#they could also be written by a reddit fan who is too much of a pussy to just write fanfic but that seems kinda unlikely?

[cr-pisacs-evil-brother]

Pathologic Bachelor ARG Megapost

This post is a culmination of months of (mostly my own) research into the Bachelor ARG. For far too many days and far too many hours, I’ve been doing my best to solve this, with the help of a few other people. I looked very deep into most Fyodor Vitin posts, played through The Marble Nest several times, looked extensively through the Pathologic wiki, and read/analyzed countless outside sources for this post, and I will link as many of them as I can. (If there are links that you think would help the ARG that you’d like included in here with credit please let me know.) For any people that are credited, an “@” before their name implies that it’s a Tumblr username, while a “u/” proceeding their name implies it’s a Reddit username. I have discovered and analyzed dozens of leads, some of which are more likely to be important or intentional on the part of IPL than others. The primary purpose of this post is to give all of you Pathologic fans new leads and theories to analyze in pursuit of solving the mystery behind this ARG, so many of the things within this post should be looked into further! With this post, I will lay out my findings in a series of sections, all of them having several connections to each other. This post is more than 10,000 words and is not meant to be read all at once, so feel free to read sections, take breaks, re-read sections, or skip around if you'd like. “Observations, Research, Analysis” is a vast majority of this post and consists of observations made about the ARG material, as well as any research I did into those findings that bore fruit, and analysis/connections to other things. The additional notes section consists of some of the conclusions I’ve reached after putting all of my evidence together, as well as some connections I didn't really make in the previous section, but keep in mind they’re still just theories so they could obviously be wrong. I would like to emphasize that I am not a native Russian speaker, but I did have many native Russian speakers helping me along the way, and in particular, I’d like to thank @kurury-chan for her massive help with this. She transcribed the newspaper for me, provided tons of consulting, translated many other Russian sources, and actually went out of the way to go on an irl tour of a certain ARG-related location to see if my theories about it could hold any ground! Because I'm not a native Russian speaker, the sections where I'm required to analyze Russian text (notably the newspaper section) will probably be the least interesting and I'll probably end up making a lot of points that aren't valid. Additionally, I’d like to thank @cryingsyren (who also happens to be my bf) and @ded-not-ded for their help. As for formatting, since Tumblr doesn't have tiered lists for some fucking reason, all main points will be written as bullet points, and any sub-points within that bullet will then have numbered points afterward. For example like this:

The first main point about a topic

Sub-point of the first point

Second sub-point

The second main point about a topic

I'll either do that or I'll do it like this:

First main point

First sub-point First sub-sub-point

Second sub-point

Second main point

Edit 1: I've had to revert much of the Chat text (the font I used for the sub-points above) to regular text because of a formatting glitch that irreversibly changed most of the Chat text to bold, which was very confusing.

Depending on which looks better in the context of the points. Because that formatting is so awkward and clunky I'll try to minimize the use of tiered lists as I convert this from the Google Docs format to the Tumblr Format. Most of the time that I use tiered lists here it's to deal with the character limit Tumblr has on single blocks of text within a post. With that out of the way, let's just get into the post.

Observations, Research, Analysis:

"The Accident" Fyodor Vitin post

The first thing I noticed about the newspaper when I took a good look at it was the use of bolding with certain letters. If you look at the Newspaper you’ll also see ink splattered on the page in several areas, which could be a clue toward noticing the bolded letters, or it could be something else I’ve yet to discover. I knew I wouldn’t be able to transcribe the entire newspaper by myself, not being a Russian speaker (although I’ve just started learning!) so I enlisted the help of @kurury-chan, a native Russian speaker, and she transcribed the entire newspaper for me in Cyrillic. After getting this transcription I went through and spent a couple of days looking for which letters were bolded, writing them down, and coming up with possible translations/meanings. I’ve come up with lots of possible meanings for these, but for many of them I couldn’t figure anything out, and I’d love help if anyone has any idea what they could mean! To me many of them seem like word fragments that are simply missing one or two letters, and so in the document where I list all of the bolded letters I put some words/phrases that are very close to the seemingly fragmented words. Once again keep in mind that, while I’m trying to learn Russian, my understanding of the language is still rather weak, so I may have mistranslated some of these. Another small detail to mention is that there’s a prominent crease on the left side of the paper that runs through a decent portion of the bolded words. First, I’ll start with the bolded letters on the left side of the page. I may have missed a couple, and I may have written some of them down as bolded when maybe they aren’t supposed to be seen as such.

Here is a link to a list of all the letters I think are bolded on the left side, which lines they’re on, and possible meanings, many of which I’ll be discussing here. I will not go individually through what I believe all the bolded letters mean, but I will go through and explain the ones I think are most meaningful and important, as well as some connections I’ve made with them. And here is a link to the original Russian transcription and my best attempt at an English translation.

It’s possible that the crease that runs through the left side of the paper and notably runs through many bolded words somehow denotes that those particular bolded words are special, or perhaps that they should be seen as separate from the other bolded words.

Line 15 has a rather interesting bolded phrase, because it actually appears to make a somewhat coherent 3-word phrase, but one of the words seems to be a surname, “Pepe.” Additionally, the crease on the left side of the page starts right above the word “ПЕПЕЛИЩЕ” in the title, and splits it so that “ПЕПЕ” is separate from the rest of the word. (ПЕПЕ is Pepe in Cyrillic.) If you want to know what the non-Pepe words say, skip to the next bullet point, because the rest of this one is my analysis of the ПЕПЕ part. So, of course, I looked into the name a bit, looking through all notable historical figures with the last name, and found one that I think is of special interest: Guglielmo Pepe. Born in the small ancient town of Squillace, Pepe entered the army at a very young age, and was an Italian commander during the early 1800s, but his military career was fraught with trouble, as he also had rather revolutionary politics, which angered both the government he was serving and many of his peers, and he was exiled on several occasions. Upon Pepe’s return to Italy at the age of 30, he was given the rank of general. After this, the most notable events in his life would largely consist of his attempts at going rogue in revolutionary attempts to change the existing power structure, for which he was usually punished. (It’s also perhaps worth mentioning that his brother was part of the attempted French invasion of Russia.) All of this is to say, Pepe obviously shares some striking similarities to General Block, perhaps the most striking of which is his status as a 30-year-old general, which is an aspect of Block’s character that is highlighted several times. So, of course, I looked into Block’s character a bit more, and discovered that in the Russian version of the game he is called “General Ash” instead of “General Ashes.” “Strange,” I thought, until I saw that in Russian, Ash is “Пепел” which is pronounced as “Pepel” for anyone that isn’t familiar with Cyrillic. If we look into it, we do see that the letter after the Пепе is л, but it is notably not bold. This is, if you're counting, two separate times in this paper where the plural for ash, пепелище, is split up so that only the пепе is emphasized. As for other connections between Pepe and Block, we could look at them both harboring some revolutionary tendencies and being punished for it, both by The Powers That Be and his peers. General Block also tells Artemy that he was born in a town not too dissimilar to the Town on Gorkhon; this is interesting because there are some connections to be drawn between Squillace and Gorkhon, primarily that both of them preserve the beauties of ancient times that have all but been lost to most people. Related to this, it should also be noted that I believe the plot of The Marble Nest was heavily based on the plot of The Seventh Seal, which is the same movie that inspired the character Alexander Block.

The rest of line 15 is also interesting, but I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean yet. It translates to “Heaven on Pepe” basically. I consider the “Pepe” part to probably be the most important, since there’s a large crease that runs through it, which I think probably denotes a level of importance? The line’s meaning might be related to the fact that “heaven” is sort of a synonym for “utopia,” or the character that Block is based on is the protagonist of a movie that revolves around the ideas of heaven and Christianity, which is something we saw very briefly with Block in Pathologic 1. If you have any ideas please post about them and tag me, or simply comment/reblog this with your ideas!

Line 1 and line 18’s bolded letters both start out with “ов”, and for my English speakers out there it is pronounced sorta like “ove.” ов is interesting because if you translate it as о-в it actually is the shortened form of “island” in Russian. Line 1’s bolded letters read as “ов попо”, and for people not familiar with Cyrillic попо is basically “popo.” There are, apparently, many Popo islands in the world, and I couldn’t find one that I think directly connects to the ARG or Pathologic, but maybe someone else out there will, or perhaps that line has a different meaning to it. As for line 18, it says “ов испустивших” and according to Russian wiktionary, the second word is one letter off from the word “Emitted.” I looked a bit deeper, though, because that didn’t satisfy me (why would they use the incorrect spelling of a word after all?) and I didn’t see much, but I did find two things that used the exact word “испустивших” that interested me: A Saudi Arabian newspaper that has been translated into Russian, as well as a Russian poem from 1777 celebrating the birth of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, also known as Alexander I of Russia. The latter is more interesting to me for numerous reasons, the first one being that it might serve my theory about the connection between line 1 and 15, as line 1’s bolded letters end with попо and line 15’s end with пепе. The connection is weak, too weak for me to make it a separate bullet point, but strong enough for me to want to explain. So, as we know, there is a connection between line 1 and 18, it’s what this whole bullet point is about, and this theory (using the term “theory” loosely) relies on us seeing them as very closely connected. Basically, Alexander I was the ruler of Russia during the French invasion, which is interesting because, if you’ll remember, Guglielmo Pepe’s brother, Florestano Pepe, took part in the French invasion. This, to me, is an interesting connection, but I do admit it’s definitely a reach.

That’s where I’ll stop talking about the bolded letters on the left side of the paper. If you’d like to see what other bolded letters there are, what they could possibly mean, and try to decipher the meaning for yourself please go to my linked Google Doc(s).

As for the right side of the Newspaper, there are some bolded letters, but I can't seem to make much sense out of them, and by this point in my research I was starting to pursue more promising ARG leads, so this section is rather incomplete. Just as a reminder, the right side of the newspaper is an advertisement for a lantern/kerosene shop. I personally think the right side is more interesting than the left for a couple reasons, but most of them are either self-evident or will be discussed later.

The lantern on the right side of the paper is the same model that’s used throughout the Haruspex’s route, but most notably it’s used a ton during The Marble Nest as set dressing. And when I say "a ton" I really mean it.

I also remembered vaguely an unused lantern item found in the game files of Pathologic 2, so I went to the Pathologic wiki to look for it, and surely enough the exact lantern used by Artemy, the one that appears so many times in The Marble Nest, is also an unused item present in the game files. When using console commands to give yourself the item, you’re able to click on it and select the “touch” option, upon which you’ll see the number 6192355001378070 where the name of the item should be, and 6192355001378072 where the touch text should be. I’m not sure exactly what these numbers are supposed to mean; my first thought was that they seemed long enough to be coordinates, so I put them into google maps and it does lead to a location in Russia! Nonetheless, the numbers are a little bit too long to make sense as cohesive coordinates. Still, it might be something worth investigating. You'll see later in this post just how significant numbers and number patterns are in this ARG.

The word used to describe one of the victims of this inferno, “academician,” has sorta interesting connotations in countries that were once part of or heavily influenced by the USSR. This person is referred to as “Mr. F.L.” in the article. This guy is also said to be a historian and a “бытооописателя,” which as you can probably tell by the fact that I’m not using the translated English version is a weird word. Perhaps the strangest thing about this word is the fact that it clearly has 3 o’s where there should only be one. The actual meaning of this word is odd, as it’s very rarely used, and according to all sources I could find (including native Russian speaker and linguistics enthusiast @kurury-chan) it is either an archaic term for a historian or a term meaning “writer of everyday life.” I’m honestly not sure what that means, and at first, I thought it meant something like a blogger. The most complete and coherent definition I could find describes it as “author of works describing everyday life.” A different translation I found seems to say it means something like "chronicler," which I suppose makes some sense.

In the bottom right part of the paper, you will notice what at first appears to be a signature. Admittedly I had almost no hand in this part of the investigation, except for the isolation and upscaling of the text. Most of the work here was done by @cryingsyren with some help from @kurury-chan and @ded-not-ded. Here is the image that I got for them of the text, and here is our current interpretation of it: It at first seemed to be Russian cursive (and it probably is supposed to be), which complicates things quite a bit, and @cryingsyren spent a couple days trying to figure out exactly what it says, (with some help from @kurury-chan) and as far as we can tell it’s four letters, which are separated into either two or three sections. I think we have a decent grasp on what they’re supposed to be in Cyrillic, but the interesting thing is that they do look a lot like both Russian and Latin cursive. I’ll describe them now using what Latin character they look like in quotes followed by what Cyrillic character they look like in parenthesis. The first section is an “M” (М) and a “K” (К), which are very clearly connected. The next section is either an “H” (Н) or an “H” and an “n/u”. We’re not exactly sure whether the H and the n/u are supposed to be connected, but the n/u being lowercase seems to imply it is. The interesting thing about the n/u is that, while it looks like it could be a Latin n or u, it also looks like it could be a Cyrillic и, which is the italicized version of the Russian letter и. It seems all too coincidental that all of the letters they used have almost exact visual counterparts in the Latin alphabet. At the moment our working theory is that it could be initials, and this is where I come in, because for days I knew I recognized the "MK" part of the signature, but I couldn't remember exactly where from until today. For anyone that has played too much Pathologic Classic HD like me, you may recognize the "MK" signature from the center of the loading screen in that game, scrawled in a way that most people wouldn't pay attention to it, and certainly that most people wouldn't have it committed to memory like me. During the roughly 170 hours I've spent playing the game I've probably looked at that MK more than I've looked at my youngest brother. This presents the question, who is MK? Well at first I thought it could be Mr. Katzman, as referenced in the "Mask" post, but that didn't seem right to me. This is when the fact that so much of my brain is Pathologic lore facts came to help again, when I remembered state inquisitor Mark Karminsky, who you may remember as being one of the men people thought would come to the town before Aglaya Lilich showed up. As for the rest of the writing, I'll leave that up to you guys to figure out.

Something to note for later on: We know there to be 19 inquisitors when Pathologic takes place, and in this ARG the number 19 becomes very important with later clues.

