#this was absurdly fun

[chaos-------candy]

hi im easily distracted. amd i love colors

feel free to reblog! please don’t repost 🤟

[snivyartjpeg]

you tellin me a shrimp fried this rice?

anyway i think he should've used coalescence to git gud at cooking

[friendofcars]

I finished my data analysis for POV distribution in TRC! Figure captions are in the alt text. Other observations, discussion of the analysis and results, and some supplemental figures are under the cut. This is perhaps the most self-indulgent project I've worked on <3

Other observations: I went into this analysis with the hypothesis that each of the four protagonists would have the most chapters and/or pages in the following pattern: Blue for TRB, Ronan for TDT, Adam for BLLB, and Gansey for TRK. This mostly held true, although Blue had more chapters and pages than Adam in BLLB. This trend was more significant in terms of page distribution compared to chapter distribution. Mean chapter length differences were infrequent and did not follow the expected pattern, although I did see trends towards shorter chapters for antagonists not grouped into "all others."

There is a relative lack of back-to-back chapters for the same POV character, although this does occur in all books (twice for Blue in TRB; once for The Gray Man, twice for Adam, and six times for Ronan in TDT; five times for Blue [two of which are back-to-back-to-back], once for Gansey, twice for Adam [one of which is back-to-back-to-back], and once for Greenmantle in BLLB. I mention all of this to say that in TRK, this occurs once for Ronan, once for Blue, once for Adam, and thrice for Gansey- but in one of these instances, Gansey has SIX chapters in a row. Nine of the chapters from 48 to 58 are from his POV. The Raven King indeed!

Analysis notes:

For each book, I counted how many chapters each POV character had and how many pages each POV character had. Page numbers are based on the UK paperback editions of the series. In the figures, I show raw # of chapters and pages, as well as the proportion of chapters and pages attributed to each POV character over the total number of chapters or pages. I also compared POV characters’ pages/chapter ratio and tested for differences in mean chapter length with a one-way ANOVA with multiple comparisons.

For most measures, in cases where chapters had multiple POV characters in sequence, I divided the chapter by # of characters. For example, chapter 44 in TRB starts with Adam, switches to Whelk, and ends with Blue. This chapter counted as 1/3 chapter for each character. In BLLB, only the prologue contained multiple discrete POV sections (Persephone, Calla, and Maura) and Piper only had her POV featured in the epilogue so I grouped these two chapters as “All Others” and excluded them from statistical tests. For TRK and TRC, I did include the "All Others" category in the analysis. (“All Others” includes chapters/pages with ambiguous POV (Kavinsky’s text in TDT- are we reading it from the sender or the recipient’s POV?), mixed/omniscient POV (the Gray Man’s tarot reading in TDT – we get internal thoughts and feelings from multiple characters), and in TRK, any character aside from Blue, Gansey, Adam, and Ronan.)

In figures that represent raw counts of chapters or pages, the dashed horizontal line represents the expected number of chapters or pages per POV character if the distribution was equal. The p values on these figures represent the results of a Chi-square test to test whether the actual distribution of pages or chapters was different from an equal distribution.

For the pages/chapter ratio data and the Chi-square tests, I did not apply this calculation and counted each discrete POV as a full chapter because I needed counts and sample sizes to be integers for the statistical analysis (Gansey having an n = 8.5 was not making GraphPad prism very happy with me). I had to do a bit of rounding to the nearest number which was not ideal, but I did this as little as possible. (There is probably a workaround for this, at least for the ratio data, but I am not a statistician). To at least approximate what results would look like without the skew towards a lower pages/chapter ratio, I also ran the ANOVA only with chapters containing a single POV character, which is why you’ll see two figures for the pages/chapter metric for each book (except for BLLB).

I am considering p values < 0.05 to be significant; I have included non-significant p values on some figures to provide additional context. If there is no p value on a given figure, you can assume I found no significant differences amongst POV characters’ chapters and/or pages in my analysis.

If you have questions about the analysis please let me know! :)

Supplemental figures: TRK data shown for all unique POV characters (these figures do not have captions in the alt text; the four on the left depict distribution of chapters and pages across the 19 different POV characters in TRK; the vast majority of the chapters and pages are attributed to either Blue, Gansey, Adam, or Ronan. The two figures on the left show mean pages per chapter for all characters, with no clear/statistically significant trends across the data. The demon's chapters are noticeably short.)

[basimsenkidu]

We made it. Found our happy ending. Who would have think?

[sapphorror]

Y'know... A lot of ZaDr fics have them either gradually drifting into a less contentious status quo or establishing a deeply bizarre multilayered dynamic that is nonetheless very consistent and beholden to its own rules—which works, to be clear, because slavish adherence to the rhythm of their endless 'game' is already their canon baseline.

