#most of the channels are owned by ghouls as well

[vault81]

you know if youtube was a thing in fallout i bet those restoration channels would be so fucking popular

[youkaiyume]

Alright, so I've been a fan of Shane, Ryan and even Steven since their buzzfeed days and I've been watching this whole thing with Watcher moving their content over to their own streaming service debacle.

Like most ppl, I think it's a poor business move to alienate your fans like this, but I've been thinking on it more from maybe a financial perspective. I'm wondering how many people actually signed up for it. I saw a tiktok advertising expert say that the conversion rate for ads--meaning the number of ppl to actually buy something when they see an ad is about 1-5%. Like, right now they have about 2.8 million subscribers. And even though they've lost about 50K since and counting, they probably anticipated some loss. I'm sure they've mathed that if they just get at least like 100K conservatively out of their nearly 3 million fanbase to sign up, they'd be able to make $600K a month from their streaming service at six bucks a pop each month.

Maybe that's worth it? I'm not exactly sure how much they were making before. Ppl say they had 11K subscribers on patreon before but that's just their member total. Actual paid members was about 5K. But despite the controversy, their patreon member count has actually gone up. Today it sits at 12K members total with nearly 6K members paying. So they're making at least $30K-70K+ a month currently on patreon based on their offered tiers. not sure how much they were making on ad revenue alone or sponsors cuz I'm not sure how that stuff works on youtube. But maybe by their own accounting they think the loss of followers was worth it if they can hang on to that small, loyal but paying minority.

Another youtuber has pointed out that if you have a sponsor for a video and it's a one off, it can pay more. Up to $35K. So if that is the peak and they release 1 video a week, so 4 a month would be like 140K a month on sponsor money. And youtube pays about $10 per 1000 views a video, and they average 1 mil each video. So about $40K a month on views. So we can guess that they made about $180K a month currently on youtube (patreon and merch sales not included).

Honestly, if they can reach the goal of 1-5% of their subscribers converting to their streaming platform, yeah they probably would make more money in the long run. IF they can somehow manage to retain as well as grow those number of subscribers on their new platform. And don't forget, they don't plan to delete their current videos on their youtube channel so they'll still be earning revenue from those videos. We'll have to see I guess given how much goodwill they've lost with their audience.

Tbh, I am all for them trying to get paid more for their work but I also think they could have transitioned much differently, like only putting some exclusive content on their own platform while also posting free shows to youtube. Or maybe delaying releases for a week or a month for youtubers. or cutting back your production costs if it's really killing you cuz everyone has pointed out they liked the ghoul boys when it was just a black screen with text scrolling by saying "wheeze." Only time will tell if this move paid off for them.

But I'm not super knowledgeable on how the entire youtube thing works so if someone has some insight, feel free to weigh in.

[youtubesweirduncles]

Hello, and welcome to 'Thoughts on the Try Guys streaming platform thing', by basically the only remaining try guys dedicated account on Tumblr (I think (Also ignore I haven't changed my pfp after the controversy))

So, as I've said before, I think the guys really managed this very well when you compare today's video with Watcher's announcement from a few weeks back. They seem to be using the new streaming service as a fancier Patreon that you can subscribe to if you like the content and want more of it, plus the exclusive vids or extra stuff, but it doesn't seem like it's meant to replace the channel and leave the people who can't afford it behind. They are offering a lot of new shows, many of which they teased on the youtube channel. The little pilots were used not only to give us a taste of what 2nd Try will be like but also introduced the new cast members! (I guess it's apropiate now to call Johnny Cakes, Kwesi, Marissa and rest as Try Guys too?). I'm so so happy to see them now as main talent; they helped carry the new era of the channel for the last year and a half and deserve the recognition.

Hooowever, I will say this.

I feel like the way they are handling this transition (and, let's be frank, the reaction from the audience) would not have been the same without the Watcher TV announcement and its fallout.

In case you don't know: Zach and Keith told us there would be a BIG announcement around this time of year way back in December. In early May (I think) watcher announced their own streaming service and literally everybody hated it. In mid-may, on a random Wednesday, the try guys channel just? don't post anything? and it seems like a very last minute decision to not post a video when they have posted videos every Wednesday for years? And now, a week later, they announce their own streaming service (with a video that references Watcher's announcement, so we know it was filmed after that was posted).

We can only guess, of course. Nothing is confirmed. But it really seems like they were going, if not the same, a very similar route that Watcher was. This is why I struggle to give them that much credit for offering a better deal that the Ghoul boys did, since I don't think they would've taken the same decisions a month ago. I want to think they are good guys who understand that most people can't afford to pay for this and they wouldn't put ALL their content behind a pay wall. But if you asked me a moth ago, I would have told you that Ryan and Shane were incapable of that too.

So I guess I'm not sure how to feel lol.

(Also I know many watcher fans are kinda mad that the try guys are getting a better response that Watcher did and also that Keith and Zach referenced the Watcher.tv vid because they think it was shady.

Calm down. They're literally friends. I bet they know what's okay to joke about and what isn't. I even bet they spoke about this in the last few weeks. Calm. Down)

[fishfingersalad]

Rvb bbc ghosts x buzzfeed unsolved au Leonard “Alpha” Church III and his older sister Carolina Church inherit a creepy manor in the middle of nowhere halfway across the country after their great grandfather Leonard “Epsilon” Church dies of old age (yes Epsilon being their great grandfather is odd, it's for lore reasons).

Church’s college roommate Tucker has a ghost hunting youtube channel (Church edits his videos for him) and decides the manor seems spooky so he tags along to check it out with his co host (Kai) and camera/audio guy (Caboose) as well as Junior. Tex (Churches on again off again gf) comes along to bully them for getting scared, whenever she ends up on the show their views go up so they don’t complain. Carolina doesn’t wanna be stuck alone with Church’s friends so she invites her workout buddy Wash.

