#and also describing their whole day

[plutonium-sky]

Unofficial question giver (I ended up naming them Mori) wip~ done on magma and I am currently in the process of coloring them

[faunandfloraas]

Birth date analysis // Seungmin - September 22nd: The Day of Restless Drive.

September 22 - Virgo/Libra

The Day Of Restless Drive

Those born on September 22 have a restless drive. Usually they bring the one they are working on to completion only to immediately set out on a new one without rest. They are also capable of handling several projects at the same time. Those born on this day have a low boredom threshold, and consequently demand challenging people and situations. They can be outgoing and dynamic types at one time, and solitary and unapproachable at another. In either case, their strong character is unmistakable.

Often September 22 people oscillate between an offensive and defensive posture. In one sense, such postures may be one and the same since a good offense is the best defense and vice-versa. Whether in a broad social context or on a personal level, the issues and ideas those born on this day are most often concerned with involve fairness and equality. In general matters pertaining to the delegation and exercise of power. In putting forth their arguments, they can be very ironic, witty and outright funny. Their humor, however, is not for everyone as it is liable to be off-beat, sardonic, perhaps even macabre.

Those born on September 22 can hide a warm heart under a forbidding exterior, but generally will only open up to people whom they deeply trust and value. Even then they may find it difficult to open all the way, principally because their orientation is highly realistic and the ironies of life all too visible to them. This day carries insight and clarity of vision both literal and figurative. September 22 people are excellent judges of character, and capable of sizing people up very quickly. Those few friends whom they allow into their inner sanctum they value most highly, usually for life.

September 22 people can often have a greater effect on those around them than they realize, and indeed can register a high degree of shock value. Because of their often disturbing impact, they should seek to be more aware of their effect on others, both friends and foes alike. True warriors in the battle of life, they must take stock of their armaments and defenses, using them judiciously and effectively, and avoid isolating and alienating themselves.

Strengths:

Individual

Perceptive

Well-directed

Weaknesses:

Guarded

Acerbic

Dark

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: Several drawings of Calvin Wright, Tenebrosum, Arthur Lester, and John Doe. There are a few portraits of Calvin and Tenebrosum alone, and a few others of Calvin and Arthur kissing or otherwise intimate together. More detailed ID in ALT.]

FINALLY posting this on a random monday, here are some of my drawings from @croik 's Arkam Horror/Malevolent Crossover series that has made me category 10 unwell for months. I absolutely recommend this series, it's hot, it's got just a Delightful dynamic of jarthur x another possessed traumatized guy and his Personal Horror, it's got a plot so good it could be its own arc of the show, and also, its got The Horrors!!! give it up for the horrors everyone

Genuinely I have been SO obsessed with this series and ESPECIALLY their characters of Calvin and Tenebrosum. Thank you op for writing over 100k for these guys, i need to inject them into my brain. Calvin and Escuridão specifically are like catnip to me i WILL be rereading this many more times

[gammija]

i don't like this tweet I've seen going around because it's precisely the other way around

sound is waves in the air, an analog signal, and vinyl records have a groove of varying widths engraved in them, another wave - you went from a wave to a wave, this makes sense

digital though? how did you take an entire songs worth of sounds and lyrics and instruments and express them only in the binary language ones and zeros - and -back again- with essentially a lot of really tiny wiring and resistors and capacitors and whatnot. and out comes music

the only reason the vinyl seems more mysterious than the digital is because you're so used to computers that their wondrous magic feels ordinary

[literallyjusttoa]

Could you tell us more abt ur au where Apollo doesn’t come back exactly right after surviving being so close to chaos 👀

Yes!! Actually I had a fic that I really wanted to write about this, and I am planning on still doing that but I will tell y'all the gist of it bc I cannot contain myself. (Also this is a bit different from some of the things I've said before about this so I hope you still like it lol)

Ok so, the fic was gonna be a 5 + 1 fic, where Meg and Apollo both realize that something's ... off about him after the trials. His powers and abilities are fluctuating for seemingly no reason. Sometimes he's just a normal god, but sometimes it's like he's still a mortal. And he's also having times where he's way stronger than a god should be, like, near primordial levels. It's causing him a lot of issues, for example:

Gods don't need to eat or sleep, but mortals do. If Apollo doesn't realize his energy levels are going down, he will just end up crashing from lack of food/sleep. This leaves him perpetually exhausted and shaky.

