#because yes I do want to make a cosplay for her her design is fucking cool

[sso-montana]

Part 2 Act II: Blooming Petals And Morning Dew

Pinning paper wings on problems Hoping that they'll fly away Turn our backs, ignore the truth If they can't support the weight Destiny is overrated So I think I'll write my own I don't believe it's complicated

We Are the In Crowd: Reflections

[davidisnotmyname]

MAJOR FUCKING SPOILERS FOR THE SEVENTH COMIC (also this post is really long be warned)

Okay I wanted to give my thoughts on the seventh comic because I, a sleep deprived teenager with absolutely no knowledge on comic making or writing, feel that my opinion is logical and good /s

First off, my immediate reactions to the comic:

OH MY FUCKING GOD THATS A CHILD. THATS SOLDIER’S AND ZHANNA’S CHILD. THATS THEIR BABY. WHAT THE FUCK

the second I saw this shit I knew this comic was gonna give me an aneurysm (in a good way).

waitasecond…

THERESTWOOFTHEMOHMYGOD (also im so fucking happy that the joke I see in fan media a lot about Soldier naming his kids stuff like that is officially canon)(also east meets west fans were eating good this comic)

I like that the comic creators have put so much focus on Spy and Miss Pauling’s relationship. Not only is their dynamic great, but it shows that Spy isn’t a heartless jackass and he not only genuinely cares about the people around him, but can and will show it (I mean most of us knew that already but… someeeee people have fallen victim to the temptations of flanderization)

you’re gonna see this come up a lot in my rambling but I fucking love the shit the mercs are doing in the background, their expressions are so funny: Heavy is sick of their shit

Demo is asleep

Scout can’t breathe

Spy is also sick of their shit

Medic (and that godforsaken baby baboon) is sightseeing

Pyro is having the time of their life

and Sniper and Pauling are just trying to make sure they don’t all fucking crash and die

This is irrelevant as fuck (but most of the stuff I say is) but I just wanted to bring up how much I liked the secretary’s design. It’s very pleasing to look at.

They are like ants to me. I want to put them in a jar with holes in the lid and a bunch of leaves and then roll them down the stairs

I know this might not be what the scene is trying to imply, but fuck yeah, lesbianism (also thank god they gave Scout some semblance of character development, they are very cute as friends)

more background mercs. Medic and Pyro in particular have me in hysterics (this comic has so much good shit I can use for my discord pfp). Also Demoman my belemoman

GOD I FUCKING LOVE THE CHARACTER DESIGNS SO MUCH, thank you young Administrator for reminding me that I am in fact gay in every direction. RIP Admin, she served cunt and died

Get that fucking thing away from me

MAKAMI!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! THIS SHIT BELONGS IN THE LOUVRE!!!!!!! THIS IS GENUINELY THE MOST INCREDIBLE PANEL IN ALL OF THE COMICS, I AM AWESTRUCK

Yet again more background mercs. They saw your AO3 history.

okay I was gonna say something but my phone flagged this image as nudity for some fucking reason? What

anyways, as I was saying:

GAY (guys listen it’s canon okay you have to believe me guys wait come back no wait)

also my first thought when I saw this was “heavy is trying to hold him back from doing weird shit to the corpses,” and I don’t care how anyone else interprets it because I am objectively the most correct /j

also looking back at this I���m realizing heavy’s hands are almost the size of medic’s entire torso lmao tf2 isn’t beating the yaoi hand accusations

I’m actually gonna be sick and die oh my god what the fuck is wrong with me

I’m not gonna put all of the panels cuz I feel like it’ll get annoying quick + the image limit, but the whole series of Pauling just standing there as the Admin is cosplaying a Nature Valley Honey and Oats Bar while everyone slowly trickles out of the room just hits so hard and so good. These comics are such a compelling narrative disguised as a series of shitposts and I’m all for it.

MISS P. NAME DROP???!!!!! (Also can we get an F in the chat for all the Francine Pauling truthers)

He is literally her dad I don’t make the rules (also yes I’m aware that it’s stated that he’s her legal guardian literally two panels later so this joke really isn’t funny, but none of my jokes are so what’s your point)

Yet another casual masterpiece by Makami, with the added bonus of the subject being a beautiful hairy old man who’s built like a fucking brick house. Heavy Weapons Guy TF2 I wish you were real. Also bearded heavy goes hard, i need to cook him into a fucking soup oh my god

Hey chat so did you know I’m actually going to be inconsolable for the next three years. Also this is obviously photoshopped we all know his last name is Elbertson (no but seriously I actually started running around my room and rolling on the floor when I got to yet another name drop)

Okay, I need to either say this now or have it fester in my psyche for eternity. That haircut gave me physical and psychic damage when I first saw it. Scout tf2, you’re ugly as shit but that’s honestly poggers, welcome to the club man (also oh my god he looks so much like Jerma I’m screaming, but Jerma isn’t ugly though I promise I would never diss my king like that)

Nobody talk to me

I SAID NOBODY FUCKING TALK TO ME

spy with his granddaughter, he loves her so much but still can’t bring himself to reveal who he truly is. I actually can’t fucking do this anymore this comic is gonna have me keel over and die of a heart attack

That’s it. Get in the fucking wood chipper right now /j seriously though I can’t even begin to explain how much this scene means to me. Spydad was one of the main things that got me so interested in tf2 over a year ago, and seeing him and Scout not only being civil about it, but genuinely caring about each other is everything. I’ve never been one for spydad angst (no shade if you do like it, I just personally prefer happier stuff), so I’m glad that this was the route the comics took with that plot point.

also don’t think I’m not gonna bring up the fucking mask. after seventeen years, we finally have spy’s face. Not only that, but the reveal was done through him giving it to his granddaughter. It’s done in such a casual and sweet way but it’s so impactful. He can be vulnerable around these people. This man, who’s spent his life building up walls around himself, refusing to let anyone through to the point of wearing that stinky ass balaclava everywhere, can now freely live as himself with his son and grandchildren. I’m gonna start eating screws I swear to god.

oh fuck I hit image limit hang on I have a little bit more to say check the reblogs the rest of my descent into madness will be present there shortly.

[thatblondeperson]

Do you have your own ranking of Tim and Stephanie's suits?

Sure, I'll give 'em scores out of 10.

Starting with Tim:

The Classic: 10/10. Who doesn't love the original? It was a brand new take on Robin and it stood out and still does to this day given that it's the one most seen on merchandise. This suit became the default in a way, and for good reason. It's simple, functional, and timeless. Great suit.

The "my best friend is dead" Robin suit: 7/10. I don't hate it, it's just not as good as the original. The more simplistic and darker color scheme is indicative of not just Tim's meaning for the colors, but the decline in a lot of his optimism. This was the start of his downward spiral and he never really came back from this era. It's a good suit, I wouldn't call it great. She's basic (affectionate).

Red Robin (the 2009 run): 9/10. I would put this at a perfect 10 if he didn't have the stupid cowl. I hate that thing, and the only saving grace for it is the fact that it could have been there to cover his burn scars. Swap that for the Unternet mask and it would be my fav.

See?

(^Original art by Marcus To, recolored and posted on Reddit)

Unternet Red Robin: 10/10. Ok this one is so cute because it shows just how much Tim still looks up to Dick. This is basically a rebranded Nightwing suit, complete with finger stripes, and it's adorable. This is what Tim envisioned himself as in the Unternet and is that not just precious? And I love this dorky mask. It's got a giant bird beak and it's so stupid that it's endearing as hell.

Swan Queen Red Robin: 2/10. Not sorry, I hate this suit. I don't know what it's trying to be but it's a mess. There's too much going on and it needs to be simplified. I hate the tiny logo on his chest.

This stupid shit: 0/10. What the fuck is this?

The Rebirth Robin suit: 10/10. This suit is spectacular. Plays on the original but modernizes it in a way that still feels like Tim. I love this suit, it is exactly the kind of look I would want for Tim in this day and age as Robin.

Drake: 0/10. Burn it. I don't think anything needs to be said. We all agree, yes? Good.

Not going to speak on the video game suits but just know that I hate all of those too.

Moving on to Steph:

The Classic: 10/10. It's campy, it's colorful, I love it. She made this herself and I think that makes it even better. It's such a classic look for the time and I think it's wonderful. Look at that giant shoulder strap. What is that for? No one knows. It went through a few variations over the years. The shoulder strap got smaller but so dud the outward facing underwear and they gave her basically a thong. Not cool, DC.

Stephanie's homemade Robin suit: 2/10. This is just pure over sexualization and I hate it. Why does it have to be a loose crop top? Why is it so tight?

Stephie the Hedgehog: 9/10. This one is also way too boob heavy but I like the overall look better. The skirt is still debatable as far as movability goes, but the hair is so great that I'm just going to ignore the flaws, silently dock it a point and move on.

Spoiler 2.0: 8/10. It's a good suit. This is the one I based my cosplay off of. It's simplistic but it still has the essence of the original with those ridiculous boots and gloves. I still love this, I just like the original better.

Katavi: ?/10. I don't know how to comment on this design. I love that Stephanie just wanted to help and took up a new persona in a new place to do so. I think the design is lovely but I can't speak on whether it's as appropriate worn by a white character. I think character wise, it makers sense for Stephanie, but I don't know what to say about it past that.

