#but art god would be like the community lmao

[outta-trouble]

Questioning question, what do artists that comissionate and it's their major income/job/work when they have artblock or burnout art off?

because i find it hard to believe that bosses would say "oh you have artblock? I'll give you a still paid freedays so you get outta it"

this question comes from how usually i leave art for around 9 months or so because of school consuming like half the energy i would use to draw, just to start again from zero, or at least a fifty thanks to doing random doodles in class or similar things

[the-moon-files]

so... my interpretation of guide!reader may be vastly different from others but with my vast assimilation of yours and others content, this is my variation of the one I like envisioning involving concepts such as yours (Humans are NOT Hylians and Guide!Reader) so this is my official start to the ramblings *DEEP INHALE*

when I read the post about reader losing their sord and just punching the monsters and it is working along with the other links being amazed

I imagine that because of the fact that hylian's are so light that they didn't put that much into the growth of physical arts

they can punch and kick fine but that's more so used for scraps agents one another, rather than in fights against monsters

hylian's don't have enough strength or weight to have it be worth it on the battlefield

its much more worth their time and energy to learn things like swordsmanship or artery, and be nimble

but guide dose have: the muscle, weight, durability and training necessary for such a strategy to be worth it

It would be more effective for the reader to use the Muay Thai and Taekwondo they worked so hard on instead of learning something new

_*looking respectfully

I can imagine that this levees them beater of physically than most (*cough* me *cough*)

leveeing them much more prepared

along with giving them a lot more... muscle...

Link's(-wind):... please crush me between your thighs

Guide!Reader: what?

Link's(-wind): what.

I know that it has been said that reader is shorter than time, but I personally like them slightly bigger than time

you know... forehead kissing rang

so it's only slightly less awkward to pick them up

I think their deep honey like voice could be compared to their slightly dark honey-colored eyes

someone like legend would appreciate how their eyes turn golden in the sun light, shining like no ring on his finger

Hyrule loves how they feel different from the cold sweetness of sugar water, instead they feel like rich honey and warm cinnamene

wild remembers them as there very first true companion and comfort

to wars, an immovable force, never leveeing their side

that's all I have fore now, but be warned...

I'll be back!

and I'm putting them in a dress (:<

AHH SORRY FOR LATE REPLY U HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH IVE BEEN HOGGING THIS TO MYSELF

Martial arts reader/Mc my beloved <333

U sent in ART TOO??!!!! 😭🙏

i love stuff like this sm ur style is so 😳💌💘💝💖💓💞💕❤️‍🔥🙈

The bit abt hylians not needing as much/making intricate martial arts/making their body be the weapon is so peak worldbuilding, if i had an official stamp to say smth is canon in my little HaNH AU (Humans are Not Hylians) i would stamp this 10x over

Acc u know what one sec

Since u made art, have some shitty meme art in return

LMAO its shitty but i hope u know it is the biggest support i can give you, like GOD the ART i keep coming back and Also. Looking Respectfully.

And this is the biggest thank you i could give for sharing this w/me!!

Ok spam headcanons?? Sorta

CONTENT WARNINGS: MILDLY SUGGESTIVE? CONTENT, 16+/18+ MATURER AUDIENCES RECOMMENDED.

COULD YOU IMAGINEEEEE

How the Hylians view Wrestling.

Like, your knuckles/elbows/knees (the parts where thers not as much fat to protect) start to bleed punching armored monsters/arms get tired and you just-

Wrap ur legs around a lynels neck and spin around their neck, using your body weight to drag and lay that bitch Out.

(This is a Real Martial Arts move Ive fucking seen a gif of hold on i NEED to find it- FUCK i cant find it but try youtube and see if yall can find it, its So Real i promise, it was on tumblr at one point)

Who's swooning? Not all 8 Links, nope-

Links, externally (+Wind genuinely): Hahaha, u can crush a watermelow open between ur thighs?? Omg thats so cool- !! 😃

Links, internally (-wind): omfTRIPLEGODDESSES- DID U SEE THAT?? IT WASNT JUST ME RIGHT??? SO WE ALL LOWKEY WANNA,, RIGHT??? 🙊😶🙈😳😳😳(Making eye contact w/each other and communicating this silently, everyone going super red/turning away/ears twitching)

Wind makes you do like another 4 watermelons bc its genuinely so impressive to him (does he think its hilarious to watch the others get all embarassed? Hell yeah- what else are little brothers supposed to do??)

Okay but OG asker/Snack Eater DID NOT emphasize how insane a Muay Thai fighter in HaNH AU would go???

If u dont know, Muay Thai is DEADLY-DEADLY kinda martial arts, like it has been considered assault with a deadly weapon before i think/been banned a lot of other fighting places outside its country of origin? I think its Thailand?

Anyway Thailand is fucking crazy for not having a higher rate of murders acredited to this martial art, bc guys, they use Elbows and Knees in their moves.

Like. That's banned/outright no moves created/or at least taught, a lot of the time in other martial arts from diff places.

Like that kills people. So easily. 😃

Like, the Chain already knows ur deadly, but when u reveal (having done the Honorable/Give Them A Fair Chance Thing) and not used Elbows or Knees yet, only to get into the harder enemies like boss fights and suddenly get real close (!!! What are you doing Guide Back Up-!!)

And whip out an elbow, crack the motherfucker straight in the head, and watch the thing immediately flatline right before their eyes??

Its like seeing a biblically accurate angel descend.

Like their in awe, but also scared? But its also like feeding into the awe?? Jaws have dropped.

U tell them that Elbows and Knees are even banned back home, and every single Link is like "Understandable. Obviously. But also, oh my goddess?? A move even the Humans banned?? Bc its so deadly???"

Wind: "..."

Wind: "...hey. Can you kill Gods? ...Can you kill Ganon?"

(The entire Chain goes silent in shock before exploding into Exsistential Crisis Mode, it takes Time/Wars like 5 minutes to recover from this information/experience enough to get up and calm everyone down lmao)

ALSO???

On a completely diff note-

Shorted Links, Taller Guide Reader my beloved?? <<<3333

Oh i def been leaning towards some Links are taller bc i think the imagery of you picking them up easily is funny (what can i say I live to embarass/try and fluster Time/Twi)

But you being taller?? Sign me tf up babe I have NOTHING against that, and am ALL for it????

Like u go thru a triangle portal/wake up from playing Loz and the Links are all shorter than you?? blessings rain down upon us like????

Twi/Time/Wars (who i headcanon as the tallest Links, in that order, along with Sky when he stops slouching lol)

And for Twilight to just be forehead kissing height?!

(He might've realized he's got a thing for lowkey feeling like worshipping ppl taller than him, bc other than the few humans who did live in Ordon, he was the tallest Hylian)

Time adores looking up at you, like u swear you saw his ears flapping a little

Wars is just,, 😀😳👉👈🥺 h-hey

Like flirting is infinitely harder when theyre a head taller than you, the poor Captain has found

(Yknow bc im personally 5"3, or abt 160cm, i think itd be even funnier if no matter what height you are, ur still taller than the tallest Hylians LMAO, Four our here actually being 3-4 ft tall like hobbits lol)

Omg (i know, i PROMISE, i KNOW) that its not canon at all, but i think itd be funny if the hylians most common hair color was blonde/most common eyecolor was blue/green,

And its rarer for ppl to have brown eyes/dark hair

Like the opposite of a lot of American beauty standards, ur seen at the Y/N, the main character for having darker features

(Lowkey inlcuding skin tone bc, and this is canon, have u seen the skin tone diversity historically for Loz games lmao 😅)

Ok im done sorry for rambling

Thanks again for this!!

___ TW: Hurricane Helene talk below ____

Fair Warning: I WILL NOT be tolerating any condescending/hateful or otherwise negative responses about the effects of Hurricane Helene.

People have died. Myself/my friends/my family/my coworkers have been affected. Be respectful.

You will be blocked/possibly reported for hate speech.

This was like Hurricane Katrina for us, because these areas were NOT prepared for hurricanes.

Those most affected are Mountain communities, we're supposed to have more mild weather, and the last time this happened according to older locals was decades ago, if then.

...

Hey!! If u read my tags of my last reblog, im doing better, we got back to town and realized our powers back on, and then the next day luckily our water was back on too

(its not drinkable but at least we can flush the toliet/shower 😭)

Luckily too by this point the water distribution/rescue crews are here,

DUDE. We were/are so fucked Biden came to look at us 😃

Im personally still on the lookout for missing ppl (my coworker has missing family in the town nearby and in telling my friend over there to spread the word)

And cellular service is back up, but they may jut be bc they brought in temporary towers/Tmobile is giving out free service for everyone too

Its slow going still, all these developments are taking days to achieve if u cant tell

And no pressure, esp if u dont have the spare money,

But if you could donate to help my city/the cities nearby who are still very isolated bc theyre smaller, along with helping our homeless people who no doubt are worse off, thatd mean to world to me/all of us!! <3

Here's some links for that, even if its just tip money/money for a coffee, anything helps!

https://pay.payitgov.com/ncdonations

https://crowdfund.charlotte.edu/project/44126

https://www.chabadasheville.org/templates/section_cdo/aid/6606696/jewish/Hurricane-Helene-Relief.htm

Thanks for reading, and blessed be those still in need of rescue, from human to animals, and to those who have passed.

May those you left behind find peace.

<3

Peact out,

🌙

[lordofshitposting]

General Inumaki headcanons because we have too little content of him and as the head Inumakier I have to make up for it

He's not a natural platinum blonde, he just dyed his hair, since his hair in his original colour palette was light brown.

He's talented at drawing (since Gojō said he is [source:Jujutsu Kaisen Stroll Radio]).

He loooves kids.

As a kid, he was isolated from the outside world for a long time because of his CT.

He watches funny cat videos on YouTube.

Has a sleeper build.

His ass does NOT read books. Like, even if he started one, he would 100% drop it.

He would only go to weddings for the food fr (unless it's a close family member or one of his friends).

He's held and played with snakes in the clan. I like to think that they own a few.

His room is pretty clean.

If it weren't for morning assemblies, he would wake up at like 11am.

The Inumaki clan has very high athletic expectations from their sorcerers. This is why Inumaki is so athletic, + natural talent.

He knows martial arts. His combat style mostly consists of Karate, Kuk Sool Won and Taekwondo (the Karate idea came from him using a hand chop in the Thorny Road At Dawn novel and Taekwondo is self explanatory. Kuk Sool Won because I wanted to add something more and this one looks like one he would use).

He can jump extremely high.

If you insult onigiri in front of him, he will either look at you weirdly or say something like "we will torture you".

Once he hid somewhere and threw a silicon snake at Maki, imitating a snake sound to scare her. He got his ass beat afterwards (this one is something I did LMAO).

He's a deep thinker.

Consequently to not being able to communicate freely, he's gone through a lot of self-reflecting, and he understands people around him immensely well too.

This is why I think if someone liked him he would pick up on it fast, lol.

He's a foodie.

He has a ton of silly pictures of himself and his friends in his phone.

No skincare routine. His flawless, soft skin is a gift from God.

Once Yuji asked him to watch a movie with him. It didn't seem interesting to him from the description and the trailer, like AT ALL, but he agreed nonetheless so that Yuji wouldn't feel bad.

I don't think he gets sick easily, but when he does, he acts like a baby. And Yuta takes care of him.

