#the time paradigm

[fauxraven]

The Time Paradigm [II]

pairing: Dream of the Endless x fem!reader

summary: a fuzzy dream of love and (un)holy consequences

warnings: slight gore, language

word count: 1.7k+

Enter the Dream, weary traveller

Chapter II: A Grecian Dream of Hospitality

As an active member of the Dreaming and a rather... pro-active member of the King of Dreams’ very own circle, she likes to think she has known her fair share of nightmares.

The Corinthian comes to mind, pale head and ominous shaded glasses, expensive cars and the heady scent of falling ash. Sparkling stardust and swirling rainbows wash it away with a draught, the lingering residue energy of a well-meaning Nightmare-turned-Dream left buzzing in the ether. Gault, Eve herself, the ever-patient Abel, the angry Cain, Fashion Thing, Merv, Lucienne, Matthew, Gilbert…

She recalls their names one by one, like a tether grounding her home.

Dreams and Nightmares and then some.

For a fleeting beat, she wishes they were here, stalking in the confines of her barren mind. But at the moment, her disoriented sense of self is without a doubt free of all these friendly faces.

It runs wild, bending under the force of an unknown entity—something fierce and angry that has not yet been crafted by the Dreamlord's vengeful hands. Something she is brewing on her own, but all sense of pride eludes her.

She hates this—only vaguely, so dazzled is she, for the bigger part of her exhausted soul is lost to any plane of existence. She remembers vague things, lost feelings and Dream Kings, washed away by the sea salt that tickles her nostrils, and the warm breeze she feels sweeping across her face.

These-things, concepts, thoughts, simple pleasures, simple tortures- offer her little solace in the passionate frenzy of her seizing being.

She tosses, turns, curls and unfurls, all at once, limbs straying, snapping in all sorts of painful directions until she is certain nothing remains of her but her terror-stricken screams bouncing off the impossible walls.

The worst of the worst follows quietly, like the dark menacing living vines she'd observed creeping towards a gingerbread house in a stranger’s dream. They swallow her whole, pinning her in place, and suddenly, they’re everywhere—in her boiling bloodstream, descending a churning stomach, growing in raw lungs, pulling at her heartstrings.

I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not without him. Not without seeing him again.

Her body stops thrashing.

The crooked vines release her slowly.

She settles on her very own cloud.

In the eternity she feels go by, her breathing stills, her heart swells and her forehead drips, glistening with fever-induced sweat.

Addled, bed-ridden, the words ring in her mind when she opens heavy eyes, eyelids nearly sewn together by lint and disgusting remnants of exhausted bodily fluids. Figures move about the room, shuffling with purposeful pride, stalking towards her, and she barely has time to jerk her body upwards before a pale hand connects with her scalding forehead. The hand retreats, falling back against a woman’s side.

‘’Who-‘’ she begins, choking back a sob at the excruciating pain washing over her, mind, body and soul.

‘’Fear not, dear Traveller,’’ gilded words pour over her fever-addled brain like honey on a hot bun. ‘’You are safe.’’

Her eyes trail over her own form, the stranger’s words and their meaning eluding her entirely.

Her tattered shirt lays bunched about her hips, split right in the middle and tossed back in a careful tear, displaying her grey brassiere to the world.

Death. For all involved.

She scrambles to cover herself, releasing another pained gasp at the slightest turn of her head. The turn gives her incentive to take in the new room.

A gargantuan bedroom, she realises, furnished with two unnecessary tables, carved armchairs, velvet knick-knacks whose names elude her and a large four-poster bed; her fluffy cloud.

She rests upon the silk sheets, staring at herself in the oblique mirror framed on the opposite wall. Fortunately for her, them and everything else, nothing is left of her rage.

Nothing is left of her, really.

Nothing but a shirt in disarray, frayed jeans and heeled boots pushed neatly against one of the bedposts.

Blue-ish spiderwebs stretch below her eyes, forking a crooked path to her pale cheeks. Her hair looks as though five birds have fought over sovereignty of her tangled locks and a scarlet streak catches her glare in the gross reflection.

Blood.

Ugly, dark and impossibly fast oozing blood.

It pours from a cut rippling across her exposed abdomen, tiny drops bleeding through a white cloth. Disgusting, mostly because it looks cooler in the movies and less... smelly.

Triggered by the leaking wound, pus and blood and pus and more blood, it all comes back to her in a flash.

The endless corridors.

The gold.

