#granted it has been a while

[queen-scribbles]

I don't remember Sabaya being this thirsty on my other m!Agents😂

But, I mean, I can't blame her

He is very pretty

[flwrkid14]

Eternal Bonds: Tim and Danny’s Infinite Realms Marriage

In the Infinite Realms, marriage is an unparalleled commitment. Unlike the mortal world, where love can be fleeting and easily undone, marriage in the Realms is something far more sacred. It’s not just about vows or ceremonies—it’s about merging souls, creating a bond that not even the vast stretches of time can sever. The very idea of marriage in the Realms is rare, almost mythical, because it requires two beings to love each other so profoundly that they’re willing to bind their very existence to one another.

For the ghosts and entities that reside in this realm, eternity isn’t just a poetic idea—it’s a reality. Time is meaningless when you’re no longer alive, when your very essence is bound to the afterlife. And because of this, relationships are viewed through a different lens. There’s no such thing as divorce, no “time apart.” Once a couple is bound, their souls are intertwined forever. To dedicate your entire being—past, present, and future—to another means accepting that their joys, sorrows, triumphs, and failures will be yours too. It’s a partnership where breaking the bond is simply impossible.

It’s why marriage is such a rare occurrence in the Realms. The ghosts, who have already lived one life and often seen the frailty of mortal promises, don’t enter into this kind of bond lightly. It’s only for the strongest of loves, for the most steadfast of commitments. Because once you marry in the Infinite Realms, that bond holds through eternity itself.

And yet, despite the gravity of it all, Tim and Danny find themselves willing to make that very commitment. Tim, a mortal tied to a world where things end, where nothing lasts forever, steps into the unknown. His love for Danny is so deep, so unshakable, that he agrees to a traditional Infinite Realms marriage. He knows full well the weight of it—he’s not just vowing to love Danny in this life, but in every life after. In swearing to this bond, Tim is offering his entire being to Danny, for now and all of eternity.

For Danny, this choice means even more. As a halfa, he exists between two worlds, knowing both the mortality of the living and the permanence of the ghostly afterlife. His love for Tim is powerful enough that he’s willing to make this eternal commitment, knowing that there’s no one else in any world—mortal, ghostly, or beyond—he would rather be tied to. For Danny, the bond is as natural as breathing. It’s a connection that deepens their relationship in a way that transcends the limitations of their two worlds.

Their marriage isn’t just a declaration of love—it’s a merging of souls, a binding that makes them two parts of the same whole. It overwhelms them with the sense of safety and belonging that they’ve both craved in their lives. In each other, they find the kind of love that doesn’t just endure life’s difficulties but thrives beyond them. Their bond ties them together forever in a way that no one else could understand, but to Tim and Danny, it’s everything.

They are each other’s home. And in the Infinite Realms, there is no greater honor, no stronger connection, than to be bound by love for all of eternity.

[7cfc00]

And I just want to tell you that you did matter, and... uhm... I'm sorry.

[unfinished/abandoned second page under the cut]

i have decided that light green is the colour of guilt

[fistfightinganxietyandlosing]

I find the demonization of Demeter in supposedly feminist retellings of the Hades and Persephone story thoroughly fascinating because she was actually the myth's protagonist

A lot of retellings focus on the "lovebirds" but the myth was moreso focused on Demeter's quest to bring her daughter home than any romance they might've had. In fact, the original source material is entitled "Homeric Hymn to Demeter"

It followed the goddess of harvest searching desperately for the whereabouts of her kidnapped daughter, enlisting the help of deities and mortals alike along the way, and eventually forcing Zeus himself to come to a compromise through sheer stubborness and pure love for her child

An interpretation I really like is that the tale is an allegory for mothers in Ancient Greece whose daughters were taken away from them to be married off without them having any say in the matter

Putting all that aside, I'm really curious as to what prompted people to portray Demeter as a control freak who doesn't want to see her daughter happy with the one she loves when originally, she was simply a mother who fought tooth and nail to see her Persephone returned to her

[sandstworm]

warm up of sorts

[read-write-thrive]

there are all of 6 fics on ao3 that come up when you search the word “disabled” in the dead boy detectives fandom. I’m dealing with a fibromyalgia flare up rn so I’ve decided to come up with some (potential!) disability/condition/syndrome/etc. headcanons. enjoy!