He doesn't kill the insects and flies in his room, unless it's something disgusting like a cockroach; he picks them up with a tissue and puts them outside.

It may not seem like it, but he got some sass in him fr. After Hakari, he's the second sassiest boy in Jujutsu High

So it is canon that he has low blood pressure (or hypotension), and I think this gets in his way in fights when he's pushing himself past his limit. Extreme and sudden blood lose can trigger symptoms of hypotension, which in his case I think are blurred/fading vision, dizziness, fatigue and fainting. A good example of him experiencing all of these is his fight against Hanami. After finding out that he has low blood pressure and reading about it, this explains his lightheadedness and him passing out during the fight. Maybe the source of his hypertension is his CT in the first place, who knows.

He's an INTP

He loves it when people compliment him! His reaction is always so cute (source: Jujutsu Stroll Radio when Gojō complimented his artistic skills, his reaction when Yuji said his technique is cool)

I wanted to put some more things his interests and preferences, like his taste in music, his favourite media, his favourite sweets, but nothing sits quite right with me when deciding such things, and I usually don't agree with the headcanons of others on these either. I will post such headcanons too, if I come up with anything.

[bonefall]

Not sure if this is the place to ask or if I should go to Bonebabble, but ooh, Dungeon Meshi mention! I love what you said about low-empathy and apathy, I think I’ll use that in ny own characters.

I wanted to ask why you think Shuro is autistic. I’ve seen a lot of people say it so there must be a reason why, but I don’t think it’s really obvious to me? Like with Laios, autism/neurodivergence is so integral to his story, so it’s deeply obvious. I love the way he’s written! But we don’t see a lot of Shuro, so I’d like to hear more of why people see the tism in him.

@bonebabbles is the better place to send these in the future but it's chill! The vibe right now's loose since we're all coming down from the heaviness of Mooncourse lmao

Honestly, I feel a little 'tism in a lot of the cast of Dungeon Meshi. As a very autistic writer myself, it kind of has a vibe like it was written by someone who's autistic and so it gets peppered into all of her characters. It's something I notice a lot in my own art, too.

But like, when it comes to Toshiro... I can't stop thinking about him. He makes me want to chew the furniture. With every passing day I become less normal about him.

glossary because I had a lot of thoughts about Toshiro Dungeon Meshi i guess. Oh my god this got long

He reminds me of some people I know

His culture clash is very relatable to me in an autistic way

He has a rigid commitment to his values and morals

Miscellaneous Autism Moments

THE LAIOS FIGHT

in conclusion

He reminds me of some people I know

He reminds me of certain autistic men I've met from affluent families. The type who both is taught to repress and mask their own traits, yet also not to be incredibly mindful of the emotions of other people. Because of their status, they don't have to learn how to work out interpersonal conflict because the majority of the people around them are servants or family. People who would never go away if they didn't like you.

So, his vassals have to learn to talk to him and how to carry out his orders. Not the other way around. As a result, Toshiro has a bit of unearned confidence about his leadership abilities and communication skills. NOT in a way that is smug, DO NOT misunderstand me; just in a way that overestimates his own judgement. Maybe he has encyclopedic knowledge for talking to other nobles offscreen, but when it came to his own team, he was ignoring a lot of the good advice they gave him about taking breaks.

Yes, Toshiro is from a high-context culture-- but his communication issues are bad with everyone.

ESPECIALLY his vassals, people he calls family, from the same exact culture as him. They're worried about him, most of them are desperate for acknowledgement, they'd do anything for him, and he doesn't address this until AFTER his brawl with Laios!

His culture clash is very relatable to me in an autistic way

Toshiro knew he was going somewhere that was going to be a melting pot of mostly western cultures. He knew the manners were going to be different, and he came alone, not in a group where he was only interacting with his own people.

Yet he NEVER adjusted his own social behavior.

I'm American and my partner is British. When I first went, I had no idea why they were offering me so much tea. I thought I was being polite by following them into the kitchen, thinking they wanted to move the conversation over there. My partner quickly fixed this by explaining that when someone offers you tea, they're taking a short pause in the lull of a conversation to be a good host.

I am autistic. What someone else might have just figured out through getting an awkward look, I had to be told directly. There are a lot of little things like that.

Toshiro feels like what would happen if the opposite was happening, an autistic person from a high-context culture coming to a low-context culture. He can't properly express discomfort. It's not JUST Laios, King of Autism, that he's having issues talking to. Neither Marcille nor Chilchuck know that "Shuro" is a mispronunciation, and they had no clue that he disliked Laios THIS much.

I even think it's kinda telling that Toshiro felt the most comfortable with Falin out of the rest of the party. The hyper-empathetic autistic girl who goes out of her way to accommodate others.

He has a rigid commitment to his values and morals

A strict, uncompromising moral compass is a hallmark of autism. It's everything Toshiro does!!

When Falin was eaten, he bolted off to assemble the best team he could think of. He believes that love is sacrifice, so he pushes his body and his family to the limit to try and prove how much he loves Falin. Chilchuck freaks out when he finds out that Laios told him about the dark magic, because "HE'S THE WORST PERSON TO TELL!"

LIKE, YEAH! HE SURE IS!

Maizuru also explains that from a very young age, he's been incredibly compliant. He never asks for anything, he's always been a bit sickly and uninterested in eating. He always tries to be on his very best behavior, even if that means not asking for accommodations he might actually need.

In fact, the only food he seems to LIKE eating is what Maizuru makes him. To the point where she ended up getting pulled into the kitchen even when she was on a "mission." Senshi makes a cute comment that it's "love" that Maizuru puts into those meals, but... what if it's actually because she knows the textures and flavors he likes?

Miscellaneous Autism Moments

There's so many little moments that are so incredibly autistic to me.

He sees Falin with a bug and he proposes right on the spot. The other characters are like, "oh that's just how they act in the east" but no the fuck it is not. They don't even know "Shuro" is a mispronunciation, how the hell do they know anything about eastern courting traditions?

I know EXACTLY what happened. I'm beaming you this information directly from the truth.

Toshiro was TOLD that you're supposed to 1. make your proposals a surprise, and 2. you will know the right one when you see them, and NO ONE elaborated any further because he comes from a high context culture. He popped that question the first time both of those boxes were ticked off.

In coming from a high context culture, what he does is strictly follow rules and conditions he was taught.

And that's absolutely why he handed Laios that bell. Because he does care about him and the party, and he's taught that doing these acts of service is a show of that... and he didn't even think ahead to the fact the bell was going to be ringing constantly.

And yet. In spite of that, he ALWAYS keeps it near him.

Before it clicked and I realized why, I used to think Toshiro was kind of an asshole for running off to get his vassals without even telling Marcille and Laios about his plan. Like... how could you not know they were going to do something drastic? The three of them were the Falin Fan Club and he was the most normal member of it. It's so obvious to me that Laios (brother) and Marcille (""Gal Pal"") were going to get themselves in danger.

So how could you just run off like that without telling them? Even if lack of supplies meant they couldn't go back in, how could you just leave them worried sick in the town, thinking you abandoned Falin?

And then it hit me. The man just has low empathy.

There WAS no malice, just like how there wasn't malice in how he was pushing him and his vassals to the limits, just like how there was never malice against Laios. It simply didn't occur to him like that.

He's never been taught to consider the thoughts and feelings of others very deeply and they don't come naturally. He's still compassionate. There's a reason all of his vassals love him!

But THAT'S WHY he never put himself in Laios' shoes, or anyone else's. Empathy does not come naturally to him. All of his good behavior is as a result of his moral code, NOT empathy.

So with that said, why does he love Falin so much? Aside from the wonderful, positive traits he lists when he's asked? I mean, what's really deep down at the core of why he finds these things so lovely?

Well... Falin and Laios are not all that different from each other, to the point where Toshiro gets gently ribbed in a bonus chapter about how if one of them was a girl, Shuro might have loved Laios instead. He waxes poetic about the ways she's different from most women, how she's not afraid of things like insects, her compassion, her face, her laugh.

These are all things Laios does too (in fact in one of the panels where Toshiro is appreciating Falin, she's trying to check if a caterpillar is a male or female), but Falin's personality expresses in a more subdued and introverted way. Closer to how Toshiro is, as a person. So... I think it's because he relates to her.

To both Touden siblings. But Laios makes him see things he doesn't want to.

THE LAIOS FIGHT

We established that Toshiro has a strict commitment to his values, he probably has low empathy, and even taking his cultural differences into account he's bad at communicating.

So then, why was one of his complaints against Laios' obliviousness that he "knows he doesn't mean anything by it, and that makes it worse"? Isn't that kinda specific when you think about it?

If you're neurodivergent, I want you to think back to points in time where you dealt with people who have the same issues you do. Autism, ADHD, PTSD, DID, whatever. Did you ever have a moment where they did something harmless or mildly inconvenient, definitely as a result of the same exact thing you have, and you just... HATED it?

You HATED it even more than you would anyone else doing the same thing. You probably know your response was disproportionate. But YOU don't do that THING they did. Or if you do that, it's less bad somehow. Or you used to do that but don't anymore and it reminds you of when you did.

If you're reflective, you might have realized it might be internalized ableism. I feel like that's a huge part of why Toshiro finds Laios SO. ANNOYING. Laios is like this stupid, idiot, blundering caricature of things Toshiro has been taught to avoid, which violate his moral code. Shuro comes from a place of so many more rules and subtle cues, and it's like Laios doesn't respect any of them.

What STARTS this fight, causes Laios to finally hit back after being smacked, shoved, and shouted at, is being told "YOU'RE NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY."

It's so obviously wrong! Laios, who ran back into a dungeon immediately? Who Toshiro himself called rash? This is NOT a logical conclusion to make about Laios or his party. I think it came from frustration that Laios "does things the wrong way." That it's projection, stemming from that low empathy.

He's not like Kabru in the same chapter, who's desperately trying to get a read on Laios' inner workings and failing. Shuro's just extrapolating his own feelings onto him, because he's recognizing that same "sense" within him. If TOSHIRO didn't follow the rules he sets down for himself, that's not "taking it seriously."

Toshiro follows the rules. Laios does not.

...and Laios is FREE.

He's open and honest in a way Toshiro can never be, not as a noble, not as an easterner, and not as an autistic man. Hell, Laios was ALSO a noble, he gave that up! Threw that away, and then came back to his village and took Falin away from it. If Laios is acting like an idiot, he's acting like an idiot who does everything Toshiro has ever wanted to do. Laios cannot mask and Toshiro resents that.

One of the things Toshiro even explicitly says he HATES about Laios is the fact he's willing to be a burden on other people. Maizuru said earlier that he's NEVER made a "selfish request" before-- but Laios can just open his mouth and ask for help, feeling no shame, just as he did in this chapter when he asked him not to tell the Island Lord about the dark magic.

And then, after they literally come to blows, Toshiro tells Laios some incredibly brutal things, revealing he's NEVER been his friend and he has resented him this whole time. This actually sits with Laios well into the later chapters, but the fight ends and then they're just CHATTING FRIENDLY LIKE IT DIDN'T MATTER.

More honestly than ever before, because Toshiro is returning the effort. He eats some food (the narrative's metaphor for making connections). He thanks his vassals for the first time. He talks about how he wishes he'd told Falin about all the things he adored about her when he still had the chance.

