#all ships are mentions only though!

[fandom-geek]

vaguely fascinated by osana sov's naming choices. she chose for her daughter a name that can mean "bitter (strength)" or "lady" in two ancient languages (hebrew and aramaic) and for her son a name that means "old friend" in another ancient language (old english)

like every other golden age character has a name that's pretty normal by our standards, which tbh includes mara, then osana just names her other kid uldwyn. then again, even osana's name is either a variant of the hebrew hosanna or after an obscure and possibly fictitious old english princess-saint whose name means something along the lines of "godly solitude", so i suppose mara might be considered the odd one out

[ladynicte]

Something that always breaks my heart is how during the House of Hades Nico is described as smiling and grinning actually pretty often, but later on in his pov he mentions that it's hard for him to do that, or really emote as a general.

Which means my poor most specialest little boy in the whole world Nico di Angelo was constantly going out of his way to mask and smile at the rest of The Seven even though he didn't know them basically at all.

And he had also just gone through literal hell while everybody except his sister was super rude to him the entire time.

And the whole time they are all just thinking about how he looks creepy when frowning but that they prefer that because his smile is even creepier.

They are all so mean to him whyyyyy

[rist-ix]

https://www.tumblr.com/rist-ix/749015401700229120 not you reblogging this when you ship bloom with the man who murdered her family 😭

Bloom's into ppl who slay! Hope this helps :3

[lgbtlunaverse]

3zun data analysis part 2 electric boogaloo

So in my first post on 3zun data analysis I said I manually excluded all non-3zun ships in the 3zun tag to figure out how many of them were actually centered around 3zun.

So that's... actually not how i first went about that. Instead, I decided to, one after the other, include each 2-out-of-3zun ship, and then manually exclude every relationship not contained in 3zun. (leaving te other 2-out-of-3zun ships alone) Then, I'd figure out how many of these fics were exclusively tagged the ship I included, how many included only one of the other 2 ships, and how many included all 3, which would allow me to calculate how many 3zun fics in total had 2-out-of-3zun ships included but no other side pairings, which, upon being added to the otp:true fics, should give me the total number of 3zun fics exclusively focused on 3zun.

"Wow! That seems really inefficient" yes! But it did give me more information for this post. Because with these numbers, I can somewhat crudely estimate what 2-out-of-3zun pairing tends to get more narrative focus within 3zun fics.

Here are the results, data collected on march 18th 2024:

There are 196 3zun fics tagged with xiyao and no non-3zun relationships. Of these, 151 are also tagged nieyao, and 137 are tagged nielan.

Coincidentally, nieyao has the same number, also 196, 151 of wich are also tagged xiyao, but only 117 are tagged nielan.

Then there are 159 3zun fics tagged nielan with no non-3zun pairings, with 137 of them also being tagged xiyao and 117 nieyao. (I hope you've all noticed those numbers matching up!)

by the way, here are the raw stats in just the plain vanilla 3zun tag, no filters, for how many fics are tagged with the different ot2s.

Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but for nielan and xiyao i mostly had to filter out relatively normal side pairings, a few crossovers with mxtx's other works or different danmei, nothing too weird. But the nieyao tag had THIS

JESUS/JUDAS??? IN MY NIEYAO?? It's more likely than you think!!

Anyway, to the complicated numbers! Selecting for all 3 after excluding everything else gives you 112 fics.

With these numbers you can now calculate some really fun stuff. Taking the fics tagged with both xiyao and nieyao (151) and subtracting the fics tagging all 3 (112) you get the number of 3zun fics that are only tagged as xiyao and nieyao, excluding nielan. In this case: 39

"Couldn't you just exclude nielan on ao3" you have to understand I like doing things the hard way.

Doing this gives:

Fics tagged nieyao and xiyao but not nielan: 39

Fics tagged xiyao and nielan but not nieyao: 25

Fics tagged nieyao and nielan but not xiyao: 5

Generally tagging 2 ot2 pairings in an ot3 signals that either the relationship is a V and the excluded ship are not together, or that- even if they're a triad- the excluded ship doesn't feature in the narrative much. As you can see, xiyao is by far the least likely to be excluded here.

Now doing some more math (or, if you're normal, clicking a few extra times on ao3) will give you the fics exclusively tagged with one ot2 pairing besides 3zun. Generally that means that this relationship is the narrative focus, even if all of 3zun are together.

And these results actually surprised me.

