#they’re just an abstract concept at that point

[fumifooms]

What if we were both magic prodigies and it otherized us in different ways and we devoted ourselves to protecting a family member who has general other goals & priorities. What if we both did self-sacrifical devotion in opposite ways.

What if we were dark mirrors of each other and where I've grown overcontrolling you've grown complacent. What if, bought as a servant into a pretty loving home, ownership and control is what love looks like to me, and to you neglected and lonely growing up, love is gratefully taking any scraps of it you’re lent.

By belonging to someone, even if she comes back injured or fails at finding Delgal, she feels like she belongs and is cherished, by owning someone he feels safe in them not leaving him.

She’s what’s tethering him do you see… And he’s the only thing giving her direction and purpose in her state. She needs a compass and he needs a support.

They’re both so out of it 😭 It’s the weirdly intense and unearned mutual trust and reliance on each other?? They’re each other’s weird little comfort codependent teddy bear. Or at least they were headed towards that before SHE DIED THEN HE DIED THEN THEY BOTH FORGOT ABOUT EACH OTHER AND NEVER MET EVER AGAIN. Though she’s also the guard attack hound keeping him safe… And vice versa he heals her and can rewrite her very being with just one wave of his hand. They’re both so so mentally and physically vulnerable both but they cling onto each other. They can’t perceive things accurately but despite it all someway somehow they stumble into something closer to resembling companionship just before they both die. Falin is just that kind and Thistle is just that lonely. Overworked. We both haven’t lived for ourselves in a very long time, haven’t we.

They both have a similar devotion to the people they love but again the difference is that Thistle starts overtsepping while Falin is self-effacing. The other difference between them is that people care about Falin <3 People have given up on Thistle long ago, and he has given people reasons to, while people refuse to give up on Falin. Yaad has a mini arc about it dw about it it’s ok he’s not all alone in the end 😭😭 He reached out for Marcille’s hand but they already all wanted to help him, they just had to be given the chance to, Yaad just had to be given the chance to, it’s okay I’m okay

Hey what if we learned to get in touch with our own identity and the world around us and living in the present again through being in the worst codependent situationship ever.

Falin and Thistle sitting in a tree, sucking on flowers together because they’re h-u-n-g-r-y 💕💕💕

I bet he’s only ever thought of flowers as useless ornaments. Weak weeds. But she shows him they’re tasty and useful and good and pretty in their own right too and deserve existing without proving their worth and waaa <33 Thistles…... Did you know thistles taste sweet if you remove the thorns and eat them?

"Even as a chimera, her kind nature remains" you can’t suppress her in the way that matters. You can’t soothe him in the way that matters. It’s doomed. You’re doomed. It’s all doomed. Save me.

[writingwithfolklore]

How to Nail your School Essays

                Not to brag, but I’m kind of a big deal when it comes to essays at my school. Since I started highschool I haven’t received a grade less than 90% on an essay—so I’m here to share my secret. This works for the classic essay, but you can also use the same advice and fit it to formal reports or other academic writing.

1. Your essay is about 2 things, demonstrated 3 or more times

This is how I’ve always thought about essays. They’re about two ideas, demonstrated as many times as you need to fill the wordcount. Shakespeare + Feminism, Media + Truth versus Misconception, etc. etc. If you’re lucky, your teacher or prof will give you one of your elements. You’ll get assignments like, “write an essay about Hamlet” or “write an essay about the American dream” lucky you, that’s your first thing—now you need to connect it with another.

This connecting idea is my favourite part because you just get to choose a concept or idea you’re interested in. Here’s a tip, if your first/given topic is something concrete, choose an abstract connecting idea. If your given topic is something abstract, choose a concrete.

So, Hamlet (concrete) could be paired with any abstract concept: Loyalty, Truth, Feminism, etc.

However, if your prof gives you something like, “truth” or “race theory”, you’ll find it much easier to connect that with a more concrete thing, like a book, movie, or other piece of media, or even a specific person.

If you are luckiest, your prof will give you both things, “write about the American Dream in The Great Gatsby” in this case, you’re onto the next stage.

2. Stick to the formula

Tried, tested, true. Nothing wrong with a formula, especially not when it gives you A+ grades. Typical essay structure is:

Intro with thesis

2. 1st Body

2a. Evidence that proves it 1

2i. Justify its relevance

2b. Evidence that proves it 2

2ii. Justify its relevance

Etc.

3. 2nd Body

3a. Evidence that proves it

3i.Justification

Etc.

4. 3rd Body

4a. Rise and repeat, you know where this is going.

5. Some may argue…

6. Conclusion

Let’s break it down.

Thesis:

                Thesis completely outlines all your points, or the three+ places you’re demonstrating your connection, and why it matters.

                Here is an intro + thesis I wrote a couple years ago:

“This literature review will explore the impacts influencer marketing has on the children that regularly consume social media content. Specifically, this review will focus on how influencers can impact children’s brand preferences, dietary choices, and lastly, the influx of children taking advantage of this system and becoming influencers themselves.”

Or

“Burned discusses the human aspect of sex work and reverses reader’s expectations on sex workers, while Not in My Neighbourhood discusses prostitutes as victims of a system created against them. Both challenge readers’ perceptions of sex workers, effectively drawing attention to the ethics of displacing sex workers from their cities.”

                So you have your connection (children and social media)/(Burned and Not in My Neighbourhood and sex work), and the different ways you plan on exploring or proving that idea (children’s brand preferences, dietary choices, children becoming influencers.) etc.

                You may also have a more specific stance in your thesis. Such as, “In Macbeth, ambition is shown to be Macbeth’s ultimate downfall in these three ways.”

The Body Paragraphs

                You start out every body paragraph with the point of the paragraph, or what it’s aiming to prove. Such as, “Influencers often include advertisements within their content, which can encourage children to feel more amiably to certain brands their favourite content creators endorse frequently more than others.”

                After this claim, you spend the rest of the paragraph further proving it through examples. This will look like citing a specific source (a book, academic journal, quote, etc.) such as, “The authors claim likeable influencers can associate their likeability with the products they use, influencing children’s perception of brands, referred to as ‘meaning transfer’ (De Veirman et al. 2019)” (super important to always cite these sources!)

                The last part is after each example/proof--you need to justify why this proves your point/is important. So, “This proves children are more influenced towards certain products depending on how close of a relationship they perceive to have with the influencer.”

                Typically, your evidence will all lead into each other so you can transition to the next piece of proof, then the justification, rinse and repeat until you’re finished your paragraph. You can have as many pieces of evidence as you want per paragraph, and the longer your word requirement, the more you’ll want to fit into each point (or the more bodies you want to have.)

                Piece of evidence + why it matters, rinse and repeat.

Some May Argue:

                This is a small paragraph just before your conclusion where you anticipate an argument your readers may have, and disprove it. So, for example, you’d start with, “Some may argue that with parent supervision, the impacts of influencers on children could be lessened or moot. However…” and then explain why they’re wrong. This strengthens your argument, and proves that you’ve really thought out your stance.

Conclusion:

                Lastly, you want to sum up all the conclusions you came to in a few sentences. Your last line is one of the most important (in my opinion). I call it the mic drop moment. Leaving a lasting impact on your reader can bring your essay from an A to an A+, so you really want to nail this final sentence.

                My final sentence was, “Ultimately, it is hard to know in advance how technology and social media will impact the development of children who have always grown up with some form of screen, but until they grow up, parents and caregivers need to take care in the content their children consume, and their very possible exploitation online.”

This sentence is backed by the entirety of the essay that came before it, and usually leaves a little something to chew on for the readers.

Any other tips I missed?

[jstor]

I saw something about generative AI on JSTOR. Can you confirm whether you really are implementing it and explain why? I’m pretty sure most of your userbase hates AI.

A generative AI/machine learning research tool on JSTOR is currently in beta, meaning that it's not fully integrated into the platform. This is an opportunity to determine how this technology may be helpful in parsing through dense academic texts to make them more accessible and gauge their relevancy.

To JSTOR, this is primarily a learning experience. We're looking at how beta users are engaging with the tool and the results that the tool is producing to get a sense of its place in academia.

In order to understand what we're doing a bit more, it may help to take a look at what the tool actually does. From a recent blog post:

Content evaluation

Problem: Traditionally, researchers rely on metadata, abstracts, and the first few pages of an article to evaluate its relevance to their work. In humanities and social sciences scholarship, which makes up the majority of JSTOR’s content, many items lack abstracts, meaning scholars in these areas (who in turn are our core cohort of users) have one less option for efficient evaluation. 

When using a traditional keyword search in a scholarly database, a query might return thousands of articles that a user needs significant time and considerable skill to wade through, simply to ascertain which might in fact be relevant to what they’re looking for, before beginning their search in earnest.

Solution: We’ve introduced two capabilities to help make evaluation more efficient, with the aim of opening the researcher’s time for deeper reading and analysis:

Summarize, which appears in the tool interface as “What is this text about,” provides users with concise descriptions of key document points. On the back-end, we’ve optimized the Large Language Model (LLM) prompt for a concise but thorough response, taking on the task of prompt engineering for the user by providing advanced direction to:

Extract the background, purpose, and motivations of the text provided.

Capture the intent of the author without drawing conclusions.

Limit the response to a short paragraph to provide the most important ideas presented in the text.

Search term context is automatically generated as soon as a user opens a text from search results, and provides information on how that text relates to the search terms the user has used. Whereas the summary allows the user to quickly assess what the item is about, this feature takes evaluation to the next level by automatically telling the user how the item is related to their search query, streamlining the evaluation process.

Discovering new paths for exploration

Problem: Once a researcher has discovered content of value to their work, it’s not always easy to know where to go from there. While JSTOR provides some resources, including a “Cited by” list as well as related texts and images, these pathways are limited in scope and not available for all texts. Especially for novice researchers, or those just getting started on a new project or exploring a novel area of literature, it can be needlessly difficult and frustrating to gain traction. 

Solution: Two capabilities make further exploration less cumbersome, paving a smoother path for researchers to follow a line of inquiry:

Recommended topics are designed to assist users, particularly those who may be less familiar with certain concepts, by helping them identify additional search terms or refine and narrow their existing searches. This feature generates a list of up to 10 potential related search queries based on the document’s content. Researchers can simply click to run these searches.

