#i just like the dichotomy

[nullyisgoinginsane]

I find posts where the soulsborne protag is being silly/doing something silly funny like that little skrunko is eating cookies out of a 'no protags' cookie jar and then it could turn around and find a way to kill death incarnate and then pick flowers for an npc and frolic in either a field of grass or horribly brutalised corpses

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Movie Night (Clip of the scene here)

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[lazylittledragon]

hi i'm unw el l

[krussyarts]

Smth smth December 16 smth smth D-16

[mamawasatesttube]

it always gets me when ppl try to paint timkon as nerd/jock. like i mean you could, but here's the thing. tim is the jock. kon is the nerd.

[vegetatales]

So this is admittedly coming from me using my engineering paper to do art studies (which actually has been very helpful for proportion consistency and understanding why something looks off to me)

But I agree that Gideon is actually a fairly decent artist who has whatever the equivalent of an engineering notebook in Avantris is, full of drawings, blueprints, and schematics.

While most of these are of equipment, rides, and gadgets he's either seen or been wanting to make if he ever had the resources for them there are some of people and creatures that catch his eye.

Now, these drawings tend to be very technical just basically replicating exactly what he sees down to fine details. They're not gonna be hung up in museums or aiming to express some deep, symbolic meaning.

They're are as direct and to the point as the man holding the pen drafting them. More akin to biological illustrations or engineering drawings. Little distinction between drawing a person to drawing a machine.

It can come off quite cold, actually. Maybe even unnerving to see yourself dissected and pulled apart into components.

It's why Gideon doesn't consider himself much of an artist. To him, this isn't art. If anything, it's closer to copying or tracing in his mind.

Initially, when Kremy finally got to see these drawings, he was a little disappointed with how stiff and clinical they all looked. He particularly didn't know how to feel about all the ones of him from angles he personally found unflattering or the ones that were side by side comparisons to wild alligators.

And maybe perhaps previous romantic notions of a hidden page of him rendered with soft strokes and reverent shades of charcoal were quickly erased, but at least Gid got his snout shape correct.

It does ease his mind at least that the rest of the crew gets the same treatment. Sure, there are still more pages of him than anyone else, but Kremy boils it down as a product of near constant proximity than one of muse. Otherwise, his interest in the notebook fades. The illustrations are still impressive within their own right, and he makes sure to tell Gid that whenever he finds him angrily ripping out a page that he's spent almost an hour over correcting dimensions on.

It really isn't until he finds a page on Torbek that wasn't there before that Kremy starts to pay it any mind. There's nothing particularly special about Torbek's page. It's the same clinical breakdown of his physiology and of his attire.

But it's there now when it wasn't there before in all the time they've known Torbek prior to the Faewild. Then, another page appears with Twig and all her little details pinned to the paper.

That's when it finally occurs to Kremy. Gideon, a man who prides himself in living to the fullest. Never slowing down as he races from one moment to the next. Is taking the time to notice and jot them down to memory.

These are not quick, sweeping scratches of lead. But meticulously measured lines calculated to take on the form of their visage. Every flaw, every nick, every piece that comes together to make them a whole, living mechanism perfectly replicated and accounted for.

There are no vibrant hues or eye-catching gestures that make one feel like they were sculpted from silk, but there is beauty in the exact distance between your eyes.

And if Kremy instinctively begins to still at the sight of a ruler taking his measurements from a distance, to afford time to a man who's only ever had it taken from him well that's between him and the good Baron.

