#nerd writes stuff

[krazieka2]

Vampire Mercedes lore doodles (and vampire Lorenz bullying)

[dapper-lil-arts]

Fanart of one of my fave moments of a fic i read and love, "Can you see what i see?" It's just comical to me that Sunset is out here being a chick magnet, utterly oblivious to it. Good for her good for her!!! Writer is @averydays ! Thanks for writing awesomeness =v=

[willowser]

getting to a point with nerd bakugou where you're not even playing games online together anymore, you're just — chatting, all day 🥺

and you've gotten close enough that you'll send him a mirror selfie and even if your phone is mostly covering your face, he's ZOOMING IN ON THAT BABY and over-analyzing the hell out of it 🥺 trying to figure out what you look like 🥺 and every single photo he sends in return is assessed for a minimum of 20 minutes, because he wants to make sure his reflection isn't showing anything or his body doesn't look weird, that his posture is right 🥺

and the first time you send something back like, "you look nice today 😊🩷", even though he's just showing off his shirt from a movie you both like — he's having to put his phone down on his desk and put his hands over his face because he feels so airbruqoabdka about you !!!!!

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon (later suri laran, after her marriage). her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, but most of her life for like. the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[grandmoments]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

[torchflies]

I was cleaning out my drafts and found this tiny thing about vampires. For you, my beloved 💜 (ahem, middle-aged Val Kilmer).

Tomek Kazansky wakes from a dead sleep when a pair of hands close tightly around his ears, smothering the distant knell of a bell.

His blue eyes fly open to the sight of his ojciec chrzestny — his godfather — bent over him stiffly, stinking of nalewki, with an ax from the barn looped through his belt. 

The old man’s eyes are cold, assessing, as he drinks in the sight of a five-year-old Tomek, the bastard son of a Polish nun who never named a father. His warm skin clings to its golden color, even when winter traps them in their homes and away from the sun. He is ruddy and strong, his little round face always upturned towards the sky and seeking out parts unknown. He is Polish and he holds their secrets in the clicking of his young bones, in the caul he was born with — just like his mother, his Mama. 

“Come, Tomek.” His godfather, Piotr Czajkowski, says. “We must cut off her head by sunrise.”

His Mama’s grave is unquiet, that’s what his godfather says as they walk through the moonlit night and Tomek struggles beneath the weight of the heavy shovel handed to him. She has only been buried a day, dying before she could take The Sacrament.

“She is a vjesci now, lost to us.” His godfather growls — a vampire, as they unearth the pinewood box that houses her now. 

Tomek has heard stories of becoming a vjesci for all his life. Babies born the way he was, the way his Mama was, born en caul — inside their sacs — are destined to wake from death as a vjesci. The only way to prevent the change is to eat the dried remains of the sac on the eve of the seventh year of life. His Mama never did. Tomek knows the rules, the way all the children in his village do, on how to prevent his vjesci mother from rising out of her unquiet grave and killing him. That is the first task of any vjesci, to slaughter their friends and family — ringing the church bell to signify their deaths and harbinging many others. 

His Mama looks like she’s sleeping when they pry open her coffin, her cheeks still ruddy red and her hands flexible when his godfather lifts them: signs of life. 

There are six holes in her white dress, as if she had been eating the fabric away. 

That is the only proof his godfather needs before he — reaches a hand inside and lets her fingers coil around his.

She blinks open eyes of sanguine red and her lips curl in a bloody smile as she looks right at Tomek, her mouthful of sharp fangs reflecting off the light of the moon.

“Hello, Tomek.” She coos, “It’s almost time, little one. You will come home to us.” 

His godfather flashes a mouthful of similar fangs, and Tomek remembers — his godfather died last summer in the barn, his ax slipped while he was splitting wood. 

Tomek’s eyes grow wide and terrified, backing up to nearly trip into an open grave.

Come home, Tomek…

—

Come home, Tomek…

On the final night of Tom Kazansky’s life — he’s tired. His body is older than it should be, ravaged by a disease more nefarious than any of the monsters that haunted his childhood. Nightmares, dreams long forgotten, half-truths buried by a child who moved to America and left Poland behind to rot — not realizing how the tendrils of that life are woven into his very being, holding him fast. 

