#i'm mostly incoherent here probably

[chobblesomewrites]

Grumbo Professional Esports AU (abandoned work)

A collection of drabbles/scenes rearranged in chronological order featuring Team Coach Mumbo x Pro Player Grian. Warning; makes use of League of Legends/MOBA Mechanics. Unrealistic depiction of the esports scene.

No, this will not be fully written or edited. Prepare for weird pacing and incoherence. I'M JUST POSTING THIS SO I CAN STOP BEING ASKED ABOUT IT </3

—————

[ READ BELOW ]

Mumbo wasn't one for competitive games, but he had made exceptions from time to time. Those times mostly due to his online best friend wanting to drag him to experience almost anything and everything with him.

He wouldn't have even dreamed of touching MOBA games if it weren't for Grian begging him to, excusing that no one else but Mumbo was actually willing to deal with his competitive nature. He had first refused, firmly wanting to stick to his farming simulator games, but Grian knew too well how to act like a brat to get what he wanted.

So he found himself on [                ]’s tutorial screen, anxiously going through it while Grian remained in the Discord call with him, giggling at every noise he made every time he jumped from the sight of an enemy NPC.

“You lied when you said this game had a farming mechanic,” Mumbo accused his friend with a whine as he spam clicked on a highlighted enemy minion, clicking his tongue when he missed the gold.

Grian cackled, “Well, killing minions for gold is called farming. So technically I wasn't lying?”

Mumbo let out an audible huff of betrayal, which made Grian laugh even more as he tried killing his character to the minions out of spite.

—

Mumbo had thought he wouldn't be playing the game as often, for the main reason he had the game at all was because Grian occasionally didn't have anyone to play with, as he said. But he had plenty of friends so Mumbo didn't feel the need to open the game as he would probably be the last person on Grian's friendlist to be asked.

But dear lord was he wrong.

After getting bullied for his lack of game knowledge for one night, Grian kept inviting him to duo queue every single day. Mumbo would've been led to believe that Grian actually didn't have friends except for him if it weren't for their friends occasionally coming by to 5 man queue with them. But even then, that led Mumbo questioning even more of Grian's motives to specifically invite him of all people, adding to the fact that Grian apparently hated playing ADC but specifically only played it when in duo queue with Mumbo.

It was confusing. So, so confusing. Mumbo was so pants at the game yet Grian just kept inviting him nonetheless!

So, Mumbo thought; if Grian wanted to play with him that badly, he'd have to adjust his mentality to make sure that his best friend was actually having fun. He wasn't just here to keep Grian company anymore, he was here to now help Grian actually enjoy his games.

On weekday nights Grian would be too busy to get online, Mumbo used his free time to get on custom and try out other heroes outside of just support. He specifically tried mid laners in hopes to give Grian more opportunities to play roles outside of ADC, trying to prove that Mumbo was more than capable of handling himself!

He learned the map, how to invade, how to dodge, how to properly farm– everything. He needed to learn everything.

If it was for Grian, he'll take on everything.

–

[ DEFEAT ]

“....”

The call was silent, save for Grian who did horribly to muffle his laughter. Mumbo groaned in embarrassment into his hands, “Midlaning is hard,” he admitted in a mumble, which caused Grian to outright laugh into his mic.

“You didn't have to force yourself to try.”

“But you like playing jungle.” Mumbo pouted.

“Not all the time! Who on earth even says they like playing jungle?”

Mumbo sighed as he clicked off the after-game stats, returning back to their party lobby to see Grian already waiting to start the queue. The man already set himself back to the ADC role and it made Mumbo slump even more in guilt over his desk.

By some magical force, Grian probably felt his bad mood and he reassured with a smile, “I still think it's more fun if we're laning together.”

“You get to spoil me and you'd only have eyes for me!” Grian teased.

Mumbo felt himself flush red at that. Not knowing how to quip back, he simply said, “Shut up.”

–

5 man queues are always fun. It means Mumbo could just turn off his brain and listen to his friends talk and trash talk without having to say much because there's enough of them to hold the conversation together.

Mumbo was about to fully zone out while watching Grian’s character farm freely in their lane when he heard him speak up about something in their team's idle conversation on call.

“You know, I actually plan to be a professional gamer.”

From whatever conversation the call was going through, everyone in their friend group broke into laughter at Grian's admittance. Mumbo could hear Grian's pout as he tried to defend his dream, “I'm serious here!”

Their friends laughed even more, “How plausible would that even be as a job? We're just teenagers, dude. Who would wanna sign kids like us?”

Their words were obviously just trying to tease Grian, but Grian didn't take it lightly. The ADC went quiet as the friends in call continued on about how ridiculous of a scene it would be if anyone of them were to actually turn out to be 

Out of nowhere, Mumbo suddenly spoke up, “I think it's not impossible.”

The conversation paused and Mumbo suddenly felt conscious of the attention on his words. Nonetheless, he continued on, “I believe in you, if you are still going to try.”

“I'll try it with you.”

The call bursted into laughter again, even Grian couldn't help but giggle, which made Mumbo feel hot in the face from embarrassment. He spent the rest of the game making so many mistakes because the entire call kept teasing him for making such bold declarations.

He was able to live through 2 games of that until the other 3 friends in their team decided to log off, leaving him with Grian. Mumbo had thought that he would log off too, but he simply clicked the queue button without saying anything, leaving 

2 minutes into the queue, Grian finally spoke up, “I'm holding you up to that promise, you know.”

“You better go professional with me.”

Mumbo wonders if he's gonna regret promising that, given how ominous Grian makes it sound as if he's sold his soul to the devil. But if the devil were Grian, he finds that he doesn't really mind missing a part of himself.

–

Ever since that promise, Grian had been relentless with playing with Mumbo. Not that he wasn't always relentless before, but Grian was now determined to actually help Mumbo catch up to his level. They've even started custom 1v1s in hopes to improve.

Other people, if they were in Mumbo's position, would've been annoyed. Given how Grian tends to get frustrated eventually, Mumbo just takes it as a sign to be better. He couldn't slack.

He knew that Grian wasn't specifically frustrated at his skills, he was frustrated and anxious of the possibility that Mumbo wouldn't be able to sign with him if he didn't improve. They needed to do it together, Grian was stubborn to make sure of that fact.

So Mumbo didn't fault him for he loved him.

–

“Are you signed to a team?”

An account that was obviously a smurf had privately messaged him one time after a solo queue game Mumbo played while waiting for Grian. He ignored it, assuming that it was a scammer pretending to be a professional. He even went to quickly unfriend the account with this thought in mind and sat in the party lobby for a few minutes before a friend request came in.

“Xvoid,” Mumbo murmured out. He frowned and leaned back on his chair in thought, wondering if he's seen that username before. Probably in his other games, but Mumbo doesn't really actively pay attention to the randoms he and Grian match up with.

It was when he was about to decline the friend request that Grian joined the lobby with a very loud, “Mumbo Dumbo Bumbo Jumbo!”

“Grian,” Mumbo returned the sentiment, sounding more exasperated than excited like Grian. His friend must've realized something from that tone difference as he immediately questioned, “What's up?”

“Someone messaged me about signing to a team and now I'm trying to remember who this XVoid person is.”

Grian made a noise of surprise, “XVoid? Xisuma?”

“Who?”

“The Captain of [            ]! I thought we watched enough live streams together to know this?”

“... Grian, I only know Etho in that team!”

Grian made a noise of offense and went off on a tangent about each and every member of the team that was not Etho, scolding Mumbo for being a ‘solo fan’. Mumbo ignored him, hovering his mouse over Xisuma's friend request.

If it is the captain of that team, Mumbo can only assume that this was probably just a fan account. It didn't hurt to accept it. He's had a lot of friends in his friend list that he decidedly ignored a lot anyway. He just accepts them for the sake of filling that friend list.

With that over with, Mumbo started the queue, still ignoring Grian who was scolding his ear off.

–

Mumbo should've known there was going to be more to the friend request than he realized. What he assumed was a fan account was actually just the professional player's sub account.

Xisuma's team had taken notice of Mumbo, and even personally invited him to be their main team's support rather than simply being a substitute. Mumbo was about to disagree at first, discussing with Grian that he still wanted to play professionally with him, but Grian didn't stall him. He simply said;

"Go," and Mumbo had thought Grian hated him for being noticed by a team until he added, "I'll catch up."

And they left it at that. Mumbo signed with Xisuma's team as their support player but didn't even get to react properly that his online best friend didn't message him at all anymore as he was forced to move to a team provided account, leaving his personal one to the dust.

–

Mumbo's esports career didn't last longer than four years, but it was a good start for a while. He didn't have any experience whatsoever but his team was kind enough to help him throughout. He also found that a lot of people seem to like his awkward attitude so he didn't feel the need to upkeep a certain persona.

But with the constant change of meta to aggressive supports, his steady gameplay had no use in any team comps. It didn't help that, at every tournament, he got sadder and sadder the more he realized he couldn't see a certain username anywhere in both domestic and international teams even after a while. 

Grian wasn't there. The reason he was here at all, wasn't there. 

He had been moved to a substitute player midway through his career, replaced with someone more younger and aggressive in playstyle, his other teammates had also either retired or moved to better teams. The team’s management was still fond of him and he was only really kept for the fans' sentiments, but Xisuma didn't want him to live the rest of his life as a decoration, noticing the way Mumbo didn't enjoy his current status. The team they were in contract with wasn't getting any better either. They weren't going anywhere like this. Their skills could be put to more use somewhere. 

They couldn't accept the current state of things when they hadn't even won a single international championship to their name. Xisuma owed Mumbo at least a trophy for signing him up for the big leagues at such a young age that he could've used the time to explore more of his life.

He had offered Mumbo two things; Xisuma would pay so he could go back to college, or he could sign to Xisuma's budding esports company for a new chance.

As a coach, that is.

Mumbo had almost been tempted to say he would rather go back to studying, but Xisuma added more to his offer that he couldn't refuse; "You can choose the team. You'll be their main coach, after all."

Mumbo remembered that someone still promised to catch up, and he'd be willing to be a coach if it meant dragging him up here.

He promised. They promised they'd go together.

For the first time in a few years, Mumbo logged back in to his old account and clicked on a familiar user on his friend list.

"Grian,"

"You there?"

–

Mumbo wasn't confident for a while that Grian would reply back. It had been a good long while, after all. Would Grian even remember him? Mumbo's sure he himself hasn't forgotten the other, but he doesn't know if the sentiments are the same. 

Mumbo didn't really have the time to be too anxious about it either, busy helping Xisuma with properly setting up the company while also looking for managers and analysts to help him with forming the team.

The next time he finally checked his account again, he was disappointed when there was no message back. But one thing that gave him hope was when Grian’s user was lit up. He was online. And Mumbo could see damn well that his best friend, if he could still call him that, was actually just struggling to come up with a reply, especially when the indication of the other person typing kept popping up and disappearing over and over.

At least, with that, Mumbo knows that he wasn't fully ignored.

After a bit of waiting, he decided to give mercy to whatever message Grian is taking this long to send.

"Queue?"

And then the indication of Grian typing stopped. Then replying,

"You literally returned from war after how many and your first message is to ask to queue?? Not even gonna say hi to the kids?"

Mumbo burst out laughing. Somehow, it feels as if he never left for the professional scene and is back to his teenage self.

"How are you?"

"Got wife and kids."

Mumbo frowned at that, "Seriously?"

"No, you idiot. I'm this young and you think I'd have a kid already?"

"..." Mumbo rolled his eyes

"So what have you been doing this entire time?” I waited for you to catch up. Did you lie to me?

“Well one of us had to go to college, Mumbo.”

“Low Blow.”

“My bad.” Grian then typed, “Queue?”

“So now you’re trying to distract me by asking to play?”

“It's also been a while. I'm itchin’.”

Mumbo checked the time. He's fairly free for the rest of the day. And it's been a while since he's had genuine fun in the game, “Well, we ‘oughta scratch it!”

“Attaboy!”