Batgirl (the 2009 run): 10/10. I'm skipping past the borrowed suit since this suit is specifically Steph's, and it's perfection. It's classic but with the touch of purple to make it hers. It's simple, but it's great. I'd love to have this suit someday.

Nightwing: 10/10. This is a great suit that we were robbed of. I would love this look more with Stephanie's short bob that she had for a while, but this look is so great.

The New52 suit: 10/10. This may come as a shock considering my distaste for the Ew52, but I actually really love this Spoiler suit. It's a great mix of some of the elements of her classic Spoiler suit, heavily mixed with her Batgirl 2009 look, and modernized in a way that feels very Steph. It's scrappy looking, idk. I just like it. I really love the half mask on it too.

Future's End: 6/10. I feel like it's missing a lot. It's drab.

Future State: 0/10. This is Rose Wilson.

The Batgirls suit: 7/10. This is just the Rebirth look with a purple bat slapped on. Lazy. I still like the look, but I wish they did something new.

There we go! Best I can do on this anon, I hope you enjoyed!

[gemstone-golem]

Week 1 of my daily art project: OCtober!

Its just a whole bunch of my ocs (plus my friends' ocs who im going to be drawing every weekend (not on day 1 tho)) in assorted halloween costumes/cosplays!

assorted info about my choices under the cut! also, my ask box is open if you wish to ask any questions about them!

-The Ball Lord is designed to be this hyper intimidating, but ultimately pathetic anime-style antagonist, hes crazy and his design reminded me of JJBA's The World, so i had a lot of fun with that.

-Starral is mainly dressed up as rosalina because of her origins. Shes a hyperactive lady whos super energetic and emits a literal aura of energizing energy, because shes all inspired by the Starman from mario. thats really the main reason i drew her as rosalina. pretty lady dressed up as pretty lady, sounds egood.

-Retina is another weird choice, shes a robot with giant eyeball screens for a head and shoulders, so i thought making her into "that one eyeball enemy from super mario 64" sounded fun. so Mr. I she became! shes also donned in a ton of lethal lava land textures because that sounded fun to do for me.

-the object fighters are all like. no thinking choices. potato is vegetable, so is pumpkin jackolantern! sprite is drink so is pumpkin spice latte! grapes are fruit so is cranberries and those are from thanksgiving but whateva!!!! theres a lot of lore about them im disregarding but the most interesting is that battle potato is a seasoned war veteran, thats about all i think is important enough to say.

-Bee-J is an infected hollow knight bee made by vespa, specifically having parts of his brain removed that make him act on violence. the hive collapsed and he was still alive and vespa's plan ultimately worked because he physically cannot think to be violent. anyways the radiance and bee-j are just a dumb comedy duo where beej is having a good time and the radiance wants him to fucking kill so bad. i thought turning the radiance into an afro sounded fun so i made im into the disco zombie from pvz sounded great.

-JAM-35 (or James) is just a gangly thin robot. making him look like endo 02 out of a bunch of spare junk like cardboard and tape sounded fun so i did that. im really happy with the pixelated face and the scan lines thats just something i wanted to say.

-Chill was specifically my friend's sona, she wanted me to draw her as the 14th doctor she cosplayed as once, and i did. i also kinda did it because i wanted to make one of my characters commemorate that me and my friend finished watching doctor who series 10 which was really fun. i had a great time with it! so this really just killed two birds with one stone. amazing awesome fun yes.

[cantbelieveyouregone]

hey since you gave me a bunch of questions im gonna give YOU a bunch of them so how about 1, 6, 7, 20, 27, 39, 46 >:)

Damn, Lee, making me face the consequences of my actions. Greetings hello hi by the way :D

1) What was your first exposure to Danganronpa?

There's a few different answers to this depending on the level of awareness I had on what DR was. In like 2014-ish I had a friend cosplay as Monokuma, but had literally no idea what DR was at that point despite them enthusiastically recommending it to me. A few years later, another friend cosplayed as Chiaki, equally clueless then. It wasn't until like lockdown that I saw a play through of DR1 come up in my recommended on YouTube and I was just like "I vibe with detective games right now, sure" and then I experienced The Horrors (cautiously affectionate). Though I did vaguely recall Hifumi's death when I saw it for the first time, definitely hadn't seen the whole game before.

6) Do you have a fan character? Tell us about them!

I somehow don't have a DR fan character yet! Mainly because my brain took a different route and just started throwing my own characters into a slightly modified DR-like scenario as a game design challenge for myself. More focused on changing parts of the killing game formula and stuff. :p

7) You get the chance to reassign five characters new talents. Who do you choose, and which new talents do they get?

Gonna do this with the angle of characters keeping their underlying personality, and force myself to choose at least one per game. Leon is now the Ultimate Stage Actor, and yes he still wants to be a rock star - dude never learns his lines, just improvs flawlessly. Taka is now the Ultimate Lawyer, and my boy does NOT cope with the changed rules of killing game trial mayhem, repeatedly explaining that you can't just do the death penalty like that and Monokuma telling him to stop being a spoilsport. Hiyoko is now the Ultimate Opera Singer, partially because it makes it ten times funnier that she likes Ibuki's screamo, and because I find it very funny the idea of her absolutely dragging someone through the mud with words while singing Like That. Gundham Tanaka is now the Ultimate Janitor. No further comment, imagine what you will. Finally, I'm gonna say that Shuichi is now the Ultimate Marksman. He retains a literal eye for detail, the insecurity from rooty-tooty-thing-go-shooty thing going wrong, and a better background for the trial text going as absolutely buckwild as it does while the player still handles it, as well as better meta for not participating in the fundamental trial stuff near the end. You're asking the Ultimate Marksman to not take any shot.

Not all of those are amazing choices but it is 6am and I'm writing this because I can't sleep lmao

20) What is your favorite aspect of Danganronpa?

For as flawed as they are, the characters are what I latched on to and made me keep playing. Don't have much more to say without going on essay-length rants about individual character analyses right now though. But the characters are definitely a big draw.

27) You’re placed in a Killing Game as yourself (who you are now, no perks). How far do you believe you’d get?

Bestie, I am fucked. I am exceedingly killable and the embodiment of the Barely Hanging In There Star. I'd be paranoid, self-isolate as much as possible, and that would give anyone that figures out where I go an easy place to kill me with no witnesses. If I don't die first, I'm either a dishonourable second, or the least memorable of the two chapter three victims (because I'm assuming the others are still Ultimates, so I'm literally Just Some Guy) that the writers just get rid of because I outlived whatever subplot significance I had.

39) Which character do you feel deserves more love?

This is a hard one to answer simply from the fact I'm very much in my own bubble and don't really know the fandom's most beloved blorbos. Gonna do a few different ones for different interpretations of the question. Korekiyo was done dirty by the writing and could've been an interesting character but instead just feels like a waste of a good motive, so he deserved more love by the DR writers. Leon seems very ignored because first killer, obvious killer once the investigation started and his literal name was at the scene, and relatively shallow what we got in just the original game. So he could probably do with more attention to expand on his character. And I just don't want the TERFs to have Tenko, so I'm gonna say Tenko. Tenko would aggressively support trans rights, you can't change my mind. Deserves more love from non-TERFs.

46) What are some of your pregame headcanons?

I'm going to assume this is mainly about the V3 crew and answer based on that. And because I'm not creative, one pre-game headcanon per character.

Rantaro was a hell of a homebody, but got very good at cooking, and enjoyed trying to create foods from different cultures as accurately as possible. Danganronpa had a hell of a time getting ahold of him for the 52nd game.

Kaede was actually incredibly good at maths. Never saw herself as the creative type because of it.

Ryoma was actually a relatively happy-go-lucky guy, before the Character Writing made him depressed. He was a very good singer, too.

Kirumi was one of the popular kids, but like... the Secondary Character of the main popular kids friends group. She let you copy off her homework because she was equally as confident when she was completely wrong as when she was right.

Angie regularly ran DnD campaigns for a small group of people. She was the glue holding the friend group together, and the one who stopped them drifting apart.

Tenko was studying psychology in her free time in a desperate attempt to try and find a way to outwit her ADHD. Mainly she just ended up going down Wikipedia rabbit holes. Very good on the clarinet.

Korekiyo was just a normal guy. Didn't have a sister. Healthy relationship with his existing family. He had a pet dog that he hung out with a lot after school. He never brushed his hair.

Miu was actually a completely average student, the kind of person you'd never happen to really meet unless someone introduced you. But by God she was passionate about writing. Not that she ever told anyone.

Gonta was very much a gym bro. Neglected a lot of his studies to get back on the grind, but was still quite naturally smart. He paid no mind to people wondering how a teenager like him was jacked as fuck.

Kokichi was very much your archetypical emo kid. Got very good at pretending everything was fine for the sake of not getting bothered by people, and tried to blend into the background. He wanted to hack the school website for fun but couldn't be bothered to figure it out.

Kaito was the guy to go to if you needed to pretend you had a boyfriend for an event. He'd do it for a day's lunch money. Solid C+ student in everything but art, where he was a B+ student.

Keebo, I have always imagined as a regular guy who was augmented into a cyborg masquerading as a robot. Aka, not actually even a robot, but Danganronpa fucked him up big time for their purposes. He was a very sporty kid, but didn't like people drawing attention to it. He just had a lot of energy.

