#i can explain why but that's a bit of a tangent for this post

[3verythingiknowaboutlove]

the limit does not exist!

how spencer helps college!reader understand a little calculus and therefore understand how he loves her.

MDNI | smut word count: 1931 warnings & tags & stuff: fem reader, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), lil bit of overstim hehe, pure unbridled affection, LOVE, FLUFF, hugging, reader cries, this was in fact meant to be written for spence's birthday... sorry about that school is kicking my butt lets just pretend it's october! author's note: this one is for my folks who HATE their calculus class and want spencer reid to give them head instead <3 maybe this can help you romanticize it a bit. i think this is classified as self indulgent…like REALLY self indulgent… hah... anyway i hope you enjoy! let me know your thoughts if u have any, i loveeeee you!! have a great day my hands are shaking posting this smut is so scary!!!!!

You sat in bed, staring down your notebook, eyes narrowed. Limits stared back at you. You were just about at your own limit, if you were being honest. 

Your brain, however sharp and witty it may be, is absolutely not one designed for calculus. A literary analysis essay? Done in half an hour. In depth scientific research project? Easiest months of your life. But there’s something about finding the instantaneous rate of change of a curve at one point in time by finding the slope of a tangent line that hasn't clicked yet. 

A slew of other papers- notes, practice worksheets printed from obscure websites, and formulas- surround you, a sea of unfinished thoughts from the past month of the semester.

You bite on the end of your pen, the little hope you had for a good grade in this class slipping further and further away with each passing moment, like the last ember dying in the remains of a fire.

What you really wanted to be doing was celebrating Spencer’s birthday with him right now. A chocolate cake lay on the kitchen counter and pasta simmers on the stove, but you and your boyfriend had agreed to do a solid hour of work before the celebrations ensued.

You were never particularly strong willed when it came to following through on such agreements.

“Teach me calculus,” you say, a very impressive three minutes later, flopping down on the couch. Your head makes its way to its forever resting spot, Spencer’s lap. He raises his eyebrows slightly, thumb reaching out to trace over the slope of your nose. His eyes flit between you and the file to the side of him. 

“I thought we agreed on an hour.”

“Yeah. But it wouldn’t be a very productive hour if I didn’t know how to do what I have to do. And I missed you.” 

He sighs quietly, closing the file next to him. 

“What do you not understand?” You smile at that, loving how quickly you won.

“Related rates. Like, conceptually.” 

Spencer hums in response.

“It’s October. You’re not even supposed to know related rates yet.”

“Fine. Then let's open presents,” you respond, smiley. His eyebrows get impossibly higher, hand stroking your cheek delicately.

“No. I want our night to be a little more stress free when we celebrate, okay? How about you think about that lovely cake you made for me. What if I decided to squash it so that the diameter would get bigger, going from…let’s say, 20 centimeters to 26 centimeters in 3 seconds, and the height would get smal-”

“That wouldn't be nice. It took me like four hours,” you interrupt, grumbling. He cracks a smile.

“For the sake of the example, let's say I was an awful boyfriend and really wanted to ruin all the hard work you put in for me.”

You roll your eyes.

“Hey,” he says, hand moving down to touch your jaw softly. “Don’t do that. Don’t be difficult. I’m helping you.”

“Sorry. I guess I need you to zoom out a little. I don’t really get why I’m learning this as a whole.” Spencer’s eyes pore into yours, staring down at you adoringly for a small moment as he comes up with an answer.

“Calculus helps us begin to explain the unexplainable by harnessing what we can,” Spencer says simply. “Einstein once said that, ‘Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas,’ which makes it simple in practice, but I actually like to think about it as the opposite philosophically. Trying to find logic in the more poetic ideas.”

You cuddle deeper in his lap.

“Think he would agree with that?” you ask. “I do answer to Einstein before you, unfortunately.” Spencer bends down to kiss your hair.

“I think so. He also had a really nice quote where he remarked that, ‘Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.’ He said, ‘How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.’”

Spencer takes a deep breath.

“Math doesn’t explain how I love you. It can’t. But I love the fact that it tries to. It kinda makes you wanna learn it as best you can.”

You process that for a long second and nod. He keeps talking.

… 

Presents get opened, and cake gets eaten before dinner. Of course.

You’re now in bed, on top of the covers, forcing Spencer to give you a fashion show of the new sweater vest and tie you got him. He turns to you after putting it on, and you beam. 

“I really like it. You look great. Do you like it?” you ask. He nods, smiling back at you.

“I’m gonna wear it to work tomorrow.” 

You beckon for Spencer to come closer, sitting up in bed. Your hands go out to the tie, tugging at the knot softly. He stares down at you until eventually interrupting your motions with a slow kiss, hands cupping your face.

“You’re so pretty,” he mutters.

He pulls away and finishes what you started, folding the tie neatly and setting it in the drawer. Then comes the vest, and soon enough, he’s just in his boxers.

“You’re the pretty one,” you say quietly. “Come to bed.” He crawls on next to you, tugging you into his arms. “Happy birthday, Spence. I love you.” He dips his forehead to your shoulder.

“I love you.”

Before you know it, he’s shifted on top of you, moving down. Fast. You blink, hard, trying to rid your head of the hazy endorphins as you register what he’s doing.

“What? No, I was gonna do that. It’s your birthday. You don’t have to,” you protest.

“But I really, really want to, darling girl,” he murmurs back, kissing your knee and softly pushing it to the side.

You fluster and Spencer just looks at you, fingers tracing shapes on your waist, waiting for you to be ready. 

“Well. Um. Okay. If you insist. I can’t really deny the birthday boy.” Your voice is small, and a little giddy smile grows on your face. Of course Spencer Reid would want to give you head on his birthday. 

He smiles a little against the bare skin of your hip where your top meets your shorts. Then he meets your eyes. 

“You know you can, though, right?” he asks, voice a little more serious. You reach out to touch his hair softly. 

“Yeah. I know.”

Fingers hook your shorts, gently pulling them down. He presses a kiss to your thigh, and then he suddenly looks down at it. 

“Soft,” he murmurs, like he’s making a mental note. He presses another, and another, incrementally going closer and closer to your soaked through underwear. His eyebrows scrunch when he sees the wet spot. “All this from a few kisses?” 

You blush, unable to respond. 

Spencer’s fingers hook a centimeter of your underwear. “These?” he checks.

“Yes, please,” you manage. He tugs them down, silently noticing the slickness of your sex, and exhales shakily.

“How many times on average does it take for a guy to call you pretty on a given day before you get annoyed?” he murmurs, soft smile playing on his face. You smile too, head cloudy from his words, but it immediately drops when his lips press directly against your pulsing clit, kissing it softly.

“Fuck,” you say (Spencer would argue moan) softly (loudly). You let out a content sigh, and he moves to suckle it, actions becoming less and less delicate. 

It’s not harsh, but incessant. Spencer knows what you can take. He knows exactly what you can take. You’re both quiet for a bit, save for your breathy moans. 

“Spencer,” you say softly, ripping you both out of your individually hazy and dirty and distracted minds. “You’re too far away.” He looks up to you, face parallel to your aching core, hair beautifully messy and mouth glistening.

After a second, he grabs your hips, gently pushing you up against the pillows so you’re propped up at a better angle. He then shifts his body up wordlessly so he’s more above you, dipping his head down to give you a soft kiss. You taste yourself, tongue darting out to lick your lips.

His hand takes over where his mouth was, sliding in between your folds with a practiced ease. Spencer looks down at you, eyes wide and flitting between yours, searching for a reaction.

You reach out and wrap your arms around him, holding him close. “Holy shit, I love you,” you murmur.

His fingers lightly graze your clit again before one slides into you. “Angel,” he breathes out, so quietly. “I love you too. This okay? Are you okay?”

You nod feverishly and lift your hips to meet his hand, always in a perpetual state of wanting more, to be closer. Your bodies are melded so close together, barely giving him room to push his hand into you. He doesn’t even bother to ask you to use your words or keep your hips down, like he might on a regular night.

He pulls his head back to watch as he pushes another finger into you, stretching you just a little. “There we go. You always feel like heaven around me.”

Your eyes flit up to his face as he says those words, now having a little more room to observe him. You focus on the slope of his nose and curve of his mouth. 

“You’re so perfect,” you say quietly, adoringly, before you even realize it was true.

You blink at that thought. Spencer Reid is perfect, despite whatever universal odds deeming that impossible.

Those graphs, those formulas, now laying discarded & crumpled on the ground. They click, a little bit. You understand why Albert Einstein wanted to spend his life developing theories of relativity.

This is how Spencer sees you? What he was talking about earlier?

This is how he sees you?

The thought is almost too much.

Spencer sees your face, and not knowing what's going on in your head, slides down his free hand from your cheek to your carotid, feeling your racing pulse. “Take a deep breath for me, okay? You're about to come, huh?”

You inhale and are met with peace. Then your orgasm hits you like a wave. You clench hard around his fingers, and he just watches it happen, fascinated. “Baby,” he coos softly at you.

It wasn’t just your sensitivity he’s currently maximizing on or the little kisses he dips down to leave on your neck that sealed the deal, but the very thought that you could be loved in a way that is so perfectly impossible.

You exhale breathily as Spencer pushes you through the last trails of your climax, fingers not caring one bit that you just had your world tilted on its axis. 

“Spencer. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” you say eventually, overstimulated.

“You’re okay. Did so good.” he murmurs, fingers slipping out of you. 

His thumb brushes your cheek, wiping away a tear you didn't even realize was dripping down.

“Don’t cry, you always cry. It’s my birthday. Don’t cry on my birthday,” he whispers soothingly, affection lacing his voice.

“I’m not.” 

Another one falls. 

You reach and press out that perpetual little slope between his eyebrows with your thumb, gentle, like you might break him. “I’m not crying.”

Spencer lets you lie.

[savanir]

The Consequences

The comforting ticking of clocks fills the air, Danny cannot help himself but look at the many gigantic gears working in tandem each time that he pays Clockwork’s tower a visit.

“Alright, I’m here” Danny waves the green post it note around.

“Good,” Clockwork appears and gestures to an open door, “there is something I wish to show you, come”

Danny follows Clockwork into the room that appears to be an infinitely stretching hallway both left and right from him with the two of them in what he must assume must be the middle.

The young ghost takes a moment to process this and comes to the conclusion that this is just typical Infinite Realms ghost bullshit because clearly, logically, this is impossible.

There is a line on the hallway wall.

“Okay, what am I looking at”

“Time”

Danny takes a long deep breath of air before exaggeratingly rolling his eyes and giving Clockwork bombastic side eye, which the guy very rudely ignores.

“can you please be a little less vague Clockwork…”

the older ghost who has shifted into the appearance of a child grins at him, “very well, this line represents here, you could say it’s ‘my’ time.” a line which would sound ominous as hell if it were said by anyone other than the Ancient of Time itself.