[just-gay-thoughts]

As I slightly procrastinate on a history paper

this is for science

[calypsolemon]

bauhauzzo has near-omniscience over the past, click clack can percieve everything happening in the present, and huzzle has prescience over all possible futures. send tweet

[neodiekido]

it's really funny how ouma was pretty explicitly written as a morally grey character who often did shitty things for a good reason and was ultimately as much of a victim of the killing game as everyone else

and then the v3 fandom went "ah, so this means ouma actually did Nothing Wrong Ever, and the True Evil Irredeemable Villain was maki or kiibo or kaito or everyone BUT ouma" when a big theme of V3 is about, like, moral grayness and characters doing bad things for good reasons

[asliceofzosan]

i've seen figure skater sanji and hockey player zoro before. idk if its been explored but i'd love to put it out there:

hockey player sanji (specifically goalie bc he desperately wants to avoid being checked) and then pairs skater zoro.

pairs skater zoro's long time partner has been nami. though many people ship them together a Lot, they just know each other super well. Well enough to try dating and both of them realized they don't swing that way. in fact, it makes them a really good team. they fought long and hard to claim top spots in competitions because they portray a chemistry that's separate from the rest. plus zoro can carry nami like she weighs fucking nothing. so their lifts are so much more dynamic. they even have a whole next to impossible combination that they're trying to get the ISU to name after them officially.

sanji plays for the East Blue Straw Hats in the Grand Line Hockey League – a formidable rookie group that took down lots of big names in the preseason. they want to make it all the way to the postseason playoff finals but always seem to fall short. but theyre so determined. they reignited a lot of old sparks that were no longer there for old fans and brought in new and curious fans. sanji is the starter goalie and a damn good one at that. it makes sense bc goalies are often doing splits on the ice just to make a save. he's perfected the technique that utilizes just his legs to make saves that make the crowd go fuckin insane.

we have the usual "i booked the rink to practice before you did" trope but a little more spice. in actuality, sanji loves watching pairs skating competitions. his favorite pair rn is franky and robin (mostly for robin). and he adamantly does not want to admit to anyone that he watches zoro and nami's routines much more frequently. (and if anyone asks, he always says its bc of nami. its never just bc of nami.) and zoro's besties with luffy so he always watches their matches even if he barely understands the rules. and he definitely does not stare at a certain blond starter goalie most of the match thats fucking ridiculous

one day zoro and sanji are invited to do one of those comparison videos between hockey players and figure skaters. both get to laugh at the other even Attempting to do their sport. zoro frankly looks ridiculous in all of sanji's usual goalie get-up. and sanji couldn't land an euler to save his life. the video producer suggests they try a simple pairs skating routine. sanji is like "oh i couldn't do that–hEY WHAT THE FUCK MOSSHEAD PUT ME DOWN" because zoro lifted sanji and had him sat on his shoulder like it was normal.

zoro smirks, "you might be lighter than nami, actually. wanna be my new partner?"

sanji knees him in the stomach before skating away while blushing so hard he could melt the ice beneath him.

[bluegarners]

lrb, like i'd had this thought a few times before, thinking about the kind of intermixing there is between dick grayson fans and bruce wayne fans, and honestly i've never interacted with a bruce wayne fan that wasn't also a big fan of dick grayson, but i have interacted with dick grayson fans who weren't bruce wayne fans, and i think a large part of that is bc within the narrative dick has done so much for bruce really and truly, but bruce hasn't done much for dick that dick hasn't himself interpreted as meaning everything to him even when compared to things other characters have done for him... so like, within the fandom narrative structure, there's this weird balance of a lot of dick grayson fans finding the same kind of love and loyalty to bruce wayne that dick has, but also with the ability to step back from dick's own pov and look at and analyze exactly what it is that bruce has done to and for dick, and the picture it paints it distinctly not a wholly good one that dick grayson's character is unwilling to recognize most of the time, but one that every other character, including bruce, as well as the general fandom, can and will confront

[casscainmainly]

The real crime of Batgirl #9 is that it wasted so many pages with a conversation that went nowhere when Tenji could've shown up 2 pages in and we could've gotten a whole issue that dealt with the fallout + more Tenji Turner time. But alas. Shock value ending.

