#let's go with --

[probablybadrpgideas]

Dwayne "The Asteroid" Johnson.

­This is his pokemon evolution

[pokemon-npcs]

[suguwu]

i cannot for the life of me explain this better but i am currently obsessing with the idea of aventurine asking if you want to stop during sex bc of something he thought he saw in your face or your body language, and you can't help it.

"do you?" you ask, a little more tender than you mean to be.

(tenderness does something strange to aventurine, you've found. it slits him open. he curls back in on himself, a snail within a shell, and you don't see him for days, after.)

and something in him cracks open, a yawning canyon, a grave swallowing him down.

you think it might be the first time anyone's asked him that.

[rhytmrocket]

oh yeah uh

so i wanted to make a post about this much earlier than now but i forgot

but uh, in my rh au, ghosts exist. yeah. those who died/didn't make it, they are ghosts now. wahoo.

i imagine that they're semi-corporeal-- they can't be seen by living beings but can interact in small ways with the living world, like moving small objects, flickering lights, giving chills to anyone they phase through, classic horror movie type stuff

i actually don't know why i didn't mention this in the original post, i just kinda forgot i guess

so because of that, in my notes and concepts, i usually call the au "ghosted," as a sort of double-entendre. the games that didn't make it to megamix were "ghosted--" left behind, and they also became ghosts. i'm a genius, i know (sarcastic)

so there's your new possibilities for angst. have fun.

[perelka-l]

There was a sort of draw your ship as this here and I had those two suggested to me so... Yeah... Yeah... He would. (Congrats on your catch, Drayster~)

[ilovedthestars]

trick or treat... something spooooky :3

if only i'd ever written a single word of that Frankenstein AU idea...alas! i spent so long mulling this over, i don't really write horror and even like, suspense is rare for me and i think i've shared all the best examples of it.

so here is a more recent wip that i hope is written suspensefully!! to set the scene: a ghost ship has just been detected on the edge of Preservation space. It's drifting under no engine power and not responding to comm contacts. Murderbot goes with the station responder to check it out, and when they get close they pick up a short range "assistance needed" signal. Here's two snips, since they're short:

---

“So they were desperate.” “Yes.” “Why couldn’t we pick up the signal until we got this close? It’s not very good as a distress beacon.” I had also wondered about that, and I had an answer from my analysis of the signal. “It isn’t coming from a bot pilot. It matches the signal strength of a planetary rescue marker. We had similar ones on surveys. It’s meant for a hopper flying over an area to be able to locate a single lost human, not a ship in the middle of space.” “So the bot pilot is probably down, or it would be broadcasting a stronger signal.” “Probably. Or it’s playing dead.” “What’s your assessment?” “We can’t rule out that it’s a corporate decoy.” Indah made an I know, you’ve said that already face, but I wasn’t done. “We shouldn’t stop treating it as a potential threat, but I don’t think that’s the most likely scenario. I think a system failed, some panicked human managed to set off an emergency beacon, and then the ship lost power completely.” “So you think when we board it—“ “We’re going to find a lot of dead humans.”

[they board the ship, and find a lot of dead humans. they go exploring a little bit....]

The size and layout of the room was familiar. Just big enough for Indah and I to both squeeze in without her getting too close to me, but not much bigger. A cabinet in the corner that was tall enough to hold a set of armor. A locked crate to hold weapons and other security equipment. And in the corner— Indah took a step towards the chest-height white cube, looking puzzled. I said, “That’s a cubicle.” She froze. “For?” “For SecUnits.” Indah cursed under her breath. “Is there one inside?” “It’s shielded to scans.” I moved towards the cubicle, and she got out of my way. I had an unpleasant guess about what was still drawing power even before I put my hand on the casing. There was a faint buzz. It was running. I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. There was a SecUnit inside. My threat assessment spiked, even though I had anticipated a high probability that the cubicle was occupied. The SecUnit had its eyes closed, and it didn’t move when I opened the door. I watched it for a few seconds, and then said, “It’s in stasis.” Indah had one hand on her baton, like that was going to do anything against a SecUnit. “What does that mean?” “It’s like sleeping. Or…cryo pods, like on the generation ships…?” I wondered if those actually worked the way they did in the dramatization of Preservation’s founding that I’d watched with my humans once. “It’s partly offline. It will only wake up if a system tells it to.” It still hadn’t reacted to me opening the door. The cubicle didn’t seem to be kicking it into a restart. “It probably disabled the automatic restart and sealed itself in here. It was trying to escape the contamination.” “Clever,” Indah muttered.