(oh and just to note: I stayed away from conditions with obvious facial / appearance difference as no actors with facial / appearance difference were cast in the show and I was unsure if it would be appropriate. while I have experience with a lot of the following diagnoses, I do not claim to be an expert on any of them and do not intend for this to be used as a diagnostic tool. if you feel any of these are offensive/inappropriate, please message me and I’m happy to talk about it :) this is more just to encourage broader disability representation within the fandom!)

Edwin: autistic, PTSD (from hell), chronic pain/fibromyalgia (from his death/hell), minor visual impairment (not enough to need the hard-to-come-by testing needed for glasses when he was alive and so assumed the various limits/effects were normal. was told otherwise by Niko), would’ve had shingles if lived long enough

Charles: ADHD, PTSD (from his father/growing up in an abusive household), dyslexia, Reynaud’s syndrome (either already born with it or as a result of his death—both angsty), was in the beginning stages of an ED prior to his death, post-concussion syndrome, near-sightedness (never given glasses bc he wasn’t about to tell his dad the board looked a little blurry sometimes)

Crystal: cPTSD (reminder that neglect is also abuse :), bipolar 1, IBS, endometriosis

Niko: autism, depression, POTS, hEDS, anxiety, sprite-induced agoraphobia, epilepsy, lactose intolerance

Monty: Depersonalization-derealization disorder, selective amnesia (this is not the first times Esther has messed with his form/killed and revived him, but the experience is traumatic and so his brain decides not to remember it), recurrent arrhythmia, synesthesia

Jenny: OCD, BPD, ED recovered, Celiac’s disease, diabetes type 1, anemia

TCK: autism, NPD, lactose intolerance, colourblind

Esther: chronic pain (I’m choosing to believe that the cane isn’t just for show!!), NPD, endometriosis

Tragic Mick: cPTSD, depression, HoH, arthritis, diabetes

(The Night Nurse , the Dandelion Sprites, and various other characters felt either too supernatural and/or not developed enough to assign anything to lmao)

[ganondoodle]

kind of expected that the ability breakdown wouldnt get that much traction (especially on twitter bc if it doesnt do well in the first few hours it might as well be dead) but what i didnt need to wake up to was looking at my twitter notifications and thinking there was a long comment on it at first but then i read it and it turned out to be some guy having dug up one of my old totk tweets where i talked about how zelda was treated-

and if a quote retweet with a thread attached already starts with "this entitled brat didnt understand that zelda was being a history nerd by being in the past and getting to experience it herself" with two screenshots attached of the end of totk with zelda staring at the cam all uwu (which has ??? to do with their point??) i dont even want to know what else was in that thread

if thats how the majority of the fandom is then im even less surprised that nintendy doesnt even have to try to write anything good :I

ah yes, i am a game nerd, and by putting me in a game where i stand around doing puppy dog eyes while being shoved around by NPCs is me being a game nerd OBVIOSULY

[yingandzhan]

I've seen a little bit of confusion over whether LWJ took WWX back to the burial mounds after fleeing with him from Nightless City. People seem to have accidentally mistook the cave he took WWX to, and later the Lan Clan elders found him in, as at the burial mounds. This is NOT the case. The cave he was hiding him in as he tried to pass him spiritual power was a random cave in Yiling, not the burial mounds itself.

After two days, we finally found signs of your passage within the BOUNDARIES OF YILING. Wangji had hidden you inside a cave.

-Vol. 5, 7S translations

BUT! LWJ DID take WWX back there once he had confronted his own clan.

After HE STUBBORNLY ESCORTED YOU BACK TO THE BURIAL MOUNDS, he returned morosely on his own to receive his punishment.

-Vol. 5, 7S translations

This is in every translation, even ExR and the few fan translations that have covered chapter 99.

So yes, LWJ did take WWX back to the burial mounds. Which was probably a tactical decision in order to help protect him for as long as he could - by leaving him in the place he knew was protected and had people who cared for him.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE GENIUS OF THE INTRODUCTION! 

So I don’t think I’ve talked about this yet, and shame on me for not doing it in depth if I have. 

The pure beauty of the story telling when it come to character introduction in this show. 

