#<- guess I have to add this tag as well now :')

[saladscream]

Merlin’s chest is a novelty.

And an unexpected one.

Because this is the first time Arthur has seen it.

His manservant doesn’t really make it a habit to traipse around the citadel bare-chested, and in all the years they’ve known each other Arthur has never found a good enough reason to make the man shed his shirt. Therefore, since there is no guessing when such a rare occurrence might happen again, Arthur’s eyes are presently drinking in the expanse of pale skin and its enticing, wings-shaped dusting of dark hair, like his crown depends on it.

It’s a lot to take in at such short notice, but Arthur’s keen gaze is certainly doing its utmost to commit to memory the taut planes of the deceptively firm pectoral muscles, the dusky softness of the shy nipples and the tender ridges of the nervous abs. There’s also a tantalising trail of short black hair leading Arthur’s heretofore relatively honourable focus from Merlin’s navel to a wondrous place down below, where the confines of Merlin’s trousers hide what no self-respecting prince has any self-admitted desire to become acquainted with.

Oh and there must be a bit of a cold draft where Merlin’s standing because the pecs are heaving, the abs are tensing, and the nipples are tightening into sinfully hard, pointy nubs before Arthur’s very eyes. They look stiff and sullen, and the flat of Arthur’s tongue tingles with an unholy longing that shall remain scrupulously denied.

So, indeed, it is a lot to take in.

Especially as there’s a confounding amount of arcane squiggles daubed in ochre and woad all over Merlin’s chest, utterly spoiling the view as far as Arthur’s concerned.

His outraged bellow of ‘What the HELL have you two been doing?!’ is aimed at both Lancelot and Merlin, who exchange perfectly synchronised guilty glances. ‘The druids insisted on a ritual,’ is Lancelot’s only explanation – though he goes on to hurriedly add ‘just for cleansing,’ exactly as Merlin mumbles about a ‘fertility blessing.’

And yes, well, Arthur could’ve guessed fertility was involved for there’s a conspicuous blue phallus painted in stark and rather disturbing detail, right in the middle of Merlin’s already distracting chest.

Arthur lets out a measured exhale and pinches the bridge of his nose.

In his youth, a savvy maitre d’arme taught him that breathing was the key to staying on an even keel during combat, and although the good man never envisaged that his royal charge would be faced with such an ordeal, the prince is still grateful for the teachings that allow him to keep a dignified and composed front – because it is undeniable that Merlin’s perky nipples are formidable opponents.

In truth, Arthur doesn’t know what is upsetting him most right now: the fact that he cannot lay into said pebbled nubs of sensitive flesh the way they so richly deserve, or the fact that Lancelot got to see them first. Feeling unduly thwarted, he dismisses the two men with an exasperated wave of his fingers and reminds Merlin to put a damn tunic on.

Arthur surrenders to a long-suffering sigh once they’ve left.

He is familiar with woad blue. It is a nuisance to get off your skin.

That dick is going to stay on Merlin’s chest – and on Arthur’s mind – for days.

If not weeks.

[We're nearing the end of this mini-series. Only one more instalment to go, I think. Two if Arthur is feeling chatty and/or sentimental. Many thanks for the reblogs, comments and likes. They're greatly appreciated! ❤️]

Tagged: @miyriu @neptunesyellowsands @dollopole @shuukichan @merlininthedogpark @kintsugikid-moonysversion @toomanyfanficsbruh @blueliketheclues @solnishkomoon @evedaser @storigami @bertytravelsfar @graceless-angel @knightswaypoint

1 - Merlin's eyes

2 - Merlin's lips

3 - Merlin's hands

4 - Merlin's throat

5 - Merlin's hair

6 - Merlin's ears

7 - Merlin's legs

8 - Merlin's forearms

9 - Merlin's chest

[joyinliving]

