#but also the most interesting option to me.

[promethean-spe]

It’s funny how so many of those last reblogs went through so many lengths to add nuance to the actions of their own characters, and did so by denying the possibility of there being any nuanced reasons for people to engage in banditry or to join esoteric religious groups to end the world. “My character does otherwise morally questionable stuff because they’re just trying to survive in a hostile world” is a very funny way of justifying killing bandits, who could probably say the same thing of their situation. Bringing up Evil Cults is a bit odd too because cults also do exist in the real world some of them have committed acts of terrorism for their beliefs. Cults also harm their own members (often they’re the people most hurt by them!) and preys on vulnerable populations all the time. However, we don’t need to engage with this premise in DnD because in DnD the cults can do magical terrorism, which is totally different and in no way comparable and we don’t need to think about it.

It’s also interesting how people keep trying to justify killing. I know DnD doesn’t have a lot of mechanics for non violent conflict resolution but like, killing is not your only option. You could use non lethal damage, you could use the sleep spell, Command enemies to surrender. It doesn’t really need to be complicated either. On the first session of my current campaign all it took for my players to be like “maybe we shouldn’t be killing people left and right” was for me to say “it’s common knowledge that there are around 300 people alive in your region”. Suddenly the idea of killing one person was more difficult to stomach, and they did everything they could to avoid using lethal damage.

But I digress, the original argument was explicitly about not trying to pass lead off as gold. You can enjoy dnd, but but don’t pretend that it’s a game about “trying to survive the status quo”, most dnd parties aren’t attached enough to the status quo to need to survive it. The game is about entering dungeons and killing dragons, embrace it for what it is and not for what it ought to be. If you can’t, the ttrpg space is rich in alternatives to try out

@txttletale's recent post about media criticism is really good and it actually spoke to me about something I've been thinking about with regards to D&D.

So okay D&D's whole gameplay doesn't actually frame the player characters in the best possible light. That's okay in my opinion, cause I don't think media needs to be morally correct for me to engage with it. When playing D&D I'll just accept some of the premise and then go with it.

But in recent years I've been seeing a lot of takes about trying to reframe D&D's gameplay through a positive lens. "The average D&D party is a found family trying their best to survive outside the status quo, trying their best to help people, etc." and it kind of rings hollow when what the gameplay still revolves around is grave-robbing, killing acceptable classes of people (under this framing "monsters" get replaced with cultists, bandits, and other folks society has deemed acceptable to kill), and often in the service of the status quo.

Like the framing of a lot of D&D adventures is "the poor village inhabited by good normal people surrounded by evil wilderness is under attack and because the power of authority doesn't extend this far into the wilderness they need your help to save them from the bad people," which is like basically forming a posse of vigilantes to enact frontier justice.

So when people try to put a positive spin on that with like "no we're just real scrappy strangers trying to do a good thing to save the world when society rejects us" it makes me go really?

[copperbadge]

Yesterday I did indeed end up choosing "lie in comfy bed" over painting, but that also meant I had a bit more energy for taking care of other business later in the day. And honestly, yesterday was kind of humid, so not the most ideal day for painting when I need it to dry quickly so the cats don't accidentally get paint on their fur.

But I filled some prescriptions, and got myself set up with a health screening, both of which I did in the evening although I don't like evening errands. It's been so long since I tried dating actively that I'd forgotten it's a thing you want to do, getting regular STI checks. I had hoped to do it walk-in but most clinics seemed super busy (I found myself thinking "maybe now that we're going into the be indoors months everyone's getting to fuckin?") so I've got an appointment for Saturday. (More mostly dating stuff under the cut.)

Things are moving along with Museum Date, if slowly, so it's just as well. And, wildly, I also have a breakfast date on Saturday morning with someone. This is something of an increase in my normal success rate of zero. Not sure what I'm doing differently but I'll take it.

I kind of suspect it might be that I tried different apps this time; the general consensus is that for liberal people my age, OKCupid or Tinder are best. They do offer more filter options in terms of who you're looking for and why, sometimes. But being permabanned on those two for not being a real person (yikes) forced me to look at some alternatives. And, while it's not the only app I'm on, it's fascinating to me that I've seen a lot more people I'd actually date on eHarmony.

I KNOW. It used to be that was a very white, conservative, Christian space, but it appears now that if you're above forty, still pretty lefty, and (crucially) have your shit together, it's a strong option. The "edgy mess" to "articulately self-confident" ratio is very different there to hipper apps, and while there's nothing wrong with not quite having your shit together in your forties, the number of people who seem to be deliberate and proud about not having done any work on themselves drops sharply. Possibly too because there's really not much you can do on that one without paying, and paying indicates a level of both commitment to realness and financial stability.

Plus, cougars. I'm not immune. I don't have much interest in anyone younger than about forty, but I don't mind an age gap above it.

