#I'm just. FERAL.

[thornescratch]

No one can replace Nicklas Backstrom for the Washington Capitals, but Dylan Strome's coming pretty close.

The 27-year-old has taken over as Alex Ovechkin's center and has assisted on all 10 of Ovechkin's goals to open the 2024-25 season as No. 8 gets closer to Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record...

Strome also credited Backstrom for his support as he's found a home in D.C. over the last two and a half seasons. The two play golf together, and have had "a little bit" of discussion here and there about being Ovechkin's center.

"He was always very supportive, very kind to me... I've heard 1,000 stories about how great of a teammate he is and I got to witness that firsthand and how good he was for the Caps and for this team and as Ovi's center," Strome said. "Obviously everyone watched Ovi's goals growing up and he assisted on the most of anyone. So lots to learn from that."

Crying a little a lot over this.

[regonold]

So during a wayne gala, there was a rouge attack shocker. It was by scarecrow he was planning to flood the ballroom with his gas

Unfortunately his bomb was shoddily put together and one of the cannisters holding the gas fell and landed in the hands of one danny fenton there with his godfather

Now unfortunately all anyone could do was watch as this gas can suddenly spayed gas in this young mans face who started looking panicked and backing up before spotting vlad and stopping

Suddenly this kid who seemed like he was seconds from running is now fucking growing and preparing to pounce on vlad???

And vlad just looks resigned as if he figured this would happen

[b-a-m]

what i drew on halloween! werewolf marina and vampire pearl

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[zillychu]

human form reveal! he wears his hair in a variety of styles, which include: whatever Sam or Tuck want to do that day (if left alone he will simply do nothing and get it caught in everything)

[khaopybara]

❝You said if I graduated as a doctor, I could ask you for anything, and you'd give it to me. (...) I know now what I want. (...) I want you.❞

SONYA SARANPHAT as PLENG SADABPIN and LOOKMHEE PUNYAPAT as WAN WANWIYA episode 1 of AFFAIR

[radiosummons]

This is supposed to be the outfit that "protects" Link from acquiring frostbite pfffttt

Between this top and the mandatory acrylics that come with the new arm, gotta say I'm loving how much Nintendo keeps leaning into GNC Link XD

MINI UPDATE: (Guys, I've already updated this post with the correct info. The "protects" part was supposed to be a joke about how skimpy the outfit was. I didn't realize the outfit gave an attack bonus at first, either. That was it. That was the post. You don't need to keep sending me messages trying to inform me about the frost attack. I know, I promise).

Update I: Just realized they gave him a set of blue acrylics for his left hand

Link really do be out here serving cunt 💅💅✨✨

Update II: Many thanks to the people who pointed out that this outfit gives you a special frost attack when in cold temperature areas, it doesn't actually protect you from the elements. I'll be honest, I am purposely avoiding any guides or walkthroughs for my TotK playthrough (since I'm trying to replicate my BotW experience). When I found the Frostbite Shirt, I was just happy that I finally had a piece of clothing that I thought could protect me from dying of hypothermia (was chugging spicy elixirs like you wouldn't believe) so I didn't notice the attack bonus until a bunch of you pointed it out lol

[bluebells-and-dragonflies]

God, the intimacy of Astarion feeding from you.

Astarion drinking from your neck as he pulls your body closer to his in bed, his chest up against your back, his arms wrapped around your waist. It's a casual thing, now, his whispered can I? and your answering nod, as much a part of your bedtime routine as your bath or his curl care. You sigh as his fangs pierce your skin and his fingers flex against your stomach. His breath hitches when the taste of you hits his tongue, and that's familiar too, the physicality of it, the noises he makes low in his throat as he drinks, the way he grows warmer against you as your blood begins to flow through his veins. Nothing else makes you feel so heady, so intoxicated- so comforted.

