#An absurd amount of people have died.

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

stock car racing is such a horrifying sport and when you grow up in a culture where it's normal, explaining it to people who know nothing about it so fucking interesting. this girl asked me "do they often retire with injuries?"

and then I realized there's no good way to word "If they don't die in an accident, yeah, probably"

[stealingyourbones]

Never will I stop with the steadfast notion that folks in the DPXDC fandom should interact with at least some form of canon DC media.

There are comics, tv shows, radio dramas both old and new, podcasts, movies, magazines, so much shit that intentionally avoiding the media is simply preventing yourself from spawning new ideas and gaining a new appreciation for a fandom that you’re already in.

The Superman Radio Show has episodes 11 minutes long. A lot of the TV shows don’t have episodes that surpass 30 minutes and most are nearly fully clipped on the official DC YouTube channel. The amount of fan made motion comics is astounding. The amount of fanmade animations is equally as incredible.

[blue-thief]

i've just watched tbosas and i feel like i could make an alt version of this but with light, lelouch, liam, rin, and coriolanus

same character different fonts in my eyes

[nightingale-prompts]

Field Trip-DCxDP prompt

(Another Danny the Cosmic Babysitter pompt)

Danny had little patience for the adult heroes with a handful of exceptions. That is most of the heroes are fine but Danny likes to complain because he isn't called to be on missions often.

Instead, he often gets calls on Friday nights to watch Superboy and that means Robin comes too.

Danny is their favorite babysitter and the only people Danny doesn't complain about. He treats the boys with as much care as he does his little sister but he is also pretty negligent. If the boys were unharmed and not traumatized then he lets them do whatever they want. Much to their father's concern.

The boys were dropped off at Danny's portal after school with their bags and Clark gave Danny one of his mother's cheese apple pies and a batch of Alfred's cookies.

Clark wished them luck and reminded them to do their homework and to be respectful to Danny.

Bruce called and reminded Danny to....blah blah blah. Danny wasn't listening he was a busy god.

Danny instead took the boys on a field trip when Jon asked for help on his science homework.

Danny took them to his observatory and showed them just a fraction of the infinite cosmos. The observatory was a place he made to monitor the realms, tracking the path of stars and galaxies, and the life on planets.

"So how does life form on different planets?" Jon asked staring into the rainbow-colored galaxy twisting around them.

"Let's go see!" Danny opened a portal to a far-off desolate world under a purple sun making sure to put a protective barrier on the boys so they would survive the environment.

"Are suns supposed to be that color?" Damian asked.

"They can be any color," Danny said reassuring "Large amounts of potassium salts cause the star to look this way."

The boys looked around on this planet hoping to see new aliens. But there were none. Danny laughed at their puzzled expressions.

"This planet has no life on it. In 5 billion years the right conditions will be met to form organic life when this star burns enough of the potassium around it. Frozen ice in asteroids will hit this planet and water will form and the heat will create an atmosphere. Organisms will form and die and for a brief moment, this world will have life." Danny explained laying out the beginning of life.

"What? So they won't live? Why not?" Jon asked in distress of the idea.

"Haha, don't worry. That's how it's supposed to be. Life is a miraculous thing and the beings that will one day grow here are one of the billions of planets that share the same fate. They will never gain sentience of course but they will live and living in a universe so fickle and absurd is a testament. Think of just how amazingly it is to live on earth." Danny said taking the boys into another portal to a world populated by beasts.

Alien beasts that walked on four legs and birds flew.

Damian marveled at the giant birds that dwarfed any on Earth.

"This is a super planet with enough oxygen to support 50 Earths. Full of life and animals who have evolved from the small bacteria that would have died like on the planet before had the environment been different. Life is a roulette wheel though and even the same environment could yield different results." Danny said as they stood on the grassy clift.

"There really are no people?" Damian asked.

"No, and there never will be. You two are the only people who will ever reach this planet. This world will never know society. No government. No civilization." Danny hummed in thought.

"That's a good thing." Damian said.

"Is it? Maybe. Even a lowly beast still looks up at the sky and dreams of a better existence. But here this world will never know a truly peaceful life. It will always be predator and prey. Survival is all they know. No, they will mostly live short lives knowing only fear and violence. They will not know art or music, things gained from learning and sharing. They have not reached that part of development and they never will know. An ice age will soon come when their planet loses its orbit and they will all die." Danny said as he ushered the boys to another world.

Jon and Damian when silent in despair. Learning the benign cruelty of the universe was harder when you had to see it.

The next was a world that was a smoking wreckage.

"This world was once populated with billions. The people had evolved from the smallest life forms, surpassed their beastly heritage, and grew into tribes. They built cities and hubs. But they also built weapons. The truth is boys that the progress of a species hinges on the ability to evolve and the greatest driving force is competition. The greatest opponent is yourself. These people chose to give in to that call and they suffered for it. Some turned towards the stars and had long fled to start a new life on another planet." Danny said soberly.

