#Parallel universe

[whos-the-seme]

[Ding! Pre-canon storyline has begun.]

[Binding Host to Character Shen Qingqiu...]

[Error! Unable to bind Host!]

[Attempting to find Role for Host...]

[...]

Shen Yuan blinked awake and immediately wanted to retch.

He was somehow on hard ground, on his side. He tried to roll over onto his back, attempting to get away from the stench that was wafting into his nose, but a fierce pain ran through his stomach. He groaned, clutching his abdomen, fighting to not throw up from the agony and the horrible smell.

"A-Yuan?" A young-sounding voice whispered into the dark. There was some shifting near him before a small hand reached out to touch his forehead. Shen Yuan flinched away from the hand, and it stopped a few inches away, hovering in the air. He closed his eyes again. "...don't try to pretend you've fallen back asleep, idiot. Let me see how you're feeling."

The hand finally made contact, trying to take his temperature. Shen Yuan groaned again, but buried his head further into the coolness of the hand on his forehead. It was a sharp contrast to the rising heat in his body that he was becoming aware of.

He tried to push past the pain and the grogginess to remember where he was, but nothing came up in recent memory. Last he remembered, he was at his computer, writing another comment on Airplane's latest chapter and eating some yogurt from his fridge. Had the yogurt gone bad or something? Had he been so delirious after eating it that he had wandered outside in search of help and passed out in an alleyway?

It would explain how hard the ground felt beneath his head, but not the strange kid (he assumed it was a kid, anyway) near him who was trying to help. Yet, the kid's voice felt... familiar, somehow.

A sigh. "You feel warm. I think you have a fever." No wonder he felt so tired despite having just woken up. A comforting smell came closer, and Shen Yuan moved towards it, until the top of his head bumped against a leg.

"Why do you always act like your head is stuffed full of leaves?" the voice said. The hand was now stroking his head in a clumsy, but familiar, attempt to soothe. It was working. He blinked, trying to fight sleep long enough to figure out what was going on. Who was this person again? "I told you not to eat that bun. It had gone bad, A-Yuan."

"But I was hungry!" Shen Yuan whined. He blinked again. What? That had come from him, from his mouth, but-- He suddenly felt very strange past the stomachache and fever, as if he somehow didn't fit right into his body. As if his body was too small and his mind blurry.

"Well, now look at you." The hand on his head suddenly shot out to grab his cheek, pinching and twisting roughly. What the fuck!? That hurt! Shen Yuan tried to pull away but was unsuccessful. "You're lucky Qi-ge said he knew where he could get some stomach medicine."

He would also need some medicine for his cheek at this rate. A strange thought pinged in the back of his head, suddenly feeling like he knew where he could get some. He had seen some herbs the other day that he somehow knew could be ground into a paste for small wounds and bruises.

"Ow, gege!" The cruel fingers just pinched his cheeks harder, before he was finally let go moments later. Why did his gege and all the jiejies like pinching his cheeks so much?

...his gege? Shen Yuan tried to think, but his head felt more and more heavy, his thoughts slipping through his fingers. Something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what. Whatever, it was fine. His gege would take care of it.

"Ugh, 'm sorry," Shen Yuan mumbled around his throbbing cheek. His gege hmph'd before falling silent, resuming his head petting.

Shen Yuan attempted to focus on how nice it felt to have his head petted. They sat in silence for a few minutes, during which Shen Yuan slowly but surely started to drift off to the rhythm of having his hair stroked.

"Falling asleep again already?" Shen Yuan didn't respond, only humming. Distantly, he felt his upper body carefully being moved onto someone's lap. He snuggled closer, breathing in the smell of his gege past the smell of unwashed bodies that he had long gotten used to in their years on the street. "Go ahead and sleep, then. I'll wake you up when Qi-ge gets back."

He was already fully asleep when the voice finally spoke again.

"Maybe next time, you'll know to listen to your Jiu-ge."

[...]

[Ding! Host has been bound to Role: The Scum Villain's Brother.]

Shen Qingqiu was doomed.

He stood still, fluttering his fan nervously and trying to avoid catching his counterpart's, the real Shen Qingqiu, glaring eyes from across the room. Instead, he idly observed the other Cang Qiong Mountain Peak Lords, trying to spot the differences between the ones he knew and their alternates.

