#the foreshadowing on this page was great

[iobartach]

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Volume 29 Covers and Illustrations

Outer covers

Inner covers

Inner material

All translations in this section courtesy of u/Diego-Aguilar35

Translations:

Author page: "I'm currently undergoing special training to get used to working on several works in parallel."

Disclaimer page

Volume title: Rejuvenated Offence

Synopsis: The leader of the Monster Association, Gyoro Gyoro, is revealed to be a female psychic named Psykos. Psykos fuses with Monster King Orochi and gains even more power, gaining the upper hand on Tatsumaki... At that time, Drive Knight and Genos join the battle and support Tatsumaki. Seeing this, the other S-class heroes became inspired and began to fight in a coordinated manner for the first time to make up for their inferiority. Meanwhile, Saitama and Flash discover a huge dark space in the underground labyrinth...

Index: Ch. 144: Abyss Ch. 145: Stones and Diamonds Ch. 146: Rejuvenated Offence Ch. 147: How to Behave. Ch. 148: Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. Ch. 149: Silver Fang. Ch. 150: The Black Shine

Bonus images

[mishy-mashy]

I said this in a whole reblog, but just copy-pasting to a separate post because I think it'll give some reading comprehension and reblogs don't show up in the search feature.. again, I'm reiterating what I said in another post.

Go check out @demidokuriya 's post for this; OP's post made me put this all down in like. 20 minutes. Mind went vroom vroom cuz HEY THEY'RE ONTO SOMETHING.

(They also reblogged the post with some hint to some behind the scenes of what led to the ideas if you wanna check that out)

Look below at how, when Mineta told AFO to spare Tokoyami, AFO specifically went "..."

He remembers Jirou and thinks, The braying howls of the weak...

He was going to take Tokoyami's Quirk. He took Hawks'. But after Mineta pleaded with him, AFO just straight-up left and didn't take anyone else's Quirk.

AFO saw Yoichi in Mineta.

These scenes are near-identical to each other.

Mineta and Yoichi (at that time) are both much smaller than the normal person at their age

They're both hurt, yet dragged themselves up from the ground to throw something at AFO, to get his attention and make their voice

Both are considered weak, even if they have a Quirk (Mineta's Pop-Off and Yoichi's undeveloped Factor)

The fact that Yoichi got AFO's attention here by throwing a can at him, while Mineta got his attention by throwing a Pop-Off ball; and it stuck.

Mineta's call for his attention landed and actually stuck to AFO. This is unlike when Yoichi and his can bounced off, and AFO kicked him, not listening to him; AFO listened to Mineta and left Tokoyami alone, technically doing what Mineta wanted—to not hurt this person.

AFO just went on to hurt more people away from Mineta's [Yoichi's] eyes so the small weakling wouldn't see.

Yoichi and Mineta both cried to AFO to not hurt in his ways, when AFO was intent on stealing people's Quirks

AFO even stole Hawks' Quirk during this time.

He had time to steal Hawks' Quirk, and though he could've tossed him to the side, he let Hawks stand in his way.

He had the energy. Right after this event, he flew off and left the scene. But he didn't go for Tokoyami immediately.

And this let Mineta play his part, and remind AFO of Yoichi.

"A putrid, festering Quirk Factor."

That sounds like Yoichi, AFO.

".. such garbage."

Hey hey hey, what did Yoichi throw at him when they were kids?

A discarded can. Garbage.

This chapter (385) where AFO listens to Mineta is literally called [A Youthful Urge].

Mineta told AFO to take his Pop-Off (hurt him) instead. But last time, AFO hurt Yoichi by kicking him; this time, AFO not only listened to Mineta to not hurt Tokoyami, but didn't touch Mineta at all.

Even though this time, Mineta [Yoichi] offered to take that place of suffering.

Yoichi didn't do that back then. AFO just turned on little Yoichi anyway.

Yoichi through his whole existence is literally [the braying howls of the weak]. AFO acknowledges he's weak and idealistic, yet he still loves him.

Side note about this panel, I think it's interesting that in this vision, this was the first time we saw Yoichi's eyes: when he was being defiant, despite being pushed down by someone much stronger than him.

Really characteristic of him, honestly. Yoichi's soft-spoken and frail, but it's always reiterated that Yoichi had a powerful will against his stronger big brother.

Mineta at this moment reminded him too much of Yoichi, because the two scenes are near-identical to each other. Parallels, really.

Reiterating something from OP's post that I reblogged this from;

"The reminder of his brother made him uncomfortable, so he hurried away."

AFO didn't want to hurt Yoichi again.

[lettory]

Reading through the Re-animator movie novel, it's honestly amazing how well the spirit of the absurd humor was carried over-

though I also love that they got rid of the "he's dead!" line in zurich in the beginning

[biantianyang]

shi wudu’s decapitation being foreshadowed

[tushanfoxspirit]

He looks so beautiful & peaceful…

[Manhua Spoiler!!]

Also, was this cover page a foreshadowing all along?! The latest chapter in the pages above shows the same building, trees and he is even wearing the same style of clothes!! It can't be a coincidence!!

