#he does it like nobody else

[whos-hotter-jjba]

Hottest JJBA Outfit Bracket - Round 4 Match 2

[bacchuschucklefuck]

january month of yuugi

[yuwuta]

roommate katsuki lore time: 

your job isn’t as physically demanding as that of a pro-hero, but it is equally, if not more time intensive. your friends often comment you seem dead on your feet way more often than they do, and you have to agree. so when you decide to scrounge up some extra money and hire a private chef, you think it’s the best decision you’ve made in a while. 

your friends would seem to agree—and some tease that maybe you should ask your guy if he can cater to izuku, too. except for katsuki, who seems appalled, betrayed, and disgruntled. it takes all but one week about you gushing over the meals your chef has prepped for you for katsuki to show up to your apartment in the middle of the day, while you’re at work, and the chef is in your kitchen, kindly ask him to leave forever, and get to work himself. when you come home, you’re confused and pissed when you realize katsuki has fired your saving grace, but the anger falls flat on your tongue when you’re interrupted by the blonde spoon-feeding you the most delicious bite of steak that you’ve ever had in your entire life. he’s way too smug watching you physically melt about the food, and ordering you to sit down and have a proper meal. 

he tries not to be endeared by your stuffed cheeks, but there’s a satisfaction brewing in him that he can’t quite place. all he knows is it won’t be taken away from him again; that’s why he flicks your forehead, throws a dish towel over his shoulder, and says, “make room for my shit here by the end of the week. and don’t complain when i put all your spoons together in one drawer,” before heading over to the sink to wash up. 

you don’t even get until the end of the week before katsuki is barreling into your apartment with boxes and clothes and, “this is what we call a stainless steel pan in the wild. ever seen one before?” prompting you to reach up and pinch his ear even as he cackles all the way to the kitchen. you suppose, in the end you can’t complain. you get to live with your best friend, you get free catering, free cleaning, and it takes you two months of living together to find out katsuki’s paid off your rent for the rest of the year, too. you know, what friends are for. 

[lesbianfakir]

Hold the dnucki

And bonus:

[ID: 6 images of Fakir picking up Duck, mostly as a bird but sometimes as a girl, plus a bonus image of Fakir and Duck floating in the lake with his arms wrapped around her waist. End ID]

[raayllum]

whenever people are like "i love ships where the girl is badass and the boy is in awe of her" i just always default to rayllum bc i don't think there's any ship where the guy is more of her #1 fan and cheerleader like look at him

Rayla is selfless, strong, and caring. That's what makes her a hero. That's what makes her Rayla.

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

TFA Blitzwing

[shaissa]

[transingthoseformers]

OG factions vs SG Autobots OOOHHH I LOVE IT both sides unsettled because 'That looks like me, but it's NOT. I would NEVER do that...' and 'I can't believe I am glad these are the Autobots we were dealing with before but THESE SAVAGES ARE JUST INSUFFERABLE!!!'

Should SG OP taunt his 'brother' over how alike they are, Megatron is gonna be yelling for him to just SHUT UP. I KNOW THIS OPTIMUS, AND HE'D NEVER BECOME SO DISGRACEFUL. HE'S TOO STUBBORN FOR THAT!

Do NOT give me that look Prime, get back to kicking that slagger's aft! ////

HGHHGH OMG YES I LOVE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SG OPTIMUS AND BASELINE OPTIMUS‼️✨✨✨✨

They can be amazing

And, yes, the sg autobots have some FASCINATING fundamental differences from the baseline decepticons, and it's interesting to see how the fights change

Plus the team up has to be interesting, because how many strengths and weaknesses do the Optimi share?? What differs here?

Oughh and the baseline megop interactions segsgsgdg

[backpackingspace]

Okay but do you think the people who were really close to odysseus during the Trojan war had a running bet for when odysseus claimed to have a vision from Athena if it was true or not? Because half the time he was just lying about that.

[temporary-joyride]

I think my biggest Blue Lock headcannon is that Bachira listens while he sleeps. I know he woke up during Ego's explanation of tag and that's why he knew the rules, but all the other team meetings we've seen he has slept through. My personal explanation is that Bachira is somehow just still listening. I think it'd be incredibly funny for Isagi to be like "okay Bachira let me explain the plan to you" and Bachira's like "no dw I heard" "You were literally asleep during the meeting??" "Yeah but I was listening"

[starry-bi-sky]

Sketch dump! I havent done one of those in a while. These are all from June-July while I was on vacation.