He dies in his sleep, a peaceful death, his tracheostomy grows clogged with secretions as he sleeps and he passes without a struggle.

The man he loves is miles away, protecting their child, as Tom Kazansky breathes his last. 

He just never expected to wake up again — or to wake up hungry. 

—

[mrsfoone]

Dear authors,

When traveling in UNCHARTED waters it's possible to damage your CHARTERED boat. "Unchartered" is not a word. Stop trying to make it happen. It's not going to happen.

Look, us grammar nerds roll our eyes, sigh, and move on when you use "nauseous" when you actually mean "nauseated" because it's become insidious. However, we will never let "unchartered" happen. Let's leave it uncharted.

Sincerely,

An avid reader and self proclaimed grammar nerd

[raemoriendi]

I’m smack in the middle of a spontaneous rewatch, so do you wanna hear my batshit zombie land saga theory?

(yeah you do, here we go)

so, this guy —

is obviously not who he says he is. mysterious idol producer who spent enough time in hollywood learning makeup sfx skills that makes zombies regularly look like normal living teenage girls, who then despite his apparent egregious talent with a makeup brush, returns to his very small and little known hometown in japan? who happens to also figure out how to bring back girls that have been killed by the Saga curse?

yeah, we as the audience are set up to know there’s more to him that meets the eye. especially with the flashback to him as Sakura’s pre-death classmate, Inui, which I am mentally chewing on like a dog with a bone.

(like romero here.)

but!! while I don’t have a lot of proof, and I'm working from the anime alone (not the manga that came out after or Zombie Land Saga Gaiden), due to my own weird special interest in funerary practices, I have a theory about what he might actually be:

Kotaro either is or was at some point, a mortician, or a yukanshi/nōkanshi.

(putting this under a cut, because it gets long, and also for some s1 and s2 spoilers.)

this initially occurred to me in season one, episode two, when we first saw Kotaro putting makeup on Sakura before a show in the back of the van, specifically applying a flesh-colored putty with something that looked like an offhand spatula to the big scar in the middle of her forehead. You can see it at the timestamp 14:11.

this reminded me of something called Embalmer’s Putty, which is used in the embalming process (or a general process of touching up the decedent minus chemical preservation) to fill in wounds for a viewing, visiting hours, or any gathering where the deceased’s loved ones might want to see their body for a last time.

here are screengrabs from two different funerary equipment companies showing what embalmer’s putty looks like and what it can do:

embalming putty can be already flesh-toned so as to look like living skin, and thus blend in with the mortician’s final product: making the deceased look more lively and at rest, restoring their dignity and giving peace of mind to the bereaved who want to see them off.

this process is actually really well summarized here, in this article from Regal Casket company:

if Kotaro was trained as a mortician or funerary cosmetologist, he would be trained to do exactly what he does every time he helps the girls get ready: making them look alive, healthy, and most importantly, lacking any visible mortal wounds that could upset their living audience. The girls themselves remark on how he makes them not only look like their old selves, but at times even better than before. this is exactly the type of skill set he would need to cultivate if he was preparing bodies for a last moment together with the deceased's loved ones, so they don't remember the celebrant as they were when they died, but how they looked in life.

keep in mind also that if Kotaro really had learned his makeup skills in Hollywood, he would have learned how to apply wound makeup/sfx to in-tact, healthy, living skin to make it look dead or wounded, not the other way around. makeup artists, even special effects makeup artists, are not taught how to work with dead or decaying human skin.

on top of this, a regular special effects artist would not be trained to fill grave injuries or mortal wounds, because their canvases are all living, presumably healthy people with no major injuries, who are able to go on movie sets and act for hours and hours at a time.

Kotaro wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) even be using the same kind of makeup that would go on living people, because dead bodies, obviously, are often room temperature at most when they’re being prepared for viewing, if not colder due to being held temporarily in cooling storage to prevent decay. funerary cosmetics are specifically formulated to account for this lack of temperature in a dead person, because makeup spreads differently over cold skin as compared to the warm skin of someone alive. trying to put on regular makeup, even special effects makeup, would look more than off - something Franchouchou is definitely keen to avoid if they want to keep their cover. (Or wanted to, before the storm aftermath of s2.)

some other points of interest that (to me) can be read to support this theory:

Kotaro drives a black van. while not a hearse (or “funeral coach” as the industry sometimes calls them) it’s still the right color to blend in to a funeral procession if needed, and large enough to store necessary equipment for services, viewings, etc.