“Did you call me here to tell me more about yourself” Danny quickly looks from Clockwork to the very important line and then quickly back to Clockwork  “is this a bonding thing, are we ghost bonding? Do you show this to all your favorite ghosts?”

“Daniel” Clockwork has shifted to his elderly form.

Danny rubs the back of his neck, "It's really cool- in a way. I kinda do feel like there is more to it though.” It’s also a little underwhelming, just a infinitely stretching dark grey stone hallway with a line on the wall, He’d expect Clockworks time to be… well… okay, so he’s got no clue what he was expecting Clockwork’s time to look like but it wasn’t this.

One thing is for sure though, Danny is no longer thinking about touching the Time Line.

“you would be correct,” Clockwork has shifted to his adult form, “let’s get back on track, the reason why I am showing you this is this discoloration over here” Clockwork gestures where to look with his staff.

“the blackish bit?”

“Correct, this is what I like to call missing time” Clockwork huffs, “I used to not mind it, but times have changed” he’s got the young king to be to worry about now.

Danny is somewhat startled while taking a closer look at the small black bit of the time line, “you’re missing time!? … please do not ask me to go find it for you”

Clockwork chuckles, “no there is no need, I know quite well where it is.” then it’s not actually missing is it?

“alright uh… I’ll just ask- What happens when you’re missing time, do you just… black out? orrrr, like, just what’s going on here”

Child Clockwork starts to explain, “During that period the Infinite Realms will move without me.”

Adult Clockwork continues, “from what I have learned of these events in the past it’s safe to say something will soon happen in this section of the realms, something big and dangerous, the tower is protected against these events- by going into a form of stasis.”

Elderly Clockwork finishes, “like I said, in the past this was of no concern of mine, the tower functions as intended, preserving me and time itself as it should, but I worry for you Daniel.”

“I’ve called you here to warn you, mayhap you could find out what this danger is, not to prevent it, but to ensure you yourself will not get hurt.” preventing it is sadly no longer possible. with the dark coloration on the wall the event happening is all but set in stone.

“can’t you look forward to see what it is? or maybe give me a hint or something?”

“sadly not, for me the time is wholly missing, in the sense that it will happen, and so in a way has already happened, which means-” Danny quickly waves his arm around to prevent Clockwork from going into a time tangent and give him a legendary headache, “-which means you will not be able to help me now, or during, or after. I understand.” the boy then sighs, “I’ll look into it I guess”

“Be careful” Clockwork says gravely in his adult form.

Danny nods, and deep in his core he can feel the unspoken please.

—✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*---*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—

The young halfa really does try to figure out what might happen, what might be wrong, but it is incredibly hard when you have no clues what so ever.

Time passes, life goes on as usual- as it always does.

And then it starts.

Ripples go through the realms, an oppressive pressure building up. minor shades and blob ghosts scatter darting in every direction as long as it’s away from the perceived threat.

Not long after that there is strange crackling and rumbling, artifacts start behaving weirdly, powering up rapidly.

Walker’s prison becomes a fortress that he’s quickly losing control over locking everything and anything down tight.

Both Skulker’s and Undergrowth’s domains life grows rapidly. And although Undergrowth doesn’t mind Skulker certainly does, his jungle is his hunting playground, not the other way around! And that wouldn’t even be that much of a problem if his suit wasn’t completely on the fritz.

Desiree hides herself away deeply in her haunt, frightful of her own powers going absolutely haywire with every wish she grants, usually she enjoys the chaos- but this is rapidly getting out of hand.

Clockwork manages to catch Pariah’s keep going into its own magical automated lockdown before his tower does the same in its own way.

More and more ghosts decide to evacuate away from this corner of the realms, opting to temporarily stay somewhere else and return once whatever this mess is is over.

While all that is going on in the realms outside in the realm of the living Danny still has no clue what’s going on but his powers are freaking out more and more and he’s very glad that there are no ghost attacks because he’s not sure what will happen if he actually has to put some power in his abilities.

For now he’s simply not using them, instead deciding that while this is going on he’s just a regular living human boy with no special gifts, and you know, maybe it’ll all just blow over on its own and settle down.

So far any attempts on Team Phantom’s end to figure out what the hell is going on in the realms has led to nothing. They can obviously detect the surges of power slamming through the zone but they can’t find the origin. 

The best they have got so far is that whatever it is has something to do with leylines. a suggestion brought up by Sam after Tucker mapped out some of the ripples and Sam recognized some of the shapes from her occult witchy books.

This sadly didn’t answer much and honestly only made Danny go, “This better not be some culty bullshit then”

and Tucker hissing, “bro don’t jinx it!”

When it all comes to a head it was just a normal average school day. After hearing them all out Jazz decided that the best course of action was to lock the doors of the portal just in case, and look further into ley lines later that day.

English class had a little outing planned, the whole class went on a short trip out of the city and into the forest for a special assignment.

Mr Lancer told them to find a scenery there that would inspire them, take a picture, and then write three pieces about it of various word counts, this was to teach them about word use and what not. Just regular shit, Danny wasn’t paying that much attention.

while trudging around in the woods, trying to avoid Dash and Kwan and find something to photograph does he feel it. It’s like his entire skeleton freezes over, a thin layer of frost over his entire insides that shatters right after.

Tucker yelps, “Danny what the hell was that!?”

Danny slaps his hands over his mouth, “I think that was my ghost sense? but like insane?”

“what”

Then a small portal opens and a tiny green blur speeds out and crashes right into Danny’s chest.

Danny can’t help but catch whatever it is and he quickly identifies it as Cujo when he can take a proper look.

The poor thing is shivering and whining and abrasions on his paws quickly clue the gang in that the little dog is hurt.

“Jezus, what happened to him?” asks Sam looking worried for the little guy.

Cujo whines and burrows down Danny’s jacket and into Danny's shirt, by now the A listers as well as Valerie have noticed something weird is going on. 

once Valerie recognizes the puppy butt going down Danny’s shirt does she shout, “that vile beast! Let me at them! Don’t worry Danny I have something that will deal with that thing real fast, just stand still!”

Sam immediately jumps in front of Danny to shield him and Cujo.

“Uhm, that’s a puppy,” says Paulina derisively while Star next to her starts to coo as Cujo’s small head pops up from Danny’s neckline, snuggled in fully and clearly content to be and stay right where he is.

"Sooooo cute!” Star just wants to snuggle it, if only all ghosts were adorable little animals, then the whole ghost thing all the time wouldn’t be nearly so annoying.

“That thing is evil,” Valerie fumes.

“It’s a fucking puppy, Gray. What the hell is your damage” Paulina and Valerie viciously verbally tear into each other and Sam hates to admit it but she’s really glad for Paulina’s redirection of Val’s ire.

because she’s right, Cujo is just a puppy.

Mr. Lancer shows up noticing the commotion and increasing volume of Valerie and Paulina’s now borderline screaming match to put an end to all that.

And it’s right then, right when everyone is fully distracted that a flash happens in the distance quickly followed by a tremor through that they can feel in the ground.

Then the sound reaches them, a loud boom and right after dark clouds quickly rise up in the distance where the flash originated.

All of it happens incredibly fast but right after Mr. Lancer wastes no time to round them all up and head back to the meeting point

“Holy shit that came from Amity”

“Did the town blow up?!”

“I’m texting my parents”

"Hi? mom? Are you okay? yeah? what the fuck happened!?”

dread pools in Danny’s stomach, it grows heavier as he gets no response, it does not lift even slightly through Mr. Lancer’s general reassurances to the whole class, holding Cujo tightly to his chest helps a little, but the frantic feeling keeps surging through his body as the whole class gets into the bus to head back home.

Back in Amity it’s just chaos, police sirens, fire fighters, people out on the street, for once there are no ghost warnings blaring and it’s all the stranger for it, all the more worrying.

This isn’t a ghost attack, this is a normal explosion, and it’s so much worse because of it.

Everyone is used to ghost attacks, they aren’t used to normal explosions.

Once back in Amity things get a bit blurry for Danny, he vaguely remembers school, there was a lot of rushing of people, he vividly remembers constantly trying to contact his parents and Jazz and being incredibly worried and frustrated that they aren’t responding to anything.

He very clearly remembers that Mr. Lancer was there through all of it, when everyone else got picked up, Danny remembers both Sam and Tucker not wanting to leave him and go with their parents, but he’d… well there wasn’t really…

things stopped making sense when the police showed up specifically for him. 

After that it was all just one big dark smear.

—✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*---*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—

The street is pulverized, his house and those adjacent to it are reduced to rubble.

The other buildings are badly damaged enough that the people have to be relocated until repairs are completed and they are confirmed to be safe, for the ones closest to the explosion there is a high likelihood that the structural integrity is compromised. 

They might need to be torn down as well if that’s the case.

All the windows are smashed in a very wide radius around the initial point of the explosion, overall the scene looks like… like something out of a war documentary.

Danny doesn’t get to see much of that though, he’s put in a meeting room, or office, with some things to snack on and water to drink, both untouched, and Cujo in his lap.

The basement exploded, well, the lab or even more specifically, the portal exploded. But the local authorities don’t know about all that stuff so for them right now it’s just the basement.

And seeing as there is honestly nothing left, it's very possible that they are never going to realize there was a gateway to the realm of the dead under that house in the first place.

His mom and dad are… gone, as well as Jazz, she was most likely upstairs- studying.

Danny swallows and holds Cujo closer, nobody has bothered him about the ghost dog, everyone is just treating the little guy like a regular dog, Danny would appreciate it if he wasn’t completely numb.

He’s trying very hard to just keep it all together and not start spiraling cause this is all very painfully familiar, explosion, death, they are contacting Vlad, it’s taking really long.

But from this point forward he’s going to have to do everything in his power to not slip, this is it. He can’t afford- Cause Clockwork isn’t availa- is that it? 

Is all this caused by the mess in the realms!?

Now Danny has to fight the thoughts that he should have done more, taken it more seriously, researched harder, he’d gotten an on time proper and clear warning for fucks sake! Why didn’t he- Why didn’t he-!?

But he did didn’t he? There was basically nothing to go off of, he tried really hard with the tools that he had and he had been making progress, it just wasn’t enough, he didn’t- couldn’t figure it out on time, and-

Why is it taking so damn long to contact Vlad and get this nightmare fully going he wants out of this room it’s getting suffocating!

The door opens, the nice sounding lady regretfully informs him that there seems to be more bad news, she brings it very gently and carefully, most likely trying to not re traumatize him again.

But it comes down to this, Vlad’s estate has blown up as well and nobody knows where he is, they haven’t found, ahem, him yet.

Danny swallows, that’s not how this is supposed to go.

“You think Vlad is dead?” he stammers out.

