#but i think i might be onto SOMETHING

[lilygetshomesucked]

i,,, there's something here to me about the similarities between rose and dave. i mean on top of GG also noting that they both assume people don't ever say what they actually mean the way they do, the way they each apply this to their living situations is really interesting to me.

rose views everything her mother does through an ultra-cynical lens. she takes actions such as giving her presents (the cthulu harlequin doll thing on her couch or the horse Maplehoof that her mother tries giving her during their strife scene) and invents deeper reasons behind them so that they become ironic digs at her. CLEARLY this present is ACTUALLY a mockery of rose's interests, a subtle barb in a rosebush of thorns that is her relationship with her mother. but... those could be genuine attempts to connect, couldn't they?

on the other side of the coin, dave has put his brother onto a pedestal. dave, just as rose does, injects a potent amount of perceived irony into every aspect of his brother's personality and each of his actions. except unlike rose he does so with a MASSIVE benefit of the doubt. it is very apparent to dave that obviously everything his brother does is in pursuit of a super cool irony that dave just isn't ready to Get yet. he even has a running contest of one-up-manship with his brother just as rose does with her mother.

however, just as rose is very willing to overlook her mother's potential virtues to hyperfocus on perceived slights, dave is all too ready to disregard any of his brother's flaws, excusing all of them with "oh, he's so cool, this is so sweet, and even the things i don't think are cool MUST be cool, i just am not cool enough yet to Get It." i mean he goes to his kitchen and it's absolutely trashed, and yet he finds no fault in that!

this all also makes me so very interested in how these relationships are viewed from the other side! i don't doubt that rose's mother and dave's brother are similar to their daughter and brother, respectively. they're family, after all, and so i think to a degree there is a level of validity and credence to be given to how rose and dave interact with their families, but also because of the aforementioned reasons i think that there's some pretty big pieces of the picture we're missing here. there's not much more speculation i can do from here, but i really really hope we get to see more of their sides of the story because these dynamics are fucking FASCINATING to me

[mangozic]

michael distortion what a goofy guy

[trans-axolotl]

my gendered experience growing up as an intersex person was overwhelmingly defined by my responses and resistance to everything that got me labeled as a failure: failure to quickly get a gender assigned at birth, failure to go through a normal puberty and grow up into a woman, failure at meeting the standards for "complete womanhood" because of my intersex sex traits, and yet simultaneously failing to ever be acknowledged as a "real man" and being treated as a threat when I expressed I wanted to transition.

before i realized i was a man and came out as trans, the ways that girlhood was denied to me was very often humiliating and painful. locker rooms filled with other girls were a frequent source of shame. there were many big and small ways that i was told that my intersex body made me insufficient, incomplete, broken. i was forced onto estrogen, forced into shaving my body hair, and was constantly being told to change myself to better fit this mystical idea of a "normal woman." and even though I ultimately ended up becoming a man, the denial of girlhood was painful.

but i think that these things would have been even more difficult to navigate as an intersex girl if on top of everything I already said, i was having to cope with the denial of my girlhood while i was forced into boys locker rooms. if my doctors were forcing me onto testosterone hrt and refusing to even discuss estrogen, if all my legal paperwork had "M" on it and was a logistical nightmare to change, if every support group for my intersex variation labeled it as a "men's support group," if the LGBTQ community spaces i tried to join were misogynistic towards me often to the point of exile, if my self determination as an intersex girl was denied in most spaces of my life, and on and on and on. while listing all these things out i also don't want to make it seem like it's all about suffering and pain--so much of transition for me has been about joy in my self determination and how much it feels like a reclamation of autonomy to decide what I want my body and self to be like--i know this is an experience i share with so many of my trans intersex friends.

as an person who was AFAB, although there were many ways that trying to grow up as an intersex girl were a painful, logistical nightmare, many times and places that i was excluded from woman's spaces, etc. however, there was a simultaneous affirmation that i was right to strive for that in the first place. which is logic rooted in some fucked up compulsory dyadism, but also which would have made some things slightly easier or even possible at all if i had wanted to embrace being an intersex girl within this fucked up system.

