#filling systems

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*peering down at my own genetic sequence* uh-huh uh-huh bold choice bold fucking choices my friend

[thebibliosphere]

I’ve lost the ask, but someone asked me if I’m still using the ADHD sticker method of rewarding productivity and how do I record bad days, given my health issues, and the answer to this is yes and like this:

August was a cunt ✌️

[littlebreadrolls]

I went back and colored it properly. Also, I just discovered the joys of shading with the fill bucket and oh my God?? I'm unstoppable now, it's over for you bitches

[obsob]

one small step for. kitties

[soupysundae]

🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

[blue-mood-blue]

I have been thinking about the blackening (as one does)…

…and it’s so interesting to me, the penalty Shen Qingqiu is faced with should he not decide to yeet his disciple into hell.

Account termination. Instant death. Sent directly home to his already-long-dead body, and that’s it for the villain of the piece who outright refuses his villainy. The protagonist needs a blackening for the story to continue, and Shen Qingqiu is going to provide it or get written out of the narrative. Either way, Luo Binghe is going to lose him. Either way, this is a turning point.

I wouldn’t claim that this is the intent of the penalty, but it fascinates me that the System has, potentially, backed the plotline into a corner - because Binghe still stands to be blackened even if Shen Qingqiu took the other choice.

Think about what that would look like, to him. He’s at the Immortal Alliance Conference, and everything is going wrong. He’s been outed as a demon, and not just a demon - the top tier of demon, as bad as it gets from the perspective of a righteous cultivator. His beloved teacher, the person who has been kindest to him and opened his home and heart to him, is standing there with his sword in hand, deciding what he’s going to do about what must look, to him, like a horrific betrayal. Binghe is apologizing. Binghe is begging for his life.

Shen Qingqiu hears him. Maybe it shows on his face, or in his voice, that he already knew; maybe there’s no hint at all, but Shen Qingqiu is suddenly talking quickly with an abrupt sense of urgency that Luo Binghe is having a hard time keeping up with. Telling him he’ll be wonderful - telling him he’s the best. Telling him the world will be his, with emotions cracking through that aloof mask that Binghe has never seen on Shizun’s face before, and it’s terrifying for reasons that Binghe cannot identify.

(He will, later. When he has time to think, he’ll realize it sounded like a goodbye.)

And then Shen Qingqiu is bleeding. And then Shen Qingqiu is on the ground. And then Shen Qingqiu is dead. There’s no countdown for Binghe - there’s no System, there’s no warning, there’s no answers.

Luo Binghe is a heavenly demon in the middle of a conference sabotaged by demons. Luo Binghe is alone. His fellow competing disciples are scattered, some dead or injured. The Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak, the second in command of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, maybe the only person he loved and who loved him back, is dead at his feet. No one will believe him if he says it isn’t his fault.

(He can’t believe it isn’t his fault.)

What choice does he have but to run? The last heavenly demon the cultivation world went up against has been sealed under a mountain for years, and one of the people responsible for that is probably looking for Shen Qingqiu already. They’ll be looking for him, too. There isn’t anywhere to hide; there isn’t any time to mourn.

There isn’t even enough time to ask why. Why again.

There is no closure waiting for him, because there is nothing to explain what happened. It just is.

It would be a different kind of blackening, certainly - less intense, probably, less of a warping, desperate thing. But how many times can one person have all the love and safety in their world torn out from under them before it starts to show? Before they just don’t allow things like love and safety to touch them, because that’s the better option?

Interesting to consider that, simply by offering the choices it did, the System rigged the story to guarantee that Luo Binghe would end up in hell (deliberate or not).

Interesting to consider that, even if Shen Qingqiu made what might have seemed like a kinder choice, there was every chance it wouldn’t have been.

[astrologysaysno]

I have a random thought to pitch to you all the idea of Airplane SQH acting as SJ's lawyer in PIDW.

(Confession: I have not read SVSSS, so I have no real clue on how the trials happened, but just hear me out)

Shen Jiu stands on trial at Huan Hua Palace, charged with the grievous crime of the murder of Qiu Haitang's family, the death of Liu Qingge, and the mistreatment of Luo Binghe.

For the sake of propriety, SJ is assigned someone to defend him in the trial as his defence. The people clamour, Qiu Haitang and Liu Mingyan especially, arguing that he does not deserve someone to aid his defense, but Yue Qingyuan does not relent.

He assigns Shang Qinghua as the lead, a compromise to quell the rabble of protesters.

Shang Qinghua presents as clumsy, disorganised, and tongue tied. A barely qualified Peak Lord who looks as if an ant on his shoulder would give him enough of a scare to induce cardiac arrest. They believe Shen Jiu is guaranteed to be found guilty on all accounts when YQY picks him.

But Yue Qingyuan knows his shidi and knows just how capable he is. He has witnessed him weave through social dilemmas and negotiate with merchants, each time coming out on top with diplomats willing to do anything and traders selling even at a loss. He has made this sect richer and more influential than he has ever had in years.

