#i'm here to contribute

[sylvermoths]

Do it

[blorbosinmyheadcentral]

SECRET DATIIING (secret datiiiing)

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 1 - Ratiorine Messages Edition

[Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[raycatzdraws]

Some grumpy guys

Extra doodles under the read more!

Everything is from January 2023.

I wanted to try drawing Hyrule a lil differently but I'm meh with how it turned out. He doesn't quite look himself imo but I want these out of my folders! The drawing of Hyrule in the water was largely inspired by this piece by @/mmmwafflesart, so please please please go show Waffles some love. Their art is just amazing.

Wind's bit was supposed to be set around the same time that Twi was still injured.

Hyrule: *pokes Wind who's laying on the floor* Wind: *cough cough sniffle* I'm sick you can't bully me. Hyrule: *poking fun* Sick as a dog? (haha funny pirate joke because Wind's a pirate) Wind: *huge sobby eyes* We can't make that joke anymore.

It doesn't work as well now that Twi's better, but at the time, it was definitely too soon to be making dog jokes LMAO (the fandom was worried!!!) And Wind's a pirate! How sad to not be able to make the pirate jokes auuUH a double whammy!

[theredqueenandthebloodwyrm]

Bout to start gnawing and biting motherfuckers on here, istg. Fuck you third party voters, fuck you "I didn't vote because that would taint me", fuck you holier-than-thou moral purity fuckers. Fuck anyone who voted for Trump.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[zoe-oneesama]

i felt like giving a contribution to the memes of people who thought there would be a Chloe redemption arc, enjoy

I do be making that face everytime.

[steveseddie]

gold was the color of the leaves

steddie | rating: t | wc: 1,6k | cw: none | tags: steve pov, silly teenage boys, first kiss, fluff

for @steddie-spooktober day twenty two prompt “leaves”

read here on ao3

Steve wakes up when a leaf tickles his nose– or rather, when someone tickles his nose with a leaf. He scrunches it up, swatting the leaf away with his hand. 

He easily recognizes the snigger that follows so he’s not surprised to open his eyes and find Eddie leaning over him, one elbow propped up on the grass and a devilish grin stretching over his lips.  

Steve lifts his sunglasses to scowl at him. “Are you like, allergic to people relaxing?” He asks in a bitchy tone that only makes Eddie grin wider. 

“Deadly so, Stevie,” he says, long dark eyelashes fluttering as the hand that’s still holding the leaf rests against his forehead like he’s going to faint. “It was either annoying you or dying, and you don’t want me to die, do you?”

“I guess not,” Steve says with a long-suffering sigh, but either the fondness in his voice or the way his lips tick up prove that he doesn’t mean it because Eddie’s grin turns blinding, his dimples popping. Steve is glad he’s already lying down or his knees might’ve buckled at the sight and sent him rolling down the small hill they’re laying on.

“Besides,” Eddie says, tickling Steve’s cheek with the leaf, “you’re missing out on all the fun.”

“Napping is fun,” Steve points out, swatting Eddie’s hand away again. 

“Yeah, if you’re eighty!” Eddie snorts. “Are you an old man, Stevie?”

“Eddie, I’m younger than you,” Steve deadpans. 

“Maybe, but I have a young soul, Harrington–”

Steve smirks. “If by young you mean immature–”

Hand to his heart, Eddie gasps indignantly. “Hey!”

“Dude, you and the kids spent the last hour gathering leaves in piles and jumping on them,” Steve says amusedly. He spent the better part of that hour watching them tackle each other between shrieks of laughter, thankful for his sunglasses and how they let him stare at Eddie as much as he wanted without getting caught.

Eddie shrugs. “Hm, you may have a point.”

When he moves, something in Eddie’s hair catches Steve’s eye. A leaf– proof that he’d spent an hour being tackled and rolling on the floor before he decided to annoy him.

Steve’s fingers itch to reach out and pluck that leaf from Eddie’s hair, smooth the curls down, grab a hold of them and drag Eddie down–

Steve shakes those thoughts out of his head, balling his hands into fists to keep them from reaching out. In the silence that follows, Steve becomes aware of the sudden lack of yells and laughter around them. “Where are the little shitheads?”

“Wheeler sent them to wash their hands so they can have a snack,” Eddie says, pointing at the water fountain where the boys are cleaning up and at Max and El, walking arm in arm towards Nancy and Robin at the picnic table. 

“Not you?” Steve asks, head falling back against the blanket he’s using to lay on the grass. 

Eddie shakes his head. “Nope, I told her she’s not the boss of me,” he pauses, “then ran away before she could hit me with her book.” 

