#the eureka moment

[eurekq]

Anyways here is the official gofundme set up by sonya masseys surviving family if you have the ability to give her family real tangible support

[lgbtlunaverse]

There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.

[nerdylittleguy]

"we're on opposite sides!"

"we're on our side!"

[spacedace]

Prompt: Because the Infinite Realms exists outside of time and space, the Ghost King summoning ritual is akin to pulling a random draw on a Gacha Game. The stronger the king, the rarer the summon.

Danny is the strongest :)

I refreshed my ask box and hoo boy there are a lot more asks than I was expecting lol Thank you for the prompt!

-

“So wait, you’ve never been Summoned? Not even once?” Tim looked up from the case he’d been working on, blinking in surprise behind his mask towards where Phantom was lounging lazily several feet above the floor.

“Nope.” Phantom said, popping the P as he shifted around in mid air, long tendril leaving a familiar mildly headache inducing after image behind him as he did.

Tim’s brow furrowed. “No offense, but you’re not exactly the most secretive member of the League. How have you managed to avoid any cults getting a hold of your name to try and do a summoning ritual to capture you?”

Phantom’s grin widened, long fangs glinting against pale blue tinged skin. “I haven’t.”

Across the room, Constantine went very still. Tim slid his gaze back towards the monitor before him, glancing towards the file he’d been reviewing for the case. Zantanna’s report on how summoning worked within the Infinite Realm. How power affected the odds of being able to successfully summon an entity. Odds for most beings from Phantom’s native realm were about 50/50 on a Summoning Ritual working to pull the being to them. Those odds got significantly less favorable for the summoners the stronger the entity got.

But the entity always knew when a summoning was being performed.

“Phantom.” Tim said, slowly, turning back to the grinning ghostly hero. “How many times have people tried to summon you?”

The ghost hmmed, “No idea. If we’re talking just today? …actually still no clue.” Phantom tilted his head, considering. “But since we started talking there’s been at least a thousand or so. It’s slowed down a bit over the last few minutes. Kinda nice.”

Constantine swore a blue streak impressive enough to put Jason to shame and stood, leaving the room in a haze of cigarette smoke and exasperated mutterings of I do not get paid bloody enough for this shit and honestly? Tim thinks he has a point.

Phantom smiles again.

Well, Tim considers, at least they won’t have to worry about him getting yanked in the middle of a battle.

[holopossums]

Crows can have white feathers too.

[mumbledramblings]

i had a vision from god the other night

anyway i love how some of wolfwood's first character-establishing scenes in both animes is him trying to scam people

[meltingpopsikls]

Dont call them that, bro!

(3 versions because i had a vision)

[valentine-evenings]

jegulus fame/band au and they’re in a situationship and it’s james singing 5sos’ talk fast

[kataraavatara]

i was thinking about why rhys annoys me so bad as a character and then i realized it’s because he reminds me of Rhett Butler. The weird condescension stemming from being the only one who “gets” the fmc + being a way older wealthy, black haired man with a tan complexion who’s a black sheep in society. Playing at being blasé but secretly a good person at heart. Plus the inflicting serious bodily harm on the fmc but we don’t have time to unpack all that. If you too were handed a copy of Gone With the Wind in middle school by a family friend and now see that annoying ass man in your fantasy series you’re currently reading you may be entitled to financial compensation.

[coffin-ramblings]

Ashley is "very not good" and "in fact very bad". That is what the promo card tells us.

The flippant attitude to cannibalism and murder, the abuse and manipulation of Andrew, and constant death threats to Julia prove that, so why do they need to say that? Isn't that enough to prove that she's a bad person? On the same promo, we are told Andrew "exists" and is a "doormat extraordinaire", which while true, is a lot more complicated than it looks. He does not just "exists", he was the one who raised Ashley thus one of her "creators", and he is not that much of (if he ever was) a doormat extraordinaire, he lets Ashley make the choices because it's what he wants, and has asserted power several times throughout the game for his and Ashley's benefit. So is what the promo says about Ashley completely true in light of that? Is the truth perhaps a lot more complicated, as it was with Andrew?

Furthermore, it's quite odd how Ashley is quick to accept being called a "tar soul" and how she implies she's a bad person too when she and Andy buried Nina's body.

And in Decay vision, if she kills Andrew, she goes on a rant about how she's glad he's dead, despite it clearly being the worst thing she has ever experienced.

