#like.. is that really that important? i know its important but is it MORE important than actually understanding the language itself???

[bkd-b3ans]

You try to repair a watch, Boothill is being annoying as usual, you end up discovering his neurolink perfectly mimics human emotions.

-> Ship: Boothill X Mechanic!Reader (or just tech savvy idk the term really)

-> Rating: Safe for All

-> TL;DR: Boothill visits you after closing hours, nearly ruins a 5 million watch repair commission, stares for a bit too long while you work and overheats for a bit, ends up learning you live above your own workshop and you learn he gets flustered easy.

-> Extra notes: No idea where I will go with these, I just love writing stuff. Next one is going to be more about touching / feeling, but until then, you too can experience casual chatter. I do not proof read, whatever is written is in accordance to Ellios script, go meow at him. Take this "2nd" part as pure world-building.

-> Word count: 2k~ ish

-> First part: here

Thank you for reading and bearing with my awful English. If you have any prompts I would be more than happy to hear them.

"Pardner? Yoohooo~" Boothill was waving his arm like a manic from the front of the counter, trying to catch your attention, but you were too engrossed in your work, tinkering away with some expensive watch you were paid to fix, the tiny gears and springs neatly organized in your table in tiny boxes with labels, while you were hunched over the table, looking through a magnifying glass and listening to music, tongue almost sticking out like some cartoon character while you were trying to place the gear in its place carefully using some precise tweezers.

For all you cared, your shop was closed for the day, so why would anyone in their right mind, or that knows how to read a sign, would even bother you? Of course you didn't take into account a Galaxy Ranger that had a passion for annoying you at random times.

"Psst, hey, over 'ere..." he sighed, "Fudge this". Impatient as ever, Boothill just helped himself with one of the expensive motor oil cans in the counter and stepped around it, taking off his hat and placing it on your head.

The whole motion made you jump out of your skin, dropping the tweezers together with the very important, one of a kind gear, that you could barely notice while it was on your table, let alone on your floor, rolling off into the void like all of the pens you've lost throughout the years.

"WHAT THE FUCK, MY FUCKING WORK OF MY AEONS-" you took off the hat annoyed, hand still shaking from the scare and heart running laps in your chest. Shoving the hat into Boothills chest, you couldn't help but be angry at the man, sighing.

"Damn sugar-cube, didn't know ye were this jumpy. Ye should be more aware of yer surroundings you know?"

"What the hell does that mean. MY SHOP IS CLOSED BOOTHILL, CAN'T YOU READ??"

"Well, not your language no, it's all a bunch of jumbles and lines"

You looked confused for a moment before realizing that neither of you were from the same planet. You rubbed the bridge of your nose, trying to get rid of your furrow.

"Just, shut up and help me look for that gear. AND PUT THE DAMN CAN DOWN"

He raised his arms in defeat, putting down the can of motor oil and looking around your workbench while you were painfully looking for the gear with your magnifying glasses.

"Lotta' shiny pieces you have on the table. Are these really more important than your good old buddy, Boothill?"

"Unless you're willing to give me 5 million, then yes"

Boothill choked

"5 million?? For some beautiful watch?"

"What can I say, some people have more than they know what to do with. Now stop yapping and get on your knees, I can't see shit."

"Is that an invitation, darling?"

"... BOOTHILL!"

"Aye aye, don't get your feathers ruffled like this darling, just sit there and be pretty"

----------------

You couldn't help but be annoyed still, slumped in your chair, fiddling with your pen, while Boothill was looking around. How long has it been already, maybe a few minutes? Hours? Days??? Your work couldn't wait that much, and each ticking second felt agonizing. You were so close too, getting interrupted was the last thing you needed right now. You always had plans, a schedule, deadlines, you couldn't afford the unpredictability that is Boothill sometimes.

You almost got too lost in your thoughts before you heard a sudden thud, metal against wood, and a proud exclamation.

"Here it is sugar-cube, your pretty little thing... Cogwheel whatever. Now can you stop looking like someone spat in your food or do I need to repair this watch myself to make you happy?"

You could swear sometimes he was like a dog, a big doberman. For as scary as he could look sometimes, you couldn't help but be unable to push him away. All you could do was just let out an amused scoff, taking the gear piece in the palm of your hand, and gently placing it in it's box.

"No, no, you've done enough damage already. Why are you here even?"

"Just wanted to pay my best buddy a visit? What, a man can't do that no more?"

"No fixing your body? No maintenance work? Really nothing? Just a visit? Odd, thought you were a busy man"

"Oh I sure am sugar-cube, but sometimes even I need to sit down and relax."

"... In my workshop"

"In yer workshop, yes."

You sighed

"Fine, fine, stay for as long as you need, but don't touch anything that is in this-" you motion around your workbench "general area"

He tipped his hat in acknowledgment

"Aye aye, I'll stay put, fudge me, you can be very serious sometimes."

"5 million"

"Right yes, that's understandable."

You went back to work, trying to finish placing the last pieces inside that damned watch, headphones back on your ears. Boothill was simply slumped on the couch you kept around the waiting area, that barely saw any use to begin with. He was just looking around, bored out of his mind, the silence really starting to get to him. On occasion he's throw you glances, looking like a kicked puppy only to be met by your back either way. Yet he couldn't help but notice the few tics you had, tapping your foot, humming to yourself from time to time, arranging your hair by shaking your head around, and just how damn beautiful you looked in that dim warm light.

By no means we're you prettied up and groomed, after all, working with machinery all day will just lead to one always being covered by oil or sutt, clothes messy, the tools around your belt loud and heavy, but to him, it was part of the charm. The passion you had for what you did, the care you treated everything with, even his own body when it needed repairs. Sure, you two may butt heads more often than goats, but you were the reason he kept making his trips back to your workshop for any needs. He trusted you, felt comfort in your presence.

He could feel his insides start to heat up, his mind trailing off. Sure, he couldn't blush for the love of him, after all blood stopped flowing through his body long, long ago, but his body still reacted from time to time to strong emotions, and now it was no different. It felt, uncomfortable almost, a strange emptiness in his metal gut. Maybe it was the bullets he snacked in like some chips, or maybe it was more than that. He just simply pulled his hat over his eyes to focus and calm down.

-------------------

Finally, after so many hours, you were finally done, the watch ticking gleefully, almost as if happy with it's new look. You sighed in relief, finally placing down your headphones and slumping in your chair, pulling your glasses up.

"Finally... I swear they are trying to drive me insane with all these new 'trinkets' that have way too many small pieces for their own good. How you holding up, Boots?"

"Fine as ever sugar, bored out of my mind, but rested"

"Yeah, I can see that, you've already made a dent in my couch"

"Hey, I helped ya find that gear for free, can't I get some more respect"

"And who's fault was it that I dropped it?" You said, raising your eyebrow.

"Aye aye, sorry 'bout that."

There was a moment of pause

"Say, partner, you've messed around inside my body for a while now. Do you know if there's any functions that might mimic proper human emotions?"

"Human emotions? Hmmm"

You thought for a moment, trying to remember if you've seen any kind of code that might do that.

"I don't think I've seen anything like that, but I've also never like, actually paid attention. There may be some functions that mimic that, after all, you might need them to think and work properly. Why?"

"Ah, nothing important, was just wondering."

"I can always check if you want. Of course, for a price"

He couldn't help but scoff, amused "You were never free eh?"

"Someone has to eat"

"Sure, sure. I mean why not, might as well get this mystery solved, since I'm here and have nothing better to do."

"Then come with me"

You both went inside your garage, Boothill already used to all the steps, laying down on the weird table chair as he put it while you connected the cables to the back of his neck, opening the hologram screens.

"Let's see..." you rubbed your chin, pacing around while moving around screens, trying to find anything remotely similar to what Boothill mentioned, but it was rather hard. Every line kept changing dictating different functions every moment.

"Hmm...."

"Anything the matter?"

"No, I just realized why I might have never seen that kind of function. Your neurolink is adapting to everything you do, so it's changing constantly. I think the only way to spot anything us to trigger whatever made you so curious about your 'emotions'"

"Trigger em? And how the fork do you plan on doing that?"

You thought for a moment, moving next to Boothill, dragging the screens along with you. You didn't really give a warning as you poked his chest with a screwdriver, noticing some changes.

"What in the beautiful sky are you doing?"

"There it is" you just pointed at the screen at the suddenly changing lines.

"Your body reacts to your mental state. Right now you are confused"

"I sure as warm lake I am, you're poking me around with a screwdriver."

"What else would have you wanted me to do? Touch you with my own hands?"

He was about to say something, but you grabbed one of the screens, squinting at it.

"Getting flustered, Boots?" You could almost feel your own smug smile forming on your face.

"Flustered? Please, you'd think I'd get 'flustered' from just a check-up?"

"Bashful... Interesting"

"Hey! Stop saying things and answer me, sweetheart"

"And annoyed. Yeah, you do seem to have those functions, and they're damn advanced to mimic human emotions. Guess you aren't just metal after all. You still have the ability to feel. It's interesting how this changes..."

You got too focused on the lines of code, not paying attention to how you started leaning against the table, your hand extremely close to Boothills, fingers almost touching. Sure, you were just staring at the lines changing, but Boothill was staring at your hand, annoyed almost that he couldn't just grab it, only to be confused over why he was annoyed. You just chuckled to yourself and pushed the screen away, unplugging the cables.

"Well, mystery solved, your neurolink functions exactly like a brain and it sends the proper signals, so your body will be affected by your emotions."

"Great-" he rolled his eyes, standing up and scratching the back of his head "You need a new table, this one is forking uncomfortable."

"I don't take feedback"

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say darling." he just hopped off the table, adjusting his hat.

"H-"

"1k credits"

"Damn, let me finish at least. Fine, you know the drill"

"Nah, I'll let it slide this time. Getting to check your internals can be fun sometimes" you patted his back

"I'll go home, unless you want to guard my shop, you should leave too."

"You don't just live in your workshop??"

"...what...?"

"You know, like, I've always only seen you here, where is your home even."

"Oh... Oh! I guess you can say that? My home is upstairs, I bought the whole building when I opened so everything on the ground floor is the shop, upstairs is my place."

"Ok that makes sense... Can I-"

"No"

"Fine fine, I'll go my merry way then. I'll see you next time partner, and thank you for the free check-up"

"Don't get too used to them"

He nodded, tipping his hat and leaving.