Liu Qingge had brought back a strange artifact from one of his hunts to the monthly Peak Lord meeting. It was a mirror, rimmed an ugly tarnished gold, topped with a decoration that was shaped into an unidentifiable creature with ruby red eyes.

[Important Artifact Detected: Red-Eyed Sphinx's Mirror! Quest starting...]

Shen Qingqiu had been trying to remember where it might have appeared in PIDW when the surface of the mirror suddenly began to glow a dull yellow. It quickly brightened until it obscured everyone's vision.

And then, there stood another set of peak lords across the room, facing them down.

System, what on earth is going on???

[Quest started: Lost Long Spirit in My Reflection! Other characters have been transported to this universe. Host must find a way to send them back without revealing his identity as a transmigrator.]

WTF? I didn't agree to this!

[Good luck!]

System??? Get back here!

While the two Yue Qingyuans and Xu Qinglis conversed together to try to understand what had happened, the other peak lords had begun to mingle with each other, curious about their counterparts.

Shen Qingqiu tried to suppress his panic, sticking close to Shang Qinghua. His Yue Qingyuan occasionally flicked his softened gaze towards the alternate Shen Qingqiu, likely noticing that the other still acted as he used to before his qi deviation. In fact, several of the peak lords he had gotten to know over the years were sending some looks at the other Shen Qingqiu.

With the original goods right there, how long would it be before something exposed him as a fraud?? What if he was confronted about why he acted so differently?

[Host must avoid having his identity exposed. Being revealed as a transmigrator will result in Host being immediately sent back to his old body.]

Yeah, yeah, same shit as always!

Looking to his side, Shang Qinghua seemed to be experiencing the same threats, desperately looking away from the more dead-eyed Shang Qinghua across the room who, luckily, was barely paying him any attention.

Fuck, what do we do?

---

Shen Qingqiu continued to glare at the Other Shen Qingqiu in the room. The other Shen Qingqiu was so obviously a fraud, he could tell within minutes of being here. While his alternate seemed somewhat familiar, he didn't act like him at all, his mannerisms were all off, and despite the attempt at keeping a poker face, Shen Qingqiu could tell that he was nervous. Probably at being caught out.

His alternate self had likely been replaced with a bodysnatcher or some sort of spirt, if they truly were supposed to be the same person. Was everyone else stupid, or had they had their brains sucked out by a Heart Mouthed Lobster-Squid?

Or maybe they simply like the bodysnatcher better and didn't bother to investigate.

Shen Qingqiu's face became stormier, turning his glare to the Other Yue Qingyuan, wondering if he had felt happier once his precious Xiao-Jiu had vanished. The other Yue Qingyuan's face grew even more pathetic. Tch. Typical.

"That stupid System--" Shen Qingqiu nearly snapped his neck in looking at the bodysnatcher upon hearing his murmur. The fraud, upon noticing his sudden attention, clammed back up and looked away. But Shen Qingqiu knew what he heard.

Xi Tong.

He hadn't heard those words in years, not since--

He stepped forward, scanning the other once more. Upon a second, more thorough look, Shen Qingqiu realized that he grew more familiar. He wore his hair in the way that Shen Qingqiu wore it, but looser and less severe. His eyes were clearer and lighter, with hints of a smile, despite his nerves. He occasionally quickly glanced up and to his left, as if seeing something there, before bringing his attention back to the room at large.

No. It couldn't be. He was long dead, despite Shen Qingqiu's best efforts. Even if the fake had some similar things about him, that doesn't mean--

Shen Jiu had once had a brother, besides Qi-ge. Slightly smaller than him, despite the fact that Shen Jiu passed him along as much food as he could when on the streets. He smiled so much despite their circumstances, and was so kind despite Shen Jiu constantly telling him that he was making himself a target. But he looked so, so similar to Shen Jiu himself. They could have switched their clothes and looked exactly the same, if one didn't notice the difference in their demeanors.