pretty much every time i've seen people on tumblr talking about "afab transfems" in an intersex context, people seem happy to collapse these experiences and act like there's no meaningful distinction or point in distinguishing between different types of intersex embodiment. it seems incredibly extractive, to be perfectly honest with you--taking terms already used by a community to make meaning of their experiences and to expand and dilute that term enough that it means something pretty different than the original.

it's making me think about the concept of epistemic injustice, which is a term coined by Miranda Fricker to describe oppression related to knowledge, communication, and making meaning of the world. There's two subtypes of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice refers to the dynamic where marginalized people are labeled as not credible, excluded from conversations, and their testimony and knowledge is labeled as unreliable, even when they're the ones who are experts and have first hand experience of what people are talking about. (this is why i probably won't make this post rebloggable--i've noticed this pattern on tumblr many times where trans men speaking about transmisogyny get lots of notes and are given a lot of grace, where trans women are silenced, attacked for not having perfect wording, and otherwise delegitimized.)

the second type is called hermeneutical injustice. it describes how marginalized people are denied the right to make sense of the experiences in their own lives. this can look like preventing people from building community, terminology, a political understanding of themselves, and the interpretive resources needed to process how you live in the world.

this is a form of injustice that I think almost all intersex people are very familiar with--we are denied community and interpretive resources to the point that we're told we don't even exist, that intersex isn't a real word, and so many more examples that leave us isolated and with very few options for understanding what we're collectively experiencing. as an intersex person i really intimately understand how frustrating, confusing, and painful it is to not have words for your experiences, your identity, your life.

so it makes me really sad and pissed off when it seems like intersex people seem to be replicating this exact same type of epistemic injustice towards transfems and specifically towards intersex transfems. pretty much every time recently i see people talking about "afab transfems" they're doing so in a way that seems to deny that trans women even have the right to make sense of their own experiences in the world. there seems to be this mindset that these political frameworks, these interpretive resources that transfems have built up are just up for grabs for anyone. and then on top of that has come with it a lot of cruel, hateful language and direct attacks towards many intersex transfems who are facing so much harassment right now.

an important value to me is this idea of reciprocity as a foundation for solidarity. to me reciprocity means that we're prioritizing the ways we care for each other, we're thinking about how we can uplift each other, and we're watching out for extractive or exploitative patterns where one group is constantly expected to be in "solidarity" with another group without getting the same respect and care back toward them. i think that there could be so many ways that intersex people of all genders could share our overlapping experiences and actually be in true, meaningful solidarity with each other, but i barely ever actually see that happen on tumblr. and that pisses me off, because i do think that there's so much we have in common that we could celebrate and support each other with. i feel so much kinship with so, so many of my trans intersex friends, and ways where i see our lives converge. but i don't think that can happen in an environment where there's no acknowledgment of the ways that our experiences will sometimes (often) differ from each other, and the ways that we have unique needs.

another frustration i've had based on this most recent couple months of transmisogynistic intersex posting on tumblr is how intersex people have been mostly ignoring intersex community resources and devaluing the existing intersex terminology that people created to try to meet our needs. so much of what i've seen people describing on tumblr seems to really line up with the term ipsogender. Ipsogender is a term coined by an intersex sociologist Cary Gabriel Costello, and is used to describe intersex people whose gender matches the gender they were medically assigned at birth, but who might not feel like cis or trans fits them, might experience dysphoria, and who might feel like they've ended up transitioning medically or socially in some ways. this is a word that exists that an intersex person put time into coining because they wanted other intersex people to feel seen, embraced, and have ways of understanding themselves and communicating to others, and that's something that's super meaningful to me! and yet, i've rarely seen anyone reference it, and also seen multiple people making fun of it in other spaces online.

there's also intergender, which is another intersex specific gender term used to describe when your gender is inseparable from your intersex traits, and that your intersex identity is intertwined with your gender identity in some way. some people just identify as intergender, others use it as an adjective and exist as an intergender man or woman. intersex terminology like this is really important to me, especially because we're so often denied the right to make sense of our own experiences.

i think ultimately what i wanted to say with this post is just that when i think about intersex community, some of the most important values of intersex community for me are solidarity, care for each other, and affirming our right to define our own existence. and i don't think that can happen in a community where people are acting in extractive ways, harassing and attacking their fellow community members, and being dismissive of the realities of other intersex people's lives.