Astarion drinking from your wrist when he’s starving for it and can’t wait to get you more comfortable. Pulling him into an alleyway one night on the way home from the Elfsong because you can see how badly he's craving in the way he can't keep his eyes off of the pulse point in your neck. He seizes your arm with both hands (can I? Yes-), bringing the soft skin on the inside of your wrist to his lips. He has just enough presence of mind to kiss the heel of your hand distractedly before he bites, fangs sliding through your skin and into the vein. The sound he makes can only be described as a growl, something feral and possessive (and you'll never tell him that it turns you on, since he would be insufferable about it- a promise to yourself that lasts exactly as long as the space between the moment and the next time you're tipsy and want him).

(NSFW Below!)

Astarion drinking from your inner thigh, one hand holding your leg steady and the other cupping your cunt. You groan, eyes shut in pleasure, as his thumb comes to rub your clit. The pain of the bite is barely pain this way- it collides with the pleasure in your belly and sends you almost out of your mind, overwhelmed with sensation and heat. He takes you all the way there, takes just enough from you to have you relaxed and pliant and soaring somewhere above your own body, plays you like an instrument with all the knowledge of you he's gathered over the months, the years. He knows when you're close, knows to crook his fingers inside you just so, knows the reaction he's going to get when he pulls away from your thigh for just a moment and looks up at you with dark eyes and tells you to come for him, he wants to see it, you fall apart so beautifully and it's all for him, isn't it, tell him how good he makes you feel and when you climax with his voice in your ear and the scent of blood on the air he has the audacity to laugh at how well he understands you, your body.

He's soft, after, softer than he'll ever be with anyone who isn't you. He licks you clean before he takes you to the bath, carrying you with the strength your lifeblood gives him. It's the least he can do for you, with everything you've given him: not just your body, but your trust, your closeness, and he will never stop being grateful.

[quiescentdestiny]

Getting Jean's perspective of Neil has casually reminded me that Neil really was out here in tfc acting like Andrew was insane for thinking he was a mole for the Ravens.

Like the man was so offended that Andrew would assume that, even though he spent every moment before that being completely fucking feral, having a literal shrine to Kevin and Riko in his bag at all times along with $250,000 in what amounts to cash, knew french well enough to not only yell at Kevin with no context, but say something that got Kevin to throw him against a wall in retaliation....

This is the man who had the audacity to act like Andrew's assumption that he was hired by the Moriyamas was completely unreasonable.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Jayce and the fallacy of the butterfly effect in Arcane's narrative

If Jayce's symbol is the butterfly, then my theory is that we're going into a full "butterfly effect" narrative in Act 2. Either we'll watch it happen, or we'll only see Jayce come out the other side of it changed by the experience, knowing - or more importantly, THINKING he knows - what to do to change the future. Literally, to "defend tomorrow."

tl;dr: Jayce will encounter the butterfly effect in season 2. Viktor and Mel both foreshadowed this in season 1. I think Jayce will fixate on Viktor and will believe that stopping or changing Viktor either in the past or the present - most likely the present - will mean he can save the future. I believe this will lead to an even worse tragedy and may have the same effect as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ekko's approach to changing the future by sticking closer to the present - considering only tiny increments of time to alter more immediate future outcomes - will be the superior approach. I also think that Jayce attempting to change the future will create the conditions that push Viktor to become the Machine Herald.

One of the most common reactions even the casual viewer had to Arcane season 1 was this: "If [character] had just done this one small thing a little differently, [tragic event] wouldn't have happened!"

Arcane has been called a Greek tragedy for the main reason that because of how well built up the characters' personalities and reasonings are, there's no other way season 1 could have gone. There was no stopping the multiple tragedies that occurred, because with one event leading to another, the chain of seemingly inevitable events goes too far back to identify what one singular event caused everything, what one character made what one decision to put our characters on the terrible paths they walked.

Arcane is about to investigate this idea in its own narrative, and I think that Jayce will be the character to stumble into the flawed idea that you can change one event, or stop one character, and change the future for the better. This is because Jayce struggles with a few very interesting character flaws, one of them being that he believes himself to be the main character, and it is therefore his responsibility to intervene, be a hero, and fix things.

