#i think i should coin one! i kinda made the ship i think

[void-dude]

YOUR TED STRANGE ART IS SENDING ME INTO THE STRATOSPHERE. HE NEEDS TO CLIMB THAT OLD MAN LIKE A TREE. I'M FUCKING CRYING /POSI

I'm infecting people with these two like some kind of disease and I love it! I love them! They are like my medicine 💊 to that other shape x man ship that makes me sob because they're so bad for each other!!! Not these two tho!! Look at them!!! TEEHEE

Also close up for this one:

[theglamorousferal]

Persephone's Binding Part 2

Hardcover/Anger Management ship Sacrificial Bride au

AO3 Prompt Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

(Things get a bit angsty here for a bit, but don't worry, it gets back to some of the cracky-goodness!)

After allowing himself to relax for a bit and actually letting his muscles loosen for once, Jason rose from the bath and rinsed himself off under a piping hot and strong shower. He finished the rinse off with a flash of cold water to focus back up and made his way to the vanity where there was basic hotel amenities. He attempted to style his hair and after at least drying it, pulled on the fluffiest robe he has felt since he first moved into the manor all those years ago.

Fuck. The family. The Outlaws...

Jason put his face in both his hands and took a deep breath, then allowed his shoulders to slump as he dragged his hands from his face to his sides. He marched in a lazy manor over to the end of the large bed where he flopped face down. Surprisingly, it wasn't as fluffy as he was expecting and he silently thanked whatever force there was that he wouldn't have to resort to sleeping on the floor or a chair for the familiarity. Though, he turned his head to face the windows, that little reading nook looks like I could easily fall asleep there.

No, stop it. Do I remember the Dimensional Code for home?

Jason contemplated. On one hand, it could be useful, on the other, they could have an entirely different category system here. He spent the next however long trying to remember the dimensional code for his Earth and tracing the swirls of purples and greens out the large windows. A knock startled him.

"Jason? Are you decent?" He stood quickly and pulled the robe tighter together, not quite ready to show his autopsy scars to his soul-owner? A literal goddess? He wasn't quite sure what she was yet.

"Uh, yes, come in, I'm covered." He tried to stand casually next to the bed when he had just been sitting, his hands now in his pockets.

"Hi, so one of my aides figured one thing out about the ritual that is somewhat concerning and also something I probably also should have brought up. Mind if we sit at the window?" She strode in and settled herself with a pillow against the window and waited for him to do the same. Once he was settled, she hesitated for a moment before sighing and looking out the window to the haunting site outside.

"The Infinite Realms has another name, one coined from my Earth." She licked her lips before she spoke again. "It's also known as the Ghost Zone. As the dimension between dimensions, it is also where beings known as ghosts, the Restless Dead, Neverborn, Gods, and all sorts of other beings that thrive off a substance known as ectoplasm reside. As such, I am current Queen Regent of Ghosts." She let him think for a moment before turning to him. "That means I can tell when someone is death-touched." Jason froze. "I didn't mention it before because I know it's super personal, but then my aide figured out that the ritual only worked because of the fact you are and especially since you had spent time here-" She cut herself off as his eyes just bugged out larger with every word that spilled from her lips. "Sorry, I just, I'm death-touched too. I haven't died yet, but I have been around death magic, or radiation, or whatever it is, since before conception. I don't know exactly what you went through, but I know it was deeply traumatic. I can have my healers take a look at your soul and see if it's alright because it kinda radiates a bit how traumatic it was." She bit her lip with one hand raised near her chin.

Jason closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and clenching his jaw tight and blowing the air harshly out his nose. He fell back against the window, allowing his head to knock against the glass. It was warm, as though the sunlight was gently shining upon it. "Yeah." He croaked. "Yeah, I died." He said softer. "I was dead for roughly six months." He dipped his head forward to block his face with his bangs. "Crawled outta my own grave." He laughed bitterly. "Spent a while wandering, a while more in a coma." He swallowed tickly. "Got picked up by my dad's vindictive ex and trained for a while to be an assassin." He looked up at her, making eye contact. "She dunked me in this pit of magic shit, we call it a Lazarus pit in my dimension. It cures those near death and kills the healthy. Fixed me up the rest of the way, or at least the scars and issues I had pre-death. I got to keep these." He allowed the top of the robe to fall away, showing the tops of the large y-shaped scar that ran the length of his torso. She gasped, both hands coming to cover her mouth, tears began to form in her eyes. She reached out as if to touch them and stopped herself, her face turning determined.

"I, Jazmine Nightingale, High Queen Regent of the Infinite Realms, the Mediator, the Caretaker, and all those other titles." She waved her wrist. "Declare that I will help you however you deem necessary. Whether that be helping your soul, returning you to your dimension, breaking this binding, or whatever. You are currently bound to you, and as such that makes you my responsibilities." She paused in her speech for a moment, thinking. "I mean, you're already technically one of my subjects because I think you qualify as one of the Restless Dead, but we'll figure out your classification when we take you to a healer. For now, it has been a long day. I will have one of my aides come to get your measurements for some clothes, I'm sure we have some around here somewhere that should fit you at least for dinner. The aides can get any style you like and it can be made quickly by the seamstresses we have on staff." At his hesitation she added with a smile, "They work in supernatural means, they will not overwork themselves by making an entire wardrobe in a few hours."

She patted the cushion in front of her and stood. "I will meet you at dinner, it's not formal at all, don't worry about dressing fancy, I'm just still in this getup from 'official queen stuff'" she said with air quotes looking tired. "I'll see you in a bit Jason!"

"Yes, um, your majesty." He stood to bow, the robe making it a bit difficult."

"Just Jazz please, for the love of the Ancients." She said with a pained look on her face.

"Right, sorry," he stammered, straightening, "See you later, Jazz." She smiled softly before leaving him to himself. He smacked his hand to his face groaning at himself before flopping face-first into the bed again. "She's the ruler of the dead and she's so determined and nice, what the actual hell? She's so earnest, it's so cute!" he sat up leaning his elbow on his knee. "Okay, operation Romance Plot is go. She isn't put off by the fact you died, this is good, I can work with this. Okay, so castle, let's go with that aesthetic. I'm thinking let's go with a poet shirt and some black slacks for dinner tonight." He claps his hands in front of him, decision made.

As if summoned by his words, there was another knock at the door. A man with bright sky blue skin and a deep plum butler's uniform opened the door, a measuring tape casually thrown over his shoulders.

"Yes, hello good sir. What aesthetic are we thinking for this evening?" he said in a posh accent.

Jason clasped his hands together. "What should I call you? Would you possibly have a poet's shirt and a pair of black formal slacks for this evening?"

"You may call me Jeeves. Yes that Jeeves. I am the personification of the trope of the helpful butler, and as such my power set includes anything and everything that could help me complete the duties of head butler of the High Family's home. We absolutely do have that attire on hand, it would be but a moment for someone to fetch it for us. Now did you have any ideas about future attire?" Jeeves snapped his fingers and a skeleton manifested in a swirl of dust to obey his silent command to gather the requested clothing.

Jason paused for a moment, considering. "How does the Queen usually dress casually around the castle? I know she said she was from an Earth. I don't know where in the timeline her Earth is from and she mentioned that what she was wearing earlier was mostly for special occasions, so I don't want to look like an idiot." He explained.

"Very good sir, she typically dresses in either a less formal toga if she's to be seen anywhere near the public areas of the castle, her armor whilst sparring with her knights, the High Princes and Princess, and if she is only going between her room and study then her far less formal Earth clothing which is a long sleeved blouse and lightwash jeans, typical of the late 1990's and early 2000's."

Jason thought for a moment. He didn't know how long he would be stuck here, but decided that clothes enough to last a fortnight should work. For all he knew, time flowed differently between here and his home dimension. Decision made, he told the butler what he wanted. Measurements were taken, the skeleton arrived with the requested clothes and Jason was left to change into his clothes for the evening. He still is wearing his combat boots because he forgot to ask for a pair of shoes.

Once changed, he realized that he still probably had a bit before dinner and he walked over to one of the bookshelves browsing the titles. There were several classics that he recognized, his favorite, Pride and Prejudice, was there. There were a few as well with Jane Austen's name, but not titles he recognized. He decided to come back to those later and pulled what looked like a collection of fairy tales from the shelf then settled himself lounging in the window nook to read for the next few hours.

[pumpkinsy0]

Now I see a lot of Dallas with Tim or with Johnny content. But y’know what is would like to see? Dallas and Sodapop as a couple. I love tropes where one person isn’t use to genuine kindness and falls head over heels over the one person who is just that..