#boothill honkai star rail #honkai star rail #hsr #fanfic #hsr fanfic #honkai star rail fanfic #boothill x reader #boothill x you #boothill fanfic #my stuff

[licensedproldier]

highlights from the brennan hank interview (aka taking notes on things that i liked or didn't know)

HE STARTED ATTENDING COLLEGE WHEN HE WAS 14?????

immediate jump off topic from hank to ask him about d20 (this happened while fhjy was airing)

"and the greatest project of all, my wonderful family with my wife isabella roland"

bonding over their children

brennan and hank's son both corrected their father's bedtime stories 💀

many elaine lee shoutouts

"his dad met my mom and fell in love" "you did that" "we did that, parent-trapped them"

was pulled out of school in 4th grade for homeschooling because the bullying was so bad....

started a company when they (he and his brother) were fifteen?? called Bootleg Adventures

hank's little awed hiss of "what" to the above piece of information

GOT PART OWNERSHIP OF THE WAYFINDER COMPANY AT 15

"knowledge is something that, when you share it, there's just more. there's no scarcity"

hank staring off into space slightly looking like brennan just blew his mind (we're 11 minutes in)

"we were 14 year old philosophy majors, if you can imagine anything more normal than that"

brennan unable to resist doing fun voices for the people he talks about

he wouldve loved to work at wayfinder full time and said back then hey maybe ill become a famous internet comedian or something and that's how i can help camp. now he's got texts from the staff saying how a bunch of dimension 20 fans have joined and its been a huge boon for them that way 🥺

"it's funny when a really bad plan works. dont make that plan."

"every new community-- is this too sad? no its true" THOSE THINGS ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

anyway "for every new community i start with the presupposition that someone is going to pick me up and put me in the trash can" 😭

hank sniping him through the duplex door with "[when you do that] you kind of imagine yourself to be the value you're delivering rather than yourself, or that your value is in what you deliver and not who you are" and brennan going 😐 "that's a great point man"

both of them turning to do pained smiles at the camera 😭

"i think the value is in who you are" "that's really sweet i appreciate that" "but i also love that you deliver"

brennan quoting mary oliver

im starting to feel a little called out guys

robert mckee "stories are not about their premises they're about their conclusions"

brennan also staring off into space slightly thinking about what hank said

the REAL college advice brennan is giving is reportedly "put an egg in your ramen" because thats how you stop your eyes from going "matte finish"

shoutout to vanessa's dumplings for keeping this man alive

"i am ozymandias nerd of nerds, gaze upon my banner and despair"

the moment he felt like something changed was walking into C2E2 and seeing that the biggest hanging banner in the convention hall was of fantasy high. or, as brennan put it, "my dumb face"

"my friends moved in with their partners, the apartment i had with them scattered to the wind, the woman i was dating dumped me after three weeks, and i won a bunch of money on Who Wants to Be a Millionare" "wh- what???"

he taught emily, murph, siobhan, and zac how to play dnd 🥺 and was running a home game for lou at the same time

got hired at um, actually because his name was getting around for being a big dork

zac stepped down from troopers and sam liked brennan's character from a previous casting call (tim curry eating pizza) so he brought him in

its very charming the detail with which brennan remembers these important moments in his life

became a full time cast member in the same week he started dating izzy! "hard to beat week gang!"

"they told us they were launching dropout and everyone had to make a show, which, if you're been trying to make a show your whole life, that's like saying 'bad news guys, there's 24 birthday cakes in the break room and everyone has to eat a whole birthday cake'."

brennan was making a document for a market pitch on an actual-play show when he was called into office and THEY pitched HIM the idea of an actual-play show

"i guess i have tumbled through life to end up here ready to do this"

truly like. one of the guys of all time.

"some of the things that didn't make sense about you make more sense now" hank talking indirectly about how amazing he found all the moving parts of mentopolis and now getting to hear about how long and how many time he's done storytelling it makes sense

"yeah its the one skill"

"i wanted to tell stories before i was anything else"

🎉anti-capitalist rant🎉

"people used to say 'is ucb a cult' and i'd say 'in a cult, somebody is making money'"

HIGH FIVE!!!

#brennan lee mulligan #hank green #dropout #dimension 20 #d20 #txt #dropout.tv #i had fun!!!!! yall should watch this

[ckret2]

Chapter 54 of everybody being really eager to kill their prisoner human Bill Cipher for good: the gang's trying a new way to create fuel for the one weapon guaranteed to destroy Bill.

It goes so great.

As Ford drove to Northwest Manor, Dipper skimmed through the introduction to Flatworld, where Edward Bishop Bishop was pretending that his book had been dictated to him by a sentient square; but he couldn't focus on it. He sighed, shut the book, and stared out the passenger window at the passing trees.

"Something on your mind?" Ford asked.

"I'm thinking about the Axolotl's poem again. The one about Bill."

"Ah. Still trying to remember the rest?"

"Kinda. Mabel and I are working on it together," Dipper said. "But it's not that. I've just been wondering... what if the poem is... you know, part of a prophecy about Bill or something? Mabel remembered another line of the poem—'A different form, a different time.' What if the Axolotl was telling us why Bill's back as a human? Maybe we need him here—to, to use his powers to fight off a bigger threat or something. Do you think that's possible?" He held back another question: what happens if we kill him before then?

Ford frowned thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about the Axolotl as well," he said. "About the worlds I visited that called it a god of criminals, tyrants, and luck. That sounds to me like the exact kind of being that would be Bill's ally. And it's odd how resistant Bill was to telling us anything about the Axolotl, when it simply passed over town for a few seconds and then moved on. Why the secrecy? How does Bill think it benefits him for us not to know about it?" Ford shook his head. "I think you're on to something, Dipper—I think whatever the Axolotl told you is important. The question is: important for whom?"

Dipper's stomach turned. The Axolotl had radiated such kindness; it was hard for Dipper to believe it could be up to anything evil with Bill. But then—Dipper clutched at Flatworld with the damning biography on the back—but then, how many people had Bill himself fooled with the benevolent teacher act?

Dipper understood now why "Don't Trust Bill" had so quickly turned into "Trust No One." Even when you knew that there was only one real enemy—even when you knew that most people out there were still reasonably honest and friendly—you could never tell just how far Bill's shadow stretched. "I guess that's true. We can't really know."

"We can't know yet. But it is worth trying to figure out," Ford said. "I wish I could tell you where to start looking for answers. For now... we'll just have to consider anything possible."

Ford was right. But all the same, every time Dipper paranoidly asked himself What if Grunkle Ford is right, what if the Axolotl really is on Bill's side, a second, even more paranoid, even more worried voice asked, But what if he isn't?

####

When they arrived, Fiddleford was already in his lab, hard at work on the miniature particle accelerator they'd come to see him about.

"The paradox what was powering it started yowling" Fiddleford said. "So obviously it ain't a paradox no more."

Ford grimaced. "That does lay to rest whether the cat is alive or dead."

"Sure does," Fiddleford said, sighing. "So I let the cat outside and I'm rebuilding the whole contraption to run on a more robust paradox. I hope you've got better news for me, Stanford."

"We hope so too. I think Dipper might have the solution to our fuel generation problem."

They briefly explained Dipper's unfortunate puppet incident last summer—Fiddleford had to take a break in the middle to grab a cup of coffee, "To steady my nerves,"—its ongoing effects on his sleep, and the new developments of the last few days, culminating in Dipper learning how to project his soul out of his body—

—which, Ford now realized, he probably should have expected Fiddleford to take poorly.

"Sweet sasparilla!" Fiddleford kicked over his chair while jumping onto the nearest table. "You're dead?!"

"What?" Dipper said. "No, I—"

"You're like a ghost possessing a zombie!"

Dipper thought that over. "Whoa..."

But, even though Fiddleford thought the whole affair went against the rightful order of the world, he agreed that it was a sound idea and worth trying. "It's lucky that my tater tot and I hunted out all the ghosts in this place during our spring cleaning," he said, opening a cabinet. He retrieved what looked like a pair of vacuums redesigned to be worn like backpacks with an assortment of random electronics dangling from wires. He held up a set of goggles and headphones hanging off one of the vacuums. "I invented these doohickeys that'll let you see and hear ghosts! They'll let us keep in contact with Dipper while he's out of his body." He set the vacuums on a table near the miniature particle accelerator and said, "First, though—Stanford, I need you to help me rebuild this machine."

"Of course." Ford turned away from the vacuum he'd been inspecting to look at the miniature particle accelerator.

Dipper said, "Wait, there are other ghosts in this mansion?"

"Yep!"

"I hunted one at the Northwests' big party last year," Dipper said. "How many more ghosts are in here?"

"We've caught, oh... thirty or forty so far."

"Seriously? That's amazing." Dipper was already thinking about the amazing Ghost Harassers episode this place could have been. Maybe even a miniseries.

"Aw, it weren't that hard. If you leave the TV on, they like to flock around it to watch. All you've gotta do is hide in the corner until a whole big bunch of 'em are gathered 'round—and then ya get them!"

"Oh," Dipper said. "Huh. I just tricked one into getting trapped in a silver mirror."

"Well, that's right impressive too. I never woulda thunk of that," Fiddleford said. "Me and Tate have been sucking them into cooling pouches in these here vacuums and then sticking the pouches in a chest freezer down in the dungeon! Maybe I oughta line the freezer with silver."

"This place has a dungeon?" Dipper asked.

Before Fiddleford could respond, Ford asked, "Which parts are we replacing?" He was inspecting the miniature particle accelerator.

"All of them!"

Ford gave Fiddleford a surprised look. "All of them?"

"Yep! Every last one!"

"Is the design changing that much?"

"Nope! It's staying exactly the same!"

"Then... why can't we just use the same machine we already have?"

"We will be using the same machine!" Fiddleford smiled mischievously. "Or will we?"

"Ah! I see! The particle accelerator of Theseus," Ford said. "Very clever."

"And kinder on the local stray cats, I reckon."

Dipper offered his assistance, but the work involved too much welding and buzzsawing for him to try untrained, so he was directed to sit a safe distance away with the first aid kit. At least it gave him a chance to read some more. He had to shove aside a couple flashlights and the glue grenade to reach where the slim book had slid to the bottom of his backpack during their walk from the car.

He skimmed over some of the worldbuilding looking for the story before he realized the story was the wordbuilding and looped back. It was a lot bleaker than he expected, even after Mabel's warning. Rigid class system, oppressive government, all kinds of horrifying shape prejudices... Frustrating dream visits to the ignorant line people in the first dimension who didn't believe in the second dimension, and to the self-absorbed King Zero in the point-sized zeroth dimension who thought a whole universe was contained inside him... A just as frustrating visit from a sphere who simply couldn't explain the third dimension in a way the square protagonist could understand, which was even more annoying since the square had just seen how the first dimension couldn't comprehend the second for the same reasons, so why couldn't he accept the possibility of a third dimension he couldn't imagine? Dipper got that it was supposed to be a metaphor to help three-dimensional readers understand that not being able to visualize a fourth dimension didn't mean it was impossible; but still. Come on, man. Don't be stupid.

On the other hand, at least now Dipper had a framework to understand the concept of higher dimensions and probably a leg up on next year's geometry. Would high school geometry cover four-dimensional space?

After a couple of hours of work and a break for lunch, the miniature particle accelerator was rebuilt and ready for another attempt to generate fuel. Fiddleford pulled on one of his ghost vacuums like a backpack, put on the set of connected headphones and goggles, and settled his glasses on over the goggles. "Y'all ready?"

"Ready," Ford said. He was seated at the accelerator's monitors, holding the jug that would contain any NowUSeeitNowUDontium they generated, and wearing the other vacuum—with the goggles over his glasses, and he was a bit worried about how Fiddleford had positioned his.

"Ready," Dipper said, a tad less certainly. What if he couldn't do it today? What if he'd never actually been able to do it last night and the whole thing really had been a dream?