Damian and Jon looked at the space god and noticed he suddenly didn't look like his usual self. He was slightly weathered and creased at the edges.

Danny opened another portal to another world. A city full of lights where below them.

"This boys is a planet of strange aliens. They dream constantly of a better life but don't know how to achieve it. They work together and they break apart, always arguing. But time and time again they come together to prove they care for one another. True there will be those who work against this collective and care only for themselves. Take pity on them, they have succumbed to their instincts from when they were just simple beasts trying to survive. If they can one day look up and see that all they have in this lonely universe where life can be blinked out of existence if the tide shifts differently then they'd truly become a better species. Boys you must understand that your existence is nothing short of a miracle upon miracle. We are all made from stardust and it is next to impossible that you exist at this moment but despite all odds you are here." Danny said as he flew over the city carrying the boys.

As Damian and Jon looked down they recognized landmarks this was earth.

"Will the same thing happen to us as that other planet?" Jon asked.

"I don't know. You mortals tend to surprise us. I can probably predict a billion futures and still be wrong. I'll have to ask the time god. Still, there is no telling what I do know is that the future will have you two and that tells me that it's going to be okay.

[tossawary]

Wei Wuxian's first meeting with teenage Jin Ling just gets funnier every time. Especially because, by this point, he should have a rough idea of how long it's been since he died, and he immediately recognizes Jin Ling as a member of the Jin Sect, clearly an important one if he's bossing other people around and spending absurd amounts of money on spiritual nets. If Wei Wuxian had spent A SINGLE MINUTE actively trying to guess this kid's identity, he probably could have worked out that this kid has a high chance of being his nephew.

But Wei Wuxian does not take the time (thirty seconds! WWX, you could have made an educated guess!) to figure out this kid's specific identity! He's just been wrestling with an incredibly stubborn donkey all day and he's probably hangry again because they had to share an apple. He just thinks to himself, "Wow, this Jin kid is a real spoiled brat," and goes from there!

"Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners?" he says obliviously to JIN LING, his own fucking nephew. When Jin Ling is FAMOUSLY ORPHANED. Like, you could go up to literally anyone on the street and be like, "What happened to that rich kid Jin Ling's parents?" and they would immediately tell you, "Oh, the evil Yiling Patriarch killed them, evilly." Very high chance that no one has ever said this particular insult to Jin Ling - extremely rich young master, most famous orphan in the cultivation world, in possession of some very scary uncles - before.

And from Jin Ling's perspective, this outrageous comment is coming from his OWN UNCLE, Mo Xuanyu, his late grandfather's bastard son who was kicked out of the sect for being gay and crazy. There is NO WAY that Mo Xuanyu could somehow not know that Jin Ling has no parents, so of course, this has to be an intentional low-blow insult bringing up and disparaging his dead mother. So, of course this brat tries to start a fight! Mo Xuanyu started it with words like that!

And then Wei Wuxian trips him and essentially sits on him (using a talisman), there's the whole "My uncle is going to kill you!" & "Who's your uncle?" exchange, and Jiang Cheng immediately interrupts them. And Wei Wuxian has to do the sudden, incredibly simple, damning mental calculation of: "Jin kid + Jiang Cheng for an uncle = Oh, fuck."

It's funny every single time.

[empty-movement]

GOGAI, GOGAI!!! COME GET UTENA KIBBLES

It's September 3rd. It's 1997. Princess Diana just died, and that's very important to lots of people. You, however, are chewing your nails to nubs waiting for the climax of Revolutionary Girl Utena's Black Rose Saga. It's going to air today.

But like any good fan, you're already one step ahead, because you've spent the last couple days thumbing through Animedia's September issue supplemental, the 100 page Duelist Bible. Strangely, it appears to be in English??? Wow! Thanks Nagumo for translating, Ayu Ohseki for Japanese editing, teasot for proofreading, and ME, FUCKIN' VANNA, for scanning and scanlating this massive booklet!

We've got duel summaries! We've got character design sheets! We've got a school directory! We've got THE DUEL RULES. We've got cast interviews! WE'VE GOT THAT CHU-CHU DOLL CRAFT GUIDE. Check it ALL out here, in the Something Eternal Bibliothèque! You can flip through it page by page here, or you'll also find on the page a link to a PDF version for your at home viewing/archiving needs!!

This gargantuan tome really gets it across that in 1997, you didn't have a fandom wiki or on demand viewing. If you didn't catch and record the episodes, a booklet like this becomes a critical tool for keeping track of everything that's happened up to now, and is also a way for the series creators to tap fans on the shoulder and draw attention to details they want seen but not explained in the show directly. For example, this drops at the close of the BRS, but points out Touga's sword isn't the same in Keiko's duel and in the opening sequence. A thing we don't see cashed in until MUCH later!

