#and they uh. largely. don't.

[warning-heckboop]

Irep deserves a villain monologue type song like Be Prepared

[benevolenterrancy]

Hello sonic rainboom anon here and it's not really a survey the origin story of this is I was on Twitter and someone made a post about sqh and sqq debating whether lqg could do a sonic rainboom or not and lqg overheard asked what it was and when he learned he was like bet and that inspired me and for a little bit I had the motivation to ask ppl about it maybe got a bit overzealous and wanted a skinzun situation but gave up on that and a few days later gave up on asking entirely since not everyone was answering and I got embarrassed so that's the lore behind do you think Liu qingge could do a sonic rainboom I also had the goal of atleast 1 perosn making art of it and you are the only one who has so thank you so much!!! Also the most common answer is no because Liu qingge is either not rainbow dash or Liu qingge is not affiliated with rainbows so if he tried a sonic rainboom it'd be more some badass male power fantasy explosion

UPDATES TO THE SONIC RAINBOOM SAGA, I'M SO EXCITED THANK YOU FOR COMING BACK ANON and I accept the drawing trophy with grace and humility 😌🫱🏆

Okay that is the funniest possible reason for LQG to attempt to do a sonic rainboom. He has no fucking clue what his sect siblings are talking about but now it's a CHALLENGE (and also a Definite Chance To Show Off, Shen-shixiong, are you watching this shidi perform this so called legendary technique??) (and I stand by my claim that he succeeds in getting so distracted by showing off that he slams face-first into a rainbow bridge. so he succeeded! kind of! no he doesn't need to be checked out by mu-shidi and no he is NOT embarrassed, thank you very much, no don't you dare tell anyone else about this)

now I'm wondering who was more in favour of LQG succeeding, SQQ or SQH? or was it just a thought experiment for them? xD

[payasita]

Hey Paya. If you see this ask then take it as a sign to draw something or write something. It doesn’t matter what, I just hope that this makes your day a little more productive.

...okay i know this was probably meant to be, like, motivational, so thanks.

but the thing is, i am. a lot. daily. on my last day off i got done with a whole swathe of new sprites and a functional sketch of the menu screen for my game.

thats nothing to say of all the WRITING im doing on it! ive also got some ink n paint practice i like p recently in my Wet Sketchbooks

...cant find the other Wet Sketchbook with all the watercolors in it atm oop

but i do have my Work Sketchbook, which sees maybe too much use every day because like. full time job.

i think only one of the things i showed here is more than like a week old.

still doing things. i just dont really feel the need to show 90% of what im actually doing because i know it won't really get seen, and it's enough for me that i'm making stuff. and on top of the job, i'm also still doing online college.

so uh, yeah. Not Posting Fanart =/= Not Being Productive. have a good one

[thespacesay]

brought to you by me hosting a friend for two days who grew up in the same cultural region, and tbh will not be invited again.

[dreamaze]

BFFL 29/∞   ↪ when your jagiya complains about your best friend

+ impartial observer

[melancholic-pigeon]

Alright, this is my last comment on the issue, for real this time.

@nerdykeppie is staffed by unprofessional, rude, cruel people who double down on their entitlement to be unprofessional, rude and cruel in public to their former customers.

You should know the sorts of people you're giving money to if you patronize them. The founder is liable to misread your words, lash out at you in anger over something he misunderstood, and generally behave like a tantruming child even if you go out of your way to be polite and give him the benefit of the doubt when he lashes out at you over his own poor reading comprehension.

I'm done getting into this. No, Spider is not ~required~ to be professional on his (public) personal blog which is closely tied to his business. I just think it's extremely stupid to double down on his "right" to be unprofessional on his public blog when he owns a business that is clearly tied to said public blog, because it reflects very poorly on both his personal character and his business. I think it is hilariously foolish and an extremely poor decision to openly advertise and defend your founder's unprofessionalism, which speaks of general lack of professionalism and poor judgment throughout the whole business, not just from Spider (though his lack of good judgment and public unprofessionalism is the most obvious).

