#[musings] 「interpretations」

[vampire-in-the-corner]

i need to think about AMC Armand for a minute. About his passivity. I find it frustrating as a viewer, but I’m also deeply compelled by it. His most infuriating trait is what makes him so interesting. When he says “I could not prevent it,” I don’t think that he sees that as a lie. It’s not the truth, but I think he believes it. He’s so powerful and could at so many points take agency in the narrative, yet he chooses inaction. He lets Lestat destroy the cult, lets the Paris coven hold the trial, lets Louis kill them after, lets Daniel uncover the truth. He accepts whatever happens to him and makes it his life regardless of whether or not it’s what he wanted.

Claudia is a foil to this nature. She’s not the most powerful, but she always takes an active role in her own story. She makes her own choices even when they put her at risk. It’s why I don’t think the two of them ever could have gotten along; their natures are inherently opposed to one another. Even their similarities drive them apart—they both hate the reflections of themselves that they see in one another because of how their mirror reacts to trauma.

[psychopomp-namine]

YE6's butterfly effect. AKA: how did vein "die"?

I'm trying to puzzle out the butterfly effect in YE6, and here is my interpretation so far. if this theory is correct, it would also answer the question of who has the faking death ability and what exactly was liu xiao doing during the whole arc.

of course, feel free to correct me if I got this wrong. I could be missing some key information. I'm just writing this in an attempt to figure it out myself. also, this is gonna be a long post, sorry.

a lot of people are speculating that lu guang directly killed vein somehow through an ability, but I don't think that's what actually happened (although I wish that was the case). I also don't think the situation is as simple as "lu guang wanted vein dead" because I also think that liu xiao is interfering with the same events. there are two puppeteers in YE6, imho.

let's start with lu guang. for one thing, we know he can't directly kill vein with any of the abilities he has, since both scanning 12 hours of photo history and diving into the past require, well, a photo, which lu guang did not have. yingdu even stressed the rules of how both abilities work. if lu guang directly killed vein through ability use, this would imply he has another ability up his sleeve, and I really don't think we've been given enough evidence that points to that. if he always had this ability, why hasn't he used it before on vein in other timelines?

remember that yingdu has a lot of visual metaphors in its storytelling compared to other seasons. I believe lu guang caused the chain of events to happen in such a way that vein would die, but he was not the one to kill him, and that's why there's the animation of him orchestrating vein's death through wang qing, like a ventriloquist would control a puppet. in fact, I would go even further: lu guang and wang qing never got the chance to kill vein, although lu guang certainly thinks he did. we will circle back to this under the cut later, once we've built up the evidence to reach this conclusion.

another thing is the info we learned from an interview with director li. it is unfortunate, imo, that we had to learn this through an interview and not from the show itself (I feel this is yingdu's biggest writing flaw), but whatever. here are the key points to know though:

vein doesn't have an ability during yingdu arc

liu xiao has more than one ability (we know one of them already, which is interestingly enough, heartbeat related)

(not from the interview, but hinted in the show) someone has a "faking death" ability

before we go into the butterfly effect and how vein died, let's go over the details of his death:

from the autopsy report: vein's cause of death is myocardial infarction. aka a heart attack

xia fei later says there were no external injuries and no signs of poison

also, tiny detail, but vein was holding something like a tranquilizer gun in the clinic. the "bullets" he fired on both wang qing and cheng xiaoshi were meant to put them to sleep, not to kill them.

finally, let's lay out some character motivations. this will be important later.

liu xiao wants to get the notebook that belonged to cheng weimin. vein is working with him on this.

lu guang wants to avoid cheng xiaoshi's death node, and he plans to do it by killing vein

now, for the analysis. how did vein "die"?

let's establish something first. since xia fei doesn't know what happened to vein and is looking for the true culprit, we can rule out his involvement. he probably doesn't have the faking death ability, since it was used on vein. and vein doesn't have an ability. so the most likely person to have this ability would be liu xiao. he is also most likely the one to open the body bag with vein in it.

