#longpost oops

[tojosuggestionbox]

Historically the yakuza as an institution has been exclusively made up of men, and the Tojo Clan is no exception. This is not to say that women have had no part in the clan; they simply operated in an unofficial capacity. Not only do women make up a significant part of the civilian workforce associated with our businesses, but I am certain that many of you have an ane-san in your family or know of one enough to understand their influence. It may be a comparatively quiet power, but not one to be underestimated.

Interestingly, Tojo has had women take front-facing roles in a way that many other organizations have not. As I am sure you are aware, Dojima Yayoi briefly held a position as acting Fifth Chairwoman in 2006. She continues to command a great deal of respect in the clan, and rightfully so.

Despite this, many in Tojo tend to relegate the role of women to accessories at best. It is an unfortunate reflection of the workplace culture of this country, though markedly worse in several areas. Operating outside the boundaries of the law is not an excuse for operating outside the bounds of basic civility.

I would like to take the opportunity to remind all members of the clan that they are to treat their coworkers with respect, regardless of civilian status or gender. They are here to work, not be harassed.

Within the Hakuho Clan specifically, such behavior will not be tolerated. There are members of staff who are far more valuable to our operation than anyone who would choose to break our codes of conduct.

[chimerahyperfix]

Run down your list. You are currently on your way to intercept the King, before he gets to the house. Whenever he gets there, it’s a bloodbath; metaphorically and physically. How many more times do you have to see everyone get frozen? See the King smash those who stand before him? You can’t see it again, you can’t you can’t you can’t, so you sneak out to face him instead. If he can’t get to the House, no one has to die, right? Simple as that. The endless night of his approach hangs right over Dormont, so you have to catch him, NOW.

You make a pit-stop at the Favor Tree anyway. It’s tradition at this point.

You did… something, here. Before you started looping. The hypothesis is that whatever you did at the Favor Tree caused the time loop you’re trapped in. You know you wished, a ton— at least ten times, or maybe twenty? All in as many different ways you could think of. Stretching outside the realm of how you know to wish. The desperation drove you to doing random things in hopes it would save you, and— well, it kinda has? You’ve doomed yourself for everyone else’s sakes.

That’s all well and fine enough, you rationalize. One person for many. Who knows what’ll happen if he actually takes the House; you don’t want to find that answer out.

The Favor Tree is huge. It’s a nice tree, lots of leaves, lots of shade. You could probably climb into its branches and never leave, get trapped in a web of tree bark and leaves like a cage, birds and squirrels and other such animals as your jailers. Maybe that wouldn’t be too bad. You could try that, next loop, if you failed here. You know you’ll fail, because nothing has worked so far. Your mind flashes with images of blood-stained floors, of screams both by and for many, many people. Hands reaching to you, hands reaching out.

Breathe. The memory fades away. Your hands curl into fists.

You depart, to fight the King. To stop the King.

———————

The King is very tall. A couple stories high, you’d reckon. He towers over you, the trees and everything else. The clearing you’ve stopped him in is very close to the House. Too close for comfort. Shouldn’t have stopped at the tree. Everything is swamped with the scent of burnt sugar.

He looks down at you— do you look like an ant to him? One singular ant? Wouldn’t that be interesting. A single blockade to the anthill, standing its ground. One mistake and he’ll turn you into a dark stain, or an icy statue. One mistake is all it’ll take for him to rip through the House like paper.

The Craft Bomb is heavy in your pocket. The backup potions, seven or eight of them, all in little tossable vials, toxic and burning and acidic, weigh down the other pocket of your lab coat. You remember drinking at least three of them. They all killed you. Painfully. Curse your desk for not being clean before you started looping. If you’d just taken a few minutes before you wished, so many deaths would’ve been avoided…

But that’s not important now. The fire in your throat, as imagined as it is now, still hurts. Your voice has taken an odd rasp to it now, the consequences of toxicity and blind reaching for water forever etched into your very being.

“How have you done it?” The King asks. You can’t see his eyes, past his endless, wild mane of hair and his gauntlets covering his face, but he sounds both confused and enraged.

You don’t answer, instead brandishing the bomb you worked so hard on. You made it in record pace, this loop. It too reeks of caramel.

The King simply moves a hand. You know what’s coming, and you move before he does. The curse of being so, so tall, is that you’re faster. The bomb goes flying, and you toss the potions all in one go for good measure before skittering out of the way. The King lunges for you as the bomb explodes, sending waves of fire and craft energy everywhere. Blinding, deafening. Its force knocks you to the ground.

He still moves, though. Not enough. Damn. Maybe you need two bombs… do you have the materials for a second one? You hope, as he swings his giant gauntlet down onto you to mash you like a bug, that he sees the weird shade your eyes have taken lately. A pair of blaring, dangerous warning signs.

You’re not scared anymore. This has happened many times.

You still scream.

His attack hits, and through the veil of absolute agony, there’s a tug on your stomach. Back to the drawing board.

[greetings-humans]

i couldn't agree more! i've been debating with myself about a series of (criminal) case crossover fics I've been writing and potentially reworking them in the future into some original thing, but i know a lot of things would need to change!

for a start, in fics, you already know 98-100% of the cast. this is not really your introduction to them, so it stands to reason that in a lot of fics there isn't an introduction. i didn't introduce "properly" (for fiction standards and not fanfic standards) like three out of the four MCs in this one fic. if this is not reworked massively during the process of making the fic an original thing, you can end up with readers thinking that this character was underdeveloped or wondering where the hell this reaction to XYZ came from.

also, the point of those fics is to explore the different (in comparison to canon) circumstances of this one character and how they affect those around this character. fiction that is not fan fiction stands on its own, as @veggiesforpresident said. those fics do not. if we didn't know the canon of the fandom(s) involved, the story would be stripped of the elements that make this story interesting.

who would care about my dick grayson undercover as neal caffrey fic, if they didn't know that a) dick grayson is a superhero named nightwing, this is how he works, this is how his life has gone, these are his friends and family, this is the entire background of the superhero community (put together from his 80 years of comic book history) and b) this is neal caffrey, he is a convicted bond forger serving his sentence as a criminal informant in the FBI, his name is fake so this inspired a lot of ppl to use him to insert a superhero into his canon storyline.

without this important info, the story that was meant to remind you that as you know, this guy does this and lives like that, will instead be telling you that he's a big deal (with barely any proof), and skipping along to the main event of the reveal of his superhero-ing ways. you would not care nearly as much. because you'd still be caught up wondering who the hell this guy was and what this story was going on about.

which reminds me btw, that usually, the MC of a fic is not someone I have to make you invested in. if you wanna find fics for this person, then 99% of the time you are at least heavily intrigued, and usually, also very invested from the get-go. the downside of this is that the standards for the writer can be very high. if the character doesn't feel right for the reader, they'll leave, easy as that (we're not gonna talk about hateful comments, those are disgustingly immature). but my goal is not to make you invested from scratch, it is to keep you interested. that's a very different job.

another difference is pacing. because of all the information that is previously known to fanfic readers, we skip a lot of character-building or worldbuilding things. for due cause! the point is to explore new things, and you can do that much more easily without rehashing all the previously known info again and again (unless you want to add your own twist or try your hand at writing them, though usually, the rewrites aren't as long as say a novella). like, i don't need my obi wan kenobi fic to spend 30% of the fic on how the galaxy far far away works when the summary tells me this is about him acclimating back to life at the temple after melidaan. i know how it works, tell me instead what the summary promised in, say, a 5+1 format. (you don't need me to tell you that original works don't work like that)

im not up for a huge rant, so that'll do (for now), but i'm just so happy to see this on my dash!! like yes!!! you are correct!!!! writing for fics is so much different than writing for fiction. sure some of the skills translate, but make no mistake, people, it is not exactly the same.

i understand the appeal of publishing "fic with the serial numbers filed off" as original work but i also feel like. what makes something a good fic is at odds with what makes something a good original story.