Fics exclusively tagged xiyao: 196 - 112 - 39 - 25 = 20

Fics exclusively tagged nielan: 159 - 112- 25 - 5 = 17

Fics exclusively tagged nieyao: 196 - 112 - 39 - 5 = 40

I checked the answers by actually filtering on ao3 (making all my work redundant) and uh. Yeah. I had expected that, with xiyao being the least likely to be excluded, the most commonly tagged ship in 3zun overall, and simply the most popular ship, they'd be first here too.

And yet, not only does nieyao have more fics, it has more than nielan and xiyao combined. Despite having less fics in total than either of the other 2!

Out of interest, I repeated the experiment without manually excluding all the unrelated ships.

Basically, for each 2-out-of-3zun ship, I only filtered out the two other ships. This data will give us the same insight into narrative focus, just without excluding all other non 3zun rleated side pairings.

This time I just included one ship, and excluded the other 2-out-of-3zun ships. (the hard math comes later)

Doing this gives:

3zun fics only tagged xiyao: 45

3zun fics only tagged nielan: 33

3zun fics only tagged nieyao: 59

It's a less drastic difference, but nieyao still come out on top!!

What this means, I think, is that people with nieyao as their absolute favorite side of the triangle are a lot more likely to write 3zun fics than those for whom the same is true for nielan or xiyao.

That is to say: Someone who likes all 3zun pairings equally is more likely to write 3zun where the pairings all share narrative balance. And if you really really really love xiyao, and think nieyao and nielan are pretty ok but you don't go crazy over them, you're a lot more likely to just write a solo xiyao fic than you are a xiyao-focused 3zun fic. Idem ditto for nielan. But if nieyao is your absolute fave, you wanna put those guys in a throuple anyway.

What I'm saying is I think nieyaoists are the subfandom of triangular desire. Which... *looks at my own mutuals*... is the least surprising thing i've ever said.

Anyway! I didn't stop there! I wanted to see which pairings were more likely to get tagged together again. I also decided to make things even harder for myself!

Instead of filtering one ship at a time and seeing how many of each of the others were tagged alongside it, like i did last time, I only gave myself a few figures to calculate it manually: The overall number of tags each had in the 3zun tag (348, 328, and 284, as pictured above) the afformentioned data about exclusively tagged fics, and the number of fics tagged with all three 2-out-of-3zun ships (175)

Rather than a simple subtraction, I had to... Well i'm just gonna let y'all look at my notes app. I wanna stress that i could have looked all of this up in minutes and in fact did later to check my answers! No time was saved! A lot was wasted!

But I like number so 👉👈

Tldr:

Fics tagged xiyao and nieyao but not nielan: 73

Fics tagged xiyao and nielan but not nieyao: 55

Fics tagged nieyao and nielan but not xiyao: 21

Once again, similar but slightly less drastic results.

With this I can only come to one conclusion: the fandom likes to joke about 3zun being a love triangle with xichen in the middle. But looking at these numbers? The real center is jiggy. Everything revolves around a-yao, baby!.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

The Deep Sky

scifi mystery thriller

on a deep space mission traveling from an environmentally devastated earth with hope to restart humanity elsewhere

when they’re halfway, an explosion kills 3 crew and pushes them off course

the only witness is the Alternate who has no specific role, and she has to figure out who caused it & if they might continue to sabotage, while they're figuring out a way to get back on course with limited resources

flips between present and the past: of her childhood and training for the mission, her identity struggles, and relationship with her mother

questions the ethics of ‘restarting’ humanity elsewhere vs putting resources into fixing earth

[tulipsnflowers]

I don't think I asked this yet - Merida for the ramble ask game!

Merida!! Alright, let's try I'm feeling in the mood to be absolutely wrong

Nexomon spoilers, and a bit of Nexomon:Extinction spoilers

Merida, Champion of Water also known as Arqua of the Bottomless Oceans (iirc), Prisoner to Darine

Merida! I feel like if I were to rang the CoO in how much they tolerate humanity, (Deena dominates the top chart, but) Merida would be near the top as well

She's the world's worst volleyball player, and she even had fans! That's a human sport, and to get into tournaments you need a team, of 6 players. And you know I don't see her family loving volleyball all that much, right?

Even then 6 means she'd need to revive Grunda to have 6

So she obviously, at the very least, plays Volleyball with humans, like on the same team (and she needs to play in a game to cheat, so if they accused her of cheating she played in at least one game)

Now as someone who sucks absolutely ass at Volleyball (don't ask me to catch something you throw at me,), I'd think weather one likes it or not. Playing matches with someone (even if with a "higher than thou" mentality, which all of them have towards humanity), ya gotta at least respect them. Does anyone wanna bet a human had to (try to) help her with volleyball at someone point because she was uh... Not the best

I don't think JV thought that far ahead when he made it volleyball but I have, bastard.