WITH THAT BEING SAID. I think it would be very funny to depict a ZaDr dynamic in which they're like, on-again off-again nemeses. As they get older theyre gradually forced to acknowledge the true depth of their mutual attachment, but instead of actually improving themselves in any lasting way or compromising the conflicting elements into an ill-definable state of contentious codependence, they just start oscillating wildly between periods of obscenely clingy allyship and devotedly murderous enmity. There's never an in between. They'll dedicate all their energy to trying to horrifically torture each other to death, until one of them gets uncomfortably close to actually dying or an external crisis pushes them together or they just get bored—at which point, they become obnoxiously glued at the hip until one of them relapses into anxiety about their ambitions or an argument escalates past the the point of no return or they just get bored. And every time they both Really Mean It, They're Not Gonna Do This Anymore, before naturally going ahead and doing it again

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Please tell me more about your human welcome home au 👀

!! gladly!!

i don't remember what i said in the first - and like... only lmao - post about it so if i restate some things! fuckign oopsie! (a lot of this is just Barnaby &/or Wally asbdjasj im sorry) also this got! so fucking long!

~ (im gonna talk about their middle/highschool years a lot so keep in mind the time frame is late 90s / early 2000s. they graduate high in either 2006/2007. so. yk. obvious warning for homophobia, transphobia, etc)

fun lil thing no.1)

so Barnaby & Wally briefly meet for the first time in the summer before 7th grade. the town Barnaby grows up & goes to school in isn't tiny, but it's not huge either. - i don't have a very good frame of reference for how many students are typically in a school, bc in both my middle/high there was at least nearly 2k of us. - so we'll just say it's smaller than that - a respectable, normal size, however many students that is. but Barnaby's school rarely, if ever, got any new kids.

so Wally randomly appeared on the edge of the Beagle farm one day, staring directly at Barnaby from across the fields. before Barnaby could go say hi, Wally vanished - but! on the first day of 7th grade, they wound up sharing a class. ofc within the day Wally was known as not only the new kid, but a weird kid at that. for the first week he sat next to a kid who had zeroed in on that and was an ass about it. Barnaby - already having an established rep as class clown & also widely well-liked by his peers - would try to stand up for Wally (from across the room) whenever that kid was being a dick to Walls in front of the class

by the end of that first week, seating arrangements were shifted, and Barnaby was seated next to Wally for the first semester instead. ofc the moment Barnaby sat down, he tried to strike up conversation and cracked a killer joke. and Wally, as we all know, doesn't laugh. he doesn't even blink! it rattles Barnaby to his core - not everyone laughs at his jokes, but there's always some kind of reaction!

class begins before Barnaby can be like "hey that. that was a joke. you're supposed to laugh". the whole hour all he can think about is the strange new kid next to him Who Didn't React To Barnaby's Joke. when the bell rings, Barnaby lingers as Wally (very slowly) packs up to go to his next class and walks him there. on the way he explains the joke, and Wally does the whole "oh. ha ha." thing. this all makes Barnaby very late to his next class (he's usually very punctual and never late - he doesn't want to disappoint his mama!) but for once he does not care.

Barnaby has been struck with this soul-deep need to get a genuine reaction out of Wally. he needs to make that guy actually laugh. it's all he can think about. he seeks Wally out for lunch, tries to find him after school (can't), looks for him in the halls. and to be clear! this is all very platonic! well, ok, these two kinda muddle the line BUT they have no romantic interest in each other. Barnaby just... really wants to be the new kid's friend. he wants to make him laugh. it's a friendship crush! platonic yearning! an inescapable desire to please & be accepted! he wants Wally's approval so so badly!

basically, Barnaby says "you're the weirdest person i've ever met (affectionate, intrigued, entranced)" and Wally replies "thank you (proud)"

fun lil thing no.2)

in my mind, Barnaby was a small kid. he was one of those kids who seemed like they were either gonna stay short, or just barely reach average height. he got his main growth spurt when he was like.... 16. it was very sudden. he lived the classic trope of "teen gets way taller over the summer and startles everyone on the first day of school". im talkin he goes from around 5'7 to 6'3. shoots right up like bamboo! and he's still not full height yet! mf is gonna cap out at 6'6!

on the flip side, Howdy was always just. so tall. he was that kid who towered over his peers from the start! ofc he got teased relentlessly for it (along with the transatlantic accent he started talking w/ at a young age and refuses to stop - among other eccentricities), but yk. he already got constant comments from his huge family about it, so he grew a thick skin pretty early on.

Poppy, on the other hand - the last of the three giants - had it worse than both of them! she wasn't outright taller than Howdy, and didn't have a sudden growth spurt like Barnaby, but steadily grew over the years until she was the tallest teen in town. this hit her hard bc not only did it draw unwanted attention to her & make her a target, but it made her dysphoria way worse (Poppy doesn't realize she's trans until highschool, and then doesnt medically transition until her early 20s)

but! once she started getting super tall, Howdy essentially glued himself to her a la "we tall guys gotta stick together!" a classic 'extrovert adopts introvert' thing. Poppy had no say in the matter.

fun lil thing no.3)

everyone's family sucks - except for Barnaby's, Howdy's, and Eddie's. well, mostly Eddie's. in my head they meant well but just... didn't really see the harm they were doing to him. he never spoke up, and they never saw him deeper than surface level.

but Frank's family? horrible. eugh. he was the school's "out gay kid" - not of his own choice! his peers picked up on it because it was very obvious. then the teachers heard, and let his parents know because of course they did, etc etc. Frank's home life was already shitty, and then getting outed (without any real proof or confirmation) made it a hundred times worse. he was a pretty depressed teen (emo Frank lets go) with mild anger issues & a habit for picking fights. but anyway on his eighteenth birthday he packed up his essentials into a backpack, escaped out the back, and never returned.

