#thinking i had just made another post at some point

[voftdubsofficial]

Do you like how chaotic and mean spirited homestuck^2 has become????

Oh boy do I have so many thoughts about this topic haha. This is going to be a long one and I’m sorry in advance.

Personally I absolutely love Homestuck^2 and Beyond Canon. Tbh I wouldn’t be putting so much effort into a dub of it if I didn’t. And when it comes to Homestuck^2 and the epilogues, they were made to evoke specific emotions and the fact that some people feel that it was “mean spirited” and “chaotic” means that they are doing their job well.

I’ve always stated that, while one of the major themes of Homestuck proper was about being a kid growing up on the internet, one of the major themes of Post canon Homestuck is about living in the world as a traumatized adult. I may be a little biased about this because I waited to read the epilogues until I was 20 and felt very connected to the 23 y/o cast of post canon, but it struck me as very relatable watching the way their lives were playing out. Anyone past high school knows that when you finally get out into the real world, a lot of things and people change, even the ones you’ve grown incredibly close to. Some end up incredibly depressed, some end up fully occupied by their jobs and responsibilities, some become people that you barely even recognize anymore and no longer like, and some end up disappearing one way or another. It’s the way of life and it was really relatable to read through.

Another part of it is trauma and how the story has affected our cast. I think a whole lot about what comes after the story, how the protagonists return to their lives, how the adventures have changed them. When it comes to Homestuck, these were kids who were plucked from their normal lives at 13 years old and for some even younger, a time in your life you’re supposed to be doing the most growing up and maturing, and they had to spend it in a traumatizing life or death scenario that caused them to watch their friends die multiple times over. And then… they’re just dropped into the new world as gods, disconnected from society yet trying to just exist within it as well. There was no way for them to end up with a perfectly happy ending, not without a lot of bumps along the way.

Similarly the main conflict of the story is once again about endings. Much like in Homestuck proper Calliope is cast as an insert for one side of the fandom, however this time the other side is cast as Dirk. With Dirk being the side of the fandom that is scared for the story to come to an end, scared for him and all the friends he cares about fading away in to non-canon, scared to the point that he makes himself the villain to keep the story going. Calliope is the side of the fandom that just wishes for Homestuck to have an ending, attempting to rip the narrative away from Dirk, trying to stop his plans on Deltritus, and even so far as placing the candy timeline in a black hole completely severed from canon. I think it does a really good job of representing both halves quite nicely.

Speaking of meat and candy. They both are also meant to evoke specific emotions. The epilogues as a whole do a really good job with making you feel specific way. With the whole thing being text with no pictures, it feels a lot less accessible to the fandom because it’s not what we’ve expected from homestuck in the past. It already starts you off feeling off, just like John is. Then as you go on slowly you get more and more comfy before you’re given The Choice. Meat or Candy? Meat presents you with a story that is grounded, familiar, canon. Something that feels a lot like the Homestuck you know. While candy provides you with something that feels… off, unsettling, non-canon. In a way you can’t really pinpoint until John states that he feels it too. And there’s a lot of things that help provide this but the one I want to point out is Gamzee. He’s present all throughout the candy epilogue, showing up in places no one wants him and places he shouldn’t be. However, when a piece of canon finally pierces into the isolated timeline, when Vriska falls from the battle with lord english, the clown finally dies. Stuff like this just shows how well post canon does at making you feel the things it wants you to.

Overall the main point i’m trying to make here is that post canon in general is really good at making you feel emotions that match the themes and tone it’s trying to get across. It’s a coming of age story not for teens but for adults. So if you’re feeling like the story is chaotic and mean spirited, that’s because you’re supposed to. And I think that’s pretty cool.

[tojiscrack]

there’s so many things i love about your fic but one thing i specifically love that doesn’t have much to do with your fic is probably the community. like every person that comes into your asks, including the funny anons, feels like family idk STOP I SOUND SO CORNY BUT YOU GET WHAT I MEANNNN. like 1l-ynn’s (i think that’s her username) hatred for anyone that comes in between megumi and y/n is so funny, THE MALAKAI SHIPPING PHASE, THE RANDOM ANON THAT STARTED RAPPING IN UR ASKS, stanheightis stressing out every now and then about the angst is so real, kickingcat’s beautiful artwork as well as azr3na’s, mercupinesspring’s tiktok page dedicated to liar,liar which i stalk with my private account haha. i’m trying to think of the others but yeah, like the community is so beautiful and i think i’m gonna miss that more than anything when the fic eventually ends 🥲

i love u guys i can’ttttt

liar, liar masterlist here:

tagging everyone you mentioned so they see this ‘cause they absolutely deserve to know how special and precious they are, not only to me, but apparently to you too. it’s so absolutely true, my fav thing about writing the series this past year is the growing community 😭🩵

@1l-ynn @stanheightis @kickingcat @azr3na @mercupinesspring

the malakai hate was so incredibly funny to me bc he was never gonna be a second love interest. like, ever 💀 that’d make this megumi/reader story just be crack upon crack, and ik i prioritise comedy over romance in this romcom, but there’s a limit, yk 😭 and it was just funny to be given a taster of how certain ppl feel about a second love interest being introduced at all before i’d even introduced the real one, might i add

with that, watching ppl stress about the angst tag before it had even arrived (it’s still not here, curtesy of my hiatus 😇) was also the funniest thing ever. i’d wake up every morning with a new ask in my inbox stressing about NOTHING. like a singular person even held enough stress for the entire community, and then some 😭

the artwork i’ve received over the last few months have been collected into a google doc that’s how obsessed with them i am, ready to be printed out bc i genuinely meant it when i said i’d do just that for my room 😋 we made it to a point where we can appoint ppl as LL’s co-illustrators, which 16 year old me, who was drafting the first chapter a year and a bit ago, wouldn’t have even predicted such a thing and i’m so grateful bc wdym they were able to make malakai look good? ☹️🩵

their versions of y/n are so beautiful too 😭

and LL content being cross-posted to tiktok? i felt like an old person when i first saw the page and went through the memes made about my story (it’s like old ppl laughing at their own joke) 😀 my fav is definitely malakai core, and the video with ‘how i want megumi to react whenever another guy speaks to y/n’ or smth like that (along those words) 🤭

honourable mentions too bc these guys could never be forgotten by me:

@shaigimo @princesssparklesprinkle @reinaswrld @cutesolecita @britishfailure @b4tm4nn @reocidal @jelly-fsh @miffysmittens @anonymity-222 @crisis-unaverted @sl1004 @watermelonlover905 @loffagirl @seoups @awriterinthenight @ist0leurc0ffee @biancaackerman @2ukika @julieannah @missunrise @briezy04764 @jvpit3rr @sfmegumi @nappingnai @evergumi @crimsonhallucinations @femtaktsfilosofi @manmuncher777

+ more ofc, i’m genuinely trying hard to remember everyone from the top of my head but it’s a little hard given how fast LL is growing.

this doesn’t mean i’ve forgotten any of you that i haven’t mentioned! just means i got lazy and needed to wrap this sappy response up, but i promiseeee i’m well aware of who’s here and who’s not 🤗 the people above have also had several interactions with me, so it’s easier to remember ppl who you speak to on a daily 🥲

i thank the silent readers for still being here anyway. the LL community wouldn’t be thriving without ur support too <3

also if i’ve tagged you and you wish to not be tagged even in sappy posts, just lmk, i’ll know not to do it in future haha 😧

but anyways… in conclusion, i agree. i can’t wait to return to all my children (you guys) in late june ☹️ the only reason why i’m simultaneously dreading it is ‘cause it means my exams would be here but oh well 😭

k gonna end it here ‘cause this is too sappy ew 🙄 (💕)

[dramaticallytotal]

For Your Entertainment Headcanons: Part One

Idea Post

• Chaos Gremlin Noah, my beloved! Chris purposefully starts drama in the show to entertain Noah because, as mentioned before, a bored Noah is a scary Noah. This is why he was so mad at Duncan for quitting. Noah was looking forward to the love triangle drama! Now what was Chris supposed to play on?

