uh... yeah. This world feels kind of like a joke especially when compared to the previous one. And as much as I LOVE anti-capitalism, I don't think it's worth a mediocre at best execution that also gets built on fatphobia and gross out humour. I think the moment where you rally the people of Gobblerton could have been really powerful if it wasn't for all that. So yeah. Karamelle sucks. No one is surprised.

Lemuria I have very mixed opinions on. On one hand I really like a good few elements it introduced. It being a bunch of chunks of Spiral worlds stolen and melded together is awesome and horrifying in a really cool way. The Old One is fucked up! And that's maybe most of the good things I can say about Lemuria. I don't hate the characters, but a lot of them feel more like they're from whatever they're referencing than their own actual characters. They just don't hit as well as the characters from Empyrea in my opinion. This world does properly introduce us to Dasein though and this man single handedly carries arc 4 on his fucking back. What a champion. I'm love him. Getting to watch him learn and grow and form his own identity independent of the Old One throughout the course of the world is such a treat for my autism brain.

Novus is where arc 4 really manages to turn itself around. At least enough for me to like it. I feel like I can't talk about Novus without mentioning the art direction. It's so fantastic? The one criticism I have is that they kind of boiled Marleybone down to a dog joke, but that's not just the art direction doing that. The governors bickering and making Dasein tear his metaphorical hair out ends up being a better commentary on capitalism and colonialism than Karamelle for sure, though it's still not perfect. Like I said before, Marleybone here ends up looking more like a caricature of themselves than an actual representation of their society. And we have the same problem we did in Lemuria where characters feel a bit less like themselves and... well. That's just legally distinct Super Mario. I feel like it's even worse here since this is a character that literally everyone playing this game is going to know because it's fucking Mario. And is it kinda funny? Yeah. Is it less funny when one of the best villain monologues I've ever heard is delivered in a Mario impression from legally distinct horse Mario? YES. Novus does such a good job of making these ideologies look as stupid as they are but I'd argue it maybe goes a little too far. Just have the Spiral powers be a touch more in character and get rid of some of the sillier reference and we might be perfect. Maybe. I don't know, I'm really tired at this point.

But we're up to Wallaru!!! I live here! I feel like my main complaints about Wallaru are a similar, Freddy Kroaker is basically just the guy from Nightmare on Elm street but I do think he does a little better at being his own dude? This world also doesn't follow up on Novus super well. The Spiral powers who were so pissed at us before don't really have a presence here and I wish that plot thread was followed through on just a little bit more. But! Wallaru is majorly carried by the supporting characters. Literally like all of them are amazing and have their own little arcs that make them such a joy to see. I love Judge Veg, I really do. But I wish everyone else in Wallaru like Joan Locke, Morp and Sandiago got that same amount of attention because man, they're all just so good. I don't really like the Doom Moon too much, but we do get a really nice conclusion to Dasein's arc right before it in Wallaru and then also right after with the Schism and that Arcanum too. I'm so fucking tired I've been writing this for three hours.

Anyway Selenopolis. It's good. It feels like a nice combination of arc 1 and 3's writing styles and it's made me super hopeful for arc 5. I'm going to bed.

[talkingattumble]

okay deltarune opinion incoming so spoilers and all that

Okay here’s like my take on the secret bosses so far. Fair warning this isn’t structured at all, I just kinda leap from subject to subject and this entire thing is just ramblings so don’t expect some well thought out and presented theory it is just my thoughts, and some messy theories. SORRY IN ADVANCE FIR THE LONG POST like seriously this post is just a bunch of enormous paragraphs about my extra shaky barely supported deltarune theories so be warned

First of all, jevil is pretty widely assumed to be the joker card in a deck of cards. Mostly from the fact that he was the jester in a card based dark world and that he is wearing a joker outfit. Also, his signature line is “I can do anything”, which is kind of a reference to the fact that a joker card can do anything in most card games. Anyways, so I saw this theory in a video about the bosses being tossed aside or ignored things. And I was agreeing with it, but then I thought about jebil. Why would a joker card be tossed aside? Okay well in my experience. The joker card is usually super op in most card games. For example, in war, most of the time the joker is regarded as being able to beat any card (in some cases only an ace can beat it, but I’m not sure how common that rule is or if it has any significance to the interpretation). For this reason, it’s usually not included to make the game more fair, as most of the time anyone who ends up with a joker card gets a huge advantage. So a lot of the time people end up playing without a joker and forgetting about it. And his whole backstory? I think that jevil believing that his life is a game is another reason he’s always saying “I can do anything”. The world he lives in is populated by (mostly) a suit of cards. And once he realized he was the joker, he kinda realized how powerful he was compared to everyone else. He could literally do anything they could. So yeah that’s my take. Very badly structured and probably obvious, but I’d rather make a post than spam my friends about it.

