whenever a character i like has big trauma i always gotta slap some kind of chronic pain hc on there. whether through some metaphor or good old fashioned psychophysical c/ptsd symptoms

Hello how are you :3? I was wondering if you could write E.J., Hoodie, and Masky with a s/o that has a lot of scars? (Toby too but platonic for him) I’m not sure how many people we can request so if it’s too many just Hoodie? I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable and thank you!

Various!Creepypastas w/ a scarred!reader

waaaah im so sorry for not seeing this sooner! i didnt recieve a notification for this ask!! really theres no limit to how many characters you can send in! i think my personal max varies from prompt to prompt!! mix of how they approach the concept of a scarred lover (friend in tobys case) with some hints of fluff! cause of scars will be vague as admittedly i didnt know if you meant general scars or SH! side note i hope this posts right! im writing this on my computer, im used to mobile!! + apologies for any weird wording or typos, im listening to music and im getting hyped!! not proof read we die like my spiderverse brainrot

Includes: Eyeless Jack, Hoodie, Masky and Platonic!Toby!

CWs: touch and go talk of potential past trauma, body image issues, vague mentions of SH(?) in EJs part + Toby's parts

admittedly admin doesnt know if its technically SH due to the nature and motiv but personally id still count it as such and tag it as such

Eyeless Jack;

he gets it, he really does. the basic run down of my hc/take on ej is that he wasnt always some flesh eating monster; just some dude who got caught up in some bad stuff

so naturally, he doesnt... really vibe well with the concept of eating human flesh, which can lead to a few... instances. from intentionally to accidentally harming himself while hes lost in his instincts

so hes no stranger to being a little roughed up around the edges

but hes a stranger to comforting; he'll likely approach it from a logical side before trying anything else. "you've been hurt," before going on a small tangent about the formation of scars. hes not the most... emotionally... good... available... person

so youre going to need to lay out the general basis for what you need for basic comfort, on days where your scars become an issue; be is needing comfort or a distraction. it may take him a while, but hell eventually start to pick up on cues and hints as your relationship develops

otherwise hes very neutral about them, again approaching them with a blunt view; seeing it as neither good nor bad. he doesnt draw attention to them, but he doesnt act like theyre gross

really just. vibing with it, doesnt make a huge deal of it since he feels he doesnt have any place to judge, nor does he feel its his business to pry for information

solid 6/10 imo, hell comfort you if you express that you need it but hell likely not go out of his way to do it

Hoodie;

Soft touches, he almost does it before he has your permission to touch you

naturally he has his own fair share of scars from various.. activities

really im still all jumbled up with how i wanna write him and masky; not sure if i want to make them like how they are in their MH source or lean into the proxy thing that was prominent in the early days of the fandom... lowkey leaning into the proxy thing for this post because im more... versed..? in that, but anyhow

hes more upfront and compassionate than eyeless jack, in fact hes probably the most caring out of the four in todays post... maybe thats because i read one (1) fic years back that changed my entire approach to his character but! yeah

subconsciously trails his hands on them when the two of you are holding one another; something gentle and intimate, not too obnoxious to make you self conscious, but not careful enough to go unnoticed

i view hoodie, and by extension brian if i end up considering him and tim fully seperate from their 'proxy' parts, as a very tactile person

true to the popular fanon interpretation, hoodie doesnt speak much. but that only makes him a better listener, so on days where things get hard, hell let you talk his ears off with anything thats bothering you. very rarely, hell speak up and offer some words of advice, most times hell inch closer to grasp you. though it does get awkward since most the time hes just. blankly staring at you silently without emoting or saying a word

overall? personally hes a 7/10 for me, i would rank him higher if he were more verbal, but thats just because admin has an easier time venting if its a two way convo; but overall hell make sure that your scars dont effect your worth

Masky;

very similarly to hoodie, masky also has his own set of scars for the same reasons

he probably starts pointing out his own scars to you and mumbles about where they came from if he knows their origins

this doesnt mean "oh hes invalidating your experiences and hes trying to make it about himself," but more so "hes showing that he really does get it and he doesnt mean to talk over you"

much like EJ he approaches scars with a very blunt and upfront mindset, but to a lesser extent. he admits that whatever led up to the tissue forming, it hurt. emotionally and physically, and hes not going to deny that simple fact. hell listen to you, have a conversation with you about it, and try to help you through whatever you may be currently going through regardless of if youre injury is relevant.

or at least, thats what hes trying to do.

hes still has his own personal issues regarding going about his own problems in a healthy manner but hey thats something for another post; maybe, if i remember

honestly this post doesnt have enough fluff imo, and i can kinda see masky doing this, but imagine he boops his mask against your scars in a mockery of a kiss (doesnt take off his mask often, in fact youll probably never ever see him without it on), i can see jack doing this too tbh

thoughts? 8/10, gets the bonus points for being less awkward to rant to imo, plus i think asides ej, i think i have a bias for masky for the simple fact i had the fattest crush on him when i was in middle school

Toby;

okay! this one is going to be interesting for one main reason! i actually havent touched tobys character in YEARS! so hes probably going to have the shorter list... obligatory i havent built any solid hcs for him past what was going on in the fandom in the 2010s, before toby briefly became a mild discomfort... but we're back in business baby!! (^^ dont feel bad for requesting for toby btw! hes no longer a discomfort, and if i didnt want to write for him i wouldnt be including him right here!!)

obviously we cant talk about his part without talking about his cheek. and other, similar hcs. while i dont think most of the self inflicted marks on his body were from a place of.. for lack of better words, darkness; it doesnt change the fact he still has them. i think a lot of them are from the fact he cant feel anything; accidental burns, gnawing through his cheek, digging his fingers deep into himself. really i could go into detail, but due to the aforementioned fact that my take on him isnt as developed as other characters + i really dont think its appropriate for this post (or really, anywhere on this account,), ill stop there

while he cant relate to the physical pain of what caused your scars, he can sympathize through your feelings. do you feel sorrow, or anger to whoever hurt you? hell be getting worked up right with you, because to him youre one of his closest friends

i feel like he doesnt talk much about his past, regarding his family. but hed tell you, and you can sure as hell bet that hell do his absolute damndest to grant you the same feeling of security.

hell probably touch and prod without truly meaning any harm, but thats because he can have problems with boundaries, but hell listen if you sit him down and tell him it makes you uncomfortable if it does

more so emotional than outwardly... supportive? idk the words, but hes very empathetic with you and tries to relate to you through emotion rather than feeling what you felt. honestly? kinda based for that, but maybe thats because i dont see feelings about this topic being touched on, usually its straight up about how the scar makes the person look or the physical trauma they had gone through, but idk, maybe thats just a me thing

he can be an asshole at times but hell usually backtrack and cool off somewhere else if you call him out on it imo

not sure if its because as im LITERALLY investigating his characteristics and interpretations as we speak, but i think im starting to relate to him so ER-OH!

anyways, i wish i could make his segment more... in tune with the characters above but its probably going to take me a while until im comfortable with how i portray this dude, which sucks because as a kid he was probably one of my favorites

i dont think im going to give toby a rating like the others; since i dont think i can accurate rate him due to the lack of proper concrete ideas outside of him being empathetic to your emotional pain since he cant relate on how much it hurt

im gonna end this here since im starting to sound like a broken record on tobys part so!

i hope you enjoyed this! characterization may be a little off but i blame that mostly on the fact that i kinda fell out of the loop in regards for writing for these guys (that damn spider movie! the brainrot threw me off my creepypasta grind!/j) but its good to be back writing for this fandom! it was a fun little brain exercise trying to figure out each character goes about this kind of thing without making them all the same!! with that being said, im going to go listen to an audio reading of tobys story so i can regrounded in his character and hopefully do him some justice in the future!

