#Questions of the century...

[gynaephora]

After all that I think we need to be the friends covered in blood!

(Joking,unless???)

UNLESS...

I'd love to be the friends covered in blood with you, though :] But where's the blood coming from?

[notbecauseofvictories]

I don't know how strictly accurate this is, but one of the things I find shocking about watching historical dramas is how many people there are around all the time---according to Madame de... (1953) a well-off French household in the Belle Epoque maintains a workforce of at least 3, and the glittering opera has staff just to open doors. According to Shogun (2024) you can expect a deep bench just to mind your household, and again, people who exist to open doors.

Could people....not open doors in the past? Were doors tricky, before the standardization of hinges? Because otherwise, the wealthy used to pay a whole bunch of people to do it for them in multiple contexts, and I find myself baffled.

[nadiajustbe]

One of my favorite parts about the writing of Howl's Moving Castle is how easy it is to write off all the things from our world at first as him just being a weird wizard™ (also thanks to bestie @jutenium for spotting this I wouldn't put it like that without you!!/pos). Sure, Sophie uses weird descriptions, but readers have every reason to believe them because of the way Howl is presented as a character. When Sophie says he wrote with a quill that doesn't need an ink, you wouldn't think it was actually a ballpoint pen, you would think Howl had just enchanted his quill so that it wouldn't need ink! When she adds that she can't make out a single word, you think he has matchingly terrible handwriting, but in fact Sophie has simply never seen a pen writing. When she sees the mysterious labels on his books, you think he's keeping a lot of obscure magical literature, but it's really just an encyclopedia and a guide like "Top 10 Rugby Tips." When Sophie notices the bottles in Howl's bathtub, you think they're some kind of magical jars where he keeps girl's hearts, but I'm almost certain that they're just 'Dove' and 'Head and Shoulders' that he's enhanced with his spells and put silly labels on. When you read Calicifer singing a song in a language Sophie doesn't understand, you think it's some kind of ancient cipher or code, but it's actually just a rugby song in Welsh that Howl sings when he's drunk. And finally, when you see the terrifying black door, which is completely shrouded in darkness, you imagine a passage to an eerie, mythical place, similar to what Miyazaki showed us - but it's just fucking Wales.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 215

Danny has found himself as a cat. And there’s good news and bad news about it. The good news is that he’s a magical cat or something similar, seeing as he has two tails and can go Very Big if he wants to. Bad news? He’s pretty sure they’re in a different dimension now. 

Cute news, both Ellie and Jordan are itty bitty kittens and utterly adorable, he would murder for them. They’re so tiny! Like, yeah they got physically de-aged before all this so they could properly pass as his kids- along with part of Dan’s parole- but this? He could hold them in his hands if he still had them! 

Alright! First things first, find a shelter and avoid the destroyed buildings along with whatever destroyed them in the first place. Then he could figure out if this is an accident or some sort of forced vacation. But shelter first. 

[chinzhilla]

Vee is a fox concealing himself in Khun Vad's fate, like the nine-tailed fox that possessed the consort Daji. Have you been watching Naruto again?

[sacredashes]

Male characters don’t seem to inspire this kind of public venting and vitriol.

Mythal (& Solas) // Anna Gunn's I Have a Character Issue

[historical-fashion-polls]

[featheredcrowbones]

diavolo is immune to lucifer’s tantrums

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

Skirt suit, c.1880s

Dove gray wool trimmed with velvet and gray cording; off-white silk lining.

via valentine museum

[cassandra-silver]

This came to me earlier, and now I am utterly obsessed: While it was clear to me that Odysseus stabbing Poseidon wasn't any kind of Vengeance, there was one act of Vengeance after all, even if inadvertent—it was Odysseus disproving Poseidon's "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" belief right in front of his very eyes. With him as the subject, even.

Think about it—the fact that Poseidon remained ruthless and insisted on punishing Odysseus was the only reason he got stabbed repeatedly. If Poseidon had been merciful, if he had accepted Odysseus' offer of forgiveness, he would've been fine. His own ruthlessness backfired so hard on him this time that I am sincerely hoping it haunts him forever.

I am actually utterly obsessed with Poseidon thinking back to Odysseus "Maybe you could learn to forgive?" on a daily, no an hourly basis. I cannot and will not lie to you that is unironically my favorite moment in the whole Vengeance saga just because of what it says about both the characters—about Odysseus for offering and Poseidon for declining (and also because Odysseus sings it in Poseidon's own motif which is just absolutely brilliant.) And this makes me love it even more.

Poseidon was going to decline, we all know that. I don't think anyone watching—even Odysseus, probably—expected him to accept. But then I'm picturing him lying there, bleeding into the stone, and, against his will, wondering whether maybe he should have. Maybe if he had, he wouldn't be in pain. Maybe if he had not killed Odysseus' fleet ten years ago, he wouldn't be in pain either. Maybe this one time ruthlessness wasn't mercy upon himself—maybe this time, his one grand belief was wrong. Maybe ... it was always wrong.