So Yue Qingyuan is confident that Shang Qinghua can pull this off.

The day of the trial comes, and like the sound of the first horn at the front lines, it commences.

Shang Qinghua and the prosecutors spend hours on each and every charge, with Qinghua breaking down each argument and exposing the cracks to them.

He pulls out witnesses that Shen Jiu thought he would never see.

Former slaves of the Qiu family who attest to the horrific crimes of what Qiu Jianluo did, of the abuse Shen Jiu was put under, even forcing the sect leader himself to explain their history and air everything out.

He prods at Liu Mingyan's accusations, revealing the hearsay and conjecture of her story. His accusations of lecherous acts are dismantled as he brings the head of the Warm Red Pavillion and other workers to testify in favour of him.

With Luo Binghe, it is Shang Qinghua's most difficult test yet. How can one justify the hate that was perpetuated by Shen Jiu, the endless suffering caused by him to Luo Binghe?

He cannot, what he can do is create a sense of empathy towards Shen Jiu, building an argument of constant sequential trauma which had molded him to become this jaded, cynical individual caught in the cycle of abuse.

He appeals to the remains of Luo Binghe's humanity for mercy, and to the crowd of Luo Binghe's instability caused by Xin Mo. Weaving both together the case of Luo Binghe being too manic and unstable to properly pass judgement, that what Luo Binghe really wanted was justification for all the hurt brought down upon him.

Shen Jiu is still given punishment for his mistreatment of Luo Binghe, but the air feels as if it has shifted, changed into something he doesn't know what to do.

[hiyogdh]

zhuzhi lang my beloved...

[itscherryterry-again]

rare and sweet as cherry wine

[until-the-brahmin-come-home]

ultimately inconsequential but big pet peeve of mine when it comes to bethesda fallouts: naming. so many npcs don't have names, or don't have first & last names. every human companion in fnv has a first and last name. a lot of minor characters have first and last names! and a lot of characters have fun names that tell you something about them - ranger ghost, arcade gannon, calamity, fantastic, most of the legion guys tbh. meanwhile you can sleep with cait and danse without ever learning their last/first names.

[sleepsi]

Something I drew in the @daycarefriendpickup ‘s magma! Also I don’t think I’ve spent so long drawing in one day before, this one took a longgggg time.

[mamawasatesttube]

i think martha kent should get to threaten rex leech with a shotgun tbh

[psychhound]

the more i dm vs play other ttrpgs the more frustrated i get with how npcs work in 5e. my game centers around a small town with a recurring cast of npcs, as well as newly introduced npcs each arc that my players frequently adopt, and every time i open my Documents (tone: weary) filled with npcs i just wish 5e npcs were Built Different(tm) to pcs. obviously theres statblocks and stuff you can use but if youre working under the assumption these npcs are Full People who are going to take up space in the pcs lives youre going to be building them like you would a pc and frankly it sucks for a couple reasons

one, if i want to introduce a new batch of npcs of a level that will prove imposing for my pcs to fight, it shouldnt take me 10 hours to make them. two, once the fight is happening it would be great if they didnt have so many abilities and spells that im just hoping and praying i can make them function even a little smartly without grinding the whole fight to a halt every time its a spellcasters turn

and third, which i think deserves its own paragraph(s), i wish npcs didnt have the same set of skills that pcs get

i like trying to give my guys, pcs or npcs alike, pretty high mods on things, bc, you know, good for the game and also big numbers fun. but some skills are either inherently useless for an npc to have, or imply a loss of player agency if i was rolling them

like, charisma skills. deception is really useful for an npc to have, because then pcs have to roll insight against it to learn information. persuasion, however, is not something an npc should really ever roll. if theyre rolling persuasion on a pc, that player is experiencing a loss of agency over how their pc reacts to a request. if theyre rolling it on another npc, youre now just playing dollies with yourself while the pcs watch. if im ever choosing between persuasion and deception for an npc, im always going to give them proficiency in deception even if that makes less sense for their character. same problem for intimidation. either youre telling the pcs how to feel or playing dollies with yourself

stealth and sleight of hand are overall way more helpful for npcs than for pcs who arent rogues. and perception is far more useful for an npc to have than like ... survival. when are your npcs going to be rolling survival? if you have a ranger or ranger-like character whos helping your pcs navigate wilderness then why does it make more sense for them to be rolling survival and potentially mess up something they are meant to be good at, causing potentially unfun complications for your party, than just ... knowing that character can help them navigate, so they do? especially if thats the reason that npc is there?

idk like my players respond very well to the npcs being Full People and i do think theres a level of enjoyment to like. comparing pc and npc stats or players learning what feats an npc took or lore around subclasses but also. also im so miserly and decrepit and my google doc of my four bad guys this arc and their spells is 59 pages long im Tired Save Me

[rillils]

🌸 pre-war stucky + discovery

Steve’s knife glides cleanly under the apple’s butter-yellow skin, the peel pooling over the plate in one long, looping ribbon. And Bucky watches, enraptured.

