#*KILL BILL SIRENS PLAYING*

[hellaciousfaith]

Rin didn't have to say anything out loud. Shiro knew where the boy's thoughts were leading to because he saw the exact same behavioral patterns in Yukio - or rather, didn't see them. But he couldn't blame the youngest child for his avoidance behavior either. After all, Shiro was not their father, but a double, occupying the space of a dead man and unintentionally reopening traumatic wounds they both suffered from. He couldn't be mad at Yukio for being resentful towards him for such careless, even if unintentional, behavior.

Still, Shiro kept his smile up, not wanting to worry Rin anymore than he already was. The kid had enough on his plate just managing himself in this world, let alone handling his brother and new friends.

That smile wouldn't last forever though as ice soon ran through the former Paladin's veins.

"Dennis is a hostage?" He asked, the warmth and mirth in his voice now gone, replaced by a cold distance that was hiding a burning fury.

"Oh, alright then. My mistake." He's not at all sorry for it though, hence the lack of apologies. It's fun to tease these disastrous boys.

"You know... throughout my years of being a glorified guidance counselor, I've noticed that the people who are the most guarded and reluctant to share anything are more often than not the ones who are also the most scared - like Yukio." He pauses for a bit, giving Rin some time to think on that and let it sink in. "They like to take their tension, then warp it into a suit of armor that they use to protect themselves from whatever it is they're afraid of. More often than not too, once they start feeling safe, they start sharing a little more too."

[talesfromthecrypts]

make me choose: @brandon-lee asked Sam Reid Lestat or Tom Cruise Lestat?

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

So, I was watching some video about ocean critters and there was this part about cuttlefish and how they change how they look like. Even in their sleep, they change color kind of reacting to their dreams.

Somehow I thought of your Nightlight!Sally and my braincells decided to try and connect the two dots. Does Sally have different colors she can change other into than sleepy=blue and awake=yellow?

goddddd that would be So Fucking Neat but unfortunately that'd conflict with Things yk yk... Nightlight!Sally's glow does Fluctuate with her emotions though!

[aria-ashryver]

ohhhhhhhh im finally playing LOA2 for the first time and my MC Carmen is out for blood. You picked the wrong motherfucker to mess with Martin, you little bitch. If there is one thing Carmen is good at, its having ZERO sense of propriety and holding grudges.

She is going to take such pleasure in crushing your smarmy little head.

Of course she called you a snake in front of all the Senior Partners. Of course she jumped at the opportunity to sit right beside you at the gala and poach all your clients. She will not be satisfied until she has destroyed you. She is petty. She is brutish. She wants to see you weep.

Carmen Castillo Vega has ONE personality trait atp and it is "ruin Martin Vanderweils's life"

[paper--moons]

Me engaging with any media: Remember, we don't have to assign agere dynamics to any of the characters this time! Regression doesn't apply to every character in existence, because that would be silly, wouldn't it? Yes, I can be so normal about this new thing and not act like the silly creature that I am.

Me 0.3 seconds after being introduced to the characters: And I will be taking care of you my precious little darling, forever and always,,,

[undead-potatoes]

So glad I don't have to function at a job while my brain is sorting itself out with these SSRIs, not only would I not get anything done but I'd probably start shit with half of my coworkers for no fucking reason

[doom-dreaming]

do you think Ash gets full-named when someone gets upset with him? because you know NO ONE calls him Ashley unless he's done something to deserve it

do you think he ever gets comfortable enough to pull the same stunt with fred (however jokingly) in retaliation?

[digitalcactusblog]

oh man finally gotten to bed after packing hell so IT'S TIME FOR OPAL

opal. is my most MOST dnd pc. by a massive margin. my god. i love them to bits, but they are so much in every possible direction at all times

to summarize them in one quick phrase, you can think of opal as a barbie sephiroth powerpuff girl winter soldier. none of these words belong in one phrase together, yet we've gotten it there anyway!!!!

under the cut bc i expect this to get quite long 😂

god, where do i even start with opal. imagine the platonic ideal of a manic pixie dream girl, add in a touch of airheadedness, then give the entire creation the attention span of a magpie on crack.

that's what opal is like.

opal is also the clone of the princess of the enemy country to the country the party is currently traveling through.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!