“We-” she starts clearly thinking very hard about how to word this, “Right now he’s considered missing, I’m afraid that any attempts to reach him hasn’t been answered but search and rescue-”

Danny blinks, he knows Vlad’s phone just has reception in the zone, and something as a portal explosion wouldn’t take him out, the guy should be chomping at the bit to come and get him. So he’s… incapacitated.

“-however, in the meantime the Foley’s have generously accepted to temporarily take you in, I have heard you are good friends with their son Tucker so-”

Danny perks up a little, and Cujo sleepily snuffles before settling in again, “that sounds good, as much as anything can sound good right about now”

The lady tries to hide her wince and gives him a pitying smile instead, both suck.

The next thing Danny knows he’s wrapped up in a tight hug by his best friend.

“You’ll get through this man, we’re here for you, Sam is in spirit here with us right now, if you’re very quiet you can hear her furious yelling at her parents to let her go so she can hug you too”

Danny gives him a watery laugh, “thanks, I just- fuck”

“yeah… yeah”

it’s bad, but it’s not like that time with Nasty Burger, he’s still got Sam and Tucker, Mr. Lancer too, who is certainly not stopping checking in with Danny either.

And Vlad is missing.

—✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*---*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—

The zone is a mess, it’s also devoid of life, more than usual, devoid of unlife might be a better way to put it? 

Suddenly tracing the point where this mess came from is a lot easier, Sam came with the idea that the one or ones or thing or whatever that started all this probably did something to hide what they were doing.

They go past Clockworks tower, still encased in a perfect time still bubble, seeing none of the outer gears move even an inch is rather unnerving.

eventually they reach a gigantic neon green flaming crack in reality, or at least that’s what it looks like. 

with Cujo’s aid they move back into the living world somewhat to the right of the reality tear.

It turns out that on the living side of things the tear is a big erupting neon green magma spewing volcano.

By Danny’s estimates the green is ecto adjacent but feels horrible wrong.

“so this volcano was connected to the realms somehow and when it erupted…” Sam shivers, “so natural disaster?”

Tucker looks from his PDA trying to make sense of the ecto energy readings and the still spewing volcano, “there is no seismic activity here, that volcano was dead, something triggered it”

“or someone” hisses Danny, “I’ll have a closer look around as Phantom, do not hesitate to contact me if you see someone or something” 

Sam and Tucker both agree and Danny transforms and heads into the volcano.

the place is… weird, there are ruins, and some ritualistic areas, there is a huge mostly destroyed pool where new debris occasionally still falls into, causing a new explosion, Danny takes a few samples of the stuff in the pool to investigate later, cause even though it’s the same toxic green it’s clearly different from the stuff the volcano is spewing into the air.

Then he makes a quick sweep through the underground caverns and stumbles upon a sight he was not expecting.

Unconscious Vlad. Though upon closer inspection it’s revealed to Danny he’s very cold and stiff, so properly dead Vlad. 

The idea is… ridiculous.

So is that it then? Vlad found some neat new place to fuck around with shit he shouldn’t and he found out in the most explosive way possible, and now there is some manner of ecto volcano or whatever, though probably not cause it just doesn’t feel like ecto… But anyway it all exploded in Vlad’s face and he died and caused another Pariah Dark level event through the Realms and somehow managed to also kill Danny’s parents and Jazz while he was at it.

Danny lifts Vlad’s corpse up and takes him with him to Sam and Tucker. Whatever happened down there happened, but Vlad’s corpse doesn’t deserve to just be left there to rot, just like Danny’s parents and Jazz, he didn’t deserve to die (fully).

Sam and Tucker startle violently when he carefully lays his body down nearby.

“Ancients! is he-” Sam takes a hesitating step forward

“I don’t sense anything from him anymore, like, there is supposed to be something there and there just isn’t so…”

“fucking hell” Tucker wipes a head over his face, “can we- I would really like to go home now, I think I’ve gotten enough of this place”

The trio agrees and after some back and forth they have decided that Danny will put Vlad’s corpse in a not yet combed through section of his estate. Search and rescue will find his body, and then… uhhh…

“I worry about everything after that when we get there, alright?” Danny says, and that’s that.

It feels… wrong, but none of them can come up with a better plan so…

It’s not long the next day that the same nice lady contacts Danny about Vlad.

Danny was expecting that. 

What he wasn’t expecting was that eventually in that conversation a whole new bomb got dropped on him.

Because apparently Vlad has registered him as his heir, as in like heir to Dalv.co

And heir to a lot of money.

Time passes, the world is in magical chaos, the Justice League is solving it. Danny isn’t involved in any of it. 

He just had a funeral and is now looking at the graves of his parents and his sister, and a little bit over there is Vlad.

Cujo is still with him, the little guy seems to have decided that he’s just not going anywhere without Danny so he has a dog now, he’s always wanted a dog.

There is a man a respectful distance behind him, apparently that’s Vlad’s butler, his butler now, since when did Vlad have a butler? Danny cannot remember there being a butler the last time he was forced to go to Vlad’s creepy mansion.

It’s starting to rain.

“Master Daniel,” oh no, he’s going to have to put an end to that right away.

Danny turns and takes a step to the guy, “please call me Danny”

“time stop”

Danny startles as everything around him stops moving, rain drops freezing in place.

The butler in front of him now looks a lot like Clockwork.

“First I want to give you my condolences, I am very sorry for your loss Danny” Clockwork looks well and truly remorseful, he’s genuine. There is a tiny part of Danny that instantly wants to rage and scream at him about the unfairness of it all. But Clockwork cannot do anything, not this time.

“And secondly,” he changes back into the very regular human butler appearance, “I’ll be around to aid you along this new path”

Danny blinks.

oh, well, okay then.

Clockwork introduces himself as Conrad W. Kronus and makes it very clear that to everyone that matters he’s always existed. 

There will be no need to worry about any paperwork or whatever, from here on out Danny will get to stay at the other estate Vlad got in Amity so he could do his Major work more easily and he’ll get to live there with his butler and his dog.

That way he can finish school in Amity Park comfortably.

There is of course still the matter of Dalv.co to worry about but Clockwork reassures him that he doesn’t have to think about any of that just yet and to focus on grieving properly instead.

He says all that while driving them home in one of Vlad’s fancy cars, Danny didn’t think the old ghost would know how to drive at all…

It’s when they arrive and Cujo jumps out of his arms to explore his new home while Clockwork goes about his own maybe butlery duties while Danny kind of just stands in the main living room that a sudden realization comes to him.

“oh- this is… I’m like Bruce Wayne now”

[haedalkoo]

Jimin's thoughts are 오밀조밀

Long time no see! Today I'm bringing over a cute conversation between i-kookminers and k-kkms on Twitter. The lovely @goldenhickeysandramen sent it my way yesterday, and we woke up to replies from korean jikookers explaining the cultural context behind JK's words in a w-live. I found it so cute I couldn't not bring it to your attention here.

The first post was made by someone curious about why korean fans found this JK clip so adorable.

The phrase OP was pointing out is the following (JK's 27/03/23 live, min 51:51):

확실히 이게 사람마다 생각하는 게 많이 달라. Certainly, the way every person thinks is very different. 지민 형의 생각이 약간 오밀조밀하는 거 같아. Jimin hyung's way of thinking is a bit meticulous. 오밀조밀하다기보다 엄청 뭐라해야 될까… Well, more than meticulous, how should I say it...

(he didn't finish his thoughts LOL he went on a tangent after this :'))

The word he used to describe Jimin's way of thinking is 오밀조밀 (/oh-mil-cho-mil/). This word is a little difficult to translate because it's a 고사성어 (故事成語), aka a 4-letter-idiom that typically comes from ancient Korean literature or history.

(Before the invention of hangeul, the korean alphabet we all know, Korean used Chinese characters (also known as hanja) to transcribe Korean words and sounds. The heritage of this tradition can be found in words like this, or in the use of hanja in newspapers. Let me know if you want to know more about this!)

오밀조밀 is made up of these 4 characters: 奧密稠密.

奧 means deep, 密 means tight or dense (fun fact, it's one of the two characters that makes up the word 'secret', so it also has the meaning of 'hidden'. Secret in korean is 비밀 /bimil/ or ひみつ /himitsu/ in japanese, 秘密) and 稠 also means thick or dense.

But what does this word actually mean? Why did Jungkook using it cause so much fuzz?

Like OP and other korean fans have said, it's used to describe tightly packed, or delicate and meticulous things.

When I first saw the clip, I agreed with JK. Jimin's extreme attention to detail and delicate and catious thinking, both as an artist and a person, can surely evoke this word. I'd only ever seen that word used to describe someone's facial features, in one of those highly specific and slightly funny ways that Koreans have to compliment someone's physical traits, but I didn't think twice about JK's choice of words.

However, cultural nuance is so important and it cracked the code for me. Here's an explanation:

As you can see, the word still holds that delicate and tight meaning, but it's not used for abstract things such as thoughts. If you look up the hanja dictionary, it describes "a refined and detailed appearance regarding craftsmanship and skill/a very meticulous and detailed appearance." Synonyms include words like 'cute' and 'pretty' (아기자기 is one of them, which means small and cute, baby-like. Isn't that the most Jimin word you've ever heard??).

Like I told @goldenhickeysandramen, nobody knows (or loves) Jimin better than JK. So, yeah, of course Jungkook thinks that Jimin is 오밀조밀, despite how unconventional it may sound. Even his thoughts are pretty to him. 🥺💖

[bunnwich]

Ngl your Leona posts , analysis,ect are so therapeutic.

Like man it was hard being a Leona fan a couple of years ago(at least for me) because everyone always wrote nothing but awful things about him. Especially by other "analysis" writers who claim he's just a unlikable scumbag,ect.

But nowadays it feels so much better as most people, including yourself, explained his much more interesting and complex personality.

Leona & Fandom Interpretation

Hi, that honestly makes me so happy to hear!!? I don’t think some people understand that when ppl really love a character often it is because they see something they relate to in them.

As someone who has been depressed, is neurodivergent and is a certified “burned-out gifted kid” it’s def interesting when people dismiss Leona’s traits as pure laziness or completely negative. None of the twst boys are perfect and all of them have “issues.” That’s the whole point I fear. ASDFGHJKL.

I like to think that my chronic Leona posting has helped his perception by the fandom and while I understand he can’t be everyone's fav I do feel in the past he has gotten a unfair reputation compared to some of the other characters and while there's a lot of factors to WHY I think that is…I implore everyone to just be a bit more mindful when it comes to stereotypes and characterization.

I am an anti-censorship, pro-smut, and a fiction-is-fiction person. But multiple things can be true. Nuance exists. Leona is not real. But people like him exist. Is misrepresenting and demonizing a character that is black, depressed and possibly neurodivergent a “big deal” in comparison to real issues? Well, that’s up to each individual to decide, but AT MINIMUM it’s not…good.