• Noah getting Harold kicked off was more brutal than any of my other aus. Bro compared Harold to Chris, and Harold took that personally. This happened after the challenge in Egypt was over, and they settled into the hotel they would be staying at for a while. A lot of people were chilling by the pool, and Noah was one of them. Noah really liked pools despite the crowds they attracted. Plus, he promised Izzy he would watch her do a handstand and walk the entire length of the pool while doing so. He had been doing so until he got bored and started reading Construire avec le peuple (Architecture For The Poor) by Hassan Fathy when Harold decided that he absolutely had to interrupt Noah to start a debate.

He had done this four times previously, and Noah was done.

Apparently, Harold could not let go of all the cultural insensitivities they encountered today and just had to tell the 50th person around so. All the while wearing that stupid tinfoil hat he made. Actually...that gave Noah an idea. An awful idea. It gave Noah a wonderful, awful idea!

• He laid into Harold about wearing the tinfoil hat and that by wearing it, he was being culturally insensitive. "You're basically stating that you don't believe in their history. You wearing that...thing...is a statement that you agree with erasing people's hard work and labor for a brain-dead conspiracy theory. Hard work and labor that was significantly important to not only their history but their culture.

You keep harping on about Chris and the Network but are just as bad as them. Maybe even worse, too, considering you keep telling everyone you know everything about Egypt. If you're so well read and educated about it, that makes your fashion choice all the more insulting. And all the worse because I'm pretty sure Chris's knowledge of Egypt is purely from The Mummy, Cleopatra, Gods of Egypt, and other movies.

Do better."

• Absolutely destroyed Harold. This made Harold determined to prove Noah wrong and to maybe appease himself of guilt. Which cultivated in him having to point out everything that could be seen as culturally insensitive.

• Each time Harold annoyed someone, Noah had to hide his widening smile. Especially if the someone was Chris, his annoyed expression was just too funny!

• Alejandro flirting with Leshawna and Bridgette was also really entertaining to Noah because of how the others reacted. Especially Harold! He was so mad and sad, and it was hilarious because he kept trying harder to seem cool and good, and it was failing spectacularly!

• Like I said before, Noah is pretty apathetic and only cares about Team E-Scope and Owen. He also holds little grudges against some competitors! Like, noticeably, Harold. Another one that may come as a surprise is Bridgette, which is why he found such joy in her predicament in the Yukon. Before he got eliminated on Island Noah, he didn't like many people there, but he thought Bridgette was pretty cool and nice, and he did think she was pretty. It was a small crush, one he knew he wasn't going to pursue but that didn't mean he couldn't be her friend.

Apparently, this must have given something away, though he had no idea how, and instead of talking to him, she joked about it to some of the girls knowing damn well that Geoff and his "bros" were listening in. It was most likely to see if the guy would get jealous, considering everyone knew the two were crushing on each other. That somehow made it worse to Noah because from then on, he started getting the Harold treatment from Geoff, Duncan, and DJ.

That pissed him right the hell off. He had done nothing, and all of a sudden, he was getting shoulder checked when walking to the mess hall. His books would go missing from time to time if he didn't hide them first. Just small shit like that, and he was over it.

It was one of the reasons he got himself voted off. He was not about to stick it out in a shitty summer camp while these dude bros wanted to act like high school movie bullies instead of focusing on the competition.

• He had no remorse. He had more fun watching the competition from the luxury of his resort room or the game room.

• So he has little grudges against Bridgette, Geoff, DJ, and Duncan because of that whole mess. Everyone else he just doesn't care about. He tried to get to know some of them on Island and in Aftermath, but it was like they were humoring him. And he knew some only interacted with him because he was Owen's best friends. He was content with that, though, because the way he saw it, he at least tried, and that's more than he can say for the others.

So yeah, he doesn't really care what happens to everyone else.

• Izzy and him are chaos siblings, and Eva is terrified that they are on the same team without her being there to keep an eye on them and be their stern voice of reason. She should be.

• The number of times that Chef has had to carry them under his arms away from areas they weren't allowed is too much. All the while, the two are giggling maniacally.

• When Noah told Alejandro "Good Work," about Bridgette in the Yukon. Alejandro was afraid his teammate had found him out and went on the offense, which was flirting. He figured he could distract Noah with the flirting, and they could forget the whole mess.

It seemed to work if the blushing was anything to go by. Or the way Noah looked away if he complimented him and smiled a little. He was a little surprised when Noah would compliment him back of whisper snide comments to him, and he figured that was the snark's way of flirting back.

He assumed his plan worked and didn't pay any more close attention to his teammate. Which was a mistake he later learned.

• Noah knew he shot himself in the foot when he complimented Alejandro on a job well done with Bridgette, but he didn't care because it led to more entertainment for him! Alejandro started flirting with him, and the expressions of the females were delicious! So he acted shy and coy and would reciprocate the flirting here in there in his own way, and the way Alejandro fell for it was also hilarious. It took everything in him not to cackle.

• The crew and interns love their gremlin boss, which is why they have a code for if they think he's getting bored and they really can't have that! So if they see even an inkling of boredom, they call a Code B-72 and rush to find something that will entertain him. Most of the time, it's helping sneak him to Chris and Chef's room so Chris and Noah can watch Love Island together with excuse that Chris misses his trash TV buddy.

Or they sneak him books!

• After the confrontation in the cargo hold, Alejandro is always close by Noah looking at him with absolute moon eyes. Noah thinks this is still Alejandro flirting with him because he caught him, but no....Alejandro is just a simp now.

• Before their next challenge, Noah makes sure to get Alejandro alone so he can tug him down by his necklace again. He doesn't notice that the guy doesn't seem bothered by this in the least. "You're going to try today. That's not a question. You are going to actually try and win with the rest of us, and if we lose. We lose. But at least we lost when putting in effort. If we win? All the better. Understand?"

Alejandro, breathless, "Si."

"Good boy." After making his point, Noah once more patted Alejandro on the cheek before walking away again. And again, he left Alejandro absolutely flustered and heart eyed.

• Next challenge was the Amazon, and Alejandro did still get punched by Owen, but Noah thought it would be funny to fuss over the hunk of a guy in front of everyone, especially the girls. Alejandro could die happy with the attention he was getting from his zorro.

• Alejandro went down the zipline with Noah, and Noah let it happen because there was no way he was doing that himself. He just went along for the ride and clung to Alejandro, who swore he was in heaven the entire ride down.

• When they stopped to make camp, Noah made sure to act like he wasn't doing much besides indulging Izzy and Owen in their shenanigans, but he was also telling them to go get firewood while Alejandro told Trent, Tyler, and Justin set up their sleeping bags and such while he and Noah went to find some food.

Thank goodness Noah was in the Boy Guides of Canada when he was younger even though he didn't stay long. Plus, he read those survival handbooks, and his sister was studying to be a horticulturist, and she had a phase where she wanted to harvest her own food or take trips into the forest to find "hidden snacks" and of course he got dragged along.

• No Owen being taken by the giant caterpillars. Alejandro is a simp, and he knew Noah would be angry. Of course, Noah noticed his anger with the oaf and how he didn't let him be taken, so he rewarded Alejandro with a smile and pat to the head. It had Alejandro on cloud nine.

• Noah's all about reward systems.

• Thankfully, his friends respond to them, too! And so does Alejandro! Win win.

• They don't win the challenge, but Noah still gives Alejandro a smile because he knew the guy was actually trying. Noah may or may not start being fond of Alejandro more than he was before. But according to his observation, Alejandro seems fond of him, too.

• Alejandro starts to let Noah see the real him behind the masks and feels so relieved when the guy doesn't hate him or finds him weird. He feels accepted, and he doesn't fail to notice how Noah opens up to him in return or the way they both get closer, and Noah gets more touchy feel-y.

Noah finds the real Alejandro worlds more interesting than his mask and realizes that he's starting to get a crush on the guy.

• Chris and Chef also notice this development and are thankful that Alejandro is keeping their little gremlin entertained, but also, how dare that charmer make goo-goo eyes at their gremlin!?

Next

[fujii-draws]

Been meaning to ask, what /did/ inspire your reading of dadnoir?

I like it a lot, i even use it, but i got it from you and i want to know more about what inspired you to write it?