–

They queue together for a while. Mumbo's old account had considerably ranked down so they were in lower elos. It wasn't that hard to win easily.

Grian was still good at the game, probably even better. He could catch up with Mumbo’s thinking, and Mumbo’s got the professional experience. One thing that bothered him was that Grian didn’t initiate a call like they always did years ago. Comms and all. Mumbo was left with Grian’s spam pinging and visual cues. Mumbo was too shy to ask about it, so he forced himself to be happy enough with Grian playing around with the emotes when they were idle in lane.

But surprisingly, when Mumbo thought they were about to log out, Grian told him to get in-game party call;

“Mumbo.” Oh, Mumbo has not heard that voice in a long time. Grian sounds less like a squeaker now. The long duration of having not spoken to each other was now extremely evident.

Mumbo forgot to greet back, and he didn’t get a chance to, as Grian spoke up again, “Why exactly did you message me again? Surely it's not to play, not when we could've done this for the past years.”

Mumbo didn’t know what to say for a moment. Would it be too rude to ask Grian about his previous interest in esports? Would that seem like he’s trying to flaunt at him or mock him?

His mouth twitched in hesitation, “Are you… still interested in going professional?”

“...” Grian didn’t reply, and Mumbo somehow felt even more desperate.

“You said you’d catch up.”

“I…” Grian sighed into the mic, seeming a little agitated, “Opportunities don't come as easily for me as it did for you, Mumbo.”

Mumbo furrowed his eyebrows, staring at Grian's little cat icon in disbelief, “...And so you gave up, just like that?”

“It wasn't just like that!” Grian defended. He sounded a little pissed off that Mumbo couldn't help but go quiet. At the silence, Pesky muttered an apology and calmed his tone, “Look, I- I really tried, alright? It was pressuring.”

Mumbo opened his mouth to ask what exactly pressured him but Grian beat him to it as he rambled on, “I lost my everyday duo to some team I couldn't even enter myself. Mum kept urging me to give up and go to college, but–” the voice on the other end cracked slightly but he took a long enough pause to steady himself, “I didn't want to- You, you were waiting, up on those big stages, looking around those stadiums like some lost little dog abandoned by their owner–”

“I was not some lost little dog!” Mumbo squeaked out in embarrassment, wondering if he really looked like that in the game livestreams, “How would you even know I was looking for you?!”

Grian’s smug smile could be heard in his tone, “I didn't say you were looking for me.”

Mumbo went quiet and murmured whinily, “You implied….”

The call was filled with Grian's giggling and Mumbo let himself enjoy the embarrassment for a brief moment before moving the topic along, “Anyway, I did say I was going to disagree to join them, but you urged me to accept it. I said I could've waited until we could sign together–”

“But you like the game, don't you, Mumbo?”

Caught quite off-guard, Mumbo gave his question a thought. He did like the game. Understanding the mechanics and strategy of it is fun. Winning a game was actually exciting since the winning conditions needed good skill and awareness to achieve, but… 

He only ever truly loved playing it because Grian was there. His best friend was a part of everything he loved about the game.

Mumbo was quiet and he couldn't find it in himself to actually admit his true opinions. Grian assumed that he was just embarrassed to admit that he liked the game and decided to move on, “So it was unfair to you. I couldn't drag you down. I know we promised to do it together, but that doesn't have to cost your possible futures.”

Mumbo chewed on his lip and once again quietly asked, “But are you still interested in playing?”

“Mumbo, I never stopped playing despite,” Grian said. An indirect message admitting that; he wants to play. He's always wanted to play. He never once gave up on the dream to. He's just a little late. “I wouldn't have queued with you today if I wasn't.”

Mumbo was hopeful at that admittance and he was quick to say, “Then play for me.”

“What?”

It was Grian's turn to be caught off-guard this time, sputtering in confusion and in disbelief. Mumbo could hear him sit straight on his chair, judging by the squeaking picked up by his mic, “No, that's- You shouldn't be practicing nepotism, Mumbo-”

Mumbo made a noise caught between a whine and a groan, “It's not nepotism if it's the coach's job to assemble a team of good players,” he defended. Grian was in even more disbelief this time as he caught on as to what Mumbo was getting at.

“Coach? What happened to your original team–? They still had you as a substitute…”

“Capt– X paid for the separation fee.”

Grian’s voice raised a little, “Then who and what the hell are you coaching for?”

Mumbo took a deep breath, needing to steady himself to be able to explain to Grian the situation without making it worse, “Look, I know you said you specifically wanted to play for a well-known team and, currently, X's company is just fairly knew–”

“Oh my god…” Grian muttered, his voice was muffled like he was burying his face in his hands. Mumbo ignored him as he continued to explain.

“He invited me to be the main coach, to set up the team to how I see fit since he had trust in the way I was at least aware of what was right, who was capable– Well, not to be blunt, but I have the skills to be able to strategize for an entire time and–”

Grian cut his ramble off, “You… you didn't do all this just for me, did you?”

Yes, I did. 

But, “No,” was what Mumbo said instead. “I still like the game, but I'm still not overly aggressive and competitive enough to be successful as a player, as you know.”

Silence that befell the call after that and it worried Mumbo as he didn't know if Grian could trust that reason. He was just about to continue his little persuasion when he was cut off again.

“I'm joining.”

“Before you– Wait, you are?!”

“Well, someone's gotta make sure you're not making wrong decisions! Who do you think taught you the game?! And you're planning to be the coach!?”

Mumbo couldn't even be sheepish at the underlying tone of being scolded. He was happy enough to hear Grian agree to joining even when doubt was evident in the other’s tone.

He’ll just have to show he’s capable of being Grian’s support, like always.

–

“Grian!” Mumbo had called out excitedly, approaching the man who held such a name. Maybe he was jogging more than politely approaching. Who was to blame him for being excited by the idea of finally meeting his long time online best friend face to face?

Grian’s shoulders jumped in surprise and he couldn't help but turn to look, looking even more stunned as he wasn't given time to react to the sudden hug Mumbo forced him into. His arms couldn’t find where to place itself, eventually relaxing on Mumbo’s back as he hugged back with equal eagerness.

The shorter man couldn’t help but laugh, “You’re surprisingly taller in real life, coach!”

Mumbo froze and pulled away to look at him weirdly, “Already calling me coach?”

“What? Were you actually not planning to sign me?”

Coach Mumbo winced and shook his head panickedly, “Goodness, of course we’re still planning to sign you, it’s just–” he hunched over and pouted a bit, “Isn’t coach a little too formal for us?”

Grian nudged Mumbo playfully, “Get used to it. You wanted this job. Didn’t you, coach?”

Mumbo pouted even more, slightly red in the face, “You don’t find me calling you jungler, do you?”

“I’m not signed yet so you can’t officially call me that yet,” the dirty blonde man then grinned wide, “For now, you can refer to me as darling.”

“Oh, stop it.”

–

Officially signing Grian up as the company’s first player was like a fever dream, even Grian himself would agree, and he’s had plenty of disbelieving things happening to himself. Even now when he was fully acquainted and settled into the residence provided by the team, he couldn’t believe that he was actually… what he dreamed of.

Grian glanced to his side, watching his coach scroll through some gameplay videos for possible teammates. Somehow, it felt right that the online best friend who nerds out about strategies that he can’t apply himself, was the tall man beside him.

Though honestly, Grian still expected Mumbo to be some hunched over nerd like he was. Who knew the man had not only looks and height, he had better posture than Grian.

The dirty blonde slumped in his chair and zoned out as Mumbo started introducing possible teammates, offering him options to form whatever team he wanted.

Grian didn’t listen much, still a little out of it. It is fairly weird that the coach of all people was asking the player who he wanted as teammates when it was supposed to be mainly the coach’s and the management’s job.

“Can I really pick the rest of my teammates?” He cut off Mumbo’s muttering in a familiar manner. Mumbo, as always, didn’t take offense and answered him.

“Of course.”

“And you’d support me?”

They held each other's stare longer than they should've. Mumbo broke into a smile.

“As I always have.”

–

“You’re stressing out Pearl again.”

Grian was half laying on his chair and lazily scrolling through the Grumbo tag on social media when Mumbo had come up to him with an unamused frown. Grian had half the respect for his coach to fix his seating arrangement and sat up properly to flash an innocent smile at Mumbo.

“I don’t seem to follow.”

Mumbo tugged at his hair in distress, familiar with Grian’s pretend dumb strategy. As a coach, you’d think that understanding strategies would be kept to the game, not applied even to his troublesome players.

“Sorry, let me rephrase then. You’re giving both Pearl and the PR team an extremely hard time to defend your honor.”

Grian sighs wistfully, “But you are my honor.”

Mumbo groaned and flushed red at that, “You’ve made that extremely clear with your interview!”

The dirty blonde shrugged and didn’t seem at all unapologetic. Seeing that he was once again going nowhere with attempting to horribly scold Grian, he leaned down and apologetically pecked the man on the forehead. Grian visibly perked up at that and blinked at Mumbo like he was expecting more.

Mumbo didn’t give him more, simply rolled his eyes and turned to leave, “Redo the interview tomorrow and you can negotiate for more.”

“MUUUUUUUUUUMBOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Grian’s complaints fell to no one’s ears as Mumbo left the training room.

[liliths-missing-pen]

Heartsyabul Dorm (Part 1) Takes You Out On First Date

I have no idea what possessed me but I feel like I cooked??? Anyway enjoy my first headcanons/drabbles since I dipped off the face of the internet

Heartslabyul Dorm (Literally just Riddle) x GN!Reader

Masterlist

Part 1 (You are here) Part 2 (Soon) Everyone in Heartslabyul will be posted eventually!

Warnings: None

Riddle Rosehearts

If Riddle isn't busy or worried about someone Ace or Deuce setting the dorms ablaze in his absence he would take you out. Somewhere like a cafe or maybe even a small bakery. He would take lots of advice from Trey and Cater since he trusts their opinions. If you don't have an excellent relationship with food, Riddle would take you out for tea tasting instead! I didn't even know this was a thing till I started searching for ideas He loves tea and he wants to share that love with you too.

You have to be reminded though, he's the Heartlabyul house warden, an honour student and has to keep up to par with his dorm to make sure none of them burns it down as well as making sure they keep up with the rules. Even though Riddle may lighten up on some rules that the dorm agrees are a little ridiculous, such as the rule to run underwater to dry off. I swear this is a rule but I can’t find it anywhere on the wikis So as boring as it may sound if he's busy you two would have a study date in his dorm room!

He thought dating anyone would be off the table for him, a thought his mother put into right before he left for NRC. So he isn't well-versed in this area he'd be very nervous throughout the whole date. He's never had to attempt something that he wasn't good at in front of others. You'd probably have to calm him down since he would like he'd explode at any moment if you didn't do something sooner.

Add this into one of the other points but he'd totally be insecure about his personality and why you agreed to a date with him

This was one of the only times Riddle had time off. The Adeuce duo were occupied, no unbirthday parties to plan, and Trey had plans to be at the dorm all day allowing him to be able to take you out for your first date. Being his usual self he came to Ramshackle dorm 11 am sharp, greeting you at the door with a bunch of roses for you. The sweet aroma was so similar to the boy in front of you now, though he didn't seem to be the same boy who picked you up this morning.

Ever since the two of you had got to this cafe, which Cater himself recommended to Riddle, he was extremely awkward. You were expecting it to be slightly awkward with your knowledge of how he was raised with limited knowledge about the aspect of dates and romance but you never imagine it would be this bad. He was tense and you could tell as well just by the way he was having issues meeting your gaze. You were empathic to the redhead in front of you since you knew it wasn't an easy task to ask you out. Nor was it easy to have a first date with someone either.