"Mask" Fyodor Vitin post

Arguably this is the Fyodor Vitin post I’ve done the most research into, and it eventually led me to develop a very deep and passionate interest in the Buryat peoples that has so far caused me to read several books and around a dozen academic papers about them. I haven’t only done research into the Buryats for this post, though, because although the Buryats are the primary inspiration for The Kin, they’re not the only inspiration. Despite all of this research work, this section will be rather short because I’ve already been through and exhausted most possible leads I’ve found, and this is what remains. Since the post is in English, and I think everyone that follows me presumably knows English (если вы не говорите по-английски, я хвалю вас за то, что вы зашли так далеко) I won’t summarize it, so I’d recommend reading the Vitin post and then coming back.

We see in the post the mask of “Muu Shubuun,” which we’ll immediately notice is almost the exact same mask as is used by the Executors in the game. Actually, in the Marble Nest, you can acquire the Executor mask, and its touch text reads, “The mask of Muu Shubuun, ‘the wicked bird.’ Part of the Reaper costume from the local theatre.” I have found several different sources that lead me to believe this is based on actual Buryat folklore, however, I’ve heard several conflicting accounts on whether Muu Shubuun is an evil spirit that tricks people by taking the shape of a beautiful woman, or if it’s closer to what we see in the game/ARG, but both seem to be documented as existing within sources on the Buryats. I think this confusion between the two likely means the stories and connotations associated with Muu Shubuun vary based on different groups of Buryats. An alternate spelling I’ve seen used is “Mu Shuvuu.” Possibly related to this is the character “Shar Shuvuu” (which means “eagle owl”), who appears in The Marble Nest during the “marriage” scene in the steppe camp behind the cathedral. In fact, a surprisingly high number of NPC characters in this DLC are named after birds.

The phrase used in the post to describe a seasonal festival, “dosoo ba beshē tēēhēē” is where I’ve devoted much of my research, with most of that research being from about a month ago. Only the third word in this phrase, beshē, appears as a kin word in the games as far as I know. However, we can use a method here that people in the Pathologic community have been using for years to figure out the meaning of kin words: Most of the steppe language in the game is based on one of many languages: Buryat mostly, Mongolian sometimes, Tibetan sometimes, and some parts of it also take inspiration from other languages of similar origin to these. A majority of the language seems to be based on Buryat, and many Kin words come straight from the language. A few words in the game seem to be made up entirely by Ice-Pick Lodge, and many are based on words from the aforementioned real languages but tweaked slightly, as if to indicate that the steppe language spawned from those languages but has some distinctive elements. To determine what this phrase means, I tried my best to dig into the languages and find parallels:

“Dosö” in Buryat means “inside”

In Mongolian “dooshoo” means “down”

In Mongolian “ba” means either “and,” “we,” or “sorcery”

In Tibetan, “ba” means “cow”

“Beshē” in the game’s steppe language means either “not” or “other”

The prefix “të-” in Buryat means “to transport”

In Mongolian the prefix “te'e-” also means “to transport”

As for the “-hee” part of the word, I have not found a single source that could tell me what it means. I’ve found several Buryat words that end in “he,” but I can’t seem to find a connection between them strong enough to suggest what it denotes.

Upon first seeing this festival mentioned, I believe I commented somewhere on the Pathologic subreddit that it might be the same one we see in the Kin’s camp behind the cathedral in The Marble Nest. While I’m not 100% convinced still, I also don’t doubt it that much. One interesting thing to note for any people that might wanna investigate this in the future is that I’m pretty sure what we see in the Marble Nest is the same thing that Nara and the Haruspex perform in the abattoir, as they both seem to happen on day 10, and if you look close you can see that Nara is the one that is cut open in The Marble Nest. Seemingly with the Haruspex gone, there is no one that knows the lines and so the ritual doesn’t go as smoothly as it could.

“Messages” Fyodor Vitin Post:

This particular Fyodor Vitin post is the third one, which if you know Ice-Pick Lodge certainly has some importance to it. The post is a series of letters and images, one depicting an Executor and one depicting Voronika Kroy, who's a minor character in Pathologic 2 and the main character in the Pathologic Feverish Feelings ARG. The letters detail how the recipient’s reports about Voronika Kroy have been seen and have started an investigation by the Federal Bureau. What’s most interesting to me are two things: the jumble of (Latin alphabet) letters in the bottom left, and the number used within the letters (the post-card letters in this case).

The number in question is “196-17-1” which is apparently the case number used for the Voronika Kroy investigation. This number will be more important later in relation to other clues. One interesting thing I've found is that the RGB value for 196-17-1 is a deep red.

The jumble of letters at the bottom of the picture is “eiamrucdvrturxoevecid”. It is 21 letters and can be divided up into chunks of 3 or 7 letters. 3 and 7 of course being Ice-Pick Lodge’s favorite numbers. Up until this point, it has been assumed that this is an anagram, and I have no reason to doubt that. It has already been pointed out in the Pathologic subreddit that the words “Executor” and “Corvid” can be found in the anagram, as well as the Latin words “Cura”, “Curare”, “Curari”, “Medici”, and “Vivam.” Credit for finding the Latin words goes to u/apostforisaac who is apparently studying Latin at university! Additionally, u/Own_Sympathy_9814 deduced a possible meaning by unscrambling the anagram and finding “MAVRUD + VERIDIC + EXECUTOR”, which they believe hints toward the answers lying in the Marble Nest (I wrote the entire Marble Nest section of this post before finding their post about that, so I do feel pretty validated by it). Many people have been approaching this anagram, like many other parts of the ARG, as if they have one right answer, and frankly, I just don’t think that’s in the style of Ice-Pick Lodge. I’ll quickly list out some words/phrases I found in the anagram and what they mean/how they could relate. I will also include words that have already been discussed, and they’ll be marked with a “*” so you don’t think I found them. Most of the ones marked with a * I won’t be discussing, as most have already been discussed extensively. I also won’t be discussing the ones that I think probably don’t have much meaning, but I’m including them because it still could be something later on down the road.

I am You don’t actually even have to unscramble the letters to get this one, as the second, third, and fourth letters of the jumble simply spell it out. What's interesting is that the 7 "I am" discourses are a crucial part of the Christian Gospel according to John. The Gospel according to John was an important clue during the Feverish Feelings ARG, which revolved around Voronika Kroy and her Inquisitor father, Peter Kroy. If we're speaking of the four canonical gospels, we must also address the Gospel according to Mark, which coincidentally is the name of an inquisitor that has popped up elsewhere in this ARG. Following this theme, there is actually a non-canonical Gospel According to Peter, which seems too cool to be a coincidence.

Eve This is one you don’t have to unscramble also. Interestingly, Daniil is often compared to a snake, even being called a snake-man in Marble Nest by Shaazgai, a man belonging to the Kin. In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, it is a snake, often thought to be the devil, that convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Retroviridae The scientific name for a retrovirus. If I was more knowledgeable about biology I would say more, but this seems important.

Rex Iudaeorum Translating in Latin to “King of the Jews,” this was the inscription that allegedly was put on the cross that held Jesus of Nazareth, as detailed by 19:19 in the book of John. Very interesting as Daniil does compare himself to Jesus at least once in the Haruspex route, on the night before Aglaya comes. The Gospels, as discussed before, all detail the life and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The "19" connection is also interesting because of the inquisitor detail, and I'll talk about more of the connections to 19 later in the post.

Cardio Commonly used medically as a prefix for heart conditions, “cardio” is a Latinized version of the Greek “kardia,” which simply means heart. Heart imagery is very common and significant to the Bachelor.

Eva This is similar to the Russian version of Eve.

Corvid*

Cura*

Curare*

Curari*

Medici*

Vivam*

Mavrud*

Veridic*

Executor*

Order Could relate to the committee in The Marble Nest and the fact that after they’re replaced by tragedians the absurd order begins getting sent out to the orderlies.

Carex ericetorum This is a plant that would almost definitely be present in/around the Town on GorkhonThis is a plant that would almost definitely be present in/around the Town on Gorkhon

Creature

Marble Nest:

The Marble Nest, as we know, is very concise, only really lasting half a day in-game. Because of this, the dialogue does tend to feel a lot more intentional, as though the named characters are not necessarily speaking only to The Bachelor but also trying to convey a message to the player. This, of course, is because The Marble Nest takes place inside Dankovsky’s head. If this ARG will be revolving partly around The Bachelor, as it seems to be, then there’s no better place to start than digging into his head, which is why I’ve played so much of the Marble Nest for this.

There are several specific stories/myths/historical figures that are mentioned through Marble Nest. First, we’ll go through some of these.

There is a very interesting conversation that The Bachelor has with Georgiy Kain, where he is trying to justify his decision to lift the quarantine restrictions to The Bachelor, who is rather upset obviously. I’ll cut down and paraphrase most of the dialogue, since if I didn’t this would be much longer, but basically the conversation goes as:

[Georgiy introduces himself, and says he decided to let The Bachelor sleep so that he would have the strength to face the upcoming trial] [Daniil asks if Georgiy lifted the restrictions and let the plague into The Stone Yard] Georgiy: “Quite so. It's plain to me that you are on the verge of shredding me into pieces. But still your wrath. As a great Athenian once said, ‘Strike, if you will, but hear.’” Daniil: “Themistocles, I know. He met a rather gruesome end, by the way. Died of plague.” Georgiy: “No, it was Pericles. You are a learned man, but history is not your strong suit. Which is why you should listen to me. Perhaps it will help you see something that you missed in your previous studies.” [Georgiy then goes on to explain a bunch of other stuff about the plague, which as far as I’m concerned isn’t all that useful to the task at hand.]

I find this so interesting because The Bachelor, in his own head, poses a question to himself, gets it wrong, and then has another separate figment of his imagination correct him, and then proceeds to tell The Bachelor that he’s not great at history and should listen to Georgiy more. What’s even more interesting is that, as far as I can tell, Georgiy and Daniil are both wrong, it was actually Themistocles that said “Strike, if you will, but hear,” and it was Pericles that died of plague. I found this interesting enough to look into who Themistocles and Pericles were, and here’s what I found:

Themistocles was a politician and general that broke the mold by being non-aristocratic and populist, which gave him the support of the people but put him at odds with the nobles and some of his peers. He turned 30 in 494 BC, which qualified him to run for the position of Archon, which he did, and won the position the following year. He had a prominent rivalry with another politician named Aristides. Whereas Themistocles was populist, Aristides primarily fought for the upper class. Themistocles eventually 20the rivalry after Aristides was exiled. Years later, though, Themistocles himself was exiled, and while he was gone his enemies took the opportunity to charge him with treasonous activities, knowing he could not defend himself. Because of this, Themistocles could never return to Athens, and so found employment and a home among the people that he once fought against while serving Athens. Given military command once more, he was actually Themistocles who said “Strike, if you will, but hear,” and it was Pericles who died of plague. I found this interesting enough to look into who Themistocles and Pericles were, and here’s what I found: Pericles, to me, has less interesting things about him in relation to Pathologic, with the main two being that he rehabilitated the image of Themistocles and he died of a plague. What could be interesting is the fact that General Block and Captain Longin are in both Pathologic 1 and 2 often compared to Achilles and Patroclus, two Greek soldiers from ancient folktales, primarily known for being two of the most important characters in The Iliad. To me, drawing a connection between Achilles and Block, as well as Pericles and Longin, isn’t that absurd. What could also be interesting to note is that Pericles was the main character in a play written in part by William Shakespeare. While Themistocles' life almost exactly fits the character arc of General Block, down to the weird connection between him dying of the plague in The Marble Nest and Themistocles drinking bull blood (as well as Dankovsky thinking Themistocles died of the plague), I think how Pericles fits in could lie in the Shakespearean play, as we all know how important theater is to Pathologic. You see by now at least partially what I think this alludes to, but I’ll talk more about it in the additional notes section.

Next, I’ll discuss a mythical story brought up in the Marble Nest: The Tower of Babel. This is brought up by the clerks sitting directly outside Georgiy Kain’s house. I think most people would talk to these guys right before talking to Georgiy, but I have more to say about it so it’s written second. When talking to one of the clerks during their argument about the plague, one man mentions that he thinks The Polyhedron is at fault, and no matter how Dankovsky replies (he has 3 options), the man then says “History already knows an example of people trying to erect an impossible tower. It ended in tragedy.” I could go on explaining why I believe this guy is talking specifically about the Tower of Babel, this post is already long enough so just trust my reasoning here, please. Notable to the point I’m trying to make, one of the other clerks brings up that he thinks the plague was started because of the irreconcilable differences between The Kin and the town, and the fact that the Kin have been forcibly mashed into the town. When Dankovsky asks the man if something is holding the Kin in the town, preventing them from leaving and returning to the earth, the man says “Someone is… our rulers. They have embedded the steppe people into this town, carved them into its warm flesh. This isn't a town, it's an honest-to-God minotaur. A chimera. And chimeras have remarkably short lifespans and bad health. Can you breed a snake and a crane? You can, yes. But the progeny won't live long.” This dialogue is interesting for a few reasons, one related to the tower of Babel and two related to other possible ARG clues. The first interesting thing is that what he’s describing, drawing a connection between the Tower of Babel and the Polyhedron, actually makes a lot of sense. To him, the Polyhedron is not only an affront to God, but its accentuation of human hubris coincides with a beating down of nature and the earth, represented in part by most of the Polyhedron’s mass being concentrated far above the earth while also piercing the earth’s heart. The story of the mythical tower, to oversimplify it, is essentially a tale of people from many different walks of life all coming together to construct a giant, seemingly impossibly tall tower in order to avoid the possibility of a second biblical flood destroying most of humanity. God sees this attempt as an affront to both him and the natural order, and so before the men are able to finish the tower he divides them all by making them speak different languages, making it impossible for them to understand each other. So, in this second clerk’s interpretation, the plague is a result of the town both rebelling against/abusing nature and also taking the Kin into itself. Unlike the first man, who believes the tower itself is at fault, this second one believes it’s all because of the town making itself into a “chimera,” which he believes cannot live long. What’s clear to me, though, is that although these men believe they disagree, their explanations complement each other very well, which brings us to our third man, who has a rather simple but somewhat confusing explanation. This clerk believes that this plague occurred in the town because men should not be “remodeled or altered,” and when asked what that has to do with the epidemic he replies “I don’t know… It wasn't we who designed the world like this. I believe in men, Doctor; in superhumans, I do not. This earthly life wouldn't fit them. Immortals have no place in the world of the living. This is just how it works. Take from it what you will.” This man seems to be implying that Simon Kain, the immortal man, is the reason why this plague appeared in the town. This is when it all started to come together for me: these men's stories do really all complement each other, because here they are posing the Polyhedron, chimera, and Simon as all the same. This will further be explained in the additional notes section. Three parts of one whole if you will.

