#just trust me on this one guys

[soaqrudyz]

soap is white and mexican but he doesn’t look mexican at all

he didn’t really hide it, he just didn’t outright tell anyone, and anyway it was in his file so he didn’t feel the need to advertise it. he spoke spanish well enough bc of his grandma’s insistence that all her children teach their children as to not forget their heritage, it was a fun little tidbit that he kept close to himself, so when las almas came around and he grew closer to the vaqueros, he figured he’d play a little prank

it was harmless! they’d go about the day as they usually do, and then out of nowhere he’d break into flawless spanish with ale & rudy and have a good long laugh at how stunned they’d be. it all goes according to plan until rudy, clueless, starts positively gushing ab him and his smile and his silly accent right in front of his face. he has no clue what to do other than to act like he has no idea what rudy’s saying, so that’s what he does. it goes on like that for weeks - rudy talking ab his muscles or his eyes and him pretending he wasn’t blushing up to his ears

it comes to a head in the middle of a shootout, they aren’t advancing and the enemy aren’t retreating and they need something big fast. alejandro calls to some stray vaqueros to move their position so soap could throw actual bricks of c4 at them like a madman and light them up from behind his cover. his mistake? he doesn’t wait for ale to relay it to him in english, he just goes and does it once their comrades were clear. there’s a moment of confused (and mortified if you count rodolfo, who was directly to his right) eye contact, then the explosion, then nothing. they corner him when he gets back to base and he’s forced to tell them everything. alejandro laughs and compliments his pronunciation before leaving him and rudy to talk it out.

he ends up with a bruise on his arm from where the older punched him, and a few hickies that poke out from just beneath his shirt collar

[ourpleman]

I'm adding Han and Leia to my pantheon of ships that are all just a little bit similar while each giving me something new and shiny. I think I'm up to seven now

[janus-stanus]

oh, one more thing actually-

if you’re a sanders sides fan, you should read this book:

i read it when i was in elementary or middle school and i think it fundamentally shaped my tastes in fiction, or at least predisposed me to a few specific tropes.

it’s a story from the perspective of an imaginary friend, sustained by his human’s belief in him, who becomes the only one who can save the kid from one of his teachers/caretakers.

i just got this physical copy last week at a book sale (i originally read a library copy), which is what got me thinking about it again, but i believe a version of it has also been uploaded to the internet archive. if you can, i really really recommend giving it a chance. it’s equally heartbreaking and heart-healing.

[egg-on-the-run]

He laughs like he's up to no good 😭😭 I KNOW people think he's meaner than he is I KNOW the new shirai ryu members think he's gonna yell at them and he turns out to be a total sweetheart

tomas vrbada’ s laugh. 🥹

[starcurtain]

Please someone redraw this with Dr. Ratio and Aventurine because this is the exact vibe they have in my head post-Penacony.

[weirdglassthing]

Don’t give a mouse a cookie but it’s don’t give an artist a canon detail about a character anyways torbeks favorite movie!!

Sorry for inactivity but I’ve got some FIRE things coming up 🫡

[kermdoeswriting]

Bruce Wayne's a Foster Parent. Also he avoids death a lot so a dead person can usually tell if a humans meant to have died but didn't.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bruce you know I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't have to but-"

Bruce just sighed from his side of the phone, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Nobody ever really expects to get a phone call nearing 3 am but exceptions had to be made when you were a legal foster parent and also a part-time secret super hero. If it wasn't one thing calling for him it was the other.

On the other side of the phone, Bruce heard the caseworker, Roni, chuckle.

"It's just for 3 nights and half of the day after, but I need you to be prepared for something before I can pass them off to you."

Bruce sat upright now on his bed, attentively listening to her words. Usually the kids didn't really come with any pre-warnings from the Caseworker themselves, letting anything about each Foster kid be said inside of their personal files that got sent along with them.

But when she gave out this information it was usually important. The last time Bruce had gotten a warning like this it was for Jason which was ages ago it feels at this point.

"What is it?"

"The kids are-" Her voice trailed off, like as if she was still searching for the right words to say. "They've been through what I can honestly only describe as the equivalent to a meta-kid trafficking lab"

Bruce shifted as he heard the driving continue on the other side of the phone.