Tsumugi... I find it hard to do a headcanon for her because I can't even agree with myself whether she's actually a teenager or an adult cosplaying as one. But she had a small close knit group of friends that she'd spend at least one weekend a month with.

Maki was really looking forward to studying literature in her higher education. But then someone made her apply to Danganronpa on a dare, and she did it to shut them up, intentionally making herself sound as boring as possible to reduce the chance she got picked. Unfortunately, Team Danganronpa took it as a challenge.

Himiko was the one who you'd hear about doing some wild shit, but then you'd meet her in person and the vibe can only be described as the gif of SpongeBob sitting in a coffee shop looking sad. You could never be sure if the things you heard were rumours or true.

Shuichi was the disruptive one with anger issues. He'd aggressively disagree with the teacher's opinion just because he could and he was bored. The only exception was in Geography. It was the one subject that for some reason calmed him down.

Hope those answers were alright! I'd link to the ask game but I'm on mobile and can't be bothered right now, might edit to add it later though lmao

[andromebaa]

Despair's Legacy

A Danganronpa AU

Part 3 - More Legacy Students

Here are the younger Legacy students!

Lolita

Lolita only exists because my brother forced me to make her and I am so glad he did because she's so fun and silly. Another stupid mish-mash idea cuz she's basically a younger and more obnoxious version of Tsumugi (she's a cosplaying otaku-ass nerd). My only wish is that I was a better character designer because her clothes would look more flashy and ridiculous. I just based her main outfit on something I used to wear when I was younger lmao.

Yes, she's also supposed to kind of look like Princess Piggles that was intentional.

Jin

Our protagonist, everyone! His main personality trait is that he's a little wussy baby. He's spent most of his life thinking he's been watched in the shadows and uh, he wasn't really wrong actually. I think the whole story was supposed to be kind of a coming of age/test of bravery for him. Overcoming his fears and all that. Apart from that he is a little bland. Sorry Jin.

Yes yes I did the stupid cringe Albus Severus thing to him I'm sorry I'm sorry. I didin't mention it before but Kyoko's dad actually died during the whole purging Junko thing at the start of the AU. So yeah we got the carrying on the name thing from that. Fun fact the first name I gave him I ended up using as Daiya's actual name. Funny how that kind of stuff happens.

Naomi

Everyone, our deuteragonist!

She's just a small version of Kyoko. No, but yeah, she likes being a little detective and getting into mischief. Kyoko sets up little crimes for her to solve. She's definitely a lot braver than her older brother and will ask the questions everyone else is afraid to say. I think they make a cute crime-solving duo.

I only realised fairly recently that she's very autistic-coded so I'll definitely canonize that.

Haruhi

Second youngest Legacy student! So young that she doesn't have a card yet totally did not make one for her because I didn't get far enough in the play-by-post to do it.

She's kid-sized, her birthday is on the 5th of June, she likes tending gardens and fantasizes about playing outside (where the real sun shines!!). She dislikes sitting still. Her parents are, according to her records, Leon and Sayaka. I like to imagine that Sayaka dressed her up like this against her will. The wings were a compromise.

Shion

This little asshole doesn't have a card either. Baby sized; August 8th; likes drumming; dislikes not having object permanence. You're never gonna fucking guess who his parents are. I think me and my brother made a joke that in this AU Monokuma poked holes in all the condoms.

Now I know what you're thinking - you didn't seriously put a baby into a killing game. Why? I dunno, it's funny.

His only personality trait is that he's wicked good on drums. It's played off as a joke to go with the whole family band stupid dumb fucking schtick I made. Haruhi was going to be part of it too but she kind of evolved into having her own personality and I'm so happy for her that she did.

And that's all of them! Looking back I kind of wish I made maybe one or two more kids cuz it's a pretty small roster but I managed to roll with it. As before, I have an embarrassing amount of lore about all of them so please feel free to ask if you want!

Part 2 - - - Part 4

[heyftinally]

Okay, I'm severely pissed about the way my house runs, and I need to bitch about it because I feel like I bother my friends with this too much, but it never gets any fucking better.

So my house has three residents. Myself, my sibling who is five years younger than me, and our mother. All three of us are adults.

My sibling isn't required to lift a damn finger.

I am.

On any given day, here's a list of the things I do around the house:

Laundry (everyone's)

Dishes (everyone's)

Seasonally - shovel snow, rake leaves, help with yard tasks in a general sense.

Run my own small business (@sparktacular.designs on Instagram), including hand making stickers, processing orders/payments, making packing materials (thank you cards and sealing stickers), and packing and shipping orders. I'm a one-woman show on this, so if you buy from me, it's literally *just me* doing all of this lol

Draw/make basically anything my mom asks for, unpaid. I've made magnets valued at over $200 for the full set, I've made over a hundred resin gummy bears for math manipulatives for the classroom she works in, and I've spent countless hours drawing her things that I then help her cut out on *her* cricut, which she barely knows how to use. 80% of her projects on it are basically her saying "I want this" and me making it happen. Any given design she wants takes me anywhere between one and four hours of drawing on my tablet.

Now, in contrast, this is what my sibling is responsible for:

Dishes

Yes, really. That's it.

At the beginning of the year I finally got a dish schedule implemented after bitching about the fact that I was doing dishes six days a week while my sibling sat on their ass and did nothing, yet had the audacity to tell me I was "cosplaying as an adult" when I told them to get off their ass and do the dishes one god damn time.

So the schedule looks like this:

M/W/F - Me

T/TH/Sat - sibling

Sun - mom

That's fine by me.

But that's not what happens.

What happens is:

M/W/F - Me

T - sibling

Th - piles up

Sat - piles up

Sun - mom does the rest of sibling's dishes

On top of this we frequently run out of dishes (particularly bowls) because said sibling makes food and then won't bring the dishes out of their room for weeks on end.

It's usually around this time that I start pointing out again that SIBLING needs to do THEIR JOB and wash the dishes, and mom proceeds to do them all the next morning.

Now, if I leave the dishes for a day or two or three, or a week, doesn't matter, I'm expected to do them. I don't get a special free pass.

My sibling is not disabled in any way, though ironically my best friend is disabled and chronically ill, and still does more house chores than my sibling.

At this point I don't know what to do. I'm sick of being treated like I'm worth nothing more to my family than a live-in resource. I genuinely don't think any of them like me. They certainly don't give a shit about me. The only time anything gets better is when I make a scene, and that only fixes things temporarily until my sibling gets to fuck off again. Oh, and what do they do all day watch YouTube. That's it. They have no employment, self or otherwise. They just watch YouTube all day.

I'm so beyond over it, and there's nothing I can do to change it. I'm stuck here because I can't afford to move out, and living here genuinely makes me mentally unwell.

[glossolali]

TLOVM Watch Party EP 3 Summary

- De Rolo Daddy was played by Taliesin

- Matt: so weird they use his original design for the VM Emon keep

- Playfulness and rivalries between characters were important to establish, dick tap and ball tag were essential (lol)

- Foreign dubs for this show are incredible

- The evening wear is SO good and Phil Bourassa made multiple options for the ladies

- Another Matt Mercer NPC sighting!

- Scanlan's rainbow crotch piece was Sam's choice, of course

- Briarwoods' design is pretty dead on as Matt imagined, even Laura and Travis's Halloween cosplay of them (except for the sunglasses)

- Allura and Kima are such a cute couple with their coordinated outfits!

- Keyleth's reactions are perfect and adorable

- Vex has a fan! Of course, she wants to show off that she's money

- The Vax ponytail is choice, chef's kiss

- Simon!

- Silas' eye color shift is supposed to be subtle

- Grey Griffin, Delilah's VA is brilliant and great at voicing her, she thanked them for giving her a fun role

- Everybody wants the Briarwood's cool chest, and also the pie

- Percy's anime fishbowl lens and the glasses reflection is so good!

- The Vax and Briarwoods scene is burned into their minds, and was so cool to see on screen, every beat is perfect

- Vax is so cute, he's a hottie (yes, glad we all agree)

- Sam's Brother-In-Law and him did Scanlan's Beads of Love and worked on a lot of the music, sending voice notes back and forth

- Everyone talks about how hot the Briarwoods and Vax scene is

- The fight with the Briarwoods is very well done and all the sounds and effects make it amazing, and it's so well-directed

- They love how badly this fight goes for Vox Machina, it's real stakes

- The camera work in the fight feels visceral and real, and it was not easy to do

- Keyleth is the most powerful one (nature magic users are broken!) but she still doesn't know how to use her magic

- Percy is hot and sexy, the gun reload animation is hot too

- Don't make Keyleth cry!

- Scanlan is a little douchebag and he's covered in whipped cream, they hope.

Q&A:

Q: The Vax and Briarwood scene, first - how dare you, second - what the fuck, third - what was it like creating and voicing this iconic character?

Matt: Loves the Briarwoods and had to vie for the role of Sylas (Sam: it was a given that Matt would voice him) We wanted Sylas to be like a feral beast of the night, so he got to be more muscled and powerful, wolf-like almost

Q: The Briarwood fight scene!