so we can now assume that liu xiao has two abilities:

he can sense someone's emotions and intentions through hearing their heartbeats

he can "fake death" (it is unclear how this works)

well. what an interesting combination! let's put a pin on that for now. remember this for later.

okay. now. let's switch over to lu guang. the big important question here is this: how did lu guang know that delaying vein from entering the clinic would lead to his death through a butterfly effect?

for full context, let's look at what lu guang says in his conversation with vein (I'm using ani-mi's translation, but I watched the bilibili one first and there aren't any drastic changes imo):

do you know the butterfly effect? in a dynamic system, event the smallest changes in initial conditions can lead to vastly different outcomes. I've been wondering, how do you alter a destined ending? what would happen if, before the conclusion, we added another fixed point? another unchangeable node? instead of avoiding deviations, why not let it deviate completely? I know I can't stop you. but I can make you stay a bit longer. now, you can go in.

two things here. first, the mention of an unchangeable node. aka a death node. lu guang for sure wanted vein to die. because if vein dies first, he can't kill cheng xiaoshi. simple logic; great plan.

next, from this speech, we can infer that lu guang planned to create a small change (a butterfly effect) that will lead to a big consequence (vein's death).

it's the second part that should clue us in. he said, "I can make you stay a bit longer. now, you can go in." he knows he can't stop vein from entering the clinic. but he can stall him. he can add a small bit of delay, long enough that it actually matters that vein went into the clinic later than usual.

lu guang knows the effect he wants (vein's death) so how does he know what event (stalling him) would cause the domino effect that leads to it? why does that small delay matter?

let's look at what that extra bit of time actually changed. by delaying vein, another important event happens: cheng xiaoshi has extra time with wang qing, long enough for him to meet his mom, shao yuanyuan. cheng xiaoshi then learns that shao yuanyuan is trying to save cheng weimin. he promises to wait for them and to stop investigating. it is after he makes this promise that vein enters.

we can now infer one more thing here: cheng xiaoshi did not meet his mom through wang qing in the original order of events. this event only happens because lu guang stalled vein.

most likely, in the original order of events, vein incapacitated wang qing too early for her to do anything to him. we don't know what her ability is, but it doesn't matter for this post. all we need to know is that lu guang believes wang qing could kill vein if she was never put to sleep. that is the point of stalling vein from entering the clinic early.

so here's part one of my theory. from lu guang's perspective, this is the plan to kill vein:

stall vein from entering the clinic

because vein entered late, wang qing was possessed by someone with better fighting abilities, allowing her to hold out during the fight

she is then freed from possession, and is still awake when vein tries to leave with the notebook

I don't think we have enough information to really explain what happens next, but what's supposed to happen, imo, is that wang qing kills vein, either through her own ability or someone else uses her to do it. it doesn't really matter how, but this is what is supposed to happen. this is what lu guang wanted to happen. for the sake of this post, we will assume wang qing has an ability to kill vein

vein dies, therefore he can't go to the time photo studio in the future to kill cheng xiaoshi

that's lu guang's butterfly effect. stall vein -> vein dies -> cheng xiaoshi lives.

simple? not quite. I did mention there's another person interfering with these events.

everything I mentioned above is from lu guang's perspective, and that this is what's supposed to happen. but let's look at the actual order of events.

wang qing wakes up (is freed from possession), notices the notebook on vein, and calls his name (interesting point: she knows his full chinese name). at this point, her eyes have NOT changed color yet.

vein gets a heart attack

only after that does wang qing's eyes change color

we know that changing eye colors is not diegetic, meaning this is more for the audience's benefit. their eyes don't really change color in-universe. sometimes they don't even show us eye colors changing. but when they do show us, we have to pay attention.

therefore, I believe that the timing of the shift in eye color matters.