Related content empowers users in two significant ways. First, it aids in quickly assessing the relevance of the current item by presenting a list of up to 10 conceptually similar items on JSTOR. This allows users to gauge the document’s helpfulness based on its relation to other relevant content. Second, this feature provides a pathway to more content, especially materials that may not have surfaced in the initial search. By generating a list of related items, complete with metadata and direct links, users can extend their research journey, uncovering additional sources that align with their interests and questions.

Supporting comprehension

Problem: You think you have found something that could be helpful for your work. It’s time to settle in and read the full document… working through the details, making sure they make sense, figuring out how they fit into your thesis, etc. This all takes time and can be tedious, especially when working through many items. 

Solution: To help ensure that users find high quality items, the tool incorporates a conversational element that allows users to query specific points of interest. This functionality, reminiscent of CTRL+F but for concepts, offers a quicker alternative to reading through lengthy documents. 

By asking questions that can be answered by the text, users receive responses only if the information is present. The conversational interface adds an accessibility layer as well, making the tool more user-friendly and tailored to the diverse needs of the JSTOR user community.

Credibility and source transparency

We knew that, for an AI-powered tool to truly address user problems, it would need to be held to extremely high standards of credibility and transparency. On the credibility side, JSTOR’s AI tool uses only the content of the item being viewed to generate answers to questions, effectively reducing hallucinations and misinformation. 

On the transparency front, responses include inline references that highlight the specific snippet of text used, along with a link to the source page. This makes it clear to the user where the response came from (and that it is a credible source) and also helps them find the most relevant parts of the text. 

[queer-geordie-nerd]

Having read some of the reports and testimonies from survivors of Oct. 7, there is a part of me that *has* to believe that for a lot of those activists celebrating it as an “act of resistance” they don’t fully comprehend or are even aware of the extent of the brutality, in order to preserve what is left of my faith in humanity.

I’ve said this before but I really do think that for rather a large amount of these people, it’s an abstract concept - they’ve spent their privileged Western lives (I say this as a privileged Westerner) cheering on plucky oppressed underdogs overthrowing Evil Oppressors in the most sanitised way possible in their favourite fandoms.

For a lot of them, that’s their point of reference. The Oppressors are cartoon level evil and their much deserved downfall is an exciting denouement. It’s easy to conceptualise extreme violence as “necessary” when literally your only experience of it is a sanitised version through a TV screen that you can switch off.

If they really had to stand and confront the actual reality of what it is they’re cheering, *really* see and feel on their own skin the almost inhuman level of sadistic depravity displayed by Hamas - a fixation on torture and sexual violence that is truly nightmare inducing - would they understand what true evil actually looks like? Would they understand that far from being an oppressed group rising up against their oppressors and fighting for justice, Hamas employed the age old, extremely common tactic of mass rape as a weapon of war in order to humiliate and dehumanise people they see as less than human? You need only look at any war or genocide from the last 30 years - Bosnia, Rwanda, Ukraine, Sudan, countless others, to see it’s a tool of subjugation, not resistance.

Or are they so far gone at this point that they *do* understand and they just don’t care?

How on earth do I square this in my brain? As a human being? As a woman?

[heartstopperthoughts]

Any talented fanfiction writers in the Heartstopper fandom who want to write my Charlie Proposes First headcanon?

So, it takes place around the time that Charlie graduates uni (Nick graduated a year prior) and they’re moving into their first place together.

Tao has joined Charlie to help him do some moving-house shopping, and they pass by a jewelry store and Tao wants to stop to get Elle something for her birthday. Charlie sees a ring that it just so perfectly Nick. (At this point marriage is still kind of a far-off concept in Charlie’s mind. Like they’ve talked about getting married at some point but in a very abstract off-in-the-future kind of way.) He casually points out the ring to Tao who is like, “Haha, you guys have basically been married for years now, are you finally ready to tie the knot?” and Charlie kind of laughs it off, but then they go home, and Charlie cannot stop thinking about the ring. He doesn’t tell anyone, but he goes back to buy it and decides he’ll just save it for when he and Nick are both finally ready. But then just having the ring makes marriage feel more real, like he realizes he’s actually going to get married to Nick Nelson one day and he starts to kind of obsess over it and how he might propose. He wants it to be a grand gesture but he also wants to make it special and personal but not too cheesy and also not too public but not too boring either. In true Charlie Spring fashion, he gets himself all worked up over it, and to calm himself down, he starts to carry the ring around with him, just so he’s ready if the opportunity ever presents itself.

Anyways, flash forward a handful of months and Nick and Charlie are home for the holidays staying with Nick’s mom, and they’ve offered to do the Christmas dinner shopping. They’re walking through the store, just chatting, and Charlie can feel the ring in his pocket. He just stops and looks at Nick and all of the sudden realizes “I am so in love with this man, and I want to be married to him, like, yesterday.” And without even really thinking about it, Charlie blurts out “We should get married” and Nick thinks he means like someday eventually, so he just says “Yeah?” and turns around all smiley like nothing’s happening, and then he sees how nervous Charlie looks and he realizes Charlie is serious. Meanwhile alarms are going off in Charlie’s brain because he’s starting to realize like, “Oh shit, I think I’m proposing right now?!!!!” And he scrambles in his pocket for the ring and is like “Yeah!” and fumbles out this unplanned but incredibly heartfelt proposal. Nick is completely stunned and isn’t really saying anything, and Charlie’s brain starts to spiral like “Oh shit I’ve fucked it up! What am I doing proposing to him here?! Charlie Spring, you complete idiot! Of course you would pick the least romantic place in the entire world to ask the love of your life to marry you. As if he would say yes to you in a Tesco! You couldn’t have thought this through more?!” And then Nick starts to tear up and fishes around in his own pocket and pulls out… you guessed it, a ring! And they both start sobbing, and say yes to each other.

Turns out Nick had bought a ring back in the summer too and had wanted to propose but didn’t want to add stress to Charlie’s already full plate with graduation and starting a new job and moving into a new place, so he had decided to wait. He’d been trying to work up the nerve to take Charlie to the beach where they had their first date and propose there, but just wasn’t sure when it would be the right time, and he didn’t want to rush Charlie into anything if he wasn’t ready to be married just yet. And Charlie’s like, “Oh my God, I am so sorry I ruined your proposal! And I asked in a Tesco of all places. I’m an idiot!” And Nick hushes him and is like “You’re not. It was perfect. You’re perfect.”

And then they go to the beach anyways to celebrate their engagement.

[eowynstwin]

Dunno if anyone caught it but one thing I was trying to do with the artist!141 post was show how each man influences the other’s art practice in subtle ways :)

Gaz and Price are probably the most stylistically intertwined, they’re classicists with a romantic bent and they focus on the human image. Gaz is absolutely Price’s protege and it really shows.

Likewise with Ghost and Soap, they’re both abstract expressionists (another artist I thought to compare Ghost to—David Smith—was even friends with Soap’s analogue Jackson Pollock), both sort of working in conversation with a given piece to figure out when it’s finished. I imagine they would share gallery space pretty often.

But! Ghost definitely pulls from Price as well. He puts a lot of strong emotion into his work, communicating concepts through shape language, although rather than relying on passion like Price does Ghost prefers to be more confrontational with his work.

Likewise Soap pulls a notion of movement from Price’s style, constant movement that draws the eye all across a given piece and makes the viewer feel like they’re getting a workout just looking at it.

And he and Gaz certainly share a similar goal of inspiring some sort of emotional reaction in their viewers, using color and composition to shape the way a painting demands that you look at it. They both put a lot of themselves, their personalities, and their values into their work, more so than Price or Ghost.

I think with Gaz and Ghost as well there’s a similar desire to sometimes make people uncomfortable—to confront them with facets of the human condition people would rather ignore. For Gaz that’s intimacy, and for Ghost that’s cruelty. They share a fascination for uncomfortable truths.

I imagine Price taught them all at some point and the force of his personality forever altered the trajectory of their individual practices lmao

[suhmingo]

I, uh, don’t know how to actually preface this. It’s really just a mini rant/pseudo-analysis of chapter 167. Which was pretty crazy. But, I loved this chapter, and yes I’m typing this with two hands.

But first let me try and do some housekeeping.

It’s perfectly fine to have an emotional, even visceral reaction to 167. That’s the point

If you feel grossed out, betrayed, unnerved, dumbstruck, or any form of bamboozled by today’s chapter then good! That means the emotional weight of the scene is working, and that you are a proper, feeling human. The

The whole point of fiction is to explore themes that would be difficult, even dangerous to experience from a place of safety. To me that’s, like the entire reason I ever wanted to become a writer, one of the most unsung broke boy jobs in the history of the world. My desire for Denji to get better in a world that is dead set on making him fail is the entire reason I have an emotional investment in the first place. Stories are inherently about conflict and the struggle with resolving conflict, that should make you uncomfortable.

Say what you want about Chainsaw Man. I can take it, I’m a big boy. But one thing that it has always had since Chapter one is a well-defined through line about the complexity of our innate desire to find some type of love fighting against the pain-wrought pathway that it leads us down. In a good story, every chapter should have some way of showing the highs and lows of that theme, and I’m pretty confident when I say that 167 perfectly shows us that.

It’s bad. Don’t let people who brag about their trauma tolerance tell you otherwise. You are well within your right to feel. But I think it would behoove people to 1. Realize that this is fiction, and its effects, though evocatory, are ultimately abstract, and 2. Realize that exploring dark themes allows people, especially a 16-25 (Or whatever the target audience for CSM is) to grapple with and think on human concepts as all encompassing as love.

From a writing standpoint, one chapter has escalated the tension of the entire story more than anything that has happened in Part 2 so far. It’s admittedly a bit early to call it peak. But looking at it as a simple story beat, that’s a fantastic chapter as far as the medium goes.

Listen, the whole point of stories since, like, Mesopotamian times was the tension between wanting a character to achieve happiness vs the hardships and trauma that life happens in life. They’re supposed to put you in a sensitive state emulative of a tense environment. I’d argue that the prevalence of escapist fiction and fandom has changed how we emotionally digest fiction. But that’s a whole nother essay.

The events of 167 aren’t some horny non-sequitur. Everything that happened is entirely a logical, if graven, extension of how we know characters.