I have to take the panels of his response right out of the manga actually because this little expression here is so subtle, but so meaningful.

(Read <- <- <- that way)

Look at the way that when Laios makes that genuine movement, assuring him with passion that he will be making sure Falin receives this message, Toshiro's gut response is annoyance. But then it softens and he pauses, like he's reconsidering what his response is going to be.

To admit that he envies "this side of Laios" is also admitting that the earlier fight was based on envy.

Laios was like this the WHOLE time. Making these grand speeches about his plans, what his party's been doing, how Toshiro needs to eat something and take a nap. He's ALWAYS been like this. It was Toshiro's mindset that changed.

In conclusion

Something I really like about Dungeon Meshi is HOW MANY of its characters can be read as autistic. Laios is just the most obvious one, with his special interest in monsters and inability to read social cues being central to the plot. His is a more "well known" expression of autism-- it's rare you get characters whose masking is central to their characters.

But it's really refreshing to see characters like Kabru, Falin, and Toshiro. Autistic people are rare enough in popular media to begin with, but we NEVER get characters whose autism intersects with their trauma, gender, and culture quite like these three.

[ckret2]

Chapter 36 of human Bill Cipher is on death row in the Mystery Shack and would rather not be, featuring: the author being pissed as hell after spending all day drawing eight pictures for a comic oh my god it really took all day, and then discovering that the Internet connection is so shitty the images won't upload, so y'all have to pretend that I included eight pictures here and cheer and clap and applaud for them.

Insert colorful pictures here. 💦 Use your imagination. 🚗 I'm so tired.

But more importantly: Mabel makes Bill do community service.

EDIT FEB 8: i finally got around to uploading the art lmao

I don't know why I thought all that effort was a good idea. Please appreciate the hell out of it.

####

Two blue- and orange-haired girls trailed after a pink-haired girl as she furiously stormed into the stark white control room. Each wore the same uniform—a skintight space suit with a pleated skirt and heart-shaped patches that matched their hair colors on their sleeves—but the pink-haired girl had taken off her helmet and ripped the patches off her sleeves. "Please, Momoko-chan," the blue-haired girl said, "don't do it. What if you make the director angry—?"

"That devil can't feel a human emotion like that," Momoko snapped, making the blue-haired girl gasp in horror. "I've made up my mind, Aoko-chan! Are you joining me or not?"

Aoko bit her lip, pressing one hand worriedly over her chest. "I can't."

"What about you, Orenjiko-chan?"

The orange-haired girl shook her head, her curly corkscrew locks bouncing inside her helmet.

"Fine! Then I'll just do it myself." Momoko stomped into the aisle between the computer consoles and looked up at a shadowy figure at a desk, overseeing the control center from a mezzanine level high above. "Hey, Director!" She threw her heart-shaped patches to the ground. "I quit!"

The shadowy figure didn't flinch. A cold, emotionless voice said, "Is that so."

"I've had enough of your lies! You told me my anger was just me tapping into the righteous fury I needed to protect humanity—but it isn't! These battles are... doing something to me!" She held her hands in front of her face, watching as they trembled. "Every time I'm on the battlefield, my berserker rage keeps getting stronger and stronger. The last time I lost control, I turned on my own friends and nearly killed..." She looked guiltily at the cast on Aoko's broken arm. "I won't do it again. I want out."

"It's too late for that." The director leaned forward into the light. A small floppy-eared albino bunny in a navy blue suit sat on the desk, the reflection on its sunglasses hiding its cruel pink eyes, its fuzzy white paws pressed together in front of its face. "We made a deal, Momoko-chan. I gave you your wish, and you gave us your heart." A wall lit up behind the bunny, displaying a dozen glass terrariums. Each one contained a live, beating human heart. "The battery we replaced your heart with must be running low. You'll need to recharge it, whether you want to or not."

Momoko flinched. She reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a heart-shaped crystal on a chain like she was retrieving a pocket watch. It faintly glowed a hot pink, but even as she looked at it, it faded closer and closer to black.

She frowned and stuffed the crystal back in her pocket. "Then I want to trade back."

"What?!"

"My heart for my wish."

"You can't," the bunny said. "That wish is the only thing protecting your friends! If I reverse it—"

"That's just it," Momoko said. "When I made that wish, I thought my friends needed me to protect them! But now, having fought alongside them..." She looked to Aoko, and then Orenjiko. "I know the truth. And it's that they never needed me to save them! They were always strong enough to save themselves. I just needed to have faith in them."

Aoko's eyes watered up. Orenjiko said, "Oh, Momoko-chan—"

The bunny pounded a soft paw on its desk, calling the girls' attention back. "When will you learn, child! Once you've made a choice, there's no way to undo it! None of your mistakes will ever be erased—and no matter how you grovel, God will not forgive you! So will you die in shame like a worm? Or will you shoulder the burden of your sins and carry on into the future?"

The bunny sat back and looked at a photo in a cracked picture frame on its desk. It showed another bunny in an apron with big golden hoop earrings, holding a tinier bunny that was sucking on a pacifier. A tear rolled down the bunny's fuzzy cheek, hidden from the girls behind its paws.

"We must all live with the consequences of our choices," the bunny said. "Now you must live with yours."

Aoko and Orenjiko frowned and looked away from the bunny, afraid to meet their director's steely gaze. Even Momoko's scowl wavered with doubt.

The bunny adjusted its sunglasses, reasserting its cool, detached demeanor. "The next angel attack will reach Retro Tokyo at midnight. And if I'm not mistaken, you have less than 24 hours until your batteries run dry. You'll need to be in your cockpits to recharge them. You might as well fight."

Aoko's shoulders sagged in defeat. Orenjiko murmured, "Yes, sir." They meekly crept out of the control center.

Only Momoko remained, glaring up at the director. It glared down, unmoved. Momoko grit her teeth and growled at it.

"Enough foolishness. You know what you have to do," the bunny said. "Get in the Fukuin robot, Momoko."

"Dang it!" She stamped her foot with an angry grunt and trudged out of the room.

The shot closed in on the bunny's face as it murmured, "Someday, you'll understand," and then the screen went black. The words Neon Crisis Revelations Angry Cute Girl: Annihilation! Episode 23: The Dark Heart of the White Rabbit! flashed on screen as the ending theme played.

Soos said, "If you ask me, that's one of this season's best episodes. It's often forgotten for the lack of spectacular mecha combat Annihilation is known for, but I find the emotionally-driven episodes give me more to think about later, and we couldn't have gotten this kind of character development out of Momoko in a more action-packed episode. Plus, it gave Director Bunbun some much-needed depth. It doesn't excuse its actions, but it explains them."

"This is exactly why Bunbun's my favorite character," Melody said. "It feels so bad for its mistakes, but all it knows how to do is double down on them. I just wanna give it a hug."

"As much as you want Bunbun to stand down, it's clear why it thinks it can't. It's a textbook example of the sunk cost fallacy," Ford said thoughtfully.

As the episode credits played, Fiddleford leaned over to whisper to Ford, "I think I might've figured out a way to synthesize that paradox element we're needing."

"Did you? Fiddleford, that's amazing—"

"Don't get too excited just yet, I only might've figured it. Usually, I'd want to run a lot more calculations to confirm it—but considering the dire circumstances, we might just need to run the experiment and see what happens."

Ford stared at him. "Skipping calculations? Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"Heh! You hush. It ain't dangerous, I just don't know if it'll work. We'll have to pull a fast one on the universe."

Ford was dying to know what that meant; but before he could ask, the credits ended and Momoko's voice actor perkily announced, "Next time on Neon Crisis Revelations Angry Cute Girl: Annihilation!"

A school exploded. A bright orange combat mech as tall as a skyscraper exploded. A steel grey warship exploded.

Director Bunbun's voice said, "Remember, Momoko, your true enemy isn't the angels, but entropy itself. We are fighting to save the universe from a cold grave. If God wants to kill us, we'll just have to kill God first!"

A giant one-eyed mechanical angel spread out four white-hot arms and six wings with metal feathers like enormous knives. It threw back its inhuman head and trumpeted toward the heavens. And then it exploded.

Tate pointed at the exploding angel, pointed at his father, and said, "Don't even think about it, Dad."

"I wasn't! I ain't got enough beards to run all them arms." Between episodes, Fiddleford hissed to Ford, "I'll explain tomorrow. Come over with Stanley and Soos. I'll need all y'all's help to pull this off."

Ford nodded. He'd have to tell Stan in the morning. He just hoped whatever Fiddleford had in mind would work.

####

As soon as the vending machine opened, Ford could hear Mabel in the living room: "Checkmate! You owe me a soda."

"That's what yooou thiiink," Bill said, voice sing-song. "Congratulations on cornering my king's body double."

"Aw, man! I hate when you do that."

"Good luck finding him amongst all my pawns!"

They were up this early? Ford had thought he'd have to wake the kids. (He'd hoped he would get to them before Bill was up.) He leaned into the living room to see what they were up to.

Bill and Mabel were sitting at the table, playing chess. He recognized some of Mabel's "fairy chess" pieces on the board. They were obviously well into their current game; each had claimed about half the other's pieces.

(It was eerie how much more Bill looked like Bill these days; he'd somehow found a top hat to add to his ensemble, and now when Ford saw him from behind—yellow hair blending into his yellow hoodie, with the eye on his hood laying flat on his back—for a split second, he nearly looked like himself again.)

Mabel waved. "Good morning, Grunkle Ford!" (Bill glanced back at Ford over his shoulder, and the illusion was shattered.) "You're up early!"

"Good morning. So are you." He nodded toward Bill with a disapproving frown. "You do know he cheats, right?"

Mabel gushed, "I know! It's so fun!"

"She's a worse cheat than I am," Bill announced proudly.

"It's not cheating when I do it, I'm a senator!" Mabel leaned across the table, snatched the top hat off Bill's head, and proudly set it on her own. "I can legalize anything I want!"

"Well oh-kay, Miss Senator." Bill stole the hat back. "We're still monarchists on this side of the board."

Ford took a few steps closer to inspect their game more closely. "Why are there sandwich cookies on the chessboard?"

Bill said, "Mabel's got the knights all cozy in the horse stable," he pointed at the "nest" Mabel had made by folding the bottom of her sweater up, "so I'm trying to coax mine back out with delicious treats."

"It'll never work!" Mabel crowed. "The horses are too cozy!"

"I'll get them eventually! Even the loneliest monkey goes to Wire Mother to feed!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ford said, "He's referring to an important psychology experiment where baby monkeys were..." He caught sight of Bill's face, looking right at him and grinning oh so brightly, and mumbled, "Never mind." He cleared his throat. "Anyway—Mabel, when you've finished your game, could you head downstairs? I need to discuss something with you."

"Oh. Okay, sure," Mabel said, giving him a questioning look.

"How come?" Bill's exposed eye was locked onto Ford like a laser. "Is it about the Mysteries?"

The what? Before Ford could ask, Mabel quickly said, "I haven't told Bill anything about the Mysteries, I promise!" She winked at Ford.

Hmm. Ford looked at Bill and said coolly, "I don't think the Mysteries are any of your business, Cipher." He had no idea what game he'd just been roped into, but he was gratified by how quickly Bill scowled.

"I'll be back downstairs in a few minutes," Ford said; and then left to pass the same message on to Dipper and Stan.