Unbeknownst to them, Tuckers “rival” youtube channel (the reds, Simmons is video and editing, Grif is audio, Lopez is in charge of their other equipment) catch wind of their plan to investigate the manor (Kai told Grif who accidentally let slip to Sarge) and they (literally just Sarge) take it as a challenge and they decide (are forced by Sarge) to follow the others to the manor to do their own investigation (Donut flirts with Locus the gas station attendant. This is important to me for some reason). Doc is unofficially part of the red team crew as first aid aka he follows them around bc he's worried about them going to all these abandoned buildings with no medical knowledge

Cw: talk of deaths in some detail, especially fires.

The Manor is actually haunted, by fifteen different ghosts:

Wyoming: 1840’s, fell out a window onto a weathervane

Florida: 1960’s, aspirin overdose 

York: 1980’s, car crash, has poltergeist abilities

North: 1850s, arsenic poisoning

South: 1850s, arsenic poisoning

Maine: 1910s, hunting accident, can sometimes be seen as a looming shadow in the dark

Ct: 1940s, military spy, shot

479er: 1960s, pilot, small aircraft crash

AI: 1920s, Children of a rich man who burned his house down while his wife was away with their youngest son, Leonard “Epsilon” Church (age 2 at the time). Delta (17), Theta (7), Eta (11), and Iota(11) died from smoke inhalation,  Gamma (15) and Omega (14) were burned,  Sigma (18) escaped the fire but succumbed to infection while still on the manor grounds. All of the ai ghosts carry a smell of smoke wherever they go (I have a drawing of them somewhere)

The only ones who can see the ghosts without outside influence (cameras, sensors, that stuff) are Church, Carolina, Wash, Donut, and Caboose, due to all five of them having near death experiences in their pasts, and later Doc after he’s possessed by Omega. Junior is also able to see ghosts though no one is sure why. 

Most of the au’s “story” is just silly interactions with the ghosts pranking the youtubers and various shenanigans. Wash deadpan pretends there are no ghosts to annoy both York and Tucker. Junior befriends Theta, Eta, and Iota, which concerns Tucker to no end especially since he tends to act like a horror movie child, all “Daddy, the lady with the hole in her head is in the corner again, daddy my friends with no faces wanna go play outside”. Sarge has a holy water super soaker that he carries everywhere incase of “ghouls”. South takes great joy in tormenting Simmons specifically. York follows the youtubers around and throws things at them, he only uses his poltergeist abilities for mischief. Ct finds a secret joy in sneaking up on Church to make him jump. Donut keeps telling his friends that the ghosts are there and real but none of them really believe him despite York pelting them with random objects. Wash finds a stray kitten and the ghosts are all immediately infatuated and begin following it around. Florida and Donut gossip together. Doc has to figure out how to deal with a rage fueled fourteen year old taking over his body. Tex punches Tucker on camera and it becomes their most popular video to date. Their second most popular video includes Tucker being attacked by Sarge with his holy water super soaker.

I just have so many little silly ideas about them...

[where-ismydonkey]

DCA PROMPTOBER - DAY 2

PAPER PALS

"What about this?" Sun asked, for what seemed like the hundreth time, as you went back and forth on what new candle to buy for the Halloween season. He'd nag you about the safety risks later when he noticed, but right now he was too busy holding up a spooky decoration, "Skeletons are fun, right? Spooky scary?"

You glanced over at him absentmindedly, before your mouth fell open. Staring up at the plastic skeleton he was holding, you immediately shook your head, "Not when it's taller than you are! Where would we even fit that thing, huh?"

"Outside?" the robot guessed, as if you could just dangle the giant thing from a window or a fire escape. The rays around his head spun in a quick circle as he watched you, "Is that not obvious?"

"Riddle me this then," you rolled your eyes, impulsively reaching for a random candle. You'd decide if you liked it or not later as you placed it in the shopping cart, "How would we put it outside if we live in an apartment, Sun? I don't even think we can fit it into the cart, either!"

He struggled, trying to come up with an answer, and you wondered just how many google tabs and reddit pages him and Moon—because he was probably getting a kick out of seeing you so bewildered—were consulting. And a little after that, he huffed. Side eyeing you, without even having a face to emote you could tell he wouldn't give the skeleton up without a fight.

And since you couldn't tackle and fight a 7 foot tall animatronic, you had to come up with something else.

"Okay," you smiled, and watched as he perked up. Too bad for your boys, since you continued, "Why don't we just make some of our own Halloween decorations this year? It'd be a little more cost effective and more fun, anyway!"

He gave you a dubious glance, head tilted. And while you racked your brain for the perfect homemade decorations to make, you watched as he glanced from the large, plastic skeleton and back to you. And again.

It wasn't until Sun put a hand on his hip that he tentatively asked, "...What types of crafts?"

"How about baking? My Halloween Pinterest board is ready!"

"That's not a craft. And it's messy."

"Maybe, but you're getting good at it!"

Sun shook his head.

You tried again, "How about flying paper bats and floating paper ghosts?"

"Are you forgetting to account for our height, Starshine? We'd take everything down with us!"

Oh damn them, being so tall!

You crossed your arms, "Okay, well we could definitely carve pumpkins and maybe leave those out on the fire escape! Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Messy, more like it," he shook his head, "I've heard pumpkin guts are hard to clean up!"

"Who told you that? Google?" you teased, as he tensed up and began to ramble about the accuracy of most search results.

You disagreed, but effectively stopped listening after a few seconds. Because while the internet was helpful, it made him so annoying sometimes, so you thought of what else you could do. Glancing around, you gazed at the Halloween decor littering the department store from afar, hoping inspiration would strike you.

There were a few inflatable ghouls, witches, and skeletons. All much too big, though, and you couldn't even imagine the price. And some large, dangling cobwebs littering the corner of the section, but how would you even make those at home?

Pursing your lips, you glanced back at Sun. His hands were up, as he was in full tangent over pumpkin guts and how to properly dispose of them. And scratching your head, you tried not to think about how he might get you kicked out of the store, but instead about what crafts he used to do with the children.