His brother has also always been a little odd, talking to himself and arguing with an imaginary friend that only he could see named Xi Tong. One of the reasons that they survived as long as they did on the streets was due to the inexplicable knowledge that his brother seemed to have. Somehow, his brother knew about the various plants or small animals that they could hunt and sell for a pretty coin in the markets. Shen Jiu never asked, not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

But his brother was dead. He had died years ago, in the time during when they were in Qiu's manor. During a punishment for Shen Jiu's attempt to get them both to join Wu Yanzi; he had switched their clothes and taken Shen Jiu's place and died for it. That had been the final catalyst that made him set the manor ablaze and escape, mourning his brother's death as his fault for daring to be free. Cursing Qi-ge for not coming back for them.

Dazed and his vision dim, Shen Jiu took another step forward, and another. Hope, something he thought he had killed off long ago, slowly rose in his chest.

Had his brother survived in this world? Had he managed to escape alongside Shen Jiu? Or had Shen Jiu died in his place? Dimly, he can't help but think that the world would be far kinder if that were the case. If his brother had made it to Cang Qiong Mountain and became a peak lord all on his own and still managed to keep his smile. If he didn't have Shen Jiu dragging him down with him.

The other Shen Qingqiu, not having noticed his approach, laughed at something the other Shang Qinghua said ("Wonder if Shang Qinghua is a traitor here, too," Shen Jiu thought dimly). His laugh was the same. He rose his fan to hide his face, but Shen Jiu noticed how his nose crinkled, and his eyes nearly closed in delight, exactly like--

"A-Yuan?"

[mysticstronomy]

WHY ARE THE MAPS OF THE COSMOS ALWAYS OVAL - SHAPED??

Blog#495

Welcome back,

Wednesday, April 9th, 2025.

The Universe is a vast and expansive place. From any location, you have total freedom to look in any direction you like: up or down, left or right, and near or far, to any distance in any direction that you choose. (Well, so long as there isn’t anything nearby in the way of a more distant object that you want to observe.) It’s like you have a buffet, an omnidirectional buffet, of targets to choose from.

You can even imagine observing it all: not just the half of the sky you can see by lying down in a field on a clear night, but in all directions all at once, like if you had an array of lenses that looked around in all 360° at once (plus the ability to view 90° up and down from the horizontal), that gathered light from all possible angles simultaneously.

And yet, when we show images of the cosmic microwave background — whether from COBE, WMAP, Planck, or a different mission — they’re almost always shown as oval-shaped. What does that oval shape actually show us, and why do astronomers make that specific visualization choice? That’s what Ed Matzenik wants to know, writing in to ask:

“I don’t understand the projections we see of the CMB. They are usually a circle or an oval. Is that the whole sky or just a section? If I was looking at a sphere from inside I don’t know how I’d represent it on a flat sheet…hope you can clear up this mystery for me.”

Honestly, the first time I encountered them — and remember, I’m a professional cosmologist who first encountered them in graduate school — I suffered from almost exactly the same puzzlement. Let’s begin with something we’re much more familiar with in order to get started: planet Earth.

This is going to sound obvious, but the first thing you have to realize about planet Earth is that, to a first approximation, its shape is spherical. The most accurate tool we use to model and represent planet Earth is a three-dimensional structure: a globe. A globe, after all, is spherical in shape, and when you see land masses and watery regions, the globe does an excellent job of displaying things accurately in a wide variety of ways.

Originally published on https://bigthink.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, April 12th, 2025)

"WHAT IF THE UNIVERSE IS ALIVE AND CONSCIOUS??"

[uniquesherin]

🪽

[gcballet]

Does Tongue Tied exist for any purpose beyond letting Danny John-Jules remind everyone he was in the original cast of Starlight Express?

I still can't believe they let him compete on Strictly Come Dancing he's basically a ringer lol

[strawlessandbraless]

Cas wakes up in a world where all versions of Dean exist at once. He makes sure to validate them all accordingly and hangs this up on the fridge

[tyrusmagocious]

Maybe in a different universe, we’ll be together.

And they were.

The cheerful and selfless dark-haired sweethearts and their confident and endearing golden haired lovers.

[airjemsfandump]

In a parallel universe, they'd be besties. 🥹

[tooselfaware]

Cale needed that evil god's test. Not only to fight despair, but also for his mental health.