####

Ford woke Dipper; told him, like he'd told Stan, not to go through the living room to reach the elevator so Bill wouldn't notice how many people were congregating downstairs; and then headed back down. Stan was out of bed by now, drinking coffee and still in his underwear as he spectated the chess game from the doorway. Stan nodded, "Morning."

"Morning." Ford paused to watch alongside him.

Over thirty years ago, Ford's chess games with Bill had been minor acts of psychological torture. In their first meeting, after flattering the dickens out of Ford's intelligence, Bill had set up a game of "interdimensional" chess; Ford had quickly figured out from Bill's moves that some rules of interdimensional chess were different from Earth's chess; and then, afraid of looking ignorant in front of this strange, friendly muse, Ford had decided to try to pick up the rules of interdimensional chess based on what Bill did rather than ask for an explanation.

The challenge of figuring out the new rules might have been fun, if he hadn't lived in fear of making a fool of himself in front of an interstellar angel. As it was, though, he constantly fell into traps he didn't know were there ("Rookie mistake, by using your bishop to check me you activated my wormhole!"); he never seemed to remember all the things the pieces could do ("Sure, I upgraded my queen to ricochet off the edges squares—I'm surprised you haven't yet!"); and more often than not, when he tried to emulate Bill's moves, Bill gently "reminded" him that it wasn't the right time or place for Ford to do that; and Ford, humiliated and sheepish, had "corrected" his error. He won rarely, but not often.

It took years for Ford to learn there was no such devil as "interdimensional chess." Bill had used the name as a ruse to make up whatever rules he wanted. And on top of that, Ford had it from several reliable sources that Bill wasn't even that good at chess.

Now here Bill was pulling the same con on Mabel with "fairy chess"—and when he tried to tell her it didn't matter that she'd taken out his (disguised) king because the queen was co-regent, she told him that her pieces had democratized and Bill couldn't win until he'd defeated all of them. He not only allowed her this rule; he actually seemed thrilled. Proud.

It was so different from the cordial, half-interested way he'd played chess with Ford.

Ford was sure Bill had just decided this was the best way to keep Mabel's attention; she would have seen secret rules as an unfair imbalance rather than a mental challenge, she had no doubt asked Bill to explain how "fairy chess" worked rather than stupidly tried to guess herself, and if she noticed her opponent was disinterested she'd probably lose interest too rather than try harder. Obviously, Bill had to handle Mabel differently than Ford.

But a small part of Ford wondered: if he'd ever looked Bill dead in the eye, moved a rook like it was a bishop, and confidently informed him that the board had slipped into a mirror universe—would Bill have laughed in delight and congratulated him on figuring out the game?

Stan nudged Ford. "Hey. You look like you could bite through a chair leg," he murmured. "Are you alright?"

Ford snapped, "No, of course I'm not."

Stan gave him a surprised look. "What?"

"What?" Ford shook his head. "Sorry—I misheard you. I thought you asked if I was jealous. Of course I'm not jealous; and yes, I'm alright." He cleared his throat. "What was I—? The study. Right." He clasped his hands behind his back and marched across the living room, nodded to Mabel as he passed, ignored Bill, and swept into the gift shop.

Stan stared after him, stared into the living room trying to figure out what the heck Ford could possibly be jealous over—Bill and Mabel were cracking up over a rook Mabel had turned upside-down and debating the mechanics of a reverse-gravity chess variant—then shook his head and headed back to the kitchen.

Mabel took out one of Bill's bishops and snuck two sandwich cookies off the board to eat without him noticing. He was only half focusing on the game now, distracted by the sound of the most beautiful word in the English language ringing in his head: jealous, jealous, jealous.

####

Stan was the first down, followed by Mabel—"Grunkle Ford, just so you know, I told Bill you gave me that clear pyramid because you inducted me into the Mysteries! He's been going cuckoo trying to find out what that means!"—and then Dipper, hair still disheveled from sleep. Ford nodded. "Good. Everyone's here."

"Great," Stan said, "now what's going on? What's with the whole cloak-and-dagger act?"

"Yesterday, Fiddleford informed me that he may be on the verge of a scientific breakthrough—but he needs some assistance. Stanley, he specifically said it's crucial that both of us and Soos help."

Stan groaned, rolling his eyes. "If this is another one of his cockamamie giant robots..." (Mabel laughed, "Cockamamie.")

"It isn't," Ford said seriously. "Soos is already prepared to go. But if the three of us are at the Northwest estate..."

Stan nodded in comprehension. "And Mrs. Ramirez is out visiting family today." He looked at Dipper and Mabel. "So it'll be just the two of you in the shack with the demon today."

Mabel nodded. Dipper frowned; he'd had an investigation he wanted to go on today. "So, this scientific breakthrough—is it...?"

Ford paused. "Too soon to tell. But, if everything goes stupendously well... it could be, yes."

"What are the odds of it going that well?" Stan asked.

"At a loose, uneducated guess? 20%. But I'd give only 20% odds that it will end in complete failure, too. Far more likely, what we do today will just bring us one step closer to... to." He shrugged. "To the end of everything."

There was a split second too long of silence as everyone tried not to look at Mabel to see how she took that. But she just nodded again.

Ford took in a deep breath and nodded. "So. Dipper, Mabel, you've got Soos's number in case of emergency," he said. "I know you've dealt with Bill yourselves a few times, but—are you both confident you can handle him entirely alone today?"

Stan laughed, breaking some of the tension in the room. "Of course they can handle him! Have you seen 'em? Mabel's got that monster doing anything she says!"

"Oh, come on," Mabel said, waving off the compliment but grinning. "I just get how he thinks, that's all."

"Yeah, and that makes you the only one!"

Dipper gritted his teeth. It stung that only Mabel was getting a vote of confidence—what, did they not think he could handle Bill, too? But he supposed he couldn't argue with it. Mabel was the expert on Bill. Dipper couldn't even have a full conversation with him without getting tangled up in weird haunting metaphors about caves and shadows.

Ford nudged Stan. "But they still need to keep their guard up around him." To Dipper and Mabel, he said, "Do not tell him we're gone, so he can't try to take advantage of the adults being missing. And don't leave him unsupervised. We should be back by dinner."

"Got it," Dipper said.

Mabel snapped off a salute and said, "You can count on us!"

####

Mabel burst into the living room, made a beeline for Bill lying down on the couch, and flung herself across his stomach. "Hey Bill! If you don't tell anyone that I told you that the adults are gone, I'll take you outside to do something fun!"

Bill grinned and tossed aside the Gold Chains For Old Men issue he'd picked up. "Deal!"

####

"This is such a bad idea," Dipper told Mabel as she collected buckets and towels. "You don't trust him that much, do you?"

"It's fine. We have an understanding now," Mabel said. "We speak the same language!"

Dipper grimaced. "I don't really think..."

From the entryway, Bill called, "Found the bracelets! They were hanging on the coat rack." He ducked into the kitchen, already wearing one half of the enchanted bracelets. "Ready?"

"Ready!" Mabel grabbed her half as she ran by, and they were out the door.

Dipper reluctantly followed.

####

On Summerween, some kids had gone at Stan's car with eggs, toilet paper, and—by the looks of the damage—probably also several rocks, keys, and the scratchiest branches they could find. Stan had already washed off what damage he could; but there were still some bits of egg stuck in the seams of the car, and the paint job was a tragic scraped-up disaster, capped off by the giant phrase "TRICK-OR-CHEATER" scratched across the driver's side doors.

Mabel led them to the car and set down her buckets. "Wait here, I've gotta get the hose."

Bill studied the contents of the buckets—cleaning brushes, towels, various liquid soaps. "So, what are we doing?" He emptied one bucket's supplies. "Adding to the damage?" He lifted the metal bucket over his head, prepared to throw it down on the car's hood.

"NOOO! BILL!"

He laughed, "I'm messing with you!" He set the bucket back down.

Mabel returned with a running hose and started filling the buckets. "Grunkle Stan was complaining about how hard it is to repair a classic car like this," she said. "So, I thought we could surprise him by fixing it while he's gone. And you can show everyone how much nicer you're getting by helping!"

"Aw, what?" Bill planted his hands on his hips. "You took me outside to do community service?"

"Bill." Mabel grabbed his arms. "I think it's really important that you show everyone how much nicer you're getting. Really."

Bill swallowed down the urge to scoff. "Sure—but by doing chores for Stan? I'll be nice, but I won't be boring."

"We can play with the hose, too!"

Bill thought that over. "Okay, I'm in." It was an opportunity to get some sunshine, at least.

"Good!" Mabel grinned evilly, lifted the hose, and sprayed it at Bill's face.

He ducked just in time for the stream to miss his head and knock off his hat (which Mabel had generously permitted Bill to hold onto, since she'd forgotten she owned it). He snatched up a brush and a towel like a sword and shield and backed away from Mabel. "Ha! You'll have to do better than that, kid! I can see every possible future branching out from this moment—you'll never land a surprise attack on me!"

"You can see the future, but can you see... this?" Mabel yanked on the hose. It pulled taut behind Bill's ankles.

He tripped, yelped, and landed on his back. "No," he said, staring at the sky. "Apparently I can't."

Mabel sprayed the hose in his face.

Within a couple of minutes, they were on opposite sides of the car, lobbing soggy soapy sponges and towels back and forth at each other—and, in the process, accidentally managing to get the car a tiny bit cleaner as their projectiles drizzled soap over it. Bill had thus far successfully dodged nearly all of Mabel's projectiles—his lower legs and sleeves were more soaked than the rest of him, and mainly from preparing his attacks—while Mabel was quickly drenched and accusing Bill of cheating. Waddles, who had been allowed outside (and, Bill noted, not required to wear a leash), elected not to join the battle, but was quite content to bask in the mud puddle expanding around the car.

And Dipper, meanwhile, sat on the porch, his journal open and ignored in his lap, glaring at Bill and Mabel, disapproving of this scene as hard as he could.

"Okay, truce!" Mabel shouted. "Time out! Pause! Sto—" A soaked towel landed on her face as Bill cackled. She pulled it off. "My bucket's empty, I've gotta refill it."

"You think I'd show mercy just for that?"

"Seriously, Bill!" She ran over to the porch with her bucket and hose.

"Coward!" Bill called; and then, bereft of any targets to attack, entertained himself by picking up a sponge and actually starting to clean the car.

Dipper leaned over toward Mabel. "This is such a bad idea," he muttered.

"No it's not, it's great. Look, he's already helping."

"I'm serious. His aim's getting too good, he could throw a bucket over the top of the car and knock you out or something—"

"But he won't," Mabel insisted.

"How do you know?"

"Because..." Mabel attempted to convey her knowledge by swinging her arms emphatically. "Because he won't, okay? Bill's gonna do community service today and nothing's gonna go wrong!"

Dipper glared toward Bill—just to see that he was looking straight at them, not even trying to hide that he was listening in. He flipped up his eye patch to wink at Dipper.

"Fine." Dipper slammed his journal shut and got to his feet. "But I'm not sticking around."

Mabel gave him a surprised look. "Dipper? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" Just Mabel thinking washing a car would make Bill worthy of coming off of death row—which meant she wasn't taking the threat he posed seriously. Which apparently she didn't need to, because she understood him so well—everyone said so—while Dipper, official junior paranormal investigator, somehow wasn't the one who understood the alien demon, and now Mabel kept spending all her free time around Bill because they got each other so well—but Dipper didn't care. Why would he care? There was like a 20% chance Bill could be dead by the end of the day. Which wasn't big, but it was something. "I just don't wanna sit around watching you wash the car, okay?"