Now, the mention of the Tower of Babel is interesting for two other reasons, one of which will be discussed in the additional notes section and one of which I’ll discuss here. In the Fyodor Vitin “One can work here” post there are numerous items displayed in the room pictured, but perhaps most interesting to me is the golden bull statue that sits at the front and center of the photo. My first thought when seeing that image was “Oh! This reminds me of the biblical story of the golden calf statue, which I bet is what they’re referencing.” For those who aren’t familiar, I’ll be oversimplifying another biblical story now. While trekking from Egypt to the holy land, Moses leaves his people behind to climb to the top of a mountain and commune with God. Moses is gone for forty days, upon which the people are fearful that he will not return, and so they molded a calf statue out of gold to worship. God, upon seeing this, sends Moses down to the base of the mountain to punish his people for their sins. Moses burns the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder and water, and forced his people to drink it. He then killed all of them basically. My thought process was related to the fact that The Bachelor is punished severely by The Powers That Be for his own affront to God, the pursuit of immortality. Now, after that previous discussion about the Tower of Babel, I am noticing some very interesting things in this picture, and primarily that there are two other related statues. Now that we have the previous context about The Tower of Babel and the clerks in our mind, we can see new meaning in these statues: a black statue of a centaur, and a white bust of a man. The interesting thing about the centaur should be obvious, it is another chimera. The bust of the man, which seems to be made of marble, reminded me somewhat of ancient Greek statues that are chiseled to glorify certain leaders and make them seem somewhat perfect while also immortalizing them in stone. You can probably see the connection I’m making here, and so I will leave the rest of the explanation for the additional notes section.

Another thing that's interesting to note is the aforementioned three men, unlike most characters in Pathologic 2 and the Marble Nest, do not stop moving when you pause the game; their animations continue to play even after you bring up the pause menu. If you’re unaware, there is actually a small detail in Pathologic 2 where pretty much everything nature-based or that is a natural force of the world, as well as everything that’s supposed to be seen in a meta-narrative sense, does not stop moving when you pause the game. This includes rain, leaves falling, the particle effects that come off the clocks, fire, executors (not orderlies), plague particles, etc. Once I noticed this (while trying to get a screenshot of some things to analyze) I tested out some other NPCs in The Marble Nest, and all of the other people I tested seemed to freeze when the game was paused. However, this is not to say that no other characters in the Marble Nest move when the game is paused. I only tested about 4 guys besides the primary trio we're discussing, mostly just to make sure it's not a thing that all Marble Nest characters do. If one of you people reading this would like to go through and see which characters in The Marble Nest also possess this trait, it could prove fascinating.

Finally, I’ll talk about two somewhat modern (at least modern compared to the previous two) stories that are brought up in The Marble Nest, although not directly: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe. Admittedly, I have not read either of these stories (it’s possible I read the EAP story 5-6 years ago and just don’t remember it), but I do actually know quite a bit about the stories and their themes from a couple of literary studies on specific genres I’ve done over the years. Additionally, for this section, I have done some more research on the plots and themes of these stories which yielded fascinating results.

The Time Machine is brought up when The Bachelor visits The Cathedral and speaks to a Tragedian standing within. The Tragedian talks about how the building is not a temple, but a machine. Daniil asks what kind of machine, and The Tragedian responds “This is a time machine. Time works differently on the inside and on the outside. It's frozen now. I think something's broken.” To which Dankovsky can say “A time machine? Are you saying it can transport me to the past or to the future? Like in that Englishman's book, what's his name…” For this, I did some research into what book he could be referring to, and almost instantly Time Machine stood out to me for a number of reasons. I think there might be something interesting to be said about how this relates to the ARG, but I’m not going to be the one to say it, because I’m honestly not sure how or if it does. I will describe how it connects to Pathologic though, in case that sparks anyones mind. The work is apparently seen as popularizing the idea of time travel and the time machine, which relates to what IPL has said about The Bachelor’s route I suppose. As for the plot, it’s about a Victorian man using a time machine to travel to the year of A.D. 802,701. He meets two races of people, one descended from the oppressed working class and one descended from the pampered owning class. Over hundreds of thousands of years of this lifestyle, the two races have started to diverge, with the owning class becoming child-like and basically useless, while the working class has been forced into a life of toil and hardship which has shaped them into a race of underground-dwelling animalistic race of people. Essentially the novel is a depiction of class struggle and the class contradictions inherent within capitalism, but with a bit of a metaphorical twist. The toiling of the working class underground is what allows the upper class to live in abundance without the need for work. There is very interesting commentary here to be made on the worms/odonghs in the game, as well as the eternal youth that is present in some elements of the stone yard, but this isn’t a Pathologic essay, it’s a Pathologic ARG essay.

The Masque of the Red Death is alluded to by The Bachelor in a dialogue with a wandering citizen, who opens up the conversation by saying “A masquerade ball will be held in the main square this evening. People want to celebrate our victory over the sand pest. You don't mind…?” To which The Bachelor has 3 possible replies, one of them being “I seem to vaguely remember a rather famous story about a masquerade held to celebrate a victory over a plague. Remember how it ended?” To summarize, The Masque of the Red Death is about a group of noblemen taking refuge in an abbey to hide from a plague (the plague is known as the Red Death). The plague’s symptoms are gruesome, and all people who contract it apparently die within a half hour. The main character, Prince Prospero, and his fellow noblemen believe themselves to be entirely safe, though, as they have welded shut all the doors and isolated themselves in the abbey. To entertain the guests, the prince holds a masquerade ball that takes place in seven of the rooms of his abbey, each colored differently. The first six rooms are blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet, with the last being black and illuminated by a red window. No guests venture into the seventh room, as they are all scared to enter it. Every hour a clock in that room chimes, upon which the guests freeze and go silent momentarily, before resuming normal activity once the chiming stops, only to do the same thing after an hour. Once midnight comes, a person appears in robes covered in blood and resembling a funeral shroud, wearing a mask that depicts a person clearly infected with the Red Death. This figure walks through six of the chambers before the prince starts chasing them with a dagger. Confronting them in the seventh room, the prince immediately falls dead upon seeing this person’s face. The other party-goers all charge the figure, stripping them of their clothes and mask, only to find that there is no one underneath. The conclusion of the story states that the figure was not a person, but rather an embodiment of the Red Death. The Red Death also appears as a reference in the novel The Phantom of the Opera, as well as several film and musical adaptations. The titular phantom dresses up as The Red Death, and in many adaptations wears a skull mask as part of the costume.

I believe Hamlet is also brought up at some point in The Marble Nest, but I can’t seem to find the dialogue so I’m unsure if that’s true.

Next, I'll talk about another random Marble Nest clue

The Bachelor’s hover text for the beetle item says “I used to collect these as a kid. Left the collection with my father.” @pseudoquiddity found that a paper on the top of “The Beginning” Fyodor Vitin post spells out Mechnikov, which is almost definitely referencing Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, who was a Russian zoologist and immunologist who achieved incredible scientific discovery during his life, and notably for us he was largely focused on the issue of aging and extending human life. Mechnikov was actually brought up in an IPL teletype post as one of the Bachelor’s main influences scientifically, alongside Albert Einstein and Max Planck. The relevant thing about Mechnikov here is that, as a zoologist, he did many notable studies on insects throughout his career to see how their bodies reacted to things compared to how ours did. One thing that’s interesting to me is that the type of beetles we see in the game, I believe, are based on Trypocopris Vernalis, commonly known as the spring dumbledor or spring dor beetle, which is not known to inhibit the region that the Town on Gorkhon would reside in. Another thing I find interesting is the touch text from the Alpha version of the game, which reads “Some fifteen years ago, the Soul-and-a-Halves, the gang of children who are defined by sharing special bonds with their pets, actually considered to allow flower chafers as their "Halves" due to the beetles ‘looking as though they knew something’. The idea was quickly abandoned as ridiculous.” Maybe I’m just 8.6 thousand words into this post and have finally gone insane, but I think the beetles “looking as though they know something”, combined with their close connection to Dankovsky, it seems too intentional.

In the “Feverish Feelings” ARG, the Beatles (the band) were brought up indirectly and used by the players as a clue to get more information. This also related to the clue relating to the Gospel according to John. Additionally, speaking of Mechnikov, u/Fantastic_Advice5593 theorized that the numbers on Daniil’s train ticket from one of the original ARG notes could be hinting toward the date May 15th, or 5/15 (15/5 if you use the non-American dating system I believe), which is Mechnikov Day, and is commonly recognized as Mechnikov’s date of birth. Proving this connection further, the “Messages” Fyodor Vitin post was posted on May 15th. Another interesting thing is that if we convert the time that the “Messages” image was posted to the time scheme used in Pathologic (that is, a 24-hour clock), it comes out to 19:35 (Using GMT+3 time zone, as that’s where Moscow is located.) This is interesting because “Messages” was also posted 19 days after the previous post, and I know for a fact that 19 is an important number in this ARG: The newspaper from the “The Accident” post was labeled as issue number 19, the bible passage that we saw referenced in the anagram from the “Messages” post is John 19:19, the jumble of letters that we found in the touch text for the unused lantern item includes “19,” and so does the 196-17-1 number from Messages. In a way, the number 19 is sort of a self-checking method to substantiate some of the clues we’ve found thus far.

Griffins’ Tower

Many of the details in this section wouldn’t be possible without @kurury-chan who, upon my inquiry about the tower and its accompanying pharmacy, actually visited it, got tons of cool pictures, and translated a ton of the history for me! I literally cannot thank her enough for her help with many elements of this post, but especially in this section. In the original Pathologic ARG, “Feverish Feelings,” the Griffins’ Tower is brought up a couple of times throughout, and was part of an intensive fandom discussion because many elements of it paralleled many themes and plot points of Pathologic. The following connections/possibly related facts are a combination of fandom discussion from the time and my own research:

The tower is connected to a pharmacy that has existed since the 18th century. Both were once owned by the Poehl family, who were a rather eccentric yet somewhat mysterious rich family. Rumors from the time (The 18th/19th century) speculate that members of the family engaged in “…alchemy and witchcraft, and in the basements of the house he turned mercury into gold and bred griffins. Since ancient times, it was believed that griffins, mythical creatures with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle, were the guardians to secret sacred knowledge and treasures.”

In 1994, the artist Alexey Kostroma, together with the society "Here and There" (Tut i tam), organized a demonstration/art-piece to advocate for the preservation of the tower and the revitalization of the city, which they believed was falling apart before their very eyes. During this demonstration, they hoisted a large egg (approximately 1.5 meters) onto the top of the tower, and they painted (I’m not sure what was used to put the numbers on the tower, but I assume it was paint) numbers on almost every brick of the tower. While the purposes for the those two additions rarely get brought up in conversations surrounding it, the egg and the numbers are now some of the most well-known parts of the tower, despite the fact that neither of the two are there anymore. The Polyhedron, as we know, is a tower that at the top houses children and is made from its own complex blueprints. Additionally, in the Marble Nest, but also throughout Pathologic as a whole, there is a common piece of imagery that connects eggs and the Utopians. In the opening of The Marble Nest, the item that’s used on the loading screen is an egg. If you look at the egg sprite in P2, you’ll see a crack in it that heavily resembles the Polyhedron. Daniil Dankovsky commonly uses the Latin phrase “ab ovo,” which means “from the beginning” but when literally translated means “from the egg,” and his touch text for the egg in Marble Nest reads “To understand anything, start ab ovo — ‘from the egg.’”

While playing through The Marble Nest several times for this ARG, I noticed something that gave me more confidence in The Griffins’ Tower playing a role in it. If you guys have played Pathologic as much as I have you’ll know there’s a tower in between the Stone Yard and the steppe that you can’t enter and is barely ever really explained. If I’m picking apart my brain correctly for Pathologic 1 knowledge, I believe it is implied to be a Focus of some sort. If you’ve only played Pathologic 2, or you haven’t played through The Bachelor’s route in P1 enough, or you haven’t read through the Pathologic “Corpus” entries, you probably have an incomplete idea of what a “focus” is and all that it entails. I won’t go too deep into it now, but it’s said in one of the Corpus entries that, on top of the Polyhedron, Cathedral, Stillwater, Crucible, etc., there were a number of experimental Focuses that were built for Simon Kain to test the limits of what buildings could capture the human soul and memories. It’s a building you can’t ever enter, but it does have a visible door, which is very similar to the way that Simon’s focus is described by Victor Kain. I’d like to draw your attention to the visual similarities between that tower and the Griffin Tower. I’d also like to draw your attention to the fact that, in the original design concepts of Pathologic 1 every character is associated with a specific animal, and Simon Kain’s is a griffin. What is a griffin? Well, it’s a fusion between two drastically different creatures, a lion and an eagle; a griffin is a chimera.

Interestingly, in 2005 (the year Pathologic came out) the pharmacy connected to The Griffins Tower was closed for a while because it became flooded with water while trying to extinguish a fire.

There is a photo in the pharmacy connected to the tower (which has now been converted into a museum about the history of the place and pharmacies in general) that depicts, during the early 1900s, the pharmacy sitting next to a theater called “Simpatiya” (Sympathy).

While @kurury-chan was on a tour of the pharmacy/museum she found an interesting marmite that was on display. It was created by Samuel Clarke and it’s called “Pyramid,” and the marmite has an accompanying poem: Когда ночи темные, подумайте о Кларке, который попал точно в цель. Его ночные огни создают светлые ночи, в которых вы прекрасно видите. (When the nights are dark, think of Clark hitting the mark. His night lights create bright nights in which you can see perfectly) This is interesting largely because the poem reminds me somewhat of the body text for the lantern ad found in the newspaper post.

In the original email mentioning the Griffin’s Tower, Voronika Kroy appends the message by saying “P.S. I feel like I’ll need this memory later.”

Seventh Seal

I watched this movie after discovering all of the allusions to General Block we’ve seen thus far, but being unsure what to do with any of them. For those that don’t know, the movie The Seventh Seal’s protagonist Octavius Block has been listed as one of the main inspirations for Alexander Block, and since IPL seems intent on leading us to analyze certain works of literature/film/theater for this, I decided to look into it. What I found is incredibly interesting I think, because it seems that one of the main inspirations for The Marble Nest is The Seventh Seal.