The white.

The black.

Dream.

Morpheus.

Love of her lives.

Bleeding, struck, defenceless.

Anger, hot, blistering, all-consuming.

The delicious contact of skin on skin.

Bare.

Instinct.

A flaring burst of pain in her back, her stomach, her heart.

His eyes, fathomless, swirling with infinity and… something else. Something she can’t remember.

Other things, fragments following a dazed darkness.

Haste. Discontentment. Warmth. Frost. Buzzing. Tearing. Mending. Pouring. Screaming.

Through the screams, the faintest utterance of his name. Repeated. Until a hand chases hers and never lets go. But it did let go, for upon awakening, she finds herself in this room, in the presence of naught but this stranger.

Then, for the very first time, her eyes lift to her taker’s face.

She’d be convinced she were dreaming, had she not known all the Dreaming’s worlds by heart.

But by Night, this woman is delightful. Beautiful. Ethereal, even. A goddess if she’s ever seen one.

Long, auburn ringlets frame the soft sides of her round face, falling over defined shoulders and gracious curves accented by a ravishing white dress. Her eyes shine some mixtures of brown and golden-amber, but her hair alone is a marvel.

Her smile is kind, motherly, sisterly and everything in between; so dazzling, in fact she can’t tell her age.

Our heroine, though she fits all the standards and expectations for one such as her, feels adequately underdressed, underwhelmed, under-everything. Beneath, if her pride could but just say the word.

‘’Are you the sun?’’

Her laugh is pearly, ricocheting off the walls with bubbling precision, the sound alone nearly blinding. It makes her want to laugh too.

‘’I thank you for your confusion.’’

‘’What?’’

‘’Precisely.’’ She laughs again, politely, smile hiding behind a pale hand. ‘’I cannot think my brother would take too kindly to that.’’

‘’I don’t-mmph!’’ The interruption resembles a pained groan, tearing her from the inside out, along with the dragging piece of cloth taped to the gaping wound in her stomach. ‘’Fuck.’’

‘’It is quite the toll the wound has exacted on your body,’’ comes the soothing voice, and she notices a slight tremor between the is and the quite, acknowledging it for what it is. The beautiful woman bears an accent.

‘’What I get trying to be a good g-‘’ her words die in her throat, shoved down her stomach in a heavy ball. One digging thought accounts for all others. ‘’Dream.’’ She glances around frantically. ‘’Where is he?’’

Amber-brown eyes blink, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder comfortingly.

‘’Fret not, all is right. He owes you a world of thanks, but you might die before you see its beginning.’’

She shakes off her comfort with great difficulty. ‘’What does that mean?’’

If she is bothered by the sudden turntable, the beautiful being shows no sign of protest. Instead, she gives another rueful smile and all but glides to a buckled chest at the foot of the bed.

‘’It merely means that the Dream King is not quite ready to admit the admittable.’’

‘’That’s not a wor- wow.’’

‘’Ah, yes. It is always like this the first time, isn’t it? Are you an envoy as well?’’

The words barely register. They’re fleeting, non-existent, mouse-scratches against a wooden door spoken on an entirely different plane.

That is the only reason she comes up with.

The only explanation there is.

Yes, that must be it, the words and her eyes are a hundred worlds apart.

The words are too light, too bland to belong to anything her eye can see.

And yet bland, dull words skip over a plethora of splayed clouds, stretching beyond the wide windowpane, beyond the sky’s limit.

Limping, she makes it to the window before she can even realise she’s moved, faint protests bouncing off the ether behind her, her own breath mingling with it and the rest of the cosmos.

Actually, the rest of the cosmos be damned. She’s lost her marbles. Stomped on them and then dropped them in a volcano; whatever, whichever, whenever.

Just simply, completely, positively insane.

Deprived of her beloved, deprived of life and air and all this is nothing but a fevered nightmare and she’s probably passed out on the second floor teenage neighbour’s doorstep, bleeding into their Well, come mat.

Her fingers poke at the wound in her stomach and she flinches, confirming the impossible truth. She, this, is real. She’s standing on a building built on a blanket of clouds and having a panic attack in an IKEA and dying in the fucking sky—

A warm pressure settles on her shoulders, grounding her where she stands on wobbling legs. ‘’Mount Olympus,’’ she surmises. ‘’In case you were wondering.’’

She wasn’t. She really, really wasn’t.

Dreams and Nightmares. Fantasies and realities. Gods and the Endless.