[starlightvelaris]

Lestappen roses au but it’s a pov switch and gender swap (FEMALE MAX)

the genderswap roses au wouldn't work imo, but! there's def a f!Max in the works (@arkhammaid can vouch for that) and it's going to be great

for the pov switch, the last fic (for now? maybe?) in the series will have a bit of pov switch, so there's that!

[beevean]

feel like elaborating a bit on my new Helia thoughts, using this post by @legendarybelmont as a springboard (sorry bestie if you don't like this lol)

I'm starting to feel about it in a vaguely similar way as I do for Lenector, as horrible as it sounds. Let me explain: NCFV really wants you to think N!Hector and Lenore are good for each other because they sass each other and understand each other's plight in a world that doesn't respect them, right? But it conveniently glosses over all the unhealthy aspects like the massive power imbalance, Lenore's past abuse and promises of using him as a sex slave, Lenore's current self-centeredness, and even N!Hector ruining Lenore's life with his plan that lead to the destruction of the Styria council. So the story is uncomfortable to say the least, but if someone cared, they could appreciate it as a massively toxic ship built on shared misery and trauma bonding and ignore the canon ship tease.

Helia is kind of like that, except ofc that Julia did nothing wrong :P but similarly, the story does make sure to show you how good Hector and Julia are for each other: their personalities mash well (Julia is delightfully witty but still empathetic, which makes for a nice combination with the comically serious, angery but also polite Hector), they are both connected to Isaac, they are both familiar with a life of shunning, they both end the game grieving (the same person too, allegedly), and you can imagine them supporting each other and understanding each other like no one else could - I love Rosaly, but I pointed out that she simply can't understand Hector's past and nature, only accept it.

But then you remember that Hector is still grieving Rosaly when he accepts to live with a woman who looks identical to her. You remember that he tried to let himself die - the second time in the span of three years. You remember that Julia is grieving the man Hector wanted to kill, and indirectly killed. You remember that Hector completely ignored Julia's pleas to try to save her brother, her only family, and as extra spite he simply willed himself to not be cursed. You remember that Julia has the tendency to hide her feelings behind a polite smile, and Hector may not be as socially blind as Alucard, but he's also rather self-centered.

Now, I don't really like the trope of projecting your lost love onto a living one, a big grievance I have with the series as a whole lol - but it's one thing when Dracula does it, because he's centuries old and highly self-centered as well and you can make the argument that he didn't really respect Lisa if he went on a human killing rampage in her name :P there's no intended moral ambiguity with Hector.

But we can go beyond the intentions of canon, and have fun deconstructing the unhealthy parts of their future relationship. Somehow, they're both so good and so bad for each other, in a very unique way: they understand each other but they might feed into each other's trauma and be constant triggers. I'm sure they can eventually reach the part where they heal from their past, but it's going to take a long time.

(personally I'm not too keen on doing this because Hector suffered more than enough by the end of CoD, and if I wanted to see him suffer and develop all sorts of mental illnesses in a relationship I can stick with Draactor. But it's just me. Sure let's have fun with unhealthy m/f ships too lol)

[mikimeiko]

Day 1 - Trough Switzerland to Liechtenstein and Austria

Time for the big summer trip :D

First step: from Milan to Vaduz (Liechtenstein) by bus

The bus driver tells us ahead of time when there will be a panoramic view in case anyone wants to take a picture <3

We spent almost an hour at the Bellinzona stop because a passenger got into a fight with the driver and the driver refused to leave with that passenger on board, then the police got involved, then flixbus headquarters made him take the passenger. I honestly have no idea what happened between and who was in the right but it was... eh.