The title is based on a bible verse (from the Book of Revelations) that reads “And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” This verse appears both at the very beginning of the movie and then again toward the end. This thirty minutes/half-an-hour element appears prominently in both this story and The Masque of the Red Death. One other place it appears is on the pocket watch in the first Fyodor Vitin post, where the time on it is 2:30. I am very confident that it also appears in The Marble Nest once or twice, but despite looking I was unable to find it. If anyone else knows where it might be, either comment on this post or message me, and I will put it in this section and credit you.

The movie's plot revolves around Antonius Block, a disillusioned medieval knight returning from the Crusades. Block is struggling throughout the movie with his inability to believe in God and his realization that his whole life has been wasted. He wishes more than anything to do one last deed before his death to give his life meaning. The movie is set during the Black Death, with prominent elements of the story revolving around the plague. The movie largely focuses on how Block takes in several poor and out-of-luck folks fleeing the plague, inviting them to stay at his castle and escorting them along the way.

Toward the beginning of the movie, Death comes to take Block, but he convinces Death to play him in a game of chess for his life. This game of chess continues throughout the movie, with Death allowing Block to take several breaks in order to find clarity about his life and death. Toward the end of the movie, he allows Death to take his queen, effectively ensuring he would lose the game in the next turn, so that his companions could get away without Death noticing. After returning to his castle, everyone has a nice meal before Death arrives and takes everyone, excluding the people that Block helped get away by tricking Death.

Many things from Pathologic seem to take inspiration from this movie; most notable being the storyline of The Marble Nest (Dankovsky’s “People” screen categorizes people as chess pieces, essentially implying that his struggle against death is a sort of chess match), but there are also some smaller things. For example, there is a scene where the characters encounter someone afflicted with the plague who cries out for help, and one of the women tries to get closer to give the man water, but another person stops her, as giving water to a plague victim is futile and dangerous; almost immediately after this, a personification of Death appears. This heavily reminds me of the intro/tutorial of Pathologic 2, where a similar scene occurs.

While watching the movie, it’s very easy to see how Block was directly inspired by the main character, but it’s hard to convey exactly how without describing many scenes in detail, so I will simply describe one of them. After leaving a church confessional where he admits to his faith faltering and wanting to perform one meaningful deed before he dies, Block encounters a young woman who’s about to be burned at the stake for allegedly having ties to the devil. He takes pity on this woman, seeing something special in her, and believes she can tell him about life after death. This, to me, seems very reminiscent of Block’s storyline with the Changeling in P1.

Another small lead before this part of the post is finished: This lead, I will admit, I stumbled across completely at random, and will not talk about much because there’s not much I can say about it that isn’t obvious. It might be worth looking into the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, and perhaps thinking about if Fyodor Vitin was based partially on him, since we know Vitin works closely with Daniil.

Additional Notes/Comments:

In the newspaper clipping, it is said that a man with the initials “F.L.” had been one of the apparent two victims of the fire that burned down several buildings. This man (who I’ll simply refer to as “F” from now on) is an academician, historian, and writer of everyday life, which obviously fits well with the man that we know as Fyodor Vitin, and it has been assumed up until this point that he was the victim of this fire. I think there are three possibilities here: Fyodor Vitin was not the victim of this fire somehow, Fyodor Vitin is not his real name, or the newspaper is lying to us. In connection to the light/lantern emphasis in the newspaper, it might be worth it to note that the word “vitin” in Faroese means something like “the lighthouse”/“the beacon”, while in old Swedish it means something like “to know.” What’s more interesting is that Vitin in old Swedish is a second-person plural present indicative, and for people that got a useful education, that means it’s a verb that’s used to factually describe the current actions of the people that the speaker is saying it to. If Vitin isn’t his real surname, his username could mean “Fyodor beacon”, or “Fyodor (that you all) know”.

As discussed extensively in the section on the Tower of Babel, there is a direct connection drawn between the Polyhedron, Simon, and chimeras. We elaborated a bit on this connection in the section on the Griffins’ Tower. What’s especially interesting then is the fact that, in The Marble Nest, the Polyhedron is labeled as “focus,” implying that Simon’s essence is infused in the Polyhedron, as is what happens in the first game. This, I believe, confirms our theory about the connection even further. What then makes this even more related to the ARG is the fact that in the “One can work here” post by Fyodor Vitin, we see the three statues depicting the golden bull, the centaur, and the marble bust of a man. It is then worth noting that this bust of a man made of marble could be a reference to The Marble Nest, perhaps trying to get us to look there for clues. I believe, if the golden bull is meant to represent the Polyhedron (or at least the Polyhedron argument in The Marble Nest), and the centaur is meant to represent the chimera, then the marble bust of the man is meant to represent Simon (or, once again, represent the Simon/immortal man argument from the Marble Nest). This is supported by my point about the marble busts both immortalizing men and also making them more into concepts than men (as the statue can only depict a small part of a man’s life, usually depicting him in battle, leading a governmental position, etc). In the original game, and as can slightly be seen in hints of the second game, Simon is sometimes seen as more of a concept than a man; he is the ideology of the utopians incarnate, the perfect man that represents everything humanity could be. As a chimera is vital to Burakh’s quest, so too is it vital for Dankovsky’s (and it’s interesting to note that Burakh has the chimera revelation while in conversation with Dankovsky.) If the Marble Nest is used to represent the stone yard, or the “town” in its purest form, then Simon Kain is the marble man. It then becomes important to figure out where the “One can work here” picture is supposed to be depicting. I believe, if the statues there are supposed to represent all that we’ve said so far, the location should be representative of Dankovsky’s fight against death, and therefore I say it probably has to be Thanatica.

Now, as for all the connections with General Block, there are obviously many of them, from the Guglielmo Pepe hypothesis to the mention of Aristides/Pericles to The Seventh Seal to the whole “ash” thing, it seems far too much to be a series of coincidences. I don’t think it’s too crazy to connect the prominent appearance of the number 30 in the Block/Pepe/Aristides context to the prominent appearance of the number 30 (as in half an hour) in The Seventh Seal, which makes the appearance of the number 30 in that first Fyodor Vitin post even more interesting. It’s long been theorized that, from what we see in the Haruspex’s route and what we’ve seen in Pathologic 1, the Bachelor’s new route will probably feature General Block much more prominently. Perhaps, as the first ARG was so focused on the inquisitors, we’ll also get to learn more about the army in this one. Maybe General Ashes even had something to do with the building that was reduced to ashes?

The topic of religion, and specifically Christianity, comes up a lot in The Marble Nest. I think all the connections I’ve made in this post to Christianity have convinced you that it’s seemingly an important part of this ARG. In the first ARG, there were certain biblical passages that acted as clues, specifically from the Gospel according to John, which we talked about in the section on the “Messages” post. As is also mentioned in that section, the connection to Inquisitors Peter Kroy and Mark Karminsky seems to be driving us toward looking into The Gospel according to Peter and The Gospel according to Mark. It’s also talked about in that section how these both relate to Daniil. Mark Karminsky specifically also seems to have had something to do with the "Accident" mentioned in the newspaper, and so perhaps combining numbers from the newspaper within the Gospel of Mark could lead to some clues.

Still, as much as I’ve said in this post, there is more I wish to analyze but have not yet. This post has been in the works for a while, though, and I don’t want people to be waiting any longer, so I’ll have to save that other stuff for another day.

If anyone can somehow get into the game files of the Marble Nest and retrieve the texture/model for any of the letters or books (like the two linked images), that will end up being very helpful.

Other screenshots from Pathologic 2/The Marble Nest that could be of interest:

Grigory Gorky (Pathologic 2) Grigory Gorky (The Marble Nest) Mikhail Goba (The Marble Nest) Daniil Death Certificate (The Marble Nest) Rug (The Marble Nest) Book (The Marble Nest) Familiar Bloody Handprint (The Marble Nest) Tipped Over Lantern (The Marble Nest) Staff Sergeant Plover (The Marble Nest) Avrely Gubar (The Marble Nest) Odd use of Roman Numerals (The Marble Nest) Cathedral Letter (The Marble Nest) Plant that I found several times in the Cathedral (The Marble Nest)

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #pathologic arg #daniil dankovsky #мор утопия #Bachelor ARG

[laylawatermelon]

Please please read this and give it some love but I had an inkling of this feeling but never mentioned it cause I thought it was absurd.

Basically its a tweet of a reddit post (inception ik) basically of how Tim is basically rewriting the characters back to the way they were.

More below 👇🏾

Everyone's been mentioning how the characters have been more in character and the actors are happy and that makes sense.

He's been making them more in character than they ever were.

And with the Buddie situation (yes not everything is about them but i am a buddie fan who happened to find and grow to love this show because of it) it makes the most sense.

Now that Oliver mentioned the love story and everyone assumed it was the shooting and being in live it made the most sense.

Who else was he going to be falling in love woth at the time? It surely wasn't Taylor. Their romantic relationship was always doomed to fail and it was a great friendship they had (ehhh sideye for Bobby situation and Jonah eventually) that lasted if they weren't too persnally involved in each others lives.

She'd have been a perfect friend for him to gossip about the drama at the 118 (not work cause you know she'd make a story). That relationship wasn't going to work. He's too honest and she's too opportunisic.

If it hadn't been Jonah it'd be something else and he'd feel the same sense of betrayal (also Buck kissing Lucy was betrayal but that also felt a lil like assult cause she got him reallllly drunk and if the roles were reversed people wouldn't be that enthusiastic about it).

The only other love story that's been written logically as a will they won't they tragic and emotionally complex story is Buck and Eddie's.

Season 2 he replaced his love intrest! Like come on!

But in all seriousness, the Ana breakup and ll the vague dollow your heart is basically being rehashed.

I remember someone mentioning that Marisol is just another Ana (whoever you are if you see this send me hit I'll put it in here) and that's actually true.

Yay Marisol no last name haters your time has arrived cause it's official she's done!

There's no worry because we're getting a conclusion on the fact that was supposed to happen years ago.

She's not a permanent structure.

This storyline can go two ways.

One Buddie confirmed season 8.

Or two, Eddie realizes what his family could look like and its a single parent home with a support system from work (and Buck but we're gonna just gloss over that for now).

Meta linked above I just talked about Eddie and its coming to fruition (hire me abc im getting better at screenwriting!).

For the first one it's juicy storytelling.

For the other it makes sense as development for Eddie becoming comfortable with himself apart from his identity as a husband/widower, son, Catholic, and father.

He'll learn to bebhimself which he hadn't had the opportunity to do as he had fell into adulthood with his kid and then added on having a child with a disability that needs a lot of monetary support he ended up losing the chance to figure out who he is without all of that.

Even if it's not romantic (😔) it's great for him to realize he doesn't really need to be with anyone or fulfill a role he's not ready or willing to fill due to duty.

He can just be a father and work it iut that way.

Chris only wants his dad happy and I sense he knows his dad isn't happy at times or even worse he's not happy but is pretending so that his dad can be happy as he feels he has to give him that space/approval.

Chris is getting a storyline and he's always been observant so he'll most likely either explode in his feelings and tell his dad or tell him in a misunderstanding (he is getting to be a moody teen after all it's not going to be an adult reaction).

He's been close to death, heard his dad lose it and loat his mom. He's more mature than people give him credit for but the story hadn't included him much recently so we'll just have to see.

#buddie #evan buckley #911 abc #eddie diaz #911 fox #tv shows #oliver stark #ryan guzman #hen wilson #bobby nash #118 firefam #eddie diaz focused #eddie diaz meta #911 meta #christopher diaz

[dawnanddorisqna]

Hey, thanks for putting up an ask blog! Don't know if tumblr is the best place to put it for social media engagement, but then again Neil Gaiman seems to be enjoying himself so who am I to judge?

I have a whole bunch of questions, and I'm not sure if it'd be annoying to flood your inbox with them, so feel free to pick and choose any of these to reply.

Questions for Dawn: who would you consider to be the animated 'it' girl right now?

What do you think about the recent trend of 'fleshwashing' that Disney has been pushing when it comes to remakes? Is this part of a bias against toons when it comes to casting?

In your opinion, who do you think is the best 'old-school' toon who still actively performs? Questions for Doris: Has toontown managed to avoid the plague of gentrification that hit a lot of other older neighborhoods in LA?

Is there a union for animated actors? If there is, how effective is it in your opinion? Have things gotten better or worse for animated actors over the years?

Did you ever get to know your animator? If not, would you have wanted to know them?

We should probably get a reddit at some point. Everyone on tumblr has been amazing though. We do have an instagram, @dawn_doodle and @dorisdoodle_toon.

There's also a fanmade discord! One we need to check on more after we're done...preparing some new things.

Who do I think is the current it girl of animation? It changes so fast, but my vote right now is POMNI! Who doesn't feel like Pomni like daily? Also, indie!

Check back in a month when my answer may change again!

What do we think of all these live action remakes? I still don't mind them too much, but Avatar on netflix might be unnecessary. I'm starting to wear thin. Doris gave a rambling answer on this before and I don't think her opinion has changed.

Best old School toon still in business? I think we actually have an agreement on this one and that's this 2D Girl boss!

Was Toon town able to avoid any gentrification? Here's Doris with a history lesson:

As some people know, ToonTown was left to the toons, and that was great. We could vote for changes in the town and run it ourselves, but that didn't mean we were separate from California and certain laws. So it was devastating when it was decided that the land we lived on wasn't fully ours and the decision to build a freeway system was still being considered. This was in the 50s and I had already moved out of ToonTown, but I heard about the protests and letters written to Earl Warren.

None of it helped, and in 1956, Eisenhower signed the highway act and a freeway was constructed. So the town wasn't as saved as the movie "Who Frames Roger Rabbit" lets you believe.

Since the toons owned ToonTown, they couldn't just completely destroy it. We were just told to move. So the town is split up into districts. There's one near Disneyland, another a few streets from Universal. Always near studios. They like keeping an eye on their assets. So at least we got to keep the town in some way.

Is there a union for toons? There have been attempts. But in the end were considered intellectual property of the studios. fully owned and by contract from the moment the first line is sketched. A lot of older toons have a little more freedom from those contracts. By older, I'm talking Bugs Bunny and the Peanuts kids. That's starting to get harder though as studios are stating to hold a tighter grip on animation. It's less a creative thought process and more business. Doris says it's colder in a behind closed doors way. I say that cold is starting to leak into the outside. So yeah, no union, especially for newly drawn stars, and well...things aren't exactly getting better.