Obviously, he would never admit to these thoughts, he would slap himself for having them one second later. But I simply need this self-proclaimed god of ruthlessness to be utterly haunted by that and question whether he made the right choice or no—whether he's even lived by the correct philosophy all his immortal life—and no matter what, be too stubborn to admit he was wrong.

He's trying to pretend like nothing changed, but the thoughts still remain. They pester him. They won't leave him alone. Especially every time someone—anyone—is kind to him for whatever reason, they come crashing back into him and they won't leave.

"What if my own ruthlessness hurt me that time?"

"What if ruthlessness isn't mercy upon ourselves after all?"

"What if I'm wrong?"

"What if I have always been wrong?"

The most dreadful thoughts imaginable to a god as proud and stubborn and old as Poseidon, but they're there now and he can't do anything about them. You all don't understand how much I NEED this god to jolt up in his bed at 3 am after having a dream or nightmare about something related to one of his many ruthless deeds (maybe even sinking Odysseus' fleet) and go "BUT WHAT IF I HAD LEARNED TO FORGIVE?? WHAT IF I STILL COULD??" only to immediately slap himself for it because that's absolutely ridiculous.

He is left to watch this belief shatter before his very eyes as he's clinging to the remains of it desperately, trying to keep it all from crumbling. Not because he genuinely believes he's right anymore, but because he simply cannot imagine ... does not know how to live by any other philosophy.

No matter whether it's objectively correct or not, it's the very thing that defines him. The thing he's known for. He has built his entire image around this, he cannot give it up no matter what ... at least not quickly or without help.

But as much he would seek to deny it, his core belief has now been proven wrong; he has actually lived through an instance where it was wrong, and he can do nothing to erase those memories or conclusions from his mind no matter how much he yearns to go back to simpler times.

And that was the real Vengeance, guys—possibly the biggest, most painful existential crisis of Poseidon's immortal life. I rest my case.

Although before I disappear back into the void I simply must give a shout out to @o3o-lapd-o3o (this came to me during a conversation in one of their comment sections for the glorious Friends In Higher Places AU, which is quite possibly my favorite piece of EPIC fan content that exists ...)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 249

Danny tilts his head. The masked figure across the roof tilts their head back, a gold similar to Tucker’s eyes shimmering, though he knew it wasn’t him. He lets out a curious chirp, inaudible to the living, and the masked figure stills, as silent as a corpse for several moments before letting out two clicks. 

A greeting in turn. 

Danny smiles, letting green bleed into his eyes and scurrying over with a croon from his core. I’m here, I’m here, their own core clatters like metal against bone as his responds with the drone of a blackhole. I see you, I see you. I’m HereHereHere. 

Yet another twitters in turn, clicking echoing across the city from shadow to shadow until it’s as though the city itself has a heartbeat. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. I’m here, I’m here, not alone, I’m Here. 

[nemfrog]

Title page.

Man--where, whence, and whither? 1868.

Internet Archive

[tanadrin]

it’s interesting how no religion (with all the caveats the use of that word entails) can resist making cosmological and scientific claims, and that this is true even for very recently invented religions that ought to know the risk of their claims getting debunked is very high. if I were going to start a religion, I would at least make sure it wouldn’t be debunked in my lifetime.

[dailyrothko]

Glad you’re on here , trust your posts

like Rothko but don’t know a lot of his work and am wary that there’s probably a lot of fakes / people’s versions circulating online and I only want the real thing -

I appreciate your confidence and, while, I made mistakes early on being too trusting, I'm pretty thorough these days even though anything can happen!

Examples this week:

One thing prominently lately has been this scan of Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1960, which is a real painting, but is upside down here and decidedly too red (in my view).

The proper orientation on this (and a better photo) is this:

Meanwhile, I'm not sure how this got taken for a real Rothko, but it's been making the rounds:

If you're pretty familiar with Rothko I think you can tell this is not the real thing, but its internet life persists. I think it's from one of those thousands of "Inspired by" canvas prints shops but the original origin is unknown to me.

[lyculuscaelus]

We’re in one of the oldest fandoms where the canon itself is long lost and the source materials for us to draw inspiration from are those of the earliest fanfics themselves—two of which being commonly accepted as beta canon due to their top quality. Sometimes these fanfics contradict each other due to all sorts of OOCs and inconsistencies which is forcing us to choose our own sources to rely on to draw fanart and write fanfics. Each generation of fanfic writers are introducing more headcanons in their works and sometimes their fanfics of fanfics become so popular that they are prompting new sub-fandoms to emerge, inspiring more people to draw fanart and write fanfics for these fanfics of fanfics. It’s almost as if there is a family tree of fanfics and we’re now reaching the third generation and beyond

[jasper-unofficial]

joong posted this vaguely strange photo from the day they shot the 'take me off' mv. actually took me a moment to figure out what i'm supposed to be looking at here... and then i saw the familiar bag. that's phuwin right there. i guess "perfect attendance" means not just every practice session but the shoot day also 🤷‍♂️