#now we just need a video version somehow.

[inkskinned]

they don't see it, because it is around them like air. to them, it would have to be through movies, through magazines. they think it happens outside of life, like it must be selected to be interacted with.

but you discovered in the fifth grade that you couldn't wear shirts with words on them, it was an excuse for someone to look at your chest. you were catcalled before you were in middle school. sometimes you look at that memory and deny it - surely that can't be right, you were young. but you were in a skirt, so maybe that was a natural byproduct. it was a skirt from that place "justice by limited too" - a store literally for kids. it was popular around then. you wore that skirt twice and then never again.

you can't wear headphones, because what if a man wants to talk to you? there's a guy on the internet who complains that women shut themselves off from being approached. at night, you often keep the headphones positioned but with the sound off, just in case you need to hear something behind you.

you learned at 12 that you can't make eye contact, don't acknowledge the aggression. just walk faster and hope he picks on somebody else. don't wear your hair like that. do not park next to that kind of car, park an entire cityblock away if you must.

you can't go to the museum, you're sitting and tying your shoe when he approaches you and mentions that nobody understands art anymore. that in the whole world, it's just you-two. you have no recourse for eating a meal (it's rabbit food if it's salad, and someone will roll their eyes, eat a sandwich. it's pick-me behavior if it's a burger, we get it you're a cool girl). if you like mushrooms you are cottagecore, which is cheesy. if you like video games you're an egirl (similar to a pick-me). boys do not get categories, but if you point out the categories are sexist, you are told okay but these girls really exist.

it is somehow developing, a little undercurrent that you've been uncomfortable with. the nickname "karen" went from being "a white woman that uses her whiteness as a weapon, particularly against people of color," to now mean "any woman raising her voice or being even a little upset." the reappropriation of a term used specifically to call out white women for their racism has set your skin on edge. now it is just another version of "bitch," one that can be said on television. recently you saw a woman get called a karen because a drunk driver sideswiped her, and she screamed when it happened. the comments on the dashcam video all say "why do women always scream about everything." "when has the world ever been bettered by women screaming." "this fucking karen. she deserved to get hit."

in the sitcom, it's a joke that the wife is furious; slamming her hands down into the sink. i do everything around here, might as well do this too. in your house, your father is always in-his-office. before you know better, your first boyfriend is the type to say it's just easier for you. you used to beg him to take you on dates. he used to make a big deal about it, about the sacrifice of effort, even if you were the one who did most of the planning.

someone on the internet makes a "POV: the most boring person you've ever met" where he puts a towel on his head and just talks like a normal person. his impression of a boring woman is just a woman that is talking about her pretty-average life without exaggeration.

you are sometimes actually sad in the reverse, because actually you did used to struggle to pay attention in conversations. you were also easily bored of normal things, your adhd pinging off of every radio tower in the vacinity. it took time and therapy and patience, and now you delight in the small things about your friends. you like having them show you their organizational systems and talk about their taylor swift tickets. you are entertained by them because you learned to be, even though your brain is structured to only be excited by novelty. you kind of hate the idea that the reason your father will never actually pay attention to you is that you're no longer interesting. eventually the shine wore off, and you were just a person, not a spaceship. he never learned how to just, like, form an actual intimate friendship. it was always at a distance, this sense - emotional closeness was too much. (and yes. he's homophobic).

you're already tired of whatever the fuck is happening with the words "divine feminine", a rancid take that is basically just a rebranding of the patriarchy in action. what the fuck do they mean "being small and delicate and needing protection" is feminine. the words they are looking for are that they want a partner, not that their desire for equivalent support is relegated to gender. the human desire for community is not actually gendered at all. also, what fucking wolves are these "divine masculine" men even battling. fuckken taxes? shouldn't their "desire to protect" also mean "protect you from emotional neglect", or are all emotions off-limits (and how sad would that be. that's a horrible bar to set.)

and they tell you it's really not bad actually, because it's just there. they suggest you get off the internet or you stop reading that book or you stop thinking so hard about the movie or you stop just-being-a-feminist because honestly it's a killjoy sort of thing and then you tilt your head to the side and there's that little siren in the back of your head. if things were actually fine, being a feminist wouldn't put a stop to anything, it would go completely unnoticed, because you wouldn't have any comment to make about any of this

but you are ruining your own life, they tell you. also, girls don't sit like that. also, all girls are catty. also, all girls are bad drivers. also, all girls just need a cute bracelet and an iced coffee.

you do like iced coffee, is the thing. when you close your eyes, the world around you has this strange note to it. and once you hear it, it never stops ringing.

[littlestarlightseverywhere]

This Love

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: Azriel would set the world on fire if it that’s what it took for his mate believe she deserves his love

Warnings: None

Notes: Hiii! This is my first ACOTAR fic on tumblr! Az is my man my man my mannnn and I just love thinking about him. Here’s a little something that came to mind when I was listening to “This Love” by Taylor Swift

Image Credit: “This Love” Taylor’s Version lyric video

Azriel sat hunched over in the plush velvet chair in Rhysand’s office. His elbows dug into his strong thighs as he clasped his hands together, focusing on the slow, mindless movement of his thumb over the ball of his knuckle.

“I think the Cauldron got it wrong.”

“Bullshit,” Cassian asserted eloquently.

“The Cauldron doesn’t simply ‘get things wrong’,” Rhysand said softly from where he leaned against the front of his desk, arms crossed contemplatively over his chest. Cassian, lounging in the chair across from Azriel, threw his hands in the air.

“It takes longer for some people than others, you know.”

“I knew far before Feyre did,” Rhysand supplemented.

“Anyone with eyes can tell how she feels about you. It’s beyond me you don’t see the way she looks at you, brother.”

Azriel was at a loss. Pining after the same woman for decades proved brutal on the heart. Downright treacherous, really, considering he felt the mating bond snap a long time ago and she had given almost no indication she felt anything of the like.

He knew she liked him in the way a person “likes” their best friend who knows them inside out, has been with them through every insignificant or life-altering moment, and embraces every part of them– even the messy bits. No, Azriel had no doubt in his mind that she loved him. She’d said as much multiple times, which left him feeling even more confused.

He didn’t want to push her for fear of ruining what they already had. Things were good, he’d even go so far as to say things were perfect between the two of them. He knew he wasn’t a knight in shining armor, the picture of good, and there were many things he’d done wrong to get to where he is today. Still, she was the one thing he did right. The best part about his life. Whether she knew it or not, it was his truth and he swore if it came down to it, he’d stand to do right by her before Prythian.

“She just has everything together. I don’t want to take up space in a life where she has everything figured out. We are in good places in each other's lives. I would hate to pressure her to change any of it for me.”

“You say that as if you'd be ruining her life,” Cassian’s anger simmered to a sadness. “She’d never think that.”

“And what about you?” Rhysand interjected. “You’re breaking your own heart waiting for her to feel the bond snap. Maybe you need to help her on.”

“I would never put her on the spot like that.”

“I wasn’t suggesting–”

“What if she’d rejected the bond somehow?” Azriel stood up, legs suddenly overcome with the sensation of a thousand little fire ants devouring his skin.

“Now you’re just making shit up.” Cassian huffed, returning to anger.

“How else can any of this be possible? How can she be so oblivious?”

“There is one way,” Rhys offered, suddenly solemn.

Azriel and Cassian looked to their brother expectantly. Azriel felt his heart hammer against his chest in anticipation. A reason was good. A reason was a start. A reason meant that there was a way out of this purgatory he found himself in.

“I read it in one of Amren’s books a long time ago,” Rhys locked eyes with Azriel. “When the mating bond has snapped into place for one of the fae in the pair and the other has absolutely no indication of it, usually it is a sign that they are not looking for a mating bond at all.”

“A lot of people don’t go looking for it,” Cassian reasoned. “I myself was more of the let-it-happen-when-it-will type.”

“Not looking for it in the sense that they don’t believe they deserve it. In the way that perhaps it's simply not meant for them.”

Silence fell over the three males. Azriel felt his heart shatter, pieces of it falling deep into his gut, turning it over and making him uneasy.

“If anyone doesn’t deserve this it’s me.” Azriel whispered.

“Don’t,” Cassian warned.

Rhys continued softly. “When they believe that, they inadvertently shield themselves from feeling anything… including a bond even if it does exist. A defense mechanism of sorts.”

The body protecting itself from heartbreak so painful that it registered it as a physical ailment. Azriel was going to be sick.

He couldn’t believe the love of his life felt that way. He wondered for how long she’d lived with such a belief, how long she’d been giving him her love while accepting none of his. He wanted to tear down the mountains around Velaris, move them, raise them, turn them to dust, anything he could manage to get her to believe him when he told her he loved her.

He barely felt he deserved her at all. It made him queasy with devotion and grief that she loved him enough to ever think she was the undeserving one.

Azriel was so far past worrying that she did not feel the mating bond anymore. All he cared about was making sure she knew she was loved by him in a way that brought him to his knees.

Her second favorite part of the year after Winter Solstice: Starfall.

Elaine spent most of the day in the kitchen with Nuala and Cerridwen. Mor, Feyre, Nesta sat on her bed, lounging on the expansive mattress before it was time to get ready for the party.

While everyone else had their dresses picked out, she was still between options.

“Okay, option one.” She stepped out from behind the dressing screen, twirling dramatically in a golden trumpet dress that shimmered like woven sunlight.

Mor howled and Nesta smirked in satisfaction.

She turned to look into the mirror and study her body. She felt her heart palpitate as her mind immediately dared to wonder what Azriel would think. Would he like it? She shook my head quickly to clear the thoughts. It didn’t matter what he thought anyway.

Feyre sat back, tilting her head with a look in her eyes she couldn’t quite place. “It’s not bad. I caught a glimpse of the other gown earlier…” The ends of her mouth curled upwards.

The second dress was her personal favorite too. A silk, dark navy sheath that hung from her curves elegantly. It shimmered of silver and lavender under the light like the stars had been gathered from the sky and threaded into the material, one by one.

“Yes.” All three chanted at the same time as soon as she walked out again, clad in the dress that looked like it had been made only for her. There was no room for theatrics as her best friends gazed approvingly.

She did not need to look in the mirror to know this is the dress she wanted to wear. After all, she loved the color blue.

The rest of the girls got ready before she did. She went back and forth on hairstyles and makeup multiple times. Nuala and Cerridwen were more than patient, as were her friends who all waited downstairs for her before they’d leave for the House of Wind together.

“This is as good as it will get, I suppose,” She looked in the mirror one final time before descending the stairs that led to the living room below.

As soon as she neared the middle of the stairs, a shadow slipped around her ankle and up her bare arm, sending goosebumps in its wake. It slipped back down her arms gently, like a lover’s admiring touch, and down the stairs again.

Azriel was the first to turn. His senses were always tuned to her without his knowledge or deliberate effort. Her presence was like a beacon in his darkness. A lighthouse to his boat on treacherous waters. He could sense her in a crowded room in a heartbeat just by the way his heart would pound and his skin would warm.

Their eyes locked and he felt a pull in his chest. Almost with a start, he realized it wasn’t even the mating bond, though it also hummed within him. Even despite the mating bond, tender yearning filled his chest at the sight of her standing at the bottom of the stairs now. Pure love. The Cauldron blessed him this one time, perhaps the only time it ever would, giving him the mate it did. Yet he knew, especially in that moment as he drank in the sight of her glowing skin, shy smile, and deep eyes, he would love her even if they were not bound together in this way. He knew he’d choose her over and over and over again. He’d give anything to have her look at him the way she was right now, forever.

Still, Azriel’s heart wrenched as he recalled why she couldn’t feel the mating bond– this thing that crooned and moaned, twisted and sung, wrenched and wrested to be felt by the only other person in the world who it belonged to, not understanding why it hit a wall everytime it tried to reach out to its other half. His other half.

Something like pride came over Azriel as he noticed everyone else stop and stare. Their friends welcomed her with hugs and kisses and compliments and he watched her be loved and by all of their friends. He wanted to say something as their eyes met again. What would he say first? Azriel had a waterfall of words teetering at the tip of his tongue, flowing straight from the pits of his heart, but supposed telling her she was beautiful was a good start.

But before he could say anything, Mor gathered her and Elaine into her arms before winnowing them to the House. Feyre, Nesta, and Amren followed them a second later.