Curating your online spaces is good general advice. BUT, I think the aim should be to make sure fandom spaces stay inviting to everyone. By all means, speak your mind, but like do you wanna be known as THAT person in the fandom.

Anyways I got off on a tangent, but this ask really touched me and made me think WHY I put so much passion in my Leona posts and spreading my propaganda about him. TBH the whole reason I started getting into him WAS BECAUSE I saw such strange interpretations of him. Lowkey, it made me angry. And I wasn’t sure why since…you know he’s not real, but I get it now.

Despite the unseriousness of fiction, the people behind screens who gush about their faves ARE real people, and I, for one, put a lot of myself into my Leona art, writing, and, in general interactions with the fandom. None of it is done 100% carelessly because I know it affects people, even if it’s in a minor way. And esp now that I've gained a following.

Anyways, thank you and I’m glad that my posts can bring any semblance of joy or comfort in this world!

💚💚💚

[secondbeatsongs]

hi, big speed racer fan, in your speed racer post you mentioned that you have proof that the movie is set in 1991 ? please say more about that.

oh I can absolutely do that! best movie of all time! let me explain my logic

so Speed, Pops, and Royalton all talk a lot about the '43 Grand Prix. watching the recording of that race inspired Pops and Speed to get back into racing after Rex's death, but this was also the race that inspired Royalton to get into racing in an evil, stock-market-manipulation kind of way.

everyone in the film calls it "the '43 Prix", including in the script (because I checked, because I wanted to be sure about this, DM me if you want more script stuff btw it's so good):

the important part here is that everyone calls it "the '43 Prix" and not "the 43rd Prix" - we know for sure that this race took place in 1943.

but fun fact! it was, also, the 43rd Prix! we know this because of the poster on Speed's wonderful, beautiful orange wall.

Rex's poster of Ben Burns (which Speed kept), says "Grand Prix Winner XLIII", and you might think that would mean the year and not the race number, but

when Horuko gives Speed the invitation to the Grand Prix, he calls it the 91st annual Grand Prix and the invitation says XCI, meaning that the WRL uses roman numerals to indicate the race number and not the year.

not that it matters, because it seems like in this universe, the race numbers and the year numbers match up! the 43rd race was in 1943, and so this, the 91st race, must be in or very near 1991!

that's my main argument here. but also, we need to look at Ben Burns

and I mean like, literally, we need to look at him.

he's not very young here, right? this was a flashback shot of his Grand Prix win against Stickelton, and he doesn't look like a teenager or anything; he's definitely a grown man.

but now look at present-day Ben Burns:

he's still pretty young! Richard Roundtree was 66 when he played Burns, and the character can't have been too much older than that.

so if we're very generous and say that Burns was 20-22 when he won against Stickelton in 1943, and that he's 68-70 in the present day, our year of 1991 makes sense here too!

so that's why the absolute masterpiece Speed Racer (2008) takes place in 1991, thank you for coming to my ted talk

final notes:

this argument falls apart if you, instead, decide that the film takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, and the '43 Prix was actually in 2043 or even 3043. they never actually say it was 1943, so there's still some room for fun alternate interpretations here.

there is an out-of-universe explanation for the race number btw! the 91st Indy 500 took place in 2007 while the movie was being made, so the Wachowskis probably picked the number 91 because of that.

also this is a complete tangent, but while looking up Richard Roundtree's age (may he rest in peace), I looked at some photos from when he was young and? I think I accidentally found the one they used to make that winning flashback photo?

this one's on his IMDB as "Richard Rountree [sic] at home, c. 1972" and if you mirror it, and rotate it a bit...

yeah. I mean, they definitely changed some things, but his eyes are the same, and the general emotion of his face.

wild thing to discover by accident, but hey, I guess this is a thing I know now!

[demonslayerunhinged]

cw: I'm going to be very blunt in this overly long post. Some things might rub you the wrong way if not offend you, so if that happens, you know the procedure: unfollow → block → move on.

A few weeks ago…

Three of my posts about Genya, Shizu and Sanemi caught the attention of and were the subject of discussion among a couple of weirdos. After I discovered all the crap they were spewing on their circle jerk of a server, I then went on a rage-fueled posting spree with screenshots and lots of insults towards them especially towards princeblue and pomchihuahua. I made the posts private but if you're curious here's the link.

You're probably thinking: Omg bitch, you're still on this? 🙄

Yes, yes I am. It's so fucking easy to move on from an incident when you're not the one being attacked or are the one doing the attacking. It's just like that saying the tree remembers what the axe forgets or something and it's my blog, fuck you.

Anyway, it really pissed me off that they were taking my post so seriously, despite me putting multiple disclaimers that these were theories. Proof:

And even if I didn't add disclaimers, can no one make theories anymore? Can no one make jokes or shit posts? I mean, I know we're living in a dystopian world, but the last place I want to be reminded about it is on my tiny, obscure fucking Tumblr blog. You don't have to (and honestly shouldn't) agree with everything I post! In fact, I would love to have a different pov and a respectful, engaging discussion. And even if you think Ugh this shit is so ass, just scroll past and forget about me! Unfollow me! Block me! I have made two posts literally begging people to do this because I didn't want to get involved in this kind of shit.

Talking shit about me in a place where I don't have the opportunity to defend myself, deliberately misunderstanding my posts and making assumptions of my beliefs based on said post is one thing. But minimizing the shittiness of your actions when called out, painting me as the crazy person for my justified anger at your shitty actions, and using your minor members as a shield to deflect scrutiny. That's just horrible, if not downright insidious. especially from someone who describes herself as a 'nice' person.

The so-called apology I got from pomchihuahua was so insincere, and it was just a way to brush past their actions so they could make the link to their shitty server public again. I never got an apology from princeblue; all I got were a series of pretentious and condescending messages and a manipulative post where she made me look like I was the crazy one, infiltrating her server and harassing her members who are minors. She also minimized and sanitized her actions by explaining that it was just a private discussion among friends that got a bit heated with a few dickish words thrown here and there, despite the fact that:

1.) It's a public server, so anyone who joins and lurks in that channel would think I'm some asshole that advocates for child abuse and slanders single mothers.

2.) It wasn't just a 'heated' discussion with just a few dicky things being said, not only did they completely misunderstand my post — so much so that it was like they were talking about another post by someone else — but they talked about my blog like it was (and I hate this word) slop. She said stated that she couldn't stand me and that she was seething with hate (the screenshots are in the linked private post) like I killed her dog or something.

3.) She kept stressing that I didn't censor the usernames of the shit talkers who happen to be minors despite her asking me to, all in an attempt to make me look like some kind of minor-harasser. The minors in question didn't censor my username or those of the people who commented on my posts that they bashed. So why should I?

Side tangent but, I've noticed that lately the internet has some kind of obsession with the protection of minors and put them on some pedestal like they're unassuming babies who aren't capable of real harm or aware of their actions. Thus, they should be shielded from the consequences of said actions and shouldn't be called out for them.

I don't subscribe to such beliefs. Not only is it stupid, it's dangerous. This belief is the basis of laws that allow minors to get away with heinous crimes in some communities and even countries. Why should they get to live on, blissfully unaffected, while their victims suffer? Why shouldn't we be allowed to call them out on their shitty behavior? If they're old enough to throw shit at a stranger on the internet, they're old enough to have that shit thrown right back at them. If that makes me a heartless asshole, so be it.

Anyway, I was angry (as you can tell by my online crashout) because as someone who takes a lot of time agonizing over every single post and making sure my words are clear and that I provide the right resources — all these accusations and comments hurt. The situation sucked the joy out of me, ruined my whole week, and made me feel so shitty that I wanted to stop posting all together.

Because, what's the point? Why post anything if all I'm going to do is spend my time and energy not just worrying about the content, but also about being shredded by assholes who won't even attempt to understand my words?

I have this weird belief that my blog will only be seen by those who like it or if not want to understand what I'm saying and would give me the opportunity to explain myself. I know it's stupid, but that's just how I wish my blog was. This whole situation just burst the bubble of that belief and now makes me so paranoid about everything. Even now that I want to continue posting again, I'm still hesitatant. Every time I see some untitled/unnamed blog follow me, I think that it's either one of princeblue's followers hate stalking me for more posts they can rip apart on their stupid server.

One thing pomchihuahua said in her defense that really irritated me was that Shizu reminded her of a family member and that's why she attacked my posts and why she made the counter post defending Shizu.

Yes offense, but that is insane. Like the you-seriously-need-professional-help kind of insane.

Don't believe me? Let's recontextualize her explanation:

Say Shizu is a mass-produced doll that being marketed as a single mother with the blurb on the back of the box. A girl, let's call her Suzy, has one of these dolls. It's her favorite doll, and she believes the story on the box is the one true story for this doll because Shizu looks like her mom and the story mirrors her mom's life.

When she goes out with her friends who all have the same Shizu doll and agree with her about the story for it, she sees another girl let's call her Kacy, playing with the Shizu doll, but it's different; the girl put on different clothes on the doll and Suzy could overhear the girl telling her friends that this Shizu doll is a businesswoman who's travelled to space or something.

Suzy gets enraged, she starts shouting to her friends — loud enough for Kacy to hear. She calls Kacy names, talks about how Kacy doesn't understand Shizu, that Shizu can only be in the clothes she came in, and that the only story that matters is what's written on the back of the box. Kacy is a bad person for dressing Shizu in different clothes and giving her a different story.

When asked why she acted this way, Suzy explains that Shizu reminds her of her mom, so anyone dressing the doll up differently or giving it a different story makes her defensive, angry and causes her to lash out.

Now tell me, does Suzy seem like a well-adjusted individual to you? Doesn't it seem like she needs to talk to a therapist? Like my guy, are you good?! Are you running a fever?! Do you need a Kit Kat?!

I don't give a fuck if a character reminds you of someone or if you're emotionally attached to them. That DOES NOT give you the right to attack or talk shit about people because of some 2d drawings. And if you think this is perfectly acceptable behavior, then you need to take a long, hard look in a mirror for some self-reflection and to remove the brick that's lodged in the back of your head because you obviously have some sort of brain damage.

Who are you to tell others what they should and shouldn't like? Who are you to tell others how they should and shouldn't interprete these characters? Who are you to think that your analysis/interpretion is the only correct one? Who are you to attack people just because they happen to have opinions that differ from yours? Who are you to control people's behavior to fit your own narrow, close minded and boring point of view? Just who THE FUCK do you think you are?

