#I honestly don't see the difference

[theecholegend]

Just made a realization going through some old art. A drawing I did 5 months ago (Bunny lege on the left) vs a drawing I did 3 weeks ago (Hylian Lege on the right)

Some things never change :)

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[uncanny-tranny]

It's honestly frustrating that I've seen non-Russian queer people almost bragging about how they would be illegal in Russia, labeled an extremist or terrorist. Russian queers are in danger, their government has made it clear where it stands, and it's made this effort for the better part of a decade (even longer, perhaps). This will kill people, don't mistake this for a quirky little proclamation from a government, akin to somebody saying the sky is pink. Russian queer people were already expressing their fear, and the least we can do now is express our love for them, and advocate with them.

Russian queer people, I love you. I love you all so much. I am so sorry, I cannot begin to express the grief that I feel, and I hope that you are safe. Words cannot encapsulate how I feel as a non-Russian, and I cannot hope to comprehend how it feels to actually be in this situation.

[seance]

Human connections were never easy when I was alive. And now that I'm dead, they seem to bring somehow even more baggage. There are these feelings that I'm not used to. I thought those feelings were never to be spoken of. But once you have them… it's hard to hold them back. And that terrifies me.

[territorial-utopia]

Huzzah! It's birthday time! I'm slowly accumulating more and more things I like (latest additions this vest I made and a travel typewriter! Still need to fix the latter one though)

Sure has been a year.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[essektheylyss]

Okay I'm not normally one to comment publicly on ship portmanteaus but we seem nowhere near a consensus and I've been reading basically nothing but taxonomic theory with a side of organizational management for like seven weeks straight so: why is verleth not the default option. It cannot be because it's too close to vexleth when everyone's been using it next to vaxleth for years. Obviously we could go to keyrin, but a) every other Keyleth ship name is [other person]leth, and b) it's going to be annoying as hell with autocorrect for being one letter off of a real word.

But most critical, we cannot use "thelyss" as Verin's part of the portmanteau, on account of the fact that Verin has been on screen for like three minutes, and his older brother, with whom he does still share a second name, has been on screen for like fifteen hours. I know Essek's ship names usually use his title but Verin ALSO is not the most obvious Task Hand (rip Adeen Tasithar, you probably would've loved being a shady bitch in Vasselheim but honestly, I don't actually know well enough to say).

Think of new fans trying to figure out who the fuck is in this ship. Think of the tag wranglers. Think of me, local taxonomy nerd who will one day just lose it and start yelling on the dash about authority controls and the absolute inadequacy of disambiguation by committee.*

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

Rook Hunt x Yuu/Reader

Rook was always so put together. Not in the way Jade was of course, but nothing ever seemed to surprise him or make him angry, anything other than that passion or happiness that seemed to shine through.

Maybe that's why they did it.

Vil had just left to start his skin care routine for the night and Epel could apparently be convinced to get enough sleep if one phrased it for Spelldrive practice instead of beauty sleep.

Yuu and Rook were quietly putting away what few study materials were left, a tray of sweets and meats out being stored away for Yuu to take home.

"You mentioned a game earlier, with these?" he says, picking up one of the 'pocky' sticks. It was called something different here, about half the size and richer, but it was more or less the same.

"Yea-Yes." they corrected themselves, "Yes. It's like a game of chicken. Two people bite down on either end and nibble on it until you get to the middle. Whoever pulls away first loses."

Rook's grinned, exclaiming some sort of French, before leaning over the table with the treat offered from his mouth.

Maybe that's why they let the intrusive thoughts win. Just to see what he might look like flustered or surprised. Maybe it was that he was an interesting man. Maybe it was a lot of things.

Before they could really think too hard about it, Yuu leaned across the table and pulled Rook closer by his chin. Their tongue wrapped around the treat to break it in half before simply taking both.

Rook's eyes widened slightly, chocolate smudged on his bottom lip that twitched into a small grin.

