#seriously these things are fascinating

[studentofetherium]

wanna see something cool i own?

Faust is a Japanese avant-garde literary magazine. a lot of famous subculture writers have written for it or have even gotten their start in it

in 2007, Del Rey decided to start translating Faust. however, rather than translating each volume directly, they decided it would be an easier sell to collect the most marketable stories and package those together. they only published two volumes

however, the first volume is somewhat interesting for one of the stories included

The Garden of Sinners

Del Rey planned to translate and release the series in full, so this was meant as a teaser for the full release. it includes the entire first chapter, Overlooking View (here translated as A View From Above)

for a while, this was the only officially released translation of Nasu's writing. it's still the only official release of Kara no Kyoukai, as Del Rey immediately started floundering and never released the series like they planned

i find it fascinating that this translation is so old that it refers to the UFOtable movies as "upcoming"

[bottombaron]

it’s a small thing, but while I was working on the Transmogrification Explained Part 2 I caught something that I thought was interesting enough to share.

At this point (see below) at the end of the finale, after the ceremony, all the housemates go into the fancy room and Nandor says something about playing Parcheesi right before he takes a brief moment to comfort Guillermo the tiniest bit.

Right afterwards however, instead of doing as he said he would and follow everyone else into the fancy room, he heads right, down the hallway, most likely going straight to his room.

All the nonchalance and dismissal and ‘hey, let's pretend everything is fine and back to normal now!’ talk is a feint. Nandor doesn’t go into the fancy room to take comfort with the group and deny that anything important happened, and since he told Guillermo to clean up Derek before sunrise (something I thought was odd at the time because why would it matter if Guillermo left it until sunrise when everyone would be asleep anyways), he knows Guillermo won’t follow him.

Nandor is choosing to be alone after all this. It’s a very neat little character bit that is easily overlooked within the noise of the episode. While the tone at the end of the ceremony looks like everyone is moving back to square one and blatantly ignoring the seriousness of the situation to do something as banal as a board game, the actual actions of the characters show that there really is devastation amongst them. Guillermo’s obvious, but Nandor’s is hidden with a line that distracts us from noticing that he actually retreats from everyone and hides away.

It really makes me wonder what Nandor did after everything. Used the time to get himself ready for bed so Guillermo couldn’t wouldn’t have to do it when he got back? Sulked? Had a tantrum? Went into his treasure room to read Guillermo’s thank you card again and again?

oh and another little thing: Guillermo and Nandor are the only ones who still have their robes on after the ceremony, and actually end the scene still in them. All the other characters almost immediately took them off after the lights went on.

having them the only two that still wear the robes feels so significant to me. like they’re still in this ritual between them. Or, if the bondage rope part of it comes into play, they are still tied to each other. There’s definitely something to be read here, with both Nandor keeping the rope-cape on and pretending like he was going to follow the others but going to his room instead. Whatever it is, one thing’s for certain to me: Nandor is Not Okay after the ceremony.

[spirit-meets-the-b0ne]

The thing that Targaryen antis either don’t or can’t understand is that in spite of all the discussions, discourse and arguments (& moral conjecture): I simply love dragons and mentally ill women with great hair sorry if you can’t relate

[notwarriorswiki]

If I ever get canceled, it’s going to be for saying Brambleclaw is my comfort character from when I was 10 years old and I will always have a soft spot for him as a 22 year old woman.

[askdacast]

"how did the guy with no friends win?"

except, he did have a friend in the end

Pearl, a past winner who was also all alone the entirety of DL and went mad because of it

Pearl, who won because the person who betrayed her at the very start atoned for what he did by sacrificing himself and giving her the win

("I guess I forgive you after all...")

Pearl, who after healing from that betrayal went on to open her heart to alliances in the end (Nosy Neighbors + Grian et. al.) and eventually did find one she could call...family (The Mounders)

Pearl, who was the ONLY one to extend that invitation to the friendless villain ("I guess you found your family after all, Scar")

Because she was the only one who knew what it was like to be all alone, like him

But also come back from that dark place and reach out to someone who suffered just like her

And in the end they became a duo, she even tried to sacrifice her life for that fellow 'undeserving' lonely person, and only didn't because he wanted a 'fair' (for a given definition of that word) fight

Even at the end, Scar's "I'm gonna get you Pearl!" loses just...a tinge of the angry, bitter bloodlust he'd been baring throughout the session, and sounds almost playful

And then "she's dead scar. you won."

He killed the only person left who considered him a friend because she, in a sense, gave her life to him

It didn't start with the duel. It started with her hand of forgiveness.

but also because Scar really did become so much better at pvp like dang his red kills were vicious

[puppyeared]

people who do STEM or administration as a career full time and continue to do art as a hobby, I am scared of you but like in a hot way. youre like if we were allowed to have cold drinks in winter. i look at you and think of miles morales with his two cakes. do you want to make out sometime

[mkstrigidae]

APWH preview snippet!

