#of which the answer is always yes

[ao3-crack]

(x)

[uncanny-tranny]

Please intentionally attempt to see the magic in everything. Everything is magic, even if you understand the "boring" reasons why things happen. Look at the magic in growing plants, the magic of your muscles flexing and retracting, the magic of your eyes and skull, the magic of a cat's purr.

It's all magic. Understanding the "why" is just understanding what makes things magical, it doesn't change that it's all significant and magic.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 9: So that's where the turtle came from!

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[rooolt]

have yet to stop thinking about the plane ride to Barcelona, aka the worlds most awkward plane ride in the world. Like who do we think sat together? Did Devon talk to any of them, like is she’s friends with any of the other teens? Did Eli and demetri drag other people into their drama, was demetri very obviously trying to avoid Eli, messing up the assumed plane seating arrangements? Was Robby brooding over his missing girlfriend and her dead mom the whole time? Were Daniel and Johnny still beefing or do we think they tried to save face for the kids? Is there any chance that Miguel and Sam were able to just have a nice time hanging out with each other on the flight or did they get dragged into everyone else’s drama? I’m so obsessed with the logistics of the Barcelona trip, not to mention the flight is like 11 hours long if it’s non-stop. it sounds like the trip from hell

[francesderwent]

more great things about the lying in the grass metaphor:

applies equally to all of us who, for various reasons, are lacking the stability of previous generations. single when your mom was married with three kids at your age? sounds like you can’t get in the house. renting your sixth apartment and wondering whether you’ll ever own property? yeah, we definitely can’t get in the house. working a series of dead-end underpaying jobs? my brother in Christ it seems to me like you’re not in the house. join me on the grass.

when somebody well-meaning comes along and says “but this is such a great phase of life you’re in and you’ll miss it when you’re married/have kids/whatever!” or “you should be content, maybe this is your vocation!” you can take that with a massive grain of salt because you know, for sure, in your heart, that you are not in a house, you are on a patch of grass. there are nice things about a patch of grass. and God can be found in a patch of grass. but it does not have the stability or homey-ness of a house. you are not imagining the inconvenience and suffering of trying to live on a patch of grass. you can both flourish and complain.

[antleredweirdo]

A Blue man and a Ghost meet in a church…

((Just an idea as I’m having brainrott))

Danny, with his horrific injuries from being ‘caught’, somehow escapes to his friends before retreating into his core. His friends take his core into the ghost zone, trying to get to Frostbite, but are stopped by (either Fenton parents or GIW agents) flooding into the ghost zone after them.

Tuck and Sam are panicking and so they wrap Danny’s core into Tuck’s beanie and Sam’s jacket before tossing him onto one of the flouting platforms and leading the ghost hunters away…they didn’t expect Danny to be sucked into one of the natural portals along the way down…

Danny wakes up in Germany of all places, alone, with pieces of his best friend’s clothing splayed over him… He takes this with surprising grace (not) and deals with his newfound homelessness in a foreign country as well as he can. At least his King status allows him to be a polyglot…

Meanwhile, Kurt Wagner had returned church that had raised him, planing on pay respects (again) to the Priest that had sheltered him. It wasn’t the same church, as that one has burned down far long ago, but there had been a new church built in its place. This new church had been abandoned soon after its construction, too many people saying that it was haunted with angry ghosts and feeling too anxious to worship within such a building.

Kurt had thought they had been silly, thinking like that and leaving the building to rot. Through, that was before he, himself, had caught sight of a ghost dwelling inside inside. Wait, no. This was still a living child. A boy sat in one of the pews and stared at him with wary curiosity. Through he was so washed out and in such a sorry state that…Well, Kurt believes he could be forgiven for mistaking the boy for the dead.

In the dim morning glow flooding through the stained glass, his eyes reflected and glowed in the shadows. Which was…huh. Seems Kurt has stumbled upon not just a squatter, but a mutant squatter at that.

[bixels]

Why do you answer questions out of order?

Most asks I receive are repeats that I've already answered. I'm not really keen on clogging my blog with repeat ask posts. Some of them I do wanna answer but require more social energy so it takes time. It's like answering an email sometimes.