While it's easy to think that she's having a mental breakdown and saying stuff out of madness, I have seen someone (can't find the post though) argue that this is Ashley's attempt to continue her self-narrative that she is a "bad person". She believes no one likes her because she's a bad person. She thinks not even Andrew likes her, and she "has to" drag him the "good person" to be her level of the "bad person" to keep him stuck with her. And when she kills her brother, her parent, her best friend, her soulmate, her everything, she immediately jumps to the justification that she is glad that he died instead of being devastated that he tried to kill her, because bad people can't feel remorse and heartbreak from having to kill someone they love, right?

And I'm inclined to agree with them. Ashley's thought process of pranking Nina is that she'll have her back as a friend after she learns her "lesson", even though she isn't happy being constantly left out or avoided by her.

She didn't hate Nina then, she was afraid of being even more lonely than before if Nina takes Andrew's attention away from her. And her initial reactions to Nina's death was to go "oops", try to justify why she died, cover it up by burying her, and after she's buried, Ashley says that she can just forget about her by not thinking about her for a long time.

That is not the reaction of someone "bad" reveling in their victory of an innocent person's death and trying to get away with it, that is the reaction of a kid who went through something traumatic, not want to get in trouble for it, and trying to rationalize it with something that sounds like an adult in their life (Renee?) would say. Then their brain triggers dissociative amnesia because remembering it would cause great stress and PTSD. Given how stressful Leyley's life was and still is, it makes sense that's her brain's main coping method, and Nina's death was just another instance of it shunting trauma away in an attempt to keep PTSD from happening. It is likely that amnesia made Ashley quite forgetful, as dissociative amnesia does not affect just one singular event, it also affects other memories as an overprotective measure. This also may be why she develops such a flippant attitude to their crimes: joking about them helps her not have to confront the weight of what they just did. Thus, even that attitude being a marker of her being a "bad person" is more questionable. Really, her actions that have the intent to directly harm people are what her make a bad person, but I digress.

The idea that her flippant attitude is perhaps not a good marker of her being a "bad person" is best shown in Episode 1 after they eat the neighbor. Ashley is made aware that her devil-may-care attitude is quite abnormal and worrying for Andrew, which worries her. If she talks before going to bed, she gets visibly confused and worried at Andrew saying she needs to see a professional.

When he later asks how she's so unbothered by the cannibalism, she replies she says she compartmentalizes nervously, which she then follows up afterwards with a joke to not have to dwell on it.

That specific coping method of compartmentalization is the same thing Andrew's brain does in his dream in Episode 2, where it ends with him having a flashback of burying Nina.

In fact, it's interesting how we never get to see adult Ashley's every day psyche. This is not the same as seeing her thoughts and perspectives in the waking world, nor is it the same as the Burial vision where it's Ashley's self-narrative of her life from childhood to adulthood and how she potentially changes it. We never get to see her dream without it being a vision, a glimpse of what her mind looks like in the present processing her experiences in the every day and the past.

This is particularly crucial because while Nina appears while Andrew's brain is doing its standard compartmentalizing of Andrew's current stresses, the only times Nina appears in Ashley's head (outside of Burial vision) were flashbacks of when she is doing this as a child. While it's framed as the moment when Andrew "proves" his devotion to her, flashbacks similar to PTSD ones can happen alongside dissociative amnesia, and they do occur in dreams. Even though Ashley has forgotten Nina's name and eyes, she is always there, haunting her dreams.

This all suggests that the plot twist of our perceptions of the characters in episode 3 is that when we finally get to play Ashley in her normal dreams or see her mental breakdown (maybe if she kills Andrew?), we find out that she feels some sort of guilt for Nina's death and perhaps their other crimes. Even though she insists to herself she doesn't feel guilt about that because she is a "bad person", it is all a lie that she manages to convince to herself and the audience. This would be very shocking as we're in her head a lot of the time, so we'd assume she can't lie to us. But she has all along, just like how Andrew has to us.

[eurekq]

Can't believe I have to say this but you can't just. Hold the futch scale up to someone's hair and declare them butch or femme based on that. Hair is a component of presentation not the single deciding factor. Hair length and it's associations with masculinity or femininity aren't universal across cultures or time either

[bigolbadblog]

was trying to come up with a less gendered word to sub in for [beautiful / handsome] and for a second i genuinely believed i'd cracked the case when i came up with "big." can't say i was wrong for that, but perhaps not the best to carry my meaning to the masses

[morningstargirl666]

WIP WEDNESDAY

Rewriting what was the old chapter 22 of TBBW (1920s Dance, Woo Woo!) and the last half, the klaroline half, has become a chapter all on its own. It's really building up to be one of my favourite chapters in the entire fic, and it's partly because I read @kirythestitchwitch's Crash Course which made me crave a cheeseburger so badly I wrote it into this fic. So here's a sneak peak --- don't let the fluff fool you, this chapter has its fair share of angst hehehe

“You know, I’m really surprised you didn’t insist on paying,” Caroline commented, unwrapping the paper around her cheeseburger as she settled back on the bonnet of Klaus’ car.