Denji is at the lowest point we have ever seen him at. He was literally dismembered and put back together less than 10 chapters ago. The last chapter literally had him groveling on his knees at a cauldron’s brew of his own weakness, immaturity, stupidity, and horniness. I think we can all understand why he would not be in a good mental state to just lose himself in the moment. You can’t even blame Denji in this situation. He was in an entirely vulnerable state that was exploited entirely by

Yoru. Who is the literal embodiment of war. If you think that someone who represents the human fear of war is going to play fair. Turn on the news for five minutes. Yoru is a character we are not supposed to like. She’s fun, because she’s a work of fiction, but she’s arguably less trustworthy than Fami. She’s a violent, exploitative being who possesses a dead teenager. There is no “too far” for her if it’s the fastest way on the road to conquest. Reminder that before she caught feelings, her plan was literally just to castrate Denji because she thought that would further her goals. The fact that it turned into kissing was actually sparing a worse fate. IMO that savior was all in the actions of Asa.

Asa. I genuinely believe that, subconsciously, Asa wanted to kiss Chainsaw Man. Not like how it happened. Never like how it happened, but her desire for Denji/Chainsaw Man's affection has always been evident. She gets irreparably upset when she’s stood up, she makes cringe poetry for Chainsaw Man, and her entire goal as of now is in some misguided desire to make him happy. I also don’t think Asa is actually demisexual, or averse to sex. She is afraid of intimacy, which stops her from ever acting on her urges. Notice that both times Yoru has kissed Denji, it was after the idea of sex and intimacy was explicitly brought to the conversation. To me that screams that Yoru is spurred on by her host’s innate desires. Hell, it’s been shown that in the same way that Yoru has made Asa more proactive of a human being, Asa has made her feel emotions. I don’t think it's a coincidence that Yoru is blushing while kissing Denji. None of that was part of her plan. That’s Asa’s emotional influence getting the better of her in what I predict to be a fantastic role reversal of their initial contract.

This is thematically in line with how Chainsaw Man presents love and sets up deeper themes.



Remember way back in Part One when Denji was just an initial horndog and everybody kinda hated him? I hated Denji back then! When I first heard of Chainsaw Man I genuinely thought it was going to be a mommy-kink fuelled power fantasy. But I was wrong. Wonderfully wrong. Fujimoto used the allure of that idea in Makima to present a story about how dangerous and manipulative the very idea of grooming is, and how damaging that can be to a person. The same way Denji’s desire to get the approval of Makima was poisonous to him is mirrored in his desire for vapid, instantly gratifying sex is being portrayed here. I genuinely think this chapter is going to age like fine wine, and I am absolutely willing to take egg on my face if I’m wrong.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Drafting the Adventure: Dungeons Without Walls

I love the idea of dungeons, but there was a significant portion of my life as a DM where they didn’t feature in my games. While Pathfinder and 5e provided a great framework for character building and tactical skirmishes that I could build story on top of, neither was really great when it came time to detour into a  dungeon. My players tended to get confused when we headed out to plunder the local ruin or cave system, spending a lot more time figuring out where they were and what they should be doing than actually doing anything. 

The problem as it turned out was limited information.  I had a picture of the dungeon in my head/notes but I couldn’t telepathically infer that to the party, and the back and forth questions where they tried to orient themselves within my mental labyrinth ate up a lot of session time prevented us from attaining that snappy pace that every table needs to keep the players invested.

Recently though I had an epiphany about overhauling exploration in d&d, and wrote up a whole post detailing how you could build and run wilderness adventures the same way you could a heist or a murder mystery. Because I was already writing a series about dungeon design it didn’t take long for me to realize that this exploration overhaul was 100% applicable, and could solve a lot of the delay and confusion my players usually faced on their next trip underground.  Spoilers: it worked amazingly.

 The key to this overhaul was giving my players enough information to see the dungeon as a sort of abstract checklist, and then giving them the power to investigate and check things off that list in whatever order they wished, when they enter a new level of the dungeon they get a new checklist to fill out which still keeps that sense of exploration. Folk love checking things off lists, and I as a dungeonmaster love it when players engage with the content I’ve spent so much energy creating even if it’s only poking their head in the door to realize they want to run away as fast as possible. Likewise, designing the dungeon this way let me tackle much larger concepts without having to sweat the details of filling up every little room as I would have to in map-centric design.

To summarize my exploration mechanic as It applies to dungeons:

During Design: After you’ve got the dungeons’ major concept, you divide it into unique “zones” (essentially what might be levels in a regular dungeon) with an interconnected theme, mechanic, or threat.

Each zone has a number of points of interest, which can be anything from trails to follow, odd sights they might investigate, to full complexes of rooms that you’ve mapped out. You don’t need to map out the points of interest otherwise, they sort of float abstractly within the zone 

When players enter a zone, they become aware of its name and general descriptor, as well as how many total points of interest are in that zone. They also become aware of some points of interest immediately to serve as landmarks and give them a direction for their exploration, but most remain undiscovered until they venture off the path and start checking out their surroundings. Hidden among these points of interest are the doors that lead to zones deeper within the dungeon, encouraging the party to explore in order to progress.

During Play: When the players enter the dungeon, one player is appointed as the surveyor, who’s job it is to keep track of the zones, fill out that checklist, and check things off when the DM tells them that they’ve fully explored a point of interest.

Rather than needing to be aware of the exact room layout, the party just need to know what zone they’re in and what options are available to them, Because this information is delivered in the form of a checklist with empty spaces, the party know exactly how much of the dungeon they’ve explored, what’s left to explore, and when they’ve cleared out an area.

Lets take the image above as inspiration. Say the party is trying to make it up to the tower, you can easily see a progression of zones and maybe imagine a few to go alongside them:

Ruins & Foothills: The first area, filled with the remnants of an ancient civilization. Picked over by looters and now a home to all sorts of wildlife,

Mountainside: The obvious next goal, but locked off behind a challenging climb, Filled with hazards that threaten to knock the party back down to the foothills if they’re not careful

Caverns: Secret area accessible only if the party explore a cave on the mountainside, or make a beeline towards the old aqueduct landmark in the foothills, realizing it might be easier than the climb. 

Spire Foundations: The door connecting to the foothills is guarded by a complex puzzle and arcane ward, but the party might be able to sneak in through the caves where erosion has caused a breakthrough into the cellars.

Spire Peak: High among the clouds, the party’s prize is somewhere here.  Access to the upper sections of the tower are guarded by a territorial sphinx under arcane compulsion, though the party might just be able to skip that fight if they figure out the riddle to make the portal mirrors work in the foundations.

Trying to design all this by pencilling it in on a gridmap would take weeks, to say nothing of the headache it’d cause you trying to make things fit together and fill up empty space with content. Designing it first as a sequence of zones and then filling those out with interesting fights, puzzles, and encounters is the work of an afternoon or two. Likewise, its easy on your players: five zones with six to ten points of interest is far easier to tackle when you can make a checklist and see how much progress you’ve made, despite the fact that the area they’re exploring is quite vast. 

I hope you find this as useful as I have, and if you need a more concrete example of how it might work, don’t worry, I’ll have one of those for you in the coming days.

[s-b-party]

Nous & Mythus: A Cycle of the Known & Unknown

****Honkai star rail version 1.6/crown of mundane and divine spoilers ahead****

After getting another update to the Simulated Universe & w/ Dr. Ratio coming soon, it’s a good time for me to discuss about these 2 Aeons & give my thoughts/analysis on them!

So who are these two?

They are Nous the Erudition & Mythus the Enigmata

We’ll start off w/ Nous so what does erudition mean? A synonym we can use is knowledge although that might be a bit oversimplified

Erudition often has the meaning of extensive learning whether it’s from books, practice, lectures, etc. The implication is that an erudite person or thing has a LOT of knowledge; think of a person who’s well-rounded but also has extensive knowledge in the many fields/subjects they have learned about, they can be considered erudite (this is reflected in how Erudition Pathstriders function in terms of gameplay, normally their specialty is dealing AoE dmg to multiple enemies at once as opposed to just a singular target)

Nous takes the form of an astral computer, they are a machine w/ many dangling wires visible & a red “eye” in the center, very much mechanic all around; as for their symbol it seems to speak to their concept quite well

If we look at the background, the cylindrical shapes can be interpreted as scrolls which are often associated w/ learning & knowledge; in the center, the abstract shapes seem to make an eye (their gaze perhaps) but I think it could also be taken as a flash of light which could represent “enlightenment” which we often think of as a sort of critical point in one’s journey in obtaining knowledge

Is it possible that the center is meant to symbolize the moment when Nous reaches their own enlightenment?

To name a few of their more well-known factions, we have the Genius Society & Intelligentsia Guild, both of which have members whom we’ve already officially met in the game: Herta, Screwllum, Ruan Mei from Genius Society and Dr. Ratio from Intelligentsia Guild

Seeing as they’re 2 different factions following the same Aeon, that means there’s something differentiating them, presumably their approach to knowledge

You can tell based on the name of the Genius Society what exactly they focus on (geniuses) which is a bit of a contrast to what the Intelligentsia Guild focuses on which is the dissemination of knowledge meaning that they believe everybody should have access to knowledge

The Genius Society doesn’t seem to share their knowledge that easily which we can see based on how some of the members tend to work alone, one even became known for killing some of the other members despite being in the same organization (#4 Polka Kakamond), Ruan Mei often sticks to herself when it comes to her research, etc; as a result it’s a contrast to how easily knowledge flows within the Intelligentsia Guild which even goes as far as to view it as currency in their motto

Although we’ve pretty much met only one character associated w/ the Intelligentsia Guild officially & despite how much of an asshole he may be, there are aspects related to Dr. Ratio that are in agreement w/ the belief of the Intelligentsia Guild

The name of his banner is Panta Rhei/Panta Rei which is usually associated w/ Heraclitus & it often translated to “Everything Flows”; Heraclitus was a philosopher whose focus was on the movement & changes that the universe goes through which sounds similar to how the faction wants to make knowledge easily accessible (therefore making knowledge flow through the universe)

Ngl the convo between him & Screwllum at the end of the continuance quest had me lost for a bit but I got the gist of it; to sum it up Ratio ended up rescuing the researchers who got teleported by Duke Inferno, Screwllum was wondering why Ratio would just stand back & observe when he could have prevented the situation from being dragged out any further since Ratio had the Phase Flame; Ratio explains that the best thing when dealing w/ ignorant people (in this case, the researchers in the space station including the people in the chat who were gossiping about the situation) is to stand aside & observe bc according to him foolishness is the most difficult thing to cure; Screwllum deduces that Ratio was attempting to make the employees realize that they shouldn’t be idolizing geniuses so much; Dr. Ratio is in a way similar to Alhaitham; they both think that geniuses shouldn’t be made into such a big deal or overly revered; in both cases the reverence of geniuses creates a gap between people based on intelligence