"So Riddle what book have you been reading lately?” You inquired, Riddle was an avid reader trying, you were trying to get him to come out of his shell. Riddle had relaxed slightly once you mentioned one of his dearest interests. "Well, at the moment I'm reading this book about psychology, mostly about how the brain responds to certain situations and how feelings-" after this voice went softer than before, shying off "-mostly love and it works incoherently," He admitted with his face getting as red as his hair. "Mc, if you couldn't tell I'm not used to being on a date with someone else, I'm sorry for it being so awkward I just.." He sighed in defeat making a quick glance at you but immediately looking away once seeing you were looking straight at him.

You chuckled, you felt like you should've seen this coming "Riddle, there's no need to be nervous I like you, for you." You told him tenderly, you reached out for his hand grasping it, your thumb slowly brushing gently across his knuckles to try and ease him.

Your efforts seemed to backfire on you as your words made him bright red. "Mc... I-" he couldn't bring himself to say anything to your words.

"Don't. I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't reciprocate anything would I sunshine?" Well... Now you've got yourself an even more flustered little rose.

I take commissions!

[watchingblsnowandforever]

We Are Ep.11

Part 1

*sits with half a tub of ice cream with both AC and fan on because my AC is old and needs a little help and puts my cat on Do Not Disturb mode (aka scratching his belly)*

Hello!!!!

Welcome back to my crack posting! =D

Warning: long post, and since I have like 60 screenshots, there will be a part two 😊😅

I wrote that intro before I'd watched the ep. Me as I was watching the ep was mostly incoherent screaming (so much so that my cat woke up from his nap to give me "what the hell, hooman" look).

This episode was amazing, and I loved it, and I'll probably die of too much fluff, but that won't happen before I finish watching We Are (which- WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE JUST 5 EPS LEFT?!!).

I was giggling and kicking my feet (just like Peem the morning after that Prince Charming kiss) from the very first scene.

Oh, they are so gone for each other (and I am gone for them 😭). The smiles, the trying to hear what the other is doing just across the door ah

So, so true. As a writer that hits.

Also, I'm very glad they decided to showcase creative blocks, even if it was for a few minutes.

Me to PhumPeem: yes, Peem, I would love to know too.

Also- I really wanna know what Ciize was doing back there 😭

Too cute to handle 😭

Jokes (and puns) aside, this scene is quite significant. Previously, whenever Phum was seen in the vicinity of the Fine Arts building, it was only because he wanted something from Peem (yes even that scene in ep. 8, he wanted company from Peem), but now, he's just sitting there waiting for Peem. And when Peem comes down, he's pinching his cheeks right there and acting cute with him and asking what's wrong.

And he keeps on asking, because he can see that Peem is a little moody, and not his usual self. "You're usually livelier than this."

Phum: "Actually, I want to be water too..."

Me: No way, is this what I think it is?

Phum: "I want to be the reason you feel good."

Me: yeah, yep, that's what I thought

No but, you can't tell me Phum doesn't binge watch BLs with his beloved teddy bear. Of course he has a whole arsenal of cheesy flirting lines.

All this time, it was always Phum telling Peem how comfortable he is around him and his friends, how fun it is.

Welp, it's Peem's turn.

I love Phum.

This is both him asking for consent as well as making sure they're on the same page and going at the same pace (which he always does, as I'd said before).

Also, no, he wants you to get closer.

HANDS.

Hear how polite and soft Q is with Toey now? Once Q knew for sure that he's allowed to show affection towards Toey as more than just a mentor/mentee, he decided to be fluffy as heck and never went back (because his love language is giving and showing through actions).

Love that for them both <3

This is such a valid fear.

He was afraid that his love would be too much, and in the process he'd lose the person he loves again, so he thought it better to just suffer alone than confess. Not gonna lie, my heart broke just a little here. (Also, because I'm currently rewatching MSP, I'll be pulling a lot of parallels, and this reminds me of that scene where Sound tells Gun that he's afraid to confess to Win because he's pretty sure he'll get rejected).

Oh, and I keep forgetting to say this, but Satang is such an amazing actor. Watching Sound and Toey, I almost can't believe they're played by the same person.

Phum's lethal weapon and Peem's fatal weakness 😭

Let's be honest though, no one would be able to resist that smile, those eyes and that soft, "Na, krab". Oh yeah, he used polite pronouns here by the way.

I can't always notice the shift from formal to informal or vice versa because I'm not that well-versed in the language (yet) but this was pretty obvious.

Bonus (Peem's reaction):

Tan: flirts with his theerak non-stop 24/7 Fang: *brushes his hair a little and apologizes for making him wait* Tan: *melts into a blushing mess*

That man is so whipped.

And in this house, we stan all whipped men.

This actually reminds me of when I was a wee baby (around 3 or 4 years old, I think) when I rescued a baby sparrow and took it to my dad and told my neigbours my dad would be able to heal it because he's a dcotor (he isn't a vet either) 😭

Also- naming a bird by another bird is so true to Pun's character.

This so relatable oh gods 😭

Also, we got the princess carry for Pride month! Twice if we count Chain lifting Pun in the waterfall, which I totally do.

We finally get being carried to bed but realizing they're laying on top of the blankets instead of just being magically wrapped in them by morning!

*sighs fondly* such a simp. <3

Uh huh, you said that last time too.

Don't lie, Peem, you'd let him hug you every night.

👀

Is this the reason behind the NC rating?

Also, this singular line just gave me a brain worm that is making me write my first smut fic. I blame y'all for getting me into this series.

Yes, of course, Phum, everyone believed your "snort mi mi mi".

Don't think I didn't see your little secret smile, Peem.

(Also, I have a headcanon that Phum just loves to be the little spoon)

Now who's hugging who, huh?

"Go away", he says, while putting his arm around his (not) boyfriend.

See, it was all fun till this point, but you can't be giving me this level of domestic fluff while at the same time telling me they're not even dating yet. That just doesn't work.

So, for me, from this point on, they're an old married couple <3

Frankly though, all the four couples in this series are old married couples that just don't know they're married yet.

Toey: HELP ME!!!

Q: WHAT HAPPENED WHO NEEDS BEATING UP-

Toey: I forgot to do my assignment and today's the deadline 🥺

Q: ... 😑

You don't...?

I thought that was the perfect time to start working on it?

jk jk, kids, I'm a chronic procrastinator, please don't learn from me, learn from your P'Q

(Q reminds me so much of @desi-yearning when she scolds me after I pull an all-nighter to submit an assignment or study for an exam 😭)

Oh. Oh.

Oh my.

I love this scene so much.

This pencil box is very very special to Q, and he's asking Toey to draw on it - something that is irriversible, as Toey himself says.

But this is Q's way of putting together both his loves. This pencil box was picked up by Toey the first time, but back then, Q only knew him as Milk Frappe Boy.

Now, he's asking Toey to do something Milk Frappe Boy would never have been able to (remember, Toey started taking an interest in art only after meeting Pencil Senior), because Pencil Senior disappeared on Milk Frappe Boy, but Q would never disappear on Toey.

On this note, I end Part 1.

Part 2 will be out tomorrow, because as much as I try to deny it, I have these pesky things called responsibilities to attend to, and it's very late here now (not past my regular bed time, but way past my ideal bed time 😭)

Thank you for reading! 😊

Here, have some pizza and a cookie🍕🍕🍪

[If you want, my previous posts: Ep. 8 Ep.9 Ep.10]

And here's Part 2

[tapwater118]

pinned post jumpscare blauughh

pronouns.cc | strawpage

hiya i’m flower!

i'm plural i think. i (the host) also go by golf ball, GB, box, gaty, maddie, tap water, tap, captain coinpin (<- silly), etc. queer person on the internet with too many names, check

collectively tap/tap water, she/they, 22 y.o. (individual names/pronouns can be found in the pronouns.cc)

fictkin with a bunch of weird blorbos (if you couldn’t tell from the first part) and a-ok with doubles! friends from across the multiverse

i like various things and then will proceed to draw them. big fat bfdi/osc special interest mostly (i am a huge multishipper (based) btw so erm yeah)

feel free to use my art and such as pfps/banners/whatever, just give credit pls

let the record show that i am bad at using social media so uh i am probably a terrible mutual sorry in advance

also if i like over explain something to you please do not take it as a slight against you, i am just autistic (as if it wasn’t obvious)

if ya wanna know more, feel free to shoot up the ask box or dms, i love answering questions. i also like taking requests over asks! just note that it may be some time before i get around to your request

(regarding dms, please come in with something more than ‘hi’. i’m not comfortable initiating conversation with someone im not familiar with.)

(also don’t flirt with me. you don’t have a rat’s chance)

strawpage stuff and other incoherent ramblings are over at @taps-other-blog so look there!

also pleeease tag fireafy neg around me ty. im not even really attached to that ship its just neg about it can really put me in a bad mental state for some unknown and probably dumb reason

if you ship and/or support adult/minor, incest, zoo, etc get tf away from me ewwwwww nasty

also no label discourse if you partake in that i am blowing you up with my mind

things you’ll probably see me blabber about/draw at some point:

object shows (particularly bfdi, but i also fw inanimate insanity, hfjone, boto, animatic battle, tr125, orb, tnm, burner, object kerfuffle, love of the s*n, ppt2, itft, ee, and others im probably forgetting) (oh and idfb fear garden tee hee)

mario

kirby

pikmin

undertale/deltarune

pizza tower

fnf

homestuck

fnaf

petscop

horror stuff in general

regretevator

to be expanded once i remember more stuff

(art may be suggestively crude in humor but never nsfw)

(also if you ask i can always add tags to stuff if you have something in particular you want to mute, i dont mind)

i am working on some cool projects i think you should check them out because they are cool:

Occasionally Coinpin: hosted over at @occasionallycoinpin. posting coinpin, occasionally (the main reason you don’t see coinpin content here all that often)

Book Askblog: hosted at @twotonedhardcover, where i pretend to be a gay little novel for shits and giggles

Battle for Hopes and Dreams: a bfdi x undertale au that puts the characters of bfdi in the world of undertale. tagged as “#battle for hopes and dreams”

Competition for Fantasy Retreat: a bfdi swap au that swaps characters’ compositions and parts of their personalities. tagged as “#competition for fantasy retreat”

BfDI 1990: an unfiction reimagining of bfdi as an NES game from 1990. tagged as “#BfDI1990” (unreality content warning for this). please note that this is NOT an ARG, there is no game or puzzle to be solved, it is simply unfiction

Tap’s BFDI D-Side: a bfdi d-side take, where characters’ designs and personalities are remixed for something new and refreshing! (based on fnf d-sides obviously) tagged as “#tap’s bfdi d side”

BFDI Redux: a hypothetical bfdi season 6, featuring many of the tpot rejects as well as underutilized veterans. tagged as “#bfdi redux”

OSC horror content: i like turning the silly blorbos into fucked up evil creatures. general tag is “#FLApasta” but each story has its own separate tag (general content warning for these)

other tags i’ll use frequently i think:

“#asks” all the crud that ends up in my inbox and also some very nice things. it is a mystery

“#yap fest” for general inane ramblings. i say some very stupid things

“#ultra yap fest” for long posts, including rants and character analyses

“#slop tier post” art and other things that are generally below a certain threshold of quality i hold for myself. i’m probably too harsh on myself but oh well

“#word salad yummy yummy” fanfic stuff. im on ao3 and wattpad if ya didnt know

“#top tier post” “#all the day every day” “#one for the ages” posts that i really really like. usually from moots

“#literally me” fictkin id posts. you get it. no you don’t. i don't get it either

“#oiny” wife

list of Friends :D

@booktaggy

@bottle-ditzy

@depraced

@lemonxlimee

@l1ghtbulb

@novaazurite

@ohmysheetmetal

@onion-makes-stimboards

@sourscheming

@therandomcreechur

@twig-gy

[velvet-games]

I finally finished the piece for @prince-liest's OC, Tzafael! this really reminded me of how fun character design is (and also that I've completely forgotten how to make digital art, but that's besides the point...) <3

credit to @hogbogglerspirits for the umbrella design! I kind of butchered it so please look at the original and throw lots of love at them

LOTS of notes, draft sketches, brainstorming, etc. below the cut. enjoy!

