#ever lose to yourself?

[papermint-airplane]

Whenever I have a story idea or a Simblr idea or any idea at all that has the potential to be really cool but will be a lot of work, the two wolves inside me start fighting.

I have an idea right now that will only bring positive things into my writing life and make my storytelling easier, but it will require an initial time investment of say three or four hours. I have been arguing with myself for literal DAYS over whether or not it will really be worth it. Every time, I come to the conclusion that, yes, it will be worth it. And then I'm like "but will it reeeeeeeeeally though it's so much woooooooooork 😩"

Somebody come and put that part of my brain in time out so I can get some shit done.

[heybaetae]

maknae line + gestures of love 🫰🏼💋🫶🏼🌹🤟🏼 happy birthday @jkvjimin! ♡

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.

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[legally-allowed-to-slime]

guess who just spent 15 minutes of their lifetime transcribing a 4 minute clip of pearl rambling about life series on stream (29/10/2024)

anyway i can’t upload the video (too long) here’s the transcript anyway (also long)

Pearl: Um, alrighty. By the way, I wanna— I’m, I’m curious, I wanna know, okay, it— when it came to… Secret Life, why did people think I— I betrayed Gem completely? Wouldn’t me teaming with Gem have betrayed Scar? I wanna know where all this, like, super [word that i can’t place for the life of me. solar???] “Pearl betrayed Gem” came from. (laughs) 

I understand, I killed her at the end. And we teamed up for a moment. But Scar was on our side and not trying to kill my allies. That was my team from the beginning. Gem, was always trying to kill ‘em. So how… how is that not a betrayal in any… like it kinda has to be quote unquote betrayal, but technically Scar was allied with me more? (laughs)

“Scar was distinctly not on anyone’s side” Did anyone watch my finale? ‘Cause, he was teamed up with us. Gem was trying to kill us in that last episode. So, logically, I would fight with the person who’s not trying to kill my team. [Freudian slip]

So I just wanna know, how did I do the betraying in that instance? (laughs) “From her POV it was a betrayal” Ahh, it’s a belief system, huh? (laughs) But it’s funny. I like it. I was just curious what, uh, put the nail in the coffin for that belief. ‘Cause I’ve seen it come up a little bit lately, and apparently I’m the one that betrayed. 

(laughs) I dunno about that one. Curious. Curious, curious, curious. (laughs) Technically, whichever way I’ve gone, I would’ve went— it would’ve been betraying somebody, right? If I’d turned around and killed Scar, I would’ve betrayed him, because he was allied with us at the end. And then killing Gem obviously, same. But, when it came to that, I actually let Scar— I think I hit her once. Otherwise it was Scar. I did one whack, and then I stood back and let him kind of rock and roll. And uh, make it— make it between those two. So it was an interesting finale, that one.

But, something that people have mentioned actually, is that, uhh, another thing was, with, uh, Cleo and Scott in Real Life.

All this talk of Pearlo betraying people, are we not gonna realise that people have betrayed me in the life series? With a split decision? I’m just sayin’. They ain’t innocent. (laughs) Just sayin’, I think— I think 5am Pearl had every right to do what I did. Throw in um, what is it, the fuel on the fire for this one?

Character arcs. It’s cool to see how people analyse them, so I’ve been seeing a little bit of that. Especially with the new, uh, “I don’t love you” line that I got last session. Love you Gem. Always will. Even when you say no. (laughs) Even if you don’t, I’ll still be there. It’s fine. (laughs)

“Do it for the plot, Pearl” Basically.

(clip ends)

[chalkrub]

mockley time it's mockley time will you have some mockleys of mine

[royaltrios]

yeah baroryuu is beautiful in that its about two people finding love in each other despite forces against them and because ryuunosuke was persistent enough to fully believe in van zieks and van zieks was able to open his heart to allow someone to help him and love him for the first time in so many years and summarily be saved by someone who began this journey unsure of his own capabilities

but its also like the funniest possible thing that could ever happen to barok van zieks. like cosmically.