In any case both I and the other people I see on the apps I've drifted towards seem to know more who we are and what we want so maybe it's just maturity, I don't know. I see less "game" stuff like car selfies to prove you have a car and more "pictures with kids because you should be aware I have some".

Still, I'm not gonna lie, getting to know two whole entire new people in one month is kind of stressful. I wouldn't call myself committed to monogamy and I don't mind being involved with poly folk as long as it's all aboveboard, but having multiple regular partners sounds frankly exhausting. You guys have fun, imma take a nap.

[lavellaned]

Actually I think one of the reasons why this game is so awful to get through is how it treats abuse, abusers, and abuse victims.

Under cut due to length of rambling:

First of all, Morrigan. Abused as a child by her mother, Flemeth aka Mythal, learned about the world and how to interact with it in a skewed way. Was treated in a way that no child should be by anyone let alone their parent.

Fast forward to Inquisition, particularly a worldstate in which Kieran is alive. The scene in the fade where Morrigan confronts Flemythal is one of the most important and special scenes in all of dragon age to me.

Growing up through abuse as a child you never think "I don't deserve this", you mainly think things like "Why is this happening to me?" and "Bad things happen to me." You know that these things are bad and make you feel bad, but when your baseline for how you should experience the world is abusive, you don't have the point of reference to think otherwise. And then you grow up. You look back on the abuse through the eyes of the child who experienced it but also through the detached, adult view that you currently have and have to reconcile the two. It's not easier nor pleasant. Getting to the age your abuser was/getting into the position of power your abuser had over you is difficult. Being at that stage and picturing yourself doing what was done to you to someone else is fucking sickening, and then you start to realize "I wasn't the problem, it WASN'T my fault, YOU are the one that's fucked up." But a lot of people can't and therefore the cycle of abuse continues.

But Morrigan does. She straight up tells her abuser "I will not be the mother you were to me." To have a character who survived childhood abuse be able to reach a point in their life where they can take back their personhood from their abuser is pretty damn important, actually. To this day I get weepy just thinking about it.

And then fucking veilguard happened.

Not only does it not matter if Kieran is alive or if Morrigan drank from the well (something that would BIND HER SPIRIT TO HER ABUSER), but Morrigan straight up let Mythal hitch a ride in her. The very thing that Morrigan tried to prevent ever since the first goddamn game? And we're all just supposed to accept and be ok with this?

The only way I can see this not being a complete character assassination of Morrigan is if Mythal just straight up possessed her unwillingly/killed her. Have Mythal use Morrigan as a information receptacle for new players, but also use old players' already-implemented relationship with her as a way to manipulate them. Either way, shit sucks.

Then there's the Crows. You know, the guild who takes children from brothels, orphanages, the streets and puts them through Hunger Games levels of training in which they either die or survive to become a slave assassin for the rest of their life. Not in veilguard. We're all just one big happy family. We rule Antiva, yippee!

Finally, there's Solas. One could argue his entire existence is the product of abuse, and everything that has happened in Thedas is because of it. I think framing his regrets as physical manifestations that want to kill him is a really interesting narrative choice. Unlocking the regret murals was one of the very few parts of this game that invoked a strong emotional response from me, not just because I'm an unapologetic Solas Enjoyer but because the implications are heartbreaking.

And then the game has you sit through the most fucking unbearable CBT group therapy session to talk about them with some of the most annoying damn people in Thedas who treat the literal apocalyptic levels of abuse Solas went through for millennia as something like a joke? And we the player are not given the option to challenge this? This game makes the point to force the player to agree with the flippant attitudes brought up from this.

Then brings up the final scene with Solas. Do I think the meeting with Mythal and Solas was handled well? Yes and no, but that's for another time. Solas is so far in the trenches of the trauma of abuse that he will not stop until his abuser pretty much tells him "I'm done abusing you." I think this was good and bad, again another time.

The way Solas interacts with his abuser is the direct flipside of how Morrigan does. You see more than one way someone can heal/not heal from it.

Morrigan, someone with arguable little power in the world, stands up against her abuser unflinchingly.

Solas, described through history as a GOD, someone with unfathomable amounts of knowledge and power, cowers and offers his abuser a literal weapon to kill him with, unprompted.

If this was a good game, it would be about regret but also about survivor's guilt, something that those who survived abuse have to deal with for the rest of their lives. But it's not, because it's a a bad game.

[harmonysanreads]

hi! i love the way you write aventurine, could you give me some tips on writing for him bc im struggling her to grasp his character :(

if you don’t have the time then that’s alright!

Hello, nonnie. Thank you so much :') Since you didn't mention whether this was in the Yandere context or not, I'll list some general tips. I hope you find these helpful!

— FOR BASIC CHARACTERIZATION

One of the most important aspects of Aventurine is that he's insanely smart, but they always sign it off with luck at the other side of the equation. This is intentional of course and whether or not luck really is the ultimate deciding factor isn't really the question we should be pondering about for a video game. Everything Aventurine does is through careful strategizing, scheming and calculating. What you need to remember is that ‘luck’ is more like a protective layer on top of it all. When deciding upon a plot, try your best to keep Aventurine's intelligence in mind. Then you can seal it off by using ‘luck’ in classic Aventurine style, or use dramatic irony with this point.

