#I'm begging you lol

[graaid]

Some Instructions to Light-Keepers sketches because I've finally gotten over my slump lol

[schnuffel-danny]

My art piece for the @ecto-implosion event!

This art has an absolutely amazing accompanying fic by @moipale

Please go check the fic out! I cannot begin to express how honored I am to have a drawing of mine associated with such a wonderful piece of writing <3 I'm honestly still processing the after-shock of reading it, so go give them kudos!!!

[midnightmarev]

I had a vision.

Young Cellbit finds his way to the arctic where Phil and Techno live and as soon as he sees Techno and Techno sees him out in the forest, the boy just fucking chomps down on Techno's right arm. Despite his sharp teeth, he doesn't do any damage cuz piglin and piglin hybrid skin is so tough and hard to break. Techno just looks at this little kid who latched himself onto his arm with his teeth.

Techno's like, "uh, pls don't do that? Let go?" shaking his arm slightly and Cell just chomps down harder on Techno's arm. Techno shrugs, hiding his arm back into his cape, and thus also Cellbit, and goes back home where he calls for Phil.

Phil's like, "hi m8, what's up?" and Techno goes, completely deadfaced, "I need your help," which makes Phil tilt his head in confusion like the birb he is.

Techno then reveals his arm, stretching it out so Cell's eye level with Phil. "The feral orphan child won't let go," he says, still completely deadfaced, to which Cellbit just chomps down harder again.

Phil, of course, finds this super hilarious and starts cackling, wiping away some tears of mirth from his eyes. This naturally earns him a glare from his friend.

"Get it off me, Phil," Techno says, shaking his arm, a hint of confused desperation leaking into his monotone voice.

Phil's laugh teeters off but is still very present in his voice. "Okay, okay m8, I got it." He then takes a steadying breath before speaking to Cellbit. "Hi m8, could you please let go of Techno's arm?" Another chomp. "You're just gonna end up hurting yourself before you break his skin." A glare.

Phil taps at his chin in thought before he looks slightly above Cellbit's head and his eyes land on a discarded and broken shield in the snow.

"You know… we get a lot of nasty uninvited hybrid hunters knocking on our door all the time. How about instead of you trying to eat Techno's arm, you get to snack on them instead?" Phil's smile is a mischievous one and Techno just raises an eyebrow, arm still outstretched and unmoving.

Cellbit thinks this over, chomps down one last time on Techno's arm, just to see if not this time he would break skin, and then pouts when he still can't. Then he lets go and falls down into the snow where he just sits like the child he is and looks up at Phil expectantly.

Techno lets out a sigh of relief with a quick "oh thank god" under his breath as his arm drops from no longer having a child attached to it by the teeth. He also very deliberately steps out of Cellbit's reach, making Phil chuckle again.

Cellbit's thoughts are just "that's a dad, must do what he says because he's getting me lotta food," and Phil's allowed to pick the kid up without him trying to bite him, much to Techno's dismay and disbelief.

They now have a slightly feral guard dog child running around eating hybrid hunters.

[onlyglass]

you guys olric isn't dateable bc he has a crush on merri ... also just bc he doesn't wanna date us doesn't mean he's aroace 😭😭😭 i think it's kind of weird to say that if someone isn't interested in u that they must be aroace. he very well COULD be and you're not wrong for having that headcanon. but i feel like that in tandem with the puppydog stupid himbo thing is kind of infantalizing him.

[forcebookish]

Book Kasidet as Shone in Only Boo!, ep. 4

[andypantsx3]

seeing a lot of discourse about 30 year old women in fandom today, and lemme just say:

all your favorite fics were written by 30+ year olds

[caityjay13]

begging y'all to stop calling Lucanis an old man please he is like 30

[syncopatedid]

Since the anime's airing, I've also been catching up on the manga of The Apothecary Diaries and I am absolutely smitten with these two. Smitten, I tell you! A low-key simp + high-key romantically-blasé protagonist is the kind of dynamic that will mean we get the whole nine yards of slow-burn development from "antagonists" -> friends -> confidants -> something more? Maomao certainly isn't oblivious to Jinshi's beauty nor his attempts at cringe teasing/flirting with her, even though she has a natural immunity against his shenanigans and remains ever cautious about the whims of people within the palace.

