#also I wasn't sure where to go

[thedivergingpaths]

Priest of the North

Mycen takes the young Prince Alm, but he eventually gives the baby to Novis Island.

He can come back and train the boy to be a wairror, but he isn't a father figure.

(He doesn't get the chance to come back)

Alm grows up on the sea, saying prayers and beating back pirates. His strength is unmatched even by the mecenaries who come and pray to the Mother Mila.

Silque is assigned to follow and train and hold back the force that is Alm before he is ready to be loosed on the world.

She is, in all ways but blood, his big sister, but she does not hold him back.

As piracy becomes more normal around Novis, Alm takes more and more to the sea. As his skills in battle and the stern improve, he takes companions to fight against villains and protect those he loves and the innocent.

Alm is eventually sent on a quest to check on Mother Mila, his big sister Silque in tow along with the acolytes Mae, Boey, and Genny. Alm has never been particularly skilled with magic, but he can do basic healing and serves as the tank of the group.

Further south in the nation, a rebellion against a coup is growing stronger around a mysterious mage called Celica.

Alm goes on his quest against pirates, but notes the growing rumors of Zofia lost and regained and of growing Rigelian agression.

Alm readies himself to fight, and decides to go forth and meet the liberator of Zofia, Celica.

(He feels the call of trouble at the Temple of Mila)

(He is troubled by dreams of mad dragons and a dying Duma and Mila)

When Alm and Celica do meet in a palace Alm has never seen, it is as strangers. But they feel like they know each other.

Celica was raised and trained far to the south in little Ram Village, and her closest allies are her friends who followed her into the Deliverance. Alm knows he has never been there, but he recognizes the mark on her hand as a blessing of the gods.

He departs before either can figure each other out. Alm heads for Mila's temple to unroot that problem - but he is pursued by his unknown heritage, by the Rigelians who birthed and hid him.

Destiny comes for all in the end.

-

Check out the previous installments of Fire Emblem AU ficlet/ideas at Birthright in Conquest, Time is Not Linear and Macedon's Twist of Fate

** DO NOT USE AI ON MY WORKS **

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[booasaur]

Renegade Nell (2024) - 1x06

[cecoeur]

How do you sleep at night? No one to hide behind Betrayed every alibi you had You had every chance to make amends instead you got drunk on bitterness And you still claim that you're innocent, it's sad

[erinwantstowrite]

personally i think the trope of "said something i wasn't supposed to while high on pain meds at the hospital" only works if it's smth actually incomprehensible. down with this trope. that and the whole "speaking out loud but the narrator doesn't know they are" trope. you should legally have to tag that i think. i know this usually happens for characters that would never admit something otherwise but actually there are a billion reasons someone would admit something they wouldn't otherwise. for example: someone else has a bomb-

[essektheylyss]

Finally made the Den Thelyss stew and it does in fact live up to the hype. I wasn't questioning it anyway but Essek is confirmed valid for his favorite food if this is what his family was serving for special occasions.

[thebramblewood]

The old Helena can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, because she’s dead.

Previous / Next

Thanks to @pxltown for the Social Bunny template I used as a base! HQ under the cut because I had to scrunch the dimensions a bit for the screenshot.

Julia: What am I supposed to tell Mom and Dad?

Helena: Whatever you want. I’m sure you’ll think of something.

Julia: You can’t just run off without telling them goodbye  — or telling me where you’re going!

Julia: [between sobs] Am I ever going to see you again? Will you at least call me? [sniffling] I’ll miss you, Helena. If either of them dies, I’ll never forgive you. But I’ll always love you.

Helena: I love you, too. And I’d do anything to take it all back. But I can’t, so I have no choice but to go.

[r0semultiverse]

How Homestuck Beyond Canon Candy Timeline has/will have parallels with Homestuck proper around and during the events of [S] Game Over

Jane Crocker heavily aligned/influenced by with Crocker Corp. Notice how her neck accessory looks very similar to the Crocker computer tiara. There's also the circuits surrounding the button, which are reminiscent of Crockertier Jane's visual mind control effect by The Condesce.