The former had begun to wane, had explained Dream himself one particularly chilly evening spent exploring Dream Country. Spurred by forgotten beliefs, kept alive by the few remaining myths, gods and goddesses were dying. They were nearly all twelve feet underground, not lounging on velvet couches in the sky.

‘’Dream?’’ She tries, barely croaks out with her breath fogging the glass screen—no, not glass, not a windowpane, something else, something godly, infused with the magnetic pull of divinity.

‘’Oneiros will be with you shortly. In the meantime—sleep.’’

She has little time to recognise anything else before the hand is forced on her mouth, dragging across her parted lips and pushing something the size of an acorn inside and then, she is lost to this world.

The comforting touch on her shoulders never falters.

She begins the search for her heart in Chapter III: Rara Avis

[melrosing]

why is it ok to draw gnc female characters in pretty flowing dresses and lace etc but the second you style them as masc you get randos screaming ‘X IS FEMININE A LADY A GIRLY GIRL LET X BE FEMININE THIS IS SO SICK’ like ok but where is this energy for the flower crowns

[whetstonefires]

I think a part of the reason I feel so connected to JGY and XY is that I, too, think everyone is lying about what a good person they are. Sure, there may be a few genuinely good people, but those are in the minority and never claim the title.

I don't know about never; some people are pretty straightforward.

And in some ways the whole point of the concept of 'a good person' is that the feeling of losing the right to consider yourself one can impose instinctive recoil from doing wrong, in situations where you don't have the leisure of working your way through an ethics diagram and choosing the logically moral path before reacting to a situation. It has practical utility.

But that system can backfire pretty horribly too, in a lot of ways. It can be hijacked by definitions of 'good' that actually make you recoil from ethical acts because they're deviant. It can lead to disappearing up your own ass lmao.

And definitely the threshold for 'talking about how you're a good person' enough that it makes you suspect as either a) a liar or b) someone who values that self-image over objective reality and other people's wellbeing is. Not very high.

Jin Guangyao, ironically, is one of those people who's so performatively A Good Person in his public life that in retrospect it looks like a red flag. Which knowing this about himself in an ongoing fashion ofc just reinforces his own cynicism about everyone else lmao.

Even Lan Xichen, who I think he may see as a genuinely good person, he also sees as an easy mark who will reliably choose what is comfortable over what is 'right,' if you just structure the scenario to make that an easy choice that's easy for him to justify.

Xue Yang's bitterness is in many ways more exciting than Jin Guangyao's because he has a way more unusual relationship to reality, but it does share a lot of notes.

The role of deception in his psychology fascinates me because as far as I can tell he's as instinctively straightforward a person as Lan Wangji, albeit along quite different lines involving a total lack of impulse control, but has adopted 'deceit' as a weapon against the wicked world in the same way he has adopted 'murder.'

But when he feels someone is not merely lying but papering over bad behavior with principles they are not living up to he is livid.

People claiming to be better than him because they're 'good' when 'good' is a construct of privilege, is the underlying idea he's not equipped to articulate. Except he takes that and applies it to 'hitting me to interrupt my random murder of some guy who happened to be within arm's reach when I wanted to hurt someone.'

Which isn't like philosophically perfect, but the underlying problem he's actually reacting to is that he understands the social contract as a lie that has never protected him but seeks to control him, while protecting rich men it has no power to control.

Which it is fair to be mad about, but then his feeling is that since that's the nature of the world and all people, he is entitled to amass for himself the power to inflict hurt without consequences as much as he possibly can, and to use it against the vulnerable for fun, and no one is entitled to interfere.

Which brings him to a place where he is violently angry at anyone talking about trying to treat other people well as a value, because either they're a hypocrite and a liar or they threaten his entire system of rationalization for why he can be The Worst and still In The Right.

'Everyone is equally bad, actually' is like, an understandable take for anyone who's had cause to become embittered. Everyone is free to make whatever philosophical peace they can with the world and by and large there's no ethical weight to any such opinion, in itself.

But it's an ideological crutch people tend to wind up leaning on very heavily when they can't or don't want to take responsibility for their own behavior.

Which is an approach that Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Su She all share, and which not only is shitty of them, it...traps them in a wheel of doubling down on their own worst impulses because rather than going 'that was bad and I shouldn't do it again' they've repeatedly invested all this energy into making what they did actually the correct thing, according to their interpretation of the context. Which means they're more likely to do it again.

