#earning stripes

[freshthoughts2020]

SHOP: gettothecorner.com

[its-merrilee]

wait what? wait what?

[dyketennant]

which could mean nothing

[kinaaaard]

Do you think BT would choose to have kids? And if so, surrogacy or adoption?

OHHHHH thank you for asking me!! right out the gate and I get some wonderful thought-starters. 

okay. I think. that first of all, they would have a veeeryy long conversation about this. it’s conflicting, because obviously there’s that selfish human need to want to have a baby that has your DNA, but I think both of them would be so far past that premonition/desire because the idea of having a child with one another is so overwhelmingly beautiful that it would be washed away with ease. They’re first responders, they help people in need, they both have a natural instinct to care — I think it only makes thematic sense for them to adopt. When I put my cinematic goggles on, one or both of them encounter a new mother who does not want to/cannot care for a child and think, hey, this might cross some moral lines of the job, but who’s one to look a gift horse in the face? And adopt that baby. But it’s also very tender to imagine them going through the adoption process as well. They’re outside of the room where they’re going to meet their adoptive baby for the first time, sitting in chairs way too small. Buck thinks he’s going to be the one crawling out of his skin with nerves, with anticipation, but it dwarfs himself because Tommy — his husband — is the one grinding his teeth and wringing his hands. In fact — 

“Tom,” Buck says gently, “You’ve torn that to shreds.” 

He’s talking about a receipt Tommy found in his pocket. It’s been ripped methodically to ribbons that Tommy is now curling around in his palm. 

“I’m not nervous,” Tommy asserts, staring down at the paper, reading Buck’s tone. 

Buck slides his hand over, from forearm into fingers. “Yeah, neither am I.” 

A beat. He lets Tommy collect himself. 

“We’ve been waiting for so long,” he says after a spell of tender silence, “And it’s going to be — it will be the most incredible thing we’ve ever done. It just — it feels like hurtling off a cliff, you know?”

Buck hums. 

“I’m not nervous,” Tommy repeats, squeezing Buck’s palm. “I’m excited. I’m — I’m just a little scared for the reaction I’ll have when I see her face for the first time. I might cry, Evan.”

Buck chuckles, squeezing back, because he knows he’s going to cry himself. “Nobody will hold it against you. Well, I might. But you’ll be crying for the right reasons.”

Tommy nods, tilts his head to rest it on Evan’s shoulder. “All the right reasons,” he sighs out, and with it dispels relief, happiness, and reassurance that this his life has all culminated to this. “Only the right reasons.” 

“We’re having a daughter,” Buck murmurs against his head. 

Tommy already feels the clench of a sob gather itself in his chest. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.” 

[imageingrunge]

Do I want him to suck n fuck me?? yES

Yeah his bite could kill me 😚

Yeah he has no soul 😳

No not that guy

It’s him 🤭

[the-bleeding-typewriter]

currently reading the wikipedia entry for Bengal Tigers because i watched Endeavour season 3, episode 3: "Prey" and now i guess i'm going to write another canon divergence AU fic in which Morse gets mauled......again.

[cloudysarts]

what's with the bold choice to make blitz forest green and remove all animal traits from his facial anatomy

hes green because in my rewrite, all imps are colored from the rings theyre from!! ive also switched up the colors from how canon is. blitz is from envy, so hes green! hes ""green with envy"", if you will. millie is the only member of i.m.p who stays red!! as she is from wrath.

this isnt a rewrite thing i just hate how imps look in canon LMAOOOO. i dont even know if id call the facial anatomy ""animal traits"" ?? theyre just noseless (as are most of viv's humanoids) and are weirdly long and stretched out. i dont. see what animal thats supposed to represent. lizards i guess? i read somewhere therye supposed to be dragon-esque/reptilian but i dont see it at all. i hate drawing it anyway so i just got rid of it.

[celira]

listen up all you queers who were ever worried about being erased or not being queer enough or being invisible.

now is the fucking time.

i don't care how you identify so long as you throw down with your queer family when the going gets rough. there's a difference between identifying as queer and being in community with queerness, and it is go time.

you better be louder than ever. you better be stepping up for our trans siblings and BIPOC siblings and everyone who has targets on their backs. because folks in het-looking relationships - folks who still benefit from normativity - all of those who are functionally safer - can afford to do so more than the most vulnerable of us can.

we protect us. you in?

[which-hospital]

sah/teddy in barriers (real)

save me sah/teddy in barriers :(

[cowvboyenema]

i think the biggest issue they raise with the new airbender movie, like for me personally, is that while i have always been an anti and a hater towards kataang i simply do not want to see them kiss irl with my real eyes

[freshthoughts2020]

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Jak and Daxter Thursday Part 2

(As promised, the Less Angsty Part.)

The onlookers all seemed to think Jak had slipped out of the Precursor craft at the last moment. That was just fine with him: it meant no one had seen him teleport out, carrying Damas into the tower. Leaving him there had been terrifying -- even if the monks in the Convalescence Ward had believed him to be a Precursor himself, and vowed to care for Damas with a reverence that made him sick, it was hard to trust his father's care to others. But he had appearances to keep up, just as his other self had warned him. All he could do was focus on his next steps.