Did we get to know our creators?

Doris did!

We all do I guess while being drawn. but it's not as personal now. I was kinda made through a committee. So there are artists who really care and I would've wanted to get to know them, but there are also execs, studio owners, managers, all hovering around to check on their investment. And once approved, you are under studio control. It's nice if the artists can stick around at the studio, but most times they're laid off once the creation is done and they need to go work at another place. This goes into that whole colder thing. From what Doris has shown me, it was a little more fun before. Animators and toons would just hang out I guess.

They would even have fun with their voice actors.

Today, studios want big celebrities to give us our voices. So they usually come in to lay down the track and then leave with the paycheck. Not all though, I heard Jack Black like to see the characters he's given a voice too. It just doesn't happen often.

Sorry it took a while to get to your question! We're trying to get a few things going right now so our timing is way off.

Also, a list of questions is always good, keep em coming!

#animation #toontown #doris doodle #dawn doodle #cartoon #doris and dawn #doris #animated #discord #the simpsons #roger rabbit #don bluth #richard Williams #the amazing digital circus pomni #pomni #lore #toon lore #Doodleverse

[charmac]

Heyo! I'd be interested to hear your theories on the macdennis writer's room situation!

IMO it's not as simple as 'Rob is pro and Glenn is anti' (and we always ignore Charlie in these conversations even though he's quite into it in the dvd commentary and pod), so your suggestion that the subtlety (lol it's really not subtle, but yeah r/iasip ig) in the writing of their relationship might be glenn's idea is quite intriguing to me, and I wonder how this all relates to the opposing views on whether Dennis is a serial killer amongst rcg. So much of the writing of Dennis comes from Charlie and also Rob, but it's definitely influenced by them observing Glenn (like the cereal story) and by Glenn's performance. And ofc we know Glenn pushes back if Dennis is written as too heartless because he maintains that he does have feelings and is quite sensitive in a way. Not sure where I'm going with this... I don't have a full theory fleshed out in my head yet, so I'd really like to hear your thoughts!

(not trying to stir anything with this ask btw: in fact, iirc there were some posts about this subject a few months ago and I didn't engage then because it pissed me off when the conversation turned into a "who supports the quuer fans more" kind of competition, as if macden is something so basic between rob and glenn, when we really have no evidence about what happens fr bts, beyond some fun speculation. just enjoy theorizing in drought times.)

Hey, thanks for the ask! To address your final point first, I don't want to talk publicly about what may or may not be the motivations of Glenn and Rob as "queer allies" or how they think this may affect their careers or whatnot. These kinds of discussions I don't believe are ever effective publicly when you don't know the truth. I'm not speculating on their motivations as people but as writers who care about the story they're telling and, more importantly, their characters.

When my message was "anti" and "pro" it was really just from the discussion that someone had to be pushing back against what I believe is Rob pushing forward (This was a black and white, who wants Macden now and who is saying no, wait. I truly do and always have believed Macden will happen. The nuanced discussion came after, in messages I'd rather not share since they are not just my personal thoughts but a conversation with another user.) I

t's not necessarily that Glenn is anti-Macdennis (and I think you understand that) and I want to clarify first off that I definitely don't think it's as simple as that, so here we go:

For Glenn pushing the subtlety, I think we agree completely that it likely links to how Glenn wants the audience to perceive his character (and how I love perceiving him): Dennis talks a big game that to the untrained eye makes him seem like this cold-blooded psychopath, but it's all a complete front you can easily see through. He gets a thrill out of these terrible things but would never act on them. It's interesting to hear of the live show "Dennis is a serial killer" talk brought up right along side all of this, because it's a perfect example of how Rob and Glenn clearly have opposing views on Dennis' character, and how that definitely plays into why they don't agree on canonising Macdennis. (As I understand, Dennis gets a thrill out of the idea of murder or harming people, but he could never act on it. Reddit (and to some lesser degree, Rob), don't get this, and think he probably does act on it and it's just not shown in canon (despite the mountains of evidence that Dennis is much too weak and feeble to ever do anything).

If you think about their current dynamic (actually, ignore 15, we'll get there), they've completely flipped from early seasons, and I don't think that's accidental or a fault of bad writing, I think it 1. is a result of Mac labelling himself as gay, finally, in S12 and 2. is a result of Glenn continuing to fight for Dennis' character staying consistent.

From point 1: Dennis was always the more effeminate, more coded to like men one, more touchy with Mac, a little obviously in love with him, until Mac outwardly expressed those feelings back. As early as M&DBU you can see how terrified Dennis is of being seen as gay, and in a relationship with Mac. For Dennis, as gay as it got, it was okay until it was labelled. Now that Mac is labelling himself as gay, now there's a hard stop for Dennis. Being with Mac is something Dennis could act on, and then be labelled as. (gay, bi, likes men, fucking Mac, boyfriend *shutters*) This is something that would happen if he didn't keep full, hard control against it.

To point 2: I think this was a bit of a divide in the writers room that Glenn couldn't control. S12 he bowed out, clearly he was feeling lost in Dennis and the writers room. When he left for S13 and 14, and you can see how Rob's want for Mac to be out, canon, very gay, in love with Dennis, comes through full-speed in these seasons, because Glenn wasn't writing (mostly). Rob wanting this directly conflicts with Glenn's writing for Dennis. Dennis is opposing Mac in every way, he has this exterior he has to put on, anti-Mac, anti-whatever they were, he's completely thrown off by Mac, hates their old dynamic.

Rob wants canon Macden, but he perceives Dennis differently than Glenn does, and likes this opposing path of the two of them, and that's obviously creating an issue. Clearly I don't know Rob's intentions, and maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but I don't think I'd be far off to say that he'd enjoy putting Macdennis through some desperation-hell (ala, Dennis gives in and gets with Mac because he's horny, uses him, DENNIS systems him, the result is Mac has always been the long-con for Dennis, which I admit, I wouldn't hate hate).

I think Glenn is against it, because there's always been something there for Dennis and there's a reason he came back, there's a reason he's always stayed around, always supported Mac. He is in love with Mac. It's not a system or a game, but a fucking fight for his life to oppose his true feelings and hide his identity, not be labelled. Dennis is stuck, and there's nothing pushing him to do anything about it. He'll get off with his systems and his kinks and he's okay.

Now we move to S15 and look, they aren't...all that opposing...during Lockdown, they...got along. And then, here goes Dennis, yelling and screaming about Mac obsessing over his own labels and identity so he can ignore his internal struggle. It's clear, he needs something to push him.

How do they go about it? Dennis jealousy arc seems like the perfect fucking beautiful compromise. Rob gets something raw, a little insane from Dennis, and Glenn gets to show that Dennis really is in fucking love with Mac.

TL;DR: Rob wants Macden now in some kind of dirty, get on with it, Dennis is using Mac kind of way. Glenn doesn't want it canon until they reach the conclusion of this arc that shows Dennis really does have big feelings (good and bad), and those feelings really kinda have a lot to do with Mac.

--

AGAIN THESE ARE JUST MY THOUGHTS AND I OFTEN WATCH THIS SHOW WHILE HIGH OR CROSS FADED SO IF YOU DISAGREE THATS TOTALLY 100% OKAY I DO NOT CARE IF YOU READ ALL THIS AND THINK IM STUPID OR WAY TOO INSANE ABOUT THIS ALL THATS TOTALLY VALID FOR YOU TO SAY! IF THERES NO JEALOUSY ARC IN s16 I AM A CLOWNNNNN!!!

#ask #macden #sorry this took me like an hour to write

[tippenfunkaport]

if ur still doing fic requests, can u do how all the SPOP characters react to Elon Musk and the twitter implosion?

I got this ask few days ago and wrote this but didn't post bc I left some characters out but I’m never going to have a better chance to post it than now so, here ya go!

Catra and Glimmer immediately went on the assault, using their verified status to impersonate the Muskrat… were both promptly suspended. Catra a few hours before Glimmer, which won her the bet between them, and she will never, EVER let Glimmer live it down.

Catra does still maintain Melog's Twitter presence (Entrapta buttered the cat as part of an elaborate experiment and Melog went viral) because its platform on unions and worker's rights was too important to squander.

In the spirit of Adventure!, Sea Hawk took advantage of the unregulated verification system to sow chaos by registering as a number of political figures and brands. At last count, he'd managed to tank the value of Amazon stock with what pundits are nicknamed the "wick in a box" stunt and was the direct cause of Old Spice suing Twitter for “damaging the sanctity of the brand and also several nautically theme shooting sets.”

Mermista claimed that the whole thing was, like, too stupid to join in but that was because she was secretly hoping to use her Twitter account to participate in #pitmad this year and finally get a book deal for Dead in the Water, the first in her series of undersea murder mysteries.

Adora immediately made accounts on Mastodon, Cohost, and every other Twitter alternative she could find and is trying to build up a following. She has tweeted the exact same joke on no less than five platforms as of this moment and is frantically researching tips for increasing engagement because social media is a game and she WILL win.

Bow's Twitter account was also suspended for impersonating Musk. Glimmer again. But he never really used it. He's more into making helpful YouTube tutorials. He has a Tumblr account too, but it's mostly filled with embarrassing old posts from his old Pirates of the Caribbean roleplaying days.

Netossa and Spinnerella finally ceded their long standing competition to see who could get the most Twitter followers and decided to concentrate on their popular YouTube channel where they document their ongoing prank war. They are currently competing to see who can stack the most verified checkmarks on their Tumblr account.

Kyle said it was a shame about Twitter going down but he wasn't too worried, since he still had his parasocial fanbase of 50 million fans who watched his gaming streams. Despite his underwhelming face reveal last month, he is still currently part of 3 of the top 10 ships on AO3.

Lonnie also streams and 99% of the comments on her streams are about how she's so underrated and deserves so much more popularity. She and Rogelio also have a big following on their fitness TikTok where they participate in funny trends and bully Kyle.

Entrapta does not need a social network. She IS the social network. She's so deeply tapped in she knows about every trend or breaking news story five minutes before it happens and has personally overthrown at least two governments without leaving her desk chair. She has an account on every major social network, but her close friends know those are just bots working off highly developed AI. If she does feel like actually socializing online, she makes a burner and hops on Reddit to start trouble in the Linux subreddits by recommending ethically dubious hacks for the lulz.

Hordak used to be a bit of a darkweb edgelord with an extensive collection of NFTs, but he's stopped hanging around with that bad crowd. These days, he's proudly not online at all, but always listens very patiently whenever Entrapta tries to explain the latest memes.

Frosta's deep into the Club Penguin fandom on Tumblr and has written 400k words of Jelsa fanfic she would die if anyone in the princess alliance found out about.

Castaspella only uses Facebook, where she shares nothing but wine-mom Minion memes despite the fact that she is not a mom and has never seen any of the Despicable Me movies. The day Farmville went offline, she wept openly.

Micah also only uses Facebook. His wizard roleplay group uses it for meetings. He signs every single one of his status (“Had a lovely with my daughter today! -Micah”) and no one can convince him to stop.

George and Lance share a Facebook account and also sign every post so when the three dads start talking to each other, it's too #cringe #oldfail for anyone else to look at.

Adora banned Swift Wind from the internet because he's too gullible and has fallen for every online scam there is.

Perfuma left Twitter at her therapist's suggestion because it made her too angry. She was incapable of not trying to “patiently” explain to people why they were wrong, no matter how bad faith the argument. She was once ratioed so hard in the comments of RoudUp’s official twitter account that she started a four day flamewar that only ended when Scorpia had to physically stop her from getting into her car and hunting down the other users. These days she just looks at the pretty pictures on Pinterest and takes a deep, calming breath. Though her eye still twitches at the idea that somehow, somewhere someone is probably being wrong on the internet.

Scorpia herself was at first heartbroken when she heard about Twitter’s potential demise until Perfuma showed her that there are also cute animal accounts to follow on Tumblr and Facebook and then she was all good.

Double Trouble has said they will be going down with the ship, keeping their dozen+ different troll and sockpuppet accounts going until the very end because they enjoy the chaos.

Wrong Hordak does not use Twitter but he would love to show you this most amusing meme he found that you definitely already saw four months ago.

#spop #shera #she ra #catra #adora #glimmer #bow #entrapta #hordak #frosta #netossa #twitter #tumblr #elon musk #tippen's fics #sea hawk #mermista #castaspella #double trouble #spinnerella #scorpia #perfuma #wrong hordak #swift wind

[anewtmasappeared]

I posted this on Reddit, and thought I’d try here too.

~ Intro

I’ve started these fan pages hoping to share interests with other TMR fans and share some of my own ideas, thoughts, and fan projects. Above all, I’d really like to share about my Newtmas fan fiction writing project. First, I thought I’d ask if there’s really anyone out there seeing this :’)

I might be seen as late, and that would be because I was too young to watch the Maze Runner movies at its time ;-; But after I did, I came to love the story, world, the characters, and their relationships.

~ I haven’t read the books, and I don’t want to—yet

Also something to note: I only know the movies, not the books. I wish to someday read all the books, but I want to stay only in the movie trilogy world for now. It might be ironic, since the books are this series’ origins, where it was born from, the original work, and I’m writing a fan fiction about it. But I have a strong feeling that Newtmas isn’t even a vibe in the books. That what I’ve written and am about to write would be very wildly unrealistic compared to the books. That maybe if I read the books, then my inspiration to write this fan fiction just might be crushed. So I’m deciding to purposely read the books only later down the road.

~ Before you keep reading this:

If you’ve gotten this far, and you don’t know Newt’s story from start to finish within the movies, then you shouldn’t read the rest if you don’t want to find out this way. I wouldn’t really say it’s a spoiler, since everyone already seems to know the events throughout the movies, but just in case, I’ll add this here.

~ Is anyone out there?

I’ve been thinking about the possibility that I might not reach people with my own fan projects either because the fandom isn’t as alive anymore, or because of some cases of the internet’s disappointing algorithms. I’ve been working on something that I’m really proud of, and I really hope to share it with other TMR trilogy fans someday when it’s finished:

~ Newtmas is a very beautiful, delicate thing

A Newtmas fan fiction!

It’s got to be the most popular Maze Runner trilogy ship (is it just me or does it seem even bigger than Thomas and Teresa? Thomresa? Teromas?) and here, I’m taking it and turning it into a fan fiction.