Since I'm actively trying to work on getting the next few chapters out, I thought I'd share a little future scene with some hints of Jonsa with all you lovely people! This bit is from like, a few chapters in the future bc it's the in-between that's giving me fits right now :) (Fair warning: this is unedited and subject to change! That being said, it's such a fun scene that I can't imagine ever nixing it :D)

“Does he even know that they have to avoid the press?”

“For the last time-“ Sam sighed, sounding completely exasperated, “Dickon knows what they can and can’t do- he’s got enough practice not being photographed from when our dad was the secretary. Not to mention spending time around you when that exposé on your crazy grandfather came out two years ago.”

“I just-“ Jon sighed, blowing a stray curl out of his face. “You didn’t see how freaked out she was when the press caught us at that performance in White Harbor. I thought she was going to have a full-blown panic attack.”

He was immediately derailed by Gilly plopping little Sam down in his lap and shoving a bottle into his hands.

“What’s this all about?” he raised a brow, adjusting the baby on his lap, allowing him to latch onto the cuff of his flannel shirt and start gnawing at the fabric. “You going somewhere?”

Gilly shot him a withering look, but he saw the amusement in her eyes.

“I-“ she gestured, imperiously, “Have not had time by myself to shower all week-“

“Sorry, love.” Sam winced, looking up from his pile of paperwork. “I can take a break from these-“

“Not your fault, Sam.” she waved him off. “You warned me about this conference at the beginning of the summer.” a grin played at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, it works out well- Jon needs a distraction right now from the fact that Sansa’s on a date with your extremely hot and conventionally attractive brother.”

“Hey!” Sam looked wounded, and Gilly rolled her eyes, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“You know you’re my favorite Tarly.” she wrinkled her nose. “How long have you been working on this presentation? You smell like the baby spit up on you.”

“Guess I’m next in line for showers.” Sam said, mournfully. “Unless-“

“Nope- I need my own time right now, Samwell. Did you even hear what I said about why Jon’s bent out of shape?”

Jon had known Gilly since Sam and she had met up north while the two of them were in college. Sometimes, it was hard to reconcile the timid, scared girl she had been with the woman who was currently devoting all of her remaining energy to busting his balls.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about Sansa with my brother.” Sam snorted, shotgunning another cup of coffee next to him the way Jon was used to seeing undergrads do with jaeger shots. “I mean, this is Dickon we’re talking about. Used to bring wounded animals home to take care of them Dickon? The same guy who cried when we had movie night and Gilly and Rhae wanted to go see ‘Love, Simon’?” He shook his head. “Look, as far as guys she could be out on a date with right now go, Dickon’s kind of the best case scenario. She’ll have a nice time, and he’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

Jon blinked at him, silently turning to look up at Gilly, who rolled her eyes and sighed.

“You’re hopeless, sweetie.” she kissed him on the forehead again, wrinkling her nose. “He’s not worried that things will go wrong- he’s worried they’ll go a little too well.”

“You’ve been spending way too much time around my sister.” Jon muttered, narrowly avoiding little Sam’s grasping reach for his glasses, managing to get the baby to latch onto the bottle before he destroyed any more of Jon’s eyewear. “You even sounded like her just then.”

Sam blinked for a second, his head whipping between Jon and Gilly.“You’re jealous?” He asked, incredulously. “Of Dickon? Wait- you like Sansa?”

“Got there in the end.” Gilly sighed, affectionately patting him on the shoulder before going to shower, leaving Jon and Sam behind with four cups of coffee, one baby, and approximately five brain cells total between the two of them.

“You like her.” Sam repeated, like it was a giant revelation.

“What are we- in middle school?” Jon hissed, immediately turning his head down to smile and make faces at little Sam while he fed him, before glaring up at big Sam again. “I don’t- I mean-“

Sam was just shaking his head.“Of course you do.” he laughed. “Should have guessed- red hair and a damsel in distress? You were doomed from the outset.”

“Shut up.” Jon muttered, flushing. “It’s not like that.”

“Then why are you worrying about Dickon for fu-“ Sam glanced nervously at the baby, “-god’s sake? When Gill was meeting my family for the first time, I remember you told her not to worry- that my brother was ‘one of the best guys you know’ and ‘practically a golden retriever’.”

Jon could tell that Sam, who could not raise one eyebrow without the other, was desperately trying to do just that.

“I don’t know.” He muttered, moving little Sam to his shoulder to start burping him. “Look- I’m attracted to her, alright? It’s a fu- er, a giant disaster that I’m gonna ignore for the rest of my life.”

“Seriously?”

“Stop trying to do that with your eyebrows.” Jon complained. “It’s giving me motion sickness. And yes, seriously. I’m not even going to consider that- it’s just a stupid crush. Besides,” he sighed, rubbing little Sam’s back comfortingly, “Robb’s already dealing with enough right now with this whole Sansa situation- can’t imagine telling him I think his sister’s attractive while he’s being forced to suddenly confront all of his guilt and self loathing every time he looks at her.”

