#don't ask me how I have no idea lol

[owlfacenightkit]

one of the Penguin's goons has a tattoo of the Batsymbol with an X over it 😭 Sir you are walking around with a 'hospitalize me' sign on your shoulder

PFFFT

[themeraldee]

AY the southern stylist ask was delicious ik that was a while ago but I'm scrolling through lol. But like what if he came in one day, really rough day, madlyn was on him, the media too. Just pissy baby energy. And then she sees him and immediately can tell something is wrong, especially when he doesn't chat or smile like he usually does and before she can think she's cupping his cheek and just going "Sugar, you seem down. What's wrong baby?" Of course in like that southern way where baby can be used platonically but she sees the effect it has on him and goes 'oh mommy issues, that makes sense. Welp gotta lock in now'

[follow up to this - sort of]

Stupid Stan and his stupid fucking lectures. Homelander slams the door to the dressing room open. It leaves a dent in the wall but he doesn’t care as he slams it back shut.

Fucking Stormfront. Where does Stan get off thinking he gets to decide who goes in the Seven for god sakes?! Undermined again, being made to feel like a petulant child—again!

He’s so frustrated there might as well be steam coming out of his ears. And now he has to prance around at a premiere for fucking Tek Night Lives and pretend like his life doesn’t feel like it’s unraveling. 

Homelander sits himself in the makeup chair staring at a reflection of himself. He can’t even contort his face to a neutral state. He watches as his jaw tightens, his Adam's apple moving with a gulp and his tongue pushing his lip out when he runs it across the top of his teeth in frustration. He can’t stop fidgeting and flexing his muscles. He’s doing anything he can to take away the urge to scream and tear anyone nearby piece by piece.

He’s so distracted, stewing in his own persistent thoughts that he gets caught off guard by the two gentle hands that land on his shoulders, jumping a little in surprise.

For a moment he forgot about this. About you. About the only good thing he seems to have left these days. Something positive to come back to.

"Honey, you look all kinds of stressed. What's eatin' at ya? You alright baby?" The honeyed drawl of your sweet southern accent almost does the job at untangling the coil of frustration and anger in his gut.

“It’s nothing.” He raises his hand sweeping it through the air, brushing it off with a tight fake smile. He doesn’t want to appear so frazzled in front of you but he’s so on edge, filled with this angry energy that there’s no way for him to keep calm.

“Now, don’t you go tellin’ me it’s nothin’. I can see it all over your face.” You brush your fingers through his hair as if to expose his face even more, not allowing him to hide behind any loose strands.

“Come here.” You walk around the chair, your hand sliding down from his shoulder all the way down his arm so you can slip your hand into his gloved one, pulling him out of the seat.

Vought always spends too much money on things that don’t matter. That’s why this dressing room is fully decked out. To your advantage now, it also includes a nice couch that you lead him to.

Sitting down on the edge you urge him to follow you. Homelander feels even more lost now but for a different reason. Yet he’s not one to refuse close contact. Grateful that he still holds some respect among Vought employees as the increased time he’s demanded for his hair and makeup prep is coming in handy now more than ever. At first it was a thinly veiled attempt at seeing more of you, at hearing more from you. Now it comes with extra perks he didn’t even think would be an option. 

“Come on now, don’t be shy, sugar. Rest your head here, you need to relax.” You tap your lap, giving him the green light to continue. 

He slowly lays down on your lap, his head facing away from you.

“There ya go. Nice and relaxed.” Your hands automatically slide into his hair, your nails gently scratching his scalp, as if scratching the tension right out of him.

Homelander lets himself melt into you, accidentally humming out loud in pure bliss. How can something so simple do him so much good? 

“Feels good, don’t it baby?” The way your fingers manage to melt the tension out of every inch of his body makes Homelander think that you might have a superpower of your own.

“Sure does.” He says in a lazy tone, a dead giveaway to his blissed out state.

He ends up turning around to face you and the ceiling. After a few minutes of pure indulgence he catches your hand before it does another round of running through his hair and stroking down his cheek and instead he brings it to his lips, kissing the back of it soundly, closing his eyes to enjoy the gesture as much as he can. 