and Julie's siblings were alright, but their parents and grandparents were all very ~traditional~. it wasn't as rough as Frank's - it was more of a neglectful, passive-aggressive "you're all disappointments' household. ex: Jonesy was known as the local pothead & dealer, and his parents essentially pretend he's not part of the family despite him living in their basement. Bea had a bad (untrue) reputation, Franny was the goth weirdo who people blamed for their problems, etc. and then Julie was always different from "normal girls", and so her parents chalked her up as a mistake as well. but hey! at least the sibs were in it together! and the parents didn't care if Frank stayed over!

Poppy's family was great up until her parents caught her trying on a skirt Sally had made for her. it was a horrible, terrible downhill slide from there. they forced her to join the basketball team, made her keep her door open at all times, etc. for a while she couldn't even see her friends, though eventually they started sneaking in through her window & passing her notes in class. messaging in a 'secret' chatroom yk how it is. Poppy never directly stood up to her parents (very understandable & valid) but she rebelled in small ways. lying about having an after-school thing so that she could be with her friends, convincing her parents to let her go to a study group when in reality she'd be having a girls' night with Sally & Julie & Julie's sisters @ the Beagle farm.

Sally's family was similar to Julie's in that they were more lukewarm towards her than outright abusive. they thought she was too loud, too flamboyant, too expensive, too obvious, pretty much too everything. they wanted her to be normal - Sally wanted to stand on the roof and wax (loud) poetic about damsels. she wasn't outright bullied for being gay like Frank was, but it was certainly a common rumor that she was a lesbian. as a result, most of the girls at school wanted nothing to do with her, and the guys loved to provide commentary on the subject. her parents tried their best to ignore that truth and acted like she was totally straight. sure. still, Sally always refused to compromise on who she was, and treated it all like a mild annoyance. totally didn't hurt her at all. yep. (sarcasm)

there isn't anything known about Wally's family. not even Barnaby knows about them. the group tossed theories around (amongst themselves) over the years - was he an orphan? foster kid? was his family / home life so horrific that he doesn't want anyone to know? all they know is that he became an emancipated minor as young as legally possible and started living in Home, his (admittedly very spacious & high quality) RV. and they didn't even know about that until their junior year except for Frank

on the other side of the coin!

Ms. Beagle was the friend group's favorite adult growing up. the Beagle Farm was a common refuge & hangout spot for them, and Ms. Beagle let all of Barnaby's strange & delightful little friends know that there's always a guest room open for them, should they ever need it. and as a respected member of the community (and provider for the best chicken eggs in town), anyone who tried to speak up against the kids was Immediately shut the fuck down. Ms. Beagle took no shit. if people were talking ill about that "group of depraved teenage fuckups" and Ms. Beagle turned the corner, all conversation would cease until she was well out of earshot. she likes to say that she has 6 kids, all of whom she loves dearly and is very proud of <3

Howdy's family is too damn big to care. not in a neglectful way, just in a "oh, you're friends with... who was it again? Franz? invite him over to dinner someti- STOP PUNCHING YOUR BROTHER-" there's too much chaos, too many things to keep track of to care if Howdy's friends are gay, or trans, or absolutely fucking bizarre. they'll blend right in! Howdy could bring them over for dinner without telling his family and none of them would blink twice! Howdy mentioned that his friends have bad home lives Once and his parents immediately insisted that he bring them over for next week's thanksgiving so that they don't have to deal with that during what should be a holiday. thus began the All Six Of Us + Ms. Beagle + Franny/Bea/Jonesy Attend The Pillar Family Thanksgiving. its incredibly chaotic every time. there's so many fucking people. they're too busy fighting for survival (bread rolls) to bother with manners or awkwardness. every time they leave feeling like they fought a war. none of the friend group has missed a single year.

fun thing no.idontremember!

Wally & Barnaby have had three fights. each are catastrophic and threatened to tear the friend group apart. because those two are closer than anyone - they are each others person. they would both rather chug rat poison than willingly hurt each other. and while Barnaby - a pretty easygoing guy - can get riled up, Wally... really can't. he's never angry. even things that Should make him angry only make him confused or sad. he's too kind, too earnest, a bit of a pushover. he'll just take it with a smile.

so when Wally stands his ground, they all know shit is going tf down. code red, everyone brace. and if he stands his ground against Barnaby? pack a fucking go-bag and ditch town until the storm blows over.

the first time was when Barnaby found out that Wally lives in a damn RV. Wally got weirdly defensive about it, Barnaby was upset that Wally never even told him but somehow Frank knew (he had a bad night & couldn't go home, Julie was unavailable, and Wally found him and took him to the RV for the night) & that Wally is living alone in an RV at all, etc etc - it was a huge fight. & it just kept getting worse. when Barnaby tried to get Wally to move to the farm - that was the first time he's ever heard Wally snap at anyone, let alone him. and since the friend group is fully established at this point, and they're all hopelessly entangled in each others' lives, it affects all of them. sides have to be chosen - there is no neutral party on this. Wally ended up vanishing for a week without a word, and his RV vanished from where it had been parked thus far. the group was in shambles. when Wally turned back up, he actively avoided them all. it took Barnaby tracking down the rv and not leaving until Wally talked to him to have a conversation and fix things. but hey! the disaster actually helped them get even closer!