I saw a post of yours recently with a tag saying "religious trauma" or something to that effect. I was wondering what you meant by that and how it affected you?

well, growing up raised by my foster folks who were extremely Christian (seventhday adventists), i got all the fun traumatiziation that comes feom that.

told that i was supposed to be willing to die for that faith. that christians were oppressed through the ages and hunted daily.

that i would have to be willing to die to show my devotion

that i was automatically in the wrong for things i had never done and never been involved with. that i was always guilty, and if i wasnt then i was blaspheming and lying

that is would be punished for my actions and for others

that i had to remain pure and untouched for someone i was destined to (so long as they shared the faith) or i would be worthless to them and to anyone else. crumpled paper, a torn up flower, tape without its sticky. being told constantly to obey without question because that was my place as a girl and as a child.

that my worth was my ability to serve and be of service

because i didnt have a say in anything. because i was inherently property. to their god. then to the clergy. then to my father and brothers. and then to my husband if i could earn one.

that is was expected to follow orders given by any man, because they were all superior to me.

some trauma turned into kink, as a way to take control back over those aspects of myself. some just turned into anger. some parts are mere irritation about that faith and those who decide its more important than anything else.

my foster mother, in face of anything, would always tell me to pray and that i would be answered. but when i genuinely needed help and prayed to her god, there was no answer for me. just ignorance.

while young, i was so devout. i believed everything my foster parents said as though they were all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-caring. they said theyd let nothing hurt me. and to be totally fair to them, when they discovered their son had been molesting me, it did stop. but they let him stay living with us. let him keep threating me. let me keep living in fear that it would start again. that didnt stop.

and praying did nothing when i got addicted to heroin.

praying did nothing when i was lured, stabbed, and raped by a cop within an inch of my life.

praying did nothing when i gave birth while i was a child.

and then as i grew older, and my life changed, i became more aware of the world. i learned about other religions, and found the one that makes the most sense to me, and makes me feel strong. like i can be who i am and im worthy of equal respect because i’ve survived and i’ve suffered and im here.

i am willing to die to show my devotion to my Husband. and i am just as willing, to live for Him. i am only punished for my actions when they are truly wrong, and those actions are discussed on an open and honest basis. my worth is more than my willingness and ability to serve, but He is grateful that i desire to serve Him and in turn He serves me. i have the power to gift Him my submission and He graciously accepted, giving me orders and tasks to please Him and to better our lives together and our home. my Dominant knows that i worship Him. and He in turn worships me.

my body is a temple, and i am the goddess to whom it is dedicated and by whom it is designed. i decorate it as i see fit to please the goddess that inhabits it. i am also the only priestess that devotes her life to the worship of my god. the temple made and kept by her hands is His own to change as He chooses.

un-kinkily, my religion is Pagan. Norse, Hellenic, and Khemetic. i pay homage to the old gods and keep their ways. i follow the faith of my ancestors, and that i share with my real brother.

started binging criminal minds, i was gutted when elle left & now watching the next couple of s2 episodes i really felt her absence. especially in 'the last word' when a women has to pretend to be dead so they can catch one of the serial killers (they so needed to have a frank convo about making elle relieve her trauma + this couldve been a great intro to that). i read your post, i agree it did make sense why elle left considering her background as a sexual offence specialist & what she says to reid but i found the writing lacking. her exit felt rushed + not final bc she only really shared scenes with hotch. also she also seems the type to not wanna give up the bau bc that would mean the fisher king wins + is a determined person so it would've been better to see her slow realisation she cant do the job she desperately wanted in s1. also the fact her relationships with the rest of the team + their reactions weren't fully explored is annoying since she was quite friendly with everyone particularly close to morgan, reid even gideon. especially since gideon inadvertently caused her get shot as he didnt want to follow the rules then said elle would understand?? so a confrontation w gideon similar to the one w hotchner wouldve been nice. i miss morgan's fun bantery friendship with elle in the later eps when she wasn't there to partner up with him (idk they seemed to be a go to partnership to me) & the elle/morgan/reid trio is sorely missed. ive largely enjoyed everything so far (just finished 2x09) but i wish they'd more deeply explore the characters' history. like the inclusion of reids mom was interesting & really liked how garcia respected reids privacy to keep her illness a secret. it was a missed opportunity i felt not to see elle & morgan not bonding over losing their cop dads or hotch and gideon talking about fatherhood when hotch is missing out on his babys key milestones (ik there was that bit in s1 when hotch tells gideon to get in touch w his son but more of those moments wouldve been nice). whilst i feel the team all like each other and there's some interesting/fun friendships (reid&gideon , garcia&morgan etc) id be nice to have some downtime scenes showcasing them as a makeshift found family (sorry i love that trope & c'mon they spend more time with each other than with their acc families). anyway sorry for the long rant this show is eating at my brain lord my brain mass will be equivalent to a pea by the time i finish this show. <3

thats fair and i get what you mean! there are definitely moments when i felt elle's absence and there are definitely things about her leaving that i would change if i had the power—i absolutely agree that the reactions from the rest of the team to her leaving and the actions leading up to it were sorely lacking, and a slower realisation that she cant do the job anymore would have been very cool to see, although i think the latter was less due to writing problems and more to the fact that elle left the show because lola glaudini chose to leave (ie they couldn't write a fully fleshed out leaving arc for elle because it was driven by out-of-show events and therefore not planned/they had limited time to execute it). the lack of reaction from the team is a writing problem though, so again i very much agree with that!

i hope you enjoy the rest of the show and get some of your wishes, and if you dont, you can find some good fics to fulfill them <3

HERE IT IS!!

(DRESSROSA SPOILERS)

(Also TW for blood/animal de@th)

Here's part of the indulgent content just make Doflamingo a dilf, adoptive father style cause I wanted him, however shit a perent he would ever be- to have some Good Dad Moments(tm)

Cause he's all about family right, just give him a nee kid to have in the family and then BOOM gove him some happy moments (within the 10 year reign of Dressrosa pre-Dressrosa arc)

The kids name, for fun and because I'm not creative is Donquixote Rosette ;;)

The lore i gotta spoil tag it BUT;

But Rosette reminds him oddly of his brother, Corazon so he sometimes calls him that, kind of pretending this 8 year old boy acquired the heart seat in his palace. He does say that shit to spite Law a lot, I know his ass lifted this boy up simba style and declared him the prince, his heir. And for the longest time the city ate that shit up.

Rosette's too soft tho at the start, since he is human, he's prolly seen his fair share of trauma but Doffy wants to raise him to be able to do his bidding even at the age of a child, so he probably send shim out to hunt and kill small animals to get the taste of death by his own hands, first time he did it he came back clutching a mouse crying; Doffy wiped his tears kissed his forehead and praised him for his first kill, and told him he'd have to do it again, and again, with bigger and bigger prey eventually. And eventually he stopped crying coming back with a kill. Ofc Doffy knew his son's limits and what animals he COULDNT fight/kill but he always let him try, he didnt SERIOUSLY care if the kid did die, but having an heir to keep around was his best plan yet.

So the kids a little fucked up, but thats bc of Doffy. He's deemed the prince and everyone in the family treats him as such- honest Baby 5 and Buffalo might be a LIITTTLE ticked he gets pampered when they as kids didnt really get that all that much.

But still, he's baby

And yeah sometimes Doffy will have his dad moments-

Like taking him into town on his shoulders, catching Rosette asleep curled in his feather jacket (Doffy proceeds to slide to the ground clutching his shirt and using a snail to take photos)

And making breakfast in the morning which i dont think he ever did with himself.

He's not a good man nor a good dad but he has his moments

And Rosette is attached to Doffy despite his evilness because he's the only one in the world to love him so far, and his life got way better when he met Doflamingo- so why hate him? That's his father now!

Also I feel post Dressrosa Rosette would be taken in by the Navy to try and reform and rehome this poor boy because after Doffy got locked tf up he would have had nowhere else to go, they might try and make him a soldier, if he doesnt escape their hold first.