Hihi!! I am more than happy to explain it :3

Admittedly at first I really wasn’t thinking too much about Ribbons/Aimilios’s relationship with him. I was also originally of the opinion “Oh those three would just hate eachother like some sitcom but tolerate the other’s existence for Grovyle/Celebi’s sakes” But that was before I made this art piece.

(Ironically the first one I did of those three before the madness deadass consumed me)

I was originally drawing with my feelings towards Dusknoir in mind (Which was absolutely trusting and loving the guy before he did the whole betrayal thing. And hating his ass) but something about it legitimately made something click. There was such an interesting, complicated, and tragic relationship to be had with those three. That had so much god damn potential for interactions/dynamics/angst that I saw equal to the whole Grovyle/Dusknoir’s uneasy truce in EP5.

“What if Aimilios(partner) wasn’t the only Pokémon who looked up to Dusknoir, but Ribbons did, too. And even more unfortunately, Dusknoir going from playing the role of their “friend”, only then get attached to them, too. Causing a whole mess of internal conflict while those two are snuggling up to him.”

Now, before I get into this next segment, I’d like to preface that I’m aware that it was never the writers intention to imply or insinuate a relationship between those three. This is just a veryyy fun what-if scenario that is unintentionally backed with some context if you squint at certain segments. I frolick in the field of headcannons and different interpretations because it’s fun, and I don’t like trying to justify the dadnoir Au’s existence over and over again with ‘ahhh sorry guys I know this is ooc :(((((‘ and am very much past that phase. I have nothing to apologize for, and neither should you if you enjoy the hc! and will now unapologetically enter my joker arc 👍

(I am also okay with people not liking /enjoying it! We can still be chill :3 so long as you don’t actively try to put the hc down out of sheer disdain. Other than that!! Cheers to the folks who don’t understand or even like Dadnoir, who are still willing to hear me out! (And even the ones who don’t and respectfully click off this post!)

Long Dadnoir Tangent undercut

—

1.

Worrying over Hero/Partner genuinely even though there’s virtually nothing to gain from saving two random Pokémon who you’re gonna leave in a world of ruin regardless.

2.

Defending those two while showcasing both sides of Dusknoir (where he’s willing to be merciful to the Manectric, but fight on behalf of Hero/Partner after what Team Skull pulled.)(if he was just an overly cynical, unbearable asshole why is he even bothering with this)

3.

While this is absolutely leaning more towards him making sure they’re alright so he can prepare to officially and personally execute them, I think it’d be more sweet if this was more of a slip of the tongue on his part. “Hoho! Farewell little, vulnerable Pokémon I’ve gained a small attachment to. Wait what.” (WHILE I DONT HAVE THE SS, if you talk to him again, he tells them to be careful. Again.)

4.

I remember a post from @defendglobe that was equivalent to “did he seem more uncomfortable with praises now that he knew he was basically deceiving everyone” and I love that take so much that I’m putting it here.

5.

Ohhh Crystal Lake. How I love you.

Another instance. Where Dusknoir absolutely could have let everything play out. Get rid of 1/3 of his targets while incriminating Grovyle even further as a villain. He knew who partner and hero were at that point. He knew his mission. And yet he acted. It’s so hilarious how similar this and Dusknoir pushing Grovyle out of the way of the stalactite in EP5. My ghost in Christ you could have gotten rid of them so much sooner.

6.

I fucking loooove this little scene so much. How Mespirit and Uxie go over to Azelf in pure worry. How close they get near them. How Dusknoir Hero Partner have the same interaction, yet the renowned explorer keeping physical(emotional) distance away from them. How it’s exactly three Pokémon checking up on eachother in back-to-back scenes.

7.

I Don’t think I Need a Screenshot for the elusive “Well… this is… good-bye… Or is it? Scene; BUT. Something I never considered was him stalling bc I thought he was being a theatrical asshole and pausing for dramatic effect during his betrayal. But i remember a post of someone saying the “…”‘s in his dailouge almost felt like he was hesitating and. Shit. that makes me so insane.

And now, onto the angsty future bits.

Again, Dusknoir absolutely did the shit he did to those two. And I don’t want to take away from it by softening the blow or woobifying him. If anything, the previous explanations/Dusknoir enjoying his time with them(and Vice versa) adds onto the tragedy and angst so much more and I love it. From this point on he is as cold and calculating as he is in game. I only hc the moments of hesitation during the Stoneship fight.

8.

There is something so genuinely heartbreaking about partner’s denial throughout the entirety of the Paralyzed future segments. The refusal to admit that Dusknoir was a horrible Pokémon, and clinging onto hope that he was still good.

AND THE GOD DAMN TEARY EYED SPRITE. YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP. HE LOOKED UP TO DUSKNOIR SO MUCH AND FELT SO BETRAYED.

And the implications Hero gave up too from Partner’s words alone. The fact Hero has no dialogue after Dusknoir revealed just how cruelly and easy it was to manipulate them.

And just. Partner’s teary-to-determined sprite pipeline after *finally* getting their shit together and realizing the truth. That they need to stop defending him and be there for Hero. I am going to die. Badly.

And even after all that Dusknoir put them through. Partner doesn’t just go “yeah lmao pretty much” and reels back on calling him heinous and wicked even though that was absolutely justified.

Like. God there’s so many crumbs that made me realize on rewatches that the concept had actual merit and potential. And I love it so so dearly. There’s so much potential oozing and fun to be had with Dusknoir being close to those two (or any other Pokémon you see fit.) regardless of Celebi and Grovyle that can work. I still think futuretrio is an amazing dynamic and trio of Pokémon.

And i am also of the opinion of him only rarely showing devotion and care for Pokémon he loves. But still is fairly respectful to randoms he doesn’t know as well. And I think it not being solely restricted to Grovyle/Celebi can can make for some really sweet dynamics. Again, I love Grovyle/Celebi/Dusknoir so much. And Ribbons/Aimilios/Dusknoir’s relationship makes me equally as insane if not more.

It’s why I adore it when I see Dusknoir x oc or Dusknoir x sona’s in the fandom that are unapologetically lovey. I hold hands and continue to love whatever new future trio art my mutuals/friends have in store. I appreciate majority of this fandom for it’s open mindedness and kindness.

And on one last note, the reason why the concept of Dadnoir appeals to me so much, is explained so masterfully by one of my good friend’s @gaydiation-poisoning that I will now share with you all

^^^ they’ve been on the dadnoir train for the longest out of anyone I’ve ever met (EVEN ME.) and they put it. So well. (Without even mentioning the pure drama and bittersweet tension upon his return to Treasure town.)(Like fuck man. The idea of Hero/Partner slowly learning to retrust him after… everything. Emotionally and Physically. The time it’d take. The conflict and continued back-and-forth dynamics between them. and the one ghost who desperately wanted to live in retribution for their lives; trying genuinely, no stings attached this time, to try and reconnect with those two.) [not even mentioning the fun switch up of famous explorer + two recruits trying to impress and get close to him, vs famous explorer(s) + fallen from grace explorer trying to get close and rekindle a tainted relationship.] take these three away from me they make me sickkk

And I really hope I, alongside the many others who’ve adapted this hc, can inspire u to keep loving whatever you want anon. Regardless of how in-character or out it may seem. Don’t be afraid to make what you love.

[five-rivers]

Feathers and ink are currently winning. When I finish and post this, I will start another ficlet with whatever is winning (or in second place) then.

.

Ghost Writer held out a book to Danny. Its surface was dark leather, tooled in a pattern like overlapping feathers, and the edges of its pages were covered in something gray-green and metallic. It was small enough that it could have easily fit in one of Danny's pockets, and thinner than the composition book Danny had in Language Arts. The one that Desiree had blasted half the pages out of one time. If it wasn't for its vague glow and the obviously expensive materials it was made of, Danny would have thought it was a cheap pocket notebook.

"If you want me to allow you and your... friends into my library," drawled Ghost Writer, "I have one more task."

Danny made a face at him. He, Jazz, and Sam (Tucker's spring break project was revamping 'Team Phantom's' computer setup) had been running around all week doing Ghost Writer's chores. The things he did to get his sister reading material... Although having one less enemy, especially one less enemy who could warp reality as long as they could make a rhyming poem about it, was probably a good idea.