Cover Chapter 292 (2018) Chapter 515 (2022)

And according to the current chapter this place looks like to be the realm that exist “Outside Of Reincarnation”

Not much information about it for now except that Dongfang Yuechu (or could be his remaining consciousness) is there and he seems to be planting a “Red” rose or plant…in which could be related somehow to Honghong…

[lime-bloods]

I honestly didn't ever expect that I'd be in the position where I'd be using this blog not just to analyse what has come before in Homestuck, but to look toward the comic's future and do some real old-fashioned theorycrafting. but the time has come. so here goes; lime-bloods' Beyond Canon theories as of the July 6th 2024 update:

Vriska's Going to Hell

were all gonna help you! / whether you like it or not

a select few eagle-eyed readers already noticed that the sound used in last month's (Vriska: Figure shit out yourself.) is called "hell_tierwav". while it was easy to dismiss this as irrelevant composer shenanigans at the time, it's now become clear exactly what this was foreshadowing. whether it would be more apt to call this "Hell" or "Purrgatory" is probably up for debate - but whatever you call it, Vriska's been placed in a dimension seemingly tailored specifically for her personal torment.

while Vriska characteristically interprets the recreation of her childhood home as a symbol of how badass she was, the ghosts of her past - both literal, as the shades of the trolls she killed as Mindfang, and figurative, in the form of sprites wearing the faces of her dead friends - show us in no uncertain terms that Vriska's childhood home is the stage where traumas play out.

Erisolsprite puts it succinctly with his welcome to hell, but pay close attention to what exactly we're being welcomed to: this update ends on page 665. so as of this next update, we'll be starting on page 666.

Does Homestuck Have Hell?

the exact bubble of reality Vriska's currently found herself in seems to be an entirely new construction of the likes we've not yet seen in Homestuck - but that doesn't mean this kind of cosmic torment is without precedent. because while 666 is a number with Satanic connotations in the broader cultural context, it also has a very particular meaning of its own within the world of Homestuck. indeed, the latter half of the comic almost revolves around it, culminating in a climax in Act 6 Act 6 Act 6.

specifically, this repetition of a single digit is emblematic of recursive storytelling. to summarise what you can already read about in detail in my essay The World / The Wheel: when Caliborn is 'gifted' the Act 6 Act 6 supercartridge, which he is told is an "expansion" of Homestuck, it's a trick. there is no "expansion"; he's going to be trapped in a story that never ends because it keeps dividing into smaller and smaller versions of itself forever. the only way to truly beat the devil who trapped the heroes within a story is to trap him in his own story.

that's what Caliborn's "Hell" is, and that's also exactly what the Alternate Calliope achieved in Act 7 by creating the black hole which Vriska knocked Lord English into, ending Homestuck's story - something that Calliope even hints at in this very update, when she refers to the black hole as "containment"; not an accident, but a deliberately crafted prison. black holes are a symbol of recursion and regression; being sucked into one means being forced to live out your whole life over and over again, forever. so really, this is all we ever could have expected to happen when Vriska stepped into a black hole within a black hole! the presentation of the narrative even subtly hints at this; events in Beyond Canon that take place in the black hole are enclosed (in brackets), and now events that take place in a black hole-within-a-black-hole are contained within {curly brackets}, because you should always use a different kind of brackets to differentiate nested parenthesis from each other!

it is absolutely no coincidence that when Caliborn closes the curtains on his appearances in Homestuck, thinking he's won when really he's been condemned to a hell of his own making forever more, it's with a tribute to this exact same Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff strip.

IF YOU REMEMBER JUST ONE THING I SAY, OF SO MANY GREAT THINGS SAID BY ME, THEN PLEASE REMEMBER THIS. I WANTED TO PLAY A GAME.

So What Does That Mean?

one of Beyond Canon's central missions is expanding upon Homestuck's exploration of the relationships between author, text, and audience. as discussed above, a large part of Homestuck's thesis is the evil of forcing characters to live the same lives and the same stories over and over without the chance to grow or move on, and Beyond Canon picks up on this by placing Dirk in the position of trying to keep Homestuck going forever purely to appease its fans, while the Alternate Calliope continues to oppose this ideology. and while the alpha Calliope outwardly seems not to have taken a hard position on where she stands in this cosmic battle, the question posed by her device seems to be an entirely new one: can it actually be a good thing to regress, to return to ground that the story has already covered? can this path lead to something new, rather than merely stagnation?

it's so relevant that Vriska is being confronted with the crimes of her past, not only in the form of all the trolls she was personally responsible for killing but also in the form of the exact same punishment she condemned Lord English to with her heroism - complete with the herd of horses that are always present at Caliborn's demise! but where being condemned to an eternal cycle was fitting punishment for Caliborn, someone who refuses to break free of cycles of abuse and instead chooses to enact that same abuse on the world around him... if Vriska is someone who can break free of these cycles, who can change and become a better person despite what happened to her, will this punishment have the same effect? or, as Davepeta seems to believe, is forcing Vriska to reckon with her own past and traumas exactly what will allow her to break free of that cycle?