the second fight was when Barnaby had to go back to the Beagle Farm for their second year of community (Ms. Beagle had a minor accident and needed his help running the farm). Wally wanted to drop out too & go with him, and it turned into a big deal of Barnaby trying to get him to stay while Wally gets unusually pushy & upset about it. the fight wasn't nearly as bad as the RV one, and was more just sad/distressing, but it was still a fight. they parted on less than stellar terms, which they both felt horrible about. Wally has to go through the last year of community alone - he hasn't been alone in many years at this point, and since they met he's never been without Barnaby.

the third fight comes many years later, and this one is the worst. the friend group has all graduated university(those that attended), they're living in the same town, Barnaby & Wally (technically) share a house, Eddie is part of the group now. once again, its over everyone's favorite RV, Home. Home is very old at this point - Wally has had it for around 15 years, and he didn't get it new, and it's been through a lot. Wally is still half living in it, even though it's starting to fall apart. Barnaby brings up the notion that maybe it's time to send the old thing off to a dump, or find a way to put it in storage. they can't keep up the upkeep. it's time to say goodbye to it. Wally flips his fucking lid - or his version of it, anyway. because, uh. no. absolutely fucking not. it's already a very touchy subject, and emotions rise fast. Wally initially shuts down the conversation immediately. over the next week or so, few weeks maybe, tension between Barnaby & Wally simmers. the entire friend group is holding their breath. Barnaby wants the RV gone, as sad as he is about it. Wally won't allow it. of course they reach a breaking point - Barnaby pulls the "i own the property its parked on" card, Wally threatens to leave. of course that scares Barnaby, but that fear mixes with the anger and he fully yells at Wally for the first time. and then Wally shoves him. or tries to - it does nothing physically, but emotionally? it immediately drains all anger from the situation. Wally has never purposefully raised a hand against anyone ever, for any reason. and yet he tried to shove Barnaby. Wally immediately turns tail and runs - he locks himself in the RV, and Barnaby goes to Howdy's.

at Howdy's, Wally calls Barnaby. at first Barnaby jumps at the chance to apologize and try to work something out, but then he recognizes the background noise - Wally is driving Home somewhere. that RV is absolutely not fucking safe to drive anymore. the conversation immediately derails and goes from 0 to 100 within a second. Howdy is off to the side nervously sipping at his beer as Barnaby argues w/ Wally. the phone call abruptly cuts off, Barnaby says "the little bastard hung up on me" and starts Ranting. he says things he doesn't mean, obviously, and Howdy is trying to get him to chill tf out. he's just too angry/scared/hurt/worried yk?

but don't worry Barnaby! Wally didn't hang up on you! yeah so a while later (a little over an hour i think), Barnaby gets a call! it's from the town hospital! yeah so he's Wally's emergency contact, and apparently Wally "hanging up on him" was actually Wally getting into a horrendous accident. it wasn't his fault! there was a drunk driver! but it's... bad. the drunk driver had died in the crash, and since it was night and no one was around, help was a long time coming for Wally. its a miracle that someone found him & called an ambulance in time! so Barnaby realizes that the whole time he was talking shit & being angry, his best friend was slowly dying in a ditch somewhere, alone and in pain. and that's a whole thing!

time for some fun "facts"!

the first time Eddie went over to Frank's place, he immediately fainted when Frank turned the lights on & Eddie saw that he was surrounded by pet tanks filled with Very Large Bugs. then he fainted again when Frank removed the tarantula from its tank to clean said tank.

Wally & Barnaby's cat is named Welcome! she's usually small & pitch black with a permanently bristled tail! she's actually Barnaby's - he found her in a park as a kitten, and her unnerving stare reminded him of Wally so he took her home. Wally would like a dog! Barnaby would not! the cat is their only pet and will remain their only pet, no compromise. Wally retaliated by gluing googly eyes & dog ears onto a rock he found, then painting it. its name is Barnaby. Barnaby has beef w/ it a la Elmo & Rocco when Wally isn't looking

one time, during a group trip to the annual Pillar Family Thanksgiving, the gang stopped at a cabin-themed diner. Sally gasped at stopped Barnaby at the door "We must leave - you can't eat here". when everyone asked why, she pointed at a decorative sign on the wall: Don't Feed The Bears. it instantly became a smash hit inside joke that sometimes backfires (like that one time they go camping and Barnaby acts like he can't open the bear-proof dumpsters & locks & coolers). Howdy once got a "dont feed the bears" sign to put up in the store's diner section as a joke, but as soon as Barnaby saw it he left and refused to come back until Howdy took it down. he'd stand outside the store window and gaze at Howdy from afar w/ the biggest, saddest puppy eyes. it was incredibly effective

speaking of Howdy's store! they all built it together! Howdy managed to get his hands on an abandoned shell of an old building, and they all refurbished/renovated it! they all had the collective skills to get it done. Wally helped draw up blueprints & directed the color-scheme / painting portion, Sally and Barnaby used their carpentry skills, etc.