Cassian clapped Azriel on the shoulder, a rare, soft smile on his lips. “Don’t waste another day, brother.”

With Varian uncomfortably nestled in Cassian arms, they were off to the House too.

The celebration was grand as usual. Food and drink flowed from every corner of the room and everyone danced without a second to rest.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She danced with her friends for the longest time; Mor swirled her around the room and Nesta challenged her to keep up.

He stayed within the chattering crowd that boxed in the dance floor, sipping mulled wine and adjusting a fine thread on his jacket every now and again.

She excused herself from Nesta’s ceaseless dancing for some air. Her face was flushed, body warm, but she was happy. Once she reached the doors to the balcony and closed them behind her, she reveled in the immediate silence that followed.

The night air was cool on her flushed skin, the wind a caressing and most welcome touch.

A few minutes later, she heard the balcony door open behind her. Of course she didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. It was the only person that would follow her anywhere, no questions asked.

“Are you quite parched, yet?”

She turned around to find Azriel standing there, tall, broad, and beautiful, with two glasses of mulled wine.

“Quite.” She affirmed with a smile. He walked toward her until they were elbow to elbow, as close as he dared, before handing her the glass. She proposed they toasted to the spirits, who would begin their migration soon, for a safe journey. He obliged.

They sipped their wine in a comfortable silence. Any minute now the show would begin and everyone would move to the main balcony to watch and continue their dancing. This smaller balcony was perfect for just the two of them.

“You look beautiful tonight.” Azriel said as he did not bother to observe the first few stars that crossed the sky in glittery streaks of silver and gold. Next to her, everything else paled in comparison.

Her heart trembled at the compliment. It wasn’t the first compliment he’d given her, far from it, but coming from him they always meant so much.

With the wine in her system, accompanied with whatever was in Cassian’s flask when it was offered to her an hour ago, she said. “I wore this dress for you.”

The choice of color was not lost on him. The next few stars that soared across the sky caused his inky blue siphons to glisten in their glittery light. A perfect match to her silk.

“It suits you.” Azriel hated that his heart was hammering like this. He felt the love in his chest hum like a magnet, the bond snap like a rubber band against his lungs, stealing their air.

She didn’t say anything, only turned to look at him and he did not back away from her eye contact. Only returned it with such intensity that they now spoke with their eyes, a conversation that could never be expressed with mere words, an exchange between soulmates that remained only between them, not even the sky and stars privy to those thoughts.

Before his mind could refuse or reason with him, he closed the gap between the two of them, taking her elbow in his large hands. She allowed him to guide her to his strong body, eager to follow his lead.

His hands dropped to her waist, a respectable distance above her hips, though she would be pleased if he dared to go lower.

“I think about you all the time.” He spoke softly as he drew her as close as she could get. Their bodies were touching, and she was sure he could feel her heart hammering like a bird trying to take flight in a locked cage.

“You don’t,” She whispered as the stars began to rain across the sky in glimmering streams of light. Her mind screamed at her to pull away, to stop before she made a fool of herself. But her body forced her to stay put, to soak in his warmth, the feeling of him against her, to allow herself to indulge in this.

“I do.” His voice was strong, tone resolute. He held her gaze. “I would never lie. Not to you. You are the one thing in my life I would spend the rest of my immortality living for. You’ve captivated me since the moment I met you and if it takes the rest of my life to prove it, I would gladly call it my life’s work. I can’t keep this from you any longer. If that makes me selfish…”

She reached her hand out to cup his jaw. He leaned into it immediately. Her touch was soft against his face and he thought about how nice it would be to stay like this forever.

Starfall was in full effect. Music and laughter from the other balcony was but a distant, muffled, chorus to him and he watched the shine of the raining stars reflect off of her eyes and skin. Like a work of art, he observed. My mate, my mate, my mate, his insides thrummed.

He couldn’t take it any longer. He understood the look in her eyes, the silent permission, the mutual yearning. In an act of mercy, blessing, and loss of control, he slanted his lips over hers, dropping his hands lower on her waist, shifting one to her lower back to support how flush to his body he held her.

She wrapped his arms around his neck, damning the voices in her head telling her none of this was real, that he’d regret it and take it all back in the morning. Deep down she knew even if other men would, Azriel would never. She gave into him, leaned into him, let him in everywhere he demanded it.

She didn’t think about how long she spent in his arms, connected to him like this. Her breath hitched as he felt her squeeze her waist and use the hand that was at the small of her back to travel upward caressingly, taking his time to feel her skin, the dips and planes of her body through the silk, to rest at the back of her neck.

Azriel was so wholly in love he didn’t even have to think about his next move or any kind of thought. Being with her was natural, like second nature.

She pulled away just long enough to breathe, caressing his swollen bottom lip with her thumb as she moved to hold his jaw. He smiled drunkenly at her, watching as she blushed and indulged herself in the feel of his face.

As the stars rained over Velaris in glittering dashes across the perfect canvas of the night sky, she stood with Azriel, holding him as he held her, suddenly keenly aware of what it felt like to be loved by him.

Azriel’s eyes softened in realization, relief, as he felt the hum of the bond break through his chest for the first time in decades. It extended outward freely, like a bird let loose, soaring like the stars in the sky to meet its other half.

She gasped softly as she felt a snap in her chest. A snap that realigned worlds, parted clouds, mended something broken, that marked a shift in time.

She understood.

“Az…” she whispered, almost wanting to not believe it.

He nodded, letting her feel his touch as she worked through the new emotions.

“How long have you known?” She brought her arms down from his neck to hold his hands. His bigger palms enveloped hers easily, warm and strong. Sure.

“Decades.” He shook his head slightly as if it was common sense he’d been in love with her for so long, refusing to break eye contact with her.

“And all this time… you waited? You never– I never thought…”

“I can’t think of anything else I’d want to spend my entire life loving.” He swept a lock of her hair behind her ear to see her better. To remind himself this wasn’t a dream, not this time.

She allowed Azriel to pull her in again, savoring the way his lips tasted, how soft they felt, the way he held her like she’d vanish if he even lifted a finger. It was a grasp that made her want for nothing anymore. Everything she wanted was right here.

“It seems,” she breathed, slightly out of breath after they pulled away again. “I’ve kept you waiting for quite some time.”

“I’d wait any amount of time for you.” He murmured, running his thumb back and forth over the nape of her neck. “I’d do anything.”

[brehaaorgana]

ADHD money/budgeting system I'm currently using for my benefit is going well (I've been using it for like half a year now?), and I wanna recommend it.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT. 10/10 do recommend. Uhhh rambling about it and my generic disclaimers + gushing extensively under the cut but TL;DR I think it's great for ADHD ppl, I've used it for 6+ months now and I find it super SUPER helpful. also weirdly fun.

DISCLAIMERS:

Budgeting helps you understand/know your money, it can't make money appear where there is none.

Everyone should learn to budget even if you don't have much money (especially then)

This is NOT a magic trick solution. Just like everything else, it is an assistive tool. This is one of those adult things we can't simply opt out of without negative consequences, though.

My advice is based on something I am currently able to do. That is, I can spend an amount of money on this specific thing that works well for me. If you have no extra money to spend then previously I was tracking things in a notebook. So you can still do this.

I believe Dave Ramsey is a fundie fraud/hack and no one should listen to him about money.

DID YOU KNOW THEY CANCELLED MINT???

Okay? OKAY.

Ahem.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT.

It is called YNAB for short. The first 34 days are your free trial, and that is my referral link. If anyone uses it and then signs up for a subscription, we both get a month free. Also you can share a subscription with up to six people (account owner can see everything but individuals can pick and choose what they share amongst each other) so like...idk your whole polycule can be on one account. Or your kids. Whatever.

If you are a student, it's free for a year. If you aren't, a subscription is $99 for a year (paid all at once) or $14.99 monthly, which is equivalent to paying Amazon prime. Go cancel Prime and get this instead tbh.

They got a whole article just on ynab and ADHD. They also have like...a big variety of ways to access their info? They have a book, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, blog posts, q&A's, free live workshops you can join (you can request live captioning), emails they can send (if you want) a wiki, and so on. They got workshops on all kinds of topics!!

So whatever ends up working for your brain. It also has a matching app.

If you lost Mint this year they have a gajillion things for moving from Mint.

Also they have a "got five minutes?" Page which has a slider so you can decide how much attention/time you have before going on lol:

They only have 4 rules of the budget, they're simple and practical, and it doesn't get judgey or like...mean about your spending.

1. Give every dollar a job 2. Embrace your true expenses 3. Roll with the punches 4. Age your money.

THEN THEY BREAK THESE DOWN INTO SMALL STEPS FOR YOU! They even have a printable! Also these rules are great because there's built in expectations that things WILL HAPPEN and it's NOT all or nothing with a fear of total collapse into failure. Reality and The Plan don't always align, especially if you have ADHD. So it's directing our energy towards the true expenses and not clinging to The Plan!! over reality.

You can automate a lot of shit (you can sync with your bank accounts just like mint, but also automate tagging the categories of regular expenses/transactions). And if for whatever reason you accidentally do something that makes the budget look weird or wrong:

A) you can usually fix it somehow OR b) they have like, a button you can press that gives you a clean slate and archives the previous version of the budget for you.

So if you forget for a few weeks or months, or accidentally input something wildly wrong, or just don't want to look at a really terrible month anymore and feel like you need a fresh start you can usually either fix it or start fresh which is really nice.

The app also (for whatever reason) scratches my itch to have things like...have incentives or little game-like goals in a way mint never did? I don't know why. Filling up the bars or putting money into the categories to cover my expenses is satisfying lmao. You can also make a big wish expense category for all the fun shit you want, and fund it whenever you can and then you can see the little bar go up and that's fun.

Anyways I've been using it for like 6+ months now and I think it's really helped me when I use it.

[cherllyio]

Li Jing has trapped Nüwa - A season 5 theory

Now I know, this sounds crazy, but dont worry it will all make sense when i show you my evidence for it:

Evidence number 1: How he has the power to do

Evidence number 2: How he has the right motivation to do so

Evidence number 3: Its is shown IN THE LEGO SETS

Evidence number 1: He has the power to do

First of all, Li Jings "Pagado" is weapon used to "trap" people inside of it(sort of like the calabash). He even used this in the original mytholgy against Nezha, when Nezha tried to kill him(Dont worry, i will make an analysis about them soon).

And we even see Li Jing! trap MK in the Pagado in the trailer! (Notice how MK is the only one being pulled forward, while the other are getting pushed back) (This was metioned in a breakdown here)

Second of all, we know this Pagado, is IMPORTANT, with how it placed in the direct middle of the season 5 poster. MK and the rest are even IN A PAGADO IN THIS POSTER. (picture of real life pagoda underneath)

Evidence number 2: He has the right motivation to do so

If we want to understand how Li Jing's motivations works, we first have to look at where he got his ideals from: The Celistial Realm.

Since season 4, we have all been made aware that the whole "Celistial realm system" isnt that great. The Jade Emperor being a prime example of this, as mentioned by Azure.

Azure: "But overtime it became clear for me, that The Jade Emperors only concern was kepping his subjects under his boot"

And if we actually start analyzing it further, we realize that The Celistials realms biggest flaw is that they focus too much on "Order".

Bassicaly: Everyone has their roles and needs to follow them, like how Nezha was so intense about his whole "protect the celistial realm" role. So much indeed, that it was WORTH MORE THAN HIS OWN LIFE.

So it would make sense that in this next season, we would get a direct antagonist(or even villian) who is FROM The Celistial Realm.

Because lets be real, even though MK and the rest are heroes, they dont really follow the celistial realms whole "order system".

They are so incredebly chaotic, that of course someone like Li Jing(whom seems very happy for "intrapping the chaotic", aka putting a circlet on Wukongs head) would not like our protagonists.

And with all this in mind, how would someone like Li Jing then react to Nüwa? Someone who seems to embrace the chaotic as not "something that needs to fixed", but as something that is vital for this world (a real philosophy in dualism btw).

Yea, Li Jing would not like someone like that.

Anyway last evidence:

Evidence Number 3: It is shown in the Lego sets:

The only time we have seen Nüwa in the lego sets was something called the "Celistial Pagoda"

Notice how Li Jing is IN that Lego sets, holding his Pagoda, that looks suspingly a lot like a smaller version of the big Pagado.