I think, for Aventurine, having a reader who surprises him is very convenient. It doesn't need to be a head-on challenge, sometimes the strongest impressions are made through silence and passivity. Remember, Aventurine is an incredibly observant character. For example : when he offers the Trailblazer ten thousand Credits after their first encounter, if you refuse politely, he becomes extremely pleased, as opposed to his somewhat miffed reaction if you pick the other option.

As you know, he's often partial to extremes. His ‘all or nothing’ motto can be useful to stir inner conflict.

Body language is very important for building his character. Instead of writing a whole paragraph about how beneath his bravado, he's always scared of losing, they conveyed much more through revealing the fact that he hides his left hand behind his back during all daring gambles. Aventurine isn't the type to be upfront about emotions that can make him vulnerable — that's detrimental to survival. So I think you can reveal those emotions through body language.

He's a very... unconventional gambler. His tendency to pose things as gambles and bets is more like a shield than anything. In any case, it makes for a great tool in adding drama.

— FOR DIALOGUE

Aventurine is a pretty complex character so I often forget certain things if I don't stay in practice, listening to his voicelines really helps me get a quick refresh in those cases. There's this channel on YouTube that compiles the characters' scenes individually, it's very helpful.

I think we all can agree one of Aventurine's greatest strengths is how he weaponizes words against others. There's more to this though. Be mindful to the upward and downward inflections in his sentences, the pauses between phrases and which words he's putting emphasis on.

He's also an interesting mix of straight-forward and roundabout. He says he prefers people to be direct and he often is direct himself. But with his ‘insults’ in particular, he's very roundabout. By the time you realize what he just said, it's already too late to shoot a comeback and he has you exactly where he wants.

— MISC. TIPS

Keep his backstory in mind and be respectful to it, but don't let it stop you from experimenting.

He has religious trauma, survivor's guilt, trust and commitment issues, as well as a complicated attachment style. Do you research on how these things affect people in relationships.

Aventurine's arc hasn't ended, which is why many things about him aren't definite. Consider how you might use it to your advantage.

[animezinglife]

I understand it, too.

I genuinely do find Solas attractive, albeit in a different way. I would love to romance him with a different character someday---I just wish we got Solas for who he truly was from the start of that romance or that the truth had come out earlier. I'm good at avoiding spoilers, and I hadn't known he would betray the Inquisitor, nor had I even known you couldn't romance him as a human. I had actually gone in fully expecting Mira to flirt with him a little (I knew nothing about Cullen's romance at the time and had always heard Solas was the way to go), but that's simply not how their dynamic played out anyway.

I have no doubt his and Lavellan's is an enthralling story in DA:I, and I would at some point like to experience it. I fully understand the appeal. I would fully be there myself with the right character and mindset.

Solas is captivating. He's someone you could talk with for hours on end about the most abstract concepts, but there's always that small sense of him keeping his distance (even before the topic ever comes up). Even I knew there was more he wasn't saying by the way he dodged questions and some of the dialogue between him and other companions. Though for someone who didn't know better, that could've simply meant he was far more powerful than he let on, knew more than he let on, likely older than he seemed, and wanted to protect himself. The whole, "elven god of lies" thing was a bit more of a twist than I'd anticipated. A secret, ancient elf hiding some things I can do, especially if those layers get peeled back over time. I'm less sure about elven Loki.

I think it truly would've been interesting had it gone a bit more in the direction of Children of Fallen Gods/Mother of Death and Dawn (which, some have noticed, draws some considerable parallels to Solavellan in ways that can't be considered coincidence). Without bringing too many spoilers to the forefront of the conversation, there is some...mutual awareness and corruption that occurs between Totally-Not-Solas and Totally-Not-Lavellan. The power dynamic's more balanced and decision making more...comparable to some degree.

(I am not, by the way, blaming Solas or pointing any fingers at anyone regarding their power dynamics in DA:I).

Solas is the guy whose beauty (if you lean that way at all) isn't quite as noticeable until you get into a really deep discussion with him and realize your heart's beating a little too quickly and you're definitely sitting closer to him now than you were before. He draws you in. He piques your curiosity a bit too much.

I truly do not factor in looks at all (within reason---I'm blatantly partial to humans, elves, fae, vampires, etc.) when I play games with romance options. Solas (in theory; I played as a human, which negates the option) would've been every bit as high up on my to-romance list as Cullen. In truth, he was higher just because he was the one I knew so many were obsessed with. Just because Cullen caught my eye faster didn't mean he and my Inquisitor would've been a good match.

But wow, were they.

I easily lean more towards the "Solas-is-attractive" camp in general. Honestly, I love the fact that the romance options in DA:I were so different and unique from each other. Any players who chose to pursue a romance could find one that suited their characters perfectly. I like that there are a range of personalities, dynamics, and looks, and that there's good variety.