Switzerland is INSANE. Like, its just so breathtakingly beautiful it doesn't even feel real.

Vaduz (Liechtenstein) is a weird place.

Tiny capital of this tiny country, it is literally a miniature city, including those commercial buildings that are usually several stories tall but... smaller. AND surrounded by all these amazing mountains and pastoral landscapes, creating a kind of unsettling dissonance (also quite fun).

Since my flixbus was "delayed" I had time just for a quick walk around the city center, and I ended up buying a pretzel with butter, a slice of plum cake and a herbal soda at the supermarket (I love these herbal sodas so much, I am very sad you can't find them so easily where I live but I always drink them when available!).

There are cows everywhere! Well, not EVERYWHERE. But I've seen more cows today than in my entire summer trip last year in Italy XD and there were also sheep? Like, in a small patch of grass near the road? <3

After the endless bus journey of this morning, I have to say I'm very happy to be on a train again <3 on to Innsbruck!

I am in awe of the beauty of the Alps. How can they be so incredibly spectacular all the time! So different from stretch to stretch but still unequivocally alpine? So many trees! So many shades of green! So many rocks! So much water! AAAAAHHHH

Innsbruck is big, maybe slightly bigger than I thought it would be. It's also very pretty, even overcast.

(I don't know why this is the only picture I took XD I was hoping for better light tomorrow morning but still XD)

But everything takes longer than anticipated and suddenly is later than I thought and I'm tired but I have to buy a couple of things and I have to eat something, but I thought there were some food stalls near the market but they're closed? In the end I got a sausage with cheese in it of which I forgot the name with a good sauce (of which I also forgot the name XD) and bread, and it's a little better now.

It's been a long day and I barely slept last night, so I think I'm gonna go back to my hostel and relax.

[blue-thief]

i've started pantsing my writing which has been great

until i've had to cut out a reallyyy good scene bc it contradicts something i wrote twenty pages before

[thatdamnpipsqueak]

Man

It really sucks being in a spot where you're upset about something someone said, but expressing that or getting clarification is way more likely to lead to discomfort/further problems than it is to lead to anything good.

I am glad I've grown as a person and am better at looking at these situations and going "okay so what upside am I looking for?" and realizing the answer is "well, I just want catharsis; nothing good actually can come of this."

But also on some level I wish I still had that willingness to say "Eh, good enough reason to potentially blow this up."

[plusthreerabbits]

send this to the twelve nicest people you know or who seem to have a good heart and if you get five back you must be pretty awesome.💌🖤

Sorry for taking so long to post this! Thank you for sending this to me (๑˘︶˘๑)

[eirasummersart]

I haven't talked about Akshaya's ship here, I think? (or did I?). Either way, the most solified ship for her I have right now is with Epel. And I randomly listened again to one of the old Love Live! songs I still like and thought it really fit Akshaya, specially when they're already together or almost there. It's a cute and adorable song, so I'm sharing this with you all, here you go:

If anyone wants me to ramble more about how the Epel/Akshaya ship goes, you can tell me here or send asks~ I just need an excuse and I'll ramble XDDDDD

Also, I need a ship name 🤔

[wyldblunt]

glyn and alan are starting to get tired. frankly. merrit and lorelei on the other hand had a MUCH worse time than the older commanders in orr, really got put thru the wringer (like all sylvari tbh) in HoT, but by the time PoF rolls around they're like. really hitting their stride

glyndwr and alan are used to carrying most fights with their super flashy overpowered Heroes of Tyria special boy combat maneuvers but there's a point during the battles at the tomb of primeval kings where glyn kind of. looks over. and notices merrit + lorelei are like, Fine

glyn: glyn: glyn: [hands on hips] well, look. they're fine alan: well for goodness' sake don't STOP FIGHTING, but, alan: glyn: alan: oh. oh, dear. look at them go

[wordsandrobots]

I think After War: Gundam X is my third favourite Gundam show.