Brandon: The board artists killed it, we barely had to change anything

Sam: Most of the storyboard team have mostly worked in children's animation, so the characters were just getting bumped or falling over but we were like "HURT US! Make it look really bad" and by the time episode 3 came around they were like "You want us to fuck up your characters? Okay, we'll fuck up your characters"

We watch the first draft animatic of the "Your soul is forfeit" scene (sorry didn't have screen record prepped!)

Matt: Working on this is a homecoming because I grew up wanting to be an animator

Q: How did you condense all that important info into a 22 minute episode?

Matt: Carefully

Travis: We had to condense The Briarwoods Arc from 35 to 40 hours to 6 hours, so we decided on what are the important things we need to keep for future storylines and episodes

Matt: What are the favorite beats that show essence of the things not included are still carried forward? That's what we focused on

Q: Favorite easter eggs?

Everyone: Matt's NPCs, and there are many Doors throughout the season

We can't wait for everyone to watch the next 3 episodes, this batch is the best one, Ep 4 is a favorite

Q: What was it like to see your characters animated for the first time?

Travis: Watching even the initial chicken scratch animatics was great, we were freaking out and being emotional after together, it was very special, a dream come true

Q: Let's talk more about the music, and Sam's songs!

Sam: Lots of demos of weird rhymes and gross stuff and fun that I hope to share with everyone one day, the VM song was too long at first but they loved it

Sam sings Beads of Love live!!!

[howlingday]

Jaune can’t help but find it a bit odd that his girlfriend Winter will only allow him into her panties if he’s cosplaying as Captain America.

The Winter Hero

Jaune Arc was a man of principle. He was raised to be a gentleman; kind, generous, and sensitive to a woman's needs. His mother and sisters groomed him to be the perfect boyfriend for anyone lucky enough to have him.

Chocolate ice cream at 3 AM, even though all the stores are closed? Done before dawn.

Need some guy to stop stalking you? Jaune wasn't a man of violence, but he had his ways to deter creeps.

Need another girl for your sleepover? Not a problem, even though he got a few awkward glances from his sister's friends.

However, almost as soon as he left the nest, his first girlfriend was completely independent. Any offer to help was completely shut down. But this was to be expected from an officer of the Atlas military. Yes, Winter Schnee never made any requests to her boyfriend.

That is, until one Halloween night...

Jaune looked himself over in the mirror at his costume. His blue spandex bodysuit was slim, if not constricting. It featured a white letter "A" on his forehead with a pair of wings just behind his temples, a star in the center of his chest, and a design of red and white stripes over his abdominals and circling around the back. He looked down to the flat, metal disk shield that weighed about thirty pounds. Not all too heavy for him, but it still weighs down over time. Yes, he was the hero of life and liberty, Captain America!

He sighed and shook his head as he looked over his ridiculous outfit. When he asked about their plans for Halloween, Winter explained she already ordered his and that she intended to go to a costume party with him. He knew better than to question it, but did it have to be this superhero?

Jaune has read his fair share of comics, and when asked who his was, he would answer Batman. Unfortunately for him, though, Winter was a Marvel fan, so his favorite superhero would have to stick to the sshadows tonight.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Picking up the shield, he walked over to the door and opened it. The sight in front of him almost made him drop his shield.

On the other side of his apartment door stood a beautiful woman with snow white hair, cascading down over her shoulders like an avalanche. She wore a silver body-suit, reminiscent of the ones worn by special forces, that hugged all of her curves perfectly. Around her waist was a gray belt designed to look like it had multiple compartments.

"Is there something wrong, Jaune?" He blinked and gave a nervous chuckle. She looked him up and down and smiled. "I see your costume matches the measurements I provided."

"Uh, actually, it feels a little tight." Jaune replied, tugging at his collar. "I can breathe just fine, but-"

"Good." Winter turned around and began walking towards the stairs. "Let's go. It's time for the party."

"Uh, yeah, sure!" Jaune shut the door behind him and followed her. "I like your costume. Who are you supposed to be?" Being a gentleman, Jaune asked, since he was certain it would tie to her interests.

"Silver Sable." Winter replied without looking back. "Russian mercenary. Leader of the Wild Pack. First appearance in 'The Amazing Spider-Man Issue #265'."

"Oh, she sounds... intense." Being a man, Jaune's eyes wandered to her hips, where her ass lightly swayed with every step, leaving nothing to the imagination. His costume felt tighter.

At the party, Jaune struggled to keep his shield up. He had shifted between his arms twice since he started carrying it. He could set it down, but every time he did, Winter would find out. The first time, she lightly chastised him, saying, "I thought you were supposed to be a hero." The second, and last time, she hit harder, telling him, "You're supposed to be a hero. So be one." She knew one of Jaune's dreams was to be a hero, someone who helps others and can be looked up to with pride. He sighed as he looked over the crowd.

The costumes varied, but he recognized everyone as someone from Winter's command. Elm Ederne, a specialist of Atlas' Ace Operatives, was dressed as some kind of monk, she explained, and carried a set of drums on her waist. He thought she was a hippie at first, but was swiftly corrected. Their commanding officer, General James Ironwood, was luckier than Jaune and dressed up as Batman. Jaune was green with envy. Or he was when Councilman candidate Robyn Hill showed up, dressed as Orchid from Killer Instinct. He never played the game, but he recognized the costume from... research.

"Jaune," he looked to his left and saw Winter standing with her arms crossed, "do you want to leave?" Jaune blinked, but before he could say anything, she spoke first. "I know that look on your face. You're bored. If you wish to leave, I won't force you to stay."

"I'm fine," Jaune replied, "I'm just... reading the room." Winter sighed, leaning against the wall next to him. She had an annoyed look on her face. "Are you okay, Winter?"

"I'm fine." She replied without looking at him. Instead, she was looking at the attention Robyn was getting. With a scowl, she huffed under her breath. "Pigs."

"Svin'ya." Winter looked to Jaune, who was wearing a smile on his face. "Svin'ya is pig in Russian."

She chuckled at that, gracing her lips with a smile. Jaune liked making people smile. Well, maybe not make, but help smile. She leaned closer, forcing Jaune to shift his shield to his other arm. She held his arms and sighed. Jaune felt his suit grow even tighter.

"Do you want to leave?" Winter looked up to Jaune. With a smile, she replied.

"Yes."

Winter and Jaune arrived at her apartment door. The walk home was certainly brisk, but made warmer with their body heat combined as they held close on their trip, as well as Jaune holding the shield against the wind. She reached into her belt and clipped open one of the compartments and pulled out her keys. Jaune held the shield behind her, pretending to protect her from some evil or another.

As she opened the door, Jaune stepped away. "Good night, Winter."

Winter turned to face Jaune. "Won't you come in? After all, it's cold outside tonight."

"I'm sure I'll be fine." He replied with a red-cheek and -nose smile.

"At least warm before you go." Winter gestured for him to enter. "I couldn't bear to think of you becoming hypothermic because of me."

"Just another part of being a hero!" Jaune chuckled.

"Actually," Winter said, placing her chin between her index and thumb, "I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but your costume has an interesting feature."

"Feature?" A stray wind blew in, chilling Jaune where he stood. "On second thought, maybe staying a second to warm up wouldn't hurt." He stepped inside, setting his shield down by the coat rack inside. She shut the door behind him.

"I'm glad to see you've come to your senses." She stepped further into the apartment, Jaune following close behind.

He had been here twice, but the size always amazed him. It was at least three times the size of his, and included it's own washer and dryer set. It was only a balcony away from being considered a penthouse. With the click of a button, Winter summoned a fireplace from the darkness.

Following her to the couch, Jaune sat down next to Winter. She leaned closer to him then nuzzled against his chest. She leaned up, kissing him as he leaned down. She prodded tongue past his lips, and upon receiving invitation, grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled him into her. Their breathing became heavy as the two pulled themselves closer to the other, their make-out growing more intense by the second.

Pulling away, Jaune groaned. "Damn."

"Something wrong?"

"This costume's in the way." Jaune tugged at his collar,causing Winter to chuckle.

"No, it isn't." Before he could ask, Winter slipped to her knees, kneeling in front of Jaune's crotch. "I custom-ordered this, you know." She traced her middle finger from the couch up to his groin. "I needed to get," she dug into a flap he never noticed, "your exact," and she pulled down the zipper he never knew, "measurem- Ack!" Winter recoiled as she was slapped by Jaune's dick.

"You okay?" Jaune asked.

"I'm fine," Winter waved him off, "I just... got my measurements wrong." She eyed his penis with a critic's glare. It was larger than the average she suspected, possibly six-and-a-half, if not seven inches in length, with a girth that made making her index and thumb have difficulty meeting. "But I'll adapt."

Before Jaune could say anything, Winter wrapped her lips around Jaune's head, tracing over it with her tongue. He lightly gasped as she pumped his shaft and she moved her head in a rhythm up and down his cock.

"F-Fuck!" Jaune grunted. "I'm gonna-!"

Winter pulled away and pumped with more vigor. With a moan, Jaune came a thin rope onto Winter's costume, a stream of white oozing onto her hands. She turned around, looking back to Jaune.

He squinted for a moment, then took notice of the zipper at the top of her back. He reached forward and pulled down. The costume came splitting in half as he dragged the tab closer to it's destination. As he reached the end, Winter stood up.