First we have Layal! The delightful Mother of Monsters, aka the Ghost Zone’s most evil mama bear AND my take on a fem!danyal dan! I like to imagine she could pummel Dan into the ground, but that stands true for any and all of my au Dans. Bc i am INCREDIBLY biased.

She mostly lives on her island in the Ghost Zone, taking in monsters of the Infinite Realms of all kind and raising them as her own. Surprisingly enough, she does genuinely love her children. That’s about where her love ends. She stole the minotaur, his name is Asterion.

Then we have Daini-Yel! He’s from an au i’ve never actually talked about on here. He’s literally just Danny for an Epic!-inspired au. He's an unknown entity in the newly released open-adventure, odyssesy-inspired game "Nautilus", and he is not a part of the game's code :). He showed up three months after the game's initial launch, and was discovered during a live when a streamer was on their way to fight a boss much similar to Circe and the streamer accidentally took a detour and found his pathway (of which did not previously exist).

He's very friendly! And offers you, the Captain, a strange liquid with even stranger powers called "Ektolai", in order to help you fight Circe. His whole vibe and creation is literally just the song "Wouldn't You Like" from Epic. If you run into him enough times at the start of the game, you can convince him to join you on your adventure as part of the crew. He's a powerful ally and a very good friend, despite his strange awareness of the world around him...

Oh, but be warned... just like the rest of your companions, your actions have consequences and what you do affects their opinion of you. Daini is no different! Your close allies can quickly become enemies.

[eerieechos]

“Are you two DRUNK right now??”

[rosy-crow]

On one hand, I need to calm the fuck down about Sephiroth and stop giving into Twitter to debate lore. I KNOW I’m better than this lmao.

On the other hand, I see people genuinely angry about “how Crisis Core ruined Sephiroth by killing part of his agency through Genesis,” and “how having friends made him less cool,” and “how all the Compilation is humanizing him too much and taking away his mystery,” and “how he went evil for no reason,” and “how he was always an asshole that saw himself as superior to others and only broke down because he found out he wasn’t all that.”

I see unironic worship of “canon” traits he has that apparently mark him as a perverted alpha daddy dom sex god instead of the actual raging, delusional murderer with a loathing for all life he becomes for a reeeeeeeally key and important reason.

I see remarks like “I hate how First Soldier is ruining my favorite character and taking away more of his agency,” when said “favorite character” is Sephiroth’s most surface-level traits as a villain with no further depth and he has to be cool and perfect 100% of the time or else he isn’t Sephiroth anymore and he’s suddenly “badly written.”

That’s not the same character.

Yes, I know.

Why am I mad that one of the most beautifully designed and canonically objectified and powerfully portrayed and sensually voiced and thirstily fawned over characters in video game history is being reduced to singular traits???

I don’t know.

How can I demand the luxury of rage when faced with such odds.

What did I expect.

Yeah, this one’s on me.

[thebaldursmouthgazette]

I'm curious to know your thoughts on the chess symbolism. I personally really like the Solas/chess game analogy they have going on and with Rook representing a major power piece. Unfortunately I'm also seeing takes saying that Lavellan represents the queen, not the inquisitor, Lavellan specifically, and I kind of wonder what grounds they have to think that. I think it's pretty apparent that every inquisitor is a pawn. Not even just for Solas. Arguably you could say the inquisitor, whether they know it or not, is always working in someone else's interests and to someone else's benefit. They have no power to reject the title of "Herald of Andraste" and whether it's Solas, or the chantry, someone is always trying to maneuver them. Add that there are spies in the ranks and it's clear the Inquisitor's control of the board was tenuous at best and at worst an illusion. A romanced Lavellan isn't an exception to that, at no point in inquisition or Trespasser did I ever feel like the Inquisitor was a powerful character given how compromised their agency is for the entire game. I feel like Solas only even told them about his own spies infiltrating the inquisition because he had no use for the inquisitor or the inquisition from a strategic standpoint any longer and didn't care what became of it from that point on. .

I honestly don’t think the chess metaphor is as deep as people are trying to make it. I think it’s just that Solas sees the world in the same way as a chess board, and all the people he interacts with are chess pieces to use and sacrifice as needed. It doesn’t particularly matter who is what piece, they all may as well be pawns. And in this chess game, solas is not a piece, he’s the player.