[aliusfrater]

sometimes i forget that people genuinely perceive season four sam exorcising demons w his powers as genuinely horrible, or even scale his killing the nurse in 4.22 as the worst he's ever done. on the 4.04, "use the knife!" and [proceeds to use the demon blade and angel blade for seasons upon season afterward] and drains multiple people in 5.21 and 7.15 flashback scene show

[mamawasatesttube]

if im being entirely honest i gotta say, people who adamantly insist kon is clark's brother and ONLY his brother are nearly as annoying as people who insist kon is clark's son. the fact of the matter is that there are canon panels both of them calling their relationship more like siblings and of them calling it more like parent-and-child. like why are you guys all so fucking obsessed with nuclear family labels and putting relationships in these boxes? take my hand. free yourselves from the chains of the western traditional nuclear family model. relationships do not have to align 1:1 with these roles. be free

[technicallyblakebelladonna]

i rewatch the zomio hug scene daily just to feel something now

[liamontea]

okay, so.

i’ve been thinking really hard about my tiefling astarion x drow gale au, and i ended up writing a little snippet in which i reimagined some of the earlier interactions from the beginning of the game… you can read it under the cut!

i have a bunch of headcanons for this setting already, which i may or may not compile together in one single post eventually. maybe. who’s to say, honestly. anyway, let me know what you think!

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

The skin of his knees stings; the cuts on his hands blister. He hacks with a cough, dirt digging into his pores, and the portal behind him fades off to a glyph.

“A drow? Here?” a feminine voice hums from above. “That’s curious.”

He pushes himself up to standing, grunting from the scream of his joints, and dusts himself off with an air of offense.

“I believe we’ve far more pressing issues than my emigration to the surface,” he grumbles.

The woman looks him up and down, eyes narrowed, though not with any real malice. It feels strangely familiar, like he’s clashed with the same sea green somewhere before.

“You were on the ship,” he concludes, fingers snapping in recognition. “You were taken, infected by one alien creature with a less than wanted guest. A wee one, in the hind of your — ah — ocular region. Were you not?”

The woman shifts her weight to her other foot, arms crossing at her torso. If the tadpole has indeed caused no damage to his sight, he might dare to say she looks amused.

“I was. Though I can’t help but notice I’ve had to help you out of a rock, instead of some hole by that there crash site. Care to explain why?”

“Oh, it’s a very simple matter, really.” His tone hushes, confidential, like a master storyteller’s. “One moment I was falling, plunging from the skies down to the earth with meager prospects of safe landing, and the next I was drawing on the Weave I could feel permeating this stone, inadvertently launching myself to the other side of it… As for the rest, I know as much as you do, I’m afraid. Or, well — not quite,” he smirks, offering his arm for a handshake which the woman deliberately ignores. He huffs, letting his hand drop back to his side. “I’m Gale, of Menzoberranzan. Lovely to make your acquaintance.” Lovely may not be the word for it, but it is necessary all the same, and if his gallantry endears her to him in the process then all the better for it.

Her lips ease slowly from a tight line to a simper. It’s a small victory; she seems warmer, somewhat. “Shadowheart.”

“Shadowheart,” he repeats, tasting the syllables on his tongue. “A most unusual name. Unusual, yes, but no less delightful.”

“Mhm,” she acknowledges half-heartedly. “Now, Gale of Menzoberranzan, I say we’d best start walking. This place is hardly safe, and the search for a cure is to be our first priority.”

His shoulders slacken. He exhales. “We?”

She nods. “We need each other,” she punctuates. “Our odds are better put together. Unless you’d rather go at this alone, of course.”

He grins, giving an overly deferential bow that brings out an eyeroll from her. “Not at all! Lead the way, my lady. Consider me in your eternal debt.”

⭒ ⭒ ⭒

He’d earlier lacked the time to gather his bearings, preoccupied as he was between a rock and a hard place (intended very literally, too); but, while scouting for rations and supplies by the crash site, Gale begins to feel as though his skin is being scorched.