Klaus sat beside her, unwrapping his own burger as he stretched his legs out in front of him, one leg hanging off the side and resting on the upwards curve of the rim that snaked above the front wheels. Caroline leant back against the glass of the windscreen, relaxing into her spot as the sweet, steaming smell of the burger hit her — two seasoned patties topped with melted slices of creamy, cheesy goodness calling out to her from their package in a perfectly toasted, soft sesame seed bun, stuffed with crisp, curly lettuce and slices of fresh tomato. Up above, the light pollution from Mystic Falls was less intense so far away from the town, parked outside a quiet diner just off the Jackson highway. The stars were beginning to peak out from behind the clouds, the moon a quarter-full and shining down on them from the night sky above. Behind them, the warm glow of the diner spilled out onto the parking lot, employees wiping down tables and serving the odd exhausted truck driver behind the glass, like one gigantic, square-shaped fish bowl. The neon lights of the diner’s name, Wayback Burgers, flashed and flickered in the dark, reflecting red and blue light onto the wet pavement. 

“And why’s that?” Klaus asked, licking his thumb where the various condiments and sauces had leaked out of his large, triple stacked bacon cheeseburger and onto his hand. She’d felt weird ordering him nothing at the drive thru after she’d asked for the cheeseburger and fries, impulsively buying a milkshake to wash it all down with too. So she’d turned to him and asked if he’d wanted anything, and with some hesitancy, he’d ordered one of the meatiest burgers on the menu.

It was weird. The choice prodded something in her brain, seeming familiar. It was only when they got their burgers, Klaus eyeing his with a hunger that looked out of place on a vampire, that she realised why.

Tyler always ordered the meatiest thing on the menu too. Burgers, ribs, steak, chicken wings — it didn’t matter where they bought lunch, if there was an option to eat like a hungry pack of hyenas, he’d take it. Klaus had slightly more decorum, but the look was exactly the same.

“I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to be ancient?” she shot at him, setting the wrapping in her lap and taking her first bite of her burger. She sighed in bliss the moment the taste hit her tongue — it was truly a magnificent burger. The patties were seasoned to perfection, falling apart in her mouth, cheese melted onto them. The tomatoes and lettuce were fresh but not soggy, and the pickles buried beneath it all had an acid tang that balanced the whole thing out. “Old people are always moaning chivalry is dead,” she finished, holding a hand up to cover her mouth as she spoke around her food.

“And I seemed like the type?” he asked, glancing at her with a raised brow. His voice dropped to a dry drawl. “Why? Because I’m old or because I’m dead?”

She grinned, cheeks full of food. “Both,” she informed him happily, before chewing the last of it and swallowing. Klaus grunted, finally taking a bite out of his burger. Like her, he seemed to melt into the taste, some of the tension in his shoulders easing. She shrugged, eyeing him consideringly before turning her gaze back to her burger, folding down the wrapping. “Most guys get weird when I offer to pay.”

Tyler normally did. Matt had. Since both boys were on opposite sides of the financial spectrum, she kinda figured it wasn’t because of the money.

He looked at her then, searching her face for something. He swallowed his food before he spoke. “Did you want me to pay?”

She shook her head. “No. It was my idea to drag you out here. And you’re giving me a lift home after my car broke down even though I’ve rejected you like, a bajillion times. Least I could do was buy you a burger,” she teased, smile strained.

They hadn’t spoken about it, on the drive here. This thing between them; his jealousy towards Tyler and cruel actions earlier that night; the dozens of hesitant advances, if unwanted on her part. They weren’t friends.

Problem was, Caroline wasn’t sure if they were enemies either. 

Enemies didn’t show each other their personal artwork or unfinished sketches that were hidden away from even their family’s prying eyes. Enemies didn’t sit on a public bench and discuss lost dreams. And they certainly didn’t buy burgers at drive-thrus and eat them together under the starlit sky.

Klaus sighed, but didn’t seem offended. “I don’t think it was quite a bajillion times.”