(I think this is how Jin Guangyao became a serial killer, for example. He followed a doing-a-murder-impulse and then internally doubled down on how he had nothing to be ashamed of, so he was more likely to do it again, every time.

Wei Wuxian's strain of self-righteousness about his revenge was less...thorough than Jin Guangyao's, because he had the benefit of going after people on the opposite side of a war from him while Meng Yao's first known murder plot was against a shitty boss. But it probably didn't help him not try to solve army-shaped problems with mass murder, even after that stopped being allowed.)

If any of them had just like, zero moral sensibilities they would have created very different problems, and very possibly fewer of them. It's making a central goal of your operations 'self-vindication in your own internal narrative, created retroactively via reframing' rather than 'figuring out what I think I should do and trying to do that' that traps them in the self-reinforcing murder pissbaby vortex.

So if you look at it one way, these three villains are themselves perfect examples of how pursuit of the 'feeling of being good' (or at least 'not the bad guy') can make you worse.

Notably Wei Wuxian was also extremely sensitive to hypocrisy in his youth; it was the only part of Madam Yu's behavior he was ever shown objecting to. But he's sufficiently mellow and cynical from regret and burnout by the 'present' timespan after his resurrection to just get disgusted and alienated about it, rather than outraged.

He wasn't even all that mad at Xue Yang, though honestly that may be partly because he stopped entirely characterizing him as a person at some point during their interaction. Like, there's no point being angry at someone whose moral sensibilities operate exclusively on the plane of 'is this unfair to me' for manipulating and destroying people who were good to him, and then getting obsessed with his own self-pity about it. This is not a person who understands how not to be, metaphorically speaking, a cannibal.

And Wei Wuxian did know better and still got roughly the same result, so what business does he have getting angry?

Anyway yeah those two villains are both delightfully relatable if you sit down and put their perspectives together; they are clearly operating with the same basic suite of human needs and emotions as everybody else, without that being in itself particularly exculpatory, which is honestly refreshing. They've just got the most fantastically toxic interpersonal habits that knowing them counts as some level of Suffering A Curse.

Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang do both stand as scathing rebukes of the society that created them. But within the narrative, wherein they're people, the fact is that each of them had agency and one of the things they chose to do with it was develop rationales for why they were the most special little guy and everything was someone else's fault.

And their moral nihilisms, while also grounded in serious trauma, ping me as emotional masturbation of this variety.

[apuff]

thinking about love in danger days

this is part of my conspiracy theory that that album is aroallo, but i've always gotten the sense that romance and romantic attatchment is much less important to danger days than any other mcr record. with bullets&revenge it's quite obvious as the demolition lovers take up like, everything, and the black parade has a heavy focus on a romantic relationship as well. 

while i do think there are lines in it that are romantically coded, there is a definitive lack of emphasis on it- like it's nowhere in the plot at all. 

i do think danger days represents a very familial type of love though. while other albums visit a sense of "i want you, i need you, i miss you, i hate you,", this is more like…"i love you, i want to protect you, i'm sorry"

i find this especially strongly in s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w:

"Nevermind about the shape i'm in, I'll keep you safe tonight"

"love, love, love won't stop this bomb"

"run, run, bunny, run"

and other songs: 

"i'll find you when the sun goes black"

"just save yourself and i'll hold them back tonight"

"how long until we find our way in the dark and out of harm"

relevant things i can't cover with just quotes are planetary go, oft-theorized to be about party poison and kobra kid, as brothers, leaving battery city together; sing, about the killjoys' last message to the girl while saving her; goodnite dr. death, phrased as him saying goodnight to children; and summertime, which i can't discern the meaning of but seems more like a family type of love. 

i think it makes sense that danger days is like this, seeing as it features main characters that take care of a child main character as opposed to main characters that love other main characters of the same age/ability. 

another thing i noticed while re-listening to the more sentimental songs for this essay is that there's just a distinctly different vibe to it. So much of it is focused around wanting to protect people, keep them safe and out of danger (<- ha that's the name of the album) and loved. i think this also makes sense, because the killjoys live a very, well, dangerous life without much security, and they'd want to provide what they lack the most. another semi-related thing i noticed is just how much of an emphasis there is on childhood in this album. i feel like there's a vibe of youth or teen-hood throughout the earlier ones, but this is just VERY strongly about kids. again this makes sense cause not only are the killjoys teenagers (a type of kid!) they also have a proper little kid to watch. 

also, i wonder how much of this stuff was due to gerard becoming a parent. just something to think about 

[lesbianshadowheart]

the lack of fandom insanity about aloy hzd is crazy to me.....she was literally born of immaculate conception to be the saviour of a world that doesnt want her. she was the loneliest girl in the world the first and last of her kind. while gay

[andyoullhearitagain]

People get so mad at Marie Kondo for someone who's thesis is just "If you don't like it then don't keep it 🤷‍♀️"

[miraneko19]

Realized this while playing Birushana. Tomomori. You know.