She also has a fake persona, of like a cute volleyball girl(.. Merida, Merida please watch yours horns,) which lasts until you kick her bum

Still, her having one-

And then after your volleyball she leaves you alone because James called, and then she tries to drown you!

.. Because you're trying to stop the reveal of Grunda to be fair, but still tries to stop you!

Then we skip the tower entirely (she does say we have no idea what we're going up against)

Then it's nightmare time! It's weird, while everyone does have humans in their dreams (Nadine doesn't count because she's unconscious on the floor currently), Zetta bullies them, Fenrir makes a riot kinda, Grunda is the protector (Also screaming at the Nara thing) but aside from him, Merida is the only one who's civil

Or I'm assuming she is, hard to tell with how little we saw. But we can assume she was probably just having the time of her life playing actual good volleyball

Which is something to say the least, considering she's actually enjoying human activities - unlike the rest who are doing their own thing

And then n2!!!

She's apparently in Palmaya but she's currently in Frozen watching over the tower (James please this is like your area™ where are you.), and aside from a small memory thing with Atlas, she seems to be better

So do the rest of them, honestly, it was so good to see the Omni kids tolerating humanity in various degrees

[sevenines]

i’ve been listening to/watching many (many, many) reactions to steven universe (because that’s what you do when you become newly obsessed with something. see what everyone else thinks about it and drive yourself mad) and it’s so interesting to see all the unique ways people tackle it and the common threads between them all.

there’s podcast recaps (pressure to over-analyze) vs youtube reactions (pressure to overreact). everyone knowing the show (yay) vs fans guiding newcomers (interesting) vs everybody being blind (often disastrous). don’t mind silly fun? they love the first season and amethyst’s character. told about how ~deep~ it gets and expecting only that? they love pearl and have to be dragged through the beginning. even how they chunk the episodes affects things—in watching episode-by-episode, people go the most mad as they try to squeeze meaning out of episodes they can’t yet appreciate until later (or are just. bad at analyses.). in chunks of two, people assume su will have much more horror after watching frybo and cat fingers back-to-back. and chunks of 5 are completely different too!

this only skims the surface. i can watch any episode of su and point out which jokes usually make people laugh, what people pick up on, and how their opinion of the situation reflects on whether they have mommy issues.

[astralprisms]

You can't take these two anywhere

[mishtershpock]

.

[akirakirxaa]

Auraugust Day 15: Rainy Day

Akira was soaked through. No one spared her a single glance; in the weeks since her return, her hair had grown out to the point that no one recognized her unless they were a friend or were looking closely.

No one in Labyrinthos was looking closely, and she was actively avoiding friends.

She heard footsteps approach behind her, closer and less harried than the scholars bustling quickly through the rain, desperately trying to keep their tomes dry. She was unsurprised when she turned slightly to see Hades, holding the umbrella she never used and looking very distinctly annoyed.

"It's foolish enough that you took off without a word, but you didn't even bring an umbrella in this weather?"

"In my defense-" Akira countered with the faintest of smirks that didn't reach her eyes. "It wasn't raining when I left." Hades gave a heavy sigh, moving closer to cover them both with the umbrella, despite the fact that she was already soaked to the bone.

"Do you realize how worried Hythlodaeus and your friends are?" It was chastisement, but his tone didn't quite match, softening as one snap later Akira was as dry as if she had been lying in the sun.

Yes, I'm sure they were the only ones worried. The sarcastic thought came unbidden, but she was absolutely sure she was right. She was learning Hades didn't really like to acknowledge his own feelings. Perhaps he'd had to bury them for so long it was hard for him to.

"I'm sorry," she didn't turn fully to him, not trusting the stinging in her eyes not to become something more. "I just needed to get out of Sharlayan for a little bit."

They stood quietly in the rain, listening to the patter on grass and pavement as they both struggled with their own thoughts.

"I just feel so useless," the words came out as a whisper, Akira clenching her fists at her side. "I've climbed mountains and fought dragons and now I can barely take a walk through Labyrinthos without-"

Without becoming too exhausted to walk back. Or to even find shelter from the rain. The pain in her limbs and her back that she thought had eased came roaring back with a vengeance and returning to Sharlayan had become an impossibility and it was embarrassing.

She didn't know if she turned to him first or if he pulled her to him, but then they were leaning into each other. He spoke of worrying others, but he was the one that came here to find her.

His grip was tight, though not enough to hurt, and it said So do I.