DAVE: [...] ill just be over here in the hyper gravity chamber training to beat lord english KARKAT: WE HAVE A HYPER GRAVITY CHAMBER???

it's hard not to be struck by the parallels in design and purpose between the Plot Point and Dragon Ball's Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and not just because of the Dragon Ball enthusiasts present on Beyond Canon's writing and art teams: albeit in typically Strider-bastardised form, the Time Chamber got a shoutout in Andrew Hussie's own Homestuck (see quote above), in a reference that was even picked up on by prolific theorist bladekindeyewear at the time. for the uninitiated: the Hyperbolic Time Chamber allowed its users to train for extended stretches of time, sometimes even spanning years, while a significantly smaller time period passed in the world outside - something that is actually true of real-life black holes! and with the Plot Point's own emphasis on time, represented by the hourglass included among its mechanisms, it seems to me that an essential part of making the 16-year-old Vriska ready for the trials ahead will be giving her the time to undergo the same growth her adult friends have experienced.

considering that Beyond Canon is already playing in the Ultimate Self space, where there are levels of power beyond merely the "god tiers", it also doesn't seem too farfetched to speculate that Vriska, forced to reckon with the fact that becoming a powerful Thief of Light isn't the be-all and end-all of personal growth, will take another leaf out of Dragon Ball's book here and ascend "beyond Super Saiyan". perhaps this is even the "hell tier" so cheekily alluded to in the Plot Point flash? certainly this kind of evolution would be the perfect way to challenge Dirk's belief that the Ultimate Self is the only logical final step for a character's development.

whatever the case, I believe we can take Davepeta at their word here. I don't think it's just a joke that by the end of this ordeal Vriska Serket is going to be fucking RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPED!

[jessmalia]

I rewatched The Avatar and the Fire Lord a few days ago, and god, what a good episode. Revealing that Zuko is a descendant of both Sozin and Roku was a genius move (and that's not even getting into the Zuko/Aang parallels of it all). But there's something the show doesn't seem to think of, and that I haven't seen anyone in the fandom discuss either — the fact that Zuko isn't the only one descendant from both these men. Azula is, too.

The conclusion of this story that Iroh presents to Zuko at the end of the episode is that he alone — because of his lineage from both men the war was started from — is uniquely capable of cleansing the sins of his family and the fire nation and bringing peace to the world. But, the thing is, there's two sides of this conflict, and therefor two sides to its legacy. The external and the personal. The legacy of the external is the war, but the legacy of the personal is the sibling rivalries that kept repeating through generations of the royal family.

Though Roku and Sozin were not actually related, they were childhood friends as close as siblings and fucking shared a birthday, so the symbolism works. We know very little about Azulon's childhood or if he even had any direct sibling rivalries like this at all, but from what I can find on his wiki page, we know that Sozin favoured him over "other family" (I'm assuming his siblings). What we know very well, however, is what happened in the next generation between Iroh and Ozai. We know Azulon favoured Iroh over Ozai, and that this likely is the initial source of their hatred for each other, which resulted in perhaps the worst sibling rivalry of them all (what with the indirect patricide and throne stealing).

Then we go on to Zuko and Azula, whose upbringing kept going in the same patterns, but the key difference is them being the first ones to both be descendant from the men who started it all. If Zuko having this lineage makes him uniquely capable of ending the cycle of war in his country and restoring balance to the world, shouldn't that mean that both he and Azula having this lineage makes them uniquely capable of ending the cycle of brutal sibling rivalries and restoring balance to their family?

This conclusion I've presented seems to fit perfectly with the lesson Aang draws from the same story as well:

"Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin was, right? If anything, their story proves that anyone's capable of great good and great evil. Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, have to be treated like they're worth giving a chance."

I know this is supposed to be foreshadowing to Aang refusing to kill Ozai later, but I can't help but think it's even more applicable to fourteen year old Azula. It's really so ironic that the show runners thought Azula deserved what she got when their own show seems to be telling them that Zuko mending his relationship with her is what he ultimately should've done.

But, then again... that does sort of make her the perfect tragedy.

[mammomlette]

OBEY ME YOUNGER BROTHERS AS SOULMATE TROPES!

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3(WIP rn)]

Includes: Satan, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Belphegor, GN!Reader/MC

Warnings: Spoilers for lesson 16 in Belphies (not explicitly said but obvious foreshadowing for a twist), implied manipulation (Belphies) (not sure if that needs a warning but better safe than sorry)

Notes: I’m still quite new to fanfics and Tumblr, and honestly just writing in my free time in general so constructive criticism is defo encouraged!! Also I won’t lie to you, Satan did seem a tad ooc erm…

SATAN: writing/drawings on hands appear on eachother

* As soon as you turned 18, you noticed small phrases and notes appearing on your right hand

* It started off with small things like “page 562” or “British shorthair.” Just things to keep as a reminder or to be able to search it up later

* However, as time went by, the notes became a bit more… concerning

* Concerning book quotes from old literature, sometimes in other languages, and nefarious plans to prank someone called ‘Lucifer’

* Your soulmate plans to prank the devil himself. Haha. What a great idea.

* You brushed it off for a while, appreciating the occasional cat fact or chapter reminder and just ignoring the angry words about Lucifer.

* Eventually, you began to build up the courage to respond. Small things relating to things your soulmate wrote, like cat doodles (good or bad as your art skill may be) or going over the writing of the reminder when you notice it started to fade

* Not knowing if it was your place to write down your own notes or just not quite having that amount of bravery, you still did those little things to let your soulmate know that hey, you’re there and you’re always reading what they have to say.

* Satan thought he was hallucinating.

* Thousands of years spent just jotting things down to remind himself of things at a later date, frequently on his hand, and suddenly things started to change?

* He had wrote “British shorthair” on his palm in hopes of being able to look it up later, and a few minutes later he looks down to his palm to search it up and sees a… cat?? It’s really not clear. It’s round, with two points on the top of its head… yeah thats a cat.

* He’s become so obsessed he’s hallucinating badly drawn cats, which is probably a cause for concern, so naturally he confides in his brothers about this and is comforted that no he’s not hallucinating, however cats are just randomly appearing on his hand.