so here's part two of my theory. liu xiao knew lu guang is going to interfere, so he already arranged a "fake death" for vein in advance (which he doesn't tell vein about lmao, but he seems to have figured it out when he gets the heart attack)

this is how, I believe, yingdu happened from liu xiao's perspective:

he wants cheng weimin's notebook. wang qing has it, but would never give it to him. but she might for cheng weimin's son

he baits cheng xiaoshi into going to bridon

he heard lu guang's heartbeat in the airport, which tipped him off that he's someone he should watch out for

he confirmed that cheng xiaoshi and lu guang are investigating cheng weimin

he assigns xia fei to keep an eye on their progress

he planned to use cheng xiaoshi to bait wang qing into giving up information about the notebook. this is why when xia fei told him that cheng xiaoshi was about to meet her, liu xiao reacts like this is the expected outcome

he assigns vein to get the notebook because wang qing is about to reveal the location. but he also knows that lu guang is kinda shady, so when lu guang stalls vein (and tells him! bro don't tell your plans to your victims! don't tell him you're trying to make a butterfly effect!), liu xiao either just knew this would happen or vein tipped him off before going in

now, notice that vein gets a heart attack before wang qing uses an ability (or is used, whatever) to kill vein. and what have we established before at the beginning of this post? liu xiao has a heartbeat related ability and can fake a death. we don't know the mechanics of the second ability, but we know that compatible abilities can combo with each other. it's not far-fetched to think that liu xiao can fake death with a heart attack

later, we see vein wake up after someone (most likely liu xiao) opens his body bag

so now who's fooled? the police arrives and even does an autopsy. they declare vein dead. lu guang is relieved, and for years he believes this. vein doesn't even visit the studio in 2021 (though li tianchen does, through liu min, but that's neither here nor there). he avoided a death node by creating another one. we can let him believe this lie for a little while...

TL;DR lu guang created a butterfly effect by stalling vein, and that creates a domino effect that should have led to vein's death. except he's not the only one interfering with the timeline. while this is happening, liu xiao orchestrates a fake death for vein before his supposed death actually happens, allowing him to act dead during the autopsy and "revive" later

EDIT: this post was written before the interview translation came out, though I don't think this it contradicts anything here; if anything, this post is in line with the interview.

if you're interested, additional thoughts on vein's death can be found in the following links:

reblog of this post: the fake death ability might be wang qing's, or an effect of a combination of wang qing and liu xiao's ability. I posit in this post that I think liu xiao has the ability; in hindsight, it probably relates to wang qing, though I still think that the "heart attack" is related to liu xiao

thematic analysis (as opposed to plot analysis) on vein's death. I am a huge believer that link click is best analyzed through themes than plot tbh

additional thoughts on lu guang's characterization throughout all of this

[what-about-zaladane]

What if you don't relate to your Rising Sign? Meet your Chart Ruler

A lot of people don't identify with their ascendant. That's okay. And it might be because their Chart Ruler is steering their chart in a different direction.

The chart ruler is the planet that rules your rising sign (or ascendant). It tells you the moves you make in the world, underneath the style of your Rising.

Aries: Mars

Taurus: Venus

Gemini: Mercury

Cancer: Moon

Leo: Sun

Virgo: Mercury

Libra: Venus

Scorpio: Mars (and kinda Pluto)

Sagittarius: Jupiter

Capricorn: Saturn

Aquarius: Saturn (and kinda Uranus)

Pisces: Jupiter (and kinda Neptune)

(There's a lot of back-and-forth about traditional vs. modern rulerships, but that matters less for this post. We're going to go with mostly traditional, with modern rulers added on for a little flavor.)

Important Distinction

The Ascendant is the filter, the style, interface. It's how you move.

The Chart Ruler is the driver, the body, the animating part. It's the moves you make.

If your Ascendant is your "mask", the Chart Ruler is the person who picked it out.

The Ascendant might describe how you initiate your approach, but the Chart Ruler describes what you're actually trying to do.

Some Examples

You're a Taurus Rising but you feel restless, sharp and intense -- not slow, methodical and grounded? Check out where your Venus is in your chart -- it might be in Aries. If so, your moves might be careful, but the actions they take are a lot more intense than your Taurus Rising gives you credit for.