[fascinationstreetmp3]

I have what you're looking for. High quality. Befitting a man of my tastes. I have a room over on Divisadero, not too far a walk.

[bunnieswithknives]

Okay but does Peri KNOW that Dev has a robotic leg when he shows up? Something about the fact that Peri's wand is a cane and the fact that Dev could have kept his leg and just had a cane for the rest of his life instead tickles my brain.

I mean he doesn't know immediately, he wasn't like briefed or anything, but he basically lives in Dev's house so he definitely finds out. Peri doesn't comment on or react to it all though really, there's no reason for him to think anything of it, plenty of people have missing limbs, a lot of people are born without them, it doesn't necessarily mean anything sinister happened. He had no reason to pry or ask and I think Peri's lack of reaction to it helped Dev feel a bit more comfortable in his skin. (Not by much but.. a little bit.)

[sonseulsoleil]

WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE

IT'S FUCKING PERSUASION

Persuasion is about choice and how the rigidity of class structure can hold people back from what will actually make them happy. It is specifically about the intersection of class structure and family pressures. Anne Elliot's arc is all about seeing past her family and friends' persuasions and incorrect judgements towards Wentworth, and learning to stand up for herself and her desires.

Wentworth is quite wealthy by the end, and therefore ultimately earns approval from Anne's family and friends, but Anne would've married him poor. Anne never stops loving him for a single moment of the eight years they spend apart. But she believes she has ruined everything by breaking off their engagement. She doesn't think he loves her anymore.

Aziraphale has been persuaded to leave Crowley, despite them clearly being in love with each other, because that's not suitable to Heaven. Heaven sees Crowley (and the other demons) as beneath them, just as Anne Elliot's circle believes Wentworth to be unworthy of her affections. Season 3 (if we get it) will be Aziraphale and Crowley's 7 years later. It will be Aziraphale seeing the error of his ways, and realizing he has been lead astray by Heaven. But it will also be Aziraphale being unsure if Crowley would take him back. In other words? The pining is going to be horrific.

And ultimately, it will be Wentworth's letter: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever."

[rendevok]

your narumitsu art made me weep with joy and I heard you want more requests 👀

idk if this is the right place to put them but I think phoenix coming with miles to try on his glasses for the first time would be sweet :,) miles asking how they look and phoenix being just smitten. the good stuff

Dear anon… you sure know how to pick em! Things got very out of hand very quickly while drawing, and well. You inspired me to draft a comic! I didn’t want to make you wait long, so here are the sketches for the pages relevant to your request <3

Thanks so much, and hope you enjoy~! 💜

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[lordoflucky]

Quick over-analysis of the ways Barok and Albert address one another, because ace attorney loves showing personality through how characters refer to each other, and I love analyzing it.

Easy one out of the way, Albert exclusively refers to Barok as "Barok" regardless of the situation. He is the only character to do this, with every other character referring to him as some variation of "Prosecutor/Lord van Zieks". This establishes their friendship from the get-go, while also being a bit jarring to the audience as literally no one calls him just "Barok". Even characters who are closer to him, like Gregson and Stronghart, still call him "van Zieks". As far as Albert is concerned, that's just his good friend Barok, not the intimidating Prosecutor Lord van Zieks.

Barok meanwhile has two major ways of referring to Albert:

Firstly, "Albert". This one's simple, he's just reciprocating Albert's first name address, and further cementing their friendship. This is used almost exclusively outside of the courtroom, meanwhile within the courtroom he almost only uses "Professor Harebrayne". An exception to this is right after Albert is forced to accept that the experiment is a failure Barok says:

"And as for you… …Albert. You can't ignore this any longer."

It's a sudden departure from the distant, professional address he's been using the entire trial. It's also a much kinder approach than Barok usually takes when referring to defendants (or anyone really), something Susato comments on directly by saying she's "Never heard him speak that way before." He's breaking the Reaper Persona for just a moment to give his friend a firm, yet ultimately gentle, push.

Back to "Professor Harebrayne", while on the surface it seems distant there is one scene that shows an extra dimension. During the "Laudable not Laughable" scene, a sequence dedicated to Barok giving Albert what is essentially a pep-talk, you would expect him to return to the "Albert" address as seen earlier. Instead, he continues to use "Professor Harebrayne". My interpretation is that Barok is specifically calling attention to the fact that Albert is Professor Harebrayne. He has a title which he earned that is proof of his abilities as a scientist. Following that logic, "Professor Harebrayne" isn't just for formality's sake, but also a representation of the respect Barok holds for Albert separate from their status as friends.