His blood is now all kinds of crazy colors, and it changes based off of where he is on the mortal/immortal scale.

When he's in a "mortal" state of being, he's pretty similar to a demigod. Meg and Apollo learned this when Apollo accidentally did some lightning bending one day. This is not something Apollo has ever wanted to be able to do, and he freaks out appropriately.

One day, Apollo woke up sick and tired of this whole situation. He jokingly wished that someone else could just take over the sun for the day. However, Apollo hadn't realized that he had just gotten a huge power boost overnight, and his harmless little wish just created a second sun. Haha whoops.

Eventually, Apollo ends up breaking his father's rules and visiting Asclepius just so he can get some answers about this, so here's a little rough comic based on the scene I wanted to write explaining this whole mess.

[alangdorf]

Sorryyyy for dropping off the face of the earth; got kinda shy after that last post but mostly I’ve just been writing though I cannot guarantee that any of that will ever be finished (also I’m very insecure about my writing AAAH). Figure I might as well post the valentines I had done (like two months late lol); interestingly this turned into more of a hand lettering exercise than I was expecting lol

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

I always think about how in multiple episodes it's basically canon that Blanche is bi but considers dating women to be more hassle (which is a whole rabbit hole to go down - does she struggle with societal homophobia when she's with women? Has she only been with fellow high maintenance femmes when shes really after a Dorothy type? Has she internalized the idea that her attraction to women isn't 'real'? Her reaction to Clayton adds to these questions). Not to mention how this goes together with her relationships with the girls; making to kiss Rose that one time (and Rose multiple times seeming very aware of Blanche's proclivities), begging Dorothy for 'relief' and being convinced she's attracted to women too.

Yes, anon! It’s really interesting to delve into Blanche’s psyche about all this stuff!

I started writing down my thoughts and ended up with a long ramble -- allow me to place it all under a cut, so I don't clog up anyone's dash, haha.

Personally, I think she has some strong mental blocks when it comes to her sexuality because of the way she was brought up. I mean, she grew up in Atlanta approx in the 1930s/1940s — I’m sure I don’t have to detail the kind of casual bigotry she must have seen around her during her formative years! Just look at the story she recounts in S1E13 A Little Romance:

“Now, you have to understand that in those days in the South a lot of things were still taboo. Certain people were not to mix. So Benjamin and I had to meet in secret. Oh, we knew if any of the bigots in town found out about us, there’d be a terrible scandal.”

And all of this because Benjamin was a yankee… can you imagine what ‘the bigots in town’ thought about homosexuality? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Blanche learned to suppress that part of herself very early on. We know she turns to denial when she’s faced with uncomfortable truths and emotions she can’t deal with, so I think she likely just refuses to acknowledge that part of herself most of the time, and it only comes out (pun intended!) when she’s not paying much attention to things, or when there’s something more important going on. See the two examples you point out: when she tries to kiss Rose she’s concerned with not being kissed at midnight, and when she propositions Dorothy she’s, well… she’s desperate to get some, if we can be frank.

When she’s in a more rational state, her reactions tend to be more measured… but not by much. She does advise Rose not to date women (S3E10 The Audit):

“Oh, no, honey, don’t do that! No job is worth having to date women!”

But she’s also really flattered at receiving lots and lots of phone calls from women, after her appearance as a ‘lesbian’ on TV (S7E15 Goodbye, Mr Gordon):

“By the way, Dorothy, if I were a lesbian, I sure would be a popular one. Look at this, 20 calls.”