Viktor and Mel both foreshadow Jayce's future encounter with the butterfly effect.

Recall that Viktor said: "There is always a choice."

Jayce sees choices in black and white, believes that he has no other options but to go along with what he's persuaded and pushed into, and acts too boldly with too much power multiple times.

Recall that Mel said: "We can't change what fate has in store for us, but we don't have to face it alone."

Jayce tries to solve big problems on his own, and though he delegates to Enforcers and the like, Jayce relies on his reasoning and his alone to make important decisions if he doesn't simply become persuaded - usually through strong emotions like fear - by other characters. In addition, since Mel is specifically talking about Viktor's plight here, it's worth mentioning that while Jayce did say that he would help Viktor in acts 2 and 3 of season 1, Jayce does wind up leaving Viktor to face his fate alone. When Jayce tries to change that fate in s2 ep1, ep2 shows that only tragedy can come of this as well.

Viktor and Mel's statements here are not contradictory. Viktor makes the point that you can always make a choice. In context, he's literally referring to the classic "secret third option," because given a choice between aggression and passivity, war and surrender, Viktor chooses to defuse the bomb instead. Mel, interestingly, seems to believe that destiny is fixed in a broad sense, and she operates as a politician and diplomat and investor who navigates that line of destiny in the most optimal way possible. In reality, in context, she is referring to the fact that Viktor can't change the way he was born and so he has no way to change his fate and therefore must face it, which is true - she's only missing the information that Viktor actually does have the means to change his illness and his body. Her wisdom still applies however, because he'll have to accept the hand that fate deals him after he makes that choice. Will he face it alone, or not?

There is always a choice, there's even secret third options, because having a fate doesn't mean that you are doomed to make only one possible series of choices. What it does mean is that each choice comes with a hand that fate deals you. It is impossible to know what all of these branching choices and consequences are in advance, and it is just as impossible in hindsight - the branches are too complex and the end outcomes are all equally meaningful, just different. If Arcane season 2 is to be a tragedy, it may show us that each possible outcome is still tragic if you fall for the fallacy of the butterfly effect.

Jayce is counseled by some of the wisest, cleverest characters with the deepest life experiences in Arcane, but he hardly ever takes that counsel to heart. If he does, he still acts on that counsel in flawed ways that have unintended consequences. This will come to a head in season 2.

Viktor and Jayce both have a butterfly following them around in season 1. The butterfly effect refers to one small seemingly insignificant event changing the course of history, and changing that event therefore changes history. Viktor bled over the railing of a Hexgate in season 1:

And Heimerdinger sees what we can only assume is Viktor's blood contaminating (?) the Hexgate in s2 ep3:

This might be the seemingly unimportant "inciting incident" that Jayce (and Heimerdinger and Ekko) settle on as something that should be avoided or erased by changing the past (if they time-travel with Ekko, for example).

I doubt that, if this is what this crew chooses to fixate on, it will be the only event that is considered as something to change. But let's take this and run with it for the sake of discussion.

As silly as it sounds, how do you stop Viktor from allowing his blood to come into contact with the arcane? Stop Viktor's involvement with the Academy entirely? Don't invent Hextech at all? But what if someone else invents Hextech besides Jayce? What if future tragedy befalls Piltover because it didn't invent Hextech?

The possibilities and what-ifs could branch on forever. But because Jayce is who he is, and because his tragedy with Viktor is still raw and recent and frightening, I think Jayce's butterfly effect experience will have to do with Viktor.

My personal prediction is that the timeskip between s2 ep3 and ep4 will be Jayce experiencing a timeline where Viktor, taken over by the Hexcore, brings about an apocalyptic event similar to what Heimerdinger experienced in his past. Either Jayce and co. can't go into the past to change the present, or Heimerdinger and/or Ekko advise strongly against it to avoid a paradox. This will lead to them re-entering the canon Arcane timeline before this apocalypse, but still after the timeskip. Jayce, believing that destroying Viktor and his cult will save the future, and believing that resurrecting Viktor was Jayce's mistake to fix, attacks him. But the consequences don't unfold the way he hopes, because trying to change fate once the cards have already been dealt has led to tragedy before.

