bespokenightmare

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Kurama 🌹

Yu Yu Hakusho

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I JUST WATCHED K-POP DEMON HUNTERS AND AHSJGSJSJFFHS

I physically cannot explain how HARD it was to not scream the entire time!!!

but also, did anyone else think that these funky lil guys were somewhat representing Jinu’s personality? especially the funky lil bird

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Okay but like-

In the clip where Jinu is proposing his plan/introducing the Saja Boys, they already have their bright-colored hair and at least one has his ears pierced. Unless demons naturally have rainbow hair, this means that to prepare for this, they were probably all hunched over the sink together with box hair dye, and either did their piercings themselves or went up to the human world and sat in the chair at Claire's.

Either way, the mental image is funny as hell.

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Kpop Demon Hunters looks cute and I'm really struck by the whole concept of a demon boy band. Like that'd work, I think. They wouldn't even need to hide it.

Demon Boy Band: we're hot demons here to steal your souls

Kpop Fans: *murmurs of interest*

Demon Hunters: no you don't understand! they're real demons!

Kpop Fans: *murmurs of interest intensify*

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KPop Demon Hunters theory on the Honmoon & Rumi's powers:

Okay so I am like 75% sure that Celine was full of shit when she said that the Golden Honmoon would remove Rumi's patterns. Rumi seems to be a largely unprecedented hybrid so it's far more likely that Celine herself doesn't know what will happen to her when the Honmoon is fully sealed, especially given that the Honmoon has also never been fully sealed either. It's unclear what all the ramifications of that would be and those ramifications just being purely positive and happening to have the ideal outcome according Celine seems implausible.

To that end, I think the real reason that Rumi's patterns kept increasing as the Honmoon got closer to completion was because something else was going on. The patterns seem to connect to Gwi Ma and the Honmoon seals away everything connected to Gwi Ma, so the most plausible supposition based on that information is, I think, that anything with that Gwi Man connection would get permanently sealed away with him by the Golden Honmoon.

But are all patterns indeed connected to Gwi Ma?

I think not, actually.

Rumi doesn't hear Gwi Ma the way that other demons do. This could be because she's spent her entire life on the other side of the barrier, but as we see with Jinu, Gwi Ma can grab demons connected to him and yoink them across whenever he feels like it. It could then instead be that Rumi was protected by Gwi Ma's ignorance of her existence -- she didn't hear him because he never even thought to look for her -- but if that was the situation, then Gwi Ma definitely would have grabbed her as soon as Jinu reported on her patterns.

Even after Rumi goes full demon, she doesn't seem to be connected to Gwi Ma or susceptible to his influence.

So my theory is, Rumi's dad was a demon, yes, but not all demons are connected to Gwi Ma. Gwi Ma is just one demon king, the one that the hunters focus on especially because of his habit of devouring souls (and because their powers seem to work especially well on him). The patterns are demonic but only those who have made bargains with Gwi Ma have their demonic natures bound into servitude to him. Thus, Rumi is not connected to Gwi Ma.

But Rumi is connected to the Honmoon. For the past five years she's helped strengthen it. Her voice is part of it and her soul is part of it. When her demon powers start to manifest, they ripple through the Honmoon.

So I think Rumi's patterns were starting to spread because her powers were increasing, because she is a demon connected to a massive spiritual network that is powered by human souls. Her voice failing at the same time was a consequence of her anxiety and burnout, not the patterns actually doing anything to her singing (except indirectly). In fact the reason her demon powers were getting stronger was because the Honmoon was getting stronger.

A fun idea to go with this interpretation: if Rumi's voice hadn't given out and Huntrix had rested up and resolved some stuff before properly completing the Golden Honmoon, Rumi would have still ended up going Full Demon Mode because she would have unwittingly created like a perfect base of power for herself. She would have become a demon king, comparable in might to Gwi Ma. Maybe that's even part of what was going on -- through her connection to the Honmoon, that was sealing Gwi Ma away, Rumi was also unwittingly taking his power for herself. This gets way more fanfic-y but I think it's quite fun to contemplate. Rumi thinks she's going to turn herself full human and instead she ends up usurping a millennia-old demon king and stealing his seat of power. Surprise!

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Hualian getting married before canon. Heaven hears reports that ghosts have been behaving strangely across the land. Many are stealing tokens and talismans of good fortune, red things, and items associated with weddings. They are all gathering in Ghost City. What devilish plot could Hua Cheng be cooking up?