So. Best of luck in the people involved resolving whatever problem in their lives that they're taking out on me, and beware interacting with them in any way because they will absolutely be rude as shit to you and then smear you in public and private for (/checks hand) apologizing for a miscommunication because you didn't mean what they incorrectly interpreted you to mean.

I can't fucking believe they still think they're in the right here and *I* am the one who needs to be ~asked not to contact them again~. You answered me THREE TIMES *after* I had blocked you because you cannot let go of the fact that you were wrong about a stupid fucking plastic pumpkin and the fact that I went OUT OF MY WAY to give you the benefit of the doubt.

(two of those three asks were frantic apologies because I genuinely felt terrible, and they were both met with meanness and scorn and snide insults about my communication failures.

Lol. Me. I'm the one who is failing to communicate and has poor reading comprehension because you misunderstood me and started lashing out like I personally strangled all of your pets for having the filthy nerve to apologize and try to clear it up.

Yeah. I'm the villain here. Sure, Jan.)

I'm done now, but enjoy having your unprofessional, cruel, immature nonsense publicly exposed. I stand by my actions (the ones I actually took in real life, not the fake pretend ones you made up because you misunderstood what I wrote) and I look forward to you experiencing the natural consequences of your own.

Don't give money to childish jerks.

[therizino-ao3]

2023 Halloween Gift Exchange

My gift for @greenscreen-dress for @mcyt-halloween !

Summary: xB is invited back to his home server for a ceremony. Joe and Cleo come along to make things more bearable.

“Ohh, son of a…”

“What is it, man?” says Cub, sliding over to xB to see what he’s reading on his communicator.

“It’s just a family thing, kind of annoying though,” he scrolls through the message, taking in the details. Cub glances at it, but looks away as soon as he realises this isn’t something he’ll understand.

“What sort of family thing?” Gem asks, from across the Decked Out hallway, where she and Cleo are doing… something. xB doesn’t know what it is, but it involves wooden swords and their decks on the floor and an armour stand that he thinks is supposed to be Tango? They used a blue bath-towel instead of a robe.

“Guardian coming of age ritual, involving one of my cousins,” he sighs, flicking his tail back and forth, “The point is I’ll have to go back to my family’s server and meet everyone and it’s going to be a whole Thing.”

“I mean, xB, if you don’t want to do it, just don’t go? If you don’t like your biological family, you shouldn’t feel obligated to visit them,” Cleo says, messing with the Tango armour stand as they speak.

“I like some of my family. Not all of them are bad. But yeah it’s, mm,” he purses his lips together, thinking of what to say, “I do want to stay in contact, but as long as I do that, they’ll expect me to go to coming of age rituals. And it isn’t that bad on it’s own but some of them are just very… traditional. And judgemental. But, it isn’t the end of the world? It’s just… a Thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that. The Vex sometimes can sometimes be, uh, very overbearing,” Cub says, from his spot, crammed into an indent in the wall.

 “Hm, yeah,” Cleo pauses, either pondering what she should say or whether she should stab the Tango armour stand, “Maybe, if you want, one of us could come with you? Just to make the whole thing more bearable. I wouldn’t mind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guardian city in-person before.”

“Yeah, that actually sounds like a good idea,” Cleo’s presence is calming - in a no-nonsense, sarcastic way. The only time he’s ever brought someone with him to his home server was Keralis, ages ago on a holiday, which looking back on, was a horrible decision. Cleo, however, he thinks is far more mature than Keralis, and will only steal people’s possessions if necessary, “I mean, will you be free this Saturday afternoon?”

She smiles.