Shit to Do So You Don't Freak The Fuck Out

are you feeling hopeless? lost? scared out of your fucking mind? there's a lot of self care stuff out there- drink tea, take a bath, meditate, etc etc. those can be nice i guess, but sometimes, when shit sucks, the only way to make it through without collapsing is to do whatever you can do to help people. to prove that you do, actually, have some control. that you can have a real impact on the world around you.

i am compiling a list of things that can be done RIGHT NOW at no (or very low) cost to yourself that have a direct and real impact on the state of the world around us. i am taking submissions as well- just send an ask or say something in the tags and i'll add it.

list under the cut (it is very long and continues to grow)

Report price-gouging in California: go onto zillow (or some other rental site), set the location to any of the affected areas in CA, sort to your choosing, and go through the price history for rentals. if it has increased by over 10% during the state of emergency time period, report for price gouging.

Drive someone for free (to vote, to get groceries, to the library, etc.)

Visit a library: that space is for you to use! loitering is okay too- you will only be asked to leave if you are disrupting the functions of the library for other visitors. while you are there...

Get a library card: libraries rely on community engagement for funding and to know what people want. check out books, movies, and games! participate in events! request more books! look into the resources your library offers! i promise there are more than you know!

Speak with a librarian: ask what resources they know about. ask what you can do to benefit your community. ask what can be done to help the library.

Get food from a food bank: they rely on numbers of participants to prove the programs are effective, plus you won't be financially supporting grocery store chains!

Volunteer: volunteer with an animal shelter, a homeless shelter, a kitchen, a community garden, park cleanup, political action (like canvasing, encouraging voters), a hospital, a church, or any other work that your area needs help with

Petition, vote, and submit testimonies for local elections: action in your city, county, or state can have massive impact!

Make art: make posters, zines, patches, bracelets, street art! make a visible mark on the world

Make art (cont): write poetry, music, fiction, non-fiction. make your voice heard

Make information accessible: share paywalled articles and academic sources for free, provide alternative text for photos online, share notes from class, post information that isn't easily available

Ride the bus: much like the library and food banks, use proves usefulness! riding the bus can encourage more funding and maintenance for them. it's also cheaper and more environmentally friendly than personal vehicles

Wear a mask: especially around vulnerable populations

Resist gentrification: keep property costs down with graffiti, protest the introduction of gentrifying businesses, support locals

Study self improvement: Read The Power of Practice By Ng’ethe Maina and Staci K. Haines, study conflict resolution, think about the ways you can improve your relationship with yourself through your relationship with others and vice versa, practice patience

Call/email your representatives: tell them what they need to do. there should be templates available. if something is happening, let them know how the people feel about it

Write a list of all the ways you can make an impact here and now.

[tiphprince]

To add to what's already been said in the comments, I think it's also largely in part because of the relationship Snape and the Marauders have in the books.

No matter their many qualities, the Marauders were bullies, and no matter his many flaws, Snape was their victim. They were enemies and despised each other.

So, liking one side often (though of course not always) means that you won't like the other, simply because of what they represent in the books.

I agree that the Marauders fandom is now mostly made of OCs, including Snape funnily enough, but that doesn't erase the main issue that Snape fans have: the bully/victim relationship.

(When you see a post calling Snape a creepy incel stalker with Lily, and then 5 mins later a Marauders fanart with thousands of notes where James is at Lily's family home under her window asking her to come out while she screams at him to fuck off, and everyone in the reblog think it's so cute and adorable, you realise that pretty and rich privilege are very much alive and doing extremely fucking well. I mean, who's the character in canon who tried to blackmail Lily into a date, and who had an invisibility cloak and a map who tells him where everyone is at all times? Not the one who's considered a stalker and a creep, apparently.)

From a Snape fan point of view, the Marauders fandom in a nutshell is this: glorify and woobify the bullies who once sexually harassed/assaulted someone out of boredom, and crucify the victim who sometimes dared fight back and "wasn't innocent" as if that somehow invalidated their victim status.