As has been said many times by the writers/directors/Oscar: They originally planned to start with Marc but then realized that the story needed to be about Steven introducing Marc to us. Introducing this world to us. 

And this is a classic approach to storytelling. You typically have someone that doesn’t know anything so that the audience can learn about the world with them on this adventure/journey. 

So why start with Steven? 

Let’s go back to the comics! 

In the comics, we start with Marc. We get Marc’s story. We see Marc’s life, his regrets and mistakes. We see him die and come back and act drastically to change. 

But when we leave all of that behind, our first look at the new established life in New York is with Steven and then immediately into Jake. We don’t officially come back to Marc for some time. But that’s done at a very fast pace and you get to know Steven and Jake’s life very quickly in an introductory blurb before you even see it.

Not exactly something that can be done in a show. So we have to pick someone that the audience can follow. Someone that the audience can fall in love with and trust.

That certainly isn't Marc Spector. (It's interesting that they chose Steven over Jake, considering the personality from the comics... But that's a meta for a different day, as I have a lot to say on that).

So in the show, we first meet Steven. 

(Look at this bundle of perfection) 

We follow Steven and we get to know Steven. We love Steven. We would follow Steven anywhere and do anything for him. 

Then we see something/someone throwing a wrench into Steven’s life and causing him problems and stress and ruining everything for Steven. 

And we get our first look at Marc through Steven’s eyes. 

In fact! We don’t even see Marc at first. We just see the result of Marc. The displaced jaw and people shooting at him. The bloody bodies, the car chase, the gun, the violence, the stress. We see the ruined love life, the lonely life, and the dead fish. 

So we know that whatever this thing is that is causing him problems is dangerous and not to be trusted. We feel Steven’s stress and expect the worst. 

Even when we first hear Marc, it’s a stressed out voice demanding that he stop. We just get to see a ghost of a man. Something dark lurking in the shadows and acting menacing. This is Steven’s view of what’s going on and this is Marc’s view of what he is to Steven at this point. 

(SIDE BONUS META: The first time we hear Marc actually talk to Steven is directly after the phone call with Layla. Marc has been ghosting her and ignoring her and playing dead with her for a while now and suddenly Steven talks to her and in that one brief confusing phone call for Steven and Layla, Marc is triggered out and everything he has been setting up for both of them in what, he views, to be a perfect life without him is going down the grain. He’s stressed, he’s watching everything spiral down the same way he has been spiraling down for months now… In that one moment, of course he lets his frustration out and he yells at Steven to stop. He just wants Steven to cooperate and go back to how things used to be so that Steven can live the normal life and Marc can sit back and watch and pretend that things are okay.) 

NOW we as the audience get our FIRST good look at Marc before Steven does. 

What do we have here? Marc lingering behind Steven. Marc watching Steven run into danger and looking anxious, worried, and like he wants to do anything to take it all back and protect this man. Marc even looks back to check Steven’s 6. Menacing and in the shadows? Or a man that is about to risk everything just to protect Steven? 

Years… YEARS of work put into making sure Steven doesn’t know about him and is happy and safe and secure… And he knows that he has to risk it all. Perhaps at this moment he is contemplating if he should. If Steven will get out of it on his own or if he really needs to find a way to step in and force Steven to black out. But Steven is scared and on to him. He knows he has to talk to Steven. Something he probably hasn’t done since they were just children. 

(BONUS META: If you zoom in real good, that second reflection? The expression is just a little different than the first. The mouth is pulled just a wee bit tighter. Jake easter egg? Probably not, since the show was so careful about only hinting at a ghost of Jake… But I choose to think that we see Jake there behind Marc, much like Marc is behind Steven, looking back to watch their 6 and making sure they are safe.) 

So in classic Marc fashion, he appears as a disaster and Steven sees a disaster. 

Okay. That was a bad day. Marc was stressed and they were in danger. The absolute carnage that happened (Marc you really lost your cool there, buddy. You could have easily finished that jackal off and moved on. You were just angry and you lost your temper. That bathroom did not have to be so trashed.) was not Marc’s best work. 

So let’s meet Marc again from Steven’s eyes now that he isn’t scared and about to die. 

Yeah. Steven does not have a very good view of this man. Funnily enough, he’s seeing him in black and white, which is how he’s being presented to him at this point. He sees a violent man that is stealing his life and ruining it. All he can see is the black and white. He knows nothing else about this man. 