And, as Jazz had pointed out, Danny had wrecked his book. And his Christmas had been ruined, too.

(In Danny's opinion, if the guy could warp reality, he could've tried to warp his poem back into existence before deciding to break the truce and ruin Danny's reputation... But he wasn't going to say anything about that to Ghost Writer's face. The guy was mental.)

"And does this task have a part a, b, and c, too?" asked Danny. Jazz nudged him. He elbowed her back. After all the stuff they'd gone through this week, he thought he was allowed to be a little snarky.

"I want you to read this--" Ghost Writer waggled the book up and down, "--out loud."

Danny sighed. "It's full of insults, isn't it?" he asked. "Or it's the Christmas poem." He wasn't sure which one would be worse.

"Read it out loud," suggested Ghost Writer. "Find out."

"I could read it," said Jazz.

"I want him to read it," said Ghost Writer.

Danny rolled his eyes and snatched the book. He looked over the outside, curiously. It was honestly a bit too nice to be full of insults, which lead credence to the Christmas poem theory. He flipped it over to the back. That cover had a different pattern. Something scaly and pitted, almost demonic.

"You know," said Sam, in the sugar-sweet tone she usually saved for when her parents were being truly impossible, "if that book is cursed after all the crap you've just put us through, I'm going to shove it down your throat. And then some."

Ghost Writer smiled with sharp teeth. "I'd like to see you try."

Sam fingered the button on her custom-built SAMmunition Thrower (Danny disavowed all responsibility for naming the thing... publicly, that is). "So would I."

Ghost Writer, apparently sensing Sam's shark-like appetite for blood, raised his hands. "So long as he's as noble as you all seem to think he is, nothing bad will happen to him."

"Wow," said Danny, "and if I'm not that noble?"

"Then I wouldn't want you in my library. Come now, I thought you were serious about this. Don't beg off like Randy always does."

Danny had no idea who Randy was, but he also didn't want this... conversation... to drag on any more than it already had. He opened the book. Jazz caught his wrist.

"Maybe you shouldn't," she said.

"You say that now?" asked Danny, aggrieved. "I had to fight giant bookworms. And that owl."

"That bastard never returns anything on time," said Ghost Writer.

"Then kick him out," said Danny.

"And disrupt the inter-library loan system? I think not." Ghost Writer sniffed. "If you aren't going to read, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Danny resisted the urge to roll his eyes again - if you did it too often, people stopped taking you seriously - and looked down at the book. He squinted at the thick, wiggly, black characters.

"What is this, black speech? Something lifted from Cthulhu?"

"It's Kehnngh," said Ghost Writer, smugly. "It's a very old, very tradition type of Ghost Speech."

"Whatever," said Danny. "I'm more likely to die choking on this than whatever curse you're about to backstab us with, so whatever."

Ghost Writer made an offended sound. "I would never."

"If you know what's good for you," agreed Sam.

Danny made one last face at the book, then started sounding out syllables. "Nelghrù ro-- rlo? Nî dak gegri ghakhumâ kîsh sti chthe ngngîgn... Ew, I don't think throats are designed for that. Se famî lú ghu dizg..." He stumbled over the first sentence, then licked his lips. He'd changed his mind. Ghost Writer was having him read this because it was so far off anything humans spoke that it hurt. "Nelghrù nghftomerra... Yikes. Mglwno hâta nî... Ugh I have to say it again. Nghftomerra nû skog..."

He went on, swallowing back discomfort. This really wasn't a pleasant language to read. "Kal hûh mglwno wgatu phlu ka du hagthu..." He stopped to cough into his elbow. "Kal nghftomerra mglwno lgizgu..." He coughed again. It was like he'd inhaled something. A hair, maybe. "Lgizgu fu chthoh ghishù wgatu--"

This time, he couldn't hold back the coughing fit, which was stupid and embarrassing since in ghost form he didn't really breathe as much as--

Something black splattered the pages of the book. Something black and... What was that bitter wetness on his lips? Not blood. He knew the taste of blood. He knew the taste of ectoplasm, too, and that was far sweeter. He coughed again, the feeling of something in his throat unbearable, and this time the cough ended in a gag as liquid poured from his mouth and nose. He gagged again and dropped to his knees.

Ink splattered the floor and the pages of the book where it had fallen.

Jazz dropped down at Danny's side, her hands on his shoulders, as Sam fired at Ghost Writer, the high-speed ectoplasm ampoules bursting on the wall as he disappeared somewhere.

"Danny," she said, "Danny, can you breathe? Breathe with me."

Danny, incidentally, couldn't. There was something stuck in his throat, tickling like a feather. Like a lot of feathers. Ink dripped off his outstretched tongue.

"What did you do?" demanded Sam as Ghost Writer ducked behind a shelf.

Ghost Writer laughed. "Whatever you meant to do with my library, this will reveal your intentions!"

"Like running around and doing your errands all week didn't?"

"I won't trust anyone who destroys books!"

Oh, yeah, and this didn't count as destroying a book, did it? Even though the thing was now completely soaked in ink.

Danny heaved and something wriggling started to force itself up his throat. His whole body shuddered as more ink spilled into his mouth, this time accompanied by something that felt like masses of frayed wet string.

Or, maybe, fur, from how the thing was moving.

This was the moment Jazz decided to attempt the Heimlich maneuver. It was such a mundane solution that Danny was shocked when it worked, a wad of wet black feathers shooting out from his mouth.

"Feathers!" said Ghost Writer, sounding disappointed.

They quivered, and Danny reached out to pick up the bird and set it on its feet, brushing off the worst of the ink as he did. His hand made a messy print when it fell back to the floor.

"A bird?" This time, the Ghost Writer sounded downright exasperated. "Why is it a bird?"

"Better a birdie than a hole in one, which is what you're going to be," said Sam, venomously.

"I think," said Danny, faintly, "I know why a raven is like a writing desk."

"What?" asked Jazz, apparently baffled by the non-sequitur. Well, Danny was baffled, too.

The bird hopped sideways and ruffled its feathers, shedding black droplets.

"They can both be covered in ink."

"It's a pun?" said Ghost Writer, apparently offended by the whole concept.

"That's more of a riddle," said Danny. "Calling him Edgar Allen Crow would be a pun."

The crow - or was it a raven? - cackled madly.

There was a long moment of silence from Ghost Writer. "Fine," he said, still safely behind a bookshelf. "You can look at my books, but you can't check anything out."

Danny raised his head to stare incredulously at Ghost Writer. Edgar Allen Crow did the same.

"... Let's go home," said Jazz.

I want to do some soft body horror.

[apple-onigiri]

DISTANCE IN VAUGARGE (revamped edition)

IMPORTANT: this post was deleted and made again to make edits and not spread misinformation (because i made a stupid mistake and took earth's entire circumference and accidentally treated it like it was only half of it! it's really funny because i did think that this feels way too big of a distance... happens i guess! especially at 4am lmao but it did uh, increase all the numbers by a whole Two so. unfortunate! gotta fix it!!)

