At the edge of time when all dust has settled does the Twilight Sword of old return to where it all began: Irminsul. In its presence he reminisces the hard fights that have been won: against corrupt divine, imposters to the original first gods to exist in Teyvat; against the star-devouring ailment they brought with themselves that was silenced by his hand. When all threads of fate have been re-weaved by the hand of the just and balance betwixt all creatures, short-living and carriers of longevity alike irregardless of their power —for in Teyvat there is no such thing as imbalance in power, divine or human: both are equally as important in this star's health—, a wondering mind questions the All-Knowing that has been ever present in his mind and soul since the beginning of his own existence:

Where did forbidden knowledge come from?

Irminsul always answers to his voice, yet this time it is in the form of a new variable that Dáinsleif has never encountered before. As if he was plunged into the Abyss that Khaenri'ah wished so much to conquer and explore with their own flesh and blood only to resign to resort to a fallen star from afar, everything around him is naught but a dark sky filled with stars. His eyes close once, the next time they open he finds himself before what he believes to be Irminsul at first due to its reasonable similarity, only to reject this idea as soon as he listens to this new entity's voice upon smoothing the palm of his hand over its golden-white trunk: the Imaginary Tree.

Though no connection whatsoever would be expected to remain with the Axis Mundi that belongs to a world when he's at the core of the universe, recognition is made manifest in the Imaginary Tree of a man chosen by one of its infinite extensions and so a link is established nonetheless. Wordlessly does the tree show images of other stars that fought against an energy called Honkai, others struggling against one by a different name: Stellaron. Individuals who gave it they all to defend humankind as he successfully did in Teyvat and a clear image of the last man who touched the Imaginary Tree before him, a man with alarm-inducing similarities.

From unspoken imagery does Dáinsleif come to the conclusion that this energy that once desolated Teyvat and threatened to consume it whole is no different than a stellar cancer that affects other corners of the cosmos as well. Thus a question reverberates within the confines of his mind next, ethereal:

Now that your question has been answered, what will you do? Return to your homeworld to spend the river of time peacefully of your long-lasting life? Or—?

That is true. Even if the curse has been lifted from him at the end of the crisis, his status as a long-living creature never changed. For he was never human through and through since the very beginning, despite his humane traits. He whom looks at the tree, core of everything that was birthed in this universe, he wonders: Was Phanes, who gave life to humanity in Teyvat originated from this tree too? This tree where time flows in the trunk of the Imaginary Tree and branches out into an infinity of worlds. Whose every branch is a form of civilization, while every bud is their past and present etched onto the dimension of time. Where each twig is a world line and each leaf is a bubble universe.

There is no continuation to the second option given, but Dáinsleif knows what follows. Looking back to all his life experiences, there is no more left for him in a world where he has closed one chapter. When a door closes, a window opens— or so they say. Perhaps this is the moment to say goodbye to a chapter of his life that has found its closure that welcome a new phase of his long-lasting life.

❝It has been decided.❞

A knight knows no end to his battles, neither does the Twilight Sword of old. In this battle for humanity's sake where he has the means and the strength to tip the scales in the right directions, his love for humanity will become the first step towards an unknown that doesn't frighten him.

Do it.

Through telepathic communication as per the eternal link that connects him to Irminsul's brethren in the center of the universe his answer is communicated, and so the tree that glows golden-white inundates Dáinsleif's starry vision with its light and a parting gift: he who remained a wingless seraph in soul and mind only to be displayed in his realm of consciousness has been elevated back to his celestial origins, so would Dáinsleif come to realize upon setting foot to a new world and seeing himself atop water's reflection. With his state of completion that he hasn't felt in several centuries, he now treads unknown grounds with a clear destiny in mind from the start— unlike when he was lost after everything was taken from him once.

julian describing himself as a "former politician, brackets, disgraced" is maybe the funniest line of the show

antwerp real

this girl is a fucking LOSER

With your pokemon issue, why don't you just get an emulator and play it? Researching is probably what's making it hard for you to get into the game it's one of those things where there's no point in studying it and just jump in