Another aspect which I find both funny and fitting is that Dr. Ratio as a 5 star will be available to EVERY player; as it is implied in the livestream, it’s his way of spreading knowledge to the mediocre; as much as he can be very arrogant & rude, it’s interesting to see that he still upholds the belief that knowledge should be available to everybody, not just to geniuses, in his own unique way

4. The last aspect of Dr. Ratio that I want to touch upon is the combination of his title & name: his full name is Veritas Ratio, veritas meaning “truth/truthfulness” & ratio meaning “reason” in Latin; the title doctor comes from the Latin verb docere which means “to teach/instruct”

This may be a stretch but hear me out: when put together, the name (not necessarily the person) Dr. Veritas Ratio gives off an impression of someone who is either qualified to teach others about “truthful reasoning” or a teacher who is truthful & rational (it might not sound like it but this kinda falls in line w/ Screwllum describing him as candid). Something I noticed is that based on what we’ve seen, not many people in the Genius Society go by the title of Doctor; what I’m trying to get at is that there is something to be said about Ratio having the title of someone who is qualified to teach while members of the Genius Society usually do not really seem that interested in spreading knowledge to the masses or teaching them

This isn’t to say that the Genius Society is entirely incapable of teaching, they probably could if they wanted to (keyword: wanted), it’s more so their motivations & values that differentiate them from the Intelligentsia Guild

Getting back to Nous, both factions do reflect specific sides of the Aeon: both are interested in expanding their knowledge but the Genius Society overall seems to be removed from civilization/society or at least a bit distant (matched by the quote describing the knowledge seeker as having a cold core) while the Intelligentsia Guild has a more cooperative aspect in terms of having a network of intelligence which can be seen in the meaning behind Nous’ signal which is explained in the entry of the Genius Society (although the signal is more so reserved for geniuses, it’s still an attempt at having a group of people work together to find the answers to the universe)

Now that we’ve looked a bit at Nous in detail, I’ll talk about Mythus; as the Aeon of Enigmata, they represent the concept of mysteries that can’t be easily perceived & their form is quite interesting to look at

Their name is related to the word “mythos” which usually refers to the stories & arts that help demonstrate values, beliefs, & attitudes of societies

*I found out recently that apparently the word myth is more of a pejorative term for mythos bc it’s more often than not used to describe stories as false or not true so there is controversy around that*

Overall they look like a jellyfish w/ the main body being faceless & legless while their tentacles/tendrils dangle out; some parts of their body have a unique effect on them that resembles oil spills or the surface of a bubble which is probably meant to be the fog that accompanies them; the staircases that come from their body seem to never end & even fade out into the darkness of space

Their symbol is very similar to their form; you can see the jellyfish w/ tentacles flowing down & in the background there is a ring of rectangles that overlap each other which may be referring to the stairs that appear in their art

The usage of the jellyfish is interesting; just like how the ocean can carry them along, the jellyfish can symbolize flow & movement, perhaps it’s to establish how mysteries simply exist in the universe without push or pull from outside forces

I can see them using the jellyfish due to its connection to one of the biggest mysteries of the world: the ocean (or at least the deeper parts of it); if we think about it, space is like an ocean of stars and unknown things so I think it’s kind of fitting using a jellyfish form to represent mysteries but it might be a stretch

Now a few known factions that follow Mythus are the Riddlers & History Fictionologists: both are pretty straightforward in terms of their agenda which is to enshroud the universe in mysteries

The Riddlers create mysteries by altering texts & words while the History Fictionologists create mysteries by eradicating evidence of past events aka history itself

It is interesting seeing how these factions actively create mysteries sometimes to the point of destruction (of texts, history, etc) even though the existence of Enigmata should be able to exist as long as Mythus exists bc Aeons themselves are manifestations of concepts; in some cases, Aeons can die while the concepts they identify as may still persist to the current time

So how do Nous & Mythus even relate to each other in the overall world building ? Their identifying concepts might appear as opposites of each other (known vs unknown) but I think there’s more to it than that

There is a readable item written by Fu Xuan called “Glimpses into the Beyond” where she explains that Nous doesn’t necessarily provide answers but they provide many questions & that “answers may only be found by oneself”

We also hear of Nous doing calculations & trying to solve the mysteries of the universe & since the Enigmata exists, Nous doesn’t have all of the answers due to the existence of mysteries

I think that while they do know a lot about the universe & can represent knowledge, they can also represent the learning process/the journey for knowledge

Something interesting is that Nous in Greek philosophy refers to the ability to process & perceive information so if Mythus is meant to be the representation of the things that can’t be easily perceived, does that still apply to Nous themself when they’re both Aeons?

Also where does that leave their dynamic? They’re enemies of sorts bc Mythus is trying to destroy certainty left by Nous but this is also a relationship where Nous is essentially searching for the answers to the universe’s mysteries aka what Mythus encapsulates, making Mythus their “goal” I guess you could say

Life will always have people who desire to gain knowledge & it will always have things that have not been discovered/figured out; there is one particular thing that I do wonder about amidst all of this: with Mythus wanting an uncertain future, I wonder how this will spell out for one of the most important concepts in many HYV games: fate

I guess we’ll have to wait & see if they’ll connect this to fate in the future 👀

*I hope you guys enjoy the first lore thread of the new year! :3

[girlkisser13]

nemesis cabin headcanons

children of nemesis

• they’re the ONLY cabin that is safe from pranks by the hermes cabin.

• they never have problems with balancing chemistry equations.

• whenever someone from camp needs to settle a debate/argument, they always ask someone from the nemesis cabin to be the mediator/judge.

• they're also frequently asked to be referees for games of capture the flag, as their reputation for fair judgment makes them ideal for ensuring the game is played with integrity and without bias.

• when a child of vengeance is saved of a certain death by another demigod, they now owe a debt to their savior.

• whenever the savior calls for help, they are obligated to come and help them no matter the danger.

• they are all CRAZY competitive. it’s like they're in pre-revenge mode.

• the demigod that nemesis traded the ability to make a difference in the world for one of their eyes was nick fury (and ethan).

• at this point, she just has a passion for children with eyepatches.

• i can just picture nemesis cackling and pointing to her children "you get an eyepatch" "you get an eyepatch!" "but mom-" "EYEPATCH FOR YOUUUUUUUUU!!"

• they care the least about the appearance of other people, because they see their mother as the person they hate most.

• the hephaestus cabin helped them build a gigantic celestial bronze scale in the middle of their cabin.

• they don't get along well with the children of athena, largely because many of them struggle with hubris as their fatal flaw.

• since nemesis is the goddess who punishes those who are overly prideful or self-assured, this same principle extends to her children, creating natural tension between the two groups.

cabin exterior

• the cabin has dark stone walls, almost like slate or obsidian, giving it a brooding, intimidating appearance. the stones have subtle cracks running through them, symbolizing the balance of vengeance and justice.

• deep red and crimson accents are used around the cabin to signify blood, vengeance, and the balance of power. the entrance to their cabin is a red door. it has the scales of justice etched into it, representing nemesis’ role.

• above the doorway, there is a carving of an eagle, nemesis' sacred animal, holding a sword in its talons. the sword represents retribution, and the eagle embodies her watchful, unforgiving nature.

• a small statue of nemesis herself stands in front of the cabin, holding her sword and scales, symbolizing the ever-present concept of justice. her eyes are made from rubies, watching those who come and go.

• the shadows cast by the cabin seem to move subtly, giving the impression that the cabin itself is watching or judging those nearby. these shadows stretch and shift depending on the actions of the people passing by.

cabin interior

• the central theme of the cabin is balance. there are symbolic representations of scales EVERYWHERE— on the walls, carved into the furniture, painted in murals. every item in the cabin is placed with perfect symmetry, reinforcing the idea of equilibrium and fairness.

• instead of modern lights, the cabin is illuminated by dark iron lanterns or torches with low, flickering flames, casting dramatic shadows around the room. this lighting adds to the cabin’s mysterious and foreboding atmosphere.

• the furniture is made of dark wood— oak and mahogany— each piece sturdy and simple, but elegantly crafted. the chairs and beds have an almost throne-like quality, with high backs and intricate carvings, to emphasize power and authority.

• large mirrors are placed strategically around the cabin, but these mirrors do not show your true reflection. instead, they show you as balanced with your opposite. for example, someone who is overly confident might see themselves looking unsure or humble. these mirrors serve as a reminder that nemesis governs balance in all things.

• the floor is made of glossy black marble, cold and smooth underfoot. some areas are etched with swirling, abstract patterns that represent fate and karma, with a glowing red hue filling in the designs at night.

cabin traditions

• they have a tradition of making penance offerings or performing acts of restitution for any personal wrongs they’ve committed, reflecting their dedication to correcting imbalances.

• every month, the members hold a ceremony where they balance scales to symbolize their commitment to justice and fairness. this involves a ritual where they offer symbolic items representing their past grievances and mistakes.

• they frequently engage in debates about justice and morality, using these discussions to hone their skills in resolving conflicts and understanding different perspectives on retribution.

• each member keeps a small stone where they inscribe significant personal experiences related to justice and retribution, creating a collective memory of the cabin’s journey and values.

divider by @strangergraphics-archive

[karlie-what-you-want]

One of the strangest criticisms I see of Taylor by the general public is that “these days she keeps trying to have that sensual, sexy vibe, but I have never once found her to be a sexy individual,” and while everyone has the right to their own opinions and what they find attractive, I can’t help but think…so what?

What makes a person sexy to others versus what makes an individual FEEL sexy are two very different things. Not to mention the former is very much subjective. While there may be certain people or characteristics that many people collectively find sexy or attractive, it’s not actually a quantifiable, concrete thing with particular criteria. On the contrary, “sexy” is typically difficult to define. Not that it’s relevant, but I find the TTPD visuals very intimate and sensual, but that’s just one person’s opinion.

Moreover, asserting this concept of “not being ‘actually sexy’” as a legitimate criticism is troublesome because it purports the idea that if YOU do not find an individual sexually appealing, then that individual should not express their sexuality in an overt way. Does it really matter if you or I find Taylor Swift sexy? If we don’t find her sexy, does that mean that the intimate visuals of TTPD are just her “pretending” to be sexy or trying to convince some abstract, metaphorical jury that she is capable of being such a thing?