Anyway I care them a lot- dont even get me started on my other ocs (which is just for OC x Canon)

"I have to laugh 🤣 He got trauma and he still didn’t understand. Sometimes you have to wonder if Will is too dumb for emmy or just so self absorbed that he doesn’t care about her enough 😭"

Oof anon, your comment on will's reaction to his trauma and emmy's abandonment was really harsh 😅 I have read KO's post about will and i agree with his pov on the whole situation. Willemmy was flawed and i love that in nightfall we finally got to see a couple that actually destroy each other, rather than stupid misunderstanding like in corrupt and killswitch. At least when pd said em's gonna be the bitchier ones among the girls, she delivered, and i was here for it! She wasn't fully innocent (unlike rika), i ate that up!! I dont understand why we gotta read dark romance, expect only the MMC to ruck up, and suddenly had to paint em as this innocent girl or woman or something, as if she did not had a fair share to will's ruin? Wasnt this what you hated about what pd did to rika and winter (Other than their appearance and dull characterisation)? Because rika and winter didn't fully deliver their bitchy roles, but were always said that they hurt michael and damon a lot. But finally when we meet emory and we saw her hurting will, we wanna change up her characterisation now? Weird.

Now, as much as i like damon and emory's bond, it still doesnt take away the fact that damon was never always the best "friend" to her, we only saw some crumbs of them here and there, but even then, there were more interpretation than outright declaraction of friendship about these two in canon. It also doesn't take away the fact that damon was a fucking piece of shit to everyone, especially to rika banks and winter, and til this day, i still don't understand why rika got more hate essays than damon. Because if i fucking catch that mf damon, he'd be finished frfr. Just on the basis of all the things he had said to rika alone, made him deserving of execution, now if we add up all of his sins with rika, winter, michael, kai and will, i hope he never gets any happy ending in whatever afterlife he was thrown in, lmao! I'm annoyed at rika, but i fucking hate damon, alright and the hate towards him is so lesser than rika's, why? He was more insufferable than her though? Lets increase the damon hate too, bring back those incompetent damon torrance slander, because we know he fckn need and deserve lots of them.

And did i memtion that i was the anon that gave the unpopular opinion? Yeah, alright. The anon that replied to me had missed a lot of my points, but thanks KO for the intervention, and yes, your interpretation of my ask was similar to what i originally thought when i posted that long ask. I also agree 100% with KO that if i was emmy, i wouldve ditched will forever and never return to Thunder Bay, granted that i wouldnt even hangout with people like the horsemen and i hope i never will. But like i said, i wasnt emmy, you're not emmy, we werent emmy, so i/you/we cant say exactly whats best for her tbh. We can only have headcanons to fix whatever things we wanna fix from canon, and things we wish pd wrote instead, so yes, that's why i said it's a fan's wish fulfillment, but we'll not always get what we want. When you insisted about how pd should write something, you almost sound like how will must have sounded to emmy when he kept urging her to do something even when she didnt owe him anything. That's the kind of entitlement that i was talking about. It wasnt a great feeling right? Yeaaaah. Sounds harsh but yeah sometimes we dont notice that we mirror the same behaviour we criticise. Basically atp, just write our own fanfics. In one corner of my head, im able to accept canon, but in the other corner of my head, willemmy exist happily in love and were only with their companies, there arr no martin, aydin, alex, damon, or even michael, or kai to get in between them. The willemmy in my delulu mind just live happily ever after, and always choose each other above eveyrthing else. Not because pd wrote so, but because im delusional af and cant fully accept canon HAHAHAH 🤣☠️ we just gotta laugh at the pain brothers and sisters 🤞 it really be like that here in pendouglas land. Once this series slowly dies out from my mind, imma ditch this series and move onto something else. Something more fun. Other than that, I dont have much else to add to the conversation though so im ending it here. Thank you for your replies on my original post KO, i like to hear your thoughts on them, i also dont have anything to reply to your roelies of my ask.

Good day ahead to you and everyone!

Hey! Happy to hear from you again. I was wondering if you were going to respond or disappear.

Willemmy was flawed and i love that in nightfall we finally got to see a couple that actually destroy each other,

This is true, but I hadn’t really framed it this way in my mind before.

I’d still place most of the blame on Will for making assumptions and going forward as if those assumptions were fact. But I’ve talked before how I don’t feel Emory is fully innocent, like you said. People are allowed to act on emotion and make mistakes. But just because we understand and sympathize with the way Emory behaved doesn’t mean it wasn’t wrong, doesn’t mean she didn’t let her pride get the in the way.

Just because a snake bites you in defense, doesn't mean you're not going to die from it.

I love Emory. I love her for not being completely collapsing in the face of everything that happened to her. For having passions, despite all her obstacles. I love her for being angry and mean. My heart hurts when she acts out of desperation, because I can understand her just wanting. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t mess up. And loving someone even though they’ve made mistakes and messed up and were mean, I think, is not something to be ashamed of.

She wasn't fully innocent (unlike rika), i ate that up!! I dont understand why we gotta read dark romance, expect only the MMC to ruck up, and suddenly had to paint em as this innocent girl or woman or something, as if she did not had a fair share to will's ruin?

What if we had a genderbent Willemmy?

Sorry. That’s not directly related to what you said, but comparing how we treat MMC and FMC, I wondered if we would still be just as angry with Will if he were Willow and if Emory were Emerson, or something.

it still doesnt take away the fact that damon was never always the best "friend" to her, we only saw some crumbs of them here and there, but even then, there were more interpretation than outright declaraction of friendship about these two in canon.

Oh yeah, absolutely. The idea of them having a strong friendship is all HC, inspired by the last gazebo scene in NF when Damon gave her the canister; that he kept it safe for her. I couldn’t help but wonder what his plan for it was. It seemed like such an unusual, thoughtful thing for him to do, and my imagination just flew from there. Him defending her before and them working together after everything added to that.

KO for the intervention, and yes, your interpretation of my ask was similar to what i originally thought when i posted that long ask.

Okay, good. Sometimes I’m taking a stab in the dark as to what people are saying. Happy that I at least got the gist of where you were going.

We can only have headcanons to fix whatever things we wanna fix from canon, and things we wish pd wrote instead, so yes, that's why i said it's a fan's wish fulfillment, but we'll not always get what we want. When you insisted about how pd should write something, you almost sound like how will must have sounded to emmy when he kept urging her to do something even when she didnt owe him anything.

Yeah, in a way I get what you’re saying. Whether or not PD told the story they wanted to tell or let other people influence them, PD doesn’t owe each and every fan exactly what they want. And PD’s not the first author who didn’t deliver on what they promised.

I will say that a lot of people are upset by how much the other characters took over NF, and I can’t argue with that. I felt the same. But at a certain point, I have to accept that PD’s ideas for the character are not the same as mine, and that’s okay. They created the characters, and they own them, but they also haven’t stopped us from creating our own reality with them. In fact, on their website in that FAQ, they all but encourage us to continue living in the world as long as we want, telling ourselves the stories we want. They're not gatekeeping the characters.

In one corner of my head, im able to accept canon, but in the other corner of my head, willemmy exist happily in love and were only with their companies, there arr no martin, aydin, alex, damon, or even michael, or kai to get in between them. The willemmy in my delulu mind just live happily ever after, and always choose each other above eveyrthing else. Not because pd wrote so, but because im delusional af and cant fully accept canon

This is exactly how I approach Willemmy too! I never needed the author to tell me explicitly what happened to them because I just… filled it in myself?

Yeah, and maybe it is delulu of me. But I’m happy with it.

Once this series slowly dies out from my mind, imma ditch this series and move onto something else

I hope you escape the DN brain rot soon. If you don’t reach out again, it was nice speaking with you, and I hope your next fixation is fun, whatever it is.

-KO

Once in a blue moon i always log into my tumblr account just so i can comfortably express myself because no one is watching..