Steve snorts out a chuckle.

“Besides, I don’t want a snack. I got one right here,” Eddie says with a playful wink that turns Steve’s cheeks bright red. 

He ignores the heat creeping on his face. “I swear, Munson, if you try to bite me again–” he says, thinking about last week when Eddie said he was hungry and promptly sunk his teeth on Steve’s arm.

It didn’t hurt that bad– he was wearing a thick sweater after all. What did hurt was biting his tongue as hard as he could to keep a moan from slipping past his lips from Eddie biting him.

Eddie sniggers. “I won’t bite you, I promise,” he says innocently before he leers at Steve, his face hovering merely inches from Steve’s face. “Only if you ask.”

Steve grits his teeth together. “Shut up,” he quips, shoving Eddie off of him until they’re both lying on their backs, their sides pressed together. 

They fall into comfortable silence which Steve breaks with a loud yawn. 

Eddie’s head lolls to the side, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Tired, sweetheart?”

Steve’s stomach flips at the petname. He shrugs as casually as he can. “A little, I- uh, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Nightmares?” Steve nods. Eddie grimaces apologetically, tugging some hair across his face. “Shit, I should’ve let you keep napping.”

Without giving it much thought, Steve curls his pinkie around Eddie’s. “No, it’s fine,” he says, waiting for Eddie to meet his gaze. When he does, his eyes are a little wide. Wistfully Steve wishes it’s because of their interlocked pinkies. “I don’t wanna miss out on all the fun just because I’m tired.”

Eddie's eyes sparkle and he props himself up on his elbow again, grinning at Steve. “Does that mean I can tackle you into a pile of leaves?”

“You forget I was a jock,” Steve says smugly. “I’d like to see you try.”

Eddie laughs, something between a snort and a giggle. He drops his head in Steve’s chest, making Steve’s heart stutter. 

From this angle, Steve spots another leaf trapped in the curls in the back of Eddie’s head, and this time he doesn’t stop himself from reaching for it. 

The moment Eddie feels Steve’s fingers in his hair, his head snaps up and Steve’s hand ends up cupping the back of Eddie’s neck. 

Their faces are close– so close that Steve can hear the way Eddie’s breath catches when he realizes the same thing.

“Eddie–” Steve starts, not sure if he’s going to apologize for touching his hair without permission or for the way his eyes keep darting down to Eddie’s lips in a way that he knows is fucking obvious. 

But before he can decide what to say, he hears Eddie make an impatient, needy noise in the back of his throat before he surges forward and presses his lips against Steve’s. 

He lets out a surprised yelp, thinking– holy shit, Eddie is kissing me!

The thought bounces against Steve’s skull like a ping-pong ball as he tries to get his brain working again. But before he can do that long enough to kiss Eddie back, he’s pulling away and out of Steve’s reach. Steve’s hand falls back to his side, empty except for the leaf that he plucked out of Eddie’s hair. 

“You uh– you had this in your hair,” Steve says dumbly, holding up the leaf. 

Eddie’s eyes dart to the leaf and his expression falls as he realizes that is why Steve’s hand ended up in his hair, not because Steve was making some kind of move.

“Shit,” he mutters, his doe-like gaze darting from the leaf to Steve’s mouth. That he just kissed. “Shit, fuck– I– shit.”

He scrambles to his feet, and in his haste, ends up stumbling and falling back on his ass– only to roll down the small hill. 

“Eddie!” 

Steve jumps to his feet and runs after him, careful not to trip and follow Eddie down the hill the same way.

He makes it to the bottom right after Eddie and his eyes dart over his starfished body, checking for injuries. 

“Christ, dude. Are you okay?”

Eddie groans, covering his face with his hands. “Did the fall kill me? Please say yes.”

Steve suppresses a snort. “I mean. It’s barely even a hill, so I don’t think that’s possible. You might end up with a bruise or two though.”

“Oh, you mean apart from the bruise to my ego?” 

“What?”

“You know,” Eddie gestures between himself and Steve with one hand, “because I kissed you and you didn’t want me to.” 

Steve puts his hands on his hips. “Who says I didn’t want you to?”

Eddie’s hands fall from his face, revealing his wide eyes and slack jaw. “You did?” He asks, voice going high-pitched.

“Yeah,” Steve says, a lopsided grin stretching over his lips. He knocks his Nike against Eddie’s leg. “I did, you just took me by surprise, s’all.”

Eddie lets out a tiny, startled, “Oh.”

Steve smirks. “Yeah so how about you get up so I can check you don’t have any cuts or bruises before I kiss you. Properly this time.”