However, Barok actually has a third way of referring to Albert that is used exactly once. In the line directly preceding Albert's (false) confession to murder, Barok says:

"What's all this about… Mr Harebrayne?"

Mr Harebrayne. Not Professor, not Albert, Mr.

If "Professor Harebrayne" is meant to show respect, and "Albert" is meant to show fondness, then clearly "Mr Harebrayne" is the absence of both.

He's not "Brilliant Scientist Professor Harebrayne" and he's not "Dear Friend Albert", he is Mr Harebrayne and he is about to do something so, so stupid. And there's nothing Barok can do to stop him.

My chosen interpretation is that this is Barok's desperate attempt to verbally smack some sense into Albert. This is like the Barok equivalent of grabbing Albert by the shoulders and yelling "What the hell do you think you're doing???"

As an aside, this comes right before the "...Albert. You can't ignore this any longer" line. Meaning the latter can almost been seen as an apology for being so harsh moments before.

Just, Mr Harebrayne. It's such a minor change, but I adore it so much. With how much care ace attorney puts into the way characters refer to each other, I have to assume it was intentional.

[fumifooms]

"Marchil? I guess I can see it on Chilchuck’s end, but what about Marcille’s? What makes you think she could develop feelings for him?" I’m glad you asked!

The first thing to note is that she does think highly of him

In the page on the right, literally defending his virtues and literally comparing him to Dalclan. And oh…

She does love a brooding mysterious guy who closes himself to love. But surely, Chilchuck isn’t her type at all, right? He’s not princely or knightly at all. In apperances certainly not, both looks wise and demeanor wise, but then that’s why she seeks to know him on a deeper level, to not only look shallowly.

And hmm. Chilchuck really is quite selfless isn’t he? Always looking out for others, and saving specifically her often, always making sure himself and, staying in or even running towards danger for her sometimes. Modesty is often considered heroic…

And can we talk about that drowning one… You can definitely frame the special attention as him knowing she tends to hesitate or be clumsy, and then his insistance on pulling her out of danger that she’s the healer aka the most important to keep alive, but. From the one who says that he just keeps his ass out of fights and won’t help this is a lot of risk to take, and he does die trying to pull her to safety in the dungeon rabbits chapter. And the drowning bit??? That’s when the dungeon collapses. The only reason they DON’T die of drowning here is that the water then gives way to outside. There was NO hope of pulling her to safety here and resurrections would likely not work either, he truly preferred to die with her than try to survive himself.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state, self-sacrifical hero much damn

And Marcille definitely noticed this imo, after all she loves learning all she can about him, remembering things like how he hates waiting on people too. She pays attention to him and what he does and what he says. This to say that it’s notable, whatever reason for it you may think (though we know by this point at least she was already aware he was an adult though it wasn’t internalized), out of everyone it’s Chilchuck’s bed that she wants to sleep in during the Golden Kingdom stay. He’s safe and comforting to her: dependable, the defining trait in her view of him as is shown by the relationship chart in the Adventurer’s Bible.

^ Lending handkerchiefs is a romance trope btw and handkerchiefs have irl history of being used for courting. Especially in old English literature and plays like Shakespeare’s Othello, and personally I do see a lot of Shakespeare in Dalclan (nobility political drama with some romance). There’s how his cowl is a dearly beloved souvenir from his family too, there’s a lot of aesthetic tropes you can apply to him.

All this to say you can 100% romanticize Chilchuck into a princely noble guy if you try and that’s exactly what Marcille does with the wife roleplay. She doesn’t need much in the first place, she latches onto crumbs and makes aesthetic narratives out of details, give her an inch she’ll take a mile.

But what’s interesting about the shift throughout the arc of her and his relationship is that she starts out idealizing him into a little angel of a kid (shapeshifter), and she ends it idealizing him as a virtuous husband and family man instead.