The Superstar Daycare was synonymous with artsy, and that bot had the kids constantly channeling their creativity. He had always said it was a good outlet for their energy and anything else they were feeling. So there was always some type of activity involving slime, finger paintings, or paper pals.

Oh shit, paper pals!

Those kinda cute, kinda creepy crafts that he had always insisted on making with the kids! Cheap, easy to make, and it was the perfect idea, especially for him and Moon's first Halloween out of the Pizzaplex—

Or would they hate it?

Ugh, you wanted to kick yourself for even thinking of it. The Pizzaplex had been horrible for everyone there! Whether they were human and working hefty hours there, or robotic and tethered to the sick company for eternity. And there was no doubt Sun and Moon had had it horrible. So you quickly got the thought out of your head, deciding it would be best to not rehash the past.

Too bad the bot had noticed it, too attuned to your behavior now. He cocked his head and swiftly shoved the skeleton into a random shelf. Which was amusing since it was so large, but you'd force him to put it back where it belonged later. You didn't want to imagine the poor retail worker that'd have to lug that thing back to its section, but his static smile was hitting you with the same emotion as a questioning frown.

Sun leaned down to you, awfully close, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," you said quickly, "Uh, I just lost The Game."

"The what?"

"I'll explain it to you later!" you chuckled uneasily, "Should we look at more candles?"

"You know those pose a fire risk in an enclosed space!" Sun shook his head before changing the subject, "What's wrong? Did you have another craft in mind for us?"

If you said no, he'd see right through you. And if you said yes and told him, there was no telling what his and Moon's reaction would be.

"Well..." you hesitated, tapping on the handrail of the shopping cart. The rhythm was the same one animatronic would tap, but you ignored that fact as you tried to muster up your courage instead. All you had to do was ask a simple question. Only problem was you weren't sure it wouldn't recall isolation and programmed obedience.

Sun's voice was soft as you stared up at him, "Use your words, Starshine."

"Okay," you sighed apprehensively and crossed your arms. Slowly, you asked, "...Should we make paperpals?"

You held your breath for a second. As if it could stop the either joyous or disastrous reaction you would receive. And if the latter happened, it was on you for even pushing it. The last thing you wanted was to make both of them uncomfortable, or bring back any awful memories from the past that would hurt them.

You couldn't bear it if that happened.

So as you opened your mouth to backtrack on the whole idea, you jumped. He had let out a shrill gasp, spooking you as he grasped your shoulders and exclaimed, "Should we? You didn't even need to ask!"

—

Good morning!!! Wrote this before class since i love to torture myself by coming in hours early to beat rush hour!!! oh well, gives me more time to write hehe. Also thank you so much for the reception on my last(and first) post, i appreciate it lots!!!

And thanks to @bluerasbunny for creating the prompt for DCATOBER 24! Hope you like it!

[drluciengaudet]

Lucien tried to convince himself it wasn't that different. He wasn't that different. No one would notice anything was different as he moved down the hallway. What was a ghoul to a moroi anyway. Nothing had changed. Being who he was, of course, it was something he internalized and hadn't discussed in much detail with anyone since it happened. He'd been reading books, research was always the best way to learn for him and by doing. Never one to have a mentor during his formative years in scientific research he certainly wasn't going to take one for magic not deeming any at the castle up to par with his standards, well one was, but Raphael was too much of a distraction, even the thought of the other made his face heat.

He headed outside the castle not realizing he'd gained a tail on his way out of the castle, too focused on what he was going to be doing and running through all the items in the book he'd committed to memory not wanting to carry it with him and draw any suspicion. Apparently Lucien going outside on his own was suspicious enough, which was to be fair. The former moroi wasn't the outside type unless forced to and usually it was to go somewhere not arbitrarily near the edge of the forest.

Fire was the element he was most comfortable with. As a neko spirit it was his only magical element. Now he had more at his call should he want them. He thought of Cairo who primarily wielded electricity and wondered if it was something he could conjure as easily and then came the hard part. The clearing his mind and being in the moment, all the things with magic that were completely counterproductive to having it.

The focus he wasn't channeling was detailed when he heard the step behind him. How the body got so close without him noticing, Lucien was never a good predator. It was why during the second war he made creatures and biological weapons to fight against perceived enemies and stayed in his lab behind impenetrable walls.

"Hunter." He hissed. What came from his hands was not electricity instead it was fire and it did not have the exact effect he wanted in producing a powerful ball of flame that pushed the other away. Instead it burned up the fabric that the other wore forcing him to strip it off as he started it on fire not actually putting much distance between them and leaving the cut chest and stomach exposed to him. "Why are you..." Lucien trailed as his eyes did the same flickering down and back up the younger before he remembered he was annoyed. "Why are you out here?" He harshly whispered like they weren't completely isolated where they were.

@masterxhunter

[bluravenite]

Wonderful @cirrus-ghoulette made this post about chronically ill Dew headcanons so I COME BEARING MY OWN/MORE!!

headcanons about post-(fire element)transition Dewdrop as well as some bonus ghouls with chronic pain and disabilities!!

you'd think his hands would run warm because he's a fire-ghoul... but it's quite the opposite!! because all the heat and blood rests at his core, Dew usually has temperature dysregulation which gives him cold fingers and he has to wear fluffy or thick socks on his feet :> (however he can easily channel his magic through his hands if needed, it's just not constantly emanating warmth)

DEW HAS several breathing problems, seasonal asthma outbursts, and shortness of breath. During the colder months, his asthma gets really bad and the ghouls just have a stash of inhalers, mountain, and Aeth usually carry some with them, as well as mountain growing and making eucalyptus and peppermint coffee (hot)(also yeah its a thing, and surprisingly helps with asthma) to help him breathe. All around the year though he tends to have shortness of breath any time he does anything mildly energy-consuming (picture that one mommy dust gif where he's heavy breathing)

this one is also about breathing but it's entirely psychological, cw: mild angst <3. Dewdrop's breathing problems give him panic attacks. If he starts breathing too heavily or his throat starts closing up he begins panicking and freaking out, gets dizzy and clammy, and will likely start crying if its too bad, the ghouls usually try to keep him grounded and calm if he's having an asthma attack while he uses the inhaler or settles down, but all-year-round he wakes up at night sweating cold, coughing and choking on air, usually also crying from PTSD and nightmares.