So they send two people to sneak in and investigate. Only they are immediately caught and recognized as heavenly officals. Luckily, the ghosts holding them do not attack. Instead, they start ranting about how "its about time" and "better late than never" and what was that about thinking none of granduncle's friends were going to show up? Who's granduncle?

Which is how Fx&Mq (inadvertently) get kidnapped and (unintentionally) forced to watch Crimson Rain Sought Flower get married to....the Flower Crowned Martial God!!??

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Ok, reread of scum villain vol. 2 has been accomplished. Here are my thoughts and just things I wanted to note down (disclaimer: make sure to read these knowing the important context that liushen is my favorite ship lol)

I can't get over the Shen-Mu-Liu trio. Those are SQQ's BOYS and watching them interact is very fun. I also love that Mu Qingfang is medicine-pilled in the way that Shen Qingqiu is monster-pilled. Little did we know LQG is actually the most normal of the three

Shen "im just here to cause problems" Qingqiu saying "I know to get my way all i have to do is bat my pretty eyelashes at YQY and he will fold like a house of cards"

SQQ basically telling LQG that he's so strong so he must row the boat, and LQG is just absolutely FUMING because of how attracted he is to SQQ

SQQ referring to LQG as gege ah my heart

More of SQQ causing problems by trying stick Yang Yixuan onto LQG, which I love because you KNOW that in his grief post-Hua Yue City LQG went "fucking WATCH me"

Ngl I've read enough fanfic to realize that people don't really capture LQG's full personality. The usually make him so shy and tsundere that he's barely able to get a word in (Lan Zhan gets similar treatment) but no, he's just as catty as the rest of them

I need to figure out the timeline of how long Shen Yuan had been reading PIDW, it's endlessly important to me

LQG and MQF being like "our beloved little shixiong, please don't fret your pretty little head, just sit there and relax"

There really is some excellent physical comedy in SVSSS, like when SQQ is confronted by LBH and just defenestrates himself. You know that one scene in Angel Beats? Yeah it's exactly that

Qi Qingqi's eyebrows have now been brought up for a second time and it screams gender envy to me. Why are you as a "cis man" admiring a women's eyebrows so thoughtfully? So much to where it's the first thing you bring up about her appearance?

"Why?! Why were two grown men neurotically discussing a pice of clothing while surrounded by staring eyes?" never change Shen Yuan

I'm actually such a simp for Liu Qingge, i'm literally highlighting every mention of him and every word he speaks. I did not appreciate the Liuber my first time reading. He's also so incredibly tsundere "huff puff i can't believe you can't even ride your sword...get on"

Ugh I actually cried while reading the big confrontation. This did not happen my first read, but man it just got me. Also the very subtle POV switch that happens so we don't get any insight into SQQ's thoughts as he prepares to self-detonate

Mushroom Shen Qingqiu!!!! My Beloved!!!!!!! Def one of my favorite parts of the whole series. I think there are so many ways to play around with this character (hence my AU) but also there's this degree of freedom about it where even his internal dialogue is much more loose and less concerned with acting the part

Oh my...he referenced the succubus adventure...

Im sorry how did I completely black out the scene of LQG and SQQ playing hot potato with his corpse?!!?! Remember what I said about physical comedy!!

"Even a few hours ago, he genuinely wouldn't have cared where others (especially those of the same sex) touched him. They could touch wherever they liked, please go ahead" -- Things only said by straight who are 100% comfortable in their sexuality. Yeah. Totally

There are still good moments of seeing SQQ's dissociating himself from the events of the series and just treating everything and everyone as if it weren't "real," and how these thought patterns shift. Once again I think this would be a very fun thing to play around with and explore more

LIU QINGGE!!!! STOP MAKING ME SAD!!!!!!!! HE YEARNS SO MUCH

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happy fathers day :)

(PS these are their mothers :))

random trivia below the cut:

altair

altair was adopted by his dad xavier and his mom rinne

his favorite book is the little prince because his dad reads it to him all the time

he likes sword-fighting

he gardens with his mom and likes to cook using the vegetables they grow (he is a good cook)

rael and melody

half-lemurian twins due to their dad rafayel being lemurian and their mom aria being a human

melody's actual name is alia—she's called melody by most people but alia by close family and friends because her name is similar to her mom

aria named rael and rafayel named alia (simps...)