As a veteran pokemon player since the yellow days, I reccomend the blue or red remakes (the ogs are super buggy, fun buggy but it'll just detract you) or even fire red/leaf green

Like I said the games are pretty cut and dry, you get mon, cockfight with it become champ rinse and repeat

so the main problem with this is that i Don't Like Gaming. especially games focused on repetition and goals. they just frustrate and bore me lmao - the only games i can play without wanting to get up and go outside are open world ones where i can just do whatever i want at my own pace, and that have variety so that i can do a lot of different things without getting Bored out of my mind <3

so not only do we have weird antisemitism in the update today apparently sse is switching the lifetime tiers?

ive been hearing from a few people that now they're offering normally priced lifetime offers and on a case-by-case basis people are getting offers at around half price. with the catch being they very sneakily removed the text saying +100 sc every week, and those tiers get lifetime membership but no SC allowance. THEN telling people who contact customer support confused because they didn't get their allowance that it's for a higher tier and telling them to pay MORE than the normal tier costs to upgrade/ "fix" it.

idk i get why they'd do it, it would probably make a lot of money (and from what I understand a lot of live-update games like this don't include premium currency in their subscriptions) but like. that is so shady. and evidently not a mistake if customer support is directing people to upgrade to "higher tiers"

While I am STILL in the process of making the post about Amir’s relationships with the other Strawhats (I am so sorry), I’m just gonna leave this here in case anyone’s interested in asking questions about Amir!!

Take this scrapped Skypiea design as consolation

.

the only asks i could find that mention this explicitly are from 2020, so i don't know how much water they still hold, but i think a lot about how one of the inspirations for wally's character writing back when clown first picked welcome home back up was dr. habit from smile for me. obviously no telling for certain how that influence will manifest in future updates, but i think it's Very Interesting, given how both characters seem kinda Obsessed with fulfilling the image of some fictional archetype (i.e. habit trying his damnedest to embody the idea of a cartoon supervillain to subconsciously justify his own self-loathing and [at least in one ending] suicidal ideation VS wally being So devoted to his role as an audience surrogate that even now, nearly 50 years after the show has ended, he insists on being our guide as we try to unravel whatever the fuck happened here.

there's something very special about hanging out with new friends

played the game ok boomer at my family party today, ended up explaining to a room of ~20 of my relatives what fanfiction is so they could understand the question, “in fanfiction, what does AU stand for?”. and then the card’s definition of “AU” was wrong so i also had to get into the concept of “canon”.

can u believe. in front of my whole family. a room full of people, aged 3 to 80. all staring at me intently as i explain the difference between an alternate universe and canon divergence. at one point my mom was like “daina i think we get it” and a cousin and two aunts were like “wait no we’re interested please continue” and i had to say to my own mother in front of god and my i am kenough sweatshirt “sorry but unlike you the rest of them DON’T have to listen to me talk about fanfiction on the regular”. my uncle is a retired judge. my one cousin worked for the federal government in a job that was so classified that for years he literally couldn’t legally tell us about ANYTHING he was working on. and today those men sat and patiently listened to me define “coffee shop AU”.

also, not one, not two, but THREE of the answers for the young folks, i knew solely because they were either plot points on stranger things or they were things i found out whilst reading stranger things fanfics. and then i was the only person in our age bracket (10 people, ranging from ages 9 to 42) that knew who anne rice was, and had to explain yet again that the reason i had this knowledge was because… fanfic.

it was surreal. also my aunt, aged 68, may or may not begin attempting to read fanfic now because, according to her, “there are so many stories where there are these small side characters and i’d just KILL to hear their backstory or like what was going through their minds during the main action!” i’m very happy for her. today was wild.