With all this in mind then....This is how i imagined it went down:

How Li Jing trapped Nüwa

Li Jing one day learned that the creation godess, Nüwa, was creating something called "The Harbinger of Chaos". He didnt know what it even was, but he DEFINITELY didnt like the sound of it.

Therefore, Li Jing goes to confront Nüwa, trapping her in the process, but... what about MK you might say?

Well as RV sketch theorised in their video: "What is MK", MK is acutally Broken/ not complete yet (hence why he is glitching, and also why his stone has that crack).

Therefore they also theorised that the reason that he isnt Broken/ not complete yet, is because that something happend to Nüwa while she was making him, leaving MK alone and unfinished.

He then, somehow, got brought to live, and found his way to Pigsy.

This then meaning, that if both our theories are correct, Li Jing was the one to trap Nüwa and leaving MK all alone on that mountain.

Li Jing might even have found MK's half finished stone and tried to DESTROY IT. And thinking that he finished the job, he just left it there (not knowing that MK is now the result of that).

Conclusion:

Li Jing not only ruins his own family, but also ruins other peoples(deities) families too!

[currebunz]

Homecoming (Kenji Sato x Singer!Reader)

A/N: I decided to start something like a series. I'll rework a more detailed version of Captured at a later date.

Word was that Kenji Sato was returning to Japan. The sun rose, the sky was clear and the day seemed just right. Of course, you already knew he was coming back as you were the first person he told about his big move. You were excited to see your long time friend again, but things were different. You both were different. Kenji had become more boastful, the hard work he had put in paid off and he was reveling in the attention. He was a man now, not the boy you had known.

You had also changed, launching your singing career and becoming somewhat of an idol. Although you called yourself a musician and a singer, your fanbase rivaled that of idols. You remained humble, finding the spotlight to be too much and keeping your public appearances to concerts and TV programs. The contrast between you two was nearly like night and day. However, you didn’t let that concern you. All that mattered was getting to reunite with Kenji again.

Kenji had arrived the day before, but he needed some time to sort out his living situation as he told you. Not to pry, you decided to make plans with him before he started to pile on work. You called him with a video call, smiling at his sleepy expression.

“Don’t tell me jetlag kicked the Kenji Sato’s ass” you laughed.

“Yeah, yeah. You try taking a red eye half way across the world and then talk” Kenji yawned.

Even if he was a bit disheveled, he somehow made it look attractive.

“Uh huh, and who was it that said ‘the second I get off the plane we are going places?’” you asked.

“I know, I forgot about the press meeting. I’ll make it up to you somehow” Kenji sighed.

Naturally, the moment he returned to Japan the press was foaming at the mouth to get an interview with him. He had his hands tied as he couldn’t deny the publicity and the chance to look good.

“You can make it up to me with…. Okonomiyaki” you said.

“What? Okonomiyaki? You realize you are getting to chill with the Kenji Sato right? We could have anything in all of Japan! Sashimi, Fugu, Wagyu! And you want Okonomiyaki?” Kenji chuckled.

“If I wanted any of that, I’d get it myself. Besides, don’t you remember after every game we’d go out and get Okonomiyaki? You, your mom and dad, my mom’s and I would go to a local place” you began.

“Yeah, and dad would try to flip the whole thing,” Kenji sighed as he remembered.

“And all the toppings would fly off. I smelled like Bonito for three days” you laughed.

Kenji grinned, looking softer now. It made you happy seeing him like this. It reminded you of the past when he would be glued to your side.

“You think you had it bad? My uniform smelled like Okonomiyaki sauce for a week!” he laughed.

You couldn’t help but laugh, recalling the tragedy of Kenji’s baseball uniform. Thankfully, your moms helped Emiko get the scent out in time for his game. As the laughter subsided, you had a silly smile on your face as you looked at Kenji.

“Well, I still want Okonomiyaki” you said.

“Fine, how about afterward?” he suggested.

“It’s gotta be before my concert” you reminded him.

“Shit, that’s right. You have a concert tonight” Kenji hissed.

You had to resist the frown from showing on your face. Of course he had forgotten, Kenji Sato was a busy man. So busy he couldn’t keep track of your schedule, even after you shared it with him.

“It’s alright, we can do it another day. Maybe when we both aren’t so busy” you sighed.

Kenji looked a bit panicked, his steel blue eyes going wide before he cleared his throat.

“N-No, no. I want to do it as soon as possible. I mean… I want to see you. In person” he said.

You hung your head low and sighed. Honestly, hearing him say that made it hard for you to meet his eyes. You slowly raised your head and gave him a wry smile.

“Alright, we can try,” you agreed.

“Maybe Kenji Sato could get VIP backstage access to the concert and surprise you?” he smirked.

“Uh-huh, I’ll let the staff know to let you in. Just don’t make yourself at home in my dressing room. I have important things in there” you rolled your eyes at him.

“Things more important than me?” he teased.

“Oh please, you know there isn’t anything more important to me than you. Well, maybe my bass guitar” you snickered.

Kenji started laughing too, relaxed that you had forgiven him and given him another chance.

“I’ll see you tonight, you’re going to be great,” he said.

“Hit a home run at the press meeting” you said back.

The call ended there, as both of you were called away for the evening. You had been in your dressing room preparing for the concert. On a large monitor was the press meeting where Kenji was… well, himself. It made your stomach tighten over how cocky he was being. You knew it would spell trouble for him with his team. But hopefully they would see the Kenji you knew.

Or rather used to know.

“[y/n] The venue has let the audience in, we're ready to go on,” your secretary announced.

“Right, thank you Kohaku” you nodded.

The show must go on, regardless of how you felt. As you left your dressing room, you turned off the monitor, Kenji’s smirk faded to black before you turned to leave. Your mind shifted to the performance, clearing your head of any other thoughts than your songs and choreography. As you stepped onto the stage, the venue exploded in cheers.

“What a huuuuuge crowd! I think we could bring the whole venue down!” you shouted.

Your fans screamed a loud response back, not that you could really understand it.

“Let’s get this show on the road! One, two, three!” you shouted.

As the music began, the crowd sang along and cheered. It was no different from your previous concerts, everything came to you easily. You could feel yourself begin to sweat as the set list made it to the halfway point. Just as it was about to reach the point where you did your signature set, a loud alarm blasted through the venue.

“Warning, Kaiju attack” came through the speakers and on every screen.

You watched as the fans began to file out, the staff guiding them to the nearest exits. You jumped off the stage, assisting the people in barricades to take the back stage exit with your staff.

“[y/n]! We have to get going!” Kohaku called to you.

“Not until everyone is safe!” you shouted back.

You looked around for any stragglers. There was a group of teens carrying one on their shoulders. You ran over to assess the situation.

“She fell and her leg got trampled, she can’t walk” one of the teens explained.

A loud roar came from above and the ground began to shake.

“Take her through the back, follow Kohaku out” you took them as you pointed to your secretary.

The teens nodded, hurrying over to Kohaku who took on the weight of the injured teen. As you watched them leave, you hear another loud roar. Metal crunched and screeched as a huge shadow loomed over. You weren’t sure what you were seeing but it was a Kaiju for sure. And it was falling backward onto the venue.

Your legs felt stiff as you hurried to run away, just in any direction to avoid being crushed. When the Kaiju finally fell backward onto the venue, you were launched into the air. Everything went dark as you felt heavy weight on your body and pain radiating through your limbs. It hurts to breathe let alone move.

“[y/n]! [y/n]!” Kohaku called for you.

You couldn’t open your mouth, the dust and dirt surrounded you. Nearby, you saw a light stick and turned it on. You hoped the light would signal to Kohaku where you were. After a few minutes, you could hear footsteps approaching.

“Right here! I need a rescue here!” Kohaku shouted.

The debris keeping you down was removed and you were rushed to a hospital.

----

The next day, you had your arm in a sling. It wasn’t bad, but you had bruises and pulled muscles. But you weren’t cleared to do any work. You had been lucky enough that Kohaku let you still attend the TV program you had agreed to be a special guest for.

“It’s not like they are going to make me do push ups,” you sighed.

“You're injured, that is going to be a beacon for gossip,” Kohaku said.

“People are going to talk regardless, at least let me have some fun while it happens” you begged.

That was how you ended up on a chair in a TV studio waiting for the cameras to start rolling. What you didn’t expect was for Kenji to be the other special guest.

“[y/n]? You’re the other guest? This is… this is great-” he stopped when he saw your arm in a sling.

“Oh yeah, we got good chemistry so we can bounce off each other” you grinned.

But Kenji just stared at your wounded arm.

“It looks worse than it feels, I’ll live” you began.

“What happened?” he asked.

“D-Don’t worry about it” you said nervously.

Before he could press further, the host interrupted you both to start the show. You forced the best smile you could, feeling Kenji’s eyes on you. The talk show started on a humorous note as the host made puns regarding both Kenji’s and your profession. It was only a matter of time before the conversation shifted to your injury.

“That’s quite the shiner you’ve got there, wasn’t it from the Kaiju attack last night?” the host asked.

“Uh… yeah. Neronga kinda fell on the venue. These things happen” you replied.

“Talk about going out with a bang, how are you holding up?” the host asked.

“I’m fine, I just need some rest” you said.

“You should’ve rested today” Kenji scolded you.

You turned to him, keeping your lips in a thin line.

“Who knew Kenji Sato was a mother hen? Looks like he does care about something other than baseball!” the host joked at your expense.

The audience laughed but you ignored his comment.

“Anyways, the KDF took care of that monster before it could turn you into a pancake. Any thoughts about it?” the host asked.

“I mean, I’m grateful the KDF managed to take care of the situation. But Ultraman kept the fighting away from my venue. I think if the KDF had let him fight it at least the destruction would have been avoided” you answered.

Kenji stared at you, swallowing as a frown set on his features.

“But didn’t Ultraman run away? I think he bit off more than he could chew back there” the host laughed.

Cue another laugh from the audience.

“We all have our bad days, I want to believe he’ll save us next time” you argued.

You turned to Kenji, noticing he looked rather guilty.

“Don’t you think so too?” you asked.

“He snapped out of the dark thoughts swarming in his head, blinking before nodding.

“Uh yeah, sure he will,” he said with false confidence.

After the show had concluded, you started to meet up with Kohaku. You heard someone jogging behind you and already knew it was Kenji.

“Hey, can we talk for a minute?” he asked.

“What’s this about? You standing me up or not answering your phone?” you asked.

Kenji cursed to himself, he had told Mina to direct all calls to voicemail.

“Both, let’s go. Right now. I know you have nothing planned with that keeping you busy” he said as he pointed to your arm sling.

You pouted at him, furrowing your brows.

“Okonomiyaki” you huffed.

“Yeah, yeah. I know” he laughed.

Kohaku was annoyed to hear that you had skipped out with Kenji. You hadn’t said that it was on his motorcycle either. There had to be some kind of rule against riding with only one good arm. But you threw caution to the wind as you used one arm to keep you grounded to Kenji. Although, he had driven more carefully knowing you were at risk of falling off. When you both reached the old Okonomiyaki restaurant, the memories began to come back.

“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” you said in awe.

“Don’t fix what isn’t broken or something” Kenji chuckled.

You both sat down and began to create a monster of an order. It felt like you were both kids again, mixing things and exploring new combinations. When it came time to make the pancake, you looked at Kenji with a sly grin.

“All right hot shot, you gotta cook it,” you said.

“You can at least put the topping on with your good arm,” Kenji rolled his eyes.

“Just make sure you don’t flip it on my head” you snickered.

“Oh ha, ha. Like I can’t flip a pancake” Kenji sarcastically laughed.

“Says the guy who ended up taking an Okonomiyaki shower” you continued to tease him.

“Hm, maybe you should try one,” he said as he filled a spoon with Okonomiyaki sauce.

Kenji leaned over the table to push it closer to your face.

“Ken! Don’t you dare!” you squealed.

You both began to calm down as your hunger became more apparent. Kenji managed to keep all the toppings on and flip the pancake. Now it was time to eat. You grabbed a spoon, unable to eat properly with your non-dominant hand. Kenji watched you clumsily try to eat with the spoon.

“Okay, hold up” he said and stood up.