Maomao is also an inspiration as a strong female character who manages to navigate a world that is not kind to people of her class and gender. While it does feel like the story skims through a lot of unspeakable things Maomao had witnessed growing up, to me, it does serve to perfectly emphasize Maomao's "detached" character and her perspective of the world. She is a reluctant protagonist in this story, just trying to survive the best she can given her circumstances. And while she's certainly more educated and street smart compared to other girls in her situation, she's also realistic about her place in the world and knows her own powerlessness, merely finding her own way to co-exist with it and minding her own business (the girl just wants to be left alone with her rare poisons man). Being thrust into palace politics and catching the whims of one Jinshi, however, means inevitably putting herself in dangerous situations. Yet she's also really lucky and very loved and protected by those around her, including those who are in power to effect change, and that is the ultimate power that our Best Girl Maomao wields like a Mary Sue, but a well-written one. Still, her barriers are way up high when it comes to her feelings, and it will take a lot for her walls to come down. It's been 65 chapters into the manga, but the relationship goal post between her and Jinshi feels as if it's moved one step forward and two steps back (*throttles Jinshi with a stale baugette*), but you genuinely do want to root for these two to be more than servant and lord, romantic or otherwise, because their circumstances are a lot more similiar than they are different, as are their complicated feelings about each other. There's also something to be said about this gremlin of a girl who is so desensitized to the world of lust and romance but you know she absolutely owns a PhD in kink studies thanks to her sisters' upbringing. If Jinshi ever learns the extent of her knowledge I think Jinshi.exe will shut down for good and I just want to follow this series and be there for that eventual punchline.

[borgialucrezia]

"He's spent the entire time being picked upon and bullied by the family. I think personally from where Juan stands he sees the hypocrisy in the family, how they can do one thing and say another. As far as Juan is concerned he's always had the best interests of the family at heart, however misguided that might be and doesn't quite comprehend why nobody understands that. Nobody seems to understand that what he does, he does for the betterment of the Borgia clan and never waivers from that. He does that in ways that perhaps aren't sanctioned by the church or sanctioned by family law."

[bitchslapblastoids]

dumb fic thoughts that are going to sound whiney and like personal complaints but i promise are really me talking big picture about the state of fic engagement on ao3. and i know i've been on this soapbox before and I KNOW everyone who follows me is a homie so i’m really just old man yells at skying about this again, but just let me say all the quiet parts out loud please. I do not wish to be aloof and demure.

1. hits to kudos ratios are so fucking bleak. and i don't mean wrt my own fics, i mean in general, the two numbers side by side is always so dismal to see. hits are kind of a meaningless metric, esp for chaptered fics and for fics that people return to to reread, so i wish ao3 just wouldn't publish them, because it sets up this weird pair of numbers for people to compare and jump to conclusions based upon, even though they aren't actually informative for anyone. Why do I want to know how many people clicked on something? That doesn’t tell me anything.

2. That being said (to make it about me now), I know I’m a good fic writer. and while obviously my fic isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste (puppet smut isn’t a crowdpleaser wym??), I feel pretty confident that out of the 250+ people who have clicked on my brand new fic so far, more than just 17 of them must’ve liked it. which brings me to…

3. people can get so cagey about leaving kudos on explicit fics. this is a time-tested truth. let's let go of this phenomenon! I promise no one's stalking where you've left kudos. if they are, they're a freak. and if they're judging you, they're especially a freak because HEY LOOK, they wouldn’t have seen it if they weren’t on that fic too lol! let's all try and shake off these fucking shackles of sexual shame and stigma.

4. similarly, the # of bookmarks that i can see on an explicit fic i've posted vs the # of bookmarks the public can see is so funny. This one makes more sense to me and I can understand why bookmark choices feel more private. But i will say again, people aren't judging your bookmarks. even if it's smut! no one cares what you get horny about and probably the only reason they'd be looking is bc they trust your judgment and they'd like to get horny about it too lol.