But the point is that’s all bullshit. This isn’t a chess game, these are all real people. Rook may be called rook, but that’s just a nickname. They are not a tool to be used and discarded. Solas isn’t the mastermind chess player moving his pieces. He’s a callous asshole and kinda dumb to boot.

I’m not surprised That Specific brand of Solavellans are trying to cast lavellan as Solas’ queen. They’re also trying to cast her as andraste to Solas being the maker (a nauseating take which is also the most boring direction you could take the lore), or as the two members of the new elven pantheon (also nauseating, and a complete misunderstanding of the games themes. None of these people are gods, they’re just assholes high on power).

But it’s also funny because even if she IS the queen in the chess analogy, that still makes her a piece to be used. When you play chess you don’t feel a particular attachment to the queen piece. Shes not your wife. She’s a chess piece that you use the same as any other. And, in fact, in the chess banter with iron bull in inquisition, solas sacrifices his queen. Being the queen chess piece would not make lavellan special. She’s still a tool to be used and discarded as needed.

The point is that Solas thinks he’s this mastermind playing 4d chess, putting pieces in the right place, making the sacrifices necessary to win. But actually he’s just a really fucking annoying asshole who sees everyone in his life as tools to be used for his own personal game. There is no chess game. He is not the master player. There’s just a bunch of people, with lives of their own, who are not his to be used as he pleases. Rook’s nickname is after the bird.

[hakugreenfinch]

i feel like many peoples mouthwashing analysis is... distorted by a false dichotomy of "good people" and "bad people". "curly is a bad person" "curly is a good person" i feel like trying to determine the characters' morality like santa claus is not exactly the way to think about this game. it makes me think a lot about an excellent video essay on the boy wizard books where op points out that in that world there are "no good or bad actions, only good or bad teams" - that is to say if a character is decided to be "good" they will get away with as much abuse as they like. and i feel like mouthwashing is the opposite of that, there are no "good or bad" people, there are people who do good or bad things and its those things that determine them. you dont have to be a "bad" person to do bad things but also your worst deeds wont brand you irredeemable or deserving of nothing good.

jimmy 100% believes hes not a bad person and bad things just keep happening to him because of everyone else that wont let him be "good", but ultimately hes also just a person that chooses to do more bad than good so if his worst moments dont define him what else is there? everyone else on the ship is more or less aware of their shortcomings and/or simply dont try to categorize themselves like this. swansea is a great example of someone who has given up on trying to be a "good person" and escaped the dichotomy instead of trying to fit himself in a box that doesnt even exist.

i just think discussion around curly would be a lot less heated if we just dealt with the uncomfortable fact that hes not a good or a bad person, hes just a man genuinely trying to do good that keeps failing, for one reason or another. he wants to be good and so does jimmy, we all do, but if we keep focusing too much on being "good people" it becomes a dangerous game.

(also this is why i kinda hate aus and whatnot where jimmy "gets what he deserves", the game makes it very clear that abuse is a bad action that cannot make you better than anyone.)

[angeart]

Howwwww did you angst the world tour?? 🎀

this question made me giggle so much oh i'm glad you asked :3c there was so much yummy grian angst in the hc world tour!

it's all about grian and his penchant for destruction. he doesn't even mean to! he's not trying to be pesky; quite the opposite. he's curious but restrained, trying to be good, trying to follow instructions. he's not malicious at all! he's just there to see what people were up to, open and friendly and curious, eager to look and learn and praise. not a bad intention in sight... and yet things seem to break wherever he goes. everything he touches goes wrong.

the guilt churns, acidic and overwhelming, and grian's miserable. why is he like this? he's trying so hard, why is this the only way he can ever be? why can't it stop?

spoilers for grian's world tour video below <3

plantie pointed out to me how, during the tour of scar's train, when grian got rid of scar's arrows—the glitched ones that doc put there—he was so desperate to point it out after scar just glossed over it. as if he wanted to show that he can do something good. he can be helpful, he can fix things instead of just breaking everything.

but then we have all the other things, right? grian can't escape it.

when he was with etho and the mushroom farm exploded, he sums it up in a wretched if confused apology: "i'm so sorry. the two times i tried to use it, i broke it :( and created a water source floating— which i don't know how it happened— and flung the TNT, which i really don't understand—"

they move on, but it's so clear it lingers.

etho isn't blaming him. he's amused and brushes it off and moves along, unbothered, but grian himself can't wrap his head around it. about that propensity to breaking things, even unintentionally. the way nothing is safe around him.

he tells etho: "i can't stop thinking about your mushroom farm. why does everything i touch break, in new and unexpected ways?"