[necrotic-nephilim]

Before reading the comics, thanks to sladixk fics, i genuinely thought that dick always lost to slade, now I know that most times when he's and adult he beats slade no problem but it got me wondering how you feel about this canon-fanon difference

OHH this is a good question!!

i think sometimes fanon makes Slade a little... too badass. i think something some fanon fans don't understand about Slade in the 80s/90s is that he was like... kind of a loser? like don't get me wrong he was a main villain of the Titans for a while and he was certainly meant to be a formidable villain but this reputation he has in fanon almost supersedes him. (for example with specific plots: the fandom interpretation of the Judas Contract is Slade as the mastermind, but the writers have said that Terra was supposed to be the big villain manipulating everything. which is a ridiculous thing to put on a teenage girl getting groomed but, it does depict the intention of who was supposed to be "at fault" in that story) and don't get me wrong, i definitely love playing up the reputation and aura Slade has, but he really is a general contract killer on the level of like, Deadshot. personally, i wouldn't even put him on Lady Shiva's level, i think she far outranks him.

and to be fair to some fanon, recent comics have... tried to badass-ify Slade. some of his more recent Deathstroke runs are really trying to put him as this guy with legions of men underneath him who's this *deadly* killer who can take on Batman and Superman and all the like. and i just find that... boring? like, do i enjoy him being a smarter-than-average villain with a lot of connections? yes. but i don't think anything in his backstory really lends him to being as formidable as he appears in some fanfiction that puts him on this untouchable level. i would personally go as far to say i think *most* of the Batfamily could beat him in a fight under the right circumstances. bc Slade really is just Some Guy who got a serum from the military and went AWOL. (there's certainly more to his backstory than that, but at a glance, he's really not a trained fighter from birth like other characters are) and whilst i do enjoy Slade being formidable i have to admit, it was sort of fun when he was a loser? and i've gotten a kick out of certain comics that point out he's only a terrifying villain when he's up against teenagers. (Ghost-Maker calling him out on that is one of the funniest things, to me) like could Slade give Batman a serious fight? sure, but i don't see him ever winning unless you *really* nerf Bruce. and i really don't see him ever winning against most of the Batkids once they've got some years under their belt. Slade's scare factor was always tapered by who he was against, and he was a *Teen Titans* villain. so he's a little ridiculous and sometimes just sort of a weird loser. and i say that affectionately.

furthermore, on the flipside, i think... sometimes, we woobify Dick a bit too much to my tastes. or, really any Robin who gets shipped with Slade but of course Dick is the standout in popularity and i find it's more prominent with him. it's really a general slash problem, in which one man must be the Strong Top and then other must be the Weak Bottom. and that manifests in Slade being physically larger than Dick (which in canon, ehhh i think the size difference would be largely negligible) and him being able to beat Dick. bc it makes for more fanfic scenarios where you can put Dick at Slade's mercy for porn, for angst, for whatever you'd like. Slade is a good pick if you want to really put Dick on the weaker side, bc you can play with healing factors and strength enhancements. so on a physical level, Slade will be stronger than Dick. does that mean Slade can beat Dick in a fight? historically, no. i mean, Slade trusted Dick to train his own daughter in the Renegade storyline, so i think this is a fact even Slade is aware of.

i don't think it's a bad thing fanfiction likes its big top/small bottom tropes. if you want to make Dick a submissive, pliant bottom who is going to lose in a fight to Slade for your dead dove porn, get it. i've probably written or will write the same. it's appealing and it's a very common trope for Dick. but it becoming the fandom norm does sort of nerf Dick, occasionally. i think some fans don't fully comprehend the actual level Dick is on, where he's very close to being an equal to Bruce, if not already Bruce's equal. in fandom Dick is sort of trapped in this "post-adolescence but not full adulthood" state that does not acknowledge he has been an adult running superhero teams for years. he was filling in for Bruce in the Batman mantle all the way back in the 90s. he can defeat villains like Slade, and usually without a lot of difficulty. to me the only time you can realistically make Dick lose and it be "in character" is either 1, to have Dick *very* early on in his Robin years (i think if he's past 16, he can beat Slade) or 2, very deeply wound Dick/have him in a psychologically altered state via drugs or something. otherwise yeah, i think Dick wins 99% of the time.

but fanfiction is fanfiction, and it doesn't *have* to be canon. esp if Dick losing to Slade is just a sexy prerequisite to porn. do i wish more fanon explored Slade as kind of a loser? absolutely. do i think Slade is *too* cool in most fanon? also absolutely. but those are my tastes and i don't begrudge anyone who just wants a strong, mean man to whump the shit out of their blorbos, which usually, is the purpose of Slade. i find most fanfic with Slade tends not to be exploring Slade's character. they're simply using him as an easy stand-in for a metahuman who's morally grey and very mean but has a nuanced history with Dick, or whoever else. which, very valid. not all fanfic needs to be a character study, but i do think it'd be cool to see more Slade-centric fics that *do* want to be character studies.