I dont know how i got here again and its eating me alive trying to figure it out. my aunt thinks i havent been myself since dannys death and i think shes right. how can someone you share a person with just up and leave this world. no more breathing, no more laughing, just no more life. His death hit me hard. i didnt truly grieve how i wanted to because as a mother how can you let yourself crumble entirely? you cant. you have to be strong for your children because as a parent youre the strongest person they know. i cant allow myself to be weak in front of aaliyah. The only time im able to truly fall apart is when aaliyah is with her nina and im drinking. i dont know how to express myself sober. once the alcohol starts to set in my mouth just goes like i put fresh batteries in. i have no care in the world who is in the room either. if im aching i spill. I remember the last few nights in the apartment in la mirada. i was the last one drinking and i broke down. the tears wouldnt stop pouring out. i know it hasnt been easy trying to share a child with danny but that man gave me the best gift the world can offer somebody. danny at one point, was my everything. we met when we were 14 so how can he not be. towards the end of his days we got closer , we talked a lot came up with the problems and the solutions to be better at co parenting together. everything was great and then one day i get the call that hes in the icu. fighting for his life. at that moment my heart dissolved completely out of my chest. i couldnt remember how to breathe anymore and i disassociated from reality. i caught myself and grounded into reality again and i didnt know what to feel. i went to go visit him twice during his time in the icu and i had no emotions i didnt know how to process it. death is inevitable. and he passed so quickly. i went to see him at the funeral. aaliyah went up without me and talked to him for a bit. as for me? i didnt go up until it was almost time to leave. seeing him in that coffin did something to me. laying there lifeless when he used to be so full of life. his tattoos. his smile. his sarcasm. his everything. just empty. his sister went up with me and was telling me stories how he would tell them i was being crazy as usual but he was the one who started everything. god i miss him so much. i think one of my biggest regrets is not answering his calls and facetimes every single time he called. not texting him back not letting him see aaliyah. it bothers me and it will always bother me. its one of my biggest regrets and danny i am so sorry. but doing what i did is a part of the trauma that i was left with after everything he did to get into prison after still getting to go out and be a person with a life while i was at home being a parent doing everything. spending every dime i have on her while he gave me nothing. i didnt think it was fair for him to come and go. and like i said towards the end when we were getting better i was slowly opening up myself to him and then he just dies? how is that fair? why couldnt i get more time with him when everything was finally falling into place. how is that fair? i want him back. i want more time with him. i want him to know that hes always had a special place in my heart for him. i dont hate him as much as i told him i did. i just dont know. my heart aches every day for him. and my heart also aches for aaliyah. i wanted her to grow up with a dad because i never had that chance i missed my dad growing up but he was alive. i wanted a bond with my dad and now im finally going arounf him more and thats what i wanted for aaliyah and now she will never know what thats like she wont get that chance and i ache for her. i feel like every time i start to get close to someone again they leave or god takes them from me. maybe thats why i push everyone away because itll be easier to have no feelings when someone finally leaves vs feeling everything and hurting when they do leave. i just wanto be okay again.  

want to rant pls AAAA! I am Asian, and I feel like most Western MDZS-related fandom on twitter especially (and some south east Asian fans) are being sinophobic towards MXTX and her works. They will just say anything to rationalize JC's abusive actions by the name of "culture" and some other south east Asians act like they understand Chinese culture but not really actually, and has never taken the time to truly understand their words and interpretation with the meaning and standards of -1

a true danmei/xianxia hero according to actual Chinese people with complex Chinese traditional and modern standards. Plus, even if they're asians, shouldn't they understand that our culture and other asian culture have always give us messages to prioritize doing good first? They (western fans and certain south east asian fans), especially big accounts will say shit like "oh JC&YZY are not abusive" and "wwx & jc are brothers" "oh i dont like when people say mdzs = cql blablabla" and excusing -2

every single shit that abusive characters did, just because these bitches of characters fit their very "specific personal experience" which obviously did not stem from actual Chinese people and culture from Mainland China. Anyway, I dont think that it's fair to say Western people in general do not understand that abusive behaviour and actions are OK bcs being abusive is not a cultural trait, since it literally takes someone with a sound mind and heart to know and differentiate things that -3

could and shouldnt be done. But the experience that I have with these particular western fans and some s/e asian fans in the fandom just left a bad taste in my mouthNot only that, they will always leave stupid metas that are not backed up by contextual evidence, and go around acting like they're facts, and then talk some shit about MXTX. Like bitch, thats my people and culture that you were shitting about. This kind of shitty behaviour and untrue facts were created by a lot of stans of -4

JC (obviously), JGY (lil meow meow), XY (uhuhu SoB sTorieZ), and LXC (this mf is on thin ice, bcs his fans keep on acting like he doesnt know shit and just a righteous figure who wrongly trust his friend, WHEN he was repetitively shown in the novel to know social clues and dirty shit, as well as gossips from his place as an authorative figure but STILL look away and blame the less for not knowing anyway, especially when they didnt fit HIS easy and privileged standards for wtv trauma that HE -5

HE hadnt processed, and yet, i have to respect him?)Hell no, LXC sounds like my local neighbourhood asian power figure who grew up very privileged and act like poor and less unfortunate people are the problems for not catching up, instead of confronting his friends for oppressing others to me. Lxc is that one tone deaf mf friend you have and no one can change my mind about him. What the fandom doesnt understand from MXTX's novel is that, the archetype of a moral and good hero in xianxia is -6

is a person that take good honorable ACTIVE ACTIONS even when it doesnt benefit them. Even when we are younger, we will always listen to these stories from parents, teachers, even strangers. THAT is the culture that WE share, not the abusive shit that JC did. So i always laugh when people say that wwx will become bff with lxc because where??? He even ditched JC lol and now you tell me that he's about to be buddy2 with someone who just stood there like a fucking tool, and judge things based -7

WWX himself said that good friends have similar characters and thats why wwx/lwj and wwx&wen ning worked so well together but lxc and wwx will not work at all because whatever pre-conceived notion, bigotry, classism, harmful prejudice etc. he might have gotten from his gentry privilege had made him so removed from the less unfortunate and the people at the bottom of his residence's mountain that he just cannot comprehend that doing good is more than the shit was written on his house's wall -8

Wwx wont even tolerate some hypocrisies and double standards said and done by some authorative figures, like lqr, yzy, wrh, wen chao for their bigotry, now why the hell whould he tolerate lxc's on a personal level? I can see them be polite politically to each other, but friends AND BFF. Oh hell nah, never unless lxc fix his shit! I sound like a lxc hater but im really not. I think MXTX wrote his character really well because mfs like him is everywhere in our Asians neighbourhood. The ones -9

who sounds like an ally but actually is not when it truly matters. And the reason that people always backed him up would always be "ohh he's a sect leader, he has other priorities". Sigh, MDZS morality and righteousness doesnt work that way... because everyone did suffer, and what they did with and about their sufferings were the ones that matter most. Sigh... im just tired with wwx and chinese values slander, sorry

Anon we were on the same page throughout the beginning of this but you lost me w LXC...

WWX doesn't have a problem w LXC and understands why LXC believed JGY. He doesn't blame him for not sussing out an incredibly talented manipulator who everyone else trusted. The way LXC treated JGY, who people didn't even want to drink tea from!, is the opposite of elitism and classism... LXC doesn't gossip about WWX & LWJ's love life, this has been clarified- by the author herself. LXC is similar to LWJ, putting his trust in someone others have heavy prejudices against. Unfortunately, JGY is not a good person like WWX (and LXC is probably not as good at reading people as LWJ). Although to be fair, no one else really figured out that JGY was a really evil guy (until it was too late - like the ppl in the Clan he exterminated). Even WWX thought JGY was an impressive, good person. In WWX's second life WangXian were aided in seeing JGY's true face by NHS's sabotages. LXC is not universally great at reading people just bc he can read his little brother's mind... There's no reason to think that WWX and LXC won't get along.