Jane also kind of looks like The Condesce with how she's silhouetted here.

The head of Crocker Corporation on a large Crocker space ship. A ship which I would like to point out looks eerily similar to the ship that The Condesce flies around in except the forks/sporks are facing the opposite direction and it's got black on it instead of mostly red.

Jake dying at the hands of Crocker influenced Jane and coming back to life parallels with this Jane coming close to killing Jake, but stopping right before death. Same green text too.

The cast of characters surrounding this time in the comic are also similar.

We also got the whole Crocker laser beam of death being hinted at which we've absolutely seen before.

I talked about this in one of my previous theories, Jake is getting a better grasp of his hope powers; so, I think we could see another hope explosion again in some capacity out of Jake's concern for Tavvy.

I could also totally see Jake being held hostage by one of the Crocker Clones A.K.A. the Brig Boys and Kanaya cutting them up with her chainsaw (hopefully avoiding Jake).

This is more of a little side detail, but Vriska is once again on the sidelines while this massive important fight takes place because she's trapped in her own personal Hell this time.

CHARACTER DEATH FLAGS - I don't know how to organize this post and there was a lot more potential evidence to this than I thought there was going into it.

Let me preface this with the fact that the existential split between Meat and Candy sometimes seems to try to course correct itself and much like certain peoples DNIs, it doesn't want any doubles. We see this with Dirk, Dave (he died even if he ascended to ultimate self afterwards), June/J/John, Terezi(seemingly), Meenah (her other self is in the black hole with Lord English so we can't necessarily confirm death but yknow), Aradia (is just Aradia), Gamzee, Calliope (that is a whole complex situation), and Rose (if her future sight is correct, but we'll get to that). Those are the only examples I can think of at this time, but it's absolutely a repeating pattern of the universe sort of course-correcting to have only one of each of our main characters exist at a time. This, at least in the cases of Dirk, Dave, & Rose seems to be related to the ascension to ultimate self, but we can't really say if that's why the other characters only get one existence at this time.

Karkat has has at least 2 deaths from around this time, one involving Crockertier Jane as well which could be a sign of things to come.

Rose's death flag is that she has literally foreseen her death in her future sight. She is thinking about Kanaya and Roxy in the same thought process while seeing her own death, feeling full of regret (even though she's trying to repress her own feelings) about her relationship to Roxy and Kanaya. Very similar to her being regretful as she was dying in Roxy's arms. I'm also guessing the bullet that hits her will be from Jake's gun, just throwing that out as a possibility.

ROSE: What... ROSE: Happened to me? ROXY: the witch got u ROXY: with her fork ROXY: but youre gonna be ok ROSE: Oh. ROSE: That's nice. ROSE: *Cough.* ROXY: maybe you uh ROXY: shouldnt try to talk now ROSE: You saved me, didn't you? ROXY: ... ROSE: Thanks. ROSE: But, ROSE: She's gone, isn't she. ROSE: For good, I mean. ROXY: ? ROSE: I saw her die. ROSE: And. ROSE: It's a shame how... ROSE: *Cough.* ROSE: A shame that I never even... ROSE: Got to tell her... ROSE: I loved her. ROXY: who?

ROSE: Kanaya. ROSE: But... ROSE: You too, mom.

Kanaya also has a death flag here in getting hit by The Condesce's laser beam of death, but it's more of a maybe given that we see Rose's future vision of Kanaya holding her body in her arms. Keep in mind though we also had this bit of dialogue about the reliability of future sight right before we saw that vision.

JADE: dont forget im more than a little versed in future sight myself ok JADE: i dont care how credible it seems, you cant depend on that information!

Jake and Jane are also on the chopping block potentially, but I can't think of a way at this time, unless Kanaya mistakes Jake for one of the clones amidst her rage and ends up cutting through him along with the Crocker clones. The one pictured below was done by Aranea who is out of the story. Maybe Meenah's trident hits Jake somehow or something, I don't know. We also have meat Jake and Jane who are doing more okay.

