#maybe it'll be okay

[aloeverabagel]

The air is getting fresher and the nights are getting warmer. It makes me think maybe I can keep on living a little longer..

I'll try anyways.

I'm still not quite ready to give in yet.

I hope all this staying around is worth it.

[notswush]

[ishouldsleepbut]

it's weird telling people how bad you've been feeling lately and them answering with "how can we support you?" like wait, you mean all that fear i had about scaring you and making you more stressed isn't real? it's all in my head? hmmm that doesn't seem right

[aroace-ed]

it is painful, sometimes, to love platonically in a way that is so rarely fully reciprocated. i really don't know how to explain the way i feel, but right now, it feels like when you're a child and you have your best friend, and they're the person you will always go to to hang out. the way you'd beg your parents for an extra five minutes to play together with random little secrets and handshakes. how you'd talk about the future and plan out how you both will live together in the same apartment and go to the same school, promising that you'll be together forever. it feels like every friend i've had grew up and found love in romance where i'm still clinging onto the same dream from childhood.

[demaparbat-hp]

In your Spitfire AU, since Zuko is looking after Lu Ten II, what happened to Ursa?

Zuko is slightly older in the Spitfire AU. He was banished at fifteen, his head a little clearer and denial a little weaker than in canon. After his first look through the Air Temples, Zuko decides that if he can't find a myth, he might as well search for the next best thing.

Finding Ursa isn't easy, but in time he makes it to a secluded house in a near-forgotten part of the world. His mom is there, older and stronger and alive.

But she isn't alone.

And Zuko, as it turns out, didn't keep the best company during his search.

When Ursa is discovered and her secrets are laid bare for assassins (for Ozai) to find, she begs Zuko to take his little brother and run. She'll do anything it takes to protect her children, even if that means leaving them behind to keep a target off their back. Ursa diverts attention from them and allows Lu Ten's ancestry to be kept a secret. She orders Zuko not to follow her again, and disappears.

Zuko is left with a little three-year-old brother to raise and a mother he cannot hold onto.

[backpackingspace]

Okay so with the line "the olive tree where we first met" we have two equal hilarious options.

When penelope was sassily like oh I'll marry you if you make a living bed out of this tree right here! Cue penelope stumbling over odysseus very very carefully digging up the tree "because how else is he going to get it to itacha we can't have a wedding bed out in the open in sparta duh"

Or

2. Penelope, knowing that Helen's suitors would soon be arriving to take over her home for a while. Snuck out and went on her own wacky shenanigan filled journey where she scoped out all the major players. Odysseus caught her spying in an olive tree. And when she got back she told Helen she had dibs on the cutie from itacha.

[katabay]

Robin Hood and Little John walkin' through the forest--

alright! so! early robin hood ballads and narratives don't have an origin story for little john, but a later ballad (robin hood and little john) does. they fight on a bridge in it, but I like looking at illustrations, so I've swapped out the bridge for that tree peaking out of the panel in the first panel bc I enjoy louis rhead's illustrations a lot.

this is some kind of introduction scene after they fight and climb out of the river!

Robin Hood & Little John (edited by Stephen Knight & Thomas Ohlgren)

[galactaknightyaoi]

I absolutely adore the HC that these two are family...

[imminent-danger-came]

Can you believe MK learned he was a Monkey Demon and his first instinct was to assume he was going to destroy everyone/hurt the people he loved. And then the moment he thought his destiny was to die for them, he was a little too down for it. And then after he realized his destiny was inevitably to destroy the ones he loves as he knows them and reset the cycle, he was back to being like "ah okay fuck destiny", BUT FOR A LITTLE BIT THERE. HE WAS SO READY. Something is so wrong with him

[iknowwhereyousnoozeatnight]

dnkinktober day 1: feminization | day 14: biting

[thedarkzyxabyss]

Uh about tv and radio, i want 2 kno the relationship between them. I dont quite understand how it workS

okay i guess i'll give you guys a little context to the happenings with Radio /pos Again, this is an AU with dubiously canon/probably non-canon content haha we'll see

After all, the UTMV is all about AUs and whatnot <3 So everything is dubiously canon to an extent haha

Shattered Dream belongs to @galacii

Hellborn belongs to @moonstardream

No Name belongs to @carrrrino

TV/Radio belongs to me!