Eddie squeaks and scrambles to his feet with as much grace as when he tumbled down the hill. Steve finds his eagerness fucking endearing. 

There are even more leaves trapped in Eddie’s curls now, and with an amused shake of his head, Steve plucks them out of his hair before checking for any bruises. 

Then, as promised, he leans in and kisses Eddie. The second kiss is also short and chaste and over too soon, but it’s good and Steve has to remind himself they’re in public in order to gather enough willpower to pull back. 

When he does, his brain is a little hazy and he completely misses the way Eddie’s expression shifts from dopey to mischievous so it catches him by surprise when Eddie tackles him into a pile of leaves, laughing maniacally. 

“Ha! Got ya!” Eddie whoops, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, hovering over Steve who wants nothing more than to kiss the stupid smug smile off his face. 

But he can hear the kids laughing at him and cheering for Eddie in the distance and there’s no way he can get away with kissing him even if Eddie’s hair falls like a curtain around them, offering a little cover.

So he grabs a handful of leaves and shoves them into Eddie’s grinning mouth instead.

He’ll save the kiss for later.

[johnnyy-guitarr]

hi i hope you all like these wretched things i crafted with my own two hands

[krussyarts]

Miku? Heul leise.

[offdensen]

Don't you wanna die for something worth dying for? Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this? Longer than you think.

[darkdragon768]

Do you like the color of your dimension?

Which one?

[looseinthecatroom]

Right. Let's get this REAL clear here, yeah? For as much as I hate diving into the clusterfuck of bad takes surrounding Nandermo, I gotta say something real loud and clear;

There is NO universe, none at ALL where I give a flying kaleidoscopic fuck if Nandor and Guillermo ""go cannon"". Or get together in some sort of idealized monogamous soulmates situationship. None.

What I DON'T like is how throughout the entire show run, the IDEA of Guillermo and Nandor as a couple was never explored. (other then as a joke once or twice)

PLEASE feel more then free, feel OBLIGATED (if you want them to be platonic) to bring up IN TEXT that they simply aren't interested in each other in that way. There are ten thousand ways to do it!

My kingdom for in the next episode (there is some weird... last episode thing still right?) it's mentioned that they got together for like a week before they both decided that just wasn't what they wanted. Or that they used to fuck when Guillermo was new to the vamily but it low key sucked.

My hand in marriage for a mention of Guillermo having, or specifically not having for whatever reason, a crush on his super cool idealized REAL VAMPIRE boss man when they met, but getting over it the longer they spent together.

My heart for ANY acknowledgement that these are two queer men deeply interwoven in each others lives in a show where the entire rest of the cast is constantly hitting on each other and having chill low key background sex on the reg, and if they are platonic (completely fucking fair) acknowledging in any way in text the idea that they could not be platonic if they wanted, but that they do not want that.

I DO NOT care about ~""shipping""~. There is a history far older then the medium of censoring, or even just being really fucking weird about, queerness, vs the decade or so of increased visibility we've just had. And all I need is simply to see the possibility actually acknowledged and then discarded in text if that's what the writers prefer. I need to see... actual explicit character development and acknowledgement of who these two are, what they mean to each other and why. Not this string along shit (with a side of making fun of the fans, because THAT doesn't clearly shoot any claim to good intentions/ignorance in the foot and lay out what kind of people are in charge) unless you ARE planning to pay off the "will they won't they" tension. (INCLUDING with a "they won't and here's why"!!)

[spaceprincessleia]

Claire Dearing & Zia Rodriguez (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom)

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[starcurtain]

Your post about Alhaitham, Aranara lore, and the issue of fandoms confusing canon with social media promotion was so good!

I have some questions. I only entered the fandom a year ago, and I still haven't caught up on all the events I missed (though I am caught up on archon quests and most character quests). If you have time, could you please share any other examples you have of people popularizing a headcanon and pretending like it's canon?

I have a theory of one. I've noticed a lot of fics portraying Kaeya, Rosaria, and Venti are all drinking buddies at Angel's Share. And as much as I love the idea, I'm not sure I can find a canon source for this. I made a post asking about this once, and the only thing anyone gave me was that cutscene towards the end of the first Windblume. But that only shows Kaeya and Rosaria drinking together; Venti isn't there. Am I right that the three of them being drinking buddies is just fanon?

Thank you!!