He grabbed his chair, moving from sitting across the table from you to sitting adjacent to you. He was close enough to bump elbows with you. He raised his chopstick to your mouth.

“Say ‘Ah’” his voice came out playful as he held up a bite sized piece.

“You can’t be serious” you said as you felt your cheeks heating up.

“Hey, I’m doing you a favor,” he teased.

You rolled your eyes and opened your mouth. The both of you moved forward and the bite sized piece of Okonomiyaki made it into your mouth.

“Oh! So good!” you exclaimed as your cheeks tingle.

“Uh huh? See? And you didn’t want my help” Kenji smirked as he fed himself.

As much as you hated yourself for thinking about it, this was an indirect kiss. You pushed the thought to the back of your mind and hummed loudly.

“Well, if you insist. Then you can feed me” you laughed.

[being-addie]

Morning Routines

We're all looking at those Instagram influencers who somehow manage to wake up at 5 am, do meditation, journal, do a 15-step Korean skincare routine, and go to the gym. And then they make a green smoothie and avocado toast, get dressed in a Chanel outfit and then sit at their fancy desk with a vanilla latte and a croissant.

This is not realistic. You probably already know that, but it likely won't stop you from trying to change your routine bit by bit to look a little like theirs. That didn't stop me, at least.

But now I've come to realise that no matter how much I try, I'll never be able to have a routine like the ones I see online. Because it doesn't exist. It's all curated for aesthetic appeal and generates a sense of false productivity in the watcher's brain. We feel motivated looking at those videos and never get around to changing our own life because we're too busy living vicariously through our phones.

Here's some things you should add to your morning routine, not to be fancy, but to feel better. This is coming from someone who's tried the unrealistic routines, and I now incorporate all of these into my routine. You can skip or add things according to your schedule.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H: Do your body a favour and loosen up your muscles. Nothing better than having a good stretch that wakes your body up.

Drink water: Before you put anything in your system, drink water. Not coffee, not tea. Plain warm water. And I don't mean lemon water. Some people might not agree, but lemon water strips your teeth of the enamel. It also is acidic, so all that bullshit they talk about it being "alkaline and pH balancing" is nonsense. Warm water is the way to go.

Make your bed: A clean bed should be the first thing you do after you wake up. At the end of the day, you'll thank yourself because it will be clean, and fresh and you can fall into bed immediately.

Hygiene: Wash your face to get rid of crusty eyes and sleep. Do a basic skincare routine (cleanser, moisturizer) so you'll feel fresher. Brush your teeth and hair.

Move your body: It doesn't matter what you do, even if it's for 15 minutes. Go for a walk, do a Zumba workout, or squeeze in a HIIT session. You can find lots of tutorials on YouTube (Caroline Girvan, growingannanas, Chloe Ting). Either way, working out will help you feel more motivated and happier. It's the endorphins.

Clean yourself: Set aside some time for showering, slathering on lotion, and doing your (real) skincare and makeup routine. Pick an outfit that makes you feel good about yourself.

Eat something: ALWAYS make some food. Your body has been famished for hours on end, give it some fuel. Make a healthy breakfast, or prep one the night before. If you don't get very hungry in the mornings, have a banana, and pack a mid-morning snack beforehand so you don't reach for chips.

Do 3 things: Make a to-do list of everything you need to do today. Don't overwhelm yourself. Then, knock off 3 easy tasks from the list that you can do quickly. You'll be filled with a sense of motivation, and it'll be easier for you to complete your list. It can be chores, it could be some assigned reading. Just get it done.

Gratitude or prayer: You don't need to sit for 15 minutes to practice gratitude. You can think of things your thankful for on the way to school or work or practice deep breathing/say a small prayer on the subway or bus. You don't HAVE to do it, but it definitely makes you realise how much you have in life and appreciate it more.

Kindness: Start your day with kindness. Compliment your barista, smile at the old lady on the street, pet the stray cat. There's so much love in the world, and you have so much love inside you, and it's beautiful to be a part of it.

No longer will I be stuck in a rut. I cannot be confined to being a bitter, unhealthy person when I know there's a smiling, healthy, happy version of me in the future. Deep breaths. You'll get there babe.

<3

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

Kind of a dumb request but how about team DEFY + any girls you want with an s/o who somehow managed to build a mech straight out of Armored Core? Insanely maneuverable, loads of guns, can fly, etc and s/o built it in a garage with a box of scraps lol

(GFL/Genshin Impact) Task Force DEFY, Amber, Jean, Fischl, and Yoimiya's S/O building an Armored Core Mech

(Video Source: Pongsifu on YT) Luckily for you, I have been binging Armored Core 6 for the past month, and will hop on ANY request to talk/write about anything Mecha related.

12 stared at the giant 10 meter mechanical behemoth that had suddenly made its home inside Griffin's Hangar.

(AK-12) "...We didn't always have that, right?"

The machine's chest slowly opened and revealed a cockpit containing S/O, waving hello from the seat.

Apparently, they had constructed the mech out of spare parts lying around.

(AK-12) "Impressive...But, why exactly did Griffin have that many parts lying around? And how did you find guns that big?"

On the battlefield, she watches the mech fly around at almost breakneck speed, watching them zip around and eradicate one base after the other.

Kicking tanks and shooting helicopters out of the sky, it was far more effective to watch them fight instead of having to do anything.

(AK-12) "Hm. We'll be out of a job at this rate."

94 knew this was going to happen.

T-Dolls would only last so long on the battlefield before they were replaced by the next best thing.

However, she sure as hell wasn't expecting S/O of all people to surpass her, with a mech constructed out of junk parts no less.

It was honestly awe-inspiring what humans could engineer for the sole purpose of destruction.

And it was also physically impossible. Something that size should not be quad-wielding miniguns and moving that fast.

(AN-94) "...How has your machine not collapsed from the Earth's gravity?"

94 is more confused than anything.

15 was impressed more than anything.

She knew S/O was an engineer, but to construct a mech out of the parts they had was nothing short of a miracle and logic-defying technical prowess.

(AK-15) "How does your machine constantly reload the missiles while on the field? It is the only weapon you seem to have, and no one constructed missiles that large, even during World War 3."

She can't help but wonder why DEFY was even needed if Griffin had engineers like S/O around.

Well, at least S/O was on their side.

(RPK-16) "I wonder if humanity will wipe itself out faster with these new machines."

16 is fascinated by the human desire to make machines to wipe out life faster.

Granted, Griffin usually just fought Sangvis which consisted nothing of machines, but it would only be a matter of time until everyone else had their own version of S/O's mech.

And probably not one constructed out of junk either.

(RPK-16) "I must ask, S/O. How can you be in the cockpit of that thing and not reduce yourself to jelly? Surely the G-Force alone would kill you?"

Well, it's not the first thing that humans have done that confused her.

(Angelia) "Hmph. Why did they even bother calling us if they had you here? And could you have done that this entire time?"

Angelia is impressed and annoyed.

If S/O could create a hulking machine of death before, why did they only decide to do it now?

She both dreads and admired S/O's tenacity. To make such an effective machine out of junk took a hell of a lot of elbow grease.

Angelia doesn't question it, seeing that it's working alright so far, but she definitely wants to look into upgrading it.

(Angelia) "S/O, with me. We're painting DEFY's logo on it."

(Amber) "THAT IS SO COOL!"

Amber could create Baron Bunnies with a lot of yarn, but S/O could make a machine that dwarfed Ruin Guards with some random pieces of metal!

(Amber) "You have got to teach me how to do that! And lemme ride it too!"

Amber demands to fly with S/O, even though she can't go nearly as fast as they can.

She watches as S/O wipes out entire nests of monsters before leaping away with its mantis-like legs to the next location.

Honestly, it made her feel jealous.

(Amber) "Heeey, can I ask one of those for my birthday! I bet it'll make flying around Mondstadt a breeze!"

Though as the outrider, she kindly asks S/O not to park the giant machine weighing presumably hundreds of tons in the city.

For obvious reasons.

The color on Jean's skin fades when she heard Klee helped S/O build a brand new toy.

One that put her bombs to shame.

And seeing it park itself next to the cathedral, waving hello to her as she was standing at the entrance-

She was about ready to faint.

(Jean) "S/O! Get down from there right this instant!"

Jean gives S/O and Klee an earful for making such an absolute monstrosity that could potentially damage the land and city!

But seeing it in action and fast it disposed of a Hilichurl camp, it filled her with pride and dread.

Pride for her S/O's creative ingenuity, but absolute fear for what S/O and Klee could make next.

Especially considering how fast S/O's machine moved, and the weapons it had.

Where did Klee find the gunpowder for quad-cannons mounted on it?!

(Jean) "I pray that it won't blow up the city on accident..."

(Fischl) "...WHAT?!"

Fischl completely breaks character upon seeing the giant machine staring at her.

(Fischl) "How did...Why...?! Get down from there and tell me how this mechanical monstrosity came to be!"

(Oz) "You just want to ride the machine yourself, Mein-"

(Fischl) "SILENCE!"

...But yes, she constantly nags S/O to let their Prinzessin give the machine a try.

She finds it so friggin' cool, and desperately wants one of her own, in purple!

She watches with some kind of morbid satisfaction watching S/O's machine wipe out their enemies in electrical explosions.

(Fischl) "I hereby dub your steel horse…Raven, of the 621th star!"

(Oz) "…Why 621?"

Oh, that's where all of Yoimiya's spare fireworks have been going into.

(Yoimiya) "HOLY CRAP! What on earth did you make, S/O?!"

The machine seemed like it leapt from another world!

Especially with how fast it moved, honestly she was amazed S/O wasn't vomiting their guts out as soon as they exited.

While it seemed like it would do massive damage, instead they used it for something even better.

As the machine soared above the skies of Inazuma, the cannons on the arms and shoulders fired toward the moon, the starry night exploding into hundreds of beautiful colors!

They had transformed their machine into a firework powerhouse!

And with how fast it moved, it was able to provide a show from one island to another!

(Yoimiya) "Next festival, you're letting me ride with you! I want to see the work we've done up close!"

[dingodad]

Ok, so this has driven me crazy for the longest time. What the fuck happened to post retcon Japsersprite? The one we know is from pre retcon, since he was on John’s planet when he brought it into the void. Nothing was ever mentioned to happen to post retcon Jaspers, so where is he. I can’t believe Hussie forgot about him, he didn’t forget about the two Nannasprites. Did post retcon Jaspersprite just not exist? Maybe he died on LOWAS when Typheus blew it up, but there is no mention of that at all. I guess only Jade or the Nanna’s would know then, but nothing is ever said about it. Also is there a way to know if the Arquius that becomes lord English is the pre or post retcon version?

i'm gunna play good cop bad cop here cus there's an answer you don't want to hear and then there's a sort of interesting consolation prize answer at the end.

the answer you don't want to hear: it doesn't matter! :P i don't think this really needs explaining but the whole point of davepeta/jasprose's ultimate self spiels is that tying yourself in knots trying to figure out who's "pre-retcon" and who's "post-retcon" is, as they say, for the birds. john is john is john. hussie didn't "forget" that there are supposed to be two jaspersprites: while a story can occasionally get away with having two Daves or two Roses because Dave and Rose have interesting things to say to themselves, the fact that homestuck has even ONE character called jaspersprite simply strains the reader's ability to give a shit. there is the room nor the need for TWO jaspersprites, of all the damnedest things.

(there can be two nannasprites because two nannasprites are funny - but if there's one thing worse than creating the same CHARACTER twice, it's telling the same JOKE twice.)

the other answer is about sprites in particular. do you know why video game graphics used to be called "sprites"? i only thought to look this up just recently: it's because, like the fairies or spirits of folklore from which they get their name, they float above the background of the game world without interacting with it directly. this should form the basis for our understanding of homestuck's kernelsprite, as well, which borrows both from folklore and from computer programming. they are of course ghosts on a literal level, with spritely undead tails and the ability to pass through walls and physical barriers like they weren't there - but the way they interact with the story itself is similarly ethereal-and-or-ephemeral.

sprites appear at the whim of the heroes to serve a very particular purpose - which, you will notice, is exactly what davepeta says they're doing when they show up in hell - but then the moment that purpose is complete they might as well stop existing. dave- and jadesprite show up inexplicably on the battlefield as the reckoning begins: are they killing themselves now that their purposes are complete? where are all the lususprites, anyway; did they do the same thing? erisolsprite initially seems to indicate that he's going to fuck off and possibly explode like all the other sprites who hate themselves, but then just shows up again 200 pages later later at the convenience of the trickster arc. the same is true of all the sprites presumed-dead following the events of GAME OVER, who show up as-needed in the new timeline to form the next generation of redundant ghost freaks. this is simply how sprites operate. whether they're "alive" or "dead" at any given moment is the wrong way of looking at it - they're ghosts for goodness' sake!!

the fact that the story never tells us what happened to "that other jaspersprite" is supposed to make us think less about it, not more, because knowing where one of them is - the "ultimate" one, in fact - should be enough to put our minds at ease. but it also deliberately leaves the door open for another jaspersprite to show up if the story ever somehow, against all odds, finds a place to squeeze one in. which is again exactly what the plot point is currently doing with sprites like erisol, who for all intents and purposes was dead up until the moment page 666 started

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

"Baba!"