So General Headacanons for Dallas and Sodapop? (Whatever their ship name maybe because I refuse to call them Dallypop)

ive actually heard about this ship a bit but never read content for em, so this is a moment in history☝🏽☝🏽, ship name wise, off the tope of my head is like texas coke, cause soda in texas is called coke and yada yada yada, but booooo, and then there was fizzy state, but that sounds stupider, so listen i swear ill have a better one one of these days i swear

•as soon as i read this i thought “soda has no room to talk about pony and curly anymore”, if ur dating dally, ANY advice u have about dating should b thrown out the window and ur voice should fall on deaf ears

•theyve made out on someones car before, i wouldnt put that above them, especially if its someone who dally doesnt like

•dally makes comments about soda right in front of pony and pony hates it so much, he wants to rip his ears out hes not trynna hear that

•man even steve is like “??????” cause how did u guys get together what could yall possibly have in common enough to date each other for

•soda likes hearing about dallys nyc stories, some of em r fucked up, but others r pretty funny, like a coin toss when he asks him to tell him one

•dally cant rlly get THAT mad at soda, annoyed??? sure, but soda just has that face u cant get mad at, dallys not feelin 100% better, but he is rolling his eyes and letting whatever happened slide

•dally strikes me as a jealous/possessive partner he hates when soda gets hit on by anyone, he doesnt make it OBVIOUS that theyre together, but he does push them away

•yes, dally is staring while soda is working on a car, he would b staring harder if he saw soda at a rodeo

•getting drunk still isnt sodas scene, but dally does sneak soda over into bucks to party from time to time

•darry doesnt,,,even know how to go about this one, like at all, like yea, nothin BIG has changed but those two????rlly??????

•id like to think dally is more attentive to pony bc of soda and how important he is to him, kinda the same w soda and johnny

•it would take a while for dally to get used to how soda flirts bc how soda flirts is just not a way that dally is used to at all, but he doesnt let that show

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

it’s curious that *this* (the Nigeria tour) is the incident that, seemingly, has made them finally understand they’ve crossed the line.

We obviously don’t know what happens behind the closed doors of the government, but it seems to me that some action was taken.

But looking at what we do know, I think H&M (especially Meghan) got a telling-off in Nigeria the likes of which they have never gotten AND were publicly made an example of in a way they never have before.

There’s two pieces that fit together: Meghan saying she got told to “wear more colour” and suddenly throwing together an outfit mid-tour with a gifted item plus the exact order in which the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, made her comments:

1) American celebrities push immoral nakedness (too on the nose not to include Meghan)

2) Meghan came looking for Africa (i.e., came searching for, came to learn from, etc.)

3) Africans have good morals and style and we should continue to embody that and teach them (i.e., include Meghan in seeing and being taught that)

Nigeria is not the UK, Canada or the US. Dressing inappropriately in Nigeria is not just a misstep and being disrespectful is seen very differently and much more seriously than some in the West conceptualise. I think when Meghan got told “to wear more colour”, she also got a massive telling off in a manner that she never got as a spoilt child or by the BRF. Meghan’s pivot to a cover-up style after being asked is uncharacteristic for her, she’s NEVER pivoted or listened when steered in the right direction.

The Senator’s comments do not read to me as the straight-up rebuke other’s are seeing. To me it reads like Meghan already got “taught” the lesson that Sen. Tinubu is trying to teach and now she’s been made the public example. (Not saying “immodest” is bad at all, just going with the Senator’s words.)

Overall, Meghan met the African slipper - if you know, you know!

Meghan was absolutely told off about her clothes in Nigeria. There was an event she was late to (by at least an hour, probably more but I can’t remember) and when she arrived, she made “jokes” that she was inspired by everyone wearing so much color that now she was wearing color.

I took that whole incident to mean that Meghan blew the group off to go shopping but now I’m wondering if maybe she was being petty and was late to piss off whoever confronted her about the wardrobe. The yellow gown she wore (which is also from the pregnancy announcement, per Misan Harriman) kinda throws me for a loop - if she knew she was supposed to wear color, then was it lucky she had that dress or did someone pull an Angela Kelly and pack a second wardrobe of modest (or “modest”) colorful clothes to give her when there were complaints?

The “Angela Kelly” move: The palace was planning a trip for The Queen and Prince Philip to go to Vatican City/Rome, they would be meeting the pope, and the advisors asked Angela to make The Queen a navy or dark blue dress for it. Angela instead advised that The Queen needed a black dress to meet the pope, the advisors pooh-poohed it and said “black is for mourning, give her a navy dress.” Angela made the navy outfit as they told her to, but she also made an identical black outfit for The Queen and brought it with her in her own luggage. They get to the Vatican, they’re briefed about black for the pope, there’s a freakout that The Queen only has navy, and Angela reveals the black outfit and saves the day.

It’s one of the stories she tells in The Other Side of the Coin. If anyone is interested:

[chaosfairy18]

I felt the absolute need to ramble about the problems my boys have so yeah this is certainly a deep dive into how I think of these characters, in a way, so... buckle up. I will try not to go completely crazy here (also it is kinda Pirate AU specifically but also applies to most versions of these characters for me)

First Spot. He obviously feels the need to be strong, to protect his people, he spreads rumors, makes himself larger than life, there is no room for mistakes, he needs to be perfect to keep everyone safe, no matter the cost for himself. It is suffocating him, but if anyone sees the cracks Brooklyn (either the borough or the ship in my AU) could be attacked, they wouldn't fear him anymore, they would dare to go against him. Specifically in pirates where we meet him in "Toss a Coin to your Pirate" he is worn thin by this, he has had to be perfect, not mess up, not do anything wrong ever for years at that point and it worked, he's respected, he's feared. But also lonely. He has Hotshot and his crew, but he is always just a bit detached, thinks he isn't allowed to get closer, even if no one would mind. And then he meets Race and it just gets a bit better.

Speaking of which: Race feels the need to be perfect too. Or felt, rather. In this AU I thought of him being the son of a rich Sicilian merchant who came to what is in the AU kinda where America is but... mostly Islands (I have played a lot of Anno as a kid okay). His father's only goal is to bring the family upwards, go from having almost nothing to basically royalty, meaning there can be no screw ups, no mistakes, no tardiness, only perfection in everything. Always smiling at social gatherings, charming people, bringing your skills to perfection however you can. He found it suffocating and got out, naturally, but while he would say he's stopped being like this he hasn't in a way. He still feels like when he doesn't do enough, makes too many mistakes, he'll get left behind by the others, he knows he needs to do more jobs then them - and why shouldn't he, he's good at them, might as well do it - working himself to the ground. It gets better, he has about a decade on Jack's ship to realize he doesn't have to do things perfectly to have people like him, enjoy being around him. But any reminder of his family could bring that crashing down. Make him fall back to previous habits.

That's why they also in some ways fit together. They have smiliar issues but not and they know what to do, what to say, when not to say something.

Buuuut they aren't the only ones with this issue of everything needing to be perfect. Which is why I thought of doing this post in the first place.

Bumlets wants control over what is happening to him and the people he loves, he knows if he doesn't have it he'll worry all the time. He does his best to help everyone, to do anything for them, to plan ahead, to take control where he couldn't before because his life belonged to someone else. But this also means the moment something goes wrong, there is an argument he takes it as a mistake he did. He knows he isn't doing enough, not enough for the people he loves, they're suffering because he didn't think of everything, because the choices he made weren't the right ones. Most days no one would know, but sometimes he just has days where he curls up, asking himself how he could do this, how he can't keep everything together, how he didn't do enough and give everyone a perfect life, murmuring apologies to everyone who is there.

Going away from being perfect but keeping close to Bumlets we get to Swifty. His problems are with his own image in a way, he knows he enjoys sewing and crafting and embroidery and before he hadn't really thought anything about it, he can also fight, but eventually he also thinks about what it means that he likes to wear skirts. They're easy to make and he can design them as he wants, but what does it mean? He doesn't feel like a girl or a woman, but maybe he should as he likes wearing these types of clothes too. And then he thinks about all of his hobbies taken together, are his boyfriends maybe only with him because he is more societally feminine in some ways? Not even his looks, but how he acts. If they don't even want him for who he actually is, if they're with him because it was convenient too. It ends in a loud argument and accusations, but at least after he learns it wasn't as he thought.

Last but not least Skittery who in every cannon has problems with schizophrenia-esque symptoms in the way he always feels watched, feels like nothing could ever go truly right in his life, people are whispering behind his back, only taking him in because of pity. That they would get tired of caring for him - especially in episodes (which aren't frequent but they happen) - and leave him behind. That no one could really love him at all, not like he is, that he isn't good enough for that. And later, that he is also different in more ways (I am generously taking Blood Drips lore for this one) meaning he almost can't get injured or is somehow just different and he doesn't know why. That he'll get taken away or go off the rails and not be able to be there for his brother, for the people he loves.