For me personally, nothing in that particular game will ever top Cullen's just because it's so incredibly hyper-specific to every little thing I love and value most even in real life. It's perfect for Mira's story; she is, admittedly, a lot like me. I couldn't believe a romance like that even existed in a game (and you already know why/the many layers I'm referring to).

Yet I also know there are plenty who wouldn't like his romance at all and vastly prefer Solas (or someone else in general).

That's the beauty of it, though.

But, yeah..."ugly?" That's not even a word I'd consider for Solas at all.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard | ▶ dev. Bioware

[combefier]

the thing that really gets me about how bad the writing for rook in particular is is that it would take so little effort to make it better. and it would probably make the writers' jobs a lot more interesting, too. you should be able to piss off your companions. in every other dragon age, you can piss off your companions. you can piss them off so badly that they try to kill you. if you just sort of fail to impress people one way or another in da2, you can end up having to fight your best friends to the death, or have one of them peace out after prompting an invasion of your city. the ability to have conflict with your companions wasn't always handled WELL (trying to talk to cullen about mage rights in dai comes to mind, as does trying to talk to dorian about slavery beyond the one conversation), but the option was there. it seems like the only way you can piss off your companions here is by making tactical disagreements they don't like. there's no room to have a personality some of your companions find off-putting, even though there are multiple points where your companions are put off by one another. purple hawke we're so not back. and the reason can't be "well you had to be someone varric would choose," because varric's best friend was hawke and there can be very many different kinds of hawke.

you're given a fascinating backstory and it will not come up beyond occasional comments relevant to your faction. mourn watch rook why does your backstory almost never come up i would tell people that story all the time. it's like dming for a player who came up with the most rich backstory you've ever seen and then watching them ignore it every time you dangle plot hooks in front of them. bioware do you remember what you wrote. bioware u good???? the sanitization of various factions aside because that's its whole own post, it would be so easy to give a dialogue here and there where rook could show more of what sort of rook they are by letting them reflect on their backstory. it would be so easy to write aggressive answers that are actually aggressive.

i've spent enough time in editing that i've just been trying to figure out if there's any possible motivation beyond a lack of investment in their own story, or a shocking paucity of good editors in their work environment. is it because the way they designed the game necessitates that everyone be there at the end? but you can still fuck up the ending by making the wrong choices there, à la me2, and you were allowed to piss people off in me2. if you can get people killed at the end anyway, why not let the choices you made and the responses you chose matter beyond "did you do enough sidequests?"

at a certain point, it's just confusing. they know how to do this, even if they don't always do it well. the lack of any real room for agency or personality or conflict is just... odd. this is also leaving aside how easy it would have been to incorporate SOME past choices from past games per their previous work. bioware i just want to talk

[loverdude]

HELLO! I've finally remade/updated my commission sheets! For the most part everything should be the same, except for my Ko-Fi username which is now lampscapes! I just wanted an updated version with more recent art examples, and different colors :] I've also been really fussing around with usernames and stuff lately and trying to pick a new one (to replace loverdude), so I just titled these with "Eddy's Commissions" instead!

I'm going to be finally graduating from college soon here, and I'm hoping to maybe make at least some money on commissions once I'm done :3 On top of rent/food/gas/etc I will also need to start paying off loans...

STATUS: OPEN

Half-body, full color: $35 USD, there are 5 slots open.

Full-body, full color: $55 USD, there are 5 slots open.

Full color icons: $15 USD, there are 5 slots open.

Full-body, full color, cute/chibi: $25 USD, there are 5 slots open.

I��m doing the commissions through Ko-fi!: https://ko-fi.com/lampscapes

There is more information on there! If you are interested, please email me at cupidartkofi@gmail.com to tell me about your request first! You can also email me there if you have any questions!

I also recently added all my past commissions to my gallery on my Ko-Fi if you want to see some more examples! Plus there's also my art-only Tumblr to look at as well! (If you've commissioned me in the past and want me to remove your commission from my gallery, please let me know and I'll remove it ASAP!)

Please share if you want and can, and want to help support a neurodivergent trans artist :] Here is a link to the info on Twitter if you want to help me spread info there too!

The detailed info provided in these photos is under the cut in typed format:

NOTE: 1-2 characters only, no extra charge for 2nd character

WILL DRAW: original characters, humans, furries, couples, MLP:FIM-style ponies*, fanart

WON’T DRAW: NS.FW, hateful content, mecha/armor, super-detailed designs or backgrounds, gor.e (blood is ok!)

*not edits, still my own art style

Some of what I will or won’t do is subjective and it will just depend! I have the right to decline any commission request.

BACKGROUNDS: I can make the background transparent, a solid color, or something with simple and colorful patterns and shapes like hearts, flowers, clouds, stars, moons, etc.