And what’s doubly interesting is that in the former, she’s actively warping who he is personality and demeanor wise to fit the aesthetic, he doesn’t have that bitter pride of not asking for help and the edges have been smoothened. But what she does during the wife roleplay is something else, she acknowledges the flaws and just… Accepts them, rolls with them. She’s aware of his flaws and implements them into the narrative, but the reason why his wife left doesn’t capitalize on them even, rather Chil is chilblivious and his wife loves him very much still, she’s just testing him after having had a night of feeling out of place at his side.

And this is what separates the idealization vs romanticization, she’s not twisting him into someone else she’s just uplifting what he is and focusing on the good sides.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" "If I were your wife I’d be overjoyed to go out with you and would get myself prettied up while you complain about me taking a long time, your friends would tell me that I’m nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough"

He’s angry and his wife left him, he’s *flawed*, but he’s still worth hyping up, still worth having his own romance story, still has a shot of winning back his beloved. She sees him for what he is, human and real and not a carefully scripted character that fits an aesthetic, and she thinks it’s still worthy of love and admiration and fighting for

And what’s funny too is that you might expect her to cool down on him once she learns more about him but actually she only gets increasingly into his business. You tell her your age and next thing you know you promise to introduce her to your family. Give her an inch she takes a mile. And too the thing is, Senshi is equally mysterious but she doesn’t pester him like at all, asks him ONCE about his succubus and he doesn’t even answer and that’s like… It. With Chilchuck it starts off innocently enough with her wanting to know his age, hometown, the stuff she mentions having asked pre-canon. But it just keeps and keeps going and escalating. Think she’ll be satisfied now knowing you have a wife and kids, maybe she’s disillusioned now? Wrong! She wants to know their names and ages and occupations and hey how did you propose to your wife? Do you think she’ll stop after meeting them? What’s next? What will she want to know next????

She’s… Like it’s not a reach that Marcille is all over him. Like it doesn’t mean it’s romantic but she just is. She is not normal about him idk. Can you not ask him about what tongue technique he used when first kissing his wife, give the man breathing room

Marcille could literally go "if I was Chilchuck’s wife" having deeply pondered and thought out the hypothetical and people would still ask where anyone sees any romantic potential between them. Oh wait

There’s a platonic explanation for everything (almost?) in Dungeon Meshi don’t say I’m saying otherwise, but it’s definitely not like there’s nothing here to read into lol

Going off a bit more under read bc it’s my fave topic

Marcille has a whole theme with the charming prince trope with her idealization and storybook motif and Chil is kinda the "Well someone perfect like that isn’t very realistic and romance is usually more complex and that’s ok and good and flawed people can still be ✨virtuous✨" catalyst

Do you see do you see she starts canon thinking the most romantic thing is a prince charming but her arc in the end has her romanticizing an average, flawed, real and realistic family man, who’s on the poorer side and is on the verge of divorce. And that’s what he needed, too, seeing the positive of himself and the situation instead of focusing on the negative is explicitly what inspires him to hope that he might be able to reconcile with his wife, gives him the courage and self-esteem to shoot his shot.

He IS a prince figure instead that now it’s not about idealizing the grand and overt it’s about romanticizing the small things in real life!! About finding joy and beauty in things that seem normal or mundane and uplifting them to make the world feel kinder!!!!

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wantsss not the storybook prince that’s unrealistic and could crumble like a script at any time. He’s the perfect example of a flawed realistic but virtuous & devoted & loving man. Far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks. Like literally, flawed romance being worth fighting for is literally the finale of Chilchuck and Marcille’s arc on the matter, where their separate arcs and issues intersect at the most crucial moment.

Marcille is important to Chil’s arc not only because of her optimism, but also because of her interest and knowledge in romance & matters of the heart, and that’s what he needs to both open his heart up to hope and to try to reconcile with his wife, like idk sounds gay

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities capacities etc etc while still not leaving flaws unchecked either and 2) opening up to people. Marcille LITERALLY makes Chil open his heart up to hope like idk man. What do you want from me. He’s literally the guy helping her through deconstructing novels and fantasy and rose tinted glasses and like. Deconstructing the prince charming figure into something more real but still romantically beautiful like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