This has been a true and absurd labor of love on my part. I even rescanned the booklet from my originals because their quality (decades old lmao) was not worth scanlating. This took a ludicrous amount of time, and has been a main project of mine for over a year now!! I'm so happy to have gotten it done in time for the Something Eternal Watch-Along thread, and I really really hope everyone finds something cool and interesting about it! The really cool thing is this now completes the set of magazine supplementals by the big three magazines made for Utena during its run. We now have fully scanlated this, as well as Animage's June Utena Dossier, and Newtype's November Utena? (Oh My!) UTENA! Take a stroll through memory lane, be they yours or someone else's!

As always, if you like this kind of content, consider supporting us on Patreon! Especially right now, a holy grail acquisition is in the works that I will bleed to share with y'all. More on that later, lmao.

Revolutionize the World! Love, Vanna

[romeave]

the real reason why mcd zane sucks, from purely a writing standpoint, is that the writers really want him to be a pure evil villian. a force of evil that can not be reasoned with or stopped. absolutely nuance free and unsympathetic no matter how you slice and dice it.

which, would normally be fine, but is a weird choice for zane specifically because the writers keep naturally bringing up ways to give him depth, only to bend over backwards to shut it down once they remember zane is supposed to be cardboard flat for their kid audience to remember he's the bad guy.

and by all the time i do mean all the time. here is a list of roads blocked off by the no development tree that fell across the road:

Zane grew up isolated even by the standards of noble children, as heirs to the O'khasis throne start their training rather young, and, according to accounts about his childhood, Zane preferred to spend his free time alone as opposed to with family. At some point, his father contracted some illness that turns people into asshole tyrants, and began to groom a very impressionable Zane into a good and obedient pawn for him to control on his quest for world domination -> Zane was actually always evil from birth, which makes him immune to trauma. Garte's dickheadness actually only affected the "good" Ro'Meaves, and actually it's Zane's influence that turned Garte into a bad person. Even shit that Garte did long after Zane died are Zane's fault by proxy.

Zane's strained relationship with his brothers are also largely attributed to Zane being evil. Honestly there's a lot I could put here but the most damning one is probably the fact that Zane isn't allowed to talk about his upbringing at all after vaguely mentioning having a dead brother on the docks.

Zane's initially introduced as an ambitious young priest who came to power due to his commitment to his studies. He secretly uses taboo ancient magic that people can't exactly come across if they don't have an obsessive drive to learn about the divines beyond the church's teachings. -> Actually Zane stole everything from "real scholars" and never actually cared about his research outside of what power it could bring him. Apparently he can't even read for himself without a "real scholar" in the room.

Zane's most terrible deeds (Kiki's pendant, Alexis, Falconclaw) were committed in service of opening the Irene dimension. Its implied that some, if not all of the specific deeds needed to open the portal were decided long before Zane ever got his hands on the amulets. -> Each portal-opening crime is treated as its own separate crime, motivated purely by sadism. Falconclaw specifically is referred to as a "horrific mass slaughter Zane had a lot of fun committing", even though everyone involved just painlessly fell over dead

Zane only raises a sword to people to have actively betrayed him. Jeffory betrayed him, the Wolf Tribe was plotting to eat him the next time he showed up, and Garroth committed treason two seperate times and shoved his own sword in Zane's face before Zane tried to kill him about it -> Evidence that Zane is just a bloodthristy killer who would kill his comrades unprompted. His victims are not traitors, but martyrs to his unreasonable wrath

Zane possessed the protector's relic for a period of time. Surely he must've had some reason to hold it -> Zane was entirely undeserving of the relic. He only had it because blood relations.

Despite already having a relic, Zane wants to get Irene's relic -> Exclusively to hoard power! No personal reasons or family reasons or nerd reasons. Just an insanely dangerous and high stakes task done solely to have them all. Like its a pokemon with life steal.

Zane gets turned into a Shadow Knight. Zane used to have an absurd amount of knowledge on the Shadow Knights, lots of shadow knights hate his gay ass, becoming a Shadow Knight is usually pretty traumati--> Zane doesn't feel trauma, duh!! He's actually stronger than ever.

And I know I'm aphblr's foremost Zane dick rider but this isn't a Zane did nothing wrong post its just bad writing. Zane's actions affect so much of the plot its fucking bonkers to give him the depth of an evil sheet of printer paper. Aph's usually pretty good at fleshing out her villians I don't know why the one guy who everyone and their mother has a connection to is just a knife roomba of a man. At the bare minimum he should've been as fleshed out as his brothers because then it'd be a tragic tale about a family being torn apart by a system they benefit from instead of a karma-farming AITAH post set in medival times.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How long would Death Note be if Light was actually a completely law-abiding, if vaguely narcissistic, citizen during the kira murders who just so happened to tick off L's "he's a serial killer" radar?