* They continue to appear, circles with two triangles, some looking better than others and some with more odd features likes birthday hats or weird outfits

* He finally decided to read up on what could be happening and was quickly met with the term ‘soulmates’

* He had heard of this a long time ago from one of his brothers while he was still young (for a demon) and brushed it off as a fairy tale. Why had his soulmate only started communicating with his just now?

* He moved on eventually and time passed, a new human being introduced to his home and his family.

* It took an embarrassingly long time to realise that his human was also his soulmate, it wasn’t until you were both just chilling in his room and you were doodling something next to some words on your arm that he noticed a cat appearing on his own arm.

* “Look! The cat thing is happening!” He shouted, a lot more emotion out into it that he would’ve liked due to the sheer shock

* You stopped what you were doing and look at his arm, the cat drawing having ceased its being drawn while you stared at the cat, face turning into shock and then seriousness. Because that is the cat that you just drew.

* “Satan.” You said, just staring into his eyes without any expression

* “Yes, MC?” He responded, worried at your monotony. His mouth then gaped open and you showed him your arm, cat half doodled next to the words “page 236, sticky notes needed”

* You both just made dead eye contact for a second before your eyes both began to flick back and forth and your lips slowly started to quiver

* Both of your sweet laughters filled the room, how ironic that such a common book trope would be what flew under Satan’s nose for so long.

ASMODEUS: soulmate telepathy

* Ever since you turned 18, you had been hearing a voice in your head.

* Not necessarily in a concerning way! In the way it happens when you and your soulmate have both turned 18 and can finally communicate.

* At first, you thought that you were hearing things. Things like “Ooo, this would be a great touch to my outfit! ♡” and “Can’t believe my bath wasn’t 3 hours long today…” flooding your mind. Since when were you SO picky about your clothes and hygiene, even when not in the process of dressing or washing? And since when were your baths 3 hours?

* Quickly though, you realised that this voice wasn’t your own. It was a melodic sounding voice that felt like honey and most definitely did not belong to you.

* You had heard from your family growing up and your friends recently that once you had become an adult you would be able to communicate with your soulmate through your thoughts, proof of the bond your souls shared, thoughts intertwining together.

* You found that whenever you were deep in thought and rambling to yourself you’d be met with a “hon, slow down” in your mind or that whenever you were trying to figure out an outfit your soulmate would chime in to offer their expert advice without hesitation

* No hesitation at all, because Asmo had waited his entire life for this.

* Thousands of years of life believing that he had no soulmate, destined to forever be a player

* So long spent reading and gushing over cute romance stories where soulmate meet and finding comfort in romcoms about that very topic, and here he was finally with his own soulmate in his mind

* The way you would thank him for his advice before his mind went quiet from your thoughts again until you later told him how well everything went and the way you would ramble internally to him without even realising you were connected to his mind made his heart flutter, even without your face your voice and soul were beautiful

* One day he had been summoned alongside his brothers to the student council room to welcome the new human exchange student. It was a hassle that could be spent doing something more productive like his skincare or extra time in the bath, but he was still just so excited he had to tell you how excited he was to meet the new human!

* “New human?” You thought, but had no response from your soulmate before you appeared inside of a council room in front of 5 attractive strange men.

* You panicked and were kind of in autopilot mode as a tall man in all red introduced you to your situation and a slightly-less-tall man in black started to introduce you to his brothers

* You still had small responses in your shock, and a certain demon recognised your voice.

* You were immediately snapped out of autopilot when you heard the voice of the second brother you were introduced to, an admitted handsome man with slightly-pink-tinted light brown hair and stunning orangeish eyes said “Oh come now. Really? You should be that you get to introduce such a sweet and charming little brother like me!” And you froze.

* You looked like a deer in headlights to lucifer who was trying to introduce you to a blonde demon, but to Asmo, you looked like the most beautiful creature to ever walk the three realms (asides from himself, naturally) and the only person worthy of him.

* Asmo saw beauty in everyone, but everyone else paled in comparison to your face in this moment and your voice every other previous time he had heard it.

* He looked at you with knowing eyes and your eyes finally softened from your shocked face, finally understanding what he meant earlier by “new human”

* It would take time for you to get used to being in a new world with a demon as your soulmate, it would take time for him to get used to loving someone more intimately than as lust, but you both had eachother and the bond that ties your minds together and that’s all you needed.

BEELZEBUB: you share (some of) your soulmate’s pain

* It was growing unbearable.

* The slight yet constant ache in your stomach, a pit that was never quite full.

* For years you mistook it for your own hunger, not sure if you should be eating more or not

* It was always there, always something that disctracted you whenever you were left alone in silence or trying to sleep at night, always waiting for you to finish a meal just to make you feel that familiar ache again.

* It was just insufferable.

* It wasn’t just the hunger, though. There would be times where your muscles would ache like you had been working out without a proper cool down or your arms felt like they had bruised from defending or blocking against something

* You inquired with your friends about this and were just told that it would be your soulmate. You shared pain with your soulmate, and your soulmate always seemed in pain

* It wasn’t a pain that came from attacks or falling, just a pit that always felt so empty it hurt but could never be filled.

* Was your soulmate starving to death? You wished there was a way to help them, to soothe the pain, but without knowing who they are there was no way to fix it.

* As of present, you had been sent into the devildom a few weeks ago and had began to slowly feel adjusted to the devildom and your roommates and you had grown fond of one in particular: Beelzebub, the avatar of gluttony.

