#but she actually put it out herself

[90s-trait]

this is going to be way harder than i thought

[ineed-to-sleep]

Blacked out in front of my tablet and woke up with sketches of my Touchstarved mc + Kuras my beloved. woops

[haunted-xander]

Who's the "real" me?

+ some references for the Rise-related things I included <3

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 169

this is it, the dynamic

[starry-bi-sky]

DPXDC Idea: Mother of Monsters Dan(yal)

Specifically Fem!Dan because I made this in mind with my Fem Danyal Au bUT. The best part about Dan is that I get to play dress up with her, and Fem Dark Dany is gonna go by Layal (pronounced lae-el) because it means "the nights" and it sounds similar to Danyal, and I think she'd choose that name to mock Dany. ANYWAYS

Mother of Monsters Danyal. She may be evil but she's an Al Ghul at her core (even with vlad's soul merged with hers - however, considering that Layal looks and sounds like Dany, she considers that soul to be the more dominant one.) and loves animals. And she might be heartless, but she adores the monsters of the infinite realms.

Mother of Monsters Layal who hates everyone but utterly dotes and adores on every manner of beast she comes across. Stealing the eggs and infant young beasts of the Infinite Realms to raise as her own because she wanted them. Her own island full of monsters, a monstrous menagerie of her own. She steals most often from poachers or exotic pet keepers and other menageries -- the full grown beasties can keep their young.

And with every monster she raises, she can shapeshift their features onto herself, allowing her to change her shape from humanish to any matter of monster or hybrid creature. She calls herself their mother, and them her children. Her precious little babies, capable of incredible mass destruction and mayhem.

From little griffins the size of kittens, to stymphalian vulture chicks, and leviathan young hatching from eggs the size of her pinkie, to creatures native of the ghost zone that didn't even have names in the living realm. There really wasn't a limit to what or who she would take in and she didn't limit herself to any form of mythology. If they were beasts and they were unwanted, she wanted them. And as such, amassed her own mini army of "children" willing to listen to her any command.

Earth doesn't know what hit it when she attacks them.

There are many monstrous forms she could take on, the first one I've thought of is a combination of various serpentine/reptilian features. The body of a naga -- her lower half long and serpentine, her upper still human -- with spiked fins connecting from the bottom of her arms to her sides, ever seen Sinbad where Eris goes "you might have seen my likeness on the temple walls" and her arms do that fin thingy? Same concept. Her hands are webbed and taloned, perfect for slicing through the skin of the living, and her teeth are needle-sharp and shark like. Her hair can either be spiny and feathery-like like the spines of a lionfish, or frilled like a frilled-neck lizard. It's perfect for dealing and doting on her reptilian and amphibian-inclined darlings.

I'm more of a fan of aus where Dan is a sibling of Danny's rather than their kid, so Layal's redemption(..?? probation?) proceeds with her legally becoming Danyal's "twin" sister, who had been lost to the foster system before the Fentons adopted Dany, and was only recently reunited with her. The two of them look so alike that the lie is easy to take root and spread.

Layal is very indignant to the fact that she's now ten years in the past and has to restart her menagerie all over again. Do you know how much blood and sweat went into raising those children? How dare you separate them from their mummy. Although she'll admit she does miss their juvenile years, so she won't mind (too much) needing to raising them again. Dany is helping her retrieve all of them though, dammit.

long story short: epic the musical's "Scylla" has a CHOKEHOLD on me and this is the result of it

Unlike her Dan counterpart, Layal's voice is dancing and sirenic. It's purposely alluring and motherly, in order to lure people into a false sense of security until she feeds them to her "children." Echidna doesn't have shit on her. She almost seems friendly and reasonable, until you get too close and realize it was all an act and she drops it to metaphorically swallow you whole. She's like an anglerfish that way. She and Dany both sound like Scylla from Epic.

[slickricklj]

Ada Wong + Leon Kennedy - Inspired Change

"Best not to ask who or why. I understood that. Made my peace with it. Until that one night in Raccoon City...changed everything." - Ada Wong

[mending-up-your-fences]

For those keeping score, here are Brandi Carlile’s SIX (in a row, mind you) Grammy performances

The Joke - Brandi Carlile

This performance punched her industry darling ticket. At this point she had a a ton of critical good will amassed, but finally had a mainstream cultural moment with this astounding performance.

Bring My Flowers Now - Tanya Tucker (feat. Brandi Carlile)

Something about Brandi and the love and care she takes for her musical influences and ensuring that the public remembers their greatness while they are still here to benefit

I Remember Everything - John Prine (covered by Brandi Carlile)

Something about him being the first person she ever played The Mother for, and also being her gateway into the greater Americana community.

Right on Time - Brandi Carlile

This performance f*cks.