I mean, that's the thing, he wouldn't tick off L's radar

Why Did L Suspect Light Anyway

L does single-mindedly pursue the theory of "Light Yagami is Kira" to an utterly insane degree, even accepting for things like "he conveniently got amnesia for no reason" and "even though I put cameras in every corner of his house I didn't catch him" and "even though I handcuffed him literally to my side I couldn't catch him"

It is nuts.

However, I will give L credit, he didn't pick Light out of a hat.

L's initial theory was simply that Kira was in Japan and taking a stab in the dark probably the Kanto region. Light confirmed this for him due to an egotistical hissy fit with L having to put in very little effort.

This brought L to focus on Tokyo.

L further figures out fairly early on that Light has a student's schedule, not a working adult's in Japan, and this is because Light at the time didn't realize he could control the exact time at which a person dies and by the time Light changes his method it's already too late.

Now, what happened then is that Light intentionally tipped his hand. After Lind L. Taylor, Light took L's existence extremely personally and nursed quite the grudge and the vendetta. To "win" as Kira, to prove he's a god to himself and the populace, he must personally kill L. As a result, Light does many things that put him in danger/do nothing to help him as Kira just to have his chance at L.

The big one is that he starts using information only known to the Japanese police force. He intentionally does this so that L focuses enough on Tokyo and the police there that Light can get a firmer grasp on him, what Light didn't account for was that L would immediately narrow in on him and him alone or the lengths he'd go to in order to investigate Light as a suspect.

But thanks to Light, L did know that whoever was doing this had access to police information not available to the public. Now, Light was likely hoping L would assume it was a cop, but L expanded his search to the police and their family members, presuming that family members may have access to these networks due to insecure home practices and such (which Light does).

Now, L never explains canonically why he's so certain Light is Kira, but if I'm putting myself in his shoes I can take a wager as to why Light made him go "ding ding ding".

L's looking for the type of person who would become Kira. He already knows this person is Japanese, likely a student in a rigidly structured school day (so not in university), but someone with good enough English to have followed the Lind L. Taylor broadcast, someone savvy with the internet so as to kill international criminals.

What he also knows is that Kira is obsessive, manic, single-minded, and unquestioning of his beliefs. Kira is also someone with an absurd amount of faith in law enforcement and the justice system (Light... doesn't spend too long questioning whether or not the people he sentences to death are guilty of the crimes they were sentenced for/the life circumstances which might lead to someone committing a heinous crime and whether or not that matters) which makes sense for a workaholic policeman's son in homicide whose son idolizes him.

Not to mention that, aside from his hatred of L, Kira is extremely respectful of the police in general. He never goes after the Japanese police the way he does L (only the FBI agents tailing him) and it's clear that his great rivalry is with L, not the Japanese police, interpol, or any kind of cops.

So, we're looking at someone who really respects the law... without understanding what the law even is, why it exists, or why "no, Light, murdering thousands of people does not magically make you exempt".

Adults typically don't act like Light does. Even after the six-year time skip, Light's still obsessive but he has changed greatly from the boy he was. And Mikami, an adult who is inspired by him and kills in the same way is... a very different kind of person ultimately driven by a victim mentality.

My point is, it would make sense for L to suspect a teenager rather than an independent adult. The schedule lines up, the personality lines up, and while this is very likely a highly precocious individual (and someone who knows he's very clever) they still feel young.

So, L narrows it down to a set of families and look what we have: Light Yagami, brilliant young man who scores first in the country on every exam he ever takes, talented in athletics at a national level, has succeeded at everything in his life and is the pride and joy of his family, utterly adores his police chief father and has repeatedly shown interest in following his career path and even taken steps towards doing so as a high school student.

And L says "bingo".

But Back to Your Question

Putting aside whether or not anyone else would ever go as ham killing the types of people Light did for no particular reason (Misa, for example, would probably have only gone after her parent's killer. Mikami would have gone after his childhood tormentors/his mother. Higuchi went after corporate rivals) there's also whether they'd have that police information from Japan (probably not likely), and if they'd act the way that Light did.

Basically, while it is a nice thought... I don't think L would suspect Light in these circumstances as he'd ultimately be dealing with a very different person who acts in very different ways.

Light would never tip off his radar.

[sporeblossom]

logging back onto this website to say that while i dont think (???) it was intentionally done, the scene before their "last day" where frank is working on a portrait of bill, reminded me of keith haring's "unfinished painting"

comparison here before i explain:

keith haring's painting was purposely made to look incomplete. haring was diagnosed with HIV in late 1988, and died in early 1990, at the age of 31. the painting is a self portrait, hitting us with the gut-punch reality of how the aids-epidemic robbed haring of the right to finish his own story. the overwhelming amount of empty space is a glaring reminder that haring didn't just have a short life, he had an incomplete one. the piece points to all that empty space and says: this should have been filled out. this should all have been my art, my story, and my space. by claiming this empty space, haring claimed the empty space of his unlived life, that was taken from him and so many other people, by a negligent and homophobic society that refused to care about the pandemic ravaging an entire community worldwide.