[inquisimer]

Happy Friday! From the protective prompt list: “If they want to get to you, they’ll have to get through me first.” – I think this would be something super sweet platonically with Arlow de Riva & Viago - AnonymousInquisitor

it COULD have been something super sweet—instead, I have made it something angsty 😌 have the moment when, with the Talons out for blood, Viago sends Arlow away from Antiva

Arlow de Riva & Viago | 1281 words | cw: suicidal ideation | @dadrunkwriting - da4 spoilers

-

Inside, Viago was fuming. Vision red, chest tight, anger roaring in his ears. In his head, he’d bellowed his fury out so loud, they heard it clear across the Free Marches.

In reality, he’d been glaring at Arlow in terse silence for nearly twenty minutes. Her foot had been shaking for the last ten, and her fists had been clenched and tucked under her arms since he called her in. Neither of them had said a word.

How could she be so stupid?

Actually, he knew exactly how. He’d been watching her spiral, untethered in her grief, for half a year now. Since Lucanis died, every contract, even the simple ones, was an excuse to throw herself on the fire. And he’d done nothing. As angry as he was with her, he was equally furious with himself. But there was nothing left now except damage control.

“The Talons want your head.” Her jaw clenched when he finally spoke, the tension between them snapping like a bubble popped. “All of the Talons. Myself included.”

She mumbled something under her breath and Viago’s nostril’s flared. Part of him had expected contrition; the rest of him knew that was a foolish thought. He raised an expectant brow.

“Not all,” she said, over-enunciating as she repeated herself. “Not Teia.”

Viago slammed his palm on the desk and she flinched. “That is not the point. They would have your throat under the guillotine and frankly? I should let them.”

Her throat bobbed, the first hint of uneasiness he’d seen since she came in, covered in Antaam blood and sparking defiance. Maker, what would it take to get through to her?

“Then why don’t you?” she whispered. Viago froze.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do!” she snapped. She stood, kicking the chair aside and pacing angrily across his office. “What good am I doing you like this? What good am I doing anyone? One of these days I won’t be quick enough. Why don’t we just get it over with?”

“You don’t mean that,” he repeated. “You don’t.”

He was not one to hide from the truth. But perhaps if he said it forcefully, insistently enough, it would drill through her thick skull. Grief was a heavy burden to bear; especially unexpected, unavenged, it was the yoke around your neck, the ball and chain around your leg. But it did not have to be the death of her. There were other paths to peace; he would not let her take this one.

“I do.” She sagged, righting the chair and spinning it around to sit in it backwards. She rested her chin on the back of it. “I… I’m sorry, Viago. But haven’t I caused enough problems? Haven’t you stuck your neck out enough for me? Let them have me,” she said bitterly, not looking at him. “It’ll be easier for both of us.”

Viago leaned over the desk and yanked her chair forward. Once she was close enough, he gave her ear a sharp flick.

“Snap out of it,” he scowled, sitting back as she clapped a hand to her ear. Shock twisted her face—good. So she could still feel something. That meant she wasn’t beyond pulling back from the edge. “You are grieving—fine. You are angry—fine. But you are worth more than the way you are treating yourself. I won’t have you throwing your life away—despite your best efforts, I won’t allow it.”

Her face fell back to an expressionless mask as he spoke. He pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned. “But neither can I allow you to go unchecked. So—“ he steeled himself; this was a punishment for her, but through the ties that bound them it reverberated on him “—you will leave Antiva. Tonight.”

“What.” Her jaw fell open. She stared, and Viago stared firmly back.

“You heard me.”

“No.” She shook her head, fingers clenching around the frame of her chair. “No. Don’t send me away—this is my home. I don’t belong anywhere else. I’d rather you let them kill me!”

“Which is why this is a better penance.” What he didn’t say was that they would kill her if she stayed. Sending her out of the country was the only way—and they’d barely agreed. He would be putting out fires and soothing egos for months before she could ever come back. But she would come back, he reminded himself. That was the only consolation he would get, since she could never know how it ripped his soul from his throat to send her away.