But Fiddleford flipped the accelerator's power on, stepped back, and said, "All right! Do your thing!"

"Okay." Dipper stared straight at the machine, and—eugh—thought about degloving his body from his soul, peeling out of his skin fingers first.

This was only the second time he'd left his body deliberately. He'd observed in the past that the mindscape was strangely gray and still compared to the real world—but he'd never realized just how stark and swift the change was, like all the color and warmth had been abruptly sucked from reality. He shivered.

Ford inhaled sharply. Fiddleford stumbled back against the nearest table and yelped, "Flipping flapjacks!"

"You can both still see me?" Dipper said. "Can you hear me, too?"

"Loud and clear," Ford said.

"Like the voices of the dead." Fiddleford shuddered. "Welp, let's get this over with. I don't like all this ghost business. It ain't natural."

Ford gave him an amused look. "Since when have you ever been concerned about what's 'natural'? Didn't the engineering club vote you 'most likely to build a robot that flies in the face of God'?"

"You hush! There's nothing unnatural about iron, electromagnetism, and flamethrowers."

Dipper studied his body's face, its eyes pointed blankly toward the particle accelerator. "Well, I'm looking at the experiment, but I'm definitely not thinking about it. I think that's half of the paradox?"

"That's right," Fiddleford said. "Now, you just—float yerself on over to the other side of the accelerator, and think about it without looking at it."

"Right." Dipper positioned himself directly across the accelerator from his body, shut his eyes, and tried to think experimental thoughts. He didn't know much about Dontium besides what Ford had written about it in Journal 3—that it was inert when you were looking at it and radioactive when you weren't—so, if the miniature particle accelerator generated any, would he get blasted with radiation? Or was his body staring at the accelerator enough to keep it inert? But no—it was supposed to fill up the jug Ford was holding, right? Ford was observing it. Dipper tried to imagine what must be happening inside the accelerator; how did it work, would particles spontaneously generate in the tubes? Maybe they circled around until they fell into the hose to the jug...

He heard Ford gasp. "Fiddleford, look at this— Don't listen to me Dipper, just keep—keep thinking whatever you were thinking!"

"Is it working?"

"It was! Don't let us distract you."

Dipper tried to ignore the sound of Fiddleford running over to Ford, and started humming to drown out their hushed conversation. That was good, right? It meant the experiment was working. Keep thinking about that—experiment. Experiment. Expeeeriment. ... He wondered if trying to do the experiment by putting himself and Tyrone on either side of the accelerator would have worked, or if it had to be Dipper's soul and his body—

"Hot diggety!" Fiddleford shouted. "We've reached critical mass!"

"What does that mean, is it bad?" Dipper opened one eye a crack, trying to squint enough that he couldn't see the particle accelerator. "Is it gonna explode?"

Ford explained, "It means we've generated enough Dontium that it can sustain its own existence. Now, even if you get distracted, what we've already generated will remain. It can only go up from here."

"Wow," Dipper said. "That only took, what, a couple of minutes?"

"Less than that! During our last attempt, we tried for hours without reaching critical mass," Ford said. "Your idea was right on the money. Excellent work, Dipper."

Dipper grinned. After all that anxiety, it was almost a letdown how easy it was, but the coolness factor made up for it. He could just imagine the conversations the first week of high school: What did I do over summer break? Oh, nothing much. Just synthesized a new element. To fuel a weapon custom-designed to kill an immortal chaos god. And did I mention I was a ghost at the time? It didn't quite top last summer's adventures, but...

Then something went wrong.

There was a noise halfway between the electric buzz of a tesla coil and the rip of Velcro being torn apart. A stench like burning hair filled the air. A line of shifting colorful light began worming its way out of the center of the particle accelerator and up into the air.

"Oh no. Ohhh no!" Fiddleford grabbed his head. "The micro-rips! The threadbare fabric of reality! Our experiment put too much of a strain on it! We tore straight through!" One foot bounced agitatedly, "Ohhh, I knew I shoulda run some calculations before substituting in Dipper for you and Stanley."

Dipper gasped as the line of light began to agonizingly stretch open wider. Reality began seeping over its edges and dripping through into the kaleidoscopic miasma beyond. It developed a second horizontal rip across its middle as reality stretched beyond endurance in multiple directions. "What—is that?" He was afraid he knew.

"A dimensional rift," Fiddleford said.

"The Nightmare Realm," said Ford.

The last frayed thread holding reality together snapped apart, and the rift tore open wide, fully exposing the Earth to the roaring roiling chaos beyond. 

They screamed.

"Hello?" A giant set of dentures with stubby arms and legs leaned through the rift. "Oh hey! Aren't you the guys that killed Bill?"

They screamed again.

"Is screaming how humans say hi?" the monster asked. "I'm Teeth. Aaah!" He turned toward Ford. "Hey! Fingers! Lookin' less electrocuted than the last time I saw you—"

Ford socked Teeth in the incisor, knocking him back through the rift. "Back, you! You and your 'friends' are not welcome in this dimension!"

"Ow. What the heck, man."

Fiddleford shouted, "Don't stop observing the Dontium!" He bounded across the room on all four to scoop up the milk jug and stare at it. 

Ford nearly toppled through the rift, and had to grab onto the miniature particle accelerator as the heaviest nearby object to anchor himself. The rift sucked on reality like a vacuum, and the longer it was open the more powerful it grew.

Over the roar of the rift, Dipper yelled "What do we do?!"

"We have to seal it! Before it sucks all of Gravity Falls into the Nightmare Realm!"

"How?!"

Last summer, the instant Bill had no longer been around to maintain the dimensional rift, it had also sucked reality into it, starting with everything that properly belonged in the Nightmare Realm; but then it had also quickly sealed itself back shut. On the other hand, this rift was just opening wider and wider. Maybe it wasn't like the rift Bill had used to enter Gravity Falls, then? Maybe it was structured more like the wormholes that had been left behind after Weirdmageddon—

"I've got it!" Ford picked up Dipper's body—trying not to shudder at how lifeless it felt—and unzipped his backpack. "Is the alien adhesive grenade still in here?"

"It should be! Let me see." Dipper floated over to peer into his backpack.

The rift was already strong enough to drag at Ford's clothing. The lightest objects in the room lifted into the air and were sucked through. Papers. Pencils. Coffee mugs. Dipper's soul.

He screamed. "GRUNKLE FORD!"

"Dipper!" Ford grabbed for Dipper's ankle, but his hand passed right through. Ford's blood ran cold as Dipper tumbled head over heels into the Nightmare Realm.

"Look at that," Teeth said, watching Dipper soar by. "Dinner delivery."

There was no difference between the mindscape and reality in the Nightmare Realm, if Ford followed Dipper  through he'd be able to get a grip on Dipper there. But how would he carry Dipper back to Earth without him melting through Ford's grasp the moment they were through the rift? Didn't matter, grab Dipper first, then figure it out—

Fiddleford shoved the jug of Dontium in Ford's hands as he ran past. "Watch over this!"

"What—!"

Fiddleford jumped into the Nightmare Realm, the end of a long extension cord tied around his waist. He stretched out the hose of his ghost vacuum and flipped a switch, and with a yelp Dipper's soul was sucked inside. Ford gasped in relief.

Trying to keep as much of his attention on the potentially-radioactive jug as possible, Ford reeled Fiddleford back in, shoved the jug in his hands, and dug into Dipper's backpack again until he found the alien adhesive grenade. He pulled the pin and chucked it through the rift. "Duck!"

He shielded Dipper's body and Fiddleford shielded the Dontium jug as the grenade exploded. Even so, the force of it blew aside everything within ten feet of the rift and sent both of them sprawling. When Ford glanced back over his shoulder, the adhesive had gummed up the opening of the rift like a popped glowing magenta bubblegum bubble; and as he watched, it sucked the opening shut. In a few seconds the air was still and quiet, and the only sign the rift had ever existed was an immense, jagged vertical line in the air around which the light refracted wrong.

Fiddleford gingerly got back to his knees, then pulled off his glasses and pushed up his goggles. One of the lenses had been crushed, and the glasses' frame was bent beyond repair.

Ford heaved a long, heavy sigh. "A bit too familiar, wasn't it?"

Fiddleford blinked at him. "Wasn't what?"

"The—reeling you in from the Nightmare Realm?" Ford said. At Fiddleford's blank look, Ford said, "The portal test?"

"Oh." Fiddleford scratched his head. "I... still don't remember it too clearly."

"Ah. Yes. Of course." Ford's stomach churned with guilt as he looked away from Fiddleford. Over thirty years late was too late to apologize, wasn't it? (Over the past year he'd wondered, again and again; and again and again he'd decided that it was.) "Thank you for saving—" He gasped, "Dipper!"

"Oh, right!" Fiddleford took off his vacuum, dropped it on the floor, and unzipped its bag. The ghosts of a Northwest in a buckskin coat and a confused-looking hippie escaped into the air. "Hey," Fiddleford barked. "You get back here!" He raised the vacuum's hose and flipped its switch. He caught the hippie, but as soon as she was sucked in she flew out the unzipped bag and off to freedom again. Fiddleford lowered the hose and shook a fist at the retreating spirits. "I'll get you ectoplasmic varmints, just you wait!"

Ford knelt on the floor and held the bag open wider. Dipper floated out, arms crossed tight and shivering. "So... so cold... and dark... and really, really dusty."

"Let's get you back where you belong."

Ford held up Dipper's body as he lay back down in it. He could see the moment color flooded back into Dipper's cheeks and his eyes focused again. Dipper groaned.

Ford said, "You're never doing that again."

"I am never doing that again," Dipper said.

"We can't do that again," Fiddleford said. "The fabric of reality in this town is too unstable to handle another paradoxical physics experiment that powerful! We'd rip open another rift to the Nightmare Realm!"

"And we just tossed away all of our remaining alien adhesive," Ford sighed. It left Gravity Falls vulnerable if any more rips formed. Sometime soon he'd have to go back to the alien crash site and see if there was any more adhesive he could scrounge up; but even if he did, they couldn't risk wasting more of it like this.

"But did we get what we needed?" Dipper asked.

Fiddleford held up the milk jug of Dontium and shook it. It had a strange shifting color, wavering between cyan and orange depending on the lighting. "Looks like we got about three-fourths of a gallon," Fiddleford said.

"It's only enough to fully power one shot," Ford said. "But... one shot is all it'll take to destroy Bill." His stomach flipped nervously as he said it. He'd been anxious every other time he'd prepared to kill Bill, but that had always been because he'd been preparing to battle for the fate of the universe with a godlike monster who could easily kill him or worse. For the first time, he was preparing to execute a defenseless prisoner, and he didn't know whether it would make the universe any safer.

For half the summer he'd hoped Bill was harmless. Now he wished he had proof that Bill wasn't, so that he could lay his conscience to rest.

Dipper looked as uncomfortable as Ford felt; but when he caught Ford's gaze, he hardened his expression and nodded. Ford nodded back.