now back to my original point: like i said, im really not sure if this was intentionally done by the show. but when i was watching this episode and i saw this scene, i immediately thought of this painting. the blue color of the eye trailing off onto the blank part of the canvas is, at least to me, a strong visual parallel.

and i feel like this visual parallel highlights some very important thematic parallels as well, which deserve to be talked about. in the show, the outbreak starts in 2003 which means that bill and frank have both lived through the aids-epidemic. they have seen people like them die. they have experienced the hatred and isolation that came with it. you could speculate and read into things ad nauseaum, but i thinks it's safe to say that in this place and time, this also plays into how careful and hesitant they are, when they first start to show intimacy with each other. in their world, they didn't even get to experience the legalization of gay marriage.

seeing as this show takes place during another, fictional, pandemic, airing at a time where the real world has just faced another actual pandemic, it is impossible to ignore this aspect of their story.

these two characters however, are not destroyed by the outbreak in the show. they find each other, they experience freedom, love, and a full life together. their life is not cut short.

in an absurd twist of fate, when the rest of the world is finally forced to experience what it's like to be abandoned by your government during a devastating epidemic, this is when these two people find happiness. they get to go running, and have fights, and grow strawberries, and have friends over for dinner.

and after spending nearly twenty years together, frank spends his last time working not on a self portrait, but on a portrait of bill, the love of his life. this is the sort of thing that rightfully should have filled the empty space of haring's work. finding love(s) spending your time together, that is a life lived.

and yet frank's painting is unfinished, because of course we are never truly done living. we are never truly done loving. but he got so much more time, so much more story, than the people we lost to the aids epidemic, which the trailing off blue paint reminds us of.

at the same time their house is absolute filled with all the paintings that frank did finish, showing us all the good days he got with bill. and in a way, i feel like that is the show being very aware of what it is: a complete, beautiful story about two men loving each other, in a world that sorely lacks these stories. a world where we had so many unfinished, incomplete lives, that we lack an entire generation of older gay men.

and even though i was completely reduced to tears by the end of this episode, the ending still filled me with some sort of mournful joy. because yes, even though it was incredibly sad to see their last day, these two men got to fill so much of their empty space. they got to experience love, and they got to live their life. like bill says: "im old. im satisfied. and you were purpose."

so many people didn't get that. keith haring didn't get that. a whole generation of queer people didn't get that. that makes this episode so much more moving for me, because it is not just an incredibly beautiful love story, but it is an incredibly beautiful love story that the world should rightfully have seen millions more of. but all those lives were incomplete.

so with the undeniable, but unspoken, presence of the aids epidemic in the narrative of these characters, this visual reference to keith haring and aids, purposeful or not, is incredibly meaningful.

[molluskmirage]

The villainization of Bad is perplexing to me for a lot of reasons. Fandom wanting him to pay for his actions when he didn’t even have the highest kill rate in purgatory on his team… Bad and Tubbo had the same amount of kills day 1. Bad was probably killed more by red team then he killed yet still its not enough for the red fandom.

also regarding Dapper. ‘Bad’s actions made it so no one would help dapper’…. Bad would never hold a parents actions against a child. Leo actively helped Vegetta and Roier place bombs all over Bad and Dappers farm house causing them to move. And even when they moved Bad still included Leo on the allow list. He loves Leo. Dapper really admired Vegetta and wanted to speak with him but was struck by him for teasing Foolish.

Bad teases and tricks and lies about unimportant things, steals furniture and he has trust issues yes, but he also counter balances that by providing others with lavish gifts and items and knowledge that takes hours to do. He repairs broken machines the kids have done for there parents, he takes care of the kids so no one dies of neglect, he keeps people company, he’s provided so much countless food and armor and exp to everyone at such volume its absurd to count. He made spawn so that it would be easy for others to get around when they died and constantly refills the xp.

He’s rp an actual demon but genuinely most of Bad’s actions while surface level inconvenient in depth he’s ridiculously generous and kind. The only time of him ‘cutting loose’ being in a game that was designed for killing and his son instructed him too. So many in the fandom gave weight to Chayanne’s message but for Dapper it was :eyeroll: whatever. Dapper who had been self harming themselves to help aid his siblings and other islanders was instructing Bad to run over other islanders, he wouldn’t say that unless it was important.