"They're very guarded because of what they went through and they might display.. unusual behavior. More unusual then a meta-kids behavior after such a situation would be, but don't let it fool you! The kids are really sweet beyond being afraid."

Bruce frowns at the descriptions before replying to her, mentally trying to prepare himself for the idea of these kids and what they might have went through.

"I'll make a note of it then. Thank you, Roni"

"No, thank you, Bruce. I really appreciate this last minute placement. We'll be by really soon"

He was left with a click as he removed himself off his bed and threw the covers to the side of him. Alfred would want to know that they would have 2 new guests in the manor, at the very least to greet them and have rooms prepared even if they didn't need to have them prepared further then what they already were.

It was less then 5 minutes later that Bruce found himself, with Alfred, greeting the temporary fosters at the front door. Roni looked tiredly at them as she pushed the kids front and center.

Bruce could relate heavily.

"Hello Danny, Ellie. It's nice to meet you both, I'm Bruce Wayne."

Danny just stared at the mans outstretched hand for a second before he turned to look up at him, a pinched look on his face. Ellie matched his expression, although being a bit more subtle about it as she looked over Bruce as a whole.

Eerily, Bruce felt like his very soul was being judge the longer the kids stared at him. He also felt a sense of familiarity with these two kids the longer this continued.

They seemed detached rather than afraid like their caseworker had explained earlier, more so viewing the world as if they were outside of it rather then in it in any way.

Danny was quick to glare at him after another moment, "You're a fruit-loop, aren't you?"

Ellie broke from her own scanning almost immediately when she heard Danny's comment, cackling beside him before shoving him off with her arm. The action made Bruce smile as he took his arm back and placed it by his side.

Alfred also looked amused between the pair of siblings before turning attention to the task at hand again. Bruce just smiled at his pseudo-fathers usual fondness over children, knowing he was being reminded of his own grandchildren.

"This is Alfred. He's going to be the one to show you over to your rooms for the next few nights." Alfred greeted the kids in the same polite way he usually greeted all guests before he leaned down and extended his hands towards their belongings. He didn't grab their belongings just remained leaning over them before questioning the kids if they would like help to take their stuff to their rooms.

Bruce only really saw it faintly and if it were any other moment he might have ignored it as a sleepless hallucination, but for some reason he noticed the change immediately. The twins eyes go from a darker blue to a flashing bright green.

As if alarmed by the sudden movement towards their belongings.

Danny was quick to catch his own staring as well, eyes flashing back to blue for only a second before reverting back to green. Almost as if to give off some kind of warning.

Ellie noticed his staring immediately and shoved Danny again, this time more forceful for his attention before turning to whisper something to him when she had him back.

Bruce felt his skin crawl before turning away to face their caseworker, not really understanding anything they were saying beyond hearing a few words and feeling their eyes look between each other and his back.

Death Touched was an especially new description, and one that stuck in his head the second he heard it.

Bruce waited until the kids were guided away by Alfred before talking to their caseworker officially and waking her up from her half delirious tired drop-off.

"Hey Roni? Is there any chance we can extend the Fenton kids stay?"

There was something going on here with these kids and he was going to get to the bottom of it. One way or another.

[pinacoladamatata]

blink and you'll miss it moments around skyhold....

[just-null]

HELLO HANTENGU NATION (5 people)

I'VE MADE AN [unofficial] HEIGHT CHART FOR MYSELF

Hantengu: 5"5 (166cm) Sekido: 5"9 (175cm) Karaku: 5"9 (175cm) Urogi: 5"9 (175cm) Aizetsu: 5"9 (174cm) Zohakuten: 5"3 (160cm) Urami: 8"5 (257cm)

[little aftermath under the cut]

they're so annoying. peace is nonexistent... they're the best ever.

[dunkledog]

can you believe it guys? gay people are finally real. and so are birds. birds are real. i promise.

the valve head guy spoke to me in a joan of arc vision and told me himself that these things are real now.