Honestly this is a depressing note to end this at but that's just mostly my rambles that I had to get out and they are all so sad. Similar but different problems and while Spot and Race were kind of Pirate specific Bumlets, Swifty and Skittery are too but also more broadly in a way. Hope someone read this to the end :) Imagine them all talking about their issues and resolving them <;3 Or arguing and causing lots of Angst

[spade-riddles]

champagneproblesm asked:

Kinda tells a story when you pick the outro or last verse from each song backwards :

The only thing that's left is the manuscript. One last souvenir from my trip to your shores. Now and then i re read the manuscript. But the story isn't mine anymore

But now we'll curtail your curiosity in sweetness

She's been many places with men of many faces. First, they're off to the races. She's laughing drawin' aces. But, none of it is changin'. That the chariot is waitin'. Hearts are hers for the breakin. There's an escape in escaping OR she fell through the Ice then came black Alive.

But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light

When the truth Comes out it's quiet. It's so quiet .

(I'm so afraid I sealed my fate no sign of soulmates. I'm just a paperweight in shades of greige) Spending my last coin so someone will tell it'll be ok

What if your eyes looked up and met mine one more time.

I pushed each boulder up that hill.

This place made me feel worthless

Your words were just still ringing in my head.

I'm hearing voices like a mad man

Leaving me bereft and reeling, my beloved ghost and me sitting in a tree D-Y-I-N-G

Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses, cooler in theory but not if you force it to be, it just didn't happen.

The devil that you know looks now more like an angel. I'm the life you chose and all this terrible danger OR she IS here to destroy you

Pick your poison, babe I'm poison either way

Now I want to sell my house and set fire to all my clothes and hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons. Even if I die screaming and I hope you hear it.

Only when your girlish glow flickers just so do they let you know i's hell on earth to be heavenly. Them's the breaksThey don't come gently

They said there was no chance, trying to be the greatest in the league.

You hung me on your wall, stabbed me with your push pins. In public, showed me off then sank in stoned oblivion cause once your queen had come you treat her like an also-ran. You didn't measure up in any measure of a man

Cause i'm miserable. And no one even knows. Try and Come for my job

Your arsons match your somber eyes. And i'll still see it till the day i die. (You're the loss of my life.)

Your good lord didn't need to lift a finger.

I am what i am cause you trained me. So who's afraid of little old me?

Am i allowed to cry ?

Go on fuck me up

I did my Time.

All the wine moms are still holding out but it's over.

You'll find someone.

Waving at the ship, fuck it if i can't have him

Left all these broken parts, told me i'm better of but i'm not

Who else decodes you ? or / i chose this cyclone with you

it won't start up 'til I touch, touch, touch you

it won't start up 'til I touch, touch, touch you (fortnight)

Then midnights

I can't find a pulse my Heart won't start anymore

have they come to take me away?

You should find another guiding light

Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first

It's been two thousand one hundred and 90 days of our love blackout. The system's breaking down.

I'd pay if you'd just know me. Seemed like the right thing at the time.

Levitate above all the messes made sit quiet by my side in the shade. And not the kind that's thrown, I mean The kind under where a tree has grown

it's all over, it's not meant to be. So I'll say words I don't believe

There's no morning glory, it was war, it wasn't fair. And we will never go back.

Had to do it this way 'Cause we were born to be the pawn In every lover's game

You say "what a mind" this happens all the Time

It's coming back around.

Break up, break free, break through, break down. You would break your back to make me break a smile

I think it's time to teach some lessons i made you my world. have you heard? I can reclaim the land.

I'm on my vigilante shit again.

But you were on somethin', It was one drink after another, Fuckin' politics and gender roles, And you're not sure and I don't know. Got swept away in the gray. I just may like to have a conversation

So I peered through a window, A deep portal, time travel, All the love we unravel. And the life I gave away

I'll run away

to hide that would be so dishonest. And it's fine to fake it 'til you make it. 'Til you do, 'til it's true

Pierced through the Heart but Never killed.

I feel you no matter what. The rubies that i gave up.

I find it dizzing they're bringing m'y History. But you weren't Even listening.

[thatcatbasil]

so, first impressions with endless ocean luminous

there are a lot of changes i absolutely Do Not Like but i would be lying if i said i wasn't having a good time with it so far

unfortunately i'm not gonna have screenshots in here since my phone quit letting me download pics from the switch and i don't feel like going through the hassle of tryna figure out getting the microsd into my computer right now

so first, stuff i don't like just to get it out of the way

yeah elephant in the room is the randomly generated maps. when the first trailer came out i did a lot of mental gymnastics to arrive at the conclusion that the veiled sea was just one map that was randomly generated and we would get other maps that were not but Nope you're only in the veiled sea and it's all randomly generated. makes you really miss the established locations from the first couple games. it feels really ephemeral now and the locations don't really stick with you as much

really miss the hayley westenra/celtic woman tracks. the ambient music's okay but i think the appeal of endless ocean's soundtrack has always been the licensed music to me. 30 mins in i unplugged my earbuds from my switch and put em in my laptop so that i could put on carrickfergus. then i put on jenny nicholson's evermore park video and had that playing for the entire rest of the time i was diving

the main menu's UI is kinda plain compared to the previous games. i miss the marine encyclopedia being an actual book you could flip through. this UI's a lot more sleek and modern but it doesn't have the same charm

no zoom mode makes me a little sad. i miss the little detailed environments! i miss looking for the coins in them! i like that the coins made a comeback as salvage though.

haven't played too much of the story mode cause i was mainly drawn to the solo dives buuut yeah hasn't really gotten hooked me yet. i've only done the first 3 parts of it so far so we'll see if i end up liking it more down the line. i think since it's just the first chapter(?) they're treating it more like a tutorial. i like david though he's silly

there are. a lot of legendaries huh? i do very much like the fact that they brought back the ones from the first two games (ran into ancient mother on my first solo dive and i was like !!!!! there she is!!!!!) but you see them so frequently it kinda takes away the feeling of them being "legendary" in a way? ive done three solo dives and cacao maharaja has shown up in every single one. on my third one i saw three grave diggers all in the same location. i've seen five different apollos. feels like there should be more of a distinction between the new "rare" creatures (the ones that just have funny patterns like the white orca i've seen several times) and the more unique named legendaries where the legendaries spawn a lot less often. but then again i could see that being an RNG nightmare for completion when it's combined with the randomly generated maps.

text to speech lady. i muted her as soon as i had the opportunity LMAOOO. maybe i'm just too used to the previous games not having any voices at all. oh shoot maybe that's why there's no licensed music tracks? cause text to speech lady would distract from them? damn.

not really into the customization. looks like you can only change the colors of your equipment and there's no unique gear

but excluding all that the creature models and most of the environments have been absolutely fantastic. i say most of the environments cause there's been a few situations where the map would have these decently big areas of empty sand with nothing in them (reminds me of manoa lai f-5 and e-4 that kinda area leading out of deep valley around where the pirate ship can spawn where it's a lot of empty sand and no critters except for the pacific white-sided dolphins) and i didn't find it as interesting as the actual coral reefs wrecks etc.

but the creature models! they're really awesome! they look great! i guess it's to be expected since it's on better hardware but it's still so cool to see the improvement.

also on my third dive something that was actually pretty cool happened. so i came up with a system for exploring the maps where i would just go around the perimeter and then go in like a spiral so that i could get a general sense of everything. when i reached the bottom right corner of the map the water turned green and i was like Oh this is the water color from the prehistoric areas in the trailers. so i go down a little deeper and run into an icthyosaur (forgot the specific name. could've just been icthyosaurus). and i felt like this

then i turned around to see a GIANT icthyosaur (shonisaurus) and i felt like this

the prehistoric critters in this game are COOL AS HELL. since we only got three of them total in the previous games (and couldn't even see em up close since they swam outside the boundaries of their respective maps!) it's really awesome to get to see them up close. and so many of them, too! excited to find anomalocaris later on. i love anomalocaris

miscellaneous other observations/comments/etc

honestly i don't really mind that the animals attacking you from the second game was omitted. it does feel a little weird to run into thanatos and not get attacked though (especially since he was doing the exact attack animations from the second game. side note i always thought it was a lil funny that all the creatures would slap you with their tails instead of biting you)

on my third dive i ran into the okeanos's guardian in a cave and i really like the glowing eyes effect it has now. thanatos was chilling down there too. shark party

i'm guessing that you can have creatures follow you? haven't gotten the chance to do it yet though cause i don't have enough points to get the creatures i want to follow me haha. i need to make friends with the orcas

oh yeah this game does have its own unique named legendaries! i found the seal that likes to wear jewelry that i unfortunately can't remember the name of right now. that was cool. trying to find all of those critters to get it to appear is a bit of a hassle but i guess that's why there's so much emphasis on the multiplayer.

but yeah. tl;dr it's absolutely no blue world but luminous does have some good things in its own right. maybe i've just been starved for endless ocean content for the past 14 years though

i think i'll do a proper full write-up for this game that i'll put on the neocities site at some point after i finish up the story mode and do some more solo dives and really let everything soak in. might be some time before that though since it's finals season and i need to work on stuff. see ya

[bibibbon]

Thanks for answering my ask....If you don't mind me asking (again), can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....