PAYMENT: I’m doing my commissions via Ko-fi! My username is lampscapes. Please email me at cupidartkofi@gmail.com before commissioning via Ko-fi, so you can run your idea by me first and we can discuss it!

OPTION 1: $35 USD, half-body, full color, examples

OPTION 2: $55 USD, full-body, full color, examples

OPTION 3: $15 USD, full color icons, examples

OPTION 4: $25 USD, full-body, full color, cute/chibi

One other note: my art varies a lot in style, so if there's a certain style you're hoping for (different brushes I've used, more smooth or rough lineart, etc) please let me know! An example of one of my previous drawings would be much appreciated if so :]

And that’s all! Thank you so much!

[showf4ll-media]

Hello Genloss fans. Getting a little rain check here!

I want to make a sort of multi-artist comic based on the events of TSE/Founders cut. PLEASE interact with this post if you may be interested and Ill set up some discord server for it if theres enough.

Below is also a poll to decide which direction to go with deciding who gets what parts;

Option 1 would be me going through and writing out a script (probably from founders cut rather than tse) then putting it into parts for people to pick. More strict and reminiscent of a multi animator project script. I would also more than likely not include many parts that arent lore important… for my own sanity

Option 2 would be me dividing TSE into certain scenes and letting people pick their favorite parts from whatever scene they choose to draw. EVERY scene wouldnt be required to get taken, but lore important bits would :)

[thebigcjart]

Here's Nepeta :33

Terris people generally don't have last names in canon, but I think that because Eridan's Caste (he's a full Feruchemist and technically fully Terris) is part of the High Class, that feature of nobility would pass down through family lines.

She is a member of the Terris Ferring Caste, and is considered a slightly below average citizen by Caste standards. Just shy of middle-of-the-pack. She isn't really interested in Terris culture, mostly because she never spent much time around it. Her Terris settlement burned down when she was a kid, and her mother took her to live in a cave just outside the capitol. A Lusus (who are identical to the Kandra in canon) named PonDeil was actually living in the cave, but hid from the two. Her mother, who was kind of radical in her views and was a follower of the Tuner's teachings. fell ill soon after, and made a deal with the Lusus to give her body after she died if it would continue to raise Nepeta. The Lusus agreed and Nepeta did not learn until later in life. She's aware of it now, and her Lusus took on the body of a predatory cat that almost killed Nepeta once, and now they work as a sort of mother-daughter sort of good cop bad cop partnership. Nepeta's love of roleplaying was unknowingly learned from her Lusus. It is unknown what Nepeta's mother did in return for PonDeil to raise her child, and PonDeil does not talk about it.

Her typing quirk is prefacing all text with ":3 <" and replacing all her "e"s with "3"s. She uses cat puns wh3n3fur pawsibl3. She also mainly sticks to lowercase letters.

Her ability to store and tap speed in her numerous Steelminds makes her incredibly hard to catch or fight in combat. The weight of her many Steelminds is mitigated by her simply being able to move faster anyway. Steelminds are some of the most difficult to store for practical reasons, and especially because it is used so quickly. Nepeta mitigates this by storing speed as often as possible during the downtime, and likes to draw comics on pieces of scratch paper. She keeps all of the steel on her body Invested at all times to resist steelpushes or ironpulls. She avoids water to prevent her Steelminds from rusting, further adding to the cat gimmick.

She has stored a non-zero amount of speed in Sollux's eye spikes as a prank. He gets pissed every time he thinks about it.

She is in a very stable moiraillegiance with Equius, but stays away from all the Hemalurgy stuff. She walks through House Zahhak like she owns the place, and doesn't really care what anyone there thinks. Equius tells her not to, but he simply cannot stay mad at her :3. Equius has said that he would only ever use Hemalurgy on her to save her life and if it were the only option, otherwise, he would prefer if she stayed away from it entirely.

She has a flushed crush on Karkat, but this goes unrequited for quite some time. She feels a strong bond to him as a fellow Terris who was raised by a Lusus. There is exactly one (1) time where anything romantic happens between them in the plot of what would be considered The Final Empire, and it is when he is tapping Connection as fast as possible while trying to save her life during one of the later attacks on the Condese's Atium stashes (tapping that much Connection gives him a pretty good idea where she is due to their similarities), where he pulls her away from a would-be-fatal attack and they share a kiss, and he notes that "I CAN'T LOSE YOU." Neither of them bring it up to each other until after they take out the Condese.

Some silly quotes:

AC: :3 < *ac taps sp33d, dashing through the for3st to tackl3 her purr3y* AC: :3 < gotcha! *sh3 says, glomping m3w*

CG: I CAN'T LOSE YOU. AC: AC: :0 < oh AC: X3 < oh wow CG: I'M SERIOUS, NEPETA. AC: :3 < m3w wont lose m3 karkitty AC: :3 < i'm a tough cat to h3rd. CG: LET'S GET THE *RUST* OUT OF HERE. CG: SCREW THE ATIUM. AC: :3 < but now that i know wh3r3 it is CG: PLEASE. CG: COME BACK TO BASE WITH ME. AC: :3 < o-okay. yeah, l3t's... do that. CG: DON'T READ TOO MUCH INTO THIS. AC: X3 < too lat3!