[lovesickeros]

☆ de fontaine

{☆} characters furina {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings angst, suicidal thoughts, hurt / no comfort {☆} word count 1.4k

This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!

She thought, for one moment, she could put the mask down and breathe – for one moment of daydreaming, she thought she could just be Furina. She thought she would finally get to live the live she should've had in the first place, the life she threw away to play God to an audience who saw her as nothing but a circus animal, dancing to their whims. Furina just wanted to be selfish for one brief and fleeting moment..and it was gone before she could even grasp it in her hand. A comet soaring past far out of her reach.

She can barely keep her hands from violently shaking as she looks down at them – broken and bloody and more a corpse then a person – and she feels so numb she can't even feel the rain pelting against her back. None of this is fair, she wants to scream, why is it always me? But her voice is silent beneath the torrent of rain. She wonders if the ocean would take her if she sank into it's depths – just for a moment, she wonders how it would feel to finally be able to sleep at ease.

Furina is tired.

But Furina is nothing if not useful, isn't she?

So she forces her feet to move, dragging against the stone beneath her heels, and drags their bloodied body into the nearest empty building, letting the rain do the work of washing away the smeared blood following her path. The smell makes her feel sick, the feeling of it sticking to her hands and gloves makes her lightheaded, but she persists. Because Furina is useful, because Furina won't let them die out in the rain, because Furina won't stand by and just let them rot on the streets like some..pest.

Furina wants to go home. She wants to sleep and she isn't she if she wants to wake up, this time. But she keeps going anyway.

Because it's all she's ever done, and the habit sticks.

An Archon she may not be, not anymore, but the expectations of five hundred years still linger like eyes on the inside of her skull. They watch her, pry and prod at her thoughts, mocking laughter and judging eyes following her as she forces herself to dance to the song they weave with glee. Furina never stepped off that stage – she's still there, she thinks, watching the crowd stare at her in disdain as the curtain call looms above her like a guillotine. She still hears Neuvillette deliver her damnation and salvation with a trembling voice, still feels her hair stand on end when electro crackled like the crack of the whip, Clorinde's blade aimed at her like a loaded gun.

She's trapped on that stage and she never left, not really.

She hates it. She thinks she hates them, but it's not their fault. They didn't ask for this, didn't ask for everyone to turn against them, didn't ask for her to save them. Neither did she..yet here they are, she thinks.

She tries to tell herself she's in control this time, though. She can stop performing her part in this horrible, bloody play any time she wants. It makes her feel better, just for a little while, if she convinces herself she's still Furina, painfully human.

And Furina has always been good at lying.

It's the believing that's the hard part.

There isn't time for her to wallow in her own self pity, though. They're still bleeding out onto the dusty, creaky floorboards of some random, broken down house and she's just standing there as the blood stains the wood. She can fix it – she's good at fixing things. She's done nothing but fix things – try to, anyway – for five hundred years. She can fix a little wound, how hard could it be? Her hands are clenched so tight they ache as she kneels down, wincing at the creak of the floorboards beneath her heels– she hesitates just long enough to wonder if she's making a mistake before she peels away just enough of the outer layer of their clothes to see the deep, bloody gash across their chest. She tries not to think about it – it's deep, too deep, and she feels dizzy just looking at it, but she's handled worse, right?

Furina can fix it. That's what she's good at.

She doesn't feel so confident when she tries to wrack her brain for..something. Five hundred years, and a little wound stumps her? No, she had to have learned something, right? She's decidedly not trying to buy time because she's panicking, parsing through hundreds of years of memories like flipping through a book. Furina isn't made for this, not really – she's running on nothing but adrenaline and she's really not sure what she's doing, but she's trying. And just like before, it won't be enough, will it?

She'll fall short again – she'll be too late to fix it before she's alone again.

Furina was an Archon..used to be. What use would she have for that sort of knowledge? Which makes her predicament all the more harrowing and bleak. What was she supposed to do?