If you're a Aries Rising but you feel quiet, structured and methodical in your heart instead of brash and confrontational, check out your Mars placement. It might be in Capricorn. (In which case, congratulations, your Mars is exhalted.) You have a lot more stamina, forethought and resilience than your Aries Rising says you do.

If you're a Scorpio Rising but you're charming, bubbly and maybe a little bit scattered, maybe your Mars is in Gemini. That will change how your Scorpio tone plays out in lived reality. (Psst - check out what your Pluto is doing too. It'll show you how your Scorpio depth and intensity is directed and how it plays out. Maybe it's in Libra and you're the world's most amiable Gen-X Scorpio.)

The Ascendant is the hypothetical approach -- all else equal, how do you approach life compared to a different Sign on the horizon? The Chart Ruler is the actual reality -- how does your energetic approach actually show up in day to day life?

Conclusion

If you feel disconnected to your Rising Sign -- you're not wrong, and neither is astrology. You just need to look elsewhere on your chart for deeper answers. There's more to the story. Your chart ruler is you walking that story in your own way. Your Chart Ruler shows you how the Character in your Rising lives, moves and makes decisions.

If the Rising Sign is the Archetype, the Chart Ruler is how you play your position.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Mdzs fandom: I've got an ironclad objective and unambiguous account of this event as it happened in canon.

Me: Is it actually unambiguous?

Fandom: I don't understand

Me: I want to know if you have an ironclad unambiguous objective account of an event, or an in-universe subjective interpretation where the truth is intentionally left up to speculation?

Fandom: I have the objective account

Me: you're sure? It's fine if you have a subjective interpretation.

Fandom: I have an objective unambiguous account. I do not have a subjective interpretation

Me: Alright! Please give me the objective account.

Fandom: Here you go. *hands me an in-universe subjective interpretation of something where the truth is intentionally left up to speculation*

[yaekiss]

its monsterfucking hours again. maybe ive just been watching too many minecraft horror mods but i need an eldritch being of mass destruction obsessed with me right now sigh. -🪻

𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝟑𝑳𝑫

꩜ Room Content: GN! Researcher! Reader x Yandere! Ivory Wraith, no gendered terms for reader, mild horror(?), lmk if I missed out anything! ꩜ A/N: omg minecraft horror mod videos... is it by any chance The Obsessed? Hmmm honestly any character could have eldritch potential if you try hard enough. Tried out a new way of writing for this one, lmk if it's effective for this fic! ꩜ Spin this wheel and submit a prompt + character for a quick blurb!

Experiment 3LD, helmed by the renowned Dr. ▇▇▇▇▇. The experiment will be conducted over a period of 44 days. See below for the assistant researcher's compiled voice notes:

1VRY.

Day 4, 10.03am - Otherwise known as the Ivory Wraith, we have managed to contain it within a temporary holding cell for the time being. A more advanced enclosure facility is currently being built for it. Although we are still unsure of exactly its abilities work, a strict rule of no mirrors within a set radius has been implemented.

Day 13, 12.45pm - Monitoring the experiment subject proves to be challenging. Its behavior seems to vary wildly from staying abnormally still, akin to a statue carved from pure ivory, to clawing at its neck and stalking to and fro frantically in its cell. The sight is wildly unsettling resulting in all of the other researchers vacating the observation room.

Day 21, 4.38pm - It seems that we have managed to procure a relic related to the experiment subject. It is an ivory necklace, inset with deep blue jewels. The Ivory Wraith seems to have the ability to sense whenever someone is in contact with the relic, where as soon as one of the other researchers touches a part of the necklace, it immediately appears in front of the observation glass, its expression terrible and haunting. Due to this, most of the other researchers have requested to leave the research team, leaving myself as the sole and resulting, assistant researcher.

Day 32, 6.20pm - 1VRY has appeared to have realised that the sole researcher left on behind the observation glass is myself. Strangely enough, its aggressive behavior has lessened, as long as no contact is made with the ivory necklace relic. Now, it usually spends its days hovering around the front of its cell where the glass is, its gaze never parting from my position. Occasionally, trills and whispers are heard from the otherwise quiet surroundings. Its larger, more fully equipped enclosure facility is finally done and attempts to transfer 1VRY will be made in the coming days when the team is fully prepared.