Should it not be considered that perhaps Taylor just felt sexy? I have my own theories of why she would choose these dramatic, forlorn poses in a bedroom setting, but if there was no other reason than her simply wanting to express that sort of intimate, sexual version of herself, wouldn’t that be enough? Or does she have to earn the right to be seen as a sexual being?

One might argue that they’re actually just complaining about the marketing aspect of it rather than Taylor’s actual, personal presentation (I don’t believe you), saying that if she can’t “pull off sexy” then it’s unwise to try and market herself as such. But Taylor is well past that point in her career. Like it or not, her fans will buy anything she puts out at this point, and she knows that. Why not exercise that freedom and present herself the way she wants to be seen? The way she actually feels?

“She wants so bad to be sexy,” they say, like that’s a crime—like “sexy” is something they get to bestow upon an individual. Like “sexy” is only empowering for women that they personally are attracted to.

Aren’t we past this? Why does it bother you if a woman you perceived as pure and innocent wants to share her sexuality? What a strange conversation to be having about one of the most successful women in the world in the year 2024.

[popatochisssp]

Could you possibly do a more in depth post about ascendswap?? I love all the swap aus and this one has me Intrigued!!

I sure can!

Ascendswap

There’s a human running loose in the Underground.

They’ve been there quite awhile.

Monsters are having…a very strange day…or maybe, a strange few days… or…no, it feels like so much longer, but it couldn’t be.

Things are just a little odd lately, is all.

In reality, monsterkind has been living the same handful of days over and over again, stuck in a loop of RESETs—at the mercy of a human who seems to be perfecting their ability to show no mercy.

The repeatedly looping timeline is beginning to take its toll.

Monsters are starting to realize that something is happening.

At first, it’s only a bit of déjà vu, feeling familiarity in their actions and conversations like they’ve been here before, done this before, said this before…

Then it’s a lot of déjà vu, being able to guess what someone else will say before they say it, what they do before they do it.

Monsters are starting to talk about it, starting to suspect that something may be happening around here.

But that’s as far as they’ve gotten before a human emerges from the Ruins, and they have far more immediate problems to deal with.

One monster is a bit further ahead of the curve, though—Sans.

Though he lacks full awareness of what goes on between RESETs, more of his memories seem to be sticking than others’ and between a gut feeling, the temporal anomaly data pulled from a machine his father left behind, and the first glimpse he gets at the human’s expressions every time he ‘meets’ them, he knows.

They’ve done this before, they’ll do it again, and they’re not stopping.

Not until someone makes them stop.

Unlike other monsters (or even unlike other Sanses, in other universes), this Sans is driven, determined—arguably to the point of self-detriment—to prove himself and to solve the problem himself.

He has knowledge the others don’t, therefore it’s his responsibility to act.

Sans tries a few things to put an end to it.

He ambushes the human earlier in their dusting spree. He tries to warn other monsters to get them out of the path of the massacre. Once, quite memorably, he tried taking all the human souls they’d gathered, absorbing them to make himself a formidable, hopefully final foe at the end of the line.

That was a grueling and nightmarish handful of runs…but of course, the human persisted.

They would not be halted, an unstoppable force.

But Sans aspires to be their immovable object.

There’s one avenue he hasn’t explored yet, in searching for a way to stop the cycle of RESETs, something he’s never explored before, too daunted by the deep and unknowable source that once granted him an arcane office that not even Queen Toriel could explain beyond that it has Been as long as monsters have been imprisoned.

In desperation, Sans calls upon the thing that made him The Judge.

It’s not easy, of course.

It takes him many attempts, more effort and concentration and force of will than anything he’s ever done, but eventually he reaches back, far back across that faint thread of connection within himself and makes contact.

With…something.

It’s old.

It’s big.

It’s strong.

It feels like something that always has been and always will be.

It feels like Justice.

Communing with such a thing—an entity, a concept—is strange, nearly impossible.

Later, Sans might describe it as trying to have a conversation with Cthulhu in its native R'lyehian, screaming it across fathoms of deep ocean trying to swallow the sound.

But he manages to get something through, or at least enough of something.

It seems to understand that Sans is trying to solve an injustice but is unable, and that assistance is being sought.

Naturally, such a vast abstract entity can’t interfere directly in the affairs of mortal creatures, but through its envoy—through Sans—it may tip the scales back to even.

Firstly, it will remove the hidden stars scattered throughout this universe’s version of the Underground. The human will not be able to SAVE their timeline, and will only be able to use their Determination to start their journey over from the very beginning.

And secondly, it will grant The Judge a greater measure of its power.

This will, of course, change him.

He will have access to much older, deeper, stronger magic than he’s ever known, and he will see and feel his world in spectrums and frequencies that will be entirely new to him.

However, he will also have the ability to share that magic with others, if he chooses. At cost to himself, but nothing can be given without taking from somewhere else.

This is the bargain that Sans is offered, in the face of repeated and unending slaughter of monsterkind.

It seems fair.

If what he’s reached out to truly is Justice, then of course, it would be fair.

Sans agrees to accept the gift.

………

Papyrus is very worried about his brother.

Sans has been comatose, unable to be woken by any means, stuck in what seem to be fitful dreams and seizing movements for…days? Weeks?

It feels like longer, it can’t only have been one day, time is so wrong lately and this isn’t helping…

But eventually, Sans does wake.

There are flecks of gold in his eye-lights and the first thing he does, without a word, is to grab Papyrus by the arm.

His touch burns, hotter than any fire ever could, branding a golden handprint in the bone.

A streak of yellow slices across Papyrus’ neck, and suddenly…

He remembers everything.

Every single RESET up to that point is perfectly, chronologically clear to him. Every day restarted, all progress made and lost, every single time that he died when the human—the source of this, the one who’s doing this—slashed at him with their blade and took off his head, no matter how many times they heard him say with his final breath that he thought they could be better, if they just tried.

Clearly, they didn’t want to.

Buzzing with power and new, horrible knowledge, he asks what Sans did.

“I’M MAKING IT FAIR. WE CAN FIX IT.”

Even in so few words, it’s obvious that Sans seems a little…different.

But Papyrus is feeling different himself, and knowing what he knows, how long it’s been going on, how bad this is…

That’s on the back-burner, for now.

They need to do something, they need to tell someone—and not just that, they need to be believed.

“what you did to me, to make me remember… could you do it again?”

“YES.”

Of course.

They go straight to the top, Queen Toriel.

Though bemused, Toriel allows her Judge to take her hand—and he burns his own into it, a golden starburst appearing on her breast where she was so many times run through by…the human! She remembers now!

And she also remembers that her ex-husband is alive and hiding out in the Ruins.

Despite his soft heart, he’s as much a boss monster as she is, and by his positioning, the first real line of defense that her people have against this vicious threat, though surely he doesn’t realize it.

Obviously he needs to know what’s at stake, his full and conscious awareness is needed to stop this repeated, savage decimation of their kind.

“Sans… What you have done for me…can—”

“I CAN DO IT AGAIN.”

They seek the former king, locked away in the Ruins.

Asgore is not best pleased that his ex-wife has come to call—especially when a human child has only just fallen down and he’s left them alone to gather ingredients for snail pie—but the trio pushes their way inside and the shorter skeleton puts his hand on his chest, and Asgore’s arms are adorned with bright yellow scars, remnants of the times he’d held them up before his face to block or just maybe not have to see the final blow, landed by…

…

Oh, no…

Asgore runs off, back to wherever he’d left the human, and he must put up something of a fight, because the timeline RESETs again before the rest can catch up to him.

They wait, for awhile.

No one emerges from the Ruins for quite some time, through several RESETs.

Perhaps…the newly strengthened Asgore is enough…?

…Well. No.

The human breaks through, eventually.

Papyrus resolves to hold them in Snowdin for as long as he can, while Sans goes off to recruit one more for their group—Alphys, the Captain of the Royal Guard.

“ONE MORE. I CAN DO ONE MORE…”

A handprint on her shoulder later—and a slash across her waist from hip-to-leg, a brighter yellow than her scales ever were—Alphys is in the know and furious, chomping at the bit to take the fight to the rotten little human making a game out of their lives.

The tide starts to turn.

The human is wearing down, getting frustrated in the face of stronger enemies, no SAVEs, and…other things that are just odd.

Nothing stays the same across RESETs anymore, fights that used to be quick take ages, and the terrain itself seems to be changing. No one is where they’re supposed to be and taking a turn they’ve taken a million times will now suddenly put them halfway across the Underground!

And every time they die, they now have to start all the way back at the beginning.

It’s annoying and it’s surely only a matter of time before they give up on their quest of destruction altogether.

But in the meantime, while the war is being waged…

Alphys asks Sans for a favor.

To do what he did for her, and the others, for Undyne too.

It’s not a need. Undyne isn’t a powerful fighter, she wouldn’t be able to combat the human that way, but she’s smart, and dedicated, and she can help somehow, probably…

And it’s…it’s so hard having to explain everything to her, over and over again, whenever there’s another RESET and she forgets but Alphys remembers…

And…

Well, the part she doesn’t say is that she’s afraid.

Whatever Sans did, whatever power he found that he’s sharing with them, they’re so much stronger now, the kind of strong that comes with a price tag.

Alphys is a Boss Monster now.

Effectively, immortal—at least in terms of aging and natural causes.

Does she really want to be that… alone?

Without Undyne…?

So…she asks.

What’s the harm in asking?

Sans seems oddly hesitant to share the gift again…but he agrees.

He takes Undyne by the wrist and the iris of her right eye turns yellow, brighter than her sclera.

Simultaneously…

Sans’ right eye-socket locks open, the eye-light and even the blackness around it bursting into a shimmering yellow cloud of formless, intangible magic.

Sans isn’t surprised, of course.

This was exactly the price that Justice—or whatever it was that felt like it—had warned of, the price he had been paying all along.

To share his power with others, to give them back their memories of previous RESETs, they would also have to experience again all the damage they took in those timelines.

Damage that killed them, many times over, and would again.

Unless Sans took it instead.

Bits and pieces of himself would be lost in the process, but pieces are only pieces in light of what—who he’s saving, replacing the lost parts of his closest friends and loved ones with his physical matter.