This is way behind Iron-Blooded Oprhans and Turn A Gundam, but compared to the others I’ve watched, it’s definitely more to my tastes. I think it could have benefited from the extra episodes it didn’t get, especially to expand on some of the initial space-based adventures, and it has a lot of the usual issues I have with the franchise (erratically written female characters, a half-arsed approach to condemning structural oppression, and throwing out the ‘horrors of war’ maundering whenever it’s more plot expedient to mow down mooks like there’s no tomorrow). Overall, however, it packs in a much more coherent plot than predecessor Gundam Wing, some charming characters, and a few very deft thematic flourishes.

For example, there’s an episode early on where our heroes have to help save a psychic dolphin and her pod from being turned into an advanced sonar system. Now you might think that’s a very silly sentence and you’d be correct. But the point is, this is something the Federation (emphatically the bad guys here) developed during the war this series takes place after, in order to have more effective underwater combat suits. They took dolphin brains and turned them into spare parts. And a couple episodes later, we discover this is their attitude to psychic humans too, which seems to be the pay-off until we reach the end of the series and, well, let’s just say the approach goes all the way to the top.

In fact, Gundam X is very concerned with the exploitation of psychics both by those who treat them as tools to be used and those who venerate them as humanity’s next evolutionary step. And oh gods, this means I have to write about Newtypes.

[I shall put the rest of this under a cut because I genuinely think this is one series it’d be worth going in blind on and also because this will ramble a bit.]

All right, let’s get this out of the way: Newtypes as depicted throughout both the original 1979 Gundam and this show (which essentially starts as a bad AU to Gundam ‘79/the Universal Century) are humans with extraordinary abilities, who are theorised to be an evolutionary adaptation to living in space. Newtypes have greater levels of awareness, cognition and empathy. That is to say, they can variously gain a deeper understanding of the people around them or be really, really good at driving giant robots. They are in-universe hypothetical until war breaks out and suddenly a lot of people are very interested in the military applications of psychic powers. Also occasionally people get their brains blasted to mush by the weight of too many people dying near them at once and/or are able to unify humanity’s brainwaves in order to atomise asteroids dropped by manipulative blondes with eco-fascistic tendencies. It’s a whole thing.

I am being a little glib here and I also don’t want to delve into the out-of-fiction meaning of Newtypes because I feel woefully unqualified to write about that. But for myself, considering the fiction as presented, I’ve always found Newtypes to suffer from the Jedi Problem: it’s fine and dandy to have quasi-mystical power that increases human connection but if you’re only going to show its applications in war, you’re smothering a lot of interesting potential in the concept.

This is primarily a problem of genre. Gundam is a series of war stories. It is deeply invested in fighting and conflict, and not merely because it’s financed in order to sell brightly coloured war machine kits to children and adults alike. There is nothing wrong with that per se but it limits what can be shown with respect to the doings of the magic people we’re repeatedly told are the heralds of a new age of understanding. Yes, we get to see lots of Newtypes get traumatised by their powers, or artificially created by nefarious powers-that-be, or occasionally bugger off to the end of time with their boy- and girlfriend after causing an untold amount of harm to everyone around them. But we never really get to see much in the way of non-military applications of this supposed ability to connect with others on a fundamental level. Even setting aside creative disillusionment, the very type of stories being told back the idea into a corner.

This is not to say the Gundam ‘79 derived fiction hasn’t made much hay of the in-universe tension between the status quo and the possibility of radical change. It’s kind of its one trick. But to me, it feels like diminishing returns and I end up longing for a story of Newtypes just . . . being. What does that kind of power look like when it’s not plugged into the latest giant robot suit and being sent off to punch whichever red-suited dork is trying it on this week.

Gundam X is not a story of Newtypes just being. It’s a setting where Newtypes are conscripted, manufactured or mutilated to be used as weapons. It’s a setting where one faction has proclaimed everyone in space to be a Newtype, in order to justify the wide-scale slaughter of anyone left living on Earth. And it’s a story in which, as it turns out, Newtypes do not actually exist.

Oh, there are people with unusual abilities. A girl who has prophetic visions. A pair of brothers with a psychic link. Ace pilots who glimpsed the future. But the ultimate revelation is that these are one-offs and the grand theory of advancing human evolution via living in space is so much hot air, dreamt up to further various agendas. And that makes a hell of a lot of sense in hindsight.