"WOOHOO!" Fiddleford leaped his full height straight up, making Ford and Dipper start. "We done it! YAHOO!" He waved his hat around ecstatically, doing a little jig in place. "YIPPEE! HIP HIP HURRrr—hey, how come you fellers ain't celebrating?"

Ford didn't know how to explain without making Fiddleford worry he was at risk of falling under Bill's spell again. "We'll celebrate when he's dead."

####

"Who was at the door?" 8 Ball shouted. When he didn't get a response, he paused his game. "Teeth?"

Teeth waddled into the game room. His face was completely plastered shut with some kind of glowing purple glue.

Pyronica cracked up and Paci-Fire chuckled darkly. 8 Ball sighed, "What'd you get into, you idiot?"

Teeth waved his hands emphatically.

"All right, okay." 8 Ball stood and stretched. "Does anyone have the number of that lamp guy Bill used to hook up with?"

Half an hour later, having lured over Lava Lamp Guy with the false promise of ping pong pool and illicit liquids, they cornered him in a bathroom, with Zanthar sitting in the tub restraining him while Paci-Fire struggled to hold his face still.

"Please!" Lava Lamp Guy screamed. "Let me go! I'll do anything you want! My neurologist said I can't take much more of this!"

"Cease your complaints," Paci-Fire said, as 8 Ball took off Lava Lamp Guy's bowler. "You shall not dissuade us. We do this because we have no choice in the matter."

"Why not?!"

"Because none of us feel like making the trip to a dimension with a drugstore."

8 Ball stuck a soup ladle into the open top of Lava Lamp Guy's head and fished around until he got a scoop of the red goo floating around in the thinner orange liquid. Lava Lamp Guy howled in agony. Zanthar heaved a weary sigh.

8 Ball carried the ladle over to where Teeth was sitting on the toilet lid kicking his feet. "Here you go, bud."

Teeth clapped his hands, grabbed an oversized toothbrush, and held it out for 8 Ball to pour the goop on. He scrubbed his teeth until the goop dissolved the adhesive. "Whew!" He stretched his jaw a few times, then jumped to his feet. "Thanks! I was worried I was gonna miss karaoke night." He looked in the sink mirror to scrub off the remaining scraps of adhesive.

8 Ball put Lava Lamp Guy's hat back on. Lava Lamp Guy groaned, "I think I forgot my third husband."

"You've only been married twice," Hectorgon lied.

"Oh." Confused, Lava Lamp Guy said, "Alright."

Teeth muttered, "Blech, divorce memories." He grabbed a bottle of mouthwash to clear out the taste.

"So what happened?" Kryptos asked. He was hovering in the doorway beside Pyronica.

"I'unno. I think the Dimension 46ers were messing around with their portal or something? They opened up a portal here."

"What? Uh-uh," Pyronica said. "It had to be some other dimension. We just invaded them, why would they open the portal again?"

"No no, that sounds like humans to me," Kryptos said. "If one of them pushes a button and immediately dies, the guy standing next to him will go, 'I wonder if it does that every time.' I've seen them do it."

"It was definitely them, I saw that local contractor Bill recruited for the portal who went nuts. Fingers or whoever."

8 Ball groaned. "You mean the guy that invaded the Quadrangle and tried to kill everybody?"

"Yeah. That guy. He told me I wasn't welcome on Earth and chucked a glue bomb in my face. I was like, well alright, buddy, I'm not the one who opened up a portal in your house, you could have just stayed home instead of ruining my day," Teeth said. "I didn't really say that to him. I thought it."

"So now the humans are invading us." Pyronica threw her hands in the air. "Great! This is just terrific! Bill teaches them how to make their own portals, they follow us home, and now we're about to have a pest problem that knows how to use tools! How long is it until this whole place is crawling with humans?! I'm going househunting, how many rooms should I look for? 8 Ball?"

"I'm in."

"Teeth?"

Teeth sighed, but said, "Yeah. The neighborhood's going downhill. Especially if we're gonna have a pest problem."

"Big Z?"

Zanthar gave a thumbs up.

Pyronica looked at Paci-Fire. He averted his gaze. Pyronica said, "Paci?"

Sullenly, he said, "We should ask Keyhole's opinion as well."

She laughed in disbelief. Nobody cared about Keyhole's opinion, he went with whatever everyone else went with. Appealing to Keyhole was just a delaying tactic. "Fine, sure. We'll get Keyhole's opinion."

"I'm not going," Hectorgon said, crossing his arms.

Relieved, Kryptos said, "Yeah. Me neither."

"You don't have to," Pyronica snapped. "You two and Morph can wait for Bill to come back from the dead as long as you want. But the rest of us are leaving."

Kryptos tilted toward the hall, gesturing for Hectorgon to follow him away from the others. "How long do you think we can hold this place without the outerplanars?" The Quadrangle was all that remained of Bill's turf. Without Bill's energy boosting them, none of the shapes were particularly powerful. They'd always depended upon the other Henchmaniacs to guard Bill's stronghold, the heavy-hitters like Zanthar and Pyronica. Even Bill preferred to let them fight his battles when he could; Bill's energy was much vaster, but less renewable.

Hectorgon grimaced uncertainly. "We've gotta think of something fast."

####

Dipper stared at the jug in his lap, ensuring it didn't turn radioactive before they got home. Bill practically seemed to have a radar for Ford—and on top of that, could see through walls—but as far as he cared Dipper may as well have not even existed; so they'd decided that Ford would go in the main door to ensure Bill's attention was turned away while Dipper went through the gift shop and took the elevator down to Ford's study. Ford had told Dipper where to find a lead locker that would keep the Dontium contained until Ford could use it to refuel the Quantum Destabilizer; all he had to do was put it in and stare through the crack until he'd slammed the door shut.

And once they'd decided on that, the drive home had fallen deathly silent.

As the Mystery Shack appeared through the trees, Dipper asked, "We're doing the right thing, right?" His voice was quiet. "I hate him, but—we owe him our lives. And there's that prophecy..."

"Lives can't be owed," Ford said. "Yesterday he may have saved us, but tomorrow he would still destroy our world in a heartbeat. We can be grateful to be alive—but we can't let that stop us."

"So, we're doing the right thing?"

Ford was silent for much longer than Dipper would have liked. "I hope so."

####

(We're moving toward some important stuff!! Hope y'all enjoyed and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this week's chapter!)

#dipper pines #stanford pines #grunkle ford #fiddleford mcgucket #henchmaniacs #(for the art & chapter) #bill cipher #human bill cipher #(who doesn't make an appearance in this chapter but the whole fic's about him and nobody can shut up about him so he's getting tagged) #(is this the first chapter bill hasn't appeared in?? might be) #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

[holmsister]

Kinda gets me when people age them down in AUs and stuff because to me those characters wouldn't be half as interesting if Chilchuck, Senshi and Mithrun were the tallman equivalent of in their twenties

#just something about having a lot of history you know #like. chills is divorced or thereabouts. senshi spent like 30 years living in dungeon wilderness. mithrun knows kabru's mom #none of this would be possible if they were 20-somethings #dungeon meshi spoilers #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #somewhat i guess #like. yeah kabru and laios and falin (and marci for an elf) are really young BUT have a lot of life exp #but like. the fact that so much happened to them while they are so young is TRAUMA. its BAD #meanwhile chilchuck had like. a pretty average life for a halffoot his age. maybe even successful from a professional standpoint #senshi didnt have an average life but had the time to accumulate an amount of knowledge no 20something could have #and of course mithruns whole life story is like. slowed down because hes an elf #but even then i think its really important to show that it might take several years to start recuperating from a traumatic event #like its what makes his character such an interesting commentary on disability and depression #when you're 25 bouncing back is easier. when you're 40? 50? showing that theres hope #even when you've lost your whole youth to your pain... thats a whole other thing #sorry i started writing serious commentary in the tags #chills #captain mithrun #senshi #even in senshis character up to a point. he spent more years out of society than in it #and YET! even he manages to find a place. somewhat #like. they are all here to show that life goes on even after horrible or simply sad shit happens to you #they are survivors!!!! thats important

[selineram3421]

Soft Love Headcanons

Alastor X Chubby Reader

Warnings? ⚠

⚠ soft alastor, fluff, kisses, mentions of murder, suggestive/implied, cuddles! ⚠

While you are getting more confident each day in your demonic body, you still have some lingering insecurities.

Alastor is doing his best to give you compliments, affectionate touches, and reassurances.

This is after he comes to terms with having feelings for you.

Once you both start a relationship, the deer demon is even more affectionate.

When you take time to visit his radio tower on a busy day, he's over the moon about it.

"Darling!", his smile widens as he gets up from his seat and makes his way towards you, scooping you up with a spin, and surprising you with a kiss as well. "What a nice surprise!"

Then there are slow days. That's when the two of you cuddle on the couch and read a book.

Alastor loves being able to hold you close.

He likes looking at your art and learns that you do a lot more than you said you could. Finding framed pressed flowers, sculptures, and odd little projects.

You shyly show him the drawings you've done of him.

Whenever he is overwhelmed, he'll squish your cheeks and pepper your face with kisses.

It was your cuteness that overwhelmed him.

He bleats when you give him a big hug.

If anyone messes with you, being rude and inappropriate comments, he'll kill them on the spot and make sure they don't get another word in.

If he isn't there to hear it, he'll make sure to ask someone else who did, or have his shadow around you.

He likes when you hold his face to kiss him.

Finds it adorable when you still get shy around him.

If you mention wanting to try a new hobby, he buys you all the necessary start up supplies.

You are more careful about mentioning things like that now.

Both of you dance often, and he teaches you the ones you don't know.

Sometimes the Hazbin crew can sneak a peek of you two being cute when cooking or baking in the kitchen.

Alastor always notices when they do and shuts the kitchen door with a shadow.

If its Angel trying to record, he'll slam the door in the spider's face.

"OW!"

"Love, that's not nice.", you sigh and kiss his cheek.

"He really should know better now, that's the fifth time this month.", Alastor says before returning his attention back to you.

Both of you know when to check the food.

💘

Sometimes he flusters you so much with just a sentence.

"Darling, I could just eat you up~"

Don't worry, he'll take care of the bites and bruises he's made.

He makes sure your comfortable and often reminds you to let him know what you like and don't like.

If he's worrying too much (after ahem activities), you'll pull him down into a kiss and reassure him.

You've only fussed over him once about something like that..

I'll leave that to your imagination.

He likes having his claws on your thighs when the two of you are alone.

You're flustered when he kisses down your neck, with a few small bites on your skin.

Its mostly kisses and cuddles. The activities only happen when both of your are in the mood. Which is rare.

Taking care of each other is important to you both.

I wanted fluff.

~Seline, the person.

Soft Love Oneshot

Taglist@

@c4rved-pumpk1n @scary-noodlesblog @stolas-thebirb @naelys-the-aster @biromanticboba @lbcreations-blog @ducky-died-inside @kiraisastay @pooplyface1423 @line-viper @117s-girl @spiderlegsling @alastorsgoldie @kcsketches @lofasofabread @kotaleee @im-coolrat @superzombiewho @speckle-meow-meow @jammcookie @dilucragnvindr-my-beloved @trashbin-nie @koioli @fatherlesschild2 @mmik3yy @just-here-reading @nealeart @hudiexiaoying @crystal-multiplefandomlover @glowinggoldfish0 @tiredgamerhere @fluffy-koalala @valenfawkes @willowshadenox @aria-tempest @alastor-simp @nonetheartist @gallantys @i-3at-kidz @luxky-aish @ceafighter @xalygatorx @xangel-8 @big-brother-problems @mistpurpl3 @chewbrryarts @willowbrookhoot @briethekitsune @alastorthirsty @+?

