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svsss-fanon-exposed · 2 months

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Examining SVSSS Canon: 2/∞

THE PRE-CANON TIMELINE

This post will attempt to provide an answer to several questions, including the ages of some of the current peak lords, as well as a rough timeline of events in the extras relative to the current day. A simple, bullet-point timeline will be at the end of this post, with relevant quotes and analysis above.

The timeline of SVSSS isn't particularly easy to piece together, and many fans are unsure of things such as the ages of certain characters, or how long the current generation of peak lords has been in power. As a matter of fact, it seems like even Airplane himself doesn't have a set timeline in mind for the events of PIDW pre-LBH:

“Your ages?” To tell the truth, Shen Qingqiu didn’t really know the precise age of this body. He raised his head at Shang Qinghua. “Wouldn’t you know better than I do?” Shang Qinghua twirled the brush in his hand. He’d never thought about this question either, so he figured he might as well just say whatever. Therefore he randomly wrote a number down in a couple of strokes. (7 Seas, Ch. 31)

It would be easy enough to take this quote and call the timeline a mystery-- however, there are a surprising amount of clues in the text, enough to at least put together a decent idea of when things happened and how old certain characters are, depending on which theories and interpretations one ascribes to.

There are two particular facts which are our most important hints as to the pre-LBH timeline, upon which this entire analysis hinges.

First, we have the spacing of the Immortal Alliance Conferences:

After much difficulty, Luo Binghe managed to turn seventeen, at which point he finally participated in the event the cultivation world held once every four years: the Immortal Alliance Conference. (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

And next, we have the length of time since Shen Qingqiu began to cultivate:

Before, Shen Qingqiu had thought that this body’s qualifications were already incredible, to have formed a core in only ten or so years when he’d begun cultivation so late. (7 Seas, Ch. 19)

Notably here, what is translated as "ten or so years" is 十几年， which is more accurately "ten and a few years." This means that at the time Shen Qingqiu formed a golden core, he had been at Cang Qiong Mountain for around 10-15 years, but likely no longer or shorter than that.

This tells us quite a bit already-- because we know that Shen Qingqiu only reached core formation after becoming peak lord, as well as after Luo Binghe had already become a disciple:

Luo Binghe was using the incorrect cultivation manual that Shen Qingqiu had handed him; he should have long since died bleeding from the seven apertures, his body rupturing down to his bones, skin, meridians, tendons, and flesh... Shen Qingqiu was filled with paranoia; he forever felt like everyone was secretly talking behind his back, discussing how he’d been unable to attain Core Formation even after this long. (7 Seas, Ch. 24)

So this tells us that it could not have been any longer than around 15 years between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe joining Cang Qiong Mountain, and was likely at least a few years less than that because it has already been awhile since Luo Binghe was given the fake manual, which likely occured shortly after he arrived, and Shen Qingqiu reaches core formation at some point after this scene.

This means that the Qing generation's ascenscion likely occured no more than ten years after Shen Qingqiu joined the sect-- putting the ages for Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan respectively at roughly twenty-six and twenty-nine when they became peak lords.

The timeline can be clarified further and expanded, however, due to the spacing of the IAC. We know that the IAC occured when Luo Binghe was seventeen, and that it occurs every four years-- meaning that there would have been IAC taking place also when he was thirteen, nine, five, one, and three years before he was born.

However, we also know that it had not actually been fourteen years since Luo Binghe's birth at the start of SVSSS.

In the translation, Luo Binghe says the following when Shen Qingqiu asks his age:

“This disciple is fourteen,” Luo Binghe obediently replied. (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

However, the original says:

洛冰河乖巧地道：“弟子虚岁十四。”

"虚岁" here would be better translated as "nominal age." In ancient times, a child was one year old on the day of their birth, and aged up by one year with each new year-- so if a child was born the day before the new year, then at two days old he would already be counted as two years old. Sometimes, this would be counted on the spring festival new year, but other times it would be counted on the winter solstice.

As for Luo Binghe's precise chronological age, that is up for some determination. We know roughly the time of year he was born:

Immediately after birth, Luo Binghe was abandoned by his parents, swaddled in white cloth, and put in a wooden basin that was lowered into the Luo River. This occurred on the coldest days of the year... (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

The "coldest days of the year" here is 数九寒天, which refers to the nine periods of nine days each following the winter solstice. The winter solstice typically occurs on December 20-21, meaning that Luo Binghe's birth date is somewhere between December 20-March 12. If nominal age is being counted by winter solstice in this world, then that makes him chronologically thirteen at the start of SVSSS, but if it is calculated by the spring festival, then he is chronologically either twelve or thirteen at the start of SVSSS, as the Chinese new year can fall anywhere between January 21 - February 21, meaning that LBH could have been born either before or after this time.

So, let's just say that LBH's chronological age, for the purposes here, is thirteen, and then adjust our IAC timeline as follows：

There was one when he was chronologically sixteen, twelve, eight, four, the year he was born, and four years before he was born.

Now, how does this help us determine a timeline?

Well, we have the following statement:

Yue Qingyuan’s knuckles slowly brushed along Xuan Su’s hilt. “I was able to meet Senior Su Xiyan once at an Immortal Alliance Conference, many years ago." (7 Seas, Ch. 18)

Because we know that Su Xiyan died when Luo Binghe was born, we know that this meeting could not have occured at any conferences after his birth. It also would be unlikely that they met the same year Luo Binghe was born, as Su Xiyan would likely already be dead at that point if LBH was born after the new year. So, the latest that Yue Qingyuan could have met Su Xiyan would be twenty years before Luo Binghe was thrown into the Abyss.

We now combine this with the earlier discussion of the ages of Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan, and here I will note the following:

Yue Qingyuan slowly said, “At age fifteen, I entered Qiong Ding Peak." (7 Seas, Ch. 21)

This puts Yue Qingyuan roughly three years older than Shen Jiu:

“When [Shen Jiu] was twelve years old, he was but a slave my family had purchased from traveling child traffickers. " (7 Seas, Ch. 6)

Shen Jiu joined Cang Qiong Mountain at sixteen:

Liu Qingge didn’t even grace him with a sideways glance. “But certainly more success than a nobody who only began proper cultivation at age sixteen.” (7 Seas, Ch. 19)

This happened most likely directly after reuniting with Yue Qingyuan at an Immortal Alliance Conference. This puts Yue Qingyuan's age at nineteen during that conference, at which point he is head disciple, and has already gained some fame. However, this reunion has to occur before Luo Binghe's birth, Su Xiyan's death, and Tianlang-jun's defeat. This is because at this point, Yue Qingyuan has only been in Cang Qiong Mountain for four years-- thus, this particular conference is almost certainly the first one he has taken part in, and likely the first one he has attended at all, since a brand-new disciple in early stages of training most likely wouldn't have gone, therefore if Tianlang-jun had already been sealed by this point, Yue Qingyuan would not have had the chance to meet Su Xiyan.

So, the latest Shen Qingqiu could have joined Cang Qiong Mountain, at age 16, is twenty years before the Abyss, which would put him at age thirty-six at the youngest at that time.

Now, what about additional conference cycles?

It's possible that the conference in which Yue Qingyuan met Su Xiyan and/or after which Shen Qingqiu joined CQM may have been the one before this-- but that would also add four additional years to the time SQQ had been cultivating.

The earliest that Luo Binghe could have joined CQM would be when he was a little over ten years old, as that is when his mother dies:

On the bed lay a haggard old woman. With great effort, she tried to prop herself up, but from beginning to end, she was unable to do so. A small figure rushed in from outside. A tender-faced Luo Binghe, only a little over ten years old, supported the woman. Around his neck hung that jade pendant. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

Shen Qingqiu had not reached core formation when Luo Binghe joined the sect. This means that if the IAC where SQQ joined the sect was four years before Luo Binghe's birth, then by the time Luo Binghe joins the sect it has been about fourteen to fifteen years since SQQ began cultivating.

Adding an additional four years would bump that to eighteen to nineteen years, which exceeds the "ten and some" years that SQQ took to reach core formation.

In my opinion, this also tells me that LBH joined CQM when he was absolutely no older than ten or eleven, and likely went to join immediately after his mother's death, because pushing LBH's join date later would also stretch the timeline of SQQ's cultivation. Now, this part does not specify whether the ten years old is nominal age or chronological age-- but because LBH's age of seventeen at the conference is referenced to his nominal age of fourteen, with a distance between of three years, then I am considering all age-numbers to be nominal age rather than chronological. This only really matters in regards to Luo Binghe for this analysis, though, as his birth year is the only one which has bearing on the timeline in regards to Su Xiyan's status.

With all of this information, we can determine with good confidence that the conference in which Yue Qingyuan met Su Xiyan was the same conference during which he reunited with Shen Qingqiu, which occured four years before Luo Binghe was born and twenty years before the Endless Abyss.

So because of this, we actually do have a relatively precise timeline of characters' ages, as well as events in the cultivation world.

This short timeline is also supported by the fact that Ming Fan is the most senior of Shen Qingqiu's disciples, and he is only sixteen, about 2-3 years older than Luo Binghe:

A youth around sixteen years old, tall and thin, promptly ran in through the door. “This disciple is here. What instructions does Shifu have?” (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

Had the Qing generation ascended too many years prior to Luo Binghe's joining the sect, it would be strange that the most senior disciple of Shen Qingqiu's was only sixteen, as in xianxia a disciple typically will not "graduate" at a certain age or cultivation stage, meaning that older disciples will maintain their role well into adulthood.

As for the rest of the peak lords, we have little to no information regarding the ages of Wei Qingwei, Qi Qingqi, or Mu Qingfang. However, we do know that Liu Qingge is quite young, and joined the sect both at an optimal age and a significant length of time before Shen Qingqiu:

At this point, Liu Qingge’s formal ascension to Bai Zhan Peak Lord, too, had likely only happened a couple years ago. There was a visible air of immaturity about his features, his gaze fierce and sharp, and within his every action was a young man’s spirited vigor. (7 Seas, Ch. 19)

and

Therefore, even though he’d entered the sect quite some time after Liu Qingge, because Qing Jing Peak was ranked second—only below Qiong Ding Peak—while Bai Zhan Peak was ranked seventh, Liu Qingge still had to address Shen Qingqiu as “Shixiong,” if through gritted teeth. (7 Seas, Ch. 24)

So, Liu Qingge is likely a year or two younger than Shen Qingqiu, but not by too much, since they still behave very much like contemporaries as teenagers-- let's say that Liu Qingge is likely around 14-15 when Shen Qingqiu joins the sect at age 16.