My top 7 favourite media in general actually ends up fluctuating a lot considering that I tend to hyperfixate on one thing and then kinda get a bit lazy and go and try and find something else to hyperfixate on. 

It will be really hard to rank this so Iam just gonna tell you my top 10 in no particular order (again) sorry about that. 

Currently Iam hyperfixating on Jujutsu kaisen I really love the premise of the story and how it's built in this way where the story just repeats itself in different ways. It kinda sends the message of history always repeats itself and if it doesn't it will rhyme in a twisted way. I also love the way gege handles the themes of the story. However, I do think the story has a lot of wasted potential especially centering around themes of misogyny and just female characters in general. 

There is also MHA. I think it has a whole lot of wasted potential as seen when I talk about in my blog I have kinda became a hater on what the manga contains because I feel like it could of been better and we could of had so much more in general but we just don't it's a big let down for me but I love seeing peoples view on the manga and how people would rewrite the series or different aspects in general. 

I also like attack on titan. Yes I do like the ending of attack on titan (controversial but yeah 🤷‍♀️) I think isayama made a great choice in ending the series the way he did. I think the seires follows the idea of history repeats itself especially if people forget history and I love the way he depicted erens character how Eren is both a selfish and selfless fool at the same time. The interactions between the younger and older generation of characters for example Armin and Erwin parallels/contrasts are really interesting. I also love how both Keith and magath were just two sides of the same coin fighting something bigger then them both and both dying together back in the ship felt like a decent conclusion to both their characters. 

Violet evergarden is a great series where the main protagonist has to learn love, the different types of love and how to love. I loved how each episode had its own story that made it very unique and the animation style is flawless. I do have my own problems with the ending especially with violet and Gilbert's relationship (the way they met and the 9year age gap isn't doing it for me) I think the series should of simply ended with violet learning self love and acceptance. 

Avatar the last airbender is a masterpiece of a kids show. The themes it tackles like survivors guilt, imperialism and genocide I think it handles them very well. However, I do have a problem with the way they handled aangs character in book 3 and how they tried and failed to handle the theme of sexaul assault. Katara's character was also done very dirty I wish she accepted bloodbending but understood how it can be helpful and dangerous at the same time. Considering I watched with my sister it does have a special place in my heart and I love the content the fandom creates. 

Percy Jackson was like one of the first books that got me into reading and greek mythology. I love the series from what I remember reading I absolutely love the parallels the series has, how it actually battled certain issues, how it has a perfect balance with humour and seriousness in the books and so much more. I also love the irony that rick puts latter in the hero of Olympus books how every child of the big 3 ends up being scared of their own element is a great touch or the focus on fatal flaws is very interesting how one thing can be your downfall even if it's something good like loyalty. To be honest I always found annabeth and Luke's relationship in the books to be very weird especially with how Luke is 21 and annabeth was like 12 so Iam glad that rick chose to change it when it came to writing the live action. 

Purple hyacinth. Oh if I had to recommend anyone to read a webtoon this is the one that I would recommend. I absolutely love all of the characters and the character development there is. The series concept is amazing ( I don't wanna spoil it so I won't say much) and I love how there is music that goes with the chapters you read, it's just amazing. I hope we get a new chapter soon considering that the author is still on hiatus due to some health issues. 

[thana-topsy]

I got one - Malthyr and Ambarys of the New Gnisis Cornerclub. #49, I think, but necessity as in "I need you/we need each other because life kinda sucks here and if it weren't for you/us I think we'd lose ourselves".

Okay, I still have some of these prompts still sitting in my inbox and I hate seeing them waste away, especially fun prompts like this. So I'm gonna attempt to use these as writing warm-ups before getting into meatier WIPs. So one smooch, coming right up!

--

Ambarys x Malthyr “A kiss out of necessity.”

“Alright, out you go sera, easy does it.” 

Ambarys busied himself scrubbing down the bar, watching out of the corner of his eye as Malthyr escorted the final patron of the night to the front door. It was well past the witching hour. The mer should have been cut off long ago, but they couldn’t afford to turn down any coin, even if it meant watching his people drink themselves sick. Sour guilt pulled at Ambarys’s stomach and he threw the soiled cleaning rag into the nearby pail with a sigh. And who could blame them, in this wretched city?

“Poor sod,” Malthyr muttered, locking the door behind the mer and pulling down the heavy wooden bar. 

“It’s not our place to babysit them,” Amabrys grumbled. 

“Never said anything about babysittin’ nobody.” Malthyr wiped his nose roughly against his sleeve before beginning to upturn the chairs onto the tables. “Just hate to see ‘em like that sometimes.”

“It’s a corner club, Mal. Comes with the territory.” 

Malthyr let out a frustrated growl, waving a hand in Ambarys’s direction. “Don’t preach to me, you prattling old scrib.” 

Ambarys barked a laugh, then rolled up his sleeves before starting in on the pile of dirty dishes. 

An hour later the New Gnisis was as clean as it ever was; floor swept, tables cleared, dishes washed, glasses dried. Malthyr returned the broom and dustpan to the corner as Ambarys poured them each a finger of shein. They clinked their glasses together without a word, knocking them back in silence as well, each hissing at the burn of the liquor. Ambarys poured them a second, then made his way around to the patron side. He leaned his back against the bar, letting his arm brush against Malthyr’s. 

“This month’s taxes are gonna put us in the red if we aren’t careful,” Ambarys mused. “Was thinking about trying to run a special. Sell off some of the less popular drink for cheap. It’s just gathering dust as is.”

Malthyr grunted in response.

“All these new bloods who’ve never even set foot in Morrowind drink that Nordic swill over the imports. Makes me wonder why I even bother having the stuff shipped in.” 

Another nonverbal acknowledgement. 

“You’re great for conversation.”

“I’m tired, damn you.”

Ambarys let his head roll from side to side, cracking his neck, then attempted to weasel his way beneath Malthyr’s arm where he leaned against the bar. “Hey, c’mon…”

“Annoying swit,” Malthyr grumbled, but lifted his arm and pulled Ambarys against him, taking a swig of shein with his other hand.

Ambarys settled with his back against the bar once again, one arm looped around Malthyr’s waist as he let his eyes go unfocused looking over Malthyr’s shoulder. He felt Malthyr’s thumb trace the muscle of his lower back, heard him exhale as he tipped forward and pressed his forehead against Ambarys’s shoulder.

“Let’s get some sleep, hey Mal?” Ambarys suggested, voice pitched low. 

“Sure,” Malthyr said, little more than a sigh. As he moved to stand, Ambarys tightened his grip around his waist and pulled him in for a kiss. Days old stubble scraped against his chin; the taste of shein and the smell of sweat and spice. It was brief, but Malthyr melted if only for a moment. Then they stacked their glasses to wash in the morning, extinguished the candles, and made their way upstairs.   

[therebelcaptainnetwork]

Hi, I have two questions I thought y'all might be able to answer for me! First of all, how old is Cassian really? I know when Rogue One came out he was supposedly 26 but now with Andor I'm not so sure...

Second, what's the origin of the ship name Rebelcaptain? I think it's absolutely hilarious but I'd love to know from someone who was there when it was created and why! Also, I assume Rebel refers to Jyn and Captain to Cassian?

Thank you so much for taking to time to anwser my nerdy questions - it's really appreciated! And keep doing what y'all are doing - It's awesome :)



Thank you! Welcome to the fandom, and we're glad you're enjoying TRCN 🧡

Sadly, we're not able to give a definitive answer to either of these questions. The response still got very long, so the rest of it is below a cut...

1) The "RebelCaptain" ship name

The first teaser trailer for Rogue One was released in April 2016. Most fans assume that the "rebel" part came from Jyn's iconic line (which ironically didn't make it into the final cut of the movie): "This is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel." However, Cassian isn't referred to by name or title in that trailer, so the "captain" part must have come from supplemental promotional materials. 

The earliest stories tagged "rebelcaptain" on AO3 are dated June 2016, but they're orphaned, so we don't know who wrote them. (It's also possible that they were edited sometime after posting to include that tag.) Tumblr's search feature is useless for this purpose, of course, and Google Trends isn't much help either; there's no obvious peak and a few outlier searches long before Rogue One was even in production which muddy the waters. Once the film itself was released in mid-December 2016, the term seems to have taken off immediately.