Day 40, 10.13pm - Preparations by the researcher team, consisting solely of myself, and the moving team are almost complete. 1VRY's behavior has reverted back to before, where it is erratic and volatile, prone to lashing out at the observational glass whenever my presence is requested elsewhere, resulting in scratches engraved into the glass. The whispers have also grown in frequency, although no one else has reported hearing anything. Additionally, the same behavior is observed when someone else other than myself is also in the observation room. This has made it difficult to efficiently prepare for its transfer but with consistent effort, we estimate that it could be done in about 4 days' time.

Day 42, 11.04pm - The moving team has just packed up and moved the ivory necklace relic to the new enclosure facility. This however, contradicts the earlier observations of how 1VRY reacts aggressively to the relic being touched by people other than myself. As of right now, it is still continuing its previous docile behavior of simply staring through the glass. Stranger yet, it seems to shift into something more unnatural between bleary blinks. Something smiling too wide with too many teeth, its usual blue eyes a vivid red, along with a swath of tentacles behind its form. However, unnatural does not necessary equate to threatening, perhaps this could be a sort of tempting and alluring another individual. Or it could just be a mirage ability it has? Note to self: Stop staying too late in the observational room...

Day 43, 11.49pm - Terrible miscommunication has occurred between myself and the moving team. It turns out that the ivory necklace was not moved by them. And yet, no one else has come into contact with the relic. 1VRY's transfer must be done immediately with how the certain preparations only allow us a limited timeframe of working with it. There is no choice but for me to search for the relic so that the transfer can go through in the next few hours. Despite the ongoing panic beyond the glass, 1VRY has taken on a sort of behavior that suggests attraction towards something in the observational room. There is no available time for myself to properly document its new state as of the current situation, and it does not help that the lights overhead have been flickering. [Faint static can be heard before the voice note ends.]

Day 44, 12.11am - [The voice note is interspersed with bouts of static, making it hard to decipher at some parts.] I... I don't understand. Why is the ivory necklace in my ▇ab coat pocket? I haven't touched the relic since the contact tests c▇nduct▇d on it on Day 22. This makes no s▇nse. [Sounds of shuffling, presumably the researcher moving.] 1VRY...?

Day 44, 12.29am - [Alarms blare overhead. The static grows worse.] Thi▇ is terrible. The lights in th▇ holdin▇ cell have g▇ne out, altho▇gh it remains o▇ in here. There shou▇ be a flashl▇ght here somewhere. [Sounds of shuffling, then a click, presumably the flashlight turning on.] F▇ck f▇ck f▇ck f▇ck. Where is it? [A chilling laugh is heard, followed by a low trill before the voice note cuts out abruptly.]

Day 44, 12.44am - [The voice note is eerily quiet, no alarms or commotion in the background. The voice speaking is new.] Presented as gift, there is no thief. Drown with me. Forever.

Additional information:

Dr. ▇▇▇▇▇ has put out an order for this experimental failure to be kept under wraps. Not a single soul outside of the organisation can learn of this. Although, there have been rumors swirling of a mysterious file on their desk. [3LD - "Assistant Researcher"]

Thanks for reading! Consider supporting me on kofi if you enjoyed this or check out my other works hehe ♡

If you'd like to request a full fic of your own, do consider checking out my event post!

[ghost-bxrd]

Do you think Bruce was in the wrong in utrh? Do you think he should have killed the joker, or that he failed Jason?

I think Bruce handled the situation completely wrong. In its entirety.

Yes, he failed Jason. Both as Batman and as a father.

Killing Joker isn’t necessarily something I would want Bruce to do… well, no, I do. But I understand that he can’t. So that’s really not the hard part I got hung up on.

What got to me was the way he didn’t even try very much to compromise. Not a single second of genuine joy over Jason being alive, overshadowed by his actions as it may have been.