World hopping has developed a lot over the past century, which is nice. xB remembers when a trip across a galaxy would take a few weeks, but now, it’s only a few hours. It’s incredibly convenient since, in true hermit fashion, they always choose very distant planets for their worlds. His ship’s on autopilot and the estimated arrival time is two hours, fifteen minutes. He can chill. He watches the little map on the GUI, the ship zooming past various named star systems. His passengers, behind him, are also chilling. Passengers, plural, because Cleo wanted to drag Joe along too. Which, wasn’t the plan, but xB couldn’t say he was too surprised when Cleo and Joe both showed up to his ship. Like, you can’t get one without the other. They’re sold as a pair. He hears them arguing, something about the difference between a gravestone and a cenotaph. Cleo says they’ll break Joe’s legs. Joe starts talking faster, pleading for his life.

At the very least, xB’s home world is beautiful. As they approach it at last, it turns from a perfect blue circle to a painter’s dream – miles and miles of beaches and sea. There’s no considerable landmass on it greater than a few square miles, and all that’s on those are ship docks and tourism centres, everything else is in the water. He parks, opens the doors, and breathes in the salty sea air. It burns his nose, but in a refreshing and nostalgic way.

“We’re here! In case you haven’t noticed,” he says, but he knows they have, especially since Joe has spent the last twenty minutes trying to take pictures of the planet through the tiny windows.

“Oh wow,” Cleo steps out, “I will say, in terms of places to visit, this certainly isn’t the worst for looks.”

Joe steps out after, running out a bit further to take pictures of the sea. xB giggles, “Now the question is, will your opinion change when you meet the family.”

“Oh gods yeah, that’s gonna be, uh,” she laughs and shakes her head, “Well, we’ll be here for you, xB. And on that note, what is our story going to be?”

“Our story?”

“Yeah, like, why we’re here with you. Are we just saying we’re friends coming along because we wanted to visit?” Cleo pauses, before gasping, “Oh! I could pretend to be your annoying girlfriend! That would be fun.”

“Hey now, if you’re xB’s partner, what would that make me?”

“Oh Joe, you can be with xB too. I’m sure we can share him,” she ruffles Joe’s hair, “I mean, if you’re alright with that, xB.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” he’s laughing, “That does sound interesting.”

Whilst Cleo and Joe are arguing about the details of their very real relationship with xB, he is busy sorting out actually important things, like how Cleo and Joe are going to get to the monument. Every urban area has conduit-powered water, but for such a deep and lengthy swim, they’re still going to need equipment. He’s packed hour-lasting water breathing and resistance potions, to reduce any issues with suffocation and pressure; specialist helmets with goggles for seeing in dark environments, enchanted with aqua-infinity, and with built-in translation software so they can both understand and speak water-tongue; and flip-flops enchanted with depth strider for easy movement. It takes a further ten minutes for xB to get them to properly equip the stuff and acclimatise to breathing in the water. Then, they’re ready to go.

xB leads them down, following the currents to the monument. It’s mainly a smell thing, because the monument is the most populated thing in this area of the ocean, and you can definitely tell, but he also knows the way off by heart.

“Alright, just checking you can hear me alright?” he asks in water-tongue – a deep, chittering language that works solely for water – now they’re a decent bit down it’s worth checking Joe and Cleo actually know what’s going on.

Cleo gives a thumbs up, whilst Joe responds, “Loud and clear!” through the robotic voice from the helmet. It sounds a little crunchy. xB wonders if that’s it struggling to translate Joe’s accent.

They keep swimming down, until the monument leers in front of them. It’s far more impressive than the ones inhabited by regular guardians, with this one being twice the size with twice the colours and covered in flickering neon lights. He feels Joe and Cleo stop, presumably looking on in wonder. He supposes it’s pretty impressive if it’s your first time seeing one, but given he’s spent too many years living there, and has seen some five times more impressive in bigger cities, it’s just a regular building to him. They start swimming again, xB careful to keep the three of them in the “incoming” current. Small settlements and businesses rest on the seafloor below them, branching out around the monument, but most people will be living inside it.