AC: :3 < ar3 thos3 f33lings i am d3t3cting with my wiggly whisp3ring nos3? CT: D--> maybe AC: :3 < then w3 must tak3 this to th3 pil3, scratching-posthast3!!! ;3

Homestuck Beta Trolls X Mistborn AU

Spoilers for Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. This is what powers I think the beta trolls would have if they were born on Scadrial

Aradia Megido - Gold or Electrum Misting

Allomancy: ‘Augur’ (Gold: see own Past), ‘Oracle’ (Electrum: see own Future)

Hemalurgy: Cadmium (Placement Unknown: Gold or Electrum Allomancy

It is unknown what her original misting ability was, but the spike from Equius gave her the other one

Tavros Nitram - Cadmium Ferring

Feruchemy: Gasper (Cadmium: Breath), “Bloodmaker” (Gold: Health)

Hemalurgy: Gold (Between Ribs: Gold Feruchemy)

Cadmium compounder; Vriska makes fun of him for having a ‘useless ability’, but doesn’t see the potential that storing breath has. Equius provides him with healing powers to fix his legs through hemalurgy.

Sollux Captor - Born powerless

Allomancy: “Coinshot” (Steel: Push metal) “Lurcher” (Iron: Pull metal)

Hemalurgy: Steel X2 (Left and Right Orbit: Iron and Steel Allomancy)

These spikes were not given by Equius, but instead were applied in a “freak acciident” involving a “jaiilbroken beehiive”.

Karkat Vantas - Copper/Duralumin Twinborn (mutant)

Allomancy: Smoker (Copper: Hide Allomancy)

Feruchemy: Connector (Duralumin: Connection)

I’m not exactly sure why being a natural twin-born is bad in Scadrialternian society, but it is and Karkat’s gotta hide it. Also the castes follow a natural Misting-Ferring-Powerless-Misting-Ferring-Powerless pattern, and Karkat’s caste breaks that so it was completely eradicated through eugenics so im pretty sure he’s the only one.

Nepeta Leijon - Steel Ferring

Feruchemy: Steelrunner (Steel: Physical Speed)

Nothing special, just run-of-the-steel-mill feruchemy.

Kanaya Maryam - Chromium Misting

Allomancy: Leecher (Chromium: wipe allomantic reserves of target)

Her caste is supposed to be powerless, like Equius', but much like how she's a rainbow drinker in canon, she is somehow a misting in this AU. Snapped after Eridan shot her half to death with his “poison wwand strike” (toxic chromium bullets). He did not know that these bullets were Allomantically viable, and neither knew that she would be able to burn chromium. She uses this to sap Gamzee of his massive Zinc reserves, causing him to be distracted long enough for her to kill Eridan.

Terezi Pyrope - Tin misting - Tin Savant

Allomancy: Scout (Tin: Increases senses)

Terezi and Gamzee are the only Savants on the team, which forms the basis of their bond and later kismesitude on whatever this au’s equivalent of the meteor is. She snapped during a feud with Vriska, which left her blind, but she has been flaring tin for so many sweeps that she can basically assemble visual data through her other senses.

Vriska Serket - Cadmium Ferring

Feruchemy: Spinner (Cadmium: Fortune)

Hemalurgy: Left Eye (Cadmium: Destiny)

Forced Equius to use Hemalurgy on her to heal her during a feud with Terezi, but she was tapping Fortune so hard that Equius managed to select the wrong spike and gave her Destiny instead of some healing ability, which is apparently good luck according to the spiritual realm? It’s destiny to be relevant forever I guess so she can’t really die until the plot demands it. She also has Kelsier’s weird metal vision allowing her to peep into the spiritual realm just a little bit. She ended up having her arm fully amputated due to her spirit not being able to accept another spike. Equius in this au isn’t exactly a roboticist, so she won’t get a replacement arm until wayy later down the line.

Equius Zahhak - born powerless

Allomancy: Thug (Pewter: Strength)

Hemalurgy: Between ribs (Steel: Allomantic pewter)

Equius is a Hemalurgist, who was born without allomancy or feruchemy (much like the rest of his caste). He gave himself pewter to make future hemalurgy easier for him (pushing spikes into/through people is physically intensive). He has also given powers to Aradia, Tavros, and Vriska so far.

Gamzee Makara - Zinc Rioter - Zinc Savant

Allomancy: Rioter (Zinc: Riot)

As a Zinc savant, he is so used to being able to fuck with people’s emotions on a whim that he has no idea how to handle empathy without it. He has a very carefree attitude because if someone is saying/doing something he doesn’t like, he can just Allomantic them away. This also means that everyone around him naturally swell with anger and frustration, which leads to the events of the meteor. Rioters and soothers can also gain control of hemalurgic constructs, so I imagine he could take over any hemalurgy users in the party at a whim.