[miraluking-respectfully]

I wanted my next longpost about DNT to focus on what this book reveals wrt the process of Joining. Instead, I accidentally went on a rant in the Discord server about the Killiks as a people during this particular era of galactic history in-universe, and by extension, Raynar Thul.

Raynar Thul, aka UnuThul, is a Joiner of Unu of some significance who I've put off explaining because when I entered the book, I knew about him and I considered his presence abhorrent. I've since gotten over some of those feelings, but I'm better off copy-pasting my Discord Rant than to try and summarize here.

Spoilers for The Joiner King below, but don't worry about that too much, as I'm kind of reading this book so you don't have to.

Call me Bug Walker.

*bad rimshot*

Begin Copypaste

The trouble with this particular novel is that while it's EXTREMELY juicy with Bug Lore, half of what it reveals about Kind society/culture/biology are New Developments™️ that i'm having to untangle from what could feasibly have been present before, ie, within the SWTOR era. Basically the premise of this book is that the nest has been undergoing some Changes due to the influence of a highly Force-sensitive Joiner, who was then able to extend his will over the nest as a whole. So discovering which is the nasty yucky invasive anthropomorphism introduced into my bugs by this character and which is the acceptable seasoning of anthropomorphism inherent to the development of a fictional intelligent species is not always super cut and dry

Like, the care given to individual casualties is an explicitly new development (makes sense, there aren't a ton of eusocial hive insects IRL that perform triage), but is the spaceport they built? Is the trade they're performing with other species? Is the Colony involving multiple distinct nests sharing a unified hive mind as opposed to a bunch of them? I'm like, not sure

Which is kind of funny, because the idea that the Killiks were a static culture until this One Guy with the right levels of space magic crashed into their planet & exerted his will over them with his last burst of near-death strength Also Really Bothers Me(edited)

"Well, Mads, if you like an aspect of Killiks 2.0, you can just pretend it's always been present in Killiks 1.0!" I don't waaaannaaaa

I want the LEAST anthro version of my bugs!!! I want the version of them BEFORE Raynar Thul got his grubby little mind all over them!

Joiners as a concept are fuckin sick not only because of what the bugs can give to them but for what they can give to the bugs. Joiners aren't Oops! All Hive Mind, they are two minds. Your old personality and memories still exist, but your understanding of the world and your priorities are now one with the Hive. And because I <3 TLT and I'm really big on the permeability of the soul rn, that suggests to me that the character and personality of a hive would change, slowly and surely, depending on the types of Joiners incorporated into it. It would have to. If the hive mind pre-Raynar has no clear source, no clear singular will behind it (disclaimer: IDK if this is true, I have 2.75 more entire book to read), then it could only be shaped and influenced by all its participants, bug and otherwise.

Raynar's existence + influence over the Colony doesn't preclude this possibility, but like. He does raise a question,

that being, could any Forcie have done this under the right circumstances? if not Why not

Like the book hasn't stated it outright but the wiki seemed confident that this guy has been the only Forcie Joiner to get subsumed, and while I don't know if that's a wholly accurate statement bc fucking nobody has read these books, the fact that the books gave the wiki authors that impression BUGS ME (pun intended)

This is the first EU book I've ever read. IDK what kinds of fuckin galactic percentages of Forcies to non-Forcies it's assuming. Obviously the number would be low because this book takes place a point when the Jedi are bouncing back from a painful extinction, but that extinction was recent, it was artificial, and also as we all know well Jedi =/= all Force users and statistically it is buckwild crazy to me that the Killiks would exist for 20,000+ years (the migration Vector mentions was introduced here btw! These are the Kind that left Alderaan, that he was looking for!) and at no point would they have picked up a strong-willed Force-user before this one dude

Now, there IS a confounding factor here. Which is, I imagine any other Forcie Joiners pre-Raynar were not, um. Trying to influence the nest as hard as he was

For starters he's just super duper strong in the Force, but also, he Joined because he crashed into a planet and crawled out of his ship half-dead and super on fire after watching multiple of his friends die horribly, and the will he exerted over the Killiks was a last-ditch effort to get them to save his life as opposed to eating him

that is a SPECIFIC-ASS set of circumstances and maaaybe if such a thing happened again within a different and unrelated nest, the same thing could have happened. Maybe it wasn't the presence of Force abilities that caused this one guy's brain to redirect the flow of the collective mind, but the effort he was putting behind it, effort that previous Force-sensitive Joiners had not found a need to wield

And also, like, UnuThul is 100% a Joiner. He is no more the same guy he was going in than Vector is, this is made clear

Bright side: as I said, I have A TON of this book left to go. And there have been a bunch of really strange happenings within the nest that Raynar in his Dawn-Herald-On-Steroids role seems as baffled by as the rest of the Kind. So maybe the next Big Reveal is gonna blow my ass clean off, slash positive, and make this all sit right with me.

But nonetheless I am bovvered. I am bovvered that a hive mind could develop a person in the drivers' seat for any reason. It feels too easy and it feels too anthropomorphizing, and both of those make it reeeally boring

End Copypaste

[jumpscaregoose]

x laws propaganda time

alright this is the big one buckle in nerds

@ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma poll crash course in x laws and also lyserg diethel. all encompassing longpost, tangents included

this is probably going to be too monolithic to work as propaganda but I can do what I want

(read more for courtesy because. abomination)

we’ll begin with some light housekeeping!

Shaman King 101 real quick for those unaware: shamans are people who can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits. every 500 years there’s a big tournament to decide who gets the biggest, bestest spirit, the Great Spirit. there are two versions of SK, 2001 (a heavily manga divergent anime adaptation considered to be better on both nostalgia and writing principles) and the 2021/manga version (written by this guy hiroyuki takei who’s really not the best at writing plots and tends to forget important details. this one’s his intent for better or worse and is more canon).

IMPORTANT TERMS (that I use here but forgot to explain first oops)

spirit ally: a shaman’s primary spirit they use for combat and various tasks

over soul: putting a spirit into a physical medium to allow them to interact with the living world

mana/furyoku: interchangable english and japanese terms for a shaman’s power level. can be measured numerically

shaman king: the person who has the great spirit as their spirit ally

the original shaman king manga was written by a man named hiroyuki takei. takei is. certainly a writer ever. he’s very good at writing fun characters and character dynamics. he character designs and art are very nice (when he’s not being stupid with them. there are some CHOICES). he is very bad at most other things. like remembering timelines and plot details. or research. I will be referring to him occasionally

my area of expertise is the manga version, so assume anything I mention is from that one unless otherwise stated (most general statements do apply to both). HOWEVER, there are some x laws related things that are SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT (more traumatic) in 2001, and I will bring those up as well.

the main antagonist is this guy hao, an onmyoji from 1000 years ago who reincarnated himself to become god (the shaman king). also btw an onmoyji is a type of spiritual leader person who practiced the traditional chinese wuxing (five element) concept, that’s important later. the main protagonist is his twin brother/split part of his soul yoh. they’re really interesting but not the point of this post so 

enter lyserg diethel, blorbo no. 1 for this poll (I highly recoommend starting to type his name into your search engine and clicking on the first chemical looking thing that comes up in autocomplete. I could just tell you but it’s way funnier if you find this out how I did)

when we meet lyserg he’s 14 years old (I think. the SK timeline is very broken around this part of the story and dates can vary by a couple years) and he’s joined the shaman fight (big plot tournament) to get revenge on hao, who killed his parents and burned his house down when he was 6. also he’s british, uses dowsing with a pendulum, and his spirit ally is the fairy morphine (funny if you looked up the thing from before), who’s been his friend for his entire life (comes up in trauma later keep notes). he’s also frequently depicted with poppies in the manga (infuriating when combined with the name thing and morphine. why. why is he named that. why he not opioid. this makes me so irrationally upset). lyserg meets the protagonist gang (yoh, this gay emo kid, gay emo kid’s shonen rival boyfriend, and this other guy with a hilarious running gag of summoning this guy billy with magic hitchhiking powers all the time in 2001. it’s implied hitchhiking guy and billy make out once. this show is insane). lyserg’s goal at this point is to find strong allies to beat hao, so he tries to invoke the let’s-fight-to-become-friends trope and it does work but not until he gets decked in the face for being an idiot and pays for everyone’s hospital bills. which are a thing because btw everyone got dropped out of a plane into new mexico breaking bad style for a tournament test.