So if any fan remembers exactly where/when the ship name started or can take credit for coining it, they should step up!

2) Cassian's age

Short answer: it depends which source you choose; long answer: neither age makes perfect sense, so who the hell knows.

Although no ages are given onscreen, when Rogue One was released, Cassian was stated to be 26 and Jyn 21 in official tie-in sources like the Ultimate Visual Guide. (Even at the time, plenty of fans felt that was ridiculous given the actors' ages.) Cassian was also given a few scraps of backstory (born on Fest, Separatist family, etc); if you're curious, images of the relevant pages are at the end of the post.

Then Andor Season 1 came out, and Cassian's backstory was completely altered. Now he's considerably older, likely to avoid (then) 39-year-old Diego Luna playing someone supposed to be in his early 20s. The current Wookieepedia article has a decent rundown of the cumulative evidence for his age in the film now being 33.

This was a controversial choice among longstanding fans, because it significantly delays Cassian's commitment to the Rebellion and makes his statement in Rogue One that he's "been in this fight since [he] was six" much more ambiguous.

Here are a couple of Tumblr posts with fandom reactions:

[hannibalzero]

Hi. What brought you to Obikin? What made you think : "Ok. I ship it."? (I ask with all the curiosity and respect).

I don’t mind sharing! It’s kinda a complicated answer. Sooooo way back in 2005 I went to see Revenge of the sith. I was 13 years old and just discovered deviant art. I know I’m old haha. So I saw the movie and thought that Obi-wan was acting more like Padme should of been, confronting Anakin trying to make him see what he’s doing is wrong. Padme did a little of it, shame they cut the knife scene. Okay we we are at the point where Obiwan yells “I loved you.” And Anakin yelled “I hate you.” Not meaning it. He never meant it, he just wanted to hurt obiwan. At 13 it hit me that, oh ohhhh they really loved eachother. More than the brother, master or anything. They where soulmates. This was wayyyyy before the force dyad was introduced. Anakin needed Obiwan and Obiwan needed Anakin.

Then I saw a tv special where George Lucas talked about who Obiwan and Vader are two sides of the same coin. They are Luke and Leia’s father.

Okay so back to 13 and being a budding yaoi fan girl. This was before it was cringe. There was this picture of a mpreg Obiwan and a protective Anakin Skywalker. The image stuck in my mind for a while. I moved on to different ships and yeah I still liked Star Wars but anime boys were life!

So moving forward I was 27 and just finished up watching the new starwars stuff. Yeah I had fun but eh? Kylux is a great ship btw. I missed the old stuff and rewatched the movies 1-6. Yeah it was cheesy but knowing it was written for children, Lucas little boys apparently. I saw them through a new light. I remembered that old mpreg obikin picture and thought I would see what the Obikin fanfiction looked like now a days. I read a few back in the day but nothing great.

I was blown away by the new fanfics and writers on ao3. I was very impressed and then inspired, maybe I could write something? There isn’t any more fics I can read! I’ve roleplayed for years I could write a bit. So I did, just to see if I could write alone. Honestly I was expecting to be ripped a new butthole for bad writing. At 18 I tried writing fanfiction for yugiyo and yikes…yikes man. But the Obikin community was loving and encouraging. I kept going. My writing improved, they loved my crazy random ideas and silly world building.

I love Obikin, the relationship between Obi-wan and Anakin. The fun cannon of Star Wars that can easily fit anything. They’re complicated relationships between Quigonjin, Dooku, Padme and yoda. The amazing fan-artist, how Ewan Megreger is handsome. ( one of my first crushes) along with Hayden Christensen. (That photo of him giving a lightsaber to his daughter?! 🥺)) being a romantic I wanted to give these characters a happy ending.

But the community, is what made this my favorite ship.

I know that was a lotta text, but you deserved a full explanation.

❤️🐰❤️🐰❤️🐰

All my love

Hannibella .

I think this is the artist. Geez 2005…that’s a looong time ago!

Side note? I miss iPods :(

[astronnova]

for the ask game - team rwby ships

i gotchu, i'll go down the list

ruby/weiss whiterose

Ship It

What made you ship it? in v1 i liked the energetic/tsundere archetype

What are your favorite things about the ship? ermmm i like how weiss has red as a prominent color on her first design! its cool how it ties to her grandfather and ruby

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? i dont. really care for it. like.... i think its decent. as in decent i mean average. i think it just speaks to different people and im not one of them. there's something interesting to work off of with ruby reminding weiss of her younger years she lost out on but thats never mentioned in the show

ruby/blake ladybug

Ship It

What made you ship it? big fan of the energetic/stoic archetype, and their colors look good together. black and red goes crazy....

What are your favorite things about the ship? blake seeing a part of adam in ruby was an idea that always interested me, along with the idea that blake sees a part of her younger, more idealistic self in ruby. kinda similar to what weiss coulda viewed ruby as. i think ruby works as a narrative foil to these ideas since she is younger and less jaded, especially compared to blake. a year ago i wrote up a mini comic of ruby and blake going on a solo mission together and even designed them stealth outfits LOL

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? i think it should be more popular i guess? its a shame in the show i think blake talks to ruby one on one maybe. maybe like.... five times? i think/? maybe?

i'll leave out strawberry sunrise/enabler (ruby/yang) since im assuming you arent asking about it LOLOL

weiss/blake monochrome

Ship It

What made you ship it? ohhhh yeah baby its about the duality its the black and white its the two sides of the same coin its about the hating eachother. enemies to lovers. i have a type

What are your favorite things about the ship? the fact their color schemes match so well, the way their personal narratives are inherently tied to eachother, hell the fact their personalities bounce off eachother in a unique way

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? errrrrrrrrrrrrm. i dont usually advocate for ships being canon, since shipping is just about having fun in fandom and clinking dolls together, and etc etc, but... i genuinely think monochrome wouldve been a great canon ship. theres a lot of potential and substance with these two that i feel the show proper unfortunately ignored or wrote accidentally. weiss in the early volumes (and even in later ones i think) proves to be very emotionally intelligent and aware of blake's feelings and keeps an eye out for her which is super interesting but also i think the writers wrote that accidentally because they don't do anything with it and they have a tendency to tell us people are close instead of showing us. if they meant for that to happen they wouldve had a character say weiss is emotionally intelligent by now lol

weiss/yang freezerburn

Ship It

What made you ship it? i think their more extreme personalities lead to a fun dynamic (pre v4) of a carefree party girl and an uptight high class rich girl. plus, i think yang looks best in white

What are your favorite things about the ship? their dynamic mostly! there isn't much in the show that i can think of where yang and weiss get a lot of interaction time, mainly becus yang and blake are usually next to eachother so there isn't much to build off and in v1-3 yang is just ... kinda there. but yeah, the dynamic and the fact they look good in eachother's colors

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? honestly not really! i don't feel strongly about the ship but i don't have any negative feelings towards it either. its a good ship. plus the height diff is cute (i remember the v5 hug)

blake/yang bumblebee

ah..................................... here we go

Don’t Ship It

Why don’t you ship it? canon kinda... turned me off from it. i thought it was fun in v1, and shipped it hard alongside monochrome, but the more the show went on the less i felt interested in it. canon made me partial towards blacksun due to all of their set up and plot points together (and a similar dynamic to bumblebee). cus of that bumblebee kinda felt like... off brand blacksun? so i just didn't bother with it. that, and the fans also turned me off HAHA. usually i don't let fandom mess with how i view ships, but man it was just tiring, especially with how queerbaity the show was up until v9. i didnt really like it. an interesting thing i noticed, which def wasn't intentional, is that blake gravitates towards yang who is similar to her abuser (adam: similar semblance mechanics and anger issues(?)) and yang gravitates toward blake who is similar to her mother (similar appearance, both abandoned yang furthering her abandonment issues). they almost seem codependent, which is cool from a toxic yuri storyline but i am 100% sure thats not what canon was going for. blake's lost her personality and so has yang so they can fit into a "shy wallflower needs her brash girlfriend to stand up for her" dynamic which. boooo character assassination boooo

What would have made you like it? probably if more time was spent with blake and yang's friendship instead of blake and sun's. sun got more spotlight than yang in the early volumes, and from v4-5 he was the only friend with her the whole time. if there wasn't any blacksun buildup then i totally woulda been more partial to bumblebee in canon. concept wise its fun on its own, im just not partial to how the show used those ideas