They take the top entrance, xB telling the guards they’re here for tessC Crafted’s ceremony and the three of them are let in without trouble.

“The guards are more for display, than anything,” he says to Joe and Cleo once they’re inside the monument and alone in the winding corridors, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them refuse anyone in, they just deter criminals by being there.”

“Right,” Cleo says, glancing around, “Good to know! I’ll just be staying right by you, so I don’t get lost, because this place is an absolute maze.”

“Yeah, I mean, yeah,” he laughs, “There’s no structure, you just learn where everything is by living here.”

“So where are we going now?” Joe asks.

“The main hall, it’s got like, a big platform in the centre and a bunch of seats,” he takes a sudden left turn, making Joe and Cleo quickly swerve after him, “You just kind of wander around and talk to people, and then everyone sits down, and the ceremony begins.”

“So, it’s like a wedding?” Cleo says, slight uncertainty in her voice.

“Um, I guess?” xB says, about to elaborate further, before the hallway opens up into a massive chamber. Several rows of flat seats wrap in a horseshoe shape around a long walkway, raised several metres above the seats nearest, leading into the back of the wall where there’s a door for the ceremony participants to emerge.

The noise is the most prominent thing, chittering bouncing off the walls and coming back in an incoherent blabble. He imagines Joe and Cleo won’t even be hearing this, it’s so indecipherable the software won’t bother to translate it. It’s no surprise it’s so loud, with hundreds of people in here. Technically, its only mandatory that the family of the person involved come, but everyone living nearby tends to, both as an act of community support and because free food is served throughout. Since xB is family, they’ll be right at the front on the bottom seats. He leads his friends down there, picking out a free-ish spot for them. With less people being at the bottom of the hall, it’s easier to hear things.

“Why, xB, you came,” a voice booms from behind him, belonging to none other than his biological mother. Great.

“Uh, hello. Joe, Cleo, this is my mother, beK Crafted,” he grabs his friends’ arms, making sure they’re here for this conversation, “And, mother,” he pauses for a second, wondering if he really wants to go this route, before remembering he has no fucks to give, “This is my girlfriend Cleo, and her partner Joe.”

“Oh, don’t be so humble, my Angel Pie xB! Joe is your boyfriend too!” for good measure, she even ruffles his hair as they say it, and it takes everything he has in him to not burst out laughing. She turns to his mother, holding out her hand, “Hi! I’m Cleo! I’ve heard so much about you!”

“Right,” his mother tentatively shakes Cleo’s hand, looking down on it like she might catch a disease. This is going far better than xB ever imagined.

“I – on the other hand – have heard nothing about you! xB has never mentioned you to me! This is a wonderful night to meet!” Joe says, grabbing his mother’s other hand to shake at the same time. He’s doing it far too fast, jerking her arm up and down.

His mother wrinkles her nose and steps back, flicking the hands off her, “Right. It’s good that you’re here and that you’ve-” she does nothing to hide the disappointment in her tone, “Brought some other people around. Make sure to introduce yourself to everybody, I’m sure your uncle rK would love to see you.”

His mother quickly swims away, to nearly the other side of the hall.

Cleo turns to him, “Was that a success?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely. Usually she goes on super long rants to me, or brings up about when I’ll be having grandkids, so it’s nice to have skipped all that.”

“Oh geez, are you sure you want to come to these things?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I don’t take any of it to heart, it’s just annoying,” they both nod, but still look rather unconvinced.

They continue talking to xB’s other family members, in a way that has made this kind of thing far more enjoyable than it has been in a long time, with everyone reacting to Cleo’s ridiculous pet names with either obvious distress or approval, some even finding her charming, somehow. It’s nice to be able to catch up with his more reasonable family members, and anyone annoying Joe scares off with his passionate talks of eighteenth-century poetry. They have a good time.