“That whole bro code thing of never dating your friend’s sisters never really made sense to me.” Sam shook his head, gulping down more coffee. “I mean, I’d be thrilled if you decided to date Talla, because I know you’d be good to her.”

“Yeah, don't think she'd quite go for that, mate.” Jon snorted, standing to bounce little Sam around gently. He was just grateful Sam hadn’t said anything else about Robb.

“Eh, wouldn’t count you out completely.” Sam shrugged, smirking. “With that hair, you’re pretty enough to be a girl- maybe that’d be enough for her.”

“You are so lucky i’m holding the baby.” Jon muttered, still bouncing little Sam, who picked that moment to spit up spectacularly down Jon’s back.

“Well, that’s three of us who’re gonna need showers now.” Sam grinned, looking thrilled as all get out that it hadn’t been him. “Wow- his aim is getting better.”

“I’m going to remind him of this when he’s a sulky teenager.” Jon grumbled, wiping spit-up off his shoulder as best he could. “Look- no gossiping with Rhae about this, please. She thinks she’s such a good clandestine agent that she doesn’t always realize that Robb is better at sniffing out her plots than she thinks.”

“Alright-“ Sam sighed, looking back down at the massive stack of paperwork in front of him. “I make no promises for Gill, though.”

“Gilly could give some of my Uncle’s colleagues at the WIA a run for their money when it comes to withstanding interrogation.” Jon snorted.

“Probably true.”

“Where did your brother take Sansa?” Still holding onto a now much happier baby with one hand, he reached down the other to take a gulp of his own coffee.

“He said something about going out towards the Tyrell Estate.” Sam shrugged. “They probably drove out there to see the gardens- he’s said it’s a good road to take his bike out on.”

Jon promptly spat out his entire sip of coffee, staining the front of his shirt as well as the back, and frightening little Sam enough that he started to cry.

“He took her on his motorcycle?”

Gilly picked that moment to reappear, completely clean and with wet hair, blinking at the scene in front of her.

Sam, who couldn’t seem to stop laughing, was desperately trying to calm down the baby, who had started wailing, while Jon’s entire front was covered in coffee and his entire back was covered in baby vomit. Not that he seemed to notice, as his face was white and he was making a series of angry looking hand gestures at her husband.

“I really can’t leave you three alone for five minutes, can I?” she sighed. “Do I even want to know?”

[monsterhugger]

i'll always prefer manga canon banana fish bc i think setting it in the 80s means there are a lot of things present that add to the story that are absent when it's set in the 2010s (homoerotic 80s action movie outfits, griffin being implied to have been drafted vs joining the military by choice, general lack of cell phones or computers usable by the general public, etc) but i think there's something to be explored in the idea that ash is going through all this during the AIDS crisis AND the satanic panic. like obviously there would be fallout in the 2010s but we get like two pages in the manga about the government's reaction to dino's operation being exposed and like. oh my god it would be fucking insane. it would be so much more fucking insane than we ever see

like i think yoshida made a very conscious decision to avoid mentioning any real politicians so the president is kind of this like. nebulous fictionalized US President character but like. imagine if it was fucking Reagan denouncing a pederasty ring with ties to the republican party. like. what even.

ash makes like one mention of "if i had [an STD] it would have spread through half of congress" and that hits like a ton of bricks. there were already cases of right-wing politicians found to be HIV+ from presumably consensual gay sex, imagine the added wrinkle of credible connections between the US government and a gay child trafficking ring. like. oh my god being gay in the banana fish universe would suck even more absolute shit

[tmmyhug]

tubbo and tommyinnit make divorce proceedings 10000% funnier!

[ridl]

loop hero is so good and funny

[accirax]

August 14, 2023 - June 12, 2024

[axemetaphor]

sendin my love from the other side of the apocalypse

[crown-ov-horns]

I had a dream that Apollo was training Briseis to become a warrior with divine strength. I don't remember the why, or how he got access to her, though.

Sounds like one Helll of an AU, no? She might not be able to save Troy (because fate), but she could avenge it by killing Greeks. She could even be the one to kill Achilles (she deserves her revenge, for being made a sex slave). Or, like Aeneas, she could later travel further into Europe, and be the ancestor to some great tribe, maybe even an empire.

I think, I'll put this idea on my notes (or dream journal, at least). What's with me recieving story concepts in dreams, when I already have an ungodly amount of wips.

I suppose, Apollo decided "I know what Troy lacks! A warrior prodigy teenage girl chosen one with trauma!"

[weepynymph]

The many costumes of Rory Gilmore.

[puppyeared]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[jellys-compendium]

I've spent the last week totally obsessed and immersed in learning about cave diving.

Do I want to learn how to dive for myself? No.

Do I have the insatiable urge to squeeze myself into a cold, pitch black hole underwater where if even the slightest thing goes wrong I'm shit outta luck? No.

But now I know what terms like nitrogen narcosis and decompression sickness means and I think that's rad af