ML II Alastor🎙

#alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel #the radio demon #x reader #gn reader #chubby reader #x chubby reader #alastor x chubby reader #fluff #fluffy as hell #suggestive/implied #alastor headcanons #headcanons #hazbin headcanons

[poppy-metal]

that therapy piece was so beautiful:( what if you DID end up divorcing or at least separating, art does end up joining patrick and tashi in their weird whatever the fuck, and we’re like. yeah. thought so. but little do we know that he’s an actual mess that can’t even function, let alone fuck, when he does manage to get it up he bursts into tears before anyone can cum, and as sad tashi and patrick are for their boyfriend they also really need to have a decent orgasm without some guy crying in the background so they have to like…parent trap you back together

the angst of this is so beautiful hold awn...... cause art WOULD be someone who wouldn't realize what an important force in his life you are until you're gone. in my mind, you and him knew eachother since you were kids. didn't start dating till a little before college and then you just..... stayed together. no breakups. hardly any fights. Its not like any love was lost between you two but, there was this kind of lack of...... well, fire. tashi and patrick lit apart of him up inside, and what you refuse to acknowledge is they kinda did the same for you two. you both kinda orbited around patrick and tashi in college, and similarly they orbited back around you. you just couldn't see your importance there - so you extracted yourself from that patricktashi part of your life to devote yourself to art, while he stayed in their lives because he cant live without the kind of passion they ignite in him. the anger, the jealousy, the excitement.

with you gone though its like...... hes floundering. you're so soft, is the thing. arts always depended on your softness. you dont hurt him. you dont make him angry. you're warm and gentle and he can rest his head on your lap and fall asleep like a baby fawn in the middle of the woods with no fear a wolf will come along and rip him apart. in a bad way, you're safe. in a toxic way, being with you is him choosing to not take a leap with patrick or tashi and feel anything uncomfortable.

but in a good way, you're his best friend. in a healthy way, you're his anchor. his north star. and usually thats seen as a bad thing, he knows, love is supposed to be passionate and scary but what about when he wants to be held and just at peace? you've seen him through everything and you stayed. he knows he can put his heart in your hands and you wont crush it. and he loves you for it. you're the most tender, beautiful thing that's ever happened to him.

so its like. those two needs. the fire and the passion and the softness and tranquility. and where art has messed up is seeing them in two different ways. he cant put all his scary, passionate emotions onto you in fear of rejection and ruining what you have. he cant depend on patrick or tashi completely either because he doesn't trust them with his heart like he does with you.

hes left you alone in that sense. because you need the passion too. you needed it from him for so long and maybe your part of the blame is never asking for it. for cutting tashi and patrick out of your life because you were too scared of it at the time. but the longer you spent with art, the more you craved it. the fights, the breakups, the makeup sex. all of that.

so when you leave arts comfort is gone. he thinks, well maybe its for the best. i can take a risk now, i can try this thing with tashi - and even patrick. but it doesn't feel right. the leap doesn't feel good. and he realizes its because it was a leap he was always meant to take with you, together.

all these things patrick and tashi do - he should've done with you. he should've fought with you when you pissed him off. he should've tried to be more sexually adventurous. when tashi kisses him all he can think about is how you should be here. he should've asked why you stopped talking to them - he should've pushed you - he should've - he should've - he should've -

he spends nights at their house because he cant stand being alone in the house you shared. in the empty fucking bed. he'll end up pulling one of your sweaters from the closet you forgot to take with you that still smells like you, vanilla and cashmere, and cry into it like a pathetic slob. hes miserable. he wants you back.

he wants you back so he can love you better. he wants to see you kiss tashi, kiss patrick, see you allow yourself to be consumed. and then he wants you to come to him and sink into his arms and onto his cock and look into his eyes and tell him you love him, so he can moan the words back into your mouth.

but he can't. because you left him.

#ask #what should this au be called #failmarriage au #LMAO

[liquidstar]

Not to risk swinging a bat at a hornet’s nest but how do you feel about the percy jackson series then?

not a bad YA series, i have no gripes with it on that end. but it doesnt really have anything to do with greece on a fundamental level, its just sort of using the gods as gimmicks or aesthetics. by that i mean that the series couldve pretty easily swapped out the greek gods with another pantheon, or create its own (though that would take more worldbuilding and wouldnt market as well- half the fun of it IS the fact that its a spin on a mythos everyones kinda familiar with. i dont think gimmicks are bad and its fine to use some pre-established things as themes to connect your story to) and it would stay functionally the same. it just doesnt really bother to engage with the culture it took the gods from in any real way. the closest its gotten is casting jason mantzoukas as dionysus (based).

overall i cant say this is a PROBLEM i have with the story itself, its more so just what i feel is a missed opportunity. i mean, there are 2 italian characters and they go to italy bc i feel like the author may see it as interchangeable to a degree lol. i simply wish we couldve been thrown an actual bone i guess, but as its stands its not a meaningfully greek series in any way. i dont think its saying anything actually deep about the mythos beyond its own narrative (which is fine, it doesnt have to)

MY MAIN ISSUE honestly is how the fandom thinks they know greek mythology after engaging with what is ultimately a very shallow interpretation of it. well researched, mind you, but Not That Deep beyond references and aesthetics. the fans think they just read the hellenist bible, but it is in fact just some YA fiction! nothing wrong with YA fiction, but dont use it as your sole reference point if you really actually are interested in hellenism. i think learning about the culture (of the time and the people today as well) is an important aspect of that too! percy jackson doesnt really give you much of that, because ultimately its not really trying to. and thats fine. i think you just gotta know that lol

[basilpaste]

osis!swap. because i was thinking about lock.

(Under the tree is…)

(You're not sure what you're looking at, actually. It looks like a bunch of inanimate objects piled together.)

(It has a face. Or at least it has a mouth. The thing grimaces when you see it.)

〘"Hi."〙

(It talks! It can speak!)

("… Hi." You say back.)

〘"Welcome to your rebirth! This is your first loop!" Its porcelain darkless hands come up into the most pathetic jazz-hands you've ever seen.〙

(WH. HUH???? HOW DID THIS THING KNOW ABOUT-)

〘"Sorry!" It yelps, waving its hands nervously, "That's probably a spooky thing to hear from something you just met!"〙

(You sputter. "H-how do you know about how I-" You can't finish that.)

(It seems thoughtful for a moment. Looking at this stranger now, you notice that its head is almost shaped like a planet. There's a ring that wraps around it where its eyes would be.)

〘"How do I know you died?" It finishes for you.〙

(… You nod.)

〘"I saw it." It says quietly, regretfully, "It's my job to watch over you."〙

(Is this some sort of agent of the Universe? That doesn't make sense, though. A higher being watching over a person is… that's weird. Not how the Universe works. You think.)

("Why?")

〘"… You're looping through time. I'm here to act as a guide to you, Siffrin."〙

(You freeze. "HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?")

〘"Er." It looks away, head bobbing slightly, "I know things about the loops, but I also know things about you. Like your name, your parties names, and other important things. Like… pronouns."〙

(You're not entirely sure if you'd put pronouns on the top of important things for a celestial body to know??? Also you're kind of freaking out.)

(Instead of freaking out more you find your voice. "Do you. Have pronouns?")

(… Good question, Siffrin. Great going.)

〘It laughs, bright and warm despite how quiet it seems. "Hah! Yeah. Yes, I have pronouns."〙

(…)

〘"It/its. If you don't mind." It sighs. "Like I said: I'm your guide. A something. Think of me as... a tool. A, uh, resource to use!"〙

(Well... at least if you know this one's pronouns, you can think about how out of place it seems. Like a swing taking a role it doesn't know. You nod.)

〘"Oh! Right, um. There's a lot of information that I'm gonna throw at you in a second!" It gestures at the space under the branches of the tree, "You might want to sit down?"〙

(That's. Probably a good idea? Your legs are shaky and your heart is racing so you should probably sit that might help.)

〘"Woah, buddy!" It exclaims, "Take a breath?"〙

(Hah! Yeah, yeah, you should do that! You were just thinking about the fact that your heart was racing. You should breathe. That might help! Probably!!!)

(In)

(And out.)

〘"Pheeeeeeeew." It breathes with you.〙

(... It kind of reminds you of someone. The way it holds itself.)

〘"So... the loops, huh?"〙

(You nod. "The loops.")

〘"Every time you die, you'll loop back in time. Like... what just happened. Until you break the loop."〙

(You squint at it, "Can't you just tell me how to do that?"

〘"Er..." It looks away from you, "No? I'm a resource, not an answer key. I'm here to help, but I don't really have all the answers. Sorry."〙

(Oh... thats disappointing. You guess you'll have to figure that part out on your own then??? The actual important part? Which is not being trapped in a death loop forever?)

(... Actually.)

(It's not all bad, is it? Being back means you have a chance to try again! To do better next time!!! You won't die like an idiot this time! You'll make your way to the King and then break the loops! No problem!)

〘"So I can't tell what you're thinking but I can sort of guess and I probably wouldn't think about things like that? If I were you? And obviously I'm not you, but I just wanted to, uh, give you that little nugget of wisdom."〙

(!!!)

(Weird! You're not sure how to read this guy at all! This guy... hm)

("Do you have a name?" You ask it.)

〘"... Do I need one?" It replies, tilting its body to the side. Its head follows a beat later.〙

(You think about your own name.)

("I can't just call you nothing, can I?")

〘"You can call me whatever you want! Your guide, your resource, cr-stars! You can even just call me annoying, haha!"〙

(It's weird, for sure, but you don't know if you'd call it annoying? Maybe it is, but you don't really have a super strong opinion yet? You can't tell if you like or hate this guy yet.)

(You shrug, "I guess? But give me something to call you. So I won't forget.")

(It hugs itself, mouth pressing into a thin line. Oh, stars. Did you already make it mad at you?)