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? the fanart's cute! and the idea of soulmates matching eachother's eyes is cute, blake's secondary color is purple and yang's eyes are purple; yang's main color is yellow and blake's eyes are yellow. they've got matching weapons too with eachother's colors (now, post v7) which is cute. basically what i like is the hypothetical or the little details

[sixlane]

hii the regubartylily anon here u said ur curious about my other rarepairs so here i am to talk about that because well i love my silly rarepairs and i love yapping about them

in no specific order:

sybella, sybill trelawney x bellatrix black. they make me insane. i believe it was @/quillkiller who came up with them and i havent been the same since.

regulily. im a basic bitch i see two cool people kissing i become obsessed. they are exactly who i want to be. im not sure how i imagine lily because theres so many versions of her but every single one fits with reg perfectly

regtunia. im not sure whos post it was but someone made a moodboard and @/foursaints reblogged it and oh my god. oh my fucking god. they leave and sirius and lily are so happy that they are following in their footsteps but they just want a simple quiet life they dont want to rebel. they both feel abandoned and neglected. they are two sides of the same coin.

regubartylily, you and ren are geniuses. i cant decide whether i like the happy ending (regulily & rosekiller) or the bad ending (barty gets murdered) more. there is something compelling about the idea of both reg and lily projecting onto barty and wanting things from him. im not sure if they actually care about him or is he just providing them with attention. idk. it makes me feel kinda bad for him but also thats barty crouch jr. he deserves it. hes also the perfect pure pookiebear that hasnt done a thing wrong in his entire life but like. also he should suffer. you understand.

everything that @/quillkiller comes up with. im a fan. i clap whatever they say. effiebarty. maryjames. alectolily. bartyrosiers. lurthur. bellucius. i cheer

what r ur fav rarepairs??

omg hi!!! this is so interesting thank you for sharing! and i’m so happy to see regubartylily crack your top 5 hehe. i will say you’re absolutely right that jen is a rarepair genius. i too eat up everything she posts.

sybella is so interesting i don’t think i’ve every come across that (i gotta go stalk jen’s blog) but in a similar vein i loveeee sybillily. kara @/sugarsnappeases has talked to me about them extensively and has an amazing fic for them. they’re so interesting. like the girl who’s doomed and the one who doomed her. it gets me!!!!

bartylily is probably my biggest rarepair if they can even be considered rare anymore 🥲. there still aren’t many fics for them but i think they’re kinda taking off on tumblr which so so fun. they’re so special to me and i’ll love them forever.

and then of course we’ve got regubartylily and jartylily. my cursed threesomes. what can i say i love to stick barty in the middle of a preexisting ship and see what happens.

i’ve also talked about evjames a couple times. i don’t ship them at all but i think they’re hilarious when put in a relationship together.

honorable mentions to ludora (lucius and pandora) and pandoraleco (which has been brewing in my mind lately… more later perhaps)

MWAH thank you for coming back to share with me!! feel free to yap at me anytime <3

[lifespandontexist]

“I guess I’ll tell a little about my upcoming project Sand Dunes & Natives coming out December Twelfth.”

Q: Where/how did the title “Sand Dunes & Natives” come about?

A: well long story longer there was an interview my HS football coach’s Father was doing for a local Tucson newspaper, he was an AZ wildcat football player from Pennsylvania & they had asked him how was he adjusting to Tucson being so far from the east coast, he replied “he loved it here, he always thought Arizona was an empty place filled with Sand Dunes & Indians” so like it he way of saying it exceeded his expectations I guess haha..

Q: do you feel like his description of Tucson was correct?

A: I think outside of the word Indian he kinda saying it’s surprisingly not that bad here haha but that’s how people talked in the in the 70’s, mad whimsical w a hint of racism

Q: how do you describe Home ?

A: South Side Tucson way different from regular Tucson , I feel like it’s outcasted a lot because of the culture, it’s pretty gnarly too I love it. You know how New Yorkers love being New Yorkers down to their burrough block..?

That’s how South Siders are in Tucson very proud , like we think we poppin, got the best everything even if it ain’t much haha

Q: but that’s the type of people , can you describe what you think home is?

A: south side Tucson is like no other place in the world , i wouldn’t want to be from anywhere else. It’s a place where kids grow up quick without a choice , but it’s a lot of love in the village too , we get outcasted and police target this side of town but we just a bunch of Mexicans tryna get by n make our nana’s proud n shit

Q: how do you describe Sand Dunes and Natives

A: It’s art. Audio street art. This shit like when Richard Hambleton shadow man pieces were getting crowned by Jean Michel Basquiat. From the flows , the pockets I’m rhyming in , the word play, to the beats, skits, song transitions this shit is all art. It’s hard to mirror. I’m show casing my craft one song at a time kinda like an artists’ first art showing.

Q: explain more

A: like ya know how street artists put out they work in the streets , basically shoving it in peoples faces creatively , I’m basically doin that, branding Dark Mammoth street art Ha! Just creating , maybe this shit will b worth something one day who knows

Q: what do you hope to accomplish with this project

A: I hope to accomplish my goal of showing whoever I’m better at rapping then whoever think they do this rap shit. Everybody sound the same and I’m tryna go left , Ima be the wave instead of riding it

Q: sounds like you been working hard

A: I guess you can say that , I’ve been too busy just tryna make the best songs and it is time to put em out & up against whatever n whoever , it’s a lot of shit that goes into what I do, this is my life for real I love this shit

Q:Last question , why should anyone care/support Slant Halen?

A: I feel like I’m trying to do some shit no one else has ever done where I’m from , I’m just a kid telling his story from the ghetto who ain’t tryna front , I been on every side of the coin , I been broke boy , I made money, I took some bitches, bitches been took from me , I been stunted on, been the dude stunting, everybody wanna b the super hero w no hard ships lol I’m not scared to be vulnerable n I know my experiences hold value and I just make fly ass music bout it !

[cold-arrow]

Doctor’s Notes, Book 6 part 9

| Passive participation | Summary, Things of note since last entry: At the docks, pat down dinner reservation the casino, Khuveit Kobold's knuckles, Savah warmup conversational rematch, The captain and the Lady pleasant dinner, the insight of the bones wary revisit. The dance hall, Discovery charmed.. im sure, disappearance heading back down, biding time, Athalia reappearance, one last match. Omrick's luck, back at the docks return to the tavern catching up, lack of evidence

| 1 / 7 | we arrived at the docks relatively on time. he ship would leave in about in hour, so we had plenty of time get ourselves sorted out.

Most of us had left or equipment and weapons back at the tavern. I did try and bring some of them with me, in my bag of holding. But… that didn’t really work out sadly.

At first, it looked like we’d be let onto the ship just fine. Once Aldirn mentioned who we were, and who he was, the bouncer was gonna let us onto the ship without problem. Stepping aside, to let us pass. But… that is also when somebody on the deck above us… suddenly cleared his throat. It seems like a senior or superior was keeping an eye on the entrance as well. And wordlessly reminded the bouncer that he in fact still needed to check us.

Aldrin wasn’t too pleased to hear that he had to give up both his armour, as well as his sword. Which he had just spend a good amount of time cleaning and polishing this morning. There was quite the argument between him and security of the ship, with them apologizing, but standing firm in the maintaining the integrity of their security. And Aldirn trying to stay polite, but also indignant and somewhatoffended by the request of having to hand over his equipment. Or at least uplaying it quite masterfully I think? The discussion was eventually settled with him relinquishing his armour. But -- he’d be allowed to keep his sword close by, on the condition that another one of the guards would carry it for him.

So eventually, a rather buff looking Tiefling lass showed up and was designated as his escort. And would carry his weapon for him.

I... unfortunately had the empty out    All   of the weapons from my bag of holding. Because they did in fact recognize that it was magical in nature. Not even the longbow that Omrick put in there, was I able to keep. Or the arrows

So after everybody was pat down, with Lym requesting a female member of the staff to do so, Understandably. We were finally let in. Where the receptionist informed us that a dinner had been arranged for us in about 2 hours’ time. Which… was a pleasant surprise.

| 2 / 7 | Both along the way to the ship, and once we had boarded, we informed Aldrin to keep an eye  , or to look out for both the captain, and the lady in purple. As well as any possibly signs of either the Black Hand. Or The Kraken. Hopefully there isn’t gonna be any conflict while on the ship, since we no longer have any of our weapons or equipment. But at least we still have our magic? Which should hopefully be enough, worst case scenario.

--

We all went to the casino, which appeared to be rather busy tonight. The same person who was running the “bank” and distributed the coins/tokens, was there like last time.

( And I now noticed as well, that she had a bag of holding with her, where she was keeping all of the tokens in. I’m kinda curious what would else would be in there, and how much… )  

The tables for Kobold’s knuckles were all pretty busy. One in particular had a pair of dwarves that were quite rowdy. I… think they might have been drunk, before they had boarded the ship, cause I highly doubt they would gotten this smashed, in the short amount of time that they’d probably been on the ship.