Kotaro is always in a suit except when he's bathing or sleeping - specifically, a dark-colored suit. Even when the man was in a full depressive episode by the beginning of s2, he still kept his suit pants and dress shirt. It serves the purpose of being seen as a (semi-)competent idol producer who’s always ready to make a deal for his band, sure! but if his day job when he don’t see him (going away “on business” like during the episode Sakura had amnesia) it also suits him working in the somber, subdued environment of a funeral home. (minus the shades, red vest, and dried squid in his pocket. those are likely just part of his persona for Franchouchou's sake.)

Kotaro had to become familiar with resurrection magic somehow. Who’s to say he couldn’t come into contact with it during his work at a funeral home or as a mortician, something that would keep him adjacent to death and its sacred rites and practices? possibly from a young age, considering many funeral workers can start an apprenticeship or internship in their late teens? Wouldn’t that make more sense contextually than him just stumbling across it in a library, or randomly in a magical encounter in a world where zombies exist?

Kotaro coughing up blood at the end of s2 might be the Curse, but it might also be the stress of managing Franchouchou on top of the stress of his day job. these positions can be highly taxing emotionally and physically, as one needs to be a steadying presence for people on some of the worst days of their lives, and while embalming isn't as much of a thing in Japan (to my knowledge), exposure to certain chemicals from the restoration process over time has proven to be hazardous to one's health.

“okay, rae, maybe,” you’re saying. “but some of these are still kind of a stretch.”

this is where I get a little more speculative, but bear with me:

from the brief glimpse we have of him as Inui, and based on the translation of “Inui” and “Tatsumi” being opposite directions (northwest and southeast, respectively), we know that Kotaro wasn’t always this brash, loud idiot producer we know today. there was apparently a point in high school where he was very shy, and was maybe friends with Sakura, or at least acquaintences.

what if Inui was so shy and soft-spoken because he had grown up in the world of funerary traditions? many funeral homes are often generational, handed down from parent to child as a family business. someone accustomed (or maybe just exposed) to death that early might have some reasons to be kind of quiet and withdrawn.

this might also account for how he knew about the other dead girls of Franchouchou before Sakura. if one of his parents or even his grandparents were handling Saga’s deceased, he would have had an opportunity to hear about the accidents that killed them before the news spread as widely, encounter them in the restoration stage as dead bodies (depending on when they happened and if he was alive yet), and even seen their makeup applied by his predecessors if he was allowed in the prep room, or at least hear their recollections of it after the fact.

we know that he’s descended from Kiichi, Yugiri's love interest from when she was alive, who was a young man dedicated to seeing Saga's return after it merged with another region and lost its name. we also know he's being mentored by the immortal bartender Jofuku, who's said to be Saga's living embodiment, and supposedly is or is based on a wizard from mythology who discovered the Elixir of Immortality. while Jofuku is a likely source for the magic of necromancy, and maybe even selected the girls he wanted resurrected, it would make sense that people involved with Saga's dead were in contact to some degree with the man who is Saga itself, especially since the ZSL fandom wiki has noted that Saga's Curse in current times has manifested as a low birth rate and aging population. if there are more dead and dying in Saga than there are living, a family funeral home would be kept quite busy, on top of all the random accidents that the Curse causes to cut down people who would bring Saga recognition or prosperity.

so let's try this on for size: Inui grows up in a family of yukanshi/nōkanshi, who prepare the decedents for customary otsuya -- a wake held the night before the funeral itself, meant to give the living bereaved a last night to spend with their late loved one. his family likely also participates to some degree in the funeral ceremony itself (osohiki) and the cremation (kasou) before the ashes are interred. (I got my info on Japanese funerals here, as imperfect as it may be.) Inui learns about the historical funerals of Saga's famous dead that he wasn't around for through his family's experiences or through their ties to Jofuku. He begins training to take over the family business maybe as a teenager, this peculiar adolescence maybe leaving him a little more reserved than his classmates.

