#Save your time ( and your hands! )

[heartorbit]

searching for a star that's still unknown to anyone!

[tortor-sauce]

jel hand study

to put a visual to the scars i hc him with from years of sewing. also i just really love hands.. and jel.. c:

[naamahdarling]

Labor, on its own, has no inherent value. The willingness or ability to labor does not translate to virtue. It can confer financial value, since everyone should be compensated for their labor, but it absolutely does not have inherent moral value.

Disabled people are not obligated to perform for you. They are not required, morally, to break themselves in order to earn some sort of personal value and prove their "worth" to society. They do not need to exhaust every possible means of survival to warrant aid, or spend the entirety of their existence pursuing the same amount of production as others even though it takes everything they have and leaves no room for anything else. They are not obligated to push their limits.

If that pisses you off because YOU have to work to the limit, or beyond, your problem is that you are not being paid enough or you are being asked to do the work of more than one person. Not that disabled people get help for "nothing".

You deserve better, too, you lovable dingus! Every single thing that benefits disabled people will benefit you and the ones you love, either immediately, or eventually. All of it!

[gods-perfect-idiots]

was overcome with the urge to draw "wade tenderly caressing logan's face while he's Feeling Big Angsty Stuff" and then the parallel urge to do a follow-up of "logan kissing wade's hand/holding onto him for dear life"

(anyway hope you like it - I have been looking at this for too long and so of course I hate it now 🫠 art is hard guys lol)

some details below the cut because I am happy with some small aspects - still really enjoying the painting part of doing Wade's scars for example (thanks again @woof-verine for that inspo it is just baked into my psyche now, and also for being a forever enjoyer of pointy ears Logan - sorry couldn't quite get the fangs in this time but they are there trust me!!)

ps. was listening to She Calls Me Back by Noah Kahan for this one. idk it just hits for me in my poolverine-addled state lol

[danwhobrowses]

Now that Critical Role's VOD of episode 120 is out and everyone in the fandom's had a moment to breathe, simmer, and adjust to this all. I wanna do a big talk about my favourite idiot punk rock, Ashton Greymoore.

Because over these last few episodes, I've been so proud of them.

Many people have had vocal opinions on Ashton, not all of them positive either; I've seen many berate them and say they're selfish, not a team player, or that they 'don't add anything to the group'. But over the past few episodes, I feel like Ashton has been an unsung hero in the battles with Ludinus and Predathos, with their contributions, oftentimes selfless and cooperative, ending up providing the floor for others to deliver strong and impactful actions.

While Dorian and Imogen will rightfully get the lion's share of praise for their clutch moments - Dorian's Force Cage on Ludinus saving Liliana and defeating Predathos' first stage alongside Imogen's Power Word: Stun setting up Ludinus' death and defeating Predathos' second stage - Ashton's actions were often the prelude to moments that could not have succeeded without them, including these clutch moments. Their attack on Ludinus in 117 prompted the Silvery Barbs that burned up his reaction - which allowed Dorian to successfully use Force Cage without being Counterspelled, their high-damage attack on his neck hole in 118 broke Ludinus' concentration on Ravenous Void - which somehow later got credited to Chetney - which gave Imogen the freedom and mobility to get in range for Power Word: Stun, they got the Insight check whisper on Predathogen in 119 to know that Imogen was physically inside of the body and needed to be pried out - which Imogen achieved herself thanks in part to Fearne reaching her, and recently in 120 they pulled Imogen out of Predathos' maw, abandoning the Hammer synonymous with their character (to the point that Keyleth titled them the 'Paradox Hammer') to prioritize saving their friend, which - following Dorian's healing - gave her the chance to use the Ring of Remembrance for the finishing Meteor Swarm. Not to mention all the other damage they dealt and tanked throughout the four fights, the passive d4 bonuses and advantage they gave the party (almost acting partly as a secondary paladin or a tertiary bard) to buff their damage and saving throws, and accepting the risk of disintegration when Laudna used their Hammer's spell splitter - which forced Predathos to use its final Legendary Resistance.