〘"... You can call me Lock." It tells you finally, "Your tool for breaking the loops, Lock. Ironic, huh?"〙

#in stars and time spoilers #isat #isat spoilers #isat au #of stitches in sequence #osis swap #basil writes

[ranticore]

reading your pern fic (OBSESSED btw) and you seem to have a really good grasp on flight / flight dynamics & the physics of it. and it's incredibly hard to find a resource for more realistic dragonriding - would you mind sharing some of your knowledge, terminology, that sort of thing? i guess this is me asking you to infodump about dragon flight/riding to your heart's content lol

>:) I waited until I was on pc to answer this one

Background information about me is that I've a long history with horse riding, a love for birds, and a special interest in.... aviation (in case that wasn't obvious)

to write a dragon riding scene I kind of synthesise all of these elements - to know what it's like to work alongside a steed (balance, cooperation), to know what it's like for a bird to fly (responding to the shape of the air) and also to know basically how flight at speed affects people (g-forces, air pressure, hypoxia) as well as essential flight mechanics (the basic 'how do wings work' thing)

So for a wing to work, the air must be flowing over its surface at a speed which creates a pressure difference which then causes lift. That's very simplified but u get it - the low pressure that develops on top of a wing kinda sucks the wing upwards. That means that in flight, you have a minimum speed where lift can persist. Dropping below that speed will cause a stall (lift stops) because that pressure difference won't exist. When you climb, you lose speed, which means at a certain critical point, the wings stall. Diving back down again will increase speed, increase lift, and then you'll go up again. I recommend looking up some videos or something because i'm not the best at explaining it haha

The air itself is also important to consider and i think it's the key of what brings it all together. Air is always spinning around the margins of a wing. It's why I always use descriptions like "whirling" and "churning" and stuff like that, it's to evoke the spirally vortex that generates in the wake of a flying object. You can see the vortexes sometimes when the low pressure over a wing changes the dew point in the air, causing condensation to form:

this "tube" of air is a rapidly spinning vortex which forms when lift is happening - it's always there, but only this condensation makes it visible. next time you're on a plane coming in to land, watch and see if you can spot one, and notice that the moment the spoilers come up on the wing, the vortex stops, because lift is no longer being generated. The wingtip vortices cause drag which is why many planes have devices at the wingtips that point up, it reduces the vortices and saves on fuel!

Big wings make bigger vortices and this is what causes wake turbulence.

you can see here really clearly the shape of the air in the wake of the plane, two big churning vortices that grow and spread out with distance until they're negligible. But flying directly into these vortices will cause a smaller aircraft (or dragon) to experience that turbulence, think of it like the wake of a large boat causing waves that might capsize a kayak. Turbulence, wind shear, etc these are all fluid dynamics in the air. Something that bores me in flight scenes (and sooo many flight scenes are guilty of this) is "dead" air, air which doesn't exist as anything other than an empty medium for something to basically levitate weightlessly through. It takes power and effort.

Back to birds - unlike planes, birds have a great degree of flexibility over how they approach the air, but their wing mechanics are convergent. Birds also extend high-lift devices to fly slowly without stalling (their alula). They can catch and exploit many of the wind forms which would throw a plane of similar size out of the sky. Thermals are an obvious one to write about, these are columns of rising air that form over a warm surface. Soaring birds use high-lift devices on their wings (the slotted primary feathers) to catch the thermal and ride it without having to flap at all. This is how the bronzes work.

Queen dragons in my story fly at the bottom of the column when in battle, really close to the ground - they actually exploit the ground effect to fly that low. Within one wingspan of the ground, the high pressure zone that forms under the wings acts as a cushion, because there's nothing under it but solid ground. This means lift can be maintained in conditions where normally it would not work - low in the air, the air pressure is dense and drag is a major factor.

Air pressure is another thing to consider but that's relatively intuitive. More pressure, more drag, slower flight, more energetically-costly flight, etc. The ceiling for 'breathable' air is about 10,000 feet. Now we have to think about the rider - have you ever stuck your head out of a car window at high speed and tried to breathe? If you've ever cornered fast on a bike you'll know how it feels to bank, more or less. Your weight increases the more Gs you pull, because gravity is intensifying for you. For the physical effects on the riders I looked into fighter pilots, stuff like G-lock, what kinds of forces someone can withstand before their body starts hurting lol.

in short: flight is a complicated battle against gravity and the air is alive

#absolutely wild how i don't have a tag for this story lol. oh well

[demontruth]

Prison Time for Trump is needed and this Why...

Y'all, I just did the math (if I did it correctly), I just realized something Trump could get 136 years in prison!! Because each of 34 counts comes with a maximum of 4 years if the Judge decided that Trump should do them separatly boom 134 years! Which fingers crossed. I know that highly unlikely but still the thought makes me so incredibly happy!! However I do think the Judge should give 'No Longer Teflon Don' some prison time.

Here's my thoughts on that. Because no matter the amount of time it's gonna fuck with Trump's head psychologically, as I see it. He's gonna be put in handcuffs taken out of the court room, hopefully. Put on a prison bus, once again hopefully. He's gonna be taken to a prison, maybe it be white collar or please let be federal prison. They're still gonna take all this clothes from him and anything that he has like his expensive ass watch and everything else he has on his person. Then they're going to strip searching him, which I feel extremely bad for whatever prison guard that may end up having do that. Give that man bonus, no joke. That's gonna have to do that. But still just that experience is going to be humiliating and demoralizing which I'm sorry he deserves in my opinion. Maybe but doubtful it will teach him some humility. Then they're going to make him get into whatever color jumpsuit, may it be orange, oh please Jesus let it be orange! Then those he going have to put on those lovely prison shoes. Then they're gonna take his ass to a cell where he's gonna have a celly no doubt. Hopefully its someone that fucking dislike him strongly and not one of his MAGA asshole. And then they're going to close the cell door. That sound alone I would imagine would have a profound effect on him mentally. Because he's the arrogant, a narcissist, egotistical, sociopathic. In that prison he's just like everybody else. He's can't stand up there thinking he's the big man having all his loyal MAGA cult followers screaming and cheeringfor him. That's going to mess with him like nothing else. And put him on a level with what he considers common people is going to mess with him in a way that nothing else ever could. Because he won't get special treatment, the prison guards aren'tgoing to treat him better then the other prisoners shit they might treat him worse if he acts up. Ithink it's so important that it happens to this motherfucker. It's time he brought down to the level he deserves. The level he's been running from forever. Because has anyone seen him now? I have no by choice, just watching the news and of course he's all over the news. He looks so defeated, pathetic, sad, old, beaten, tried, as he would say zero energy. As evil as this may sound and I really don't care... I fucking love it!! Give more of it!!

Now we just HAVE TO DEFEAT him in the Presidential election!! Biden may not be what we want either but it better then a man that's going be hell bent on revenge on everyone that disagrees with him, but on trial, who still want to but him on trial. Remember he still has at least 2 more trials coming and if gets back in the White House he'll do everything in his power to squash them. He'll go after the FBI, the DOJ and every other agency that investigated him. He will literally go on a witch hunt! Don't be mistaken and don't be stupid enough to believe he will not go full Dictator if he gets back into the white house. Trump likes/loves power far too much either far actual prison time with more criminal trials down the road he'll use that power to make sure that don't happen. See the whole I want to President again is just a Red Herring, to distract everyone from his criminal trials and a way to make them go away.

Once again I'm saying something I've been saying since before Trump became President the first time omg I'm tried. But anyway. Trump doesn't give a flying monkey shit about anyone but himself! Not the us the American people, not our Foreign policy, not climate crisis, not gun control, not education... nothing!! The only reason his sides with the Conservatives is because they kiss his ass. I completely understand why us on the left will not. But it does put us in the position of Trump not doing that we need him to do. So as much as I hate this we should pick somebody on the left that would be willing to kiss his ass so hopefully he would start doing what we want him to do. And you have no idea how much that pains me to actually write that!

But we on the left need to start fighting like we did in the last Presidential election! Grass root efforts, hitting the streets, online, fucking everywhere, especially with swing voters! We have get Biden re-elected no matter what because this another election of our life times that will matter in more then just 4 year from now!!

#donald trump #trump #trump prison time #136 years #fingers crossed #if only #please Jesus #why Trump needs to go prison for some time #my thoughts #maga read this #maga #hey stupid MAGA #us politics #Republicans #Democrats #the left #the right #conservatives #liberals #every voter on Tumblr #us presidential election #trump vs biden #prison time from trump is needed

[bloggingboutburgers]

Hey! Its the anon that just asked about the aroace struggles just now, and I really wanted to thank you for your message. It honestly brought me to tears and also gave me some peace about being aroace. (Especially since I've grown up in a culture where getting married is seen as an essential part of life so reading all that was very comforting) Hopefully I'll get more confident using this label as time goes on, but for now I really want you to know that I'm very grateful for the validation :)

I honestly really love being aroace but my doubts do make it very difficult at times TwT

Hi again - sorry I'm replying superlate! TwT

Full disclosure I do hope to get married myself, though it's only because my queerplatonic partner and I are binational and it's the only permanent way we could get to be physically together more and miss each other less, the way laws are now. So... It's very much doing what we can with what laws are in place sadly. But yeah, I'm hellbent on the fact that marriage ISN'T an essential part of life and should only be partaken in if the person feels it's the right thing for them, not out of obligation or peer pressure. Never out of obligation or peer pressure. That kinda feels like a recipe for unhappy couples and families.

But... Yeah. It can get really hard affirming oneself as aro or ace in a world that constantly dismisses and erases those identities. That's part of why I'm spamming those comics I draw around. So anyone who reads them can know it's OK to be who they are, that there's nothing wrong with it and that they have a right to be happy as they are just like anyone else... Oh and that no one but themselves can choose what "happy" should mean for them. That's very important.

#anon #asexual #aromantic #aspec #sorry i'm late again TwT #thank you #i'm really glad if i could help

[weirdmarioenemies]

Hey you know Snood? I've been thinking about Snood lately. It is fascinating, in a "weird old game series that I have never thought about very much" sort of way. It's not the first Matching Icons Puzzle Shooting game, since that was Puzzle Bobble, but it was ONE of the first, and replaces bubbles with some little freaks, so it is neat enough to me!

I started this post with the intention of reviewing every single Snood individually, but then I realized, I don't really care about the Snoods themselves at all! Sorry Snoods! I appreciate you being weird little guys, you're just not my kind of weird little guys.

But who's that weird little guy in the bottom right...?

Name: The Robot

Debut: Snood

Oh hell yeah! A The Robot? Now that's my kind of weird little guy! The Robot is NOT a Snood, but I think it is the most important character. The game is ABOUT the Snoods, but The Robot is the HERO. The Snoods are all trapped, and must be freed by matching three or more together! And who is loading up the cannon with snoods, allowing for this to happen at all? That's right! The Robot!

The Robot's design is very simple and very 90s shareware game. This thing has gradients like nobody's business, and they sure do make it look metallic and cylindrical, so that's good! Its "head" is a glass-looking dome, and most notable is probably its single arm, that it uses to transfer Snoods. However, it's kind of easy to view the claw as a pair of lips on the end of a stalk.

Like Sy Snootles, the best Star Wars character! Wait... Sy SNOODles? The implications are staggering! (I will not elaborate about what the implications could possibly be)

In Snood Plus, The Robot receives a bit of a redesign, which I don't like all that much. That's not colorful... where's the love, in the soul of this robot? I know it's in there somewhere. This one floats, which is cool and maybe more efficient, but it's just much more bland and generic, especially its claw arm, which no longer looks like ANY part of Sy Snootles. Next!

YES! YES! AWESOME! This is how The Robot appears in Snood Slide, a Match 3-style spinoff, and it is the best! I love this cartoony style, keeping the bright and eye-catching color of the original, while making it look more like a thing that exists, rather than just some shapes! There's a light bulb in its head, it wears SHOES, and it has TWO arms now! Is that canon? Has it always had two arms, and we only ever saw it from the side? Is Snood Slide canon to the greater Snood series? Well akshually, Snood HD, the version of Snood released in 2009, completely redesigned all the Snoods, and said that the original style was just a simulation. I bet the Snood loreheads were furious about that!