5. lack of feedback/interaction is such a scourge. We all gotta fucking engage with the writers we like! it means so much and it's such a great way to build a mutually supportive community. Also, people who have left comments on my fic and vice versa are the people i became most immediately PALS with on here. It’s a lovely thing to do and it’s not time intensive I promise! Authors don’t seek comments for validation but more because publishing fic is sharing this thing this offering that you became so obsessive and giddy about that you had to literally create it and once it’s out you just want to be giddy and obsessive with others about it.

6. Obvs no one should feel obligated to leave kudos or bookmark or comment on anything they don’t like. Be a discerning reader and engage with what brings you joy! There’s a ton of shlock out there. No one has to pretend to like it all. But societally I feel like we’ve become such selfish consumers - I see it in streaming our favorite music for .0000000000000000000000000000002 cents, in the erosion of concert etiquette, in the rabid sense of entitlement towards celebrities’ attention and time, in the uncredited circulation of other people’s art without a second thought, and in the way apparently only ~10% of readers leave kudos, which are a paltry way for an author to get a sense if someone liked something enough to take the most bare bones possible step of simply tapping a button (you don't even have to have an account! you can leave kudos as a guest!). that's a bummer. I don’t want fandom to be a selfish one-sided space where we’re just taking what we want instead of connecting or building together.

Ok, that’s all ✌️✌️✌️

[sincapjelly]

Uhm so... I have something to say about Lilly... (and Vengestone.)

Don't you guys also find Lilly incredibly interesting?? I can't be the only one?? I mean, so much happened in her short life, and there are so much I still want to know. Everything we know about her just intrigue my interest more. Especially after seeing she not only has a shrine in Shintaro, but also the City of Temples. I mean, what are the odds? It makes me wonder why would Temple City keep her stuff and not only that but have her statue? And how, despite being so legendary, people know very little of her?

Ok so. I might be delulu here, but what if, the reason Temple City, and maybe some other sacred place kept track of her, is because her story was erased from the history for some reason. No one tells her story out loud, so places like Temple City kept evidence of her story and her stuff. Maybe she did something she shouldn't have, maybe used some forbidden magic, maybe she knew some stuff and they feared she would share it so they kept her silent and erased all her story from the history?

My take on this story, is that she used Vengestone. I know it sounds so "the hell?" but hear me out on this. A lot of people here talked about her statue in Shintaro and mentioned the possibility of her merging with her element. But my take is her statue looked like that because she was able to use Vengestone, or at least resist the stone's magic and used her earth powers regardless.

I can see her being confused about why a stone, which is a part of her powers technically, would make her unable to use her magic. And talking to other EMs, she realises the effects of the stone is indeed different on her. While other EMs feel their connection to their element is cut, Lilly still can feel the stone. She can feel how Vengestone effects her, but from what she knows from other EMs she was supposed to feel nothing. This makes her curious and she starts to think she can master the stone and resist. She tells some EMs about it but seeing how they react, she decides not to tell Wu, thinking he will forbid her from experimenting and even worse, forbid her being near the stone.

Eventually, she starts to secretly try to control the stone, or use her powers around it. She only goes a tiny further with these practises. But when she visits Shintaro, being surrounded by the stone inside the mountain, she faces a great challange and finds herself succeeding in resisting the stone. Though this proves to be very painful. Glowy scars, just like Vengestone cracks, appear on her arms, hands and neck using the ability. Though they disappear shortly.

She doesn't tell anyone other than Lou, who realises it's dangerous but trusts her when she says we will never do it again. After that, she keeps it secret for a while. Until... she can't. During one fight, she uses this ability again, this time in longer amount of time and stronger. With everyone, the EMs, and civilians watching. After that she starts feeling overcharged and stays still on her knees trying to regain consciousness. Using this magic causes the same scars again, but this time even after healing faint "cracks" are visible on her arms and neck, making her unable to lie or keep it secret.

This is the time Wu learns about everything. He knows Vengestone acts different on earth elementals, that's why he never told her nor any other before her. Because in the past it did not do any good on the user of the magic.