Furina had heard it first hand, that vitriol in Neuvillette's voice. She isn't sure she's ever heard him that..angry before. She's not sure he would listen to her if she tried, either. And that scares her more then anything. All of Fontaine was up in arms about this..imposter, yet here she was, staring down at them bleeding out in front of her, and she was trying to save them.

Why? Why is she throwing away her only chance at normalcy for a fraud? Why didn't she just turn them in?

They were dying – that should've been a good thing, shouldn't it? So why didn't it feel like it?

"Why you?" Her voice breaks as she speaks in harsh tones, grabbing the front of their shirt in trembling, bloodied hands. "Why now?" She wants to scream, to demand answers they can't give, to claw back the reprieve she was promised after five hundred years of agony..and all she can do is sob into their chest, pleading for an answer that will not come. "Why me?"

Silence is their answer, and it hangs heavy on her trembling shoulders as she cries.

Of course they don't, she thinks bitterly, no one has ever answered her pleas spoken in hushed sobs. Not her other self and certainly not them.

Furina has always been alone. Furina will always be alone.

Because Furina never left that stage, never left that moment when she looked at herself in the mirror and took up a mantle too heavy for her to bear. She always finds her way back eventually. There's no one on the other side anymore – she stands alone on a stage, waiting for an inevitable end she isn't sure will come.

"Please," She pleads through tears and choked sobs, clinging to them like they are all that keeps her from sinking. "Please don't leave me, too." The words burn on her tongue – how pathetic is she that she craves companionship from the bloodied body of the imposter? Perhaps she's truly lost her mind after all these years..perhaps she's finally gone mad. She must have.

But their presence is like the first feeling of gentle warmth upon her skin as the sun crests the horizon, like the gentle lap of tides along her heels, the sway of branches and leaves as the wind blows through them like an instrument all it's own. They are the soothing sound of rain against the window as she watches the dreary skies in fond longing, the first bloom of spring as color blooms upon the landscape like paint had been spilled across the hills and valleys.

They are like the faint spark she carefully nurtures and stokes, so fragile even the smallest wind could blow it out like a candle. She cradles it within her palms, pleads with whoever will listen – prays that someone finally listens, because if not for her, then for them.

She's failed to protect too much already, let too many people with so much trust in her fall between the cracks of her fingers like grains of sand. She won't let them go – she can't.

If nothing else, if she couldn't be saved when she begged for salvation from that five hundred year long agony, even if she never got that chance..

Furina will make sure they do.

[vonderful-time]

i often think about why enver gortash and the dark urge gravitated towards each other like they did. what drew them together, after their first meeting?

was it the perpetual loneliness, the dangerous monotony of their lives, or even the deep carnal need for a person they could consider equal? was it only because of their mutual connection to the dead three, a power that tied them together only for convenience, a transitional pact made only for the end goal of batrayal? was gortash the one to initiate their first meeting, or did the dark urge slink his way into a young dukes quarters, intent on finding a new mark but instead finding opportunity?

did they quarrel, or did they have a mutual understanding, spurned on by their initial attraction to each other? was it an attraction of the body, or one of the mind — nay, the soul — that made them twist and warp themselves into shapes that only slot together?

i wonder how enver gortash felt when the clock ticked midnight and the dark urge, never prompt but never late, failed to show up. i wondered if he searched for his partner in crime, his closest confidante, before orin revealed her act. i wonder if he thought about abandoning the plan he and his bhaalspawn made together, only to pull himself together when he felt the push of the tyrants black hand on his back, forcing him to kneel.

i contemplate the nature of their relationship — their true genuine relationship, behind any facade or expectation — and if either one of them felt the loss of it in the days after the dark urges disappearance.

i like to think enver gortash mourned. i like to think that if the dark urge remembered, they would have raged. yet, there is no happy ending for these two, no matter the path the player chooses.

instead, there is only a “what could have been” and a series of questions to ponder.

