#it's challenging but so fascinating

[pencilofawesomeness]

Okay so a bunch of you are definitely familiar with fun little FT in TWST AU stuff, and with all the enabling, I feel like it's something of a group effort at this point.

So riddle me this

I've figured out the other dorms, but Savanaclaw was giving me a pause, because it's the dorm for repression, so I got options. (Though my first instinct was to give Loke the whole housewarden treatment, lol. He's definitely a contender.)

Though I also haven't fully developed everyone's in-story backstories yet so how emotionally messed up they are is up in the air. So I have some biases but without divulging any of my thoughts just yet, I want to know who y'all think is the most likely to snap.

What is an overblot?

(For those are watching me spin in my chair and are here for the FT portion.) Long story short it is characterized by:

—having a large supply of magic and being a good mage —having years worth of emotional stress and/or trauma, built up and ready to burst —a suitable impetus that forces all that emotional stress out in the open, usually in a dramatic way, and usually while using way too much magic —and then it is a matter of getting overrun by the icky stuff and gaining a super-powered evil form and then almost dying in the most dramatic way possible, usually while inflicting unspeakable AoE violence

[avelera]

Laois from Dungeon Meshi legit feels like someone said the generic blond main character guy in a fantasy story can never actually be an interesting character in his own right and Ryoko Kui went, “Oh, bet?”

[sangrefae]

mithrun + almost a tragic hero

[puppyeared]

whatever. go my scarab

ive been watching scruffys pikmin 4 playthrough (go check it out!!!!)

[chronurgy]

I really love that gale can actually Do It. He can actually become a god. Mortals seeking to become gods usually fail which makes it easy to write them off as over ambitious and consumed by hubris, to say that of course they were never going to succeed, they never had a chance. Icarus flying too close to the sun and all that. But Gale does it. He succeeds. And how do we interpret that? How do we read icarus's story without the fall? Can we really call it hubris, call it excessive pride and self confidence, when it works in the end? After all, it's not bragging if you can back it up

[scoobydoodean]

Sam + Human Sacrifice 1/? | 3.12, 3.15, 4.22, 7.03, 9.03, 10.19, 10.23, 11.01

[ivanttakethis]

You want Ivan to live for IvanTill.

I want Ivan to live for Ivan.

We are NOT the same!!!

[elderberries-and-honey]

Winifred’s transition into motherhood was easier than she had expected. The twins were content spending time in her arms, and kept each other entertained with their unintelligible babbling back and forth when she needed to put her attention elsewhere. 

Since Lawrence was busy with his schooling, Winifred’s bond with the twins grew deep and both of them seemed to gravitate more towards their mother. Sometimes, it almost seemed as though they preferred Sister Eunice and Eloise over their father whenever they came for a visit.

[fear-ne]

this is such an obvious take but if orym doesn’t get a “the gods took everything from you…and you took everything from me” moment,,,

[luv-indigo]

OLNF Week Day 5: Sci-fi

this was heavily inspired by those alien cat memes. in this au, i like to think nadine and cheyomi would be siblings. they were hatched from an egg or something. incubator buddies?? :3c

wyd if two aliens pull up to golden grove in a space shuttle?? @olnfweek2024

these two are on their first mission on earth to conduct research on the local environment. they’re not supposed to interact with the humans but they’re just so fascinating. they can’t help it if they watch the locals from afar (especially two particularly interesting individuals) and are incidentally spotted…. oops.

nadine and cheyomi panic at first thinking they blew their mission but to their surprise, the two humans approach them. they declare a new side mission! observe (befriend) the two humans!

[thisisasundrysideblog]

[whumpuary]

it's so interesting to me how popular the dialogue prompts are

there are 101 total prompts, 13 of which are dialogue prompts. and yet, so far, they make up half of the current top 20 votes.

[carriesthewind]

.

[neighborhoodlum]

I can't stop thinking about Art and Patrick as yin and yang (respectively), two halves of one whole without which the other would not exist, meaning Tashi will never be able to get all of what she needs from either of them regardless of an injury & how that implies they really ARE a package deal because they balance each other out in ways all THREE of them need.

I can't stop thinking about Tashi, Art, & Patrick as the three-body problem, Tashi being the third object in their orbit that throws that yin-yang balance off entirely which in turn renders them chaotic and unpredictable, impossible to quantify yet wholly reliant on one another's gravitational pull to keep them grounded (all the while knowing any tiny variable change can and will send them spiraling).

I can't stop thinking about Tashi and tennis as star-crossed lovers, fated yet doomed from the start by a momentary lapse in judgment, by a would-have-been that rejected the only love language she values most, by a star that loves her too much and it not enough, soulmates forced apart by all of this like some kind of cosmic punishment.

[laundrybiscuits]

Found myself reading some old Inception fic and felt the urge to poke at an AU idea—I know ST fandom skews a little young, so I genuinely don’t know how many people will even get this. If there are Inception primers out there, I haven’t bothered to find them, so…you’re on your own, kids. 