huahua

has a sweet tooth like her baba zayne (her mama jasmine scolds both of them for the amount of sugar they intake)

wants to be a doctor like her baba (she saw the scars on his arm and said she wants to heal him)

when zayne is busy she writes letters to him about her day and leaves it in a "mailbox" for him to read. he writes letters back and leaves some sweets for her if he's working the next day. if he's off though he makes her breakfast and tells her in-person

percy, penny, haoyu

the eldest percy is the troublemaker, the middle child penny is the smart one, and the youngest haoyu is just enjoying life

their dad caleb and their mom mei meant to stop at three. except they are feral beasts that crave each other so badly that there is now a fourth inside mei's stomach.

they're called the "san pingguos" (three apples) by their aunts and uncles

ruby

eye colors are from her dad sylus (red) and her mom lilia (amber) respectively

half-dragon, likes showing it off when she's at home

if you don't like her dad or mom she doesn't like you

luke and kieran are her older brothers and she finds them affectionately annoying

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Two months after Shen Jiu joins the sect he's finally forced to go get a full medical exam. It's remarkably tolerable- but they keep asking if he has any siblings and don't seem to be taking 'no' for an answer. Finally he's like "if I do I've never met them!" And fuck if the healers don't bring in an older boy with Shen Jiu's exact same face.

Chen Xuan is an inner disciple specializing in spiritual veins. He's from a middle class merchant family, but admits he doesn't look much like either of his parents.

Eventually they take a magical DNA test and yep, they are brothers.

Both of them are like, "this doesn't really change anything, I don't know you."

But they meet for tea frequently, and eventually after they become genuine friends Chen Xuan coaxes Shen Jiu to let him work on his spiritual veins. (Shen Jiu might start going to hide in his brother's room when he can't sleep but they never talk about that.)

Life goes on and not much is different until one year disciple selection gets Real Weird. Shen Qingqiu is just trying to snipe a promising kid from Liu Qingge - but then Ming Fan is like, "Shizun that other little boy bit me when I tried to separate them"

That other little boy, is of course Shen Yuan, who has his same face again. SQQ hadn't noticed him at first, he kept his head down. He's mentally cursing his slut-dad when Yue Qingyuan steps in and scoops up both boys despite his protests. (He noticed the mini Shen immediately)

Chen Xuan tells him later they do indeed have a new didi, just one thank the gods. If SQQ was related to both those little brats he'd kill someone.

He doesn't see either boy often but Shen Yuan has it out for him for some reason. He'll feel eyes on him and turn and there's that little street rat, glaring at him.

Again life goes on, once the boy's a little more settled he's invited to the brotherly tea meet ups. He and Shen Qingqiu reluctantly become fond of each other. (Chen Xuan's plan worked perfectly.)

Until Shen Yuan comes back from his first night hunt and crashes tea with a little baby girl. (Also Binghe comes too.)

SQQ rightfully asks why SY stole a baby and SY informs then that 1) the demon they killed had her in a sack so she was free not stolen and 2) "It's Meimei."

The two older men have sudden violent flashbacks to their past lives as Shen Yuan's Da-ge and Er-ge. Shen Yuan, of course has always remembered. After they recover from the shock they do another magical DNA test. The baby is definitely Meimei.

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I like to think the concept of Mobei Jun enjoying Shang Qinghua’s verbal rants ISN’T because MBJ isn’t thinking anything himself but is in fact Overthinking Everything. This man has been under constant threat from nearby sources his entire life. It’s probably pretty nice to hear this little hamster man beside him say all of his worries out loud and others that maybe he hadn’t considered yet and then Immediately find a way to counteract them.

Like first of all, the beautiful feeling of someone else ALSO being like ‘okay well maybe the fucking chandelier has been sabotaged to fall at the exact right time, has anyone planned for that??’ because MBJ’s been thinking it but one must also consider the optics of being a demon going around just attacking light sources, especially since he’s already destroyed three of them today, and being seen as afraid in general is Not a Great Look for survival and maintaining power.

But then SQH KEEPS talking and it’s all ‘and maybe it will explode in a poisonous gas that there’s only one antidote for god it’s a good thing cucumber-bro remembered that plotline and we were able to grab the Special Antidote Plant before this became a fucking issue for me to deal with on top of seating arrangements’ and MBJ hadn’t even considered the poisonous gas angle yet but that’s what he keeps this human around for. Validation and immediate escalation all tied up with Results. You can’t even say SQH is hyper cautious either because literally every time he starts mumbling about some insanely complicated potential sabotage it happens like five minutes later.