[gingermintpepper]

Hello! I want to know... Besides Hyacinthus, who is your fav Apollo's lover (male or female)? I really love Cyrene 🤭

Oho, thank you so much for the ask!

There are a couple candidates that immediately come to mind tbh. I'm not the sort that has a strict OTP sense when it comes to Apollo because I imagine there's importance in each of the affairs of the gods that are written about - there must be some reason that we remember their names and stories even now, y'know?

Ultimately, I have a brief selection of the lovers of Apollo whose stories I have personal and vested interest in with no particular preference except maybe for Evadne who, if I were forced to give only one additional favourite besides Hyacinthus, I would probably say it's her.

As for why I prefer Evadne over all the great and powerful romances Apollo has had; maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for the ooey-gooey romances but there's something so sweet about Evadne and Apollo's relationship and the consequent relationship Apollo has with Iamus, his and Evadne's son. I also love the subtle politics of such a relationship - from Evadne's side, yes she's a princess but more importantly, she's one of Poseidon's inhuman daughters - a child between Poseidon and a nymph - and the child between her and Apollo - a son of Zeus - goes on to become the father of a long line of famous prophets for the King of the Gods himself. That makes Iamus one of those rare children of a major god who is not divine but certainly not human either, something that is further exacerbated by the fact that for the first five days of his life, Iamus is cared for by his father who ensures that the baby is fed not milk but honey from the fangs of a snake.

All in all, it's not a very remarkable story in the grand scheme of things. There's no big drama like with Admetus and there's no great tragedy like with Coronis or Melia. Apollo doesn't act particularly noteworthy in either Pindar or Hyginus' account of the tale like he does for Cyrene or Branchus and the end result is a line of prophets sacred to Zeus and the Olympia oracle - a classic example of Apollo in his role as father to the great prophets and wisemen and yet something about the gentleness of Apollo in his affair with Evadne has always captivated me.

Evadne, who so feared her father that she would abandon her newborn child just to spare herself his anger, was able to trust and love Apollo. Likewise, Apollo did not once abandon her, sending the most blessed of attendants to help in her birthing and automatically stepping in to make sure Iamus was fed, clothed and warm until his mother returned for him. It's something about a young Iamus going into the River Alpheus - an ancient stream - and calling out for his purpose from his father and grandfather. It's something about Apollo's immediate and calm response and the way he leads the youth to the temple that will be his destiny and personally educates him in the ways of divination.

It's just one of those stories that always sticks out to me for the portrait of a father and lover it sketches of Apollo, even in a seemingly innocuous myth such as this one.

[gorespawn]

also while we're here i would like to share the two iterations of tumblr user gorespawn that have existed since i abandoned this blog back in like early 2021. Who wants me

[bellysoupset]

I just read the antibiotics sickfic. It's so relatable. I had an ear infection last year and the antibiotics messed with me pretty badly. The first 2 days, I just felt extremely nauseous. For the next days, I would throw up in about an hour after taking antibiotics and the dosage was to take them 3 times a day😭. Then my mom told me to stop taking them, and guess what my ear infection worsened, it hurt again.

It's like, you don't take medication, you'll suffer; you take medication, you'll still suffer🤧

Damned if you do, damned if you don't!!

I am so sorry, that sounds horrible, but also how were you even taking meds if you're throwing them back up? 😭😭 poor baby

[katierosefun]

Hello :))) So, i was today years old when i learned you had a girlfriend (if i’m not mistaken) and somehow it means a lot to me as you’re one of my comfort blog and that i’ve been struggling with my own sexuality for a while. (I hope it does not come off as weird this is really not my intention 😭) So i was wondering if you would mind sharing how you two met as i love hearing about queer love stories coming from real people and not only in fiction (somehow i need to be reminded that yes, it can happen in real life too for me??) If and only if you’re comfortable doing so of course!!!

aww hi anon! first of all, thank you so much for the kind words--i'm so glad to hear that my blog is a source of comfort for you. and also, re: your sexuality--i'm sending you so much love! i know how scary and how overwhelming it can be to still be figuring out your sexuality and navigating your own queerness, so please remember to have some compassion for yourself, and please know that you're not alone.

as for my girlfriend: yes! i do in fact have one, and we've been together for a little over a year and a half now. we'll be going on two years pretty soon, which is all very exciting!

as for how we met: it's all a pretty funny story, because we actually met while we were both in college. and also right during that first covid summer too. we started off as long-distance friends, bonding our love for star wars and writing.

anyways, i totally had a crush on her, although i was trying to play it off most of the time. the fact that we lived in separate cities was another factor too, of course.