The lights begin to dim and xB ushers Joe and Cleo to sit. Whilst the rest of the chamber grows dark, the walkway lights up and the door slides open. Stumbling and shambling, xB’s cousin emerges and makes the harrowing walk to the end of the platform. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was sick: desaturated skin, tattered fins, and dead eyes. It’s obvious she’s just about to undergo metamorphosis though, with her juvenile external fins fluttering in the water.

She collapses as soon as she reaches the spot, body completely relaxing until she looks like a ragdoll. Some soft tearing sounds echo through the water.

“What’s going on?” Cleo whispers to him.

“She’s about to grow into her new body,” he says,” Just… watch.”

Cleo turns back to tessC, transfixed. At her back, a new, pale growth emerges from the ripped skin. It grows and grows, until it becomes evident it is, in fact, her back, and her arms and legs come with it too. She’s covered in spines and the tail that forces itself out of the body is far longer than it once was. Eventually, her head frees itself too, and there are no signs of the external fins anymore. She pushes herself onto her feet and makes a noise, somewhat like a growl, triumphant over her old body. Her limbs still look so wobbly and crooked and her tail hasn’t quite filled itself out yet, it’ll take a few hours for her new self to settle into shape.

“Oh wow,” Joe murmurs, “I didn’t know guardians did that.”

“Yeah, metamorphosis into adult form,” xB says, looking around for the elders, “I remember mine. It really hurt. They’ll just need to choose the sacrifice and then we should be done.”

“Hold on, sacrifice?” Cleo whips her head around.

“Yeah? After someone sheds their skin, another person is chosen for them to test their claws on. Like, they don’t die, most of the time, but it is pretty brutal.”

“That, feels like something you should have mentioned before coming here? Some guy just gets ripped to shreds every time this happens?”

“I- Oh yeah. It completely slipped my mind. Um, if it makes you feel better, you won’t get picked? They won’t have your name down, it’ll just be me. And in all my years, I’ve never been picked, it’s really unlikely.”

The elders, on a balcony looking over everything, read out from a piece of paper, “This year’s sacrifice shall be… xB Crafted!”

Joe hums, “Wow, way to jinx things!”

Cleo grabs his arm, “Yeah, no way am I letting you get hurt because of these idiots, come on!” she tugs him upward, kicking as much as she can.

xB doesn’t falter, the survivalist in him knowing he has to escape now if he wants a chance. He snatches Joe’s hand and starts swimming, thrashing his tail as hard as he can. He can feel the water ripple around him, others trying to catch up to them and catch them, you weren’t really supposed to try and escape, and all. He couldn’t bring his usual guns, being under the water and all, but he does have a rather nice harpoon gun, however, he doesn’t really want to attack his family members and former friends unless he has to. Cleo, on the other hand, managed to smuggle in her sword and doesn’t hold back swinging at people in her way. They escape the great hall, diving into the corridors, and xB takes special care to not let go of Joe or Cleo as he takes twisting routes to cover their tail. They zoom out a small, unguarded exit xB discovered himself many years ago, near the bottom of the monument. He doesn’t dare slow their pace, charging through the water, practically carrying a panting Joe and Cleo, until they reach the island they landed on.

“We’re out,” he says, flopping onto the surface, “Don’t bother to take your stuff off now, just hop in and I’ll take off. They’ll give up pursuit once we leave the surface.”

They both nod in response and xB hops inside, fiddling with the controls and inputting the co-ordinates of their Season 8 planet. Thankfully, they take off with no issues.

“xB,” Joe says as soon as he’s got his helmet off, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m… fine.”

“Really?” Joe tries to raise an eyebrow, but he can’t, so he just makes a weird face.

“Yeah, well, a little sad,” he admits, “I definitely won’t be able to return now. I mean, I know it’s probably for the best? But, like, there’s still that feeling that I’ve lost something, y’know?”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Joe isn’t following the correct safety protocols for space travel, instead opting to stand behind xB and rest his hand on his shoulder.