The other peak lord we know a bit about the age of is Shang Qinghua:

The older-than-average outer disciple Shang Qinghua, who currently occupied a seventeen-year-old body, looked around in all directions as he trailed behind the main team, who were unloading goods from the ship onto the docks. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

He is seventeen here, and an outer disciple of An Ding Peak. We can place this a bit more definitively on the timeline by the fact that Shen Qingqiu is already a head disciple at this point in time:

“What I don’t know is how Shen Qingqiu got chosen as head disciple after starting cultivation so late,” said another outer disciple who’d joined Cang Qiong Mountain at an older age, his expression sour. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Unfortunately, we cannot place the exact point in time where Shen Qingqiu became head disciple-- one possibility is that it couldn't have happened until after Tianlang-jun's defeat, which occured about four years after he joined the sect, since he did not participate in the battle. But that is a weak argument, since none of the current generation besides Yue Qingyuan participated in that battle:

Of the current peak lords, only Yue Qingyuan had participated in that battle, as the head disciple of Qiong Ding Peak. (7 Seas, Ch. 17)

If using this argument, then that would mean that aside from Yue Qingyuan, none of the other peak lords had been chosen as head disciples at that time-- while that is a possibility, I think that a more feasible explanation would be that Yue Qingyuan was an exception, and participated in the battle specifically because of his wielding Xuan Su.

One thing we can extrapolate, however, is that Shang Qinghua was most likely an inner disciple for at least three years before the Qing generation's ascension. This is because of the following:

One day, Shang Qinghua’s concise Great System delivered a new command: Become the An Ding Peak head disciple within three years. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Now, it is somewhat loose evidence, as there is nothing to say that "three years" means for certain that the ascension would occur three years from that point, but it does mean that it occured no earlier than that. By now, Shang Qinghua has already been an inner disciple for some time, long enough to have been assisted by Mobei-jun a few times and to have gone on several missions-- most likely around a few months to a year or so at minimum.

Of course, how long has passed between Shen Qingqiu joining the sect and this point? Well, since Shen Qingqiu is still described as a youth:

Shang Qinghua suddenly heard the tinkling of sword tassel pendants, and a youth wearing Qing Jing Peak’s uniform slowly approached him. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Because of this description, I would say that Shen Qingqiu is most likely between seventeen and his early twenties, since it isn't particularly likely that he would become head disciple in less than a year after joining the sect. Of course, within this age range, there is one important event that occurs-- the battle of Bai Lu mountain, which would have occured when Shen Qingqiu was twenty and Yue Qingyuan was twenty-three.

Now, this gets into more of a speculation than anything else-- just before this point, Mobei-jun attacked Huan Hua Palace and the An Ding Peak disciples. If the battle of Bai Lu Mountain had already occured, it would have happened no more than a few years earlier. We also know that there is a tentative truce between the demon realm and the cultivation world:

This suggestion was solid. For many years, the Human and Demon Realms had maintained an uneasy balance and had yet to drop the pretense of peace. Eliminating Sha Hualing and her mob wouldn’t be impossible, but it would likely light a fuse. The demons definitely wouldn’t let her death go unanswered, and it wouldn’t be worth it if they stirred up an even greater conflict. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

I suspect that this pretense of peace was likely set in place after the battle of Bai Lu Mountain, when the demon realm had just lost their ruler.

Since just a short time had happened since the demons' defeat and a likely truce between the realms, I find it unlikely that Mobei-jun, a prominent member of demonic nobility, at this time would be actively antagonizing the cultivation world by attacking Huan Hua Palace and Cang Qiong Mountain. Now, of course, there is a potential alternate storyline that this is exactly what happened, and Mobei-jun went rogue as an act of lashing out, and that interpretation would be perfectly valid on its own.

Personally, though, I believe that Shang Qinghua's meeting with Mobei-jun occured before the battle of Bai Lu Mountain, while the cultivation world and demon world were in the tense state on the edge of war. This means that Shang Qinghua most likely became an inner disciple when Shen Qingqiu was around 17-19 years old.

With this information, we can determine some relative ages:

Yue Qingyuan is three years older than Shen Qingqiu, who is a little older than Liu Qingge. Because Shang Qinghua was seventeen when Shen Qingqiu was already head disciple, it is most likely that he is around Liu Qingge's age, give or take a few years, as it is not particularly likely (though potentially possible) for Shen Qingqiu to have gone from new disciple to head disciple in the space of a single year.

Aside from these four, there are no other ages that can be determined for the peak lords.

With all of this information, a fairly decent timeline can be created. Characters' ages will be listed with each notable year.

《 THE TIMELINE 》

*counted up to the start of SVSSS. If using this timeline, keep in mind that the earliest and latest notes for date ranges can overlap-- do not accidentally have a disciple join the sect before the current peak lords ascend, or have SQH become head disciple after ascension! Dates with ranges are colored green (earliest) and red (latest).

Earlier than -21 YR

LQG: <;10-11

(earliest) Liu Qingge joins Cang Qiong Mountain

-21 YR

LQG: 10-11, SQQ: 12, YQY: 15, QHT: <16, QJL: 16

Shen Jiu sold to Qiu Jianluo

Yue Qi joins Cang Qiong Mountain

--IAC--

-19 YR

LQG: 12-13, SQQ: 14, YQY: 17

(earliest*) Yue Qingyuan enters the Lingxi Caves with Xuan Su

-18 YR

LQG: 13-14, SQQ: 15, YQY: 18, QHT: <19, QJL: 19

(latest*) Yue Qingyuan enters the Lingxi Caves with Xuan Su

Shen Jiu kills Qiu Jianluo and burns down Qiu Manor

Shen Jiu becomes Wu Yanzi's disciple

(earliest*) Yue Qi leaves the Lingxi Caves

(earliest*) Yue Qi becomes head disciple

(latest) Liu Qingge joins Cang Qiong Mountain

-17 YR

LQG: 14-15, SQQ: 16, YQY: 19

(latest*) Yue Qi leaves the Lingxi Caves

(latest*) Yue Qi becomes head disciple

--IAC--

Yue Qingyuan meets Su Xiyan

Shen Jiu kills Wu Yanzi and joins Cang Qiong Mountain

-16 YR

LQG: 15-16, SQH: 15-17, SQQ: 17, YQY: 20

(earliest) Shen Qingqiu becomes Head Disciple

(earliest) Shang Qinghua meets Mobei-jun and becomes inner disciple at age 17

(earliest) Shang Qinghua receives the directive to become head disciple within three years

(earliest) Shang Qinghua becomes head disciple

-14 YR

MF: 2, LQG: 17-18, SQH: 17-19, SQQ: 19, YQY: 22

(latest) Shen Qingqiu becomes Head Disciple

(latest) Shang Qinghua meets Mobei-jun and becomes inner disciple at age 17

(earliest**) Su Xiyan imprisoned and subjected to torture in Water Prison

(earliest**) Battle of Bai Lu Mountain

(earliest**) Tianlang-jun Sealed

-13 YR

NYY: <1, LBH: 1, MF: 3, LQG: 18-19, SQH: 18-20, SQQ: 20, YQY: 23

(latest**) Su Xiyan imprisoned and subjected to torture in Water Prison

(latest**) Battle of Bai Lu Mountain

(latest**) Tianlang-jun Sealed

Luo Binghe is Born

Su Xiyan Dies

(earliest) Qing Generation ascend to become Peak Lords

--IAC--

-11 YR

NYY: 2-3, LBH: 3, MF: 5, LQG: 20-21, SQH: 20-22, SQQ: 22, YQY: 25

(earliest***) Ming Fan joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

-9 YR

NYY: 4-5, LBH: 5, MF: 7, LQG: 22-23, SQH: 22-24, SQQ: 24, YQY: 27

--IAC--

-8 YR

NYY: 5-6, LBH: 6, MF: 8, LQG: 23-24, SQH: 23-25, SQQ: 25, YQY: 28

(latest) Shang Qinghua receives the directive to become head disciple within three years

(earliest***) Ning Yingying joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

-5 YR

NYY: 8-9, LBH: 9, MF: 11, LQG: 27-28, SQH: 27-29, SQQ: 29, YQY: 32

--IAC--

(latest) Shang Qinghua becomes head disciple

(latest) Qing Generation ascend to become Peak Lords

(latest) Ming Fan joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

-4 YR

NYY: 9-10, LBH: 10, MF: 12, LQG: 28-29, SQH: 28-30, SQQ: 30, YQY: 33

Luo Binghe's adoptive mother dies

(earliest) Luo Binghe joins Qing Jing Peak

(earliest) Shen Qingqiu reaches Core Formation

-3 YR

NYY: 10-11, LBH: 11, MF: 13, LQG: 29-30, SQH: 29-31, SQQ: 31, YQY: 34

(latest****) Ning Yingying joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

(latest) Luo Binghe joins Qing Jing Peak

-2 YR

NYY: 11-12, LBH: 12, MF: 14, LQG: 30-31, SQH: 30-32, SQQ: 32, YQY: 35

(latest*****) Shen Qingqiu reaches Core Formation

-1 YR

NYY: 12-13, LBH: 13, MF: 15

--IAC--

Year 0

NYY: 13-14, LBH: 14, MF: 16

SVSSS Begins

-----

This timeline operates under the following conditions. For some of these conditions, alternatives are discussed in the post above-- if you wish to use any of the alternative calculations, then you're more than welcome to adjust the timeline as applicable for your own use!

"Years" are counted from the first day of the spring festival/Chinese new year, rather than January 1

All character ages are nominal ages, so they were born in the year they are counted as age "1"

Luo Binghe was born after the new year, and so his nominal age is only about one year higher than chronological.

Shang Qinghua met Mobei-jun before the battle of Bai Lu Mountain

The system's time limit for SQH does reference the time of the Qing generation's ascension

The Immortal Alliance Conference takes place roughly in the middle of the year. Based on the fact that it is warm enough for the disciples to dip their feet into a stream and find that pleasant, it would make sense for the IAC to occur in a warmer season (Ch. 4)

Further References and Footnotes:

*Yue Qi was in the Lingxi Caves for more than one year and Qiu Manor had already been destroyed by the time he got out (Ch. 21)

**The birth of Luo Binghe occured a few days after the battle of Bai Lu Mountain. Depending on when LBH was born, it could be at the end of year -13 or the first few days of year -12 (Ch. 21)

***We do not know the earliest a child can join Cang Qiong Mountain, even though the appropriate age for cultivation most likely cuts off somewhere around 15 (due to YQY joining at that age and no comments about him being "too old"). For the purposes of this timeline, I am setting the absolute youngest to age 5, but more realistically a disciple wouldn't join until age 8-10 at the earliest.

****It is unknown whether the only time that disciples can join Cang Qiong Mountain is during the recruitment trials. Therefore, there remains a possibility for Ning Yingying to have joined the sect in the same year as Luo Binghe, but at some point before the recruitment trials due to connections. This can potentially be supported by Shen Jiu joining after the IAC, but at the same time, it is not confirmed that SJ joined CQM immediately, or if he had to wait until the next recruitment trial, so there is no clear canon precedent-- nonetheless, it is still possible. Note that Ning Yingying can only join at this late point if Luo Binghe joins at age 11, and after her. The only hard requirement is that NYY joined at some point before LBH.