@cyten0 (sorry to tag you again just figured you'd like an update and an actual correct answer, and you're still the one who inquired about this) asked if i could provide more information about my calculations for traveling across vaguarde, and since it seems too long for a reblog and i want to categorize it properly on my blog, here it is in a whole separate post!

this honestly started out as a curiosity about what climate the northern island could've had given its distance from the equator compared to earth's countries and uh. spiraled into me thinking about this. don't ever think about anything guys

TL;DR (for people who don't want the super fun math part): it's 1111.4 km/690.59 miles from dormont to bambouche in a straight line and somewhere in the ballpark of 250 hours of constant travel by foot to cross the distance. with a bonnie-ordained preteen-friendly tempo of around 5 km/h (3.1 ish mph) and eight hours of travel per day from 8am until 1pm and then 3pm to 6pm to set up camp properly early, it'd take around a month or so to make the trip, not counting any and all longer stays to refill supplies and any irregularities caused by going to a town and not having to set up camp or pack it back up.

ok quick geography lesson: the lines on the globe running horizontally are the latitude. they go up to 90 in each direction from the equator, which is 0, so there's a 180 in total. obviously for specific locations you'd use decimals but who caressss

longitude is important too here - the vertical lines - but less so. they go up to 180 on each side of the latitude's version of the equator, the prime meridian, as well but it really doesn't matter where that meridian is placed here, the only thing that matters is that the lines are in a correct distance to each other.

here's the globe id5, in her infinite wisdom, bestowed upon us (i'm completely normal about the existence of any and all maps. in the original post i said can be trusted with them but that is! clearly not the case!) that i added all the southern hemisphere latitude lines onto, as well as the longitude needed for my insane needs (math)

i obviously assumed the planet is the same size as the earth because i genuinely see no reason why it couldn't be other than to make my life sad and hell also. the general distance from one pole to another is 20,000 ish kilometers. (if you for some reason want the planet to be smaller or bigger, cool trick, literally just multiply the 20,000 by it. want it to be one third of its current size? multiply by 0.3. two-and-a-half times bigger? 2.5!) so what i did was draw out the lines onto the actual map and measure the estimated distance based on how big of a chunk it is out of this 20k.

it seems dormont is at about 19 degrees, while bambouche is at 11. easy here!

just divide the whole distance by 180 and you get 111.(1) km (that 1 in a bracket telling you that that one goes on foreeeeever if you let it). since we're looking for the distance of 8 degrees, and we've got a distance of one, you can either multiply it by 8 or subtract the one degree times 2 to get 889. ish. any decimals are the enemy here at this point.

you do the same for the other direction - both bambouche and dormont seemed to be about 2 degrees from the longitude lines, so you do the process with just multiplying by 6 at the end or subtracting the one degree times 4 and get 1333. ish.

it's pythagorean theorem time!! it looks like a lot of big numbers but they do that only to get added nicely, it's okay, they're not that scary and they don't bite pretty promise with a cherry on top, and you get the resulting distance of 1111.4 kilometers like that!

here's how it measures up in reality for some scale:

(hey it fits into all of france now!!)

the average recorded speed of a preteen - which the party logically must move at most of the time - is about 5 kilometers per hour (3.1 ish miles). with a travel plan of 4 hours of travel since 9am until 1pm, a two hour break, and another 3 hours until 6pm, because you need to set up camp and things like that need time, it's safe to assume they'd be crossing around 35 km/h a day. and this is still a really good pace!!! very endurance-heavy! divide the total distance by that and you get an estimated time of travel in days, which here is 31; just around a month.

this is, while less than my initial busted calculations, still a lot! lots of walking. so i uphold my statement that they better have sent a letter to nille ahead of them and that the vaugarde postal system is robust enough to deliver it in a timely manner right after the entire country defrosted, to keep her from worrying to death!

[spark-hearts2]

Okay so let’s say you have a basement just full of different computers. Absolute hodgepodge. Ranging in make and model from a 2005 dell laptop with a landline phone plug to a 2025 apple with exactly one usbc, to an IBM.

And you want to use this absolute clusterfuck to, I don’t know, store/run a sentient AI! How do you link this mess together (and plug it into a power source) in a way that WONT explode? Be as outlandish and technical as possible.

Oh.

Oh you want to take Caine home with you, don't you! You want to make the shittiest most fucked up home made server setup by fucking daisy chaining PCs together until you have enough processing power to do something. You want to try running Caine in your basement, absolutely no care for the power draw that this man demands.

Holy shit, what have you done? really long post under cut.

Slight disclaimer: I never actually work with this kind of computing, so none of this should be taken as actual, usable advice. That being said, I will cite sources as I go along for easy further research.

First of all, the idea of just stacking computers together HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE!!! This is known as a computer cluster! Sometimes, this is referred to as a supercomputer. (technically the term supercomputer is outdated but I won't go into that)

Did you know that the US government got the idea to wire 1,760 PS3s together in order to make a supercomputer? It was called the Condor Cluster! (tragically it kinda sucked but watch the video for that story)

Now, making an at home computer cluster is pretty rare as it's not like computing power scaled by adding another computer. It takes time for the machines to communicate in between each other, so trying to run something like a videogame on multiple PCs doesn't work. But, lets say that we have a massive amount of data that was collected from some research study that needs to be processed. A cluster can divide that computing among the multiple PCs for comparatively faster computing times. And yes! People have been using this to run/train their own AI so hypothetically Caine can run on a setup like this.

Lets talk about the external hardware needed first. There are basically only two things that we need to worry about. Power (like ya pointed out) and Communication.

Power supply is actually easier than you think! Most PCs have an internal power supply, so all you would need to do is stick the plug into the wall! Or, that is if we weren't stacking an unknowable amount of computers together. I have a friend that had the great idea to try and run a whole ass server rack in the dormitory at my college and yeah, he popped a fuse so now everyone in that section of the building doesn't have power. But that's a good thing, if you try to plug in too many computers on the same circuit, nothing should light on fire because the fuse breaks the circuit (yay for safety!). But how did my friend manage without his server running in his closet? Turns out there was a plug underneath his bed that was on it's own circuit with a higher limit (I'm not going to explain how that works, this is long enough already).

So! To do this at home, start by plugging everything into an extension cord, plug that into a wall outlet and see if the lights go out. I'm serious, blowing a fuse won't break anything. If the fuse doesn't break, yay it works! Move onto next step. If not, then take every other device off that circuit. Try again. If it still doesn't work, then it's time to get weird.

Some houses do have higher duty plugs (again, not going to explain how your house electricity works here) so you could try that next. But remember that each computer has their own plug, so why try to fit everything into one outlet? Wire this bad boy across multiple circuits to distribute the load! This can be a bit of a pain though, as typically the outlets for the each circuits aren't close to each other. An electrician can come in and break up which outlet goes to which fuse, or just get some long extension cords. Now, this next option I'm only saying this as you said wild and outlandish, and that's WIRING DIRECTLY INTO THE POWER GRID. If you do that, the computers can now draw enough power to light themselves on fire, but it is no longer possible to pop a fuse because the fuse is gone. (Please do not do this in real life, this can kill you in many horrible ways)

Communication (as in between the PCs) is where things start getting complex. As in, all of those nasty pictures of wires pouring out of server racks are usually communication cables. The essential piece of hardware that all of these computers are wired into is the switch box. It is the device that handles communication between the individual computers. Software decided which computer in the cluster gets what task. This is known as the Dynamic Resource Manager, sometimes called the scheduler (may run on one of the devises in the cluster but can have it's own dedicated machine). Once the software has scheduled the task, the switch box handles the actual act of getting the data to each machine. That's why speed and capacity are so important with switch boxes, they are the bottleneck for a system like this.

Uhh, connecting this all IBM server rack? That's not needed in this theoretical setup. Choose one computer to act as the 'head node' to act as the user access point and you're set. (sorry I'm not exactly sure what you mean by connect everything to an IBM)

To picture what all of this put together would look like, here’s a great if distressingly shaky video of an actual computer cluster! Power cables aren't shown but they are there.

But what about cable management? Well, things shouldn't get too bad given that fixing disordered cables can be as easy as scheduling the maintenance and ordering some cables. Some servers can't go down, so bad management piles up until either it has to go down or another server is brought in to take the load until the original server can be fixed. Ideally, the separate computers should be wired together, labeled, then neatly run into a switch box.

Now, depending on the level of knowledge, the next question would be "what about the firewall". A firewall is not necessary in a setup like this. If no connections are being made out of network, if the machine is even connected to a network, then there is no reason to monitor or block who is connecting to the machine.

That's all of the info about hardware around the computers, let's talk about the computers themselves!

I'm assuming that these things are a little fucked. First things first would be testing all machines to make sure that they still function! General housekeeping like blasting all of the dust off the motherboard and cleaning out those ports. Also, putting new thermal paste on the CPU. Refresh your thermal paste people.

The hardware of the PCs themselves can and maybe should get upgraded. Most PCs (more PCs than you think) have the ability to be upgraded! I'm talking extra slots for RAM and an extra SADA cable for memory. Also, some PCs still have a DVD slot. You can just take that out and put a hard drive in there! Now upgrades aren't essential but extra memory is always recommended. Redundancy is your friend.

