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confessedlyfannish · 24 days
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Writing Prompt #12
Bruce is reading the paper when the pour of Tim's coffee goes abruptly quiet. It would be hard to pinpoint why this is disturbing if it wasn't for the way the soft, tinny sound the vent system in the manor makes cuts out for the first time since being updated in the 90s. The pour, Bruce realizes, has not slowed to a trickle before stopping. It has simply stopped. And there is no overeager clack of a the mug against the marble counter or the uncouth first slurp (nor muttered apology at Alfred's scolding look) immediately following the end of the pour.
Bruce fights the instinct to use all of his senses to investigate, and instead keeps his eyes on the byline of the article detailing the latest set of microearthquakes to hit the midwest in the last week. Microearthquakes aren't an unusual occurrence and aren't noticeable by human standards, which is why this article is regulated to page seven, but from several hundred a day worldwide to several hundred a day solely in the East North Central States, seismologists are baffled.
Bruce had been considering sending Superman to investigate under the guise of a Daily Planet article requested by Bruce Wayne (Wayne Industries does have an offshoot factory in the area) when everything had stopped twenty seconds ago. That is what he assumes has happened (having not moved a muscle to confirm) in the amount of time he assumes has passed. His million dollar Rolex does not quite audibly tick but in the absolute silence it should be heard, which confirms the silence to be exactly that—absolute.
While Bruce can hold his breath with the best of the Olympian swimmers, he has never accounted for a need to remain without blinking without being able to move one's eyes. Rotating the eyeballs will maintain lubrication such that one could go without blinking for up to ten minutes. But staring at the byline fixedly, he estimates another twenty seconds before tears start to form.
These are the thoughts Bruce distracts himself with, because he doesn't dare consider how Tim and Alfred haven't made a (living) sound in the past forty-five seconds. About Damian, packing his bag upstairs for school after a morning walk with Titus that was "just pushing it, Master Damian".
There is a knife to his right, if memory serves (it does). In the next five seconds—
"Your wards and guardian are fine, Mr. Wayne," the deepest voice Bruce has ever heard intones. For a dizzying moment, it is hard to pinpoint the location of the voice, for it comes from everywhere—like the chiming of a clocktower whilst inside the tower, so overpowering he is cocooned in its volume.
But it is not spoken loudly, just calmly, and when he puts the paper down, folds it, and looks to his right, a blue man sits in Dick's chair.
He wears a three piece suit made entirely of hues of violet, tie included. He has a black brooch in the shape of a cogwheel pinned to his chest pocket, a simple chain clipped to his lapel. Black leather gloves delicately thumb Bruce's watch (no longer on his wrist, somewhere between second 45 and 46 it has stopped being on his wrist), admiring it.
"You'll forgive me," the man says with surety. "Clocks are rather my thing, and this is an impressive piece." He turns it over and reveals the 'M. Brando' roughly scratched into the silver back. He frowns.
"What a shame," he says, placing it face side up on the table.
"Most would consider that the watch's most valuable characteristic." Bruce says, voice steady, hands neatly folded before him. Two inches from the knife. To his left, there is an open doorway to the kitchen. If he turns his head, he might be able to get a glance of Tim or Alfred.
He doesn't look away from the man.
"It is the arrogance of man," the man says, raising red eyes (sclera and all) to Bruce, "to think they can make their mark on time."
"...Is that supposed to be considered so literally?" Bruce asks, with a light smile he does not mean.
The man smiles lightly back, eyes crinkling at the corners. He looks to be in his mid thirties, clean-shaven. His skin is a dull blue, his hair a shock of white, and a jagged scar runs through one eye and curving down the side of his cheek, an even darker, rawer shade of blue-purple.
The man turns the watch back over and taps at the engraving. "Let me ask you this," he says. "When we deface a work of art, does it become part of the art? Does it add to its intrinsic meaning?"