"Oh," Mabel said, shifting awkwardly. "You could help out?"

"No he can't!" Bill yelled.

Dipper ground his teeth and tried to ignore him. "I've got other stuff to do. I have a paranormal investigation to go on. It's what I wanted to do today until we got stuck on triangle-sitting duty. So if you're so sure you've got the situation under control, I can just go ahead and do that anyway." Under his breath, he muttered, "I thought we could do it together, but if you'd rather hang out with Bill..."

Mabel bristled. "Well—fine, then! I do have it under control. Thanks for noticing." A tad guardedly, she asked, "So... what's today's big investigation?"

Dipper hesitated, trying to decide how irritated he really was; but if Mabel had extended an olive branch, so should he. He flipped through his journal. "You know about all the recent nighttime burglaries?" He showed Mabel a page where he'd glued a printed-out photo of a long-legged, armless, ghostlike creature, and next to it paperclipped an article cut out from the Gravity Falls Gossiper. "Something's been stealing jeans from every clothing store in town. Based on the surveillance footage, I bet that it's a mysterious, little-known creature called—"

"The Fremont Nightwigglers?" Bill cut in. "Yeah, this is about the time of year their migratory route should take them through Oregon. You oughta check the dumpsters in town. They flock in parking lots at night, but during the day they tend to nest together in half-empty dumpsters."

Dipper stared at Bill.

"You're welcome!" Bill said.

Dipper couldn't even enjoy a good old-fashioned monster hunt without Bill stealing half the thrill of discovery. "Great," Dipper grumbled. He'd better get out of here—before Bill also spoiled what planet the Nightwigglers were from. "I'll see you later, Mabel." He trudged off to find his bike, angrily kicking a patch of grass as he went.

Mabel watched him go, half considering chasing after him.

And then Bill very carefully lobbed a soaking sponge straight at the back of her head.

Mabel squealed—"Bill!"—and charged back into battle.

####

It took them the better part of the morning to finish washing the car—in part because the growing mud puddle kept undoing their work. When they were done, Mabel stepped back and announced, "Okay, great work! Now it's time for... part two! Covering up the scratches." She whipped out two aerosol cans, "With spray paint!" She rattled the cans like underwhelming maracas. 

"Whoa, and you didn't even bring me safety goggles?"

Mabel stared at him. "Since when do you use safety anything?"

"I'm just saying. I'm not sure I trust you wielding spray paint near me."

Mabel thought it was still too soon to be cracking jokes about anything that happened in the Fearamid; but she punched his arm and said, "You'll be fine as long as you don't try to kill me. Here!" She handed him a third can.

He accepted it and shook it up. (Mabel felt like he was just doing it to hear the little ball rattling, too.) "So what's the plan?"

"Grunkle Stan said usually, car dents are... hammered out? Somehow?"

Bill nodded. "Intriguingly counterintuitive."

"But I don't know how to do that," Mabel said. "But! I saw this great makeup tutorial that explains contouring! You use makeup a little lighter and darker than your skin to make fake shadows so your face looks like a different shape!" She held up her cans next to Bill's; his was as near to the same color as the car as Mabel could find, while the other two were a bit lighter and darker. "So I thought, maybe we can use different shades of red to contour the dents and make them disappear? If we spray the shadowy parts with light red and spray the pokey-outie parts with dark red?"

Bill looked at the car thoughtfully. "Yeah, that makes perfect sense! I mean, what's 'three-dimensional' vision anyway?" He set his can on the ground so he could hold his arms out, forming a rectangle between his thumbs and forefingers, framing the car in between like it was a picture. "It's just a two-dimensional view that you take on faith is three-dimensional, because your mind's learned that highlights and shadows are the curvature being revealed by sunlight!"

Mabel had never considered that her vision of the world was a 2D view that looked 3D; but she had taken a lot of art classes, and the first lesson of a new art class was always drawing a circle and carefully shading it in pencil so that it looked like shadows being cast on a ball, so she kinda sorta figured she got it. "Yeah! Exactly like that."

"So you're absolutely right: shadowing the highlights and highlighting the shadows will just cancel out that curvature and make it look perfectly flat," Bill said. "You're an art genius, Shooting Star. We'll have this car looking good as new in no time."

####

Thirty minutes later, they had a scratched, dented car covered in terrible-looking mismatched blobs of red. They actually made the dents stand out more.

Mabel and Bill surveyed their masterpiece silently.

"I've figured out our problem," Bill said. "We forgot to account for Earth's rotation. As the planet turns, the sun casts shadows at different angles, so the dents' shadows will look slightly different."

"Ah. Yeah," Mabel said. "That's gotta be it."

"When I take over this town again, I'll freeze time and we can paint this thing properly."

Mabel wondered if there was a way to briefly freeze time with the time tape they'd confiscated, before quickly remembering exactly what she'd been trying to do when she'd started Weirdmageddon in the first place. "Let's come up with a plan that doesn't involve messing with the fabric of spacetime."

"Hm." Bill planted his hands on his hips thoughtfully. "I have a great idea. What if we cover up the dents with something cooler. Like—flames. Or lightning—"

Mabel gasped, "Or a wizard!"

Bill gave her a puzzled look. "Where are we going to find a wizard—? Oh, right, painting a wizard."

"Bill, that's perfect. We could give Grunkle Stan the airbrushed wizard van of his dreams!"

"Oooh. Oh yeah. I love that." Bill nodded appreciatively. "I've always thought Stanley was more of an 'airbrushed hot babe' guy, though."

"We can put a hot wizard babe on the other side," Mabel said. "And the wizard could be fighting a unicorn! Because that's awesome! And the unicorn probably deserves it. Grunkle Stan would totally fight a unicorn if he ever met one."

"I think we've got a plan."

They retrieved a wider variety of spray paint cans from inside the shack. Mabel took over the majority of the art duties—she was the only one of the two of them who could draw wizards or unicorns—and she left the little details (stars and lasers and so forth) to Bill. He got sidetracked several times drawing multiple copies of his own face around the battle scene, until Mabel pointed out Stan would get arrested driving around with those so they'd just have to cover them up.

Mabel had finished the first mural and was working on the hot wizard babe (it was riding a dolphin) when Bill called from the other side of the car, "Head's up, we're out of orange."

"That's the fourth color you've run out of. What are you doing?" Mabel circled around to the other side of the car to see his work. He'd added some graffiti across the windows in an alien alphabet—Mabel recognized some of the letters from when he'd left coded messages in Dipper's journal—and between the wizard and the unicorn...

Mabel wrinkled her nose. There was an immense multicolored blob stretching between the two figures, scribbled over multiple times in random patterns with every color they had. Well, now she knew why Bill was running out of colors. "Bill, what is that?"

"It's the wizard's magic rainbow laser! The one he's shooting at the unicorn."

"It's too many colors," Mabel said.

Bill gave her a shocked, deeply offended look. "Too many—? Who are you and what did you do with the real Mabel?"

"You can't use every color. For a laser like this, it's gotta be three or four colors."

"Unbelievable."

"And they need to be straight! If it's scribbled like that, it looks like a blob."

"It's more realistic that way! Wild magical powers don't go in a straight line—the more powerful it is, the more chaotic it gets!" Bill gestured insistently at the blob. "I'm doing a perspective thing, here—the colors layering over each other shows how they're all weaving together and wrapping around each other! See?"

Mabel studied the blob more closely. She shook her head. "Sorry Bill. It's just a mess."

Bill threw the empty orange can on the ground and flung his hands in the air. "I can't believe you of all people don't appreciate my art."

"The stars look nice," Mabel said. "And the alien text. It looks like magic wizard runes."

Bill grunted.

Maybe they needed a break. "I think we need to buy some replacement colors before we can finish," Mabel said.

"Yeah, sure," Bill said. "Pop open the car door for me, I can drive us to the hardware store—"

"Nope!" Mabel didn't trust him that much. "You're staying here. We'd get in too much trouble if anyone finds out I let you drive."

"You worry too much about getting in trouble," Bill said; but now that the conversation had moved on from the blob, he already sounded less irritated.

"Sorry, but you've gotta wait here while I get supplies. I'll just bike to the hardware store." She pointed at the house. "Back inside!"

Bill considered the command like he thought he had a choice in it; then nodded in approval. "Fine. Just help me get lunch outta the fridge before you go."

Surely he could find some way to entertain himself, all alone in the Mystery Shack, completely unsupervised.

####

(This chapter was a nonstop train of the most ridiculous scenes I could think of, I hope y'all enjoyed. If you did, I'd love a comment—some of my favorite jokes and character moments so far are in this chapter and I wanna know what y'all liked. Also after spending 9 hours on a comic my internet is too shitty for me to post I could really use some nice comments, thank you, I suffer so much for my art)

[muffinrecord]

Current Plans + Musings

I don't plan on playing Exedra to the degree I did for Magia Record, or playing it at all. Because of that, I won't be taking an active role in the community and archiving anything for it. Of course, if Exedra has like amazing gameplay and stories then this is all subject to change, but for now I think I'm done with phone games.

The two youtube channels will stay up and I'll check em periodically to make sure there aren't copyright strikes against the content. I've saved all my raw files, especially for the battle animations, so I can remake them in the future if the music ever becomes a problem for some reason.

Google Drive will stay up until Google rots away. I haven't recorded footage in a long time (as in stories, I do for the character doppels and such), but I'll upload things if they're sent to me.

Magia Union Translations still plans on translating things and making videos, especially leading up to the end, but also for after the game is over for whatever wasn't made in time. I'm not sure what form this will take in the future-- if it'll be manual captions added to the videos or not, but I know it WILL happen.

As for this blog, I'm not going to delete it or anything. However I'm going to be taking a step back. I'd like to say that I'll do liveblogs but I mean... *gestures at blog* I've been saying that for years and the only one I really did successfully was the Oriko one lmao. Ahhh oh well.

I'll have more words later, but it was really fun to be part of a fandom experience like this. I'm excited to work on my own original story projects though and quiet down a bit.

...

When I started this blog, I never expected it to have people actually read it. Or look at it. I just wanted a place to gush about how much fun I was having. I didn't even want to tag the posts with "Magia Record" at first because I was terrified people would be mean at me, haha.

But I'm glad I did. I made so many good friends through this game. I'm glad it existed. And it made me happy to have a place where people cared about what I had to say. Some folks actually got their news from here, can you imagine that? They had notifications turned on for this blog. My god.

Anyways, I'm going to be here for the next two months, and tomorrow I'll start reblogging fan projects and initiatives, plus general news. Maybe this blog will turn into a dumping site for art and fanfic reblogs, who knows. I might watch the remaining stuff and add various thoughts here and there.

Otherwise, you can find me on my main blog @malignmuffin, which only reblogs stuff (I don't talk much if at all there). I have another tumblr blog for my comic, but I think I'll reshare the name once I actually have content you can look at on it. It's pretty bare bones for the moment.

Actually it'll be funny if the end of this game is what makes me finally work on it again. I was in the process of working on it when NA came out, and it totally derailed me. Stopped writing, drawing, just focused on this silly little phone game. Now it's like those five years have gone by and I'm going back to where I started, except I think my lil comic is going to be a bit better than it was before. If I actually make it, that is.