"Jaune," he couldn't see, but she looked at him with a sort of predatory gaze, as if he were a breathing meal for her to devour, "do you want to keep going?" With a gulp, he answered.

"Uh, I don't have any condoms."

"No?" She chuckled. "Check your shield." Jaune stood up and walked over to the hat rack where he placed his shield, his now flaccid cock swaying in the air with every step. Felling around, he noticed a hatch near the center, behind the handle. With a click, it opened and he found box of condoms. He couldn't see the brand, but the box felt small. That was fine, though, since he wasn't expecting to burn through ten or so condoms tonight. "Did you find them?" Winter called out.

"Yeah, they were behind the han-duuuuuh..." Jaune's jaw dropped at the sight in front of him. Bathed in firelight, Winter removed her soiled costume and laid back against the couch, her legs spread, her hair wild, and her eyes hungry. She became instantly erect.

"Then come here, my hero."

Winter moaned loudly as Jaune thrusted himself into her from behind. Every movement forward by him drove her further over the edge. This may have been their first time, but Jaune was clearly experienced. Some way, somehow, this man had a lover before her, and they perfected him into the breeding bull slamming into her.

With a grunt, Jaune came into the condom and pulled out. He huffed as he removed the rubber from his semi-stiff staff. Winter whirled around and slurped on his phallus until he was nice and hard again. Once he put the next condom on, she pushed him onto his back, then slipped him inside.

She bounced up and down his rod as she moaned and gasped. Jaune tried to match her pace with his thrusts, but she was moving too fast for him. He panted as she rode him like it was a rodeo. He settled his hand on her hips and took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, she was above him, her hair acting as a white veil to hide themselves from the world. Her mouth split to a predatory grin.

"You like it?" She growled.

"Y-Yeah!" He grunted.

"You like it?" She repeated.

"Yeah!" He whined.

"You want me?" She leaned closer, slowing her pace.

"Y-Yes!" He panted. She leaned next to his ear.

"Then take me."

Jaune flipped Winter onto her back and held her legs above her in a mating press. She screamed as Jaune pounded with greater vigor into her, grunting as he did so.

"Fuck me!" She shrieked as she held her ankles. "Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck meeeeeee!"

With a grunt, Jaune came again, panting hard. He pulled out, pulling the condom out with him. He removed the prophylactic the his cock, setting it down next to it's seven siblings.

Eight condoms. The couple's box held eight condoms. With eight used condoms, Jaune sighed as the night's activities drew to a close.

SHUP!

Jaune looked down to see Winter bobbing her head up and down his shaft again. He groaned and pulled her off. With a sigh, he told the truth. "I can't anymore."

"No?" She tilted her head to the side.

"No." He stepped away and gestured to the condoms. "We went through a whole box, it's only a few hours until dawn, and I... I don't think I can do it again."

"I see." She said looking down. She almost looked sad.

"It's nothing against you, but I don't think I can do a round nine like this, condom or no condom."

"Like this?" She tugged on his bodysuit, now soaked in sweat and, in the lower region, genital fluids. "With the suit?"

"Yeah."

"Well, in that case," she reached behind Jaune and pulled down his back zipper, "here." She tugged on his sleeves and helped him out, peeling the it free from his skin. He shivered as the cold air rolled over his bare skin for the first time all night. She stepped free of the suit and sat down.

"That's much better." Winter was about to walk away, but felt him grab her hand. "We're not gonna cuddle?"

She smiled and sat down next to him. They embraced for a moment, then felt him pull her down, so they were laying on the couch. His body felt hot; clearly from the body heat trapped by his suit.

Winter closed her eyes, momentarily thinking about fucking her favorite superhero, Captain America, until she slipped into her dream where she was held in the loving embrace of her hero, Jaune Arc.

[jrwi-updates]

Here are all of Grizzly’s chat messages from the JRWI stream earlier!

[Image ID: 

Cropped screenshots of twitch chat messages by grizzlyplays. They read:

grizzlyplays: there are three episodes left of the feywild arc. 

grizzlyplays: HEE HOOOO 

grizzlyplays: HEE HOOO 

grizzlyplays: including this one! 

grizzlyplays: ill add the felipe emote when i get back to desk 

grizzlyplays: thanks for the hype train 🥺

grizzlyplays: i will be listening with you guys tonight and taking notes for editor ikarus 

grizzlyplays: know i am here looking at you 

grizzlyplays: LOOOLL 

grizzlyplays: :D grizzlyplays subscribed with Prime. They've subscribed for 5 months! 

grizzlyplays: WAS THAT SERIOUSLY A FNAF NOISE LOL 

grizzlyplays: DO I TELL HIM TO KEEP IT IN 

grizzlyplays: LMFAOOO OKAY 

grizzlyplays: WHAT 

grizzlyplays: DEJA VU? 

grizzlyplays: writing it down.. 

grizzlyplays: Neivien Oloxidor 

grizzlyplays: keep watching 

grizzlyplays: hee hoo 

grizzlyplays: ;) 

grizzlyplays: "this easy puzzle" 

grizzlyplays: GAS 

grizzlyplays: i can't watch saw i hate those movies sm 

grizzlyplays: THAT NOISE GOES HARD 

grizzlyplays: WOOOAH 

grizzlyplays: @/xubioc yeah!! i'm very disconnected from the recording and the product so when i listen it sounds very new to me LOL. i often say things i dont expect myself to have said 

grizzlyplays: The rolled for EP 79 is already scheduled for Satruday :D 

grizzlyplays: 2chainzz 

grizzlyplays: fun fact: i think i decided to skip another security checkpoint encounter here 

grizzlyplays: for pacing 

grizzlyplays: @/gothicshan i could cosplay william wisp fr 

grizzlyplays: SPIT TAKE 

grizzlyplays: SPIT TAKE W 

grizzlyplays: SPIT TAKE W 

grizzlyplays: W

grizzlyplays: W 

grizzlyplays: W 

grizzlyplays: SPIT TAKE W 

grizzlyplays: SPIT TAKE 

grizzlyplays: jrwishSmug 

grizzlyplays: IF YOU WANT ALL OF MILO 

grizzlyplays: twitch.tv/spittakelive [repeated 11 times]

grizzlyplays: always here for the boys 

grizzlyplays: W 

grizzlyplays: TEARS?? 

grizzlyplays: CRY ABOUT IT 

grizzlyplays: LITTLE BABY 

grizzlyplays: jrwishPretzel 

grizzlyplays: pretzel is in the dark 

grizzlyplays: @/misterkryptonite_ i hate horror games and horror movies LMAOO 

grizzlyplays: i get panic attacks 

grizzlyplays: i could read horror books tho 

grizzlyplays: its ok if i make the scary stuff 

grizzlyplays: our call of cthulu sessions has made me have anixety at night sometimes LOL 

grizzlyplays: drawn BY https://twitter.com/shanuraru [repeated 10 times]

grizzlyplays: @/tellingphibs MY BRAIN!! IT LOOKED DIFFERENT AT FIRST BUT SHAN'S CREATIVE FREEDOM COLLABED WITH MY BRAIN CHILD AND WE MADE THIS 

grizzlyplays: @/angrygay_mushroom ive been trying to slow down and be more relaxed when talking bc in past eps i talk at 1 million miles an hour out of nervousness 

grizzlyplays: OH WAIT!! i got inspired for these designs by watching hunter x hunter 

grizzlyplays: almost forgot 

grizzlyplays: @/tellingphibs up to interpretation 

grizzlyplays: SOB :( 

grizzlyplays: i coulda made him roll acrobatics LOL 

grizzlyplays: why am i nice 

grizzlyplays: ikarus goated for those noises 

grizzlyplays: LMFAOOOO 

grizzlyplays: i was sitting here thinking "what the fuck do i do" 

grizzlyplays: i dont remember what happens im so nervous 

grizzlyplays: we recorded it so long ago 

grizzlyplays: THE GOAAT!! 

grizzlyplays: by himself, power move 

grizzlyplays: oh damn im looking at the camera 

grizzlyplays: terrifying 

grizzlyplays: HEY SO 

grizzlyplays: i might of described Celeste's type of hair/hair style wrong and I apologize if i did. also i named Celeste (the elder) before i named Celestine ( the archfey) and i'm still angy i gave npcs such similar names LOL 

grizzlyplays: heads up 

grizzlyplays: oh okay thats not that bad 

grizzlyplays: jrwishSmug 

grizzlyplays: @/luminoussalt likely because i described her face familiar "like someone you know," however that doesnt automatically mean mother you are right 

grizzlyplays: GILLION W 

grizzlyplays: HUNK OF A MAN??? 

grizzlyplays: he is so inspired by oogway yes 

grizzlyplays: i hope hes not dead and you guys get to meet him later 

grizzlyplays: @/Mintyforshort i havent decided LMAOOO 

grizzlyplays: im crying 

grizzlyplays: jrwishDaddy 

grizzlyplays: HAHAHAHAHAHA 

grizzlyplays: NO TWITTER [repeated 5 times]

grizzlyplays: v 

grizzlyplays: NO TWITTER 

grizzlyplays: jrwishDaddy [repeated 13 times]

grizzlyplays: NEXT WEEK THE FELIPE EMOTE SHOULD BE APPROVED

End ID]  

[cookingwithroxy]

The Goth

Nina did not ask to wake up in an artificial body, forever robbed of her humanity. Designed to be absolutely perfect eye candy. But if anyone HAD asked, she would have said, "FUCK YES!"