Bruce forces his shoulders to shrug. "It's arbitrary," he says. "A teenager inscribes his name on the wall of an Ancient Egyptian temple and his parents are forced to publicly apologize. But runic inscriptions are found on the Hagia Sophia that equate to an errant Viking guard having inscribed 'Halfdan was here' and we consider it an artifact of a time in which the Byzantine Empire had established an alliance with the Norse and converted vikings to Christianity."
"The vikings were as errant as the teenager," the man says, "in my experience." He leans back in his chair. "I suppose you could say the difference is time. When time passes, we start to think of things as artistic, or historical. We find the beauty in even the rubble, or at least we find necessity in the destruction..."
He offers Bruce the watch. After a moment, Bruce takes it.
"The problem, Mr. Wayne, is that time does not pass for me. I see it all as it was, as it is, as it ever will be, at all times. There is no refuge from the horror or comfort in that one day..." he closes his hand, the leather squeaking. And then his face smooths out, the brief severity gone. He regards Bruce calmly.
"You can look left, Mr. Wayne."
Bruce looks left. Framed by the doorway, Tim looks like a photograph caught in time. A stream of coffee escapes the spout of the stainless steel pot he prefers over the Breville in the name of expediency, frozen as it makes its way to the thermos proclaiming BITCH I MIGHTWING. Tim regards his task with a face of mindless concentration, mouth slack, lashes in dark relief against his pale skin as he looks down at the mug. Behind him, Bruce can see Alfred's hand outstretched towards the refrigerator handle, equally and terrifyingly still.
"My name is Clockwork," the man says. "I have other names, ones you undoubtedly know, but this one will be bestowed upon me from the mouth of a child I cherish, and so I favor it above all else. I am the Keeper of Time."
"What do you want from me?" Bruce asks, shedding Wayne for Batman in the time it takes to meet Clockwork's eyes. The man acknowledges the change with a greeting nod.
"In a few days time, you will send Superman to the Midwest to investigate the unusual seismic activity. By then, it will be too late, the activity will be gone. They will have already muzzled him."
"Him."
"There is a boy with the power to rule the realm I come from. Your government has been watching him. The day he turned 18, they took him from his family and hid him away. I want you to retrieve him. I want you to do it today."
"Why me?"
"His parents do not have the resources you do, both as Batman and Bruce Wayne. You will dismantle the organization that is keen on keeping him imprisoned, and you will offer him a scholarship to the local University. You and yours will keep him safe within Gotham until he is able to take his place as my King."
This is a lot of information to take in, even for Bruce. The idea that there could be a boy powerful enough to rule over this (god, his mind whispers) entity and that somehow, he has slipped under all of their radars is as frustrating as it is overwhelming. But although Clockwork has seemed willing to converse, he doesn't know how many more questions he will get.
"You have the power to stop time," he decides on, "why don't you rescue him? Would he not be better suited with you and your people?"
"Within every monarchy, there is a court," Clockwork. "Mine will be unhappy with the choice I have made," he looks at Bruce's watch, head cocked. "In different worlds, they call you the Dark Knight. This will be your chance to serve before a True King."
Bruce bristles. "I bow to no one."
"You'll all serve him, one day," Clockwork says, patiently. "He is the ruler of realms where all souls go, new and old. When you finally take refuge, he will be your sanctuary." He frowns. "But your government rejects the idea of gods. All they know is he is other. Not human. Not meta. A weapon."
"A weapon you want me to bring to my city."
"I believe you call one of your weapons 'Clark', do you not?" Clockwork asks idly. "But you misunderstand me. They seek to weaponize him. He is not restrained for your safety, but for their gain."
"And if I don't take him?" Bruce asks, because a) Clockwork has implied he will be at the very least impeded, at worst destroyed over this, and b) he never did quite learn not to poke the bear. "You won't be around if I decide he's better off with the government."
"You will," Clockwork says, with the same certainty he's wielded this entire conversation. "Not because he is a child, though he is, nor because you are good, though you are, nor even because it is better power be close at hand than afar.