He withdrew a freshly inked contract from his cloak. It had been a surprise to see the dwarf among the captives she freed—an unwelcome one, at first. But he was offering a way out that was marginally better than shoving her over the border alone. He handed the scroll to her.

“You will go with Varric,” he told her as she read. “Maker willing, the scale of this job will put things in perspective. I’ve heard he works miracles—maybe he’ll be able to brush up your judgment.”

She crushed the parchment between her fingers. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then you better do it yourself.” He steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “Death is a Crow’s way of life. We do not lose ourselves to it, no matter who it takes from us. We accept that, and we are stronger in spite of our grief. It is not stronger than us.”

Maker, he hoped his words weren’t falling on deaf ears. Half the time with her… well, even when she heard him, it did not always stick. But he could do nothing else. She had taken the control away from either of them when she launched herself from that rooftop.

It was in Varric’s hands now. And hers, assuming he could pull her head out of her ass. Not that he wasn’t motivated—Viago would kill him if she came back with so much as a scratch.

She pursed her lips together. Hurt flared in her eyes—betrayal, disappointment, but at least it was something. Feeling something was good. Someday, when she was back, and Treviso was free, she might even understand. As long as she was alive to see that day.

“Fine.” She stood, contract balled in her fist. “Are we done?”

His throat constricted. He wished, desperately, that decorum at all allowed Teia to be here. She would have the words they needed to bridge the gap he could feel widening between them. But no—this was a matter between a Talon and his Crow. Even if it left a schism too wide to come back from. “Arlow…”

She paused, and he froze. Her name had fallen from his lips without any thought behind what he would say. He cleared his throat and frowned. “Leave your cape, and your leathers. You can have them back when you find that better judgment.”

She stared at him, disbelieving. Then her hand went to her throat. She tore the clasp from her cape and threw it at his feet.

“Here,” she spat. “Take it. I won’t need it where I’m going, anyway.”

“Arlow—“

“No.” She held up the scroll between them like a barrier and Viago felt the months to come lengthen the distance that was already there. “You want me out? I’m going. I’m gone.”

And then she was. Slowly, Viago bent down and picked up her cape. Gunpowder and market spices wafted off it, and the odd film that came from her magic coated his teeth

Maker, keep her, he thought, folding the fabric between his hands. Keep her, or we’ll be having words.

[temporalhiccup]

In an effort to ease out of burn out and try to feel real and human again I'm digging around old games and seeing what would be fun to tinker with. For most of my games they get to at least an Alpha Build/Playtestable stage, but Never Break The Chain is one of the few that didn't quite manage to get that far (though it honestly wouldn't take that much more I think!)

Never Break The Chain mechanically and emotionally is a response to The Eventide Club, which was @jdragsky's response to Apocalypse Keys.

It's clear that this game is partly a love letter to jay dragon's design and how it makes me feel, and I wrote this during a time when I was insecure about my design. I was reeling from the idea that my games were too emotional to be enjoyable, that strangers were never going to like the games I create. (Typical Capricorn, even the way I work through my shit has to be productive in some way)

Every player character is made up of two components: a Musician Playbook and a God Playbook. It's my take on the very popular idea of fallen gods feeding off divine worship as musicians. I wanted to create a really fun and emotionally intense game (inspired by how famously messy Fleetwood Mac and other bands can be, definitely The Wicked + The Divine too).

It's been three years since I took a look at this stuff and it's fun remembering the mechanical shenanigans I was up to: tightening chains, breaking them, creating halos, shattering them, etc. I'll tinker a bit with these mechanics and see what comes of it.

The more complex of the playbooks are the Musician ones. What remains of the divine is raw and simple, ever fading and barely there. In comparison, the Musician playbooks are a chance for me to explore some truly messy human stuff.

Here's the Musician playbook, The Mask, it's mostly intact from the last time I touched it years ago. I just tightened a few options here and there.

I'll spell out the inspiration for this playbook: David Bowie, specifically the maddened Bowie interviewed by Cameron Crowe in 1975.

Bowie was famous for his different personas, and you can see some of them represented in the masks below: Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Halloween Jack, the Goblin King, and the Minotaur.