 Ok fine that’s me reading into the tropes too much forgive me for being storybook brained but like. Speaking his heart out to a lone woman on a balcony, Romeo and Juliette shit, asking if she, too, doesn’t want to meet his family, madly blushing. And like she’s learned with Chilchuck it’s all in the little things, all the implications he cannot speak aloud. She does reciprocate, does blush madly back, and the first thing she does is shower him in flowers and jewelry and what in her heart is coded as romantic gifts

A lady, stashed away in a high tower by her lonesome, waiting for someone to call out to her from below… Romeo courting type shit with an offer, a heartfelt spiel, implicit confession from underneath her balcony. Offering him flowers because he succeeded in calling out to her heart…….. And they have to climb to her too…. Crazy

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like and not, contrastedly real and grounded, all about the implications rather than in your face grand gestures, "Don’t you want to meet my family?". They literally have an arc about the topic of romance and this is the climax/pinnacle of it like god?? This is @ the woman who said "Chilchuck is a shy/bashful man so I know he wouldn’t tell me he loves me, but…" btw

To quote a friend, truly the shiny secret unlockable dating sim capture target : THE DUNGEON LORD BIT WAS SO FUNNY BECAUSE HE KNEW SHE'D TAKE IT HOOK LINE AND SINKER HES THE ONE WHO GOT HER TO TURN AROUND COMPLETELY SHES LIKE. WIDE EYED FLAG RAISED???? FLAG RAISED WITH CHILCHUCK 👀👀👀‼️👀👀‼️👀

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like people are not ready for the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take. Or the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’ take which makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a charming elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does end up romanticizing)

So there, you got to witness in real time what happens when I think about marchil for longer than 2 minutes, there are so many layers it’s a deranged rabbithole. I saw the necronomicon of subtext and it’s driving me to madness with forbidden knowledge that no one else sees

……. Like what if I told you she implicitly picked Chilchuck over a "unrealistic prince charming who’s actually disingenuous" much earlier in the story already. If she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus she’d pick Chilchuck over the other actually. If I sound insane rn tune in for my full analysis on them coming this month hopefully thank youu. Interwoven arcs of fantasy vs reality and idealization vs pessimism I love youuu

So now you know the general thesis of my planned analysis about the importance of the prince charming figure in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something easy and digestible and poetic (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and how she needs to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, and accepting that people need money and not pulling through on principles of honor or unity shouldn’t get Namari shamed) and a part of that is accepting that Chilchuck is BOTH flawed and virtuous, a loving husband that still has shitty moods and fumbled his marriage so bad etc etc. So it’s like, her image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance -> realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage but he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending. Ik I keep repeating the same point through this but I need it to be burned into everyone’s brains it has its grip on me I can’t do this. They are so special……

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

“Ok in the original error message on Grammy night there’s the the code that says DPT which obviously now is the acronym for Tortured Poets Department but backwards and it’s counting down 3-2-1 from back to front IT’S LIKE IT’S STARTING FROM THE END INSTEAD OF THE BEGINNING or from the last page instead of the first chapter and the word scramble is literally a red herring and the original error is web speak for the system crashing BECAUSE THERE’S BEEN A GLITCH THE SYSTEM IS OVERLOADED so she has to go back to basics with a typewriter instead in the latest tease but also the betting Swifties are saying the Apple Music scramble is spelling out Glitch backwards too and the original error message is a black page with white font but the NEW error message is white with black font they’re like TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN and now she’s teasing 13– THIRTEEN WHAT?!—“

[otaku553]

Thinking very hard about an AU idea of mine. Reluctant king Sabo AU!

In which Sabo isn’t saved by Dragon, but survives long enough to drift ashore and be saved by the doctors of Goa Kingdom, who do so only to ransom his medical bills from Sabo’s parents. Sabo’s parents take him back, thinking that his amnesia makes him a clean slate, but Sabo, young and stubborn and unsure of his entire identity, knows that everything is wrong and runs again, and again, and again.

Until at some point, he meets the Revolutionaries, and realizes that he can be useful to them, provide them information, make something good of an inescapable situation. From then on, he starts acting the noble that he was born as, in order to be a more useful informant to the Revolutionaries, until sunk cost fallacy hits and he believes that being a noble is the only way that he can be useful to the Revolutionaries. So at that point, why not take it all the way?