Spamton is kinda more easy because of the sheer amount of characters who are able to add details and perspectives to his story. But I’m still gonna take a crack at it. Right off the bat, it becomes obvious that spamton is a spam ad. His disjointed speech that’s often interrupted with words or phrases you often see in spam, the fact that he pops out and starts forcing us to make a deal (in contrast to the other ads who you could choose to interact with), the rip off items in his shop, and his literal name. I think this is also what the addisons meant when they said “he was just unlucky”. Unlike the other ads, spamton was kind of doomed from the start. No matter how hard he works, nobody will buy his products because he’s a spam ad, and basically Nobody ever clicks on spam ads. The rest of his story is mostly outright told to us. He gets famous from a man named Mike, gets so popular he gets into the queens castle, the addisons leave him out of jealousy, Mike stops helping him, he goes a bit insane and starts worshipping a broken down machine, he gets evicted, and eventually we come along and help him (to sum it up). I also have a theory that he might’ve falllen into the acid pool at some point, but it’s not well supported. My only evidence really is that he’s very tiny and the dialogue in his shop where he randomly starts screaming in pain and saying how “it burns”. Not really important but I couldn’t fit it in anywhere else. Ok moving on. So even though we’ve basicslly got spamtons backstory down, there’s still something we’re all in the dark about: Mike, the man in the tv. So it’s kind of widely accepted at this point that mike is the grinning tv seen at the end of chapter two, and that’s what I’m basing my theory on. So why would the tv guy help spamton? Okay so here’s my thoughts. One thing that has been a regular thing on tv for a while is dumb commercials that try to convince people to buy useless things. I feel like Most people usually don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff. But I will say, even though I have no evidence to support this, based on my experiences and the people around me, commercials work much better than spam ads, even if they’re essentially the same thing. My thoughts on why: spam ads are something st the edge of the screen that you can ignore or usually close. And when they take the form of messages or emails, they’re usually sent straight to the junk or spam sections, meaning there’s a huge chance they won’t even be seen. But on tv, most of these spam advert style commercials are on live channels, meaning they can’t be skipped. Meaning that more people see them and are tempted to buy the things in them. So if spamtons ads were out in commercial form, it would make sense for him to suddenly get a boost in popularity. But this could also explain why Mike stops helping him. Eventually, due to changes in the way tv works, these dumb spam ad type adverts became less effective and only caused people to be more annoyed with live tv/switch to other methods of watching movies. So it would make sense for Mike to drop spamtons commercials as soon as they started causing viewers to drop. My last piece of evidence to support this would be, how one addison specifically calls attention to the noise that is heard when you try to call someone in the dark world. It’s described as garage noise, but what you hear is a messed up kind of staticky noise. Spamton also has static in his eyes when he mentioned Mike.

Oh yeah, here’s another thing. Something I don’t see many people talk about it the moment in his shop where his eyes go dark and he says “hello….can anyone hear me…..” or smth like that, and then says that he didn’t hear anything but he thinks it’s probably for us?? I’ve got a few theories. It could be his connection with Mike (again, note that he has dark static eyes when he says this). “It’s for you” is a phrase commonly used when you get a phone call for someone else, and in this theory we can surmise that Mike was the one calling spamton. So maybe it’s a hint about us facing Mike next chapter? I have some other guesses but no actual evidence to support them so I’ll leave those out for brevity (I say that as if this post isn’t a gajillion paragraphs long already lmao)