And Marc looks right back from the black and white of himself. A man that wishes he wasn’t there. A man that only knows pain and violence. It’s almost like he’s giving up here. He’s saying “Well, I told you to stop looking and now here we are. Look all you want. You see me. Bet you wish you didn’t. If you keep going, this is what you get.” 

And our previous Steven? He keeps looking. So we get a calmer less dumpster fire Marc. 

No. I take it back. More of a dumpster fire somehow. He’s tired. He’s stressed out beyond reason. He’s watching everything fall apart and he has no control over any of it for the first time in his life. The one thing he thought he could control is now on fire. 

And Steven sees a disheveled (handsome) man that sits alone in his storage room with his illegal things and weapons. Not a good picture. Not to mention the whole Khonshu troll bit that comes along with Marc. 

Steven is not seeing Marc in good light. And the Audience feels for Steven even more. Who is this man that’s ruining this sweet cinnamon roll’s life? 

So let’s give the audience another perspective. 

Would you look at that! An upside down shot to show us that we we are seeing is going to be flipped upside down soon. 

(I would do anything for her.) 

And what cleaver writers... We see Layla instantly from Steven’s point of view. This lonely love starved man meets HER and the audience has no choice but to fall head over heels for her. 

But now we are looking at Steven from Layla’s point of view. 

But she isn’t seeing Steven. She’s seeing Marc being ‘Not Marc’. 

We see her return to the flat and she examines Steven’s life. Before we saw everything from Steven’s point of view, but now we get to see her explore it and not just gloss over things but pick them up and examine them. Question them. Question his life. 

And while she’s looking for Marc in Steven, we see Steven looking at Marc watching Layla. 

She watches the fish, alone and unaware. Marc watches her, alone and mesmerized by her, desperate to see her, wanting everything in the world to be with her but too afraid to get closer. He’s in the tank for a reason here. This isn’t Steven’s fish. This is Marc’s fish. This is the replacement fish. And now, Steven is aware of what’s going on outside of his tank and Marc is the one that’s trapped. 

And as the audience, we find a flicker of sympathy for this intruder. This man that watches her with the look of longing etched across his face. 

But it’s quickly dashed as Marc tries to get rid of her and Steven finds out about the divorce papers. Marc’s a disgrace to try to toss aside someone as lovely as Layla. Steven has no sympathy for him. 

From here we see the rift between them. We see them argue. We see Steven lash out at the images of Marc with insults. He judges Marc and Marc does nothing to try to dissuade him. Marc thinks he deserves it. He just wants to finish the mission. 

But then something changes for just a moment as Steven enters into Marc’s world. 

Sure, there’s the scene with the suit. The scene with the bus where he compliments Steven and acts like the impressed older brother and reasons with Steven to get control. 

What changed? I’ve talked in depth about it before… But here it is again: 

Harrow started talking about killing children and then asked to speak to Marc. And Steven expects Marc to demand the body again. He expects Marc to fight him for it and to be loud and complaintive like he was with Layla or like he was in the car. Clearly he can tell Marc is there and he even sees Marc watching them and Marc is talking to him too. 

Yet the second child murder comes up and Harrow starts going after Marc, Steven watches Marc step back. Maybe he can sense there’s something there. Maybe he can sense that Marc needs him. 

Because suddenly Steven goes on the attack. The tables flip and Steven shows his true strength. He starts to reason and show that he is always thinking things through and always picking up the little things. 

In this one motion of protecting Marc, we see Marc calm down a little. This lets Marc take a minute to let Steven have his time. 

And when Steven gives Marc back control, we take another look at Marc from Layla’s eyes. 

She just watched who she thought was her husband having a break down and then become a different Moon Knight, solidifying that this was NOT her husband, but something ‘different’. 

But suddenly Marc is there before her and she can’t pretend that maybe she really did have the wrong guy. That maybe he’s a doppelganger and Marc is out there somewhere else. Because Marc is right there before her and he’s speechless.

Yeah, that’s the look that lets him know that he fucked up. 

But here we are again, not looking at Marc. We see the man in the suit with powers and control and strength. 