If I ever do actually make my comic and start posting it, I'll be sure to update y'all here. hah

Anyways, thanks for being on this wild ride with me. The memories have been great, and I'm glad I had this experience, even if it had to end.

[genericpuff]

How should someone write for a comic? I want to start a comic but I’m a bit in the dark for how to write one

This is a very, VERY broad subject that, like the question of "how to draw comics", is very multi-faceted and impossible to tackle in one response. Especially because I myself also will not have all the answers.

What I will say is that regarding writing comics, let's say webcomics, it's not an uncommon thing in the slightest to see writers come into communities like /r/webtoons and ask for people to help them draw their passion project and to that I say... please don't LOL That's not to say that's what you were going to do at all, just wanted to throw that out there as an initial opening disclaimer. Ultimately the reality is that in webcomics, many of the people creating these projects are artists first and writers second (as one of those skillsets is way more accessible than the other), and already have their own passion projects that they're working on. So if you're going into purely writing comics, you're gonna need to manage your perspective on the industry and how it functions from a writer's POV rather than the POV of an artist who picked up writing as a consequence of wanting to get into comics.

That said, the beauty of writing comics is that, in general, it requires a lot less overhead than drawing a comic. That's not to say that it's necessarily easier, because god knows writing presents its own unique challenges, but writing a script generally takes less overhead and resources than turning that script into a comic. I can pump out 10 episodes of rough scripts for Rekindled in a day or two, with tweaking and editing along the way, but actually drawing those episodes takes weeks LMAO (and I wouldn't be able to pull off a lot of the stuff I do now without the help of my assistant @banshriek who not only provides a lot of expertise in drawing backgrounds, but lightens the workload in their help with shading and rendering! they also provide great feedback when it comes to the roughs stage <3)

So if you're starting out, just like the advice I give to budding webcomic artists, it's about starting. Build that experience, get some projects under your belt no matter the size or length that you can use to show your skills (and shop around for feedback from those willing to give it!), etc. Familiarize yourself with various genres, both writing AND reading! Like scripts for film, writing a comic script doesn't HAVE to come with the visuals even if that's the end goal, you don't HAVE to relegate yourself to finding an artist to draw your comic and then posting it online in the hopes it'll get seen. There's a lot that can be done with a simple comic script, whether it's sharing it to the world as is, adapting it to a novel, or pitching it to publishers/agents. Being a comic writer comes with a lot more flexibility in that way than being just a comic artist with no script (though, again, most indie comic artists will simply pick up writing to create their passion projects, it's a much bigger task for writers to pick up art for the sake of creating a comic).

Also establish your goals. Is your plan to write for some major industry some day? Or would you rather stick to writing for smaller productions? Just like with drawing webcomics, you should be setting your expectations in places that are reasonable to meet, rather than shooting for the top of the game right off the bat. If you're wanting to get into writing comics, your first major goal should be something like writing a complete script and NOT, say, getting to write for Marvel/DC lmao

As for the actual writing of comics, I highly recommend you read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, it delves into both the history and technical aspects of writing, drafting, and pitching comics in a very easy to understand way (it's a comic about making comics!)

Here are some other helpful resources I was sent by a pal recently that might also help familiarize you with the process of getting into the actual industry as a comic writer!

I hope this gives you at least a good place to start from! Again, it's ultimately a very broad topic that will vary from person to person (esp when it comes to the differences between genres and target demographics, ex. someone writing an action comic isn't likely going to use the exact same processes as someone who writes romance), but I hope this at least helps you find some direction in it all so you can establish your goals and start making steps in the direction you want to go in.

Good luck!!! <3

[quackity1999]

# — THE MAILBOX is open for business. god do i need a fucking megaphone or something. HELLO?

this is a c!quackity ask blog :]

SEND ASKS! feel free to pester c!quackity thru asks— general questions, LN reports, dsmp lore refs, tomfoolery and such are encouraged.

i HEAVILY support spamming the inbox.

happy to answer both anons + characters (dsmp, ocs, multiverse: film, musicals, videogames, etc). if ur a reoccurring anon then grab an emoji !

#quackitychirps indicates quackity replies. #charlieposting indicates slime replies.

↓ IMPORTANT INFO UNDER CUT. ↓

[ hiii. i'm prophet! he/it/rez prns. biggest cquackity kin known to mankind. yes i am australian 😎😎 ]

rules: literally fucking none. go ham!!!!!!! just please no godmodding. i'll delete anything that goes too far. 18+ mentions are fine — i'll tag accordingly, but it won't be the main focus. sooo have fun go crazy ( admin is 21. keep that in mind thanks )

this blog functions on dialogue instead of written out paragraphs of literature.

IMPORTANT: i don't write any literate rp ( eg; *character sits down and does a thingy* etc etc ) unless it's preplanned in dms for an event. if i am sent starters or asks with literate rp they'll most likely be deleted.

sometimes i throw in a bit of action in brackets, but this is an ask blog first and foremost so i focus on dialogue to communicate action / location / etc.

and in order to keep my blog tidy i don't respond to reblog replies. threads tend to get real lengthy + clutter up things. so— please send another ask instead of reblogging with a reply :) thank you for understanding!

there will be occasional nsfw topics. anything indirect or at the very least suggestive goes into #vaguely 18+. anything explicit will be tagged with 18+ mention. proceed with discretion.

[ TAG SYSTEM: HERE ! pls check it out. ]

details about quackity :

+ las nevadas era, mainly. if there's specific asks that require a response from vice pres quackity or manburg era q, i can adjust to that: #viceqchirps !

+ he's an avian hybrid! he nests often (usually within an amethyst geode). quackity has a history of being mocked for his instincts and avian attributes, much thanks to a certain ex-husband :/

+ this bitch loves a good debate. motherfucker is a lawyer (sorta) so hit him up with a challenge every now and then. give him fun facts. Threaten him. ask whats going on in his life! throw in curveballs.

[ his chat / asks often show up as pop-up ads. ]

+ my portrayal is canon aligned! las nevadas is important as hell to him, so here's a post that explains in-character how quackity runs LN: HERE. so. yeah, we do business around here. and also torture dream for the revival book but that's not important /silly

+ on that note, i would prefer to avoid interaction with positive/good depictions of c!schlatt for this blog. no disrespect to those who do prefer that, i just personally want to uphold the importance of how schlatt's abuse informed a Lot of character development for quackity. same goes for dream— he's a villain, not a kicked puppy. thank you!

+ i violently swerve between serious interactions and utter hysteria in my replies to asks. its like a fucking lucky dip here 😎 also soz for all the links but it Does make it easier

+ shipping isn't a goal here, so attempts to woo quackity will not end in a romance plot. ofc there'll be some flirting, especially w / canon characters he's had past relations with (schlatt, wilbur, eret, karl, sapnap). i hc he's had a fling with technoblade at least once LMAO.

+ during las nevadas he has fortnightly gatherings with foolish. he wouldn't fuck a citizen, but he'd fuck a coworker! morals, what're those again?

overall i'm not looking to write romance plots due to c!quackity's view of love during the LN era. (he despises it.)

all anons welcome!!! ADMIN IS 21.

for art references:

my dude's got big big wings such as the first two. no other wings anywhere else though! white / blind in the eye that’s scarred. he got gold fangs to replace his upper canines; to replace the actual missing tooth from techno’s axe but also for congruence. it's also a mockery: piglins love gold.

PLENTY of gold jewelry. quackity focuses so much on his appearance, so— earrings! a brass knuckle made from the rings of schlatt, karl & sapnap. he will never use his own feathers for decoration, though. he's got some necklaces, ofc, no piercings. maaybe an eyebrow piercing but idk . debatable

usually wears a white silk shirt, regular suspenders, black pinstriped pants / slacks, deep red tie with gold intricate detailing & a gold clasp to keep it together in the middle. a fancy pocketwatch with the las nevadas star engraved on the front. his blue or puma beanie obvs! shoes are either dark red (near black) snakeskin or italian leather. steel toed for dropkicking drea—

[ PAST EVENTS: AVIAN PINNED. ]

[red-might-be-dead]

hello hi here to force strange thoughts into your brain once again, this time about jrwi (wow who could’ve guessed)

been thinking about this for a little but it’s basically what i think some campaigns would be if not podcasts, i haven’t listened to some of the older ones so i’m sorry they’re not on here :(( if you have any ideas feel free to add them btw :DD

RIPTIDE!!!!! - really long animated series

not an anime though, no matter how much grizzly wants it, it would be an animation style where the characters could have very clearly different nose, face and body shapes, really pushing my riptide nose agenda here sorry, each episode would be like 20-40 minutes long and instead of coming out in seasons there would be massive gaps in between episodes, from 2-6 months long, to leave time for writers and animators to get stuff done (massive team of animators btw, i feel like it would be pretty successful)

PRIME DEFENDERS!! - comics

literally nothing else they could be, just really well made, well performing comics (i’ve already talked about this before you can stalk my talk tag if you really want to find it lmao), the comic company making them would be keeping well away from movies n shit btw

APOTHEOSIS!!! - i wasn’t really sure about this one to be honest

i had to ask my friend and she said anime which i don’t agree with but i can see it, i think maybe a short book series where each book is 150 - 300 pages and is about a different god they have to kill/a different episode, i think that works but if anyone has any better ideas please tell me :D!!

BLOOD IN THE BAYOU!!! - i hate to say it, i really do…

bitb would be a really long really good 80s horror book with strong homoerotic undertones, a satisfied fanbase and lots of active members in the community making fan comics, films, writing, theories and art ect… until well after the book came out……….. and then it would be made into the most egregious and awful live action movie you have ever seen, the most awful casting (like chris pratt as officer dudes….. throws up) and even worse sfx, oh yeah and the characters would be ruined and the story would become so butchered it wouldn’t make sense, they would do some shit like cut out becky so kian just kisses some random lady (removing both a really good and well written character and a layer of kian’s character that i think is super important) and make rolan really be an evil bug spy the whole time so rand has to kill him to save the town also add in a whole new sub plot that never existed like the rand family is secretly a long line of bug alien hunters or something fucking stupid like that and the entire fanbase would murder whoever thought re-writing the story was a good idea (ahaha can you tell ive been through something like this before ahahaha, character morals and motives being removed and whatnot ahahahhahahaha.)

anyways………

THE SUCKENING!!! - live action series

it would be well made though, unlike the bitb movie it would be its own original thing, have great makeup and effects also be well casted and well shot, well written, ect ect, it would bloody and gory and not suitable for people who can’t handle showing bones and organs all over everywhere, lots of shitty rip off merch would be made though and the fandom would be 99% gay little freaks (normal suckening enjoyers) and 1% homophobic straight white men who get mad whenever they see soda and emizel having gay sex on screen or whatever fag shit that biting thing was

again feel free to add your thoughts and ideas and shit in the reblogs it would be nice to read them :DD!!