And yes, Jason was being downright nasty, but Bruce “greatest-detective-slash-everyone-deserves-a-second-chance-slash-philanthropist” almost killing him and leaving him there in favor of saving Joker?

Nope, sorry. There aint no coming back from that sort of shit.

A real father— or hell, even a good MENTOR— would have tried to compromise with the miracle of a (child) man standing there. Would have gone weak kneed with disbelief-grief-hope.

So yeah, I think Bruce failed Jason in almost every way possible.

Bruce saw a cold hearted killer in the Red Hood, a failed project. A rogue soldier. His mistake.

In reality, Red Hood is a scared, angry teenager that just wanted a single ounce of proof that he wasn’t discarded like a stray dog at the first chance they got.

[marokra]

something about movieverse Sage interests me. i’ve seen a lot of concepts, theories, and ideas thrown around and i adore every single one of them, but honestly i have to wonder why Sage would be created in the first place.

Both she and Stone are both driven by the same thing—loyalty, the only difference being that the former’s coding had that as it’s basis. fundementally, at least from movie 1 Robotnik’s point of view, they serve the same purpose, to protect him, to serve his whims and carry out orders to a tee. having two while only one worked perfectly fine would be redundant, again, from his pov, therefore there wouldn’t be any reason to pursue Sage’s creation. well, unless there was some sort of need.

maybe she was created to assist Robotnik on that mushroom planet, or as a post-sonic 3 thing with fix-it fic undertones.

maybe she was a years-old passion project, some scrapped lines of code he never had the time or purpose to pursue, as she wasn’t particularly needed. he didn’t need a hyperintelligent ai that was built purely to protect and aid him, as Stone did that job well enough already, despite being oh-so-painfully human. so that leads me to wonder which circumstances would drive Robotnik to pursue this dead end, to finish what he started.

there’s a lot of possibilities that could lead to it, honestly. mainly driven from the idea of separation, at least how i see it.

maybe he based her personality on Stone, just a little, most likely unintentionally. deriving from his loyalty, maybe a stray mannerism here and there. Sage, once sentient, once she gets introduced to him, i feel like she’d start to notice the little similarities within her code.

not much gets past an AI, really. she noticed the agent’s quirks, and upon doing a deep dive of her own code, she’d come to realize she had ended up adopting those same mannerisms, that unwavering loyalty towards her father, despite not having known the agent long enough for the mirroring to kick in. it intrigues her. what about the man would drive her father to allow her to mimic him? to deem those traits important enough to include in her code?

but as she kept observing, cataloguing even the simplest of things; like the way he made lattes, his thinly veiled distaste for humanity, and the way he looked at her father like he was the embodiment of the scorching, sharp, yet ever so radiant sun, was when the pieces started to fall into place.

noticing the things that her father loved about his assistant (even though he would deny it to hell and back if she brought up her hypothesis) answered her questions quite clearly.

she knew regular children take on the image of both of their parents. and if her theory was correct, maybe she would come to see Agent Stone as her father, too.

[aza-trash-can]

I think it's infinitely funny if Dick changes his suit after every traumatic event/series of events. Something horrible happens to him, and he just says "hold on, gotta change my outfit." Consider:

Becomes Robin after his parents die

Becomes Nightwing (Discowing) after getting shot and having a monumental falling-out with Bruce

Changes Nightwing suit to black suit with blue emblem (à la Young Justice Cartoon S2) after The Worst Year™ (minimum of Jason dying, other events to be added as you headcanon)

Changes Nightwing suit again after the Bruce Time Stream Incident™ to include the arm stripes

If I were to get a little more into it, though, I think the suit changes (more so the later ones into/as Nightwing) could be a way for him to put distance between himself and the traumatic event. It's a way for him to leave that 'era' of his life behind and try to rebuild himself away from it by physically ditching a symbol of that time and wearing something new

[dialalagirl]

laito angst? i heard laito angst? my favorite type of angst? :3

~Annabel Lee~

Her body was cold.

A blade of light sliced through her hair, scattering across the pew—spiders, he thought, weaving their webs there.