The butterfly is a symbol of something other than just the butterfly effect - change, evolution, and rebirth. If the butterfly symbolizes the butterfly effect for Jayce, then I think it has a different meaning for Viktor - the change and rebirth meaning.

I've always found it very interesting that we see a similar-looking butterfly on Progress Day... but made of metal.

Every time Viktor's situation changes, he adapts and evolves. If Jayce attacks him, if his cult is destroyed, if the Hexcore is causing Viktor to decay, if all of these things happen at once - he'll just evolve again, and I think the Machine Herald is the next step. And the Machine Herald will be a triumph for Viktor, but Jayce will believe that he's created something even worse. The resulting feud will be a personal nightmare for both of them.

I think this still allows Viktor to use his own agency to choose to become the Machine Herald (the MH will probably be the "secret third option" that saves Viktor, or there will be a secret third option that ends the feud) while still allowing Jayce to be offended and horrified at whatever the Machine Herald represents or is trying to do in the undercity. Introducing the element of time travel allows Arcane to explore the meta concept of tragedy and fate that season 1 was built on while showing that you can't "solve" a tragedy, because there are other terrible possibilities lurking behind alternate choices. Especially if what you're trying to change is singular people or events and not systems of power.

This is why Ekko's approach with his Z-drive will be superior to Jayce's sweeping attempt at changing the future. Ekko's goal has always been societal change. He creates his own punk society in the undercity, more progressive and successful than anything Vander or Silco ever created, and a better bastion of safety, hope, and progress than what Heimerdinger founded in Piltover. Trying to change systems by going back in time is most likely futile. But taking what Ekko has already built in the Firelights, curing his tree, and fighting for the Firelights' survival bit by bit by optimizing the present with the Z-drive shows that:

It's more worth it to focus on becoming wise (Ekko's mask is an owl) and making choices you won't regret

It's best if you don't face your fate alone (act as a collective and take care of each other)

Consider every option, not just the obvious black and white choices

Maintain and fix what you've already built instead of abandoning it once things get difficult

Adapt as needed if the choices you made lead to dark consequences, and once again, stick together and take care of each other when the bad times do come

That's my Act 2 but, ultimately, my season 2 prediction based on the butterfly symbolism we've already seen. Ekko's involvement is what will give the series the at least partial happy ending that the creators have referred to. I personally don't think that the Viktor/Jayce feud will end quite so well, but maybe, they will still survive.

[shanalikeanna]

Based on Solar Lunacy: Chapter 13 by @bamsara

[foxstens]

andrew always being at kevin's side because kevin needs it and andrew driving kevin to night practice and andrew patting kevin down to check for injuries and andrew promising kevin it'll be fine and andrew looking awake, interested because of kevin and andrew conserving his energy for kevin's quiet meltdown and andrew smiling for the first time without the drugs because of kevin and andrew always picking up when kevin calls

[keydekyie]

Go you funky little SecUnit! Go!

(One of my favorite scenes from the newest Murderbot novel: System Collapse)

[becca-e-barnes]

Humour me while I scratch a personal itch: Your dad's best friend showing you how your body should be appreciated 😵‍💫

"Come on sweetheart, I know he's just not doing it for you." It had never been a secret that neither Bucky nor your dad liked your new boyfriend but you never imagined this would be the angle that Bucky would be taking to convince you to end things.

"That's none of your business! I'm not talking about this with you!" You're so stunned, you can hardly even get the words out. It's nothing short of mortifying to be talking about your sex life with your dad's friend, never mind the fact you've silently been interested in him since your dad introduced you a couple of years ago.

