#What remains and what doesn't

[chronurgy]

I really love that gale can actually Do It. He can actually become a god. Mortals seeking to become gods usually fail which makes it easy to write them off as over ambitious and consumed by hubris, to say that of course they were never going to succeed, they never had a chance. Icarus flying too close to the sun and all that. But Gale does it. He succeeds. And how do we interpret that? How do we read icarus's story without the fall? Can we really call it hubris, call it excessive pride and self confidence, when it works in the end? After all, it's not bragging if you can back it up

[vaguely-concerned]

fun detail I only put into context after seeing the post-fade jail romance scenes with all the companions: lucanis is the only one where rook is surprised when they realize he's there as he starts talking, because they didn't hear him come in haha. (Bellara and Neve knock before entering, like relatively normal people fhsda. Harding's scene starts in medias res but from the staging my vibe is that she and Rook entered the room together. Taash walks into the room ahead of Rook. Davrin comes in through a door left open for him -- Rook is standing with their back turned but they clearly expected him, they just smile a bit and don't seem surprised. Emmrich of course takes you to the Grand Necropolis for the top goth hookup since Mary Shelly fucked on her parents' graves, the man quite simply never misses.)

lucanis has also closed the door behind him without rook noticing. old assassin habits die hard I suppose lol. he totally still accidentally jumpscares the others without meaning to all the time because he moves around quietly when he doesn't think about it, I know this in my heart. I wonder if he was just... looking at them for a while before he spoke up.

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.

[serpentface]

This was going to be a panel of a little comic but I got too invested in drawing minute background details so, here.

[kimdokjas]

We are alive. And we will continue living. So long as you remain by my side.

[cheecats]

In light of how grossly disrespectful and dismissive some (not all) DC voters have been, here is something for a lovely lady who deserved better. [X]

[idliketobeatree]

many many problems within crystal and edwin's friendship could have been avoided if she took one long, hard look at him and said relax, i'm not jolene, you don't have to compete with me. not gonna take your man just because i can

[doydoune]

the worst day of their lives so far, but the night is quiet

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

There is a brutal contrast in how Megatron and Optimus's stories end. Optimus nobly surrenders his spark, along with the Matrix of Leadership, having been sent off by his dear and trusted friends after giving them a fond farewell. He has accomplished his life's greatest goal; now he is able to rest. He dies willingly, at peace, bringing hope and giving life to the next generation by restoring the Allspark.

Megatron had already been killed, and was told that he can never join that very Allspark. Having been enslaved, and only released because of Optimus's actions, he is now reanimated, inhabiting his own corpse. His only remaining ally, who has constantly betrayed him, does not understand him. He flies off, alone, having lost all his forces and failed in his mission, and realizing that his life's greatest purpose was misguided. He is left, we can only assume, to live a hellish and hopeless life--a shell, consumed by the past.

And he did not tell Optimus goodbye. He knows that Optimus will leave him behind, will obtain the heaven he can never enter. He gives him the parting gift of his repentance, to acknowledge this. But in his refusal to say farewell, there is an echo of his own wretched endurance. He does not get to rest. Megatron will remain, eternally alone--eternally waiting for a reunion that will never come.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Clown to Equine communication failed; They are separate species.

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[poppyandlilysblog]

Marigold before and after her November shearing

Including a fancy lil plate of chopped bell pepper for bribery purposes.

[starlight-eclipsed]

“That doesn’t really answer either of those questions,” Dark points out, tentatively sitting down next to his weird wild friend. He folds his legs under himself, safely not hanging over the abyss.

Something for the latest chapter of A Dark Among the Lights by LuckyLectio on AO3! Dark finally gets a well deserved break, visits a new old friend, and tries to get spoilers for the ending of the fic.

Oh, and here's a link to the post where I tried to find an island in totk that could fit the one described in the fic.

[magg0t-bible]

silly little Malevolent theory

(just fyi I'm only up to part 33 so no spoilers beyond that thnx)

I was just thinking about the question of whether or not it's cheesy for a character in a piece of media to say the title of that piece of media (hypothetical example: Steve Harrington saying "come on guys, we've been through stranger things"). I'm hyperfixating on Malevolent atm so naturally that's where my brain went, and while it's innocuous enough of a title and the characters saying it would make perfect sense, I realised that only two characters (thus far) have actually said the word "malevolent".

One of them was Frank (or at least a voice claiming to be Frank, more on that in a minute) in Part 18.

He showed up in Arthur's right ear and started contradicting everything John said, yet was never wrong, as John was evidently still struggling with being truthful after spending so long as the eldritch embodiment of lying. But we never really had confirmation that that voice was or was not Frank. Who was the only other character to use the word "malevolent"?

Kayne. In Coda.

Kayne whose voice is closer to Harlan's natural voice than any other character. Kayne who doesn't believe in a fourth wall. Kayne who's clearly supposed to represent the fans. Kayne who literally sat on the sidelines loudly chewing popcorn while John sobbed and tried to save Arthur's life.

So all that to say...what if the voice in Part 18 wasn't Frank at all, but Kayne trying to drive even more of a wedge between John and Arthur because he thought it would be funny? Bearing in mind that Arthur and John don't meet Kayne until Part 20, meaning they'd have no reason to suspect him here.

[cnl0400]

Obviously normally a gacha game will never make drastic changes to their characters, and Simeon has the 'appeal' of being marketed as an angel, but I just don't like how they are trying to make him an angel again? Like he wants to be an angel because of Raphael/Luke now, not because of any real attachement to the CR. Hell, even If he were to made It back to being a archangel, he would just be Michael's errant boy, he would still be demoted, and every problem he had with the CR before being turned in a human would still be there, he would be in square one again I guess.

Like even If I don't like human!Simeon, in the Devilgram Coffee Someday, he talks about how he dreams of opening a cafetería and how he never thought an angel could 'dream of something like that' (this being in the NB timeline, a obvious reference of him opening the Angel's Halo in OGS3) Is he just suposse to abandone his dream like that? To return to the Celestial Realm just for the sake of Raphael & Luke? I do wonder... Is there really a life for Simeon in the Celestial Realm?

[frankiebirds]

I love this scene a lot and it lives in my head rent-free. I can't really think of another way to interpret it other than that this is elle telling reid that the reason he can't get a date isn't because of something wrong with him that he needs to change but simply because he doesn't ask people out (or, more broadly, lacks confidence).

I have seen some spencelle shippers read this as elle saying "hey. ask me out" but i disagree, not because i don't ship spencelle (i sort of do, elaboration in the notes) but for the following reasons:

I think elle would have realised very early on that if she was going to wait for reid to ask her out, she would be waiting years

i don't think she gives enough of a fuck about gender roles to wait for The Man to ask her out

she generally seems confident

i lean more towards her being very new to the BAU in the early episodes. I don't recall right now if there's an official anti-fraternization policy or if that's a fanfiction trope, but even if there isn't, entering a relationship with a coworker that early on is an easy way to mess up her career.

i think she was waiting until she was more established to start anything, but then, well, everything happened, and she left before becoming established enough to feel comfortable taking a risk like that

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.