fast forward to a few years later, when we've both graduated college. i've just started my first year of law school; she's working at this point. we're still texting and calling each other a bit, and then i tell her, oh yeah, i'm going out on a date with this guy.

and just like something from a kdrama or a movie or something, this ridiculous, lovely woman texts me as i'm boarding the bus for my date. her text? hey, i dreamed about you last night! we were sitting on a park bench together and we were holding hands :)

and of course, at this point, i still have a disastrous crush on her (hence why i spent a lot of time dating all these random guys in my junior and senior year of college, because i was like i gotta just get over this), but anon, that text message was the other shoe dropping on my brain. i decided right then and there that enough is enough, i'm gonna call her tomorrow and tell her i like her, so she can't just say stuff like that anymore because i don't think i can take it anymore.

so we arrange to have a phone call the next day, and we chat, and of course, true to form, i have to have some liquid courage on me (peach soju, btw . . . but turns out, if you're jittery enough, you don't even feel the alcohol, because i still remember every detail). anyways, at some point, we're chatting, and then i blurt out, "i like you."

and she goes, "i like you too."

and i went, "no, i mean i like you more than a friend. as in i like you."

and she goes, "uh, yeah. i like you to do. the feeling's mutual."

and of course, i didn't know what to say to that. like, i swear i was just like "??? what?" because the thing is, i had this whole speech planned out in my head--something like i like you, and you don't like me like that, so i'm sorry that this is awkward, and i can just take care of my own feelings, but i just really needed to say that so that we're both on the same page--

so to say i was pretty stunned would be an understatement! so cue a lot of laughter and flustering, and fast forward to today, with her living with me for the summer (because of course, she'll need to go back to work and i'll have to go back to school once august hits), and we talk about how many pets we're going to have one day (she has this hobby of sending me videos of increasingly exotic animals and going "??? so can we have this as a pet? :)"), and we've talked about what our wedding is going to be like (as well as what our wedding will not be like) . . .

this is just a whole lot of details, but as you might be the first one to ask me about this lovely person on this webbed site, of course i'm going to ramble and gush--but anon, to give you some hope here, queer love is a beautiful thing and it certainly happens.

personally, i would love to go back in time and find my sad high school self and go "hey, hang in there, because you're gonna be lucky enough to finally fall in love with someone who's kind and warm and patient and loving, and she's going to encourage you to be a better person, and she's going to make friends with literally every single stranger on the street (much to your partial exasperation and partial wonder), and she's going to be really bad at staying hydrated, and she's going to take so many photographs of everything, and she's going to make friendship bracelets on your bed, and she's going to almost fight the secretary at a dentist's office for you (while you tug at her sleeve and go come on, i'm fine, let's just go), and she's going to recite and write poetry that you keep both on your walls and also in your head, and her grandma is going to show you the dorkiest photos she has of this silly, lovely, beautiful person who you love."

so: all that to say, anon, i hope that gave you some hope! it's such a long journey for some of us, but i promise that queer love is out there and healthily alive, and yeah, sometimes they're just as good (or even better) than those that you find in fiction :)

[dadmareau]

What does Dream call Nightmare?-

For Dadmare: At the last stage, "Daddy" (preferred) or "Dad" (quicker and more 'mature'-sounding), though at some point it was "Father" and before that, "Mister Mare." Nightmare constantly protests being called "dad" but Dream will never stop.

For Moonbeam: "Nighty" and "Big brother."

[bookwyrminspiration]

quil fee free to answer this in private i'm just curious but what the FUCK is going on in the kotlc fandom because i'm looking through the tags and either i've blocked exactly the right ppl or it's all a lot of wind for nothing?? i'm confused and nosy

Ah yeah, looking through the tag isn't a great sample of what I was commenting on, because it's more an ongoing thing the past few months.

Essentially, keepblr has gotten a recent influx of people, which as always, means an adjustment period. This one is just taking its sweet time to work out, which is going a little rougher because some keefe/fitz and love triangle drama has started to seep into the fandom along with it. it's exacerbated in part by confession blogs and unraveled's existence

There's just been consistent things popping up like clockwork every time it feels like we get past another. There's ongoing keefe/fitz arguments, sokeefe/sophitz arguments, keefe taking over the narrative, some spamming, disagreement about ship names (which is quite ridiculous in my opinion. so much so im not even gonna bother anymore), a few convos about race here and there, etc.

Just an overall trend towards negativity that's been going on for a while. And at first its like yeah, bumps in the road, it happens. but it's been long enough i'm a little like. are we seriously still on this. we are NOT letting this be our new normal this SUCKS. you know?