"You haven't tried to convince me I'm wrong though! You need to stop dating these boys, they're no good for you. They're not what you need." He almost sounds like he pities you and that doesn't sit right with you at all.

"You have no idea what I need." You roll your eyes in derision, unable to believe he'd be this bold.

"Don't I? I bet I could guess. He doesn't kiss you right. He never even dreams of letting the tip of his tongue press against yours and then take it from there. While he's kissing you, he's probably pawing mindlessly at your breasts. He doesn't know how to take it slow and work you up the way you need. He has no idea that rubbing you over your panties won't do enough for you. I bet he's never taken the time to appreciate every inch of you. When's the last time he kissed from your ankle to your knee? How often does he stop to kiss your forehead? Has he ever enjoyed every soft slope and curve of your body? Not just the obvious ones, I mean all of them. The curve of your shoulder or the softness of your hips or the firmness of your calf muscle. He doesn't even try. He's doesn't put the effort in for you." He sounds more upset about this than you thought he would and for a couple of seconds, there's nothing at all in your head.

"Show me how you think he should treat me." There's no point taking the time to think about the implications. You want to know how it feels to have your body safely in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it and this is a better time than any.

His lips barely graze yours at first and it makes you crave more of him. Everything in you knows this has to be a bad idea but his lips are so inviting and his hands are gently holding your waist in a way that makes you want him worse than ever.

The tip of his tongue begins to inch forwards and tentatively, you allow yourself to do the same. Your tongue meets his and rather than feeling overwhelmingly off-putting, the gentle, wet pressure is tender and romantic and intimate. Thrill bubbles in your chest because if this is what kissing is supposed to feel like, you have no idea what else he can teach you that you've never experienced before.

You find you're the one increasing the pressure, looking for more. God, you want this. Excitement buzzes low in your tummy and before you know it, you hear a moan that you can hardly believe came from you.

His hands are roaming the expanse of your back over your clothes, never once straying towards your ass or your breasts. It's too early for that and he knows it's not what you need.

He's enjoying this just as much as you are. He's taking you apart, piece by piece. He knows he's only got as much control here as you hand over to him but he's not taking this at the faster pace you're used to, no matter how you try to dictate the pace.

"You're such. An angel." He kisses down the side of your neck, cradling the other side in his hand. His lips are plump and slick and the sensation leaves you quietly gasping. "You don't know how you deserve to be worshipped. You're stunning."

He presses you back, letting you hop up onto the kitchen counter, massaging your calf muscles with his fingertips. You never thought that would do anything for you but seeing him appreciate each inch of you; seeing how he finds ways to extract a pleasurable sensation you've never been treated to before is breath taking.

"We're not jumping ahead of ourselves, but just to prove my point..." His fingertips trail up your leg, under the skirt of your dress and he checks you're okay with it before pressing the pads of his fingers to your underwear.

The thin cotton is soaked through under his fingertips, arousal making you almost dizzy.

"Good girl, look at you enjoying yourself! Bet you haven't been this wet in a while, have you honey?" He presses his fingertips to your lips, letting you taste your own arousal and your mind races at the thought of sucking it off his length later, something you've never wanted to do for anyone before.

[sherlockggrian]

nobody wins, if I kill you / would I have to forgive you still?

casting gempearl on your dash everyone look out

[funkyplantguy]

guys. guys. listen. listen. cub and mumbo as a ship have the most perfect setup and you all are sleeping on it but never fear!! as i am here to spread the Good News of cumbo. number one. they're both fucking insane in the head. they both have the capacity to become completely and totally and exquisitely obsessed with each other in a really weird and probably really fucked up way. number two. they're the Best Friends (trademark pending) of scar and grian respectively. they're both victims witnesses of Whatever The Fuck those two have going on at all times. they can complain to each other about it. they can complain together about how scar and grian dance around each other all the fucking time and how insufferable they both are because of it. they can unknowingly start their own dance, orbiting each other at a distance until one of them goes fucking crazy and veers off course and they make out sloppy style. it's perfect. it's perfect.