There weren’t any signs of either the captain, or Lady Athalia though. But what did catch my eye, was that a rather big crowd had gathered, around One table in particular. For Savah. It seems that the friend that I had made last time. Mr. Khuveit, was having a match against a younger Tiefling fella. And by the looks of it, the tiefling didn’t really even stand a chance. It was quite evident that Mr. Khuveit was  Clearly crushing his opponent. And simply playing around with, like a cat playing around with it’s prey. While it may have looked like to his opponent that he still had stood a chance. Me, and few other keen pairs of eyes in crowd, could clearly see that he was simply lowering himself to his opponents level. And just showing of several moves and strategies for the crowd. Like switching the queens to their opposite starting positions. Or arranging his opponents pieces in interesting patterns. It didn’t took long for the match to finally draw to an end though. As soon their weren’t enough pieces left to… interact with. So the young man conceded his tokens, thanking his opponent for the game. And left to get a drink. Understandably. I wonder how much he realizes that he had already lost, from pretty early on.

| 4 / 7 | decided to warm up a bit first, before taking a seat at one of the Savah tables. Especially because Omrick had challenged to a few games of Kobold’s Knuckles. After a couple of round, I managed to earn myself an extra token or two. While Omrick had to spend most of his, on bad luck unfortunately. After I left the table to though, I got the impression that he… seemed determined to keep going. And would probably do so later. I wish him luck

-- decided to eventually sit at one of the Savah tables, near the back. Leaving an invitation open to anyone who’d care to join me for a friendly game.

Lym and Aldrin decided to join me as well, as I waited for an opponent. And fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long, as someone inquired if the seat opposite of me was taken. The young Tiefling fella from before, was apparently curious to try his hand at another game of Savah, and I was happy to oblige.

Playing against him myself, he definitely seems still pretty new to the game. So it wasn’t a particularly long match. But I was happy show him the ropes a bit, and have some casual conversation.

* I did have to buy some tokens, from miss Pow Ming, before heading over to the Savah tables. The few that I had won through Kobold’s, were not nearly enough to actually play a match Savah. But I am a few tokens richer now, after my game with the Tiefling fella.

--

I was pleasantly surprised when Mr. Khuveit eventually showed up at my table, for a rematch. I think the both of us were in the mood for a challengend I was curious to hear some of his insight on both the ship, and the recent developments here in yartar, and all that.

I lost my first match however. He… is not to be underestimated. His skill and experience definitely show, during our games. And while I may have decent strategy. That alone is not enough to simply beat him. He did part with some information though, during our conversation. Apparently the captain is currently in his office, on the deck above us. Where sometimes, he invites people of interest for a few private games. And he is often joined by Lady Athalia. Who is currently upstairs as well.

Everything considered, it…. seems a bit disconcerting. Though hopefully that’ll prove not to be the case.

--

Now having a better read on his play style and few warm up games, my second match was a resounding victory. While he had a strong start as per usual, I had managed to devise a strategy of sorts, that could take advantage of some of the weak points in his formation, that would lead to me gaining the advantage instead. ?? It ended up being a shorter match, as he wasn’t able to regain the lead and had to maintain a defence strong enough cover my assault. ??  Leaving us both with one victory against one-another.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to learn anything else of interest in our conversations during the game. There hadn’t really been any suspicious activity from either the Water Baroness, or the captain, as far as anybody had hear or seen. Nor in any of our other POI here in yartar Like the sewers, the docks or the ocean. Or eveb the ship itself.

Either they are doing a damn good job at keeping things from the public eye. Or it’s… hmmm. ?

After our second game ended, I excused myself to join the others for our dinner reservation. With the promise to, hopefully play at least one more match with him, before laying anchor and returning to the docks.

| 5 / 7 | The dinner was as good if not better than I remember atleast. Which was quite nice. A moment to kind of relax a bit, and enjoy some good food. Great food, actually. Plus the fact that we didn’t have to pay for it this time, made it even better. I definitely didn’t expect it to be as pricy as it was last time, once the bill came. And while I might finally have enough money to pay for things, if need be. And not be broke afterwards. I don’t really think the food would be worth it otherwise, to be honest. So instead ill happily rob the water baron of her coin if she wants to pay for it. ( I just hope she doesn’t increase the taxes for the people of this city as a result)

We discussed some bits and pieces once we had finished our food. But not knowing where there might be eyes or ears watching us, we instead mostly stuck to small talk. Though at somepoint, after looking thoughtful about something for a while Lym took out her bones, and rolled them on her side of the table.. I… don’t think she got the results she was hoping for, cause she seemed a bit… perturbed? afterwards. Hopefully the fact that she didn’t share it right away, means that at the very least it isn’t anything pressing? Or urgent? Or imminent. But I am a bit worried as the what she found it.

-- Once we were getting ready to leave our table, Lym quickly informed us of what she had learned, or asked. The matter that she had inquired about, was;  if The Kraken was present on the ship. And the answer had been yes…                 On one hand I was hoping that we might be able to learn something about them, while we were here. But somehow having their presence on the ship be actually confirmed,  is not as reassuring as I thought, or would have liked it to be. I… will have to keep an eye out, somehow. Without compromising anything or giving anything away. not sure how I’m gonna do that yet though. Also, Lym had applied an ointment to her eyes as well, right before we left our table. And I have a sneaking suspicions as to what that might have been. I am quite curious as to what she’ll figure out or see as a result.

--

We hung around the casino for a bit. Just keeping an eye out on things. Wasn’t sure if I wanted should join another game or not, afraid of perhaps missing something if I was distracted. So instead I just simply sat with the others for a bit.

--

The captain, and Lady Athalia have made an appearance. Lord Drylund seems to be mixing with some of the guests, talking to people of interest. While miss Athalia, has headed up to the Dancehall. With Aldrin…

I am pretty sure we warned him about her. But it looks as if he was smitten by her? and followed her lead when she mentioned wanting to dance… I am not entirely sure what he is doing, but I’m bit concerned. Like has she charmed him? using her psionic abilities or…

The captain definitely took in interest in him as well, and extended an invitation to his office later, should he be interested. I…. hmmm I really hope he’ll be alright

because the moment Lym saw Lady Athalia, she has been staring at her since. And whatever she is seeing, it … she has been having a hard time not…. Starting at her. And not in enamoured kind of way, but more in the sense of… perturbed.

--

Both Lym and I decided to follow after Aldrin and Athalia, up to the dance hall. Keeping an eye on them.

im not really sure what to do. Neither does Lym. They have been dancing for quite a while now. Nothing seems amiss? And it looks like they the both of them are just enjoying the music, dancing. But I don’t know how much we can trust Athalia. Especially if she doesn’t know that Ald…                 In hindsight, would she know?

I was worried that she might try and take advantage of Aldrin, due to his status and affiliation with the LA. But… if she’s able to read people’s minds. How much did you glean from Aldrin…. I …. I really don’t know how… or what to think of that.

| 6 / 7 | we’ve sat in the dancehall for quite a while, just keeping an eye on things. Kind of awkwardly standing to the side. Trying, to listen to the music, but also trying to watch out for anything suspicious, from anyone.

??  ( didn’t discover this until later ) … while we were up there. Lym decided ask the Weave another question. Rolling the bones at the table we sat. I don’t think we can trust the captain. He seems like a decent guy, but… He is involved with the Kraken as well. With her true sight. Lym saw tentacles protruding from both of their necks. The Captain and Lady Athalia I mean. And if the both of them are involved…. We definitely need to be wary. The captain in particular. Lym mentioned that it be best not to be alone in a room with. And I think that be for best as  well. If he ends up inviting me at somepoint, I am definitely not going up there without any of the others. I hope Athalia is alright though. That… she didn’t get involved even deeper with all of this, after we tried to help her. After she tried to help us. Or… has she been working with the kraken this whole time? ?? -- Aldrin and Athalia have taken a break from dancing  and have headed downstairs. Not sure if we should follow them. I think both Lym and I are just gonna wait up here for a bit. Try and decide what to do next. She has encouraged me to perhaps return to the gambling hall. With us sitting here and doing nothing for so long, It will… only look more suspicious. And she’s right. I… probably should head back down. But what do I do. Something is clearly wrong. she hasn’t told me yet. And it took me longer to figure out as to why, I’ll admit. But its hopefully for the better. She has been playing with the ring I gave her. And… I realize now, that she is the only one who’s mind can’t be read. by anyone. So… if she tells me. it would only be a risk.