"I have told you my court will be unhappy with me. In truth, there are others who also defend the King. Together we will destroy the access to our world not long after this conversation. The court will be unable to touch him, but neither will we as we face the repercussions for our actions. I am telling you this, because in a timeline where I do not, you think I will be there to protect him. And so when he is in danger, even subconsciously, you choose to save him last, or not at all. And that is the wrong choice.
"So cement it in your head, Bruce Wayne," the man says, "You will go to him because I tell you to. And you will keep him safe until he is ready to return to us. He will find no safety net in me. So you will make the right choice, no matter the cost."
"Or, when our worlds connect again, and they will," his voice now echoes in triplicate with the voices of the many, the young, the old, Tim, Bruce's mother, Barry Allen, Bruce's own voice, "I will not be the only one who comes for you."
"Now," he says, producing a Wayne Industries branded BIC pen. "I will tell you the location the boy is being kept, and then I would like my medallion back, please. In that order."
Bruce glances down and sees a golden talisman, attached to a black ribbon that is draped haphazardly around the neck of his bathrobe, so light (too light, he still should have—) he has not felt its weight until this moment.
Bruce flips the paper over, takes the pen, and jots down the coordinates the being rattles off over the face of a senator. By his calculation, they do correspond with a location in the midwest.
"You will find him on B6. Take a left down the hallway and he will be in the third room down, the one with a reinforced steel door. Take Mr. Kent and Mr. Grayson with you, and when you leave take the staircase at the end of the hallway, not the elevator."
The man gets up, dusts off his impeccably clean pants, and offers him a hand to shake.
"We will not meet again for some time, Mr. Wayne."
Bruce looks at the creature, stands, and shakes his hand. It feels like nothing. The Keeper of Time sighs, although nothing has been said.
"Ask your question, Mr. Wayne."
"I have more than one."
"You do," Clockwork says. "But I have heard them all, and so they are one. Please ask, or I will not be inclined to answer it."
"What does this boy mean for the future, that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for him?"
There is a pause.
"So that is the one," Clockwork says, after a time. "Yes. I see. I should resolve this, I suppose."
"Resolve what?"
"It is not his future I mean to protect," the man says. "It is his present."
"You want to keep him safe now..." Bruce says, but he's not sure what the being is trying to say.
"I am not inclined," Clockwork repeats, stops. His expression turns solemn, red eyes widening. In their reflection, Bruce can see something. A rush of movement too quick to make heads or tails of, like playing fast forward on a videotape. "Superman reports no signs of unusual seismic activity. With nothing further to look into, you let it go in favor of other investigative pursuits. You do not find him, as you are not meant to. He stays there. His family, his friends, they cannot find him. His captors tell him they have moved on. He does not believe them, until he does. He stays there. He stays there until he is strong enough to save himself."
Clockwork speaks stiffly, rattling off the chain of events as if reading a Justice League debrief. "He is King. He will always be King. He is strong, and good, and compassionate, and he is great for my people because yours have betrayed his trust beyond repair. He throws himself into being the best to ever Be, because there is nothing Left for him otherwise. We love him. We love him. We love him. My King. Forevermore."
The red film in his eyes stall out, and Bruce is forced to look away from how bright the image is, barely making out a silhouette before they dull back to their regular red.
"I am not inclined," Clockwork says slowly, "To this future."
"Because of what it means in the present," Bruce finishes for him. "They're not just imprisoning him, are they."
"They will have already muzzled him."
Clockworks is right in front of him faster than he can process, fist gripping the medallion at his neck so tight he now feels the ribbon digging into his skin.
"Unlike you, Mr. Wayne," and for the first time, the god is angry, and the image of it will haunt Bruce for the rest of his life, "I do not believe in building a better future on the back of a broken child."
"Find him," the deity orders, and yanks the necklace so hard the ribbon rips—
Clack!
"sluuuuurp!"
"Master Timothy, honestly!"
"Sorry Alfred!"
