#i've checked so many times

[mellosdrawings]

Fanart gift for the amazing @aria-faye and his series If By Land, If By Sea on AO3

Part1 : A Thing Of The Air

You guys have no idea how much I LOVE this series. It got me so emotional, every single part of this series is a gem, V is an awesome writer! I can't recommend this fic any harder. All his fics, really!

(Bonus, some attempts for the part3 : If By Land, If By Sea with Azul enjoying his new gifts.)

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[zyanova]

Here is the storyboard for part 3 of the Transformers Earthspark Season 1 finale to "The Touch" by Stan Bush!

The moment I saw this post, I just had to add in the song! (I would have reblogged the original post with the video, but alas, Tumblr.) Credit for this video goes to @oldswifty , I just edited the song in.

BIG EARTHSPARK SPOILERS!!

I cut the first minute or so out since there's no other audio, so be sure to check out the link above for the whole thing! I wasn't sure when the song would end, so I just let it run for the rest of the video.

Original post, by @oldswifty :

[yardsards]

the problem with taz balance is that half of the things that make me want to recommend it to people are major spoilers that will fundamentally change the listening experience

[front-facing-pokemon]

[sergle]

honestly? no collar + no chip = no owner fr fr. i like sometimes cats get out when they arent supposed to and their collars get ripped off. understandablw. but like. if u have an "outdoor cat". and it does not have a collar, and it does not have a chip. how the hell is ANYONE supposed to tell ur lil guy apart from a stray??? literally how??

for real!! sorry, no owner! this cat has no evidence of being someone's pet! no collar, no chip, no missing flyers, nothin!!! and there's nothing to differentiate a missing cat from an outdoor cat from a friendly stray from a dumped/abandoned cat. They Are The Same.

[satoruxx]

hi! just letting you know at the time of writing this (Aug 5th) that there is a user who is crossplatforming at least one of your works to wattpad. their username is ohmyjung . not entirely too sure if you gave the greenlight to allow this, but my works are also there and i was not notified beforehand. just wanted to let you know !

hi lovely !! thank you so so much for letting me know bc i absolutely did NOT give the green light for this :(( i literally have it in my rules that i don’t allow reposts ugh this is so annoying

i went through their account and saw that there are so many fics they’re posting from authors here on tumblr and it’s very upsetting. and saying that the only reason they’re doing this is bc tumblr is too disorganized like just learn how to use tags appropriately wtf????

anyways i'm so sorry it happened to you too and thank you sm for letting me know !! i’ve gone on their profile and commented asking them to take it down so hopefully they listen…

also moots and any other writers who see this you guys should check this account out and make sure your stuff isn’t being taken. even though they technically “credited” the og authors it looks like they haven’t asked for permission or even considered whether we’d allow this or not !!

[itstimeforstarwars]

Obi-Wan gets kidnapped by someone who calls themself "a friend of Ahsoka Tano."

[thevioletcaptain]

I know the ask is about ships but could you make a non ship one with Dean and Carlos from the Winchesters? I can't think of an exact thing for Dean to say, but the first sentence can be what Dean would say for their first meeting. Thank you if you can (*^‿^*)

"I like your hair," Dean says, staring up from where he's clinging to the bottom of Mary's winter coat, and Carlos grins wide when he adds, with all the breathless gravity of a four year old eager to impress their opinions upon a new friend; "It's swooshy and it's pretty like Mommy's hair, and your-- your beads are pretty and shiny and shiny is my favorite color."

"Swooshy and pretty and shiny is exactly what I was going for, so thank you, little buddy."

Even with almost six years between now and the last time he'd seen Mary, Carlos is relieved to find that they still have a good sense of one-another -- can still communicate silently, swiftly, like they used to when it was life or death. He meets her eye, and her face softens, and understanding passes between them before he slides one of his lucky beaded bracelets -- the bloodstone one -- free.

Dean's eyes light up when he takes it.

When he smiles, he looks just like his mother.

[for this askbox game if anyone else wants to send me a prompt]

[disdaidal]

Someone who constantly embarks on ship wars and fandom wank... doesn't sound too mentally stable. It's sad, really.