On top of the parallels to the doomed timeline that was [S] Game Over, we also had Vriska say that this reality was fake and didn't matter. I'm paraphrasing and I don't know if we'll get a doomed timeline situation yet with the 4 kids still in it, but I just thought the amount of parallels was interesting & worth pointing out.

I also wanted to get this out before the next update in case it's related to the flash animation and any of my predictions come true.

Alternatively I think the flash animation will be Ultimate Dirk kick starting his SBURB home brew session on Deltritus. He probably has all the tech and narrative powers to do it based on what we've seen, they just need a species they'll both be satisfied with as the players for the session.

[d8tl55c]

oh boy !! ! ! ! !!! ! thANK y0u all for the kind words on my last art posts. you all get it and i was/still am so happy about it

as promised, here's some close-ups of the comic for image quality's sake, and other screenshots i rescued from the community whiteboard (and something else)

first up another sketch of mystery gender-ambiguous being. (please send me more name ideas for them if you got one- i like to hear em! (reminder it's the side character that appeared for <10 seconds in AvM Ep. 30))

a few fav scenes

emotional support cwab

they weren't meant for this purpose exactly, but i do have countless "fluffy sticks" loose in my notes and homework sheets from the school years.

papery critter.

even when i wasn't confident in fur or feathers, they helped me practice posing and create some satisfying gradients/flowing poses. (im a sucker for good tail poses) (oh yay! i found a good pic...)

and finally, little sneak peak for you for reading so far ;3

i realized that whiteboardfox is pretty great for my working needs. simple and to the point and all. feels nice with the mouse and the tablet.

so i started hashing out a big project idea just to see if it holds up and

[

several hours later ...

]

oh

oh man

it's a little bigger than i expected

<next>

[diazley]

So hear me out...imo Tommy is the perfect person for Buck...on paper. Like, we don't really know that much about him as in like does he want to get married? Does he want kids? etcetera etcetera but let's say he does want all that and Buck wants all that and Tommy is sweet and caring, is better to Buck than any of his exes were to him and he is a firefighter so he understands the work and the hours and how important the job is to Buck and he fits in with his found family and is friends with his best friend Eddie and gets his relationship with Chris, and is basically the whole damn deal okay? Let's say he's the person Buck has always dreamt of being with one day. But here's the thing...

This would've all just been the perfect premise for a happily ever after but, BUT!! Eddie.

Eddie Diaz exists. And he just doesn't exist, he exists as a huge part of Buck's whole damn world. They are best friends but they're also so much more than that. If they were normal about each other and if they haven't gone through a whole lot of shit together and haven't shared their best parts and worst parts with each other and if either of them loved each other any less, then Buck could've made Tommy his happy ever after, but alas! Eddie Diaz exists and that's why perfect on paper doesn't matter cuz Tommy Kinard will never be Eddie Diaz.

[swan2swan]

Jurassic World + Disabilities and Limb Difference

[hailsatanacab]

@the-ghost-trader - ooooh, i love this! it has the potential to be so incredibly sad, too, like poor Damian just trying to carve out something normal for himself only for it blow up in his face

BUT, shockingly, i'm not about the angst today! not yet anyway 😇

---

“So, how was your day?”

Despite his answering groan, Damian likes this. This. This whole… thing he has with Danielle. With Ellie. 

And, yeah, he’s not exactly told any of the others yet, but can you blame him? For wanting to keep something, anything, to himself. Wanting to keep this small little slice of goodness he’s managed to carve out, untouched and unmarred by his family, by their other lives, by the rogues, the vigilantes, the assassins, everyone.

“That bad, huh?”

Being with Ellie is freeing. That’s the best way to describe it.

She knows. Damian surprised even himself when he told her—not about the others, mind, but he supposes it’s not hard to put two and two together and Dani has always been smarter than most—but it’s the best decision he’s ever made, and no matter what the niggling little voice in the back of his head says (the one that sounds suspiciously like Father), he can’t bring himself to regret it.