when Eddie "reconnects" with everyone, he feels like he's going insane. 'cause he keeps running into people who are familiar enough that it bothers him, but he just can't place where they're from (most if not all of them look very different from the last time he saw them in highschool). it drives him nuts! and then he meets Wally and Wally's like "oh! Eddie! it's you!" and Eddie's all "uh... how did you know myna- OH MY GOD IT'S YOU". he has a small crisis because he's over that time in his life, he's in a much better place, he's grown as a person. then he realizes that it's not just Wally but the entire fucking friend group he agonized over wanting to befriend for years and years. the group that (unintentionally) made him feel completely alone and like he was living a lie. and he keeps. running. into them. so Eddie, who just moved to this town, starts looking at mail carrier opportunities elsewhere bc he is Not doing this again - only for Julie to show up and drag him to a friend group function. because they all got together and went "oh, you caught up w/ Eddie too?? so we're in agreement? great! he's ours now! Julie, go get him". and then they accidentally break Eddie's wrist in a zealous game of soccer-baseball-corntoss & from then on won't leave him alone <3

Wally keeps his hair consistently dyed a rich royal blue - even his eyebrows! he continuously touches it up so his roots are never showing! Barnaby keeps his hair dyed blue in solidarity, but to a lesser extent - his roots show, and he doesn't dye his eyebrows or his sideburns/beard

on that vein, Wally has a very extensive hair-care routine he does every morning. he straightens his natural curls out, manipulates his hair into that absurd swirl, and hairsprays it to death. & gels down everything else. shit's Airtight. then at night he has an equally elaborate routine of washing the hairspray/gel out, treating his hair with high quality shampoos/conditioner/oils, and blowdrying it with impeccable technique to keep it Healthy

continuing on that vein - one time Barnaby was makin' breakfast when he heard a crash from upstairs. he sprinted to go see if Wally was alright, but Wally had locked the bathroom door and refused to open up. after Barnaby convinced him to, the door opened to reveal a very miserable Wally still in his towel. his hair was green. "the bottle said dye-safe', he said. the bottle lied. he wore hats for a while.

ok im gonna stop here! this is an absurd amount! i got carried away!

[godsfavoritescientist]

AITA for throwing a party for my best friend?

I (NB, 1 trillion) recently befriended someone (M, 60+) for the first time in ages. At first I only spent time with him because I felt sorry for him (he had no other friends), but after I got to know him, I realized he was really smart and fun to talk to.

Early on in our friendship, he asked me for help with an important project he was stuck on, and I agreed right away. I dedicated several years to helping him out, doing everything from giving him an idea that would solve all his problems once completed to walking him through complex math to encouraging him to keep going when he hit roadblocks. Every single time I helped with the project for all those years, I stayed up all through the night working on it with him.

A year before things started to fall apart between us, he invited a different friend to help with the project too, who I’ll call “F.” This guy hated the local wildlife (which my friend loved and dedicated his life to studying), and my friend insisted on keeping me a secret from F out of fear that F would hate me too. My friend also insisted on delaying his own project (which he had to finish so that he could keep getting funded to do his dream job) in order to keep F happy by building side-projects that F suggested.

Throughout his time “helping” with the project, F kept criticizing my friend and his project. Eventually, F finished a secret side-project of his own, to build a weapon that erases memories, and used it on my friend multiple times without his consent. I tried to warn my friend that F wasn’t trustworthy, but my friend didn’t do anything with my advice.

When the project was almost complete, F saw me for a few seconds and threw a fit. He used some choice words to describe my friend’s life’s work, told him he should destroy his project, and then abandoned my friend.

My friend was really upset about this, and tried to get in contact with me to reassure him. Unfortunately, I was spending time with my other friends for a couple of days at the time, and didn’t get his messages. He responded by barging into my own home, running up behind me, and accusing me of giving him a bad idea for the project we worked on together for years up until that point, probably because he was doubting his own reasoning skills after finding out that his choice to let F stick around had been a bad decision. I reassured him that he is smart (he is insecure about that) and revealed that I was planning to throw him a huge surprise party too, once his project was finished. He got really angry about this, and announced that he wanted to shut down his life’s work just to stop the party from happening.

I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t want me to throw him a party, and assumed that the stress of losing a friend (even a bad friend like F) was making him not think clearly. I also got a little bit annoyed that he could ever throw all our hard work down the drain so impulsively like that. I diligently stopped him from ruining his own creation, and waited for him to get over his moment of irrational feelings so we could get back to finishing his work, but it never happened.

He kept trying to shut down the project, and ended up losing everything because of it. When he invited yet another bad influence into his home (his brother, who had been a criminal for over ten years at that point), his brother used his diabolical mind to come up with a way to use our project against him, in a way that trapped my friend in a really dangerous situation for several decades.

I looked for my friend for the entire time he was lost in a dangerous situation, but I had no luck. And right when my friend miraculously found me, his brother separated us again. But there was a silver lining to this situation: my friend’s brother accidentally created a way for me to finally reunite with my friend and throw him the surprise party I had been planning.