(note: a lot of what I'm talking about is based on posts prince made under their #tzafael tag, so take a look at those if you haven't yet!)

thanks for joining me below the cut! here's the sketch without the colors as a treat (in case you want to color it yourself or something, idk).

notes about making the digital drawing:

holy shit this took me forever -- I was not kidding about forgetting how to make digital art lmao. I forgot how much less forgiving digital lines are and genuinely lost the spoons to even attempt lineart, hence just a sketch below the colors.

some of you might've seen the original sketch I sent to prince, which the digital version diverges from just a little. it's mostly the halo which I'll explain later, and I finally caved and drew the sixth eye (you can tell I drew and erased it multiple times in the sketch lmao -- still don't know if I prefer it with or without)

here's the original color ref by the lovely @gendermeh! my color scheme ended up looking really different, so some notes about that:

I was looking at references for magpies like this

and I wanted to basically follow that color scheme while also being somewhat similar to the original -- dark head/shoulders --> dark top of the jacket, bright blue wings --> bright blue bottom of the jacket, greenish tailfeathers --> green pants, hints of purple --> purplish sleeve and pant ends

I also tried (and mostly failed, let's be real) to capture the iridescence of the feathers -- they look like oil spilled on the pavement or iridescent hematite to me! I think the key ended up being adding bright greens/purples and roughly blending them into the blues or vice versa but I didn't really figure that out until I got to the pants lol.

I'm gonna be honest; I don't remember why I went with this shape for the tailcoat. I just remember being unhappy with the sketch and then trying a bunch of different shapes that mostly looked worse lol -- I think I landed on this because a split tail kind of looks like wings?

KEPT the shoes -- absolutely magnifique. I wish I knew how to color gold better.

added lots of jewelry! they like shiny things :)

ALSO PLEASE LOOK AND APPLAUD ME. I FINALLY REMEMBERED TO LABEL MY LAYERS!! NO I DON'T REMEMBER WHY THE HALO HAS ITS OWN LAYER.

alright, time for some more design notes/explanations + draft sketches!

but first, a couple disclaimers:

I want to make it very clear that I LOVE everything about the original design. I made a lot of changes based on personal preference/the way I interpreted the character. I was actually planning on making a digital piece that was more faithful to the original design too, but I was just out of spoons for it cause of life stuff.

you probably shouldn't try to read the notes I made in the sketches I'm about to show you unless I say otherwise. most of it is incoherent brain vomit in illegible artist handwriting and I'll transcribe/explain the stuff I think is important :) (the stuff in quotes are direct transcriptions of my notes)

I know my sketches are very messy lol. I only draw for fun, so I usually don't force myself to make stuff any neater than necessary unless it's supposed to be a formal piece. try to bear with me.

1:

my first few sketches of them! (I think?) this was before I sent prince a laundry list of questions so I was still trying to get a vibe

"magpie -- beak lips?" -- you'll see this in a few sketches; I considered giving them the lipstick design that velvette has since it looks like a beak. I still kind of think it's cute, but 1) I'm pretty sure velvette is the only character that has them, so I didn't want to make it seem like they were related somehow and 2) I thought it might be distracting with how much other crazy stuff I ended up including in their head/face

also, sidenote since it's relevant to what I said about vel: something I realized was important is how one character's design relates to the designs of the rest of the cast. I wasn't sure how much I should've gone for what looked good in a vacuum, how much should be based on what other characters looked like canonically, or what other characters would look like if I also designed them. it ended up being mostly the second option, but it was honestly still a struggle. should I take away some of the tumblr-sexyman-ness (no shade to tumblr sexymen; I love them) because there are other characters that already have it? should I relate their design to sera's and emily's in the show or should I think about how I would've designed sera and emily? should I follow some of the design philosophy of the original show and just throw stuff on there because it looks cool (the answer is yes btw)? decisions, decisions ...

I don't think this showed up really well in most of the drawings, but they actually have a black line down their nose! let's take a look at sera:

since they're siblings, I wanted to include some similar facial markings. the nose line ended up being the only thing I kept though -- I was going to include freckles, but I have a compulsive need to give every character giant bottom lashes so there ended up being no room T.T I like that the magpie's hints of purple kind of match hers tho!

the wingification of the hair begins! I was still unsure of it at this point, but it was an idea I had since I was kind of struggling with how straight the feathers were in the original.

"maybe the ones on their head count as wings (so only one main pair)" -- I originally just had the 2 pairs of wings on their head, so I was thinking of just giving them 1 pair on their back so there would be still be 6 total. also this middle drawing of them is meant to be their exorcist outfit (I wanted it to be a cross between what the other exorcists wear and sera's outfit)

at this stage, I was thinking of giving them more magpie-like characteristics, so I looked at some references and tried to emulate them in a more human design. this ended up being really awkward so I scrapped it, but I still like the idea that their exorcist mask looks like a bird (kind of like a plague doctor's)

2:

peekaboo! I love the idea of them using the wing hair to cover their eyes lol. (ended up using that idea for my own seraph OC since that's their biblically accurate purpose: to cover their eyes/faces in reverence/humility -- doesn't really fit with tzafael tho lol, so they show their face most of the time)

an eyeball in the bowtie -- pretty self-explanatory. the eyeball motif is important.

the one in the middle is just me practicing drawing the original design, and the one on the right is another exorcist outfit I think. I wanted to include the diamond motif/points that sera has on her dress (the diamonds on the bottom turn into eyeballs, which is why the final design also has eyeballs on tzafael's sleeves/pants)

3:

lots of notes on the side based on what prince said in response to my ask

"localized omniscience (power of sight) -- cool + ironic that their sight was supposed to serve God but made them see Heaven for what it really is instead"

another exorcist outfit, this time including the feathers

I was also experimenting with the halo; I was trying to make it look sort of like sera's crown, but that didn't feel right ...

some practice with eyes -- my style is pretty flexible with eye shapes, so I try to make them suit the character. I drew lute's eye and also an actual magpie's as references -- lute's because of the exorcist background and also because they looked appropriately sharp, magpie's for obvious reasons. once again, my compulsive need for giant bottom lashes strikes

there was honestly a lot to balance with the eyes -- I wanted them to look condescending/bored (lowered top lid) but also amused (raised bottom lid) and like a magpie (round) but also harsh/mischievous (sharp, maybe slit pupils like a snake) and similar to sera's (but not too decorated -- also does it make sense for them to look like sera's if emily's don't even look like sera's?)

considered having wings on the shoulders -- the magpie pattern is super cool, so it would've been nice to have that somewhere more explicitly in the design. I still think that might fit in an outfit they would wear in heaven (maybe for formal occasions)

the introduction of the sweatervest! honestly I kind of love this for the way it captures more of the preppy, spoiled old-money upper-class vibe some heaven residents have, but it was scrapped since I couldn't imagine them wearing that while trying to scare the denizens of hell. maybe something they wear casually though.

"yes nictating membrane (on every eye!)" -- AHH I'm so sad I didn't end up putting this to use. I just feel like the whole effect is based on actually seeing them blink, and I don't animate lol.

4:

ugh, the nefarious laughter one ... don't worry I tried harder on a sketch later on lol.

"like the diamonds on Sera + Em" + "diamonds turn into eyes?" -- I draw the diamonds on the sweatervest turning into eyes later.

tried an actual bow instead of a bowtie -- very cute but didn't fit the vibe.

a skirt! I think they would wear a skirt sometimes.

5:

"FUCK ASS BOB" -- asghdk the wingification of the hair continues. unfortunately, I'm realizing at this point that the silhouette of the hair is starting to look a lot like alastor's. I gave a very half-hearted attempt at mitigating this, but it goes back to the thing of how much I am obligated to the original show's designs and what looks cool to me -- I think the wing hair fits them and I didn't want to change it because of alastor, plus my alastor design actually has completely different hair anyway. I did add a third pair to the back to look like a ponytail though.

introduction of the scarf! I was actually going to include this in the final design but uh,,, I forgor. are you starting to see a pattern.

the reason for the scarf is that the "tzafael going to places they know they'll draw attention/can incite chaos" reminded me of that scene in avengers where loki walks into a fancy building looking pretentious af and just casually stabs a guy's eye out. not really the same thing but I felt like the vibe matched. hence, loki's funny little scarf fit.

6:

uaoughdfjh it was SO FUN to draw the wing hair, and it was at this point that I realized they had to stay even though I wasn't sure if it was too different from the original.

gossiping with rosie cause that's the first person I thought of -- tzafael also summoned a pearl necklace to clutch because of the sheer drama of it all (your ex-husband did what??)

also started drawing the rings on their hands. magpie like shiny.

7:

lots of notes cause I was trying to compile the things I still needed to think about/incorporate into the final (I thought this was gonna be the last draft ... haha)

trying to include more bird/eye motifs

"fish ... purse?" -- ha! I forgot I was gonna give them a fish purse. I think I drew that in a later sketch, but not them wearing it.

"picked up Hellish traits bc of extended stay -- existential crisis?" -- I asked prince about the sharp teeth, and their answer implied that they became sharp as they stayed in hell longer, which got me thinking ... I feel like that's actually a great body horror concept. lucifer falling and looking like a normal angel at first, eventually waking up to more and more devilish features and feeling more and more like he's lost his home and his past self ... spooky.

another exorcist outfit -- I actually really like the eyes on the ribs! I never made a final draft for the exorcist uniform, but it would probably look close to what I drew here.

the one on the bottom was meant to be similar to the feathered shoulder pad idea, but this time with the whole magpie (with giant eyes). tried putting the "freckles" (really just dots in this case) over their brows, but that ended up looking kinda weird.

the eye is pretty close to the final design

the one on the right was supposed to be the full final design, but I was totally off lol -- the long trench coat really doesn't give off the right vibe at all

8:

playing around more with the loki vibes of the scarf, also added an eyeball to the chest

I never got happy with the design of the back of the coat -- I think it should probably just be blank at this point. but the sketch here is meant to look like wings/tailfeathers.

yet another exorcist outfit, this time with more magpie motifs. I actually like this one a lot, but I probably should've added the eyes on the ribs from the last sketch. I think I also considered giving them actual tailfeathers at this point.

9:

thanks for sticking with me! I promise we're almost done. have a trans dinosaur I saw while I was travelling as a treat <3

10:

this is after I finished the sketch for the final piece and realized I didn't like the halo design. I drew lute's, sera's, em's, and adam's as refs. (honestly I love the show's idea that each person/people of each rank have a different kind of halo -- I wonder if they can switch them out?)

my main inspiration ended up being the exorcist halo, but I made it look more like an eyeball -- since it always points toward heaven, we can say it's always "looking" at heaven.

(also sera's feather lashes! they're so cute)

11:

EVEN MORE EXORCIST DOODLES

12:

tzafael shooing away my fox demon OC

13:

these are actually sketches for my own seraph OC (raguel), but I wanted to include it since it has even more wing/feather hair variations. I also think the idea of the eyelashes being feather-like could've been cool for tzafael.

14:

some more OG design doodles

tzafael and raguel together because self-indulgence is the name of the game babey (also wanted to draw tzafael freaked out with their wings flared)

(raguel's blind btw, hence asking for eyes -- tzafael has so many!)

you can probably read the dialogue here so give it a shot. I believe in you.

15:

you know what? the fish purse deserves some doodles

16:

putting them in Situations! I was reading over prince's posts again and I realized there were some funny things I could draw them doing/saying

again you can probably read the words here

angel dust also loves fish (but is apparently bad at taking care of them, hence the suffocating blobfish), so tzafael shows him their aquarium (complete with live fish and flora ofc)

I thought alastor was 8 ft but apparently he's 7.3 ft? so tzafael is enjoying the .2 ft they have on him

trying and failing again to come up with a design for the back of the jacket lol

THE crowley quote

apparently the halo still sends signals from the exorcists -- thought their reaction to the battle at the hotel would be funny

the nefarious laughter (take 2) that I promised -- based on a doodle of alastor viv did that I found

them being sad and curling up in a pile of shiny things like a dragon

OKAY I'M DONE. huge, huge thank you to prince for sharing their OC! this was a lot of fun and clearly inspired me a lot haha. please check out their writing; it's literally so good that I can't read anything else these days. I am chewing on their thoughts constantly.

this was an absolute monster of a post, so if you're still reading, I am both impressed and bewildered at your patience. I hope you enjoyed! (I certainly did!)