“Just remember that we’ll always be here for you, alright?” Cleo says and the thought does cheer him up, because they’re right. He’ll give himself a little time to grieve, but really, there isn’t anything those stuck-up guardian folk could’ve given him that his friends can’t. He probably had more fun today, because of Joe and Cleo, than he has had in every other family gathering combined. He hears Joe recount some lines from a classic and Cleo groans, and, well, maybe it isn’t beautiful blue planet with gorgeous underwater cities, but it still makes him pretty happy.

[face-breaker]

somewhere out there is a demand that needs supplyin' — and once it comes across settrigh's desk, he's making sure it gets fulfilled.

the glaringly obvious centerpiece of the boss' portfolio is what we know as THE PIT — ionia's biggest, most well-known underground fighting ring. it's here that sett made his first step towards entrepreneurship, taking over the establishment at the age of 21, after fighting in the ring himself for 5 years. i won't go too far into detail about the pit ( and it's subsidiaries ) in this post, as i've already got a much more refined post saved in my drafts — but just know, that his revenue from the pit makes up a little over 50% of his annual profits. now, while VIOLENCE is settrigh's main business, he's got his hands in quite a few other ventures. another chunk of his purse is funded by textile production and sales. specifically high end fabrics native to ionia, such as SILK. less than 30% of his sales are domestic, the rest being sold all over runeterra, in places that can afford the delicacy — his main buyers being in piltover, demacia and shurima, but he's got accounts in just about every region. it's a relatively tame component of his assets, compared to some of the others. the whole process is fairly transparent, and surprisingly legal, as sett refuses to extort his own people in such a way. he pays his laborers well, and doesn't force egregious hours to meet quotas. this is due in part to his mother having been part of that particular workforce before. growing up, he's seen first hand how she was treated and what it did to her over time. this is one of settrigh's only business ventures that his mother is fully aware of and only makes up around 15% of his portfolio — it's still, however, equivalent to a multimillion-dollar book. a slightly heftier piece to the puzzle would be his hand in the shipping trade. ionia, being the land of unspoiled beauty and natural magic, it's people were never ones to cultivate it's harvest beyond their own needs in an attempt to protect it's resources. the land is also surrounded by treacherous seas few are willing to sail. between those two quandaries, selling and trading beyond the continent weren't really concerns of the people for quite some time — and the few who did, lost interest and faith after the first noxian invasion. with their lands ravished, a general sense of unease settled across ionia. total resources were demolished and, those that weren't, quickly depleted over the years. this remained an issue for years to come. for the first time in the land's history, they would need to rely heavily on external trading and importing of goods across the entire nation to survive. but they lacked the infrastructure for international trading — a gap settrigh would later fill. it not only helped in supporting the business for his textile and other smaller dealings, but enriched the first lands as a whole — finally allowing the people to buy, sell and trade across runeterra. as sett's dealings in shipping and trade stand today, over half of ionia's trade is shipped straight through him. and that number is so large because his business model is quite the gray area. while it started out as mostly dry goods and his own products, as word got around that ionia joined the major trading scene and the business began to boom, questionable offers began to roll in. the BLACK MARKET TRADES, the weapon shipments — the payout was too good to pass up. and, well, as the boss always said:

the only thing an honest livin' makes you is BROKE.

so he'd accept those too — typically covering it up with the more legal contracts as they moved through each region. the operation as a whole makes up another 30% of his profits. those are the main three business ventures sett's found himself tangled in. all three of course branch off into smaller, more local covenants and dealings, but seeing as this post is already longer than i originally intended it to be, i won't keep babbling about it here. but just know, he has a contact for just about anything you can want, need or think of under the sun. no, really — anything.