Danny smiled as he toweled his hair dry. He loved hearing his little one yell from the living room of his-now thier- lair.

The circumstances of his conception were irrelevant. He loved his kiddo very much, hence the abundance of photo albums and home videos chalked full of his kid doing random stuff. The one with him in his high chair stuffing cheerios into his mouth is his favorite solely for the fact it caught him trying to stuff them up his nose a few times. Definitely something to show future dates when he's older.

His smile fell when he heard anothers voice. No one should have access to his lair. They were in the Infinite Realms for stars sake.

Rushing out of the bathroom in only his sweatpants he charged into the living room to find it filled with capes. More specifically different (largely in costume) versions of Tim Drake. Uh oh.

How did this happen?

"Baba!" He looked down at thier child who was smiling up at him from the arms of one of the younger Tims, showing off his brand new baby fang and bloody hand. Danny rushed into the kitchen to get some alcohol pads and some bravery badges, walking past the summoning circle he had on his wall and taking note of the tiny bloody handprints near the bottom of it.

Crap. That was meant to summon friends and family into the lair. His little star must have tried summoning his father.

After bandaging his kid up and kissing the area he smiled and said, "all better!" Which earned him a giggle from the one year old and an odd look from the child still holding him.

"Tim?" The vigilante looked startled, but Danny didn't give him a chance to recover, "How about you take the little one into the living room and wait with the others? I need to make myself decent before I come explain things."

The kid looked skeptical but agreed and left in that direction.

Danny made his way to his room, and after chasing out two teenage birds who somehow snuck past him into there, he finally got dressed and chased more out of his toddlers room before making it to the living room.

Feeling a room full of eyes on him he sighed and conjured more couches from the ectoplasm in his lair, ignoring some startled shouts as he sat down.

There were a lot of different Tims here. Three adults all in gear, one good two evil, about seven teens, three in gear while four in civvies. Two of the civilian ones were the boys he had caught snooping in his room for clues.

Lastly there were three boys, two in gear with one in a civilian outfit.

Thats a total of thirteen (13) Tims.

"Okay, to start off id like to apologize on behalf of my son. We didn't mean to summon any of you."

The Robin holding Danny son chimed in, "How did he summon us?"

"Kiddo is too small to properly pronounce things yet. Hence why his calling you "baba" instead of "papa"."

He ignored the surprised sounds and questions and just let that sink in before adding, "To clarify, no. None of you are actually the father."

Danny waited patiently for them to calm down and ignored more questions, "I was with an alternate version of you who turned out to be evil-ish and wanted to eliminate all superpowers from existence or something, a fact I didn't know at the time."

"Anyway, he purposely sabotaged my birth control to get me pregnant knowing I wouldn't abort. He did this knowing that when his plan started to come to fruition I'd be too far along to stop him. He had a counter to everything, even things we never told him about. I ended up having to sever the connection between this place- the Infinite Realms- and my home dimension, trapping him there with no way for him to get out and leaving me with no way to ever see my friends or family again. Questions?"

There were many.

[sebadztian]

And the last episode...

God, I miss it already...

Careful, Seb, you're starting to care for the other servants 😊 In any case, it's great to see them again and we're going to get the whole episode of them!

Daaaamn... 😍😍😍 Just look at those legs... It's good to see him back in shorts!

Oooh!! I love these two!!

Agni!! It's been a while, hasn't it?? You look quite well 🥹

Ok, just how big is Weston?? Why did Soma need an elephant just to go and visit Ciel??

Them!

Finny looks so nerdy in glasses. Bard looks like an 'anime uncle', and Snake looks like Mey's brother. It's not the first time we see Seb in glasses, but why does this pair make him look so hot?? Since Ciel is buying something for everyone, he has to buy those glasses for Seb for... uh, stuff...

Finny is so passionate about his straw hat, it's so adorable! 🥹

I'm so happy that they're adding these little scenes! Ciel looks so adorable too as he gets more and more annoyed as he tried on the different hats that get increasingly ridiculous.

Oh! They're goving us some recap about BoM!! Aaaah!!

Another flashback to the Campania arc! Nice!

Hm... They're dismissing it for now, but I wonder if the other six names would ever hold any significance to the series? They certainly are important enough to UT... Maybe we'd get to learn more about them if/when we get UT flashback... After Yana is back... Maybe next year... Or 2026...

I love that Finny is just so enthusiastic about everything! The herbs, the Big Ben, glasses, straw hats, even ladies perfume... Sebastian, on the other hand, looks highly unimpressed. He really looks rounder... And shorter?

He does have a point. That unicorn looks very ridiculous! Even more so than the manga version somehow...

Ciel's most favourite thing in the whole world is sweets and he's chosen a cat as the mascot for Funtom's sweets? Sebas' most favourite animal...? Can't you be more obvious, young sir? I mean, look at the unicorn! This is what he associates 'young ladies' with! Even Seb questioned him about it!

Why... Why is Seb running like that??

So, uh, nobody is going to question how this guy is able to pull an entire carriage across the streets at such speed? Nobody?

A bird? A fairy? No, it's a freaking unicorn! (That doesn't really look like a unicorn at all, tbh).

God, this is beyond ridiculous! I haven't laughed this hard in a while! That unicorn really looks so silly!

Okay, is it just me or did Ciel sound different when Seb snagged him out from the crowd?

*replayed video*

He did sound different!! Please tell me I'm not the only one who notice this!

The unicorn on the perfume itself does NOT look remotely like the life-size mascot! Someone is so fired!

Them!!

Sparkly!Ciel is so sparkly! ✨ And Seb is clapping like a penguin...

And it's a wrap! I'm so happy that we get this episode, but I'm sad that there won't be anymore Kuro episode next week 🥲

Edit (thanks to @mister-astringent): I was freaking right!! I posted this as I waited for the credits to end and they played something for Green Witch arc!! I'm freaking out!!

[pinchinschlimbah]

On "Coming Out" and Noel Fielding

I mentioned forever ago that I had this post in mind and then never got around to it, but now with the new interview quote I was yelling about recently it feels like a particularly good time to get it out of my brain and onto the page! tl;dr: musings on the concept of "coming out" as it has evolved over time, whether it's something that should continue to be necessary or expected of queer people, and why Noel is particularly inspirational to me in that regard since this is, after all, my brainrot blog. This may be extremely long and a bit disjointed but I hope some of y'all will enjoy it!

So a while ago myself and several friends were discussing the concept of coming out. All of us are some flavor of queer both in gender and orientation, but each is in a different place along their self discovery and identity journey, with some being long since out and proud, and others just starting to dip their toes into exploration past the expected cishet.

This discussion actually was prompted by a different discussion about Noel, spurred by comments we'd come across slamming him as being homophobic/transphobic on Bakeoff for making comments suggesting he has romantic or sexual attraction towards Paul, referring to himself with female-centric terms, playing female characters in the skits, and a particular moment where he brings up Old Gregg while talking to KimJoy and says "he was a sea transsexual....quite a demanding role for me" while laughing to indicate that that last part was said in jest. Hey fellas, is it homophobic/transphobic to be a little bit gay and trans? This got us talking about how the current culture of queer identity has evolved to the point where "coming out" feels more like something the public feels they're owed in order for them to view one's expression as valid, rather than its original purpose as something one does for themself in order to live most authentically. I don't think I need to go into detail about how many artists have been harassed by their "fans" into coming out before they were ready because people wouldn't accept the validity of that person's work without knowing exactly how that person identified, there've been plenty of articles and video essays and better written tumblr posts about that, but it's definitely a concerning trend. It can be particularly dangerous when it comes to people who aren't feeling confident or safe enough to come out, who end up being criticized and shunned by the queer community as being somehow problematic for not being able to fully articulate to a group of strangers the ways in which they're experiencing their identity. In this situation, the people who are struggling the most end up with the least support. Forcing people to either declare an identity or get out just leads to more people staying closeted out of fear of doing it "wrong" and never getting the chance to explore the most authentic and joyful versions of themselves, or even worse, feeling the need to out themselves before they're in a safe place to do so and suffering the resulting consequences. Questioning or cautious people deserve space in the community to experiment even if they haven't yet or maybe never will come out! My high school's Gay Straight Alliance was comprised entirely of "straight allies" when I was there. There was not a single "out" person in the school at the time. Nearly all of us in the GSA ended up being some flavor of queer or trans years later after graduation. But whether it was intentional closeting or just feeling an innate affinity towards something we couldn't quite pinpoint at the time, we all knew we belonged there and made that space for ourselves and others like us. Back when "coming out" first became a concept in the public consciousness, it was during a time where cishet identity was not just considered the default, but the only option. By coming out, queer people were giving genuinely revolutionary representation for themselves and others like them by telling the world that, as the old saying goes, we're here, we're queer, get used to it! Nowadays, we're lucky to live in a culture that is much more cognizant of queer identities being a thing, so in many cases coming out has become less about having to explain to those around you the basic concept of queerness existing, and moreso about which specific identity you fall under, and that's where things get messy.

My friends and I shared our own thoughts and experiences. One is currently identifying as "unlabeled" because they haven't found a term that feels correct yet, and therefore hasn't come out because they wouldn't know what to say. One spoke about how when they first came out they were much more insistent on what terms or pronouns people used for them but as time has gone on they've grown to find joy in being inscrutable and letting others wonder what they're perceiving. One expressed that given the state of the world they've been retreating somewhat back into the closet for safety reasons rather than being super outward with their queerness like they used to and is working on learning to embrace those parts of themself again. One said they felt like they'd already been existing as queer and expressing that queerness "before I even had the terms to come out to myself" and is now working on catching up on the conscious end of figuring out what's what. I myself never really had an official "coming out", I just became increasingly visually/socially/vocally queer as I became more and more confident in who I was and what I wanted to be and who I had on some level always been, and decided if people didn't get the hint that's their own problem. I came into consciousness of my queerness during the early 2010s original tumblr MOGAI microlabel boom, where there was a ton of focus on figuring out the hyper specific identity labels that exactly described what you were experiencing. I did a lot of digging and soul searching and experienced a lot of unnecessary stress trying and failing to find my perfect labels and landed on clumsy terms like "full time drag queen" because it was the closest I could get to what I was feeling about my gender, only to be told it was problematic for me to call myself that as an AFAB person because drag "belongs to cis gay men" (don't get me started on that statement, that's a whole other essay lol) It was a real wake up call once I distanced from these aggressively labeled and segmented online spaces and made my way into real world queer communities where I was relieved to find that in fact no one there asks to check your membership card before letting you in, if you feel like you belong there you're welcome no questions asked.

I had other people in these communities referring to me as "queer" and "fag" and "gay" and "queen" before I felt comfortable doing so myself based on online Discourse I'd experienced over who is Allowed to use certain terms, and having these community leaders I respected recognizing those things in me and welcoming me in like that gave me the confidence to really find my own footing in ways that attempting to find my exact correct identity label so that I could officially proclaim it never did. Once I could answer the question of what I was with a shrug and "queer I guess!" things became so much easier. Microlabels can be incredibly helpful and liberating for some, don't get me wrong if it works for you that's great, but let's not pretend that everyone is going to have the same experiences.