Eridan Ampora - Electrum “Ferring” (Full Feruchemist)

Feruchemy: Pinnacle (Electrum: Determination)

Eridan, like others in his caste, is a full feruchemist, but unlike his other caste members, he only believes that he has one ability.

Feferi Peixes - Mistborn

Allomancy: Mistborn

Feferi, like all others in her caste, is a Mistborn. The Condese is too, actually.

EDIT: Various bits of phrasing and removed the mature label (I have no idea why I wasn't able to before)

[maeshelix]

If Ordis ever does get a new body,

If he ever takes up the Ordan name again,

I want him to be completely unchanged in our prescence.

By which I mean, I want the mission staring Ordis to be a horror mystery all throughout. Starting with all Ordis voicelines ceasing, only a note left in your inbox by Ordis, stating that he "needs to take care of buisness", indicating where he last was.

You go to the first location and it's empty. Corpses litter the stage. Bisected and dissected haphazardly. There are messages carved into the walls in blood. Piles of organs sporting chunks of useless armor decorate every broken terminal and every shattered structure.

This remains the same every stage you go. Of every faction in the game. Grineer. Corpus. Infested. Sentient. Even Narmer cultists interrupt their endless "unity" to scream as one.

Ordis carves a bloody swath through the Origin System. And he carves it near effortlessly.

Finally, you and (in a perfect universe) Lotus track him down as he's in the middle of another bloodbath.

What his form looks like doesn't matter. I mean, it does. Would prefer if he looked cool. But what ultimately matters is that he looks dangerous.

Big and bulky, slim and fast, coated in sharper yet sharper implements or completely bare, maybe his head still resembles his owl body, maybe it resembles what Ordan once looked like. Maybe it's pure machine. Maybe it's organic. Maybe it's both.

Whatever the case, he is dangerous, he is cruel, he is in the middle of implanting a Grineer onto his blade. Like Artorias from Dark Souls during his boss intro.

And then he turns to you. Eyes dark and vicious. Thirsty for blood.

The look of a furious god-killer.

And his first words to you, upon noticing you, after a beat, are such.

"Oh Operator! My sincerest apologies I was not expecting to find you hear! Though I probably should have expected it, on second thought."

And then he acts normal around you. Completely normal. Like Ordis always has. Complete with his voice still glitching out and spouting violent things despite his best efforts.

You never fight him, you never even get the chance to try. In fact, he becomes like a spector, or like Stalker during the Belly of the Beast event. Assisting you on occasion and making the reoccuring mission much easier when he does. The mission itself focuses on some new unethical experiment of the Orokin previously unexplored. Or on what Erra/Pazuul's goals are, or on The Indifference.

The details don't matter to me. What matters is that your mini death machine now has a macro death machine he can be in when he needs to/is feeling human dysphoric.

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[maladaptivedaydreamsx]

not me immediately getting jude from this

who did you guys get? 👀

[creepyscritches]

Like, I grew up with a single parent who went MILES beyond expectations to secure me medical care and it was a horrible, demeaning process at every step! You could NOT "good behavior" your way to the system working. There were countless moving finish lines and a faceless wall of state insurance that did not care how often or how high they asked you to jump.

My father was not interested in paying for my health insurance after he dropped my mother and me like hot stones. So my mother did not have many choices when it became clear I was not well. I spent most of my early life undiagnosed and severely decompensated and, you guessed it, extremely suicidal. It wasn't until I was 26 or 27 that I experienced a day without pain, and I fought my way there the entire time.

I managed to graduate high school with honors, cords for the art honor society, and with all of my college-level English knocked out my senior year through dual-enrollement. I also taught intro level art at the high school, student-taught art at the middle school, student tutored trigonometry, and spent my remaining time in the art rooms completing the soldering on a giant stained glass installment we made for the school. Through this time, I also learned as many art techniques as I could (film photography and lost wax sculpture being my favorites). I also worked most holidays and school breaks in a kennel, spending 12 hour shifts handling non-social dogs.

By senior year, I was stashing coffee throughout my destinations each day. I was so tired I couldn't sit up. My body hurt, but doctors we could see would simply brush me off as a lazy teenager. I had a tumor under my tongue that kept returning and becoming more expensive to address. I had to lose a rear molar due to infection that eroded my jaw bone -- it took 2 years for the bone to regrow before I could entertain any options of replacing the tooth. I am 15. I am 16. I am 17.

I am 18. Despite having no money, I finally get some payoff for my efforts. I am awarded a full ride scholarship, I even get enough money back each semester to fully cover my books. I have to work a campus job as a part of the agreement and I spend 6hrs a week manning the liberal arts front desk between my +12hrs of classes. That's fine. I knew I was never going to have an easy road to education. I join the honors college and place my science + language credits there. My 7pm biology lab is the only reason I did not work my second job one day a week.