* You sympathised with him and his constant hunger since you yourself always felt a small bit of this hunger, even if you’d learnt by now that it wasn’t yours to fix

* So naturally, you hung a round him more

* You spent time with him whenever you could just because you wanted to, accompanying him to the gym or treating him to Hell’s Kitchen or even just sitting with him when he was lonely and missing his brother who had gone to the human world

* And it felt like every time you gave him the food you were craving so much, that pit in your stomach was filled just a bit

* Always there, never going away, but it felt just that bit more bearable and ignorable for a short while

* Who knew you were such an empath?

* Of course it crossed your mind of that Beel could be your soulmate, but what are the chances? You dismissed the thought whenever it appeared, not wanting to get your hopes up

* However, your hopes were validated one night in the kitchen with Beel.

* You were preparing him a small snack, just cutting up some devildom-style bread for him when you accidentally put your finger down at the wrong time in the wrong place and cut it

* You hissed at the pain, putting down the knife to look at your finger and you thought you heard Beel grunt.

* “MC, are you okay?” He inquired, approaching you to look at your finger while slightly cradling his own for some reason

* “Uh, yeah, I just need a plaster or something, would you mind..?” “Yeah, of course.” He continued to clutch his finger while reaching for the cabinet, letting go for a second to open it and grab you a plaster

* “Are you okay? You’re holding your finger too.” You were slightly worried by his mannerisms even though you didn’t see a cut on his fingers.

* “Yeah, my finger just hurt all of a sudden. It’s fine though. Here, I’ll put the plaster on for you.”

* You fell into comfortable silence as he opened the plaster and began pressing in down, but he pressed down a bit too hard which hurt you, causing both of you to hiss.

* “Seriously Beel, are you okay?” He nodded. “Yeah, it’s just like whenever you get hurt my finger hurts too.”

* Lightbulb. You realised finally that those slight considerations were valid and the connection you felt with Beel was real. The hunger you felt wasn’t yours and the reason it was numbed when you gave him food is because it was his.

* He seemed to have realised this too, because he paused and looked at you, slowly smiling.

* “MC, I just realised something. I think that-“ you cut him off with a kiss, smiling now too.

BELPHEGOR: you have a countdown until your soulmate’s death

* Surely there was an error in the system.

* Call you crazy but you didn’t quite think that 378,691,205,018 seconds is applicable to the human life span.

* You had come to the conclusion that your soulmate was either non-existent and the universe was fucking with you or they were some kind of non human entity and obviously both of these answers were stupid but at least the former was possible.

* You’d grown accepting overtime that you didn’t have a soulmate unlike how most of your friends did and that you’d never have that sort of unconditional love

* Not having a soulmate wasn’t unheard of, just uncommon.

* And you got the short end of the stick. That’s all there was to it.

* UNTIL you got randomly abducted one day into literal hell where pretty much all beings there loved for thousands of years.

* ‘Maybe I have a chance now?’ You crossed the thought out from your mind. First of all, these were demons and most of them had made attempts on your life at some point or another, and secondly almost all of them either a) didn’t have a timer, which meant no soulmate, b) had an insanely high timer that you’d never be able to reach or c) had already found their soulmate

* You sighed to yourself and began to lose hope again, walking up the stairs to the attic

* A short while ago, you had found a human locked in the attic, who had asked you to help him. You clicked, something in that moment just felt like it had been put in place like the final puzzle piece so you trusted him without really knowing why

* But you had even more recently found out from his brother that he was bulshitting you and that he was probably the demon Belphegor, so now you just wanted to figure out what was going on

* You continued to march up the stairs and finally arrived at the attic to confront him or at least question him

* “Are you Belphegor?” You cut to the chase not wanting to bother with any more of his lies.

* He was silent for a second before grinning, devilish look that you’d expect from the decent ruler or the underworld gleaming in his eyes as he said “Aww, so you’ve already figured me out, have you? Well, you’re no fun at all.”

* You glared, and tried to decide whether declaring he was a liar or asking why he was a liar would be a better idea

* But he spoke up again before you could decide.

* “That timer on your neck, what does it say?”

* You paused, not knowing the exact number. “Um, like, there’s hundred billion seconds-ish? Why?”

* “Because I’m a demon. I’m going to live long enough to fulfil that. Look at my timer, here. It has 13,140,014 seconds. No demon would live that short.”

* “And is thirteen million a lot of time?”

* “About a human lifespan, bit under.”

* You hummed. It made sense to you looking at it at the moment, though you could’ve sworn it was a little bit under your guess, you trusted him.

* Why? He lied to you about being a human, so why do you trust him?

* Because he’s your soulmate. There’s no doubt in your mind. The click, the need to trust him, even seeing him in your dreams. It was right.

* So you believed him, and didn’t give the thirteen million seconds much question. You were going to save him, save your soulmate.

* Because thirteen million seems like a long time, and I guess it was long enough for you to save him. Just not enough to do much more.

[thechekhov]

Alright I know the gag of people asking for spoilers has been run into the ground by this point but I think it’s still funny so here goes:

Hey can you describe the upcoming plot in very specific detail? Actually maybe you could draw it so it’s easier to follow the action. Although drawing and writing all of that at once might be a lot to handle, so you could release it in batches every once in a while instead of all at once. It would be like some sort of webcomic! Then we could read the updates and learn the plot as we get new pages! What a neat concept, am I right?

idk man, that seems like a great concept, but I'm afraid it's a bit far-fetched.