*****I have placed this as the absolute latest time SQQ could have formed a golden core because this puts him at having been cultivating for sixteen years. It is a bit of a stretch already , but I don't think that "ten and a few" years could really be any longer than this. It is also worth noting that by the time SQQ reaches core formation, every other peak lord has already done so, with Yue Qingyuan first, Liu Qingge and Qi Qingqi next, and Shang Qinghua most likely last (Ch. 24)

Please let me know if you notice any errors in calculation, formatting, or missing details! This was quite substantial so there's a good chance I may have missed something.

Some of the points in this analysis and timeline calculations were brainstormed with the help of @zykamiliah , @cum-villain , @furbygoblinxiv . Many thanks!

#svsss #canon examined #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #yue qingyuan #liu qingge #shang qinghua #svsss timeline #resource

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moth-nana · 5 months

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Christmas invite

Hanma Shuji x gn!reader

Summary: Inviting him to your house for Christmas by your parents reguest.

A Cristmas short for the Christmas lovers!

Words: 739

You and Shuji had been dating for five months now and you had finally mentioned him to your parents.

Your parents were so excited for you to finally have a significant other so they instantly told you to bring him as a plus one to the family Christmas. You were nervous since you knew that your relatives could be sometimes really intrusive with their questions.

“You should really invite him.” Your mom tried to get you to agree and your dad was nodding his head.

“I don’t know if you will like him, though…” You mumbled before your mom gave you that ‘mom knows better’ look.

“I think we are the judges of that.” she stated as she pointed at her and your dad. “If he is not good for you we will kick him out.” Your dad added and you gave him a nervous look. “We are good as long as he is not some kind of trouble maker.” He added. You gave them a nervous smile.

———

“Fuck this.” You mumble as you watch Shuji talking to some of his friends and Kisaki.

You were seriously doubting if you should ask him to spend Christmas at your house. It wasn’t like you two had been dating that long and he hadn’t even met your parents before. You had sneaked him into your room at the start of your relationship but he never had entered the house from the front door nor been found out by anyone at your house.

You see how Kisaki Tetta made his way from Shuji towards the nearest convenience store. Shuji turned towards you and flashed you something between a smirk and a smile before starting to walk towards you.

“You seem to be in your thoughts.” He stated before adding “Am I that good looking~”

You gave him a side eye before a sight left your lips. “I needed to ask you if you would like to spend your Christmas at my place with my family.” You didn’t look at him as you spoke but you could feel how his lips had curved into a smirk.

“Is my darling finally going to introduce me to their family?” He tased and leaned his head on top of yours.

You huffed before moving so you could look him into the eyes.

“My parents insisted on me asking you,” You tell him, not breaking eye contact with him before continuing. “The worst is that it’s not just me and my parents but also some of our relatives.”

He chuckled. “That would be my pleasure, darling. I promise they will love me.” He joked with a smirk on his face before pecking your forehead.

“The last thing that they said was and i quote ‘we are good as long as he is not a troublemaker.’” You huff. “And that is something I know you can’t hide at all.”

“Would it be so bad if they would see how wonderful your secret boyfriend is?~”

“I know you would lose it, at least, with my grandfather if not the others.” You were giving him a stern look.

“But now that I have been invited by your parents I will attend~”

———

“And then they pulled Santa Claus's fake beard off his face to prove a point!” Your grandpa was telling Shuji how you pulled Santa Claus’s beard off when you were six to prove that he was the fake one since you had seen him get out of a gray car as you were watching from the window ten minutes before.

“And then they threw it into the ground and started to cry because it wasn’t the real Santa!”

You could admit that you were entirely wrong when you thought that your grandpa would not like Shuji. Your grandpa seemed to love Shuji even though your dad looked like he wasn’t pleased by him. As soon as your dad saw that he had tattoos on his hands he turned to look at you with narrow eyes before giving Shuji a tight handshake.

But it was a good Christmas and one of the most memorable of them all. Shuji got along with your grandpa and most of your cousins and that was all that mattered. You all had fun.

"Shuji, I love you." was the last thing you said to him that night and ended up having a make out session at the front steps of your parents house.

a/n: I haven't been posting anything in a while and I'm sorry about that. School has been taking a lot of time but now I have been having more time to write🙏😌

#hanma shuji #hanma shuji x reader #hanma x reader #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers x gn!reader #hanma tokyo revengers #shuji hanma #tokyo rev x reader

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 9 months

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It’s gone midnight and I’m thinking about Six of Crows so y’all know what that means: it’s time for a long rambling thought process that will hopefully have some interesting insights into the books in it.

I want to talk about the animal, mostly bird, symbolism of these books because although it’s obviously something we’re very aware of I also think it’s something that runs a lot deeper than we necessarily always realise/talk about. Even when people aren’t being directly involved in bird metaphors (crows, pigeons, peacocks) they are often described as “squawking”, “flapping”, or with other phrases that further this semantic field.

Now the crows is obviously the main source of the symbolism, and it’s openly talked about in the book with the speech on how the recognise human faces and how they support each other. I’ve also seen a few people online talking about the Crows in conjunction with a poem/nursery rhyme about crows (it’s one of those that has many different versions spun of it, some know it was counting magpies rather than crows) wherein 6 crows symbolises gold, of course greatly linked to the plot of the novels as well as their anti-extreme capitalism message. It’s also key to mention that crows are massively underestimated birds in the general public view; they’re far ‘smarter’ animals than we would typically expect. Crows have a very high brain to body mass ratio, I believe the highest of any birds but don’t quote me on that, and although we understand very little about the brain the size ratio is currently considered a very good indicator for the general intelligence level of the animal. Crows can make tools, hide their food, mate for life, and - VERY interestingly for this book analysis - have even been suspected to hold funerals. Now I want to be clear I’m working on a mix of random knowledge and the first helpful looking website that came up when I googled ‘fun facts about crows’ so I am by no means an expert here, but to my understanding the practice that was initially considered to be a ‘crow funeral’ is actually a process wherein crows will gather around a dead crow to look for potential danger. So I feel like the links I’m establishing here are relatively obvious, the point is that, like the birds themselves, the Crows are undervalued, underestimated, and unexpectedly successful. But the symbol of the crow in these books arguably goes even further.

The crow-headed handle of Kaz’s cane represents everything about the crow I’ve already mentioned on top of his own symbolic layering to the cane as a sign that no part of him has not been broken, and no part him is not better for having been broken. So in Chapter 27 of Crooked Kingdom, when Kaz returns to the Slat and fights the Dregs before leading a coup against Per Haskell, the cane with the fake crow’s head that Haskell has contrived to mock him effectively represents the failing of everything the Dregs represent. They’re last, the remnants, the people with nowhere else to go: they are the people who have been broken and have made something new for themselves. Except Haskell. So the sheer ridiculousness of him mocking Kaz’s cane, something he clearly thought would win him favour and success, in the end becomes one of the biggest aspects of his downfall. Inej describes the moment when the Dregs begin to support Kaz, the way the look at Per Haskell with discomfort - “the feathers in his hat, the canes in his hands” (and then she goes on to highlight how they’ve seen Kaz use his cane in fights, “wielded with such precision”, whereas Haskell is washed-up, pathetic, never could have taken the fight Kaz did and walked out the other side). Of course they realise, then, how completely and utterly wrong all of this was. Because when they’re confronted with both of those canes they realise something. They know what Kaz’s cane represents; it’s power and strength in spite of a world that has that has scorned him, it’s taking something that was broken and not fixing it but emphasising it and making it into a threat, into a symbol, into a strength. They know that, even though they don’t know what happens in Kaz’s head, because they see themselves in that. The Dregs; the literal bottom of the Barrel, who have been broken and who have clawed their way to survival. They cannot see themselves in Haskell’s mockery cane. Haskell is not a man who reflects what the Dregs are at their core, but Kaz is. The emphasis on the feathers is also really interesting, because I think it’s implying a sort of gaudy, colourful feathering that (despite fitting in with the style of the Barrel) does not represent the symbol of the crow; it is not something shadowed, something half hidden that could have an unexpected bite. It’s almost more akin to Heleen’s gaudy peacock feathers than it is to anything the Dregs understand, or represent through being Crows.

The pigeons I don’t really see anyone talking about, but I think it’s pretty interesting. The idea of ‘the pigeon’ is the same as ‘the mark’; they’re the victim, the fool who’s easy to swindle. I think the imagery of the fools being pigeons, ie being everywhere and massively populating big cities, is really clever to show a divide between the few, the Crows, and the many, the pigeons. However, it’s not only the Crows who remark on others being ‘pigeons’, but other gangs as well. When Kaz confronts Pekka about the scam he ran on him and Jordie, he says “you were just two pigeons, and I happened to be the one who plucked you”. I’m not gonna lie to you guys I’m losing my point slightly, but I just googled ‘crows and pigeons’ and the first thing that came up was about how crows sometimes eat pigeons so I reckon that’s pretty relevant.

Ok I’m really tired and I feel like I’m clutching at straws here, so I dunno I guess if this does well then I’ll cover peacocks, lions, and the general semantic field of birds in another post. I hope at least some of this made sense, thanks for reading it if you bothered to get this far

#grishaverse #leigh bardugo #six of crows #crooked kingdom #inej ghafa #nina zenik #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #matthias helvar #wylan van eck #kanej #wesper #helnik #crows #soc #fantasy analysis #fantasy books #book analysis

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under-lore · 7 months

Text

Relatively minor news, but interesting nonetheless.

This image has been circulating around for a long time, but unlike other chains of tweets from Toby Fox, this one was always consistently shared without sources, for like, several years on end.

Because of this, that conversation above had been heavily rumored to be a fake one. (and for a couple other reasons too, such as it being about Chara, which isn't exactly common !) Or at the very least, was mostly just considered as unreliable to use as evidence for anything due to the lack of confidence in wether this conversation had even really taken place.

Just yesterday, though, after some further digging through web archives with the help of a dataminer, these quotes have managed to resurface :

While it is only Toby's half of the conversation, the fact that they do match that of the screenshot seems to reveal that even if most of it isn't accessible today, that chain of tweets did actually take place in 2016 !

Technically, it is possible that the other person's words could have been different, but this possibility appears frankly rather slim.

Anyhow, it would appear that we can pretty much lift the skepticism regarding that conversation now !

#toby fox #undertale #undertale theory #chara #chara undertale #catty undertale #catty #mettaton #mettaton undertale

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joshfuckingkiszka · 1 month

Text

𝔈𝔫𝔡 𝔊𝔞𝔪𝔢 - 𝔍𝔐𝔎

jmk x f!reader

first of many, enjoy ;)

THIS BLOG IS 18+ MINORS DNI

warnings: mentions of alcohol, fake dating trope (it's a fave and I not be sorry), bit of angst, josh is a cutie

taylor's version masterpost

reputation masterpost

☮

Young Starlet Caught in Compromising Position!

Your publicist was less than pleased about the headline. Even though you had insisted nothing had happened, and that picture was simply a case of a bad angle. It wasn’t looking great, though. To be fair, the picture was pretty bad. A bruise painted your neck, lipstick smudged around your mouth as some guy grabbed your hips from behind.