[sillyabtmusic]

harin vs kanghyun's shenanigans

[gutsygremlin]

The fact that I have to write the fanfiction that I wanna see on ao3 9/10 is so evil to me

[lemonhemlock]

not to be a hater on main but i just stumbled on a tik tok claiming that tsh both takes itself too seriously and could use more absurd comedy and it nearly made me punch a wall

[sirrenhd]

they are making shimmer because singed needs money to save his daughter

[inkperch]

Do you think that vaggie would teach Charlie ballet

That would be ADORABLE-

[dunedragon]

Do you have an illustrated design for Iggy? I've been reading your fic for a while now, but I wish I had a concrete image on how she and her grandma looked like! :D

Oh man I've never put her to paper before. Let me take a swing at it (and a little sketchy of her grandma since I ran out of steam at the end haha)

(The blue is not her natural hair color, she just likes being extra, edgy lil gremlin. The silver runs in her family though.)

Panic Edit: I ACCIDENTALLY USED THE WRONG PALETTE THE CORRECT ONE IS UP NOW

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

Answering (by far too many) questions about Phoenix to get a better feel for their character. There's no spoilers for 3 in this, either 💕 So the only thing there is to worry about is how comically long it is

Does your muse make decisions with their head or their heart? Perhaps a bit of both?

Phoenix doesn’t get much room to think with anything beyond their head on the job. And more often than not, they are on the job- or at least, they’re stuck in a similar headspace… That being said, during what little time they spend beyond their occupation, that completely flips. In the rare instances they’re allowed to be lax, they’ll be far more likely to let their emotional state guide their behaviors.

Would you say your muse lives up to their potential? Are they trying to, or could they care less?

They’ve surpassed their initial potential, really. They would never say it out loud, but Phoenix absolutely thinks that it’s only downhill from this point onwards. Sure, they survived a hell of a lot, but that doesn’t mean they know how they did it. They sure as hell would like to keep the reputation they’ve gained, but they don’t feel like they’ve earned it themselves. More like fate just tacked it onto them against their will.

Is your muse protective of those they care for? If so, how do they show it?

It’s been a while since Phoenix has even had someone that they’ve cared for. If you were to have asked them before they joined the Agency, they probably would have responded with a shrug. Nowadays though, the bond they’ve developed with their handler is probably the strongest one they’ve ever had. Taking a bullet for him is the least of what Phoenix would do for that man. Thankfully (for now, anyways), he hasn’t found himself in any sort of situation that would require Phoenix doing that.

Does your muse tend to judge others, or are they more open-minded?

No, Phoenix is absolutely a bit of a judger. Just about anyone who they meet for the first time, they’ve got some internal commentary stirring up in their head the second they lay eyes on them. It happens a lot with Zoraxis operatives especially. Normally it boils down to “ohhh, this guy’s weird”, while actively ignoring the fact that they, too, are very weird. They’re not above being a hypocrite in that regard.

Does your muse have any strange interests? do they keep these interests to themselves, or are they comfortable sharing them with others?

Straying from the somewhat obvious answer of their pyromanic tendencies, Phoenix has a habit of… ‘finding’ stuff out in the field and taking it back with them. It absolutely boggled the Agency the first few times they did it, but nobody stopped them while they had the chance, and they quickly made a habit of it. Sans the handler, they don’t really have great connections with most people in the office, so it isn’t something that comes up a lot. If someone asked them about it, they’d be happy to explain it, but more often than not they’d prefer it if people they didn’t know stayed away from their stuff. After SatL, Phoenix was devastated to learn that all of the souvenirs they collected were removed from the van- probably discarded somewhere by other faculty. Their handler was equally upset about it, though at the time that he learned what the Agency had done, he was still under the impression Phoenix was dead, so.

Has your muse ever been arrested? If so, what for?

Before embracing the life of an agent, Phoenix had gotten themself caught up in a criminal lifestyle far bigger than they were. They were on the hook for a lot of things, really. Trespassing, grand theft, breaking and entering, second degree murder, and, of course, arson, among a few other things. … It was actually the Agency who intercepted their arrest… Read over their files, saw their talent, and didn’t figure them enough of a threat to be against ‘hiring’ them for an agent position. Or maybe they were just looking for some cannon fodder who wouldn’t be missed. Phoenix didn’t really know. But between being an agent or going to jail, it was an easy answer.

Does your muse consider themselves a good person? Why or why not?

… It’s a question Phoenix thinks about a lot. They don’t really have an answer- though if they had to choose, they’d lean towards ‘no’. Their past certainly doesn’t help them think very highly of themself and their morality. They’ve left it behind, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think about it… They wouldn’t even be an agent without all the skills they honed during that time of their life. It’s inseparable from who they are now, whether they like it or not. Phoenix didn’t join the Agency willingly… Not really. Sure, they got used to it- maybe even grown to like it, in a strange sort of way, but they have coworkers who trained and dedicated their lives to their job because they wanted to help people. Because they wanted to save the world- protect the innocent. Phoenix didn’t have a choice. Do they want to help people…? Do they want to protect the innocent? They think they do- they’re pretty sure any rational person would. But they wouldn’t be here if the Agency didn’t snatch them up… Would they even care, if it wasn’t for them? It’s hard to consider being a good person when the good things you do, ultimately, stem from the debt that you owe.