Everything is bright. His eyes fight to adjust to the change as daylight burns all that it touches, hot and glittering off every surface with blinding rays of white. The sky is blue, unclouded, no good for filtering out the worst of it; and, if that wasn’t enough, Gale’s armpits have grown damp with sweat for the first time in his life. Regardless of the many disadvantages a man like him might incur in the Underdark, especially as one fallen from grace, the shade is sure to be its greatest point of strength, Gale thinks. Nothing compares to the comfort of low illumination and a pleasant chill, or the complete absence of summer heat.

Before this moment, he’s only seen the surface in books. It has to be said — the real thing is arguably far less appealing than it was ever given credit for. Even its foreign vegetation offers little cause for excitement. The dangers, too, put Gale in a disagreeable position as Shadowheart rescues him from another gruesome fate, landing a swift blow to the skull of a mind flayer when it pulls on his tadpole for pity.

He’d so nearly succumbed to it. It’s shameful, a painful reminder of what he’s turned into after heartbreak and social exile, but it’s just as much the pure reality of things. He’s become weak — weaker than a former Archmage and Chosen has any right to be, weaker than even his worst moments as mere apprentice. The tightness in his chest affirms as much. And still, his mind should be strong — as strong as a few closely timed brushes with death might allow, one ought to point out. And still, it appears he needs a little further babysitting before he can well and truly regain his potential.

Luckily, if Shadowheart is at all bothered by his cumulating dues, she doesn’t show it.

“I see someone up ahead,” she calls to him suddenly, jabbing a finger in the general direction she speaks of. The chain mail of her armor is sprayed through with illithid blood, clear and gelatinous, but her gaze is steady as a compass. Hardened by rough-and-tumble times she is, perhaps. “Might be worth a look.”

Gale’s eyes follow her finger. In the distance there he spies a funny figure, one that glances around anxiously with a pair of curled horns, a tail and shiny waves of hair.

“Another survivor?” he asks. Shadowheart fastens mace and shield to her back.

“Most likely,” she nods. “We should check it out. We’ll need all the help that we can get.”

As they make their advance and stride into the stranger’s view, his expression visibly relaxes and he beckons them over, cherry red skin glistening in the sun.

“Hurry! I’ve got one of those brain things cornered,” he whispers. “You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?”

Gale and Shadowheart swap a look. Around them is green shrubbery and silence — because they have, indeed, killed all the others — which makes this a dubious cry for help. Besides, given the badly concealed dagger at his hip, Gale suspects the man to be more capable than he lets on.

Nonetheless, spurred by curiosity and a desire to prove himself, Gale saunters up with a dismissive wave.

“Easily,” he says. “Stand back.”

It is, admittedly, Gale’s fault entirely for not heeding the signs, but the supposed intellect devourer turns out to be but a defenseless boar; moreover, with his attention successfully diverted, the stranger takes advantage and pulls Gale to the ground in a headlock. The blade of his dagger presses down on Gale’s throat — not quite to the point of cutting, but choking the breath out of him with each inhale.

From this proximity, the man’s eyes are round and dark like blackcurrants, glowing red with a flicker of panic. His clenched jaw highlights the lines of his cheekbones, high and regal, while the curl of his mouth reveals the tip of a pointy tooth.

“Not a sound,” he warns, wearing a smile aimed to give off more confidence than he is probably feeling. “Not if you want to keep that darling neck of yours. And you…” His stare lifts to meet Shadowheart’s, bold and unwavering with an unspoken challenge. “Keep your distance. No need for this to get messy.”

Shadowheart sighs, copying Gale’s gesture from minutes prior. “I need him alive. Stow that blade or I’ll show you just how messy things can get.”

The stranger only tuts. When he looks at Gale again, one thumb pressing into the meat of his shoulder and the other closed around the hilt of his weapon, something like shock crosses his features, as if he’s just tuned into his surroundings.

“A drow? Here?…” he murmurs. “That’s – ”

“Curious, I know,” Gale interrupts, with a certain bite to it that makes Shadowheart snort. “Might we dwell on something other than my unwelcome face now, if you please? Like our current predicament, for instance?”