(not to mention when etho's showing him frogger and grian plays, almost instantly etho goes: "uh-oh, the game's broken", with a little huff of laugh. it wasn't exactly tied to anything grian did, but still something i wanted to point out, since grian was there for it <3)

and then grian goes to zedaph, right?

the very first game zedaph shows him. the very first. grian plays the way he was told to, the way he was meant to, and— he breaks it.

zedaph just laughs and moves them on.

(just sprinkling in a side note that zedaph's furnace minigame also didn't seem to work the way it should've—)

by the time grian gets to pearl's, it's starting to be a pattern that's so clearly eating away at him, making him anxious. he doesn't want it to happen again!

and yet.

pearl invites him to play her wordle game, and grian mindlessly goes and pushes the wrong button trying to start it... instantly stepping away with a quiet groan of a dread-filled "...oh-" followed by: "i just— ruined it already."

there's something about the mood switch. the way he seems more restrained and tame, silently upset with himself, trying so hard not to mess things up further. questioning why this is happening again. why he can't stop making it happen.

he walks over to the reset game button and asks, carefully: "can i press reset? is it gonna hurt? 🥺👉👈"

pearl reassures him he can, with a sigh noting that it'll just take a while.

there's an almost hysteric laugh from grian, followed by an exasperated, upset scream. "everything i touch breaks! when i went to e— i broke etho's thing when i went to— not frogger, his— his mushroom farm i— it blew up."

"you blew up his mushroom farm?? how? what did you do?!"

"yeah, i— i broke zed's game, instantly, pretty much, it's—"

"oh my gosh :("

"sorry 🥺"

pearl is quick to reassure him, though. "well, luckily for you, this is— you doing that (pushing the wrong button) does not break the game. it's just, you now have to wait for it to reset."

she makes sure grian knows that he didn't mess up anything terribly here. he didn't break pearl's game. it's okay! it's fine!

and then grian right clicks to open the book, and instead makes bonemeal pop out of a composter.

i think at this point pearl is a little bit taken aback by how wrong everything really seems to be going around grian. she makes sure to say, "it's fine," again, just so grian won't start worrying about it all again. "you're clicking on everything that people do not usually click on today. but it's okay. it's still not broken! it's not broken, it's alright, it's okay— i've got failsaves for people like you."

it's so sweet how she really tries to soothe him— and yet she can't help but let out that last remark.

people like you.

those few words surely lodge in more than all the reassurances. they're like splinter, proving grian right.

eventually, he gets to skizz.

during the tour of skizz's base, skizz shows him a horse statue and starts talking about how he lost his first horse at an event that grian was also a part of. and grian's stomach instantly sinks.

he asks hushedly, a bit confused, trying to remember: "was i there?"

skizz laughs. "you were absolutely there, dude."

which leads grian to ask, uneasily: "did i do it?"

skizz waves his hands, quick to easily reassure that no! that's not it, grian didn't do it!

grian lets out an oh with such palpable relief, and goes on to explain about how, "i remember witnessing it, but sometimes it's hard to disentangle whether i did it or not. coz i tell you what, on this tour i've broken everyone's stuff."

nobody was upset with grian when things broke, but here he is, several hermits down, still unable to leave it to rest. because it's him. it's him who did all of that, somehow, and he didn't mean to, but it doesn't matter. it happened anyway.

and now he can't even tell what is and what isn't his fault anymore.

the guilt is deep rooted, leaving anxious assumptions and dark, jagged precipices. how much did he destroy? what else should he be feeling guilty about? how far does this go?

he keeps breaking things, and it's such a blur that he can no longer tell what is and what isn't his fault.

the tour continues, and he delves into skizz's pyramid. and it's just— it's just a tunnel to swim through. nothing to mess up, besides potentially dying to suffocation, right?

and yet you can hear skizz shrilly exclaim: "oh he's going to end up breaking something!!"

and, (plantie's words: ) grian hearing that and just wondering, is that all i'm good for? is that all i'm known for? is that all i am?

there's no room for doubt; not really. that is what grian does, all the time, whether he wants to or not. he breaks stuff. he just— he doesn't mean to. and this tour is one big show of how powerless he is against it. (how everyone expects it from him anyway.)

despite it all, grian perseveres, trying out skizz's game, stubbornly dedicated and trying to win. (to pass; to have something to be proud of, at least—) and he gets to the powdered snow section.

