#I'll take my wins where i can

[cozylittleartblog]

i thought naming myself this would be really funny. and it Is. every time i get into a match i think about gabriel playing Miku Rhythm Game

[ekko]

ekko's time travel and z-drive is portrayed really inconsistently across league media, which is fine because it's just consequence of different writing teams. and half of the joy of writing league of legends is having the freedom to pick and choose what interpretations you like best! so a brief compilation of my thoughts and all notes of my specific portrayal of ekko.

i don't like that ekko only got his hands on the z-drive in season two. i was originally under the impression that he had it in season one, as the way the fight between him and jinx appeared to be portraying that ekko had gotten shot by her (artistically being censored with them play fighting as children), and then ekko reversing time in order to out maneuver her. ekko has his z-drive far before any event similar to arcane season two.

ekko originally released with a comic called chronobreak, in which ekko discovers the corpse of his friend named ajuna and tries over and over to rewind time to prevent his death. in this comic, we can infer that ekko's z-drive has the capacity to go backwards in time to upwards of five minutes. he tries multiple different routes, but is only ever able to find ajuna a minute before he passes. in one timeline, he murders the piltie who killed ajuna, but ultimately chooses to rewind time and spend ajuna's final moments holding him and saying goodbye. (my mobile banner is ajuna's goggles from the comic! which ekko chose to keep. he has similar keepsakes of jinx and vi as well, i think.)

^ both of these scenarios are really important to my ekko, i think! they're really well done. as such, my interpretation of ekko can go backwards up to seven minutes at a time (it has since improved since the ajuna incident), but the reliability of such is faulty. he can only safely and consistently go back for a minute, and he tries not to go further if he doesn't have to.

ekko cannot healthily cope with grief. he has not properly mourned the loss of powder, or vi, or ajuna, or anyone he's lost. he tirelessly works on the z-drive because he believes that one day he will be able to turn back time far enough to prevent what happened to powder, to save ajuna from death. he refuses to grieve them.

i was waiting for arcane to wrap up because i thought they might reveal ekko's real name, since they stated in ekko's original champion AMA that ekko is not his real name and instead an alias given to him by his friends. they didn't reveal it, obviously, so i'm taking the liberty of doing it myself. i saw one singular person on reddit speculating that the "tuff tuff" jinx writes in the arcane artbook and on ekko's jacket might allude to his real name as a nickname, and i think that's cute! ekko's real name is teffis. the only people who would be aware of this are jinx and vi. his mother also affectionately refers to him as tuff or tuft. ekko is horribly embarrassed.

i don't think i've stated it anywhere, but my ekko is also trans! he's also post-op, thanks to a shady undercity doctor. he has some gnarly scars for it. teffis is not his deadname, but the name he chose for himself as a young boy.

[malicemismanager]

I actually had to put on a cardigan autumn has finally arrived 🥹🥹🥹

[phonydiaries]

Less than 2 weeks out from the semester being over that bold rock is gonna hit so hardddd

[beccabloo]

I'm working on another Rookanis piece and I'm feeling slightly feral over how good I drew Lucanis' face.

Now if only Eruwen would behave, I could actually get it in to clean up!

[nebulousfishgills]

Reading Emily's saga from HTM to Necrosis (plus Instinct and finishing with Shades of Blue) to @bowersbubbles has been a very rewarding experience, getting real time feedback while I make her laugh, lose her shit, and cry while I swallow mucus by the mouthful since my nose has Issues.

Apologies to my much beloved roommate for having to vaguely hear me reading out loud into the 1 or even 2 AM.

[iniziare]

Re-tag drop: Yelan

[graviconscientia]

I really should start sending letters again. I write them, but never send them...

The last person to get a letter from me was Darkleer, but that was more of a to-do list. Not particularly romantic, is it?

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

Oh, so your girl is taking a gap year next year

[irminsuls]

I GOT THIS RELIC WHICH ALLOWS ME TO SWITCH TO A CRIT DMG BODY PIECE FOR DAN HENG AND NOW HE HAS A BETTER CRIT RATIO RAHHHHHH

[charlotte-of-wales]

just want the world to know that today the waitress at this restaurant we went too was shocked for a moment to find out I was a foreign after I spoke a bit of italian to her

[unproduciblesmackdown]

going like what's the most bloodsong thing to do today (or any given day) like ooh i know letting loose on the kazoo. letting loose on being dead & dying