This is the kind of shit that makes fandoms so inhospitable and draining. When a couple of dry, basic, joyless, overly serious, overly sensitive, fun-sucking, Sarah j mass/Colleen Hoover/steel-wrapped-in-velvet-reading, no-life-or-rose-toy-having, Club Chalamet-looking, terminally online losers who get high on the smell of their own farts decide that they're the only ones who understand a character or a piece of fiction and treat any other interpretation or analysis like it's a personal attack. Then to make themselves feel better, make counter virtue signalling posts that do nothing but allow them to express their smug, self-affirming, self-righteous moral superiority.

I'm tired y'all, the world seems so shitty right now. Every day it' seems like the world it's like we're sliding back into the dark ages. I wanted this blog to be a safe space where I can just yap about stuff I like and stuff, and connect with people who share similar interests. Not a place to get policed, dragged and scrutinized over every fucking sentence or action when there's already enough of that in real life. I'm done with over-explaining and disclaimers, I refuse to tie myself into knots to accomodate the stupidity of imbeciles who're too lazy to read.

If you bite me, I bite back. As you can tell from my other posts i'm not above insulting and name-calling. Don't expect civility from me when you didn't offer one in the first place.

Like can a bitch breathe? Christ.

*Side note: I know I made this post which is similar to what I'm complaining about, but I just used the screenshot as to rant about the misunderstood complaints in the fandom. I mentioned the bullshit excuses she made when she was called out. But that was it. I didn't attack the OP personally, shit talk about her other posts or make assumptions of her beliefs. I didn't even mention her name at all in her post. So it doesn't count ha!

[cursed-cube]

So a common headcanon/theory I’ve seen floating around is that when Okarun shifts into his yokai form, the personality shift he undergoes is representative of a “truer” inner self. I can see the line of logic that led to this, but the more thought I’ve put into it, the less I’ve agreed with the premise. And I’ve put so much thought into it at this point that it’s had to become its own whole post separated from the analysis it was originally a part of, so strap in.

Disclaimer: if this is your personal headcanon, I’m not here to try to prove you wrong or make you change your mind, I’m more so discussing this from the theory side of things and what I think will happen as the manga continues. Also slight manga spoilers for up to chapter 172 !!

So as the theory goes, the personality that comes out when Okarun’s transformed is a more genuine version of himself, where his yokai form removes his anxieties and allows him to act more confidently and openly show the depression and pessimism that’s lived in him the whole time. On a surface level this tracks, as being in this form does make him more confident, blunt, and he completely drops the formal way he speaks to people, going so far as to adopt a cute nickname for Momo.

I don’t think this fully makes sense for a number of reasons, though. Firstly is that throughout all 175 chapters that are currently out, I can’t recall any moments where Okarun ever acts in a way that would hint at his real inner workings reflecting the personality and behavior that come out when he is transformed. I could have missed something, of course, but when so much of Momo and Okarun’s relationship is built on them being their genuine selves around the other (more on that in this great video I saw), I’m inclined to believe that there isn’t going to be another shoe to drop nearly 200 chapters in.

To explain my other reasoning, I’m going to have to go into a little bit of a side tangent about Aira, and first I want to establish why I think comparing Okarun to her in this instance makes sense. So up until the cursed diorama arc, the only character that really has comparable yokai related powers to Okarun is Aira. They acquire these powers in different ways, and Seiko says Okarun has Turbo Granny’s “spiritual power”, whereas Acro-Silky says she gave Aira her “aura.” Given the contexts of the scenes these are said in I would assume they are meant to be two different concepts, however it’s not ever explicitly stated or shown how the difference there affects them or their yokai abilities, so I am treating them as functionally the same thing for this analysis. Regardless, the similarity between them seems to be that in one way or another, they have been left with the spiritual energy of their respective yokai, which allows them to transform in very similar ways. Their transformations affect them both physically in making them taller and stronger, as well as their personalities, with Okraun becoming less formal overall, and Aira becoming more formal in the way she addresses people.

Even though they are affected by their transformations in very similar ways, I haven’t seen any kind of headcanon or theory that the way Aira behaves while transformed is how she truly is or feels, which makes perfect sense considering her first character arc. From when she’s introduced, she’s shown to have a dynamic with Momo, Okarun, and her other peers at school, where even before she’s able to use Acro-Silky’s abilities, she’s pretty two faced. In chapter 51, Momo even says, “There’s our Aira!” when she and Okarun pull Aira away from her class and she immediately shifts to her more snarky attitude towards Momo. The manga makes it quite clear that the way she acts at school, and on occasion towards Okarun, is an act, and that her genuine personality is a little nasty and rude (which she is loved for! By other characters and audience members of taste). And with that established, of course no one put that much emphasis on how her behavior changes when she’s using Acro-Silky’s powers. She’s still the same person, her mannerisms and the way she speaks are just altered slightly, which is also pretty much how I feel about Okarun’s yokai form.

That being said, I don’t want to fully dismiss that the shifted personality could mean something, and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Okarun did still have some repressed feelings and pessimism from his time growing up without any friends, but at the current point in the story I’m not sure if I could see that being shown explicitly tied to his yokai form. As of chapter 165, Okarun gets his final ball back, and as per his end of the deal, he returned Turbo Granny’s spiritual power to her, and she left with them and hasn’t made an appearance since. Okarun no longer has access to his yokai form, but at this point he’s surrounded by friends, he’s confessed his feelings to Momo, and he’s even grown physically strong enough to hold his own in a fight without any powers. As far as what we’ve been shown, Okarun has developed and his life has changed so much that he doesn’t really have any of those reasons to be a pessimistic downer that he had before the events of the series. Not to say he has no reasons to be sad, of course, we still haven’t been given even a hint of what his family and home life is like, and I expect something will happen with that eventually. But with where the story has gone so far, I don’t see this theory being true or narratively compelling.

TLDR: There’s not much evidence going for this theory, and several things against it, so I personally don’t see it going anywhere in the canon series. The way Okarun acts and the feelings he expresses in his yokai form could still potentially mean something, so I won't completely dismiss it, but with where the story is currently I don’t think this theory being true would add much or be a compelling element of the plot.

[starberry-cupcake]

I'm back! Thank you so much for your patience and your kind messages and comments ♥ you are so nice about my silly ramblings, I appreciate it a lot.

previously, on harrowsoup the ninth:

this happened

also I posted this and this as previews and this is the whole tag

currently, chapters 23-26:

"an atmosphere of greater unease had settled over the mithraeum"

aka the emperor's bolthole

btw, no kidding, harrow, I hadn't noticed the unease

so, harrow asks around about the herald situation

I have another deck with dragon heralds but I'm not gonna go on a card tangent this time (you're welcome)

everyone gives terrible and useless descriptions

emperor johnny boy says "Whenever they come I am bundled off to a sealed sanctum at the heart of the Mitrhaeum, so that their insanity can't touch me"

asshole coward awful man

harrobean is trying to ask why emperor asshat is so sure about her having to die and if there's no way she can make it

emperor johnny says yandere twin isn't that good at being a lyctor yet, even if she's surprising and that if he was still giving silly names, he'd name her "Saint of Awe"

harrow thinks "that had not quite suited Naberius"

get perpetually owned, chad

harrow also mentions not being able to remember things well

YOU THINK, HARROW?

"it was as though your brain had formed a scab over everything that had happened to you"

I don't think that scab is healing well

emperor johnny insists on the rapier

idk why they all insist on the rapier

gideon and camilla didn't like it and were the fucking best cavaliers ever

ARE, THEY ARE THE BEST CAVALIERS EVER

PRESENT TENSE

but anyway, at this point, it could very well be emperor johnbro has aesthetic demands

not like he'll explain anything

harrowbean sees not!dulcinea's door closed, which isn't usual

she second guesses a bit because she can't always trust what she sees and she remembers crux saying "you saw what you saw, Lady, and the only thing you control now is your reaction thereto"

I didn't like that old man, but that's pretty cool of him to say

harrow opens the door and sees this

alleged gideon the first aka ortus tells harrow to go away very calmly and in a way that is too nice for him, apparently

harrow is upset at the display in front of her salad and goes to complain to yandere twin

which is a terrible place to complain at because she's both into gossip and into kink

if you want someone to take this seriously, that's the last place to go to

"at least you know who's been moving her—so to speak"

this is what we get combining yandere twin and chad

I've used that gif twice for her already

I forgive her, though, because she says "god is a dickhead" and she's right

she also asks harrow to try to remember why emperor john god has given her the sword

and establishes that harrow previously did something to her jaw so that she couldn't tell her

that's going in the 3d model

CHAPTER 24

apparently people are being less mean to harrowbean because they're already mourning her

harrow says that alleged gideon the first aka ortus has the name ortus because "it was just a banal and uncomfortable coincidence, as though he'd carried the name of a dead childhood pet"

she believes that the name must have caught on in the ninth because anastasia must have like brought it in and named people after her pal

I think he's named gideon

and that our gideon is named after him because of direct relationship of some capacity, maybe to someone involved

I considered the mom, but it's uncertain

in any case, he has to die

so, harrow puts a lot of wards and safety things in her room

kind of like this

home alone styling it

but apparently alleged gideon the first aka ortus can bypass wards

much like the sleeper/waker

much like not!dulcinea

wards are basically pointless, I guess, at this point

so he goes into her bathroom when she's bathing because here in the emperor's bolthole, everyone's a disrespectful asshole

harrowbean says he's "a thanergy void" and "the ultimate nemesis of a bone adept"

he tries to kill her while she's looking like this

I want to give this child some cocoa and play a comfort movie for her, like "the bone collector"

she ended up using the teeth she lost in the fight as projectiles in his eyes and got him to leave

she ended up bloody, unmoving, wet, naked and collapsed on the ground to which yandere twin live reacted to and left

she could have given her a hand

or an arm

she decided alleged gideon had to die and ice cube barbie aka probably annabel lee agreed

when gideon was among us, there was not enough time for her to throw hands at people and here there's so many people she could be throwing hands at and she's not here to do so

camilla too, but camilla threw hands at martita in a way that was legendary enough

CHAPTER 25

harrow goes with the chisme to dr reverend professor emperor john

she says "I swear by the Locked Tomb"

to which he replies "I wouldn't swear by that in this instance"

which I sure hope doesn't mean anything nasty with my girl ice cube barbie annabel lee because I'm gonna kill this man

she might not be entirely alive (maybe she is, maybe she's just suspended or something) but she deserves better than this piece of work

then he says "well, that's unfortunate"

this man really knows how to handle a situation, huh

emperor john says that it's pretty unlikely that alleged gideon the first aka ortus was doing the dirty with not!dulcinea because he never showed interest before and is "legendarily unamorous"

that's another tshirt I need

I need that one and the witch one immediately

also, now we've got a problem

not just because my telenovela about how this man might or might not be related to our gideon got more convoluted

but also because if alleged gideon is aroace, I'm gonna have to stan

I don't make the rules over here, I have to stand by my people

I have a conflict of interest now

emperor john also says "you must think us all a depraved set of immortal criminals"

