#I really can't get over this

[egophiliac]

Wait, the tsun event has a whole bit dedicated to Malleus bragging about what kitchen appliances he knows how to use? Twst EN just got the milk culinary crucible, which means at the same time Malleus is showing off, the entirety of the EN players are learning Leona doesn't know how to use a microwave. The timing really just makes it feel like Malleus is flexing on Leona XD

it's in Mal's card story rather than in the event proper, but yep! after teaching his tsum proper microwave usage, he takes it on a tour and very proudly shows off his extensive knowledge of household appliances. (except when he thinks his tsum fell into the washing machine and doesn't know how to unlock the lid, so he just. explodes it instead. hashtag just diasomnia things. 🤷)

I do think he and Leona should get into a fight about who has done a better job of learning how to use kitchen tools! Leona has the advantage of having grown up in the modern world, but Malleus has the motivation to actually do literally anything. who will win

[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[starcurtain]

I think one of the funniest things about the Sabzeruz event is that the devs choose to go with Candace, Traveler, and Paimon having a whole "Ooh, two mysterious men are going into an alley to have a 'private' conversation; they must be bad guys!" only to then go "Oh just kidding, it was only Alhaitham and Kaveh doing typical Alhaitham and Kaveh things."

Except the "Alhaitham and Kaveh" thing in question this time was talking about Mehrak, a sentient robot that Kaveh built using absolutely forbidden technology, and which he then whole-heartedly willed would develop a consciousness of its own, violating one of the central taboos of his nation's governing agency, committing what amounts to an inherent and extreme felony punishable by law.

Alhaitham and Kaveh: Listen, we're not bad guys discussing illegal activity here. We're just two men having a private, personal conversation. Happens all the time.

Paimon, Candace, and Traveler: Oh cool, they're not doing a crime; they're just gay.

But they were, in fact, doing a crime.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Council of lovefools.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[benevolenterrancy]

Scholarly peak is catching up on recent literature

[grezzirossi]

My Bg3 Party with the cutest barbarian and 3 pathetic guys.

[gracefireheart]

A few sketches of these guys :]

[kuromi-hoemie]

i am not immune to transmascs in sweatpants and a sleeveless top

im rly fucking weak about it actually

[latenightsundayblues]

This idea came to me in a dream and it impacted me so violently i had to sit down for a while

Diana being ADAM'S daughter instead of Lawrence's. Financially struggling single father Adam. Trying-his-best father Adam. Can anybody hear me

[anne-is-confused]

Captain Francis Crozier, at Furthest North.

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

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

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[shima-draws]

I'm rewatching GF since the whole world seems to be into it right now (thank you Alex and the Book of Bill) and AGHHH I FORGOR about the body swap episode when the twins find the secret room and Stan picks up Ford's glasses and later we see him sitting on the couch looking at them wistfully...

Shut up shut UP that's NOT okay

[tothestarsinvelaris]

Cardan trying desperately to get salt into Jude when Valerian is shoving the faerie fruit into her mouth is just such a good scene.

like, yes, he takes the vial of salt from her -- but he throws it in the air to sprinkle it all over. I feel like he was almost hoping and praying some would land on her or the fruit or the damn dirt and save her.

and then he takes off his shoe and tells her to kiss his toes. like, he's trying to act like he's degrading her along with everyone else, but he also knows that his sweat has salt in it.

and when that doesn't work and Locke is about to walk her home, Cardan gets desperate enough to do something fairly obvious, risking that his friends and everyone else will see that he's helping her but not being willing to let her go alone with Locke while she's so intoxicated. So he pricks her finger and pokes it into her mouth so she gets the salt from her blood.

I feel like he does this partially because of his growing feelings for her, but also because at this point he has already decided he really doesn't like how humans are treated, has seen the way they look when they're ensorcelled and has already helped some of them escape faerie.

he's just so great okay?!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Good morning, Sleepyhead.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[dittydipity]

going INSANE. what is he thinking. why did he say this. why does he do all of this. i am thinking so hard.

we know he's seeking arceus to recreate the world bc in his eyes the world is cruel and unjust and it needs to be destroyed and remade. he's set himself on a mission to create the better reality he's envisioned for his whole life.

but everything else he does. the way he spends his time on pasio making people smile with togepi. even if he justifies it as something purely transactional to get more customers, we know he doesn't really take his merchant job seriously. the way he loves his pokemon so much that they will pop out of their pokeball to excitedly tell whoever will listen how much they love volo back. him trying to capture these moments of happiness tangibly because they never last long and can be wiped away any second.

he still hangs onto hope so much despite what's implied to have happened to him. in spite of all the anger and bitterness that's festered in him, he doesn't really want to destroy everything as he says.

it all started with a wish for the world to be a better place, for the good in the world to outweigh all the cruelty. he's still trying to spread what happiness he can.

but at the same time his past drags behind him and reminds him that he can't afford to trust in the goodness of the world.

that self-assigned mission to usurp arceus's power and rewrite everything.. to him, it's his duty now. he has to do it for himself and, as he rationalizes to himself, for the world.

so he ignores the flaws and holes he finds in his own reasoning. he can't help but seek out the brightness and happiness and goodness that does exist in the world, yet he has to dismiss it to justify his goals.

... all this to try and explain to myself why volo's asking all these questions and making all these comments that seem to go against what we'd expect given his ulterior motive and plans. and it's like he's asking the few friends he has to remember him as the one who seeks joy, even when he does the worst to fulfill his dreams