while journeying with the protagonist gang, they encounter one of hao’s minions, a man named boris tepes dracula. boris is able to use his spirit ally to possess people and temporarily turn them into his vampire minions. the concept of becoming a servant to hao is so horrific to lyserg that, in the 2001 version, he begs yoh to kill him if he ever becomes one. with 100% sincerity. spoiler alert he does at one point, does not get killed, and is confused. this is also when the main event of this poll shows up.

X LAWS BACKSTORY INTERLUDE!

back in the day there were these two dudes luchist and marco lasso. marco was an orphan who grew up at luchist’s family orphanage and they had a very close paternal relationship. so close that they founded an independent supercar dealership together. enter hao, here to find minions for the shaman fight in what was at this point probably about 10 years! arson and murder! the car dealership and orphanage get burnt down, and luchist and marco swear lifelong vengeance on a kid who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old and form the x laws. they gather more people who also think a small child is the ultimate evil, including… who’s that? our next competitor!

iron maiden jeanne, blorbo no. 2 for this poll!

jeanne was a young orphan girl on the streets of mont saint michel in france (my high school functions teacher claimed to have almost drowned in quicksand there writing his name during low tide), that marco and luchist picked to become their ultimate weapon and convinced her she was sent from god to defeat hao. key point here: iron maiden jeanne is genuinely just some random little girl, no divine connection beyond that of the average shaman of her power level. and about that power level. manga/2021 shaman king has this weird little detail, where if a shaman dies or is gravely injured, their numerical power level (I’m glad 2001 only brought in numbers to surprise us with hao’s strength later on, because aaaaaaa) will increase drastically. the x laws exploit this system by having jeanne swear and oath on an iron maiden (the fake medieval torture device, not the band) and stay inside it almost 24/7. real spikes, too. blood pours out of it during her introduction.

being so close to death for probably half her life has given her immense power, and her spirit ally is shamash, the god/spirit who… issued the first laws to the babylonians in mesopotamia? wasn’t the x laws supposed to be a catholic thing?

don’t. worry. about it. normal Takei things.

real quick on religious imagery: the x laws’ over souls are “angels” these robot things (think eva unit but #aesthetic #angelcore or whatever) that they activate by shooting guns. can range from small handguns to bazookas. the second ed of the 2021 anime is also this:

take it as you will (I love the 2021 eds so much btw, my favourite pieces of shaman king animation. ed 1 for the win)

jeanne’s over souls are all also medieval torture devices (of various levels of accuracy), for example guillotines, gibbets, and the statue of apega

(also, when I say “god” in this, unless I’m referring to hao, the great spirit, or winning the shaman fight, I just mean a powerful spirit ally. it’s weird and confuses even me)

and while we’re talking about jeanne, she’s clearly named after joan d'arc, the revolutionary who heard visions from the archangel micheal on mont saint michel. jeanne wholeheartedly believes she was sent by god to defeat hao, and in the x laws’ twisted views of justice

all those who stand in their way are irredeemable sinners who deserve their gruesome deaths. the x laws are justice incarnate. hao is the ultimate evil who must be defeated at all costs (hao is spotted doing such things as. hanging out with his adoptive little sister/daughter on top of big rocks. engaging in polite conversation with his brother at coffee shops and hot springs. eating a baguette at their match. taunting his brother’s fiancée over a book)

returning to the timeline, the x laws appear and immediately kill boris (turn him into actual dust and all). resident good boy yoh and the other protagonist guys are obviously icked out, because they’d just shonen battled boris, learned his tragic backstory, and taken him out as a threat. lyserg, however, is entranced by the x laws and their gun angel robots… gun angels… angels with…

no…

*I am pulled away from my computer and executed by the comedy police*

anyways, this is the start of a somewhat out of place shakespearean tragedy for our boy. is comparing hiroyuki goddamn takei to william shakespeare a stretch? yes. so much of a stretch. does it feel right in this case? also yes. this is the start of a beautiful, fascinating, deeply frustrating spiral (this character arc has made several people I know hate lyserg diethel at some point lol)

our guys make the final walk to their destination awkwardly walking behind the x laws, who are pissed they didn’t do a murder. eventually they separate and we randomly meet god in southwest colorado. god as in the great spirit in this case. some plot shit happens and lyserg ends up separated from the rest of the protagonist gang, and he wanders into the x laws. there’s this absolutely heartbreaking scene of lyserg, this young boy mourning his parents, crying into marco’s shoulder to ask him if, just maybe, the x laws can defeat hao. and because this is a cult he says yes.

the reveal of lyserg joining the x laws is another very nice and painful scene. it’s been heavily implied to have happened (see above) but had not yet been confirmed. it’s a really good scene but I think you can only really catch the ~Vibes~ by seeing it so

important context: the guy getting sliced was lyserg’s opponent in an officially sanctioned tournament match, where you absolutely do NOT have to kill people. this is after around 3 months of being with the x laws (in the dumb manga timeline. holy shit I hate the manga timeline. in 2001 it’s different, I think it’s even less time)

so, in roughly 3 months with this group, our boy went from “standard anime revenge plot” to “actual cult member. who will kill people”. like he was fucked up before but not in a godly way. also there’s more fucked up now.

real quick jeanne thing. in the manga, most of the x laws get killed by hao (either in a tournament or while shooting a giant space laser at him, setting off a criminally underutilized subplot). some more shit happens, and jeanne ends up discovering that she’s not sent from god, but just and ordinary girl. she is surprisingly unfazed by this. I blame takei

the 2001 and manga versions both have a mutually exclusive godly fucked up thing about them so we’ll be going over those after a quick word from our sponsor: child abuse! yeah lyserg gets slapped around a lot. for not being 100% murder cult 100% of the time. it’s fucked up in a godly way yeah.

in the 2001 version, the spiral is even worse, including lyserg abandoning morphine (best friend fairy who he had a whole filler episode getting back from some goons. that morphine). and he doesn’t really stop being culty and the worst until the very end. and he’s also a lot MORE culty and the worst. he straight up kidnaps someone to use them as bait in an elaborate plan to send hao’s soul to the shadowrealm called the Gate of Babylon, this thing that’ll send everyone in a small vicinities’ souls there. I’m gonna be honest I forgot the details and the wiki was really unhelpful but that’s the gist. he does eventually get less cultish in 2001 though.

in the manga lyserg goes to hell. this isn’t actually that weird for shaman king, I haven’t mentioned it yet but at this point in the manga death has kind of lost all meaning (this comes up with a jeanne thing later. do I need to touch on red crimson jeanne in here? not really. but I’m gonna. “world is mine” -hatsune miku). 4 other guys go to hell at the same time as him he isn’t special. BUT. the hells in shaman king are pretty clearly tied to past events of their beholder’s lives, or worries they might have. for example, a character who’s hometown was flooded when they were young goes to a flooded forest (for THREE PANELS. justice for the hororen hells). lyserg’s hell is london, what looks like some weird time dilated tudor/modern london crossover (or someone not knowing what london looks like). in weird london, lyserg is attacked by a demon he calls Mastema (who, according to my beloved wikipedia, is a fallen archangel and the personification of hatred) takei clearly did at least that much research for once, because Mastema follows lyserg wherever he goes and only attacks when he thinks of his parent’s deaths and his hatred for hao. at one point, he does this to try and defeat it…