He sits back up and you lean in to place a sweet kiss on his cheek. One that gets him all flustered, his once tense exterior now replaced with that cute boyish smile and a carefreeness spread across his face. “That’s better.” You comment on his smile.

"Now, how 'bout we get you back in that chair so I can work some of my magic on your hair after I’ve gone and messed it up some, huh? What do ya say, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

[lunarharp]

if i just told you i love you would this world change

[sergle]

I got something for you to chew on. when I was in chickasha yesterday, at the food truck festival, a girl asked to take a picture with me (and I said yes and I threw a peace sign By The Way) and I still don't know. why. she wanted a picture.

[can-of-slorgs]

The other researchers are also here! (magical edition!)

[mibexe]

🧡 It's TRUE FOOL LOVE! 🧡

[bacchuschucklefuck]

since more of like the class swap etc started going up every once in a while there will be a question in my inbox that would take me literally multiple comics' worth of art to answer adequately lol. and I don't wanna do that under an ask I want that to have its own space! so if I don't answer ur question know that it's probably that^ above there and not that I think ur question sucks

[deoidesign]

Can you make a tutorial on how you world build and make ocs? I can't seem to make any people in my brain, but then when I try to come up with environments jobs, beliefs and little details to slowly come up with someone, I think: well I don't really know how people have influenced the world- it's a weird loop

To be honest, I don't think I can! Writing is an extremely personal process. The way I write is directly related to how I process things, what I find important in stories, years of my own analysis of my and other's writing, etc... The way you write will be unique to you, as well. But I can explain how I personally think of it.

The short answer:

Write. Write anything and everything, it's a tool to explore your ideas. Analyze your own writing, and write more. Then, as you discover which ideas you want to develop, write more to explore them more. You won't know what you want otherwise!

The long answer:

I think this kind of loop is common. It's easy to feel like everything needs to be done "at once," because our job as writers is to make elements logically fit with each other for our readers. But as you've discovered, developing multiple elements simultaneously isn't really possible, or at least is extremely difficult.

Personally, when I think of writing, I break it into three major elements; characters, world, and plot. As much as possible every scene explores one or more of these, and as much as possible these three things tie back into what I personally consider most important: theme.

Everything I do is in service of the themes I want to present. Without them my events feel aimless. It can take a while to discover them, but they're the core of my work. You will have to discover what you feel is the core of yours. Analyzing other media helps with this too.

Concepts in your brain exist in a state of infinite potential. But when you start writing you have to start making choices, which removes potential as you move forward... But you have to move forward anyways. If there's ideas you want to explore later, you can always explore them later.

What this ends up meaning, to answer your question, is that I don't think of my characters as "people in my brain" or my worlds as something people have influenced... Not at their core, at least. They are tools that I use to represent specific ideas. Obviously they're also my blorbos, but mostly they're serving a specific narrative purpose.

So above all else... Write. Write, and discover what you're writing about, and then start over and write with that in mind. Keep doing this. But you have to write!

[steelthroat]

Tomorrow's outfit was literally a group project lol.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Saying that non-conforming female characters don't face as much misogyny as their "feminine" counterparts is so funny cause literally the misogyny in their treatment is more overt because they aren't staying "in their place" like men think they should. The disdain for women + misogynistic societal ideals are so much more blatant in male characters interacting with these women. Countless times they are, in essence, told they need to sit down, shut up, and know their place but somehow that translates into them having "masculine privilege". I can only assume that people with this take haven't actually read the books and only get their information from second-hand sources.

[moongothic]

May I ask for married lizards head cannons (Dragon x Crocodile)

Unfortunately, honestly, I don't really have Dragodile headcanons at all, mainly because we know so little about Dragon it's kind of hard for me to imagine what he'd be like in a relationship with anyone, let alone with the meanest reptile on the planet

Aside from Dragon being the worst lay Crocodile ever had but to be fair that is at least 38% a joke headcanon

[needlesandnilbogs]

for the ask game about fic backstory. i've only read one of your mirrorverse fics so you might have covered this somewhere, but i'm curious: how did mirror!mensah come to power?

okay so I have in fact written two fics in which some aspect of this is revealed but other than those two fics a lot of this is either in my head or scattered across discord (the timeline I was kinda keeping for a while has disappeared lol) so here goes trying to form it into a shortened-and-broad-strokes narrative:

(I can and will go into more depth about any of these parts. Just try me. also this feels very in-world-document-y but that wasn't totally on purpose) (it's long so it gets a read more)

The Alliance Period (Salvation Pre-Empire)

The Salvation Alliance was founded nearly 200 years ago, by a group of colonists escaping the Corporate Empires and the constant war. They settled on a lush planet near two already-inhabited planets in the same system, and their ship, the Salvation, became the first station.