it might also give him the chance to practice his proficiency with music composition and his instruments -- song selection is a not-small part of modern funerary practices. maybe his family encouraged him to learn to write songs and play so he could perform at funerals? his stage fright evidenced in other episodes would shut that down pretty quickly, of course, but maybe this interest in music is how he becomes friends with Sakura to begin with, as evidenced by the clip of the CD exchange.

but then Sakura is killed in a terrible accident and his world turns upside down. it's bad enough that he's grieving, but then her body might come to his family's funeral home to be prepared for her ceremony and interment. he sees this lively, determined girl he admired dead and cold on the prep room table, her beautiful face ruined, and it's just not fair. how can his heart not break?

maybe he goes to Jofuku and demands to know what the old man knows about bringing people back, and the Curse. maybe he's less direct, but seeks the knowledge of necromancy for himself, with his family so close to death for so many generations. he continues his training for ten years, learning all he can about how to make the dearly departed look like themselves again. look better than themselves, even.

when the Zombie Land Saga Project is in the planning stages, living in a funeral family might give him access to or secondhand knowledge of where all the girls' ashes are interred. eventually, his line of work gives him the opportunity to collect however much he needs from each for the magic to work.

he knows it can, because even though Jofuku himself has never died, Romero has, and has been successfully brought back at some point. he's a little weird and not the prettiest, but he's still very much a dog.

ten years later, when the spell takes hold and his undead Saga champions resurrect, he knows how to make each and every one of them look like their old selves again.

he does Sakura's makeup first, just to see his old friend again as he remembered her.

we know how the rest goes from there, but this is my overarching theory that explains Why Kotaro Tatsumi outside his relationship to Sakura, but also how he could come up with Zombie Land Saga outside of just being a citizen of Saga himself.

anyway!! apologies if this was scattered, I wrote it in dribs and drabs throughout the day, but it's been gnawing at me for a minute. if there's anything canon I don't know about that completely obliterates this theory, then just call it an AU, and if this has already been agreed on in other parts of fandom, just call me fashionably late.

if you've read this long, you're a sweetheart <3

[demifiendcruithne]

today on digital devil saga 2 is criminally under-researched (aka crui is a nerd about a 20 year old game)

so i finally got the impulse/opportunity to test out something i've been suspecting for a while but have never seen any documentation on: dds2 has some form of STAB* mechanic with elemental spells for playable characters, based on their associated element (the one they resist + the one their unique gun combos use)

*for non-pokemon folk: STAB == same-type attack bonus. so for example, a chimecho (psychic type pokemon) using extrasensory (psychic type move) will deal more damage than a non-psychic-type pokemon with the same special attack against the same target

i have more tests i intend to make when i have spoons (i'm just grinding mantras for the superboss and noticed it while fighting wild narasimha because that hecker disables my berserker ring), but so far i've tested with my three active characters fulfilling the following:

are fighting the exact same narasimha who has no elemental weakness/resistance/etc (savestates were used and run multiple times; the rng is not fixed until a move is actually used, so i could get multiple data points quickly by making a new savestate every time i loaded it to advance the rng)

have 99 magic

are level 99

have no elemental boost or amp skills equipped

have no rings equipped that may affect damage, outside of boosting magic stat to 99 for consistency

use two different dynes; one of their associated element, and one not. the former consistently did more, and with repeated runs i cannot write it off as damage range.

under cut: many images; by virtue of being in endgame, these will have some spoilers for endgame in plain sight. if you're reading this and haven't gotten to the final dungeon, i highly recommend you go do that and come back later. once you've reached the final dungeon, you're safe to check it out.

(but seriously - i can't stop you, but i highly recommend actually. playing this game first. it's great)

if you're reading this, you've either gotten to the final dungeon or don't care about spoilers; in case of the latter, i'll do a quick explanation of our last party member momentarily. i have been a little misleading because they are. very much a BIG spoiler. but first - gale resists force, and does more damage with zandyne than bufudyne; likewise argilla with earth/teradyne/ziodyne.