"Let's get you back, Hero," though the words were light, his voice was rough with some unspoken emotion. "Before anyone does anything drastic."

"Indeed," she agreed with a small huff of almost-laughter. "We wouldn't want anyone doing anything dramatic after all."

[lieutenantselnia]

Besides numerous other drawing ideas I now already have 2 (maybe even 3?) self ships that I want to redraw this meme with😂

Please I need more time and motivation for art again😭

[chronosbled]

{ I noticed that lots of people tend to forget that Dickson is a mentally unstable individual who will do anything that he deems necessary to get what he wants all because he speaks to their muses and such with nothing but smiles and compliments.

Dickson is NOT a kind or compassionate person, nor does he care about those that he isn't actively pursuing for the sake of genuine friendship or genuine obsession (love in his eyes). Being kind and compassionate is nothing but another mask that he wears from his various collection when he deems it necessary. As an experiment, along with his condition that makes him unable to properly form and convey emotions (which was only worsened by the experimentation he underwent), Dickson is almost 100% incapable of feeling genuine emotions that belong to him and him alone. He has a habit of using the things he's learned from others by watching them when he's trying to portray his own "feelings" towards others and that's the main issue. Those feelings aren't his ACTUAL feelings, they're someone else's, how someone else he observed for years would react.

If someone were to somehow have the ability to strip him of his masks (his "emotions" and "feelings" if you would call them that), they would find nothing but an empty and broken shell of a person who doesn't know how to do anything but obey someone's orders or someone who completely disregards himself (as in his own well-being) when it comes to endlessly toiling away at his own experiments — and despite his experiments revolving around people who have been fucked over by life, making his own attempts to somehow benefit them — his motivation for said deed was not 100% done out of his own desire to do so, but done because (once he was finally able to recall more about his parents from his childhood) he remembered how the both of them desired to use their skills for good and to help those who cannot help themselves. Thus he applied his parents' feelings to himself and uses that core fundamental as the basis of his entire existence (after his grandfather is finally dead and he doesn't have an actual purpose anymore).

Another reason why Dickson shouldn't be underestimated (and simply chalked up to be the sweet, handsome gentleman) is because of the fact he isn't afraid to use and abuse people for his own gain. He will hurt people. He will manipulate people. He will blackmail them and torture them just like he was. And above all else, he WILL kill people. Dickson is not afraid of getting his hands dirty nor is he afraid to take people hostage and brainwash them to do his bidding if he finds it too much of a hassle for himself (or simply because he won't get caught this way if others are watching him). Before Dickson was able to take care of himself and do things for himself, his grandfather had him work as an assassin of sorts (or rather a mercenary if that's what you prefer to call it), granted he wasn't great at it in the beginning because he was very clumsy and wasn't quite sure of what he was doing, but in the end, he still killed people and usually in various creative and cruel ways too if the opportunity to do so provided itself. Additionally, Dickson will also go to any lengths he deems necessary to make sure his target doesn't come out alive, such as the time he chopped off his own hand in order to free himself so he could proceed to kill his client's target.

Sure Dickson may have been more hesitant to do terrible things when he was younger, like when his late fiancée, Janus, wanted him to help her murder various people simply because she felt like it and he didn't want to participate, but that's Dickson was a lot more weak-willed and timid during his childhood. Back then, he didn't have almost any drive to do anything because he wasn't conditioned to be subservient yet. Granted he still would listen to his grandfather's orders without question, but Janus hadn't fully established that kind of FULL control over him since he'd only known her for a few years, thus that lack of control over him is what ended up leading him to kill Janus when she finally got fed up with him enough to begin beating him (that day anyway, considering she was always abusive towards him). That fear he possessed from his childhood years (something I've already established in posts before) had changed into anger (another thing I've already established in past posts) before he finally ended up snapping all together and stabbing Janus to death, regretting what he had done for only a few moments until that dissipated as well because he simply couldn't bring himself to care. The fact that he stored her body in a freezer within the basement of the Simmons Estate only serves as a reminder of how he started in his mind.