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✨SPIN THE WHEEL TO GET YOUR CHARACTER✨

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I think Airplane accidentally made the Heavenly Demons incestuous.

I think it was an accident not in the sense that Airplane wouldn't potentially do it on purpose, but that he just didn't think too hard about the elements he was smashing together in this aspect of the backstory, and it'd probably occur to him if he did think about it a bit more, but he didn't get there before he lost his notes. And then after that point he was selling out so even if he subsequently thought too hard about it, he wouldn't have brought it up because much like the thing with demons eating human flesh, Heavenly Demons being hugely inbred would probably not go over well with his majority readership.

But like. Bro created this bloodline of demons whose powers tend to breed true, and yet despite the fact that they've ostensibly lived among demonkind and even ruled them for generations, they've basically died out? Also despite being incredibly powerful? There are like three total left in the world, one of whom seems to be purely Heavenly Demon in terms of ancestry, the other two being 50/50 hybrids?

The only other Heavenly Demon we hear about is Zhuzhi Lang's mom, with an implication that her and Tianlang Jun's parents just had the two kids -- one boy and one girl. No info on where those parents came from either. No other Heavenly Demon branches or notable bloodlines that seem to exist or have recently died out.

Like I'm not saying there's DEFINITELY a Targaryen situation going on with the Heavenly Demons, but... there was definitely a Targaryen situation going on with the Heavenly Demons.

But again I do think this was accidental. It's the sort of thing that happens in people's fantasy world-building all the time. Airplane wasn't thinking about the implications, he was thinking about things like giving the protagonist a cool secret bloodline, making that bloodline both rare and powerful, and so on. Which wouldn't have mattered except that then this became part of an actual world, where things have to function and make sense as well as matching the token descriptions offered.

Mostly I don't think this would have much impact on the wider story except to let Tianlang Jun offer some inappropriate commentary on the whole shizunfucker situation. Like someone eventually makes a comment about it being kind of incestuous that Luo Binghe is with Shen Qingqiu and TLJ is just like, yeah funny thing about that actually.

Also this adds an interesting layer to TLJ and his sister's backstory. They were supposed to marry each other. Instead she ran off with a snake (literally) and he eventually hooked up with a human. Both of them tried to get so far away from the arranged incestuous sibling marriage that they developed a thing for interspecies romance instead.

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Still thinking about regressor!LQG

During one of his ‘runs’ he realizes that he had a qi deviation and was “reborn” shortly after sqq had a qi deviation leading to a complete 180 in personality and assumes ‘holy shit. Was sqq reborn too?’

Lqg confrontation goes something like: *in sqqs doorway* I Know What You Are

Sqq, terrified: Liu-shidi?? Whatever are you talking about??

Lqg, praying he’s correct: I know this isn’t… your first life. It’s- it’s not mine, either.

Sqq: ‘oh my god, another transmigrater’ *sputtering* YOU TOO??

They both have grossly different conclusions that are fundamentally the same.

(maybe this is how this AU can have a good end)

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I am just so deeply compelled by the concept of Vampires in a world where regular people can live for centuries and how that could make vampires’ lives easier and harder.

like it’s funny and convenient for Astarion that he wouldn’t have to lie about his age or try to cover up any personal anachronisms because he’s an elf

but I’ve also been thinking about a tav who is also a 200+ year old elf from Baldur’s Gate who generally prefers sketchy hangouts and they’ve spent two centuries occasionally ending up at the same tavern or inn or party as Astarion and like, he’s a memorable guy when he’s laying it on thick the way he does when he’s cruising for a victim. so they remember him

and at some point they started putting together missing persons in the paper with the people they see Astarion leave with and they’re like well. That’s circumstantial at best and not my business.

then they end up abducted and tadpoled and they escape the nautaloid and they’re walking with Shadowheart and they see Astarion on the path and they’re like

oh my god. no fucking way.

Astarion tries his little damsel in distress trick but they just interrupt him mid sentence like

You. 🫵

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This is it, this is my worst joke for sure

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An Ding Disciple, who found Mobei-Jun in her Shifu's Leisure House: What do you mean you guys aren't married? We've got like fifty bets riding on your sex life - Why haven't you married him???

Mobei-Jun, head in hands, surrounded by mind maps and charts with red string: IM TRYING-