two vessel ocs we actually conceptualized a while ago and just never posted about

im currently in a class called "creativity" (which is absolutely shitty but thats not the point) and the teacher had us each write a page about where we ideally saw ourselves in 5 or 10 years. Afterwards everyone shared, and regardless of major, most of our ideal lives in 5 years were going to grad school, living close to friends, spending time with loved ones, eating healthy, having a pet, basically just living a contented and happy life with people and things that we care about. yall would not BELIEVE how surprised this man was at the fact that nobody in the class's ideal life in 5 years was to be a movie star or a ceo or some bullshit. He literally had to be like "does anyone have any... loftier goals?" And one girl was like "well itd be cool to manage an award winning music artist one day but it def wont be in 5 years."

literally my professor get so pissed bcause our idea of the most perfect world in 5 years is just one where we are content and healthy and with people we love.

So Jeanne's coffin case for her gauntlet is like, okay-

I made a post recently about Vanitas's earring, and how his wearing an hourglass in which the sand has run out represents how he's dead already within the narrative. Like, he's clearly still alive, but his time has already run out, and his death is a forgone conclusion, so on a symbolic level, he's a dead man walking. And though Jeanne's character doesn't revolve around her own death like Vanitas's does, I think she's in a similar state of metaphorically dead, and the case for her gauntlet is the symbol of that. It's just that unlike Vani, Jeanne has the potential to rise from the grave.

On every level but the literal one, Jeanne has been dead since the moment of her parents' execution. "Jeanne" was a fully formed person with feelings and desires and individuality. But the moment her parents were killed, the moment she became a bourreau, all that went away. The Hellfire Witch was a tool, a mindless weapon of the senate, and in becoming her, "Jeanne" had to die.

Furthermore, Jeanne's name is explicitly called out as a reference to Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and everything about her bourreau persona ties back into Joan's death. Joan was killed at 19, the same age that our Jeanne appears to be physically frozen at forever. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, just as Jeanne's parents' heads were burned. Joan was burned for, among other things, accusations of witchcraft, and Jeanne became "The Hellfire Witch." For all intents and purposes, our Jeanne burned on the pyre with her parents' bodies, just like the death of her namesake.

Then, as she begins her life after death, Jeanne is given her crimson gauntlet, and it becomes the Symbol of The Hellfire Witch. It's how people identify her. And she carries it around in a coffin on her back. It is the ultimate emblem of her status of bourreau, of Dead Woman Walking, and it lays in a coffin where her body cannot.

The gauntlet is the Hellfire Witch, and the Witch is already dead.

And to go back to the comparison to Vanitas's earring, it's so interesting to look at what a burden that coffin must be for Jeanne. Vanitas wears a symbol of his death, and he wears it seamlessly. It's a small thing, hooked onto his ear and ever-present. It passes as a natural part of him. But Jeanne's symbol is heavy.

Jeanne carries an object that marks her as already dead, and it is a massive, hulking thing that she has to carry on her back. She's strong enough to manage it, of course, but that doesn't mean that lugging it is pleasant.

Because Vanitas has his own issues to unpack, but unlike him, I don't think Jeanne is particularly suicidal. She doesn't want to die. She's just been pushed into an existence where "my individual self is already dead" is the status quo, and a lot of her arc so far has been about breaking out of that pattern of behavior. (And though she'd rather die than lose control and hurt Luca, I actually think Vani's promise to kill her helps her be more alive and lively in the long run). Vanitas's death symbol is something he presumably put on himself as a reaction to Luna, but Jeanne's was forced upon her.

She could be a vibrant, stunningly alive person if not for the Senate forbidding her to act as such, and we're beginning to see bits of that as her personality comes back to life. Her status as dead is something that she carries, but something outside of the core of who she is. And though the weight is tragic, and she's spent far too long "living" as an undead tool, the other thing about the coffin is that. she can take it off.

She'll be losing a weapon if she does, losing the power of her gauntlet and what little protection being Ruthven's bourreau offers her, but if it's someday made safe for her to do so, Jeanne can come back to life and put the coffin down.

🐯🦁🐱 The Big Cats 🐯🦁🐱

Hey guys. gay rights