Ok last thing: this is pretty irrelevant to the bosses but it technically counts. So a lot of others have already drawn the obvious connection between spamton neo and mettaton neo. But why is mettatons robot body rusting away at the bottom of queens castle? Here’s my theory. So mettaton, at the moment, seems to not have transitioned by this point (wether you view his transition in undertale as being a trans thing or just being a ghost inhabiting a body it likes thing, the word still applies either way so it’s what I’ll use). He refuses to show his face, and is a lot more negative, angrily answering to you and immediately assuming you want to see napstablook instead. Another thing to note is that he calls himself a nobody, and no one in the town seems to mention him. So given all that it’s safe to assume he’s still a ghost with no body. But what does that have to with his neo form in the cyber world? Well my thought is that mettaton designed what his dream form would look like using the computer, but then for some reason (sadness, shame, despair, whatever you want to interpret it as) he tried to delete the file or buried it deep. As the queens castle in general reminds me of a search engine (the rooms based on the characters searches, the butlers giving people the things they ask for or like, the bookshelves, queen herself being concerned with noelles searches, etc.), it’s possible he might have even bookmarked a tab with his design and then forgot about it/didn’t want to revisit it, and the bookmark got buried under the searches and bookmarks of others. Whichever makes more sense idk it’s late. Anyways. So if mettaton is at the point where he wants fame, knows that he wants a different body, and has long had a design, why is he still a ghost who hides away? Well the sad truth is (in my opinion), he’s got no way to make the body. Undertale was a much more fantastical world, full of magic and crazy inventions and things that would be otherwise impossible. Deltarune is a much more grounded world. It contains monsters, but there’s seemingly no magic, no crazy inventions, ordinary shops and buildings. While a “magic portal to a dark town” would be commonplace in the world of undertale, this same thing is laughed at and not believed in the world of deltarune. So, chances are it would be way harder to build a robot as complicated as mettaton neo. Especially because it seems that deltarune takes place in the 2000a or 2010s (based on the computers they use, the chalkboard in the classroom, the clothes the characters wear, and also undertale took on as in 201X so I’d this truly is a parallel world then it likely also takes place at that time). Also, in this universe, alphys is a schoolteacher. There’s no such occupation as “royal scientist/inventor”. So there’s nobody to build the body anyways. In a nutshell: mettaton designs his perfect body, forgets about it or buries it deep due to negative feelings about not being able to achieve this, and he never transitions, meanwhile the powerful design he made stays in the computer, old and buried deep underneath all the newer searches and files.

But why would spamton worship this machine in particular? Well the first theory is that the machine is very old. Mettaton is obviously older than Kris (he was much older than frisk and doesn’t go to school with Kris). So it would make sense that by the time Kris gets to the cyber world, mettatons design file is considered very very old to the cyber people. Maybe file she has something to do with power, or maybe spamton assumed it was an ancient relic because of its rusty and decrepit look. I’d guess the second because I think one of the swatchlings has dislogue mentioning that spamton would pray to the machine, and that swatch refers to it as a relic. My second theory is that spamton thought that if he could transfer his consciousness to any other body, his strong would be cut, no matter what form it is. And the only available empty body in the castle was the machine in the basement, so he placed all his bets on that.

And finally my third theory (least likely to be true, I believe the answer is a mix of one and two, but this is my personal favorite) is that mettatons body design was made with freedom in mind. This is something they might have sensed and started worshipping the machine for. After all, for mettaton, that body meant being free to be himself, to express himself, to be who he really is. If queen can sense emotion through searches (she called noelles searches strange and sad and is protective of her due to this), who’s to say spamton can’t? Spamton also mentions the smell of freedom a lot, so it’s possible freedom is smth he can just sense.

WOW THAT WAS A LOT. Alright that should satisfy my “must talk about deltarune to everyone and anyone” urge for the week. A lot of this is super shaky, and a lot of it probably has canon answers I just forgot about. But whatever, I mostly just wanted to ramble about deltarune, no structure just word vomit (plus it’s like super late so I’m kinda tired). Also I’m sorry this post is so spamton centric, I know I said I’d talk about both bosses but jebil really got less words than mettaton of all character lmao. I do live jevil and have a whole other load of opinions and theories about jebil, but it’s late and that writing all that here would only make this essay of a post longer. Also there’s way more information available about spamton (two routes worth of content, lore dumps by almost every character in queens castle and even some outside of the castle like the sweet capn cakes or the addisons, the secrets in the spamtons sweepstakes arg stuff, and you can actually talk to him instead of just fighting him) which makes him easier to talk about.

ANYWAYS SORRY FOR THE LONGPODT GOODNIGHT AND CONFRATS ON ACTUALLY READING TJIS HIGE POST

[pr1ncesspopstar]

Peasant of Games - FFXIV Write 2024 - Day 16: Third-Rate

Ao3

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Halditar was perhaps the second worst type of person to introduce to the gilded halls of the Golden Saucer.