continuing that ^ think about it like standing in a room that's lit on fire, the black smoke hurting your airways from the inside out, it burns. That's how Dew feels. His lungs were clearly made for working with water, and with his gills closed up the muscles around them practically become useless, they only react to being touched or triggered occasionally by muscle spasms. His body is not used to the fire magic and breathing air burns his throat.

which on a lighter note, is why I think he sucks at smoking, lmao... at least smoking too much without something to drink, if he hits too fast or too slow he WILL cough, and he demands that swiss give him cherry-flavored drinks to wash out the taste, because apparently, swiss' rolls taste like shit (mountain's don't, mountain's usually have a sort of bittery pomegranate berry kind of herbal taste, swiss' just taste... like swiss...??/don't quote me on that)

Cumulus has endometriosis, mountain, and dew are usually the ones who help her most, aether and Popia also look into rituals and magick to help her and how to safely do it (cries a little)

Mountain has really bad knees... yet really strong leg muscles, he can usually be seen wearing his knee braces and compression sleeves, however, if it gets too bad he will occasionally use crutches.

He also has back pain pretty often both from carrying heavy equipment and working hunched over the greenhouse or at his kit when they tour, he doesn't need a brace or a lot of support because his pain is mainly from soreness and exertion but he usually gets dewdrop to both lay on his back and also walk on it, Zephyr will also give him lower back massages when he's been in the greenhouse for a while, and in return, mountain helps zephyr CRACK his bones like a glowstick LMAO

mountain often gets wrist pain :) it's not quite carpal, but he also uses wrist braces and compression gloves as well as ice and heats his wrists from time to time, he mainly gets tendinitis though if he's been doing too much work.

RAIN has pots, or pots adjacent water ghoul shit... here's my reasoning: pressure underwater is different than above the surface, so underwater rain's blood pressure regulates, but out on earth for extended periods of time it just does NOT flow properly. Imagine kind of like that feeling of HEAVINESS you get after you've been swimming in the pool for several hours? Yeah kinda like that but less perceptible, sitting up or laying down without moving for too long will make him dizzy and nauseous, but standing up for too long will also make him clammy, dizzy, and very weak. He doesn't faint too often, usually because the ghouls tend to have his back and watch out for him, but he might faint a couple times a month from fatigue or a sudden drop in blood pressure.

Rain, as we know, also has hypermobile joints, there are already a lot of headcanons about that but I still wanted to make sure I mentioned it. He mainly uses a cane for support but otherwise, he also uses braces, compression sleeves and socks, and other such aids that I'm sure others have mentioned!

I really loved what @cirrus-ghoulette mentioned in their post about the ghoulettes sunshine and cirrus so I'm not really going to repeat much aside from!!!! I absolutely think Sunny is a little ball of autism and adhd, you cannot tell me you LOOK INTO HER BIG AUTISTIC EYEs and tell me she doesn't have a slight touch of le tism, also? auditory processing disorder, because I do not believe she understands a fucking thing you say. people just think she's silly and clueless, but little do they fucking know (laughs IN PAIN) that in her little pea brain, she's overthinking the mechanics of the SIMPLEST task, just because she needs to figure out the exact conditions in which to solve the task, like its a puzzle. (she just like me fr /lhj)

Swiss and sunny are also not allowed to drive, mainly bc sunny just CANNOT understand behavioral cues so driving with her is like a rollercoaster ride where every curve is a step closer towards totaling the car... and swiss... because he understands the behavioral cues BUT CHOOSES TO DELIBERATELY IGNORE THEM, red light? that's just a suggestion... car has its blinkers on to turn right? not if HE TURNS FIRST... it's danger out there with swiss...

Also I believe swiss IS in fact AND OLD MAN, and he hates to agree that he constantly also has joint and muscle pain until its literally impairing, and the ghoulettes force him to LAY DOWN.

aether... babyboy aefer... heavy booby... give back pain... someone please hold them /lhj... no but, aether has tummy issues :(

He has mild hyperglycemia which causes his blood sugar to be a little higher than it should be if he doesn't keep it regulated, one wrong food and it's trouble.

he's also a VERY light drinker because he is prone to seizures due to the alcohol spiking his blood sugar, if he does drink it's usually low-alcohol beer and he prepares his diet a day in advance to make sure he doesn't eat anything that will spike it, as well as only having a couple drinks. (I don't see him having diabetes, but certainly struggles with food and blood sugar levels from time to time, especially if while on tour for too long and such)

and that is the end of a VERY LONG FUCKING POST.... these are some of my headcanons I've gathered both from personal experiences and people close to me, so they may not be entirely correct!!

PLEASE!!! and I beg!! If you see any misinformation or misrepresentation (outside of the ghoul elemental anatomy differences headcanons) DO shoot me a direct message or comment correcting me or explaining what you think should be discussed, changed, edited, etc!!

As I said, this is based mostly on my personal knowledge and experiences of those close to me, so it may not be 100% correct or accurate!!

that being said, I hope you enjoyed <3 MWAH!!

[askallianything]

((OOC POST))

More Allister lore dump!!

since I'm roleplaying as her now, I thought it'd be helpful to share a little more about Alli! and I'll be doing it in a questions nobody asked and answer format!

In what way is Alli a self insert?

Well for starters, she has the same name as me. Honestly it was just supposed to be a placeholder name but I've grown attached to it. Alli was originally based on me, but she's kinda evolved into her own character. Now it's more like I project myself onto her as a baseline.

What's Alli's family like?

She doesn't remember! Alli had her memory of her family wiped by Nadja (her vampookie). She was never close with them and nor were they close to her. I swear it's not because i can't decide on a "before-ghoul" backstory for her!!! And for those wondering, her last name is "Doe". Which was also meant to just be a placeholder name but once again, it stuck with me

How does Alli's stigma work?

