#has NEVER been more true

[monards]

"It's so rare for R to be in her right mind for a spell. Should she really be wasting the precious little lucid time she has writing this?" "Don't worry. For a witch, this is the most important thing."

you mean to be telling me that it's an explicit point that rhinedottir is rarely in the proper state to do spells and write things like this. and of all the choices she had not to. she chooses to write it and places importance (read. it's established as the MOST IMPORTANT THING too.) in spending said-precious-time to write something with her friends commemorating andersdotter. hoyo i need youto stare me in the eyes and real the implications of rhinedottir expending what the other's are describing as her "precious little lucid time" to commemorate and make an ode to her dead friend HOYOPLEAS

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Charcuterie Board, as designed by your votes! Thank you to everyone who participated; this was a fun challenge!

[chloesimaginationthings]

Your Game!Mike is such a silly guy I love him so much

Michael has been very silly as of late

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[egophiliac]

Hello! Could I ask how many chapters does the jp server currently have? I believe you're at the 12th part but I'm not sure. Part 7 came out in the eng server and the measly 16 chapters with no chapters within chapters destroyed me, so I'm trying to estimate how many we'll get when parts come out

yep, we're in the middle of 7-12 right now! they started splitting them up further starting with 11, so we got chapter 11 part 1, then chapter 11 part 2, and we're due chapter 12 part 2 (and maybe 3?) later this month. we've been getting them more regularly though, so it seems like they're switching to smaller but more frequent story drops!

I think Eng is following the same chapter breakdown as JP for these ones, and they've mostly been a decent length each IMO -- 9 was on the short side (two-person dorms go by so fast...) but we're getting nice little wrap-ups to the characters' arcs so I personally haven't felt, like, shortchanged or anything so far! it is SUPER hard being patient though (I'm lucky enough to be able to play it immediately and I'm still dying over here), so. ...I'm hoping the smaller drops help with that. :')

if you want the actual chapter numbers so far:

chapter 8 - 117-139

chapter 9 - 140-157

chapter 10 - 158-191

chapter 11 - 192-211 (part 1) / 212-226 (part 2)

chapter 12 - 227-244 (part 1)

(pretty sure these are correct, but if someone notices that they're off, please let me know!)

[reksink]

Beloved Residents of Dirtmouth (And Quirrel 👍)

[foxtophat]

took my friend to see sonic 3 on opening weekend and as we walked back to the car after i pointed out that "i knew they wouldn't canonize it but they really went as close to 21 without going over"

and my friend helpfully replied "oh they'd never canonize it. if they did then a lot of kids would have to learn about bdsm"

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[lady-raziel]

hilarious that with each new day that passes a new bit of dirt from JD Vance's past gets discovered and plastered over the internet...it's almost as if this is why presidential campaigns have always announced their running mates well before the convention...so that if glaring issues with a candidate came to light quickly there would be time to replace them on the ticket before they were officially locked in...it's almost as if certain things in political campaigns were done for a reason, donald...because the very same critical failures had happened before...but no i'm sure you and your guys attempt to recreate a fantasy version of history while ignoring all the reasons that history was a disaster will work this time...because you are built different and the 10000th time trying fascism will work like a charm...

[tainebot01]

You know, the AAI2 fandom’s insistence on referring to the characters by their fan localized names we’ve had for like a decade instead of the ones we received this week is really funny. It almost reminds me of something…

God damn it.

[creatively-cosmic]

more stuff for our cr retake looooore. something about cycles and reincarnations... supposedly.

[Lore under da cut . also blueberry milk is @viscarrion 's guy i just did concept art ^^]

[ edit: a lot of this is already outdated u-u ]

disclaimer: this was copied straight from a ramble over discord i did while very tired so this is Not final and might sound like a message written at 6am on a hyperfixation high

the thought with the ancients story is . We're making it cyclical with it babyy. age old legacies passed down over ages of cookies made of the same recipes yet Tweaked, born again, over and over, changing and evolving, lights of virtue watching and Waiting for an incarnation worthy of being their avatars. the beasts were a catastrophe that could not repeated- no, the next wielders had to prove themselves.

early attempts resulted in disaster, cookies chasing purpose and power, yet falling into the same corruption as the Beasts and becoming mirror images of their madness. as time passed and recipes changed, eventually, one success would rise- proven by their good natures and a great act of leadership and power. (possibly by striking down another corrupted incarnation deemed the Leviathans- smth we're still workshopping, based offa thing mentioned in the pre-registration artbook)

the soul jams had changed by then, too- but these heroes were, all the same, worthy of them. a successful batch at long last.

for a while the world thrived under their rule- peace prevailed and kingdoms were born, built, and flourished.

yet good things never last.

white lily, on the night of witches, fell into the "ultimate dough" after discovering the true nature of the witches all cookies revered as Gods- how they saw them only as snacks, puny and fragile and delicious. as the woman drowned in dark magic, poisonous ingredients, and was burnt from every angle from a second baking, she emerged changed. angry. pained. hateful. and imbued with that great power, she found herself strong enough to make a stand against the witches.

one by one, they fell. and in pursuit of vengeance and the power to change everything, let's just say that she decided to turn the dynamic of Witch and Cookie on its head. with bloodied teeth and bones as trophies, the now Wilted Lily cookie, who would come to be known as the Dark Enchantress, set out to show the world what she'd discovered. and how she would change it.

of course, the Heroes wouldn't let this stand. the enchantress did not take pleasure in fighting her once-friends. did not revel in how she had become unrecognizable. white lily, however, had always chased goals that she believed was for the good of the world- this was no different, and no one would stand in her way. at any cost, she would prevail.