[hoeratius]

okay, asking this question is maybe the dumbest i've ever felt bc it feels like there should be a straightforward, obvious answer here, but every time i've tried to look it up, i've found nothing but pages upon pages of what feels like people talking in circles and only serving to make me more confused in the end. since you're the most knowledgable person i follow when it comes to the Classics, i figured this might be a good place to ask and maybe get an actual answer? (that being said, it's fine if you don't want to/don't have the time to answer this! obviously!!)

where can i read about the older greek myths? as in pre-trojan war. mostly, i'm interested in theseus but also just pre-trojan war stories in general. i know not everything got the iliad/odyssey treatment and there's probably not any surviving text to point at in a lot of cases, but there must've been something. every time i try to look up where to read about the history of theseus, i'm being directed to a bunch of modern retellings, but google has gotten so bad as a search engine, i literally cannot find anything about the origins of this thing everybody's retelling

from what i understand, theseus was sort of everywhere sticking his nose in everything at all times, so i'm not asking for a comprehensive timeline of his whackass life and everything he ever appeared in or anything, but if you could point me in the direction of anything about him--actual plays or academic texts, anything like that--that's more credible than, like, a self-published, self-described "bold new reimagining" with a stock image of a dude in party city roman cosplay as the cover, it would be MUCH appreciated 😭

(again, sorry about how... basic this question is i guess lol? i'm very new to classics in general and still pretty ignorant about everything, so it's EXTREMELY likely that this is a very dumb question with a very obvious answer, but thank you regardless!)

Hello! What an exciting ask (and apologies for my excited and maybe incoherent answer)!

Since you seem to be most interested in Theseus, I’ll use him as an example but much of this can be applied to other Greek heroes/myths/stories more generally.

As you noted, few get the Iliad/Odyssey treatment. In fact, even Achilles and Odysseus don’t, considering the Iliad spans only 7 weeks or so, and the Odyssey misses out on Odysseus’s actions before and during the Trojan War, and after he came home – and he did a lot after he came home. So where to go to find all the other stories that happened?

Some things to keep in mind:

Writers assumed their audience was familiar with the hero’s greatest deeds already

The big boys – Achilles, Odysseus, Theseus, Perseus, Heracles, Oedipus – had their stories shared in many formats. Think of the Parthenon metopes, which show Theseus’s key deeds in sculpture, or vases, hymns, public performances, bedtime stories, etc. People would encounter these often enough that the outlines of these heroes’ stories were known to them from a young age.

One of the Metopes of the Parthenon, showing (probably) Athena and Theseus.

As a result, ancient texts never show the entire story; they select the moment they want to tell and focus in on that. Hence the Iliad focuses on Achilles’s wrath, the Odyssey emphasises his homecoming, and the Argonautica tells the story of the Golden Fleece. Similarly, tragedies will choose a meaningful moment: not all of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s struggles, but his return home in the Agamemnon, or the events that lead directly to Pentheus’s dismemberment in the Bakchai.

So finding one text that will give you a useful overview will be hard!

These heroes are often also connected to so many other famous characters, that sometimes they show up as a side character in their stories, so it depends on which stories capture your interest most.

Pre-Homeric texts are few and far between

But this is not to say there aren’t pre-Trojan-War myths!

There are loads! Anything with Heracles or Theseus is pre-Iliadic, and others, like the house of Pelops, link more to the Trojan War but are also separate from it. Plus, there is Hesiod’s Theogony (roughly contemporary with Homer), which tells of the births of the gods and goes all the way back to the start of the universe.

The Ovid situation

Many Greek texts are lost, and we’ve only got allusions to this or that part of the myth in the existing fragments, etc. etc. So how do we still know so much about so many of these stories?

Enter my fave: Ovid.

Far later than Homer (1st century versus 8th century BC), but with access to all the Greek texts and them some, he wrote a lot of fairly comprehensive stories. These include the Heroides, letters written from the perspective of female characters trying to connect to their male lovers, with letter 10 coming from Ariadne to Theseus, and Metamorphoses 8 with parts of Theseus’s story.

If you’re looking for a high-level overview of what was what in ancient myth, starting with the Metamorphoses will give you all the big boys and many of the smaller ones.

Theseus specifically:

I must admit that Theseus is not my strong suit, but sources I’m familiar with that I would recommend:

Hippolytus, by Euripides and Phaedra by Seneca: these both tell of Theseus’s second wife Phaedra falling for his son Hippolytus and causing his death

Catullus 64: A lament from Ariadne after Theseus has abandoned her on Naxos

Metamorphoses 8, 12, by Ovid: Snippets of Theseus’s life, incl the Minotaur

Ones I’m not as familiar with but might be up your street:

Life of Theseus, Plutarch: a historian/scholar’s biography. He had them in pairs, where he compared the two; Theseus is linked to Romulus

The Argonautica, Apollonius Rhodus: Follows Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece; Theseus is one of his heroes

Oedipus at Colonnus, Sophocles: apparently Theseus is a major side character here but I don’t remember!

There is also The King must Die by Mary Renault, a modern retelling from the ‘80s that blew me away. The only book set in ancient Greece I’ve ever read that doesn’t shy away from how alien their culture and values are to us today and doesn’t try to sugarcoat things.

And if you’re looking for more heroes: Wikipedia is your friend!

The Classics-related pages are pretty reliable, and they often mention the main sources per character.  

I hope this gets you started but please do hit me up with more questions, I always love diving into these things!

[kyouka-supremacy]

What are the things you like or appreciate about shin soukoku? /gen

(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

I like sskk! I like everything about them. I feel like there's just so much to unpack about them, and there's no end to it!! After all this time I'm still finding out new possible dynamics and ways to interpret their relationship, it's so much fun. They're both very very complex characters, and their dynamics together are pretty awesome? There's the whole deal– I hate myself, so I have to hate you, because you're just like me. It's sooo cool. It's nice to see characters who hate themselves so much, but who also try to do better (Atsushi), try to be better (Akutagawa). They're both so so complex individually, and I simply adore what becomes of them when they come together. I think that when they're together, their individual characterization shines the brightest, because they're souls precisely created as parts of the same whole. And I've written about this forever ago, but I really like how their journey goes from hating each other to loving each other to loving themselves, I think it's a very nice concept to explore.

It's just a... Low-pressure ship in a lot of ways? It's something very very comforting to think about for me. As a ship, it constantly feels like saying “yeah, you do kind of suck. That doesn't mean you can't be loved.” It's just such a sweet sentiment for me!! It's not saying one shouldn't try to be better, but sometimes you do feel like you're utterly bad and unlovable, and there's no helping it; and sskk is there telling you “look. Here's two of the worst people on earth. One of them is unlovable by definition. And they still have in them to love, and to be loved.'” It's just :')

I genuinely love how both of them are kind of awful people. I mean, there's probably not a single thing about their moral code I agree with. But for some reason that makes them very compelling to explore? It's interesting to engage with characters that share worldviews so strikingly different from mine. Them having such fucked up ideals, so many flaws and selfish goals, makes them feel terribly human, and also makes them very sympathetic, in a way. They're a true mess, but one that reminds me so much of how sloppy and incoherent humans are like. Them being so distant from me greatly adds to their appeal tbh! Generally, I have a very strong moral code, and I try to do the right thing, while they're terribly selfish and self-survival driven. I'm mostly perceived as a woman, and they are two men with superpowers who fight and die for each other. I like reading about characters I can't see anything of myself in! I already have enough of myself irl lol.

Now that I think about it, I really really love how they don't mince words. Again, it's something personal, but I heavily dislike the habit of using euphemisms to sugarcoat reality. Sometimes things are unpleasant and ugly, and trying to deny it feels insulting more often than not. Sskk are always very direct, and never hesitated to tell what they think to the other's face, even if it comes at the cost of throwing insults; weirdly enough, it's something I appreciate. I think deep down, they appreciate it too.

The perspective of having someone who makes your true nature emerge is nice. Again, instead of mincing words and faking it, it's nice to imagine there's someone who could see them for who they really are, and loves them still. It's compelling to explore the true terror anyone would feel from being completely naked in front of someone else, but at the same time the sort of relief that comes with it? “This is the part of me I've always beaten up and suppressed and hidden. Look! Isn't that deeply disgusting? Yet that is nothing but the real me.”

The whole complementary-in-everything thing hits that specific part of my ocd brain that has me do stuff like organize my posts in a coherent string so that every post is connected to the previous, have every post posted at a round number timespan, count the pixels in every single picture I trim etc. Atsushi is mostly white in his design and Akutagawa is mostly black but the colors are reversed when they use their abilities combined. Atsushi is good and Akutagawa is evil. Tiger & dragon & cat & dog. Blue and red. government-affiliated job and mafia. Healthy and regenerating vs. sick and decaying. Loved & hated. Attractive and hideous. One loves reading and the other finds it unnerving, one knows how to cook and the other is a cooking disaster, one likes coffee and the other likes tea, early bird and night owl, so on and so forth. Then, the fact that when they come together they end up looking so deeply similar is kind of neat, it's like there's some sort of Hegelian synthesis in their love.

Their canon moments are truly great and exciting. I care relatively little about the amount of moments a ship has in canon– an interesting dynamic is an interesting dynamic no matter their screentime, right? And you're free to imagine what the characters interacting would be like in your head any time. And while I still like to believe their relationship would still be very compelling even without the moments they share, wow. Their canon screentime is crazy, it's outstanding. I think the depiction of their dynamics in canon is exceptionally good, and extremely well-written. The “the words of your past are fundamentally unrelated to who you are now”, the Atsushi wearing Rashomon, the “you damn fool // hurry up and go”, the “just the two of us?”– they're all such epic and sublime moments, every time they leave the reader gaping and bewildered and, frankly, wondering if that really happened. And their scenes are so consistently homoerotically charged!! From the “it's been reserved solely for you today” to the “the man-tiger's my main dish” to the “their eyes met. Akutagawa's lips moved, mouthing the words I found you” to the “once this is done, I'm going to teach you things other than ‘killing’ ” to the “as long as I can't deny your very being, I'll never be able to move forward” to the “don't touch me! Disgusting!” to the “I'm sorry”. From Akutagawa piercing Atsushi with Rashomon to kicking him to getting unnecessarily close to his face. From every second they've spent admiring each other to the way they call out each other's names with so much passion. The list goes on forever. And chapters 84-88 are short to a masterpiece. The characters' growth is madly well-executed, how we see them go through it almost step-by-step, and it's all so consistent, and it's all so human.

Finally, the picture that made me go “Ah! There's something about them!” for the first time. It's very dear to me :)

It's got Atsushi being cute and Akutagawa looking at him with a fairly undecipherable expression that yet is distinctively non-hostile, and this precise illustration made my brain go “Wow, what if Akutagawa actually had a soft spot for Atsushi. What if there was tenderness in his eyes.” Then it all went downhill from there ahah

[coyotefang1987]

Flower Symbolism in Trigun

Okay so I've been going insane in the last few hours since the new episode of Stampede and I needed to share my very incoherent thoughts.

So here we go: (please excuse my grammar, I'm typing this up in an absolute craze)

Please note, there are major spoilers here

[Plant in context to Trigun will be capitalized btw]

I want to start off by pointing out the whole idea with calling the creatures that Vash and Knives are as 'Plants' and 'seeds' in the first place--that in itself is so much. Not to mention Noman's Land is a desert plant with little to no flora at all.

The idea and symbolism of life and rebirth presented with the idea of plants. Like how flora are usually the first type of lifeform to come back post mass extinction events. How plants are primary producers in the food chain, how life couldn't be sustained without plants giving up oxygen, food, and converting the sunlight into energy/sugar. Despite being giant moth flower humanoid creatures, the Plants in Trigun are doing essentially the same thing. Except they aren't renewable and they might also be sentient.