The tiefling frowns, presumably going on the defensive, but Gale is quicker: he hisses the chant for a cantrip between his lips, singeing the hand that holds the dagger, and rolls away when the vice-like grip on him loosens.

“Ack! You little – urgh!”

It happens fast. Gale’s head feels like it’s being split in two, tearing and ripping to make space for another’s thoughts, and then images flow into it unbidden: dusty alleys, the glare of the moon, shitty wine and fake laughter, hands wherever they can reach, silk sheets and metal chains and hunger — before it all disappears in the span of a blink. Gone, like the memory of an unpleasant dream.

Even so, Gale’s skin still ripples with goosebumps.

“You saw it,” the stranger stutters, Adam’s apple bobbing with a gulp. Gale fears he may not be hiding his grimace as well as he thought. “You were in my head… I was in yours.”

“It’s the parasite,” Shadowheart explains. “It allows us hosts to communicate without words. So it seems.”

Gale and the man take just a beat to come down from the high of witnessing more of each other than a stranger should have reason to.

Gale’s stomach won’t stop churning.

He knows darkness like it’s an old friend, between the Underdark and the shadows he was relegated to after his Netherese fiasco, and he’s learned to nurse hunger like it’s a particularly demanding pet. He too knows the chaos of backstreets, the deception of a well-crafted smile, the sound a whip makes when it meets skin. Menzoberranzan is a city built on blood, after all, and death is its only guiding principle.

He knows impotence. He knows the bars of a cage and punishment and ridicule. He knows hurt; one could say he’s an expert on it, really. But this — the nightmare that just seized his senses through a split-second collision — equals maybe tenfold his cruelest torture.

Shadowheart steps closer, shielding Gale’s body with hers in a manner which she tries to make inconspicuous. It’s mortifying. Had it not been for a moment of sheer spite, Gale would now be three times her debtor.

The man finally sheathes his dagger, and his demeanor shifts promptly from ‘street thug’ to ‘wet-eyed ally’.

“I see. Very well, then. My name’s Astarion,” he concedes, dragging out the vowels. “I do believe it’s only fair for us each to know who we’re dealing with, if we’re to share simply so much of ourselves for the foreseeable future.”

He looks to his company expectantly, awaiting the same. Shadowheart stays tense, arms flexing at her sides, but ultimately gives in.

“Shadowheart. And Gale, of Menzoberranzan.”

“Must you announce my birthplace at every turn?”

“A pleasure,” Astarion says, appeased and with a little curtsy. His tail swishes behind him and Gale’s nose wrinkles in distaste.

“Right. Not a native to the Gate, I presume?”

“Ha.” Astarion’s head tilts with a humorless laugh, one hand combing through gray curls. “You presume wrong. I’m a magistrate there, you know; a rather good one, too, in fact. How comical that you should call me into question, of everyone possible.”

Gale squares his shoulders, mouth twisting into a snarl. His rebuttal sits on the tip of his tongue — civil though he may be, his origins have taught him mistrust as the default, specifically toward those kinds who think their place of dwelling makes them inherently better than others — but Shadowheart shoots a hand up between them, halting all onsets of a scuffle.

“Now, I’m aware I may be expecting too much from you both,” she sighs, “but perhaps we could avoid killing each other before even the tadpole has a chance to.”

Astarion scoffs. Gale bites the inside of his cheek and swallows his upset, throat tightening with the effort of not regurgitating it.

“Of course,” he says. And he means it, for what little it matters; it wouldn’t do to carry the responsibility of someone’s premature passing on top of everything else. Not while in the throes of vying for control against two separate parasites.

Astarion acquiesces too, with a forced grin that serves only to reinforce his reluctance. “Yes, fine. That’s very well put, my dear. I would so hate to get my nails senselessly dirty.”

Gale’s gut burns with bile.

He’s got a sinking feeling this is going to be far from easy.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

@galedickarios, who asked to be tagged!