Within a year, they had so cowed their neighbors that the rest of the system fell easily under the banner of the Salvation Alliance and the promise of peace and an end to the corporates.

One of the small group of leaders, Consuela Makeba, protested this decision, but her speech went largely ignored. It certainly did not appeal to the newly formed Salvation Council, who had her imprisoned and executed as the Alliance's first traitor.

The Salvation Council was an oligarchy, though they liked to pretend they weren't. A few seats were won, here and there, by young progressive candidates who had grand dreams of changing everything, but for hundreds of years, the status quo remained set. A place to live and food for all, just as in another universe, but contingent on the understanding that if you were not working for Salvation's benefit, you didn't deserve more than the very barest of minimums.

One of these young upstart progressives was Dr. Ayda Mensah, a charismatic and well-known exoecologist who was quickly elected to her local governing council, and a few years later to the Salvation Council.

The Coup

Dr. Mensah, it must be understood, had been planning since the instant she'd been elected to her local council, if not earlier. She wanted power, and she didn't care who stood in her way.

She was methodical about it; quiet convincing where possible, the sort of thing nobody would dare call her out on. Bribery, blackmail, siccing her good friend the up and coming prosecutor Pin-Lee on them, all those little ways of influencing votes in her favor.

Within three years after her appointment to the council, she'd amassed enough of a power base to be appointed Planetary Administrator, head of the council for the term. At this point, she and her partners had a two-year-old child and another on the way, which certainly had an impact on her re-election campaign strategies.

A few months into her second year as Planetary Administrator and fourth year on the council, she was on a survey with a handful of other members of the SalvationAux survey team, mostly flunkies and interns (and, of course, the Chief Prosecutor of the Salvation Alliance, there because of course Pin-Lee wasn't letting Mensah go alone), when things went to heck.

The only reason they survived at all was the actions of rogue EnforcerUnit Saviorbot, who saved the whole survey team. In gratitude (and because it was such a useful thing, to have a friend with guns in its arms), Mensah and Pin-Lee arranged to purchase it and free it. It followed them back to Salvation, and became Mensah's constant bodyguard and close confidant.

Within a year, several people took offense to the centralization of power and the existence of an EnforcerUnit on Salvation, and began a pitiful rebellion which announced itself with rioting at the Oakepark Factory Complex, an event which is still marked as a solemn tragedy by many. (A certain Makeba Rebellion, it and its leader named for Consuela Makeba's protest speech, celebrates this day as a sign of victory, and notes that there were zero deaths and less than a dozen casualties, which the Empire tends to brush over in favor of the tragic reduction in production capacities.)

Things continued on with a sort of stalemate for a while, Administrator Mensah continuing to ensure the council complied and the rebellion continuing to try to depose her, until Saviorbot discovered transmissions from a rebel cell linked to both the rebellion's spymaster Hope and one Councilmember Sonje.

Mensah and Pin-Lee and Saviorbot, in an attempt to centralize power even further, decided enough was enough. After a devastating rebel attack on the council, which just so happened to kill the biggest opponents to a unilateral power grab, Mensah ordered the council dissolved and all administration to run through her office.

Within a week, she was crowned as Salvation's first Empress, with her partners crowned as Queen- and Monarch-Consort and her seven-year-old eldest daughter given the title of Crown Princess Amena. In deference to the age of her children (seven and five, at the time), Mensah named Solicitor Pin-Lee, who was already the Chief Prosecutor, the next in the line of succession, and bestowed upon her the title of the Hand of the Law; in turn, Saviorbot was granted the title of Chief Enforcer and given responsibility for the security of the newly-renamed Salvation Empire.