Sig had taken the throne as interim regent in Jak’s place, as while he was more than capable of satisfying the battle requirements of a Spargan king, he wasn't yet of age. That was a mercy, but Jak knew Sig loathed the role. Damas had been like an elder brother to him from the moment he staggered through the gates of Spargus seeking refuge. Sitting in his place felt as wrong for him as it did for Jak.

Jak turned a tired smile to Daxter, who met it with a knowing look. Tess raised her brows at Daxter, but he tiptoed to whisper in her ear that he'd explain later. Jak clapped a hand to Keira's shoulder in camaraderie as he passed, and she returned it in kind with a light squeeze.

There was a pain in her eyes Jak remembered too well. Everything had come out in bits and pieces from the moment Haven had traded Jak to Damas, and Keira almost regretted digging for answers. Learning that a beloved parent was capable of such thoughtless cruelty to someone else's child "for the greater good"- well. They'd had their fights, but Jak wouldn't have wished that feeling on her even if she'd joined the Krimzon Guard.

"J- sorry, Mar."

Jak managed a bittersweet smile. "For you, I can still be Jak."

Keira bit her lip and looked skyward for a moment, blinking rapidly until she had her facial expression under control.

"...okay. Jak, I'm...I'm going to denounce him. To think that all that time, he knew- I. I don't think I'll ever- it's like I woke up and someone replaced my dad with a complete stranger."

"We never blamed you for any of it," Jak answered earnestly. "Spargus won't hold it against you if you don't denounce him. We all answer for our own choices."

Keira blinked hard again, and nodded. "And this is my choice. I'm choosing you and Daxter this time. Like I wish I had before."

Jak reached up to squeeze her hand. "...thanks, Keira. We...I missed you."

"I missed you too, Jak." Keira let go to fold her arms across her middle. "Can we start over?"

Swallowing down a lump in his throat, Jak nodded. "I- yeah- yeah we- that sounds good."

Keira offered a wan smile, then let him go. It felt like torture, climbing the last few platforms to the balcony. Sig was there, but so was Samos. And so was Onin. And while Jak knew they were only there because Sig wanted them within firing range if they tried something, it made him hesitant to continue forward. He didn't want to be anywhere near the people who had known about Veger's plot and blithely co-opted it for their own uses.

"Jak, m'boy! Well done!" Samos chortled merrily, wearing that grandfatherly air Jak had always fallen for before.

Not anymore.

"I'm not "your" anything." Jak stepped past him in a hurry. He didn't trust himself not to snap if he remained within arm's reach of the sage.

Sig rose from the throne and held an arm out to him with an understanding look.

"Mar," he said softly.

He clasped arms with Jak, and nodded solemnly.

"I'm proud of you, kid. Your- Your father would be proud."

"He is," Jak answered softly. Then he pulled Sig down to his level by the shoulder to whisper in his ear, "Dax is going to take over the diplomacy stuff down here. Meet me in the C-Ward upstairs."

Sig straightened and frowned down at him. "What'd you do, cherry?" he murmured.

The smirk Jak gave him in reply was so grim he could have sworn it was Damas who stood before him once more.

"I shaped my own fate, like my father taught me."

For a long time, Sig just looked at him. Then he shook his head. "Boy, if I didn't already know you did impossible things-"

The Convalescence Ward was a hive of activity the instant Jak stepped through the door. He frowned. The light eco should have rewound the crushed bones and organs almost perfectly! Doubtless his father would be sore a while, and Jak hadn't been able to fully repair the broken leg before running out of eco, but that wouldn't warrant this much fuss, would it? He opened his mouth to ask what the problem was, and a senior monk rushed to him.

"Young prince! Your father-! He- he-!"

Irrational thought it was, anxiety twisted in Jak’s stomach. "What about my father? What are you talking about?"

The old woman took him by the hand, a slightly disturbed awe wavering in her voice.

"He lives! Your father lives, Mar!"

Relief washed over him, and with it, the events of the last 48 hours that he'd been shoving to one side.

"Let me see him," he said urgently.

"I...must warn you first, Mar," the monk cautioned, and Jak's stomach flipped again.

"He is...changed. The Precursors returned him from the edge of death -- by hand! No mortal can experience such a thing and remain unaltered."

Ah. Just the normal "Mystical Whooo Crap", as Pecker called it.

"I've seen that kind of thing before. I'm not afraid," Jak assured the monk. "Please. Just take me to him, Ruma."

Damas was awake now -- he hadn't been when Jak had seen him last. One leg -- the still broken one -- lay propped up where monks could splint it. Dark blue shapes twisted and curled under the skin, as if lights were shooting through his veins. The rest of him looked strangely normal for having just been yanked back from the edge of death. The monks not splinting his leg quickly backed away from the bed as Jak approached.

It had worked. The timeline was closed now, and Damas lived.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Jak dropped to sit in a heap on the edge of the cot. He fumbled for Damas’s hand and held it to his chest as he let out a shaky breath.

"You're here," he croaked.

"I'm here," Damas repeated, almost confused. Then his face split into a wide smile. "I'm here."