Once the hardware is set, factory reset the computer and... Ok, now I'm at the part where my inexperience really shows. Computer clusters are almost always done with the exact same make and model of computer because essentially, this is taking several computers and treating them as one. When mixing hardware, things can get fucked. There is a version of linux specifically for mixing hardware or operating systems, OSCAR, so it is possible. Would it be a massive headache to do in real life and would it behave in unpredictable ways? Without a doubt. But, it could work, so I will leave it at that. (but maybe ditch the Mac, apple doesn't like to play nice with anything)

Extra things to consider. Noise level, cooling, and humidity! Each of these machines have fans! If it's in a basement, then it's probably going to be humid. Server rooms are climate controlled for a reason. It would be a good idea to stick an AC unit and a dehumidifier in there to maintain that sweat spot in temperature.

All links in one spot:

What's a cluster?

Wiki computer cluster

The PS3 was a ridiculous machine

I built an AI supercomputer with 5 Mac Studios

The worst patch rack I've ever worked on.

Building the Ultimate OpenSees Rig: HPC Cluster SUPERCOMPUTER Using Gaming Workstations!

What is a firewall?

Your old PC is Your New Server

Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR)

Buying a SERVER - 3 things to know

A Computer Cluster Made With BROKEN PCs

@fratboycipher feel free to add too this or correct me in any way

[suosage]

visited keel arc's resolution chapters while i went looking for akari's panel and ough wbr's portrayal of the "ooh hes just like me fr" effect is so so good im never getting over it...

i remember seeing a post saying winbre's characters are so similar it's boring, what's the point to see their developments if they're gonna end up resolving the same problem anyway, and I was like oh. I was so taken aback by this I never thought it that way. I always knew that the characters share similar problems in various ways, but I never thought of it as boring or pointless. in fact, that may just be the point of the entire thing...?

i just think that winbre ultimately is sakura's coming-of-age story. we delve a lot into other characters yes and each had their own key pivotal moments that makes me think yes this is their story, but they're not Not about sakura too. he's not a part of their pasts, but he could see himself in these stories. it's important that sakura acknowledged this—because it's easy to brush it off. it's easy to ignore the uncomfortable truth about yourself when you see it in another person. even when he knew it's hard even if sometimes he needed his friends to push him to, sakura has learned to always face it head-on. he made this choice, and it's an important step that let him grow as a person.

it's this thing that I believe what wbr is trying to tell us about: you always, always have the choice to heal. to be better, and to be kind. even if it's hard. (maybe especially if it's hard!)

that the characters faced similar conflicts in some ways is a good thing. it's intentional. it's saying you're more alike with others than you might think and maybe you could learn a thing or two from them; and even if not, maybe that fact is a lesson in and of itself. regardless you can always choose to face your problems and learn from others and be kind. the hope is that maybe, through acknowledging parts of yourself you recognize in other people, you could be kinder to yourself, too.

[thewalrusespublicist]

When May described John and Yoko as a codependent relationship akin to two frightened children clinging to each other it made sense to me. And although disturbing to hear the harsher details of their relationship it also just makes me sad that they couldn’t find the help they needed.

Hi anon,

Honestly the sigh i just made reading that quote again because ... yeah. May’s book has a couple of moments of real insight and I think this is one of them. I'm doing a much larger post about them that fingers crossed should be finished very soon but essentially from doing a lot of reading they're so frustrating. They seem to keenly recognise and relate to a need and a pain in each other. The problem TO ME is that they couldn't resolve the need in each other because they never got the tools to resolve it within themselves and so provided the other person with what they thought the other person wanted rather than what they needed. I believe that's why they come across as so stunted and stagnant by 80'. They can see each others pain, can touch it and soothe it somewhat but they can't fix it and are going insane trying and the dysfunction is getting worse as a result. It’s also why from anecdotes and reports it seems like the marriage requires a lot of staff acting as de-facto marriage counsellors to keep it going. I’ve never heard of a marriage that needed so many people involved to make it barely functional.

Honestly the marriage crawled to 80’ and I'm not convinced that they would have made it through the 80s without another bust up, but I think they were in too much of a codependent hole to face it. They needed independent therapy WITHOUT THE OTHER PRESENT, they needed marriage counselling, imho with someone who specialised in looking at NPD/BPD codependent dynamics. If you don’t know what that is I won’t go into too much detail as I know one of my beloved moots has some really insightful points on this that they may post in future, but I would recommend looking it up as it fits John and Yoko to a tee (not saying that John and Yoko necessarily had full blown personality disorders, people with only traits can still develop these types of dynamics). You can empathise and understand why they clung to each other and the delight they found in finding a playmate for their inner child but at the end of the day the children needed to grow up and I’m not convinced they could do without external intervention.

[wisteria-lodge]

Re the Watsonian explanation for the Longbottoms not at home -- I enjoyed your meta! An interesting insight into Augusta. It made me realize that it never actually occurred to me that them being at Mungos might feel like something that needed to be explained, and I wonder if other people who've seen or done the kind of caregiving this would have involved had the same assumption about it.

Which was: Caring for two adults in the kind of state the Longbottom parents seem to be in at home on your own would be... intense. Emotionally and physically, even with hired help, even with magic, even if they are always (and always have been) as calm as we saw them (which I doubt was the case). And especially when you are not that young yourself, grieving, and suddenly trying to raise a child at the same time. And when you know that whatever you figure out and how you feel about it has to be sustainable every day for the next *60 years*, for the rest of your life and probably another few decades beyond it. For the majority of your grandson's life.

A person could do it, people do, but I think it would have been extremely hard, even for a really well adjusted person dispositionally suited to caregiving who has worked through her grief about her children and has landed on realistic (difficult, devastating, unfairly compromised) expectations for what's left of her life and Frank's and all of Neville's. Which to be clear I don't think Augusta is or has - for a lot of the same reasons you described in your post.

❤

Your point is extremely well taken. Being a full-time caregiver is one of the most difficult and exhausting things a person can do, and Augusta got a really, really rough deal.

That ask about why Frank and Alice are living full-time at St. Mungos was specifically in response to another meta about how the attitudes towards mental healthcare we see in the Wizarding World are very soft-1800s flavored. One of my main talking points when it comes to HP worldbuilding is that wizard society still runs in a very pre-industrial kinda way, taking notes from about 1700-1880. And in the 1800s especially, if you had the means, it was much more a thing to take care of people with mental problems/severe disabilities at home, and either care for them yourself or have whatever help you needed come to you. We see this way of doing things in the way the Dumbledores keep Ariana at home (in a way that *does* evoke the gothic "madwoman in the attic" trope, which is absolutely ties in with this older way of dealing with mental illness.)

So I was answering that that ask a bit more as "why doesn't Augusta Longbottom, as a late 1700s/early 1800s lady of means, who presumably has a large house a la Grimmauld Place or Malfoy Manor, have the staff of St Mungo/some other private hospital teleport over to her as needed and instead making the trip herself?" And seriously, poor Augusta. Whatever she needs. I really hope she has a physical help/support system that's more robust than just her brother Algie.

[thewistlingbadger]

Hi! Thanks for your response. I really liked the way you phrased your comments on point #1 because it did sort of shift the way I think, or at bare minimum it made me see your perspective. Mel was upfront with Jayce and Viktor in regards to hextech. It was obvious that she wanted to help back them in exchange for some sort of benefit of her own. To me Mel is very intriguing because she kinda has two different complexes going on at the same time. On one hand, she wants to be independent from her mother and family name and on the other she wants o live up the the expectations set forth for Medardas. Backing Hextech accomplishes both. Hextech is a very unique technology that would and DID put Piltover on the map, which advances Mel's goal of being seen separately from Noxus. Being a big supporter of Hextech also gave Mel more money and probably more influence and power than she had before, which advances her goal of being like the rest of her kin.

I agree that Mel's relationship to Hextech and its founders was not predatory. I think Mel was intrigued by the possibilities that kind of technology could have for her own goals and so she wanted to see it through, but not enough to actually openly support it. At Jayce's trial, she is clearly interested in his results but when he reveals he has none she begins to criticize him like all the other councilors do. Later when she sees Jayce again, she's willing to help cover for them but she's not willing to risk her own ass and stand up for them in a proper council meeting. Not that I blame her tho, She's a politician, of course she's mainly only ever looking out for her own self intertest.