I can understand not liking a character theirs plenty I dont personally find my cup of tea but that doesnt make them evil. Its so strange to me that the fandom finds Bbh to be ‘the worst’ narratively, when Slime actively tried to murder Dapper and the other kids, Cellbit has gone full serial killer, Vegetta nearly killed Bobby with bombs, Forever lashed out in anger at Leo yet Bad stealing furniture that can be replaced by sticks and wool is the absolute dread of the server. Bad in a killing game was mean when others were mean and one of the few members of his team that could protect his team.

it’s interesting because for the most part Bad’s crimes are psychological (not to say its not a torment) but it’s interesting because it seems to be labeled so much worse then physical actions other characters have made. Bad doesn’t let others actions get to him he forgives and picks himself up and tries again maybe more guarded this time but he doesnt complain about others actions he always blames himself and carries on. Bad doesnt excuse himself he knows that his actions can cause distress from others and still does them without regret but he also understands others wont like him for his actions and fully accepts and expects it.

[theresamouseinmyhouse]

tim + brentwood characters as boys i was legitimately friends with in high school and think of every single day:

Buzz- Jake (fake names for all of my friends bc privacy reasons) who complained about hanging out with nerds, got into a fistfight with someone else on his football team bc they called us nerds, was thoroughly convinced he'd run laps faster if he was hopped up on pixie stix (i held his backback while he got sick in the bathroom👍👍), he tried to hit on my older sister and she laughed at him, he was so put out he contemplated becoming a monk for a week

Wes: Max, who i helped sneak an entire bottle of orange juice on to the bus to our choir competition, but was unaware he brought a full bottle of vodka as well, ended up crying on our choir teacher for the three hours after the comp and i bought him a box of donuts after school, he did not stop doing this and had severe beef with a kid he knew in 5th grade and hadnt seen since but also hadnt forgotten their name and last i knew, was still awaiting for a dreaded confrontation to eventually come

Kip: Eduardo, who we all thought was studying during lunch but was actually filling his notebook with weird facts he observed about us and also managed to chew several packs of gum at once throughout our math class before the teacher noticed him, didnt know the plot to the clockwork orange so i lied about it for 5 weeks before he read it and called me just to tell me "you lying frog" befire he hung up

Ali: Ángel, who lied several times on separate occasions to the campus security about where people smoked, forgot what chihuahuas were twice, and almost drowned when he was swimming except his older brother got him and he immediately called me while waiting for the ambulance to tell me he almost fucking died, randomly sang a song about crabs he made up throughout the day

Danny: Ben, helped me with my biology homework because i helped him with essays, once released a live rat into the computer classroom because he had beef with the teacher, once texted me at 11 p.m. because he was having a mental breakdown over his chem work before he realized he was actually looking at trig and i told him id shoot him with a tranq gun if he woke me up like this again, kept forgetting how to tie his shoes

Tim: Teddy, he catfished 6 men over the age of 30 by pretending to be a 13 yr old girl and lured them to the part of town where there is an absurd amount of wild dogs that evade animal control and are known to maul humans, i watched him lockpick the english teacher's door so he could take back an essay he wrote bc it was actually a slash fic he printed out and turned in by accident, we hung out at a dennys once and he accidentally put his hand in syrup, looked me dead in the eye and said "i did that bc im gay" and wore pastel pink for a month bc it pissed off the hall monitor, his dad, and also six teachers he didnt even have class with

[blacklegsanjiii]

•°♤°• Lol imagine if Sanjis siblings get overprotective of him. Can't imagine if Niji wants to really fking electric someone in his whole entire life/existence when it comes to his baby bro getting hit on. Reiju kinda finds it amusing but has a limit. Yonji just straight up disapproves/confused. Ichiji just wants to spend time w/ his baby bro, not chasing off his admirers. (BTW in this AU, 1234ji/Rejiu are trying to mend their strain relationship).

I'm going to make this an AllSan AU where they set off together like in the swapped!sanji au because this is extremely funny to me. Sanji is not entirely sure why his siblings and him are leaving Germa, he's been locked in a room with a kitchen to keep him away from everyone and they like to think he's dead until they just leave. Like the servants knew but it's not like they would do much other than refresh some of his laundry or bring groceries for his kitchen. No one has particularly fawned over the blonde since his mother died.

But now they're leaving and Sanji is strolling around a market and Niji is trying to make conversation with him to ease the strain between them because uh... yeah he was a dick as a kid and he realizes it and he's just trying to be a better brother now. Except there's this marine with two cigars in his mouth yelling about some shitty pirate until he sees his little brother with an unlit cigarette in his mouth and offers to light it for him. Niji's been flirted with and sees what the marine is trying to do to his oblivious brother who takes the light. The marine offers to show Sanji around and Niji is like 'Sorry! Groceries! Bye!' and when Sanji asks why he did that Niji explains he was going to electrocute the marine if he tried anything with Sanji. Sanji, the beautiful boy, asks why it would be a problem and Niji says he was hitting on Sanji. Sanji waves this off because no one would be interested in him but Niji looks back at the marine as they're glaring at each other and some of the squadron is also now blatantly staring. He jokingly agrees with Sanji but says they need to stay on schedule anyway as they get the rest of the supplies and leave.