In addition to that, in media, seeds are usually a representation of hope. And in this case, a seed pod carrying the hope of humanity. I've been likening it to dandelion seeds. I don't think our group of guys were the only space-fairing fleet that was sent out from Earth.

I don't know how much of this symbolism is intentional and how much of it is completely accidental, but boy howdy is it there and am I going to eat it up.

Geraniums!

First off, the most obvious one is geraniums. The flower is very much thrown into our faces. What does it mean?

Okay so there's like 400 types of geraniums out there, they're not like a specific species- and when people say 'geraniums' it usually also includes pelargoniums which are a different genus. But you're not here for me to monologue about flower classification-

Well, operating under the assumption they're using the most common type of red geranium, which, funnily enough is not a geranium but rather a pelargonium. Pelargonium x hortorum. Commonly known as zonal geraniums or garden geraniums. I don’t know if I even need to expand on the idea that Vash and his story (and the Plants in general) are represented by geraniums. If the red coat wasn’t already a giveaway, I think the newest episode definitely makes it very clear. Well, first off I think it's interesting that they’re not ‘true geraniums’ (different genus, same family). Like how Vash and Knives look human but aren’t ‘true humans’.  

(Did you know geraniums can reproduce asexually via their roots by just…sprouting a new plant? It’s called clonality. Anyways yeah, I’m too lazy to expand on it but there it is. You can probably see the connection I'm trying to draw here)

Furthermore, let’s look a little bit into what geraniums represent. So according to the vast knowledge of the interwebs (I will put the links I used at the bottom.) geraniums are “attributed the powers of love, peace, healing, elegance and spirituality. They mostly have desirable symbolizing meanings, including fertility, health, joy, protection, frustrations passing away, and true friendship.” Red geraniums in particular are attributed to protection and ward against evil., spiritual beings and saints. “The geranium flower was a symbol of prosperity in Egypt, longevity in Japan, and immortality in China”. *Stares at Vash and Knives*. Gods…immortality…saints. Alright Nightow, I see you.

Look, I’m not done here. DURING THE VICTORIAN ERA geranium took on a slightly more negative meaning. Envy, deceit, folly, foolishness and stupidity. Although they were also seen “as ‘horticultural bourgeoisie’ and a sign of ‘crudeness and thoughtlessness of taste’. Geranium became a symbol of industrial mass culture.” This was probably unintentional (and if it is intentional, holy fuck.) but the idea that Earth in Trigun was destroyed by the folly of humans because if mass industrialization? Hello???? OKAY.

There’s just so much history with geraniums. I’m STILL not done. Let’s talk a little about geraniums and Christianity, yeah? You know, the thing that Trigun is chock full of symbolism of.

So first off, tradition. (I am not Christian, nor do I know much about Christianity, I just did some research on the topic so feel free to correct me.) I do believe there is a tradition to buy and gift red geranium on Good Friday? (I can’t find a very credible source about this, just some blog posts so idk) And the red is to represent the blood that Jesus sacrificed for the people. How he was beaten and bloodied because of his love for the people. How…he was given a purple cloak that turned dark with blood while he was mocked. 

Sound familiar?

Do we want to talk about Vash’s red coat turning black in the latest episode? Or maybe how traditionally dying Plants are red and healthy ones are blue? But Vash keeps himself covered in red?

Now, here’s an interesting fact. Did you know, wild geraniums look very different from the ones people like to commonly grow in their gardens? This is the spotted cranesbill (Geranium maculatum), the most common wild geranium. Look, maybe I’m stretching it here, but cultivated Plants vs independent Plants, anybody?

Anywho, not the point I was trying to make. Did you know another common wild geranium is called the Saint Robert’s Geranium? Robert’s? While no one really knows who the ‘Saint Robert’ the flower is named after, it has a very fun symbolism. Check this. The seed pod of this flower supposedly looks like the beak of a stork, which had people believe that they could help a couple who wish for children with fertility when used as an amulet and placed under the bed. cough Ep 11 pregnancy scene cough. Apparently, medicinally they’re also used to staunch blood flow from wounds. Despite that, in certain regions, it was seen as an ill-omen plant associated with death because snakes would often hide in its leaves. Snakes? Like…in Adam and Eve? Like as in temptation? As in Knives and Vash?

Okay last bit on geraniums. Just a little on the colors. In episode 11 of Stampede we see the giant plant root monster thing blooming flowers. I have assumed that they are black geraniums, aka Geranium Phaeum 

aka mourning widows. Of course, I could be wildly wrong but the meaning of this is fun so hear me out. While there doesn’t seem to be a direct meaning for black geraniums, we can clearly draw some conclusions on the common name for this flower. Like seriously, mourning widow? They’re also known as dusky cranesbill and black widow. Obviously associated with death (and grief?) and apparently maybe marriage??? Doesn’t help that geraniums can be considered a traditional bridal flower too. I think they’re also associated with melancholy. Anyways, on the other hand, blue blooms usually symbolize calm and peace while purple blooms symbolize royalty, accomplishments and admiration. 

So in context to the blooms we see at the end of ep 11, grieving for the loss of someone (Rem, his memories), rising to his Plant roots (haha get it?) and being ‘at peace’. 

HEY LET'S TALK ABOUT DOGWOOD

So I remember reading somewhere that he’s named after a singer or band or something but– His name is so close to dogwood that I could not pass it up.

Dogwood is a blooming tree that seems to have a representation in Christianity. There’s a legend about the tree and Easter. So apparently, the cross that Jesus was crucified on was made from Dogwood, because of such it was cursed and blessed. Cursed to be small so it can’t be used to make another cross but blessed to bloom beautiful flowers at Easter time.

The flowers of the Dogwood trees always bloom with four petals, like a cross, the center like a crown of thorns. Each tip of the petal is indented like it's been pierced with a nail and discolored like it was stained with blood. So goes the story. 

I think it's interesting that Wolfwood’s name is so likened to this flower/plant and I don’t believe this is unintentional. LIke it’s right there. Cursed by the Eye of Michael to grow too fast, blessed to be strong and hard to kill. Is/bears the cross that brings Vash to Knives in the end. 

Lilies (and other Flowers)

So, I personally think the plants look a lot like lilies. And lilies are commonly attributed to the virgin Mary. They typically represent purity, innocence and rebirth. They are often gifted at mourning flowers as well and are one of the most popular flowers at funerals.

Either that or the blue-eyed Mary flower, which has less meaning attributed to it other than its name.

Anyways, that's all my thoughts for today. Thank you for reading all the way down here if you make it hehe

If people find more flower symbolism or have thoughts please let me know, I want to hear them!!!<3

Geranium history and meaning: https://www.pansymaiden.com/flowers/meaning/geranium/

Geranium and Christianity: http://www.whispersofhismovement.com/2012/04/05/geraniums/

Mourning Widows: https://gardenersapprentice.com/gardeningtips/mourning-widow/

Dogwood story: https://www.plantmegreen.com/blogs/news/easter-and-the-legend-of-the-dogwood-tree#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20story%2C%20it,cursed%20and%20blessed%20the%20tree.

Lily meaning: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/home-decor/a39982524/lily-flower-meaning/

[carmenilla]

hey im still wondering about the snowball scene, because during my first watch i thought mike is upset about el not being able to go to the snowball but she surprised him something like that, but now bylers are saying its because of will that he's dancing with a girl (tho i really like the sound of that) i am still not sold, do you have anything to say about this? thanks for reading bye

i'd say it's sort of a mix of both. the thing is, mike doesn't begin to be mopey until will goes to dance with the girl, and sort of looks like he instantly regrets it after encouraging will to do it. it then cuts to a shot of lucas + max dancing as well as will + the girl dancing, then back to dustin and mike (both are looking Not Happy, with dustin it's because max is dancing with lucas and with mike...?)

i think it could be read as platonic - will is the one who sticks by mike's side & that way neither of them are left alone (especially since the entirety of season 2 they are a pair) and now will's off dancing with some girl that he convinced him to dance with, so mike's all alone.

i would say he is upset about will dancing with the girl and because el's not here with him - with neither of them there with him, he's alone. he's sad because he's alone.

it's actually not exactly clear whether or not mike knew el was going to go to the dance, so i'm going to look at this from both perspectives:

let's say he didn't know she was coming, which is what i thought on like all my watch-throughs of this episode. mike begins feeling sad after will specifically goes to dance with the girl, and we see specific focus on mike when will does this. this can be read platonic or romantic, but either way, will leaving him is where i think mike starts to realize, oh shit i'm alone. this contrasts when dustin leaves to go find a girl to dance with, mike just makes a confused/disgusted face like he often does when it comes to the concept of flirting with girls or going after girls or things like that. (bit suspicious, but i digress). so now he's sad and alone, which starts after his friend who he is normally paired with is off with someone else. maybe he's longing for el, maybe he's wishing his friends hadn't abandoned him (and wishing he hadn't encouraged will to dance with the girl), we're not exactly sure. he does lighten up when el comes - he's not alone anymore, and now he gets to dance with the girl who he's somewhat romantically entwined with.

basically, he starts moping when will leaves him, and starts feeling better when el comes. depending on how you view mike's character, that can be interpreted in many ways.

if mike did know el was coming, well. i don't think i have to speak on how downright suspicious that is. why would he be moping if he knew el was coming? bit gay

i do think that he didn't know, and that situation is more open to interpretation, but i personally believe that he wasn't sad specifically because el wasn't there, he was sad because he's alone. obviously if el was there he wouldn't be alone anymore, so he probably thought that at some point and wished she was, but i feel like if he was sad specifically because el wasn't there he would be staring longingly at the door wishing that el would come through instead of staring blankly at the dance floor (or sadly at will, as we see earlier in the scene right after he goes to dance with the girl). he's sad because he's alone, and since he didn't expect el to come anyways, he's probably sad because the friend who would stick by his side is off on the dance floor (which is pretty much the reason why he is alone in this scene).

do my ramblings make any sense? i sorta just word vomit incoherent thoughts out lmao. basically what i think is that will leaving his side is what essentially causes mike to be alone at the dance, and mike is either sad because he's alone (and him being alone is mostly caused by will leaving his side since usually they're a pair and mike probably didn't expect dustin or lucas to just sit there awkwardly with him) OR he's sad directly because of will. i don't think he's sitting there being sad about specifically el or it would be more obvious and we would see him staring longingly at the door or something - instead all we have is of him making a sad/confused expression at will when he goes to dance.

so either mike is upset because of will specifically or because he's alone and probably didn't expect to be, which is mostly caused by will - i doubt he thought will was going to end up dancing with a girl, so he probably didn't expect to be alone. not because he was longing for el the whole time - take that as you will

that's just my interpretation tho lmao, hope this made sense

[rindragon-from-twewy]

Uh oh! Someone left me alone with my thoughts again! I don't see many people talking too deeply about pre-game stuff beyond "Number One was a terrible person" so I'm here to throw my own poorly explained hot take in to the ring-

I'm not really built for theory crafting and tend to miss or forget obvious details so consider this... an AU proposal more then anything. (Tbh I mostly just wanted to draw smol Yuma lmao-)

Spoiler warning ofc and enjoy this horrifically long and poorly explained ramble-

So... I don't really know much about the general fandom age headcannons on characters. I won't be going in to specifics right now about what I think all the character ages are cuz this isn't about that but for context, I pin Yuma around 15-16, on the early 18 side if you really wanna push it. Mainly cuz... it'd be kinda weird for Kurumi (a school student) to be one of his main love interests otherwise- For the sake of argument, I'll say 18.

So anyways-

Makoto's like... what? 3 or 4 years old? Forgive me for not re-watching chapter 5 just to get my timeline correct here but that's roughly right. Meaning that Number One would've been about 13 or 14 when he agreed to participate in the experiments at most. And sure, he's the smartest person in the world but anyone can be susceptible to lies or manipulations, especially someone that young.