(Side note, part of how Mensah kept control over the ex-councilmembers was by offering each of them and many other politicians a guaranteed position for them in the new administration. Some of these positions, for those with children, are now considered inherited positions, meaning it's guaranteed to be passed down to their children, and others aren't, so when people eventually retire from non inherited positions, those posts will be filled by other children of government officials who Mensah thinks will do well there. She's basically going back to nepotism and hereditary nobility as a way to keep those people from joining the rebellion. Meanwhile her strategy for dealing with the broader populace is pretty much ensuring they have everything they need, propagandizing the heck out of everything, and creating opportunities for advancement into administrative positions that can be used as rewards for the most loyal. Textbook bread and circuses plus carrots and sticks.)

The first main mirrorverse story, Preservation, picks up about eight years since that coup, which is also four years since the martyr Tradition died, and the second and third main stories take place over the next two years. At the point the fourth story starts, it's been about ten and a half years since the coup, in which time court politics have become exponentially more complicated as people vie for Mensah's favor. (She encourages this. Plotting against each other means that they aren't plotting against her.) Also, Amena's almost a legal adult by the third and fourth stories, which means she's almost old enough to actually take over if Mensah can't rule somehow.

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

i can't believe they made me speak french in the oral exam

[bambiraptorx]

Okay, so in this poll, gargoyle lore and the Wall of Handprints tied. I'll make separate posts for each topic, but for now I'll start with the Wall of Handprints. (Edit: The post for gargoyle lore has been completed and is here.)

The Wall of Handprints is, well, exactly what it sounds like. A wall covered in the painted handprints of thousands of people, carefully added to over centuries as a sort of collaborative mural. It's easily twenty or thirty feet high, spanning the back wall of an old concert hall that's no longer in use. There are no hard and fast rules about adding prints to the wall, but usually prints are added to commemorate something important.

For example, people often add handprints for milestone birthdays, such as becoming a legal adult (the exact age varies for different species of yokai). They may also be used for other important markers, like a toddler learning to walk (or fly, in the case of winged yokai). However, some yokai--often but not always ones with shorter lifespans--like to leave a print for every birthday. Sometimes family members will cluster their handprints together over the years.

However, they can also signify other important events, such as adoption, marriage, apprenticeship, making a new friend, or winning a competition. When a sports team wins a tournament, for example, the whole team might put handprints on the wall together. Alternatively, if they lose every game in the season except for one, they might put their handprints to serve as a reminder of the game they did win. Again, there aren't really any hard and fast rules about why people can add prints.

The actual process: usually people will bring their own paint, paint their hand, press it on the wall, and done, that's it. Sometimes people will take the time to touch up their handprints or add designs to them, but they don't have to. If they bring excess paint, they can leave it at the wall for others to use. For the most part, people bring either tubes, bottles, or cans of paint. Spray paint isn't exactly banned, per say, but most people don't care for it. Also, although covering parts of other people's prints is unavoidable at this point, given how long the Wall of Handprints has been in existence, it's generally considered rude to cover other prints too much.

This is an approximate example of a portion of the wall. Hundreds of years and thousands of people have worked together to create it, and it's constantly evolving.

[running-in-the-dark]

I'm still not feeling great. now one side of my face also hurts lol, it's just one thing after another, this body sucks

[bacchuschucklefuck]

i really love your musings on baron! especially the way they're like. The consequences, almost? The monkey's paw? The immutable gap in between Riz and what society wants from him? do you plan to push those boundary-breaking aspects more in your class swap au? how?

you guys are giving me the wrong kinda credits if you think I plan out Anything for these stories lol. I'm havin fun enjoyin! this is not my day job and I will never start treating it as such.

but there is something here though about like, how I as a guy in my room drawing for fun approach these things vs. what canon is, and what I get to do that the d20 team don't. it's evident with class swap baron specifically - which means I'm not gonna ease up on the horror part of it whenever I draw or write or whatever for them, because honestly that's the part that's the most fun for me. so (taps the blog description) if evil and scary things start showing up more in my art you bet ur bippy it's intended babeyy