If the sound of a Newtmas fan fiction already catches your attention, then you might have read some Newtmas fan fictions before. You might have seen how off-character the characters can seem or how much the writer sometimes butchers their relationship… Here, I’m doing everything I can to handle Thomas and Newt gently and carefully, because Newtmas is a very delicate and fragile thing, that can be easily failed by any fan writer who might be impatient or who might force the relationship too far too quickly. Thomas and Newt’s relationship is easily loved by TMR trilogy fans, and such a relationship is curiously, unexplainably valuable, but it’s also very delicate. So in my fan fiction, I’m doing everything I can to handle them in the most careful and gentle way, keeping their personalities and character, and I intend to build on their relationship in the most realistic way.

~ Newtmas should have been endgame ;-; / Why I’m writing it

There are so many ways Newt could have been saved. (I could list a whole bunch, but I’ll probably save that for another time.) Seeing that he didn’t make it, it felt like I was robbed of something. Even though the movies gave us this beautiful relationship between the two, it felt like it should have lived on. It felt like it ended too soon. We were given something amazing, but it was taken away too painfully, too quickly. I know Newt died, and that’s how the story goes…but imagine if he didn’t. Imagine he was saved (by one of the many possible ways…) and lived on, and eventually became the most special part of Thomas’ life while living on the safe sanctuary by the beach.

~ My style of writing it

The main focus is Thomas and Newt’s relationship by the end of it all, but it won’t be writing purely all about the two. It won’t be like the other characters don’t exist; it won’t be like the other characters don’t matter. Because they really do, even when the main focus and main inspiration of the writing is Thomas and Newt’s relationship. The other characters are a part of the world and are still a big part of Thomas and Newt’s lives. And the writing also won’t be solely all events focused on only the relationship. Another thing that might seem off about Newtmas fan fictions is that it might be all about them, as if no other characters exist or as if nothing else happens except for their relationship growing. In my fan fiction, other things will happen, and the other characters will still be a big part of it. It’s like a way to care more for Thomas and Newt’s relationship by lessening the overall focus on it a little. I *really* don’t want to overdo anything or rush their relationship, and I’m sure that’s pretty clear by now.

~ My concluding questions

1. Do you think you might be interested in this fan fiction once it’s released into the public? I’m planning to put it on Wattpad once it’s ready, which will be in quite some time, but unlike other fan projects, I’m determined to successfully finish this one. I’m working hard on it for both myself and any other TMR trilogy fans who might have interest in or appreciation for it.

2. Do you agree with my “Newtmas is very delicate” opinion (out of curiosity)? If you do, then you’re sure to appreciate my fan fiction :)

3. Is this fandom still relatively active? :’) Hopefully this amazing series is so great that it still has an active fandom?

4. Not a question, but if you aren’t as interested in the sound of my fan fiction, but know someone who might be, I’d really appreciate a share! And even if you are interested, I’d still very much appreciate a share! I really hope to spread this news about my work-in-progress Newtmas fan fiction. Hopefully it can motivate me to write it not only for myself and my close friends/family, but for other, new people as well. So I’d be very excited to find any encouraging enthusiasm!

End note about this Newtmas fan fiction:

This fan fiction all started with my ideas, my Newtmas-inspired motivation, my thoughts, and is the written form of my ideas. It started with me saying, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to make Newtmas happen, because I refuse to be robbed of it like that.” I’m the writer of it, but so is my sibling, who is working on it with me as a two-collaborative-authors kind of project. We’re in the place of one author, using mainly my foundational ideas, and we’re both writing it together. Some descriptions are mine, and some descriptions are my sibling’s. One thing for sure is that my sibling is a lot better at descriptive and creative writing than me, but I try my best. My sibling is also there to edit and add to my descriptions for the most amazing improvements. My sibling knows the characters a lot better than I do, and can provide judgement or input on a lot of my own ideas about our project, and also suggests ideas of their own. In the end, equal credit goes to the both of us.

If this reaches anyone, and you have the chance to read our fan fiction, I hope you enjoy!

Thank you for reading this! :)

#tmr thomas #tmr newt #newtmas #tmr #the maze runner #maze runner #scorch trials #death cure #fanfic #fandom #tmr fandom #tmr fanfic

[radically-bitter-coffee]

I don't mind spoilers about CSM (I've already been spoiled and I don't care about spoilers that much anyway, I think good stories can't be ruined by them) so you can say your thoughts if you want!

Alrighty then!

The thing that would irk most feminists watching CSM is probably this one character in particular: Himeno.

Himeno's character is, when boiled down, very "manic pixie dream girl". She introduces and/or encourages other characters to do "bad" things like smoking cigarettes, drinking, and hooking up whilst drunk. She has her reasons for being the way she is, and I would not say her character doesn't make sense or that these traits and actions come out of nowhere, but you can clearly tell after her death that she was written specifically for a male characters development.

Now, CSM is Not above killing off characters for character development in backstories, male Or female. In fact Himeno's backstory involves lots of men dying.

Himeno's death is definitely written to factor into a male character's development, and even slightly for the protagonist's, but I do think it was a suitable end for her.

Onto the whole hooking up whilst drunk thing though... that was gross, I'll admit. Episode seven is when she encourages Denji (who I think is 16) to drink at a gathering with their coworkers. She gets drunk, makes out with him (it's a gross scene, emeto is involved), later takes him back to her apartment when he passes out (probably due to drinking too much as he's still dizzy/drunk when he wakes up) where they proceed to sleep on the same bed, with her in her underwear and a tanktop. After she asks if he wants to have sex with her but he refuses, he goes back to sleep but on the floor instead. She sleeps on the bed.

In the same scene, right before asking to have sex, she calls another woman a bitch because she finds the protagonist and that other male character I mentioned earlier stupid for crushing on her when she won't love them back. It's a bit reminiscent of reddit nice guys.

This all makes sense with her personality and backstory and all but I do think they were overall... not needed at all. They're so gross that I can't even say they're particularly fan service. They aren't drawn in the typical "huge tits huge ass very saturated blush" way either, it really is just not a nice scene. One could argue they are for her character, and they are, yeah. I don't think it truly justified it though.

Now besides Himeno, I should also not fail to mention that Makima, the character everyone talks of as a femdom, is also not the best. Clearly written for the manga authors fetish, Makima is also definitely grooming the protagonist, even though she doesn't exactly have romantic or sexual intentions with him. While Makima's lack of attraction does change things in terms of whether this would be called pedophilia or not, she does encourage his attraction to her, and promises things like letting him feel her up in exchange for doing things such as hunting a specific creature, and says that she'll let him do more for bigger accomplishments. Her strength as a character comes from being very manipulative, mentally strong, and having Some Sort of Magic.

Again, I have all this to say about Himeno but overall I did enjoy Chainsaw Man a lot. The animation is pretty, the characters both male and female are likable, the world building accomidates the added fictional creatures nicely. The protagonists want to get with a woman is not in the typical shounen perv way, as he wants an actual genuine connection (which is why he refuses Himeno's advances) but finds sex to be a physical representation of that as an emotionally halted teen.

#CSM anime spoilers #CSM spoilers #Chainsaw Man spoilers #Chainsaw Man anime spoilers #Chainsaw Man #CSM #coffee time #chatting over coffee #weebfem #radblr

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Pleasing to know, those who enjoyed Ragnarok but hated thor 4 seem to want to also go back to the Shakespeare thor era

That's good, I'm glad to hear that, but the first two films got so much hate after Ragnarok was released that acting like they want to go back to them now feels kind of.... shallow?

The only reason Taika returned for L&T is because they praised his movie pretty much everywhere, it's still almost impossible to say anything negative about it on reddit nowadays without getting a lot of backlash for it. Even articles written by actual journalists seem to always hold Ragnarok in great regard and any time they talk about it for some reason that opinion is usually followed by "oh and by the way, the first two films were awful".

It got to a point where fans claim TDW is the worst MCU movie to date.

So they want to go back? Yeah, so do I. If only we could have TDW Thor again because I miss him so much... but that guy is gone and a good reason for it is because they cheered when his character was completely obliterated in Ragnarok. Too little too late now.

[just-plenty-of-prompts]

Hello, dear! I am a writer and new on Tumbrl! I also maintain an Instagram account and just created a Twitter and also a Wattpad to post my original short stories! I was wondering where and how I could find a nice writing community! I would like to share poems, live the writing process with people that are on the same path and, why not, even pen pal! Could you give me any tips? Much thanks! ♡

hey! welcome to Tumblr.

I know you only asked for a few communities but I decided to expand a bit more, I hope you don't mind. Please note these are only things I have at least some experience with, there is a lot more on the internet.

so for writing let's goooo!

Social and Chat Platforms:

Tumblr is def a good place to be if you're looking for a nice place to spread your work, I find it the easiest of all the social media channels to use. for poems and single-page short stories it is a good place to post. you can also find a lot of amazing pages dedicated to writing tips and challenges.

Twitter, I have it too but I don't use it at all, I'm more of the opinion that Twitter is something for people to follow others that they like but you won't build a following unless you are already well known. for writing, I think building up a community on Twitter won't be easy until you're pretty well known on other social platforms and bring people over from there.

Instagram I find harder than Tumblr but easier than Twitter, it takes a lot more effort than Tumblr due to its layout. I think Instagram is better for art-based stuff than writing but it can still be a relatively good platform.

Reddit, this is a good place to go, they have writing communities that you can use to post your work in if you're active enough people will start recognizing you in the posts and you can build a nice following and make some good writing friends.

Discord, there are several writing servers in discord. it's a good place to share work and make friends that are writers. It's a live at the moment type of thing so you can chat in real-time to people instead of waiting hours for a reply. I have my own discord as well for readers and writers and it's pretty fun. you can do writing sprints with other writers where you all write together and compete to see who writes the most words in a selected time frame. I personally love doing sprints while chatting on the voice channels with the other writers who are doing the sprints with me.

NaNoWriMo, though the NaNo challenge is in November it's a year-round platform where you can share how much you've written and what you're working on, there are forums to chat with other writers and you get awesome benefits when you complete writing challenges. you also have camp NaNo to do. I've made a few writer friends through this, and have gotten a lot of advice from published authors that also take part in the Nano challenge.

Pinterest, this may be a place to search for images but you can still use it, I've found a ton of prompts and writing tips, poems, and blogs from Pinterest. post an image and link it to one of your other social platforms. admittedly, you need to be active if you want your interest to grow.

Facebook, I do not use Facebook for writing, in fact, I'm rarely on there but I've seen the groups and pages dedicated to writing. It is def a good place to go.

TikTok, sharing tips and tricks, acting out the dialogue or playing out scenes from your own written work, reading your poems, and posting it on TikTok. This is a good platform for those types of things, if my house wasn't so noisy I'd be using TikTok to act out dialogue prompts.

Posting your writing:

Wattpad, for both original fiction and fan-fiction, I personally don't post on this site, it has a good setup for writers but not as good of one for readers, I find the search system annoying and it's super hard to find good stories, as a writer having your story discovered is not easy.

Commaful, similar to Wattpad but smaller, the community is a bit more engaging. this is better for short stories and poems, if you have a full-blown novel to post, I think this place is not for you.

fanfiction.net, for fanfiction, is a pretty good community as long as you're good enough at writing, if you post regularly your story can grow pretty easily.

Archiveofourown.org, my fav when it comes to posting fanfiction, is easy to use and easy for your story to be found. you can also post originals on this site but it's more geared to fanfics.

Royal road, my personal choice when posting original fiction, the community is tough to crack and can be harsh when criticizing. Fanfiction is also posted here. if you're not the best at writing don't try. you can link Paypal and Patreon for donations.

Quotev, this site is a bit teenier, I guess, it's fun, you can post short stories and fanfiction, make quizzes and engage with people quite a lot. the audience is young usually, so if your aim is young adults and teens it's a good place to build up a fanbase but don't expect critical feedback. the younger kids aren't the best at giving good feedback but their kind and supportive words are super nice.

Bookrix, I haven't used this one in a few years, but it was a nice place and a good way to monetize writing. they help with publishing, and they also have forums and groups that you can join. it's best if you're looking into self-publishing

Helpful writing software and websites:

Scrivner, this is a writing application, paid though, I use it myself. extremely useful and a great way to keep everything for your novel in one document without it being a complete mess.

Scapple, paid, mind mapping software, super useful for planning out chapters and connecting events.

WorldAnvil is good for worldbuilding, I used it for a while but I do my world-building on Scrivner now.

Azgaar's fantasy map generator, is my go-to for creating fantasy maps, it's free, you can customize and it has a fantasy city map generator connected to it so you don't have to stress about the city layouts either.

Grammarly or Hemingway editor, grammar checkers. Hemingway works with Scrivner if you have the paid version which is super useful but both have free versions. if you use Grammarly on the website it also saves your documents. it can't be organized but it's useful if you want a site to keep your written works.

One drive, free limited space, before moving to Scrivner I used One drive to manage my writing and keep everything organized.

and that's all I can think of at the moment.

if you want you can join us on discord with fellow writers

like my work? show some support by checking out my web novel - Throwaway Villain

#writing ideas #writing #writers on tumblr #creative writing #my writing #writeblr #writers #writing advice #writing community #writing exercise #writing inspiration #writing tips #writerscommunity #writerslife #writer things #writerscorner #writerblr #writer problems

[cy-cyborg]

So, you're old, (no hate but it's true) so that must mean you were on the internet during the AOL days. Which websites are good to post fanfics too? I realise not everyone uses FFN, so should I also upload them to Tumblr? DA? Facebook? How did you start your internet career? Ao3 needs an invite >>

Lmao I'm not even 30 yet, damn 😂 (no offence taken btw, I did get a good laugh from that start to the question though)

While I was technically around then, my home town was a good 10-15yrs behind the rest of the world in regards to the internet, so we didn't get reliable/constant internet access at my house until I was in high school so I missed a lot of that era - and even when we did get it, it was expensive, so my sister and I were only allowed to use it occasionally.

I got my start on Deviantart, but I'm not sure if I can still recommend it - they got bought out a few years ago and have been... not great, ever since. The brought in a lot of changes which drove away pretty much all of the userbase outside of scammers, crypto-bros and AI "artists". I don't know how good they are for writers now but I can't imagine they're much better. I still log on and post occasionally but unless you have nostalgia for DeviantArt, I don't think it's worth it, not for new users. Inkblot might be a good alternative though - they specialise in art but do allow you to upload written works too! I never had any luck there but I know a few others who have, so it's worth checking out.