Just yesterday there was a post on reddit titled "what James did to Snape was deserved". I saw a tumblr post with a similar line last week in the Snape tag. And another, that said that "someone had to" (bully Snape). I have all the anti Snape tags blacklisted, so that means the ones I see are barely even the tip of the iceberg.

That is also exacerbated by the fact that every damn Death Eater is currently being given "redemption arcs" (or rather "they were nice all along" arcs) in the Marauders fandom... except the one who literally and canonically got a redemption arc.

And like, there's nothing wrong with loving Barty Crouch Jr or Regulus Black, there's nothing wrong with loving them and hating Snape, what is wrong however is when fans of these characters come in the Snape fandom corner of the fandom and try and tell us all about how their new baby is better than our favorite character.

It wasn't long ago that a Barty fan was arguing hard that Barty was a better person than Snape because he was... nice to Neville Longbottom. Barry Crouch Jr, who helped torture Neville’s parents to insanity, who basically orphaned him and is so partly responsible for his shitty childhood, was nice and kind to Neville (manipulation tactics who, I guess), was a better man than Snape, who dared, who had the absolute audacity, to threaten to poison Neville’s pet toad.

And I'm not even going to go into all the "Regulus is the true Slytherin hero" pissing contests posts we see pop up very regularly.

Now, I am by no means saying that Snape fans are without fault, many are way too aggressive in their hatred for the Marauders, and in recent years there's been a growing hate boner against Lily that I've spoken multiple times about and that frankly concerns and disturbs me both equally. However, I don't know how many people in the Marauders fandom are afraid to say online who their favorite characters are, but it's a common fear in the Snape fandom, and that is in large part because of Marauders fans (again, thankfully not all, but a loud maybe-not-even minority).

I am a Snape fan, so my account will be biased, in most part because I get to see all of the Marauders fandom ugliest side, and little to nothing of its best side.

(Not saying any of this against you, OP! ❤️)

one thing i genuinely don’t understand is like

okay there are marauders fans and pro-snape (anti-marauders?) fans, and like, nice, people have different views and this are literally characters (most of whom barely even appear) in fiction but like why do they not only hate but seem to sometimes actively try to go against each other like can’t they coexist and just not interact and leave each one be?

because i understand that from an entirely canonical perspective, the marauders (especially james and sirius) were FAR from saints, but i also understand that pretty much the entirety of the marauders fandom stems from entirely fictional ideas from these fictional characters, like the marauders & co. are pretty much OCs at this point (within the marauders fandom) and i think that comparing them to canon is just kind of unfair? like they are literally different characters at this point, only with the same name

i see why snape fans would hate the canonical marauders, but i don’t see why they seem to hate the fan-made marauders, or the people who enjoy said fan-made marauders

i just really don’t understand the overall hate sorry please don’t come for me

[hinamie]

corvidae

[crayoncat-works]

recent olba sketches

[jasperthejester]

me: finally accepting theres a good chance im autistic and starting to work up the courage to ask my parents to see if i could get a diagnoses but being scared to

my mom: do you ever think you have adhd? if you want to do a screening for add next time your at the doctors you can

me:

[angermango]

"Oh, I know very well. How the puzzles beckon so sweetly...

As expected of you, Layton.

Only an honest death will cure you now."

...

expanding on that Lady Maria vibe for Descole from the first Laytonborne post, and that famous boss intro.

Descole would make a hellish boss fight, i know it. i mean have you SEEN how he moved during Eternal Diva and with that big ass sword? now imagine that with Soulsborne-scale strength and possible other additional powers.

plus his theme could be pretty easily adapted into a Bloodborne boss style piece I think, just add more orchestra heavy brass and cellos and some ominous Latin chanting choir and presto. that organ goes so hard too.

[screwpinecaprice]

While venturing an ancient gem temple, they stumbled upon a modified light that can corrupt humans! Connie was able to fully move Steven out of the beam's range by pushing him off the stairs.