And then he fails his mission. Not only is everything he’s been working on his whole life breaking down, but now the people he cares about are in danger and the whole reason he ran off was to keep this from happening. 

And Steven comes back and the audience gets a full view of not just how Steven sees Marc, but how Marc sees Marc. 

And from here, we get the hand off. The audience is now taking Steven’s perceptions of Marc and stepping over to Marc’s views of himself.

In fact, in the next episode we see the struggle between Marc and Steven, but this time we only see Marc’s side of it. Before we saw Steven and blacked out with him. Now we see Marc and we black out with him. We know Marc is trying to get things done. We see him trying to do things right and Steven is the one getting in the way. 

We see a glimpse of Marc being vulnerable when he goes before the Ennad. We see that he’s a man barely in control of anything in his life. We find him broken and abused. He’s just an open wound but you don’t have the full picture. You wonder what it is about this man that tells us to trust him? 

We see him fail over and over again in everything he’s been doing since we first met him! 

If this was all we had, we would only see the picture of a frustrated, angry, and disaster of a man. 

So what keeps us from finding Marc as despicable as he sees himself? 

She’s looking at him there with new eyes. She doesn’t know what’s going on with him, but now she knows that he’s hiding things and after all his running, she’s finally cornered him and she isn’t about to give up on him. 

Her persistence gives us the need to know who he is. Why does she love him so much after everything he did? She only knows part of this world and we are still going on this journey of discovery with her now. 

And through her, we start to see Marc’s pain. 

And honestly, it’s this scene right here that is the biggest turning point in how we see Marc. 

She loves him and he loves her. You can see how much he loves her. With every fiber of his being he’s radiating such deep pain and longing as he still pushes her away and closes himself off. 

And she doesn’t push back. She’s in pain too. She wants to help him and love him. Perhaps in their relationship they had struggled with this before. Him coming back from a mission with Khonshu and being in pain and pushing her away when she tries to help. She’s fallen into a pattern of letting him pull away because she knows that if she pushes too hard, he shuts down so completely. 

And we go into the next scene with her letting him hold her at a distance. She’s angry at him and confused and hurt. 

We see him walling himself off and she can’t reach him. 

And then Steven starts to fight back again. He wants to help. He wants to prevent the violence he knows Marc can do. He wants to go home. We start to see Steven sticking up for himself, REALLY pushing back, and asserting himself. 

And this next scene is still my most favorite scene there is. The first time she really sees Steven and since we, the audience, are now following Layla, this is our first time seeing Steven from her point of view. And… I would argue that this is the first time that we really see him. 

(I could fall in love with both of them over and over again with this scene)

And now we are seeing Steven new all over again. We see him standing up to take on the mission instead of trying to just run back home. We see him talking to Layla and showing off his knowledge and skills. We see her falling for him and he struggles to understand what she sees in Marc, but he’s happy to be with her. 

We trade off a bit when Marc and Steven continue to argue over the body. Their views of one another start to suffer again. Steven has found his strength and now he’s pushing Marc around a bit. He’s tired of being kept in the dark and pushed away. 

We even get to witness Layla’s strength and that she can kick ass on her own. 

And in that one scene with her and Harrow, we watch her perception of Marc shift and we follow her with new eyes. We see his guilt and regret but we see him not fight back. He is willing to throw it all away and admit to everything that she thinks of him if it means that he finally gets to keep her safe by pushing her away. 

Welcome to the Duat! Or, as I like to think of it: The place where Marc’s walls are ripped away and we get to see unfiltered and pure Marc Spector. (I’ve talked about this before too). 

And our perception as the audience is now playing tug of war. We follow Steven and we follow Marc on his desperate attempts to make Steven stop. He doesn’t want Steven to see him and he tries to prevent Steven, and us, from knowing him. 

The more we follow Marc, the more we see his absolute terror in letting himself be known. 

And at last… At long last…. Steven sees Marc for who he is for the first time. 

Now, we are the audience, can see Marc. We know him. We’ve seen the real him and we know his story. 

And it’s Marc’s turn to let us see Steven. 

Steven the protector. Steven the capable. Steven the mighty. 

And because we now know them, we can see Layla’s love. 

And through them, we see her in her pain and strength. 

Her determination to carry on and finish the mission for them and get a little revenge too. Because as angry and hurt by Marc as she was, she still loves him so deeply. 