I am 18. I am working. I am learning. I am extremely ill but have been conditioned to call myself lazy, unmotivated, and the reason for my failures. I am not ill, not to me. I am 18. I work an overnight, 16 hour shift for Black Friday. I do not see family this year. My tumor returns. I quit my second job in December because I could not talk to customers after surgery. The doctor tells me I will have a scar as long as my jaw if it returns again.

I am 18. I am in pieces. My partner breaks up with me because I do not give them enough attention. I work until 10pm every day and spend the preceding 12 hours in rigorous college courses. Every day but my 7pm Biology lab, but I am too tired to spend time with someone that day. I do not have room in me to care about this now too. I finish my second semester and do not return. I cannot move my body and I cannot get accommodations because I cannot afford a diagnosis. I leave the full ride behind.

I am 19. I am supporting myself with freelance art. My body suffers deeply for this. I cannot get care. I find a chiropractor who will see me for $50 a visit and she saves me from killing myself if I'm honest. I begin teaching myself the ICD-9. I get certified and get a job the same month as my certification.

I am 20. I have moved out, my mother was moving as well. I am working, still sick. I cannot get care anywhere now as I am over 18, under 26, but my parent with insurance will not cover me. I work at my job for a year before I am fired for health complications. As a contractor, I did not get benefits or protections. This is just the way it is, they explain to me.

I am 21. I have picked up a new job, still contract over a year in despite the promise of full-time after 8 months. The job holds my insurance over my head like a carrot. I start to lose motion in my left arm. Pain now wakes me up on a nightly basis. I threaten to quit, they transition me from "external" to "internal" contractor. No benefits.

I am 21. I have forced my employer to hire me full-time. I am paid significantly less than my peers, despite experience. I get benefits. I pay $4000 out of pocket, but get my first diagnosis of narcolepsy. I do not get adequate medication until 4 years later.

I am 22. Physical therapy had been trying to fix my left arm, but things keep worsening. I receive a couple of painful steroid injections over my ulnar nerve (between the elbow). These do not work, so I am brought in for an ultrasound guided injection where the needle is woven between my bones and nurses physically hold me in place per protocol. This does nothing, but it is one of the most agonizing procedures I have ever had. I am rushed into a rheumatologist's roster after lesions in my bone marrow are found on MRI. The MRI took 3 attempts over a month as the pose required would reduce me to delirious levels of pain.

I am 22. I am told I have an autoimmune disease that has been running rampant for years. I begin oral chemotherapy. I vomit constantly. I do not improve. My doctor does not believe me when I say I cannot tolerate this medication. I do not get a name for my diagnosis, no matter how I press. I have multiple conditions submitted to insurance, but my doctor claims it is to get the different medications covered.

I am 27. I am accepted into Vanderbilt's cutting edge rheumatology department. I have SLE and my previous doctor's regimen had been consistently worsening my baseline condition. I am $15,000 in debt for medicine that ultimately was poisoning me.

I am 29 now. I have a body for the first time in my life. The opportunities I have now are unbelievable. The opportunities I missed are devastating. My body and health have been used as bartering chips my entire life. I am a "lucky" outcome. I cannot swallow this pill that this is the only way people can live here. No one will be demeaned like I was if I have any control over it. I will never minimize the incredible change the ACA brought to everyone here.

I cannot stress enough that the gap between "better than nothing insurance" and "no healthcare at all" is literally one big enough for your coffin. That is unacceptable, I refuse this. The only reason I have been motivated to learn the bureaucratic bullshit required for American health care is to shovel this gap closed, one shovel of dirt at a time. YEAH, I would love to be a middle school art teacher but I think I have been changed too much from these experiences to walk away from the state of American health care.

I find talent to help me and I protect it, elevate it, and encourage it to multiply. I have a mentor helping me do the same. I am learning the ACA industry still, mostly to identify problem points around me. I am 29, I am building like-minded spaces around me. I refuse to see another generation live like mine and those before. Sign up for the ACA.

Growing up pre-ACA radicalized me soooo much lol like I will not pander to arguments that deprioritize access to medical care at all as an adult

[tennessoui]

The ship takes off and Anakin and Quinlan sit there very politely and as soon as it clears Coruscant they try to kill each other

lmao they’re like two scrappy kids who are taken to the principal’s office because they got into a fight and then the moment you close the door and leave them alone they’re fighting again just as viciously as before.

[sysig]

A very normal scientist doing very normal gene splicing experiments (Patreon)

[teamcapwasrightandishouldsayit]

hello, lu fandom. i've got... a thought experiment? i suppose?

the short explanation is that i'm outlining a fic where the chain defeats dink in post-totk hyrule but no portals arrive to take them home, so they're just stuck in wild's era forever. i want to have at least one of the chain form a new relationship in the botw era (besides wild, who will be with flora), but i'm having trouble thinking of who would be interested in who.

so, thought experiment. if you had to ship each member of the chain with a botw/totk character, what would your ships be and why?