Broken Horses - Brandi Carlile

It’s possible the whole album f*cks. (In These Silent Days is my favorite album of all time)

Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell (feat. The Joni Jam)

I don’t know, smarter people have said it better. No end in sight how emotional this is, and the love and care that created an environment where it could be.

[novelconcepts]

Do you ever just lay awake at night, turning over in your head the stark difference in delivery between Hewson's Van saying--steadily, unshakably--"it's just something that's happening to you...happening to us" and Cypress' Taissa saying--imploringly, whiningly--"this was not just my dream, this was our dream"?

Do you ever just turn it over and over, how often Tai tried to scare Van away, and how it only made Van set her feet more firmly? How Taissa's first love was this person who saw a problem fall into Taissa's lap, a problem that was quite literally trapped inside Taissa's body, and decided unflinchingly: No, that's an us problem now? How she refused point-blank to walk away even with blood in her mouth, how she flatly informed Tai "I'm never gonna be scared of you", and promptly turned a moment of pain into a declaration of love? And how this would etch itself into Taissa for the rest of her life? How she'd take these things that worked with Van--with the person Van was, with the bond they shared--and try so hard to run through an identical script with Simone?

Except Simone is her own person. A completely different kind of person. A person who hasn't been offered any of the context, any of the realities going on inside Taissa. So: naturally she doesn't respond the way Van did at eighteen--and will go on to do all over again in her forties. Naturally, she hears our dream as the excuse it is, not as a plea for connection. Naturally, she is scared away when Taissa pushes, and shouts, and begs. Because there isn't blood in her mouth, not yet, but there will be. And they have a son to worry about. And she isn't eighteen and a special kind of immortal, a special kind of romanticized. She's a grown woman with responsibilities, with priorities, with an understanding that you can't fix someone just because you love them. And Tai can't just perform a revival of the play she and Van had memorized twenty-five years later with a whole new performer in the works, and expect it to shake out the same.

Of course it doesn't work. But look at Taissa trying it. Look at Taissa trying to reframe her first love through a new lens. Trying to recast it. Trying to play it through again. Van taught her love was sticking out the blood, shaking off the pain, making a you problem into an us problem. Does it ever just eat at you, how tragic it is, watching Taissa try to shape her marriage around a woman who isn't even wearing a ring?

[herearedragons]

tag the oc that's most likely to get stuck in a time loop and what kind of time loop it would be

[puppyeared]

Radioactive

[quietwingsinthesky]

thirteen is incredibly aware of how her actions are perceived and incredibly unaware of how her identity is perceived. like. that’s the Point of her meeting the fugitive doctor. that she can stand next to herself and not know herself. but she knows her own actions. the real recognition of herself in fugitive isn’t when she unearths the tardis or when fugitive calls herself the doctor. its when fugitive hands someone a loaded gun that will backfire and kill them only if they shoot at her first. because that’s what thirteen would do. you know?

[bumblingbabooshka]

Chakotay being a person who (while of course being willing to follow orders to a point) ultimately puts what's morally right and wrong in his eyes over Starfleet protocol while Tuvok is shown to be a person who will follow Starfleet protocol (and more accurately Janeway's word) over what he personally thinks is right is something that could have been so interesting if the three of them were actually shown as a triumvirate instead of it usually being Janeway-Chakotay and even then mostly just Janeway.

It would be an opportunity to explore more about the Maquis v Starfleet dynamic, about how Chakotay & Janeway's different leadership styles work and don't work with this new crew and with different people, to interrogate what exactly Voyager should look like - to incorporate more leniency and Maquis tactics into its operation so that they really do become a blended ship instead of the Maquis simply becoming subsumed into Starfleet. It'd also give more opportunities to let all three characters shine and introduce more moral quandaries that they can have differing ideas about and how does that affect them? At one point Tuvok is willing to go against Janeway's orders because she wants to do something but can't due to Starfleet protocol. In another episode he also follows Janeway's orders to assist in killing an entire ship of people despite that being against both Starfleet protocol and certain moral standards because she feels strongly that they should. He protests this but once she rebukes him he doesn't object again or attempt to stop her (like Chakotay - though they both know at that point that she's crossing lines). This sort of implies to me that he's much more loyal to Janeway herself than he is to Starfleet as a concept. Meanwhile Janeway is shown to be staunchly and strictly Starfleet - adopting the code AS her moral compass a lot of the time. She sometimes has to go off-script due to the nature of their situation but most of her decisions are made depending on how Starfleet would feel about it. If she wants to do something but Starfleet would disagree, she rarely if ever questions Starfleet protocol and instead will go with what it says is best even if it's painful on a personal level. She also tells Tuvok in the episode aforementioned that he is "Her advisor, her moral compass" and having a moral compass/advisor that's either a bunch of rules written by the space government or a person who is mostly just going to agree with you no matter what they actually think and not challenge you if you rebuke them isn't the best idea. Enter Chakotay. Chakotay's willingness to disagree with Janeway and not back down is something I wish had been shown more. When he says "I don't care about logs or reports or whatever - I care about person to person shit. I care about what's right and what you're doing is wrong." it's something that could be so interesting and so necessary when contrasted with the other two. A good example is of course 'Equinox' but also 'Manuevers' where he goes off against literally everyone's orders and friendly advice because he feels responsible. And that's important - he's doing it because he feels responsible. That's different from Tuvok (who doesn't feel) and Janeway (who would most likely try to find comfort in protocol) - because Chakotay feels he's responsible and that he needs to protect the crew since he (in his eyes) is the one who put them in danger. He's a person who's shown to be willing to go against everything anyone says in order to do what he feels is right if the wrong is too great to allow. Voyager if these three were actually allowed to argue and be equals and figure out how to work together as sort of a microcosm of how this new blended crew is going to be able to fight and work and band together.

