#change all at once so quickly

[acornered]

If you told me even a year ago that in 2024 I'd be feeling this way, I would not have believed you and in fact laughed in your face.

And yet...

My heart is so buoyant in me I can feel the bubbling lightness of it. I walk around like I am made of sunshine, like I can fill every corner with radiance and still have an abundance of it. Sometimes it catches me off gaurd, like a hiccup, but I am never frightened or anxious, I don't shake for fear of losing it.

Am I in love? Something that seemed so impossible to me, so foreign, like the memory of green buds in wintertime. I knew it was possible that spring would return, but I'd been waiting so long for it that I forgot to pay attention. The trees were bare, the air was cold and dry. And now it's as if the warmth and the bloom and the humming of life has come over me all at once.

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

Thinking of Dire Straits for fic reasons once again, but from the perspective of the Dragon Riders.

They watched Hiccup (and Toothless) disappear into the depths of the ocean in what was basically an inescapable cage. And that after rushing to his rescue in vain. They had to stay up on that boat, wait and hope for the best and it's not like Hiccup came up quickly either. In the episode itself it took only a little bit, but in actuality, Hiccup stayed under long enough for the diving bell to fill up completely, for him to run out of breath (not that shouting at Toothless in warning helped), to pass out, and to also stop breathing!

And things weren't much better when the Submaripper brought him back to them either. He came back to them unconscious. He needed to be freed and carried out. Astrid begged him to breathe! And luckily, he did start to breathe again on his own (stimulated by Toothless licking him probably!) because it's not like Vikings know CPR! Not these ones at least. But even after he was up on his feet, Hiccup was weak and hurting, Fishlegs had to hold him up on his feet.

Dire Straits was a nightmare for them! The closest they'd ever come since the Red Death to losing Hiccup. No wonder they were angry enough that they just wanted to blast Viggo and Ryker to oblivion if not for those Seashockers.

[rouge-the-bat]

the way i see team urameshi after meeting shiori is like

[oldbirdwithsomebrain]

one moment i was struggling to draw medic for my "meet the tf2 artist" thing, next thing you know i stumbled across a color palette and these happened:

was gonna draw more of the mercs, but my drawing tablet started acting up... sooo now i gotta troubleshoot that...yippee..

heres the color palette that started this detour:

[doctorwhoisadhd]

theres just so many interesting things you could do if you staged chimes of midnight tbh....

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[wildstar25]

Y'shtola please come back soon before these two idiots combine their gill coffers....

[razzek]

Absolutely horrible Pern thought of the day I woke up with but which I’ve had in mind for awhile:

Every dragon dies alone and separated from their rider.

We all know that when a dragon loses their rider they go between forever. If they’re lucky, they go with their rider on their back. If their rider dies and they jump between in horrible grief. That’s sad enough. But it gets worse.

At the absolute max, humans can survive without oxygen for maybe five minutes. Most people will be unconscious in about three. We learned in All the Weyrs of Pern that a dragon can hold their breath for about ten minutes, sometimes more.

Ergo, even if the rider goes with them, the dragon will be alone for at least five very crushing minutes before they finally lose consciousness. If the rider has died before they went between, they have ten minutes to deal with it and be in mental and emotional anguish.

(Don’t get me started on Beyond Between. That story makes no sense and was almost certainly written because Anne herself was thinking about her own mortality. If a person could just get stuck between like that there is no reason it wouldn’t be common knowledge among the dragons at the very least. And if you got stuck there after being fatally wounded, that’s not any kind of heaven, that’s what we would call hell.)

[nellandvoid]

as i’m procrastinating some designs for the main players in diane’s dimension, here are some of her inter-dimensional gaggle of children!

around 6 years into her time as a dimensional traveler, diane set up a rest stop of sorts (that became her home) at the outskirts of the nightmare dimension for anyone who finds themselves suddenly forced out of their home dimension, or in urgent need of supplies

however, whenever a child finds themselves in that position, diane takes it upon herself to watch after and take care of them, even refusing to take bounties unless absolutely necessary, until they are old enough to decide for themselves if they want to stay or leave - these three are the ones who choose to stay

furthest left is Hg80, from a dimension where people are made out of elements from the periodic table (diane’s nickname for them is hattie)

in the middle is charlie simmons, an outcast from the finger dimension after being born with syndactyly (hence why he wears gloves)

and furthest right is velquus caballissi, from a dimension where the most intelligent species are dinosaur-horse-bug-adjacent, and who fell into the nightmare realm just after hatching

[goldensunset]

bro….