Do you really think anyone would read that? Like, pay attention to the dialogue and understand what the characters are saying? Figure out small bits of foreshadowing in order to theorize effectively about what could happen next? Consider larger themes and put them together with how the characters act to understand the author's intended meaning beyond just the surface-level, at-face-value reading and shallow interpretation of only what is immediately apparent on the page?

It feels like it could be something... but I just don't know.

[writers-potion]

How do I plan out chapter plots so they flow okay??

Currently working on a 36 chapter thing. Would love some help. Thanks

Chapter Planning Tips

Hi thanks for asking! 

I’m not a great plotter myself (I’m somewhere in between a plotter and a pantser), but here are some frameworks you can use. 

Planning The Overall Plot 

Before you start dividing the chapters, think about how you’d like the whole story to flow. You can use any of the below frameworks: 

The Three-Act Structure (Act 1 - 1st doorway - Act 2 - 2nd doorway - Act 3)

Freytag’s Pyramid (Exposition - Inciting incident - rising action - climax - falling action - resolution)

9-step Plot Dot 

The 15-Beat Structure (from Save The Cat!) 

Then, think about how long you want each Act/Section to be. 

In the 3-Act structure, Act 1 will be less than 25% of the overall word count

In Blake Synder’s 15-beat structure, Break into Act 2 comes at the page 25/110 mark. 

Effective “Chapter Plots”

The most important thing in a chapter is that you make the reader want to move on to the next. To do this, consider the following:

Using a cliffhanger/foreshadowing at the end of chapters. 

Each chapter must have a significant plot point assigned to it. 

If you have a lot of time skips/flashforwards and backwards, consider titling each chapter with a timestamp. The same technique can be used for changing location/POV. 

Have a mini-plot for each chapter. What I mean by this is that a chapter must have scenes with varying levels of tension. Just like in a story plot, a chapter will generally start off with mid/low tension, climb up to the major event of the chapter, then fall slightly at the end as the particular event comes to a close. 

If you are a pantser and you feel like you can never stick to a plot (and that’s why your chapters are being disconnected), make sure you have a place where you track your plot changes, and alter the original plot as you write. 

It also helps to write the whole story in a relatively short period of time so that you won’t come back to Chapter 24 after a 3-month hiatus, not knowing where you left off.

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[ineffablejaymee]

ITS PERCY JACKSON TIME AND I HAVE THOUGTS

if anyone tries to put spoiler alert on this i will cry these books are 15 years old ANYWAY THOUGHTS

I love the fight between percy and grover, sue me. the betrayal in percy's eyes and grover hurting him to protect him???? these are my BOYS the empathy link is coming

CLARISSE clarisse is so. so. i love her. im not a fan of her calling percy a fraud, i think her hating him because she wanted to prove herself and was jealous of percy was great but they made it work. AND THE WAY SHE CRIED OUT WHEN PERCY BROKE HER SPEAR?! oh she has daddy issues shes gonna nail sea of monsters arc if they shoot it

the foreshadowing about luke is CRAZY and i eat it u p. also it hurts like a bitch, especially with walker playing the naive and trusting percy so perfectly. AND THE LITTLE SISTER LINE?! magnificent. shatter my heart and leave it in pieces

WALKER IS AMAZING hes the embodiment of percy and yeah, persassy. we knew he would be back. his whole interaction with Mr. D was hillarious and i love the dad scene. Such Jason Mantzoukas energy he was made for this role.

i adore Sally, she's the rebellious, brave and caring woman i imagined while reading the books. and her relationship with percy is amazing. i will never stop crying about them btw

YOU DROOL IN YOUR SLEEP the way i SCREAMED we are getting the percabeth. i will be so insufferable when she calls percy seaweed brain. i cant wait for more annabeth screentime

i wasnt the one watching these episodes. instead there was the 12 yo undiagnosed me who had just felt seen on the pages for the first time in their life in my seat.

[the-fluffy-folio]

Vamster Queen – Huge beast, unaligned

Another month, another huge creature added to the collection! The Vamster Queen and over 30 more huge boss monsters are available on my Patreon page (alongside many, many more creatures)!

Waves of vamsters foreshadow her coming, distant sounds of thousands burrowing paws seal her arrival. Although she doesn’t need to feed as frequent as her brood, she will be hungry eventually. And after all the endlessly tormenting symphonies of squeaking and squealing, she emerges: the queen of the vamsters – a sinister sovereign piercing the bowels of the earth and with each of her ravaging children the hopes of everyone above. Much like a swarm of locusts turns a a lush field into barren wasteland, so does the ever-moving horde of vamsters strip all life from thriving farms, peaceful villages and buzzing towns. Eagerly and loyal, the vamsters follow their queen; insistently yet with great care their mother guides them, for she knows they must feast.