On the pallor of her face, it rose like the moon—inevitable, even as the sun like her faded. Resting on her cheek, the kaleidoscope of light spilled through the church’s mosaic.

He curled beside her, close to the once-aching body—a child longing, perhaps, for the fantasy of what his mother should have been.

“Ne, bitch-chan…” His voice cracked, a twisted tenderness. “You look beautiful… like mine, even.”

He buried his face in her neck, inhaling the scent of death and the last whispers of what’s left—too many dried bite marks, too many scabs. “Your God really is cruel…”

“Won’t you come back? Please… I can say it, just like that.”

His voice cracked again, her pallid skin soaking in the tears he couldn’t shed—tears of fear, sorrow, everything he consumed just to avoid draining her to the bone. Only for her to leave him like this. Alone.

“I love you.”

This was his punishment. This was his fault.

When he asked to borrow Subaru’s knife, Subaru didn’t question it. He understood.

“My Juliet… Ah… it can’t be helped, I guess.”

One stab, and he joined you—your Romeo, if only in the depths of hell, your kingdom by the sea.

[aguita-mineral]

✨🎭A bard and his muse🎭✨

Based on this Pic ⬇️ c:

[fly-sky-high-bug-games]

Just wanna say Taka and his situationship intrigues me greatly. I'd love to learn more about that bug

Yippee! He's my silly little troupe guy!

Out of all characters, I think Taka goes through most of the changes in the duration of his life (and death lmao)

His time at the troupe with Grimm is, surprisingly, the least bit of his life that I've worked on so last time I've mostly been going through some of that period of his.

I did write that he becomes a tad unhinged while there, mostly to spite Grimm but that was near the end of his time with the troupe. He becomes a bit too good at his job as a grimmkin and a keeper of the flame. Somehow it's fun to prolong the cycles Grimm has because Taka expect him to get upset. Too bad Grimm knows him too well and it works only a bit lol

But now I'm adding some of that on top it. I've been thinking how the whole grimmkin stuff at the troupe works or how being part of it is like.

I'd consider bugs who are part of it to be stuck in the same repeating cycle as Grimm (however, just like when joining, he lets them leave when ever they want as well). Being bound to The Heart makes them immortal in a sense while they're still part of the troupe and in possession of the flame.

When a new Grimmchild keeper or a summoner shows up, they still need to collect the flames from different grimmkin until it's enough. They have to fight and earn the flame. They can chose to spare grimmkin if they want to or they can choose to fight to the death (something Taka loves to offer as he gets more comfortable within the troupe~)

What happens when grimmkin die? They can either choose to leave their soul to The Heart, which offered them in the first place, or they can choose to resurrect using it. After all, the more members there are the more flames to feed The Heart.

Resurrection can be painful and takes a toll on the grimmkin so they have to have some time to recover their bodies and flame. They basically respawn at the tent lol

He gets a biiiit too attached to the sensation...~

(cue Taka passing out right after this and Grimm standing next to him looking unimpressed lol)

[apollos-boyfriend]

icarus may i ask you for some leviathan panels 👉👈

compilation of my sweetest baby angel…. (she is older than humanity itself and could end us all in the blink of an eye if she wanted)

bonus bc i think it’s funny to include here specifically

[umbrace-rambles]

I find interesting how most people that have watched the SFH k-drama immediately assume, from what I've read in most fics, that Moonjo's time at the orphanage was terrible, or that his parents abused him. Ofc these are completely valid interpretations of his story given the context of the adaptation and the changes they made. For example, Moonjo doesn't have any scars in the webtoon. I personally think that the ones he has in the series are inflicted by his victims and not abuse

But if you've read the webtoon trilogy it couldn't be more of an opposite- we still don't know what his parents were like or what happened to them. The only claim canon has related to them is Moonjo saying that "his father passed away when he was young and his mother had some mental health issues" and he may or may not be lying. We DO know he didn't kill his parents, because his first kill is in the orphanage, and as far as I remember Bokja (Mrs Eom) said that she found him by chance, so he most likely ran away or got abandoned by them.