How important is family to your muse?

Not very. They never really knew their mother, didn’t have a great relationship with their father, and keeping contact with him post joining the Agency wasn’t a very high priority for them. Add being an only child to the mix, and that doesn’t really leave much left.

Does your muse tend to blame themselves or others?

It depends, but normally it's much easier for the blame to fall on Phoenix if something goes wrong in the field. Originally, this was because when something went wrong, it usually was their fault- they touched something too quickly, or threw away something they actually needed, or accidentally gripped something too tightly with the telekinesis they were still adjusting to. Though they’ve gotten better at making less mistakes in the field, it's hard to shake the habit of blaming themself whenever things start to go awry.

What decisions have your muse made that they regret?

Regret is… a strange concept for Phoenix. Oddly, one they get particularly thoughtful about. Of course, they regret a lot of the actions in their past, but without it, they wouldn’t be where they are today… They’ve got a place to live they can call their own, an office full of people who… tolerate them, free lunch every day, and a friend they wouldn’t trade for the world. Not to mention all they’ve done since becoming an agent… They certainly don’t regret any of that. Ultimately, Phoenix tries not to dwell on things like regret to begin with. If they don’t think about the past too hard- if they enjoy the present for what it is, and leave everything else behind- then it can’t hurt them as much. Right?

What haunts your muse? Is there any event in your muse’s past that they can’t move past?

A lot… But to narrow it to just one, Rising Phoenix clings to them like a dead weight. Not because of the mission itself… Not because of Juniper, or the missile, or Zor (well, okay, maybe Zor a little bit)... But they can’t shake the memory of their handler crying out to them when the elevator cables finally snapped. With the earpiece tucked directly behind… you know, their ear, it felt as if the sound was echoing around in their skull. They could have died, then. And that wasn’t new, obviously- they nearly died just about every day that week… But having it sink in that even their handler didn’t trust their odds… It was a lot to think about all at once. That they might die. That someone else might care if they die. That his voice shouting their ‘name’ could be the last thing they ever hear him say… The last thing they ever hear period. Revelation after revelation hit in rapid succession, and plummeting to their would-be-death in an elevator certainly hadn’t helped matters much.

Does your muse favor nonviolence? Will they be violent if needed? Do they revel in violence?

Generally, if Phoenix can handle a situation without killing somebody, they will. Physical harm that doesn’t lead to murder is a completely different story, though. They’ll generally do just about anything short of murder to get someone off their back. Phoenix is a pretty big advocate for improvised weaponry, and partnering that up with their telekinesis is quite the dangerous combination. If it’s not bolted to the wall, you’re likely to get hit by it. Hope you have a particularly sturdy skull.

Does your muse prefer to keep the peace or rock the boat? Are they a mediator, or do they tend to make others upset?

Over the years of working for the Agency, they’ve certainly gotten better, but Phoenix has always been a bit of an instigator. It’s a habit they never quite broke. You give them five minutes and they can turn just about anything into an argument. It made them pretty unpopular during their first few months in the office. Nowadays, they’re a lot more playful about it, and they’ve gotten better about learning the limits of those around them (and they’ll only pass those limits if they’re a Zoraxis operative).

Does your muse have any specific fears? Is there a reason why they fear these things?

Phoenix has had a pretty bad case of paranoia even before they joined the Agency. Of course, turning to a life of secrecy pretty much only made that worse. They feel more comfortable meandering through the hallways of an Agency facility than they do walking down the street. They feel safer spending a late night at their office than they do in their own home. There’s a sense of security that comes from being surrounded by their peers that they only really notice once it’s gone… It’s one of the main reasons they’ve stopped asking for vacation days. Not like they’d be very relaxing anyways…

Is your muse happy with their job or career path? Why or why not?

When they started, they couldn’t have cared less about what it ‘meant’ to be a secret agent. They were onboarded to be a dispensable asset, and they knew that full well. Over the years, though, they’ve come around to it… They’re certainly proud of the work they have done (even if they barely know how they even did it), and the sense of community could be a hell of a lot worse. Not needing to fear for their life every time they wake up in the morning would be nice, but you’ve gotta take what you can get, you know.

Does your muse like to travel? have they traveled in the past? Where would they like to go?

Quite obviously, Phoenix travels for work a lot. Before that, though, they never really went too far from their hometown. The concept of traveling for leisure wasn’t really at the forefront of their mind at the time. They can’t deny, though, being an agent has sent them to quite a few gorgeous locations… Though they have no desire to recreationally travel as of currently, they can certainly understand the appeal.

Does your muse believe in an afterlife? If so, what do they believe the afterlife would look like?

They… try not to think about that. If there’s nothing left for them after they die… If everything just cuts to black, and they disappear into the thoughtless ether… Well, there’s plenty of worse things to wake up to, that’s for certain.

Is your muse cowardly, or courageous? what would it take for them to act heroically or selflessly?