[omghallucinations]

enhypen heeuseung: wow this is a lot of nurturing benevolent energy especially for someone with a relentless work ethic and need to succeed???

psa: i went into this cold! i have seen clips of this boy off tiktok and i listen to enhypen's music a lot but idk him well, so lmk if this resonates from what u see lmao

wow, i am genuinely impressed! i would trust him with a lot more responsibility than your average man. there is a lot of empathy and compassion and sense of responsibility to others here! capture my heart, why don't you????

ok let's get started.

birth time unknown, my nemesis! well, we've got a range for his moon (21° virgo to 5° libra). no clue about rising, angles, etc etc etc. but! we can dispositor tree.

we've got a mutual reception tree, where venus and mercury rule each other.

someone with a mutual reception tree:

diplomatic

sees other people's perspectives

negotiator

two dimensions of the personality, might lean one way or the other

libra mercury has more influence unless his moon is in libra in which case that branch moves over to venus.

either way we can see his primary actors are gonna be : anxious kind of (self) critical art/relationships vs. diplomatic communication. the work ethic (saturn) also is important (saturn is in charge of mars, his willpower, who is very strong in capricorn), so is the moon (emotions, security needs) and jupiter (beliefs, travel, learning). question--does he have... anxiety? either way probably good to have him on a team bc he can smooth over conflict well.

unsurprisingly his libra sun is way down on the list of influence!! a libra sun is in its fall. a planet in its fall is like stranded somewhere where it does not have any currency, does not speak the language, has no idea what is going on. like it's still around but boy is it confused. libra suns + identity issues 4-ever. libra sun is leaky. the moon and rising are gonna be more influential, and in this case virgo vibes regardless of moon--venus in virgo wields influence over his sun.

ok so just ran into a problem that made me almost rage quit this entire post lmao--at around 8:45 pm virgo venus becomes libra venus. ugHHH this would change a shit ton. he seems like a day chart person though right??? i don't really know much about him idk!! i'm gonna move forward under the assumption that he has virgo venus and if it turns out he was born after 8:45 pm i'm gonna be pissed

cardinal squares and oppositions: rest??? but how could i provide for the family/for the good/for society if i rest??

right away there's a t-square-- jupiter opposite mars, mars square sun/mercury, sun/mercury square jupiter. t-squares are like... hey girl you ever repressed an emotion??? but also they are insanely productive. no one is gonna rest with a square.

cardinal oppositions and squares: activity, drive, FIX the PROBLEM right NOW, only god can stop me, allergic to asking for help capricorn mars: i am in control thus everything that goes wrong is my fault because i could have probably prevented it with willpower clearly i didn't eat enough spirulina or do enough planks cancer jupiter: ♫ we are the world  ♫ we are the children ♫ we are the ones who make a brighter day so let's start giving  ♫ mars opposite jupiter: i will INSPIRE the BELIEF into everyone!! there is no such thing as overcommitting!! i can take on infinite tasks!! so can you, believe in yourself!! capricorn opposition cancer: spare the rod spoil the inner child no wait we need to focus on nurturing, let's go work no let's go home, safety is through success no wait safety is through the family,

but never fear, squares are here! an opposition may fight forever, but a square comes to some kind of understanding or at least working relationship

capricorn square libra: ah let me rephrase, in a way that is pleasing to you and me, that actually the greatest goal is diplomacy... i mean we're going to do it my way but i will absolutely compromise because i am civil and refined... so... cancer square libra: wait i have no idea what is going on right now or what i'm feeling lol? um could someone... help me.... i'm totally fine giving up completely actually... idk... i really need family/friends to identify myself... ha ha... mars square sun: i know what i want and i will go after it! i must achieve or who am i??? i can never rest i always have to be Doing. my daddy/mommyfamily issues are not the point and have nothing to do with my need to succeed!! mars square mercury: uh what were we talking about haha? jupiter square sun: i will give u the shirt off my back i will give you my last protein bar i believe in growth and freedom and i am definitely as confident as i act like i am ha ha why would you think i wasn't??? jupiter square mercury: i have a great wide angle view of the world and humanity and stuff, also i overheard someone say something one time and completely misinterpreted the situation!! but it's okay i am focused on the future... the possibilities...

lol this is someone who has a really really rEALLY hard time resting. has he ever been injured?? if so, that must have fucking sucked for him. very Achievement Orientated but not in a selfish way, honestly much more focused on the group rather than the self--with the cardinal squares, he has no aries involved. it's all about the society (capricorn) the family (cancer) and the group/relationships (libra).

ahh it reminds me of someone who works 5x harder than other people and someone's like, omg leave some for the rest of us why are you working so hard it makes us look bad, and he's like "..." because it's not about putting himself above someone else! he's not succeeding at you, ok! he is doing so for you, be grateful, god.

mutable opposition: peter pan syndrom

gemini saturn opposes sagittarius pluto, this is generational but also a fun and cute opposition imo. i mean not pluto-saturn, that fully blows, but gemini-sagittarius!

gemini-sagittiarius: talkative, restless, Eternal Youth, down with the kids, subjective v objective, scattered v whole, fox v hedgehog

yay!!!!

however...

saturn-pluto: :(

saturn = anxiety fear and pluto = deep core terror, so together... mm. can be a fear of power, fear of power being put on him, fear of having power himself--heeseung may kind of dodge any leadership roles because he doesn't really trust himself.

saturn-pluto is usually very suspicious of people in authority anyway. can go back and forth between constructing and deconstructing, rules and no rules, i am a good little capitalist v burn all banks. you know what i mean!!

with this and heeseung's capricorn-libra square, he has a lot of stuff around authority and fairness.

let's talk air trines!

you can see an exact trine between heeseung's libra sun and his aquarius uranus--he's not too fussed about fitting in but he is very fussed about equality and equity and humanity and stuff. he has a talent for fairness. also he's lowkey weird with that uranus-mercury trine. idk if he shows this, but he is absolutely very strange.

with the trine from mercury to saturn, his work ethic is natural to him, and he has an ability to be responsible you don't always see with the amount of air energy lol.

also he's super wise and can leave shit in the past when he needs to. i would trust this guy with a lot of responsibilities actually! he has the ability to put his own ego aside and make the decision that's best for the collective even if it's worse for himself, SUPER rare.

damn... i may have to stan??

also uranus mercury and saturn are all retrograde (and neptune) so he's gonna have to unpack a lot of stuff in his life, he's on an Individuation Journey, lots of karmic untangling, go with god my past life baggage buddy

venus-moon conjunction: 🥺

on the left, 12:00 am. on the right, 11:59 pm. either way, we've got a venus-moon conjunction, it's just how close the conjunction goes.

dude i may really have to stan. this is such an adorable conjunction. is he a mama's boy? he might be.

he is so sensy and also is afraid of hurting other people's feelings. he feels rejected easily (maybe less than some people with this placement, bc of his other aspects) and assumes everyone feels rejected easily too, so he is very careful. people pleaser to the max. very sensitive to criticism, probably wants to fix everything immediately if he feels like he made a mistake even if was barely a mistake. girl same, mood.

it's a really good thing he has that capricorn mars and the cardinal opposition/squares because they keep him from being too delicate or yielding, gives him the willpower to move through hurt and things like that. moon-venus conjunction can be too accommodating but capricorn mars hates accommodating so it's a good balance.

hm he might have some gender things, like traditional beliefs around gender. idk if they are actually true to his personality though--it seems more like expectations he was raised with and in some ways they counter his actual personality, but he holds onto them anyway.

and whoever he gets with... you may have to deal with an overly involved mother-in-law.

venus-moon... square chiron: in conflict with his Wound, like it fuels his sensitivity but also there is maybe a feeling of... all is not how it seems, like he may not totally believe someone when they tell him they love him. bright side he is really really caring. (also his chiron is conjunct his south node... hm something is up with his childhood. his mom might be overcompensating for something she feels guilty about that happened to him when he was a kid? idk.) square lunar nodes: essential for his soul's growth--he's gonna have to deal with his own emotional safety needs and relationships in order to Grow. his south node in capricorn is very "workaholic" and his north node in cancer is very "learn to focus on ur own life and family", so that's clear. also at 0°, his lunar nodes are very potent. opposite pisces lilith: virgo v pisces is very martyr vibes, very rescuer or being rescued, he might have a tendency to want to save people that is actually about him wanting himself to be saved? very service-orientated though but he'll need to look that in the face to see what's underneath that need

fixed stars & asteroids & stuff

heeseung's sun is conjunct the fixed star spica. damn he's got some guardian angels. this is the star of protection and benefit. pure dose of helpful energy. you don't always get what you want but you get what u need.

saturn is conjunct the asteroid vesta, who is all about commitment. leadership vibes. he may shun the leadership role but it's after him anyway. when he says he's gonna do something he does it. trustworthy, needs to Believe in something to commit to it.

damn this is good boy disease. what the hell dude. do we have to be so virtuous??? god!!!

---

well!! i am still pausing my enhypen deep dive until i look at all of their charts so we will see, but what do u guys think his he more this one or that one?

actually this is extra hard edition because libra moons and moon conjunction venus are like. super similar lol. PEOPLE PLEASERS.

anyway. is he more overthinker or compulsive smoother-over? what's the vibe?

thank u for joining me on this journey. i've learned a lot and now my heart hurts but i too am air dominant so i don't wanna talk about it :)

[j-crow]

ok this is the last post i swear

stalking peoples blogs is soooo entertaining

[its-the-sa]

Different anon. God just boiling down the slugcats to 'animals' angers me in a way I didn't think I could be angry. Yes, they are animals, but by all means they are cognitive and understand complex emotions, communicate with a supposedly complex language, are able to be taught to do things. Why else would the iterators use them as messengers constantly? It's not like they're messenger pigeons where it's just going from point A to point B, they understand exact instructions. If this was just some random animal, making groans and grunts, they wouldn't be able to understand what Five Pebbles even meant when he was explaining how to ascend. Even with the mark, could you imagine if he told a lizard this? Artificer, arguably, is a prime example of this. Just an animal would get over their fallen children, sure they'd grieve but in the end they'd just make more. Arti not only is so enraged by their death, that she is physically incapable of ascension, but also swears vengeance upon a whole other species. This isn't just some animal who lost her children, this is a mother who is enraged at her children's murder. Sure, they aren't on the same level as humans are. Like obviously. But I'd argue it makes sense that a scavenger and a slugcat could fall down the path of enemies to lovers. Especially when you consider the fact that death isn't permanent in Rain World's universe. That would definitely change one's perspective on it. I dunno if I make sense, I'm juggling like three things at once, but I had to say what I needed to say. Wording bad, slugcat smort.

tbh it took me a minute to figure out what this was even referring to, because honestly I don't think that anon meant to use the word 'animal' to dehumanize arti in the first place. it sounded to me like they were just using it as a non-human equivalent for 'person', like "why would anyone fall for a person who committed hate crimes against them?" which is a valid question. it never even occurred to me that they could have meant it in the sense of calling her an inferior creature.

that said... you ARE 100% right and you should say it, lmao.