Many parts of him have become only loose stardust clouds of magic by now, but he’s strong enough to survive without them, bolstered as he is by his connection to the entity who gave him the gift.

There’s…a bit of agitation that goes around at this revelation, the eye-socket too noticeable to be overlooked like the other bits and pieces…

But what’s done is done.

And there’s still very much a war on, a task at hand that needs all of their focus and no squabbling.

In the end—between the six of them—they force the human to quit.

Apparently, for good.

When next the human begins their quest through the Underground, they say their name is Chara and that it feels like they’ve just woken from a very strange dream…or maybe a nightmare?

Between their Determination, the power of the other humans souls, and the deep, old magic of a few very powerful monsters, the Barrier is broken and monsterkind goes free.

It’s…a happy ending.

Xanth (Ascendswap Sans)

Never quite the same after his communion with Justice… He experienced a severe ego-death and was simultaneously opened up to several new perceptions of the people and the world around him, leading to a very divided focus that’s almost exclusively outward-facing. Missing as much of his body as he is, he doesn’t feel especially present within himself, more just…tethered, utterly fearless when it comes to himself and his safety, which—combined with his wandering attention and strange perspective—tends to make him seem a bit…dotty

Has a greatly heightened soul-sense and is much more aware of (and vulnerable to) the emotions of others, highly empathic and very attuned to the atmosphere around him. His eye-socket—the one mostly replaced by loose magic—amplifies his extrasensory perception significantly, so he tends to keep it covered to maintain what focus he can

Unfortunately lost a few friends in the aftermath of everything that happened Underground after it came out (or at least, rumor spread) that he was the source of some monsters’ cool new powers, but he only picked a few people to share it with… They don’t know the full story, but it’s a sore spot for him whenever it comes up…

Spiritual, very interested in matters of the soul and the universe and the cosmos, and all the ideas had and perceptions felt of it by people all around the world—he can and will talk mysticism with anyone who’s interested for hours

Cheerful, talkative, and generous, he can be a bit odd but perfectly warm and go-with-the-flow after some getting used to

Piper (Ascendswap Papyrus)

Considerably more confident than he ever was, the power boost of becoming a Boss Monster certainly didn’t hurt but mostly what changed him was the existential realization that nothing matters—or at least, not so much as to be afraid of what people think of you. (The memories of a few thousand RESETs where you did the exact same thing every single time because you were too nervous to step out of your comfort zone and be who you wanted to be work wonders for shaking off some of the rust and getting you started on making some changes to your life)

Has a new magical ability, courtesy of his rebirth as a Boss Monster, to push intent into his words as his speaks them, making him significantly more convincing. It has its limitations, as a Justice-born power—he can’t use his words to force people to go against themselves or do anything abhorrent to them—but he can influence a bit, making his words felt and persuading people to want to work with him rather than against him

A little protective of his brother…maybe more than necessary… He blames himself some for how much his brother ended up sacrificing, for being the first one to encourage him to do it, for not noticing sooner what it was doing to him—and it’s not only his imagination that there’s still plenty of people coming around looking to take advantage of Sans’ giving nature or apparent ‘naiveté’… Not when he’s around, that’s for sure

Aesthetic-conscious—spent a long time too self-conscious and insecure to present the self-image he wanted and making up for lost time now by dressing well, buying nice things that look good, and trying out hobbies he thought were ‘too cool’ for him… He's a cooler guy than he gave himself credit for, it all suits him wonderfully

Grounded, chivalrous, and charming, he might take a bit to really warm up but an unwavering pillar of support once he has  

[toyybox]

Spiderwebs #40: Parasite

Masterlist

content: lab whump, organs, starvation

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

However disastrous his attempt to leave may have been, it didn’t change a lot between them. Heather was upstairs all the time, so he was left to his own devices. They eventually returned to a sort of peace.

That morning, Jackie was curled up on the sofa, reading and gazing out the window at regular intervals. He had not spoken to Heather for about a week now, so he was startled when she burst into the living room.

She seemed to be preoccupied, with her hair in a rough ponytail, her white lab coat somewhat disheveled, absent-mindedly holding a pen in one hand. “Jackie, I’ve figured it out.”

He relaxed a bit, once he realized she just wanted to talk. “Yeah?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.” She hovered by the doorway, leaning one hand against the frame and clicking the pen with the other. “I think it’s a type of chemosynthesis. Wait, I’m sorry, I’m rushing—“ She held up a hand to pause him. “There’s parasites—actually, they’re probably symbiotes, but that’s not relevant. Microscopic ones. Inside you.”

“There is?” He frowned. “Can we get them out?”

“No, Jackie, you don’t understand. I’ve figured out why you’re immortal. The—the organism, it’s adapted for a specific purpose, and—“ She made a few grand gestures, trying to explain whatever abstract concept this was. “It’s… stem cells, you know?”

He did not, in fact, know. He shook his head. 

“It’s—never mind, I’ll explain it later.” She ran a hand over her hair, which only messed it up further. “I need you to come upstairs with me. To the laboratory.”

“You have a laboratory?”

“Yes, it’s upstairs.” She was already turning heel and making her way out. “Hurry up, this is absolutely crucial for my studies.”

“Okay, okay, give me a moment.” He set the book down and hurried after her, since she’d already reached the hallway by that point. He did wonder what she was doing up there. It must have been important, considering how impatient she was acting.

He followed her up the stairs. The second floor was similar to the first, with a hallway leading to three different doors, plus a hatch in the roof above a folded ladder. He had only been here once, and he was blindfolded then. Heather stepped into the farthest door.

Jackie had been expecting something more theatrical, neon acids and smoke wisps and heavy-duty machinery, but it was a clinical place. Mostly clean slates of white, flat tables and counters. Very sanitized. She kept it tidy. It smelled overwhelmingly of chemicals, the same chemicals she cleaned her surgical tools with, which he recognized instantly. There were a few microscopes and sets of glassware, and other instruments he couldn’t name or recognize. Behind another door was a smaller area, what might have once been a walk-in closet or perfume room. There stood a deep freezer, buzzing and humming in the background, and shelves of storage, even more tools and containers all neatly lined up.

“Nice place,” he told her.

“Thank you.” She turned to him, holding a scalpel. “Don’t worry, I just need your skin.”

Ah. His… skin. “All of it?”

She shook her head with a slight, amused smile, before returning to neutral professionality. “A very small amount. I’m studying your cells, you see. I wanted a fresh sample.”

He did not trust her around scalpels, but it was better to just get it over with. He held his arm out. “Go ahead.”

She nodded once, then slid the blade across the side of his arm, where the skin wasn’t so close to the bone. It was a quick and precise motion, like ripping a sticker off. He winced and bit back a hiss of pain. She then placed the cut of skin onto a small, transparent plastic rectangle. It must have been satisfactory, because she nodded in its direction and set it down on a table.

Jackie watched blood well up in the wound, shallow though it was. Heather reached over and pressed a cotton band-aid over it.

“Thanks.” He lowered his arm. “Was that all you needed me for?”

“Yes, but you’re welcome to stay, if you’d like.” She moved a few things around, set a few things up—he wasn’t sure what exactly she was doing, as she had her back turned to him. “As long as you’re quiet. I prefer working in silence.”

He entertained her offer for a few minutes but quickly grew bored. Whatever she was working on, he didn’t understand any of it. He didn’t even know where he would start asking questions—maybe why do I have a parasite in me, for starters. But he was sure that she would explain it all in good time, once she finished her examinations. 

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Then they were back to their normal routine, back to the experiments, though Jackie thought these ones were much more pleasant than the drugs and the cassette tapes. They mostly did not involve him. He spent his days like that, reading or lounging by the window, sleeping on the couch or in the basement, killing time. He was allowed to wander around and do as he pleased, though he did visit Heather from time to time.

The organism, as it turned out, was what allowed him to heal so quickly. It had something to do with stem cells, although she couldn’t give him a straight answer. The important discovery, so she said, was that the organism could only exist inside his body. There was some special thing in his tissues that it needed to live. That was why it was keeping him alive. But she couldn't say what that special thing was, not for certain. Not yet, anyway.

“I don’t think you’ll age,” she told him once.

“Really? At all?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose you might age until thirty or thirty-five, but you won’t grow old. Aging is a form of tissue decay. If your cells can regenerate, they should be able to repair that damage. But I guess I wouldn’t know. We’ll see.”

Alive, even when it was inconvenient for him. Parasite was the right word. It was not symbiosis. 

“That’s cool,” he said.

“Yes, it’s all very fascinating.” She continued musing over a few microscope slides.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

She explained how the organism’s eggs hatched within seconds, the way it could multiply like a hutch of rabbits given a few minutes. The mature specimens could be killed with prolonged pressure or radiation, but the eggs were much more difficult to get rid of. Unless they left his body, at which point they would promptly die. She explained the marvelous regeneration of his stem cells, their undifferentiated, pluripotent, embryonic nature. She spoke of how it was nearly impossible to separate them from his tissues to prevent healing, how a lone cell could divide itself until they repopulated. He was even present for a few of her more exciting experiments.

“Wait behind me,” she said.

She had allowed him to follow her outside, where she had set up a Roman candle. She lit the base of a punk-stick with a lighter then tipped it forwards.

The Roman candle smoldered for a few seconds. She stepped back at a safe distance, meanwhile, putting her arm against his chest so he would do the same.

The explosive set off, amid a patch of ground cleared from snow. His heart—removed from his body, of course, and placed beside the explosive—was decimated to a few chunks of char. Bright sparks popped in the sky above them. And then, slowly but surely, the marred lump reformed, cracking and blooming into another heart. The flesh was rather discolored and misshapen. It wasn’t a pretty thing, but it was there.

“It would heal better in your body,” she explained. “The other tissues could provide healthier cells. It’s the same thing with low levels of radiation—it’s replaced your natural immune system, by the way.”

“Oh?”

“That’s why you never get sick. Even if something gets damaged, its destroyed and replaced. That does leave the possibility of autoimmune diseases and allergies, but you were lucky in that regard.”

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Unfortunately, not all her research involved organs safely separated from Jackie. He enjoyed his break from being a subject, but there were some things hearts and skin samples couldn’t test. 

They were in the kitchen, about a week later. Or, Jackie was in the kitchen, and Heather had just entered. She was hovering near him with a conflicted expression, which wasn’t making it easy to enjoy his breakfast.

“Do you need something?” he finally asked her.

“Yes.” She hesitated. “I need you to not eat anything for three days.”