[aparticularbandit]

Favorite Mugi hcs?

Also if ya need someone to talk to my DMs are always open

Thanks for the question (and the offer)! <3

My Tsumugi headcanon currently falls into two separate things, so I'll share a bit from both!

The Twist Does Not Exist:

Tsum-Tsum! ...because then even her nickname is a reference. >.>;; (Also some people make this zoom zoom to reference a certain Mazda commercial, but she hates that. It annoys her. The only person who gets away with this is probably Junko. Who also probably came up with the original nickname in the first place.)

Always has some sort of show on in the background while she's doing stuff (homework, cosplay, housework; Tsumugi is constantly tuned into something). Her favorite shows, she full in pays attention, she's not multitasking, she's analyzing, she's looking at art design, she's coming up with new cosplay ideas, but most shows are on in the background while she's doing something else. There's kind of a scale with this - the more she cares, the less she does. Creating cosplay during the show is top tier of multitasking before she goes full in.

Has definitely worked in a cosplay cafe. At least once. At least once. (She's not comfortable about being in the spotlight, but it's easier when she's in cosplay as a character who loves the spotlight. Because then she's not her.)

Is drawn to louder, more energetic characters.

If she sees someone cute, she immediately wants to put them in cosplay. Like full-on sparkle in her eyes, will drag them into a bathroom/changing room, need. (If you've seen/read Fruits Basket - like Mine, from Ayame's shop! But Tsumugi and cosplay.) Kind of like immediately dragging Kaede to the bathroom to show off her cospox. That same energy. But for a different reason.

Actually does not have a lot of friends. She knows that the intensity of her interests can turn people off, so she doesn't talk much. But this backfires because it makes her come across as shy. Boring. Plain. She's not very good at fitting in with people's expectations. So she's pretty lonely, actually.

Tsumugi was actually a LOT more popular when she was in elementary school because she could make pretty clothes and kids like pretty clothes so everybody wanted her pretty clothes because she always looked pretty. But there's an age where, like, you grow out of sparkles and frills and big bows and all of that and kind of shove that off into only costumes or only cosplay, and when that happened, Tsumugi just. became. a background NPC in her own life.

Without cosplay, Tsumugi would actually be severely depressed. Cosplay lets her life have color; without it, everything is grayscale and monochrome.

The Twist Exists:

Tsumugi Shirogane is not her real name. It's an alias.

Her real name is Yuki Tsukasa. Yuki - "snow" - because the fandom wiki says that one of the meanings for Shirogane is a metaphor for "snow" and Tsukasa because it means "director, boss".

Definitely dating the girl who got her into cosplay. They are together, they have been together for a long time, they've talked about kids, etc.

Most people don't know she works for Team Danganronpa, and even the ones who do don't know how high up she is in the company. Only her girlfriend knows she's one of the showrunners.

Yuki has gotten death threats from her work on Danganronpa. A lot of the people involved have. That's why her alias exists in the first place: everyone in the credits for a Danganronpa season uses one. Fans can be terrifying to Team Danganronpa, particularly the writers, which is why she just. doesn't talk about it. (She loves her job. She's scared of fans. Reasonably so.)

Would absolutely live in her office if she didn't have a girlfriend to go home to. She's a bit of a workaholic. (She and her girlfriend definitely have fought about this. It didn't change anything.)

Since her co-showrunner's passing, Yuki has been under a lot of stress. They were very good at covering each other's writing weaknesses, and now she's under a lot of pressure to make the show just as good on her own as it was when there were two of them. (She has refused to take on another partner. Danganronpa is theirs. She has very strong opinions about this.)

A lot of characters in the shows have references to people she knows in real life, whether that's personality quirks or traits, or appearances, or even using their names. Most of it is stuff you wouldn't know unless you know.

Despite, as a writer, hating the unknown of having an audience-controlled character, Yuki doesn't hate K1-B0 as a character concept. She just hates the potential for destruction he has. (So she baked it into him from the outset.)

Her use of K1-B0 is actually really smart because Yuki had to accurately predict the way fans would react to any situation where they were given options to do things (I assume polls for major decisions or FTEs, and then those decisions set him on a specific script) - like she had to know they would spend all that time with Miu so that K1-B0 could get those upgrades, she had to make sure that those decisions wouldn't fuck up the script but instead lean into them and give him a good arc and involvement in the story regardless what the fans picked. Like Yuki has to have her thumb on the beating pulse of fandom to be able to do a good job with that, and I applaud her.

[strechanadi]

An interview with Heloïse Bourdon and Mathieu Ganio on all things Mayerling.