…and immediately gets pummeled

now, I’m not entirely sure this was intentional, but like. becoming an “angel” to defeat something. and that doesn’t work. 2+2, people. he comes back from hell btw. death has no meaning and all

in 2021 there’s also this scene where yoh comes to visit lyserg (because he’s the goodest boy ever and is worried about his friend) and jeanne shows up to ask yoh to join the x laws. he refuses, and she immediately switches from hello friend join us to well. murder

and we should also probably talk about zeruel. zeruel, according to google and evangelion, means “arm of god”. zeruel is the angel lyserg recieves as part of the x laws (and who he ditches morphine for in 2001). zeruel itself isn’t really that relevant overall but I felt I had to bring it up. in the manga he uses zeruel (car form) and morphine to form his armoured over soul, mastema dolkeem (flames of enmity)

oh right

five warriors

is a thing

so

in the manga, they introduce this concept of the five warriors, each representing one element (annoyingly, not the actual wuxing elements but instead water, earth, fire, air, and lightning?). hao’s spirit ally throughout the series has been the spirit of fire (there are spirits for each element btw) so it’s poetic that lyserg gets the flames of enmity and fire, or something.

let’s talk about the impermance of death in shaman king real quick. for most of the second half of the manga, death has basically no meaning

oh shit I just realized I forgot to mention jeanne can resurrect the dead. she can do that btw

the death-has-no-meaning train gets started when jeanne brings this one emo guy who died for emo reasons back from the dead and it’s introduced as a concept. over the course of shaman king that emo guy dies. four times. the entire main cast has died at least once (we will get to that later). by the end there is no reason to leave someone dead at all, and doing so would be really fucking stupid. guess what happens to jeanne in red crimson (shaman king spinoff manga. also the best shaman king spinoff manga my beloved)? she dies. permanently

(this screenshot was apparently what broke the post? jeanne dying too powerful for tumblr?)

it’s an ok (?) ending to her character arc (and shows how fucked up she got from the whole child cult leader thing) but it irks me somehow (there’s also a scene in the manga after jeanne discovers she’s not sent from god where she refers to suicide as “there being no act more wicked”)

resurrect my girl

jeanne’s whole thing in red crimson annoys me to no end and if I went off about it here you wouldn’t believe that red crimson is Good Actually. so I won’t. but just know that the wasted potential is off the charts

and now, for what feels like a technicality to me: asakura hao kills everyone!

at the end of the manga, hao becomes god. he also proceeds to attempt his genocide of the human race and offs the entire main cast almost instantly. it is my favourite scene in shaman king ever and I love it dearly. what matters here is that both of our guys here got killed by god himself. that’s also godly trauma. the fact that THAT’S in a lil footnote shows how fucked up everything else is tbh

and uh that’s all I can think of for lyserg and jeanne religious trauma. if you’re curious just ask me somehow and I will be glad to infodump

but really you should just go shaman king (I recommend reading the manga first and then watching 2001. the reboot anime too if you really like the story but it’s just the manga but worse)

do it

there’s some bullshit and bad writing in there but it’s still pretty good (and stupid)

[riftwalker-limbro]

What's the state of other tenno in Kelth's world? Are there any others running around? If so, is it many? Are they gonna realise their True Tenno Nature someday like Kelth will?

(If any of this is spoilers for your timeline but you feel okay sharing, so be it! Spoilers are fun, I just want story :D)

P.s. Chroma signing "thank you" got me so bad, ouch

yeah this might be. slightly on the spoilers for my lore so i'll put it under a readmore but i don't have a problem sharing it at all >:)

other tenno is a bit of a problem like... by deciding to follow the main quest line & write it all out in excruciating detail, i've kind of written myself into the corner of "kelth is now the Main Tenno of their universe". because - think about it

the quests show you rescuing various characters that are then accessible in the relays. you help grandma suda with her radio. you go unhide the moon. you fix the new war and give ballas the ass-kicking he deserves. that's all One Tenno who Does That. (or it can be different tenno across the quests but i have a headache so i'm keeping it simple)

so actually you asking me this is making me solidify that in my mind - i'm slightly uncomfortable just saying "yeah they're the Main Character of the Game now" but like. oops. they kind of are now. and i think i should embrace that a bit more and i think that will unlock a load more angst and allow me to be more decisive in writing and and and-

buT. other tenno!!! i'm thinking. in awakening, lotus breaks her streak of losing newly awake tenno to vor by getting more hands-on than before. kelth was the first tenno properly awake. other tenno wake up after them, and manage to really get out and survive now that vor's no longer in the picture to go kill them immediately. there's probably significantly less pressure on other tenno to perform and survive (and hopefully now that you've helped me realize that there WILL be elements of this in the future) and perhaps other tenno can just vibe with each other slightly better than they can with kelth. eldest sibling syndrome. every few days, another one will wake up, until eventually, everyone's either dead or awake. kelth is not very social (with their direct peers. yes i am projecting) so i'm not sure we'll see many through their eyes. when lua is retrieved from the void nook where lotus kicked it, i think other tenno will feel it, and they could be guided or helped by lotus or kelth to go retrieve their bodies and put them in their own ships. it would be significantly less dramatic than what the Main Tenno goes through for sure

as i said before, having kelth in this position and putting out my writing to people whose headcanons this cannot meld with is slightly uncomfortable to me. and i do also like being just a Regular Guy (as regular as a tenno can be) so i might also eventually make up an AU of an AU where kelth is not the first tenno and can just chill out

ack. longpost.

ps: HA SUFFER. i'd written the scene already but then i took another bike ride on which my brain said "what if that hurt more though" and i managed to remember that exact bit just in time to add it in before posting. we'll see more of that chroma in the future i'm sure >:)

[ciel-phantomhives-world]

Here's my thought about what might happen to Lizzie, once she decides to fight again.

She might find out about what the twins went through or maybe she might not know at all, even if the whole manga ends. But, I would be really, really happy if she and people like Francis, Alexis finds out about who attacked the Phantomhives, then whatever happened to the twins in that one month and maybe about Angelina's true nature as well (if I'm not asking for too much).

In my opinion, I believe that once (hypothetically speaking) Lizzie eventually stops feeling guilty for not knowing that it was our Ciel the whole time or for developing feelings for Our Ciel or for being disappointed had our Ciel came back as his true self and just moves on and somehow, somewhat gets over it or heals, well, somewhat then maybe she will choose our ciel's side.

She may think to herself, once she gets a bit better, about how she's actually helping a bizarre doll (one of the zombies that she, herself just fought back at that Campania cruise but this one is just the body of her beloved fiance and looks a bit more improved and better) and she may eventually realize or accept that Real Ciel has been dead for a long time (if she still isn't aware of what Real Ciel truly is) and nothing can bring him back to life or back to how he naturally was as a human and that nothing can heal or cure Real Ciel as he is but a bizarre doll who's forever going to be dependent on human blood and whatnot. She may put some logical thoughts to this matter and eventually realize that it's a lost, hopeless cause for what's lost is already lost and hence cannot be restored as once was. She may try to see a future with Real Ciel but everytime she tries to do such, she gets reminded of real Ciel's current state and the fact that it's not an illness or a disease that's going to be cured eventually but it's just a fake empty shell made by undertaker to somehow give him and people like Lizzie the illusion of real Ciel still being there with them even though he died 3 years ago.