It would be hard to explain yourself out of that one, to be honest. Regardless of whether the picture was accurately depicting your actions of the night, the fans had seen it. Your image had already been tainted in their eyes, and it would be nearly impossible to recover.

Big reputation, big reputation Ooh, you and me, we got big reputations, ah

Rather than attempting to, it was decided that you required a rebrand. It started with the incorporation of darker clothes into your “wardrobe” - quoted only because it was what was chosen for you. Interviews began to shift to questioning the possibility of heavier music, to which you would coyly suggest it was possible.

Then you released a new single. It caught the attention of rock fans everywhere. There was a sudden call for a genre change, which you hoped so desperately for. The last few years of your life had made you feel like a sell out. You traded the humanity and meaning in your music for tracks that would generate streams and ranks on charts.

Within a couple years, no one remembered the popstar you had been. It was all about the rockstar you had become. And you were a big one.

It wasn’t overwhelming anymore. The work you put in was hard and abundant, but it was genuine. It showed in the love that poured from the fans over social media and in the crowds of your sold out shows.

A world tour was in the talks and an opening act was in question. Someone suggested a band you had heard a handful of times before: Greta Van Fleet, not that you ever really had time to immerse yourself in a new band. From the videos you’d seen and the songs you’d heard, you would be lucky to have them on tour with you. They were getting relatively popular and you knew you had to strike fast to get them on the setlist.

“I have a surprise for you!” Gene, your publicist, exclaimed in a sing-song tune.

“Ugh, last time you said that, I had a snake draped over my body. Still mad at you for that, actually.” You only looked up from your phone for the last sentence, otherwise preoccupied with a daunting game of 8 Ball with your best friend.

“Well, this one I’m not sure is much better, if we’re being honest,” he trailed off, “the label loves you, you know that.”

“Uh oh.” You weren’t worried.

“But in a recent poll, they found that fans think you’re …how do I put this …boring?” He strung his words together carefully, as to not offend you. It wasn’t his tone of voice that concerned you.

“Boring?! I’m practically fucking a mic stand every night!”

“Not enough anymore, babe.” He was being rather nonchalant, and you realized that being called “boring” wasn’t even the main issue that was being presented.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “So what are they going to do about it, Gene.” His name came out like the sparking embers of a fire on the forest floor.

And I heard about you, ooh (yeah) You like the bad ones too

That was how you ended up at an intimate restaurant in Nashville, across from Josh Kiszka. He was nervous and it was actually kind of cute. It reminded you of a real date, something you hadn’t had in ages.

“I like your dress. Green. That’s my favorite color,” his eyes raked over the silk of your dress. It extended to your ankles, a slit daring to expose your leg. The straps were a little tight, and prevented you from wearing a normal bra, and the tape holding up your breasts was peeling from sweat.

“I know,” you chuckled, “everything about this is set up to be as persuasive as possible.”

“Oh. Either way. It looks great on you.” He was genuine, and as the night went on, you found that it wasn’t even his most endearing trait.

Just as the clock was about to hit 11, he was standing on your front porch, wishing he didn’t have to leave. This was an arrangement, a plan to draw attention to the both of you, driving up streams and ticket sales.

As you stood on your porch, hand lingering on the door as if it was a riddle, so close to him that you could practically taste the wine on his lips, you realized something. You realized that you were going to inevitably fall in love with Josh Kiszka, undeniable force meets immovable object. It was almost expected that dread would fill your stomach as you recognized this fate, but it never came. Instead, butterflies flew in its place.

I've passed days without fun, this endgame is the one With four words on the tip of my tongue I'll never say

A month and half later, and several dates to show, you had proven yourself correct. But, who could blame you? What about Josh wasn’t lovable?

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” you announced to the meeting. There were a few label executives, Gene, and Josh with his team.

“What?” Josh was the first to say anything, and his face portrayed betrayal.

“Yeah, what he said,” Gene added.

You sighed, “I don’t want to pretend to be in a relationship anymore. That’s not what my job is, and I don’t see how it adds any value to my music.”

“B-But, this is what’s going to sell the tickets. A love story, performing together in the throes of romance.” You glared at the executive.

“No, our raw talent and meaningful music will sell tickets. I will not be told who I can date, when I can see them, and especially when I can break up with them. If that’s a problem, I’m sure another record label would have no problem meeting my demands.”

This is what drew Josh to you: your fiery passion. In spite of that, he was upset, especially since you hadn’t even discussed it with him. He was under the impression that you liked him, maybe even liked him. God, he felt like a middle schooler again, paired with the pretty girl for a project only for her to ask for a different partner halfway through.

I don't wanna touch you (I don't wanna be) Just another ex-love (you don't wanna see)

As it turns out, the label no longer had a problem meeting your demands. You waited outside the board room for Josh, pulling him aside when he came out, head hung low.

“It’s not you, trust me.”

“Oh, then it’s you?”

“No. Listen, I don’t want to be told to date you, or what happens over the course of our ‘relationship.’ I don’t want the pressure of having to pretend to love you.”

“I get it, believe me. You don’t have to explain.”

“I want to do it by myself, on my terms. Love you, I mean. And believe me, I do.”

He looked up for the first time, his eyes were beautiful. But you already knew that.

“I don’t want to have to forget you, and never see you again because the tour is over. I want our love to be ours, and no one else’s.”

Josh smiled, he agreed.

I wanna be your endgame, endgame

〚taglist〛

gvf: @doodle417, @brokenbellz, @gretavanfleas, @pyrojoshy, @greta-van-chaos, @xserenax-13, @hayley1623, @kdarling1, @autumns30, @keighoe, @chalametpwk, @sammysvanfeet, @shawnsthighs, @gretavanbitches, @sammiejane22, @gretavanbestie, @jordierama, @alexxavicry, @spark-my-nature, @rainy-darling

joshy: @prophetofthedune, @loofypoofy, @gretavangracee

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nostalgebraist · 2 months

Text

Here are some fun / amusing / potentially-interesting facts about the process of writing and plotting Almost Nowhere, if anyone's curious.

Major spoilers for the whole of Almost Nowhere under the cut.

(There's really no way to spoiler-censor this material without rendering it incomprehensible. If you haven't read the book, do that first before reading this post.)

(1)

A large fraction of the book's eventual plot emerged from my attempts to patch a single, in-some-sense trivial continuity error I made while writing the very first chapter.

The Mooncrash section of that chapter ends with this sentence (emphasis added):

All parties were used to stillness, now, for the Mooncrash was nearly four years old.

And a few paragraphs later, in the opening of the Academy section, we get this (emphasis added again):

For (as everyone knows) the Shroud is upon us and while it tolerates the Academy — as it presently is, as it has been for the last eight years, a chrysalis, preparing itself step by minuscule step [...]

So: The Mooncrash is 4 years old. The Academy crash is at least 8 years old, and indeed older.

Yet the Mooncrash is also as old as the crash system itself! It was made by humans, during the period between the discovery of the anomalings and the mass-crashing of the human race. (This is only shown in the second chapter, but I had it in mind before then.)

How long has the human race been crashed, then? At most 4 years, and at least 8 years? How could that possibly be?

It would have been easy enough to just edit the chapter, but that's not how I do things. Restrictions, famously, breed creativity. I enjoy attempting to solve puzzles I have inadvertently created for myself, and many of my best ideas have been produced through this process.

It would also have been simple and easy to merely say: "OK, I guess time elapses at different subjective rates, in different crashes."

Amusingly, I ended up doing that anyway! But for some reason, this avenue didn't occur to me at first. By the time I started asking myself whether to include this kind of effect, I already had a different solution in mind.

I spent a lot of time beating my head against the figurative wall, trying to resolve the 4-vs-8-year issue. The early parts of my AN notes are full of this stuff.

----

At some early point, I came up with the idea that the anomalings/shades would deal with troublesome crashes by "rebasing" them, rewriting their histories.

I didn't intend, initially, for this idea to take over the plot as much as it eventually did. It was just a fun idea that underscored the huge power differential between the anomalings and their captives, and felt in line with the Cartesian/Wachowskian themes of transcending a "fake"/illusory world, radically doubting one's own perceptions and memories, etc.

But, having stipulated that "rebases" were a thing, I hit upon the idea that they could be used to modify the total quantity of past (subjective) time inside a crash -- turning 8 years into 4, or vice versa, or whatever.

So, I could fix the problem by stipulating that one -- or both -- of the problematic crashes had already been rebased, in this way.

But why? And by whom?

----

Now, at this early stage, I also had the idea in mind that the character "Anne" would eventually escape from her crash, and that she would have a hand in various major events in the story -- including some events that had already occurred, relative to the "present" of the textual PoV.

But I didn't know, yet, what these interventions actually were.

(I put "Anne" in quotes, here, because in the very early stages I casually assumed that only the PoV Anne introduced in Chapter 1 would be a major character, and that her sisters were merely background material for her personal narrative, like the tower itself. Of course, in the process of thinking through the details of things, I realized that this assumption was needless and indeed counterproductive.)

As often happens when I'm plotting a story, I found that two unknowns slotted neatly into one another, each one providing a potential solution to the problem posed by the other.

We need something for "Anne" to do in the past. Something consequential, something that shows off her newfound agency -- but also something that obscures her role from view. Ideally, something kind of weird, esoteric, "advanced"; something that feels buried inside the deep, dark center of the backstory, which the reader will only "excavate" at the end of a long, strange journey.

And we need someone to rebase the Mooncrash.

That answers the "who?" question. But again -- why?

Well, it was already in the plan that Azad would join forces with Michael, when Michael went in search of his lost Anne. That Anne would meet Azad, as a result, and that it would be Azad who persuades her to return to Michael's crash.

I didn't, at the time, have much else planned for the Anne-Azad connection.

As originally conceived, the "Azad convinces Anne to return" scene was about Azad's uncertain loyalties, and about Anne's lack of exposure to other human beings (and to the power of words, as deployed by human beings with access to real human culture). That is, it merely served specific, separate purposes in the sub-stories of these two characters. There was no intent to set up, or develop, a thread connecting these sub-stories, making Azad a major character in Anne's arc and vice versa.

But that seems like kind of a shame, doesn't it? Why go to the trouble of preparing these characters, and bringing them into contact, if I didn't have anything for them to do together?

Anne and Azad.

We need someone to rebase the Mooncrash.

We need Anne to learn about real human culture, somehow, before she leaves. I knew that, already, though I didn't have a mechanism in mind.

(I also knew, by this point, that causing Azad's appointment as translator was another one of "Anne's" consequential moves. I had conceived of this, at first, as a relatively impersonal act, done only for its historical significance. Indeed, that would have been enough -- but the more the merrier, theme/motivation-wise.)

Problems paired up, interlocked, and became each others' solutions.

(1b)

As is obvious from the above, I didn't have the scenario planned out in very much detail when I wrote the first chapter.

At the time, the story had been gestating in my head for a while, but only as a bunch of vague inklings and intentions.

