#he was just horrible

[etakeh]

I think the internet is doing a kind of damage to our brains that the present state of neuroscience isn't well suited towards analyzing, but we will eventually come to understand the scope and in a pretty profound way.

-Robert Evans, Behind the Bastards episode Joe Arpaio: America's Favorite Concentration Camp Operator (part two)

hahaha watch your brains, y'all. Watch your brains.

[tuttle-did-it]

David Tennant for Prime Minister, please.

edit- Since this is getting so much attention, edited to include descriptions of screenshots.

This woman has lost her fucking mind.

Jo, are you okay?

[noelledeltarune]

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

[archi-pelago]

maybe never forgive. but things are different now. so we'll use maybe.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

"You and me, Ethan. Together we go save Rose, and then we can grind Miranda into paste!"

[cryptocism]

a dænce of roëmænce

depictions of the ace experience never seem to include the nightmare-borne skeleton creature from hell so kudos to the dimension 20 team for their commitment to accurate rep

[nadiajustbe]

One of my favorite parts about the writing of Howl's Moving Castle is how easy it is to write off all the things from our world at first as him just being a weird wizard™ (also thanks to bestie @jutenium for spotting this I wouldn't put it like that without you!!/pos). Sure, Sophie uses weird descriptions, but readers have every reason to believe them because of the way Howl is presented as a character. When Sophie says he wrote with a quill that doesn't need an ink, you wouldn't think it was actually a ballpoint pen, you would think Howl had just enchanted his quill so that it wouldn't need ink! When she adds that she can't make out a single word, you think he has matchingly terrible handwriting, but in fact Sophie has simply never seen a pen writing. When she sees the mysterious labels on his books, you think he's keeping a lot of obscure magical literature, but it's really just an encyclopedia and a guide like "Top 10 Rugby Tips." When Sophie notices the bottles in Howl's bathtub, you think they're some kind of magical jars where he keeps girl's hearts, but I'm almost certain that they're just 'Dove' and 'Head and Shoulders' that he's enhanced with his spells and put silly labels on. When you read Calicifer singing a song in a language Sophie doesn't understand, you think it's some kind of ancient cipher or code, but it's actually just a rugby song in Welsh that Howl sings when he's drunk. And finally, when you see the terrifying black door, which is completely shrouded in darkness, you imagine a passage to an eerie, mythical place, similar to what Miyazaki showed us - but it's just fucking Wales.

[valictini]

I’ve already said it, I’ll say it again, Mal du Pays is such a visceral and clever word to describe Siffrin’s Sadness. When I first saw it in game it genuinely made me pause like. Yes, it translates to homesickness. But it has the literal word for country in it. “Country sickness”. For a guy whose core problem is that his childhood, his culture, his country is missing. One could argue it’s a twisted pun. I’m obsessed with it.

[stilitrash]

The dynamic I never knew I wanted but definitely needed

[ofswordsandpens]

percy, mentally ill: I feel like I deserve to die. It's a punishment because im a horrible person. Does that sound crazy?

jason, also mentally ill: No that tracks bro samesies

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[pyr0frnzy]

Ughhhh they’re so stupid i hate them

[cellyjubes]

raidennnnn 🥺 playing mgs3 rn and i already miss him..

[angry-kid-with-no-money]

"Nora doesn't know anything about the things she writes about" "aftg is terrible queer rep" "the queer characters in aftg are so problematic"

Idk guys maybe the book series abt problematic ppl set in 2006 and written in the mid 2010s shouldn't be expected to hold up against scrutiny of what we consider to be moral and correct now, in 2024

Idk tho, idk

[sunderwight]

SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a kind of mimicry demon.

He still gets tasked by the System with replacing Shen Qingqiu, except this time he actually has to pull off an imposter role on multiple levels, while the real Shen Qingqiu is stuck in a coma due to his qi deviation. Initially he thinks the situation is going to be temporary -- just take over until he figure out how to get the original goods to wake up -- but Shen Jiu's condition proves to be more difficult to repair than just waiting. Shen Yuan buys special side missions from the System to find items and artifacts to keep Shen Jiu alive, mainly because he doesn't want to be stuck playing this part until Luo Binghe kills him, but also after the first couple of times Shen Jiu regains some consciousness (not enough to leave his bed), Shen Yuan starts to feel kind of... bad for him. Too. Despite everything.

Shen Jiu, of course, is deeply suspicious of this doppelganger that has obviously taken advantage of his weakness to infiltrate the sect and steal his identity. He initially theorizes that the creature must be keeping him alive because it needs some aspect of his vitality in order to keep posing as him, but as they share more encounters is forced to concede that the thing might just be insane? And weirdly softhearted. Over time and by feigning sleep to listen in on Shen Yuan's muttering, he figures out that this all has something to do with Luo Binghe, which he's not pleased about. But he can't deduce what. (Luo Binghe doesn't get to move into the side room in this version of the story, because Shen Yuan has the house on lockdown for obvious reasons, but he does still get to make Shizun's meals!)

Anyway, Shen Jiu doesn't manage to conveniently wake up before the Immortal Alliance Conference. Shen Yuan has to throw Luo Binghe in, which he hates, but along the way he manages to recover that magical flower macguffin that won't work on Without-a-Cure (which he doesn't have in this AU because his species is immune to it), brews a tea that finally fixes Shen Jiu, and then fucks off to go mope about Binghe being in the Abyss.

Shen Jiu doesn't tell anyone about his demonic replacement, for a variety of reasons. One, he's punishing the other peak lords for not figuring it out themselves. Two, he's punishing himself for the fact that a literal demon replaced him for like 3 years and everyone considered it an improvement. Because it was. Three, he has mixed feelings that might potentially amount to not wanting to hunt down and kill Shen Yuan, but he's not admitting that even to himself.

Everyone thinks that Shen Qingqiu's return to asshole form is a result of Luo Binghe dying, and that his sudden new research projects are part of him like, trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy, and coping. But no, he's still trying to figure out why the fuck Luo Binghe was important and why Shen Yuan inserted himself into their lives only to basically just do Shen Qingqiu's job while he was indisposed, and then fuck off the moment Luo Binghe left the picture again.

After... healing Shen Jiu. Also. For some unfathomable reason.

But this version of the System's just happy that the plot is back on track! And surely it will stay back on track. Yes? Problem solved, right? Shen Yuan? Definitely nothing is going to mess with the rest of the story, cough cough, wait why are you visiting User 01, and what would you, a demon shapeshifter, need with a Sun & Dew seed...?

[cak31ssuperi04]

"Basically what happens is, Grace and Max are right about to win. They're right about to do it. And then, there's a groaning. In the floorboards. Suddenly, the staircase gives out beneath Grace and Max, and they fall through the floors. They fall stories. Pieces of wood shove through their chests, and they both are killed."

"But keep this in mind, nothing truly dies in the Waylon house. Grace and Max become ghosts, and they're off doing whatever, but they're no longer involved in the tournament."

So.. that Pit Stop in Hatchetfield tag team deathmatch huh.