[scribefindegil]

Ancillary Mercy is like "What if your spaceship, the ship's captain who culturally is also a spaceship, and the single most pathetic failgirl this galactic empire has ever produced ended up in some sort of nebulous queerplatonic triad?" And tbh I think more sci-fi needs to tackle the tough questions like these.

[wanderingcas]

me while outlining: this fic will be 50k. tops.

me while drafting, at 21k words and not even a quarter of the way through the plot yet: this fic will be an eternity. tops.

[woosansang]

YEOSANG ✦ THE WORLD EP. PARADIGM (PREVIEW)

[seaweedstarshine]

“That’s a bold choice, Dalek Supreme, coming to a wedding planet dressed in white! Unless you’re here to get hitched… should I be flattered?”

“We are here to exterminate you.”

“Oh, that’s probably for the best. Not sure River would be up for a marriage à trois… not with a Dalek, at any rate.”

—Eleventh Doctor Chronicles: Victory of the Doctor

[fauxraven]

Friendly reminder to add a pp or set up a header AND name your blog—been seeing a rise in bots lately so beware I might block you if I have even the slightest reason to believe you aren’t a fellow earthling ❤️

[agnesandhilda]

started reading iron widow by xiran jay zhao and now that I've reacclimated to the YA writing style (which I do not fuck with, as a rule), I'm really into this. I'm at chapter thirteen and I'm predicting that li shimin eventually lets zetian pilot him---if only because she's able to convince him that it would make the forces holding them both captive really mad

[acesknights]

Fighting my artstyle currently

Redraw of this old art

[hellcatinnc]

Character Birthday Masterlist

This is as many birthdays as I could find for all the games I have played and anime's I have watched. Trust me there are more characters but some have no birthday dates posted. I will update this list as I go but you can always find this on my pinned post to come back and check the birthday calendars for each. I did want to do a calendar itself for each month but when so many have the same birthdate I found this harder to do so chose to just do a master list instead.

There was so many birthdays I had to start a 2nd list here is the link to the 2nd one HERE