Unlike undertaker, she might end up respecting the dead people and eventually learn to accept the fact that Real Ciel is gone and that none of that is her fault and all she can do is just move on. She may learn to let things go that are already gone but rather protect the things that are still out there (her other cousin, our Ciel, for example). And then, once she learns that, she may realize that she already did a lot for Real Ciel, starting from wearing low heels to backing him up as a bizarre doll, then having to see Real Ciel do so many shady, cruel stuff to other people but still keeping her mouth shut (if she did see how much low Real Ciel has stooped to by killing many innocents), although undertaker is the one pulling the strings here, but still.

I'm pretty sure that if Elizabeth is aware of whatever Real Ciel/ undertaker is actually doing (the framing, killing innocents including Agni, then having many blood collecting branches, etc) then she's definitely not enjoying being a part of that. She knows (or would know) that all of that are wrong, evil, fucked up and r crimes and that her parents didn't raise her to be a vile person as undertaker. She may eventually realize that being involved with Real Ciel/undertaker is actually filled with way more guilt than all those other remorse that she's feeling right now. Problem is that we readers don't really know that how much Lizzie actually knows about this whole thing.

But anyways, if she takes her time and think all of these thoroughly then she would realize that the best thing to do right now is to either do nothing and just sit back and watch whoever is going to win this battle or just help Our Ciel (to make up for betraying him) since I believe that she already helped Real Ciel enough (and she even knows that undertaker and real Ciel are up to no good) even though it's a moving dead body that she has helped. She may not even like any of the twins romantically anymore or even want any of them to be her fiance but she may fight the good fight, for the justice as that's what midfords r supposed to be doing (according to Alexis and Edward).

If real Ciel mastermind theory comes true then she may end up hating Real Ciel forever, who knows. Lizzie might even try to find out about whatever happened to the twins in her own way while the twins r having "this brotherly battle". Whatever happens, I believe that Lizzie is not going to stay with Real Ciel for that long as the thought of having to do more degrading stuff (like being involved with killing other innocent people) just to keep a bizarre doll alive is way more remorseful than the guilt of not being able to tell her fiance apart from his twin or even catching feelings for that twin. She might even learn that doing anymore "wrong" stuff, just for real Ciel's sake is going to be just too much for her to handle (plus more new guilts for her).

Anyways, at the end, I think that Lizzie might try to protect our Ciel from Real Ciel or undertaker or whoever and she might be getting herself into a deadly situation but then all of a sudden, the fatal blow that Lizzie is supposed to be taking might be taken by Edward, who knows. So, it goes like this, in my head:

Our Ciel fighting with real Ciel leads to Elizabeth being either confused in her dilemma or neutral about the whole thing, so she just tries to stop these 2 from fighting or either chooses one side and then the fight might get dangerous/out of control and then right at the final moment, her brother jumps in at the right time and takes the blow and then he dies (I hope he doesn't though). And before Edward hypothetically dies, he tells Lizzie to not get into any life threatening situations anymore, protect herself, just be herself, enjoy her life, and most importantly be a kid (that she wasn't able to do as she had way too much going on ever since she was a toddler 😢). Or hey, the one sacrificing themselves for Elizabeth might not be Edward but rather Francis or Alexis. Then she might either just mourn her brother's/mother's /father's death and in the meanwhile, Sebastian, undertaker and the twins finish it off once and for all. After the battle ends, let's say nobody's alive except some (if not all of the remaining) servants, ranmao, lau and Lizzie. All of them goes on their own different paths from now on and Lizzie gets the hell out from being associated with anybody that works for the queen. At the end, there's no Phantomhive anymore, queen might be dead or whatever and some of the people who knew the Phantomhives might make it alive but keep everything that has happened to themselves (just like Arthur Conan Doyle) and move on and live a free, completely different life while sometimes remembering whatever happened or missing the Phantomhives.

BLACK BUTLER/KUROSHITSUJI SPOILERS

Don’t continue if you don’t want to be spoiled

So if you continued reading this then you know what’s happened in the manga series so far.

We all know Lizzy ended up betraying ociel after being lied to and with rciel’s return. I had a theory before that Lizzy would eventually go back to ociel after she’s sorted through her feelings and thoughts. I personally think rciel is always going to have a special place in her heart like he has one in ociels heart but I think the one she actually fell for out of the twins is ociel based off the scenes we saw in the manga all this time. I think the same can be said for ociel even if he hasn’t realized it yet. I think there’s enough moments that show although he tried to keep a distance between them he also grew extremely protective and fond over her. That being said, like I said before my theory is that Lizzy will return to ociel in the end but I just came up with another theory while rereading the manga. Honestly though I hope this ain’t a theory that will come true because I think ociel and Lizzy deserve happiness in general after everything they’ve both been through.

What if this scene here is foreshadowing that Lizzy will end up dying at the end of the series?

We see ociel see another family and then thinks of his parents and twin brother rciel who’s pulling Lizzy with them. If they were all looking back at ociel I wouldn’t have even thought about this theory but a small detail caught my attention. Vincent, Rachel, and rciel are looking back to Lizzy like she’s meant to be with them as they lead her away to where they’re going. We know canon wise the rest of ociels close family is already dead. While ociel sees this he tries stopping them from all leaving but he can’t reach them.

Now we have seen that Lizzy is the only person left that he truly cares for and has a special place for. Ociel tried keeping a distance to stop her from getting to close as well as him getting too close to her but it failed as we can see with how much he cares about her and does anything to try and make her happy.

He always tried keeping her happy and made sure that she wouldn’t see anything that would taint her or change her like he did. He didn’t want her to see anything he saw of how cruel the world could be even to the point where he thought that she would be heartbroken if he came back and revealed he wasn’t really Ciel. Here’s another clue although it ain’t from ociel directly. Just look at how the phantomhive servants. Look at how much effort they put into making sure Lizzy doesn’t hear anything going on during the book of circus arc. They know how special she is to ociel that they do everything in their power to make sure she is just as protected from the dangers or situations in general that she shouldn’t see.

Here’s more direct proof of how ociel wants to always protect Lizzy

Now let met get into this important panel here for my theory that Lizzy might possibly die at the end of the series

As you can see we have ociel saying he’ll definitely protect Lizzy one of the people he loves. He has guilt that he failed everyone else. In this particular scene ociel hugs her close trying to shield her with his body even if they’re the ones who both die in the end because of the zombies remember Seb still wasn’t anywhere in sight during this scene so ociel was ready to put himself between her and the zombies to try and protect her even if it ended up failing and he didn’t have anything else.

Now I would like to think ociel would be able to protect Lizzy like he has multiple times but I don’t know if he’ll be able to in the end based off of what Lizzy says in these two panels

Now we see here Lizzy wants to know what happened with Ciel but he’s closed off and she wants to protect him. Some people may argue but she was talking like this when she thought it was rciel. Lizzy as shown here is completely torn and confused in between rciel and ociel

If she didn’t care or love ociel she would have easily chosen rciels side but she doesn’t. We see she’s torn about what to do and decides to stay by rciels side out of guilt for not realizing ociel wasn’t him and I also think she feels guilty even more because she actually grew feelings for ociel too although thinking she’d always only love rciel. Now look back at the two manga scenes before lizzy’s break down. She says she wants to know more about Ciel and wants to protect him this time. While she protected ociel in the past she has yet to do it with her recognizing ociel as his true self(aka his real name and identity that we have yet to find out in the manga).

As I said before the manga shows that Lizzy is torn between both twins. In one part in that scene she admits to herself just how horrible she was when thinking what would have happened if ociel came back and revealed the truth in which she scares herself with the thought that she might have thought I wish it was rciel who came back. I also think she has guilt over this and acknowledges that she not only failed rciel but ociel by making him feel like this. So to sum it up we saw Lizzy protect ociel when she thought it was rciel but not her protecting ociels true self.