(bufudyne was a random pick for gale because i had only five for omoikane reasons, but in hindsight it was a good one...)

now - for those unaware, this last party member's name is seraph. they're a fusion of two other party members both of said party members were associated with/resisted ice, and i'm near-certain that they also got the boost to bufu spells (i can check this at some point, i have a backup save right before endgame) the same way gale and argilla do.

but what's seraph's elemental affinities? no weaknesses, no resistances. so what does this mean here?

extra screenshots because the first agidyne was a high roll - literally the highest i've seen on a non-stab unboosted dyne against a narasimha. yet it's still clearly estranged from gale's zandyne and argilla's teradyne.

the other part? seraph's bufudyne does the same as gale's, and the same as argilla's ziodyne and their own agidyne, the same as expected without stab.

i'm not sure what else to say about this thus far besides putting a list of further tests to do eventually / get proper data for:

100s of attempts so it can be statistically analysed better. easy to code the data collection into seraph (my helper program, named after this seraph because. yeah), possibly more difficult to analyse but my partner got me into this game he can deal with the consequences (being asked to do data stuff) :v

including cielo and heat as well, probably after i beat satan and grind them up as a victory lap (in the mantras sense not the internment facility sense)

earlier save reloads for data for serph, sera, and roland - i doubt they'd be any different, but regardless

other elemental spells - both the basic and -la levels, the ma-s, the maxed out mantra ones, and the dances. is the boost approximately consistent?

does it affect combos? i believe it doesn't, same as amp skills and the like (and because i feel like i would have noticed by now), but will get data for both participants initiating

does it affect items? i feel like that's unlikely, but worth trying

is there a 'reverse-stab' for someone's weakness? i don't think so, but i'll get the data for free and if there's a trend i just got to test the ailment damagers for cielo

likewise, is the elemental boost innate like the gun combo elements? almost certainly. but it would be funny if equipping x resist made your x do more damage. and also not really that helpful?

does seraph get a boost on almighty? my first instinct would be yes, purely because of seraph's gun combo doing almighty damage; it's near-useless if you got reincarnate but still worth checking. and if so, does ragnarok behave differently from megido+/last word?

on that note, does seraph resist almighty? i... wouldn't be surprised - status only says no weakness, not no resistance, but almighty resistance tends to be invisible anyway (looking at you, devil survivor 2 that shows everything else) (you're fine just using as an example)

that would be a lot harder to test but if i get a party of seraph / someone with dragon ring / someone else with all maxed stats and just find something with megido+

anything else i might have forgotten

if you hack pyriphlegethon onto heat does it do more damage. i don't think i can test this one but i would. honestly be curious

but yeah. this is pretty cool, maybe i'll check for it in dds1 as well. if anyone else checks any of this out and makes a writeup or anything please ping me i have autistic hyperfocused on jrpg mechanics for over two decades :v

[pepperpixel]

More petrigrof!!! First a set of pics I didn’t fully finish of these 2 in sexy sweaters. And secondly!!!! The last / bonus picture of a set of nsfw petrigrof I posted on my nsfw twitter! The rest of that art… is here. If you want to see it lol

[kenazzy]

Hey guys, gals, non binary pals, mysterious archers, gay immortals, pirates, gender queer peeps, gay worms, and kings and queens and betweens.

I'm Kenazzy, although y'all can call me Ace. They/ Them.

My main goal in life other than buying like 20 roombas is to publish a novel and become an author.

This is my blog to talk about my ideas, characters and updates on things so yea.

Currently working on:

A book about lesbian ghosts called Alma's Grave. There's more to it than that btw. Feel free to ask about, I would love to talk about it

[michaeljoncarter]

this sounds so lame, but it's honestly like. actually upsetting to me that the absolutely INSANE bg3 retcon version of sarevok is the only version of the character 99% of people will ever be aware of. they took what was easily one of the most interesting, complex characters in the history of gaming and did this randomass retcon that completely character assassinated him, rewrote his entire background (and large chunks of the original bg series??), and retconned him into a comically evil, one dimensional, painfully boring cartoon villain for literally NO REASON?????

i know people comparing literally everything to atla is annoying, but genuinely the closest comparison i can think to try to convey how insane this decision was is like. imagine if legend of korra brought zuko back but only for like a 2 minute cameo where they did nothing but make it canon that he went insane immediately after the events of the original series, turned out to be a p/dophile who abused his own daughter, and started working to put his abusive father back on the throne. and then they immediately killed him off and just NEVER brought him or any of that up ever again ??????

like really truly what the fuck was that

[cineresis]

Angels in America

It's amazing how fast an evening at your favorite club can be ruined by someone keeling over and frothing at the mouth. The band never quite gets back into the swing of things afterwards.