[ponett]

i played through alan wake for the first time. here are some things i loved along the way:

the literal first words spoken in the game being "stephen king once wrote..." as alan tries to gas himself up as a writer

alan only being able to jog for a little while before getting tuckered out because you're playing as a novelist

alan feeling the need to point out an extremely obvious The Shining reference in his narration

you put the lime in the coconut

all of the random shit the taken say, but in particular stucky going on about his hot dog rankings

looking at the novels on alan's shelf and realizing how fucking huge he made his name compared to the actual book titles

all the episodes of night springs, but in particular "the quantum suicide" and "absence of creativity" ("Is that too moronic, indeed? Who can tell? It's a fine line between the stupid and the sublime... in Night Springs.")

barry's puffy red jacket being the brightest, most saturated color present in any scene he's in

agent nightingale being a direct inversion of cooper from twin peaks, who HATES small pacific northwest towns, AND having to work with their sheriff's departments, AND their coffee, AND their trees!!

the never-ending list of author names nightingale will call alan

the evil bulldozer that tries to kill you, foreshadowed earlier by the manuscript page "Wake Attacked by a Bulldozer"

one of the patients at the lodge being a game dev and hartman going "he works on... video games. it's trash, of course. but it does involve some small creative effort"

when you're talking to the old gods of asgard at the lodge and tor is routinely smacking the table with his squeaky hammer the entire time

alan and barry driving with the cardboard cutout of alan in the back seat

the rock concert segment

alan jumping like this

the dopefish poster upstairs in the bookstore

the camera panning over during the live action talk show bit to reveal that the other guest sitting next to alan is sam lake himself, who does the max payne face when prompted by the host

the fact that this game has driving segments and you can do donuts and drift into enemies

and, of course... the energizer and verizon product placement

great game

[astronicht]

Lots of sports going on but I got back to the end of Two Towers, and Frodo tried to go across a bridge over misty cold water to a forbidding citadel and got dragged back by Sam AND Gollum from this Hel-vibes situation. Do NOT cross a bridge over freezing misty stream if ur in an early medieval fantasy! This is all feeling suspiciously “symbolic desire to enter the land of the dead”! Horrid foreshadowing, thanks!

So yeah, I sort of blinked at this but figured either it was or wasn’t a reference to the bridge to Hel (Norse land of the dead, not Hell), and read on.

And then they climb the stairs and then they start talking about stories again. It’s not exactly a direct “drag a loved one away from maybe-a-deathwish-allegory” to “talking about stories” journey, but it’s how it feels, a little. After hundreds of pages of only the occasional elephant wonder-tale: stories! Something that is the opposite of death: stories!

I cry at Sam’s Two Towers story speech like a baby when it comes on in the films, but reading this I was mostly distracted by what was and wasn’t borrowed word for word (most of it?? Holy shit good choice). But the bit not in the films where Sam talks about Beren, and how he succeeded in “a worse place and a blacker danger than ours” but adds that Beren’s is “a long tale, of course, and goes on past happiness and into grief and beyond it” got too me a bit. And then Sam realizes there’s a distant connection between Beren and the vial Galadriel gave Frodo (which he was clutching as he smiled grimly even tho “despair had not left him” and stopped trying to cross the bridge) and Sam says “Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?”

And yeah that whole section got me in the end!! I keep quoting it but holy SHIT, u know? The love and tension when Frodo answers:

“‘No, they never end as tales,’ said Frodo. But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later — or sooner.’

‘And then we can have some rest and some sleep,’ said Sam. He laughed grimly. ‘And I mean just that, Mr. Frodo. I mean plain ordinary rest”

So anyway I stopped laughing at myself for imagining that perhaps Tolkien was referencing the bridge to the halls of death and shut up and thought about Sam trying to convince Frodo to live three times in a row.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Kaz and Wylan’s potential to become each other

Wow, you guys were a lot more excited about this than I was expecting! I made a post briefly mentioning this idea and it got way more attention that I was expecting, so as promised here is my explanation and I’ve tagged people who asked for it at the end :)

*WARNING: CONSTANT SPOILERS AHEAD*

Ok so the driving forcing of this comparison is rooted in the similarities of their characters and their backstories. Both of them lost a close family member, were abused by men with power over them, and experienced a form of ‘rebirth’ by nearly drowning in the Ketterdam canals. They also both experience disability; Kaz using a cane for a broken leg that didn’t heal correctly, and Wylan having severe dyslexia that prevented him from learning to read. A key difference that separates them, and arguably is a representation of the difference in the way their experiences have shaped their personalities as well, is that Kaz’s disability is a direct result of his chasing after vengeance, whereas Wylan’s disability was used as an excuse for his father to abuse him for what we as the reader see to be a minimum of eight years. (I’m assuming this because he is 16 in the book and was 8 when his mother ‘died’, which is the point that he describes he father to have “given up on him”)

I’m gonna quickly hop to parallels between Kaz and Pekka Rollins, bare with me I promise it’s relevant, which are quickly established as a key part of the novels. When Inej compares them, Kaz’s reply is “I don’t sell girls, I don’t con helpless kids out of their money” to which she gently responds “look at the floor of the Crow Club, Kaz”. Aside from this being the heartbreaking line that it is, it also does a very good job of highlighting their similarities and a similarity that they share with Jan Van Eck. When they meet the merch at the end of the first book they meet on an island called Vellgeluk, which is described as being popular with smugglers and slavers like those who kidnapped Inej. The other Crows are surprised Van Eck knows about Vellgeluk, but Kaz simply says “maybe he isn’t the upstanding merch he appears to be”. Great subtle foreshadowing for his double cross, and great establishment of the link between these three characters. In fact, Van Eck and Kaz echo each other more than you might think. Just as Kaz states “Greed bows to me, it is my servant and my lever”, Van Eck says “Yes, Chaos will come. And I will be it’s master”. In their first meeting, Van Eck accuses Kaz of murder and gambling with people’s lives, and in return Kaz points out that 1 in 5 of Van Eck’s ships will never return because they will sink or “fall prey to pirates”, so they are both doing the same thing, and that they both have the same motivations for this bloodshed: “profit”.