My theory is that once she’s gotten her feelings and thoughts cleared up she’ll return to ociels side alone with edward. Though I feel like somehow she’s going to find out what ociel and rciel went through even without being told by ociel. Now why do I think this? Because the truth is bound to come out like we saw with ociel faking his identity. I don’t think Lizzy would just sit around without questions. She already stated she wanted to know what happened but this reveal should have been one to make her more curious as to why ociel lied in the first place. Since she can’t go directly to him and ask questions herself maybe she’ll do her own investigation where she finds out the truth.

Do you remember the one scene after the book of circus arc where Nina comes in and takes measurements of ociel while she tries to make him and Lizzy matching clothes??? Ociel tries to desperately hide the mark on his back from her. Some people may say he tried to hide it from Agni and Soma too but here’s small differences in that scene.

Ociel tried hiding it from Lizzy multiple times refusing for her to see it(ex 1:placing his hand over his mark on his back 2:Seb coming in to cover the mark for him 3. Asking Lizzy to turn away because he was shy 4.Not allowing Lizzy to help him change into a new shirt)

When Agni and soma came in they didn’t even have time to question anything since they had no idea and Seb quickly covered it from all 3 of them. Lizzy on the other hand saw everything from the way ociel and Seb acted even looking slightly confused as to why he was acting weird. We all know Lizzy is quite observant as it was revealed she had little suspicion grow overtime.

What if she finds out what the twins went through while investigating and has a hard time believing it but if she comes face to face with ociel again and sees that mark/decides to look at it and has everything confirmed then what? She’ll only grow more guilty for not being able to help both twins in anyway.

Her and ociel already lost rciel so what if she refuses to lose ociel too? In this type of situation I feel like she’d go back to his side with Edward/forgive ociel but die trying to protect him.

I’d like to think this won’t happen but that scene of his parents and rciel taking Lizzy with them while ociel tried to stop them from leaving worries me a bit. I would personally love ociel and Lizzy to be okay in the end but idk. We know this manga is really dark. While I do think Lizzy will eventually accept her feelings for ociel and go back to his side and help him after she knows everything I also can’t see it happening without something going wrong such as Lizzy dying to protect Ciel.

Since I can’t share anymore photos here since I reached the limit for this post let me share this one line ociel said during the book of circus arc in the end.

“I am indeed arrogant however I’m not so arrogant as to boast irresponsibly that I can save anyone”

Ociel has stated and shown multiple times he wants to protect Lizzy at all cost. He may have been able to protect her better if things had stayed the same before the reveal but he’s lost her, she’s changed and so did everything else. So that line specifically stands out even more to me now.

Now if we’re talking about going really dark and let’s say this does happen if anything could make it worse it is that Seb has the chance to save Lizzy but doesn’t due to wanting ociel to suffer even more and making the deal when completed even better for himself. I don’t even want to think much about that scenario because he could very well do that. We saw he only is gentle with Lizzy because of ociel but when ociel ain’t around he doesn’t care at all for her. If in this scenario ociel was too panicked and worried over her Seb can come with the excuse that ociel didn’t order him to save her in his state/that he’s only responsible of keeping ociel alive until their bargain is completed.

Anyways this was long but what do you all think? Do you think that scene was foreshadowing? And what are your predictions for what will happen to ociel and Lizzy in the end of the story?

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Season 1 Recap

Sometimes I post session logs from Two-Faced Jewel, a formerly-D&D tabletop campaign I've been running for my friends @eternalfarnham and Zero. There's like a lot of them now, though! Maybe you thought they were interesting but didn't want to catch up on 20-odd longposts of someone going on about his D&D game. Wouldn't blame you! So I'm gonna do you a solid and compress the entire first "season" of the campaign into one cliffsnotes summary, so when I start posting the second season you can just pick up on the middle. Here goes!

This is Looseleaf! She is a magic moth, and she's going to school!

This is Saelhen! She is half-elf, half-crime, and she wants to steal from school!

School has a magic arm thing! Saelhen pretends to be a Fancy Lass Indeed, and gets the school to give her the magic arm thing!

But uh-oh! Now it's stuck, and she can't flog the magic sleeve for Loads of Money! Also, the school thinks someone should follow her around to study the magic sleeve, so now Looseleaf is following her! This is bad news for crime!

The magic sleeve says "go over there", so they Go Over There, and…

…oops! It opened a hole and made infinite bats from nightmare hell! Maybe this magic sleeve is bad news.

The school says "pshaaaaaaw, naaaah, it's fiiiiine", and when the sleeve says "now go over here!" the school sends them to do that again! Cool plan!

Problem is, this time "go over there" means "go really far away to a dangerous jungle", so Looseleaf and Saelhen need help! Let's meet help!

This is Orluthe! He has a halberd and is friends with God! Or, one of the gods! But secretly, he's not friends with that one! He's friends with a different one! Chicanery is afoot!

This is Oyobi! She has a bow and arrow and is friends with Looseleaf! But secretly, she's RUDE. Elf rude! It's like an invisible kind of rude only elves know about.

So they leave town to follow the sleeve and go over-

-Oh, hey. Uh… this guy's coming too, I guess! School says so! His name is Vayen, and he's friends with [NOBODY]! But secretly, he's, uh… he's secretly… he's definitely secretly something. I guess… that's fine…

So they go follow the arrow!

On the way, they stop by a town! The town's feuding with another town, because of murders!

Luckily, Looseleaf is magic! Her magic is really special, and she uses it to solve the crime! Turns out, this guy living in a torture wizard's evil torture tower did it! Huh! How 'bout that!

The guy tells them that a scary dragon was forcing him to do it, though, so the real problem is the dragon. But how are they gonna stop a dragon?! That's way out of their pay grade. They're gonna go call the fantasy cops instead.

So they go to another town, and they go grab a pack of high-level dragon-slaying adventurers, and have those guys do it. Very sensible!

(By the way: those guys apparently work for a shadowy conspiracy that's trying to hide from the gods themselves. So did the torture wizard! So does Looseleaf's long-lost sister, apparently! That's- that probably isn't relevant! It's fine! That plot can wait!

They go back to town, which has some monster problems to solve, and while the adventurers fight the dragon, the party… kidnaps a child! Rescues a child? She has a complicated relationship with her mom, which is definitely grounds to invisibly sneak her out of town to go adventuring with strangers! Yeah! Sure!

The party, plus a child, move on with their main quest- which means they all have to get on a boat! No, not this fancy boat- this other one. The fancy boat is way too fancy. They can't afford something like that! A different boat will be fine.

Guess what? The different boat gets attacked by a bazillion sea monsters! Including a dragon!

Luckily, they make friends with the dragon, who's really interested in the magic sleeve for some reason. This is yet another thing that's probably fine!

Finally, they reach Fantasy Bahamas Las Vegas, and it's time for a vacation while they wait for the ferry to their destination! They split up and stay at different resorts.

The next morning, oh crap! Fantasy Jimmy Buffett killed the other resort guy! At least, that's what the cops think, so Fantasy Jimmy Buffett hires them to investigate and prove his innocence!

Turns out, Fantasy Jimmy Buffett didn't do it! They prove that super good, by proving that he's a vampire and all his staff are enslaved vampire thralls and one of them did it to frame him as revenge for the slavery thing! Congratulations, Vampire Jimmy Buffett! You are innocent, and also, toast.

Now that Jimmy Buffett is dead, there are definitely no more problems ever- WHOOPS all those vampire thralls are now no longer under orders to not eat the guests. Oops. Better do something about that.

While fixing the vampire situation, they meet Miriko, vampire middle management, who turns over a new leaf and helps them wrangle the thralls and gives them all of Jimmy Buffett's stuff, under definitely no duress at all. The party offering to smuggle her off of the island to evade punishment for vampire crimes had nothing to do with it.