And of course we can’t forget her reaction to finding out that Jean has a crush on Rose in S2E5 Isn’t It Romantic?:

“Jean has the hots for Rose? I don’t believe it, I do not believe it! […] To think Jean would prefer Rose over me? That’s ridiculous! […] Now you tell me the truth: if you had to pick between Rose and me, who would you pick? Who?”

All of these are (likely) intended to be jokes about her vanity and her libertine nature (in the same way as Rose’s observations are), but considering a lot of the writers of this show were queer themselves, it wouldn’t seem strange to me if they were intentionally peppered in to suggest that Blanche might be a bisexual in denial. It certainly fits her character!

I haven’t spoken about her reaction to Clayton’s coming out yet, but that’s immensely interesting too, of course. I think Blanche has the same attitude towards homosexuality that I see in a lot of (mostly older) people in my Country nowadays: it’s fine as a general concept, but when it comes to her family (or, God forbid, herself) then the problems come out. See for example what she says about Jean:

“Well, I’ll never understand what Jean doesn’t see in the opposite sex, but if that makes her happy, that’s fine by me!”

Which isn’t a homophobic attitude at all! If anything, if you take her upbringing into account, it’s pretty accepting. But then, when Clayton comes out to her (S4E9 Scared Straight) and tells her he wants to get married (S6E14 Sister Of The Bride), this is what she says:

“Oh, Clayton, please be serious. You're just saying that so I won't set you up with any more women. […] Well, then you're saying it 'cause you're trying to get back at me for something. Clay, I know you too well for this. After all, I know it can't be true. You're my brother. […] Clayton Hollingsworth. You look me in the face and tell me you really are… what you just said you are.”

“I'm having a little trouble putting this all together. Clayton, I just feel like I don't know you anymore.”

“[…] Dorothy, that's different. We're talking about going out in public. Oh, what are people gonna say?”

“Will you tell me why you want to put yourself and Doug through this? You know how people can be.”

“Oh, look, I can accept the fact that he's gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on this guy's finger so the whole world will know?”

Quite the difference from her attitude towards Jean, wouldn’t you say? I think there’s three elements at play here.

1) When Clayton comes out to Blanche, she feels disoriented because this is life-changing information Clayton has never shared with her before. While her reaction as a whole isn’t ideal, personally I think it’s understandable. Clayton is her baby brother; she’s known him as straight all his life, he’s been married to a woman for years before his divorce, and she recounts an episode from their adolescence when he was on a date with a woman and very clearly implicated having a physical encounter with her. He's done everything in his power to pass as straight until this point in time -- I don't find it strange that Blanche would be shocked at his coming out, especially given her upbringing (and the fact that this is set in the 80s! We can't expect modern sensibilities from the characters!). Once again, her reaction isn't the best (she can't even bring herself to say the word 'gay' at first...), but the shock per se isn't that surprising, imho.

2) Blanche is scared because of societal implications above all. She doesn't necessarily see being queer as something wrong, but she's been taught it's not socially acceptable and acts accordingly. Notice how she's worried about what people are going to say, and she struggles to accept that Clayton wants the whole world to know about his relationship with Doug.

Societal expectations in general are a big theme for Blanche's character, and often drive her development; another big example of this is her attitude towards Rebecca's decision to get artificially inseminated, but it's a bit of a baseline issue for her, I feel. She has this whole thing about her beauty and her (supposed) youth and her attractiveness that has some inherent elements, but it's mostly an issue of how other people perceive her, I think, and her response to her brother's coming out is easy to relate to this theme. I mean, she even says it to Rose in S7E15:

"Well, I don't mind being labeled a lesbian, honey, but since I'm not, you just ruined my social life."

So yeah. I think it's safe to say her main concern is societal disapproval of queerness: she wants to be accepted and celebrated by the people around her, and she thinks that being openly queer will destroy her place in her social circle (and she's worried about the same happening to Clayton too, of course).