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[s0fter-sin]

cw mild horror

johnny moves into a new house with his dog riley after his last relationship implodes

it's on the older side, a fixer upper; a project he can lose himself in so he doesn't have to let himself think of how his ex used him up just to toss him aside. the backyard's huge with a cluster of trees ringing the property that look beautiful in the sunset. it even has a basement, rarely seen in the uk, that's perfect to store all the supplies he'll need to fix the place up

the only downside is how far away it is from everything; it takes a good hour to drive to anything

but johnny has riley and that's all he needs

he talks to him as he works on the place; promises a new start for them both, that this could be the place they always needed. sure it's old and the groans and scratches that occasionally come from the walls can be a bit unsettling and the smell coming from the dumbwaiter is… concerning but johnny needs this place to work; he needs something to go right and be his and if that thing is a slightly creepy house then so be it

it was a steal; he still can't believe how cheap he got it considering the size of the block but the realtor seemed all too happy to be rid of it. she couldn’t tell him much about the place beyond the size of the land and that it only belonged to two people since it was built; the original owner who built it before it went abandoned for a decade or so until it was bought by a young couple who owned it for over thirty years

he asked about the couple, if they were happy in the long years they lived here, but she just said it wasn’t her place to say. johnny just shrugged; guess confidentiality extends beyond doctors these days

riley sticks by his side as he evaluates the house, figuring out what needs to be done and what to prioritise. he gives himself a week to wallow, living out of boxes with battery powered lanterns to light his - admittedly dismal - dinners before he gets to work. he decides to start with the wiring and old electricity box in the basement. riley occasionally gets distracted by some smell in the old vents but always coming back when johnny starts talking again

it's late by the time he gets the lights to finally stay on so he decides to shower in his newly lit bathroom and turn in

he's laying in bed, hair still wet, when he hears the scratch of riley's nails on the floorboards and sighs, swinging an arm down the side of the bed for pets if riley wants them; wiggling them in invitation when feels his breath on his fingers

"am i doing the right thing?" he asks him. "just- up and leavin'? i don't miss him. i don't... but... should i have tried to make it right 'stead of runnin' with my tail between my legs?"

riley's breaths are all that answer him

then he remembers his ex's apathetic face when he walked in on him in their living room; when he looked him right in the eyes and didn't even bother to stop his moans or hide the legs slung around his waist

"that shouldn't be on me," he growls. "he's the one who decided to nail that goddamn tart- i shouldn't be the one to have to fix shit. he should've been the one on his knees beggin' me to stay."

and he did beg- begged him not to sell the flat he owned and already paid off, the one his ex never spent a dime on rent on yet still had the audacity to ask to stay until he found a new place to fuck his side piece in

"just... why didn't he try?" he whispers. "...why wasn't i enough?"

johnny flinches as riley's tongue laps at his fingers, thick and wet and gross, and he huffs a laugh. "you're right," he smiles. "we're better off without him. just you and me, aye boy?"

he doesn't stop licking and johhny laughs again, pulling his hand back to wipe off on the sheets

"nasty boy," he chuckles. "least you love me."

a whine comes from the bedroom door and johnny frowns, looking over as the door swayed open; he thought he treated those hinges already, the sound was driving him nuts

bloody old place, he groans, sitting up-

and freezes when riley cocks his head at him from the doorway

johnny's throat constricts, ice flooding his system while the warm, wet saliva still on his hand burns. his neck protests as he slowly turns to his left, his quickening breaths roaring in his ears; everything in him begging him to not to look-

and screams when he sees a pair of brown eyes and wet lips spread in a wild grin before the man throws himself back into the vent in the wall

the same scratching and groaning johnny’s heard since the day he moved in following him as he crawls somewhere inside the house

[tarancho]

i don't know if anyone else sees my vision but the bride and dr. phosphorous are roommates who are co-parenting a dog they found on the side of a road (weasel). please tell me you get what i'm saying. propaganda under the cut (spoilers for ep. 3)

[lichenbug]

tobys incredibly random rarepair propaganda cheeridance edition

[ratatatastic]

If you could be anyone of your teammates who would it be and why? Panthers Cut.

[syn4k]

Individual member perspectives (I reccomend starting with Lucky and Gallade first):

Gallade (YouTube) Lucky (YouTube) Skiddle (YouTube) Royal (YouTube, livestreamed) Stardust (YouTube, Twitch, livestreamed) Keys (YouTube, episodes & livestreams)

Art and animatics:

Moth (@moth-yknowtheartist, YouTube) Leucas (@minecraftcherrywoodrobot, YouTube) Keys (@syn4k, YouTube)