So anyway, back to Noel. Noel has never, to my knowledge, ever had any sort of official “coming out” or explicitly referred to himself as queer. So I know there are people out there who will disagree with me considering him to be queer. But so much of what he’s said and done throughout his several decades long career has indicated to me that this is clearly someone of queer experience navigating the world as such, and just as the queers in my local community welcomed me as one of them before I knew to do it myself, I extend that welcome forward. 

Let’s take a look at some of the facts. In the public span of his career, Noel has.....(in no particular order, also if anyone wants to add additional instances of note in the reblogs or comments please feel free, this is by no means a fully comprehensive list) -repeatedly called himself "the woman of the Boosh" or Julian's/Howard's "wife" in ways that suggest that's how he actually felt about it rather than it just being a punchline that he was mistaken for female in the show [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] -referred to himself at the GQ "Man of the Year" awards as "never been a man" and "a sort of girl, he/she" -been referred to by Sandi Toksvig as being "on the cusp" in regards to gender, to which he reacts with amusement and acceptance -consistently expressed excitement and appreciation when others refer to him with feminine terms or say he looks like a girl [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] -said "I love being a man-woman, it's much more interesting than being one or the other" and expressed that the loved shooting the Boosh Electro episode for this reason -referred to Vince Noir (a character who he's been pretty open about being based on himself) as "wasn't seemingly one gender or the other" -expressed that he felt most free and happy when presenting femininely [2] -had Julian, one of the people closest to him, express that Noel and Sandi (an out lesbian) may have "real sexual chemistry" because Noel is "all over the shop, he's a different sex" -used the "Confuser" line of "Is it a boy? Is it a girl? I'm not sure I mind" to refer to himself rather than Vince, and express that he's had to work to find new ways to feel as androgynous as he'd like now that he's older -referred to himself as a lesbian [2] -said that he "sometimes looks in the mirror and sees a woman", in the same interview that Julian implies that Noel is in fact a girl -referred to himself as a "girl/boy" -consistently referred to himself with feminine terms on panel shows and bakeoff -made a joke on bakeoff about not being a testosterone-based person -responded positively when asked about the ways Boosh had influenced queer and nonbinary youth -has said he's "quite obsessed with the man/woman mixup thing" -has said if he was an animal he'd want to be a seahorse because the males get pregnant -Had Lee Mack, who Noel used to live with, refer to him as "the little transsexual one, yeah I think she's fantastic" in a Boosh documentary and "a young lady who came out here happy to be herself" in response to Noel's Wuthering Heights drag performance -had his own mother refer to him as "the daughter I always wanted" -described his own appearance as that of a "transsexual witch" and when an interviewer attempted to make fun of him for calling himself "a transgender witch" by showing Noel a drawing the interviewer clearly found repulsive, Noel responded that the interviewer was "holding up a mirror" and called the image his passport photo

And I'm not even going to bother citing sources on the countless times he's made comments suggesting romantic or sexual attraction towards men. Literally just watch any non-character appearance he's ever done, it's kind of his whole thing??? Not to mention his penchant for picking up explicitly queer and gnc character roles, and also just [gestures vaguely to everything Noel and Julian have said about each other suggesting romantic and sexual tension between them and how they used their characters as an excuse to explore those feelings in a less scary way, again that could be a whole other essay on its own but ooh boy] I also think there's something interesting to explore in the idea of Noel repeatedly referring to his appearance as transgender or transsexual rather than identifying himself as such- at what point does the appearance of something become reality?

It all begs the question- is it even a joke anymore if it's that consistent? Either it's not a joke and it's an authentic expression of his real feelings and experiences, or he for some reason really really wants everyone to believe that he's queer when he's not, with this behavior spanning back to a time before the concept of queerbaiting was on anyone's minds and when being publicly queer could mean the end of your career. Which scenario do you think is more likely? And, does someone who’s been conducting themself like this for their entire career really NEED to come out? Honestly, I find this level of simultaneous authenticity and inscrutability aspirational.

In this Velvet Onion interview from 2012, Noel compares his penchant for dresses to both Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard. This is interesting because those two people represent pretty opposite intentions behind their presentation- Grayson identifies solidly as cis male, and for him the shock value of crossdressing is the point, saying “I signed up for a gender and I want them to be very clearly delineated so I know I’m dressing up in the wrong clothes.” This doesn't seem particularly in line with where Noel is coming from given him famously referring to himself as "the Confuser" and stating in that same Velvet Onion interview that he "never even bothered giving it a label, I never went oh I'm a transvestite, I just went yeah if I fancy wearing a dress I do, never really thought about it really" Eddie on the other hand has famously said "They're not women's clothes. They're my clothes, I bought them." indicating that they were a genuine part of her authentic expression rather than a crossdressing costume, and has subsequently over the years identified more and more solidly as transfemme. I find Eddie's trajectory particularly fascinating because it's been so non-linear. In the 90s when the language for transness was much less public knowledge, she referred to herself consistently as a transvestite- a cishet man who enjoyed dressing as a woman, as well as using terms like "male tomboy" and "male lesbian" and "a full boy plus extra girl". Despite doing most of her standup shows in femme looks, most of her acting jobs were male-presenting, and there was a period of time in the 2010s where she dropped the femme presentation entirely in an attempt to be taken more seriously as the "crossdressing" was seen by many as a gimmick. Swinging back around more recently, Eddie has been explicitly identifying as genderfluid and transfemme, and in recent years has made the decision to "be based in girl mode from now on", and use primarily she/her pronouns. Since this announcement, in her trans advocacy work Eddie has described herself as being "out" as trans since the 1980s despite all of the above. She always knew who she was, it's just she's gotten access to more accurate terms over time to describe what she was experiencing, as well as feeling more safe to do so the more that transness became a known and accepted concept in the public eye.

The interview I mentioned at the very start of this post isn't really a coming out from Noel. And I don't think we'll ever really get one from him. In my opinion Noel has spent the past several decades conducting himself as someone who is in fact already out- it’s pretty clear Noel knows and is proud of who he is regardless of how he chooses to describe that identity. At this point, making some sort of official statement would just be for the benefit of others looking for clarification on their own perception of him and people who want to be able to put him in one box or another, and that’s not what coming out should be. The statement in the new interview is not "I am genderfluid", its "I've always been genderfluid", simply putting an accurate name to what's always been publicly visibly true now that he's got the terms to do so.

[phantombanquet]

Main Story: Diasomnia Book Chapter 8 Episode 7-117: Preparation for Departure! (Translation)

Episode 7-117

⚠️ Major Diasomnia spoilers! Proceed with caution.

translation by: phantombanquet

Idia: MALLEUS-SHI, HUH~~~~! 

THIS GRUDGE… SHOULD I LEAVE IT UNSETTLED~~!! ¹

If that happens, that pretentious inexpressive² guy, who usually keeps up his strong chara moves up in his sleeves…..

I can't help but feel sorry for myself if I don't see his pathetic figure sobbing with a runny nose and begging for forgiveness!

Now, what should I do…… Heh… Ehehehehehe!

Ortho: W-What a malicious scheming face…

This… May have angered someone who shouldn't be angered~

Idia: Heheh…… I'll show you. The ultimate power of a lone wolf³ trained in the gloomy “underworld.”

Just you wait, Malleus Draconia……

I'LL GET REVENGE BY SEIZING YOUR SPECIAL WEAKNESS!!!

Ortho: ……That's all.

From the magical disaster caused by Malleus Draconia until the awakening of Idia Shroud. This concludes the progress report.

Grim: Oohh~~! While we were fightin’ over in Lilia's dream, that's what happened to you guys.

Silver: I see. So Idia-senpai and Ortho are outside of the magical realm. It means that there is support coming from the real world. 

Idia: Y-Yeah, t-that sort of thing…… Well, for now, we'll be playing a dummy video on the surveillance camera for a short while……

I can only do this much.

Sebek: So, even if you have woken up, Malleus-sama will fail to notice and the “darkness” will not attack you.

Ortho: Yes.. And like I said earlier, Malleus-san is currently……

Focused on putting Lilia Vanrouge-san to sleep. 

So, I expect that he has not traced down the whereabouts of Silver-san and the others.

Sebek: Hm. I honestly want to praise your skills, but it is quite complicated when you are outsmarting Malleus-sama……

Idia: Well, that other guy is a battleship-like⁴ cheater so… We're still far off from completely capturing him.

Silver: However… I had no idea that Malleus-sama continued to expand his magical realm beyond the island……

Sebek: Furthermore, if the area is forcibly destroyed from the  outside, there is a possibility that the trapped person's psyche could also become destroyed!?

Grim: Somehow it's a real mess for real.

[Choice 1] Yuu: Can we do something about this?

[Choice 2] Yuu: (If this continues on, Tsunotarou will become the enemy of mankind.) 

Ortho: Yes. That's why we need your power!

Silver: Our… Power?

Ortho: Currently, the S.T.Y.X. staff is working together to assign ID numbers to the dreams of those trapped in the magical realm. 

During that time, we captured your magical reaction as you “moved around on your own” in the dream.

Silver: Could it be that it was my “Meet in a Dream?”

It's my unique magic that allows me to cross between dreams……

Ortho: Yes! That one, that one!

When traces of someone moving from one human dream to another were discovered, the engineers at S.T.Y.X. were in a commotion.

So that was Silver-san's unique magic, after all. Magic is a really mysterious power, huh.

Silver: However, my magic is to reliably travel to the dream of the person I'm targeting after, like you guys. I can't call someone into my dream.

I don’t know what else to say; it's hard to explain… It's a very intuitive kind of magic……

That’s why I was really surprised when Ortho appeared in the Dream Corridor and led us here. 

Ortho: What are you saying?

S.T.Y.X. prides themselves on their super computers and experts in magical engineering and magical analysis. 

They tried their best to analyze magic and they finally found a way to travel from dream to dream. 

Moreover, it is difficult to say that the current method is 100% reproducible so they said: “it's still a beta version.”

The mere fact that you can do it intuitively is astonishing.

Sebek: Hm. So the “power” that you need is Silver's unique magic?

Ortho: That's a part of it, too, but…

Sebek Zigvolt-san, Grim-san, and Yuu-san, your cooperation is essential.

Grim: Hmph! You're just trying to make us do the messy work, aren't ya!

Ortho: Wow♡ Grim-san, you talk too fast. 

[Choice 1] Yuu: This pattern is similar to the headmage……

[Choice 2] Yuu: I don't see any other reason to  be called out……

Sebek: Hmph, I don't like this sluggishness. Get to the point!!

Idia: S-So, uhhh……. While you guys were chattering in Lilia-shi's dream..

I-I was trying to think of a way to escape from my dream world……

Or rather, I've been trying to come up with a strategy to deal with Malleus-shi.

[Choice 1] Yuu: Is your strategy to get him to cry and beg for forgiveness while his nose is runny?

[Choice 2] Yuu: Is it a strategy to take revenge by capturing their special weakness?

Idia: Y-Yeah. That… Hih, hihi.

Anyhow, I made a video to explain that strategy…… W-Would you like to watch it?

Grim, Silver, Sebek: Video?

Idia: Waah~♪ Only good things have been happening lately~ It's so fun every day~ It's just like a dream~♬ Well. It was, in fact, really just a dream. Welcome, all you carefree people who live in the world of empty dreams. I am Idia Shroud. So for today, a cheat trick to create a dream world using magic — — was used by The Most Evil☆Final Boss Mage. Let me explain the strategy used by Malleus-shi. The magical realm that Malleus-shi created is kinda like a server running a huge MMORPG. And each dream of someone sleeping is managed individually. Malleus-shi is using himself and his alter ego to keep an eye on this server. To give you an idea, Malleus-shi is a server admin. And his alter ego is cracking down on users to commit violations in the online game — like a gamemaster. Malleus-shi, with the authority to operate and manage over the entire server, is currently in the state of a demon king who has the world right under his thumb.

Under Malleus-shi's control, we have NO chance of succeeding…… BUT! Because of the super geek hacker group S.T.Y.X. and Ortho's attack, all of the server's source code (construction formulas of the magical realm) has been analyzed and is now completely visible!

So — I'm going to use that data from my dream to develop and build a cheat tool. And then get rid of that damned invulnerable status! It seems like a perfect strategy at first glance, but in fact, there’s actually a flaw in this cheat strategy……. If Malleus-shi (the server admin) discovers this during development— IT'S GAME OVER IN AN INSTANT. But hold your horses! Despite that his alter ego uses autonomous magic, with the total population of Sage Island, monitoring and managing the dreams of about 20,000 people is not an easy task — even for Malleus-shi. If a problem happens here and there in your dream, there's a high chance that you'll have to deal with it by yourself! Therefore — I’ll be developing a cheat tool. I want you guys to catch Malleus-shi's eye and gather party members so we can subdue the demon king.