I'd also recommend against Facebook. I know there are writing communities there, but most of the ones I found were a much older demographic - the few that weren't were not exactly welcoming to anyone who wasn't a straight/cis, white, able-bodoed man. I also know facebook has policies that allow them to use your content without permission - probably not something you need to worry about for fanfiction since it's usually based on existing work but still worth being aware of.

I haven't done this myself, but my partner used to post fan fiction to Reddit for a bit and had some luck there - you just have to find the right subreddits for the fandom you want to create for. some are more active than others, but I know there's a fairly active community there if you know where to look. They can be pretty brutal though, so be prepared.

Honestly, outside of AO3, Tumblr and FFN seem to be the two big platforms today for fan fiction and related content. I'm pretty out of the loop though, I haven't been heavily involved in fandom communities in years so take all this with a grain of salt (if anyone has better advice please feel free to leave it). Honestly, since leaving Deviantart I've jumped around between a lot of different platforms, basically just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck lol. Tumblr, Mastodon and Tik Tok were the three where I got the most traction for my stuff, but Tumblr is the only one where my fandom-related stuff consistently gets any sort of traction.

Also is the Ao3 invite a new thing? I could have sworn I had an account but don't remeber getting an invite lol. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.... fuck I do sound old lmao

#writing #writeblr #fandom #fanfiction #fanfics

[spicybylerpolls]

I mean... people act differently in the bedroom. Just point blank, if you look at your friend and go "she would never do that nah." Its possible, she could be a closet freak. No one acts like themselves in the bedroom. So nothing is really out of character unless there is canon material for how they act in such situations.

i just found this on a reddit thread that complains about smut being out of character in fandom in general and it seems like these debates we have re: byler (esp top and bottom, sub and dom) happen everywhere, and tbh, that fact alone speaks volumes? the above argument has been used for byler on this very blog! while it is technically true, it also seems to me to be a bit too obvious and a crutch/excuse for bad writing. for example, the duffers could have said 'mike has never been in a mall before s3, who knows how he'll react?' and then he's opening s3 just twerking on the mall fountain while waving his top around cos he's so excited about all the new shops and the free cinema trips and ice cream. i mean, technically its possible, but is that really mike?

thats a very infantile example because sexuality is complex. but my point is: I KNOW people do act differently in the bedroom, because it brings out another side of people, but the point stands about what 'out of character' actually means, and in writing you need a set of rules decreeing the boundaries of a fictional character - a personality outline - because otherwise their edges blur and they become everyone and no one. and i think this is the problem with lots of smut, as this user wrote:

It's sex scenes where characters stop being themselves and just start being people who are having sex. The sex scenes that feel very could-be-in-any-fandom. Like, for example, when people stop talking like themselves, and not because it's dirty talk or kink or whatever.

THIS! the amount of smut i've read where mike and will could suddenly be interchangeable with any character from any story anywhere, because theyre just two bodies doing sex acts. there are carbon copy phrases and buzzwords (apparently there's even a famous essay on this, says one user: 'you may enjoy ariaste's one finger/two fingers/three fingers/cock rant...')

this is what i mean when i say bad writing. someone on the thread explained that 'A lot of fanfiction is wish-fulfillment, and many of us want to believe the characters we're attracted to are sex gods, even if there's no canonical evidence of it.' the idea of mike and will being sex gods made me laugh and i think very few people who discuss byler seriously here believe they would be, but the operative phrase here is 'characters we are attracted to.' i think this is an unspoken part of fandom, and what divides fans who create fanworks, and original creators. the argument 'the duffers aren't creeps for writing teen sex so why are we?' does hold much water, not because writing smutfic makes you a creep, but because fans are infatuated with characters in a way that original creators usually aren't.

but why not? i dont think it's weird or bad to fall in love with a character. but this still doesnt answer the question of why many writers choose to lean towards this tried-and-typical smut style rather than aiming to emulate the characterisation or writing style of the original creators. so....

why do people think this might be? here are some of my suggestions, and i would love if some of the people who respond are also people who have written/thought about writing their own smut and answer honestly about their thought processes! choose the best that applies to you. thanks to all who partake!

A) the only access to erotic literature i've had in general is via fanfiction, so i can't see any other way of writing it.

B) i've read published erotic fiction and i end up emulating that rather than fanfiction, so i dont think my work is tropey or fanfic-typical.

C) i've read published novels that include sex written in a way i like, so i try to take inspiration from that instead.

D) i write sex the way I have sex/think about sex i've had in real life.

E) i write sex the way I imagine/want to have sex in real life, and this is mostly influenced by porn/fanfiction fantasies.

F) i write sex the way i imagine/want to have it in real life, and this is mostly influenced by my own individual imagination/life experience rather than porn/fanfiction.

G) i prefer the writing style in much of smut fanfiction (e.g. tropes and well-used phrases) because i find them genuinely realistic to character.

H) i prefer the writing style in much of smut fanfiction (e.g. tropes and well-used phrases) because i find them hottest and i typically prioritise this over realistic characterisation.

I) i worry that if my smut is too personal or doesnt read as familiar, people won't like it and i typically (but not always) prioritise audience response over artistic expression or experimentation. i want to add to the canon of byler smut in a familiar way.

J) i try to prioritise what i genuinely think the characters would do during sex rather than my own fantasies/projections/aspirations for either the characters or for myself.

K) i don't usually think this hard about smut.

L) i believe that smut fanfiction, including tropes and well-used buzzwords, does make genuinely compelling and wonderful reading, and i'm happy with the state of smut in general.

Please note that the purpose of this blog is not to be creepy or to make anyone uncomfortable. That's why I created the #spicy byler tag (I will tag all polls with this). If you don't want to see this blog or anything related to it on your feed, please block that tag. Not everyone is comfortable with this sorta stuff, and that's okay.

#spicy byler #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #spicy byler meta

[myobsessionsspace]

[PART 3]  10 Years with BTS & ARMY.  The Evolution & Reality of the relationship between BTS, ARMY, The General Public and The Company

This is the third and final part to what I had to get out of my head and heart whilst celebrating 10 years since debut with BTS. Throughout the day I have enjoyed walks down memory lane on social media, watched the live performance of Take Two from Bangtan to us and still carried on with my day to day responsibilities (all while streaming, it is possible). I have also felt the burning need to write down my previous two posts and this post. all three were written together but evidently too much for one post. I'll now finish with the last of it.

The Company:

I’m not going to sugar coat it, how BTS see ARMY is *not* how their entertainment company/agency see ARMY. I cannot see any different given all the examples they’ve shown with their growth and evolution.

How the company see ARMY:

ARMY = ₩ /$$

The relationship with ARMY is true for the group, for the group it is ARMY they think of who will be the ones to listen to their music, because they know it is them who will seek it out first before the GP even knows anything is due to be released. They know it is ARMY first who will be looking forward to summer, winter packets, year end memories, albums, merchandise etc before any general public. YES ARMY is always first on their minds when they do anything, because they know we seek that from them. 

However do not be misguided into believing they do not also know of their responsibility to the company that ‘raised’ them from trainee days, the company that tells them where to go and what to do, the company that fed, clothed and housed them for years. 

This is why I covered in my earlier posts about their trainee days and their management. 

It is the company above ARMY that they have to truly consider first and foremost, because it is the company who can shut anything down in an instance, who can give opportunities and take them away, who can back any endeavour or road block it. 

It is their company who they have chosen and in comparison to recent information coming to light about other companies, the far lesser of all evils. It’s come to light about some companies signing their trainees even before they have debuted to 5-12 year contracts, which would start AFTER they debut, bare in mind debut dates are never guaranteed and some trainees have been know to be trainees for company’s for as long as 7 years before debuting. Then these companies have been known to a few years into debuting coercing their idols to sign on further contract renewals for an addition 12-18 years after their first contracts run out. In essence trying to keep the idols for all of their working years.

 All companies have their faults and questionable practices, but who could have given half of the creative autonomy that BTS had with their company. JB & Jackson from GOT7 have spoken numerous times about the constant struggles their group had with one of the Big Three Companies JYP in regards to management, how their fans were treated, how they were treated, creative control and autonomy etc. EXO are currently going through a lot, another Big Three company group, a group known as a pillar in k-pop. Key from SHINee has been vocal about head butting issues within his company and making a clear distinction between company and the ‘the company is my family’ as through his 15 years long post debut career he has a wealth of experience. I don’t want to make this about how dark, fatal and far it can go within the industry but it needs to be remembered how all consuming idol life and being apart of the k-pop industry is. 

That’s not to say Bang PD Nim & the members do not have a good relationship. The members were definitely given more freedom with Big Hit than they would have had with *any* other company during their trainee and debut days, however this in comparison with the closest western equivalent, such as American Idol, Pop Idol, Nickelodeon, Disney etc is still very limited in comparison. This in part was due to limited funds and resources and is still due to cultural differences and the difference in ‘idol’ culture in comparison to others.

However it was built over time, with a professional hierarchy still having to be maintained irrespective of anything else as he had not just them to look after but other employees and a company to grow. We can also see the changes with their growing success, global demands and growth of the company. 

Nothing is sacred within the k-pop industry and BTS *are* apart of that industry, though there have conquered the global market successfully, that is part of the k-pop diagram. To the letter, trainee, debut, music shows, college festivals, awards, Japanese market, Chinese market (if the group has enough Chinese members to form a subunit and cross over), acting, MCing, reality shows, advertisements, touring, western market repeat all the formerly mentioned. BTS are not unique with any of the formula, which is why it baffles THE WHOLE industry who they have reached the levels that NO ONE has been able to achieve. 

*an example of one of the opinions on the model for k-pop success. Not fact, not the only model, just a visual example*

BTS are literally one of a kind, all they have done from the formula, many before and after have to do different degrees of success. The Tannies are special. Plain and Simple. Even the people that invested, trained, ‘made’ them can’t replicate them. There hasn’t been and will never be another BTS. 

BTS have a relationship with ARMY as their number one supporters, their contstant companions, the ones they know look forward to anything the do and want to hear their thoughts, words, music. Want to follow them from country to country and cheer their performances on tour or watch them on lives and respond to them on sns etc. BUT BTS also know they have a responsibility to their company and in turn the General Public as well as ARMY, because though ARMY may help maintain their longevity and help with a baseline of income in regards to supporting them with buying their merchandise, membership & music, it is the General Public that will help with securing advertisements & sposorships that pay the company staff and fund their work, tours, security, overheads etc. 

Yes ARMY helped in their western crossover with getting their music to the right ears etc. but General Public is necessary to *keep* them growing, to bringing new fans who turn into ARMY. Remember ARMY is made of people that were the few sending them letters and reading their online blogs and watching their logs at the time they were made, ARMY were the ones they were on the streets brake dancing to getting their attention to watch their small show in ‘American Hustle Life’ who went from giving them a chance with one performance and becoming ARMY and ARMY are also the ones who found them when they were already multi Daesang winning, multi Billboard Number 1, AMA Award winning, Grammy nomination artists. ARMY are their companion and General Public is their constant goal. 

If you don’t take anything away from this just take the fact that ARMY and BTS do have a love and respect, but BTS also have a responsibility, to not just ARMY but themselves, their company and its staff and the General Public. Always keep all of that in mind, keep their history, their training, their surroundings and responsibilities in mind and it will go a long way in grounding you and understanding them. 

아포방포 💜

#BTS #BTS ARMY #10 Years With BTS #parasocial relationships

[pinkeoni]

I dont want to milk the discussion to death but i am writing this after reading the post and comments under that post on reddit. You dont have to answer i am just writing it as an observation.

Its understandable why people do not see Will's importance or role. What the writers did with him wasnt just holding the spoiler for the finale. After all you can still pull a plot twist while revealing some of the stuff or putting more setup. But theu revealed basically nothing with litte to no setup. In Will's case it doesnt help bc they also sidelined him way too much and separated him from the main plotline. That is just a writing mistake and admitting its not hating on the writers.

I dont want to sound rude. And Whenever i have this discussion with people i tend to keep an open mind to the both sides. Overall though i tend to agree that if your writing is pretty much alien to most of your audience then it is bad writing. This show isnt written for a selective part of the audience. I wish people would realize that. If i go to twitter, reddit, insta, tiktok or other sites that make posts and analyses about ST and i see the majority of people call Will unimportant then the writers failed at even hinting at his importance. People shouldnt be saying he is an irrelevant or unimportant character that doesnt do anything. It is not just El fans who say this, its the majority of the audience. It was the writers job to stop this accusation by putting more setup and adding more screentime for him before the finale season rolls, even if they want to pull a plot twist in St5.

People also dont like plot twists that has little to no actual setup. That is why plot twists are tricky. Also keep in mind that the same thing applies to byler going canon... i dont want to sound like i dislike the show because i dont. But i have to admit that they flopped the writing. I genuienly think that once St5 rolls people will realize this more. Heck even some Will fans themselves think he is not that important and what happened to him were all coincidental. Can we blame the overall audience for thinking that way?

My problem isnt that i think Will is unimportant but rather how the writers approached it. It is full of bad decisions and lack of good writing. And whatever plot twist that they may pull might not even have a positive pay off at the end due to how they have been writing things. In that case is it even worth to pull a plot twist if the pay off also flops? Imho the Duffers dont realize that their setup for a potential pay off is built on a weak construction site but they like the element of twists so they dont care about the coherent build up and progression.

Will the audience's response to what happens in St5 be "Wow this is so true how didnt i see it coming" or will it be majorly a reaction like "This is bullshit there was almost nothing that suggested this"? Because the latter one seems more likely to happen, unfortunately.

Anyways this was all over the place but admittedly i wrote it after reading the comments on reddit as an overall afterthought. I respect your opinion but in think there is a major disconnect btw the writers and its audience here in terms of writing imho.

Hello anon,

Decided to go to sleep before answering. No, I don't think you're being rude, and to be honest I agree with a lot of what you said. I think that the points we disagree on we may just continue to disagree on 😂🤝

I don't think you are hating the show for pointing out flaws in the writing, and in the post I just made about this I do at least try to acknowledge some of their shortcomings such as— shafting Will's presence and not balancing the supporting casts' storylines. I do agree that, like you said, that Will's role in the story could have been emphasized more.