WWX is the one who suggest they go back to the CR after they elope. He knows LWJ and LXC are very close and he values that relationship for LWJ (as does LWJ). LXC=/= jc. LXC was a Clan leader of a different Clan. WWX wasn't a disciple of his Clan? If WWX's own Clan Leader and childhood friend thought he was evil enough to cut all ties w him why would LXC go out of his way and investigate? He has no knowledge of what the Wen siblings did for jc. His experience w the Wens consisted of them burning down Cloud Recesses, breaking his little brother's leg and almost killing him, and killing his father? Yet he still says words in their favor. He's also not chilling in the CR basking in his privilege. He's out night hunting to help protect people. During the war too:

During the Sunshot Campaign, stories of praise were told about all three of the Venerated Triad. The ones of ChiFeng-Zun were about how he swept over all obstacles, leaving not even a trace of the Wen-dogs after he finished. ZeWu-Jun—Lan XiChen—however, was different from him. After the situation of the Gusu area had settled down, Lan QiRen was able to defend it with great tenacity. Thus, Lan XiChen often travelled to aid others, saving lives from danger. In all of the Sunshot Campaign, he had countless times recovered lost territory and assisted narrow escapes. This was why people were ecstatic whenever they heard his name, as though they gained a ray of hope, a powerful trump card. (Chapter 51)

... As for him sounding like an ally but not being one when it truly mattered, sheltering WWX in his own quarters when the whole cultivation world found out he was back and having him treated in the Cloud Recesses and listening to his suspicions about JGY ... is the opposite of that. Sure no one is WangXian but I think it's disingenuous to lump LXC in w that company.

i saw seven deadly sins au and went !!!!!!!!!!! this stuff is my weakness. ty long au anon ily <3 /p

anonymous said:

Hi this is that same anon that keeps making long au plots. Here's a seven deadly sins/Demon au where Nagito is the sin of envy, Hajime is the sin of Greed, and Chiaki is the sin of sloth. They are a horrible trio.

-Hajime, as a demon of Greed, really loves finding and hoarding extravagant and pretty things, whether they are his or not.

-Yes Nagito and Chiaki are both apart of his collection. He stole two other demons because "pretty”

-Nanami stayed because not only is she always sleeping and Hajime's cozy little place is nice, but because friend <3

-Nagito stayed because he's lonely, bored, petty, and wanted the pretty boy who called him pretty before sweeping him off his feet's,,attention.

-oh lore time. Hell is a lawless place but there is still a semblance of order between groups of sins. Sins are kind of like their Own species. There's a certain chart of what sin is compatible with what sin, and it's agreed by every sin never to put a demon of envy and a demon of Greed together.

-this is because both envy and Greed as sins are too similar together. Both sins ambitions and motives to get something stem from their desires of want. The difference is envy ways something of someone else, while greed wants anything it can get.

-the problem at first was that Hajime's instinct pulled him to take anything he wanted as his, while Nagito only wanted Hajime (and Chiaki) as his. And he didn't like Hajime's want for others.

-Nagito has nothing against chiaki, even as a demon of envy. This is because demons of sloths are usually considered "neutral" or tolerable territory between all the sins. At first Nagito thought he would have to be competitive to get Hajime's attention but then one time Chiaki and Hajime got into a verbal disagreement and Chiaki went, "friendship over with Hajime, Nagito is my best friend now" And then fell asleep on him.

-Hajime would've gotten annoyed because, greedy, but then he sees Nagito moved to tears at being called a friend and he's like, "IIl let them have that, this time." And then moved closer so they all cuddled.

-of course nagito was in the middle and got stuck between a demon of sloth and Greed as pillow. Tug o war with Nagito's body never became so intense.

-Nagito, is still very petty when he thinks something else has taken away both his partner's interest in him, so he will become very passive aggressive. Usually that was a problem in the past but it has gotten easier knowing that you can buy his forgiveness through physical affection.

-oh did I mention they're all lovers? They keep calling each other "best friend" or "friend" despite sharing romantic intimacy because that's what they started out as and they're just inseparable from each other. They just love each other alot regardless of platonic or romantic feelings. They just want to be a starring role in the other's heart ❤️

-their lives are a bit different than canon, especially since the era they died in is not modern day.

-Chiaki was born normal/middle class until a war or invasion broke out. The city was one of thr firsts to get hit hard by invading forces, and her parents, who were respectable bakers/market people were hit hard. Her town was raided at night constantly and threatened. The bakery was constantly stolen from and vandalized. Many of the sleepless nights stayed with her as she sat with her parents and they held her in their arms. One night her parents got caught in the crossfire in the bakery while it was vandalized, and with no siblings and no neighbors, sleep deprived and tired of it all, chiaki decided she'd at least go with a struggle. She poisoned the invaders supply of food for nights on end until the sleep deprivation got to her and she was dead before they could get to her. Now though she gets to sleep all she wants.

-Hajime was the child of a corrupt father and a diseased mother, who didnt/wouldn't give him the attention he craved. When his mother died she only managed to hide her one belonging (a necklace) and gave it to him before she died. His father sold him everything else. His father wasn't abusive, per say, but he took pride in seeing himself in Hajime, and constantly hyped up his "love" for Hajime when he showed the same ambitions as him, while downplaying anything else he deemed unworthy (his mother's kind hearted temperament). So while Hajime still retained his mother's sense of being fair and caring, the ambition to take everything got pounded into him by his father constantly until both of them got a bit blurry. Sad thing is his father loved money more than him and when the angry people who his father scammed burnt his house down, he couldn't care less about his kid and ran with the valuables, leaving Hajime to die in the fire.

-Nagito grew up with a mother who was a seamstress, who was unhappily married and forced to have a child she didnt want and her husband didn't help her raise him, instead he cheated on her behind her back. While she never hurt him, she was emotionally detached from the trauma and pain, and couldn't give him the love he needed as a kid. She instead, tried (and actually managed to achive) some sort of loving emotional bond with her kid through tailoring. Idk how he dies but I was imagining something happens and he and his mother die, and while his mother dies in peace, he dies in envy of another family his father has built and how happy he is.

-(While Hajime's sin might have festered as he grew because of his father, Nagito might have been born sharing the sin of envy with his mother, who envied people being able to live their life. )

-(also yes, I did get these backstories referencing vocaloid songs)

-idk that shit got depressing fast I'm sorry. I can say now though they are happy Imao.

-oh Oh, they also have fun picking a single human and then tormenting them. I don't mean tormenting them as in making their life miserable, but tormenting them by making it very inconvenient and wild. Currently the human they're bullying is Kazuichi.

lmaooo kazuichi............babe i am so sorry you’re getting triple teamed by three demons dksnxksnx he’s probably perpetually in the *clutches beanie in fear* pose—

also!!!!! sin of envy nagito!!!!!! so pog??? i actually have hajime down as the sin of envy for my own 7DS au but.............*looks intensely*

also also i can just see chiaki monopolizing all of hajime’s comfy furniture lmao. he’s a little annoyed bc “that’s mine >:T” but also he’s not very inclined to stop her bc she usually just makes grabby hands to signal for hugs, so he gets to use the couch anyway. it’s all good <3

also i do indeed see the vocaloid references and my mind is running wild bc enbizaka my beloved <3 i still wanna redo the written version of it at some point........

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

2022 Imbolc Ritual

CW : mentions of SA

I had the most transformative ritual the other day. For Imbolc I was originally going to perform a spell to forgive my childhood abus=r. I no longer deserve to hold all of that hatred. However, spirit had a different plan.

Before my spellworkings, I like to do a reading over the situation. Then one afterwords to see the difference. Welp...turns out I was meant to do ritual on forgiving my SAs.

So I decided that I would write each of them a letter. Telling them all the pain they put me through...and that I forgive them.

I learned a lot through this ritual. I have three prominent SAs from my past. The first was someone I was in a relationship with for four years. Another was a coworker who groomed me...he was 26 and I was 17. And the third was my...I thought...best friend.

A lot of my sexual trauma I blamed on the first guy because we were toxic together. But I realized we were together from 14/15 to 18/19. Like our relationship was sexual from the beginning. It was consensual and fun in the beginning. I forgave him because I now realize that he didn't realize that he abused me. It was the norm for years prior. And my role as a "submissive" wasn't all that it cracked up to be in the long run. It was a lack of communication. And another reason why children should have sex and be exposed to porn.

The second man...I supressed most all memories and emotions towards him. He lied to me and told me that he was a virgin. He had a fiance. He said he wanted me to be his first. Groomed me in disgusting ways. I was 17. This was the most emotional part of the ritual. I literally had to get up from my table and pace around and cry and scream. I held in so much anger towards him. So much had been supressed for years. I actually became nauseus. But i forgive his actions. Its not fair for me to hold the weight of his crimes when I know I don't cross his mind in the slightest. I liberated myself from his chains.