It’s a complicated question. If you were to ask Phoenix themself, they certainly wouldn’t consider themself courageous, even despite all they’ve done. Just about every incredibly selfless thing they’ve done- the Death Engine, the stunt in Rising Phoenix, and everything else… Well, they were just about scared shitless the whole goddamned time. Some people would consider it brave to find something heart stoppingly terrifying and still be able to do it anyways. But Phoenix just considers it embarrassing. They don’t really… talk to other agents very much (they aren’t exactly the most popular operative, even despite their accomplishments). With their limited worldview, it’s kind of hard for the imposter syndrome not to creep in. Other agents would have probably done the same things they did, had they gotten the opportunity. And they probably would have done it faster. Probably wouldn’t have hesitated as much.

What are your muse’s most negative traits? How do these traits influence their lives? (ex. if a muse is aggressive, they may have trouble forming lasting friendships.)

Phoenix is an admittedly dangerous combination of standoffish and impulsive. They listen to themself, and act without thinking. Of course, they’ve been working on that a lot more after establishing a better relationship with their handler, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come back to bite them in the ass from time to time. … It’s so strange that people actually concern themselves about them now. That when Phoenix acts too irrationally, there’s punishments beyond the short term physical, or situational. They get hurt, and their handler gets… scared. They’re not used to that. Even despite their bond, they’ve gotten into a few pretty heated arguments about the matter from time to time. Phoenix still isn’t really used to their actions having consequences for people other than themself. But the world has been relying on them an awful lot, lately… It’s quite the weight on the shoulders.

Has your muse ever felt trapped? by what?

Ultimately- no matter how much they’ve grown used to them, and no matter how much they’ve adjusted to their life as an operative- the Agency is, and will always be Phoenix’s cage. They’re stuck there. They owe a debt, and they can’t really leave if they wanted to. Luckily, they don’t really want to… They’re not really sure what they’d be doing, if not for this… But like most things adjacent to their past, they try not to think too hard about the fact that they’re stuck in this particular career. 

[chickenmcnuggies]

now that im finished with this gay fates update i figured i’d show off the other modding project i’ve been working on, which is a dwarf fortress mod to add a lot of stock fantasy creatures i was disappointed weren’t in the game (or any other mods)

This isn’t all of them, but the sprites im most happy with

cockatrice male and female (megabeast, the snake head on the tail injects a venom that paralyzes their foes)

centaur male and female (sentient and similar to animal people)

peryton

various different ent caste

mogalls (a la fire emblem, shadows of velentia’s design specifically)

quetzalcoatl

wurm (megabeast, based on the wurm design from dungeon meshi)

wyverns (come in 4 different colors!)

phoenix (megabeast, skin made of stone and blood made of magma)

griffon and hippogriff (hippogriff are common domestics)

[shoechoe]

Seeing as you also read the Invader Zim comics, did you notice the opening of Florpus takes after the first issue? Also I'm not going to lie, I absolutely hated how the comic version is just an excuse to dish out excessive humiliation on Dib. Like Zim straight up fat shames the kid and it annoys me when people brush it off as just "dark humor." especially because Dib wasn't even being a jerk. Sorry to vent too much but I feel like the only one bothered by that.

Yeah, I noticed. I actually heard that Florpus was a "re-imagining" of the first comic issue before, so I wasn't surprised by it. One of the things that did surprise me (from what I've read so far- I'm struggling to find the full fifth issue online RN, I might have to find where to buy it) was how mean they are in general- like, meaner than the show got, I think. The first two chapters just being Dib torture (as well as how much it tortures Dib in general) is a big example.

(The comics seem weirdly like they try to change up ZIM and Dib's dynamic from "They each win their individual battles sometimes, but neither one gets what they want" to "Dib constantly fails at everything no matter what" which, to me, doesn't work as well.)

ZIM gets picked on quite a bit too, but his chapters struck me as a lot more fun to read than Dib's chapters. The one where the Tallests pick on ZIM and then it ends with him straight up killing them on accident was hilarious. I wish Dib's chapters were more like that.

Personally, if you don't mind me ranting about something slightly different, what I disliked even more from the first issue was Gaz's chapter. Like, Gaz didn't like how Dib tried to pull her away from her video games, so she tortures him by simulating him as a player character and has him die ten million times...?? I'm pretty sure that's worse than anything ZIM has even tried to do to Dib.

What really gets to me is the way that it makes Dib apologize to Gaz for "not respecting her interests enough" like he's the one in the wrong even though Gaz is putting him through I Have No Mouth-level torture just because he annoys her when she wants to play her video games. I'm all for Gaz being comically evil (I always thought she got too much shit in the fanbase for it), but not when you butcher a bizarre attempt at a moral in it.

The comics and Florpus definitely attempt to make Gaz and Dib feel more like a regular pair of siblings than just two assholes while keeping the IZ-style dark humor, but the last chapter of issue #1 failed pretty hard at it. It's especially frustrating because I feel like the comics do this much better later. The story where Gaz learns that Dib will explode if he gets sad so she spends the entire day trying to make him happy was one of the best ones, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I feel like that chapter is an exception. Most of the time, I think IZ is just not very good at handling wholesome emotional arcs and positive relationships between characters. (Like I've said before, I could go on a whole rant about how Dib and Professor Membrane's relationship gets handled in Florpus.)