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stealingpotatoes · 7 months
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“poncho: jedi master edition” is such a good and necessary cal kestis form, seeing him attempt to teach a gaggle of padawans is simply the best thing i could imagine. i hope they also roast him sometimes in true middle schooler fashion <3
ok so i drew this AGES ago (way before the other post) and I think this counts as an excuse to post it! they probably do accidentally roast him a little but one of the ways they forget compassion in lieu of middle schooler "dont care about adults" is:
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marvelsmostwanted · 4 months
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This is sad but unfortunately I think this is just going to be the norm for the next few years as streaming services die a slow death.
HBO Max should in theory be able to make money from a show that was at one point the top new series in the US. At the time, David Jenkins said "This is what happens when a major media company invests in inclusive mainstream stories" (agree!) but unfortunately that major media company, like all streaming services, has a terrible business model that can't support that investment.
This is an interesting article about how streaming services are losing money and scrambling to make it back by trying to convince people to buy cheaper, ad-supported options or bundling with other streaming services. Unfortunately for them, I think that's like... all of the options? At some point they're just going to continue to lose money. Making shows is expensive and very few consumers are willing to pay more when they could just cancel and use a cheaper service (or, you know. 🏴‍☠️)
This is also a good article that was written after Shadow and Bone was cancelled by Netflix about whether it could be saved:
"The problem is that while saving shows used to be plausible, at times, the cost of Shadow and Bone combined with the fact that streaming services are really, really starting to cut back on spending means that this would be an extremely tough sell. WB Discovery’s Max is being lambasted for killing finished projects for tax breaks to chip into its massive debt. Disney Plus has done the same thing and has said they will cut back on things like expensive Marvel shows. Amazon Prime is mired in expensive creator deals going nowhere and throwing insane amounts of money at projects they are realizing are not panning out. Paramount Plus losing $500 million a year. NBC’s Peacock is losing $650 million a quarter."
TLDR; Streaming services have reached such a dire point financially that they have to cancel some of their most popular content (Marvel shows on Disney+???? These have seemingly been very successful; it's wild to read that they're "cutting back") in the desperate hope that a new season of something that's cheaper to make will get more attention.
What I gathered from these articles is that steaming services are dying a slow death and sadly, a lot of good shows are going to go with them.
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i’ve been scratching my head over the whole watcher situation. I’m not a fan myself but got dragged into it cus of the people I follow, i only watched their puppet history series and the buzzfeed unsolved series from way back- honestly, i couldn’t care less if they locked all their stuff behind a paywall. I’m so neutral on this whole thing, i might as well be swiss.
but i’m not neutral? In fact, the whole thing really bothers me and i couldn’t figure out why.
cus i get it, yanno. As a company that thrives on creativity, i understand you’d wanna cut yourself off the mega-capatalist-giant that is youtube to get rid of annoying restrictions, and asking monetary support from your audience so you can really stretch the limit of your creativity. I GET IT.
And it STILL bothers me!
And then I figured it out:
the whole “any future videos they’ll be making will EXCLUSIVELY be available through a streaming service you have to pay a monthly subscription for” comes less across as “please support us monetarily so we can grow as creators”, and comes more across as “if you want to continue being a fan, or even being a part of the audience, you’re gonna have to pay up. You have no choice in the matter. It’s either pay, or you’re not a ‘real’ fan or a ‘real’ part of our audience.”
THAT’S what’s bothering me about it. It feels like they’re gatekeeping who gets to be part of their community with money (that not everyone might have). And knowing where they come from and how they started…. That’s… extremely tone deaf. To put it gently.
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lemongooose · 8 months
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been seeing a lot of ninjago stuff on my dashboard so here's a dedicated post to 9yo me's favorite little guy :9
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peachiseas · 27 days
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if you guys haven’t followed redridingheart’s ko-fi, please do so i can squeal with more people about her (non-canon as of rn) designs of baby qiu and tamarack that made me want to fucking Explode-
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cozylittleartblog · 3 months
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made a chain brush. constantly looking for reasons to use it
i am unreasonably giddy about chain brush
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mobgoblin · 8 days
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As someone who has steadily kept up on almost all Watcher shows and side projects, this backlash really does come down to how out of touch the guys have become, even before making Friday’s announcement.