As mentioned in my other lore posts about her, her stigma allows her to compel living things. This works on plants, animals, and living anomalies. Her stigma works better on targets with low-intelligence. Her stigma is pretty resistable, which is why it doesn't work too well on people. Anything with willpower can fight against her control. The incantation for her stigma is "ialan".

What was Alli and Nadja's relationship like?

It was fairly good despite the power dynamic between vampiress and mortal. Nadja cared for Alli, but more so like how someone would care for a pet. imbalanced power dynamics is a recurring thing within Alli's relationships. Alli wished for Nadja to turn her into a vampire, and Nadja agreed as long as Alli vowed herself to her. She agreed, but Nadja was staked before they could go through with the wedding.

What was Nadja like?

Nadja was basically the opposite of Ed. She wasn't a very powerful vampire, but she cared a lot for humans and the relationship between them and anomalies. Nadja worked hard to convince The Institute to adapt a more "pro-anomaly" mindset.

Alli's past relationships?

She's only been in two official relationships. Before Nadja, there was Mori. Mori was a zombie, and by proxy, an anomaly. Alli took care of him behind The Institute's back. I haven't really fleshed out this part of her backstory much, but basically because of her relationship with Mori, she developed "acts of service" as a love language. But not in the healthiest way. She believes that when people owe her, they can easily repay her with affection (be it platonic or more), even if they don't like her. This "affection" is what drives her.

What's Alli's bond with Kithy like?

Alli sees Kithy as her son, and Kithy sees Alli as his mom. Alli is convinced that when she found Kithy, it was a sign from "the mighty lord Cthulhu". What kind of sign? Who knows! Things happened and now she believes in a fictional god. Alli takes good care of Kithy and loves him a lot as if he really was her son.

Kithy is a lot like Calamari in both appearance and intelligence. However, Kithy is green. And has bat wings. And he's smarter (in theory). Due to Alli not being a responsible parent when she first found Kithy, hes now a degenerate iPad kid who watches elsagate and veiwfarm channels. Alli is a little disappointed in her eight-legged son, but she still loves him anyways.

More Kithy lore!!!

Why does she like reptiles so much?

Why not? Reptiles are cool. and she just naturally bonds with them easily. She's also a good match for them since many reptiles are venomous or poisonous and shes immune to most toxins. On the contrary - Alli is absolutely terrified of marsupials. As an order of animals, they hate her and actively are out to get her. She works fine with all other kinds of animals. It just sorta happened through roleplay, but she's also incompetent when it comes to supervising animals. She takes good care of the animals under her care... she just can't keep them out of trouble.

Alrighty, I think that's enough lore for now! I'm starting to get finger cramps....

[justatalkingface]

Himiko’s “thing” for Ochako always felt like it came out of nowhere to me. Like, we’re given reasons and justifications for her love for Izuku, but the Ochako thing felt like it just randomly happened, just because Horikoshi needed something for the two of them to do in the final battle, especially since it seems to have completely overshadowed her original thing for Izuku anyway

Hmm. I hate to disagree but, on Himiko's end at least, the fact it came out of nowhere made perfect sense because, well, it's Himiko. Part of her characterization is 'falling in love' with people more or less at random, and then using that 'love' as justification to hunt them down. (it's pretty clear to me that, among other things, her Quirk makes her look at people and, at some unconscious level, see them as 'food' as much as they are 'people'. No seriously, so much of Himiko is coded as a predator: stalking, mimicking, ambushing; these are all things that a predator will do to successfully hunt their prey. In all honesty, reading her as, like, a half-vampire or something, one that is badly raised and so doesn't properly understand her own motivations, makes so much of her actions make sense, because Himiko is mixing 'hunting' behaviors and desires with 'romantic' ones. Then, between the mechanics of her own Quirk, how feeding, which gave her positive feedback in both being full for once and doing something that is natural to her, turned her into someone else, and just how little understanding she has of herself and her own desires, all these various conflicting impulses eventually evolved into her 'love' and her obsession with being her 'loved one'.) So, Himiko 'loving' Ochako makes sense because she doesn't understand what love actually is, and the way she uses the word is basically a sort of personal slang for a combination of obsession, lust, and hunger. It's not someone genuinely falling in love, it's her predatory behavior locking onto another target, often for shallow reasons about her finding them attractive, so I'm sure as soon as she sees Izuku again, she'll refocus right back onto her other desired food source, and that much makes sense.

(Really though, when you look at her and what drives her seriously there's a fascinating story here, but Hori clearly can't be assed to actually do that in the slightest. Put her in a story that'd spend time on her motivations, like Tokyo Ghoul, and she'd fit a lot better.)

The problem is the narrative, because it keeps placing them together, and dramatically panning in on them, as if there are real feelings there. Not only that, it makes it seem like those feelings of Himiko's are, to an extent, returned when Ochako's interactions are dead ass, 'Hey, what if you stop murdering people alright?'

Until recently, there's been basiclly no justification for there being any sort of feelings between them, because one is channeling her usual stalker serial killer behavior, and the other is literally trying to arrest her, but it's just the narrative is just... shipping them so damn hard. At this point I'd swear it's going to start playing romantic music in background while it zooms in on their faces or something.

Worst part, though, is just as Himiko has her 'big moment of villainy' (which is terrible on so many levels), it feels like Ochako is.... giving into the narrative's peer pressure, at least in part, and trying to approach Himiko as more than just the hero trying to stop her, between being concerned about her tears and apparently unironically wanting to talk about love with her, when before I thought it was her frantically trying to distract Himiko while she was on Twice Time. And that? That has no real support anywhere in story, beyond in the most meta of senses the story itself, and feels just a few steps below the author physically pushing their heads together and saying, 'Now kiss'.

[raptorfae53]

Monster High Reimagined

Lagoona Blue character bio/redesign

Lagoona Blue (she/her)

(pansexual)

The eldest child of the Blues,a mixed Gillman/Bunyip family.