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January

1st Natsume Asahina - Brothers Conflict

1st Yuito Sumeragi - Scarlet Nexus

3rd Wataru Asahina - Brothers Conflict

6th Herlock Sholmes - Code Realize

7th Saibara Kamui - Paradigm Parodox

9th Thoma - Genshin Impact

10th Yukichi Fukuzawa - Bungo Stray Dogs

11th Satoru Watabe - Stand My Hero

11th Eisuke Ichinomiya - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

12th Gary - 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom Of Dreams

13th Hades Aidoneus - Kamigami No Asobi

13th Victor - Mr Love Queens Choice

14th Kosuke Misaki - Tomo-chan Is A Girl

16th Vlad Garfunkel - Phantom In The Twilight

18th Henri Lambert - Piofiore Fated Memories/1926

19th Edgar Allan Poe -Bungo Stray Dogs

21st Sirius Dieke - My Next Life as a Villainess

21st Rui Sagisawa - Nil Admirari no Tenbin

23rd Camus - Uta no Prince-sama

27th Urie Sogami - Dance With Devils

28th Kou Mukami - Diabolik Lovers

29th Kanato Hibiki - Maji Kyun! Renaissance

31st Mozu - Bustafellows

February

2nd Lyney - Genshin Impact

4th Gin Akutagawa - Bungo Stray Dogs

5th Takamasa Saeki - My Forged Wedding

8th Allan Melville - Cupid Parasite

9th Abraham Van Helsing - Code Realize

11th Alhaitham - Genshin Impact

12th Tsukito Totsuka - Kamigami No Asobi

13th Merenice - Cupid Parasite

14th Ren Jinguji - Uta no Prince-sama

14th Hatori Otani - Stand My Heroes

15th Arashi Spring - Scarlet Nexus

17th Soryu Oh - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

17th Fubuki Spring - Scarlet Nexus

20th Tifalia - Radiant Tale

21st Ririchiyo Shirakiin - Inu x Boku SS

22nd Kei Okazaki - Collar X Malice

22nd Yoshikazu Miyano - Sasaki to Miyano

22nd Monet Tsukushi - Magic Kyun! Renaissance

22nd Misuzu Gundo - Tomo-chan Is A Girl

22nd Louis Asahina - Brothers Conflict

26th Sophia Ascart - My Next Life as a Villainess

28th Light Yagami - Death Note

March

1st Ai Mikaze - Uta no Prince-sama

1st Ryuunosuke Akutagawa - Bungo Stray Dogs

2nd Raeliana McMillan - Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's/M

3rd Ukyo - Amnesia Memories

3rd Yuki Itose - Sign Of Affection

3rd Lindo Tachibana - Dance With Devils

3rd Naomi Randall - Scarlet Nexus

6th Rafayel - Love And Deepspace

7th March 7th - Honkai Star Rail

8th Carol Olston - Tomo-chan Is A Girl

9th Mayuzumi Shion - Variable Baricade

18th Tsugumi Kuze - Nil Admirari no Tenbin

19th Ion - Radiant Tale

20th Sakami Laito - Diabolik Lovers

20th Takeru Totsuka - Kamigamin No Asobi

21st Kanato Sakamaki -Diabolik Lovers

22nd Ayato Sakamaki - Diabolik Lovers

25th Rintaro Tatewaki - Magic Kyun! Renaissance

25th Shiden Ritter - Scarlet Nexus

26th Kamisato Ayato -Genshin Impact

27th Keith Powell - Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

31st Yusuke Asahina - Brothers Conflict

April

1st Kyosuke Tsuduki - Stand My Heroes

1st Scarecrow - Bustafellow

1st Avi - 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

1st Kodama Melone - Scarlet Nexus

2nd Masato Hanzawa - Sasaki and Miyano

3rd Noah Volstaire Wynknight - Why Raeliana Ended Up Duke's/M

4th Canus Espada - Cafe Enchante

8th Yagami Nayuta - Variable Baricade

8th Rowan - Dance With Devils

9th Kiro - Mr Love Queens Choice

10th Takatoo Tokio - Paradigm Parodox

11th Otoya Ittoki - Uta no Prince-sama

11th Zen Wistaria - Snow White With The Red Hair

12th Toma - Amnesia Memories

12th Ota Kisaki - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

13th Kagerou Shoukiin - Inu x Boku Secret Service

14th Jinnia - Radiant Tale

15th Jirou Ogasawara - Sasaki and Miyano

15th Hayato Ozaki - Nil Admirari no Tenbin

15th Himari Momochi - The Demon Prince of Momochi House

16th Baileu Ton - Phantom in the Twilight

17th Xiao - Genshin Impact

17th Lori Asahina - Brothers Conflict

17th Enomoto Mineo - Collar x Malice

19th Miyo - My Happy Marriage

22nd Yakumo Sumeragi - Scarlet Nexus

23rd Orlok - Piofiore

24th Ruki Mukami - Diabolik Lovers

24th Masaomi Asahina - Brothers Conflict

25th Baizhu - Genshin Impact

29th Chuuya Nakahara - Bungo Stray Dogs

29th Balder Hringhorni - Kamigami No Asobi

30th Diluc - Genshin Impact

May

2nd Ichiyou Higuchi - Variable Barricade

4th Tsugumi Nazar -Scarlet Nexus

5th Atsushi Nakajima - Bungo Stray Dogs

5th Shougo Ukawa - Nil Admirari no Tenbin

9th Akane Kinoshita - Loving Yamada Level 999

9th Aoi Nanamori - The Demon Prince of Momochi House

12th Mamiya Ayumu - Paradigm Parodox

13th Kaito Sumeragi - Scarlet Nexus

15th Karuta Roromiya - Inu x Boku SS

17th Leo Cavagnis - Piofiore

17th Radie - Radiant Tale

17th Impey Barbicane - Code Realize

18th Aki Myojin - Sweet Punishment

18th Gorou - Genshin Impact

21st Rosso - 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

23rd Sosei Arakida - Stand My Hero

26th Luke Bowen - Phantom In The Twilight

28th Kaname Asahina - Brothers Conflict

June

1st Ikki - Amnesia Memories

1st Kotaro Yui - Stand My Hero

1st Arataki Itto - Genshin Impact

2nd Shiki Natsumezaka - Dance With Devils

5th Ibuki - Paradigm Parodox

5th Nagi Karman - Scarlet Nexus

6th Anubis Ma'at - Kamigami No Asobi

8th Sasazuka Takeru - Collar x Malice

9th Natsuki Shinomiya - Uta no Prince-sama

9th Syo Kurusu - Uta no Prince-sama

10th Kasane Randall - Scarlet Nexus

11th Lynette Mirror - Cupid Parasite

11th Eita Sasaki - Loving Yamada at Lv999!