I admittedly started playing Genshin a little later than some, so I missed out on many of the original Mondstadt events. Although I've tried to catch up on them via cutscenes and summaries, there are some nuances I'm surely missing, so it's a bit harder for me to judge based on earlier stuff. However, it seems fairly unlikely that Venti and Kaeya are actually good drinking buddies, for a couple reasons:

Even when they are in the same bar, they don't even speak directly to each other, let alone drink together. During Jean's birthday event, both Venti and Kaeya come to Jean's party at the Angel's Share, but once the alcohol starts flowing, Venti sits at the bar with Diluc, while Kaeya goes off to drink in the corner by himself.

Presumably, if they were actual drinking buddies, they would have sat together.

There's also the fact that Kaeya and Venti's relationship seems to be somewhat catty, especially earlier in Genshin's story.

In the 1.4 Windblume event, Paimon literally says that Venti and Kaeya's conversation has devolved into a "coercion contest" where they're both trying to get the better of each other. It's not aggressive and it's largely played for jokes, but it's also not Genshin's typical "I'll do anything for you because you're my friend" level of niceness.

Even way back in the 1.4 Windblume, there are some lines, especially from Kaeya, that are very loaded (and Venti gets his own digs in too lol):

I, for one, think it's pretty much impossible that Kaeya hasn't known Venti's identity all along; Kaeya's entire early character hinges around just knowing way the hell more than anyone else in Mondstadt (with little explanation for how, in some cases). With that in mind, Kaeya--a Khaenri'ahn--asking Venti--an archon--if he's willing to take Kaeya on as a student is a pretty heavy statement.

This scene leads into the one where Kaeya (supposedly) writes a poem in hilichurlian that could be read as a threat toward Venti. There's some debate whether that is actually true and whether Kaeya intended it that way, but the ambiguity still suggests Kaeya knows Venti's true identity and is, at the very least, testing the waters and pushing the envelop to see how far Barbatos will tolerate an "enemy" in his territory.

Even all the way to Kaeya's hangout, Venti and Kaeya's interactions are definitely sarcastic and a bit (humorously) snide, with Kaeya unsubtly using the fact that he knows Venti's secret identity to manipulate Venti into helping with the choir project. (Venti gets his digs here too though, reminding Kaeya about the hate poem he so "kindly" wrote back in 1.4 lol!)

Kaeya even goes out of his way to bring Diona to the song-writing efforts, specifically to trigger Venti's cat allergy and force Venti into having to deal with song lyrics about hating alcohol. 😂

So, up until at least this hangout, I'd say that Kaeya really didn't have too great of a relationship with Venti. He wasn't directly antagonistic to him or anything, but they definitely didn't come across as close friends, and there were enough blatant hints to suggest that Kaeya doesn't view himself as a follower of Mondstadt's archon.

It seems likely (to me at least) that Kaeya would have inherited a natural standoffishness toward archons in general alongside his father's huge expectations that Kaeya serve as Khaenri'ah's hope, a blend of "I'm supposed to hate you because I know what you did to my country" and "I'm uncomfortable that you know my true identity; you might take action against me like the archons took action against Khaenri'ahns in the past." I don't think Kaeya ever actually personally hated Venti, but there is a tension between himself and Venti that isn't necessarily present in Kaeya's other connections (Albedo, Klee, Jean, Lisa, etc.) throughout Mondstadt.

On Venti's side, I think that people forget that Venti is incredibly sensitive to the feelings of the people of Mondstadt and does literally everything in his power to ensure that his people live joyous, free, and happy lives. He clearly knows of Kaeya's background--and probably even his situation with still lingering connections to Khaenri'ah and the Abyss--so I find it extremely unlikely that Venti would have asserted himself in Kaeya's space and tried to force a friendship with someone who would have good reason to distrust archons. I think he would have respected Kaeya's need for distance and avoided trying to get too close.

However, being the incredible sweetheart that he is (the best archon of them all, FIGHT ME), Venti ends this branch of Kaeya's hangout with a truly heartwarming message:

This is Venti literally telling Kaeya "I know you're not a believer, and I know you're struggling with your loyalties between Khaenri'ah and Mondstadt. I know you're still not really sure what your destiny is and into what darkness it might lead you--but at the end of your journey, I will be here to welcome you home."

Venti tells Kaeya that Kaeya is a son of Mondstadt and that the Anemo Archon loves and will protect him just as he loves and protects every one of his true people.

So no, I don't think we have any reliable evidence in game that Kaeya and Venti are actually drinking buddies up to this point in the story--however, I think it's possible we could see this change in the future! Kaeya just needs to know (and accept!) that he is loved!

...As for other instances of fanon replacing canon, this post is already long enough, so I'll save them for another day. Someone ask me about what I think of the fanon surrounding Kaeya and Diluc's situation or something, I guess! 😆