I very nearly got into this exact argument once, bc i saw some comments from a guy scoffing at the idea of arti showing mercy to baby scavs. because by his logic, 'she is just an animal, so she isn't bound by human morality. in the wild, animals kill any young that don't belong to them without hesitation'. and it just pissed me off so much, because not only was it such an edgy "mercy is for the WEAK!" alpha-male bullshit take, it was also just factually wrong. many animals can and do adopt the young of other animals, even other species, especially when they've just lost their own. and like you said, they can grieve, but then they move on. they keep surviving, and making more babies. they don't dwell on injustice, or let rage consume them to the point that it becomes a hindrance to their own survival. they don't go on single-minded revenge quests. they dont try to justify their own violence by demonizing entire species, and they dont end up plagued by guilt in their sleep. those are very, very human things.

and yeah, i see a lot of people theorize that it's the mark of communication that grants the slugcats higher intelligence, but I don't really buy that either. i think the mark just lets them understand the iterator's language. they must've already had the capacity to understand it, or else it wouldn't work at all. it'd be like trying to install windows on a calculator. also, even without the mark, slugcats are obviously shown to communicate with each other. they have their own culture, they tell stories and make art, and they're apparently able to understand karma and the nature of the cycle at least enough to be able to ascend. so like... any creature thats capable of spiritual enlightenment must at least be sapient, right??

it seems like in the absence of the ancients, both slugcats and scavs are beginning to move in to their niche in the ecosystem

[ask-the-critters-survival-au]

Mod note: Not in any way an ask but I just wanted to come out and say this ask blog was originally supposed to be HELLA different from the way it is now, and it’s a little insane that it’s been like a month or so since it started. I originally had a different plan for how I wanted to start this (I had finished the comic for it too) but I decided I didn’t like the original and I made a new one, which is the first post on this blog. Fun fact! Hoppy was originally supposed to have a phone that she communicated to you guys with.

Just thought I’d share a few moments from the OG comic. I also have some old art that I made a while back before I even created the blog.

Dear god, I can’t get over how different their designs were. But yeah, just some fun stuff I thought I would share ^^ thank you for supporting this blog so it could get this far. Recently reached 120 followers on here, which is crazy to think about.

Anyway let me go answer some more asks

Edit: GUYS I FOUND MORE

Okay seriously I’m done now LMAO

[lixenn]

OCtober 2024 day 23: community

@myrmyrtheorca one science girl coming right up! Anemone is also working hard, pipetting lots for qPCR 🫡 what a legend!

A yapping essay under the cut, I will talk science so you have been warned.

Now before I ramble about science I'm just gonna talk about the art for a bit. I did use a reference for this because I'm not insane and drawing the lineart with it was ... alright I would say. I actually looked through my own pictures and my uni website first in case I could find something as a ref but no dice so I needed to look it up anyways. I think the most difficult lineart to draw was the fucking pipettes... I need everyone to know that all the lab equipment (except maybe the blue regant holder) is a simplification of what it actually looks like because by god I could not replicate the real thing with my current skill set. I know most people will not give a fuck but I do so it needed to be said.

Otherwise colouring went okay and rendering wasn't extremely tedious. I noticed that I actually really like rendering blond hair, years ago I found this hack where you use red for the shadows and turn the opacity down and it works so well every time, I'm a bit obsessed tbh. I need to give more of my OCs blond hair lmao.

Okay enough about art let's talk science! Honestly this is really just me explaining science stuff, so feel free to skip because this can get long.

As I mentioned above I drew Anemone doing qPCR and I chose qPCR because her focus is genetic research. So basically she looks into the human genome (entire set of human genes) to see how it correlates to the Pallid Flame.

qPCR stands for quantitative polymerase chain reaction or real time polymerase chain reaction (RTpcr) and it's a valuable tool for analysing stuff down to genetic aka DNA level. You might have learnt about PCR in school but if not or if you've forgotten: PCR is the amplification of a specific gene aka you take one specific part of someone's DNA and replicate it a bunch of times. This is useful if you want to proof if a specific gene is present in the DNA you are analysing. Now qPCR also does the DNA amplification but as it already implies with the name it also counts how much the gene was amplified. You can use qPCR in many applications for example I used this method in my thesis to test if skin related genes are upregulated (higher gene expression aka genes are more activated? <- me trying to simplify genetics I'm not sure if this is the correct term of phrase) or down regulated (lower gene expression) when I put mast cells in my skin models. It gives you insight how certain factors affect cells on DNA level and since it will give you number at the end you can do statistics which is what everyone will really care about. I hope this explanation was at least somehow understandable if anyone has any questions I can talk more about this no prob 🫡

In fact I will talk more about it just... less why you do qPCR but more on how you do it. Because the thing is with this method... You need to pipette, you need to pipette A LOT. And honestly I'm really not a fan because you need to be so exact with this pipetting since each mistake you make stacks up and shows in your data at the end. It's very frustrating especially because there are a lot of steps where you can make mistakes and you need to be fully concentrated the entire time. I... I would say I'm good at my job but I really don't like this part of it because it grates on my nerves. But I think Anemone would be good at it, it's something repetitive that requires a steady hand and patience. Normally post Docs and even some PhD students let assisstants handle this job but I'd like to imagine that Anemone likes doing small things occasionally. Maybe not the entire process (there's a lot of prep work required for qPCR) but the last few steps she can take over, just for a change of pace.

[theshoesofatiredman]

Just stopped being Christian after being “born again” for 2 years and I…feel so duped. I feel sad. Even tho I was “progressive” and believed in universalism and affirmed homosexuality, it ultimately didn’t make the religion less nonsensical.

I annotated the shit out of the New Testament and Mere Christianity by CS Lewis…I loved Jesus with all my heart. And now I know that everything is fake because my brain couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance anymore. Like the fact that we have no idea what was actually said by anyone in the NT because random men were writing about it decades after the events. And that even though progressives can look at the OT as mostly being metaphorical, ultimately they would still believe the core messages are true because it’s divinely inspired. And idk, the writers being ‘inspired’ by God doesn’t make sense to me anymore.

Just constantly seeing 99% of christians be conservative or take the bible literally was so exhausting. Progressive christianity can be nice but it’s ultimately a walking contradiction, like you trying to make christianity all about Jesus and love and you have to ignore large chunks of everything else. 

It’s so sad. I loved Christian music. I had 50 Christian nonfiction books on my to-read list. And now that’s all gone. Buddhism and Islam and greek mythology and zorioastronism and all that…it’s all humans trying to make sense of spirituality. Christianity is no different. I cant believe I thought it was different. 

On the bright side it is such a relief to feel like I am not being watched anymore. Oh my goshhhhh. Even with my super soft imaginary Jesus that was basically a light of love, I still couldn’t stand the feeling of my thoughts always being watched. I thought about the fact that I was being watched while I pooped lmao 😭

Sorry 2 dump this on you <3 I’ll also be posting on Reddit. I guess I rlly feel the need to share all this because such a huge chunk of my life is now gone. It’s weird.

As a person who started a Tumblr solely so I could share my experience deconstructing, and eventually leaving, Christianity, I absolutely get the need to share this with people!! I'm sorry you're having to deal with the pain of losing your faith, but I do want to say that life gets better. It's possible to build a rich and beautiful life after leaving religion behind and I hope that you can look forward to having that, to building that.

I can imagine how frustrating it must've been and must be to constantly reckon with conservative christians' interpretations. My faith experience was inside conservative evangelicalism and one of the things I found myself mulling over as I was deconstructing was whether or not I could find a home inside a more progressive part of the faith. And one of the things I realized was that there would likely be no escaping the homophobic conservative Christians if I stayed inside the faith. And as a gay man, I was deeply tired of being in community with them.

Yes, you can go to an incredibly welcoming and affirming church. But what if you go to a Christian conference? Or a concert for a Christian artist? If I ever wanted to create religious art, my sexuality was going to be a ? for people and put a target on my back. You're in a fandom where power is concentrated in the hands of people with very bigoted views. You can carve out your own corner, but so long as bigotry is mainstream canon you're gonna struggle to avoid it entirely.

Ultimately, I left the faith because I stopped believing. I think I would've stayed long enough to test my theories on proximity to Biblical homophobia if I had been able to keep believing.

Most modern religions take only portions of an old sacred text and call it sacred. There are so many different versions of Christianity because everyone is focusing on different bits and adding in stuff to suit them. Sometimes that's cultural and sometimes that's one gross man fucking things up for everyone. Now as a non-religious person I don't think there's much wrong with that so long as you're honest about it.

Modern Christians should reject harmful past teachings and verses that contribute to toxic theology. Even if it's just "I don't agree with that so I don't believe it", that is less harmful for the world than someone saying "well I don't like it but it's god's word so guess I have to believe in eternal conscious torment hell." That dissonance can be a really really hard place to live though which is why most religions have social technology to resolve that "that's not what it really meant", "it was a different time", "thanks to progressive revelation we know that's not how God wants us to live anymore", etc etc. But often times those are only temporarily satisfying.

I'm glad you are enjoying some of these freedoms of apostasy already. No longer having an all seeing eye watching and judging you is a tremendous weight lifted. I hope that as your journey continues, you find yourself less and less burdened and more and more free. Thank you for sharing. Wish you the best!

[moosh2727]

IDW ISSUE 75 IS GOD TEIR LIVE REACTION PART 1

(spoliers ahead)

OMGG ITS THEMMM ITS BEEN SO LONG SINCE IVE SEEN JET IN IDW YES YES YES YES!!!!

OH MY GOSH I LOVE THAT SMURK OMGGGGGGG

JETS PLOTTING LETS GOOOO

that look of devistation oh my gosh!!!! EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART AND I LOVE IT

i love charmy LMAOOO

THATS SO SICK WHATT

i love espio LMAOO we need more of him, also why are they sorta selling me on those goofy goobers LMAO

WHAT THE HECKKKK THIS ALSO IS SO FUNNY LOL

AN ENTIRE PAGE OF THIS OMGGGGGG

i rlly like surge bc greeen and she just keeps amazing me again and again with her determination

sonamy for life THEY'RE SO SILLY!!! I LOVE THEMMMM

THEY'RE SO CUTE OMGGGGGGG!! AAAAAAAA!

JET JET JKET JET JETE VGETEJHYHGUJV OMGG JET I LOVE HIMM!!! WAVES DOING HER WAVE FROM ZERO GRAVITY AND STORM LOOKS LIKE HES STRIKING HIS EXTREME GEAR RENDER POSE OMGGGG!!!

maybe its just me or did the art style change a lil bit? ANYWAY I LOVE JET AND THE ROGUES!!! OF COURSE JET IS GOOD WITH THIS STUFF HES AMAZING LIKE THAT!!! PULL!!

the side characters look great omggg! i love the news reporter!!

YEAH WORK HARDER!! LOL THE SHIP IS LITERALLY GONNA CRASH INTO THE CITY!!!

HES SO SILLY OMGG i need to make new icons of this silly guy THE I GUESS IS KILLING ME LMAOOO

NO WAY NO WAYYY NO WAYYYY OMGGG!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! also jet called sonic, "hedgehog" thats new!

using a race to get Jet in board *dun dun chink* is actually rlly interesting! all i want is it to be badass tho so i'm hoping it is!!!!

tiny jet number 100000000

I WOULD 100 PERCENT GO WITH JET!! also why does jet look like a yummy pea... i'm hungry..

tiny jet number 100000001

ME ME ME ME ME IM THERE I WAS THERE #REAL IM THERE

BAHHAHAHA!!

THE WHATTTT!!!! LMAOO imagine how many kids learned of the word ditto from sonic ngl LMAOOO

BAHAHHA NGL I ARGUE LIKE THAT WITH MY FRIENDS TOO LMAOOO

I like seeing when Jet and sonic differ on things, its rlly interesting seeing Jet's perspective compaired to sonic!

STAY AROUND FOR PART 2!!!!!!!

i reached the image limit 😭

FEEL FREE TO JOIN MY JET THE HAWK FANCLUB!!