[4giorno]

why did i have to get this dialogue on my honour mode run..... i cant make a save 😭😭 also i dont understand why i havent gotten this in any of my other runs

[hirazuki]

In happier news, I may have solved my can't-write-longfics issue...

Turns out, I just needed structure; who could have ever possibly thought? XD

[monstermp3]

☀️

[bitchthefuck1]

have you watched the pjo show?

I saw the first 2 episodes when they came out at a watch party one of my friends threw, and as soon as they ended I realized I didn't particularly care to keep going. It wasn't like, outrageously bad by any means, I just don't think it gripped me enough to want to continue, and there were enough odd adaptational choices that I thought weakened the story that I lost interest. I might have tuned back in if the changes actually built to something interesting in the later episodes, but from everything I've seen it kinda seems like they just took the teeth out of the story, which was what I was worried about.

That being said, the cast seems really great and well suited to their roles, so like, if they improve the writing and pacing in the later seasons and stop sanding down all the rough edges, I might pick it back up. But otherwise, pass.

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

2 & 3 from section 1 for peri and 7 from whichever section has a more interesting #7 for diodore -moss

oooh these are fun ones!

2. Describe their tent set-up (outside and inside) (Peri)

I think Peri's tent is constructed similarly to Gale and Astarion's (boxy, fabric walls, little covered area outside). Deep blue fabric w/ golden astronomical embroidery, mostly the sort of thing you see on star maps. Little golden tassles around the edges of the tarp (?) and the doorframe. He'd have a small, circular, dark wood side table short enough that you can use it sitting on the ground, and a dark blue pillow next to it; there would be some parchment and a bronze miniature astrolabe on the table. The inside would be just. full to the brim with the gaudiest night-sky-themed pillows you've ever seen. No bedroll, no palette, just a nest that would put those cube pits in trampoline parks to shame. There would be two bird perches for his familiar Medani: one taller one next to his tent and one shorter one under the overhang. The shorter one would have a crow-sized bow-tie hanging from it. Rugs on rugs on the outside area ofc. 3. What would their character quest be titled? Why? (Peri)

This is a hard one! His tav ending involves taking over the Waterdeep arm of the Harpers, so I think his arc would have something to do with that. He'd be pretty bitter about being dropped into another near-apocalyptic mess when dealing with the last one a few years prior was supposed to be a one-time thing. Something-something ptsd in a world that doesn't have the words for that yet, something-something 'once a hero always a hero', something-something the weight of responsibility...he's a planeswalker so I think part of it would be whether he decides to stay on Toril long-term and directly help rebuild the Waterdeep Harpers or if he continues to run travel around afterwards, so maybe The Far Traveller/The Far Walker?

Harpson/Fae-son are also potential options. "Fae-son" nods to him being a changeling without it being super obvious (like Astarion's "The Pale Elf"). It would also mimic his backstory reveals from RoT ("oh he's not 'from here' so, like, the Feywild" -> "OH he's not from here"). 7. Describe their arc. How would a player help resolve it? What choices can be made? Can your Tav be turned down a dark path, or pulled to a lighter one? (Diodore)

Buckle up because we're in for a long one here. I've thought about Dora's story arc a lot because she's the first of my tavs that I truly made for the game while having full control over her backstory, etc. (versus Corentin, who had their arc baked into the story as a durge). Dora's a paladin of Corellon (oath of ancients) and her story arc as a companion would have to do with whether or not she should accept capital-r-Redemption, the process by which a drow can be truly "freed" from Lolth and rejoin the ranks of the rest of elven society. It involves all of the Redeemed drow's memories being erased and them being reincarnated as a surface elf. The implication seems to be that without that, regardless of a drow's actions, they'd be thrown back to Lolth when they die? Or at least that their eternal fate is unknown (which is the way I prefer to think of it for. personal reasons). Under normal circumstances, Dora would be a long way from Redemption being presented to her at all (she's not even 200 yet and has only been on the surface for a couple decades), but like with the other gods' Chosen among the companions, near-apocalyptic circumstances tend to speed up those sorts of things.