3) This is sort of related to point 2, but it felt distinct enough to treat it separately. I think she might have reacted so badly to Clayton's coming out (and especially to his showing up with a partner) because he's open about his sexuality, and she's not ready to face what that means for her. My lovely mutual @\hecatesbroom recently published her latest amazing work the odd one(s) out, on the relationship between Dorothy and her brother Phil and how Phil's open queerness might have impacted Dorothy; I think a similar situation might have occurred between Blanche and Clayton after his coming out.

Blanche has a sort of advantage on Dorothy because of her bisexuality, in the sense that she has 'passing privilege' (I really dislike this concept, but allow me to use it to make a point): it's painfully clear that she loved her late husband with all her heart, and she's obviously attracted to men as well, so she can pretend not to like women without too much of a hassle (whereas, if you believe Dorothy to be a repressed lesbian, her situation is much more complicated).

The issue with this is that this 'advantage' is a double-edged sword: she might have the comfort of being socially acceptable, but she's had to suffocate a big part of herself to obtain that comfort. And so, what happens when Clayton -- her baby brother Clayton, the one who's always been just like her, who's grown up with her same environment and influences -- begins openly living as a gay man? I'm sure the situation must have had a strong impact on her, even if just on a subconscious level; I've always found it curious that she seems to have a harder time accepting Clayton in S6E14 than she does in S4E9 (she even calls his sexuality a phase), and while a part of it may be attributed to the higher social exposure Clayton's commitment to Doug brings, I think this may be a result of her inner conflict, provoked by watching her brother live openly while she's been suppressing a part of herself all her life.

Here I'm assuming she's never acted upon her attraction to women before, but there's some space to believe she has done so and has decided it's too much of a hassle, as you say -- likely because she'd for sure do it in secret, given her fear of societal condemnation. If she has been with women before, and decided to give up on it, I still think she'd be greatly impacted by Clayton's coming out: it means her baby brother is a) braver than she is, and b) going to openly face (and likely suffer because of) the same social issues she's run away from. In this lens, I find it interesting that she cautions him about how people can be, almost as if they've both experienced it.

Whew. Wow, this was a lot more than I'd originally meant to write, haha! Seems you sparked a big train of thought, anon! I think all of the Girls (with the possible exception of Sophia) are really fascinating to analyze with a queer lens, and Blanche is always interesting to me, of course. As a final note, I'd like to point out that she does come around to Clayton's sexuality and his relationship, in the end: as often happens, she just needs the Girls' help to put things back in perspective, understand she's hurting someone she loves, and correct her actions. I'd like to think living with the Girls might lead to her becoming more accepting of herself, too.

[precious-little-scoundrel]

In regards of Gale and Maureens wedding gift for Brady, who came up with an idea? Who chose the color of the car? How giddy were those two when they were driving up? That fic was so lovely, and in another vein, the talk between Rosie and Ida was so warm, how he encouraged her to go into law 😭 i love those couples so much

Oh my gosh I love this ask!! Do you know, that fic is probably my favorite I’ve yet written, it’s just very very dear to me and I’ve no very clear reason why I just love it and I get overjoyed when anyone wants to chat about it, hehe. 🥹☺️

I feel like at this point Gale and Maureen’s decisions are so fluid it’s hard to know when one began and the other added to it. Of course they were always planning on a gift. But…

Gale’s newly acquired financial comfort expanded the horizons. Not having had that growing up, he now probably sat with loaded pockets and listened to Maureen toss out expensive suggestions with immense delight and zero intentionality of following through and buying a whole ass shamrock encrusted bi-plane for Jack.

I can see Gale seeing one while they’re walking down the street, or actually, a line of them since it’s the hottest thing out right night, and it stops him dead and when she follows his line of sight she gets the biggest grin on her face.

“Johnny is practical like that.” she agrees, because after all, a good gift isn’t how loud it is but how wanted.

“And he’s gonna have a family soon.”

“How soon is soon?” Maureen giggles, the fella isn’t even married yet, their feet just touched US soil and Gale is counting seats for Brady babies.