[cringycoolkid15]

EEEEEEEYOUCH!!!,

[crow-quet]

so ive been listening to sky for the first time,

[haunted-xander]

Thinking about how Thancred and Ryne's respective behaviours affect their dynamic and each other's behaviour in regards to said dynamic and how neither of them is actually directly caused by the circumstances, just exacerbated.

Thancred is reticent and guarded as a product of his enviourment and all his training and work as a spy, where vulnerability is a weakness and is like to get you and your loved ones hurt or killed. He's never had an opportunity or need to be open and vulnerable with people, as everyone he was close to either didn't need it as badly (like Minfilia, who had F'lhaminn as her primary source of emotional support, and could already see just how much Thancred cared for her even if he couldn't actually show it properly) or worked close with him and knew that this was necessary (like the Circle/Scions).

Ryne values everyones thoughts and feelings over her own because she was raised by Ran'jit, who viewed her more as an object of his repeated losses and grief of those he couldn't protect before her. She's more a memento than a person, and so she's been told her entire life that her feelings and opinions don't matter in the slightest. She never got the chance to learn they mattered either, because she spend the last 3 years almost entirely alone with Thancred who never indicated either way.

And when these two are put against each other they end up feeding the root problems. Thancred's emotional distance makes Ryne assume he doesn't care about her and by extention, her thoughts and feelings. Ryne's over-valuing of his words make him even more reluctant to speak up because he doesn't want to sway her any given way, which is exactly what would happen because she values his feelings so much.

It's an endless and terrible cycle that neither are really able to break out of on their own. It's not really either one's fault but it still falls to them to deal with it. They can't break it themselves but they also can't have it broken by anyone else either. They have to both be confronted about it and realize that this is never going to work. Thancred needs to learn he can't just keep saying "not today" and Ryne needs to learn that regardless of her view of herself she can't let other's feelings decide her life for her. Vulnerability isn't a weakness nor is self-destructive sympathy a strength.

[keemitthefeog]

im so mad for riz right now from a story perspective. he is putting his health, his mind, his heart into everything right now, helping his friends, reassuring his mom, trying to find out more about the people SABOTAGING everything he has RISKED HIS LIFE FOR, DIED FOR, and he is the only one taking it seriously

he is a poor goblin kid who has had every card stacked against him and even when he is pulled down by his friends, he wants to help them back up, he needs to, because he loves them, but also because without them, its over for him. he wont get into college.

he is making connections with clubs he doesnt even know about, and yeah the beekeeping club has only one member, but fabian has literally made an enemy of that club in less than five minutes. riz NEEDS extracurriculars. he NEEDS every step up he can get, and his friends own self destructive tendencies or lack of social manners are catching riz in the shrapnel.

and that's good storytelling! thats tension, thats interesting!

but my heart breaks for riz. near the end of episode 6 he tells his friends multiple times that the ratgrinders are trying to get them kicked out of school!! he is investigating and keeping his head on a swivel and trying everything in his power to stay above water. and the fact that his best friends are making it hardest for him breaks my heart.

and i loved that at the end riz said to the bad kids, lets make all our effort worth more. the time, and blood, and spells, and growth we have thrown into saving the world have to be worth it. lets make kristens platform angle it so kids that risk their lives can have an easier go of it at school. and i do love that all the bad kids felt the same way. because they are all going through rough times, they are all confused, and stressed, and breaking up and breaking down. the bad kids are all really really sweet kids, with their hearts in the right place

but still my heart breaks for riz because he is the only bad kid taking the steps and searching for a way out. and im glad riz has the heart and the love for his friends to make the tunnel out big enough for all of them