& like well yes but you know. cmere arm around shoulder i'm gonna just straightforwardly talk about what bloodsong is about. well of course it's about wringing your Truth Self Passion Feelings Whatever essential bloodstyle inspiration motivation into your deal. however you heard the black suits, where wringing yourself out & thus having to have that blood to wring out is perhaps not very sustainable. so great news b/c bloodsong of love is, like the black suits, also about how one sustains & is sustained by others & their deals like wow i'm all about what you're wringing & ppl being all about what you're wringing & just even what goes before & beyond any wringing at all to be, thus, sustaining, but where if you can't get your blood all over & into stuff at all ever then it's like well that's probably a problem. see also the villain isn't presented like oh Not a fellow musician or otherwise emphatically really separated / othered from our heroes & good guys, like well yeah he does just walk a road too, Is also a musician, just that the musician And Everyone is struggling with being vulnerable & in a hostile world & potentially fucked over at any time, & so our villain's quest is the impossible one to never be fucked over & by extension never be vulnerable, which theoretically includes having to bleed for anything figuratively, but of course he Is vulnerable & bleeds & wrings & has had to do so all along b/c he was ofc all along never invulnerable either....but you gotta do your thing, b/c you gotta do your thing, regardless of if you gain whatever success or reach whatever goals Through it & not be fucked over, and you certainly can't Know you will or won't. last on land, bloodfilled heart of the matter, everyone's there, penultimate song on album, transitions into the friendship song, ultimate song in bloodsong, did i mention the black suits where it was never about knowing they'll win, winning, knowing the future will bring any particular thing

[ktiseos]

for once i haven't woken up and immediately gotten nauseous.. kind of a win considering how annoyingly my tummy hurt last night

[rosesocietyy]

Merrily won maybe there is something to smile about in my life

[pied-piper-pluto]

"All this digital art stuff, you know, it goes way over my head. But my wife, y'see, she has this cousin Lou. Now Lou's a real smart cookie, knows everything from Blender to Clip Studio, but the one thing they won't touch is AI. Says it wastes a whole lot of electricity for something that only looks good at a glance.

See, a computer, it can't think through things like a human can. You or I, when we look at a drawing of an apple, we can compare it to real apples we've seen. If you show us a drawing of some orange thing with spikes coming out every which way, well, we can tell you that sure doesn't look like an apple.

But a computer? All a computer can do is look at pictures of apples. And if you give that computer enough pictures of apples that are a little bit orange, or a little bit bumpy, well. It might just decide that spiky orange thing is an apple too. It takes a whole lot of pictures of apples to get the computer mostly good at guessing when things are apples or not.

Now, that's bad enough when you just want your computer to tell you what it sees. When you want a computer to make an image, though, that's where Lou says you really run into trouble. You put a piece of paper in front of me, give me a pencil, and tell me to draw an apple, it won't win any awards. But it'll be a new drawing. Nobody's ever drawn that exact same drawing the exact same way before.

But if you take your computer that's gotten pretty good at guessing when things are apples, and you tell it "okay, draw me an apple", it can't make a completely new drawing of an apple. Instead, it'll take the pictures you've given it and mash 'em together. Maybe, at the end, you won't be able to tell which pictures it used, but if you ask it for enough drawings of apples, you'll start seeing patterns...

I'm sorry, I'll get out of your hair. I know you have to get back to your painting.

Just one more thing... how many fingers does that man in the corner have?"

[umbral-reign]

“It is only in the darkest night that the watcher sleeps.”

That is the saying every child knows. Every child is taught of The Watcher as soon as they are able to stand. As soon as they can be taught fear.

Fear The Watcher. Fear his eye and the eyes of those who he has stolen. Fear the long dark of winter. Fear the shadows, for in them hides his gaze. Fear the glint of daylight or nightlight peering through darkness, for there he is.

Every child knows this. Or so I thought.

Today I found a child who held the darkness. Tomorrow I will find a child who holds the light.

I can’t say how I know this. Prophecy was never a gift given me by Altëa. Yet I do know this. And no matter what I do or say or pray or beg, I do not think I will have the choice but to try to save them when the time comes.

I hope that I am wrong. But I do not know if I will survive whatever Altëa has in store for me. I do not think I will. And so I will at least do as my own maister taught me, and I will record my final days. For better or for worse, may whoever finds this record read and know this: I did my best. I will do my best.

I am sorry for when I fail.

Personal research notes of: Maltheas Sequentia, fifth-season pupil of The Historicity: There are two small drawings added into this journal entry. The first is at the top, and seems to be a stylized symbol of a weeping eye, with strange angles, lines, and curls adding geometric depth to an otherwise simple design. There is a note beneath it that reads, “A sigil of The Watcher used by Tome-Keepers.” (Who are these Tome-Keepers? What was their purpose? These people seem to be incredibly fearful of this Watcher and his gaze, and yet they symbolize him with an eye. Would that not give him sight into their world, wherever his eye was drawn or inscribed? Or did these people have a understanding of iconography and the spirit than we do in this current day and age?) The second is a crude drawing of a flower with dagger-like petals and what appear to be thorns on a thin stem. The tips of the flower petals are darkened and seem to be dripping. The note added beside it reads, “I found the child surrounded by a ring of flowers which bled. They withered as soon as the boy left their halo, turning brown then grey then black, then crumbling to rotten fragments.” (The tone of this addition seems surprised. Does this mean that Red-Turn Nightshade was not native to this place before his time? Or did Red-Turn Nightshade perhaps grow from a different plant? How long has Red-Turn Nightshade been in this region—assuming that this historical record also originates from this area?)

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(Anyway @magpiecrown your dream art from the other night grabbed me by the throat and just wouldn't let go, at which point this random snippet of...something appeared. I hope you enjoy it, whatever it is and for what it is.)