Commissioned by TheTinman1996! Thank you for commissioning!! 😁

[unordinaries]

presented without comment

(chapters 280 + 344)

[quarks-pussy]

[Images description: Twelve pictures of Star Trek actors. The phrase "thank you for being both amazing actors and amazing people" is written across most of the images one word at a time, except for the two images in the middle. The middle images are of William Shatner, reading "not you!" and Robert Beltran, reading "or you for that matter". The actors in the other images are George Takei, René Auberjonois, DeForest Kelley, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Kate Mulgrew, Patrick Stewart, Siddig El Fadil (aka Alexander Siddig), Nichelle Nichols and Leonard Nimoy. End image description.]

Non exhaustive list of course. Many more such cases, in fact feel free to add

(insp)

[azol-otl]

DVD commentary about half footJason. He's such a little guy but God I love him.

Anything, brujay/royjay/jaydick, please tell me more about his relationships.

Ahhh Jaysun (half-foot Jason) my incredibly unwell little guy. For those who don't know, I have two fics about a dcu and dungeon meshi fusion (shameless self plug). There's a lot of words so...whoops lol.

So the thing about the Dungeon Meshi universe, is that when you put in dc, the subtext involving classism, racism and such that the author's don't think about/unwittingly put in becomes straight text. And in that it can lead to a lot of unfortunate implications becoming very...straight up there. And I'll openly admit that I'm pretty biased against Bruce so it won't be kind to him.

Jaysun (Jay + Sun to fit with the half-foot naming convention), was created when I started looking more into the lore of Dungeon Meshi. With half-foots known as thieves, liars, and shady overall and the general populace not even thinking twice about exploiting them or seeing them as the bottom of the hierarchy, it reads a lot like how dc makes heroes view criminals and poverty (if they aren't infantalizing the poor which is also a thing that the setting does to half-foots). And unlike "demi-humans" they're part of overall mainstream society instead of something separate (and not considered human). Which to me felt like a perfect fit for Jason both as Robin and as an adult because it's a life that Bruce wouldn't even be able to fathom. Alongside that, with a lower life expectancy, Bruce's patronizing attitude (and that of everyone else) is only aggravated and increased towards Jaysun.

Meanwhile Bruce, to me, has to be in a position of privilege and wealth for his whole thing to work. A lot of his flaws and skills comes from that disconnect. And in Dungeon Meshi, the most privileged are Elves and Dwarves. And for Bruce I chose the latter as it fits more in his image of masculinity as well as his focus on technology and combat (and Bruce with magic is just, why are you even using Bruce at that point when his whole shtick is baseline human fighting crime/things way above his weight class). Add into that half-foor culture idolizing (or at least seeing as something to strive for) dwarves and their culture, it just made for a really messy situation when Bruce adopts Jaysun.

But the thing is, Jaysun being adopted at 12 going on 13 is different than Jason being adopted at that age because a half-foot is considered a full adult by age 14 and even then we see people under that age doing things we'd connect to "adulthood" (i.e. Chilchuck was a father of two by the time he was fourteen). It leads to a messy situation where Jaysun already feels and considers himself an adult (which Jason does in the comics as well, and is something Bruce straight up says to Gordon because of Jason's experiences despite the guy barely being a teenager). This leads to a Mia-esque situation where Jaysun falls for Bruce in a romantic and sexual sense since he is, by all accounts, soon an adult (he still dies at the same age)(Mia did have short lived crushes on Ollie and later Connor and Roy and it is something normal that happens to older foster kids. Repeat, this is normal and those feelings later morph into something different in most cases.) This is something that Bruce never even considers about because dwarves aren't adults until they're 40 (which means to Bruce even Dick who is an adult man by tall-men standards, is still a kid and this was a major wedge between them as Bruce simply didn't internalize the differences between them).