The Disintegrate moment itself was tense because we all know that Ashton is high among the Hells who would sacrifice themselves to save the group - a mentality most of the Hells likely shared in this fight - but fortunately they don't have to, they'll never have to, and they gained something just as if not more valuable than a heroic sacrifice: they get to live. The person who before meeting these chucklefucks believed they'd likely die face-down in a ditch in some backwater alley and thrown into an unmarked grave AT BEST gets to live, and the people that mean most to them get to live thanks to their efforts, their successes. And that's the most important part; for all the times they couldn't help or save someone because they were unconscious or out of reach, for all the times they let their imposter syndrome tell them they're just a fuckup undeserving of trust, praise, or love, and for every fear they had that one day they'd mess up and this new family of theirs will abandon them like the Nobodies did, this time they were there standing beside their people to the very end - and they helped get them out alive. No mistakes, no carelessness, and no-one left behind.

For that, I am proud of Ashton Greymoore; not Bells Hells' Weapon but their Helm, not a Blunt Instrument but a Protector, and not a Hero who needs to do 'what needs to be done' but a Friend who is saving their people no matter the odds. Under all the hardened and rugged exterior that has always been who Ashton is - the perfectly flawed character they are.

[bleaksqueak]

Partial hand bank for Elias from my files. Some flats and some finished/lit ones, so good stuff with light differences!

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[eddis-not-eeddis]

If you deeply desire something and it doesn't come into conflict with God's will and his word, don't give up on praying for it. Pray without ceasing for it, ask your friends and your family members to pray for it. Write it down so you can remember when you started praying for it. PRAY!

Last year I started seeing answers to prayers I began praying five years ago. This year hundreds of prayers have been answered. Prayers I forgot about were answered, and I see God's hand as he works to answer even more.

Don't stop praying because you don't see God's hand in your life immediately. God works in a lot of subtle and mysterious ways, and years down the road you'll discover how he has been working behind the scenes. He is not slow in the way we as humans understand slowness, but he sees the bigger picture and knows what will bring about his glory. His timing is perfect, and I can see that in my life.

[appleleef]

do you think there's a universe where they're happy

[wolfpainters]

The way my jaw dropped when reading this part of Times Five by @pickledcarrotsandradish not even mentioning the rest of that chapter.

(Noting that I know Leader's color went back to original blue already during this scene, but it was easier to tell that there are two Leo's in this art piece with different coloring. Plus, the dark blue is high key a LOOK.)

FIC HERE: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46213270/chapters/116344279

READ IT

[buwheal]

Hey Spamton, how are Pipis created?

[feinv]

My period started and all I want is JW to put his massive hand on my lower stomach and make the cramps go away.

(I didn’t get to see my IRL loving husband today because my cramps were absolutely pissers.)

-H

john wick x f!reader. period stuff. fluff & a loving husband <3

this man would be stressing more than you on your period cuz he knows your emotions are all over the place, and if last month all you wanted was to be left alone, it could be the complete opposite this time. either way, he always has a drawer of your favorite snacks ready and if you want something else he would be on his feet in a second and take his car keys, telling you he would be back in fifteen minutes.

obviously he got a heating pad for you, but it never did much help. you were convinced his hands would do the job better, and lucky for you, you were right. ;)

so when you two were cuddling in the bed in a weird position with a random tv show playing on the laptop, your body shifted closer to his as he spooned you from behind. you guided his hands under your shirt and onto your lower stomach. a contented sigh left your mouth at that, unsure if it was the feeling of his lips leaving soft kisses on your neck, or just the fact that he was a literal walking human furnace, and his warm hands felt so so nice against your exposed flesh, his thumb drawing soothing circles and grazing your belly button every now and then.

“feeling better?” he whispered in your ear as he felt your whole body relax, his usually stoic and harsh voice always so caring and affectionate towards you.

you mumbled something resembling a yes as you felt yourself dozing off in his arms, the excruciating pain finally fading away. <3

[spliceyblues]

He is going on my burn book for sure.

This fugly greedy little corporate rat be stealing wallets from twst players. DO NOT TRUST THIS RODENT‼️‼️‼️

[icantdothistodaybruh]

[completeoveranalysis]

[7]

OH NO THE MOMENT IS OVER

Watanuki is forcefully removed from the premises

But I DO like Watanuki trying to grab a person very important to him, and then in turn being grabbed by someone he is very important to

I also enjoy that even now, Doumeki refused to touch his actual hand.

Not even his forearm.

It has to be his elbow.

The rituals. So intricate.

[puppppppppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you