When everyone wakes up, we'll hand out invite codes that will allow them to travel to my dream.

Then, when all the preparations are ready, Malleus-shi will be lured to my dream and that's when the cheat tool that I developed turns on!! As planned, Malleus-shi's invulnerability will be canceled. And by using the invite codes that were diligently handed out, everyone will gather in my dream! We're going to beat him up with our sheer numbers of forces!

If things go as expected, Malleus-shi will also lift the spell and free us—! How was it!? “A lone wolf magician engineering guy explains how to capture the demon king in three minutes video.” If you think this video was good, leave a like! And this was Idia Shroud.

Grim, Silver, Sebek: ............

Idia: Ummm, e-everyone… Thank you for your attention. ⁵

Th-that’s why……

I ask you guys to go on a journey to gather “the strongest party members who will take on the challenge of defeating the demon king!”

Grim, Silver, Sebek: EHHHHH~~~!?

TO BE CONTINUED...

translator notes:

¹ - 「この怨はらさでおくべきか」 is an old Kansai (Osaka) dialect phrase. This phrase, although it seems like one will forever hold a grudge, actually means something along the lines of: “Shall I leave this grudge unresolved? (No, I actually have to solve this),” due to how the phrase is structured (which would be too deep to delve into but it’s mainly because of the か and べき/べし in the phrase).

² - 「スカしま」 is a Japanese slang usually used as an insult

³ - 「陰キャ」 is yet another Japanese slang used to describe someone with a gloomy or reserved personality or introverts. I used a known English slang instead of translating literally to preserve the meaning of the word.

⁴ - 「弩級 (どきゅう)」 is the Japanese translation of “Dreadnought,” which is a type of battleship in the early 20th century. Idia was just being a nerd again by using game-like terms so I decided to stick with using “battleship” instead of the literal translation.

⁵ - I wanted to note that Idia addressed them as 「皆様」which is a polite way of addressing others due to the inclusion of 様 (sama). Also, the “thank you for your attention” line was written as 「ご清聴アリガトウゴザイマシタ」 in the text instead of the usual 「ご清聴ありがとうございました」 which I think it's just to note Idia's personality www.

personal notes: this wasn't jp proofread so there might be inaccuracies;;; additionally aniplex jp actually posted the "how to subjugate the demon king" video but it's only available in japan.. you can still access it by using a vpn though~

[darcylewisbingohq]

2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters

Welcome back to Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters, friends and Darcy fans, and to the beginning of our 2024 bingo round! We’re looking forward to seeing our bingo friends from rounds past return again and we’re delighted to welcome new Darcy Lewis Bingo creators, too!

We’re trying some new things this year, beginning with our Darcy Bingo creator card for writers and artists and fannish creators of all sorts. After a successful soft-launch of a new prompt format during our Halloween bingo event last year, we’ve decided to go all in for 2024 on this new format for our Darcy Lewis Bingo 2024 creator cards. We’ll explain more about the exciting changes to the creator bingo card in the all new bingo guidelines below, but rest assured, friends, you’ll still have several fun ways to curate your prompts and creator bingo card this round. Only the method has changed to streamline and deliver curated prompts into your hands faster than we’ve ever been able to before. 

We’re also introducing our first ever Darcy Lewis Bingo HQ Reader Bingo Event. Reader Bingo Guidelines will arrive here on our tumblr blog in just a few days. For now, let’s take a look at the new bingo guidelines, the 2024 bingo card, and talk about curating prompts for your bingo card, Darcy creators…

2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo Guidelines for Creators

Brand new format!—NEW for 2024, DLBHQ creator cards got streamlined for this round thanks to a successful experiment with the new this-or-that prompt format we trialed on our 2023 mini bingo Halloween event cards. Our new creator bingo card allows you to curate your card at a glance just to start, no need to request prompt changes before you can begin creating fanworks because every square on your card already begins with 2 prompt choices so you can curate your own ideal bingo card as soon as you finish reading these guidelines.

Squares—Your creator bingo card still has just 25 squares, now with 2 prompts on every square for you to choose from. The center square on your card also now features 2 prompts to choose from—FREE SPACE or AVENGERS ASSEMBLE. The choice of which to use and how to use them is yours. Any version of Avengers Assemble fills the prompt if you use it in a fannish work. You can still use the center square as a free space, but if that doesn’t inspire you to use it, you can use the 2nd prompt in that square, Avengers Assemble, like any other prompt on your card to inspire a new fanwork or new update to a fanwork.

Prompts—Prompts on the new creator card are all Darcy-centric to begin the round, meaning they’re derived from Dr. Darcy Lewis’ appearances in the MCU, many recent, but with familiar throwbacks to her early appearances, too. You need not have seen the newest films or shows featuring Darcy to use any of the prompts or to participate in this bingo. Prompts are only intended to inspire new fanworks. You are welcome to use them to write stories about everyone living in the tower or go all the way back to Puente Antiguo and the beginning of Darcy’s MCU journey. Or create entirely new AUs! It’s up to you. Note: Every bingo creator card bears 50 total Darcy-centric prompt options now, allowing you to curate your creator bingo card hundreds of different ways even before our curated prompt request form opens for this round. You can use the Darcy Bingo creator card attached at the end of this post to start writing today.

Fills—Aesthetics, drabbles, one-shots, multichaptered fics, series, drawings, paintings, sculptures, social media AUs, gif edits, video edits, moodboards, coloring pages, playlists, new additions to pre-existing series, and new updates to pre-existing fanworks are all accepted fills.

Truly, ANY CREATION inspired by your prompt counts.

Cosplay as Darcy, make it fit your prompt somehow, and take a selfie for the fill—we’ll count that, too. We’d also love to see you Darcybounding irl.

(A little fannish history sidenote on character-bounding: With the rise of popularity in cosplaying the past 10-15 years, the practice of guest cosplaying is no longer permitted or politely ignored within Disney Parks in order to add an extra layer of protection for impressionable children who can’t tell the difference between professional face character actors and adult guests in heroic cosplay. When cosplay in the parks was ‘outlawed’ for adults, Disneybounding was born to fill a certain fannish niche without breaking Disney’s park rules or getting frogmarched out of the parks. Or worse—banned from them forever. Character-bounding, or the generally more popular, Disneybounding, is a type of character dress-up that’s like cosplay, but you don’t literally dress up as the character in a costume identical to theirs as worn on screen. Character-bounding is similar to cosplay, but it’s more like a character dressed in modern street clothes that can’t be accidentally mistaken for a face character actor at a Disney Park playing a mythical princess or famous hero.

If you’re curious about the practice of Disneybounding or want to try your hand at Darcybounding some of your bingo fills this round, we recommend checking out the popular #disneybound , #disneybounding , #marvelbound , #marvelbounding , and #characterbounding tags on Instagram sometime. The fan creativity in the character-bounding community is off the charts!)

Back to fills!—To mark a square complete:

You must fill at least one of the two prompts in each square, unless you swap in one of your own curated prompts or swap curated prompts with another player (see Bingo Card Curation and Additional Bingo Card Prompt Swaps for more info)

Fill requirements differ based on the type of fanwork you create (see Fanwork Fill Requirements for a complete list).

There Can Be Only One!—Every creator begins this round with the same DLBHQ creator card—no exceptions! (Keep reading to find out how to curate your new creator card with our curated prompts request form!)

Bingo Card Curation

Fill out our 2024 DLBHQ Curated Prompts Request Form to request up to 10 curated prompts based on your favorite fanwork genres and other types of prompts.

You get a list of prompts—You will receive a list of curated prompts by email if you fill out the curated bingo prompts request form.

Curated prompts are for swapping squares—These curated prompts can be used anytime during this round as swaps for squares you’re not vibing with on your base creator bingo card. The only squares that can’t be swapped out on the base creator card are the four corner squares if you plan to complete our Four Corners Bingo Bang Challenge (we’ll explain more about that in a bit).

Player prompt trades—Your curated, requested prompts are the only prompts that can be traded with other players to use as square swaps for squares on your base creator card and theirs.

To be as clear as possible: the curated prompt request form is not a form to fill out for a second bingo card or a one-of-a-kind, custom bingo card as we’ve done in previous rounds. You are only requesting a list of 10 prompts curated for you to use as instant swaps wherever you want on the base Darcy Lewis creator bingo card anytime during the 2024 round.

We recommend the Chrome browser—We strongly recommend opening the curated prompts request form in a Google Chrome browser to complete it, if possible. (One of our beta-testers had trouble submitting the form in Safari after filling out the whole form.)

Curated prompt requests are limited to a maximum of 10 requested prompts. We strongly recommend maxing out and requesting all 10 curated prompts on your curated prompt request form when you submit it.

Each player may only fill out the curated prompt request form once during the 2024 round. So make it count. 😉

Though the option to request these additional curated prompts is available to all creators, creators participating in Darcy Bingo are not required to request curated prompts to supplement their bingo creator card if they like the base creator card just the way it appears.

The only curated prompts that can be replaced by Mods this round after you complete the prompt request form are those you’ve been sent as a result of your prompt request form that accidentally include something on your Omissions/Do Not Want list. Your DNW list should be clear and concise. Please don’t send us a lengthy essay on your dislikes. If you feel you would need to write an essay-length response about your dislikes to get just 10 prompts that you’re okay with writing, you may be better off (and we would strongly recommend) letting us know you’d prefer one-word prompts-only because one-word prompts are less likely to include or impinge on your lengthy and specific dislikes.

Additional Bingo Card Prompt Swaps

Trade curated prompts with Darcy Bingo friends—one curated prompt swap with another Darcy Lewis Bingo creator is allowed per month. Contact a mod to notify us if you and a friend have both chosen to swap one each of your curated bingo prompts with one another.

2024 creator bingo base card prompts are not tradable with other creators because everyone begins with the same creator bingo card prompts this round.

Monthly adoptables.—A fresh list of monthly adoptables will be posted at the beginning of each month, starting in July. Anyone can adopt a monthly adoptable at any time during the month. To adopt it, you must complete and publish the creation by the end of the month to use it as a completed fill for a square on your bingo card.

The Darcy Lewis Bingo Weekly Challenge continues in the DLBHQ Discord with a fresh prompt every Sunday.—New weekly prompts can be found on our Discord anytime once you join us there! Click this link for your invite to the DLBHQ Discord. The weekly challenge is very similar to monthly adoptables, but the time period allowed is much shorter—just one week to plan, create, and post your fanwork before the week’s 5:00 pm Sunday (New York) deadline.

Publishing Bingo Creations

Tag—@darcylewisbingohq in the A/N and use the tag #dlbingohq (all one word!) in the first five tags when posting your new creations on tumblr if you want your work reblogged. If we can’t find it, we can’t reblog it.

Each published creation should include an outline of the folllowing…

• the square filled

• trigger warnings for content consumers

• word count (for fics, descriptions for the visually impaired, and other wordy works)

• pairings/polycules/main characters

Please include appropriate warnings when you publish your creations.—If warnings are spoilers, put a warning in the tags that spoilers are in the end notes and then actually include the spoilers in the end notes.

Share your fanworks with other creators.—You may also post your fills in the appropriate fill channels on the Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters Discord to share your works with other creators and readers for our new reader bingo challenge. Posting your fills in our fill channels helps other readers find them to complete our new reader bingo. (We’ll post about that in a few days!)

A new Darcy Lewis Bingo 2024 Collection will be appearing soon on the Archive.—Please add your works to this collection as you upload them to make them easier for readers to find (especially those playing Darcy Reader Bingo!).

Please use the ‘read more’ feature on tumblr when possible to abbreviate the length of your fills if you’d like them reblogged by the Darcy Lewis Bingo HQ account.—There’s a shortcut on mobile now that makes it so much easier. It’s in the toolbar at the bottom of every post you create. It’ll look like two stacked em dashes with a squiggly line between them.

Fanwork Fill Requirements

• 100 words for written works or word art, with the exception of poetry with independent formatting rules (such as haikus).