He glanced at the open pantry. “Starting now?”

“That would be ideal.”

He pushed the pantry door closed with a disappointed expression. “Whatever you say, doc.”

It was a great contribution to science, she told him. It could help a lot of people, she told him. It could be incredibly valuable! Really, what was three days when compared to this piece of eternal knowledge? They could learn how he managed to survive without food—they could discover how he accomplished the impossible! It was a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. Still, whatever she told him couldn’t change the fact that he had to starve for seventy-two hours. He had done it before, and he could do it again, but he wouldn’t enjoy it. 

During this period, he mostly lay in his bed in the basement, trying not to think of the kitchen with all its glorious treasures, every piece of food just out of reach. He considered stealing, but ultimately decided against it. Mainly because all the food was locked away. A padlock on the fridge, and one on each pantry door. Where Heather got all those locks from, he had no clue. But he would have given in if he could. The first hours of hunger were always the worst.

By the end he was rewarded with a bowl of pasta, and Heather with her answers: the organism produced energy for him when his body starved. It could create the necessary substances under certain circumstances, using certain chemical reactions, although it was only enough to keep him alive. Hence, the headaches and the fatigue. Jackie barely listened to any of this, however. The food preoccupied all his attention.

In the end, Heather might have thought these things were crucial discoveries, the crux of scientific knowledge, but he couldn’t care less. His worries had narrowed mostly down to base needs—food, water, shelter, a safe place to sleep. It concerned him a little, that he had reverted to such an undignified state of mind. Only animals thought of survival. People thought of living beyond that, to understand their nature, to have awareness and choice. But he wasn't in a position to want something more.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Taglist:

@theelvishcowgirl @lthrboy @whumpy-wyrms

@yassifiedinformation @creppersfunpalooza

@vidawhump

[littlequeenies]

‘I’ve been called a witch, slut, murderer’: the ultra-creative women dismissed as rock star girlfriends

Despite their artistic skill, Anita Pallenberg, Suzi Ronson and Yoko Ono were cast as mere lovers or muses. They're now being allowed to tell their own stories – even if it's after death-Annie ZaleskiTue 21 May 2024 11.46 CEST

In a 2008 interview, Anita Pallenberg swore she would never write her autobiography. The artist, model and actor was weary of publishers who only wanted to read about her intimate dealings with the Rolling Stones – she dated both Brian Jones and Keith Richards, and had an affair with Mick Jagger. “They all wanted salacious,” she said then. “And everybody is writing autobiographies and that’s one reason why I’m not going to do it.”

Yet when Pallenberg died in 2017, she left behind pages of a neatly typed manuscript, titled Black Magic, that contained her life story. True to form, she characterised these memoirs as “memory images, a traveller’s tale through a landscape of dreams and shadows” rather than an autobiography. But she held little back while chronicling her spirited and frequently tumultuous life, quipping: “I don’t think the lawyers will like it very much.”Read in a narration by Scarlett Johansson, her unpublished words are the backbone of a compelling new documentary, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg. Kate Moss celebrates her as “the original bohemian rock chick that people still aspire to today” but more valuable is Pallenberg reframing her legacy on her own terms from beyond the grave. “I’ve been called a witch, a slut, a murderer. I’ve been hounded by the police and slandered in the press,” she wrote, before adding, “But I don’t need to settle scores. I’m reclaiming my soul.”Given how much ink has been spilt on the Stones over the years, it’s refreshing to hear Pallenberg share her own perspective on her experiences. She’s not the only high-profile rock girlfriend now getting a chance to tell their own story, asserting their place in, and influence on, male-dominated music culture.

Suzi Ronson, who was married to the guitarist Mick Ronson, just released a candid memoir, Me and Mr Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars, that’s a clear-eyed look at rock star mythology. Pattie Boyd, married to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, was interviewed in 2018 by Taylor Swift for Harper’s Bazaar (“George and Eric had an inability to communicate their feelings through normal conversation,” Boyd said, “I became a reflection for them”) and this year she eloquently reminisced as she auctioned her memorabilia, including love letters from Clapton and handwritten Harrison lyrics, for a staggering £2,818,184. “The letters from Eric – they’re so desperate and passionate, a passion that blooms once in a lifetime,” she said. “They’re too painful in their beauty.”

Tate Modern, in London, is meanwhile celebrating Yoko Ono with a career-spanning exhibition, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind – a pointed reminder that Ono’s artistic collaboration with John Lennon was only a relatively brief part of her career. It shows how her artistry spans theatre, writing and music, but also how it makes space for her story to change over time – for example, the various performances of Cut Piece across the decades – and for others’ perspectives. Take Ono’s 1964 artist’s book Grapefruit, which uses short, abstract action items (“Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put it in”) to generate a huge potential variety of creative responses.

Among those was Lennon’s Imagine. In a 1980 BBC interview, Lennon said Grapefruit provided “the lyric and the concept” of the song, but Ono didn’t receive a songwriting credit until 2017 even though Lennon was aware of the oversight in his lifetime. “But those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho,” he told the BBC, “and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution.”

Pallenberg, too, served as inspiration for Rolling Stones songs such as Gimme Shelter. But Catching Fire reinforces the idea that even if sexism meant she was underestimated by the public, she wasn’t a passive presence or muse. “Neither Anita nor I wanted to be with them because we wanted some of their power,” Marianne Faithfull says in voiceover – she was in the band’s orbit alongside Pallenberg owing to a relationship with Jagger. “We had our own power.”

Faithfull’s power was her own music career; Pallenberg, who spoke several languages and worked as a model, influenced the Stones’ look. (“I started to become a fashion icon for wearing my old lady’s clothes,” Richards quipped in his bookLife.) And she refused to rearrange her life for the Stones. “No girls were allowed in the studio when they were recording,” she said. “You weren’t allowed even to ring. I did other things; I didn’t sit at home.” She maintained an acting career, notably in 1968’s movie Barbarella and 1970’s Performance – though her voice was dubbed out in the former: you wonder whether her “muse” tag meant casting directors underestimated her.

Suzi Ronson, a colour-loving hair wizard who brought David Bowie’s tomato-red Ziggy Stardust coif to life, also took a different path from other women of her time. She left a steady job and went on the road, steering the Ziggy Stardust tour aesthetic by handling hair, makeup, and other tasks.

Me and Mr Jones illuminates her part in helping Bowie crystallise his vision – and shows how fame and rock stardom corrupt. On a Mott the Hoople tour, she seethes while Mick, cozying up to a baroness, orders Suzi to find his hairbrush, treating her like an assistant rather than a girlfriend. It wasn’t the only time she was underestimated. “I’m now the pathetic girlfriend, clinging on to my man, a position I never thought I’d find myself in,” she writes after joining Mick on tour with Bob Dylan for a few days, after not being invited. “I try to be understanding, but truthfully I’m infuriated at being left out.”

These new works also highlight how each woman, at a time when women struggled to “have it all”, cultivated agency through one of the only paths open to them: motherhood. Rather than being something limiting, becoming mothers allowed them to reinvent their lives. Suzi Ronson, long out of Bowie’s orbit and living in England with her parents after giving birth, reflects that “the life I created for myself has disappeared, and my career with it,” she writes, but her daughter brings joy and solace – and encourages her to stay optimistic and keep striving for a unique path. “As I push her around the same streets my mother used to push me, I swear to her: this isn’t going to be it, and I pray I’m right.” Ronson closes the loop by noting that she and Mick return to the US, living in the singer Maria Muldaur’s house and finding equilibrium.

Ono confronted motherhood’s messiness. Her installation My Mommy Was Beautiful used photos of breasts and vaginas to demystify birth and celebrate the strength of the body, and the 1969 song Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow) – which Yoko wrote for her young daughter Kyoko – conveys primal agony and frustration. “Society’s myth is that all women are supposed to love having children,” Ono said in 1981. “But that was a myth. So there was Kyoko, and I did become attached to her and had great love for her, but at the same time, I was still struggling to get my own space in the world. I felt that if l didn’t have room for myself, how could I give room to another human being?”

Pallenberg also navigates this conundrum. Jake Weber, the actor son of notorious Stones associate Tommy Weber, becomes visibly emotional when talking about how “generous and funny” Pallenberg was to him after his mother died in 1971, during the Stones’ debauched French summer. “She filled a vacuum of a surrogate parent,” he said. “She was lovely like that. Her thing was trying to give us joy.” Catching Fire also visits the agonising fallout of the sudden June 1976 death of Pallenberg’s 10-week-old son Tara.

Pallenberg has the last word in Catching Fire, and her conclusion illustrates the importance of women directing their own narratives. “Writing this has helped me emerge in my own eyes,” she noted. “Reading over what I’ve written, I get a lump in my throat. But it doesn’t need to be a doom and gloom kind of story.” The film makes it clear that Pallenberg’s chief power was, ultimately, resilience, which she needed during an often-challenging life (she lived with various addictions, including to heroin and alcohol) and several tragic events, such as when a 17-year-old shot and killed himself in Richards’ bed.

“I felt like some nasty person who caused death and destruction around her,” Pallenberg said after the 1979 incident, but Catching Fire refuses to let Pallenberg become a tragic figure or cautionary tale. The film ends noting that she got sober, graduated from college, and aged with iconoclastic gusto. The lessons are clear – redemption is possible and we are not our worst moments – while also reinforcing what we miss when women’s voices are silenced or ignored. Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, directed by Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill is in UK and Irish cinemas now

[theshippirate22]

congrats @snazzy-serpent you just got an unsolicited subscription to my art teacher Crowley headcanons

-the minimalism of his flat carries over 110%. his supply closet has everything meticulously organized in clear boxes with white lids and everything’s labeled. He has the kids spray down their desks every period so they stay the same color white they were when he bought them five and a half years ago.

-The only exception to this is the walls of the classroom that are covered floor to ceiling (and part of the ceiling for that matter) in art, whether it’s a famous piece, student work, or one of his. One time a painting fell off and all the students freaked out because they didn’t know the walls were white and it looked fucking weird to see that single patch of cheap industrial paint.

-He has a pet snake that he keeps in the classroom called Janthony. all the students are obsessed with it and they often take pictures of him to use as reference images.

-there’s also plants everywhere. also for references. and to make the place seem a little less sterile. the students have named most of them.