"Not bad." Yuu whispered, grasping the handle of their bag and practically running out.

Why? Who's to say?

Really they should have expected some sort of retaliation, but pinned the next day wasn't in the top 10.

No, him finding Yuu curled under some tree only to drop down into a crouch with his knee on one side of their head and their foot on the other was not in the top 10.

"That was a dirty trick, Mon Trickster." he whispered playfully, though his eyes were dancing. His smile was different. Softer. Warmer.

Again, damn intrusive thoughts, because reaching up to pat one of those muscular thighs was not apart of the plan.

"Maybe I'm just testing the waters."

He hums, tucks a strand of hair that had fallen out of place before lightly pulling on it.

"I am picking you up at 7. Nice, but not formal. Wear good shoes for it will be a bit of a walk."

He rises, hops back into the tree, and the faint sound of a zipline starts going before Yuu picks themselves off the ground.

Ace and Deuce, who were waiting underneath the tree for them, can only stare ludicrously.

"What the hell?" Ace asks, staring at the place Rook had left from.

"Well mark me down as scared and horny." Yuu murmurs, looking at the same spot.

"By the seven..." Deuce shakes his head, and then everything passes when Ace makes fun of his blush, and they start to wrestle.

Neither of them notices Yuu's own cheeks until long after it's faded. Thankfully they say nothing when they leave just a little bit earlier than planned.

Afterall, they have a date tonight.

[torchstelechos]

People be like, how you doing? And I'm like, Loop is never going to see their family again.

[many-gay-magpies]

god what really gets me about dead boy detectives and what i think i love so much about the show and the relationships in it is that like. the romantic and sexual relationships aren't portrayed as being more unique or important than the platonic relationships. they're all just RELATIONSHIPS.

charles and crystal's attraction to each other and eventual hookup isn't this big end-all be-all relationship that shatter charles and edwin's friendship and draws charles' attention away from edwin; it's just a THING that happens. they're just two people that care about each other and happen to also be attracted to each other, and a hook-up happens, then they decide that neither of them are in the right place for it and it's nothing awful. crystal kisses charles, but it isn't some big spectacle of her declaring her love for him; it's just her saying goodbye and that she cares about him, like her hugs with niko and jenny and her handshake with edwin.

edwin realizes he loves charles romantically and tells him, and charles says he doesn't really love edwin romantically BACK, but it's okay, because they still love each other so much in so many other ways that this one tiny difference could never change them—and it doesn't!! they're still just as close, still care for each other just as much, still SHOW that care for each other just as much. their relationship didn't completely end because edwin loved charles in a way charles couldn't reciprocate, but at the same time it isn't "solved" by edwin getting over it, because there's nothing TO solve. it's just another type of love, added to everything that already exists between them. and they have LITERALLY FOREVER to figure out what it means.

the relationships between edwin & niko, crystal & niko, and crystal & edwin aren't given any less weight for being solely platonic, just as charles & crystal's relationship and edwin's feelings for charles aren't given (that much) MORE weight for being romantic. crystal and charles' conflict in the closet is about EDWIN, about how they're BOTH his friend and BOTH want to get him back; it has very little to do with the feelings between THEM, romantic or otherwise. similarly, the weight of charles' and edwin's relationship isn't diminished in the LEAST by charles not reciprocating the romantic side of his feelings (or SAYING he doesn't reciprocate, at least—we can all argue about the legitimacy of that in the notes).

i'm sure there are more examples than this, as well as probably some examples that CONTRADICT this, but like... by and large, it feels like dead boy detectives is a show where all the relationships are given equal weight regardless of platonic, sexual, romantic, or familial status, and as someone on both the asexual and aromantic spectrums who has struggled time and time again with shows casting out the importance of all other relationships in favor of prioritizing romance, that is INCREDIBLY refreshing to see.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

debate

(topic: how many and what configuration of kids do they give off vibes of having (either at present or in the future)(partner is irrelevant in most cases, some could be single parents for all i care))

[highfantasy-soul]

My view on the Elrond/Galadriel kiss:

Cultures be different.