(Mixed Brazilian and Indigenous Australian)

Lagoona is an energetic half-bunyip girl from the great scarrier reef off Australia,who after a disastrous time in school in her own country was pulled from the proverbial and literal tide by her parents to attend monster high. Boisterous,a little airheaded but kind and friendly,with powerful shapeshifting abilities to match her big emotions,Lagoona plans on becoming the school's star athlete having already joined the football,rugby and swim teams in her first few weeks on site. In that time also becoming fast friends with a small group of monsters called the Ghouls and her roommate Draculaura,MH looking and feeling like the fresh start she needed after her past experiences…

Likes: team sports (particularly football,cricket,rugby league and aussie rules),meat and seafood,sharks,telenovelas and hanging out at the beach.

Dislikes: water pollution,dolphins,public performance,dancing and low humidity.

Killer style: swimwear,sportswear and comfortable hoodies,primarily in her favoured blue, pink and black,and although they're not really athletic wear,fishnets upcycled out of literal nets that floated away from boats,an objectively better use for them than having them floating around tangling up sealife.

Familiar: Neptuna, a Rabbitfish Shark, and according to lagoona,the cutest creature in the whole ocean! (Regardless of some people's unwarranted dismissal towards her pet as just a "dumb fish" and or mean jokes about her being delicious fried with chips Toralei!, I mean look at her, she's adorable!!!)

Pet Peeve: the climate and humidity of new Salem. Although lagoona loves monster high the cold climate of vermont compared to her home in Australia causes her scales and scutes to itch and shed a lot,especially after a day playing sport.

Freaky Flaw: Her resentment over how school in Australia ended up for her. Spending most of her early teens bullied lagoona is determined to "get it right this time" with her new school,and while the ghouls are an amazing group of pals,lagoona feels a little guilty over not being her "true self" compared to them,worried that they'd abandon her if she let her true feelings show,and instead channels her anger into sports and exercise to blow off steam.

Spooky Secret: While nowadays she prefers to play contact sports, up until secondary school lagoona also participated in competitive gymnastic and dance,however after an incident while living in Australia she developed a fear of dancing and public performances,and threw herself into more team based sports instead,the fallout of this same incident being what prompted her parents to pull her out of secondary school send her to monster high

Dream job: Lagoona hopes one day her sporting prowess will land her a spot on the Australian Olympic team,or have her playing for the Matildas in the world cup,or at the Rugby championship for the wallabies,or in the AFL grand final,or…

Five Fearsome Facts:

As a half-bunyip, lagoona has some of their innate shape-shifting abilities,although being a teen she's still working around the ins and outs of learning to control said transformations and high emotions sometimes cause her to shapeshift involuntarily, lagoona is thankful monster high can be a place to properly hone her powers to be as proficient as her mother one day.

Lagoonas mother is also renowned for having the fiercest set of jaws on the whole scarrier reef,and her daughter's aren't too different,with lagoona sporting a bite force as strong as a crocodile and can similarly crack bones open with sheer jaw muscle strength alone as well as regrow her entire set of teeth if needs be. Regardless,Mrs blue ensures that lagoona and her sisters keep their teeth in tiptop shape through daily cleaning regardless of whether they can regenerate them or not.

Because of her active lifestyle and the energy needed for shapeshifting, lagoona has a voracious appetite, having been rumoured to have once skeletonised a whole cow carcass back in Australia. Although now at the behest of her notably gore-squeamish friend Draculaura she's trying to be a little less gung-ho about the act of chowing down on her favourite foods.

Like a lot of her latino father's side of her family (as well as a few of her mum's by way of Neighbors) lagoona has grown up with a love of telenovelas and soap operas and has been trying to get her roommate draculaura as invested in them as she is since they started boarding together.

Compared to her boy/girl crazy friends Lagoona has so far not really bothered much with trying to find a partner at MH, in truth she's taking a clean break from dating after the disastrous implosion of her first middle school relationship with gil webber, which lagoona in hindsight can recognise was incredibly unhealthy in nature (lagoona's nigh-obsessive romanticisation,gil's self pity and neglectful tendencies and general inexperience from both parties) and was just not what she needed at the time.

New character profile,as well as the final character out of our initial gang of five/six main characters!

Tbh lagoona being part bunyip and a shapeshifter has been an idea I've liked for a while,for those not in the know a bunyip is a water monster from Australian folklore that originated from indigenous Australians (hence why lagoona is also half indigenous) either based on the indigenous oral tradition about extinct Aussie megafauna or as a simple campfire story to screw with the white settlers/warn them about going near stagnant pools that could be full of crocodiles/murderous kangaroos/what have you.

A big part of the bunyip myth is that what it looks like exactly is kind of up to interpretation,hence shapeshifting, particularly shapeshifting different traits and features from different animals into one design (for example lagoona having crocodile scutes and jaws,webbed paws like a river otter and a fluked tail like a bull shark alongside more gillman-y features inherited from her dad) and as a side note,I also like the further idea that because of their half Latino heritage lagoona and her sisters designs either incorporate parts of or only Amazonian animals opposed to thier mother, whose parts come from only Australian animals (with a few exceptions their faunas are pretty interchangeable so they don't look all that different)

Also in case you were wondering what a rabbitfish shark looks like,Neptuna looks kinda like this:

Anyways,with our initial set of protagonists done,now it's time to write up bios for all the supporting characters,starting with the kids in the main ghouls school year...