Yonji doesn't understand people and love, lust sure, he finds people attractive but at some point it gets too clinical for him and he thinks it's gross. He also doesn't understand why people want his older brothers, Sanji specifically. He is so aloof and doesn't understand what he's doing to people most of the time. This random lady put a flower crown on his head and blushed and ran away. Sanji was also confused but it's cute, Reiju took a picture of Sanji in it when they got back to the ship. One time a couple was straight up trying to get Sanji to go with them to their hotel room and he was confused. Yonji watched Reiju giggle as Ichiji held a sparking Niji from setting the place on fire and exploding them with lightning. Yonji straight up says Sanji can't go with them to the couple before hauling his brother away from the bar sans their drink orders. It's fine, Yonji got them with his winch hands.

Reiju adores her brothers and likes seeing them enjoy themselves and the bakery she in Sanji are in right now is utterly adorable, as is the flustered man running it who keeps sending pastries over. Reiju finds it rather funny at first until they have an absolutely absurd amount of pastries and they can't give them back and also the man is giving Sanji his denden number. Reiju is certainly growing more and more agitated. Also the entire time Sanji is not understanding and thinks it would be good for recipes and Reiju finally tells the man to quit trying to seduce her brother and drags Sanji out. Sanji is confused once again because no one shows interest in him - as far as he knows - and says it would be useful information if he's cooking for them. Reiju argues and sees Sanji flinch and she apologizes with a sigh and is just worried about him being taken from her again.

Ichiji has the unfortunate disposition of looking at his baby brother('I'm not the baby!' 'Not by age but definitely by abilities, bud.') talking to the Strawhat crew and Sanji where the swordsman and the captain are just staring at his babiest brother and deciding whether or not he should kill them or they should renege on the alliance they're in. Because Sanji can't stop being followed and Ichiji is just trying to give Sanji space to heal and grow but also his protectiveness, at least in part, comes from guilt for what he's done and he just really wants to chase off everyone going after the blond. It's after they run into Judge again and Judge is yelling at Sanji about his failings and broadcast it to their allies. Also about them taking said failure and leaving. The swordsman and captain don't seem to mind, maybe it's because Sanji feeds them.

But it's clear the swordsman and the captain like and want their brother, not just for the food and Ichiji is struggling with allowing Sanji to do things because he's just stuck in protecting them all. He finds Sanji later in the galley alone and leans against the counter next to him and out of the way. They look at each other and Ichiji sighs and says nothing they do will make up for when they were children but he doesn't want to hold Sanji back.

"You got me out, I think that pretty much solved everything." Sanji says.

"It didn't, you still flinch when we move too fast, Judge just broadcasted the best things about you when you both think they're awful failures. They aren't. That's why Luffy and Zoro like you." Ichiji shrugs.

"It's because I feed them." Sanji laughs off and Ichiji stares at Sanji in disbelief.

"Sanji, people have been lusting after you since we left. None of us have proper socialization and we're all dumb loners in our family, but we've had so many conversations about people wanting you for themselves and not knowing what to do. I chased off so many people, so has Niji. The bar where Yonji dragged you back to our table basically was because that couple wanted to take you for the night!" Ichiji gestures at his brother wildly.

"They were just being nice." Sanji waves off and Ichiji stands and starts leaving. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to kill our dad!" Ichiji yells as he leaves and his siblings shout after him.

[greater-goober-metropolitan-area]

Can we just talk about how genius Gem's task was?

Due to the nature of secret life, it was taking very long for the reds to gain more members, with only one or two yellows dying per session. And after the death of three reds, this progression was essentially set back to before session four.

With just one red, who obviously cares more about gaining teammates than getting kills, it was unlikely that anyone else would die permanently for the next few sessions. This made it very possible that Secret Life could have lasted for well over 12 sessions, with few of them reaching the same standards of chaos as session 6.

Now that may seem like a dream for some fans, but I believe that for most, myself included, this would have made secret life go down as one of the most boring, anticlimactic life series.

Why did Gem's task prevent this all from happening? Here's the thing: it did three important things that may have saved secret life:

The first is that it made session 7 not only live up to, but surpass the chaos of session 6. In total, there were eight deaths in session 6, and fifteen in session 7. Of those fifteen deaths, ten were directly caused by Gem's task. That is more deaths from one singular task than from an entire session with four times the amount of reds as session 7.

This leads me into the second reason. This task created reds. As I mentioned earlier, it was likely going to take a while for secret life to just end naturally with red kills. The reds need to build up a team first before it is wise to knock anyone out of the series. Due to the low number of reds and the difficulty of killing, it was bound to take at least two, and very likely more sessions for the number of reds to reach a point on its own where it could start snowballing out of control. Gem's task took that entire process of building up reds, and did it all in just one session. Six yellows died in session 7. Six.

The third and final thing that this task did was severely limit the amount of regen that could happen in the session. How so? It presented two possible outcomes for the session:

Everyone (except Martyn) dies at least once, but gains ten hearts/items

At least one person (other than Martyn) stays alive, causing nearly everyone to die and fail their task.