The term "using" people is honestly so vast that I feel like it can be stretched into a lot of things. Like with proper argumentation and evidence you could probably argue that any character used another character. Mel gave jayce and viktor access to what they needed not out of the "goodness of her heart" or because she genuinely believed in the tech's helpfulness, but because she saw that it could be money maker and it could be revolutionary. So I suppose in that way she "used" them for her own personal gain but like...it was kinda obvious and expected? So should she be faulted for that? Idk. I guess when I examine it, saying that Mel specifically used Jayce and Viktor in regards to hextech is like saying Cassandra Kiramman used Jayce. Like...sure? It's not incorrect per say but it's just a weak argument. That's what I mean when I say it isn't malicious bc it's very obvious and everyone should have expected that going in.

However, I do 100% believe that Mel used Jayce specifically in regards of politics. I feel like it's extremely obvious in canon that Mel had been building up Jayce to get him a council seat so that she would have basically a built in political ally but this post isn't really about that.

As for point number two, I genuinely don't see a difference. The council was unaware of Silco's activity not because of their ignorance, but because on paper Silco genuinely did look like only an industrialist and Marcus had fabricated material to support the lie. Marcus never got caught because he always covered his tracks. The council is fully aware that the enforcers are abusive of their power when it comes to zaunites because they're the ones who ordered the enforcers to "turn the undercity inside out" back in act 1 s1, when grayson was in charge and not marcus. The council is the one who authorizes the increased enforcer presence in act 3 s1 and they see the consequence in real time. They're also most likely the ones responsible for dispatching so many enforcers on the day of ash, a day where tons of zaunites were slain by enforcers.

I know you're not arguing for the council but me personally I will never give them any shred of grace.

As for Mel specifically, yeah she is being passive and ignorant and these are not excuses but also? If Mel was genuinely aware of the state of living in Zaun, would that have genuinely made her see the error of her and the council's ways? Or would she have just turned a blind eye and kept looking away? Mel didn't always live in Piltover. While she may be oblivious to what goes on in Zaun, she is not oblivious to the ramifications of being poor or a minority class in a dominating society. Mel was a little girl when she saw her mother, a leader of a dominating society, slay a girl merely for being part of a minority class. Mel is well educated not only from books but also her own lived experiences. I feel like she knows what the rich do the poor, how the majority class almost always oppresses the minority class, and so these patterns would have been obvious to recognize in the conflict between Piltover and Zaun.

Mel thoughts

Do I acknowledge and accept the fact that Mel Medarda did bad things, did hurt people, did use people, did manipulate people, yes I do. But. Also. Mel canonically was a teenager when her mother had her shipped off to Piltover. She was a teenager, probably around Vi's age, in a foreign land with strangers, completely cut off from her family. It can be really hard to analyze and discuss characters probably when we aren't given much explicit information...but the fact is Mel had no idea that HER OWN BROTHER had died until Ambessa came to Piltover... Let that sink in.

The fact of the matter is that Mel actually has a lot of childhood trauma and it comes from not only the horrors her mother forced her to witness and the harshness of Noxus, but it also comes from having been abandoned and forced to live somewhere that was completely unfamiliar to Mel. It goes undiscussed because the show barely acknowledges it because narratively Mel is only a side character, she isn't given the time or dedication as a character like Jinx or Vi despite the fact that she's a member of the main cast.

Mel does tons of things that are shitty and wrong and her actions are the results of the tools her mother gave her. The tools Ambessa gave Mel were incredibly damaging, not only to others but also to Mel. Sure, Mel is a very successful adult socially, financially, and career wise but on a personal level? On a personal level we see that Mel is fake to practically everyone she interacts with. She clearly liked Jayce for a long time and yet it took her forever to be real with him and even when she started to be honest and open with him she was still not being completely transparent. Outside of Jayce Mel really doesn't interact with anyone in a meaningful or positive way other than Elora. Elora is always at Mel's right hand and we know Mel cares about her greatly since she was devastated when she died. However, it should be noted that Elora is Mel's assistant, she works for Mel, so even though they have a close relationship the foundation of their relationship isn't one of friendship or mutual enjoyment of the other. This is similar to the foundation of Mel's relationship with Jayce. Their relationship isn't founded on mutual attraction or appreciation for each other. Mel's relationship with Jayce starts back in the beginning of arcane, because Mel thinks Jayce can be profitable and a useful asset to her. Based on Mel's reactions to Jayce it seems that Jayce is probably her first ever real connection with someone in a long time, perhaps even ever.

Ambessa raised Mel to be harsh and brutal and so in some ways, Mel still abides by the lessons she was taught as a child. She has no problem using the poor to advance her own wealth. She has no problem with turning her colleagues against one another just for the sake of her own personal gain. She's not completely off the rails and unhinged, she has standards and lines she won't cross but don't let the lines she refuses to cross distract you from the lines she already has crossed. I have empathy for Mel for the hardships she has faced and for her complicated family. It is sad that she was never taught how to navigate the world and others in a healthy, appropriate way. However, Mel is not a child anymore. She's an adult, and while she may have not had the skill set to form healthy bonds with people, she had the opportunity to learn how to be a better person. Mel didn't need to use the tactics she was raised on, but she chose to.

Something that I find interesting about Mel is her lack of... accountability? Awareness? The correct word escapes me right now. Mel witnesses a lot of events and in some cases she is actually responsible for the way things have transpired but she never seems to acknowledge that. For example, Mel is partially responsible for the decay of the underground and the suffering of Zaunites as a councilor, but she never acknowledges this, even when it comes to bite her in the ass. When her and Jayce see all the dead enforcers on the bridge, she is mostly concerned about the threat of future violence and retaliation, she isn't all that concerned with what's actually in front of her (this is kinda valid considering she grew up seeing a lot of death and she was probably just in shock at the bridge). Mel is shocked when Jayce accuses her of using him and Viktor in season two, even when she literally did. She even admits to it, but in the way she admits to it she doesn't take accountability. It's not a "yes you're right and that was fucked up" it's a "well of course you guys were investments hello??"

Honestly I think a lot of Mel's issues as a person stem from her childhood and how she was raised, but as an adult Mel hasn't made much of an effort to combat what she was taught and become a better person. And again please note that Mel doesn't need to be a good person. She's allowed to be flawed and complete and human. I'm not saying anything of this as an accusation, I'm saying it as observations I have noted about her character.

[ghcstao3]

street photographer ghost who has mastered taking the perfect candid photos without ever getting caught. he just has an eye for subjects, both mundane and unique in style, and he enjoys his work. it's just that simple.

soap is one of those subjects. there's something naturally captivating about him, the way he carries himself and seemingly bends the world to his will all around him, and ghost wastes no second doing what he does best—candids that frame their subject like they're the centre of the universe even when any other passerby might blink and miss those singular moments.

except—as ghost snaps a few more photos and briefly glances at the raw images, he sees that the man he'd been taking pictures of is looking directly down the barrel of the lens by the end of the set of photos, a grin on his face, hand blurred in a wave in the frozen frames ghost had captured.

when he puts the camera down, he sees the man still waving at him from across the street before he's quickly glancing both ways and jogging across to meet ghost.

"almost didn't see you," he breathes.

ghost bites back a that's the point, instead focusing on carefully tucking his camera back into its bag.

"i'm sorry," ghost eventually apologizes. "i'll delete them if—"

"the opposite, actually," the man cuts in. "i wanted to see them."

ghost tenses. the rare times he's been caught out usually don't... result in this. "really?"

"mhm." another bright grin. "i'm soap, by the way. or—john, if you're lookin' to be all formal like."

pulling his camera back out, ghost cocks an eyebrow. "soap?"

soap shakes his head. "don't worry about it." he winks. "unless we meet again."

ghost snorts. captivating had certainly been the right word to describe soap.

"why don't we see if you even like the photos first, yeah?"

[lesbiansforeddiediaz]

Where my Eddie meta differs from the popular fanon is I don't think all his problems are because he's gay and I don't think kissing a man would heal him or really benefit him much at all. (He is gay but that's not important right now)

[dykedvonte]

In the article, when Kasurinen mentions that irl people like Curly can and do cover up perpetrators- do you think that implies Curly would have kept Anya’s SA under wraps?