He needed to see that there was a world where "Kim Rok Soo" was not left to survive alone. He needed to see all his "what ifs" happen. He needed to resolve all the regrets of "Kim Rok Soo" to fully live as Cale Henituse. Because even if it wasn't his world, he now knows that a "Kim Rok Soo" was happy, surrounded by people he loves, people who would survive with him.

That is how he can loosen the shackles of fear of being alone again as Cale. "We will all survive" is not just a random mantra for him. He needs it to be true. He has had so much loss and grief in his life.

Even if he doesn't really say so, that grief was what kept him going. To "not waste" the sacrifices of all those who saved him, he kept surviving. But that is also why he's reckless despite "valuing" his life.

I think, subconsciously, he thinks that if he can save more people, then that would be a good "payment" for those who saved him. His "slacker life" is basically world peace. 🤭

Back to the point... The test showed him Kim Rok Soo and everyone he cares for survive, so now he has more courage and less doubt to face WS because he wants a life like Parallel KRS', as Cale Henituse.

[1five1two]

[xwandawidowx]

Ellie & Dina ❤️

[dec2007]

my most complex and time taking weirdcore video edit it is special for 4k followers on my tumblr and also like christmas gift. it has its own lore/story and is my biggest weirdcore project! watch with headphones or sound on.. i started this in February and finally finished!!

[save-the-data]

The Boy Next World | Official Trailer

Thai Drama - 2025, 10 Episodes

~~ Adapted from the novel "The Boy Next World" (คนละกาลเวลา) by MAME.

[mysticstronomy]

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE??

Blog#494

Welcome back,

Saturday, April 5th, 2025.

The largest known ‘object’ in the Universe is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall.

This is a ‘galactic filament’, a vast cluster of galaxies bound together by gravity, and it’s estimated to be about 10 billion light-years across! However, this is not really a ‘celestial body’ – a term which normally implies a tightly-bound object like a star or a galaxy.

The largest known elliptical galaxy is thought to be IC 1101 (with a diameter of four million light-years), and the largest known spiral galaxy is Malin 1 (with a diameter of 650,000 light-years).

Meanwhile, the largest star by radius is thought to be UY Scuti, a red hypergiant star in the constellation of Scutum that has an estimated radius of over a billion kilometres – 1,700 times that of the Sun.

Originally published on https://www.sciencefocus.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, April 9th, 2025)

"WHY ARE THE MAPS OF THE COSMOS ALWAYS OVAL - SHAPED??"

[whos-the-seme]

Shen Qingqiu was doomed.

He stood still, fluttering his fan nervously and trying to avoid catching his counterpart's, the real Shen Qingqiu, glaring eyes from across the room. Instead, he idly observed the other Cang Qiong Mountain Peak Lords, trying to spot the differences between the ones he knew and their alternates.

Liu Qingge had brought back a strange artifact from one of his hunts to the monthly Peak Lord meeting. It was a mirror, rimmed an ugly tarnished gold, topped with a decoration that was shaped into an unidentifiable creature with ruby red eyes.

[Important Artifact Detected: Red-Eyed Sphinx's Mirror! Quest starting...]

Shen Qingqiu had been trying to remember where it might have appeared in PIDW when the surface of the mirror suddenly began to glow a dull yellow. It quickly brightened until it obscured everyone's vision.

And then, there stood another set of peak lords across the room, facing them down.

System, what on earth is going on???

[Quest started: Lost Long Spirit in My Reflection! Other characters have been transported to this universe. Host must find a way to send them back without revealing his identity as a transmigrator.]

WTF? I didn't agree to this!

[Good luck!]

System??? Get back here!

While the two Yue Qingyuans and Xu Qinglis conversed together to try to understand what had happened, the other peak lords had begun to mingle with each other, curious about their counterparts.

Shen Qingqiu tried to suppress his panic, sticking close to Shang Qinghua. His Yue Qingyuan occasionally flicked his softened gaze towards the alternate Shen Qingqiu, likely noticing that the other still acted as he used to before his qi deviation. In fact, several of the peak lords he had gotten to know over the years were sending some looks at the other Shen Qingqiu.

With the original goods right there, how long would it be before something exposed him as a fraud?? What if he was confronted about why he acted so differently?