But then of course we don't know how long Yuma had the Number One title for. Surely it would've had to have been at least a little while- I doubt the unified government would go after the blood of the newly appointed "smartest detective in the world" the second he got in to office. So who's to say exactly how much this literal child had been manipulated beforehand?

I'm imagining a sort of... Nagisa plus Kirigiri scenario (the danganronpa characters lol-) where they'd been set on a very specific academic path nearly their whole lives. Sure, Yuma probably had been born a genius and his strong moral code was most likely all his own but... no matter what way you spin it, there must have been some negligence to allow someone so young to become so cut off from the rest of society. It could've been intentional, it could've been accidental. Either way, why is someone like Yuma, who is obviously younger then most of his peers, who could easily pass as a trainee detective simply because of how smol he is, make it all the way to the top on his sheer intelligence alone?

This rambling's getting incoherent, sorry, it's late and I'm tired-

Makoto's pretty manipulative, sure, but he only got to the CEO position cuz of all the blackmail he had- Man had zero control over the city to the point he had to let outsiders get smuggled in just to help him fix it. Makoto (and by extension Number One) is book smart. Not street smart. They can build the rain machine, they can run multiple government conspiracies, etc etc. But if Number One was a kid at the time, it would've been pretty difficult for them to manipulate, mansplain, malewife his way in to office imo. A kid can't manipulate a dozens of adults in to being the leader of the whole WDO, no matter how naturally gifted they are. I mean it's no secret that the unified government and by extension the WDO are just as shady as Amaterasu so why wouldn't they take advantage of a young and impressionable kid when the opportunity arises?

We don't really know how Number One truly felt about anything. We know how Makoto views it, we know what Yuma thinks about it but we don't know if Number One really understood what the repercussions of the experiments could've been.

So let me just... break down what I'd interpret a vague timeline of events to be (in this hypothetical... Uh... AU I guess?)

- Yuma gets in to the WDO somehow. Very young, very impressionable. He may be really good at solving crimes but like any kid, he doesn't know anything that he isn't taught about. Being surrounded by mysteries and crimes, all while constantly being praised by adults as being "just soooo smart!" Is probably what taught him that he didn't need other people and so never learnt (or potentially was never even allowed to) make friends.

- Growing up surrounded by a combination of Yes-Men and people who let the obvious child labour/ exploitation slide because "This little genius is such a special case, we gotta let it slide this once!" Made it so he reached to the level of Number One far faster then anyone would expect. And that then came along with abandoning his old name and identity, isolating himself completely for his own protection. (I like to think he may not even remember his original name because he was so young at the time (for extra angst ^vO))

- And so a completely isolated pre-teen, who's entire life up until this point has entirely consisted of gory murder scenes and tragic crimes he was personally responsible for solving, was approached by the unified government. Who knows exactly how much detail they went in to with explaining their plan? Maybe they said that it probably wouldn't even work out, given all the past failures. Maybe they came begging for his help, like many people seeking justice would have done before them. Maybe they simply told him it was for the sake of peace? Maybe he was in his angsty emo phase and thought having a clone would be cool, who really knows? A pre-teen is a pree-teen, they all do dumb things- either way, he agreed.

- And so things played out like they said in the game, Makoto was created, escaped, saved the citizens of Kanai Ward via isolating them. He keeps them fed the only way he knows how - through the WDO; the only organisation he's ever been able to rely on (and thanks to his authority level, of course). Yuma starts getting suspicious while also simultaneously maturing enough to realise just how wrong everything about his life is, gets his new identity, makes the contract with Shinigami and heads off to start fixing his problems.

Additional Thoughts:

It's like that thing in the original beauty and the beast movie where everyone suddenly realised that the witch probably cursed a 9 year old for not letting a creepy stranger in to his home-

Maybe that's why he stuck with the name Yuma after everything. Cuz he didn't remember his original name to fall back on. He could've been Number One for as long as he could remember for all we know!

Maybe he was so busy trying to run the whole WDO that he didn't even pay much mind to the experiments? Could've just agreed to shut them up without knowing what he was getting in to. Makoto really drove it in to the mud how horrible of a person Number One was but how can we be sure that's an objective fact and not completely opinion driven?

I'm like actually really curious what other's perspectives on this could be. Again, I don't know much about the rain code fandom's age headcannons but it's pretty obvious to me at least that Yuma's on the younger end of the cast- (And by extension, Makoto too-)

Maybe I'll fact check myself when I have the time- either way, it's an interesting AU idea at the very least. I'll probably delete the writing portion of this post if it turns out I'm horrendously wrong-

Its probably gunna turn out that Yuma's in his mid 30s or 40s and suffers from baby face syndrome or something cringe fail like that lmfao-

So. Yeah. That's all just a theory (minus most of the fact checking) A GAME THEORY- Thanks for reading! :D

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

The Nine Houses

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Masterpost

-

The Nine Houses refer to planets, named, presumably, in order of colonisation. I'm befuddled as to which one is which planet, if we're going on the assumption that this is the solar system. This is what I've extrapolated from reading:

First is Earth.

Second is most likely Mars - gathered from the fighting energy of its house, proximity to Earth and viability for terraforming, and also this:

"[...]Each Beast is different. I have fought numerous now, and each Beast is quite unlike any other … Number Two spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred-foot spikes. Number Six kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms. I cannot even remember what it looked like. I remember Number Four … it was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die—and I recall Number One as a great and incoherent machine … when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.” It was the Saint of Duty who said, restlessly: “Number Eight was a giant head.” “Finned like a fish,” said Augustine, lost in reverie. “Its ribs were bloody bandages, and its teeth protruded through its own skull, tangled about its face like a nest. It was red, and it had a single eye of green that moved all about the body …"

Metal-related appearance, from the planet notoriously rusty.

Actually, this passage describing the Resurrection Beasts - revenants of the planets - was the thing that got me into trying to assign planets to Houses based on, mostly, vibes.

Forth could be Venus, based on this passage alone. I could easily be wrong.

Sixth is Mercury I reckon. In the epilogue of HtN the setting is described as very hot - close to Dominicus. I reread it now and I don't think it's ever mentioned to be set on the Sixth, in fact parts of it actively contradict that assumption, but somehow I seem to have gotten that into my head anyway? But even so, Sixth is described as the one closest to Dominicus - notably this passage:

The Emperor dropped to his haunches and eased the white robe off Mercy’s dead shoulders. He shrugged his naked body into it—coyly pulling it closed—and he stretched his jaw in his mouth, and wriggled the tip of his newly grown nose. “Right,” he said, and closed his eyes briefly. Then he said, “The sun has stabilized. Hope the Sixth House didn’t get cooked in the flare.”

This to me pretty much confirmed the Sixth as Mercury.

Eighth, in the above passage about the Resurrection Beasts, is described in ways that immediately make me picture Jupiter. Red, a single eye of green moving all over the body? Ribs were bloody bandages? A "giant head" - Jupiter, in Roman mythology was the king of the gods? Am I way off the mark here?

And Ninth is Pluto, furthest from the sun, cold and desolate. And solid. (How are they pulling off living on gas giants?)

This leaves the Third, Fifth, Seventh houses to be matched with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. At a loss, still, for how gas giants are supposed to be colonised. The general infrastructure of the pre- and post-resurrection world/Empire has me asking questions like, where do they get the materials to build starships and feed their officers? Metal and plastic seem abundant. In terms of food we've mostly seen snow leeks, Canaan House and the Mithraeum, all of which are probably exceptional to what a regular House person eats. There is some talk of John's expansion and colonising efforts, so do they just go to random planets - are there aliens in this universe? (Is Alecto one?) So the Empire is expanding, mining colonised planets for ore and oil to turn into plastic - though that would indicate a lot of life on a lot of these planets, so I'm gonna guess that whatever happens to those planets isn't kind to the native flora, fauna and people.

Of course, there's always the option that this isn't meant to be the planets at all, and even if it was, it might be a lot more metaphorical. Or just actually a completely different world to ours, not the solar system at all. (Though there's many explicit and implicit pop culture references which would indicate the First to truly be Earth, so we're sticking with this theory.)

Are they actually on the planets - we haven't seen any planets other than First, and Ninth, arguably big exceptions; the Epilogue seems to be set on a moon of some kind, after a more thorough reread. The Actual Planets are dead, or rather resurrected, with their revenants on the hunt. Could be that the Houses do stand for the planets, and some people might be living on (or near) the actual planets, but a lot of people are actually living away from the solar system entirely - born into "Houses" far from the sun, into the Emperor's war machine. It's hard to tell.

Either way, I'm not gonna assign any more planets now until I know more.

>> Next: The Resurrection

[leenaota]

P.3

In the photo on the sign behind the umbrella it says "Она не сделала ничего плохого", aka "She did nothing wrong", if someone doesn't understand. I didn't translate the fourth sign because I don't understand it... "It's no" -what? Use?

The most uncomfortable is the difficulty of finding a suitable font and removing the background. But I myself want not just a text translation, so yeah- I make things difficult for myself, but I don't regret it, I love the result.

P.S. Does anyone know what gender Jannet Gaston is? Like, Janet is a female name, but I'm still unsure. I don't know if they will be mentioned again somewhere later or no, but anyway I'd like to know

•°•Russian Lesson°•°

(IDK why, but I decided write that. Honestly, I'll probably fill the posts with something so that they aren't so empty. Next time Biology class! (Probably))

in the Russian language there are verbs, adjectives that depend on the words "gender" (noun, pronoun). Ex: сказал (said -> he), сказала (she), сказало (it), сказали (they); прекрасный (beautiful -> he), прекрасная (she), прекрасное (it); прекрасные (they)

It also doesn't depend on whether the object is alive or not (Except "they" words, if this word is plural then use "they", always). To understand, there are some rules related to the ending of words. Although it most often determine by the question: Whose? -> Чей?/Чья?/Чьё?/Чьи?

Она, девушка, игра, кошка (She, girl, game, female cat) - All these are "female gender" words. Check question: Чья? (Because if we use other ones, it will sound incoherent.)

Он, мужчина, стол, крот (He, man, table, mole) - "male gender" words. Check question: Чей?

Оно, солнце, насекомое, животное (It, sun, insect, animal) - "middle gender" words, aka "a-gender". The insect and animal enter here only because of the word ending. "It" words mostly applied to unalive objects. Check question: Чьё?

If you want to learn this language seriously, you'd better learn the rules about word endings, and not just use check questions.

Rus

На фотографии на табличке/плакате за зонтиком написано: "Она не сделала ничего плохого" –> "She did nothing wrong", если не понятно. Я не перевела четвертую табличку/плакат, потому что я не поняла что написано. Поэтому я его не перевел... "It's no" -что? Use?

Самое неудобное - это сложность поиска подходящего шрифта и удаления фона. Но я хочу не просто перевод текста, без оформления так сказать, так что... Да, я усложняю себе задачу, но мне нравиться результат.

P.S. Кто-нибудь знает, какого пола Джанет Гастон? Типа, Джанет, женское имя, но я все еще не уверен. Не знаю, будут ли они еще где-то упоминаться или нет, но на заметку хотелось бы узнать

[pilferingapples]

started re-watching LM 2K with some friends who also make terrible life choices

went in honestly thinking , Hey! maybe I am forgetting things! Maybe it's not as bad as I remember it being!

well 1.5 hours into this 8 hour fever dream and I can say. I was forgetting things all right! quite a lot of things! but whoo boy I owe Past Me an apology, this is bad and every new Thing I Had Blocked Out Of My Mind makes it worse

Thoughts, While I Have Them:

why does it start literally on fire

I'll give John Malkovert this: he does seem disturbingly horny for the idea of inherent traits and inborn social hierarchy. Beeblevert didn't really seem to know what to do with his phrenology displays; Malkovert whispers to them lovingly at night and probably licks them. This guy feels about eugenics like Grantaire feels about Enjolras. This guy is messed up.