Now...the third man was most recent. Happened a little over a year ago. Me and him were drinking that night. Ya know doing what young adults do. He had been asking all night. And all night I said no. I had a boyfriend. Eventually we took molly together. Apparently molly and alcohol makes a roofie. (BE SAFE OUT THERE YOU GUYS!!!) And I don't remember anything after that. But the next morning we were both naked on my futon. I got dressed and left immediately. We talked about it later on, he said he wanted to do it again. And i told him that "I never wanted it to happen and it will never happen again." I don't remember what he said and I wish I did. In his ritual...I became nauseous again and couldnt control my crying. He was my literal BEST FRIEND.

After I wrote these letters I went outside and burned them. In each letter I wrote that I forgave them...but someones letter didn't burn. The third one. And what's so significant about his letter? The words that did not burn were "You were my best...I trusted yo..."

So what I take from the ritual is that I have moved on and understand the situation of the other guys. But I am not quite ready to move on from the third.

I wanted to share this because I want everyone reading this to learn a few things:

1. Be careful and alert always. You can't trust anyone but yourself with your saftey.

2. Know what mixing substances do if you happen to do that!

3. If you're under the age of consent please wait to have s=x and expose yourself to the world in that way.

4. If you need to talk about your trauma, I am a safe space and can possible give some advice. Or just listen if you need a friend.

5. Forgiveness is freeing. For the longest time I didnt believe some people deserved forgiveness. But it isnt for their benefit. It is for your own.

hi lovely 💕 ik you’ve opened up about being cheated on in a long term relationship before. and i dated a guy for almost 3 years and i got cheated on a couple times as well. i only knew of 1 time and i found out after we broke up that there was another 2-3 times that he cheated. this relationship ended almost 4 years ago now and i’ve been dating my current boyfriend for 1.5 years. he is nothing like my ex which i LOVE, but i definitely find myself letting my past relationship make me anxious or assume the worst of my current relationship. my current boyfriend is so loyal and good to me. but of course there’s been times where he’s messed up in small ways and we’ve had our fights like every relationship. but i’ll admit i can definitely overreact and assume the worst out of small things because of how i was treated in my past relationship. i’ve also gone through his phone while he was sleeping multiple times just because i wanted to see if there was anything i didn’t like on it (every time there wasn’t). i will question him about literally everything and everyone. it’s bad. i get so anxious though and just assume he’s gonna hurt me at some point. i keep seeing videos on tiktok though about how if someone is going to cheat on you they will no matter what and that there’s no preventing it. so we shouldn’t get worked up or try to be crazy to scare them out of it. i reallyyy want to be a more chill person and realize that my past relationship doesn’t relate to my current one. and recognize that my current bf has never made me question his loyalty so i shouldn’t be assuming anything. i just don’t know where to start with all of this and getting over my past relationship trauma. do you have any advice or ways you got over your awful relationship and don’t let it ruin your current new one?? thank you 💕💕💋

hi babe! yes, I have had my fair share with getting cheated on lol. i remember when i got out of that relationship i was like no fucking way i am ever going to be able to trust another guy. and then i met my boyfriend now and he is just an angel. he knows about me getting cheated on and my past, so he really makes me feel so comfortable and reassurance me for everything. the first thing you should do is make sure your new boyfriend knows about your past and how you feel. he needs to know you need reassurance a lot. never ever feel bad for needing reassurance!! you need to accept that your ex is not your boyfriend. they are polar opposites, and your ex was a douche who didnt care about losing you. whenever i feel like lashing out to my bf or accuse him of doing something i just hold back and i tell myself im letting it get to my head. its more of a mental thing for sure which can take time, but you will get to the point where you can talk yourself out of assuming bad things. and dont believe anything tik tok will tell you i promise those kinds of videos are so stupid and whenever i see them i just scroll!! you are in a happy and healthy relationship with someone who loves you so so much! dont forget that!

2, 7, 11, 19, 28 👀

aaaahhh thank you for the ask!!

2 - favorite character (excluding sean & daniel)?

hhhhhhhhh so many characters are just so good. i wanna say Chris because i love him, but i also feel like he has an advantage since he had an entire game dedicated to just himself. so aside from Chris, i’d say my favorite character might be Penny

7 - favorite quote?

in episode 3 when Sean optionally says: “I'm sorry you have to go through all this crap. It's not fair. I want to make it up to you, make sure you're safe forever” to Daniel after he shares a bad memory. its so innocent and sad it breaks my heart

11 - never call lyla or dont save chris?

oh gosh sorry Chris but say hello to the bumper for me!

both are terrible but i just cant let Lyla be institutionalized. it just feels too awful :(

(not saving Chris must cause so much confusion for him tho, bc then he doesnt understand why "his" power didnt work when he needed it most. why after all this time he still is nowhere near ready to defeat mantroid oh MAN)

19 - what did you think of jacob?

i have a lot of thoughts on him. from what i’ve seen, Jacob is often characterized by the fandom as an uwu 👉👈 shy anime girl, which i dont fault since his personality is really like that lol. but while he is endearingly sheepish, i think what makes Jacob most interesting to me is his role in Daniel’s relationship with Lisbeth.

Jacob is very traumatized by Lisbeth’s cult and smthg that LIS2 interestingly explores is how hurt individuals can sometimes (unintentionally) inflict that same hurt on others, especially in the case of indoctrination. Jacob didnt mean for Daniel to be brainwashed. he genuinely had good intentions. but the fact of the matter is, Jacob was the one that handed Daniel to Lisbeth on a silver platter and then continued to help her feast.

its bc of his own trauma. manipulators like Lisbeth have a way of making their victims believe they are their only safety, their only refuge, their only place of salvation. after the shitstorm that was the heist, Jacob took Daniel under his wing (which thank GOD omg. like the dude was under no obligation to do that at all. hes goated just for that act alone) and he had no clue what to do with this 9 year old super-powered on-the-run little kid who had just left what looked like a crime scene with several unresponsive bodies and even a possible corpse. understandably, he had NO idea where to go, who to trust, how to care for a child, etc.

Jacob taking Daniel to Lisbeth was inevitable. the weight of his unpreparedness plus his own brainwashed dependency.... there was no other place he wouldve taken Daniel to, which is what makes it so tragic. but what dials the “hmm intriguing!!!” dial up to eleven is that i believe one of the most eye-opening factors that got Jacob to fully understand Lisbeth’s wrongness, was him watching Daniel’s abuse first hand (i think there’s 2 other reasons for Jacob’s realization, but i’ll go over that in a separate post). seeing Daniel, especially an atheist!Daniel, be manipulated before his very eyes had to be an experience to say the least. through Daniel, Jacob witnessed Lisbeth’s manipulations from the ground up and developed a clearer sense as to what she was doing, how she was doing it, and who she really was as a person. and what makes me lean even closer as i observe Jacob under a microscope like a specimen, is that Jacob still did not help Daniel afterwards.

it was again bc of the abuse Lisbeth (and his enabling family) had already inflicted on him that made him psychologically incapable of directly challenging Lisbeth and coming to Daniel’s rescue even after realizing how messed up things were. Jacob was so stuck in his fear that the only thing he felt he could do was send out an uncertain distress signal and wait with his hands folded as Daniel was continuously abused in front of him, his hope-and-have-patience tactic most beneficial to no one but Lisbeth. Jacob was both a victim and an enabler, which is one of the most damning combinations to ever exist. DONTNOD writing him that way was captivating.