At 17, Sabo becomes one of Princess Sarie’s suitors, and at 17, he has doubts about using the princess for his own goals. Sarie is a romantic, and she wants a dramatic fairy tale of a romance, and she was already charmed, but the moment Sabo opens up to her about not wanting to use her to get to the throne, having lofty ambitions of helping the people (just not the people she thinks he’s talking about), Sabo becomes the one she simply must marry, because surely if she tries hard enough, she can make him love her back.

Soon after, the king and his son die. Sarie’s father and brother die. And while Sabo conveniently ascends to the throne, he also swiftly implicates his father, Outlook, in the assassination of all heirs to the throne, resulting in Outlook’s arrest and subsequent execution. And thus, at 18, Sabo becomes king, and begins to gradually institute great changes to Goa Kingdom.

Design-wise, Sabo wears an eyepatch because his damaged eye is considered a grotesque sight by nobles’ standards. Under the eyepatch, he wears heavy makeup to hide the burn scar. These are both at the behest of his birth parents, who spin a story about Sabo having been born half blind to hide the fact that Sabo had been shot by a Celestial Dragon and save face. To those who have seen his scar, they fabricate a second secret story that he was unfortunately kidnapped as a child. Sabo never does find out, until he regains his memories, where the burn scar is actually from.

[vaguely-concerned]

increasingly intrigued by the idea of creating a vashoth crow!rook to make part of the reason viago's so pissed at them be that they could have been a perfect undercover/double agent against the antaam if they would just THINK before acting for ONCE in their fucking lives for fuck's SAKE rook

[rockwgooglyeyes]

Perhaps it's just one of those differences between the way that people experience fandom- obviously, we're all going to process a story in a different way than someone else because we're all different people from each other- but one of the most peculiar things for me about being part of a fandom, especially one so deeply mired in character death (Alien Stage) is the way that . . . well, the idea of the actor au isn't comforting to me. It probably has something to do with the way that I am but alternate universes and the idea that the characters are just actors playing parts, well, it doesn't really help me to reconcile the deaths of the characters I love. It feels kind of like when someone fakes their death in a story and their loved ones still grieve them because grief is an emotional response not a rational one. Like, it's pathetic to say but I'm still grieving Ivan's death. I'm still not over it. Literally I almost broke down crying in a Thai restaurant about him about a week ago because I heard My Love Mine All Mine and thought of him.

I don't know what it is exactly but perhaps it has something to do with the way that, for me, aus and the canon storyline are separate in my mind, almost as if they're different stories entirely. Especially with the way that in the ALNST actor au, they are actually different characters who act differently and have relationships unrelated to their canon counterparts, it's hard for me to be like "oh yeah, mizisua and ivantill are fine because they're just actors!" because that doesn't help me cope, personally. Because even though they share the same names, that isn't ivantill and mizisua to me. They're different characters, living out different lives, and not in the way that regular aus are where they're more or less the same characters but in a different font but the actor au and canon are entirely separate in my mind, different guys. But that's probably just a me thing.

[inthewychelm]

ive been thinking about hard of hearing steve, who started losing his hearing after starcourt, the scoops troops are the first to find out because of how attached they are, robin erica and dustin all insist on steve learning to sign but he's insecure about learning a new language so they slowly learn and start teaching him

after vecna, eddie gets adopted to their little group and starts picking up on the signs and learning on his own, still struggles to hold a conversation, esp with the likes of robin or dustin, but he atleast knows simple words and phrases enough to communicate, eddie also gets into the habit of signing ILY to steve before he leaves, except steve rarely studies asl on his own most of what he remembers is from robin/erica/dustin, who never thought to teach him that specific sign, so steve just thinks eddie is just being a metalhead throwing up a 'rock on' gesture, hes still absolutely endeared by eddie doing this but he doesn't realize that eddie saying he loves him everyday, what follows is a ridiculous amount of pining where only steve doesn't know because everyone else know what that sign means, he only finds out because after gossiping with robin(who has tried to tell steve that its reciprocated) about eddie, erica interupts their convo by telling steve that eddie tells him he loves steve everyday (that clown is so obviously in love with you, how are you still pining? you're supposed to be a expert, steve?)

(edit 07/23: this fic is now on ao3)

[starbiology]

by god do i want a neopets dnd,,

Grabbed the character and race notes from jellyneo, the neopedia, and the hall of heros and villains

now just to do a lottt more sketches!