Not sure how to pretend that everything is fine, or normal though. -- eventually did end up deciding to head down. Though Aldrin is nowhere to be seen. Which… I am not sure if’s good thing. Omrick is still drinking with his new dwarven buddies, and Lym currently is staying upstairs for a bit. But I have no idea Where Aldrin is. -- And with Lym telling me it’s best not be alone, especially with the captain. Or even Athalia. I…  uhm.          Should I worried? I’m a bit worried.

I should trust that things are fine. So ill try. And atleast try to kill some time. but I don’t really know what to do. I guess I’ll just keep an eye on things??

--

Got tired of waiting. and im still worried about Aldrin. So decided to look for him. but…. I cant find him anywhere.

It wasn’t until I got to the bow of the ship, that… I saw his dance partner. I think she was just enjoying a bit of fresh air? , watching the waves, and the night sky. So I gingerly approached her, and said hello. Asked, how she was doing. She said she was doing alright. but im not sure if that’s actually true. Especially with what Lym told me… so instead I asked about our friend. Mentioning that Aldrin was here with us on yhe ship, and if she had perhaps seen him. But… she said she hadn’t. That they had gone to sit at one of the tables at the restaurant for a bit, but that she hadn’t seen him since. I don’t think she was telling the truth. I’m a bit worried. About her, about where Aldrin is, about if She is actually alright. But I don’t really know what to do, about anything. I would like to help her. very much so. but I’m not sure if she even trusts us enough, to be willing to help.

She invited me to play a game of Savah. but… I wanted to find Aldrin first. So I asked if she’d be willing to play a game a bit later. but she seemed very much interested to play one right now. She did also mention that one of the staff might perhaps know where he is, which might help, if I look for him later? And I did want another rematch against here at somepoint. And I found it difficult to refuse an invitation from her. so I eventually conceded, and joined her for a game.

Sadly, my loss was… quite resounding. If I could have prepared the ring for our match, I might have stood a chance? But Lym’s safety is much more important. And my head wasn’t really in the game eitherway.

I don’t think i was even able to provide her a decent match. Hopefully I might in the future.

| 7 / 7 | after our game I continued looking for Aldrin. And fortunately, I did find him. He seemed alive and in one piece, much to my relief. So I guess I worried for nothing. And as far as I can tell, he seems alright. Hopefully Athalia went easy on him, once she realized that he was with us.

--

Were not far from the docks at this point. We’ll probably arrive back in Yartar within the hour. But I’m not sure how the use this last bit of time we have on the boat wisely.

-- decided to make good on my promise, once Mr. khuveit decided to ask for that final match of Savah. Wasn’t really the best game I’ve played, but neither was his. But of us seemed a bit distracted, I think. But somehow I managed to secure the win. I thanked him for the matches, and mentioned that I look forward to playing him again in the future.

Perhaps I could visit his home some time, for another match. Atleast, I’d hope he would have me as a guest. --

So… while we were up at the dancehall, Omrick apparently had decided to try out a game as well. Of    Savah. And his opponent was Mr. Khuveit. Who was seemed willing play a quick match with him. but… he won.                  Omrick won a match against Khuveit.

In my disbelief, I asked for a match against him as well. He… seemed to be telling the truth, as far as I could tell, that he had won their game. But I had to see for myself… And he beat me. He. Somehow. Beat me.

His start was… as strong as Khuveit’s, and it seems he picked up enough from watching my matches, to pretty much know the basics. And… somehow with his dumb luck (perhaps its rude to phrase it that way)    he outplayed me. I… will have to have another match against him in the future, for the sake of both my pride and intellect. But honestly, I might have underestimated him. I’m impressed.

--

We arrived back at the docks. I’m not sure if we learned as much as we set out to do. -- Not sure with the others learned, but most things I overheard during my conversations playing Savah, didn’t really prove to be that useful.

 I feel like Lym learned more than any of us. so I’m curious to hear what she has to say…

She wanted to wait by the ship for a bit though, for Lady Athalia. She said we could go ahead but I decided to wait at the end of the docks. Just in case. I don’t think…. she showed up though. So we all just ended up reconvening at the tavern -- Everyone is caught up. But…. we didn’t really end up learning much like I feared. However… both the Captain and Athalia, are tied to the kraken. And have tentacles in their necks... Which is very much concerning. No wonder Lym seemed so disturbed when she saw them. And Aldrin apparently had a meeting with the captain… but, nothing came of it. It was just an introduction of sorts. A quick talk, to see if they could mean anything for one another in the future. I was… tempted to perhaps sneak into the captain’s office at some point. but I was too hesitant to actually do it, with everything going on, and… I don’t know.

But we Need to get something. We have to figure out, and learn Something about what’s going on here. I don’t know if im gonna end up visiting the Captain, or the Baron first. But we’ve been here too long. And need to make a make a move. | end | ( next entry pending )

[wastedpotentialsblog]

First of all, excellent post. Worth the read. Honestly, i wondered if i should even respond. My response feels facetious or even dismissive, but it can really be boiled down to: I still don't like that. I'll try to respond to every point made, but I'm on mobile and drafts and "read more" are kinda funky.

I'm aware the Darkness isn't inherently evil. But it is still inherently opposed to the Light. Not in the sense that they are at war but in the literal sense of opposite sides of the same coin. It's in their name. Sure, the Veil doesn't have to communicate that, since it's a more neutral presentation, but it's way more interesting and visually cohesive if it did. I can show the Pyramid Ships and the Traveler to my 60 year old mother, and she would go "Yeah those are opposites. The black pointy one is the bad one and the round white one is the good one." For the longest time, that was our understanding. That is why I believe putting the morality of the two into question, with those very clear design elements in mind, is what made Destiny's "moral ambiguity" story extremely compelling. The scary triangles are not always evil, and the welcoming orb is not always good. That was Beyond Light's whole shtick.

Stasis was clearly communicated as a Darkness power, but we learned it is merely a tool. Darkness can be used to help others as the Light was used by the Warlords to hurt innocents. The neutrality of Light and Dark was still communicated effectively, even without the knowledge of the Witness or The Veil. This is why i disagree that it would've made a much simpler and less compelling story. We were already in the process of being taught that it's not as simple as "pick a side." Beating the Winnower doesn't even have to lead to its death. As far as we were concerned, this eldritch being cannot die. That's what made it scary to me. Our only way to win was to play its "game" and prove it wrong. Which brings me to my main issue with The Witness.

The Witness is a thing. It is a tangible creature that we know is biological in orgin. Which means to defeat it, it has to:

A. Die or be death adjacent (like vanishing into non existence or something)

B. Repent and realize the errors of its ways

C. Or just kinda leave while holding onto its ideals and never bothering us again.

I despise those options. The Winnower being an entity beyond death, the physical manifestation of a code of ethics had me excited to see how the Saga ends. It created tension within the story. How do we defeat something that makes a game out of reality itself? The Winnower was incomprehensible in that way. The Witness is not. And that's where the "magic" dies a little. It no longer feels like we are mere pieces on a board to beings outside of our realm of understanding. It just feels like we are fighting A Bad Guy™. That's just not compelling to me.

I hope that makes sense. And because tone is hard to convey over the internet, I want to say I'm not like "disproving you" or anything. I want the energy to be a discussion and not a debate. I understand this is the way the story is now, but I just think we had a good thing going before.

Look, I was willing to give the Veil a shot. I was. I was willing to let Bungie cook. But they made the Veil the Travelers opposite, and I couldn't figure out why I didn't like that. Until a random ass reddit comment and it clicked.

The visual storytelling between the Pyramids and The Traveler is such a beautiful way of portraying two opposing forces without explicitly saying what those forces represent. It's all in their design.

Angular/Spherical

Many/One

Black/White

They have "We are opposites" written on their forehead and the Veil kind of fucked it up.

While I'm on the subject, I've been revisiting my favorite lore book "Unveiling" and MAN, that shit was awesome.

I really really really liked when the overarching conflict was about two Gods giving themselves physical form in the universe to win a cosmic argument on whether the conplexity of life made it worth living. I also really liked its interpretation of the Vex: the manifestation of the perfect pattern. Microorganisms that always came out on top before a new rule were forced upon the game. And yeah, i get it, "Unveiling had no reason to be truthful. The Witness had every reason to lie to us to make us fight each other. Untrustworthy narrator." Blah blah blah.

But, I think it would've been way cooler and scarier if it wasn't lying. It would show that The Winnower truly believes what it's saying. It's simply acting in its nature. It doesn't even know if it's 100% correct, but chooses to follow its path anyway.

This part altered my brain chemistry fundamentally. I am NOT normal about this section and I never will be.

Ok. I'm done. You can tear me a new one or pick my apart. You can tell me the new story is better in every conceivable way. But the Unveiling lorebook was P E A K to me