The thing that I do disagree with, and maybe we just won't ever see eye to eye on this anon, is that there wasn't any setup at all, especially concerning his role in the supernatural plot. I listed off the evidence and gave my reasoning in my post, so I won't repeat here as to not sound like a broken record.

I also agree that no, the show isn't written just for the over-analytical people like me, but I think surveying reddit isn't an accurate depiction of the general audience. Granted I don't see much of sttwt, tiktok and insta so I'll just trust your word for it. But in that specific reddit thread, it seemed like fans who were adamantly trying to deny Will's importance, using faulty evidence as proof. It's interesting because these aren't really fans who watch from a surface level, they actively participate in fandom and willfully skew their perception of the text in order to fit their vision of things.

I think when it comes to revealing Will's importance and having it not come out of nowhere, it will all come down to execution in this final season. If the show reminds the audience of some of the hints leading up to it, then maybe they won't feel so vexed when the reveal happens. If they throw us in the deep end and start pulling out new details then it would definitely feel out of nowhere. It'll be a fine line for them to walk for sure.

But anyway that's where I'll leave it anon. I appreciate you sharing your opinion, although I still maintain some of my thoughts on this and I think you will too and that's okay 🤝

#anon #asks #stranger things

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

whoops i did a cprime rant on the fanfiction Reddit

NO ONE GETS C!TOMMY AND C!DREAM RIGHT AND THEY DEFINITELY DO NOT GET THEIR DYNAMIC RIGHT. c!Tommy gets it slightly better, by virtue of having his own dedicated insane fan community, but while c!Dream also has it they lean wayyyyyy too far in making him a misunderstood bad boy and come out with a character as alien to the source material as whoever they’re arguing against.

c!Tommy is a very excitable, brash, and crude teenage boy. He’s outwardly rude but inwardly very kind, and is almost painfully empathetic, something that hurts him as much as it helps. He defines himself by toxic masculinity, but adores nature and cute things and sewing. He lashes out frequently, but is rarely malicious. He’s almost impossibly self sacrificing when it matters, but is a bit of a selfish dick when it comes to petty stuff (which like, again, teenage boy lol). He's traumatised and mentally ill, and that affects every part of him, but he’s also so much more than that. The way people write him, he’s either this poor sad woobie with no edge who's most destructive responses to trauma- namely, his impulsive tendency to fawn like crazy- is a good and healthy way for him to develop, or he’s a malicious little shit who provoked his own abuse and throws a pity party selfishly, caring about no one but himself.

c!Dream puts on a front of being an emotionless, cruel, and evil villain, but the interesting part about him is that his true self is even more terrifying. Believing himself to be a well intentioned extremist, his desires for a big happy family instead stem only from his own desperate need for companionship and approval, something he also paradoxically completely rejects in his own orobousian cycle, and he’s willing to commit horrific atrocities and traumatise those so called friends for that goal, whether they want it or not. He’s deeply sentimental but terrified to show weakness, so he pretends to not care about anything while growing more and more obsessive over everything in his life. It’s difficult to tell what parts of his sadism are real or an act, and it grows more and more clear as time grows on his concept of friendship must be deeply unhealthy and possessive. He's genuinely doing what he does out of love- yet that does not make him a good, or even redeemable person. He’s a fun inversion of the “all loving hero” trope, basically. But he’s written either as a bland, emotionless villain, or the cruel side of him is written off completely and he's just this loving woobie- despite his actions being so disproportionate he can hardly be called a well intentioned extremist and this requiring his brutal abuse of a teenage boy to be excused, normally by putting the blame on that boy (and that boy is c!Tommy).

Now, these two's “friendship” is fascinating because it shows how different yet similar they are. Early on, they were genuinely friends, but c!Dream always saw c!Tommy's iron will as a threat and wanted to control him. He grew more and more extreme in this goal, eventually cumulating in him making a plot to get him exiled from his home so he could physically and mentally beat him into compliance. There’s a lot more I could get into, but basically, the two have a very complicated set of feelings on each other. c!Tommy understandably despises c!Dream, but he was conditioned into some pretty severe Stockholm Syndrome, and can’t help but see c!Dream as a friend and empathise heavily with him, even dying doing so. Meanwhile, c!Dream sees c!Tommy both as a scapegoat he can treat as a literal idol of defiance, and a genuine friend in an incredibly messed up way, wanting him to rely completely on him and to be a tool in his plans. He takes joy in c!Tommy's suffering, but the last thing he wants is him permanently dead- he has, on multiple occasions, promised/threatened to make c!Tommy immortal for him. c!Tommy has picked up on this, and has referred to c!Dream seeing him as a plaything, a puppet, and a pet, and finds the idea more terrifying than anything else, even the mere thought causing panic attacks.

When their relationship isn’t just turned into a wholesome fluffy friendship to make c!Dream seem more sympathetic, either one of two things will happen. Either c!Dream will be portrayed as completely uncaring towards c!Tommy, willing to throw him aside for anything and genuinely hating him and wanting him dead, when the real horror of their story is that c!Dream would never allow that to happen out of some twisted sentimentality. Or, c!Tommy is portrayed as in some way equally as fault for the disastrous state of it as c!Dream, be it for causing chaos non maliciously, or helping his brother start a nation, or being annoying, which are equal crimes to abuse now I guess. And then they’re expected to have a mutual reconciliation where they both apologise (a scene like this did eventually happen in canon, but c!Tommy's actor literally clarified it was intended to show c!Tommy being irrational and making bad decisions, that he shouldn’t have apologised for anything, and he was genuinely kinda disturbed how people thought c!Dream was in any way sympathetic, funnily enough).

[iftheshoef1tz]

Since i answered some of your questions on someone else’s ask, @legionsofthehungry, i figured I’d make a separate post and condense a little!

Why did you decide to write about azriel and eris, a pairing many consider a crackship but could be categorized as a rarepair?

I definitely consider it a rare pair, not a crackship, since az and eris have had several (very memorable) interactions in canon. When i first read acotar last year and decided to delve into fandom for the first time since 2016, i thought i might want to write something, but i felt i didn’t have anything interesting to say for feysand or nessian, despite loving those pairings. I’ve always loved me a good ETL, and i discovered azris on reddit, where i first started interacting with the acotar fandom. It just felt right!

Was it something that came to you full-form? Or were you surprised at any point by the story wanting to go in a different direction? How much of the story do you have outlined in advance?

It cracks me up to tell this story (so i tell it all the time) but originally obpbl was intended to be only 2000 words. No, I’m not missing a zero, lmao. Then, i was like, oh, it’ll be 25k. Then, maybe 75k. And then i got to 150k and was like ?????? Guess I’ll never know!! Helena and Kyros weren’t originally intended to feature so heavily; kyros was originally supposed to be evil! But i realized i wasn’t particularly interested in writing that angle for the story and thought it would be more thematically interesting to have this golden retriever dude really upending azriel’s conception of the kind of people who live in the hewn city. And i meant to keep thanatos around for longer, but it felt kind of stuck when i tried to keep him around, so he literally had to go to the chopping block, haha.

As for planning, i originally wrote about 7-8 scenes in the first, like, week of writing, and then started fitting the pieces in around them, using those pre-written scenes as kind of structural pillars to build towards. But i took so many detours along the way - like the mating ceremony originally wasn’t going to happen before i daydreamed up the “are you a sadist, lady elain?” bit, and most of the interactions with ren were written and then HEAVILY edited after i decided on the events that just happened in chapter 35 back in august. I think i usually thought ahead in the plot about 7-8 chapter ahead of where i was writing, depending on what the characters ended up doing. (The gay sex cabin chapters were only supposed to be one long-ish chapter HAHA)

How long have you been a fan of acotar> did you read tog/crescent city? Are there other fandoms you’re a part of or would like to write about next?

I read acotar in October of 2021! I started cc earlier this year and devoured them (bryce quinlar can step on me and i would thank her), and I’m slowly working my way through tog because of writing/work commitments (chaol is my sweet dumb son and i love him; manon could step on me, preferably at the same time as bryce, and i would thank them both). I’m not really part of any other fandoms at the moment, though my last one before this was teen wolf, and i have been reading dramione fics on the side when i have the time/mental bandwidth. I’ve written one cc fic (High For This), and i am planning an eventual sequel, as well as a what-if about Sam Cortland with the summary inspired by Slaughterhouse 5 - Listen: Sam Cortland has come unstuck in time.

Do you have other hobbies you engage in or is writing something you devote most of your free time to (or even do professionally)?

Writing right now is mostly what i dedicate my free time to, but i also do needlework (my page’s header is something i stitched for a friend!), i love to bake, and i am learning how to make hand bound books! I’m very glad I don’t write for a living, to be honest. I teach music as my day job, and going to school for it sucked out a lot of the joy of making music, and i don’t want that to happen to my writing too. Although, I’ve been encouraged to write some original stuff, so who knows what’ll happen!

#obpbl ama #obpbl #fanfiction

[gascon-en-exil]

I'm not on social media much and I came to FE3H super late so maybe you can explain it? I've heard the term "khalidstan" once before but i never actually see Claude fans (like literally) It's like they don't exist or they're not very active ? it's always Dimitri or edelgard . So Like Where are they ? And Where does this term come from?! is this a Twitter thing (I don't use Twitter...is that where all the FE fans are LOL) i cant even imagine a claude stan And Since his fans dont exist to me I don't even know what "takes" they have on him LOL. the few takes ive seen on Claude are from edelstans (Do they just attack like everyone that goes against their waifu? I bet they hate Hilda for not being recruitable on CF lol)

Just as "Edelstan" does not refer to all of Edelgard's fans but rather to a specific type of combative and exhaustively argumentative subgroup, so too are the Khalidstans distinct from the much larger body of Claude fans. In their case they are easily identified by their insistence that Claude should always be referred to as Khalid, hence the name. As Reddit is the home turf of Edelstans, so is Twitter for the Khalidstans. Most of them were active on Tumblr at one time, but have since left or gone inactive on this platform after they realized they weren't welcome. (I flatter myself to imagine that their weeks-long attempt at trolling me in the summer of 2020 partially contributed to their leaving Tumblr, as I am notoriously impossible to troll.)

Khalidstans are fewer in number than Edelstans, although this does mean that it's easier to identify their defining characteristics:

As mentioned, they always refer to Claude as Khalid, even though that name appears nowhere in the text of Three Houses and was only introduced in a Japanese interview on the game.

They are also antis - members of the broader fandom movement who (mis)apply social justice lingo to vilify characters and ships they dislike on moral grounds - who have denounced Studentleth (Byleth/any student character) pairings as pedophilic. It was my sharing with my followers a lengthy piece one of them had written accusing Three Houses of promoting grooming and pedophilia that got them targeting me for trolling. Related to this, one of them wrote an obvious and widely-mocked troll fic of Claude's mother traveling to Garreg Mach and physically assaulting Byleth for flirting with her son.

Unlike the Edelstans who mire themselves in Watsonian rhetoric, Khalidstans are Doylist to a fault. They accuse IS of being racist for writing Claude Khalid with any negative traits and/or any positive associations with "white" characters. This manifests as their hating Dimitri and Dimidue (they're among the people who call them a white savior pairing, naturally), Hilda and Hilclaude for House Goneril keeping Almyran indentured servants, Rhea and the other Nabateans (who don't count as genocide victims in their eyes because they're light-skinned), Edelgard and Hubert (the former, an imperialist; the latter, racist to Petra in one of their supports which is clearly the most evil thing he's ever done *rolls eyes*), Felix and Ingrid for their behavior toward Dedue, and probably others I'm forgetting. One of them additionally coined the confusing term "white of color" which they then used to refer to characters like Ashe and Marianne, and neither I nor anyone else can understand what on earth that could refer to aside from those being "white" characters that that person likes despite their skin color.

In connection with the above, they are known for creating elaborate headcanons and OCs involving Almyra, Brigid, Duscur, and other lands outside Fódlan - which would be fine were it not always such a transparent means of bashing canon and the long list of characters and ships they hate. They've produced such gems as the headcanon that Lorenz is half-Dagdan (meaning coded East Asian, to them) because of his hair color and slanted eyes, which matters for the next point; a fic where Claude, Petra, and Dedue are in a poly relationship that serves only to bash Dedue's relationship with Dimitri and tell us how much happier he is with his two new lovers; the belief that Cyril is effectively Rhea's slave and that if IS weren't so racist he'd happily turn on her; and repeated complaints whenever Claude gets any new official art or a Heroes alt that IS is whitewashing him/not making him dark enough, possibly in part because his being biracial conflicts with their oddly conservative attitude toward interracial relationships. As ought to be apparent, despite their alleged progressivism the Khalidstans can be quite reductive when it comes to characters, valuing them solely on the basis of their skin color and other physical traits and assuming that all the game's darker-skinned characters would automatically understand and relate to each other even if they have no canon interaction.

Of course, this also ties into the fact that several of the most prominent Khalidstans have freely admitted to having never played Three Houses at all, which explains why they spend most of their time rejecting canon and building up their AUs. This doesn't stop them from getting embroiled in fandom drama, however; there's the anti-Studentleth screeds on Twitter, as mentioned, but they also took the side of Claurenz in an apparently heated ship war between them and Dimiclaude shippers. They justify shipping Claurenz because of the headcanon about him being half-Dagdan (and therefore not "white"), which is to them obviously superior to shipping Claude with evil racist conservative/centrist Dimitri.

Khalidstans' impact on fandom is less obvious than Edelstans', because there aren't as many and because Twitter is less suited to lengthy theories and exposés than Reddit (or Tumblr). Nonetheless, some of the discourse around the Three Hopes demo carries signs of their influence. They led the charge in praising Three Hopes because Shez is a student and not a teacher (thereby avoiding "pedophilia"), and I can't help but think of them whenever I see people surprised or angry at the developers because Almyra invades the Alliance and Claude helps to repel them. The events we've seen of Golden Wildfire thus far are consistent with Claude and Almyra as we saw them in Three Houses, but not with the Khalidstans' fanon interpretations of Almyra as an enlightened paradise with no serious problems except constant aggression from the evil racists of Fódlan. Regarding an upcoming political shakeup in Leicester that dataminers have uncovered, this discourse is likely to only get worse after the full game releases.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fire Emblem Three Hopes