I'm sure you aren't wondering how The Robot factors into Snood Slide, considering there is not a Snood-O-Matic Cannon to be loaded. That's something only Snoodheads would worry about. But the answer is that The Robot will appear and move a line of Snoods if you use the hint feature! So kind of it.

Hey... The Robot is not in Snood HD, and that game decanonized the original Snood! Is The Robot even real? Is it a fictional character in the Snood universe too, and therefore fictional TWICE over? I don't know. Snood is a mess.

They released a game in 2022 where the icon looks like this. That's so quaint to me. Never change, Snood.

#snood #the robot #robot #snood hd #snood plus #snood slide #snood allies #not mario #funky friday #mod chikako

[forgottenarias]

just some nonsense about aria i rambled about to get it out of my brain, i guess?

idk what this is but once again i went off on a tangent abt aria thanks to some influence from arthur ;) [honestly why can't i deep dive on all my characters like this rn]

Thinking about Aria pre conquering and her previous attachments-- I'd contemplated if she had some sort of tragic backstory, like there was a knight she'd sort of formed a bit of an attachment to leading up the invasion and he was killed in battle or smth along those lines, but I think her whole sense of being was SO wrapped up in being-- i'm not going to say Eilia's right hand necessarily bc i don't think she was doing tons of like... talking about policy or military issues or anything, but an important part of her life as the queen of Astaira. it sort of lead me to realize I don't think she's really had much in terms of romantic notions/courting/etc in her past? Part of that I think was just who she was-- pretty quiet and reserved and probably hiding somewhere w/ Aoife at social gatherings whenever possible! I remember Kate and I joked asp about the two of them having sort of useless husbands who just did their own thing while the women ran the country-- I don't think having a USELESS husband was her plan but she def sort of imagined a union/partnership (weirdly I don't think romance was playing into this vision of the future for her, despite the fact I think she's very much a closeted romantic!) husband who was intelligent, scholarly, and had his part in the running of Astaira-- so while she never imagined her sister would try to set up a political marriage for her, she def always assumed if/when that happened it would be something that made sense for Astaira. It was all very practical and sort of in line with that idea that Staffords are servants of Astaira. So she'd probably end up with the one who wasn't the worse and, if not at some point feeling SOME sort of romantic affection for him, at least they could be friends of sorts and share common interests have have children who, of course, would then be tasked with helping the crown and continuing the cycle on and on.

which i'm now realizing, sort of like his fear that no one will care for/love/be loyal/etc to him for just forHIM, Aria just never allowed herself to think that would be possible but, again, in a practical way?! like obviously everything goes back to what is best for astaira & helping her sister & carrying on the work of the stafford family, etc. (also i don't know if eilia realized that was sort of her worldview? i think its not anything she'd openly discuss with her sister honestly...)

BUT NOW there's this GUY who is almost in every way the antithesis of who she imagined herself ever being drawn towards-- like, if this were a bad early 2000's teen movie, she'd be the head of the debate team and he'd be the captain of (insert sport here) and WHY would they EVER even talk to each other?! haha! but then obvi she's seeing this different side of him that she expected to be there-- plus clearly SHE'S having some sort of affect on him and his thought process thanks to all their walks and talk/arguments ;) I think that's not something she's ever HAD before outside of her friendships (and while there is some sort of version of friendship there clearly its something else, what with the whole conquering/captor/flirt thing that's happening) and she just... likes how this is progressing? i think at first it was a "oh great-- more fuel for my fire of trying to worm my way into the good graces of the new regime and sow discontent from within!" but now she's making this real human connection and its scary and its annoying and its making her have all of these thoughts and see things as not black & white and she HATES that but also she is invested entirely now? and she may not have even realized it atp?!

all that being said there are still these little doubts that flair up-- which i think is sometimes part of the reason she reacts so angrily/aggressively at times (bc as we've discussed emotions are hard! don't think abou them in a healthy way!) I DO think every time she allows herself to think about "what is this connection, where is it going, what does it mean?" part of her is like "you're over complicating this-- there's probably some version of you in every castle/town/whatever this guy stops at w/ his deranged dad and you are NOT special and this is NOT different!" and i think some of that may be reinforced post Amira's Terrifying Tea Party when she figures out smth was happening w/ Eithne and she's like "oh okay, so that's his country lady he probably walks around w/ having some version of the same conversation!" (honestly the pair of them both having versions of 'oh, i thought this was something, guess its not..' is...so perfect) and she's like 'im obviously the lady entertainment when he's stuck in the castle!'

But then there are those moments where is DOES seem different and its enough to keep her coming back and trying to figure it out! i think hes right sometimes abt how she feels-- there were def moments where she's like "i want to hurt him, he deserves this, he could have stood up to his father and stopped this if he cared!" but i do think those have subded bc she realizes, again, this is not black and white and he actually has things he has to consider that SHE would consider, too! --namely his family!

plus, adding to that, there's everything I said about her realizing the manipulation is working-- i think she's confused if its working bc of ACTUAL feelings/emotions or if its working because he's kinda dumb and is just easily lead-- deep down she KNOWS its option one, hence why she feels the guilt about potentially doing something that would hurt him! and then adding in a rather, i think, fundamental shift in their views towards themselves/each other with his SHOCKINGLY DEEP AND INTROSPECTIVE confession about his views on his possible fate! i think beyond the whole "holy crap!" of the moment, it resonated w/ her in an unexpected way bc she's grappling with who she going to be in the world now that her whole purpose (helping Eilia as she rules Astaira!) has been taken away and while I think she's desperately trying to fill that void w/ her mission to save the guardians (also can we talk about the amount of pressure she is putting on HERSELF with this? oof), in the event there isn't a catastrophic event caused by the fall of the guardians, she doesn't know what her future is? is she stuck in this castle the rest of her life? does roderick finally off her when he's fed up with astaira being a problem? its not necessarily the same as arthur w/ his sole purpose in life to be emperor for his fate/his family's fate, but i think she sees some sort of connection there as well.

but now here we are and i realized that she's processing these emotions (poorly) on top of the 'you're a bastard, surprise!' announcement + amira's tea party so she's probably just... mad at arthur for reasons that aren't his fault + maybe has been ignoring him for awhile now? bc emotions & she doesn't want to hurt him & his father hurt her & did i mention... the emotions?

also if anyone made it this far WHY and I"M SORRY.

#about

[thatringboy]

A Body Built for an Undeserving Soul, A Boothill Theory

My definitely sober thoughts while grinding for the eventual Ruan Mei rerun and writing some robinhill have led me to a startling train of thought. I’ll do my best to sound sane as I say this, but the 18 minute discord voice memo I originally made is definitely anything but. Spoilers for Boothill’s backstory, character stories, and other lore, and no I’m not really gonna be citing things because it’s 3 in the morning and I’m high. If at any point I say something that isn’t really supported by canon, please be nice i’m a little silly boy

Anyways

I don’t think Boothill is a Pathstrider.

Let me cook, please. Here’s my reasons why:

The way he talks about Aeons and Paths

The way his body is designed

And 3.

Enjoy the madness below the cut

So, there’s not really a proper way to word any of this without it being an ADHD word vomit. Bear with me. Please.

Penacony has been a fantastic update for those of us waiting for worldbuilding. We’ve learned a LOT about the many factions in the cosmos, the true nature of the IPC, the powers of the Aeons, and that the Paths are tangible things in the universe. The Luofu arc opened up a bit about this, but since it was so focused on The Hunt and The Abundance and The Permanence, we sort of fell back into the same story beats as the Herta Station arc. Either way, Penacony has been amazing for little lore bugs like me.

So what does this have to do with the wild claim that Boothill somehow isn’t a Pathstrider?

Let’s touch some grass for a minute and consider our places in the irl universe. Hi, I’m Perseus, a young transmasculine white adult guy from South Texas who grew up reading too many Rick Riordan books and now has a complicated relationship with both the christian god and the greek gods. It’s an autism special interest of mine to learn about the greek pantheon and while I don’t know everything about it, I’m a silly little guy and can recite fun facts about dozens of gods. I can also recite fun facts about the christian bible and christian mythology because I was forced to study christianity when I was younger. Nice to meet y’all. Now, when I, Perseus, talk to people about the various religions I know a thing or two about, I infodump. A lot. I think I once ranted about Dionysus for 20 minutes before my sister told me to shut up. It happens.

Now focus back in on the important topic: the fictional cyborg with jiggle physics. I’m working purely on memory, but I’m pretty sure when he first meets Dan Heng and Pom-Pom, he does go on a spiel about the Aeons and Paths as he tries to prove his identity as a Galaxy Ranger and Acheron’s identity as Not a Galaxy Ranger. The way he describes The Hunt, The Nihility, Emanators, and Paths, it all just sounded… i don’t know, canned? It came across as very emotionally disconnected, even as he talked about The Hunt, but he was saying all the right words. Like someone who studied a religion but isn’t actually a part of the religion. 

On its own, this means absolutely nothing besides just reminding us of his home planet’s hostile takeover by Qlipoth-worshiping IPC workers. If you haven’t seen the post yet, I really recommend reading the So, Honkai: Star Rail made a cyborg cowboy... an INDIGENOUS cyborg cowboy. post by @ahworm I’ll link it here, please check it out because it recontextualized a lot of how I viewed Boothill’s actions and mannerisms

So the way Boothill talks about the Path he should be a Pathstrider of sounds more like an encyclopedia than a follower. Now, maybe this can be explained by the fact that Galaxy Rangers aren’t the most zealous bunch, especially when standing next to the Xianzhou Alliance who worship Lan as a deity more than The Hunt itself. The Galaxy rangers are the opposite, they are hunters first and last regardless of what Lan in THEIR “greatness” does.

But if Boothill is just a normal Galaxy ranger (whatever that means), then how does he recognize the Jade Abacus of Allying Oath instantaneously? Dan Heng’s barely put the damn thing on the table and Boothill’s already jaw on the floor amazed. One could make the argument that, well, Boothill’s a well-traveled guy, of course he’d know the most valuable artifact to his Path. To that, I say: there’s more to it.

Boothill’s main accusation against Acheron in the beginning is, what? “An Emanator that shouldn’t exist.” He talks about The Nihility and Device IX the same way he talks about The Hunt; learned and detached in an agnostic way. He’s aware these are real concepts and beings, he’s crossed paths with an Emanator of Elation before so he can’t deny the existence of literal gods in the universe

We also know that it’s canon in the star rail universe that there are planets who haven’t heard of the Aeons before, like Sigonia - Aventurine’s planet. Instead of Aeons, we know the Avgins worshiped the goddess Giathra Triclops. I’ve seen the argument that Giathra is just another name for Xipe since THEY have three faces, but Aventurine’s flashbacks are very clear in showing that the worship of Giathra was very different from the worship of Aeons. We don’t know much about Aeragan-Epharshel, but from how the IPC described the indigenous people as needing civilization and other disgusting things (not to mention how they forced a synesthesia beacon into boothill when he was maybe like a teenager? And then his brain nearly broke from the influx of information?), I think it’s safe to say that the tribes of Aeragan-Epharshel also didn’t follow any specific Aeon.