[doolallymagpie]

been trying to come up with a BattleTech “pitch” for fans of The Expanse, but honestly?

this is probably enough, plus the official “primer” document if you want actual information rather than just a bunch of pretty images and a banging soundtrack by Jon Everist (who I’m fairly sure admitted he wanted this piece to sound kind of Expanse-y)

or if you don’t want to click links or watch videos:

politics-heavy hard-SF space opera, thrilling heroics, (almost) zero easy answers to the dilemma of the day, main themes are “people are always going to be people” and “the end justifies the means, but there is no end”. obviously this describes both settings nicely.

one just uses that to explain why people are hopping into big war robots and slapping the shit out of each other.

[genderfluid-druid]

attempting to claw my brain out of The Rottening by allowing myself to spend money on things that will improve my household life even though I've been reluctant to commit to them

[zoroara]

December Belphegor Redraw 22 of 31!  

Buon Compleanno Belphegor~ As for his birthday I absolutely needed to get one of him as a kid. I had ruminated about doing the panel just before this with him and Rasiel, but well. He would've been made I made him share~ Maybe next year Rasiel, maybe next year. Speaking of this though I find the portrayals of how this went down, in Varia arc Vs Future arc very interesting. Because they're incredibly different in how they're described, in Varia arc Rasiel's murder is described as something Bel did Haphazardly, done without organization likely very sudden stabbing Rasiel to death. But then future arc clarifies from the both of them, that this could have been seen to be leading up from a mile away, and only if their parents genuinely were so neglectful to not pay any mind to this, or in fact encouraged this, that this would have ended up happening. I just find it very interesting how different it is and with the addition of how easily Bel clarifies it, I wonder how it lead to the conclusion that it was haphazard at all, or if it was even as simple as stabbing Rasiel to 'death'. Because it seems like Bel likely just has his idealized version that keeps getting broken down the more he was forced or corrected, you must wonder JUST how much of this is a lie how much MORE of it is to his favour? In the presence of his brother he had to be honest that they had always fought, and while Rasiel makes them move on quickly from this, he does state that Bel is "only saying things that benefit him" and "That he better not forget the face that didn't lose to him" to which Bel has no rebuttal against. What likely happened with the additional knowledge that Rasiel then says that day he was essentially poisoned with medicine, that Bel seeing an opportunity to finally end Rasiel then stabbed him violently very simple to figure. But even still there was likely much more of a struggle than Bel probably wants to admit if it was not considered a flat out loss for Rasiel now that he was proven to be alive to the point Bel didn't bother arguing that point. Bel may have been wounded himself and in his haste to solve that, may have been the small opening of chance for Rasiel to survive that Byakuran needed to manipulate so that Rasiel could survive in the future timeline. (just don't fucking ask me how that works because I don't see how he could affect something so far back. Maybe Byakuran just fucking lied to Rasiel and used other powers as "proof" to convince Rasiel that his survival was actually his doing.)

The Image I redrew is under the cut, just to keep the post small.

Not related to the whole murder(funny sentence I know), but it is said that Bel hides his eyes to prevent like a fucking political incident, but like. HE WAS WEARING HIS HAIR LIKE THIS SINCE BEFORE THIS I THINK PEOPLE WOULD ACTUALLY REALIZE MORE SINCE HE KEPT IT THAT WAY.

[4lph4kidz]

[metaphorthejesterdraws]

(undertale spoilers but mostly just headcanons and stuff) I'm Not Quite Sure How This Got So Out Of Control???

(perhaps surprisingly, this one DOES actually have a very small amount of blood (as well as an off-screen death), so I'm slapping a warning here and in the tags. just in case. no massive violence, though.)

i set out to practice with word bubbles because i intend to make a full-length fancomic series one of these days, and i needed to figure out the word bubble tool.

i figured i'd just use this offhand idea i had about the King Papyrus neutral route and call it a day. well i'm not quite sure what happened but somewhere it went from "simple comic" to "5 pages of what the heck is this". somehow veered into angst again. welp.