The proximate cause of writing-the-first-chapter was a sudden and unexpected burst of inspiration. I was riding the bus to a social event, and suddenly my mind was awash with crisp, never-before-glimpsed details about Anne and her tower, the Mooncrash, the Academy, Cordelia's blue dress -- all the stuff of Chapter 1. It felt like a crucial message was being beamed into my brain, VALIS-style, from the Muse / Higher Power.

I had an urge to bail on the social event, turn around, ride back home, and start writing immediately -- what if the magic went away, as suddenly as it had arrived? I resisted that urge and made a perfunctory appearance at the event, but then went back home and wrote as much as I could before falling asleep.

So, when I was writing that chapter, stuff like "four years" and "eight years" wasn't based on any single coherent picture, just vibes and vague inklings.

(I think 4 years probably sounded like the right amount of time for G&A to have been in the Mooncrash, character-wise. Meanwhile, Hector's ascension from the Academy had to be long enough ago that there would be no direct overlap between Hector and any of the current students. The "Bad Old Days" had to feel like something you'd only hear about in rumors, or from authority figures who probably weren't telling the full story.)

(2)

Like TNC before it, Almost Nowhere was originally conceived as relatively simple and straightforward story, only to become something much weirder and more complicated as I fleshed out the details.

As I said above, I only had a very vague "plan" at the outset of the writing process. But I kinda knew where I was going with it, in very broad strokes.

The original arc, insofar as it existed at all, was something like:

The bilateral / anomaling tension is introduced.

The bilateral PoV characters come to an understanding of their situation.

Many of the bilateral PoV characters join up with Hector Stein, who is already trying to defeat the anomalings and free humanity from the crashes.

Azad temporarily sides with the anomalings, and Anne temporarily returns to her captive state. But both them "come around" eventually.

Anne eventually triumphs over Michael, delivers a dramatic monologue castigating him for imprisoning her (etc.), and mounts a successful escape.

Shortly after Anne's escape, some (TBD!) resolution to the main conflict is achieved. Whatever it is, it is proposed/spearheaded by the bilateral faction (and specifically Anne herself), and it somehow exemplifies "the bilateral way of thinking/being."

The humbled anomalings conclude that "the bilateral way of thinking/being" has its advantages, both practically and morally.

So the story, as originally conceived, was much more straightforwardly about the "good" PoV humans fighting back against aliens.

It unabashedly took the bilateral side in the conflict, and it ended with a "beauty of our weapons" sort of moment in which the bilaterals are both victorious and righteous, and in which these two kinds of success are closely linked and almost merged.

I have to imagine that, even in counterfactual worlds where some things went differently, I never would have stuck to this version of the story all the way through.

Because, one way or the other, I would have eventually realized that.. like... this version of the story kind of sucks, right?

I mean, why go to the trouble of introducing these aliens, and trying to make them interesting, only to say "nah, actually these guys were just wrong, it's us and our existing 'ordinary' pre-conceptions that are right, and that's what the story was about all along"?

It would have been "inventing a guy to be mad at," as the saying goes.

Not a great foundation for a story. And the least interesting possible direction to go in, given this kind of setup.

It also presents a seemingly unresolvable tension, for the writer, about how to portray the distinctively "bilateral" nature of the bilateral side in the conflict.

If "bilateral" is as broad a category as the anomalings say it is -- if you and I and all of us, whatever other qualities we possess, participate equally in this sin -- then it's hard to strike a note of emotional triumph around the quality of "bilaterality" that doesn't feel wrong, vacuous, or bloodlessly abstract.

"Woo, yeah, humans are great!" I mean, are they? All of them? You don't get to say "well, only the good ones," here, or "in their ideals if not always their acts," or anything like that. Everyone is included in the relevant category, except for the guys-who-aren't that were invented for this specific story.

It's difficult to make this land properly, in the same way it would be difficult to write a story that inspires "carbon-based life pride" or "having-DNA pride" or the like in its reader.

So this version of the story was dead on arrival. And indeed, by the time I was thinking through the stuff chronicled in (1) above, this version of the story felt like a provisional placeholder, at best, in my mind.

Nonetheless, there are various echoes of it in the story I eventually landed on.

For example, in the original version of "Anne's" escape -- conceived in a much more straightforwardly positive way -- I had Anne reading "real" books in secret, drawing moral strength from them, and then including a bunch of literary quotes in her big dramatic monologue to Michael. (I took inspiration, here, from John the Savage reading Shakespeare in Brave New World.)

And I had the idea that "Anne," being an autodidact, would read omnivorously without making culture-bound distinctions familiar to you and me; that her selection of quotes, in the monologue, would put low culture alongside high culture, infamous books alongside famous ones, etc.; and as a particular case, that it'd be fun if -- before going on to quote Shakespeare and co. -- she began the whole thing by quoting Ayn Rand.

And that one idea stuck, even if the rest of it didn't.

(Or, consider how the idea of "a powerful move in the conflict that exemplifies the bilateral way of thinking/being" actually crops up multiple times in the finished story, right up to its last scenes. One can see traces of it in the "trick" that obsesses Michael, in the use of autobiographical writing to build up nostalgium, and in Annabel's improved crash design.)

(3)

I came up with the Mirzakhani Mechanism relatively late, in between writing Chapter 13 and writing Chapters 14-15 (in which the MM is introduced).

The MM was a product of looking back at the sci-fi elements that already existed in the story, like crashes and rebases, and trying to invent some single underlying explanation that covered all of them in a relatively parsimonious way.

This basically "worked," I think -- it certainly worked better than I had been expecting, after playing the dangerous game of "write a bunch of weird stuff and hope you'll be able to explain it all later." (I remember talking to one reader who was shocked that I hadn't had the MM in mind from the very beginning, which was flattering.)

It also had unintended consequences that kinda took over the story, but largely in a good way.

Earlier, I had planned to have the post-rebase crash timelines "screened off" from the outside world somehow, so that rebasing a crash wouldn't mess up the timeline of the outside world. But, once I'd fixed the idea that "rebasing is an MM event" in place, I realized that this wasn't consistent with the way MM events were meant to work. Instead, the exposition in Ch. 15 directly implies the stuff about rebases that Grant realizes much later in Ch. 41.

Once I'd noticed this, it was obvious that it was extremely important, and I re-incorporated it into the broader plot.

On a related note, I eventually decided that the account of the anomalings "going backward in time to our era" in Ch. 15 didn't really make sense. This meant I needed a different, more viable way anomalings and bilaterals to exist at the same point in time.

This line of thought, along with several others (like "what happened to all the nonhuman organisms?" and "which parts of the MM multiverse are real?"), eventually led me to invent Everywhere-Heaven and the beasts.

That happened right at the start of 2022, between Chapters 21 and 22.

It quickly became clear that the E-H/beasts stuff could be put to a lot of valuable use in story's third act, which was largely a worrying blank space in my head (even at this point!). From thereon out, I worked on fleshing out the third act behind the scenes while writing the second.

Not coincidentally, Chapter 22 contains a ton of E-H-related foreshadowing, and also some hints that human scientists (like Aidan in Ch. 15) had never fully understood the anomalings.

The use of Maryam Mirzakhani, a real (and recently deceased) mathematician, was a weird choice and arguably one in poor taste. All I can really say in defense of it is that it came to me suddenly, and had a number of properties that fit the vibe of the part of the story in which it appeared, and I have a policy of "going with my gut" when it suggests such things to me.

I felt similarly about this choice and another thing introduced in Ch. 15, the nuclear attack intended to kill scientists. Both of these things underscored the fact that the story took place in an alternate reality. And both felt sort of "edgy," "too dark," "too close to the real world" compared to the tone of the story so far. But I wanted to take the story to new places in the coming acts -- "darker," "more real" places -- and something felt right about introducing these elements at this exact point, as signposts providing an indication of where things were headed.

(4)

The phrase "NOWHERE TO HIDE" was originally "NO MERCY," in my notes.

And the abbreviation "NM" for "NO MERCY" was used throughout my notes for Nowhere-To-Hide related stuff, e.g. "NM Annes."

This wasn't the product of much thought, just the first thing that came to mind that had roughly the correct vibe. I almost immediately concluded that I'd have to replace "NO MERCY" with something else in the work itself, since it would seem like an Undertale reference that I didn't intend to make.

"Moon" was originally just a placeholder name -- a shorthand for "the 'NM Anne' who rebased the Mooncrash." But I liked the idea of actually using it, once it had occurred to me.

The corresponding placeholder name for A11 was "Ling," as in "linguist" (but also an actual name).

(5)

I went through 3 different outlines of the third act.

Really, there was a first outline, which was really bad, and then there were two slightly-different versions of a very different outline that mostly corresponds to the finished draft.

The first, bad outline was amusingly titled "notes-satisfying-ending.txt", because I explicitly used this post about "satisfying endings" as a guideline while writing it.

(To be clear, I don't think the linked post was to blame for the badness of that first outline. I didn't ultimately find the post very helpful as writing advice, but the "satisfying ending" outline wasn't even a "satisfying ending" in the post's own terms, and was also bad in unrelated ways.)

I don't want to go into much detail about the bad outline. It was really bad, and also really different from what eventually occurred. It's honestly a pretty embarrassing document.

A lot of the key ideas were there (E-H, etc.), and the very end of the story was roughly the same. But it had a ton of needless flaws that I later corrected. Various existing character arcs and motivations were dropped and never picked up, or suddenly diverted in some new and unfruitful direction; way too much time was spent on getting characters and objects from point A to point B, or otherwise sort of rambling about in a way that didn't matter in the end; it included a lot of whimsical "fun ideas" that weren't necessary and would have added clutter to an already very full canvas; etc.

I never got to the point of building a chapter-by-chapter version of this outline, but I'm sure it would have much longer than the existing third act, also.

The existing third act is pretty long, but it was actually the result of an aggressive pruning and tightening process.

If the "satisfying-ending" outline had a single greatest flaw, it was terrible pacing. Lots of slack, lots of empty space, and when big things did happen, they came out of nowhere, not really prompted by what came immediately before them.

The next draft of the ending resulted from taking the raw materials of "satisfying-ending," purging all the dross, re-thinking all the obviously flawed stuff, and then trying to rearrange the pieces in front of me in a way that was maximally "tight" and interconnected, with questions and tensions introduced and then resolved in a rapid-fire manner, and without any major thread "sitting around in the background" long enough to feel stale, or get forgotten.

That outline was in a file called "notes-good-end.txt."

Much later, I tightened up the plan even further, merging some things that were originally in separate chapters. This was in a file called "notes-true-end.txt", and -- true to its name -- was the version reflected in the book itself.

So there was "satisfying-ending," which sucked; "good-end," which was good; and "true-end," which was slightly better.

(I realize the multiplicity of the ending, and the account of deliberate "tightening" etc., is in apparent tension with my recent account of working by direct inspiration.

There are a few things I can say about this tension.

For one, it really is true that the third act of AN was more deliberately reasoned-out, and less directly-inspired, than some of the earlier stuff. This is kind of inevitable: you don't get to do anything after an ending, that's what an ending is, and so you have to deliberately try to make the final act of a story fully work as a thing unto itself, rather than writing checks in the hope of cashing them at some later point.