there, he jumps across to a pathway that he was meant to circle to through the snow instead.

it's not breaking anything, not really. not even the rules. it's not cheating! he's just— he just did something skizz did not expect, but that was entirely possible within the game's design, even if not intended. he exploited it to his advantage; a risky, tricky shortcut.

and yet skizz remarks with a laugh: "this is what grian does! he breaks games!"

no matter what grian does... is that all he'll ever be?

is that all they'll see?

he fails getting through skizz's game, is thanked for play-testing, praises it all, they talk it all away, and...

and then grian goes to tour mumbo's base.

and fails to even die properly to his llama—

and then mumbo shows him his archive machine, and instantly panicks when grian gets curious about it, begging him not to touch anything. and grian says: "your stomach just fell through didn't it?" and after mumbo's immediate agreement, he adds: "and rightfully so. coz, almost everything i've touched on this tour has broken."

there's not a sliver of surprise to mumbo's anxious rushed: "yeah, yeah yeah! please stop now." because, of course things have broken. of course what grian touches is bound to go wrong. of course—

and then mumbo very carefully tells grian what to do with the machine.

grian does as he's told.

mumbo looks up and pauses, a frown crossing his face as he takes it in. he notes that grian probably did it too fast—

(something went wrong)

(something broke)

mumbo says: "i can't believe you come along and every single thing in my base starts [going wrong/breaking/malfunctioning]"

and then grian mysteriously ends up with an extra book from mumbo's machine, much to mumbo's dismay. grian's confused, cogs spinning as he tries to figure out what did he mess up this time to result in this.

it's clear mumbo wants grian away from his machine. it's not safe. (grian isn't safe.)

"maybe just give that to me and maybe just step away from the contraption. and then— maybe just leave me to—"

grian's upset and bewildered voice cuts in: "i didn't do anything wrong this time :(("

he's trying so hard.

he's trying so hard to be good and do things right and not mess anything up.

(it isn't working.)

(it's never bound to work, is it?)

mumbo ushers him away, and ends up showing him another cool invention—an elevator. except the second mumbo hits the button, a creeper shows up and explodes it. (it's midday.) (it wasn't even meant to be there.)

this one isn't grian's fault at all, but with everything that's happened— well, it's easy enough to link it to grian's presence. like a bad luck omen.

apprehensively, grian asks if the elevator broke, and mumbo—a bit bewildered by the reality of it—says that no, it seems to still work. "amazingly," he tacks on, disbelieving.

grian's relieved. "ohh, i thought we were in big trouble there!"

besides himself, mumbo anxiously agrees: "augh. i was like, if every single creation that i show breaks in some fashion, i'm just gonna quit."

because this isn't normal. none of this is, least of all everything at once. it simply doesn't happen.

(not when grian isn't there, anyway.)

mumbo notes that he needs to work on his lighting, and grian nods wisely saying it's a perpetual issue, but the anxiety is digging its talons in now, unrelenting. (what else is going to go bad in grian's presence? what else will he mess up? what else will he break? why is he like this?)

another remark that comes after this is mumbo's nervous: "i've actually just built up the automatic sorter which does this—which you're not gonna touch. we're banned from touching any redstone contraptions!"

and what can grian do but oblige? (but he can at least look, right?)

but does it ever change anything?

does it matter?

-

at the end of the day, the others don't think too much about it.

they all say their part, pass their judgment, wave their hands, dismiss, move on. it doesn't keep them up at night.

... i think it might keep grian up at night.

a cacophonous collection of word snippets, aimed at him or woven around him, digging under his skin until it bleeds. a noose of inescapable fate, a tightening band around his chest that promises he can only ever be one thing:

a vessel for destruction.

it doesn't matter if he wants to be.

shackles and chains and a cosmic inevitability written into his skin, etched into his bones, tangled into his bloodstream. and an ever-rising guilt like stormy sea, far above his head now, drowning him.

(maybe he's not meant to be near other people and their things.)

(maybe he's not meant to touch games that were constructed with so much effort and love and passion poured into them.)

(maybe he shouldn't—)

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bonus screenshots from discord DMs (with extra sprinkles of hmtb mentions):

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bonus hmtb quotes because i kept thinking about it:

He always destroys the things he loves most, after all.

and:

He destroyed everything he touched, and when there was nothing left, he destroyed the only remaining thing: himself.

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