Aftermath of everything, Lilly quickly recovers, though again, scars visible. But a council gathers, and they should punish her for her actions, for using forbidden spells (because you know, her doing it recently makes it harder to keep secret, endangering the next generations because it paves the way?), so they punish her with her existence in the history. It's hard to find anytging about the time she was a ninja, because they hid her from stories.

This drives Lilly angry, she drifts apart from Wu's alliance because she is hurt by his lack of support during this whole time. And she thinks keeping such secrets is doing more harm than good, because hiding the forbidden Vengestone abilities did not protect Lilly from using the magic, in fact, it only made her still use it but with no knowledge, thus no precaution.

After this, Lilly starts going on missions by herself, being her own solo thing. Which is why, in canon, she still went on missions after Cole was born and she lost her powers. She took orders from only herself, so she did what she wanted.

I don't know if this was a contributor to her death, I'd assume she carried some inherited illness that only started showing once she lost her powers and no longer had a super healing, but I'd also say using such magic many times did tire her body greatly.

Oh and, about how she used her powers with Vengestone. I don't know if I am able to explain this correctly, but it's like... the stone allowed her to use her magic, it's like she made a connection with it. I wouldn't say it's like merging with it, not like how Nya did it, but you could say there was some merging in terms her magic, like the stone sharing it's with her. Which is how she became mostly immune, mastering her abilities around the stone.

On the other side of the story, there is Lou, who I need to mention. Because whatever happened, he knows EVERYTHING. And that's canon. Because he met Lilly before she even unlocked her true potential. He was there in every step she took. He knows every single one of her adventures and everything.

When this whole Vengestone incident happened, he was also deeply angry at the reaction everyone had, and he believed it was terrible to just erase her from the history just because she wanted to save people. He wanted to do something but... well, what you can do in this situation, even Lilly couldn't stop it as a part of the Elemental Alliance. He could only watch it unfold, and it was eating him inside.

After everything, he lost his own trust in Wu, getting sick of his secrets and being heartbroken at the reaction, or lack of reaction let's say. Which... is actually the real reason he tried to stop Cole from being a ninja. It was to prevent Cole from becoming one of Wu's ninja.

Because, I know this might as well be a plot hole, but if you watch S1, in ep2 Lou sends a letter to the Monastary, despite Cole claiming he lied to his father and never told him where he actually is. This just proves Lou knows more than we think he does, he knows the Monastary because Lilly have been there too. He knows Wu, he most likely knows the parents of the ninja too. He knows so much, which he briefly shows in Quest for the Lost Powers as well.

I swear y'all always mischaracterize Lou, making him the bad guy and making him a terrible person. Which is sooo wrong, if you look just a little closer to the story you'll actually see it. And we might think he knows very little, but I think he is just really good at playing oblivious.

OKAY that was a long run. I hope I made sense, English isn't my first language lol. I just have this idea in my head, which I'd actually love to write as a fic. There are a lot of aspects to Lilly's story that are canon, or most likely canon, that makes me get so interested in exploring her story. Like how her father was on Chen's side, willingly or not, and how this canonically labeled him a traitor (As Garmadon says in Garmadon #1 or 2), and I wonder how this effected Lilly. In that one canon Ninjago magazine issue, I believe called Mother Earth, we can see a little inside to Lilly's personality which is a plot twist in itself as she is no saint as many people tend to think. She is not just a nice persona, she is actually a lot meaner and daring, like think of it as Cole's playful bullying. She has that to her.

Okay, now I'll shut up about her, FOR NOW. I hope this reaches to people who are interested in Lilly's story as much as I am lol.

[enthyrea]

that deactivated user who posted ai icemav art... so fucking disheartening that it got as many notes as it did

i know its hard to tell when something is ai but i really hope people start Looking at posts more scrutinizingly

[honeyandbiscuitandtea-cafe]

[anistarrose]

terrible breaking news: person who shares your exact queer headcanon for Blorbo is also baselessly saying said queer identity is "basically canon" and unambiguously the author's intent, therefore making you look bad for sharing that headcanon while they go about giving the creators way too much credit

[omgtheregoesthefuckidontgive]

If this isn't me I don't know what is

[camellcat]

I know we're all utterly in love with campbell bain and he's absolutely everything but I would also like to say I would lay down my life for rosalie my god