Dedicating all that energy and free time to arguing about fictional characters and their relationships, instead of channeling it into something more relaxing or creative, sounds destructive.

Seek help, please. Before it devours you completely.

[stardestroyer81]

🏳️‍🌈HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, Y'ALL!!! 🏳️‍⚧️

Just in time for this month's festivities, I've whipped up a set of seven pronoun pins drawn in the style of the North American Mega Man logo, as well as an additional eighth pin repping transgender rights! You can find them all over on my RedBubble store by clicking here!

(Pssst! If you would like to request a custom pronoun set pin in this style, feel free to DM me and I will add it to my store for you!)

[heybiji]

hi!!! i just wanted to say i really love all of your MASKS stuff. i'm something of a newbie when it comes to the TTRPG community, but MASKS seems to be not very well-known and i think that's a real shame. i'm a huge fan of old-school superhero-adjacent stuff, especially the silver- and bronze-age ones!

by the way, i was wondering if you'd be willing to share some tips for a first-time GM? you don't have to if you'd rather not! i just figured i'd try asking since i was planning on GMing a MASKS campaign for some of my friends later, but despite my decade's worth of roleplaying experience i've never been in a TTRPG campaign nor a GM (or similar) role before

Thank you so much!! I was just lamenting about how I felt bad for the MASKS tag because it is now flooded with all my npc nonsense hahah so this is really nice to hear.

It's awesome you're planning on running a MASKS game for your friends!! There is an indispensable post on twitter I saw that has a LOT of great tips for running MASKS that I recommend checking out. But for my own personal tips that are just me things, here's what I got. Sorry it's gonna be extremely long-winded, it may take a few months to read through it.

(Note: I am also hugely into RP and probably put more into it than what is necessary, especially with MASKS which is meant to be able to be played out of the box. It was definitely not played out of the box in our case because I require a lot out of myself and everyone else to feel good about running something. if anyone else wants to continue seeing me as a normal human being please don't click the Keep Reading)

Since you're running it, make the world interesting to you. If the world runs around themes you're personally interested in then you'll have a much easier time coming up with answers on the fly. For me, themes I'm interested in that lend themselves well to a superhero world: money, power, family, celebrity, media, the 24 hour news cycle and the desensitization of violence. Because I'm interested in this stuff anyway, wrapping a world around them makes it much simpler for me to figure out how the world ticks and thus how the characters fit into it and how the world reacts to them, and I am DESPERATE to find out how the characters react to all the questions and expectations the world is imposing upon them.

Make sure your players have a good grasp of the tone of story so they can make characters that gel well within it. For me the tone is a lil more adult because I'm not personally into younger morality tale stories in tone, it's pretty grounded, and I think comedy and tragedy work hand in hand so I lean into them.

Talk. A lot. Talk about the characters, talk about the world. MASKS is fun because it's a LOT of talking and figuring out the narrative together. It's not a lot of crunchy mechanics, it's all around seeing how the characters react to the world narratively, all hurt and comfort and emotions which (for me) requires people to have a good grasp on their characters and the world. I like to give my players "homework" where I ask them a question involving their characters in some way like "what hero did your character look up to as a child?" so they get to come up with past heroes, or "How does your character feel about _____?" etc etc. The only fans are gonna be your table and fans love to talk so be the biggest fans of the PCs!!

Figure out your framing. I know in MASKS they suggest framing it like a comic book, and basically talking about the frames on screen. For me, because I'm more into movies and tv than comics, I frame it like that. So I have an active "camera" in play during sessions and will ask things like "would anyone like to grab the camera?" to encourage the players to put the character into a scene or "what does the audience see as the camera focuses in on your character in this emotional moment?" There is a LOT of playing up to the camera and framing the sessions as episodes of a show, so it's like, okay, you have several options but what is going to be interesting for the audience to see? I find this encourages the players to have their characters take bigger swings and feel comfortable letting us into how their character is feeling because it all looks GREAT on camera. The camera loves it. The PCs are the story after all.