One of the biggest reasons why people should remember that Dickson isn't just a pretty face is the HUGE fact that he basically has his own servant (more like mind slave) that both he and Janus shared together when she was still alive, that he ACTIVELY participated in breaking on the days he had suffered himself (granted he was made to believe it was alright by Janus, but that's besides the point). This point here is a perfect way to represent just how broken and unstable Dickson is as well because normally Dickson was the one who tried to keep Janus from tormenting Belphegor (the name Janus decided to give the boy despite him already having a name) and was often the one trying to tend to whatever wounds Janus had created, be them physical or mental ones (though Dickson was only good at mending physical wounds). In Belphegor's mind, Dickson was going to become his savior at some point due to the fact he showed more compassion towards him than Janus did, but this sentiment ended up proving false the day Dickson murdered Janus. Dickson's once gentle and caring demeanor towards Belphegor ended up changing into something more deranged and it only proceeded to get worse once Carla died as well — gentle gestures of affection soon became more aggressive and agitated, once soothing and comforting words became accusatory and possessive, promises of better treatment and freedom became guilt-tripping and manipulation — eventually leading for Belphegor's mental state to be completely broken down to the point he became a puppet for whatever Dickson desired.

Now, you're probably thinking "but hey, doesn't this contradict everything you've posted about Dickson before? You know, the stuff about him not wanting to be like his grandfather and such?" And in a sense, yes, I did contradict myself, but at the same time... I didn't. Why? Because Dickson didn't want to become like his grandfather or Janus or any of the people who tormented him for the entirety of his life, but when you are basically a prisoner within your own home and are subjected to abuse for so long, you generally end up developing Stockholm Syndrome and that's basically what happened to Dickson. The abuse and torment are what lead up to Dickson basically becoming his grandfather and Janus, but he only realizes this once he joins the BSAA and meets Chris and his team. Why does he realize this? Well, that's because of the simple fact that they all treat him like an ally and not a tool. They slowly begin to make him realize that he isn't just an object for someone's desires nor is he just a toy that will be endlessly used until it's broken and tossed away. They made him feel something that he's never felt before: human. They made him feel like he was an ACTUAL human being and not a monster, that he wasn't some kind of murderous and heartless creature, but instead was their close friend and even a part of their little family, which is something that Dickson has always wanted so desperately deep down inside of his very being. Not his grandfather. Not Janus. Not his mother or father. Not Carla. Dickson. Something that HE wanted. One of the very first and only things he's ever wanted in his life. Granted he still wears his various masks around them, but that's because he doesn't know how to stop nor does he want them to know just how inhuman he really is.

^^^ And this whole above paragraph really does help to show just how broken Dickson is and how even just a little bit of love and care towards him can make him into a completely different person, especially if we jump back to this line here in the first paragraph: "Dickson is NOT a kind or compassionate person, nor does he care about those that he isn't actively pursuing for the sake of genuine friendship or genuine obsession (love in his eyes)." The only reason he cares so much about Chris and his team is because of the simple fact they tried to develop genuine friendships with him to the point he had become obsessively in love with each and every one of them (some in platonic ways: Chris, Philis, Finn, Jill, Steve, and some in romantic ways: Victoria and Piers).

But back to the topic of the mind slave, due to the fact that Dickson had finally come into contact with people who... understood him in a sense for lack of a better word... he began to think that he could actually be something other than a tool and because of that, he also believed that maybe Belphegor could be more than a tool as well. Of course, due to being completely broken by Dickson, there wasn't much that could be done for him in the ways of... fixing him so in the end, Dickson simply continues to use Belphegor for whatever he deems necessary but instead of treating him as badly as he had before, he now somewhat treats him as he used to (though he can still be rather harsh when he isn't in the greatest of moods).

So with all that being said, I advise you all (especially those of you with muses that are seeking out romantic affairs with Dickson) to proceed with the utmost caution when doing so because there may come a point where Dickson doesn't care about your muse anymore and simply chooses to discard them (minus Crystal of course because that's his wifey). }

[mars-ipan]

tbh as far as i’m concerned komahina is basically canon

[bobbydabob]

you are literally making all my dreams come true. seeing homestuck AND enstars, esp in ur style is a blessing ty for ur service

Thank you, haha.

I intend to draw a lot more ShuMika if I can honestly. They used to be my “OTP” and I was obsessed with Valkyrie for ages. I’ve really really really been missing them recently to the point of vibrating excitement. Homestuck is a no brainer though I have been a DirkJake fan since like 2019.

I’m glad you like my style, I will keep it up. Thank you for the ask.

[sonknuxadow]

not a sonadow shipper or a sonadow hater but a secret third thing

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Which Tails selfcest pairing would make for the best couple?

Oooh ooh pulling out a hard question to answer 👀

Annznsns in all honesty though, I think it depends on your definition of "best" in this case.

I think if the quantifier of "best" in this case would be "closest initial bond" and "healthiest/sweetest" I'd have to go with Mangails/Saingey

If the quantifier of "best" is my favorite and the one I find most fascinating, then I'd have to go with Tainine/Nineails