[zydrateacademy]

Current Activities in Fallout 76 #1

So I haven't been blogging very much lately because my Youtube channel more or less does the "current activities" job for me. There's no point in transcribing something when it's basically just laid out in video form somewhere else. I couldn't really locate any kind of "First impressions" of Fallout 76. But that's okay because it's brief. It was boring. It was difficult. It didn't have, and still doesn't have any mod capabilities. I need the subscription service to make my own private world with its own rules (XP gains, material gains, health values) to make the game most comfortable for me personally. I have a distinct memory of struggling with having 20 to 100 bullets in the only weapon worth using at the time. Some of these problems have been alleviated. Some have not. The game just throws ammo at you now. A lot of the loot is based on whatever weapon you have actively equipped at the time of lootgen. You could gun down a bunch of ghouls with a 10mm, switch to something else, but the mobs will just have the 10mm on them. Now, this mechanic typically does not sustain a full automatic, but it is still a nice and pleasant feature. Next. Is it hard? Kind of. The enemies constantly scale with you. Some areas have caps, like even now at 89 I still run into level 50 enemies but other times they're still at-scale so even basic cultist enemies are just huge sponges against the might of my .50cal full auto machinegun. As a result, my level, health pool, armor rating, and all of that means nothing when everything in the world is just keeping up with me. I fear the days I reach into the hundreds and have to deal with some level 230 ghoul with the health pool to match and I'm still using the same 50cal because it's the only gun I've found that actually does any meaningful damage to anything. This game turned weight/loot management into one of the main gameplay loops and I really, really don't like that. I literally mod the weight out of junk in other Fallout games just so I can craft with impunity.

The game shoves me in this play-farm-repair-farm-repair-play loop that I don't much care for. Since eventually you have to start sacrificing pieces of your 1200lbs of storage... I once dumped 1000 units of steel only to later have a steel shortage because I was running out of it to craft my ammo to sustain my gun at the time.

Recently FO76 patched in such a way that makes questing almost unbearable. Every time you open the map it just slingshots to the top left. Objectives won't show up. Sometimes your teammates won't show up. Sometimes player camps won't show up. You have to hop-scotch your way towards every objective because not every quest gives you directions, ye olde-Morrowind style. Sometimes the journal just literally says "go do the thing", and my objective marker DOES show up on the minimap and nowhere else. So we have to hop location to location to see when the objective marker actually moves. It's an insane glitch and I haven't been able to progress the story in any meaningful way.

Every time I see something cool and ask about it the answer is "atom shop item" about 80% of the time.

So that is a fair bit of frontloaded negativity. There is a drive to see what's on the horizon. I'm 89, I want to reach 100 to nab that third legendary perk. The community's reputation for charity is well earned. If I'm struggling with the loop mentioned above, I can usually either ask the discord or directly ingame through the Chat mod (chat literally has to be a mod in this game because jesus christ why isn't it there to begin with). A simple matter of asking "hey can someone lend me some 50cal ammo? I'm stuck in a loop here..." and then someone gave me 20,000 ammo for my gun of choice that after three days of playing a few hours at a time, I've only expended a fourth of (meanwhile still replenishing it myself as my materials allow).

But I'm about to hit that loop again as I've run out of asbestos and springs to repair my armor. I'll have to downgrade my personal armor to something more sustainable. Or just ask chat.

Despite the glitch above I do want to see the end of the rainbow. I want to finish the story. I want... things. While I'm not sure I'll get the same 600 hours I did on FO4 through heavy modding and changing the experience on a fundamental level... I just might, kind of against my will as I get stuck in farming/repair loops and waiting for fusion cores to recharge (which is actually a very nice item to have at a reasonable atoms price of 500).

At 69 hours (heh) I'm still learning plenty. I just don't have too much hope for personal longevity.

[understance]

Fic idea - Terzo trying to teach you Italian. He teaches you a dirty phrase. You have no idea. Hilarity ensues.

i tried my darndest to get this finished and out as quickly as possible! i hope you enjoy <3

“No no no no- it’s amo, my love. Ah-moe. Try again.” Terzo gave you a small encouraging smile from his spot across from you. The two of you sat at a small table in a corner of the ghouls common room, drinking tea and eating snacks. You had been there for about an hour before Terzo suggested teaching you a bit of Italian, as a way to pass the downtime. 

You nodded, copying the way he had pronounced the word. putting it into a full sentence,”Ti amo?” You questioned, looking up at him for signs of approval or disapproval. “Ah-ha! There you go! I told you you’d get the hang of it.” He exclaimed, looking at you with what could only be described as admiration.

You smiled, muttering a small thanks and ducking your head shyly. Terzo takes a sip of his tea and thinks for a moment- racking his brain for other words and phrases he could teach you. After not even a second of debating on whether or not this was a good idea, he quirks his eyebrows up, setting down his mug and readjusting in his seat. “Oh, i’ve got another good one. How about you try ‘dovremmo scopare’. ”

Without hesitation, you repeat the words, watching as Terzo tries to stifle a giggle behind his hand. Embarrassment washes over you, “Why are you laughing? What did you just make me say?” He only shakes his head, lowering his hand and successfully pushing down his giggle-fit. 

“It just means ‘you’re handsome’, nothing bad, I promise.” He lies straight through his teeth, holding his hands up in mock innocence. You glare at him for a second before coming to the conclusion that he would never make you say anything bad that could get you into trouble. “Hm, alright then.” You huff, taking a swig of your tea. 

After a brief (and slightly awkward) silence, Terzo’s eyes light up with another stupid idea. “Say…why don’t you go say that to our dear Omega? I’m sure he could use a sweet, small pick-me-up.” He nods towards the couch where the quintessence ghoul sat with Dewdrop and Alpha, browsing through TV channels. 

You think it over. While it could potentially come off as creepy and forward, he has been having a particularly rough week. With balancing his nurse duties, helping Aether ease in the new quintessence ghoul, and struggling with helping out paying taxes, he’s had a lot on his plate. 

“Sure, why not?” 

You take one last drink from your tea and stand up, walking over to the couch and stopping to stand off to the side -by the armrest- next to where Omega was sat. “Hey, Omega?” He turns his attention from the TV to you, fully rotating his torso, and smiles. “Hello there, caro. What can I do for you?” 

You shuffle your feet anxisoulsy, slightly intimidated by the big ghoul before you. Even while sitting, it was hard to ignore his size. You take a deep breath and hit a metaphorical ‘fuck it’ button in your brain, “Dovremmo scopare.”  

You watch as Omega’s expression changes- eyebrows shooting up and mouth falling open in surprise. From further down the couch, Dew bursts into laughter- gripping at his stomach and folding over himself. 