14th Renshou Sorinozuka - Inu x Boku SS

15th Anne Halford - Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

17th Shuumei Sasaki - Sasaki and Miyano

19th Osamu Dazai - Bungo Stray Dogs

23rd Cyno - Genshin Impact

23rd Erika Shinohara - Wolf Girl & The Black Prince

24th Katarina Claes - My Next Life As A Villainess

25th Shirayuki - Snow White With The Red Hair

26th Shu - Bustafellows

26th Seto Narukami - Scarlet Nexus

27th Gilbert - 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

28th Nicola Francesca - Piofiore

30th Shuichi Hishikura - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

July

1st Gemma Garrison - Scarlet Nexus

2nd Ema Asahina - Brothers Conflict

4th Nathaniel Hawthorne - Bungo Stray Dogs

4th Kyouya Sata - Wolf Girl & Black Prince

7th Fuuto Asahina - Brothers Conflict

7th Il Fado de Rie - Cafe Enchante

7th Tomo Aizawa - Tomo-chan Is A Girl

8th Gonzaburou Tashiro - Sasaki and Miyano

9th Kaveh - Genshin Impact

7th Alice Ichijo - Scarlet Nexus

13th Mitsumori Ichiya - Variable Barricade

13th Reiji Kotobuki - Uta no Prince-sama

13th Kazu - Variable Barricade

13th Joe Sumeragi - Scarlet Nexus

16th Gill Lovecraft - Cupid Parasite

20th Tartaglia - Genshin Impact

23rd Yuma Mukami - Diabolik Lovers

24th Junichirou Tanizaki - Bungo Stray Dogs

24th Limbo - Bustafellows

26th Gilbert Redford - Piofiore

30th Michizou Tachihara - Bungo Stray Dogs

30th Rishe Imgard Wertsner - 7th Loop

August

1st Hikaru Asahina - Brothers Conflict

1st Apollon Agana Belea - Kamigami No Asobi

1st Taiga Hirano - Sasaki and Miyano

2nd Saint Germain - Code Realize

6th Tokiya Ichinose - Uta no Prince-sama

7th Toujou Hibari - Variable Barricade

8th Ignis Carbunculus - Cafe Enchante

10th Mitsunari Baba - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

15th Louis Anjo - Magic Kyun Renaissance

16th Hanabi Ichijo - Scarlet Nexus

20th Alan Stuart - My Next Life As A Villainess

20th Geordo Stuart - My Next Life As A Villainess

22nd Vilio - Radiant Tale

23rd Tomitsuka Ryou - Paradigm Parodox

26th Victor Frankenstein - Code Realize

27th Kenji Miyazawa - Bungo Stray Dogs

29th Reiji Sakamaki - Diabolik Lovers

29th Zange Natsume - Inu x Boku SS

30th Doppo Kunikida - Bungo Stray Dogs

September

5th Yanagi Aiji - Collar x Malice

5th Zayne - Love And Deepspace

10th Maria Campbell - My Next Life As A Villainess

12th Kagero Donne - Scarlet Nexus

13th Albedo - Genshin Impact

14th Tasuku Kuresawa - Sasaki and Miyano

16th Douglas - 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

17th Dante Falzone - Piofiore

17th Teika Ichijoji - Magic Kyun - Renaissance

17th Kasuga - Variable Barricade

17th Araki Mihaya - Paradigm Parodox

19th Yukinami - Paradigm Parodox

19th Hisui Hoshikawa - Nil Admirari no Tenbin

21st Mamoru Kishi - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

21st Akito Yamada - Loving Yamada Lvl 999!