And separately, I do think the final version of the ending feels "more real," "more true to the work" than the satisfying-ending draft.

I think I was aware, even while composing "satisfying-ending," that it felt off and wrong in some ways. But it was only after going through the exercise of creating a complete ending -- some sort of complete ending -- that I was able to look back and say "OK, this fits, but this doesn't fit," and distill something that actually felt right.)

#almost nowhere

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loving-n0t-heyting · 3 months

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two massive Ls in the nytimes today for harm reduction:

a scaremongering piece about how san franciscos undue tolerance for disgusting lowlife addicts is fueling the crisis of overdose deaths. the article de-emphasises the comparative availability of free treatment and welfare in portugal vs sf, in favour of portugals comparative heavy-handedness about encouraging ppl into treatment and its high levels of catholic religiosity (the lisbon metropolitan area and sf have about the same levels of professed non-religiosity: 35% and 33% respectively in the linked stats). it also notes that sf has become a mecca for drug users without making the obvious additional inference that sf's relative lenience towards these undeserving untermenschen will inevitably be geographically redistributing (rather than simply or exclusively causing) overdose deaths that would have happened elsewhere. also goes out of its way to handwring about a billboard encouraging users to inject with friends, bc its apparently important for addicts to die alone

piece on the horrors of fake ai "csem" that involves no actual physical child abuse in its production quoting some justice dept official calling it "a particularly heinous form of online exploitation" (lol) and decrying facebooks nefarious evildoer-enabling decision to implement e2ee messaging (fuck you fuck you fuck you)

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jmdbjk · 5 months

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My head is spinning...

Let's spend the next two weeks (or however long) arguing about who, what, when, where, when we could be enjoying content or music.

Yes, it's all over the news media and social media: RM, V, Jimin and Jungkook will enlist December 11 and 12.

Buzzwords being used: companion enlistment and battalion, company, barracks, training center... etc.

The more information is reposted and quoted, the more it gets twisted because words get left out, translations aren't clear and people generally misinterpret what they are reading because most social media posts are not complete sentences (omg the internet is ruining language writing and reading comprehension skills).

The initial report was RM and V would be going to a training center together (or at least at the same time/same date) in the "rear" and Jimin and Jungkook were going to one on the "front" and this base is organized so that it is considered on the "frontline." The initial report implied all 4 would be at the same location, 2 going to the front training center, 2 going to the rear training center.

Then reports began to surface that Jimin and Jungkook had chosen "companion enlistment." Which is a thing and they very well could have done. Siblings, relatives, friends, can request this but only for those whose birthday is 1995 or after.

After all of that, somehow, now we have Jimin and Jungkook going to the training center where Jin is located. Which may or may not be true.

You might even start seeing stuff about men with tattoos that are visible if they wore a singlet (tank top) or short pants are not eligible for training instructor assistant positions and therefore that's why they chose companion enlistment. (??!! eh?) That one is all over the place, I'm not sure what the accurate explanation is.

It's a frenzy of confusion. We don't know for sure. We won't know for sure until the day of, when I'm POSITIVE the media will be camped out along the roads into those military boot camp facilities with their cameras set up on tripods waiting for the black KIA Carnivals to show up.

Just me typing this and posting it will add to the never-ending confusion. I would rather talk about Jungkook explaining how the buttons failed him onstage during Fake Love or the quantity of naked Jimin we've seen in the last few days...

One thing I will say with conviction is that they were committed to this plan. They tried to tell us that. They did their best to remind us that 2025 was the target. Yes, they had some things to wrap up, some important things to finalize this year and some stuff that was hard to pin down. But in their minds and on paper, they had the general plan.

And I will also say that when they are all discharged, they will hit the ground running. They didn't do all of this extensive planning to be discharged and sit on their ass for a while to get used to being a civilian again. They're gonna kick ass as soon as they land, shoot some footage for an MV and get the show on the road.

Next year (which is a month away) there will be a ramp up when its time for Jin to be back with us, then Hobi, and then we'll be on the downhill side of all of this enlistment business and the wheels will start turning to get us all whipped up again. Stadiums will have been booked years in advance (as we speak they are being booked). They've got this plan in motion already.

All that being said, I hope our men do well, stay healthy, safe and without drama until June 2025 when they will be discharged from active military duty.

#i will cry my eyes out no matter what #now they say tae is going for the spiderman battalion #or is it the james bond battalion?#just because he flung a secret code card to jk during the grammys #but who knows?!?#we wait (tm)

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hopefuloverfury · 6 months

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What the Bachelor/ettes Would Dress Up as for Halloween

Here’s a short one for today. Happy Halloween, everyone!

No cut because it's relatively short. Mentions of fake blood. Enjoy <3

Sam

Used a werewolf costume but is supposed to be the Big Bad Wolf

Probably cut up one of his flannels for the costume

Jodi is very upset about that, it was a nice flannel!

Has a full wolf mask that opens when he talks

Vincent screamed bloody murder when Sam came out of his bedroom

Apparently Sam was unaware that Vincent has a phobia of werewolves

The More You Know™

He felt a little bit bad about that, but thankfully was able to calm down his little brother eventually

Seb

A wizard Rasmodius is amused

Probably was going to wear it for a cosplay to comic-con years ago but ended up not being able to go

He’s got a full gray beard, with long billowing robes and everything

Probably has a scepter that he made himself out of paper mache and clay

Definitely wears a wizard hat, too

But the robes are so long that he almost lands on his face multiple times throughout the night

Eventually he resorts to holding up the ends of his robes like a princess

Abigail and Sam cannot stop laughing

Alex

Dressed up as Ken

Didn’t want to bleach his hair blonde, but the spirit is there!

Probably has a pink neck tie and a pink button up polo

Takes his role very seriously

Probably learned the choreo for “I’m Just Ken”

Also got Dusty a glittery pink collar for the occasion

Calls literally every woman in town “Barbie” for the whole night

George is weird about it, but Evelyn is having a blast lmao

Elliott

Dressed up as Mark Twain

He carries around a fake raven skull for the bit

Waxes poetic about death and mortality

Probably quotes a few of Twain’s books but only the very obscure bits that only another “Twain connoisseur” would recognize

Leah tries to comfort him as best she can when no one recognizes him

Even though no one recognizes her either

Shane

A mummy

Wrapped himself in toilet paper and called it a day lmfao

Jas makes a stink about not matching with him though

She has a gorgeous fairy dress and was going to wear her bunny-jewel slippers

Marnie was going to put glitter in her hair and everything

But nope

Uncle Shane was going as a mummy, and so she wanted to be a mummy

It’s the cutest thing in the world

Shane is cheesing the whole night, and the rest of the town is terribly endeared by the two of them

Marnie doesn’t even mind the money spent on Jas’ original costume

They look too happy to be upset about it, anyway

Harvey

Dressed up as a homicidal/mad doctor

He’s not terribly creative, and he’s already got all of the costume pieces anyway

Everyone asks him why he didn’t dress up

He is very perturbed by that

Of course he dressed up! Don’t you see the fake blood on his coat?

What about the wild hair and the dark circles??

No? Seriously?

Maru

A robot!

Goes all-the-fuck-out

Has fully functioning extra limbs, probably a voice manipulator as well

Spent months on her physical costume, and Penny helped her with the make-up on the day of

Bought colored contacts that make her eyes look mechanical

Probably also built a candy dispenser into the suit so when Jas and Vincent run around getting candy from all of the villagers, she just presses a button on her wrist band and her stomach opens up to reveal a bowl of candy

The kids love her

Penny

She dressed up as Red Riding Hood, but with a twist!

She’s also a wolf!

Her and Sam are doing a duo costume

So she’s got the little dress and the hood, but the edges are tattered and she’s got insane costume makeup on

No wolf mask for her, unfortunately, but the effort she put into every other aspect of it makes up for it

Is horrified to find that Vincent is terrified of her

She probably feels bad about it for a few weeks after that and vows never to touch a wolf costume ever again

Abigail

Abigail dressed up as a skeleton

Got a few black clothes and drew an anatomically correct skeleton on them with bleach and paintbrushes

It’s wildly impressive

The sweatshirt she used will 100% be worn again, even when it isn’t Halloween

Got a face paint palette and made her face look like an actual skull

Probably pinned her hair back under a black wig cap or something to keep it cohesive

When she shows up for the festival, no one actually knows it’s her because she’s covered head-to-toe

Also has full-eye contacts that make her scleras black

Confuses the hell out of the skeletons Marlon has in those old cages, also confuses Marlon for like half a second before he realizes that it’s a costume

Haley

Barbie. Obviously.

Her and Alex are also doing a duo costume!

Has her hair in a high ponytail

Everything is glittery, sparkly, and pink, pink, pink

Did her nails even pinker and sparklier

Probably has a little purse with a stuffed chihuahua in it

Abandons that idea when she sees Dusty, though

He looks so handsome with his pink collar, you know?

She posts pictures of their costumes on her socials after the night is over

Leah

Dressed up as Leonardo Da Vinci

Everyone thinks she’s just some old French Noble or something

Which breaks her heart

And not just because Leonardo was Italian

Oh, except for Haley!

Haley knows who she is right off the bat, and compliments her costume very genuinely

Leah feels a little better after that, until she has to run away and comfort Elliott

“I’ve got a raven skull and everything!” / “I know, I know.”

Someone save her lmfao

Emily

Made her whole costume from scratch

She’s a strawberry fairy!

She makes a gorgeous pink tulle dress with embroidered strawberries and fairy wings sewn to the back of it

And she made a headband with some poseable wiring and green cloth to look like strawberry leaves

Her shoes are some chunky pink mary jane “flats”

Also probably made strawberry charms to clip onto the straps

Has a basket full of strawberry candies that she passes out to everyone

Haley helped her do her makeup, and she’s got painted freckles on her cheeks to look like seeds

Altogether she’s the cutest fucking thing anyone has ever seen

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ghostflowerhotpotch · 8 months

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Comics are brutal man

We don't know how much of this would be canon in the movies, if we ever know; but we know this isn't exactly OUR Peni's case because she was sad talking about her father, while in this version she didn't seem to know him.

That being said, oh G-D YOU POOR BABY.

Like, you are a kid, with who knows which relative was looking after her after this (I mean, she didn't know her father, not this "aunt" or "uncle," with whom and how she was living before this?) and tells you now you need to become a superhero because the deadbeat of your father that you never met died recently, and since this thing apparently needs some genetics in order to work, you are the only who can do it.

While I imagine in Sony's Spider-verse movies she did had a relationship with her father, I don't buy she didn't know these "aunt" and "uncle", I keep putting quotes because I am not convinced they aren't just working with this company and moved some strings to fake being relatives.