(if you feel like reading my logic behind this whole thing here's the initial idea i wrote up like 2 weeks ago lol)

i was thinking about neutral routes (...again...) and i wondered, would the monsters eventually reach a boiling point? like, would they get so fed up with what they perceive to be papyrus' inability to run a kingdom/actually pursue getting a human SOUL that they turn on him?

sans of course would intervene, constantly reassuring everyone that papyrus was doing all he could (which would be the truth!), and even getting just a lil bit ominous and scary if he needed to.

...which got me to thinking something else. if they tried to overthrow him, what steps would they take? where would they stop? monsters' SOULs are made of love after all (and monsters rarely, if ever, show desire to harm another monster at ALL), but would they take a life if it meant freedom...?

which led me to:

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

So, Canada has decided to stop sending arms to Israel after an NDP motion. The Liberals made major amendments to it so as to firmly condemn Hamas as well. It's kind of a mixed bag. Honestly, it's naive of me but I didn't expect there would still be so much outrage, even if the motion did call for an acknowledgement of Palestine as a state. All the Conservatives voted against it - to be fair, some of them wanted to wait for the motion to be passed because the amendments were super last minute and the Bloc Quebecois were annoyed that because of this there wasn't a French translation.

I guess it's a step in the right direction. I think it's still weak but you can read more on it here.

Source 1, Source 2, Source 3

[mememan93]

Tears of the Kingdom is a year old! How do you feel?

like about the game? the same as i did when it came out. it sucks.

[goldentigerfestival]

Yuri's dialogue (JP) is so fascinating to study, like... the repetitive use of certain words/phrases that others use sparingly but he uses constantly. the way it feels like his vocabulary is more expansive than what he uses, but he defaults to a "comfort" level of speech. the way it mixes in with his sort of "street talk" words and the sheer level of informality. the way his "street talk" phrasing is contrasted by the tone of his voice (on that note, people I know who also know JP are also very endeared by these aspects of him so I KNOW IT'S NOT JUST ME!!!).

'cause the thing is, he uses phrases that yeah, other people do use, but he uses a handful over and over and over (contrast to other characters' sparing use of repetition). it's actually... really refreshing? it sounds more relatable and less "video game/anime/JRPG/RPG" writing or something, idk. like closer to how a real person would speak.

I do my best in my translations not to make things sound too stiff across the board, but Yuri makes it so easy. it's why I'm so interested in translating all his lines in Vesperia, like... the actual, original tone for him with his original wording because it's smth Eng only players don't get to experience ('cause even if you listen with JP audio, if you don't know the language, ofc you're gonna miss out on context. it's nobody's fault for not knowing, just... they unfortunately miss out). the thing is, there are a lot of times when the lines in and of themselves are not contextually incorrect in the English ver (usually the situation for smaller scenes, because they altered the text outright for more important stuff which was the stuff that originally set me off, but there were also plenty of cases of just vocal tone shifting with the correct context that still gave off the wrong impression), but Yuri's tone is shifted away from the original in Eng even though it's completely and perfectly translatable.

I am by no means about to translate the entire game because let's face it, I really don't care that much for Vesperia on the whole. I'm kinda stuck with it because Yuri's there lo and behold I actually am WAY more engaged in his stories in Rays, Link and Asteria because it's an amazing character put into circumstances where he actually gets to shine and feels more alive, which Vesperia did not provide nearly as well with its very disjointed story. also, Tales gachas have banger stories that are arguably better than the mainline games, and they regularly make Yuri a very central character to the gachas. Crestoria was also about to do it until they pulled the plug on that game and I'm pretty confident something interesting has been lost to the world. also I just generally don't have the energy or motivation to do that, so... I'll only be focusing on Yuri's lines, especially because his stuff is where the bulk of the messing around was. he's just insanely fun to translate for and I love burying myself head first into his speech.

will I actually finish this project? dunno. will I get around to posting it? whatever I get done (so all of it if I complete it), and if I decide to call it quits then I'll post what I have at the time I decide that. will it take a long time? probably, but I can always mention stuff along the way...