Now consider how often Wylan echoes Kaz, and therefore whether he echoes his father as well. They both have exceptional memories, Kaz’s being photographic/eidetic and Wylan being able to put words to music in his head to remember pages worth of infomation - this is even emphasised by Kaz being able to count cards when he gambles, saying “he could keep track of the game for up to three decks” and Jesper asking Wylan if he’d be able to apply “that trick to counting cards” to which he replies “probably. But I won’t”. They also both have impressive intellects, which could have placed them far higher up in the world than they’ve found themselves if it weren’t for cruel circumstances - Van Eck even comments on this, saying it angers him that Kaz has so much potential but does nothing with it. Then there’s their tendency to avoid being vulnerable. I think we too often overlook the fact that no-one knows Jan Van Eck hired two men to kill his son, not even Jesper, and that not even Inej knows what happened to Kaz on the Reaper’s Barge. Jesper believes that Wylan left his house as a result of his father’s abuse but that it was still his choice, and Inej has no information beyond “Pekka Rollins killed my brother” and the explanation of the con when Kaz faces off with Rollins in Crooked Kingdom. I genuinely believe that the biggest thing separating them is where they place blame for their situations. Kaz blames Pekka Rollins. Wylan actually blames himself.

Arguably, although he catalysed the events, if Rollins hadn’t conned Kaz and Jordie they still would have suffered in an almost identical way: they would both contract the Queen’s Lady Plague, they wouldn’t have enough money for both medicine and boarding, and Jordie would die. In that scenario Kaz would have still been left penniless and alone with nowhere to go, but he wouldn’t have had anyone to blame. In fact, he may have died as well because it’s really his drive for vengeance that makes him strive for survival. When he’s on the Reaper’s Barge he wonders if it’s worth trying to survive because there’s nothing waiting for him in the city, but then he realises that the chance of revenge is waiting for him, and that thought drives him to stay alive every day that follows. Without Rollins, Kaz probably would have blamed himself for Jordie’s death, and I’m backing that up with the singular moment when he’s first attacked by parem-high tide makers and has a brief “boy’s fear” that they are ghosts. He thinks, for a split second, that a ghost has come to kill him and what does he say? He says “Jordie had come for vengeance at last”. This is chapter three. We have no idea who Jordie is. With the limited information we had at the time and what we’d just seen happen to Big Bolliger, I assumed it was someone in Kaz’s gang that he had backstabbed and who has died because of what he did. But no. This single line leads me to wholeheartedly believe that Kaz blames Rollins, who realistically was only a small part of his suffering, quite so vividly to emotionally avoid blaming himself.

Wylan blames himself until around chapters 14 to 16 of Crooked Kingdom. His experiences with mental, emotional, and physical abuse have actively convinced him that his so-called ‘inadequacies’ caused a change in his father’s behaviour. But Wylan not being able to read didn’t magically turn Van Eck from a lucky family man into someone willing to try “specialists, tonics, beatings, [and] hypnotism” against his child. The fact is that Van Eck, like many abusers, is masterfully manipulative in everything he does. Wylan describes seeing his parents’ marriage as a happy one, but he also says “the argued all the time, sometimes about me. But I remember them laughing a lot too”. He’s quick to defend their relationship as if it isn’t supposed to be marred by argument and he lays blame on himself by suggesting that he was the root of their unhappiness. He also says that around Alys, Jan Van Eck becomes who he once was around Marya; a kinder, gentler man. I don’t think we’re meant to assume that he’s acting any differently with Alys in private right now, but I do think we’re meant to assume that he would have done down the line if he hadn’t been arrested (and presumably she filed for divorce). In chapter 14 of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan learns that his mother is still alive but that his father had her committed and declared insane so he could use it as grounds for divorce and marry Alys instead. And you know what happens? Wylan blames himself. He says, verbatim, to Jesper: “You don’t understand. It’s my fault”. He explains that Van Eck did this so he could have a “real heir”; because Marya produced a “faulty” child he needed a new woman to give him the child he wanted. That’s a messed up thing to think on so many levels, but Wylan doesn’t blame Van Eck because he is still being conditioned by his abuse. He and Kaz experienced different kinds of abuse, and Kaz wasn’t conditioned to blame anyone but his abuser, so that’s what he does. When Wylan does begin to blame Van Eck, he is immediately taken in by this same idea of revenge. Kaz says “you were angry. I needed you righteous” when explaining why he sent Wylan to St Hilde blind in chapter 16. Wylan was angry with his father before, but he wasn’t actively seeking vengeance. Now that he has a cause, someone other than himself to fight for? He tells Kaz “well, now you have me”.

Both of them have this potential to be fuelled by revenge or self-hatred, and although they go about it in different ways and lean towards different sides of the scale they are both balancing between those two extremes for the entire duology. Their past experiences have, and their future experiences could, tip them further either way but right now they are almost playing with the line.

Thank you so much if you’ve bothered to read this far, sorry for the long post but you did ask for an essay, so there you go. Tagging the people who asked - @kazooyay @mikasimaginairyworld @sunseeking-cyptid @moonlit-aura @alexplutoplanet @gandalfsmallnaturals @livsarthaven @goodomenstrack23 @origami-butterfly @flower-biatch @bookworm010307 @thesunniest @wherela @space-ace-thoughts @sixofbabycrows @antisocial-burrito

Sorry if I missed anyone!!!