“Yet,” she corrected cheekily, taking a big bite into her burger.

Instead of the scowl she expected, Klaus smiled fondly, following her lead and taking a bite too.

[mochiiniko]

i just realized that i never actually made a whole analysis on 4-4N?? i technically did in first art post i made of the level last november, but the actual original post had it and i. cant find the rambles on it anymore 💀 so i decided i might as well start fresh and share my thoughts without keymashing every two sentences (unskippable cutscene under the cut <3)

i like to think that the “you can be my muse, ill write these songs for you” line from att is a parallel of sorts, in murmurs being from nicoles perspective instead. i mean cole is the whole reason she even picked up her guitar again, and she doesnt play it just because shes inspired since she even thinks about playing FOR him judging by her dialogue which is. crying rn im still not over that because GIRL

with the whole thing about night shifts "being part of the story but not really" im kinda bothered about murmurs being a night shift since what happened might not be brought up later in the story 😭 if it somehow does tho, im thinking of a buildup to a hypothetical 2-XN where its mostly from nicoles perspective

like being a parallel to 2-X with her being the lead singer and the instrumental having her signature acoustic instead. or partly acoustic with coles edm, since most night shifts are supposed to harder counterparts and i dont know how an acoustic boss fight would work lol (actually mental image of nicole beating us up with her guitar that would be funny)

the line "at least i hope you will be" at the very end of att is mostly sung by her, and from what i can gather it seems like shes pretty hesitant or just unsure that cole is the one who could help her get through her addiction. i also noticed that the after clear dialogue has cole (indirectly) talking about nicole being his inspiration instead of having to rely on caffeine, though nicole doesnt say the same thing about her smoking, and im gonna be honest if there was a 2-XN i would love to see her admit it too 😭😭😭

lmao this basically turned into a 2-X ramble but anyways im going back to crying over midterms i just wanted to post this before i forget again wbhwbhuwubhw

[shantechni]

Bruh this picture must be really old because the boys' heights are just all over the place.

Idk, maybe the animators just wanted to show how old the picture is by having Raph look like an actual pipsqueak and Leo be almost the same height as Donnie.

Or maybe they forgot to keep the boys from going off model.

If the weird heights are supposed to be representative of how old the image is though, then that really makes the growth of the turtles over time very interesting.

Determining their heights as babies is difficult since there aren't too many shots of them standing side by side at equal heights (not to mention that they spend most of their time crawling). But Leo, Raph and Donnie are close in height to each other, and we can at least make out that Mikey was cursed to forever be the shortest, an observation that's supported by concept art of them.

It was admittedly harder determining their heights as children since they're sitting for almost the entire episode as Splinter tells his story, so this picture of them is the best we've got:

One would look at this and think nothing of it because their heights are hardly any different from when they're teens, but closer inspection shows that Leo and Donnie are standing at different distances from the camera than Raph and Mikey. Not too close for them to seem bigger, but just enough for them to seem shorter than they actually are.

Lining them up with each other shows us that Leo is, during this period of time, actually the same height as Donnie, and they're both a good couple of inches above Raph and Mikey (poor Mikey😭).

And, as we can see by the time the series starts, Donnie ends up as the tallest turtle.

So, in conclusion: Donnie will never stop growing. Tall boys 4 lyfe-

That's not to say the others stopped right there because they evidently grew over time, as expected of teens. Leo's height compared to Splinter's is the best depiction of his growth from S1 to S4.

Though, since Splinter began using his cane more in S4, a better depiction would be to compare him with Donnie from S1 to S5, where we can see that Leo's back in his rightful place as his shoulders are just a hair away from lining up with Donnie's.

So, in conclusion for real this time: Our boys been growin'.

...That or I'm digging too deeply and the staff really just gave up-

[nenekobasu]

I’ve been reading some of your analysis posts for a while, and one thing you keep emphasizing is how Isagi is a key in Blue Lock, while Kaiser is Blue and a Lock. And another is how Isagi is a gun in a team of swords

I agree a lot on what you’ve said about Kaiser (neo egoist, new hero), but I’d like to talk about Isagi.

Is it so bad that he is a key in Blue Lock and a gun in Bastard München?

For a while now, I’ve thought of Isagi being too much of a goody two-shoes. He listens to everything Ego says without question, and he always look as if he has some kind of mindblowing eureka moment when he does. I think it would be nice if he challenges Ego on some stuff and gain his own unique football philosophy, similar to how Kaiser challenges Noa to instead play like how he likes.