“Soon. That seats six.”

“It’s a start.” she snarks.

His grin matches hers now, “It’s a start.”

They both know Jack wants a civilian life with every pore of his body, he’s also a wild cat who really enjoyed being a pilot for all it cost him, and sometimes the best way to blow off steam without tearing a ceiling fan off its mounting is to take a joy ride.

“Open air or roofed?”

“One with the canvas cover.”

“When it rains-“

“-He won’t mind, and in autumn he’ll be thanking you.”

[archersartcorner]

Some more cleaned-up doodles, sillier ones this time based on actual moments in canon ^u^

[moongothic]

Do you have any thoughts on Dadan as Luffy's mother's figure? Anytime the topic of Luffy's "BIO" mom comes up in discussions the fandom LOVE to use the excuse well "We won't ever see Luffy's mother because Dadan already fits that role. Listen I love Dadan's character but some people are putting her on the pedestal like she is the best mother of all time, when she was literally taken by gunpoint by garp's to take care of Luffy NOT to raise him but to make sure he doesn't die. (literally the bare minimum)

Now I remember back in 2008 a fan asked Oda about Luffy's bio mom and if she would ever appear in the series and he gave the description of Luffy's bio mother she would be mean, strict, middle-aged, and not the girly type (and then starts talking about Robin who has strong ties to crocodile) and I think the question was to describe the ideal characteristics of Luffy's bio mom. Dandan just happens to fit that archetype that Oda was talking about but a fem crocodile would also fit that description like a T as well especially if the question was about Luffy's bio mom.

So if Luffy can have two dads then why can't he have two moms. Well past tense he "Used" to have two moms. I also find it hilarious how Dadan and Crocodile are both heavy Chainsmokers, Mean, and look very manly. Do you think I'm reaching with this?

Okay this had been bothering me for a while because I could not actually find this "comment from Oda" in the SBS, and because there's so many "Oda said this" and "Oda said that"s that I was starting to believe the "Oda's description of Luffy's mom is just Dadan" was just another case of Fandom Mandela Effect

But after some digging around, I did find the actual source for the original comment; it's from an AMERICAN Shounen Jump Q&A with Oda, from the 2009 December issue. This Reddit post has all the questions Oda answered, but here's the relevant one

So uh, now that I got to see the actual Q&A and confirm its existence (so it's not just hearsay)

Because Oda immidiately comments on how he doesn't really focus on blood-relatives in One Piece (referencing Robin's mother being the first blood-relative he had actually drawn in a flashback), I do think he is exclusively describing Dadan here. Because Dadan is Luffy's only mother, even if she isn't that by blood, and why would Oda bother to bring that (blood-connections not being necessary) up if it wasn't relevant to Luffy's mother.

Another thing is the timing of this interview along with that "I'm still thinking about this". For context, One Piece would have just started Marineford in 2009, so this Q&A would've been published quite some time before the ASL Flashback where we'd get introduced to Dadan. Another thing is that Oda did originally intend for Dadan to be a man, so that comment would reflect on how Oda might've been still somewhat unsure what Dadan would end up being like (in case he changed his mind again).

Not to mention Oda would have to be misgendering Crocodile in this description if it was about him, which Oda really wouldn't do, but also the description doesn't even match Crocodile, we know what he would look like on estrogen. Like the way Oda drew fem!Croc in that SBS is very much his standard conventionally attractive woman, and here he explicitly states "there's no way that she's a beautiful mother". And Croc doesn't have permed hair, like ever.

So no, between the misgendering and the way the description doesn't even match him, I do not think Oda was "lowkey also talking about Crocodile" here at all. Luffy only has one mom and that's Dadan. And either Luffy has an irrelevant (probably dead) bio-mom or two absentee bio-dads.

[issuedsideways]

my take on this Howard, Maria, and Tony Stark from Avengers: Timeslide (1996)

i just think they're neat

[eresia-catara]

.... excuse me while I have a cavalghieri moment..........