He won’t. Because having Ellie know gives him freedom.

She’s a safe place, a hand to hold, a warm, welcoming presence when things inevitably turn ugly. It’s the freedom to just be normal when everything else in his life spirals into stranger and more stressful missions.

“Richard is being insufferable again. I do not understand his incessant need to know everything about my life.”

“Oh? What’s he done now?” 

“I was subjected to an hour long interrogation about my love life, like it’s any of his business. It’s infuriating!”

“Ugh, tell me about it. I get the same thing from Jazz, constantly. It can be suffocating.” Ellie says as she curls herself tighter into his side. “But it’s just how they show they care.”

“Yes, well, sometimes I wish he wouldn’t—”

“Hey!” Ellie pushes herself up to glare at him, punctuating her shout with a soft whack to his arm for good measure. “What have I said about using that word?”

“Yes, yes,” he placates with a roll of his eyes, “‘Be careful what you wish for.’ I apologise, it won't happen again.”

“Damn straight it won't.”

She maintains eye contact with him for a second longer before tucking herself back into his side, squirming around with a long, contented hum that Damian can feel rumble through him. He smiles and doesn’t complain even when he has to shift to give her more room after a particularly strong elbow jabs him in the ribs. It means leaving the warm patch on the couch, but he’s rewarded with another long, happy moan as she settles and Damian can’t bring himself to mind.

Ellie constantly makes noises. Little mews and hums and laughs and songs known only to her. It reminds him of a cat, sometimes. He likes it. It calms him down; it means she’s happy, so he's happy.

They settle back into the cushions and Damian lets the subject drop, not wanting to spoil the moment. Outside, the wind changes direction and from where he’s laying he can watch as the snow starts to come down thick and heavy. Hopefully it’ll mean a quiet night's patrol.

“Is that why you haven’t introduced me yet?”

“What?” He can't help it, he stiffens at the thought of losing his secret, of the scrutiny he'll be inviting if he lets anyone know.

“Are you worried I’ll embarrass you?”

Damian’s eyes snap down quick to reassure her, only to see her light, teasing grin. He lets out a breath of relief. It figures she wouldn't worry about that.

“Of course not, don’t be absurd. You could never embarrass me.”

“I don’t know,” she muses, her voice taking on a dangerous lilt, “that sounds like a challenge.”

“Believe me, having been subjected to Father’s Brucie persona at every gala I’ve been to, it would take a lot to embarrass me.”

“Alright, bet. I’ll get you, just you wait.”

“You’ve already got me.”

She flicks him on the nose. “You’re such a sap.”

He hums his agreement, enjoying the tinkling sound of her laughter. And then, before he can think otherwise, he asks, “Is that why you haven’t introduced me?”

“That’s different,” she scowls. “You know how hard it is to get there, there’s no signal, and Danny only gets a break like—oh, Ancients!”

Damian gets another elbow to the ribs as she bolts upright, a manic grin on her face that has him laughing.

“What is it?”

“It’s the holidays! It’s nearly Truce Day! You know I said I had a family thing around Christmas?”

“Yes?” 

“Well, do you want to come to it? I can introduce you then! I mean, it’s going to be a bit formal and you’ll have to meet everyone, not just family. There’s going to be some banquets, you’ll have to sit through some long speeches and you have to be on your best behaviour at all times, okay? Absolutely no fighting, it’s called Truce Day for a reason!”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’ll be perfect! I think Jazz is going in a couple days earlier to help with the preparations, so I’ll get her to let Danny know—and fair warning, he will try to give you the shovel talk, but this is great! It’s Truce Day, so he can’t actually do anything about it!”

“I’m sorry, but you're going to have to explain a bit.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s a bit much—but that’s family, right? Danny can get pretty protective over me, which is why going on Truce Day is the best time to do it! He can’t even command the Fright Knight to stab you! It’s genius!”

“Ellie, what?”

“Like, yeah, sure, he’s the king, but even he has to obey the rules of Truce Day—and then once you’ve spent all day with him, he’ll see that you’re a fantastic, wonderful, kind, brilliant, smart, strong, capable person and he’ll get over himself and everything will be good!"