The little girl they kidnapped wants to go to the fashion school on the island, though, so… Saelhen pays for that! All kidnappings well that end well! It's very expensive, but they have all of Jimmy Buffett's stuff now, which includes a lot of money. And would you look at that! All of Jimmy Buffett's stuff ALSO includes that very fancy boat from before! So… now the party has that!

They re-christen their new boat the Two-Faced Jewel, after its secret smuggling hold and definitely not to squeeze in a title drop- and now, they're off to the very dangerous jungle!

Next: adventures in the ghost dryad mafia jungle city, Thunderbrush!

[r00dlion]

@fangsjustice​ from here (x)

Unfazed by the whirlwind of Linus’ emotions - a small gust compared to his own, and much smaller than the earfuls he’d taken from his uncle. It reminded him of his laguz adolescent years - that was an interesting time. “If you’re wondering about who ratted you out, Nino came to me and Mordecai while we were at the dining hall - said she hadn’t seen you in a while and started feeling worried about you, but wasn’t sure how to approach. After Kiran told us what was going on, it reached bro-talk tier. And for the record, I do have places to be - but if my little bro has a problem, I’m dealing with it with him, and that’s that.” 

Speaking of Mordecai... “Initially Mord was gonna be here too, but Kiran deployed him to the training tower for some extra orbs for that contraption he's calling the “Bread-A-Bricker” now, whatever that name’s supposed to mean.” the lion said, hunching over a bit with his arms onto the top of his knees. Looking straight at his mopeful beorc brother, he glowered. “And don’t you dare try hiding things from me. I can see right. Through. You.” If partially because he acted almost exactly like this at his equivalent age to Linus.

“You’re sick at yourself for getting fat, thinking that somehow makes you weak - DON’T. HIDE IT.” he chastised Linus’ playing with his shirt, almost going to his outdoor voice and scaring the birds a bit. 

“That gut you got is because you have access to more food than you used to, and your body doesn’t know what to do with it. Yet. From a Gallian perspective, That’s a good thing. You have energy to burn, weight to keep you grounded, and a natural padding for your organs. You lose those, and you’re dead.”

He paused, taking his coat and shirt off. “This look is what you’re after, right? Arms, neck, a whole castle wall of muscle?” He flexed for emphasis. “I have this bod because I have to - I have my throne and people to protect, and I need to look the part. If I didn’t? Ha - you’d see me lugging around something thrice your size by now.” He leaned back and gestured his arm out in an arc for a visual. “So if you wanna lose the gut, let’s put that energy to use, and get you looking more like me. Think of it as a little brotherly bonding time. What do you say?” he said, giving his giant mitt to help his little beorc brother up.

[columboscreens]

also peter falk literally just looks like a Normal Guy. like as someone who is a) a trans guy (sort of its complicated) and b) not that tall, i cant tell you how nice it is to see literally a normal fucking person of about my height in literally anything. and bonus points cause peter falk is from the same area as my dad and HIS dad are, so its EXTRA "he's literally just some guy" from my perspective

yeah i 100% agree with you anon, that's what i like about him! peter falk literally was just some regular-ass pencil pushing guy from suburban new york. his schlubby act wasn't a farce; this was a guy who thought acting was a fun hobby that he wasn't very good at until he was like 30. he started his theatre career when he'd already lived almost a third of his life doing random shit as Just Some Guy! in addition to having a theatrical background, his authenticity translated very strongly to his roles and it's always refreshing to watch.

like yeah he was certainly good-looking--the guy by all accounts fucked constantly--but it was in a somewhat unconventional way. his grin was lopsided, one eye cocked. you may have even heard the anecdote about how falk failed his first screen test because studio execs couldn't get over his eye. for every one of us who goes nuts over how hot he was, there are a bunch of people who think he looked like a lunch bag lmao.

tl;dr im sick of fuckin marvel CGI faces and wanna see regular people with character again, people with authenticity. besides, i'll say it, it's way hotter to be kind of busted.

on another note, though canonically he's a cis guy, i'm fascinated with the fact that columbo is indeed for many transmascs, and even trans/gender questioning folks in general, an idol. it makes you look more critically at his gender expression, which really is its own whole-ass topic.

he's short, not weak but not particularly athletic, keeps his hair long-ish, hides his shape much of the time in a rumpled overcoat. in terms of traditional 20th century western gender expression, his masculinity is unambiguous, but upon closer inspection, so is his femininity.

on the surface level, he never hesitates to pick flowers, go shopping, cook dinner, get a manicure, or put his arm around another guy. more importantly, he's calm, sensitive, caring, nurturing, and has a strong intuition to which he listens. he's a man, but he's the one who defines what that means to him, and he's the one who defines how he expresses that, no matter how many odd looks he gets. traits aside, that level of confidence and agency in his own expression is something to admire no matter your identity.

[domesticitydearest]

I love this so much, especially the characterization of Bones, he doesn't get enough credit around here sometimes.

I think there's something to be said as well though about how a soldier works at the behest of the king: as the acting right hand, just as he is the first officer to Kirk, there is an implicit trust between both to keep the other safe as they do what they must, and Bones acts as a counterbalance to keep them grounded to the rest of the world and not just each other.

Altogether there's a lovely interplay between each pair and how the third tempers the other two, I could go all day

controversial opinion maybe:

I KNOW. i know. hear me out

i saw a couple edits on tiktok of mcspirk to soldier poet king and like. i’m not putting anyone on blast but good lord some of those choices made my head hurt. it’s taken me a couple days to synthesize my reasoning for the superior choice (as pictured above), but here goes:

the problem with assigning characters to soldier poet king comes when you take it at face value, flattening the paradigm to angry-sad-tired or violent-artsy-authoritative. if we want to get down to the root of it, the song is based on the threefold office of christ as priest (soldier), prophet (poet), and king. like i’m not christian, but on a textual level it gives us context: the concept that as prophet jesus gave us counsel and words of wisdom, as priest he sacrificed himself to redeem us, and as king he provides for, defends, and forgives us

maybe the most famous priest/prophet/king (& thus soldier/poet/king) allegory in all of literature is frodo, gandalf, and aragorn. frodo bears the burden, though he wishes he did not need to; gandalf offers words of wisdom and mercy; aragorn is a born leader, on the front lines with sword in hand, ready to die with his men if he must

KING: capt. james t. kirk is the easiest one to place. it is a burden and a privilege, an honor and a horror to have the lives of so many depend upon you to make the right call under fire. he makes the call. he leads the landing parties, he puts himself at the head of the charge because by god he is not about to send his men into a battle he wouldn’t fight himself. he leads—with heart when he can, steel when he must—and people follow him. bones and spock are always right behind because they believe in what he believes in, and more than that they believe in him

POET: bones serves as kirk’s emotional sounding board, his moral peer review. he lends an ear, and the word of an old country doctor who’s seen much and understands more. man has ascended to the heavens, to hurtling through the void in a glorified tin can, and it would be no great hardship to forget that our place in the universe is not that of higher life—we are not as quasi-gods, moving pieces on the great three-dimensional chessboard, but flesh and blood, and we must attend to each other. bones tempers the pure logos and rationality offered by spock; he offers grounding in this age of technology that wrinkles the fabric of reality, offers the kind of emotional intellect that cannot be taught, and has always been sorely needed