[Host must avoid having his identity exposed. Being revealed as a transmigrator will result in Host being immediately sent back to his old body.]

Yeah, yeah, same shit as always!

Looking to his side, Shang Qinghua seemed to be experiencing the same threats, desperately looking away from the more dead-eyed Shang Qinghua across the room who, luckily, was barely paying him any attention.

Fuck, what do we do?

---

Shen Qingqiu continued to glare at the Other Shen Qingqiu in the room. The other Shen Qingqiu was so obviously a fraud, he could tell within minutes of being here. While his alternate seemed somewhat familiar, he didn't act like him at all, his mannerisms were all off, and despite the attempt at keeping a poker face, Shen Qingqiu could tell that he was nervous. Probably at being caught out.

His alternate self had likely been replaced with a bodysnatcher or some sort of spirt, if they truly were supposed to be the same person. Was everyone else stupid, or had they had their brains sucked out by a Heart Mouthed Lobster-Squid?

Or maybe they simply like the bodysnatcher better and didn't bother to investigate.

Shen Qingqiu's face became stormier, turning his glare to the Other Yue Qingyuan, wondering if he had felt happier once his precious Xiao-Jiu had vanished. The other Yue Qingyuan's face grew even more pathetic. Tch. Typical.

"That stupid System--" Shen Qingqiu nearly snapped his neck in looking at the bodysnatcher upon hearing his murmur. The fraud, upon noticing his sudden attention, clammed back up and looked away. But Shen Qingqiu knew what he heard.

Xi Tong.

He hadn't heard those words in years, not since--

He stepped forward, scanning the other once more. Upon a second, more thorough look, Shen Qingqiu realized that he grew more familiar. He wore his hair in the way that Shen Qingqiu wore it, but looser and less severe. His eyes were clearer and lighter, with hints of a smile, despite his nerves. He occasionally quickly glanced up and to his left, as if seeing something there, before bringing his attention back to the room at large.

No. It couldn't be. He was long dead, despite Shen Qingqiu's best efforts. Even if the fake had some similar things about him, that doesn't mean--

Shen Jiu had once had a brother, besides Qi-ge. Slightly smaller than him, despite the fact that Shen Jiu passed him along as much food as he could when on the streets. He smiled so much despite their circumstances, and was so kind despite Shen Jiu constantly telling him that he was making himself a target. But he looked so, so similar to Shen Jiu himself. They could have switched their clothes and looked exactly the same, if one didn't notice the difference in their demeanors.

His brother has also always been a little odd, talking to himself and arguing with an imaginary friend that only he could see named Xi Tong. One of the reasons that they survived as long as they did on the streets was due to the inexplicable knowledge that his brother seemed to have. Somehow, his brother knew about the various plants or small animals that they could hunt and sell for a pretty coin in the markets. Shen Jiu never asked, not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

But his brother was dead. He had died years ago, in the time during when they were in Qiu's manor. During a punishment for Shen Jiu's attempt to get them both to join Wu Yanzi; he had switched their clothes and taken Shen Jiu's place and died for it. That had been the final catalyst that made him set the manor ablaze and escape, mourning his brother's death as his fault for daring to be free. Cursing Qi-ge for not coming back for them.

Dazed and his vision dim, Shen Jiu took another step forward, and another. Hope, something he thought he had killed off long ago, slowly rose in his chest.

Had his brother survived in this world? Had he managed to escape alongside Shen Jiu? Or had Shen Jiu died in his place? Dimly, he can't help but think that the world would be far kinder if that were the case. If his brother had made it to Cang Qiong Mountain and became a peak lord all on his own and still managed to keep his smile. If he didn't have Shen Jiu dragging him down with him.

The other Shen Qingqiu, not having noticed his approach, laughed at something the other Shang Qinghua said ("Wonder if Shang Qinghua is a traitor here, too," Shen Jiu thought dimly). His laugh was the same. He rose his fan to hide his face, but Shen Jiu noticed how his nose crinkled, and his eyes nearly closed in delight, exactly like--

"A-Yuan?"

[gcballet]

Red Dwarf II as Penguin Classics

<- | ->

[strawlessandbraless]

Please reblog for larger sampling size, a bitch is curious ❤️