28 - did your view on smthg change after a replay?

yes my entire view on the choices! specifically the unconventional ones

when i first played LIS2 it was just after i had finished playing A Game I Shall Not Name™ and spent time in Said Game’s fanbase. looking back i truly think it is the worst choice-based game i have ever played. not bc of the lack of choices, oh no, choices were in abundance, but bc of how infantilizing and arrogant it was as a piece of media. LIS2 showed me what a choice-based game truly should be, where your choices result in balanced in-universe consequences. The Game I Shall Not Name™ instead had the game and narrative basically tell you to go fuck yourself if you made a choice it didnt like. and it did this. several. times. and it was especially hurtful bc of the sensitive material The Game’s™ story was about that i personally could relate to. there was even a specific moment of the game’s “fuck you” disciplinary tactic ill never forget bc it felt like the devs were trying to take a very pointed shit on certain types of people.

so when i first played LIS2, i still had remnants of that experience and thought choosing unconventional choices would have the game smack me or smthg lmao. not that i stuck to completely “angelic” choices, but i did for the most part. so you can probably guess my first ending was Redemption (which i do like. it was written very well)

and then i replayed with the goal to get Blood Brothers and started choosing the more controversial choices and??? the fact the game doesnt demean you????? it genuinely treats most of your choices as inherently neutral and unbiased?? the consequences you face are REASONABLE and weren’t spiteful?!??! oh my god i lost my mind. it was amazing. 

Hi for the ship thing and headcanons, please do jolex 🥰

Who is a night owl:

dont get me wrong, they both most definitely will stay up late together or both pass out before 9pm on a Friday night, but some days when the depression hits, its jsut different and Jo is definitely more of the night owl. Alex is more of a morning person and Jo would rather sleep like the dead. 

Who is a morning person:

as we’ve discovered, more so Alex esp when they have kiddos. Alex is the one to get up with them early and let Jo sleep, he makes breakfast with the kids’ help and keeps their room quiet for jo to get some extra sleep but will unleash their evil spawns when he deems she’s slept in long enough. 

Are they cuddlers:

some days, yes, mostly. jo definitely loves the affection from someone who genuinely loves and wants her back. but there are days where she literally is like “do not come near me with your (temperature) hot body Alexander Michael Karev, you are a heater and I am already too warm” 

Who is the big spoon and who is the little spoon:

Alex is def the big spoon. Jo likes cuddling into him because sh feels safe, he feels like home. but she def has big spooned him too it’s a 50/50 relationship we have equal roles people

What is their favourite sleeping position:

no lie, both spread out like starfish in their bed. 

Who steals all the blankets: 

Jo. Alex is a space heater and doesnt need blankets she freezes and likes being snuggled up and warm

What they wear to bed:

I mean some nights, nothing, but like jo def loves Alex’s old Iowa state shirts or his wrestling shirts from HS that smell like him. an old worn in t-shirt, anything with a pair of booty shorts or his boxers even. and Alex will just wear a t-shirt and boxers or flannels in the winter. 

Who likes seeing the other wearing their t-shirt:

Alex wholeheartedly loves when jo wears his shirts unless its his favorite flannel and she steals it “come on, jo. you know that’s my favorite one. I wear it all the time.” its exactly why she takes it. 

Who falls asleep mid-conversation:

jo, unintentionally. sometimes the insomnia hits and she won’t have slept for a couple days so when life catches back up to her she will fall asleep randomly. even more so while pregnant and right after their daughter is born. she just “night night Josephine” 

Who wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares:

they both have their fair share of horrid nightmares. Alex’s deal a lot with his trauma of growing up. his mom pulling various knives on his siblings and dad attacking them. even nightmares of jo leaving him like Izzie did and he wakes up without her. 

jo’s are terrifying as well. she dreams that Paul’s death was just an illusion and that hes still out there and he’ll still come and get her. she wakes up drenched in a cold sweat and Alex holds her and they pull up his death certificate on the gsm database to prove it. she also has nightmares about being abandoned again. dreams of herself as a baby, dreams of her mother leaving her at that firestation. horrid nightmares. and Alex just holds her. she also has many nightmares about Alex abandoning her too just like her mother abandoned her but he’s never done that he’s always there when she wakes up and everything is okay again

Who accidentally punched the other in their sleep:

jo is an absolute horrible bed partner. she does NOT sleep still. she will move around so much during sleep its dangerous. yes, Alex did wake up with a bruise across his cheek one night from an elbow to the face...

Who can’t keep their hands to themself:

both of them. theyre notorious horndogs no autocorrect they are not corndogs please stop correcting me when you’re wrong 

and just because, im throwing in the parenting meme one too bc my heart melts

packs the lunches

Alex. he gets up with the kids in the mornings and also we do not trust jo to make their children food. she’d feed them boxed Mac n cheese and take out the entirety of their lives. and while they love that and Alex wouldn’t care if it was jsut them, their kids need real food. he packs them lunchables and uncrustables but at least its a little more of a variety. 

blows raspberries while cuddling

jo, more so. they both do, but jo LOVES a good chunky baby belly she can blow raspberries onto. and yes she leaves maroon lipstick marks on chubby cheeks and bellies. 

is the tickle monster

Alex. and she runs to mommy to save her from daddy! “oh, now you want mommy, huh? as soon as daddy is the tickle monster all you want is mommy? not when I wanted cuddles, or we picked you up from daycare or I dont know, I gave birth to you and wanted snuggles you cry and want daddy but now hes the tickle monster you want me?” and jo scoops her up and tries saving her but ultimately they lose and get attacked in their very large bed by the tickle monster. 

gives life lesson speeches

they both do just depending on the situations. 

when the girls start dating, jo sits them all down separately, and explains to them a bit of her past. letting them know that no man should ever lay hands on them. she teaches them how to defend themselves and Alex ofc shows them in example how women should be treated. Alex makes it clear that if a guy or girl ever should treat his daughters or his son in any other way than he treats jo, that he needs to know and gOD forbiD one of them lay a finger on one of his children there WILL be hell to pay. jo obviously consoles him in front of her children but tells him “u already have a record. if anyone lays hands on our children I will be putting them in the ground not you”

kisses the boo-boos

Alex he is a pushover and 100% makes sure all boo-boos are kissed and even when the kids are way too old for having their boo-boos kissed, he makes sure the bandaids that are no longer avengers or dinosaur or unicorn or princess themed, have been properly kissed. even through protests of “dad, im not five anymore I dont need my bandaids kissed” “how do you expect them to heal, then, CJ? you’re my most clumsy kid, and I have had to kiss all your boo-boos and never once have I not. thats why you’re still in once piece” 

breaks the bad news

jo makes Alex do it most times. she claims she’s the fun parent and tries to stay the fun parent by making Alex break bad news like “we cannot get another dog” she blames it on Alex but then brings home a puppy the following week. 

joins the PTA

listen. LISTEN. when Greyson started big kid school, in kindergarten, they placed her in private school to give her everything they didnt have growing up. jo was determined to make sure she gave her daughter everything made sure she felt loved and was spoiled it was terrible. so jo, of course, sent her to Seattle Elementary academy and was not paying attention when she signed some forms signing up to be in the PTA. she loathed it so much and “Alex im sorry I cant do this. I know we wanted to give Gracie everything we didnt have growing up but I cant take it I cant take the private school. the volunteer hours the strict dress code violations? she is FIVE. I also have to volunteer FORTY HOURS this year alone. no! I am a surgeon, a mother of two and im pregnant! I do not have time for this! all these PTA moms are stay at home moms who have nothing better to do than gossip about their neighbors and drink wine. and I swear to god if I have to hear about Jessica’s fucking essential oils pyramid scheme one more time I will shove those oils so far up her a––” “Jo! Look, Ali, mommy’s here!” Alex interrupts her just in time. he doesnt blame her. those private school moms are quiet the handful. every time, one of them has the nerve to hit on him. “and I swear, if one more of those moms hits on you in front of me, im going to backhand her with my engagement ring on. no hate to most of them, but theyre too much” they end up ending Gracie, and Ali and the rest of the kids to public school just like they had grown up in and did just fine. 

crashes sleepovers with embarrassing stories

oh one hundred and ten percent Alexander Michael Karev. he will find any moment to break out embarrassing stories and photos. hell, even when Zola, Bailey, ellis, Sofia, Harriet, scout, any of the bunch come over he’ll embarrass them too!  