I also read what people consider her "canon event" and until we get a response in the movies (if we ever do,) I will hc that:

She decided to stick with the Spider Society for similar reasons to Gwen, if going by the comics; I will say that is the amount of trauma she was put under by her "relatives," and to learn that not only did she lose the aunt, but also the uncle let the thing that killed her father kill a little girl and his wife. In other words, she just couldn't handle the situation anymore and jumped ship as soon as the opportunity was given to her; including not realizing this wasn't the best idea either.

She had a close relationship with her father, and her mom died when she was very young and doesn't remember her. Well, turns out that she learns her dad was the pilot of the hero of the city the day he died; and the reason he hid it, was because getting to close to the super hero's life cost her mom's life.

#peni parker #sp//dr #atsv #across the spiderverse #edge of the spiderverse #headcanon #atsv headcanons

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slowips · 1 year

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005.

ayato / fem!reader

# political marriage, talk about having kids, kissing (scandalous), incompetent parents, generational hate, fainting, 1k words.

.　⁺ . 　 ˚　✦　.　　+ ⁺　　 . ✦

ayaka never liked you. fine. you never liked her anyway, or her petty excuse of a brother.

okay, fine. you guess marrying you for the sake of his sister’s future was respectable, but the dislike ran deep in the family — you were supposed to be the clan that held their position if not for some stupid help from some stupid fox envoy.

so long as he breathed, you will always hate him.

you’ll never look at him in the eye when he speaks, never not scowl in the mornings, never call him by his real name other than “commissioner”…

except in the open. to prove that your family have been “resentful”, they threw you in the dust. marriage with the kamisato family, they declared one day after pulling you out of your bed. rule 1 they ingrained into you on the night of your wedding — thousands gathered for the hopeful unity of 2 families — do not break the illusion.

“have a child,” your mother ordered, “you’ll need to teach your child our ways, groom your child to be one of us.” the ancestry lust for power seeped through her fingernails that dug into surface of your skin.

your child. as if it was so easy to pretend the child would be yours in entirety when it was inevitable some features would remind you of the very person your family hammered you to hate.

you couldn't bear to do it, to subject a child into this political game.

“…brainwashed…” you heard the commissioner accidentally during one of the monthly visits back to the kamisato estate. such disgusting tone reserved only for you, his beloved.

it was just a word. it is just a word, yet you found yourself growing dizzy as you left, unable to eavesdrop further.

thoma found you collapsed along the hallway, ayaka's brother said when you woke in his bed. the guest room should have been fine, but for a moment you think you finally learned what is warmth until he placed a finger to lips. of course. this was the most secretive place in the entirety of inazuma. if he were to divulge a secret, it would be here.

“rest,” he said instead of some mind-breaking truth. you blinked. blinked again. mouth agape.

“did the fall completely wipe out your memory?” a pinch of annoyance returned. you shook your head. maybe you were dreaming.

“no,” you said before defying his orders and throwing the blanket off you. “this place makes me sick.”

when you left, you didn’t want to look at his expression, too scared you’ll see something you wouldn’t know how to handle.

he brought you out for a stroll weeks after your fall, quoting some dead person that nature helped. you knew deep down his acts of kindness carried a hidden meaning: i don't want to be responsible for your death.

you obliged, but not without a glare to warn him of your anger if he ever mentioned the fall.

how you wished you stayed indoors because your distant relatives spotted you and started gushing about their youth, how romantic their honeymoon period was, how they loved each other, and the conversation spiraled to the point you find yourself needing to kiss him. it was chaste, just lips brushing each other. your relatives left satisfied. that thread of what you thought was warmth returned.

it became more frequent. that feeling of warmth.

he ran in the rain to give you an umbrella as well as a coat. he made hot your favourite meal when he was fetching you back from work and realised you didn't eat lunch. hugged you once in front of a few people. fleeting moments that puts you in this weird liminal space because coldness creeps at the edges.

you found yourself getting lost in the silver swirls of his eyes, sometimes caught yourself smiling in the mornings, but the hate has been hardened over decades. you still despise his name.

“happy anniversary!” a few citizens say as both of you walk around inazuma city, which has become a routine.

“thank you,” you reply meekly, faking a smile. you feel his hands tense around yours. before you can walk off, a man amongst the crowd stops you.

“to celebrate the lovely anniversary between two famous clans, i have a kamera which is said to capture life’s most fleeting moments.” he waits expectantly, the mechanism in hand. “it’ll be yours to keep. forever.”

you look at the commissioner, studying his nonplussed expression. when he smiles, a chill runs down your spine. it’s just a simple kiss, he seems to say. nothing we haven’t done before.

both of you lean in. you close your eyes, face heating up from embarrassment. you’ll remember to burn that picture.

but it’s easy to melt into the kiss with ayato being so gentle, his free hand holding your cheek. you find yourself embracing his touch, pressing yourself closer to him as well. the warmth swells your chest in full force.

when you heard the click and cheers from the crowd, you expected him to let go but nothing happens.

after what seems like a sufficient moment, you pull away. your head is too hot and you would like to prevent yourself from frying your brain. waving goodbye, ayato’s grip tightens around your hand. you aren’t sure how to feel about how hastily he stuffed the picture in his pockets.

“… that kiss lasted three seconds longer than necessary. I now have reasonable grounds to be suspicious of how you actually feel about me,” he says once the doors to your shared house shuts behind you.

the commissioner’s gaze has the cold edge to it again. you extend your hand and he gives you the crumbled picture.

do not break the illusion.

you tear it, not liking how content you looked.

“my only concern is that you were counting the seconds in your head.”

he laughs, eyes averting yours to stare at the broken pieces that you let flutter to the ground.

“someone has to keep count before it ends up feeling too real.”

───・

dumplingsjinso, i’d rather eat a shoe than fake date you but here we are prompt / “…That kiss lasted five seconds longer than usual and so I now have reasonable grounds to be suspicious of how you actually feel about me.” “My only concern is that you were actually counting the seconds in your head.” “Well, someone has to keep count before it ends up feeling too real.”

also briefly inspired by the history of emperors in japan, where aunties and uncles would groom the future emperor and make them the puppet while they the puppeteers.

#ayato x reader #ayato x you #genshin x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #ayato x fem!reader #ayato x y/n #genshin x y/n #genshin x female reader #genshin impact x you #genshin impact x y/n #genshin impact imagines #x reader #/#the last draft i have to release to the wilds orz #there's no more drafts. i am basically sucked dry

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ashleywool · 2 months

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Incorrect HTDIO quotes: Homestar Runner Edition

Caroline: Soooo, are you going to Beach-Themed Restaurant tonight? It’s ladies’ night! Music, dancing, they’ve got fake palm treeeeeees! Marideth: Oh, yeah. I’d rather die. Caroline: Cooooool, can I catch a ride? Pick me up at six! Ooh! And bring plenty of cash. I’m gonna need at least five or six appe-TEE-zers!

Drew: Just explain to me what you were trying to do when this happened. Tommy: Well, I was in Barbados, hanging a picture on the wall. Drew: Ok, that tells me everything I need to know.

Mel: [examining the new lizards at Paws & Claws] Those things look straight out of the creature shop from some low-to-no-budget horror film.

[Remy is hugging a tree at Mel's request. Mel is trying to convince Remy that both of them were trees in their past lives.] Mel: Keep on hugging it. Remy: How did you get me to do this in the first place? Mel: Hug it. Hug it. Remy: And why do I continue to do it? Mel: Keep on hugging it. Hug it down. Remy: I don’t even like this tree that much.

Tommy: As for you, Kyle, I don't have a car. You ever see me in a car? No. Bye.

Jessica: We can form a band and become WORLDWIDE STARLETS! Caroline: Worldwide starlets get MUCH boys. Jessica: Or so I have read. Obviously, I'll sing and pretend to play guitar. Mel: Can I not get stuck playing bass? Jessica: No way!

Tommy: Er…why are you dressed like a ship’s captain? Drew: I thought that I heard that it was the latest style.

Tommy: Scott, I’m borrowing this milk for an undisclosed period of time.

Marideth: I love that blue screen. It is also my dawg.

Caroline: I dreamt that I was a French long-jump champion with eight wooden legs.

Remy: [responding to a snarky TikTok comment] Oh, Simone. You seem like a really nice girl, so I’ll answer your question relatively free of charge.

[Mel and Ashley are playing Mario Kart again for the first time in years, with palpable flirtatious undertones] Mel: You better beat this end boss or we’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna die! Ashley: AAAAH! It keeps making me jump when I’m not pressing juuuuump! Mel: OR WE’RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIEEE

[In a flashback, Kurt and Amy recount the moment they first suspected that ABA was not the right choice] ABA therapist: Ok, Drew, then what’s two plus two? Drew (age five): Well, the force between any two charges is equal to the absolute value of the multiple of the charges divided by 4π times the vacuum permittivity times the distance squared between the two charges. ABA therapist: No, no, no, stupid. That’s Coulomb’s Law. Drew: Oh, right, sorry. Two plus two? That’s easy. Twenty-two.

#this might be funny to maybe like eight people but i had to do it anyway #htdio #how to dance in ohio #homestar runner #strong bad

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 7 months

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Analysing my favourite lines from Six of Crows chapter by chapter: Chapter 3, part 2

Same as usual: famous or popular quotes being missed doesn't mean I don't like them it just means I don't have anything new to say, and some quotes will not have explanations because I just like them I don't really have anything to analyse

"But this wasn't cheap Barrel flash. A squat decked out like this took real money" - The relevance of this quote for me is all in the implication of the phrase "real money" and it's something I've spoken about on here before. When we use the phrase "real money" the general implication behind it is one of absurd riches, not a comparison of 'real' and 'fake' money. However Kaz's use of the phrase is arguably more synonymous with the latter, since we know for a fact that the people who succeed in the Barrel can become massively wealthy - I'm talking about people like Pekka Rollins, possibly even Tante Heleen. The implication of this specific phrasing is therefore more about the perception of wealth in the Barrel being fake because it's new money, not part of the inherited empires of the Merchant Council. Kaz is very aware of this perception and even in the concept of wealth and success sees a considerable disconnect between himself and the Kerch aristocracy, even if their actions are arguably just as criminal, but I think it's really important to note that Pekka Rollins doesn't see this gulf at all. He makes multiple comments in Crooked Kingdom that show him to see himself and Van Eck as equals, whilst Van Eck clearly doesn't return this, even going as far to call Kaz a "trifling piece of Barrel trash", as if they aren't from the same slums and weren't raised fighting for thier lives on the same streets. Although Kaz and Pekka's similarities are vastly important, I think we sometimes forget that their differences are as well - and this is brilliant one.

"hairline making a determined retreat from his forehead" - the Crows commenting on Van Eck's receding hairline is honestly one of my favourite ongoing jokes in these books

"When Kaz met his gaze, the man cleared his throat and pressed his fingers together.

'Mr Brekker. I hope you're not feeling too poorly,' " - sir are you actively trying to act like a supervillain?