Jak blinked. Something wasn't quite right about his father's face. Something about his eyes was a little brighter than he recalled. And the teeth...Too many? Too few? Too sharp? His mind couldn't decide for a few seconds before the bones in question seemed to settle into a fairly standard -- if unusually sharp -- set of human teeth.

A memory of his own face, saturated with both light and dark eco, rose to Jak’s mind, and an uncomfortable thought followed on its heels.

Had he altered his father's physical form by healing him in the Precursor craft?

Further speculation was cut short when Damas pulled his hand free to tap playfully against Jak’s cheek.

"You once pushed a chair in front of the door -- a toddler's chair, mind you now -- because you thought it would keep me from going to work without you. You never could stand being left behind, could you?"

He sounded like he wasn't certain whether he was more amused or annoyed.

So much pain, so much loss, and here they all were at the end of it all, still standing. So to speak. The exhilaration of not being the only one left to tell the tale filled him with a heady feeling he would later come to recognize as joy.

With a giddy laugh, Jak threw himself forward and into Damas’s chest.

"We did it!" he crowed, "We did it, we did it!"

Damas’s arms folded over his back, and his chest vibrated with a soft chuckle.

"So it would seem! Though how I'm to explain this, I'm not certain."

"So just don't explain," Jak snorted, "and let them come to their own conclusions."

He ducked away from the hand tweaking his ear with a laugh.

"And let someone start some crackpot theory about our already bizarre bloodline?" Damas feigned offense. "That sounds like a terrible idea!"

"Terribly clever, I agree."

Damas lightly thumped Jak over the head. "Impudent little- When I get out of this cast, I oughta-"

Finally seeing an opportunity, a monk gracefully interrupted. "My lord, your leg requires time and watchfulness to heal correctly. You must leave it immobile for at least two weeks until we know what the eco is doing in your bloodstream."

She turned and nodded respectfully to Jak. "I trust you will keep the injury well tended-to?"

Jak slid over to occupy the space between Damas and the small nightstand. He leaned back against the wall beside his father and nodded back.

"Don't worry, he's not going anywhere. I'll make sure of that."

"This is elder abuse," Damas complained, just as lighthearted and almost giddy as his son. "You can't make me stay in bed! That's mutiny!"

"No," Jak retorted with a broad grin, "That's what happens when Sig gets here and finds out you're alive!"

"Argh, you're right!" Damas slipped an arm around Jak’s neck in half a hug, half a headlock. "And then I'd have to contend with Daxter!"

Jak gently poked Damas in the side with a smug grin. "Daxter? No no, Tess is the one you should be afraid of."

Damas flung his other hand into the air in mock exasperation. "Rot me, it's a conspiracy! I'm outnumbered!"

When the monks had finally taken the hint to leave the pair alone to catch up, Damas sobered slightly. "You know we'll probably have to make a plan for if the Precursors choose to retaliate for this."

Jak's eyes danced with mischief. "What're they gonna do without their technology? They're as powerless as Veger!"

Damas raised a brow -- no, Jak hadn't imagined it, there was something weird about his eyes now. The pupils weren't supposed to have little points of light like stars, were they? Not for humans.

"Alright cub, what did you do?"

"What did Daxter do," Jak corrected, deciding to deal with the possibility of his father gaining a Light Form later. "He confiscated the old one's staff, and then made them drop the ship with the Precursor we hatched from the Stone last year. Because they weren't being responsible with time and space."

Considering the young Precursor had been sitting on the beach that would one day hold Sandover Village, happily building elaborate sandcastles in lieu of blueprints, Jak had a feeling the new owner of the time machine would have fewer agendas to push. And given how the glowing being had greeted them as "My friend Mar" and "little Scout-brother", perhaps subsequent timelines would be kinder to his family. The other ottsels' horror and chagrin boded well, anyway.

[bharv]

Not to be incredibly obvious but the lyric:

Don't you know I'm no good for you? I've learned to lose; you can't afford to

in a Durgetash context where Durge has accepted it is their divine destiny to forsake their autonomy for their Father and Gortash must always prove himself to Bane through his actions really does hit

[arttrampbelle]

Lady Tsung,wife of Shang Tsung.

Mk self insert.

*note:my shang tsung is primarily of mk11 and mk95 shang tsung. Mixed with ONLY THE VA alan lee. Not the writing of mk1 2023. (Because that's the only thing of value to that game. The writing sucks. The va actors are wasted talent on that shitty game. No offense.) Rejuvenated Shang tsung's voice is a combo of alan lee and a young tagawa. Old man shang is just cary tagawa now/mk11 shang tsung.

Now that that has been established.

Here we have Lady tsung my mortal kombat self insert. Someone has dared challenge the lady of the grey isles. And soon to meet their end. Foolish mortals.

More souls for her husband to feed upon. Hee hee.

(Used a base)

[isca-rambles]

courtesy of crazy4chenford

Where's the lie though? Get this woman some damn stripes, pronto!

[perenlop]

I know it's because she's an attempt at a main series Sunset Shimmer and because they eventually have her be Twilight's student, but man I don't quite see the point in having Starlight Glimmer be a Twilight Sparkle parallel