Curly is such a conflicting character AHHHHH. He’s my favorite but makes me very uncomfortable sometimes. He’s ignorant and mitigated at a very wrong time, but I hoped he at least had the decency to let the story slip out post-delivery. Jimmy doesn’t wanna face responsibility but does Curly not want him to either?

I think what people are missing about that line is the intentions part. What is specifically said is “good intentioned downplaying” and the belief he was taking the right steps. It’s phrasing is important: the discussion of escalation and the idea that it’s not intentionally malicious are idea you have to keep in mind when taking to the problems at play with Curly’s choices.

I do not think he was gonna cover up the assault but his actions during the events of the pre-crash sections were likely fueled by ignorance, disbelief and his own issues. His inability to outwardly address it lead to it being downplayed and covered to an extent but it’s not something he didn’t want to deal with more accurately he didn’t know how to approach and when he tried to came at it from the completely wrong angles.

When people see these they conflate them with him being willfully ignorant, refusing to believe Anya and self absorbed. It’s such a one note bad faith interpretation imo that it doesn’t acknowledge that in a lot of cases people genuinely think they are doing good in the mean time. Good intentions don’t mean he did good, or didn’t cause harm but the point is that he never intended to to Anya. The sad fact is he was trying to find a happy ending for both parties because he still thought he could. He thought he was doing something where everyone would win and in the end it was a total loss.

I say it again about Curly but so many people take the dead pixel conversation as a refusal to look closer when it’s more like a comment to on rose tinted glasses and Curly personally. Him moving on is not his saying “it doesn’t matter��� but saying he still wants to try and apprixate the parts that aren’t bad. It’s a misguided and unintentionally dismissive comfort toward Anya. You can see she realizes that he doesn’t really understand but it’s not from a lack or trying. It’s a lack of being ready. Doesn’t excuse when she becomes more direct with him but it helps us with his insights.

The issue with Curly and Jimmy and responsibility is that Curly takes too much responsibility and blame for many things that aren’t his responsibility and/or fault. I think tow reflective scenes are right before the crash and in the cockpit when he blames himself for Anya not getting a psych evaluation and letting Jimmy blame him for his actions. It is not his responsibility to provide that eval to Anya, that is the companies negligence to allow one of their employees to go with out one. You can argue he could’ve fought for it, but you can also argue that P.E held that standard in the first place and you can’t patch cracks you don’t see. With Jimmy, none of what he did is Curly’s fault outside not punishing him for the act after. Even then punishment is vague but he should’ve taken more precautions. He did not force Jimmy to crash the ship, to rape Anya, to lash out and misconstrue his words. His responsibility is the crew not their individual actions and that’s a very hard point to discuss.

When Daisuke gets caught in the foam he is upset because that action got him hurt or could’ve damaged something vital to them. He is not responsible for the action but he is in ensuring Daisuke, under Swansea, doesn’t cause anymore damage to himself or the ship. That’s what I’m trying to get at despite the difficulty. Jimmy’s speech is gaslighting, conditioning to make Curly believe it’s all his fault: The firing, the assault, the tragedy of it all when those all link back to things that were over his head or actions/choices of others.

There’s a lot of debates on what Curly as the individual was at fault for, should be blamed for and what where outside factors. I personally think in the end he wanted Jimmy to take responsibility but he himself can’t tell what’s his responsibility to take vs Jimmy’s. A key point of this is when Curly is about to run in and starting saying what he should’ve done, or could’ve before screaming at Jimmy and asking what did he do. He realizes all too late what is his responsibility and what isn’t in terms of their dynamics and the blame/guilt he takes on for Jimmy but as I said again it’s too late.

If he was gonna cover up the assault than Jimmy would’ve never felt the need to do something so drastic. He would’ve known Curly would’ve helped and I think his uncertainty of that was a driving force but also to give us that uncertainty in terms of what Curly would’ve actually done.

He makes us all uncomfortable and conflicted because we all want to say we’d do better, we’d know better but in the end we could all make the same mistakes thinking that our good intentions were enough. He’s fun to roll around in your head and this specific topic gets a lot of unsettling things rolling.

[nancynancydrewdrewdrew]

A lot of people asked about this lol this was like a very formative experience in my life unfortunately a lot of it is lost to time due to mods and deleted blogs and such but the basic gist is as follows:

Dagny used to be married to a woman

A very large subset of the HeR boards were conservative, homeschooled religious kids and their parents who lost their damn minds over this

Sooooo many posts about not wanting to see it, “keEp PoLitiCs OuT oF tHe GaMes”, “I don’t disagree with it I just don’t like it and hate it”, petitions to not have any more gay ppl, threats to boycott, etc…

Nearly all of these posts had two things in common, they used their religion as the reasoning and also had some variation of “that’s just my opinion!” ie something like “HeR shouldn’t support LGBT people, it goes against the Bible! I don’t have a problem with them but I don’t want to ever see them and I pretend they don’t exist and I hate them, but that’s just my opinion so you can’t be mad at me!”

Sooooo what happened was there were a big group of us who didn’t like this and thought that was all not very nice. So one genius starting pretending to be in a religion that followed Big Island Mike. If they were going to use their religion to be hateful then we could do the same thing!

So a lot of us started doing that! We would say stuff on those homophobic threads like “well BiM is a loving and omniscient god and His word says that you are a jerk and that every character in the Nancy drew games is gay, sorry but that is just my onion” (the onion thing was on purpose we were saying it to make fun of people claiming hate was just an opinion)

It went on a loooooot. We kept making more and more things about the lore of big island Mike, his ponytail was like a sentient god that whispered secrets in his ear, we capitalized He and Him when talking about him, made theories that he was behind every game, everything we could think of. I’m realizing here this doesn’t sound like much but please believe me it was like a weeks long Thing where this was all we did and every post was like this.

This was like an actual coordinated thing, most of us were on tumblr and we would like discuss the best ways to push back against the homophobia, unfortunately I don’t think many of those blogs are active anymore (for myself it was an old blog that I deleted many years ago, and I haven’t seen any of the others around since making this one more recently. If any of you still exist I’m sorry!)

The homophobic people were doing the same thing on twitter and we knew that so we were like one step ahead lol. One time one of the main ones posted a list of the users he hated the most and I was on it and I was very proud of myself!

We would also do non-BiM things, like making petitions for games with only gay characters from here on out, and also talk about other social justice issues, stuff to get under their skin

The mods HATED all of this (most of them fell in the conservative homeschool type parent group if I remember correctly) but we weren’t really breaking any rules. Eventually they started deleting all the posts about BiM and His power and saying that made up stories had to go in the magic library

Then they amended the rules to say that no trolling is allowed and started deleting everything en masse, which they weren’t really doing to the homophobic stuff but they eventually I think did that as well. But that was another proud moment because they literally changed the rules because of us lol.

To circle back to OP’s original point, a big part of the fan base really was homophobic (at the time, I hope that is no longer the case) and their fit after SEA came out really did a number on the fan base and likely the company. Right after this the whole MID thing happened and they got a lot less interactive with the fans and basically killed off the original fan base. And we were all super divided anyway so the message boards just died. I’m really happy that there’s a newer group of fans with the clue crew now but that was like a very stark end of an era for sure!

And, to my knowledge, that is the origin of all the BiM worship. It does my heart good to see that all live on despite the loss of the original meaning or even like that there was a meaning at all lol (something something ancient history, meaningful things living on, I’m old now, blah blah blah)

Anyway I think that about sums it up! Please forgive me if I left anything out, this was like literally ten years ago and like I said nearly everything has been deleted at this point. If you go on the HeR boards and look at the summer of 2015 I think there are still some remnants hanging on but like very heavily edited by the mods. Writing it all out it doesn’t sound all that interesting but it was a truly wild time and one of those you had to be there type things, I hope it was at least mildly entertaining to read, I’m sorry I forgot the actual content of the memes lol

OP sorry to hijack your post!

(takes a long drag of a cigarette) remember when homophobia destroyed her interactive

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.