opal is a top secret government project created as a gift to the royals of that country, a tribute to wizard hubris, and a proof of concept for a devastating military weapon that will win this country the war.

because opal isn't just a clone of the princess (her name is vasya). opal is a marble statue of the princess, carved into shape, then engraved with the magical principles and equations to bring that statue to life. opal wasn't just made to be a genetic clone of vasya. opal was made to be vasya. a complete clone, down to the skills and memories of the original vasya.

imagine, if you will, an army. there are people in it. and people die. people have families they'll never return to, loved ones who'll miss them, and, quite frankly, they're pretty freaking expensive to keep as functional soldiers!

now, i must copy paste the description block for the spell True Polymorph.

"Choose one creature with at least 1 hit point or nonmagical object that you can see within range. You transform the creature into a different creature, the creature into an object, or the object into a creature (the object must be neither worn nor carried by another creature). The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent."

imagine, if you will. a quick, easy, and cheap way to mass produce True Polymorph, without the need for a high leveled wizard to cast a level 9 spell every time. all you need are a handful of pebbles, and boom, you have sentient, sapient, competent soldiers.

this is what opal was a proof of concept for.

SO, to summarize so far:

peppy, sunny attitude! that's the barbie part

devastating military superweapon person: sephiroth

entirely artificial being, yet extremely cheerful about it: powerpuff girl

devastating SECRET military superweapon. is also from a russian empire-inspired fantasy country: winter soldier

also we named opal's creator after rasputin. yeah, that rasputin. yeah, like ra ra, russia's greatest love machine? yeah, we thought it'd be funny. her name is grigori and she has a lot of problems (opal is the cause of most of them 😊)

anyways, so opal gets created, and is, for all intents and purposes, a carbon copy of vasya. but as a prototype for this weapon, there are still some kinks to work out, one of being that, to maintain the same memories and whatnot as vasya, they need to essentially get regular software updates. but otherwise, perfect vasya clone!

except grigori starts noticing little discrepancies. little anomalies. the clone isn't a perfect vasya clone. the clone is developing a nascent personality—a nascent personality that keeps getting overwritten with every download.

the clone isn't a hollow clone.

the clone is alive.

"my god," grigori says, horrified, "what have i done? i have created life; not in the mundane, mortal way. i once posited myself on par with the gods, and now i have created life, just like they do.

"...i am so fucked."

and so, with that religious and moral crisis in her pocket, grigori decides to steal the clone and scram.

it's time to be fugitives!!!!!

grigori is a genius, if, at this point, a genius with extreme anxiety. and so, grigori has several contingencies ready, on the off chance she needs to bail. the one she goes with now is a classic wizard tower, hidden from prying eyes by magic and a beautiful grotto where no one goes. think tangled, the tower in the grotto that rapunzel lived for most of her life

and during this entire fugitive road trip, without regular downloads from the og vasya herself, the clone's vasya memories start to fade, but their new mannerisms start to stick. and now we have opal, who could not be more different from vasya in demeanour if they fuckin tried

also now, after much work on grigori's part, opal has been true polymorphed (even more) to look like someone entirely different! vasya is a magenta-y purple-y tiefling with tall horns, whereas opal is now a lanky purple drow around the height of vasya's horns. they got to customize their Look heavily (perks of having a high level wizard who can cast ninth level spells regularly).

oh also, chronologically, opal is only 6 years old 😊 when they were 'born,' they were created as the then-teenaged vasya, and while the memories of being vasya has mostly faded (not everything), the rough mental age and whatnot remained the same, so technically opal is like 22? but chronologically 6, so you bet your ass i'm so ready for the day i get to drop that bombshell 😂

OH YEAH and most recently, much to grigori's distress, opal has broken out of the secret wizard tower to go explore the world. it'll be fine grigori i'll be so careful!!!!!!!!!!