-his still lifes are made entirely of plastic skulls, old candles, said plants, and rubber ducks. he says it’s an art choice, something something the concept of Vanitas. all the students just think he’s a retired emo kid.

-he literally always has Hozier on because he says it’s good for creativity. all the students now have a pavlovian reaction where they can’t work unless Hozier is playing somehow. once there was a sub who couldn’t get spotify to work and the whole class almost erupted into anarchy

-crowley almost always starts with a black canvas or paper. he does his sketches in light gray or white pencil and he like actually twitches when he sees people starting on white.

-he also does paintings of galaxies, planets, nebulas, other space things pretty regularly. There’s a huge mural in the library that he’s working on of one Alpha Centauri

-sometimes when Aziraphale is on prep (like a teacher free period if prep is the regional name) after a really stressful period he’ll come and sit in the back of the class and just watch crowley teach because a) his classroom is really comfortable and b) he’s a delight to listen to. plus then a bunch of the students show Aziraphale all the stuff they’re working on and it’s fucking cool

-alternatively, if crowley is bored, he’ll go sit in the back of one of Aziraphale’s lessons and sketch him. the students have learned that if they go ask after class crowley will show them his drawings

-he doesn’t so much “teach” as give the kids supplies and let them trial-by-fire it out until they can experience it for themselves

-Crowley has a very loose painting style. it’s pretty objective but it’s always just a *little* abstracted so it never quite looks like just a photo. his drawings are much more photorealistic though

-he went through a purple phase for a whole year where everything was monochromatic but the rest of the time he has a lot of green and yellow influence

-he has an ap art class but it’s by invitation only and only open to seniors because it’s one of the most sought after classes. Crowley gets *this* close to a mental breakdown every February when he has to decide who gets an invitation because he hates the idea of leaving someone out and he thinks that all of his kids have the potential to be really good

-he makes a point of seeming just a little intimidating but it’s a total joke to everyone who knows him because he’s actually just really weird and super sweet

-there are students in his room literally constantly. his favorites go in there to hang out during lunch because it’s safe and quiet and clean. when others are having bad days, they come sit in his room with their head on the desk, regardless of if he’s got a class in there or not. he never mentions it unless it happens frequently and then it’s just to help out if somethings going on

-he also moved a shitty leather loveseat into the back of the storage closet because multiple kids had gone in there to have panic attacks and he’d much rather they were back there where they were alone and safe and he’s within earshot than freaking out on the bathroom floor or trying to hide that anything’s happening.

-he literally knows everything. somehow he ends up in every conversation about high school drama so he knows what’s going on all the time, and people tell him the most random shit because he just feels generally safe. he thinks it’s funny

-he still drives the bentley. everyone speculates about how he could afford it because he’s a fucking teacher. he also has an unofficial designated parking spot in the staff parking and everyone knows not to even get near it.

-he’s covered in paint all the time. he selectively wears black but everything has little flecks of color on it. the students tease him when he gets new clothes because they can always tell because they’re not speckled yet.

-he’s also the co-chair of GSA (aziraphale is the president) and he has a single white mug on his desk that’s full of pens, mechanical pencils, and little pride flags on sticks. it’s a whole thing.

-he has a filing cabinet that’s just full of graduation announcements from former students. they’re very dear to him

damn that go long very fast anyway thanks for reading reblog with your own

[caffernnn]

Knock knock bestie have we talked about the goldfish but in the mookverse 👀

OKAY HI HELLO I’ve been spinning this in my mind since you’ve sent it (you’re a visionary, truly) and I’m READY NOW !!! 🛁✨🧡

(… putting a readmore bc this got long lmao)

Sooo, we see goldfish come up quite a few times within the show, most often in relation to Makoto. Whether it’s the literal goldfish he’s taken care of (first fish from childhood, plus the ones gifted later by Haru) or the striking visuals of swarms of goldfish that show up within his shrine vision and stress dream in FS/FS2, they’re looming. In my mind, when we get a Makoto scene where goldfish are involved in some fashion, it’s a surefire signal for me to pay attention to how that moment comments on Makoto’s supportive caretaking abilities — do others trust he can take care of the things and the people he holds dear; does he trust that his efforts will be enough to convey everything he wants to before it’s too late? It’s interesting to think about the implications of goldfish imagery, especially the more abstract/interpretive ones seen later on, because it creates this fascinating opening for the mh mookverse to be tied into that collection. Before even jumping into the universe itself, I’m drawn to its conception — how it’s built in a dream that can be read to be from either Makoto or Haru’s head (if not both), and how many points in the story are these call-response moments crafted from fears and reassurances during the ES era. Seeing how goldfish have brought attention to Makoto’s worry and Haru’s responding reassurance in the show, how might they also find their way into this shared dreamverse, where Makoto’s ability to take care of and protect others is a prevailing theme? (theme, right? Lit nerds don’t come for me rn okay I think I’m using that term right)

There were a couple moments that stood out to me with Big Goldfish Energy when I last read through the story, so let me just tack those up on the conspiracy pinboard really quick 📌

There’s… something about Haru showing up, being declared as specifically half-fish, revealing that he doesn’t have a home or people (or particularly strong conviction) to return to, and revealing he “doesn’t care” about whether he has any of those bonds or aspirations or not (okay, parallel to that fight with Rin in the locker room, I see you~). There’s something to Makoto immediately extending care to this version of Haru: someone who is a practical stranger (and creature) in his eyes, yet has a disposition that he takes personally. The suddenness of Makoto imposing this all-important “power of friendship” on himself, then proceeding to open up his home and his downtime and his life to Haru… it’s an echo to the deep bond they have in the waking world, yes, but it also feels connected to Makoto’s ever-present desire to take care of something/someone. Being a pet owner, being a big brother, being a team captain, being a swim coach, being a firefighter — there is a core part of Makoto that’s not begrudgingly bound to responsibility, but craves and almost chases whatever heartfelt pursuit he can to feel useful. So much of Makoto’s character and his dream (as we understand it throughout ES and beyond) is spurred on by this desire to help. Whether he’s trusted with fish from a fair named after his friends, or presented with a half-fish in his home that wears the face of one of those same treasured friends, of course he pounces and takes on that task with pride.

Now, onto that quality of care:

This moment feels particularly telling about how Makoto’s perception of his role in Haru’s life (both in the mook and definitely outside of it) is shifting as time moves forward. He sees Haru comfortable enough, integrating himself into a shared normalcy with Makoto, but he’s noticing how… limiting, this all might be. His efforts in supporting and caring for Haru now orient towards building hope and curiosity. What would it look like for his fish friend to move to a bigger tank, or be released completely? Beyond this also lies a question Makoto refuses to voice to himself, but still makes its presence known in how this whole “trip to the sea” arc proceeds: how much will it hurt if in all of his pushes forward, Haru finds a beautiful life that’s outside of his own line of vision? He wants what’s best for Haru, he wants him to dream, he wants him to be able to do all of this for himself… but there’s also that part of him that will always hope beyond hope that they both find ways forward where they get to stay by each other’s sides. How much is at risk in letting that glittering goldfish grow beyond its small bowl?

This is all skittering off into a general love letter to the mh mook, but I adore the little details that show that shared care they both have for each other. Like, it means something that Makoto insists that they go to the sea together. It means something that he openly wants to be by Haru’s side when he explores the world again beyond the safe bathtub he’s become so familiar with. If you still think about this as a dream, it clears up one of the ongoing points of contention in the ES time period that Makoto struggles to communicate to Haru when everything blows up: he’s not trying to make demands that push Haru towards one specific goal or away from everything he knows. He wants Haru to find a purpose through knowing his options, and he hopes he can be by his side through it all. God, it just makes me think about their fight and why Makoto couldn’t bring himself tell Haru about Tokyo earlier than he did! He’s scared! He’s attached and scared and trying to be hopeful with all of the change and transition laying ahead of him, but homie doesn’t want to lose his best friend and the life they’ve shared for so long together in the process, and it’s agonizing for him to see Haru so openly dig his claws into a beautiful past and normalcy when Makoto knows they both have to keep moving. MAKOTO CARES SO MUCH!!

Ok, back to the mook: I’m obsessed with the moments where it’s made so clear that Haru cares for Makoto and consciously chooses to find his way back to him. Haru isn’t just a passive roommate or pet, but someone who entangles himself into Makoto’s life (shared lunch breaks, walking home, evenings together, etc etc). When given the chance to go anywhere when in the sea, he swims around and then comes back to Makoto. When we get to the fire, where he’s completely out of his element, he actively puts himself in harm’s way to find Makoto (he can’t let his tether to his now beloved constancy and normal burn, right?) to his own demise. He does the scary thing of going somewhere Makoto can’t reach him (bro you 🫧DIED🫧), going through an intense cycle of change (Australia trip could neverrr), and when he pops out on the other side of that cycle with another chance at life, he finds home with Makoto once again. This is our airport reunion, this is our mhtokyo realized — Haru has found a dream, and a crucial piece of that all-encompassing vision is treasuring his most important bonds that pushed him to care about anything. In these moments of Makoto being scared that he failed to care enough to save anyone (the kid from the fire, Haru from the fire, Haru from his ES spiral and breakdown), Haru does his best to convince him otherwise by coming back, sending out a resounding message of not only wanting to be by his side, but trusting Makoto enough to try and build a new path forward with, again and again.

So uhh… the goldfish. Right.

In the story that exists now, there’s a lot to be found in viewing half-fish Haru as a variation or stand-in for the goldfish. It’s an interesting spin in that we see Makoto have a multitude of hopes and fears attached to his abilities to support others through his emerging aspirations, but slapping Haru’s face on a fish reeeally draws our eye to what his subconscious stirs up when focused on his ability to support and take care of Haru specifically. Beyond that, though, if we were to specifically throw visible goldfish into the mookverse, there could be a cute epilogue spin where they have fish in their home together. I love the idea of mook mh getting comfortable enough in their ‘happily ever after’ that they choose to take care of fish together. It’d be cute if it was a surprise gift from one of them to echo back to Haru gifting fish, but establishing growth and security through getting to be the shared caretakers of others? That’s tasty; that’s a nice nod to the domestic mundane security mh get to have in DttF and Tokyo (FS era notwithstanding. She only exists when she’s useful to me) and how they get to focus on helping out their friends for a bit. A lot of soft headcanon or fic potential there tbh.

Oh no, I hope you weren’t originally asking for just a lil hc of them taking care of the goldfish, because if so I 🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏻‍♀️