Ryan and Shane (certainly the biggest draw to the channel) got their start with lower-brow, boyish humor and riffing off each other. Can’t forget the capitalism-critical and “power to the underdog” attitude that resonated with so many fans early on either. Now though, if you watch/listen to Pod Watcher, it’s hard to overlook just how unrelatable they’ve become in recent years. Which is whatever—it’s not like we only consume media in order to intimately relate to hosts/characters—but it does mean they’ve lost something integral from the charm that netted them their initial success.
To add. If you watched their latest season of Too Many Spirits, they weren’t even funny, just trashed and off-putting, lol. Frat-style drinking by a backyard pool and Ryan overhand throwing bones at a neighbor’s dog for barking.
Maybe not as bad for Shane, but the egos have really grown uncomfortably outsized. And at some point I got tired of watching videos based around lavish over-indulgence. Even if Steven’s videos cost less to produce than Ghost Files (I assume), they clearly rub viewers the wrong way on principle alone.
All in all, and not to minimize their hard work in getting out the content that they do, I think the Watcher guys should’ve been much more careful in considering this move and its rollout.
For years, I’ve maintained a Patreon subscription to a separate and unrelated funny-guy trio (for the same monthly price Watcher Streaming is now asking). However. The group I subscribe to is more than situationally-funny-sometimes, and always come across as grounded, emotionally intelligent, and likable people. Which makes me want to see them succeed and help how I can (though I would still be able to access 95% of their content even without subscribing).
So yeah, idk. Steven Lim driving a Tesla and wanting a second one or whatever is kind of just the tip of the iceberg.
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bubbieboy · 1 month
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throws fankids at you and runs
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3-aem · 3 months
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i would be such a good monk or something or idk, just that my ability to ignore hunger in favor of whatever i am hyperfixating on is unparalleled at least within the sample size of my social circles
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im-no-jedi · 1 year
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Hunter’s Spidey Sense™ tingling in “The Crossing”
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chirpsythismorning · 11 months
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Nah bc why do I feel like Netflix and the st writers are beefing so hard rn bc of the strike that someone from the production leaked the casting for Linda Hamilton so that the reveal on Tudum would be super anticlimactic…
I also thought Chase Stokes was sort of random for a host, but considering OBX 4 literally just started filming days ago, it’s almost like they’re rewarding those that are being most loyal to Netflix 👀
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cj-the-random-artist · 10 months
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It's been a bit (like genuinely a bit in irl time) since I drew Imp and Skizz. Therefore. Imp and Skizz be upon ye
This kind of ended up unintentionally being a redraw of an old Imp and Skizz drawing I did so that's also here. Enjoy that lol
Genuinely though it's kind of wild to think about the difference between these two doodles. Like I've definitely improved in two years (yay). The colors are better, the shading is better, the gesture and overall vibes of the finished product is better. I think I've improved. I guess that's a reason for me to do more redraws lol.
But yea!! Enjoy this lovely Imp and Skizz doodle (they're so unreasonably fun to draw. Genuinely. And also Imp and Skizz are just awesome in general). And have good day!! :D
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flecks-of-stardust · 4 months
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calling the astrophysicists and planetary scientists of rain world
hi i'm a little bit fucking nuts, but i'm curious about this and hopefully someone on tumblr has an answer for me. tl;dr: i got myself into trying to figure out whether it was possible (following our laws of physics; if you want to reinvent physics, be my guest) for a planet to have a significantly shorter period of daytime as compared to nighttime on average, so something like a day-night cycle where daytime is 12 earth hours, while nighttime is 1 earth week. it doesn't have to be that extreme though, at minimum i just want to figure out if it's possible to have an uneven day-night length.