"Angel," sighed one of the men, or nearest approximants, at the table next to mine, "why is it that I can never go anywhere with you without stumbling across a body?"

"Oh, come now," said his partner, a soft, fluffy confection in caramel and cream, rising hastily to make his way toward the source of the commotion. The first gentleman, dark, lanky, and excruciatingly chic, got up to follow him. "It's hardly every time."

I stayed where I was for now, casting my gaze around the room as I went over my memory of the past twenty or thirty minutes. Too many people passing close enough to slip something into the victim's drink, too many others to watch at the same time, too many more opportunities to poison him outside my field of view. I was a detective, not God.

"Stumbling upon, once. Literally. Do you know what it's like to have to clean up after that sort of thing? It takes a personal toll."

"Hush, Crowley," chided "Angel". "People can hear you, and you know how queer they get about these things. Ooh, yes, that's strychnine, all right," he added cheerfully, pulling a small vial from his vest pocket and tipping it into his handkerchief. "Nasty stuff."

I got up. As I approached, I caught the faint, unmistakable chemical sweetness of ether fumes and gave them a wide berth, choosing instead to inspect the victim's plate and glass before turning to scan the room from this perspective.

"Now, just what might you be doing?" drawled Crowley.

I looked him over, too, while I was at it. In Crowley's case, this involved a lot of looking and not much over; he was easily more than six feet tall, even while slouching rakishly. The snake tattoo on his right temple suggested certain things about him. The dark glasses that he hadn't removed since he'd entered just suggested questions, since I highly doubted he was blind. "I'm a detective," I said, leaving the obviously at the end of that sentence to implication. "What are you doing?"

This response seemed to delight him. "So are we," Crowley answered, and grinned. "But if you want to get specific about it, I'm keeping you distracted while my friend saves this man's life. Let's see your license, then."

As I took it out, keeping at least one eye on him and his partner, Angel called out to the rubbernecking crowd around us, "I need someone here to run and call the nearest hospital, and a couple of strong men to help get this poor fellow someplace dark and quiet to rest. Best use one of the tablecloths for a stretcher," he added to the first volunteer who stepped forward.

Crowley leaned in closer to study my license. "Drake Silas Donovan," he read off. "'Silas', really?"

"What about it?"

"I've just always wondered what kind of parent would name their kid Silas."

"The kind who had a grandfather named Silas," I replied coolly, snagging my license back. "Your turn."

He obliged. Anthony J. Crowley, it read, licensed in London since 1905, the year before mine. I wondered how long he'd been at this; he looked too young for his apparent age, but then I looked too old for mine. "A. J. Crowley," I read his signature aloud. "Get asked if you're any relation every time, or just most?"

There's a certain motion a person's head makes when they roll their eyes. Crowley's was making it. "The man's an embarrassment to the side," he griped. "I made my name legitimately."

"And your friend?" It wasn't as if I couldn't put two and two together. There's a certain type of person who's got both a nose for trouble and the brains to prepare for it; if it walks, talks, and thinks like a dick, it probably is one. It was just that I wasn't in the habit of trusting people, and I'd be a real schmuck to neglect basic due diligence on the guy purportedly surrounded by bodies. 

Detectives are no better or worse than any other person. They just think it's usually more interesting to solve crimes than commit them.

"Oh, he's as legitimate as it gets." Crowley turned to his companion, who was getting to his feet, brushing his clothes off fussily. Beside him, the two volunteers hoisted the unconscious victim onto a tablecloth spread across the floor, momentarily dislodging the ether-soaked cloth before Angel caught it and laid it carefully back in place over the victim's nose and mouth. "Aren't you, Aziraphale?"

Angel — "Aziraphale"? — looked up, startled. "Pardon?"

"Mr. Donovan here wants to see your detective's license," Crowley explained, enunciating his words with malice aforethought.

"Oh! Yes. Of course I always have that with me. Now just where did I..." He started patting down his pockets, stopped suddenly, and took a lovely calfskin card holder out of his coat. "Ah. Here it is."