She'd have objected to it if she'd known the details, the kind of person the man who abducted her was. But she didn't, and it wasn't as if she was granted a choice. Instead she was granted cybernetic immortality, a body that lived up to the dreams she'd long had but never expected to live out, and absolutely no connection remaining to her past. Who would blame her for abandoning everything she'd had and taking advantage of her new start, her new life?

Okay, so there are SOME downsides. She can't access most of the equipment of the Lab she woke up in, she has to make sure the systems don't revive the mad bastard who made the body she now has, and has to figure out how to carve a space for herself in a world that never expected to have her in it. No name, no identity...

But she's got all the lab's resources, the scientists' finances, and the body she'd always dreamed of. One most men (and a few women) would lust after. She can dress how she's always wanted. Live how she's always wanted. No regrets.

Yeah, she's going to be the goth slut she'd always wanted to be.

Maybe she'll even become a hero.

--- The Origin of her Body

One part perfect Sexbot, one part advanced cyborg. Really, explaining the body of Nina is the easy part. You know the kinds of stories you occasionally see in anime? Where some mad scientist abducts someone to do inhumane experiments on? Occasionally they’ll give their victim some kind of superhuman body to live in?

Take that, at it’s hentai worst. Body designed to be desired, super-humanly strong (to handle whatever the scientist threw at her) resilient (to survive whatever he threw at her) able to self-repair with nanites, a computer back-up for her mind (so he could reset her if anything he did to her actually broke her) and… Well, let’s just say she has an artificial womb and other ‘functionalities’ and leave it at that.

It was meant to be a torment. It was MEANT to torture the person he put into the body, to allow him to do unspeakable things to a victim who could never escape from it, never be free from the inventive and disturbing experiments.

The doctor died of a heart attack when ‘Nina’ woke up after the installation and the first words out of her mouth were "Oh god thank you it’s a miracle!"

He should have chosen his random victim a bit less… randomly.

--- As a Hero! AKA "Oh god did I really let myself be dubbed 'Cybergoth'?"

"Okay so. this is an odd story right?"

"So. I... Well, I always wanted to go cosplay at a convention. I couldn't before all this for... reasons. But now, well, I can right? And I've got the look already down pat so I get together what I need for this KILLER 'The Major' costume. Silver leotard that looks sexy as FUCK, black gloves, leather jacket, the belt, the boots... I got it all. And because I'm planning on partying in the evening, I've got some goggles and a gas mask on me."

"Listen, it's expected, alright? Some things just... are, ok?"

"Anyway I'm dressed for the con and I'm just stopping in a bank to... What? No, I'm not worried about the weather, I don't sweat anymore! Anyway I'm just stopping in to hit the ATM for some funds and some fucker comes in to rob the place! Shot a security guard, was holding a little kid hostage! I had to do something, right? But it's not like I have a REAL identity and I certainly don't want the cops to question why I've got no fingerprints or anything."

"So, yeah. I slip on the mask and goggles, then confront the shooter. So yeah, I got shot but that's not a problem to me anymore. I TOTALLY beat him up and got away while everyone was just sagging in relief. I thought, 'no harm done, except for my cosplay, and I can get the Nanites to fix that for me'."

"Except guess what? I forgot about the news! By mid-day I was all over the local TV as 'mysterious Vigilante' and by the end of the night? I come home from the club to find out now I'm called 'The Cybergoth Hero'."

"Ugh. At least I can change my hair color, nobody thinks it's ME. Not that anybody really knows who I am either..."

(Because people will ask, art is custom for Nina, commissioned from Marauder6272 and colored by a friend)

[actualbird]

If Vyn lets his being a furry slip to the team I feel mc would absolutely be the first and most willing to share her own nerdy (anime) interests followed by Marius who teases Vyn before realising he probably needs some reassurance that his interests are Fine, so he pulls out his ridiculously long list of commissions for furries he's done because as fun as teasing Vyn is he's gotta make sure Vyn knows it's in good faith first.

How does Vyn get to know Luke's anime days? Mc and Luke absolutely had anime tumblr blogs or accounts on other social media that mc is completely unembarrassed about. Luke probably isn't embarrassed about it either but he also doesn't really take initiative to show his blog to the others unless Vyn really needs to know it and mc doesn't want to force him to give away something he might want to keep private so she decides to only show her blog. Except there's no way their blogs never interacted with one another and so, while looking through mc's many many posts:

Vyn, after reading a miles long rp post between mc's account and someone with sherlock in their account name: Luke that's you isn't it

Mc is just about to apologise a thousand times for sharing Luke's blog accidentally before he tells her it's fine and gives the team the go ahead to look through his blog too.

And after seeing how chill the rest of nxx is about nerdy interests Artem shares his own Star Trek days, offhandedly mentions his cosplay of Spock and is instantly bombarded with requests to see it. He tells the team to go back to work but the next Halloween when they're probably close enough to hold a party. He shows up in his fabled cosplay and the team goes WILD.

This sharing of nerd culture brings all of them closer together, but also just gave everyone ammo for everyone else. None of them ever hear the end of jokes relating to their respective interests, but of course it's all in good fun and doesn't go too far. Some of them probably get into the fandoms of the others. At some point all of them get into a common fandom and start scheduling meetups specifically for fandom business along with their actual important jobs.

🌌

irt nxx team locational coincidences: part 1. part 2. part 3. part 4.

hhhHHHH, MILKYWAYYYYY!! this genuinely just made me feel like pleading emoji the entire time i was reading, it's so sweet, so tender :((((

ive got nothing to add, you already made something wonderful, so i will just tell u Everything I Love About This

MARIUS IS A GOOD BEAN!!! yes hes an asshole but hes an asshole (affectionate) and the ribbing only comes after marius divulging his own "cringe" stuff and how cringe is shitty anyway, look at these fucking designs, vyn, furries are awesomely creative and are the best demographic to get commissions from OF ALL TIME.

sdkjbkjBKJKS YEAH, VYN CLOCKS IN LUKE FROM HIS URL. who tf else would have the url theadventuresofsherlukeholmes dot tumblr dot com (WHICH, I JUST CHECKED, IS NOT TAKEN. somebody go get it, bc i cant since ive hoarded enough tot urls HAHA)

sidenote: so curious as to what mc and luke were rp-ing, like, luke is obvi rp-ing sherlock, either from the og ACD or specific adaptations he likes, so i guess thatd mean mc is doing the same but rp-ing as watson. oh my god, their rp threads are just them doing johnlock across medias. LOSING MY MIND, i love them both so much, your honor.

YESSSSSSS ARTEM'S COSPLAY!!! i do a standing ovation, youre doing AMAZING, HONEY!!!!

im so emotional about all this :((( nerds coming together and having fun together //SOBS!!!

this is so fantastic, thank u for my life, milkyway!!!

[problemswithbooks]

I think rock lock was used to show that the spinner cult is fanatic and self centered and he might even school them or have some flashback. But it’s still so weird to use the guy whose race is the original allegory for mutants in the x-men 😓

I certainly hope that's what Hori will do with him, but I kind of doubt that. The entire subplot has been handled poorly and given Hori's need to reference pop culture (he used Star Wars refences to name his fictional genocides for fucks sake) I think it's not unfair to assume he just pulled it out of X-Men whole cloth without actually caring about why the OG material had it in the first place.

If Hori doesn't address it and presents Rock-Lock as the same as any of the other 'human shaped' non-mutants, I do think that proves how little he actually cared about presenting this theme. Frankly, he's already steered into sort of offensive territory already, presenting the mutants as joining the PLF/Spinner and wanting to kill everyone. Heck, Spinner's entire reason for joining the LoV being because he was cosplaying Stain and didn't have any beliefs is kind of stupid if he already has a valid reason to be mad at society and want it changed.

And at the end of the day, this is a side plot. I've seen people annoyed with others who find this chapter boring, claiming they just don't get the story or only want their favs and flashy fights. But I don't think the people who say this chapter isn't important are wrong. Mutant discrimination isn't integrated into the main plot at all and is barely focused on even when we're following mutant characters. Sure this chapter brings up big world building things (out of no where), but at the end of the day I don't see this effecting anyone but side characters involved.

This isn't like Full Metal Alchemist. It had it's issues, but at least Scar and the Ishvalan genocide were integral to the main plot. Yes, Ed and Al wanted their bodies back and that was their main drive, but that desire led them to the philosophers stone, which led them to uncover how it was made and used in Ishval. That discovery helped lead them to Father and how the Homunculi were controlling their country and had set up Ishval for slaughter on purpose. Characters like Riza and Roy were haunted by what they did and their main motivations were changing the country so no more genocides happened.

Arakawa cared for this plot. She wove it and Scar into the main story in a way where they can't be cut out of it without changing the entire thing. It's something that impacted almost all of her characters including Ed and Al.

Hori just hasn't put that much care into his own story. The mutant discrimination stuff could be cut and it wouldn't really change all that much. It already wasn't a major part of Spinner's character--he could have just been bullied because he was poor or something. The people fighting for him could all just be PLF goons that escaped during the first war. It doesn't impact Izuku or Shigaraki; didn't change their outlook on the world or challenge them.