Maybe that’s the point of Isagi being a key and a gun.

Although I admit it’s too early for Isagi to deviate from Ego’s ideals, as he himself can’t seem to visualize past it yet, this build-up is just in time.

hi, thanks for the question. if i'm understanding the ask correctly, the sum of your argument seems to be "the point of isagi's nel arc development is that isagi demonstrates he can challenge egojin in the realm of thinking/ideals/etc, by creating something original to him" (if this is wrong i'm sorry and please disregard the rest of this answer)

starting off, i can't refute this in a satisfying way. the reason is because the argument seems motivated by a dissatisfaction with blue lock's pre-ubers match presentation of isagi and egojin. my belief about egojin is that he's the author-insert who acts as the fullest representation of blue lock's ideology, and as such occupies a position of thematic correctness within blue lock; isagi following egojin, then, is him fulfilling his purpose as the protagonist of blue lock, embracing his story's ideology and becoming its embodiment. this is a basic aspect of blue lock that i accept as 'correct', regardless of how i feel about it being so; from this standpoint, any instance of isagi deviating from his purpose will be unacceptable to me.

with that in mind, i think "isagi becoming a key and a gun" was where the nature of the story being told was transformed. before, in manshine (when isagi followed egojin and was 'correct'), isagi fulfilled his ideal form as a god-devil under great pressure, and bonded with yukki the sword— at that point, the story being told was that "isagi, under lock, becomes the heart of a sword." for the story to transform into one where "isagi, freed by a key, becomes a gun" was only possible when isagi betrayed who he was in the previous story.

since i accept the previous "lock and sword" story as what is 'correct' within blue lock, i feel the need to condemn this current story. but i understand that, for anyone dissatisfied with the previous story or with what blue lock advances as the 'correct' option, any change would be refreshing and/or a cause for hope. i can't argue with the frustrations of someone who (from my standpoint) rejects one of blue lock's core elements, as i, too, have only accepted this element not out of agreement but out of convenience.

overall i regret this response, as i realize i've basically just told you "yes it's bad because blue lock said it's bad which means it's bad." this exposes only my acceptance of egojin's correctness, and with it my acceptance of blue lock's message. it's important for me as a reader that blue lock remains contained within itself, so i can't reject the frustrations of anyone who dislikes it. that being said, i'll try to make another argument for why i condemn isagi's "gun and key" development.

to make something clear, isagi himself isn't the key— hiori is. and, isagi didn't organically become a gun on his own— hiori made him into one. instead of egojin feeding isagi ideas for how to become number 1, hiori was the one giving birth to isagi as their number 1 striker. isagi doesn't meaningfully challenge egojin, because all isagi did was replace egojin with hiori. 

so while the current isagi opposes egojin's teachings, he only developed to do so by latching onto a more convenient version of egojin who was capable of giving him immediate glory. the cause of isagi's opposition towards egojin was not a desire for rebellion, but forgetfulness. if anything, his "gun and key" development reveals how dependent he is on other people to give him direction and form his own ideas… as such, i'm incapable of seeing any silver lining to isagi's development

(as a final note, i understand the intent behind the isagi-egojin to kaiser-noa comparison, but while i do absolutely think creating his own ideal to challenge noa is core to kaiser's development i also think that this doesn't cut into noa's position as a 'correct' figure within blue lock, and that kaiser challenging noa leads to him 'following' noa in a true sense— for instance, kaiser's early test run of his ideal in ubers match leads to his ch.220 goal, which is eerily similar to noa's barcha goal. kaiser breaking from noa ultimately leads to him becoming more noa-like) (also i don't think of egojin as someone with an "ideal" in the same way as the master strikers but i haven't thought about it enough)

in any case i've done my best to communicate my beliefs about blue lock, but i understand if this answer fails to satisfy your objections. there were other approaches towards answering this that relied on an examination of the "key" and "gun" symbolism, but it would have looped around to being about the same central issue of whether the 'correctness' blue lock presents should be accepted by the reader. to take one final swing, though, i want to add that isagi is the chosen protagonist of blue lock, bound by blue lock's confines… from the beginning, true escape for him was a fated impossibility. i want isagi's current ideal of "freedom" to be thought of in this context of a deeper incontrovertible oppression, where isagi yoichi is only the protagonist because he exists in the prison called blue lock (manga). no amount of partnering with a key or shooting his enemies dead will change that isagi is trapped, but the only reason he doesn't realize this fact is because he's incapable of seeing what lies beyond his own, tragically limited perspective