“Absolutely not. I do my own forges.” Eddie sweeps the file off the table and directly into the trashcan; admittedly, it’s not the most mature thing he’s ever done, but Henderson’s getting on his last goddamned nerve. 

The little twerp has the fucking audacity to roll his eyes and groan, like Eddie’s the one being unreasonable. “I know this guy, don’t be a dick. He can do it. Don’t you wanna focus on your super special architect stuff?”

“What you and every other dumbass dilettante drowser don’t seem to grasp is that my architecture is alive, and I breathe life into it via my meticulously crafted characters. I create richly textured worlds, Henderson, and I populate them myself. That’s why I’m the best in the fucking business: because I understand that the people and the setting are one and the same, and I can handle both.”

“Eddie.” Henderson crouches to grab the file out of the trash, and smacks it back down on the table. “I’m running this team, and I’m saying I don’t want anything like what happened in Munich to ever happen again. Okay?”

“Low blow, kid,” snaps Eddie. “Munich wasn’t on me.” 

“I know, jeez. I just…” Henderson takes a second to tap the loose sheets in the file back into place, then stands there with his lips pressed together like he’s keeping something in. After a moment, he just says, “This isn’t going to be Munich. Because Steve’s going to be here.”

———

It’s not Munich. It’s not Munich at all. It is the furthest fucking thing from Munich possible. 

Eddie’s never had a job go that smoothly—and it’s not down to Henderson’s obsessive prep, because it should’ve been a slippery one. The kind of job that twisted partway through into something frustratingly unexpected, forcing them to improvise and take whatever half-win they could squeeze out of the mark’s subconscious while dodging completely unexpected security. 

Instead, it’s so incredibly not-Munich that the client gives them a fucking bonus, and when was the last time that happened? The bonus is generous enough that Eddie’s share can cover a whole new safehouse in Melbourne, which should have been great news, something to celebrate, except for the absolutely unholy amount of smugness now radiating from Henderson.

Eddie avoids the I-told-you-so conversation as long as he can, but he can’t run forever.

“I told you so,” says Henderson, flopping unceremoniously into the dark wooden chair next to Eddie.

“This is a library, dude. Keep your fuckin’ voice down,” says Eddie, without much hope. He’d heard Henderson was supposed to be meeting up with Sinclair in Lima this week; so much for that intel.

Henderson waves a dismissive hand, gesturing vaguely at the domed skylight high overhead. “It’s not like a library library. It’s basically a museum.”

“The goddamn State Library of Victoria is absolutely one hundred percent a library library, genius. See all the books? But also, do you think people go around yelling in museums?”

“Maybe they should! What we should be focusing on now, though, is that I was right about Steve, and I think it’s important for our working relationship that you acknowledge I was right.”

“I don’t have to acknowledge shit,” says Eddie, slumping down and ignoring the glares they’re starting to get from everyone in the atrium. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an egomaniac, kid? I don’t even get why you’re so hot on the guy, anyway. He’s like—the least imaginative forger I’ve ever met.”

It comes out a little harsher than he’d meant it. It’s just that forgers, as a people, tend to be easily swept into flights of fancy.

Eddie’s always sort of thought it was a requirement of the profession: when he’s inhabiting a character, part of his mind is always working to generate the little details that make them feel like a whole person. Their secret fears and even more secret hopes. How they deal with boredom or anger, what their gut reactions are. The small gaps between how they see themselves and how others see them. That’s where Eddie thrives, and he thinks that if he were less hooked on the magic of spinning up entire worlds for marks to wander through, he might forge full-time, just for the thrill of riding that uncertainty. It’s how he was taught, but clearly, Steve learned something different.

What Steve does isn’t really classical forging—not in the way Eddie thinks about it, usually. Steve just…walks into a situation, says some stuff, maybe gives the mark a smile all warm and private like a whispered secret. And then the mark folds. It’s maddening how easy Steve makes it look. Oh, he’ll pull on the right costumes and tweak his physicality a little, but it’s always still just Steve underneath. 

Maybe that’s the trick. Eddie’s forges work because he crafts lavishly detailed lies; Steve’s forges work because there’s some kind of real, solid honesty at the core. 

“I’m going to ignore the hurtful thing you just said because I know you hate to admit it when I’m right and you’re wrong,” Henderson informs him. “You really gotta work on that. More importantly, I’ve got a lead on a new job, and Steve already said yes.”

It’s not like Eddie needs the money. Henderson’s a nightmare to work with. And there’s the, y’know. The Steve Harrington of it all. Eddie has a million reasons to say no.

“Yeah, whatever,” he says instead. “When do we start?”

[quatregats]

More toxic yuri Hornblower/Barbara be upon ye, I redrew them because the last picture didn't get the vibes that I wanted