22nd Subaru Asahina - Brothers Conflict

23rd Dionysus Thyrsos - Kamigami No Asobi

23rd Kent - Amnesia Memories

23rd Tsuki Aoyama - Stand My Hero

28th Rindo Kaoru - Cafe Enchante

29th Ranmaru Kurosaki - Uta no Prince sama

Octomber

7th Makoto Tsuduki - Stand My Hero

10th Banri Watanuki - Inu x Boku SS

10th Luka Travers - Scarlet Nexus

15th Paschalia - Radiant Tale

16th Xavier - Love And Deepspace

18th Shu Sakamaki - Diabolik Lovers

18th Shizuru Migiwa - Nil Asmirari no Tenbin

19th Hoshino Ichika - Collar x Malice

21st Ranpo Edogawa - Bungo Stray Dogs

24th Loki Laevatein - Kamigami No Asobi

24th Arsène Lupin - Code Realize

26th Sakunosuke Oda - Bungo Stray Dogs

28th Azusa Mukami - Diabolik Lovers

29th Kaedehara Kazuha - Genshin Impact

30th Helvetica - Bustafellows

31st Cecil Aijima - Uta no Prince sama

31st Junichiro Kubota - Tomo chan is a Girl

31st L Lawliet - Death Note

November

4th Subaru from Diabolik Lovers

4th Mary Hunt - My Next Life As A Villainess

4th Kyouka Izumi - Bungo Stray Dogs

8th Ritsuka Tachibana - Dance With Devils

11th Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Bungo Stray Dogs

11th Misyr Rex - Cafe Enchante

15th Lucien - Mr Love Queens Choice

15th Karen Travers - Scarlet Nexus

17th Rem Kaginuki - Dance With Devils

20th Zafora - Radiant Tale

21st Thor Megingjard - Kamigami No Asobi

23rd Wriothesley - Genshin Impact

23rd You Hattori - Stand My Hero

28th Luke Foster - Kissed by the Baddest Bidder

30th Shin - Amnesia Memories

30th Kaeya - Genshin Impact

30th Kyoka Eden - Scarlet Nexus

December

3rd Isurugi Taiga - Variable Barricade

3rd Ukyo - Asahina - Brothers Conflict

5th Tauryu - Phantom In The Twilight

7th Gojo Satoru - Jujutsu Kaisen

7th Akiko Yosano - Bungo Stray Dogs

12th Yang - Piofiore

16th Wataru Frazer - Scarlet Nexus

17th Aoi Suminomiya - Magic Kyun Renaissance

18th Neuvillette - Genshin Impact

18th Yuu Kusakabe - Wolf Girl & Black Prince

19th Soushi Miketsukami - Inu x Boku SS

20th Isaku Senagaki - A Girl And Her Guard Dog

20th Itsuomi Nagi - Sign Of Affection

22nd Keiya Uto - A Girl And Her Guard Dog

23rd Akira Kougami - Nil Asmirari no Tenbin

24th Shiraishi Kageyuki - Collar x Malice

25th Challe Fen Challe - Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

25th Akira Kagiura - Sasaki and Miyano

25th Misa Amane - Death Note

28th Keith Claes - My Next Life As A Villainess

28th Arnold Hein - 7th Loop

29th Masato Hijirikawa - Uta no Prince sama

31st Zhongli - Genshin Impact

31st Hyuga - Paradigm Parodox

31st Tsubaki Asahina - Brothers Conflict

31st Azusa Asahina - Brothers Conflict

[sapphorror]

You know it's a really good thing that Zim and Dib both have an equally strong emotional motivation to never mention that time Dib earned a reputation as one of Irk's greatest Invaders while Zim was standing all of fifteen feet away, because Zim's gonna have to perform some especially intense mental gymnastics to push that one down into the dark unacknowledged recesses of his psyche where it belongs, and I can only imagine how poorly it'd end for them both if Dib were in any way inclined to try holding it over his head.

... In all seriousness though, I'm genuinely kind of obsessed with this moment. I've always said that placing Dib among Irkens ought to make him... not popular, per se, but tolerated to a degree entirely unfamiliar to him (and that is actually quite significant given how brutally xenophobic they are). And more to the point, when a scenario comes down between him and Zim, he's unanimously favored every. single. time. In direct contrast to their usual dynamic, which is reliant on the context of Earth in a way neither of them really understand or appreciate. It's just Dib's awful, awful luck that 90% of their conflict occurs on his home turf.

Needless to say, I have a desperate desire for this scenario to play out between them at least once, so. It's very fun for me to see something along the same lines occur within the canon. I don't have a lot more I can say on the topic, but I want it known that I am ever-so-gleefully chewing on it.