He ends up in the orphanage when he's 10, which is NOT yet run by Bokja, but her sister. And while I will save all the juicy details of the backstory for my longer post related to Form of a Nightmare, we are told several times that the orphanage was actually wonderful and the children there were very happy. It was Moonjo's appearance on it that absolutely contaminated and destroyed the place- which is wonderfully fitting to his character.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Do we have any evidence for Fitz being autistic?

There's a few symptoms we could draw on !!

Sameness/textures--Fitz has multiple identical pairs of the same pajamas, as seen when he loans them to Keefe and Dex. Intended to be a rich thing, but could be interpreted as being specific about fabric and fit.

Friendships--prior to the story, Fitz doesn't appear to have any friends. Just Keefe, and the two of them were given a nudge by Alden. This wasn't helped by his disappearances, but a difficulty connecting to others could also play a role. Even now, his primary tie is to Sophie and Biana, not the whole group.

We could also look at his difficulty with changing how he thinks or how he manages strong emotion, though those aren't as strong of points since they're easily attributed to his background as a Vacker and the primary emotion we focus on is anger.

You could go further, but those are the points that stand out strongest to me. The distance he seems to have from the group and the way he's bought into expectations put on him as if they're natural, and his difficulty letting that go.

It's not definitive, but it's a starting point :)

[palamedespoetry]

it's only a given that mythological figures don't follow a narrative arc from author-to-author but also. consider. we have two characters here who were enemies to odysseus; palamedes, who was violated by him, and telamonian ajax, who was honoured by him. and it seems that both of them have the opposite reactions to it.

palamedes

death was caused by odysseus

corpse is denied proper burial by agamemnon

telamonian ajax defends (and performs) his right to a burial

despite it all; palamedes in the underworld is... lenient, almost. from the only account we have of his shade, he simply says "let us spare odysseus from now on." in response to his farmer-admirer that wanted to beat up odysseus

telamonian ajax

ok yeah it was suicide but it was caused by odysseus' victory so. he's there. included

corpse is denied proper burial by agamemnon

odysseus and teucer defend his right to a burial (it's odysseus' words that convince agamemnon)

despite it all; ajax is relentless in his rage against odysseus, refusing to even speak to him in the underworld, before turning his back

mind you, both of these men were close companions in life! yet, their deaths are so similar, but so different. it gets even more interesting when you consider the gap between these events – with palamedes' being somewhere during the trojan war, and ajax's in the last year of it. just. all very interesting to chew on.

[fulcrum-art-fox]

I think the moment Brooklynn stays behind with the Handler and hatches the plan for them to ride in the atrociraptor truck to the bust is very interesting. Like, Brooklynn was never going to let the Handler, the woman who tried to kill her, waltz into the sunset with four “assassin dinos” as she puts it; she wants to take the Handler down just like Soyona Santos, and seemingly impulsively, this becomes part of that, taking her to the location she intends to get Soyona arrested and then trying to kick her out of the truck and into the melee. But the moment she stops to help unlock the cages is interesting. The Handler marched her here, but when she gets in the truck, Brooklynn has the opportunity to flee, and she almost does. But she hears the Handler’s distress at being unable to open the cages. And she stays. She helps her open the cages. She sympathises with her. Was there a genuine note in that, a realisation that the woman who’s haunted her nightmares has things she genuinely cares about and would do anything for, just like Brooklynn? That there may be fewer differences between herself and this driven, competent and dangerous woman than she’d like to think? Though it’s like she says in s2, if she’s going to take Soyona down she has to “get inside her head”, and this feeds directly into that. She has to bait the trap and it has to be convincing. If she keeps the Handler and the raptors in the truck and gets them to the bust they can all be captured. Darius and the others eventually figure it out, that Brooklynn is not the victim here, that it’s not about where the Handler would take Brooklynn, but where Brooklynn would take the Handler. But was there ever a genuine note mixed in there, or was it just cold calculation, recognition that situation provides Brooklynn a foothold she can exploit to get the Handler taken down?