It also leads to major imposter syndrome in Jaysun as he sees himself as a replacement for Dick (which Jason also does), but in this case it's one who's even easier to control and treat like a pet. Is he right? Only sorta. Bruce probably doesn't mean to do so, but it's in the same way Senshi and Marcille still haven't understood the way they treat their friends (see: Marcille and Falin).

A load of stuff happens between Jaysun's death and him leaving Gotham for Melini (for reasons I still gotta write about 😅)

For relationships:

Jaysun -> Roy: Roy is probably the person Jaysun trusts the most. Roy, as someone from the Western Continent, has had his fair share of experiences close to Jaysun's involving the perception against him as well as experiences being dropped by loved ones even if they have, for the most part, reconciled. Roy is one of the five (him, Kori, Bizarro, Artemis, Talia) people that knows Jaysun's ability to use magic despite his race's infamous lack of skill and capability with it. He doesn't know the reason WHY, but he knows when to push and when not to. Jaysun and Roy are regulars in dungeon parties that the other leads or are a part of. Jaysun meanwhile is someone who will have to be torn apart from Roy because they both have attachment issues worse than Jaysun's self image, self harm, and fear of abandonment issues (which Roy does share). Most of these will take a lot of work to handle but considering Jaysun's stuck on light to no work for the next few months (the actual canon dungeon meshi story), I have faith in them.

Jaysun -> Dick: So so so so many Bruce issues holy shit. As much as Dick and Jaysun don't want to admit it, both have a load of similar experiences as not being seen as a person with agency caused by being raised by a long lived race when both of them are short lived ones (Dick being a tall-man). This is something that's touched upon with Kabru in Dungeon Meshi, but his foster mother was different beast from Bruce though both have absolutely caused issues in their kids. At the same time Jaysun having been taken in second, resents Dick for having a closer place to Bruce while Jaysun feels like he was more of a pet than a son (both part of the family but not equal in it). Meanwhile Dick dislikes Jaysun's overall demeanor and holds what he did in Gotham against him (which, fair) even if in the end both of them are in the same place (away from Bruce, not thought of completely as people by the man they devoted a large chunk of their lives to (most of his life in Dick's case as at 30 he's reached the halfway point for tall-men), and floundering to find footing despite their supports networks (Dick was part of a dungeoneering group called the Titans which are about as close as you can get to celebrity status for their kind of work). Also unlike Jaysun, Dick hasn't accepted his own attraction to Bruce who despite the over twenty years he's known Dick, has changed little while Dick has become a man grown. They had sex once in the dungeon that was ill-advised and hurt both of them and probably have it a few more times specifically for those reasons until they start seeing one another on more equal terms (if that ever happens). Tldr; the spectre of Bruce haunts them.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A dark, warm-toned drawing of Tundra, a robot with bladed legs and mechanical hands both lightened by frost, and a face like that of a fencing mask. She wears a blue jacket with a fluffy white ruff and pockets on the shoulders and chest, a long green skirt with tassels and pale wavy lines at the border, and a brown belt with a pouch at the side. She's shown from the right, leaning back on a stack of pillows and a wooden wall as she looks out to the left, disregarding the open book in her hand, her legs bent in front of her. Under her is a yellow and red rug which pads gritty flooring, over her are series of low, round string lights, providing soft lighting in a room that's partially open to the night sky.]

it's a friend's birthday today yet again... in honor of the occasion here's a Tundra for @automatonknight :]

[fagdykevash]

oh sorry, did i not lick your boots enough when i wrote that image description for you? my bad

people's accessibility discord, for your ID needs

[kbsd]

man why did i even stop tagging stuff in the first place....ME? the queen of obsessively archiving everything? stop using tags??? now i can't find shit on my blog

[jaymber]

"Get out of my body."

"And what makes you think this body's still yours?"

[steelthroat]

I am pretty responsible when it comes to money... someone could also use the word "stingy"

However:

Snacks

Little stupid but actually useful gadgets that ALSO look cool/nice

Museums/art related stuff

Make me act... unwisely