I mean yes, I do, but not because of sexy times with zombies

I'm not here to judge the sexytimes of necromancers and whatever they do in their spare time

I don't know the intricacies of consent with ghosts or whatever, I can't be imparting judgment

it's not that, emperor john

it's because you're unpleasant war criminals who are killing planets for fun

well, the war criminal part I don't have hard evidence on rn but the situation doesn't seem to be in the favor of these people

I feel like when this man talks about the overall situation I'm getting a speech from emperor palpatine

emperor reverend john asks harrow, who has been awake for 25 years, to go to sleep

yeah, sure, she should go to sleep and wait for this guy to come by and try to kill her for the millionth time

meanwhile, harrowbean keeps collecting hours without sleep like

she makes, at the request of emperor camp counselor john, soup for everyone

I don't remember if it was here or before and I forgot but, this is extremely important

they mentioned cassiopeia being the one who cooked before

cassiopeia the same one with the ceramics collection, if I'm remembering correctly

cassiopeia who was also from the sixth, I think

camilla's house

she's checking every single one of my boxes like a sniper

why isn't she here, we're stuck with the grumpy one and the senior chad

ANYWAY, at the mention of harrow cooking I thought, immediately, "that's an awesome way to kill this guy"

I was picturing more like a poison type situation, although I didn't know how that could be achieved

something like this

but I should have known poison was too subtle for harrowcita

like I established back when protozoa's head was found in her closet, subtle isn't harrow's style

so it was more like this

basically, harrow sectioned her tibia to put some in the soup and then she could necrobend it so that it attacked from the inside

if I'm getting it right

insane plan and I love it

emperor john shadyman says "ten thousand years since I've eaten human being, Harrow, and I didn't really want an encore."

were they snacking on people during the Resurrection???

did they kill people by making lunch?????

???????????????????????????????????????????

"you think we're bad because we have sexy times with ghoulies?? uwu" that's the least of my concerns johnny john man

harrow then breaks down and asks straight to his face WHY THE FUCK MUST SHE SUFFER LIKE THIS

she calls herself a nonsense

the only nonsense here is what this emperor man speaks

she tells him she hasn't slept in six days

for a sleep deprived plan, it was excellent tbh

emperor man over here asks yandere twin to take her to sleep

and then stays with mercygirl to whom he says it's insane that harrow could do what she did and how did mercygirl miss that

this is the situation, as I have previously established

augustine looks at harrow "as if he had seen the ghost of someone he did not particularly like"

alleged gideon the first aka ortus salutes her on her way out

he doesn't even have heartburn

CHAPTER 26

we're back on gideon-less canaan house because it's time for more people to die

in ways that make 0 sense at all for what we know so far

regina george twin is pushed to her death by mayonnaise uncle

sounds fake to me

like, come on

regina george twin can probably murder that feeble guy on sight

we saw her spar with gideon, she wanted to be the cav that chad ended up being

she might not be a necro but she can stand her ground in a physical fight

mayonnaise uncle without duracell bunny nephew is like a sweaty guy on an anime con complaining about girls ruining everything while buying a maid figurine

she can take him

anyway, he does that and he says to her "and somewhere out there, may all the blood of your blood suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered"

now, this is weird

is he talking about yandere twin?

he wants revenge because yandere twin obliterated him?

is yandere twin "out there"?

I'd say this might be limbo BUT CAMILLA ISN'T DEAD

harrow is going to him and he says "she has not remembered her end" "is this how it happens then?"

and then he yeeted himself into space

that's what I wanted to do with not!dulcinea all along

so, yeah, well, this canaan business is getting more complicated now that it's not just people being shot

people are throwing themselves and others into space

and the memories of harrow in the emperor's bolthole aren't completely lining up with these

and mayonnaise uncle seemed to have been more aware of things than others around here?? or maybe just more forthcoming??? in that cryptic otaku way of his

also, no camilla at all still

Things are heating up in the emperor's bolthole, hope to come back soon with another one and thanks for the patience, hope it was worth it.

[tinfoil-jones]

Gravity Falls: For Your Own Good, Ch. 4

Summary: A few years after moving to Gravity Falls and having his lab built, Stanford Pines happens upon his estranged twin brother, Stanley. He mentally prepared himself to be suffocated by his brothers neediness all over again - what he wasn't prepared for was Stanley walking right past him like he didn't even notice him.

Rating: M for language, violence, and adult implications

Preface: Dialogue only, but some actions will be annotated for clarity. Cross-Posted on AO3 Here

First - Prev - Next

CH.4

"If we’re going to get to the pit of this peach we gotta get some variables outta the way first. I need a scan of his brain and yours. While conscious.”

“Mine as well?”

“You said he’s your identical twin - he should be genetically the same as you. We can use a scan of your brain as a comparison to see if there’s physical damage on the organ itself, because brain damage is the most common cause of amnesia.”

“I do have the technology available for an in-depth scan, but… ”

 “But what?”

“It’s in the shape of a ray gun, but like a traditional MRI whoever is getting scanned has to stay completely still.”

“I don’t s’pose in the time it took me to go into town and get supplies, you managed to reconcile with him?”

“Reconcile? He’s still convinced I’m a mad scientist out to harvest his organs, 'or worse turn him over to the IRS'- don’t ask about that second part. If I point anything gun-shaped at him, he’ll freak out.”

“Can’t say I blame him…”

“Hush, Fiddleford. There’s an easy way we can get him to hold still.”

“Stanford- Stanford put the tranquilizing doohickey away. We both know that concoction of yours wasn’t formulated with humans in mind. Surely you have less caustic means of sedation.”

---

“Stanford, anyone can tell that bottle’s been tampered with.”

“I have a theory that this persona of his is so self-destructive he’ll still drink it.”

“Y’know, this bottled water tastes suspiciously like two crushed Ambien tablets.” 

*Stan keeps drinking it anyways*  

“I am impressed, but I also hate that your theory was correct.”

*Ford undeafens the cell*

“Stanley, if you think there’s zolpidem in that, why are you still drinking it?”

“You think two Ambien is enough to take me down? Guess again, I’ve used this stuff to cut coke. You’re gonna have to try harder than that, PhD.” 

“Hmm, so we should have used Coca-Cola instead of water…”

“That ain’t what he meant by- how did you survive by yourself out here?”

---

“Hello there …Stan?”

“Sup babe.”

“Don’t call me that. I was wondering - you’re so handsome already, but it’d surely tickle my fancy a bit more if you put on this here necktie.”

“Hell no.”

“Do you not know how to tie one? I’d be happy to-.”

“I know how to tie a tie, specs. But I’ll never wear a necktie ever again. Not after Colombia… I still can’t shave that part of my jaw without nightmares.”

“I beg your pardon?”

---

“I couldn’t convince him to put the mind control tie on.”

“Fiddleford, why are you staring a thousand yards away?”

“He was explaining to me his time in Colombian prison, then he went on a tangent about necklaces and now I don’t think I can change a tire without thinking about it ever again.”

“... Interesting. We’re not resorting to the tranq gun yet?”

“This is your own brother you’re talking about.” 

“There’s only one thing we can do. The only thing that will 99.99% work on my brother. I didn’t think it would have to come to this so soon. But it’s our only unharmful option left.”

---

“Stanley.”

“Doc.”

“I will give you twenty dollars if you stay still for thirty whole seconds.”

“On one hand this is a set up… On the other hand, I’ve done worse for twenty dollars.”

“You what ?”

“Ten bucks up front.”

To be continued...

[elbiotipo]

I really hate when a story just doesn't explain where people get food from. Like, if it's high fantasy with a mythic vibe, it doesn't matter, because it's not supposed to match material reality, but in something more low fantasy or sci-fi or post-apocalyptic or whatever you need to explain how your world functions. I'm reading a fantasy novel where the main character gets sent to the Demon Realm for a bit, and even though the entire place is a barren wasteland with apparently no agriculture or animal husbundry, there're large mobile cities with markets with bread and meat and food and potions and etc.

Like, they specifically call out that there aren't many plants in the demon realm, and wood is exceptionally rare, and then just don't elaborate on where wheat comes from.

I think some people are disconnected or uninterested in wondering where things come from in their own life and so they don't apply this to their own writing. But there's also a sense that such things are "boring" or "distract from the story" when they are actually very important to setting up the atmosphere and plot. I mean, why do you have a "demon realm" if you just have markets and such? What's the difference between such a (supernatural?) realm and the material world?

Because this is something I've been also wondering especially with regards to "evil demons" in fantasy. As I understand them as a concept (informed by my own Western/Christian background of course), demons (and angels and everything in between above or below) are supernatural beings and so they don't physical subsistence, at least not in the way we do. They are also somewhat "above" human comprehension, so they don't exactly behave as human. So when you have demons living in the "material" world you have to wonder how that exactly works, if they do have the same needs and way of thinking as humans. And if they do, what does it mean in this context to treat them as entirely "evil" or "good".

(of course, the word "demon" here could mean a lot of things, for example, in East Asian fantasy sometimes it is used as a translation for concepts such as Yaoguai which I would rather say are "monsters", while there are many, many other categories and concepts of the general idea of "supernatural being", there's a lot of nuance here)

ANYWAYS, returning from that tangent. Your world can be as fantastical as you wish. But if there are human beings on it, or otherwise biological material beings, they have needs to be fullfilled beyond whatever quest or context they're on. They need to eat, to drink, to have shelter, to sleep and so on. And this does not mean that you should spend chapters on telling me how your characters eat or sleep, but it does mean that if you want to convince the reader that this is a world with people you should care about, you should write it as if it indeed was a world with people.

[muninnhuginn]

Liu Xiao Overview and Speculation

Thought I'd pull together what we actually know of Liu Xiao thus far and throw in a few of my own speculations for good measure. For someone with so little screentime, there's actually a decent amount to dig into.

This post will contain spoilers up to episode three of yingdu as this is what has aired at the time I'm writing this. I'm going to try and reference episodes and rough timestamps best I can throughout this in case anyone wants to check through themselves.

(Note: made slight edits due to translation issues. See @protect-namine's reblog for more context)

Family

So, our first direct reference to Liu Xiao in the series proper is in season two episode one (~14m), where Liu Jing says that Liu Min doesn't have "half the talent of his younger brother". It's also known that Liu Xiao is currently "away" (later clarified as him studying abroad) and people are anticipating his return.