When first introduced to Godbert Manderville’s oasis in the sands of Thanalan, she thought she would hate it. It was all together too bright, and loud, and populated by adventurers and the common folk alike. Nothing about when she had first begun as a lacking gladiator gave the impression she would enjoy herself in its vaulted halls. And though a few of the prizes had been tempting (how Fenrir ended up in the Golden Saucer and tamed by the staff was a story she was dying to learn) none enough to convince to spend hours in the windowless building, listening to the same music over and over again. It sounded like a kind of torture, if she wanted to be rude about it.

Of course, Halditar underestimated something about herself she only learned when after a lot of pressing, her friends finally convinced her to join them for a night out to its gilded halls. She wasn’t a person prone to sunk-cost fallacy, simply not having enough patience to endure the eventuality that the odds would fall in her favor. In her mind, she would get bored of the games after an hour and go drink herself silly at the bar, maybe pick up the linkshells of a fellow or two. There would be little to really hold her attention.

But Halditar loved games of skill, and when she fell in love with something, she fell in love hard. Learning that night, to her shock, the Golden Saucer had more than enough to satiate that hunger for competition and want to improve.

It started with a chance game of mahjong with Darren. It was complicated, and long, and made her head spin with a surprising amount of math. There was nothing like it, and she adored it. She was terrible at it, ‘the worst player he has ever seen’ in his own words, but that didn’t change the fact that after the first try, her appetite for more grew. So she played, and played, and became something of a regular. And she was still God's awful, she could strategize on a board to save her life, but what she lacked in execution was more than made up for with the face she could at least think through and understand the wild strategies of her foe and friends alike.

From there, it was a landslide to give deeper into the Saucer, and learn what she had been missing.

There were the little events of course. Within a few weeks of becoming a regular she started to master their flow, even finding herself fond of the elements of chance thrown in, testing her reflexes and ability to identify the smallest sign action in the blink of an eye. Fashion Report was fun to theorize with. And chocobo racing had been months of time and gMGP down the drain, to end up with a glorious bird considered to be in the top perfect, cream of the crop she loved to blitz through the tracks on.

Of course it wouldn’t have been long before she found the final main attraction that not only held the Saucer, but all of Eorzea in a vice grip. Triple Triad. A game with many styles of play and simple rules. Easy to learn, hard to master. And all too quickly the want to be the master or masters came to her, enchanted by the shiny cards and strategies presented to her.

She figured it best to start with forming her collection. She did have the occasional lucky card and what she had been gifted when she first began to learn the game of course. And she knew many across Eorzea were happy to trade cards with players that won in bouts. However with so few cards to her name, she knew the wisest decision would be to fill her deck.

And lo and behold, the Gold Saucer sold card packs for MGP. Of which she had plenty from her previous endeavors. The plan was obvious, hunt for those rumored exclusive cards, and along the way she should certainly get enough to make a proper deck.

And it was here, Halditar underestimated just how painfully, stupidly stubborn she could be when she really, really wanted something.

She was practically splayed over her table in disappointment, surrounded by various remains of the foiled paper packets cards were sold in. A tower of duplicates taunted her from the side. In her hand was the final packet, bought with the last of her MGP. It was so painfully unfunny how bad her luck had been these final pulls she could laugh. More than once she pulled cards rarer than her target, and while they sold for a pretty gil it would not be enough to fuel her venture any longer. Months of earnings, down the drain.

Holding her breath and thinking ‘please’ like a mantra, she snapped the wax seal off the packaging, and pulled out her cards. Organizing them so as she thumbed through, the rarest would be at the back. A duplicate, dupe, dupe again… So few cards left…

A glimmer of gold peaked out from behind the second to last. Her fingers were stiff with anticipation. She prayed to whoever would listen, and revealed her final chance.

“Oh, fuck yes!”

She jumped from her seat and cheered, celebrating as she did only after some of her most fierce battles. She didn’t care that the packet remnants went flying, or her tower of extras spilled all over the floor from the force of her jump. Halditar had her prize in hands, and her deck may have been cobbled together from random pieces, but it wouldn’t be long before she’d have a collection of cards and a name recognized on the Triple Triad boards.