All his life, he’d thought that art was the kind of thing that occurred inside Steve’s sketchbooks; that it was about color, about shading and light, and the twists and pitfalls of anatomy that’ll make Steve cuss under his breath in frustration. He never once figured that art could be happening in their kitchen, at their table, in the naked heart-shape of an apple cupped in Steve’s palm.

But there’s something like grace in the work of Steve’s hands; a deliberate focus in his eyes as he cuts the apple in halves and then in quarters, and a drop of juice trickles slowly down the inside of his pale wrist, catching Bucky’s eye.

Steve always did have delicate wrists, Bucky considers – slender and agile like the rest of him, two columns of milky white shot with the green web of his veins.

The thought brushes against Bucky’s mind, soft as anything. That his fingers could curl around one of those wrists, and likely wrap all the way around it, sweet and whole like an embrace. It’d fit so perfectly, cradled in the palm of his hand. Then he could feel the jut of Steve’s wrist bone, and the quick flutter of Steve’s pulse under the pad of his thumb if he chose to stroke him there, over that silky smooth skin, and he’d have the measure of Steve’s heartbeat, stuttering secrets under his touch.

It’s–

Odd. He never. He never knew.

But it must be true. Something inside him knows it, something–

“... wan’ some?”

Bucky’s gaze follows the silver glint of the knife, his lips parting, entranced, while Steve cuts himself a slice of apple with effortless grace, and holds it against the flat of the blade to bring it to his mouth. His soft, rosy mouth. How does he know it would be soft? But he knows – it’s written in the flush-pink plumpness of Steve’s lip.

The tip of Steve’s tongue peeks out, a darker shade of pink, wet and glistening, and Steve slips the apple slice inside – the crisp flesh of it leaving a touch of moisture across his bottom lip. Steve catches it with a sweep of his tongue, lapping it off in one swift motion; and Bucky swallows, wide-eyed and eager, chasing the phantom taste of apple against the roof of his own mouth.

“Buck?”

Steve’s voice shakes him out of his reverie, and his gaze snaps up to find that Steve is looking right at him.

Steve is–

Steve’s eyes are blue. Bucky has always known that, in the same, absent-minded way as he knew that water is wet, that day follows night, that fire will burn you if you put your fingers to the flame. But today, suddenly,

Steve’s eyes are blue.

And Bucky stares back at him dumbly, breath locked in his throat for an endless moment, as he sees that piercing blue for the first time in his whole life, and is shaken to his core by the sight of it.

“Wuh– what?”

“I said,” Steve begins, hiding his chewing mouth with the back of his wrist, “you want some?”

He offers a piece of fruit to Bucky, a fat wedge of apple held in those long, nimble fingers of his. His fingertips are the same soft pink as his lips, Bucky notices. And he imagines, in a fevered flash, letting Steve feed him with that same hand, and brushing the seam of his own lips against those fingertips as he takes the first bite, and flicking the tip of his tongue out to lick the juice straight from Steve’s skin.

“Uh, um– yeah,” he stammers, reaching gingerly for the offered fruit. The glimpsing touch of Steve’s fingers against his feels every bit like electricity, a zing running up Bucky’s arm, half pleasure and half the terrifying thrill of the unknown. “Sure, thanks.”

Steve pauses to watch him curiously, jaw working on the last of his morsel, his pretty – pretty! – eyes filled with a fond sort of amusement as they rake over Bucky’s suddenly shy frame.

“What’s gotten into you today?”

Steve’s grin is a brilliant thing: sweet and playful, the bow of his mouth crooked up in one corner, more charming than Steve himself could ever guess – and that light sheen of apple sugariness, still shimmering full on his lips like a kiss.

And Bucky wonders, as he ducks his head and bites into his own apple slice, what else he has been missing all these years. How much more he has failed to see, though it was right there under his nose all along.

What lovely secrets lie in the narrow set of Steve’s shoulders, left bare in only his undershirt, here, at home, in the privacy of their little kitchen.

If Steve’s collarbones always looked just like this: carved out of stone by some tender hand, smooth like polished marble. Too holy to touch, and yet too tempting not to kiss with an unholy mouth.

He steals a glance at Steve’s face, and tries to mirror the shape of his grin as best as he can.

“You know me,” he shrugs, waving his hand about, “just got my head up in the clouds, is all.”

But when he takes his next bite, it’s the salt of Steve’s fingertips that he tastes, not the sweet tartness of the apple; and the wonder of it lingers for hours under his tongue, like a question just waiting to be asked.

[canisalbus]

Is that canon!?! Was Machete just really naive/didn't really understand the implications of his relationship to Vasco? Did his mentor ever find out about them or discuss such things with him? I assume bc he didn't have parents, he kinda didn't get educated on sex or anything. Was it a big shock to realize he was "sinning"?

.

[salt-n-salt]

TRYING TO DECIDE HOW TO DRAW @ryliith ‘s YUMMY TASTIC FARMER ATLAS so it’s atlas dump time. sorry not sorry !