Essentially, Liu Min is the unfavourite, seen as constantly causing trouble and needing bailing out (with copious amounts of money), whilst Liu Xiao is the golden child. (Interestingly, Qian Jin being so used to solving Liu Min's problems in order to protect the reputation of the company for Liu Jing is likely exactly why Li Tianchen and Liu Min initially came into contact)

Now, Liu Jing may see Liu Xiao as the talented heir to the company, especially as Liu Min was widely seen as a nepo hire (s1e9 ~4m), but Liu Xiao's own opinion on his family seems to lean more towards surface level appeasement, whilst he himself is more distant to them. He refers to his own father as Boss Liu and says that he's not close with him (yingdu ep 2). When interacting with his mother (s2e12), he largely nods along, but it's clear he has his own plans to be getting on with that take priority. And that largely maps to his background machinations in season two overall.

Liu Min

Just going to tangent a second to mention my personal pet theory that Liu Min is likely adopted. Liu Xiao could also be, to be fair, but I think there's more evidence down the Liu Min end for me to be more confident of in this stage.

There's the elephant in the room that these are two sons of differing age who would have been born under the one-child policy. And sure, there have always been exceptions to the policy (and those who are rich are more likely to just pay the relevant fine), but my point is that it's a *choice* to have different age siblings (compare-contrast the Lis who are explicitly twins and the relationship between Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi who are not biologically related but have a siblingesque dynamic).

The final bit of circumstantial evidence is Liu Min's hair. As you see in the photo above (s2e12 ~18m), Liu Min has had blond hair from a very young age, which significantly decreases the likelihood of him dyeing it. This photo also shows his mum's hair colour is naturally black (as opposed to the brown dye she has in her dressed-up present day aesthetic), which means both parents are black hair to Liu Min's blond. (Side note, but the framing of this photo is so striking in how it directs the eyes to see Liu Min as the clear black sheep of the family.)

If it gets confirmed that Liu Min is adopted and Liu Xiao *isn't* though, then it does cast a different light on Liu Min being seen as the worthless sibling. The fact that in this photo of his childhood he's smiling bright yet his later appearances have him so wrapped in self-delusion that he'll order hits on online strangers and cling to any chance of 'friendship'. The way that when he was younger Liu Jing would show him off to business associates but by the time of yingdu he was persona non grata. Liu Min gets more pitiful the more we know of him.

Emma/Quede Games client

So, let's dial it back to season one. I know I'm far from the first person to think this way, but I'll try to explain how I came to the conclusion that the client in Emma (s1e1) was either Liu Xiao or intentionally influenced by him.

(I'm saying 'influenced by' as an option rather than straight up him for a few reasons, but one of them is... translation choices. See below (s1e9 ~18m):

One translation names Emma as the client in her own case (I'm not *totally* sure she'd be alive to order her own dive, but okay - I'm not going into Emma ep timelines rn) and the other just says she was a player in said case rather than explicitly the client. The other reason I'm saying 'influenced by' as an option rather than straight up Liu Xiao is because he was out of the country during the entirety of season one, only returning in the final episode of season two. So whilst it's possible he could have recruited Qiao Ling directly (phones aren't limited by country, after all) I'm just going to keep it as "part of Liu Xiao's plan".)

Anyway, s1e1, we first find out that there's a client who wants to obtain the financial data for Quede Games before it's released to the public. This eventually leads to financial discrepancies coming to light. Zhu Ye, the CFO, was embezzling money, and ends up under investigation. As we later find out, he was funneling money both to himself and Liu Min. (And once Liu Min finds out his source of extra income is cut off, he goes after Emma as the one responsible)

It's laid out in the episode itself that only the CFO has this data. But who would know enough about the data in the first place to know what it would reveal? Surely it would have to be inside information from someone with reason to bring the company into disrepute. Quede Games is implied to be very efficient at massaging over scandals (Liu Jing makes reference to this in s2e1, as does Liu Min in s2e9) so it would take something big for them to properly break into the news.

Now, the client *could* be Emma, as she did have the knowledge of the discrepancies, but not only does the timeline not match (aka, she would already be dead unless I'm missing something) but it also doesn't align with what we know of her outlook. Emma started as someone trying to make it big in the city, but by the time of her episode, she was close to her breaking point. What she wanted was her parents, not to lose her job.

So, it's probably not Emma. It's not Zhu Ye, because why would he tell on himself? Not Liu Jing, because he seems to think Zhu Ye being investigated is an attack on him. I guess I can't technically rule out Liu Jing's wife, but as we don't even get her name, that seems a long shot. So, who's left with connection to Quede Games? Liu Xiao.

Liu Xiao had Li Tianchen obtain Liu Min's phone from under the noses of both Qian Jin and Liu Jing (s2e12 ~21m). Our only real hint as to what is on that phone comes much earlier in season two, during the discussion between Qian Jin and Liu Jing (s2e4 ~1m). "I'm not interested in your family secrets," says Qian Jin, implying that's exactly what's on the missing phone. Qian Jin is privy to all sorts of dirty secrets in his role as company fixer, so it's curious that this seems more personal than business. Either way though, the phone is proof that Liu Xiao is working against his father, even if he plays nice to his parents' faces.

And, of course, Liu Jing mentions in that exact same conversation: "First, Zhu Ye being investigated, now Liu Min. Someone must be messing with me!" Like, yes, wonder who that could be.

Liu Xiao's actions involve secretively working against his parents. I'd say attacking the company by exposing financial fraud would fit the bill perfectly.

Motives and personality

His PV is called 'manipulator' and... yeah, hard to argue against that. His official art features him playing puppeteer to Li Tianchen even. What I *would* like to argue though is what *type* of manipulator he is.

Liu Xiao plays the long game. He's not just "mask on, get benefit, escape". He sewed seeds in Li Tianchen *years* prior and only reaped them in the current day. In a similar way, he speaks cordially to his parents. They both speak of him as though they're proud of him and that he's "much better than their other son". And yet, he's been working against them for some time. He's intelligent and charismatic enough to pull it off.

Liu Xiao's relationship with Li Tianchen is the most telling though, in how he uses his friendship as a leash. On first meeting Li Tianchen (s2e4 ~0m), he validates Li Tianchen hiding away with Li Tianxi when the abuse kicks off. But he follows it up with his speech about animals, clearly framing Liu Lan as a scared animal, whilst implying that Li Tianchen was also a scared animal, but one who could change to become a hunter if he stopped hiding.

Liu Xiao then continues this framing throughout their childhood flashbacks and into the present day timeline (s2e9 ~13m | s2e12 ~21m). The idea is that Li Tianchen can become a hunter but it's *conditional*. Li Tianchen could be friends with Liu Xiao but he has to *act*. Liu Xiao will only deign to be friends with someone who "has guts". I have no idea how much of this was intentional vs subconscious manipulation, but either way, Liu Xiao isolated Li Tianchen's guilt over not acting in order to make him act the way *he* wanted.

Anyway, he also seems to have a strong belief in a higher order (and I'm starting to think said higher order is *himself*), what with his whole "make the timelines into one single river". Liu Xiao's stated aim is to "turn uncertainties into certainties". The world as it is runs in parallel lines, influenced by many factors (personality, other people, etc). Like a game of poker or russian roulette, really.

Given his hunter-prey speech, it seems clear that he believes himself to be a "hunter". That he's doing this not because he has some great need, but because he wants to control events. Win this grand game he's set up for himself. Which is curious because in yingdu ep 2, he says, "you use your unfair advantages to stay in control."

Regardless of what you believe about Liu Xiao's powers, it's hard not to think that this applies somewhat to himself. But it'd be interesting if he saw himself attacking Quede Games and taking down the gambling ring as him "evening the odds" for others. Imo, I'm not sure the idea fits with his personality (as, yk, *hunter-prey* speech), but it could certainly be spun that way.

And any good manipulator needs some good press.

[thewebcomicsreview]

So, Gunwild, the writer of Cassiopeia Quinn, made a comment on that post about webcomics turning into illustrated prose

gunwildversuseverything said: I was hoping this would prompt a discussion about formats and expression, but no, it’s about artist versus writer workloads and “amount of story” being reduced to equations and word counts and update schedules. Figures.

And you know what, it's a good point. So instead of getting into the Artist vs Writers debate for the millionth time, let's take a look at how you, and artist and/or writer, can get a story told on the internet. For the sake of this discussion, lets assume you don't have any actual preference for a given medium that might influence you, you just want to know what's right for your story and will learn whatever skills you need.

TRADITIONAL WEBCOMIC

Comics are the most visual-heavy medium that a solo project can realistically do. This has several business advantages (pictures do better on social media), but it's also a good fit for stories with a bunch of things that are interesting to look at. Cassiopeia Quinn is a story heavily featuring weird alien races, cool spaceships, and attractive young women with extraordinarily casual dress codes. These are visual things! And visual things can be conveyed super quickly and subtly using visuals. Imagine just the "Cassiopeia doesn't wear pants" gimmick, if this was written out. If Cassiopeia gets a description of her appearance the first time she shows up in chapter one and then it's kind of glossed over, the reader would forget. If every time Cassiopeia entered a scene Gunwild had to go

Cassiopeia sauntered up to the motorcycle rack. Her own rack was barely contained by a dangling strip of black fabric, visible through an open orange jacket. Black elbow-high sleeves, covering her hands, matched her thigh-high stockings, separated from her black panties by her thigh pouch.

Somehow it's a lot less cute when it's written out like this, huh? And it also takes way longer to read that then it does to just look at her on the page, which increases the chance your readers might get bored. Comics are the medium that takes the most time to make and also the least time to read, which makes readers a lot more likely to put up with exposition or a plot tangent that doesn't really connect with them. Even if your comic has bits that don't grip your readers, they can grip themselves if you show them interesting bits.

The main downside of comics is the "equations and update schedules" part. They take a looooooong time to make, even compared to everything else. It's also got issues with how people read it. A comic that looks good on a desktop often looks too small on a phone.

TEXT UNDER A PANEL

This style is so strongly associated with Homestuck that a lot of people who weren't making explicitly Homestuck-themed comics seem to have been scared off it. But it's a perfectly cromulent format. It reads well on both desktop and mobile, and lets you use art for all your visuals while using text for dialogue and character thoughts. It's not, however, the best fit for every story. Because each panel is separate, it can be hard to make an exciting action scene this way, which is part of why this format is also associated with special animated pages (I mean, besides "Homestuck did it"). The panels don't really flow into each other, and there's a constant switching between looking and reading.

ILLUSTRATED PROSE

Distinguished from the Text Under a Panel Style mostly by the ratio of text to art, without a hard line demarcating the distinction between them. This style also reads well in desktop and mobile. Well, it should, but a lot of webcomics who switch to this style tend to stay in their webcomic format, meaning it's a picture of text that doesn't resize legibly, grumble grumble. I don't....I don't know if I need to explain the concept of "text" to people. You know what words are, and if you don't there's nothing I can say to explain it.

VISUAL NOVEL

I'm not going to claim to be a visual novel expert, but the main advantages are that it's the most art-efficient medium of any of these (because you can flat-out reuse art), the main disadvantages are that you'll usually need music, it's maybe not as well suited to long monologues, and most importantly that it's not a good method for drip-feed three-day-a-week updates. You kind of have to release the entire thing all at once, or at least in large episodes.