This playbook is an exploration of what it could have been like for Bowie exploring these different personas, based on various events written about or talked about in later years, offering points of tension and intensity (deconstructed and awaiting creative input, like always) and hopefully creating explosive moments of playable drama.

I do think this playbook leans most into Bowie's contentious phase as the Thin White Duke. This was a man who was clearly breaking apart on stage, underneath the thinnest veneer of a persona that was holding itself together with a white-knuckled grip. Other personas were haunting him, discarded or never worn. Station to Station is my favorite Bowie album on most days, and his live performances of its music are almost painful to watch (while impossible to look away from).

I think, if we ever get this to playtest, I'll probably leave this playbook mostly as is (barring some mechanical tweaks that will be applied to all playbooks maybe) and just see where things go.

The Mask

You understand better than anyone that music is a story, and that performance is a mask well worn. You have created several Masks and stories over the years, and the Masks have recreated you. But as you seek fame and fortune, will the Mask become more real than you ever could be? One day you'll wake up and there won't be anything of you left, just a blank face both empty and signifying nothing.

Your Name

(Choose 1): A completely made up name that is never questioned, an appropriately dramatic name, a single initial that no one pronounces properly, I change my name every few months, a series of letters and numbers that only makes sense to my fans, a name that is as enigmatic as it is beautiful.

Your Look

(Choose 3-4): A painfully sharp and pale business suit with splatters of paint and blood on it, shades that almost no one has ever seen me take off, hair dyed into every imaginable color, the cruelest smile, the kindest eyes, an intoxicating scent, small and delicate tattoos that tell all my secrets, the body language of a predator, an unexpected scar, something else that betrays my mortality and weakness.

Your Role in the Band:

(Choose 1-3): Lead vocalist, lead guitar, muse, song writer, fuck buddy, everybody's ex, the face of the band, I'm here to look pretty baby

Choose the Mask you currently wear, one Mask you discarded, and one Mask that threatens to consume you.

I am an alien from a dying planet and harbinger of an inescapable apocalypse, my music is wild and haunting

I am royalty from a fictional past and deride the love I desperately need, my music is rhythmic and romantic

I am a rebel leader from a dark future and I shall orchestrate a dystopia of our own making, my music is hypnotic and delirious

I am the fae king who grants ill-cast wishes and offers dark bargains, my music is ethereal and manipulative

I am a serial killer who turns willing victims into impossible art pieces, my music is violent and eerie

I am a fallen angel, on the run from divine hunters and mortal lovers and only you can save me, my music is soft and beautiful

I am a broken doll mimicking life, perfect and made to fulfill your every desire, my music is naive and inviting

I am a warrior from another time and place, only you can heal my wounds and recreate my fate, my music is loud and lustful

As The Mask I gain 2-4 tokens when I:

Hide my true feelings behind a Mask

Ask someone to wear one of my Masks, for now

Give a part of myself to a Mask

When you gain your fifth token:

The divine music swells within you and seeks release. You cannot gain new tokens until you choose one:

Go to another band member and take off your Mask, reveal something vulnerable and raw about yourself. If they reach out to touch your real face, they break a chain. If they do anything else, break one of your chains.

Reflect on the god you once where, and create a new Mask to contain that memory. Your power wanes, crack one halo.

The Mask's Chains:

A whisper that comes from my mouth but doesn't sound like me at all

An embrace that promises more than it should

A kiss that comes dangerously close to unmasking me

One of my Masks on someone else's face

A song I wrote that will weaken a single Mask

A Mask I created that takes a life of its own

A Mask someone else creates to imprison me

Someone I love wearing my true face

The Mask's Move:

When you put on one of your Masks to tell its story, describe how you embody it and how you draw others into your spell. Spend tokens and roll.

On an 8-10 You are in control of the Mask, choose one:

A part of your Mask becomes more real than real, create a new Chain that reflects this.

A part of your true self gives way to the Mask, one Halo becomes whole again.

Someone is inexplicably drawn to you, you have them wrapped around your finger, for now. Say who they are and place a chain on them. If they're a band member, they place a chain on you as well.