( ...filmmakers know that when they've got someone with lots of human skull measurements and phrenology and Types of Human displays, they're saying that character is into eugenics, right? I'm not saying it's a bad move, it can be very accurate and telling ,but like. They get what that's doing there, right? RIGHT???)

The dialogue...is bad.... it's so bad...

"yellow is the color of happiness"

this timeline is a shambles. Fantine doesn't have Cosette until after Tholomyes is gone, and then apparently holds out for YEARS in Paris, since Cosette is if anything a little older than her book age when Fantine meets the Ts; meanwhile Valjean doesn't get out of prison until AFTER Fantine has moved to M-sur-M. Which of course means there's no factory for her to work at!

...but then after Valjean (very intentionally) steals from Petit Gervais, we cut to Fantine working in the factory. The Nettle Cloth factory . Which means Fantine was doing SOMETHING before Valjean showed up to Disrupt the industry with his Tech Breakthrough but like. What. If she was doing something else then why doesn't she go do that some more after she's fired? Because she very much doesn't, she goes right to attempting sex work...badly

like trying it with Javert first Badly

and then he threatens to arrest her but doesn't?? who is this man, what kind of Javert is he ffs . Letting a Poor go unarrested? Seriously this doesn't even scan with his characterization in this series

Instead he starts stalking Fantine and giving her Helpful Hints. He comes in right after she has a client?? and tells her to go to the circus??

She goes and finds the dentist and tries to get him to pull TEN of her teeth bc for no reason he's giving 4 francs a tooth instead of 20 for the fronts. The dentist is the only character in this show with sense and says NO THAT'S TOO MANY TEETH, and he just cuts her hair instead And listen we've got another Fantine with Mostly Straight Brown Hair , it's not even that long, and I'm sorry but there's NO WAY that's worth more than teeth, why do adaptations keep doing this

also why do they keep making Fantine so passive, so dependent on people telling her what to do? She makes bad choices sometimes--often even!-- but she Makes Decisions and fast, she goes all in without any pushing, that is a defining part of Fantine's character! but everything she does here gotta be because someone told her she Should

another one where Javert inexplicably goes to M sur M to see Cosette. Why? What possible reason for this?? he almost seems like he has a weird crush on Fantine rather than JVJ but that's. That's incoherent, for this character. even in this series!!

I've written so much and haven't even gotten to Valjean officiating a wedding for, apparently, a famous former sex worker in the town ? this is mentioned once and I don't think it'll ever be relevant again

1.5 hours in, Points For: a very cute little donkey, Petit Gervais having his Marmot, some very nice architecture, Baptistine existing

Unpoints for: everyone's bafflingly inconsistent characterization, the absolute mess of a timeline, Myriel still living in the palace but letting homeless people sleep on the floor?? , lots of very pointless Walking Around Time , Thenardier Sex , why do directors think I want to see them get it on, Please Stop

[punsmaster69]

23/JAN/20XX

"eugh."

that's about how i feel right now.

it's around five thirty in the morning and i can't shut my mind off.

the noise is mostly an incoherent, overwhelming buzz of thoughts. much like tv static, or an out of range radio.

through the chaos flickers barely formed shards of something; eliciting action.

i can't justify it.

the phone in my hand vibrates quietly.

𝘣𝘻𝘻𝘻.

please.

𝘣𝘻𝘻𝘻.

maybe it was dumb.

𝘣𝘻𝘻𝘻.

why'd i even bother?

𝘣𝘻𝘻𝘻.

definitely stupid.

𝘣𝘻𝘻𝘻.

definitely-

𝘣𝘻-

"......"

"Hello?"

"I do apologize for not answering sooner."

"𝘪 should be apologizing for calling at this time."

"I do not mind."

"It is hard to say I was properly asleep, anyway."

"something keepin' you from it?"

she paused to think about it. one could probably hear my thoughts in the silence if they tried.

"..Not in particular."

"As for you?"

"it's...."

"just one of those nights."

"Ah. Am I your cure for boredom or was there more to this?"

"..more."

"Maybe it is similar to why I picked up."

"neverending hum?"

"Relentless pacing of the mind?"

"yeah. somethin' along those lines."

"I'm comforted to find our sleeplessness of the same affliction."

"not alone with the mind-bees."

"These 'bees'.. it would be nice if they could bear purpose, as real bees do."

"purpose, huh?"

"you want mind honey?"

"I would not 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆."

while she giggled, i felt my face get a little hotter. i'm sure my smile looked ridiculous.

"s'pose they did cause something good."

"What might that be?"

"wouldn't be here if there was pure silence."

"That is true."

"I've noticed a gradual quieting since answering."

"..yeah."

"Curious, is it not?"

"i find that focusing on something'll usually help."

"...Hm."

"hm?"

"While this certainly is 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨, I feel slightly restless still."

" 'course you do. it's six-something and we're here awake."

"True as that may be, it is a different kind of restless. As if simply laying here is not enough."

"urge to do stuff?"

"can't relate to that one, unfortunately."

"I haven't the energy for much at the moment, obviously."

"find a thing you can do with only your hands, maybe."

"And what do you suggest I do with my hands?"

"....."

"dunno. but... if we're both gonna be awake and on call we might as well do the same thing."

"pick somethin', i'll try and follow along."

there was a long gap before she spoke again.

"......"

"I...

"..think that perhaps it is best if we simply try to relax again after all. More activity would certainly keep us awake double what we are now."

she said that, and i realized how i'd been sitting up; legs over the side of my bed, just above the floor.

"fair enough."

"down to just ramble to each other 'till we pass out, then?"

"That sounds perfect."

i laid back down, setting the phone on my chest and crossing my arms behind my head. muffled sounds came through the speaker while she readjusted her position as well.

[iaus]

okay floodgates are open. incoherent rambling time

okay first things first salem is SO funny because initially when i made him i was literally sitting here like what would it look like if i mashed together traits of tardif and damian from darkest dungeon. well. you end up with a rage-y hulk of a man who flattens his affect so much that he can't come to grips with ANYTHING that happens to him so he just distances himself from his past repeatedly until he's like.

i'm adjusted. i got over this. i'm a completely normal functioning human being. > bolts at the first sign of someone wanting a relationship from him. (but. as i've said before the whole Thing with alfie in my head is more complicated than JUST that. i think salem and alfie were in a mutually toxic situationship that never resolved or will ever resolve.) BUT. he is a dnd character so i couldn't help but add More Trauma to his background

so like. i've always in my head been Vague about whether his family is actually dead but HE very much believes that. so he has that guilt of if he leaves someone that they'll die while he's not there. (which is kind of resurfacing now in the game with salem getting yera to steal a hairbrush and hair from alfie's house LOL.) but.

now we get to the point of this post because i haven't like actually Written Down salem's family dynamics even though they're really clear in my head.

so when i thought more about salem's family i was thinking more like nomadic nordic and germanic tribes (his original weapon was named freawaru after the character in beowulf) and i was also thinking of hyena hierarchies and family structures so, naturally, i was like okay his family is basically like this gigantic matriarchal amalgamation of his immediate family and cousins. i always pictured them as a mix of aasimar, gnoll, shifters/lycans, and half-orcs that lived in the anarouch desert. they'd move about trading and offering protection along the black road.

also fun fact salem's birth name (orrak dalthu) is a mix of gnoll and orc names.

his dad isn't in the picture but he's never felt inclined to meet his father. i still need to think more about the inner "politics" of his family but i never pictured his mother as the matriarch of the family BUT i did always see his older half-sister being "next in line" which made her a lot more responsible and less "fun" to salem.

but luckily for little salem he did have a twin, mihr, and cousins close in age so it's not like he was alone and bored. but i think the general gist of his relationship with his siblings is

kedil (older half-sister by 7 years): the go-to when he needed help with things. close but kind of strained due to her being busy and kind of aloof in general. i think salem couldn't really comprehend the responsibilities kedil had and just in that little kid way was like. you just hate me because you never have time for me. he misses her A Lot.

mihr (twin): whenever i describe mihr in my mind or in the few things i've written about salem's past i tend to have salem refer to mihr as his little shadow. i also see mihr as really frail and sickly compared to salem. he would get bullied by their cousins and salem WOULD stick up for him in public but in private salem would always be like. you need to be Better. you can't let them do that to you. the first time salem died i told eli that salem had a moment in the afterlife where he forgot mihr's name and i think it shook him to his core.

adri (younger sister by 2 years): tbh i see adri as not wanting much to do with salem. she was doing her Own Thing because she didn't want to play with the stinky boys. i think salem DID have a huge soft spot for her because she was so independent and if she ever asked for anything he and mihr would be ON it. the feeling was not mutual.

ihyn (younger half-brother by 6 years): ihyn was not on salem's radar. he was probably mostly jealous of him because since ihyn was the BABY baby of his siblings he would get a lot of attention from their mom. ngl salem probably was pulling pranks on ihyn as a teen.

anyway. all this to say. salem leaving and then coming back to his whole family missing/dead has fucked with him A LOT. he's used to having this huge family around him and to have that completely wrenched away from him has really made him leery to make connections with people because he doesn't want that experience of losing people again.

i have no other point.

he needs therapy <3

[deathofacupid]

backpacks | peter parker

summary: peter has a streak, and not a good one.

he looked everywhere. under the piles of unfolded laundry, through his overflowing hamper, even checked the car. twice. his backpack was nowhere to be found. peter tugged at the ends of his hair, running his hand through the unkempt mess, and thinking to himself, "how do you manage to lose an entire backpack?" and it was a valid question.

how do you manage to lose twelve backpacks in two months?

ask peter. but then again, he wouldn't know.

last he left it, it was in the alley. but it wasn't stolen, he walked home with it. and then what? he couldn't remember. where on earth did he leave it last? he always dropped it somewhere after changing into his suit. suit. not costume, as y/n would phrase it. peter groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"everything good, honey?" aunt may called.

he really didn't want to have to tell may about this. she had gotten so upset the last couple of times, and the best excuse he could ever come up with was; "those darn pickpocketers." poor may would just give him a wary look and take an aspirin by the sink. she didn't get paid enough for this. in fact, she didn't get paid at all, to her utter disappointment. aunt may loved peter, but that boy was a job.

he nibbled anxiously on his bottom lip as he stood at the top of a building, dressed in his not-costume. peter had checked everywhere that it could possibly be, and was now brainstorming ideas on how to tell may he needed a new backpack. and a new excuse.

"hey may! i've lost my backpack for the hundredth time! why? oh, cause i'm spiderman." he muttered sarcastically to himself. peter knew that if his told her that, she'd probably go into cardiac arrest. he couldn't even get one himself, aunt may would find out. she always found out.

he swung down to the café he'd been to early, pushing open the door and waltzing in, thank god it was mostly empty, or else the paparazzi would have eaten him alive.

"hey, um, you got a second? cool. i, uh, have you seen a black backpack around here? jansport, um, asking for a friend."

the guy looked up from the counter and raised an eyebrow. "...no?" peter groaned lightly, stomping his foot comedically. "gah, thanks anyways."

he rushed back out, webbing to the lamppost and perching on it. where else had he been today?

the park!

he swung in that direction, looking overhead for the bag. peter squinted at a black lump by the back of the park near the trees. he pumped a fist and and landed by it, feeling well-accomplished. a terrible stench hit his nostrils and he scrunched his nose up.

it was not a backpack. it was a trash bag.

peter cursed to himself, shoulders slumped. he started swinging back to his house, looking down below for it. he let out a small yelp, barely swerving a bird. landing on the front porch, he went on rehearsing what to say, mumbling incoherent nothings to himself. peter unlocked the door, pursing his lips together.

"uh, hey aunt may. i, um, i-"

"yeah, hon?"

as he took a breath, his phone starting ringing, causing him to flinch lightly. "sorry, may, just a sec."

he glanced at the caller, subconsciously smiling to himself at the sight of her name. accepting the call he greeted her, with a small "hi."

"babe?" y/n asked, "you left your backpack at my place, when we were studying."

oh.