on a fateful night, the war between her and the Heroes came to a head. Two kings, two queens, and a sorceress entered that battlefield.

what came of it were five shattered soul jams, four orphaned kingdoms, and only one survivor; sealed away by forbidden magic in a final attempt by Pure Vanilla to save the world as he knew it, in his dying breath.

a few hundred years passed. the dust settled- the war, forgotten. but having lost their leaders so suddenly, so cruelly, and while they were so young, the kingdoms left behind were weak. cookies left, rulers took and left the throne far faster than anything reasonable. societies rose of their own merits, but the remnants of kingdoms clung dearly to what was left, their people spurred on by whispers of legends- of undying heroes, who would one day return and bring their small lands to power again.

when spurred by belief, anything you hold closely can be true in the eye of the beholder.

a cookie was baked with pure vanilla extract and decorated in the flowers of the vanilla plant it had been harvested from. a kindly and pacifist healer, a shepherd- the village under the sky kingdom's remains watched closely, and began muttering of his uncanny resemblance to the legend of the kingdom above.

sparks of hope would become a guiding firelight in the villages hearts- slowly, the name Vanilla Flower was drowned out by the prayers for the return at last of Pure Vanilla.

a young girl cookie, red and tart and bursting with life, wandered into the Hollyberry kingdom from Dragon's Valley. she boasted of victory over beasts great and small, bringing great supplies and hopes for prosperity to the beautiful little kingdom. her passion shone bright, her natural sense of leadership even moreso. the queen that their age-old songs would never forget must have returned!

again, the name of Red Holly was lost under the voices singing of the triumphant return of Hollyberry.

The Cacao kingdom stood strong- a council lead them steadily and held them well through the endless winters of their land. But as time passed and mindsets changed, the council would fracture- no single party trusted enough to watch and unify. Nobody, except... Him. A decision was made- it was time to take a kingdom-wide belief seriously. They watched, as each newly baked cookie would come through. Trying to discern if one could finally be the reincarnation of their king. Until finally, a boy of lonesome and bitter origins came to them, begging for a chance to fight for the good of the kingdom. They saw the look in his eyes, and knew he had come home.

Frigid Cacao, under the guide of the council, quietly let his name be lost under their uplifting words of how Dark Cacao had returned.

The golden cheese kingdom had long ago made a promise to their queen- in the event of her death, they were to prepare and ensure her reincarnation happened smoothly. They did not simply sit and wait. Over those hundreds of years, they carefully engineered each step of the recipe- carefully gathered every ingredient, carefully crafted her dough, and carefully, carefully, set her aside- shaped to perfect form- to incubate in her golden egg cradle, slow-baked by the warmth of safety and adoration. It took ages, but she emerged almost perfect. It had taken too long to care about the flaws- for now, this cookie was their queen.

Before Pyrite could even learn her name, she was taught the only one she'd ever be called by her people- Golden Cheese.

the next cycle began with these four, names and identities cast aside to fill the roles of monarchs and heroes the people of the land sought for. They made idols of men, and each kingdom raised them as such.

And even so, how could they doubt who they were when even the lights of virtue told them exactly the same...?

though the soul jams were still shattered, each of the four had been baked with a small piece within them- a piece that now connected them to the past life they once embodied. the lights whispered of destiny, of rebirth- showed them memories of lifetimes long since passed. the four upheld their virtues as best as they could. even as the weight went on to exhaust them, burdened by the responsibilities, legacy, and promises of a life they had no say in- of a person they never were.

... what of the fifth?

dark enchantress, though sealed, was not dead. her soul jam was still hers, right? and white lily had no kingdom, no subjects to morn her, or to wish for her return....

... mostly.

the kingdom of the faeries held her in dear regards. she'd been a friend and savior, bringing unfathomable power only outdone by their own monarch. They led her along on her quest for answers... and felt responsible for the following chaos.

dark enchantress... that was not the cookie they'd known. whatever happened, it was not white lily. Not to them. white lily was still out there, exhiled from herself. what she needed... was help!

so the faeries made a cookie. as best they could, they made White Lily cookie. she would be born anew as one of their own, her flowers not quite the same.. but still hers.

and carefully, they laid that husk where one day, her soul would find its way home again.

Valley Lily cookie did not awake until desperation grew high enough to force a lost soul into her body. And given life... she awoke. Confused, lost, and with no idea of who she was, where she was, and even what she was ... though far more dazed, Valley Lily was no different than the other young "reincarnations."

the only difference was now, that cycle of uncertainty was not at the hands of a kingdom. it was at the hands of cookies who had been forced to remember the lily of a different life. of cookies who looked at a lost stranger, and instead saw an old friend.

[lilacpaperbird]

maybe my most controversial headcanon is that I see dean as a straight man and sam is his only exception

[wolfienation]

god bless the folks who know nothing about wicked, went to see the movie and have since decided to go pick up the book. best of luck to you!

[feysandfeels]

Girls don't want "boyfriends"

GIRLS.

WANT

ALUCARD TEPES

[futuretrain]

kinda to go along with my thoughts re: jason and the popular perception of his inescapable criminality when lacking bruce to guide him. i have a huge issue with how often the fandom at large/comics readers do their best to read the biological families of kids that bruce takes in as somehow bad, neglectful, or abusive, so as to be able to easily cut them out of the narrative (after all, if they're bad for the child in their care, then of course they don't deserve said child) and clear way for bruce to fold them into his family. as if the (much less privileged and less rich/poorer) family cannot in any way be (allowed to be) a good and loving environment for their child and only a (lbr very white-coded for decades) billionaire can deliver that