On an 11+ The Mask begins to consume you, and you cannot tell the difference between art and reality. Choose one:

Another band member must become a part of your story, both of you place a chain on the other. For now, you are obsessed with crafting a Mask for them to match your own.

One of your fans is convinced the Mask is your true self, you cannot outrun them. For the rest of the scene you are at your fan's mercy. Describe how their obsession for you draws out something painful and real from you. When you return in a future scene gain the chain: an obsessed and dangerous fan

On a 7- your sense of self shatters and the Mask bleeds through. Until you regain your sense of self and remember you are not your Mask, you cannot perform. The Audience will tell you what happens next.

At the start of every session:

Spend a moment with your Masks and consider who they are and what story they have to tell. Choose one:

Put down the Mask you're currently wearing and pick up another, why does this one call out to you?

Change something essential about one of your Masks, what part of you refuses to bend or break?

Create a new Mask, based on someone you're obsessed with and yearn for. What does it feel like when you pretend to be them?

[eriexplosion]

So the main reason I think that TBB will have a reasonably happy ending is multifaceted but I think the biggest one is that a lot of the series it's compared to have entirely different focuses but only one requires minimum the majority of the characters to be alive.

It comes down to the central question of the work. Let's look at TCW - this one is super broad because it's essentially an anthology rather than an overarching narrative. It's literally just "what happens between attack of the clones and revenge of the sith." The only thing needed to bring it to a satisfactory close is to go up to the end of the clone wars and segue into ROTS. Which, as a tragic film, does necessitate a bit of a downer ending. But, the ending feels fulfilling even with the tragedy because it satisfies the central question.

Rogue One is much more narrow, how did the rebellion get the death star plans? The reason you can do a total cast annihilation in this one is because the central question isn't character focused at all, it's mission focused. As long as they move the mission forward, the characters dying doesn't make the ending less satisfying. The central question is answered.

So what's been TBB's central question? It hasn't been mission focused, it's not "how do we fight the Empire" and its not as broad as TCW's filling in a multi year gap between movies. It's asking "who are these clones if they're not soldiers" it's asking "how do you heal this family that's been broken by tragedy."

And killing off most of the main cast answers these questions as "nothing" and "You don't." It's like answering "what happened between these two movies" with 'nothing' or 'how did they get the death star plans with 'they didn't.' It negates the central question that we're introduced to, it would render the entire endeavor pointless. Why would we need three seasons to get Omega from 'alone' to 'still alone' why would we build up the desire for the family to heal just to say they never will? Why would we watch them go from broken to more broken to absolutely shattered in a trauma mill? It doesn't answer anything, it just trails off.

I don't even think that the question of how to heal the family can be satisfied if Tech is actually dead. MAYBE if we had more time we could soothe away the trauma of that and still resolve everything. Maybe if his loss was the only one that needed to be wrapped up and processed we could resolve that in the time we have left.

But needing to bring Crosshair home, bring Omega home, AND heal everyone from Tech's death in fifteen episodes that also require enough action to keep ten year old boys interested? Yeah, I don't think that's happening. I think the only way that this gets wrapped up in a way that actually holds to the themes of the show is an ending that has the family together, an ending that actually answers the questions we started with, one that said *they're not soldiers, they're family* and that the family is in fact capable of being healed.

[dougs-meat]

so, uh, do we need to be worried or...

[bughat]

Okay, 1) I am dying at how many people who've liked this post have Buggy pfps

2) I will be legitimately pissed if Buggy gets to be hot, but Crocodile isn't. Like, fuck him for what he did to Vivi and all, but goddammit, they already crushed my ONE CHANCE to see Gin again and maybe JUST MAYBE have a brief, sad firefly moment of hope for my nearly nonexistent SanGin ship; I demand at least a decently hot greasy sand lizard mafia don in compensation for my broken dreams okay

Okay, so my life has kind of gone to shit rn and everything seems pointless, but I did still want to say that if you had told me back in 1999 that one day the internet would be burying me under an avalanche of thirsty BUGGY THE CLOWN fan art every time I got online I would have assumed you were high as fuck and possibly having a stroke, but HERE WE ARE-