• 1 image for artwork or handcrafts of any kind and a description for the visually impaired of the medium used and what it represents.

• 1 image for cosplay or character-bounding and a description for the visually impaired of cosplay or clothing and any other fashion influences incorporated into the costume or clothing (be descriptive! talk about fabrics and colors, tone and texture! describe the emotions the colors you used evoke in you as the creator!)

• 9 elements for moodboards (background, images, texts, ephemera) and a description for the visually impaired of the moodboard and what it represents.

• 6 images for social media AUs and a description for the visually impaired of the creation and what it represents.

• 10 songs for playlists and a text list of artists and songs to give credit to the original artists, plus a description for the visually impaired of what the playlist represents and how it relates to Darcy.

Still not sure if your creation will meet the minimum prompt fill requirements? @ a mod! we’ll create new requirements based on new types of creator fanwork submissions, as needed.

Deadlines & Masterposts

Deadlines—We have no deadlines. Really. We mean it. We’re not joking. There’s just a form to fill out when you’re done with the current card, completed your bingo, your blackout, completed all the badges you’re interested in, whatever. Set your own goals and fill out the creator bingo award badge request form whenever you’re ready to reap the rewards of your fanwork efforts.

Masterposts—Masterposts are due whenever you’re done with this bingo card creatively and have achieved whatever goals you’ve set for yourself. We recommend posting your masterpost before the next bingo round goes live, but it’s really up to you. We’re not your mom and this isn’t homework. No deadlines or due dates, we swear.

Creator Bingo Award Badges

You Tried Badge—fill any 5 squares anywhere on your DLBHQ creator bingo card.

Creator Bingo, Truly, a Classic Achievement—fill 5 squares in a row, column, or diagonally on your DLBHQ creator bingo card.

2024 Creator Mini Bingo Brownout Challenge—Complete 9 fills in a perfect 3x3 grid pattern anywhere within your Darcy creator bingo card to complete this challenge. (This badge may just be a giant poop emoji the size of a 3x3 mini card. Who knows? Certainly not us. 💩)

2024 Creator Bingo Blackout Badge—NAIL IT! Complete 25 fills on your DLBHQ creator bingo card and blackout all 25 squares for the ultimate 2024 bingo achievement award badge.

Four Corners Creator Bingo Bang—Looking for a ludicrous bingo challenge? Not feeling challenged enough? Bring it on. 😈 We’ve got a real one for you now, a bang within a bingo. Complete a minimum four-chapter story using one prompt each from all four of our bingo creator card’s corner squares (absolutely no curated prompt swaps permitted to be used to complete this badge challenge—you must choose from and use only the prompts as they appear in the four corner squares of the bingo creator card). Your Four Corners Bingo Bang creation must be at least 6,000 words in length to qualify for this bingo bang badge.

Creator Bingo Award Badge Request Form

Please direct any remaining questions to #ask-the-mods or @mod on our Discord if you have bingo questions you can’t find answers to in the bingo guidelines for creators above. If you’re on tumblr, drop us a DM with whatever questions you have or click that invite link in the guidelines above and come join us on Discord to ask your questions there or check to see if your question has already been answered!

The 2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo card for creators is attached below. Have fun creating new Darcy fannish works!

—The Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters Mod Team,

@chrissihr & @ibelieveinturtles

[sgiandubh]

Gleberman's podcast, take 2: the video edition

I volunteered to take one for the team, again, this time watching (or trying to, at least) the video version of Gleberman's infamous podcast on Youtube (if you are a masochist, like me, feel free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_md73Ws2O4&t=303s). You see, I was so intrigued by the OTT praise that I wanted to see the live reactions. To do so, I even watched it at a 0,25 reduced speed ratio, just to catch up those pesky, spontaneous facial expressions he couldn't possibly hide.

Let's start with what we all know: in 10 years, S is much, much better at hiding his game and almost proficient at mastering the poker face. But if you really pay attention (and I did), you might still notice some interesting things: after all, we aren't robots and we can't calibrate or control everything. So, here's my take on what I saw, with screencaps, and covering only the bits I quoted in my first post (https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/733285180488450048/and-kia-ora-to-new-zealand-like-youve )- the rest was really beyond my patience and goodwill abilities, to be honest.

A word and a question on the staging of this podcast, before anything else. I am always paying great attention to the outfits of the people who participate, because I believe they are an integral part of the show itself. While Gleberman's was, to be honest, unacceptably sloppy, S was right on point the message he wanted to convey, with the short-sleeved (?) khaki shirt that spelled three things: Bachelor. Traveler/Explorer. Tropical Chic. As a side note, I wish he'd been dressed like that in the Nevis resort suite snippet: not the usual Peter Panesque/Marty McFly/boyz in da hood outfit. But hey, that's just me, what do I know, after all, maybe the boy really feels more relaxed in those. Brand-wise, however, I will never cease to drum up the urgent need to step up the outfit game and start aligning it with the real age.

The other thing that intrigued me is common to S and C: their love of cupboards and hallways when it comes to playing the show/not show game on podcasts 'from home'. Because they know we watch and because they know, by now, we are probably worse than the MI-6, we're left with... eh... nothing. He apparently found the perfect solution with that sort of a connecting space he is always showing us, lately. Seriously, though, who the hell places himself in front of an opening (sliding door?) to a bigger room, except when wanting to block both the view and any other interpretation? Heh. Things that make one go 🤔.

Anyways. Let's have a look at some reactions I have screencapped:

Gleberman: 'same sweetest person and like an amazing human being'.

Translation: I am pursing my lips and bracing myself for the rest of the #silly compliment. I can't possibly express how much this annoys and embarrasses the bejesus out of me. But hey, Monica, have at it and let's be done already with this circus.

Gleberman: '...and friend to talk to and I just love you.'

Translation: I close my eyes because I don't want to hear the OTT crap this woman is shamelessly peddling around. I cross my arms defensively, because this is the best I can do. I really pray internally she'd immediately stop it, somehow (though I am fully aware she won't and this is just the beginning). She definitely overstepped a red line and I don't want to be a part of it.

S: '.I think there's...there's a lot of smoke and mirrors, this is ALL fake.'

Translation: I am talking with my hands to make a point (and also to show off the damn rings - oh, Lord, let them talk about these to oblivion, on socials). I am also covering my face with a gesture evocative of a smoke curtain, because ultimately I feel the need to protect myself from the smiling entity on the other side of my screen and because, at the same time, I know exactly what I did here. Oops, I just unleashed another half-in-jest zeppelin, that people could pretzel exactly how they see fit. However, it's true: my public persona is a carefully curated lie. Peekaboo, underneath I know very well what my committed truth is.

S: ' I am the double'.

Translation: I am opening my arms and I am puffing out my chest. There, I've said it. Ha! I am in full defiant mode, now. I meant every single word I just said and damn the consequences.

I wish I'd had the patience to watch it all. But I think I've managed to analyze the most interesting part of it. Overall, there was quite a bit of stress involved on S's side (lots of chin grabbing, etc), the only one I was interested in. She was simply not worth my attention and I doubt she, unlike many other people in the media, 'knows stuff'. If anything, that only served to validate my first impressions.

And yes, always look for the presence of the teeny-tiny abnormal detail. Sometimes (not always) it can prove rewarding.

[aliciavance4228]

I don't like to act like an angry missy right now but why do so many people have to ship Athena with someone?

I can somehow understand shipping her with a female character because:

Many people interpret being a virgin as not having sex with a man and consider that penetration = losing your virginity;

Athena is already believed to have two romantic (though not sexual) relationships with two different women, namely Chariclo and Myrmex.

However, people sometimes really manage to come with the worst pairs ever. Athena + Medusa = LOVE; that's why she helped Perseus to decapitate her and then attached her head to her Aegis. Athena + Arachne = LOVE; that's why she bellitled her so bad to the point where she wanted to kill herself out of shame, or just turned her into a spider directly. Athena + Artemis- You know what, this one is not so bad, actually. I won't criticize this one.

Anyway, but the worst ships ever are those which include her + a male deity.

Athena + Hephaestus; Hephaestus tried to rape her once.

Athena + Poseidon; Besides the fact that they two are already known for deeply hating each other, it is said that Poseidon was the one who suggested Hephaestus to force himself on Athena while he was drunk.

Athena + Zeus; No. Just no. We already have Zeus raping Rhea and Persephone in Orphic Greek Mythology, and trying to rape Aphrodite (in the versions where she is his daughter) as well. We don't need a disturbing SA scene involving them two.

Athena + Ares; It's pretty clear that they two have a common brother/sister rivarly. That's it. That's all.

Athena + Hermes; She's acting like the big sis towards him.

Athena + Apollo; Same as for Athena + Hermes.

Athena + Dionysus; In some myth versions she literally took care of him when he was a baby.

Athena + Hades; Surprised that there are people who actually ship them two, honestly.

The more I see these pairs the more I'm starting to believe that these people cannot understand the fact that there are women who can be happy without a man as well, or that if two people of the opposite gender are getting along it's not necessarily because there's something inherently romantic/sexual in their relationship. They're really acting as if there's something wrong with being asexual or just not interested at all. Furthermore, we already have a lot of goddesses who are not married and sexually active (Aphrodite post-divorce and Demeter are the first examples that come to my mind).

The best theory that I have right now is the Forbidden Fruit Effect. To resume it shorter, the Forbidden Fruit Effect is when someone either craves for something that they clearly cannot have, or can have but with serious consequences. The best example in this case are nuns and how they are presented in an extremely sexual/provocative manner in movies, video games, fanarts etc. Which not only that is disrespectful to religious people, but it's also completely disgusting. You're specifically choosing to sexualize a category of women who made a vow of chastity and clearly expressed their choice of never sleeping with a man.

Athena is one the Three Virgin Goddesses along with Artemis and Hestia in 99,99% of Greek Mythology, so why can't people just respect that and move on?

[thepaintedsable]

Another spread, mostly colored doodles. Pokémon and Undertale junk to let off steam after class.

Closeups and Junk under the cut!

I love learning that games for a console that was discontinued in 2013 are still leagues out of my price range. And that if I only had the next version up of said console I could have paid like $30 and had a Pokémon game. Now I want to figure out how to get an R4 card without getting scammed, because I could care less about having an OG physical card but I am also… not the most technically inclined. At least not when it comes to video games, for whatever reason. I just wanna play the game.

Undertale. Don’t know why I started drawing it again but here we go. I started thinking of my original phase because of all this, and I was weirdly, unironically obsessed with Nice Cream Guy X Burgerpants back then??? The underpaid service workers ship. The capitalism pals.

Also thinking of my original, childhood Undertale phase, I decided to redraw my old self-inserts. Classic. In the time when I didn’t have social media and was watching Tumblr ask blogs on YouTube to get my fandom fix. I wholeheartedly believe younger me would have both loved Tumblr and also have gotten bullied off the platform. Thank god I was never brave enough to make an account.

Anyways, from what I can remember, both of these characters were 14 at the oldest. I was young enough to think that was mature. The cat was a super smart scientist who worked at Grillbys and was also a part of the Royal Gaurd, somehow? Normal undertale timeline. Was either related to or friends with Burgerpants? The only reason I hesitate to say they were related is because I know they weren’t father/daughter or brother/sister and those were practically the only two relationships I thought were allowed back then. Liked Temmie a lot. Maybe had a Sans ship thing????? The fox… I mean I know they started off as just a redesign of the cat to make her more original but. Uh. After finding a blurb in an old sketchbook from that time: she is a creation of Ink and Error (????) and was raised by them, tried to kill “their Chara” (????? I thought they were created by the void crew??? Where’d Chara come from?) and won but also died, where their dust “traveled the multiverse” (How?) till it fucking possesses a body created by Gaster and Sans in a little AU (????????) but this AU breaks and becomes the Void (HUH??) and is AGAIN raised there until she is 11 with the goal of killing “their Chara” (girl I thought you did that already). She finds her way back home (Ah, void #1) eventually and is a “Multiverse traveling reaper.” Also she likes Underfell Sans. I give younger me 10/10 for creativity, but a C for continuity because????????? Either I thought I’d remember the extra details or I thought it was obvious somehow? At least the cat I can just justify as just a person who needs to work multiple jobs. We are missing data for the fox I swear. Lost to time, smh.