It's a set dressing, something that Hori pulled from a different comic to deepen his world building and make a cool side plot with his fun animal/ non-human character designs. It feels shallow and unimportant. Putting the stand in, right next to it's RL counterpart and having them insist he can't understand their oppression is just proof that Hori hasn't given this part of his story as much care as it needed. So, yeah, I can see why people find it boring.

[lochnessies]

ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. 

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. 

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. 

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

[lunarimpact]

Share pinions of the Ooku event?

First of all, fuck DW’s portrayal of Parvati. All the writers suck at portraying Parvati as she should be. They just suck at really writing the nuances of any of the Indian/Desi/Hindu mythos based servants. They lack the carefully cultivated personalities, the intricate backstories, the elaborate myths, and the respect these characters deserve.

Like just fucking admit that it’s Sakura COSPLAYING as the most powerful Goddess in Hinduism, the wife of Shiva, who is his equal in every way. She’s as terrifyingly powerful and destructive as he is, and as loving and motherly as the world needs her to be. She is Shakti incarnate, Sati reincarnated, Adishakti given flesh, etc etc etc. She’s not the soft oh no I had to borrow my husband’s trishula waifu that they want people to believe. She’s violent and temperamental, willing to make the whole world suffer because her husband fucked up a little.

Parvati is, and can be, one of the most terrifying women in all of mythology, but DW doesn’t have the cojones to do her fucking justice.

And it pisses me right the fuck off.

And do not get me fucking started on Karna or Arjuna.

Second of all, most everyone has kind of said what I feel about the event, so I’m not going to go into a big spiel about how the event’s story played out, or the depth of design and story telling, and so on and so forth. It was an interesting way to bring in the God of Love, and give him an outlet to be bitter and hurt, and to show his scars from being used by the Gods to get Shiva and Parvati together. Did they fuck up his story a little by putting all the blame on Parvati? Yes.

Yes, because it WASN’T Parvati who asked Kama to fire his arrows at Shiva, it was Indra. Parvati, in some cases, mourns the loss of Kama, for she is met with Rati who rages at her, who curses her. Who screams and cries and begs, begs for her beloved back. Because Kama has always been Rati’s destined one, her other half. And yes, they share a husband who is every bit a part of Rati’s heart and soul, but the focus tends to boil down to Rati.

Now that aside, the event was a lot. It was long, drawn out even, with so much grinding that I was clenching my jaw in frustration, but I enjoyed the story well enough. And I enjoyed seeing Kama, and interacting with Kama. And Lady Kasuga/Lady Tsubone was amazing. She was fierce and wonderful and just stole the show when she was around.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 135

I think y’all are in for a treat with this one. I won’t spoil it, though, other than to say that @baelpenrose and @charlylimph-blog thought this chapter was hilarious.

Think about that, please. Charly and Arthur think this chapter is hilarious.

Eyeah. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. I do not take responsibility for any injuries sustained.

As always, please don’t forget to check out the podcast! I will plug it shamelessly, so you may as well.

“Where are they?” Alistair murmured while he searched our shared office thoroughly.  Had it been anyone else, I would say he was being calm, but the fact that he was searching for anything, at all, tagged it in my head as a downright frantic pace.

“Where are what?”

“Nothing,” he dismissed, despite continuing his search.

I furrowed my brows. “You haven’t even had your tea yet. Or your breakfast?”

A pale hand waved me off. “I am aware.”

Shrugging, I gave it up as a lost cause and went back to the list of evacuees that Tyche and I had drafted up. After whipping up a preliminary list of who was assigned where, we were doing a more thorough second pass to ensure no conflicts of personality.  Deep in thought, I paid Alistair no attention until Parvati and Hannah arrived fifteen minutes later.

“Alistair, they aren’t here, so you can stop looking,” Hannah grinned as she took her accustomed seat.

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surrrrre you don’t. Just like I’m sure you don’t know why several of the paint pens ran out of pigment,” Parvati assured him in the most sincere tone I had ever heard. My former therapist would have been proud.

I fought back a smile as he straightened and finally stopped his search, even going so far as to tug his shirt to get any wrinkles out. “I know no such thing.”  With that, he turned his back to all three of our snickering faces, requesting his usual tea and scone from the food console.

Composing my face, I tried to be serious for a minute. “You should eat fast, because our appointment with Arthur Farro is in about fi - “

My door whooshed open. Speak of the devil.

“ - ve minutes early, apparently,” I finished.

Unperturbed as usual, the subject of my previous suggestion strolled in with his usual air of confidence.  Just as he was going to take a seat beside Parvati, he leaned across the table. “Aww, no kiwi or pomegranate on your clotted cream this morning? Poor fing,” he said with a mocking pout.

“I am baffled why everyone believes such things of me,” Alistair grumbled into his tea with a scowl.

I sputtered. “You were using the pens on your breakfast?”

He didn’t even bother denying the chorus of confirmations from those around him, taking the higher road of sudden deafness. “Farro, I am still not entirely sure why a former warlord is necessary for discussions of an evacuation plan.”

“Warlords are generally just berserkers if they don’t have anyone to be ‘lord’ of.” Farro shot a dazzling smile as I supressed a groan. “But then again, being British, I’m sure you got confused, what with all the lords that were there in the last century without even land to their names.”

It really was easier sometimes to do things without either of them. Time to step in. “Gentlemen,” I purred in my most annoyingly ‘motivational’ tone possible, “the bathroom is right through that door, if you would like to continue your pissing contest.  However, some of us have actual work to do, so whether you fuck it out or fight it out, please do so on your own time.”

Both mouths shut with an audible click, and both men looked away from me. But at least they were quiet. Sophia: 1, Whatever-the-hell-this-was: 0.

I forged ahead while I had the chance. “Arthur, thank you for taking time to meet with us regarding the plans for fortifying the safety points. I’m sorry that Tyche couldn’t be here, however she scheduled her stay-cation several months ago and frankly deserves it.” By which I meant I had bribed Derek with a nauseating amount of bao to disable any communications to or from this office from going to her data pad until the start of her first shift post-vacation, and threatened my entire family within an inch of their lives to keep them from bringing up work around her for the next week. “However, I do have her concerns and suggestions ready, I assure you.”

With a scowl, he glanced at me and stood, calling up the emitter-map of the Ark. Quickly, he sketch circles around each of the ‘bunkers’ we had designated. “Xiomara had very sound judgement in the locations she chose for safe-zones, and I honestly expected it. Between her and Evania, there is a frankly terrifying amount of strategic prowess in what is theoretically our Health and Safety office.”

“You can’t be healthy or safe if you’re dead,” Hannah pointed out.

He tossed her a wink and grin. “Touche. However, none of them are perfect. This location,” he leaned to tap and zoom on a mess hall, “is fortified, has access to food and drink, even if you have to furiously call up non-perishables and potable water, and only has one entrance/egress.  A huge entry/egress, unfortunately: the door is ten meters wide.”

Parvati tapped a couple times on her datapad before chiming in. “It does close, however. And it locks.”

Arthur shook his head. “In two panels, each five meters wide. If even one is blown, the gap is indefensible. Both, everyone in there is free for the taking.”

“You are suggesting we ask Miys to narrow the aperture of the door?” I groaned when I heard Alistair leverage his overly-formal language.

It didn’t get any better when Arthur nodded. “Worst they can say is no, but the size of the door is simply for ease of access and to assuage anyone with proximity issues. Now that we all have these handy alerts - “ he tapped his temple for emphasis “ - it isn’t nearly as necessary. Noah? Bud? What do you think?”

The buzz from the ceiling was clearly amused. “I am amenable if this is a solution. As Arthur pointed out, the width of that door is no longer necessary.”

“Annnd there we go,” Arthur shrugged. “The boatwright said yes, if that’s what we want.”

My jaw nearly hit the floor when Alistair nodded firmly and stood. Swiftly, he highlighted three more areas. “These have the same potential concern. We should include those in the proposal.”

‘We’? ‘We’ whomst??? Since when were they on the same side?

“I agree,” Arthur continued enthusiastically, causing my head to start twinging in pain. “According to the engineers and the chemisists on board, the material of the Ark is remarkably fire-retardant despite it’s organic nature - let’s hear it for advanced civilizations - so there is no additional need for fire doors. There is however a possibility of concussive damage to the actual doors in any area, despite how thick the actual walls are.”

“Tyche recommended shock-absorbent material on the exteriors of each door, dropped via internal trigger and held taught by wires rather than any sort of scaffolding,” I suggested, recovering my focus. I flicked the concept at the emitter, where it was displayed alongside the schematic of the Ark. “Using wires would allow us to also store it in a roll at the top of the door, and allow pulleys to draw the wires embedded in the bulkhead down to cover the entire door.”

Hannah nodded thoughtfully. “The materials she suggests are a good idea - definitely maximizes shock absorption as much as possible. My only concern is that we can probably double the flame resistance of the materials for only a ten-percent loss of effectiveness.”

Calling up my datapad, I smiled as I quoted. “ ‘However, Hannah is a professional weaver and seamstress, and therefore I defer to her on any suggestions regarding materials used, provided there is no more than twenty-percent loss of efficacy’. Apparently she did the calculations and had Charly and Conor both check behind her - anything below twenty percent loss, and the blast would blow the doors.”