gives the crazy nicknames

not really either of them (that ive figured out in the moment) (the kkc kids do not have crazy nicknames yet) (we jsut have Gracie for Greyson, Ali for Alice, and CJ for Cristina Jo. Alexis goes by Sissy because of Alexis and Alexa and Eli usually goes by bubba seeing as how that’s what the twins have called each other growing up with Izzie and that stuck) 

thank you so much for these! I loved loved loved doing them! even threw in some KKC universe things so if yall have questions about that feel free to ask I will share! tho there is yet to have a fic out about them yet… its been a bit difficult with writers block /: 

okay ik this is an opinion no one asked for but now im thinking about the whole dan and phil joint branding as opposed to Dan Branding™ and Phil Branding™. also this is fully adding onto posts on @ browncesario and @ demonetisation’s blogs and i feel too awkward to tag them bc i dont wanna make anyone feel obligated to read this lol but if i repeat anything they said or their anons said its not on purpose!

but like, full disclaimer while i love dan and phil i feel like its always been kind of obvious that they were marketing their relationship to us? obv not so much anymore but like... as much as people who dont keep up w dnp like to pretend that their only awareness of us as a fanbase was creepy objectifying shippers who should feel ashamed for harassing them etc etc, they’ve always been way more tuned into their audience than i think people realize. like they’ve *known* what we’re like, and i dont even mean just the bad parts. like they *know* that a lot of their fanbase is queer and genuinely has looked up to them as queer role models long before they were out, and a lot of that hinges on us understanding they were a couple. and ik they resented it and i wasn’t really part of the fanbase until a few years ago but hearing stories of how dan would react on liveshows sometimes and the like, barely concealed resentment for the fans sometimes shows that while they definitely had issues with it (which like,,, is fair), they also knew they were kind of stuck in a rut. because if their primary source of fans are people who like seeing them together, that meant that their success as youtubers/creators/etc depended on keeping those fans right where they were.

and to be clear! i know ive never been here primarily for their relationship; i started watching them bc i thought they were funny together and had a good dynamic, which wouldve been possible even if they really were just friends. i didnt get emotionally invested in the projection part of it until later. but even so, i was always aware as a fan that they were selling to us the speculation of their relationship.

and this is def pulling from other posts ive seen today but considering the fanfic part of tatinof, the fact that they wrote fanfic in tabinof and incorporated shippy fan art into the youtube versions, giving the people what they want, even little things like the conjoined baking challenge vid.... they wanted us to stay curious about their relationship. Even if on a very real level it was literally bringing back trauma for them, there was this weird cognitive dissonance between “im angry at people for speculating about us” and “look here, dont stop speculating about us! look we’re sharing a sweater! look we’re being ~domestic~ in ditls!”

which is also why i thought the hiatus wouldnt last long tbh, like i was genuinely shocked that after the success of ii they would completely separate their brandings from each other in 2019. and i wont @ this person but someone said it best years ago when they said that joint branding had to die for dnp to come out. bc it really did; how could they keep up the speculation if we have literally almost all the puzzle pieces laid out? when they’ve primed their audience to actively hunt down these pieces (even if again, they would rather have not, esp given what they each talked about in their coming out videos), but they dont *want* us to put it all together, how could they sustainably make joint content while keeping the speculation fanbase there? bc once the speculation is over, people are gonna keep wanting more. (and disclaimer i really dont think this applies to like....anyone i follow on here tbh bc in general i feel like we’re fine w them keeping their boundaries where they are, but we’ve all seen posts like that that indicate that people *will* want more, and thats something that they’re unwilling to give and understandably so).

anyway this all goes to the main thing that brought all this on today lol, ever since 2019 they’ve been trying to cultivate their own separate branding from each other, and while i’m here for it tbh, surely they know that they’ll never escape their old joint branding. Which also means never escaping the spectre of relationship speculation. so i have mixed feelings about seeing dan act shocked that people could ever speculate about his private life once he became famous bc like 1) thats literally just what happens when you become famous, and 2) ....he and phil egged it on up to a point, and that doesnt mean it didnt upset them but it definitely feels off for dan to always be so pikachu face about having had fans that speculated about his relationship. like dan you literally wrote erotic fanfiction about you and phil, pieced together fan art illustrating it that showed you and phil in a homoerotic lens, and yet you’re *still* acting shocked and indignant that fans got invested in your relationship/the possibility of your relationship?? idk man. its confusing bc at the time i took things like that as “oh, we’re in on the joke,” but ever since 2019 they’ve made it more clear that we’re not, but we’re also not *not* in on it to an extent (looking at you, cah phan edition)

so im def still excited for dan’s book (like the subject doesnt terribly interest me tbh but i do wanna see what he does with it and read whatever highlights inevitably get posted on here), but as always w the end of regular joint content, im lowkey here for the over-analyzing about the relationship between dan, phil, their fans, and their content bc dear god we never run out of material to rant about

What are your thoughts on Brad?

im assuming u mean brad from lisa, so i will respond with that assumption in mind LMAO

as a character, i think hes fucking fantastic. austin jorgensen did an absolutely AMAZING job making brad both empathetic and deeply fucking flawed, but flawed in such a way that it is really difficult to blame him for being how he is. he didnt get to choose any single thing that happened to him, except taking buddy in, and even that was something he managed to screw up. there is something very poignant about seeing a man who has been through so much pain and suffering struggle to do the right thing, to help those in need, to take care of someone and raise them with the love and kindness he never got... and fail. 

he fails completely in everything he ever set out to do. the daughter he swore to love and protect both fears and hates him. he kills scores of innocent people for naught. he never manages to overcome his addiction (but in fairness to him, this is largely buzzos fault as he forcefed brad enough pills to guarantee that he would overdose eventually). all of his friends, even TERRY, turn away from him at the end because he is doing the wrong thing. 

again, in fairness, SOME of the party members will reveal that they only agreed to help brad to get a “shot” at buddy themselves (rage is the only one i can think of rn, though i know there are others) - but there are also a sizable number of them (terry, shocklord, queen roger, and olan immediately come to mind) who were genuinely loyal to brad and cared about him, and only work against him because they sincerely feel he is morally in the wrong. and when brad fights those people, they barely fight back - they have unique, miserable-looking sprites for the final battle and spend most of their turns crying, being scared, or throwing out weak attacks that do little to no damage. they dont want to do this. but because of how far brad has fallen, they feel like they have no choice. 

as a PERSON, i am highly mixed on brad, as one is obviously meant to be. as i said previously, i do sincerely empathize with him. he has experienced an unreasonable amount of trauma, to such an extent that its difficult for me to judge any of his actions, but that goes right out the window the minute he chose to adopt buddy. it was his decision to raise buddy instead of taking her to rando, someone who he could trust and who had the resources to keep her safe for many, many years. brad wanted to prove to himself that he could be better than his father, that he could love and treat a child as they deserved to be treated. but he couldnt. he never recovered from what happened to him. he is haunted by his father and lisa, with no means of tackling it in a healthy way, and he never trusted anyone enough to share his pain with them. we even see it in the flashback where he tries to buy painkillers off of sticky - sticky point blank refuses because brad is clearly unhinged and needs HELP, not more drugs to mask the pain. 

he never should have adopted buddy. it was selfish of him to think he could simply fill the void in his heart with a child and that everything would be fine. by refusing to accept that he is broken beyond repair and in need of some serious help, he unwittingly perpetuated the cycle of abuse, and did unto buddy what his own father had done to him. its a very sad reality, but some people simply do not have the capacity to be good parents, and brad is one of those people. hed already adopted one child, and then abandoned him when the reality of parenthood hit too hard - why would he try to do the exact same thing all over again?

now, i wont be too harsh - i do believe that some part of him did sincerely love buddy. but his love for the real buddy was always overshadowed by his regret over lisa, and even up until the end, i know that when he looked at buddy, he only ever saw lisas ghost. that said, the boss battle that buddy has with brad in the joyful is so fucking perfectly written and full of love and sorrow that its making me emotional just thinking about it LMAO.... it was very clear there that even buddy, for all the resentment she felt toward him, knew how much he loved her and wished things had been different. it was a story that could never have had a happy ending. brad tried, that much is true - but perhaps things would have been different if he had accepted that he couldnt be the parent buddy needed right from the beginning.

tl;dr brad tried but he really shouldnt have