Kisses on the lips are not always sexual/romantic. (I, as an American, have kissed certain friends on the lips in completely platonic ways)

In many cultures, closed-mouthed kisses on the lips are a sign of love and emotional connection in a platonic/familial way.

Specifically American aversion to affection in any form is rotting people's brains - here, a lot of men won't even HUG each other because they think it's 'too intimate'. Other cultures kiss on the hand, cheek, forehead, nose, and yes, lips too, in completely platonic ways. [And we're not even going to get into the large portion of the population who thinks that men and women literally CANNOT be just friends, if a man and woman are close, it HAS to be romantic/sexual.]

Just because YOUR culture/personal preference reserves lip kisses for romantic/sexual feelings only doesn't mean everyone else is wrong for feeling differently.

I didn't read the kiss as Elrond secretly having romantic feelings for Galadriel at all - to me it was clear it was a platonic show of how much he cared for her and how sorry he was that they had been at odds all season (and largely in S1 too) and was afraid it was really going to be the last time he saw her. He wanted to show her just how much she meant to him - PLATONICALLY - and a tender kiss (while also using it as a distraction to slip her a lock-pick) was the way he did it.

Obviously it's ok for people to interpret it as romantic if they ship Galadriel and Elrond, but to say that's the ONLY interpretation based on your own limited cultural understanding of what a kiss could mean is just frustrating.

[uncanny-tranny]

The whole "breasts shouldn't be politicized because the primary purpose of breasts is to feed babies!" can be a fine jumping-off point, but I really wish people thought deeper than that when we talk about the ways in which bodies are politicized and restricted.

Like, why's it that when we talk about breasts, they must have some Higher Purpose? It's true that breasts aren't inherently sexual, but they aren't valuable solely because they can potentially feed a baby. A human body doesn't have to serve a Higher Purpose in order for it to not be legislated against or policed, and I just wish people would remember it isn't always about babies, about other people, about anything else other than the people who have that body.

[bird-inacage]

Love Sea Post-Episode 8 Thoughts: Fortpeat are the MVPs

I cannot emphasise enough how Fortpeat's chemistry is carrying this show. I commend the sheer conviction and commitment these two clearly have in their characters and the relationship they are portraying. I am thoroughly enjoying the boldness that has emerged in their roles as Rakmut. Their efforts have not gone amiss.

The downside for me is that Love Sea's plot has (largely) been far clumsier in it's writing compared to the Prapaisky storyline in LITA. I think what worked in LITA's favour was its much simpler trajectory. Fortpeat are doing their darned best with the material here, but the story beats aren't landing quite as well as they could. My hunch is MAME tried to up the ante with her narrative, which hasn't quite paid off in terms of execution. (I'll refrain from reviewing this definitively until the series has finished but this is a reoccurring observation).

Regardless, Fortpeat's phenomenal chemistry is doing a tonne, if not the bulk of the heavy lifting. And if they were a less compelling duo, the story would probably be at risk of falling flat on a number of accounts. MeMindY have a lot to thank them for here.

I have to give a honourable mention to the actress Nina who plays Meena. The girl has been an absolute delight to watch, especially in her exchanges with Fort. She's cute and endearing but also incredibly natural on-screen, which is a breath of fresh air. Some of her adult counterparts could even take a note or two. I'm very impressed at her ability to competently keep pace with the cast in the serious scenes. The moment where she intercedes Mut and Jak was wonderfully delivered, considering her age.

Now, I haven't delved much into the discourse surrounding how Fortpeat as a duo deserve better than the treatment they're getting from MeMindY. All I would say is Fortpeat have clearly shown themselves to be an incredibly valuable asset as an acting duo, and I'm very intrigued as to what their next step will be post-Love Sea.

[hepbaestus]