SOLDIER: this is the one where you really get tripped up by surface-level analysis. yes, spock is reserved and collected. yes, vulcans are pacifists (as you may recall, so are hobbits, and yet frodo remains the soldier in allegory)

the thing about vulcans, though, is that despite the vegan pacifism, they are warriors. it’s tangled up in their history and their DNA. the koon-ut-kal-if-fee survived through centuries of analytical dogma for a reason; even now, they cannot wholly escape their inheritance of violence. their forefathers ran the sands of vulcan red with blood. they venerate logic and condemn emotionality so that they will not

your average high-achieving vulcan, probably on the path to kolinahr, commits their lifetime to the pursuit of knowledge at the vulcan science academy. it’s a measured, rational decision. a controlled environment, where there will never be any logical reason to resort to violence

spock joins starfleet

he joins starfleet, and pursues knowledge in the vast unknowable universe. there is reason for violence, frequently. and sure, the purpose of their mission is peaceful. it’s true that spock would rather resolution be reached without force. but a soldier needs not want to be a soldier. he only needs go to war

when it comes down to blows, he will match them. he makes the sacrifice play, jumps on the grenade, goes into the radiation-soaked engineering room alone. it’s only logical, after all

spock is there to pick apart the universe, unravel the threads of logic until it all makes sense. bones is there to stitch it up. kirk is the hand that holds it all steady, the gravitational field that binds the people of the enterprise to their purpose. soldier-poet-king, commander-doctor-captain. it’s a story old as dirt, and we’ll keep telling it, i think

[herewegobebe]

TAEMIN 태민  IDEA 이데아 

[w-h-4-t]

Dawn Will Clap

Self control? In this economy? Actually yes that would be very useful in this economy.

And my personal favourite:

Fine Derriere crafts! Direct from Orzamma- I mean- SKYHOLD!

Josephine: *conveniently looking away* Good effort, come back when you have a legally binding contract.

Cullen: Out of all the days to stop taking Lyrium...

Solas: I do not see your profane badonkadonk for the glory of Elvhenan is my vision. 

And once again, my personal favorite:

Sera: Woof

[csgore]

your late late night post before i sleep

i heard a song that reminded me of chara today. it’s kamelot’s love you to death.

She got weaker every day As the autumn leaves flew by Until one day, she told him, "This is when I die" "What was summer like for you?" She asked him with a smile "What's tomorrow without you?" He silently replied She said, "I will always be with you I'm the anchor of your sorrow There's no end to what I'll do 'Cause I love you, I love you to death" But the sorrow went too deep The mountain fell too steep And the wounds would never heal 'Cause the pain of the loss was more than he could feel He said, "I will always be with you By the anchor of my sorrow All I know, or ever knew, Is I love you, I love you to death"

so yeah ouch. 

i think a lot about asgore pleading with chara to hold on and stay determined because he knows it’s the only thing that could help them stay alive, and him not knowing about the sacrifice they were trying to make to free the monsters. 

i know they weren’t the greatest person and they hated humanity or whatever, but they clearly felt strongly about monsters, and i don’t think they did what they did out of sheer malice towards humans. i mean. they died. they gave up their soul to have a shot at breaking the barrier. 

and i think about asgore’s ‘stay determined’ meaning something else completely to chara as they died. like, how they might interpret it as ‘stay determined to continue on this path’

you are the future of humans and monsters

and they know. so they’re doing this. 

[feeling-horsey]

D --> It doesn’t really feel partic001arly different for me to turn into nothingness D --> It’s almost as innate to me as e%isting is for you D --> It doesn’t decrease my durability at all, it just leaves me the same D --> There’s no limit on it and I can come back just as quickly as I disappear D --> If someone sticks something in me, I would probably have to make it disappear when I do too which would take more focus, but I wouldn’t have to bring it back when I return D --> Though I couldn’t really heal any wound it left D --> I’ve never tried that though so maybe I could just let it drop to the ground D --> Eating the o%ygen would help if I was on fire but it wouldn’t help with directly channeled fire such as through magical means, since that us001y has it’s own source D ---> Similarly even if I did remove a fire the heat would still be unpleasant D --> Heat is harder for me to get rid of

D --> Turning into nothingness wouldn’t slow my inertia but it would make it safe for me to switch directions so that is a pretty good idea D --> As for the shield, with an enchantment like that it’s more limited than what I can manage with using my powers directly D --> It’s more so the size all at once than total, though, it’s easy to make it recover quickly D --> Besides that, the bigger problem is I can’t make it delete living things so if a weapon is being held by someone it’s much harder D --> I am very STRONG, the STRONGEST D --> I’ve not found anything I could not lift due to weight D --> Only really because of balance and structural integrity D --> Like if I tried to lift a planet my hands would dig into the ground before I began to act001y shift it, for instance D --> I’m not sure if I could act001y lift quite that much either D --> I wouldn’t need to worry about powering the armor, our tech is very advanced for such things D --> And we do have ray guns yes D --> Ahab’s crosshairs I mentioned earlier is an energy beam sort of weapon

D –> I am not sure @ctrl-shift-escape D –> It could not augment my strength, for that already surpasses anything my robotics is capable of D –> But I could inc100d a host of offensive systems that would grant me abilities outside of what I am presently capable of D –> My tentacles are fantastic for restraint but they are limited in that I have to be present to maintain them D –> Perhaps something that could induce unconsciousness, like a wrist-mounted dart launcher could be effective, but would be ineffective against any armored enemies D –> Or perhaps some sort of netting, though that would have problems with form factor and would be difficult to use effectively with how specifically the net would have to hit the target D –> But I’m just thinking of non lethal things again D –> Perhaps I should consider more overwhelming force weaponry should there be a threat that requires it D –> I could likely ret001 what pieces I have left of Ahab’s Crosshairs into a remarkably potent energy weapon if needed, which would be especially effective if enhanced by grimdark energy D –> E%plosives would also work D –> I could probably design some especially destructive void munitions to erase things they hit from e%istence D –> Defense would likely be the highest priority, though D –> Ideally it would be able to withstand my greatest weaknesses in elemental effects and poison D –> I have a sword that absorbs heat and can unleash it in fire when struck D –> If I could reverse engineer that it would be useful, and would help as a defense against any cold attacks since D –> Well at least in the case of the sword it does quite well at absorbing heat passively, too D –> So it could be used to defend against it at least once D –> Poison would be easily countered if the armor is fully encased D –> A shield would also be quite useful to have on the armor to block bullets should I need to defend someone D –> Maybe I could add an option to electrify the outside to deter melee too D –> Propulsion systems wouldn’t be a bad idea to increase my mobility, but aren’t entirely necessary so I’m not sure D –> What do you think

[lycanthrology]

2 and 4?

2) What themes do your bad dreams usually have?

I find actually getting to sleep really hard as I get flashes of phobia-inducing images in my mind when I try to relax. But when I do manage it, running is a big theme. Either running after something/someone or being chased. Sometimes falling but not as much. Usually my bad dreams start with me wanting to know something desperately (it could be a random fact or statistic or something more personal) then as I try to find it out I can feel things following me or staring at me. Just as I find it out or get caught, I wake up. Wild.

4) What genre of horror is your favourite?

I haven’t actually consumed much horror media. I mean, I’ve read horror and I’ve listened to a few horror podcasts that I love but I’ve never really watched horror movies or series (other than the BBC Dracula series that came out at New Years but we don’t talk about that) because I ‘scare too easily’. I really don’t like jumpscares and too much bloody violence as it makes me feel kinda bored and a little ill. I really enjoy horror but that makes it less accessible to me, if you get that? I’m way more comfortable reading or listening to horror than watching it as I feel way more in control of the content, even if I’m not.

Anyway! I’m not sure if it’s classed as a genre but I love love love Eldritch Location stories. If the environment could be classed as a separate character that hates the protagonists and causes problems then I’ll automatically love it. Things like I am in Eskew, Harrow Lake, The Haunting of Hill House, Lacrimore, the Carving Bones, Welcome to Night Vale and the early season 5 episodes of The Magnus Archives really hits those notes well. Please tell me if you have any recommendations!