You see, throughout Gundam X we see a wide variety of supernatural abilities, but only some of these are classed as ‘proper’ Newtypes (resentment over this fuels the primary antagonists, the Frost brothers, who decide to burn down the world over being dismissed). As a viewer, you get pulled along by this without thinking too closely about it. But there are hints from the start (including a couple of ex-soldiers selling themselves as Newtypes while clearly not being anything special) that the term might be less than it seems. Amuro Ray-alike Jamil Neate’s stated goal is to protect Newtypes from oppression but he finds a grand total of one to safeguard in the entire series. Our hero, Garrod Ran, is an unusually gifted, empathic pilot who never gets the term applied to him. The working definition the world-dominating Federation are using is simply ‘can operate our patented robot control system’. Meanwhile the leader of the Space Rebellion has, as I said, declared everyone born in space a Newtype, making the existence of supposed Newtypes born on Earth very inconvenient. The term is at once over-specific and overly-wide, depending on who’s using it.

And in the end? Turns out the ‘first’ Newtype was some poor sod who could use that robot control system and got turned into a computer on the moon for their trouble. That was the source of the working definition and everything afterwards was just various people building castles in the sky. The powers are anomalous. Inexplicable, but not any kind of evolutionary leap. They just . . . happen. Every Newtype is their own distinct thing and not really an indication of anything very much other than fluke.

Which is actually pretty clever. It means the whole conflict is driven by people building taxonomies and raising certain things on to pedestals not because of something that definitely exists but because it suits their agendas to do so. It’s also a neat solution to the Jedi Problem, turning it around and saying, yes, these people only display their powers in combat because those looking for them only said those that were useful in war were actually Newtypes.

(I know the Gundam ‘79 and its sequels do stuff like this as well, but Gundam X has the advantage of making it the entire point, rather than wanting to have it both ways because it has the ending of Char’s Counterattack to deal with.)

Bit of a shame this all gets rushed out in the last couple of episodes due to the series running short. But perhaps that’s for the best, given there’s nowhere really to go once you’ve pulled the rug out from under everyone and demonstrated the antagonists’ motivation is fundamentally a hugely inappropriate reaction to a categorisation error.

Other observations:

Garrod Ran is fairly generic as protagonists go but I do find it amusing how he basically gloms on to every angsty teenager he encounters like they’re a precious baby in need of protecting. Including the one who was definitely trying to kill him when they met.

Tiffa’s arc would have worked much better if her attempts to define herself beyond her status as a Newtype had been emphasised more. Like, it’s sort of there, but it only comes to the fore at the very end.

Toniya and Ennil absolutely deserve to end up together and leave Witz and Roybea moping around a cornfield somewhere.

I really like the design of the Dauntless mobile suit. It’s an almost unsettling take on the GM model from the Unviersal Century. In fact, I generally appreciate seeing a Wing-esque aesthetic mapped backwards on to the original style, with greater emphasis on making the non-Gundam machines look that little bit off.

For all that I enjoyed this show, I really dearly wish Jamil hadn’t gone back to the Federation at the end. They make themselves utterly irredeemable across the course of the series and there isn’t any functional need to maintain them beyond the end. It’s a sour note, honestly, especially without any indication the rampant empire building across Earth is going to be reversed. But that’s the kind of pat assimilation ending Gundam seems to trade in more often than not, so it’s not a unique flaw.

Depths Of Minds Elevating. Huh. That’s a very long walk for what is itself a totally undescriptive acronym.

I am somewhat tempted to write Jamil/Lanslow fic. Not even necessarily Like That, but just to explore an older, more relaxed Amuro/Char dynamic in which both sides have learned how to chill the hell out.

[rhythmcrown]

Time for some actual Sonicposting now

My favorite thing about working on a comic right now is getting to draw in small scale and just make a Bunch Of Lil Guys. Look at them. They are small and they are full of visual shorthand

I don't know where I'm gonna a$$-pull the strength to keep my trap shut about future plans, but I've done it before, and I can do it again. Meanwhile, more Little Guys continue to be made