Beaming, he passed it to Crowley, who passed it to me with the comment, "You'll find everything in order, I'm sure."

I glanced down at the card, then back up at Angel. "Am I supposed to call you A. Z. Fell or Aziraphale?" I asked, pronouncing the Z correctly as zed.

"A. Z. Fell is how 'Aziraphale' is pronounced in the King's English," said Crowley blandly, affecting a cut-glass Oxford accent on the last phrase. His partner seemed pleased by this comment, rather than annoyed.

"I'm afraid my progenitor bestowed me with a rather unwieldy given name," Fell admitted, raising fascinating questions about just how many syllables the British peerage could fit on a birth certificate when they really tried. "Aziraphale just sounds so much more euphonious, don't you think?" Crowley was right; I couldn't tell whether Fell had meant to say A. Z. Fell or the de-accented gloss. He'd lengthened the half-syllable between zed and Fell to a full vowel, but some people said zetta.

"I wouldn't know," I replied, handing the license back to Crowley, who was nearest. When Fell didn't take my bait, I added, "Lucky that you happened to have ether handy. I wouldn't like to imagine what might've happened if you'd decided to stay in tonight." I also lied when I said sorry, and when I swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but. Little white lies are the oil in the gears of civilization.

"Oh, I always carry that, too," Fell explained earnestly. "One gets into the habit after one's first run-in with strychnine, and of course ether has so many useful applica—"

"I wouldn't, angel," Crowley interrupted, sounding very amused. "Mr. Donovan thinks you're the one behind this."

"Oh," said Fell, nonplussed. "Gosh. Well, I — I suppose I can't blame him. He doesn't know me from Adam, after all, and has no reason to trust me — I did warn you about giving people funny ideas, Crowley, honestly. Of course," Fell turned to me, laying an elegant hand across his chest, "if you were to search me, you would find only a small collection of antidotes — oh, but a habitual poisoner would probably carry those, too, especially if he were the sort of voyeur with a penchant for playing the hero. I certainly wouldn't be convinced of my innocence. Yes, I can certainly understand whatever suspicion you might feel towards me, however misplaced it may be."

Crowley watched this thought process with an expression somewhere between fascination and agony. "Well, at least now he probably thinks that if you'd done it, you'd have been caught by now," he remarked, presumably because he was thinking the same thing. "You'll have to excuse my friend," Crowley added to me. "He still believes that the innocent have nothing to fear. Somehow."

"First time visiting?" I guessed.

Fell's bemusement answered my question before he did. "Pardon?"

"Never mind."

[myrkkymato]

Dirty Little Animals

That song is so going to be my most listened song this year. It fits both of them so well.

Art nerd alert underneath:

If you like drawing with (waterproof) ink, you can try watering small amounts down. Dried layers don't smudge like aquarelles do but liquid ink behaves like aquarelles on wet surfaces.

[bigmammallama5]

So a thought I've been having for a few weeks now of kryptonians and mild colour blindness. Like, if they lived under a red sun, and predominantly lived there, they probably had *some* colour blindness, right?? I mean, i guess they couldve been genetically engineered for that to like. Not happen but then I'd be petitioning for them to have a wayyy wilder sense of sight and perception of colours. Anyway it also led to mild colourblind kara thoughts and her arguing with everyone about it djdjdkf

rip you just opened one of my special interest barrels and im supposed to be working LMAO

Ok honestly I've wondered about that too bc if Krypton is a red sun planet and they supposedly had flora and fauna before the war that inevitably collapsed the planet, it would be adapted to that darker "sweet spot" for life to grow. Like would the plants be darker (blacks, deep greens, purples, reds?) and would the animals and kryptonians have altered vision and metabolism to make up for the lack of light? Like would we be seeing more bioluminescence (let kara glow in the dark, it would be funny)? Would they have better low light vision and even dark vision? Would they have heightened hearing or even echolocation?