We’ve just watched a whole episode of Marc being hated and loathed and denied love and of Steven being lonely and without love, and now we open on Layla showing that love was always there waiting for them.

Hey look! A call back! 

Only this time, she’s right-side up! 

And he isn’t curled up in a little ball! 

And this time, he runs to her, instead of standing at a distance. 

The look on his face. Pure relief. Pure love. 

The absolute desperation on her face. He’s there and the last argument they ever had isn’t the last word. 

And in this moment, we are seeing them all from the same viewpoint. We see Layla the hero, Steven the hero, and Marc the hero. All three of them with their own strengths and their own love. They know the pain of the other and they can see more than what was presented to them and us at the start. 

Oh… And a little bonus. 

The first time Layla saw Jake:

We’ll just keep that one in mind for…you know… season 2…someday… someday… 

So after all that? After all that, the audience is taken back to the start to look at them all over again. To meet them. To hold these characters in their hands so gently. 

They wake up together, confirming that they aren’t alone. We see two people here working together now. (though they are very sleepy). 

But They are still trapped. Two fish now, keeping one another company, but still stuck in the little tank. 

At least they aren’t lonely anymore. And at least now they have love. 

But maybe… Maybe the ending scene wasn’t for them. They are happy in their little tank. They aren’t the man that is lonely in a world without love. 

What about the one that’s stuck outside of the tank? What about the one that is still very much alone….?

And now the audience gets the first time we see Jake: 

We see him so small, framed in a little rectangular mirror watching and waiting. 

We don’t yet know his story. What we do know? 

His name is Jake Lockley and no one hurts his system. 

[seiwas]

hope everyone is having is having a great week so far! 🥹✨

[liquidstar]

i think subaru is interesting as a protagonist because of the way he gets fleshed out over the story. i mean, its fairly common to reveal character backstories to have their actions leading up to this point make more sense, but for an isekai protagonist in particular i just think the way its done is so interesting.

you start the story with pretty much 0 context about who this kid is. and this is typical genre convention, you assume that you dont need context because its an isekai. the story doesnt really have to establish anything beyond that hes just some nerdy kid. thats how it usually goes right? hes not MEANT to have a backstory, hes meant for the viewer to project upon. and that works for a while but

by arc 2 his very specific character quirks start to pop up, and you also start to see that hes trying VERY HARD to play a role in his head. a very specific role that hes chosen out. and this eventually comes to a head in arc 3, especially after the julius fight and falling-out with emilia. and thats when you see him at his lowest with actual deeply rooted FLAWS. ones he was desperately trying to run from to play the isekai hero role. and then you get the "from zero" speech which is such a turning point for his entire character.

but you still haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what makes him tick. the story doesn't give you his actual backstory until arc 4, with the trial's glimpse into his family and school life. and everything about him makes sense. not that it didnt make sense before but holy crap... hes a character. hes not a just self insert. hes got a lot of really specific fucked up shit going on in his head. he has a family, he had friends, he went to school, he was a teenager... he was a guy! a person! and now you really get who that person is and why hes Like This

and it seems like thats it. from here on out its just about development, arc 5 doesnt really dive deep into any more of his backstory, and arc 6 is all about REGRESSION for him. his memories literally go back to the exact point they were when the story started. though this time we have a lot more context.

that's all you need to know right? i mean by this point the story is seven arcs in, what other possible revelations could there be about the protagonist that would put his entire story arc until this point into a whole new context-

NATSUMI SCHWARTZ

[zukkaoru]

sorry i'm thinking abt megumi's incessant desire to be the first to die vs. the narrative keeping him alive despite and how the most tragic ending for him is not actually dying, but being left behind. for megumi, the worst fate is living a long life

[haunted-xander]

Lonely angel's peace

[thirddoctor]

Reblog this and tell me about some of your favourite Classic Who/EU female characters ♥

[newwavesylviaplath]

it finally happened u guys i just straight up coughed blood

[windspeaking]

they're obviously incredibly different in other respects but it is really fascinating to me to hold up the temeraire and wings of fire series to each other as worlds where humans and dragons coexist as fully intelligent beings but at least in some places are willfully ignorant of this fact and one species treats the other like property or companions at best