But Aventurine is now a Pathstrider of Preservation, so why can’t Boothill be a Hunter Pathstrider too? Well, dear reader, allow me to bash my head against the wall trying to form words. Aventurine doesn’t believe anything about the sovereignty of The Preservation, just like the rest of the Stonehearts. He has his agenda, and if he has to play Preservation to do so, then he will. I think Boothill is the same, which is also why I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming quests with the two of them in the same room. That being said, Aventurine’s Preservation powers only come from his Cornerstone, crafted by an Emanator of Preservation. It’s how he and Topaz and Jade can all be such different people but all be classified as Pathstriders of Preservation, the sheer proximity to an Emanator’s powers canonically give them powers equivalent to actual Pathstriders.

So… what about Boothil? This leads me into my next point: Boothill’s cyborg body. By looking at his Character Story Part 3, we learn that Boothill VOLUNTARILY became a cyborg to become stronger. He literally shed the skin and name from an ancient, dead tongue to become a real loaded gun. His voice lines in combat talk about death a lot, his name literally is in reference to a graveyard - this man cannot wait to finally die in some sort of blaze of glory and vengeance. I say that with a little bit of sarcasm, but Boothill designed his body to be a weapon. 

In a lot of parts of the USA, it’s illegal to even insinuate that you have a firearm as that constitutes as the crime of  “armed robbery”, even if you don’t even have a gun. The threat alone is enough to warrant a higher penalty. But Boothill is already a great shot with a gun, why does he also need augmented teeth and crosshair eyes and hips that can fold his body into any sinful shape he needs? Because the threat alone is enough to give him power over his prey. Almost as if he’s compensating for a lack of magic godly powers. He needs to be able to keep up with even the strongest IPC goons, to pierce their Preservation shields with his bullets so that he can get closer and closer to Oswaldo Schneider.

But how can I prove that Boothill doesn’t have any Path magic? Well, let’s take a spin around his character model. What’s that thing sitting snugly against his exposed asscheek? His pistol? But that’s not weird, Perseus, most cowboys hold their guns there!

But what other playable character has their weapon on their actual model like him?

There are so many in-game cutscenes showing that, canonically, the Pathstriders summon their weapon from some sort of unseen storage or hammerspace. I like the term hammerspace, let’s use that. The playable Pathstriders all use hammerspace to easily summon their weapons. None of them actually carry their weapons on their model. Even Welt Yang has scenes of him summoning his herrscher cane (I’ve never played hi3 please forgive me for using incorrect terms) from his hammerspace. But not Boothill. He has his arm gun and he has his trusty 9 millimeter pistol on his little slutty hip. His idle animations involve reloading his weapons and putting them back on his person. No particle effects, no vanishing tricks, just a man sticking his tongue out to catch a bullet for a snack.

So what have we learned?

Boothill doesn’t have an emotional connection to his Path, it most likely is just the Path he figured met his needs and decided the philosophy was good enough

Boothill’s body is designed to perform specifically to kill Pathstriders, especially sturdier Pathstriders of The Preservation

Boothill either can’t or won’t use the same hammerspace the other canonical Pathstriders use

Each point by themself means nothing, or can be chalked up to unique character designs. But together? My intoxicated mind theorizes that Boothill is not a Pathstrider, merely a broken man trying to play the game according to the rules of the oppressors that colonized his planet and bombed his tribe into reservations and the dirt. Thank you for your time.

#hsr #honaki star rail #boothill #hsr boothill #boothill hsr #hsr theory #honkai star rail theory #oh look miguel o'hara i hope that isn't a reference to anything in his and boothill's backstories

[sugar-grigri]

Yo! I wrote an analysis of 167 that you might be interested in. https://www.tumblr.com/lottimiqo/752646719530041344/when-are-people-going-to-start-noticing-that-denji

Thank you!!!!! I'm very flattered when people send me their analyses.

But I'd just like to make a few comments about what I've read!

It's vital to take each interpretation seriously, and I take yours seriously, as it explains Denji's initiative by analyzing his verbal behavior, which is a brilliant approach given that we're dealing with an almost silent chapter.

Just as you have to accept that I didn't read the chapter that way. And I think that our difference in reading can be explained by a crucial element, the fact that you rely on the second half of the chapter, deciding to base your analysis on a specific moment, whereas I always prefer to take a global view, sometimes even in an extreme way, by analyzing one chapter in relation to the others.

The 2 are equal, because a perfect understanding of an important moment is just as interesting when read as a whole. You'll prefer to clarify the analysis when I'll prefer to focus on the coherence of an entire work.

But to get back to the basics, there's something fundamental that I don't see taken into account very much in general: Denji doesn't know who he's kissing. What I mean is that even though the first kiss with Yoru was received positively and he undertook a second kiss, Denji thinks he has a relationship with Asa when he doesn't.

I know it's advisable to steer away from a literal reading when it comes to Asa / Yoru, and you're right to prefer a more metaphorical approach.

But even by a symbolic, metaphorical approach, the narrative consequence is completely different. For one wants to kill CSM, while the other wants to save him. Denji's embrace of the one who wishes to kill him is fundamentally strong in its contradiction. If it were Asa, the conclusion would be more logical and gentle.

Above all, you decide not to focus your analysis on the first part of the chapter, which I find fundamental. For the first chapter is expressly about Denji's desire to distance himself from his sexual appetite, and he has several non-verbal reactions.

Like placing his hand in front of his crotch!

Just as it's vital that the chapter opens with Denji wanting to mutilate himself, not wanting to see his limb severed, but also taken out in such a place, just as touched. In short, Denji expresses a clear desire at the beginning of the chapter not to suffer.

Just as Denji is anxious for the woman he thinks is Asa to see his dick, he's afraid of being mutilated. Intrusion and mutilation are placed on the same plane in this bubble.

Especially the first part gives a dimension of struggle between the two. The knife drops but Yoru violently grabs Denji's crotch. Yoru makes it explicit: I deny your feelings and the confrontation with CSM is all she's interested in.

I don't know if Denji really initiated the kiss. He's not bent over to do it, he's bent over because he's constantly hunched over and literally has his dick on borrowed time. The questioning around the kiss is on Yoru's side. For me, she's the one who initiates it.

She kisses him, pulls back abruptly as she realizes what she's done and looking back at Denji, feels like doing it again. She moves forward, backward and intensifies.

Just as we can analyze Denji's non-verbal behavior, his hands don't touch Yoru, he remains disturbed and overwhelmed by his sensations.

That's why, for me, this chapter is profoundly noisy in its silence, in its violence. Denji wants to get rid of his sexual appetite but he doesn't want to be mutilated, but Yoru decides to force him into his patterns. Just as it's when Denji is abused that Yoru remembers his kiss with him.

Because assaulting Denji pleases her. Perhaps because she has feelings for him through Asa, but also because she craves violence against Chainsaw Man.

The most logical conclusion to all this is sexual assault. A brutal compromise, reconciling hatred and unhealthy desire.

Denji never looks Yoru during the act, more often staring into space as if glued to the need to realize, but he's constantly caught short.

Denji is overwhelmed and his body no longer belongs to him. Yoru is hogging it. Just as Yoru is monopolizing Asa's.

Anyway, that's how I see it.

#ask #csm 167 #chainsaw man #csm #csm part 2 #denji #csm spoilers #asa #asa mitaka #yoru #thanks again for your analysis!!! #♥️

[paradoxbeta]

what do you think the ancients looked like under their masks?

ANON THANK YOU FOR ASKING I COULD CRY TEARS OF JOY

The short answer: Human-like, but dubiously. Very colorful, ornate, and diverse. Heavy on body modification: piercings, implants, tubes of all sorts, and dramatic face/eye changes are everywhere. It's hard to describe one thing they all are, because they're each so different.

The long answer: (my ocs are here!)

Okay, so, important bare minimums: They can have pretty much any skin tone, and come in all of the patterns and markings you can think of (whether they were born with them or had them added.) The default Ancient eye is exactly like a humans, but people can and often do get changes to their pupils and sclera/eye color. They have "hair" that sort of looks like worm grass. I figure some kinda splatoon inkling type logic applies when taking into mind haircuts and buzzes and all that. They generally have elven, goat-like, or other non-human type ears. Most if not all of them have openings in their bodies for tubes a la cyberpunk, because Ancient fashion gonna Ancient fashion.

Now for the fun/personalized part. Their faces!

Ancients come in a range from the most humanoid to the least. Note that "animaloid" is an EXTREMELY nebulous term and not exclusive to the one shown in the picture. I'm not yet sure how something like this would come about. I like to think this is a result of generations upon generations of extreme genome modification, or "animaloid" Ancients are a subspecies/branch off of whatever the humanoid Ancients are, OR they're the same species, but just have an insane amount of genetic variation. This is an issue for me to figure out another time. Regardless, there is no strict line between what constitutes an animaloid and what constitutes a humanoid. Both are bipedal and have a variable amount of pectorals/arms,* with the primary differences being in the face. There are some Ancients that you can look at and immediately classify as one of the two, but most of them fall somewhere in between, like "humanoid" Ancients with exaggerated facial proportions or "animaloid" Ancients that are just close enough to human looking that it becomes difficult to put a label on it. Trying to classify individual Ancients is often a fruitless endeavor, but having the general spectrum in mind is important.

*Can have 1-2 pairs of each: note that an Ancient with one pair of arms may have 2 pairs of pectorals but an Ancient with 2 pairs of arms cannot have only 1 pectoral set. Ancients with 2 pairs of arms are rare.

As mentioned a million times prior, Ancients are super gung ho about body modification, and things we deem extreme in human society are probably only uncommon or even unremarkable in Ancient society. Obviously, not every Ancient is making themselves into the next Rolf Buchholz. Some are more conservative about changing their body, some are more extreme. But the general idea is that not having ANY sort of change made, be it as minute as an ear piercing or as dramatic as horn implants, is bizarre.

I know there's other possible takes on the Ancients that are much more separated from human aesthetics, and I love those! But I wasn't really concerned about the spec bio-y aspect this time around. I have enough alien aliens in my roster already, so my Ancients are entirely a product of me having fun without much concern for making them super believable. Hopefully they look cool enough for that to be a valid excuse.

And finally, some pictures of my Ancients, because it's hard to get the full scope without examples. Some of these are from wips I hope to post someday, so you might see them again later. Also I'm trying to format them all nice and next to each other so they don't take up so much space, but tumblr is losing its mind right now so if it doesn't format right then whoops.

#i love getting asked for my opinions its great #my art #rw #rainworld #rain world #rw ancients #rain world ancients #ancients #ask #am i going to have to oc tag these guys #oc: ela #oc: swc #oc: osj #oc: as #oc: ttc #oc: bbbp #<- holy fucking shit that is The dumbest acronym ever #oc: tsg #oc: 36attv #oc: rsbf