“And when did the more sensible Miss Reid learn engineering?” Alistair asked in what sounded like genuine curiosity.

“Tuesdays - I think?” I scrunched my face and searched my memory. “It was something very important when we were cosplaying.”

Arthur snorted, but gestured an apology when Alistair affixed him with a downright lethal glare.

Hannah ignored them both. “Wool… We should be able to synthesize raw wool, instead of the plant based materials here. Best of both worlds - fluffy, incredibly flame resistant, and disperses concussive force like nothing else. Line it with silk for shrapnel? We should be good.”

“Fortress defense via quilts. I like it,” Arthur grinned savagely.

“There is a reason tapestries were so important in the Middle Ages,” Alistair snarked at him. “Both flame resistant and insulating, both very good qualities when you see by torches and candles in a drafty residence that echoes like a cathedral.”

Arthur held his hands up in surrender. “Not arguing, no worries… Genuine respect, swear.”

“Better…”

“Annnnd forging on from whatever-the-fuck-that-was,” I interjected, trying to focus on the topic at hand rather than… well, whatever the fuck that was, “That’s overlarge entries and concussive force taken care of. What other concerns did you have, Arthur?”

“Frankly? Camouflage,” he told us sternly. “The best way to protect against an invading enemy is to make it so hard to find you that it isn’t worth the effort.  All these defenses are good an all, but… they’ll stick out like a sore thumb and practically scream ‘Hey! We’re in HERE!’ “ I stifled a laugh when he hopped and waved his arms furiously.

“Very dignified, Farro,” Alistair sniffed as he stood to get more tea.

“I know, right? I’m so classy…”

Rolling my eyes and still regretting having them both in my office at the same time, “We actually have the camouflage solved for.” You could have heard a pin drop, all four of them frozen, mouths open. “It came through this morning from Zach.” I swiped the fortress-quilt specs down, and popped up the plans for the camouflage. “We’re thinking on the visible spectrum, since humans are sight animals. Zach went with a ‘most common denominator’ approach - scent, infrared, acoustic, everything but electromagnetic vision.  The quilts cover the infrared and the majority of the acoustic issues: if any body-heat shows through fifteen inches of fluffed wool and a bulkhead door, we’re doomed no matter what.” I highlighted a line of data. “Scent, likewise: Zach is suggesting aeresolized, low concentration sulfur throughout the majority of the Ark, excluding the safe-zones. The safe-zones will also have one of Miys stationed in each one, acting essentially as an air scrubber. This will minimize acoustics from active air filtration, while also adhering to Miys being a non-participant: they will be present to ensure our comfort due to minimizing body odor, nothing more.  This was already planned, the fact that it will protect us from being detected by scent is just a lagniappe.”

I waited for the thoughtful nods to pass and decided I did not see the glance that Arthur and Alistair exchanged. As long as they didn’t draw blood during the meeting, I would let it slide. “Where it gets sticky is neuroelectric. Zach, it seems, took a page out of Charly’s manual-of-mischief.” I zoomed in on the specific line of the prospectus and waited.

“He wants to what?” Hannah asked, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh I like this,” came the ‘devil’ in ‘devil’s advocate’.

“How would it even work?” Parvati asked, genuinely curious.

I chose that one to respond to. “Just like the microfilament wires that will support the quilts, he wants to cover the walls inside several false locations with a mesh and electrify it to mimic human synaptic energy. Needle in a haystack theory.”

“Wait,” Alistair held up a hand to interrupt. “Are you also proposing that the doors to these false locations will be covered in the quilts?”

“Absolutely,” I confirmed. “Given how far from prospective entry points all of the safe-zones are located, they would run into several false locations before they encounter a real one.”

“And if they decide to tear into all the locations, even the false-positives?” Arthur poked, trying to find a hole in the idea. Which, I had to concede, was why he was even here instead of sending me messages for this.

“What if they decide to tear into every mess hall? Or every door? We can’t plan for everything.” I shook my head. “However, we can factor in a few things that seem pretty consistent despite species - Beings who don’t have legitimate work and take slaves are generally prone to laziness, despite somehow working harder to avoid work than I have ever actually worked a day in my life.  Point being, give them enough false positives on the way, they won’t actually search everything no matter what they say.”

“Speculation and hearsay, not admissible in court.”

“Au contraire, mon frère. Charly did the sociological analysis on all the species most likely to be pirates in the region of the galaxy where we will exit relativistic space, and her estimates are that the plan has a sixty-to-eighty-percent chance of success in the event that all human combatants fail. And I, personally, agree.” 

He conceded a low whistle. “Damn. If I didn’t like Evan so much, I would say Charly is being wasted with Huynh. Objection withdrawn.”

“Quite,” Alistair agreed smugly. “Miss Harper’s plan is a sound one. The Archives, however - “

I interrupted, still irritated about the topic. “You will be stationed immediately inside the doors to defend against any intruders who make it that far, while Tyche will be defending the y-junction between the speculative fiction and historical fiction categories to prevent intruders from reaching the actual people.”

“But the religious studies section - “

“Has already been scanned down to a molecular level to preserve the information, even if we can’t restore any actual artifacts,” Parvati advised in a profoundly bored tone. “You do realize that anyone who reaches that section will not be able to reach the actual people from there without doubling back, right?”

“Miss Fletcher, there is a Gutenberg Bible on this Ark, potentially the last one in existence.” The tone was icy enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“Phee,” Arthur threw out, guaranteeing my irate attention, “Is there any issue with moving the Gutenberg to the Speculative Fiction section until we meet with the Ekomari fleet?”

“Are you seri - “

“Not to placate the Monarchist, I swear. Just - that is a profoundly important historical artifact, even if I agree with nearly none of the contents. The start of the Information age! Literature in the hands of the vulgar masses! Your field of study would have never existed in the form it was without that achievement. Who cares if the first use was to print the frickin’ Bible?”

Before I could object, Parvati added her prodigious two cents. “I do not have to be Christian to appreciate the illuminations in a manuscript, any more than I have to be a Muslim to be brought to my knees by the beauty of a mosque. We can appreciate the significance of something regardless of whether we agree with it or not.”

“This is probably where Charly or Tyche would point out that I am a huge fan of laws against animal abuse, despite firmly believing that Hitler was evil incarnate,” I sighed. “Yeah, we can move the Gutenberg Bible, provided - hang on, stop cheering - PROVIDED - “ I paused to make sure they were all paying attention, “that any other works of significant cultural or historical significance are moved as well. Any first additions, significant religious texts - or in lack of ‘significant’ religious texts, just a copy of each that is agreed to be acceptable by all who follow that religion. A copy of Frankenstein, The Tale of Genji, et cetera.”

I knew my request brooked exactly zero argument from Alistair, as his eyes visibly shone when I added more books to the list. What I waited for were any objections from the other three.

Sure enough, Hannah tentatively raised her hand. When I nodded, she spoke up. “I think we should do a kind of Voyager-plate: a copy, even just digital, of all our texts around music, crafts, technology, mathematics… Art, fermentation, food preparation and the history of it. Not just for this scenario!” she insisted urgently, “For any worst-case scenario. Keep a copy, or several. And put those copies, along with all the relevant artifacts that we have on board, and keep them with the people in the Archives, in the safest part of the ship.”

“Where it would take a black hole to destroy it,” Parvati whispered.

Just as the tears were threatening my eyes, Arthur flopped back in his seat and kicked his boots up onto the table. “Jesus fuck, you guys are depressing. Right, but depressing. It’s doable, though. We just transcribe it into the most common language for each version of ‘language’ in the Galaxy…”

Alistair snorted. “You warlords and your short-sightedness. Clearly, the resolution is to transcribe it into the most common language in the Galaxy with instructions on how to translate it further down.”

“No, you limey-ass bastard,” Arthur growled. “Too much is lost in translation - there is a reason the Qur’an and the Sefer Torah should never be translated to be considered valid.”

Nope. I wasn’t dealing with it. We had covered all the necessary topics, I could message the rest. I twitch my head at both Vati and Hannah, at which point they both rose from their seats. Neither was noticed by the arguing men.

Arthur was mid-sentence when a quick strike from Vati to the top of his spinal cord rendered all his words gibberish. Rather than realizing this, he glanced down at his suddenly-tingling fingertips in confusion. Hannah simply hauled Alistair out of his seat and ignored his squawked objections, her shorter but sturdier frame more than a match for his tall, slender frame and brain that was very much against violence towards women but undecided about how to stop them from chauffeuring you out of a room.

With exactly zero ceremony, both men were deposited in the corridor, to the satisfaction of all three of us. I waggled my fingers in a farewell. “Fuck it out or fight it out, I don’t care. But not in my office. Ta!”

I could not hold back the smile anymore when both started pounding on the door for entry, not realizing I had disabled their permissions right after the first volley had been thrown.  It was almost habit, at this point, to disable their permissions to my office when they started bickering, only to restore them when they decided to act like adults.

Clearly that wasn’t the case this time. Oh well, maybe in a couple hours. I would need to ask Xiomara to do a ‘sensor test’ of the gym and med bays to be sure.

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