It is canon that kryptonians started growing clones of themselves to use as basically free extra parts to extend their lives during the golden age (i may be getting a few details wrong here, it's been a minute since i looked at my notes and stuff) (The reason the civil war began is bc anti-clone kryptonians wanted to prove that those bodies were real people (and they did! bodily and mental autonomy for the win!).). SO it is very plausible that there was more genetic engineering to benefit their race and their existence on this red sun planet since most of the population was using this technology as opposed to natural birth. That would make a more interesting take on Kara's senses and powers on a yellow sun planet since she was supposedly conceived in one of these tubes (kal/clark was the first kryptonian in generations to be created (lol) the "old" way bc he had the luck of his parents loving each other and not solely together for political purposes via the matricomp).

Also it would just lead to some really cool ways to play with her powers, give a different way to play with her heat vision and x-ray vision (even her hearing), and kick off a huge social media hubub when Supergirl accidentally reveals that she's weirdly color blind.

[bolithesenate]

The origin of Sifo's hair loopies?

"Jo, what are you doing?," Sifo tried to peer at her busy fingers doing... something with a section of hair at the side of his forehead.

"Hush, hold still." She sent him a cautionary jab over the Force, concentrated solely on her little project. "I just learned how to do this, so don't fuck this up."

What 'this' was got revealed to Sifo-Dyas about half an hour later as he peered curiously into a reflective bit of a spoon (due to grievous lack of mirrors in the Archives). He tilted his head, shaking it a bit, the movement sending Jocasta's hairdresserial masterworks (?) swaying.

"And what are they?," he asked again, looking at his very proud looking friend.

"It's a Knight-braid," Jocasta said proudly, "I learned about them when I visited Jedha. Apparently they fell out of fashion already back in Grandmaster Sunrider's time, but there's still records of how to do them."

Sifo looked back into the spoon. Shook the braids some more. "Knight braids, huh," he murmured, "I've never heard of those. You sure that was a real thing that existed?"

She shrugged, already going back to her half-finished kaf she'd gotten before their little pause mid mission-prep. It must have been ice cold by now, Sifo would never understand how she could still drink it like that.

"Does it matter if they did?," she quipped back, before downing the contents of the cup. "They're cute and they suit you. Way better than that stupid beard Yan has been growing out."

Oh, so this was about the beard.

Sifo should have known.

"Maybe if it grows long enough you can braid that too?," he couldn't help but tease her, "You know, get some old traditions up and going again? Maybe start a new trend while you're at it?"

All he got was a look that could have shock-frozen Mustafar twice over. "Do not," she mocked throwing the kf cup at him, "even joke about that, Sifo. I'd rather personally shave down Master Tyvokka before touching that... thing."

Sifo laughed, fingers already reaching to play with the new braids. They were fun. "Oh, don't act like that. You can't fault him for trying to hide his babyface. There's been talks of him getting offered a Council Seat, you know. He's been stressing out over it all month."

"And his solutions to that was to grow a beard over it?" Jocasta sounded dubious. "I don't know. Sounds like a case for the mind healer to me."

"Oh shut it," he flicked her though the Force, "I think it looks stately."

"Of course you do." Her defiant murmur was barely audible, buried behind the datapad she'd pulled out. "Suckup."

"Not everyone is on a crusade against all facial hair like you are," Sifo singsonged happily, ignoring her dramatic mood (it was mostly an act anyways). "A bit of self expression won't do our dear Yan any harm."

Jocasta's face darkened further. "Not him maybe, but just see how you'll feel about it when it gives you beard-burn. That shit sucks."

Sifo snickered. "Advice taken."

"I'm serious, Sy."

"And I'll keep it in mind, Jo." He scooted over to her, flinging one of the newly installed braids against her cheek. "Plus, you've given me the weapons to defend myself now, haven't you?"

With an annoyed groan, Jocasta simply reached out, quick as lightning, and grabbed Sy's entire face, pushing him away. "Stop that you little kriffer," she complained, "I'm already regretting this, just so you know."

Sifo let himself be pushed away. Then he waited a few moments, before immediately diving back in, tackling his smaller friend in a hug. "Nahh," he said happily, rubing his face against her side, "You love me. You love the braids. Show me how to do them myself?"

"You're gonna keep them?," she asked, peering down on him. It was evident that she was flattered by the idea. Flattered that he'd liked them.

Sifo grinned up at her. "Of course. As I said, I gotta be able to beat back Yan's beard-attacks, don't I."

"Hmm." She looked off, clearly fighting down a smile. "I'll see what I can do."