Because I frame it a show, I also like to play individual ending songs over the "credits" at the end of each episode. So I asked my players to make playlists for their characters so if I feel an episode had a lot of emotional focus on one character in particular, I can play one of their songs at the end of the episode! I also made a general MASKS playlist with a bunch of songs from the era we set it in (2004) to pull from. It's a fun little addition that I really enjoy and that I hope makes it all feel more special.

The Dino Donut Effect: create landmarks in your world. (OK THIS IS GONNA BE LONG BUT WORK WITH ME HERE) They don't have to be locations, more solid landmarks of the story that the characters can refer back to and lean on to make the world feel more "real." I call it the Dino Donut Effect because in our world the thing that made everything click into place was talking out the backstory of one of the PC's figuring out they had the power negation ability. We were talking one night trying to figure it out; we wanted the character to fall out of a building and be caught by a flying superhero and accidentally turn off their powers, so they toss the kid to another flying supe whose powers also get turned off. But we were like... holy shit what is the height of a building needed that can handle this much action in the air without them hitting the ground in 3 seconds. So after a long night of talking about terminal velocity and looking at Splat Calculators we figured out the height of the building, and we needed them to crash into something that wouldn't fuckin kill them. The first suggestion was a truck full of bananas. Nah. We landed on a giant balloon that could take the impact. And the balloon became a giant T-Rex holding a donut that was the mascot of the city's beloved decades old donut shop Dino Donut. And so we decided that one of the two flying supes grabbed onto the kid and the other and flew into the giant balloon to try and keep them all alive, which destroyed the balloon, which was a city institution, and there was a crowd of children there that day that saw their friend Dino Donut die. Killed by a superhero. The balloon deflated loudly so it sounded like Dino Donut was screaming in agony. All the kids were traumatized (screaming crying throwing up), the city was furious because everyone loved Dino Donut, it was constantly in the news cycle, and it ruined the career of the supe that "killed Dino Donut." AND THEN THEY REPLACED THE DINO DONUT BALLOON WITH A LAME "UPDATED DESIGN" DINO DONUT STATUE which everyone hates and people consider to be a memorial to the old Dino Donut. ANYWAY, the Dino Donut effect is that now all the PCs have one single incident to refer back to that they all have feelings about. A couple of them were there that day and heard Dino Donut scream, one is now the protege of the disgraced superhero that killed Dino Donut so she feels uncomfortable talking about it, there's the kid that was saved that day but was sworn to secrecy by the supe so no one would find out about his power negation ability, and then there's the kid that wasn't there because she's an alien that just arrived to earth and now the kids have to explain the incident to her with all their varying opinions. Now the PCs' meeting spot is at a Dino Donut. Having this one solid incident that is both funny and kind of goes into the themes of the world has been an absolute treat. Creating "landmarks" like that in the world has done so much and now I'm like okay I'm gonna try to do this moving forward with any other thing I run.

anyway these are my extremely specific to me tips. my RP standards are kind of high which makes me a bit of a terror but also when the flowers bloom from it it feels GREAT. i'm not sure if this will help but hopefully there is something there that can be useful!

MASKS is fun and simple once you get the hang of it, though, so I'm sure whatever you do you and your players will have a lot of fun! especially if you're someone who is into RP which is the background I'm coming from too; MASKS is extremely narrative! i'll be looking in the tag for your game hehe

(The Day Dino Donut Died art by JD)

[daunsun]

I guess this counts as my (eventual) revival lmao

hopefully this should help/put an end to my artblock for the last year or so

[redstarfish-art]

Me: I wonder if fics about the Red Robin run have gotten more popular yet. Ao3: Oh you have no idea.

[oifaaa]

Bruce: Perfect. Now my second son can wear full-body armor and pants when he’s following me around in Gotham. // Dick Grayson: Hey Jason. You wanna be cool like your big brother :)

Honestly I buy that the real reason why Bruce was against Jason becoming Robin was purely the lack of protection and then dick just shows up out of no where not only telling jason he can be Robin but gifting him the exact same Robin outfit dick wore short shorts and all

[princyvish]

A shadow and a puppeteer, what they do.

I actually have a second version of this but with blue flames and I genuinely can't choose between the two... Fire version under cut!