[kingdomoftyto]

I'm crying laughing, the DVDs are even worse than I remember... Season 1's menus are silent with a single static jpg of the same key character art they use for everything else, and the episodes on the Season 2 discs don't even match what's listed on the box! Absolutely stunning lack of shits given. Truly unparalleled. But I really shouldn't be surprised given... well... everything about how this series has been treated since the very beginning.

Time for a quick ~✨PHANDOM HISTORY LESSON✨~ to give newer/less hyperfixated folks more context for why the graphic novel being as great as it is is such a HUGE deal:

Danny Phantom was one of Nickelodeon's MAIN cartoons, in its time. It was a central pillar. One of the top three or four of their lineup, which is saying something when the competition includes the cultural juggernaut that is Spongebob.

Despite this, and despite its superhero theming making it perfectly marketable, it got basically ZERO official merch.

What little we did get was often ugly and very, very cheap. The dedication at the start of the graphic novel that jokes about collecting the Burger King toys? That's because it was some of the most notable merch the franchise EVER had. (I sadly do not have any of it. There was no BK in my hometown. Here's a pic from the internet, though, to give you an idea.)

If you think I'm exaggerating about that being the most significant physical merch to come out of the series, consider that the first video game had an entire menu option specifically for the Burger King promotional tie-in:

That video game, by the way, was one of only two ever based on the show. The first was an adaptation of "The Ultimate Enemy" in the style of a short sidescrolling beat-em-up, and the second was themed around "Urban Jungle" and (as far as I can tell--I've only played the first couple levels) was an arcade-style scrolling shooter. Both were for the Gameboy Advance, and both are...... fine, as far as cash-grabby video game tie-ins to kids' shows go. This was pretty normal for the time, so I suppose we did okay in that department, actually. They're not GOOD, but they're playable and have at least a bit of effort put into them.

But besides those two video games (plus a handful of simple, long-defunct Flash games on nick.com)? In the decade and a half since the show ended?

Nothing.

No books, no games, no comics, no web shorts--unless you count mega-crossovers with every other Nicktoon (a la Nicktoons Unite), or soulless promotional material like "Fairly Odd Phantom" (which, trust me, despite being the first new DP animation in over 10 years was not even worth the effort of watching).

...I think there was a limited edition FunkoPop once?

So yeah.

A Glitch in Time is not just the first cool, well-made thing we've seen from the franchise in a while. It's the first THING we've seen since the show. PERIOD. And arguably the first worthwhile supplementary material to EVER come out of the show, depending on how you feel about those GBA games and the Nicktoons crossovers.

This franchise is widely beloved even now, almost 20 years after it first aired, and it feels like that fact is now, finally, FINALLY getting some official recognition.

PLEASE read A Glitch in Time. Tell other people about it. The series--no, the fans--deserve this (and more of this, if the folks in charge see enough of a response and decide to grace us with any followup). It's LONG overdue, but better late than never.

[vegaseatsass]

DFF ep9 spoilers

I love gay revenge, I LOVE gay revenge, I love gay REVENGE, I love GAY revenge, HOWEVER

I also love brothers with an uncrossable chasm between them whose parents compare them who lose each other and their entire family along the way... guess what I'm saying is, I love guilty golden boy brother revenge, too

[detentiontrack]

I’ve had a miscarriage of a wanted child that I loved that absolutely broke me forever. Guess what? I am still VERY pro choice. I think people should be allowed to get abortions ANY time, for ANY reason, and at ANY point in pregnancy with zero regulations and zero legal consequences

[vaguely-concerned]

Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

[rcmclachlan]

what if i put my life in your hands? what if i took your life in mine?

[wybienova]

wgat the fuck where’d this anime boy come from 🍎🍎🍎

[schnee-gheist]

The feeling when you have the greatest idea for a oneshot but CANNOT WRITE

I'm in so much pain rn/hj

[ooeygooeyghoul]

Your eyes are open but are they really seeing?