the reason this is relevant to rain world is because i'm trying to work with this idea as a possible explanation for why hibernation is called 'hibernation,' since having a night time this long, due to a whole host of issues like temperature outside, would force any life to take shelter until daylight returned. obviously not everything about rain world can be made applicable to our laws of physics; we don't have anything resembling void fluid, and that's. probably a good thing, but it means anything void fluid related, we can't really predict in terms of planetary science, so i've mostly been ignoring that.
going to add a cut here because the longer this post goes the more unhinged it's going to be. but if you don't want to read the rest of this, proposal for you: planet rain world is actually a moon of a bigger planet.
that crack theory is something i settled on because based on what i've looked at so far, it doesn't seem possible for a normal planet to have such a staggered day-night cycle? not unless it's tidally locked with its sun, sort of like what mercury has going on in our solar system, but tidal locking with the sun is probably not a great thing for life in any capacity, so that's not what i'm going with. the concept here is that due to planet rain world being a moon of a bigger planet, there is a portion of time it spends completely behind the bigger planet, thereby being completely blocked from receiving sunlight. i don't know if this idea alone is even possible; our own moon doesn't seem to be blocked from receiving sunlight by being behind earth, but our moon is also tidally locked with earth and it's god damn gigantic for a moon, so i don't know if it's a good point of comparison. i haven't got around to looking at jupiter or saturn's moons yet, especially io, but i ran out of steam before i got to that point, so i don't think it's happening.
this obviously gets into a lot of problems. how big is planet rain world and how big would the planet it's orbiting be? where are both of them in their solar system? how many other planets are in the solar system? what's the orbital path of both planetary objects? their rotational velocity? orbital velocity? axial tilt? geoactivity? among probably other questions that i can't even think of right now. there's also the factor of planet rain world very obviously having a moon of its own, which is theoretically possible (hence why i brought up io earlier), but we haven't found any planets with submoons yet. what i did find said that submoons are very likely to have unstable orbits that will result in either the bigger planet adopting the moon, or the submoon spiraling into the moon and crashing into it, and both of these scenarios probably did not happen with planet rain world (or... not yet? up to you i guess). there's also other concerns regarding planet habitability, stuff related to climate and atmosphere and evolution and what have you, but i'm not going to keep going here. point is, there's a lot of complicating factors, ones that i don't know how to contend with. i'm not an astrophysicist or a planetary scientist, i'm a biologist that's way out of their depth. the furthest i got was this:
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this doubles as an image description, but there's a lot going on in this. the orange quarter circle in the bottom left is the solar system's sun. the blurple circle in the middle is the big planet, and the partially black circles on an elliptical path around it is planet rain world. the orange parts on it are a marker of the sunlight exposure they're getting, while the blurple parts are where the big planet blocks sunlight from reaching planet rain world. (if you actually bother drawing lines on the left side of the orbit, you'll see that the point where planet rain world is starting to loop back around to the starting position but is still partially blocked by the big planet is not, in fact, actually blocked by the big planet. i... drew this in medibang.) so obviously the half of planet rain world that faces the sun is going to get sunlight, except when it's behind the big planet, wherein it'll get no sunlight. the white dots on them are a marker for a particular position on the planet, showing how it's spinning counterclockwise as it orbits the big planet. it also completes one full revolution in only half of its orbital path, so it takes approximately two full revolutions to get sunlight again. the yellow ellipses and the dark yellow dots on them represent the moons of planet rain world, orbiting it quickly clockwise.
i know i am making so, so many assumptions here and i don't even know if this works at all. but i'm way out of my depth here and i gave it my best shot. the elliptical orbits are just... i'm pretty sure a circular orbit wouldn't give me what i'm trying to go for regarding daylight length? that's really the main reason, and also just. single planet systems are more likely to have planetary bodies that orbit elliptically, from what i've read. but that's about all i know. if anyone else knows more than i do and is interested in taking up this theory themself, feel free, and let me know if you ever figure something out, i would love to know as well. otherwise... dunno. consider the crack theory. if you want.
also because it's space, i made a version with a dark background and stars:
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toiletphotoshoot · 6 months
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CARAMELLDANSEN??? In 2023??
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