Damian collapses down onto the couch, the wind knocked out of him. This is… He had not expected anything like this at all. For all that Ellie talked about her family, she had never mentioned this.

“Did you… did you say your brother is a king?”

“Yeah! High King Phantom, have I…” The manic grin slips off her face as she turns round and notices Damian. “Have I not mentioned that before?”

“No. No, you have not.”

“Ah. Sorry. Probably should clarify that I’m also a princess.”

“Right. Yes, that follows.”

“And I’m not really his sister, I’m his clone.”

“What?”

Damian blinks and tries to say more, but he has no idea what he’s meant to do with… any of this information. 

Normal. He thought she was meant to be his normal. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Not that it changed anything, of course, of that he was certain. It’s just… a lot to take in. Overwhelming. But it's okay! He takes a deep breath, and another, and a sense of calm washes over him. Ellie makes one of her little hums as she cocks her head to the side to consider him and he can't help but relax at the normalcy of the sound. It'll be okay, he's dealt with stranger and he can deal with this.

“I’ve, uh… I’ve told you that we’re half ghosts, though, right?”

“What?”

[mewkwota]

Another comic based on one of OSS's Humor Program skits, but I made it worse. Please do not split from your human while you're still on the Net, what happens there can't always be explained. :)

[boatboys]

actually on the topic of old drawings; the first-ever drawings I did of Rich, Liam, and Sol turned up on my deep-dive of old discord messages and I was compelled to redraw/compare!

Rich very much predates the worldbuilding of the Michigan Fleet universe, as one of Key/rollerskatinglizard's oldest OCs, and was originally just a normal amount of un-tweaked big and buff dude, although I also sucked at drawing people with body mass back when I drew these lol. It does make me laugh that the huge crooked nose and sad, downturned eyes have been a constant from sketch one!

Liam predates the Michigan Fleet as well and was originally mine! He..... hasn't changed much actually haha. Although his size/prettiness/temper being a genetic modification is new, from the first lengthy discussion of mods where fourhands and hastings both got established (although not by those names). It looks like I coined the mod name "Babydoll", which I do NOT remember doing.

Sol was the most Group Effort of these three, looking back at the messages: Key invented a salty little gorgeous asshole with modded hearing for a snatch of interaction in a wildly different context than his new introduction; roach was the one who suggested the elf ears and iridescent hair to go along with it, I was the one who suggested he was from New York and threw several large pinches of "a big tsundere about Rich" into the mix, and a lot of the much later patrician worldbuilding was roach.

[mewnoroma]

Shoutout to me being a dumbass and not realizing the wiki has Eigong's logs...ah yes I am smart.

Anyway, idk if this is anything, but I view Eigong having a rhyzomatic stabilizer(?) thing™ on her head with Yi's on his chest as a lil' symbolic. I can't articulate it fully rn because I'm tired, but it reads as a physical manifestation of Eigong's descent into madness and obsession with immortality. Like...she probably implanted those roots herself, judging by how they're not there in her younger image. She views Fusang as a means to an end (esp with infecting it with Tianhuo...the mutated part she retains in her last stage is right on her Fusang roots).

Meanwhile, Yi was 'chosen.' He was saved by Fusang and has the stabilizer implemented right over his heart to aide the roots (as I see it). Imho, a manifestation of his heart being in the right place...?

[vvirtue]

desperately trying to remember the graphic part of graphic design (full drawing below cut!)

introducing my pop disaster, Marnie Williams Daydream! she's upbeat and cheery on stage but a nervous wreck behind the scenes, pining after her manager and wishing things could go back to how they used to be with her ex-best-friend... oh honey, you've got a big storm coming.

this was meant to just be a quick sketch to unwind so I started out using a base by @/albanenechi but then decided I wanted to change what the arms and feetsies were doing :3 then I realised that the sketch was actually pretty good already so I cleaned it up and went straight to colouring. I love skipping the lineart stage so much.