Of course, you'd have the themes of faith & relationship with deity when they're all unequivocally real and are also mostly all assholes; maintaining or breaking generational cycles; facing the unknown; morality when none of your choices are "good" (and how that interacts with morality vs self preservation); power vs freedom; identity outside of the people who made you; etc. The choice would first be presented to her sometime in late Act I/early Act II, likely the first long rest after the group resurfaces from the Underdark and you've probably gotten some of her backstory already. I have no idea how Larian would have characterized Corellon, but he's considered one of the more benevolent/open-minded deities iirc, which could be interesting to see contrasted with Mystra, Vlaa'kith, and Shar. How much that open-mindedness would extend to a drow, even one who has been a faithful follower even before she escaped to the Surface (and who inherited that faith from her father), is unclear. At the beginning of the game she would be leaning towards accepting Redemption, despite her own misgivings about whether or not she would still be her in that case.

Her final decision (at the ending pier scene) would depend on the relationship she has with the PC and the other companions. Her best ending, imo, would be her not accepting Redemption but continuing to be a force for good. If she has a good relationship with the PC, she would have something to lose. I think seeing the House of Mourning would affect her too. After all, the thing Corellon is offering to her as a way to find peace is the same thing the Sharrans are using as a way to manipulate and control others.

She's viscerally aware of how she was socialized and very actively chooses "good", so pushing her towards a darker path would be incredibly difficult but not impossible. If you side with the goblins she'll leave immediately, and turn on you if she's in your party when you attack the grove. But if you decide to try and control the cult in Act II, depending on your over-all actions before then and how you've interacted with her, you could disillusion her to the point of convincing her to break her oath. That path would entail convincing her that controlling the cult is actually the best idea. I'm sure there would be other times that her oath could break that wouldn't necessarily lock her into an "evil" path, especially with how Oathbreakers are handled in the game. Knocking out Minthara instead of killing her outright and letting Auntie Ethel go in Act I instead of killing her are two things that come to mind.

If she doesn't choose Redemption she would be at the epilogue party, of course. I'm a bit undecided on what would happen if she does choose Redemption. She may not be there at all, w/ Jaheira, Halsin, Minthara, and/or Astarion mentioning running into her in her new, reincarnated state. Or she would be there, confused, and mention how the PC seems familiar in a way she can't quite place. In that case, she would ask them how they know each other and mention something about feeling a twinge of grief looking at everyone, but that she doesn't know why she feels that way. It would be up to the PC how much they tell her (if they tell her anything at all).

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

Setting aside his knife and fork, Randall gently took her hand in his with a soft smile, saying, "I appreciate that-I...I don't want to pry if you don't want me to...but if you're willing to talk about it, I'm willing to listen."

On the one hand, he didn't want to bring down the mood again; they were enjoying a lovely dinner (or rather, he was; he felt a twinge of guilt, worried that her lack of an appetite was his fault), watching a great movie and about to begin working on the model kit, and he didn't want to completely ruin the evening...

...but at the same time, a part of him wanted to ask-not because he was nosy, but because he felt it might do Emily some good to talk about it. She seemed so very lonely, a fact that broke his heart, and that she had a lot on her mind as a result. He wanted to help to alleviate that loneliness, that heartache, if he could.

Without thinking about it, he brought her hand up to kiss her knuckle, an action that almost felt like a reflex when he did it. It felt as if he had done it a thousand times before...even if, surely, he hadn't. Realizing this, he blushed and let go of her hand, saying shyly, "Th-That was forward of me, I-I'm sorry."