In both possible outcomes, absurd amounts of hearts are lost, never to come back. And since the second outcome was what happened, it created a session in which everyone (except two people) died and nearly everyone failed their tasks.

Because of these three factors working in perfect harmony, one task was able to shorten Secret Life to what is likely to be a reasonable length, and create one of the best sessions of the Life Series, ever.

And that last part is, in my opinion, the biggest takeaway from this. Not only was it incredible series design, it was also just really fun to watch.

TL;DR: The task artificially shortened the life series to a reasonable length through three spectacular means, undoing session 6's prolonging of it twice over, and was overall just really fun to watch

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

Chapter 3 of The stranger the better is up, featuring more case fic shenanigans, the boys learning to work together (despite Edwin's best efforts) and way too much time spent with old books from the archives.

Excerpt:

“Have you found anything of note?”

“Not unless they found anything unusual in Miles’s stomach?”

“According to Dr. Green, just an absurd amount of kale for before 7 AM.”

“Well, then I guess he didn’t pick up a headache tonic from a bloke at the circus and find his brains leaking out of his ears after a few doses.” Agent Rowland pats one of the case files in front of him.

“From what we’ve learned, Miles does not seem like the type to have suffered in silence. If he’d been experiencing headaches, he surely would have made them Cecelia’s problem. Plus, I like to think people today know better than to purchase medicines from strangers at circuses.”

“I don’t know.” Agent Rowland smiles again. He does that quite a lot. “Doesn’t sound all that different from the vitamin smoothies my mum buys from her massage therapist.”

“I do hope her brains don’t start leaking out of her ears,” Edwin says dryly, then wonders if that’s not the sort of joke one should make about someone’s mother.

To his relief, Agent Rowland giggles. Actually giggles, like a child delighted by something shiny. It shouldn’t be charming, but Edwin feels his own lips tugging into an answering smile.

“I cannot cast judgment,” he says. “Back in my day, they treated just about anything with cocaine. I remember being about ten and having a doctor who was overly enthusiastic about treating my common cold. My brains did not leak out of my ears, but I thought they would.”

"Didn’t realize the Victorians were so much fun.”

“Edwardian,” Edwin corrects automatically, reaching for his cooling mug of tea. “I was born in 1900, a year before Queen Victoria died.”

“All the cocaine that did her in, was it?”

[elbiotipo]

Like yeah I will admit that paper maganzines ARE almost dead here too (no more Anteojito or Billiken ever again.......) but that last post reminded of the tech gap between the First World and the Third World. No, I don't do all my shopping online, and no, I cannot just "buy a better laptop", what do you mean "16 RAM is obsolete", that's a top of the line laptop here. No, I won't buy a VR set to get into your fucking Metaverse, and no, I don't regulary "upgrade" my PC, no I won't fucking buy an internet connected refrigerator that is five times more expensive than a regular one, what the fuck is an "internet of things", none of my things have internet except my computer (barely), I will use my cellphone until it breaks I won't buy the latest model just because it has a new camera, you might as well ask me to buy a sports car every year.

Sometimes I read articles or things that are just completely incomprehensible and I realize they are written and aimed towards the Silicon Valley (and equivalent) audiences who have high speed wifi everywhere and can afford to just throw computers to the trash and buy new ones. There's such an incredible amount of electronics freely available in the USA and other countries (but mostly in the USA) and a culture of changing them when there's a new one, it's almost absurd. Here you don't "upgrade your laptop", you keep it running until it dies.

And here in Argentina it's the other extreme, electronics are treated as luxury items while they are all-important tools, but that's because we are hostage to a bunch of economical speculators who masturbate to the dollar exchange rate, but the situation is similar in other countries I think.

(There are rich people here who can afford to change cellphones and electronics but the majority lives like this)

[thelreads]

Yeah Yor, there she is. You should've arrived half an hour ago, you can't believe the amount of trouble we had killing those people smh

Yes Yor, she went through all that, in that order. Luckily it all missed her vital organs, so she managed to regenerate herself and now she's back to full power.

...

Alright Anya, now I have a question for you, one that comes all the way from that page back there... Tell me, what exactly are you crying for?

Sure, that was a highly stressful situation, being threatened and forced to listen to everyone's fears and despair, and you did almost die, it is understandable that you'd cry after all that, now that your adrenaline died down, but here's the thing... You almost died plenty of times so far, but we never saw you crying that much, the previous time I remember you crying was when Yor scared that dog and you.

And thinking about that previous page, with you looking at the other kids makes me wonder, are you crying because you're relieved that Yor came here? Because you thought that since they weren't your real parents they wouldn't be that worried, or bother about it? We know that's absurd, but you're only four, and you went through a lot of abandonment, did you really thought, somewhere, deep in your heart, that your parents wouldn't come here for you?