ALL OF THE ABOVE

A comic like Out-of-Placers is mostly traditional, but uses illustrated prose for lore updates. Prequel is text-under-a-panel but not always, and of course Homestuck is the absolute king of format switching, even ignoring the animations. The upside is that you can use the best format for any given scene, and that you're constantly keeping your readers on their toes. The downside (besides having to learn to do all this shit) is that you kind of have to commit to the bit and get your readers on board early with the idea that you're going to just be doing whatever this week. It's also harder to take full advantage of any one medium if you're constantly switching them up

I'm sure I'm forgetting about two hundred formats, but what are the biggest ones I'm missing?

[luniviravosshipper]

I really want to be supportive of the creators of this show. I really want to hype up the release of this new season. TDP has a bit of smaller fanbase than most shows like it and I want to show and share my love for it as much as I can. I especially don’t want to seem too negative or critical of minor details and flaws within the new season the day it gets out.

But honestly… I know I might still need to sit with my thoughts for a little bit longer so I can properly digest them, but I have so many thoughts overall on how they wrote Viren’s arc that I feel the need to share. And let me just say, plain and simply, I was not a fan.

I just have… so many mixed feelings regarding it.

Look. I understand why they made certain choices. I think it’d be really interesting to go back and analyze those choices. And obviously they had specific intentions in mind by making those choices. But do I still agree with those choices? No. I’m just going to put that there bluntly. I do not.

And, before anyone makes assumptions, no, I’m not complaining about him not being redeemed or forgiven. That’s not the part that rubs me off the wrong way.

Sure, I have other criticisms too for the season, but I feel like I can wait to share those. But with Viren, I’m kind of actually trying to resist the urge to post a whole tangent listing my complaints with how his arc was handled. I might be a little bit biased because he is my most favorite character in the entire series, but I also think that he plays a crucial role in the show as he used to be one of the main antagonists and there’s a lot of reasons I can think of how they could’ve handled his character arc in a way that would have honored his role more.

But mainly, I’m just wondering if anyone else shares this sentiment or a similar one? I don’t know if my takes on Viren’s arc will turn out to be controversial or not.

I might actually make an elaborate post explaining my thoughts on his arc more coherently later. Again though, I still need to process and evaluate my views on it for me to finalize any of my opinions.

[funkyfandomlover]

god sometimes i get SO socially anxious on here and it’s STUPID i see someone disagree with a ship or headcanon i have and instead of being like “oh that’s fine” im like “oh that’s fine WAIT. am i stupid for liking that oh god wAIT”

nothing against the people that actually do disagree w stuff i like! its just that especially when it’s something i see has a lot of notes or something a mutual says/reblogs im like “haha wait is it fine if i like that”

if im being so fr it kind of stems from my irl life, i have had a lot of problems with people saying something’s dumb and then saying im dumb for liking that thing so i just kinda. stopped doing that.

its kind of the reason why i don’t really post silvaze stuff or sonamy stuff despite silvaze being one of my otps because I’ve seen people be like “ew sonamy is gross and I don’t like anyone who ships it” n stuff and I know its my blog and I should try to get more comfy w putting my ships and headcanons on here but I think I have a problem called “i wanna be liked and have friends” and that honestly impacts how i post and stuff. only recently did i start getting comfortable reblogging stuff thanks to mutuals

its like i have a knee jerk reaction to people saying they hate stuff i like and the reaction isn’t anger or a desire to explain it its just “should… should i not like this either?”

anyway sorry for the tangent. im gonna try to get a little more comfortable posting my headcanons and ships and stuff but yeah

edit: adding to this i think this actually got worse when i got into sonic. people here can be amazing, but some people get so toxic and aggressive about things to the point where I’m a bit scared to post stuff about ships especially

[galacticnova3]

thinking about that triple star head cannon post

if triple star is a legendary weapon like galaxia, why did they still allow daroach to use them when he was possessed?

Short version: when Daroach got possessed by Dark Nebula, Triple Star didn’t have enough control in that situation to stop themself from being used. Not that she’s the type to turn her back on her wielder even under those circumstances. Dark Nebula was also just a special case of being the exact type of being best able to take advantage of her strengths.

Long answer: given that MK still uses Galaxia even when he’s possessed or otherwise being influenced by an outside force, I imagine the connection formed between cursed* weapon and wielder essentially makes it so that if their wielder gets possessed or otherwise externally controlled, that actually extends to them as well. (*In my headcanon, curses are just a form of automatically self-perpetuating magic— not aren’t inherently bad or evil, even though the term has overall negative connotations. They’re used for basically anything that requires a spell or the like to be used repeatedly or indefinitely. Binding a soul to an object permanently requires cursing it, most forms of enchantment are technically curses, etc. Technically even Lor is cursed, but that’s a tangent and you probably get the idea by now.) This is actually one of the primary weaknesses of these weapons as a whole, as while they cannot be directly possessed or influenced, if they give their blessing to someone and then that person gets controlled, they can’t just retract the blessing without their wielder experiencing severe and potentially life-threatening consequences. They can try to hold back so that their manipulated wielder can’t do as much, but they can’t just turn themselves off in an emergency.

It’s exactly why Galaxia is so picky about who she will allow to wield her compared to Triple Star’s more lax nature. In many ways Galaxia is more powerful than Triple Star, so she is significantly more concerned about the possibility of being used for evil— she definitely functions a lot more like a classical cursed weapon than Triple Star, just with a conscience. I’ve already explained it before but just to recap, Galaxia gets her power from soul magic, which she can then transfer to her wielder. It’s why in the Meta Knightmare modes you get access to various abilities via defeating enemies; MK is invoking her power after she gathers soul magic from his enemies/opponents. That is in addition to her less often used elemental capabilities she grants even without additional soul magic, though you can actually see some of them when you fight MK in Epic Yarn. Basically, she knows very well that she is a powerful soul-sapping sword who can be used to empower her wielder, so she refuses to even entertain the idea of being used by anyone who might use her for evil of their own accord.

Triple Star, on the other hand, derives her power from the bonds between others; in that regard she actually has a sort of built-in failsafe against possession, in that usually in cases of possession it’s a matter of one entity trying to overpower another rather than cooperate. Trying to wield her in that state renders her fairly ineffective because there is no bond to draw power from, only struggle. Under normal circumstances, Daroach makes for a perfect wielder because he’s the leader of a very close-knit group and generally doesn’t mean any harm, even if he’s a bit greedy and often on the wrong side of the law. He’s a criminal but he’s not a bad person, and he has respectable standards and a moral code that’s solid enough for them. (This same idea is also why Kirby is so good at using them; friendship is his whole thing, obviously.) Even if she could, abandoning Daroach would have been against her own nature.

As for why Dark Nebula specifically was able to make use of them, and was even able to make their magic more powerful(note the difference in power between Daroach and Dark Daroach): it relates to that headcanon post I made yesterday. When possessing someone, Nebula effectively becomes a hivemind of nonetheless distinct instances of himself who naturally tend to agree far more than they disagree. As far as Triple Star’s magic is concerned, that’s like having the backing of a group of people who are all on the same page and more or less perfectly in sync with each other. She does not directly control her own abilities, much like Galaxia doesn’t directly control hers, so since Nebula was operating through Daroach she couldn’t stop him from using her. Once he was forced out, of course, he immediately lost the ability to do anything with her because he failed the vibe check spectacularly and she was extremely pissed that some grubby little bastard of a Dark Matter would possess HER friend.

They still sometimes poke fun at him for the situation just because the two recognize that in spite of his potential Nebula was still ultimately a pathetic cringelet, but it doesn’t mean they would take the star lightly if they were to meet again. Triple Star would probably hold more of a grudge than Daroach, actually. Don’t mess with her friends.

[ambicutiebutt]

Saw this post about Omegaverse, and hoo boy, do I ever have some opinions. But I don't want to reply to them because I don't want it to be taken as an attack on their opinion either.

Sort of just explaining how i see things, and also a bit of a vent, so I'm keeping this post under a read-more and turning off reblogs.

They said that Omegaverse is basically by and for cis women with breeding kinks. Doing this "before considering trans men exist in real life." And that the yuri is for lesbians who like dominant women but can't stand the idea of trans women.

It sounds like they're trying to say that the genre where the audience surrogate is generally a man who can get pregnant is cisnormative...... Please, please, reread that thought.

Starting off, I want to discuss the point that: "Trans men exist! Use them in your stories instead!" Okay, the main difference between trans men and men who can get pregnant in omegaverse is going to be societal acceptance. It's nice to be able to tell some distinctly trans stories without having to go through the dysphoria of coming out or how real life society treats people.

Really it sounds like the same is true for Yuri omegaverse. Why is it believed that women who enjoy the idea of women having penises are somehow against trans women? I can understand the thought that one might think they are fetishizing trans women, but thinking this content is for women who don't like trans women but want a dom woman with a penis is an odd take?

Lastly, the idea that cisgender women are writing these stories for other cisgender women:

Not all cisgender women ARE cisgender women. Many people are "cisgender women" and then through exploring media, reading stories and writing their own stories, may come to realize that they are not cisgender women at all.

Cisgender women do enjoy and write these stories for a BIIIIIIIGGG reason. This goes for yaoi in general: Women are generally not allowed to enjoy sex. Wouldn't it be nice to write a story with a character who is allowed to enjoy sex? Without being labeled a slut? Without being demonized for it? So write the stories where the character you identify with is a more feminine man. Or write a story where neither is a character you identify as, so you don't have to feel guilty. Neither of them are you.

Kind of a side tangent but please stop hating on things for being by and for cis women. Like- I hear "booktok girls" used as an insult. Fujoushis and hetjoushis used as an insult. I see posts like this as well. And I cant help but circle back to point number 2: cis het women are not allowed to enjoy their own sexuality.

I could have said "women" are not allowed to enjoy their own sexuality, and I could have said "afab people" are not allowed to enjoy their own sexuality. But I don't want my argument to be "don't hate on cis women, some of them aren't actually cis!" I want my argument to be "Don't hate on women trying to enjoy their sexuality." In queer spaces especially I see this, like i said with booktok girls and fujoshis and hetjoshis used as an insult, it is seen as okay to continue to put down women for enjoying sexual stuff when those women are cis-het. Stop it? Please? This whole thing exists because women can't enjoy their own sexuality, and every time they try and carve their own place to enjoy their sexuality on their own terms, that too is insulted and treated as trash. And those women are once again vilified for enjoying it. Or in this case, for not being queer. "I could accept omegaverse if it were queer, if it were about and for gay people or trans people, but it is not queer enough for me, I can tell by reading it you are not queer and therefore it is bad and you are bad" is not a good take.