(they were not, in fact, careful)

mechanics-wise, opal is an echo knight, and while i'm not yet privy to all the deets (there are discoveries to discover and i can't wait :3) their echoes are like, something something potential versions of opal? mechanically, this just means that every time i summon an echo, i roll on a random table to see what form the echo takes, with some dnd species having higher probabilities to show up. and yes, if i roll tiefling, i then roll a d4 to see if vasya herself shows up. EXTREMELY NERVEWRACKING AND WONDERFUL!!!

also the first time i described how opal looked to the entire party, and that they were wearing a long, black coat with silver buckles all up the front, everyone was like "..............hey olive? is this sephiroth?"

and that was the first time i realized that opal dresses like pirate sephiroth. they even have a scarlet macaw familiar. shoulda named it genesis, methinks. (her name is actually ariadnoula)

GOD WHAT ELSE THERE'S ALREADY SO MUCH

opal is so freaking much i love them. last session they gave the other pc (vae) a minor religious crisis by asking too many questions about the logistics behind death rites. they tried to ambush-slam a flower crown on vae's head and ate shit when he dodged. they impulse-held a woman's hands as she went nuclear and died because they didn't want her to die alone and afraid. one of their life dreams is to swing on a chandelier.

oh also opal may have just started ww2. maybe.

[lyledebeast]

Jason Isaacs’ accent in Black Hawk Down is sending me.

[le-pokerus]

FUCK YOU SAFARI ZONE

[chicago-geniza]

Yeah yeah we've all heard of holy anorexia & staving off girl puberty with starvation & the conflation of secondary sex characteristics with original sin & libidinal excess, get new material (I'm reading an essay lol). Oh you're synthesizing Simone de Beauvior and Caroline Walker Bynum and discourses on religious modesty and sexual violence? In a personal essay? In the 2020s? Groundbreaking. It's actually done well and I enjoyed reading it aside from a few moments of unexamined essentialism but I am being a bitch because it's my prerogative

[masquenoire]

So Roman wouldn't be happy having a biological child. What would he do if he did end up having one?

(Warning: Sensitive topic! Slipped more under the cut ~)

To say that Roman wouldn’t be happy having a biological child is an understatement. He would be distraught, especially if he were the one carrying the baby. He’d still be upset if he wasn’t (unless it was planned, greatly desired by his partner) but there’s a possibility he’d come round to the idea, getting to play daddy were he in a good relationship. Barring magic or alien biology, it’s almost certain this will NEVER happen. It’s more likely he’ll end up as the birth parent and that’s where the issues come in. It shouldn’t have happened. Normally he’s so careful, doubling up on protection even though the odds are against him conceiving. It still happened, so now he’s fucked in more ways than one. Roman’s immediate thought is to get rid of it. He can’t risk anybody knowing he’s pregnant, people finding out what he is so he’ll hide away, have his men spread rumors of an attempted assassination gone wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s tried killing him on his own turf and would explain his lengthy absence away from the criminal limelight, needing time to recover when the truth is so much worse than any rumor could ever be. Afterwards is a different story. Roman would be a tortured soul throughout the whole experience, his dysphoria screaming as loudly as the memories of his mother’s voice, back when she’d rage at him for hours that he’d ruined her figure, ruined her life and all she got out of it was a disgusting little freak she’d never even wanted in the first place. Feeling the same way towards his own offspring would make him the most miserable he’d ever been in his life and would only cement Roman’s decision to get rid of the child as soon as it arrives. He’d ask the only man he trusts, tasking Horsehead with finding a suitable caretaker to take the little one on as their adoptive charge, to ensure he never has to be in their life and that the consequences of being related to him won’t affect them someday. God willing they never find out the awful truth, merely that they were the result of a drunken fling he had no interest keeping. There’d be money set aside in a trust fund for them and plenty of it too, to ensure they’re able to live comfortably with access to good education. Roman can only hope they never come tracking him down some day far off into the future, and if they do, they’ll buy the act he’s an uncaring father, too callous and cold to ever want a child around. As far as Roman Sionis is concerned, an absent parent is better than an abusive one and it’s best for all parties involved he plays no part in parenthood.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

my dad is the kind of person who makes fun of things (mental illness, gender, sexuality, etc) until he encounters it at a close enough proximity to actually think of it as a real thing at which point he’s totally normal about it forever which means I get the honour of gently guiding him through conversations about Vico Ortiz now that he’s discovered they’re nonbinary in the same way a bull is gently guided out of a grenade-strewn china shop

[gamblingluck]

♦ (p l s)

❝ Exciting. ❞

SEND ME A ♦

[missallanea]

They've got the weirdest feeling like someone was talking about him just now...

[poptartmochi]

satagu worldstate summarized..