[girls-and-honey]

Jesus may have died today but YOU HAVE RISEN

take THAT jesus

[thefirstknife]

wait, Mara & Eris destroyed a Pyramid?

Maybe! Sort of!

I have a long ass post with several other connecting posts because I've been obsessed with this for a long time, but all of that is from before WQ released. Initially, I speculated that the Pyramid in question would be the Pyramid in the throne world (because it's conveniently damaged in the middle), and we had nothing but vague images of it being there. But outside the speculation which turned out wrong/unconnected, the rest of the post explains everything from the Witch Queen Collector's Edition and how it relates to Sjur in great detail.

In short, back in the Forsaken year, there was a lore tab in which Fenchurch has a vision of Mara and Eris confronting/damaging an unknown vessel. It was hard to say at the time, but when I read this post-Shadowkeep, it was really obvious that it was a Pyramid ship so that gave me fuel to connect that vision with a dream Sjur Eido had, also released in the Forsaken year in which she saw Mara and another woman destroying a "great black triangle."

At the time I believed that this was talking about some future event, something that will happen in a future season or expansion. However, WQ CE had a multi-page chapter dedicated solely to clarifying this in which Fenchurch sends a report to tell Ikora that he has spoken to Eris about his vision and that Eris confirmed this event has already happened. As a matter of fact, he only had a vision because Eris sent a message documenting this event, embedded in a shard of the Pyramid, for it to be found by someone in case she dies.

At some point after Forsaken, but before Shadowkeep, Mara and Eris (with the help of Elsie, the Nine, Rasputin and even Failsafe) discovered an early arrival of a single Pyramid ship to the edge of the system. They went there to meet it, in the orbit of the dwarf planet Eris. At some point, Mara went into orbit of the Pyramid and possibly entered it; this is unclear. Eris could not tell exactly what happened, except that Mara came in contact with the vessel and then died. Eris went to pick Mara up from her throne world and then the duo landed on the dwarf planet where they found a lot of debris, apparently from the Pyramid ship. Eris was wounded so Mara helped with the wounds. Eris also picked up one of the debris pieces and embedded a message to it, then sent the fragment to the Moon with her Hive shenanigans. The fragment was eventually picked up by Fenchurch.

We don't know exactly what the debris was and what Mara did with the Pyramid, but the description of the fragment was matching Pyramid material and I used that to identify it as Pyramid material, before WQ CE. So the debris on the dwarf planet should be Pyramid debris. It's however unclear if Mara did damage that caused that debris or not. On the other hand, both the vision from Fenchurch and Sjur's dream (a little embellished, as dreams tend to be) are describing the same event. So the event during which Sjur is "close to figuring her way out" has already happened. Whether Mara destroyed (or damaged) a Pyramid or not.

Which is why I believe that the conditions for her return have already been fulfilled. Obviously, being "close" to finding her way out is relative; "close" could've meant weeks or it could mean years. We don't know where Sjur is and how exactly she died, and she described it as being trapped in a maze.

It could also be that there will be another instance of Mara and Eris attacking a Pyramid ship in the future (Sjur's dream also mentions Crow being present). In that case, the conditions for her return have not happened yet. But until we see something of the sort happening, this is the best match for Sjur's dream and confirmed as real, via Fenchurch, meaning that her dream was not just nonsense.

Honestly, if anything like Mara, Eris and possibly Crow destroying a Pyramid might happen, we only have Season of the Wish left for that to occur so it's now or never (ofc depending on what happens to the Pyramid ships post TFS). If Sjur's dream is not the event described above, then it would have to happen next season, so either way Sjur-Eido-Returns believers are awake and ready. I will definitely understand if it doesn't happen and everyone should be ready for it not to happen, but we have a chance now so we're eagerly waiting to see if something happens.

[eggmeralda]

do you ever feel casually suicidal? like you're not depressed or anything you're doing fine but also it feels like a convenient option

[palms-upturned]

.