"I'm going to pry that fat jewel from its setting and jab the pin right through your mercher neck for chaining me to a chair, Kaz thought. But all he said was: 'Van Eck' " - This is such a wonderfully unhinged quote and I love it so much, remember this is the first chapter we've had from Kaz's perspective and little things that this go such a long way for helping us to understand him! Kaz's thoughts are wild, they're violent and out of control, and often it appears that his actions are too. But he exercises the perfect amount of restraint, remaining to an onlooker frighteningly calm in the face of threat until the most opportune moment. He is in complete control of nearly every situation he finds himself in, even one as unexpected as waking up chained to a chair. In fact we see him remain relatively calm for most of this scene, until a parem-drugged tidemaker is revealed for reasons I went into in the previous part.

" 'You know me then?'

[...]

'I know you," he said, "You're one of those merch crusaders always trying to clean up the Barrel' " - Although it's definitely subtle, I find this to parallel Rollins meeting with Kaz in the Ice Court. Kaz enters the cell and Rollins says his name, prompting Kaz to ask if he knows who is, and Rollins replies "sure, you're that little skiv who's been stealing my customers". This enrages Kaz, because Rollins is failing to recognise everything he did to Kaz and Jordie. When KAz leaves the room he follows up on this by saying "you don't remember me at all, do you?". Rollins replies "Should I?" and Kaz says "Not just yet". This failure to even remember the boys fuels Kaz's hatred for Rollins even more, but I think we should address how similar these response patterns are. Van Eck is looking for a confession, or at the very least something small to confirm his suspicions, that Kaz was the thief who stole his DeKappel oil painting, but Kaz denies him any satisfaction and instead insults him for what is comparatively a far more minor thing to remember him for.

" 'What's the difference between wagering at the Crow Club and speculating on the floor of the Exchange?'

'One is theft and the other is commerce'

'When a man loses his money, he may have trouble telling them apart' " - I am OBSESSED. Leigh Bardugo just summed up the core theme of these novels and the basis of her setting in three sentences that the reader can immediately understand and support, as well as carry with them for the majority of the first novel and all of the second. Genius.

" 'One out of every five vessels you send seeking coffee and jurda and bolts of silk sinks to the bottom of the sea, crashes on the rocks, falls prey to pirates. One out of five crews dead, their bodies lost to foreign waters, food for deep sea fishes. Let's not speak of violence' " - ugh it's just so brilliant

" 'What business?'

It was the question spoken at the opening of any meeting. A greeting from a peer, not a plea from a prisoner" - Kaz is extending himself beyond what Van Eck has tried to confine him to, he's mocking the merch by using the language of business whilst Van Eck uses the language of criminals. This also parallels Inej trying to assert dominance over Dunyasha at Sweet Reef on the high rope in Crooked Kingdom, when she asked 'What business?' then comments that it 'felt absurd to say it 50 feet in the air'.

" 'You were first arrested at 10'

'Everyone remembers his first time' " - this boy is made of audacity and I am living for it

" 'I kill for a cause,'

'And what cause is that?'

'Same as yours, merch. Profit,' " - hell yes

" 'You see every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings. Now, there are those who takes the brute's way, but I prefer a gentler approach. The right pressure applied at the right moment, in the right place. It's a delicate thing,'

'Do you always speak in metaphors, Mr Brekker?'

Kaz smiled.

'It's not a metaphor'

He was out of his chair before his chains hit the ground. " - I'm in love

"everything seemed sunnier with a weapon in his hand"

"but not even Grisha could just stroll through a wall" - as someone who read Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom before she read the Grisha trilogy (I didn't know they were sequels, I actually thought Shadow and Bone was a prequel so yeah) little things like this were super helpful to understand the world and learn about Grisha power. i read a lot of high fantasy so when we weren't given explanations for these things I didn't realise it was because I was missing information, but rather I just assumed the writing stye was to throw me in the deep and let me figure it out - which to be fair I had no problem doing, I didn't find the duology at all inaccessible despite my lack of prior knowledge. But therefore I thought of things like this as our introduction to who the grisha were an how they worked, since all I had seen of grisha power at this time was Anya on parem I thought this quote was a clever little phrasing to enhance the worldbuilding and help me as the reader distinguish between natural grisha power and parem-induced grisha power.

"the pistol was more useful, but the cane brought Kaz a relief he didn't care to quantify"

We're now officially halfway through the chapter! This is a long chapter, but it is a brilliant one too. I'm sorry to break this into yet another part, but it takes a long time to put these together and I'm ill at the minute so I'm going to leave this here for now and bring you part three another time - hopefully that should be the last part!! Thank you all so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it. I've been thinking about maybe expanding onto another platform like tiktok where I can verbally voice these ideas for you guys and you can ask me questions a bit more easily than on here (I promise I am looking at my inbox, sorry, I know you're waiting) but I only want to do that if there is genuine interest and people would be up for it. It wouldn't stop me posting content on here but a lot of the content would probably include overlap, and I would probably also use that account to talk to you about my own writing - I'm currently in the process of querying agents for the YA fantasy book I wrote and I would love to get it out there a bit and share it with you. Thanks so much, let me know what your favourite quotes from this chapter or other chapters are!

#grishaverse #six of crows #leigh bardugo #crooked kingdom #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #nina zenik #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #kanej #wesper #helnik #matthias helvar #soc meta #six of crows meta #six of crows analysis #soc analysis #soc analyst

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phoenix-manga · 2 months

Text

Ottilie Phosia

CV: Mizuki

Biographical Information

Gender: Female

Age: 16

Birthday: April 5

Starsign: Aries

Height: 175 cm

Eye Color: Bubblegum

Hair Color: Cornflower & Lavender

Professional Status

Dorm: Futterwacken

School Year: 1st Year

Class: 1-A | Student no. 8

Occupation: Student

Club: Gardening Research Club

Best Subject: Alchemy

Fun Facts

Favorite Food: Hors d'oeuvres

Least Favorite Food: Eggplant

Dislikes: Heat and insecticides

Hobby: Collecting butterfly eggs

Talents: Perfume alchemy

Idol Stats

Performance: Voice fit for musical and can recite tongue twisters in a song

Choreography: Often performs in the style of irish tap dancing

Styling Jewel Outfits: Quirky | Elegant

She may have the typical ojou-sama personality with proper manners and etiquette; however, her whimsical attitude is often mixed in. She can’t read the atmosphere sometimes and ends up making things confusing or awkward.

But she is helpful when it comes to studying. All her mind-blowing way of phrasing often get stuck in someone’s head, her parent’s tutoring her also contributed to that.

She definitely would be one of those who would say mind blowing things like “Why call them apartments when they’re built together?”

Ottilie will probably end up eating weird things in the forest if left by herself. She can’t help but want to eat something very colorful, so someone always has to stop her before anything happens. She always says that she is doing it for discovery, no honey, the medical books states that is NOT edible, you don’t need to discover if it can kill you or not!

Though a lot of her friends and relatives thought she’d be a professor like her parents, she actually wants to make perfumes in the future. She has a home-made pipette that she brought from home to make a variety of scents and fragrances. Her side of the room always has a lot of scented things kept in boxes such as candles, perfume, scented paper, incense sticks and many more.

Whenever she makes a fragrance, she always has colorful smoke swirling around her, sometimes she can make fragrances that form shapes from the smoke when used. That’s because she incorporates her magic along with magical herbs into them.

Hometown: Kingdom of Roses

Family History

Ottilie lives in the Kingdom of Roses, her parents are both professors of a school and they teach philosophy and mathematics. The entire family is an odd bunch, always living by the Hatter’s philosophy and would all quote odd poetry that doesn’t make much sense to others other than themselves.

Her family may be a bit odd but they are well respected for having so many students to sign up for their classes and getting good grades. They are also of nobility so they are always invited to gatherings and parties.

Ottilie was just as whimsical as her parents, which often made her stick out among other children. But it’s not like anyone could say anything when Ottilie was more well-behaved than most children.

Childhood Memories

Ottilie once experienced the cruelty of nature when she released a wild rabbit she fostered when it was injured, just a few meters away a Hawk flew down and snatched it. She cried for a week and even made a crude drawing of the rabbit and placed it on a fake grave her parents made just to make her feel better. Her parents won’t let her live it down and would always tell guests and friends about it, Ottilie is embarrassed from being reminded.

Ottilie tends to be a bit unpredictable when it comes to incantations and alchemy. She is never one to follow the rules and tends to go into a different direction. It always ends with a chaotic scenario… mostly scent related.

Despite her mishaps, she doesn’t struggle with most of her subjects thanks to her parents who were both teachers. But not a lot of students ask for her notes despite her excellent academic skills because… all of her notes are indecipherable. Littered with riddles and scribbles that make no sense to none other than Ottilie.

Squeaks

Her pet is a Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar that makes a lot of squeaking noises. Ottilie has a terrarium purse to always carry Squeaks around in.

Unlike other animal companions, Squeaks cannot be heard talking even by other animals oddly enough. But Ottilie can understand his squeaking as if they were words with no problem.

Squeaks is just as odd as his owner. Like a synchronized being, Squeaks gestures when Ottilie gestures.

Her unique magic is called, “Shroomy Sprout”. Just by touching a patch of dirt, she can grow mysterious mushrooms with a variety of effects.

Every mushroom always changes from every little thing she does such as what food she ate, how she felt and even if she was sick. The mushrooms don’t stay there for long and will disappear in a puff of smoke after 10 minutes if not used.

Ottilie tends to use these mushrooms to make special perfumes that have different after effects depending on what mushroom she used. This type of perfume is not all that popular due to its unpredictability. They were probably used for pranks by a certain someone.

Ignacio Phosia

A Mathematics professor who is fascinated with numbers so much that he arranged his belongings in a certain amount if one plays close attention. His study is his perfectly counted space, he doesn’t like it if the number of items is in disarray. So, he is the only on who can clean his study and no one can enter without permission.

He manages the house budget of course due to his love for numbers. Many would often consult him about finances despite his eccentric personality. Ignacio is quite friendly and outgoing.

But despite being seen with a goofy grin, his smile turns into a scowl if his family is insulted in any way. Other than numbers, he can count the number of flaws and failures of a person had he wanted to. Fear the nice ones, as they say.

Ottilie often gives him perfume, bottled herbs and caterpillar eggs as gifts. Ignacio keeps them in in his study in the highest shelf where you could see but not reach.

Calix Phosia

She was known to be a popular woman who was often sought out by bachelors to wed. But she fell for Ignacio for being whimsical instead of vying for her status and reputation. She just loved how absurd he was and being such a gentleman on top of that.

She was the one who reads poems to Ottilie when she was a child. Which is how Ottilie developed a certain love for the whimsical wonders.

The character’s name, “Ottilie” came from a Google search for the most unique sounding names, while her last name, “Phosia” was made up from the word metamorphosis.

Ottilie’s first design was confusing. The pigtail-curl hairstyle was hard to draw repeatedly.

She was meant to be the weird one of the first-year group. She was supposed to have a butterfly as a pet but instead was given the largest caterpillar, the Hickory Horned Devil.

#twisted wonderland #diamond crown academy #dca #twst oc #futterwacken #ottilie phosia #headcanons

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