Immediately you realize somethings wrong. You damn near give yourself whiplash from how fast you turn to face Terzo, watching as he too begins to laugh. Your stomach drops, “What did I just say?!” 

Terzo tries to answer, but everytime he opens his mouth to speak he laughs even harder at his own stupid, childish joke. Alpha pipes in from the other end of the couch, “Uh, it means ‘we should fuck’.”  

Horror washes over you. You cover your face and sink to the floor, wishing it would consume you and drag you down into the deepest pit of Hell. You just said that to Omega. OMEGA. One of the most well respected, mature, and powerful ghouls in all of the Clergy. Scratch that- the most powerful ghoul in the Clergy. 

Omega reaches over to lightly pat your back, both comforting and reassuring you that he didn’t think you were a complete weirdo. 

You were going to drown Terzo, you decided.

[allexonspace]

Hey good sir! I follow you and you seem somewhat hyperfixated on the band Ghost. I'm interested in getting more into them and want to know more about them, could I entice you to maybe infodump to me about them and possibly drop some links of your favourite moments / moments which you think are important to understanding Ghost lore? :3 /nf

...you've doomed yourself

Ok so, I suck ass at infodumping through text but I'll do my best

Ghost is a satanic glam metal/rock band which has some really fun lore and has multiple characters through the years with different lore both canonically and hc/fanon. This is a video I really enjoyed watching that summarizes most of the lore, This is another one but I recommend you watch mvs and the chapters (both found on the Ghost YouTube channel) as well. Now the videos are old so there's new stuff specially regarding the ghouls and what the last chapter was but if you need more info on that you can always check out the tags here and slowly learn how canon and fanon works and what not :]

Anyways, the band is formed by lead singer Copia (papa emeritus lV but we all keep calling him copia which is the characters actual name but irl and out of character his name is Tobias Forge) and the nameless ghouls, the nameless ghouls play the instruments, each one is assigned a different element (fire, water, earth, air, quintessence) which indicates what instrument they play (there's also multi ghouls which are vocals and an instrument)

Now fanon assigned names to each ghoul/ghoulette but canonically they don't have names. You can find who each one is and what their name is with the video and for a more updated one just look up the nameless ghouls tag :]

The nameless ghouls were originally completely anonymous but now a majority of them aren't, it's still costume specially here that if you are mentioning or talking about any of them outside of character/costume to use the tag "unmasked ghoul/ghouls" in case you want to keep the anonymity of the characters, otherwise you can also look up that tag to find out more about the people outside the characters cause they're all incredible artists of their own in case u wanna check out the stuff they themselves make outside of Ghost!

There's a lot of lore that in fanon changes a bit or things are added to them but they mostly keep the same things canon has but it's good to learn the canon lore first before looking at the fanon over here or on Twitter snd stuff.

That's the best I can do cause it's 4:30 am ish and my brain isn't loading and I fear I cannot explain the lore correctly for the life of me jsjsjs but I hope the videos I linked serve well + watch the most recent chapters that have newer lore :3!!!

[i-was-bored-so-this-happened]

It Will Come Back Chapter Four: The Fourth

Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Wordcount: 2.6k Warnings: Attempted murder, violence, confessions

Dana must leave the safehouse - and Gortash - behind

Read on AO3 Previous Chapter | Next Chapter Writing Masterpost

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Gortash wakes up alone. For most of his life, he has woken up alone. For most of his life, he had woken up on a hard floor. Now, he’s far more likely to find himself in a bed. Normally his own. On occasion he rolls over to check if whichever patriar he’d tumbled with is still asleep and, if so, extracts himself from the room as quietly as possible to find food and a small valuable that won’t be missed. He’ll usually leave a note, they love notes, a dozen words posed well enough will have them on their knees again in a tenday no matter what he steals. On these occasions, a game is made of who can find who first: Gortash stepping out of the house with as much dignity as he can muster or Dana leaning against a wall somewhere nearby twirling a dagger point deeper and deeper into the pad of her index finger. One or the other wins and Dana pushes him into an alley and he kisses her until he smells like her again, like cedar and cinnamon. Dana doesn’t care much for the cloying floral scents of toff toiletries. More often he wakes with her, in the Norchapel safe house. She sleeps quite literally like the dead - her arms crossed over her chest, which barely moves to signify her breaths, her face a perfect mask and her lips ever so slightly parted - and it’s a good night if she doesn’t startle awake every few hours with murder roaring in her blood or fear shaking her bones. These disturbances have been happening at a higher frequency in the months since Gortash was named a lord and elevated to a high military advisory position. Today, he wakes alone. 

Dana’s side of the bed is cold. How long has she been gone? The pillow she punches into place every night, no matter how exhausted she is, is undented. She did not sleep at all. How could he miss that? As he moves to find shoes, clothes, anything suitable to go outside in, his body complains. Chronic creaking in his joints, phantom pressure of Dana’s fingers on his throat. Poor excuses. Her daggers are polished almost to the point of becoming mirrors, carefully set on the windowsill for the cleaning solution to dry. Her shoes are gone, as is his waistcoat. Fair play, he supposes, her shirt had been ripped to ribbons the night before. With hope, she hasn’t gone wandering the streets. Now is not the time for a Bhaalspawn murder spree, not yet. She’d blow the top off the entire plan, not to mention revealing the revival of the Bhaalist cult. They’ve come close before, on nights she could not contest the urges anymore. He’s found her in the slaughterhouse district coated in pig blood and hauled her back to the house and into a bath to clean it all off before letting her loose in her laboratory. He’s found her in Little Calimsham with a family reduced to bones at her feet, and as he’d stepped through the door she’d whirled a circle of magic and raised every one of them into a ghoul under her command. He’s found her in the Lower City graveyard, graves erupting around her and coffins swinging open as she prepares a platoon of zombies to terrorise the drunken patrons of taverns trying to stumble home. These events don’t even become setbacks - they serve to sow further fear among the people - and the partners have always nipped it in the bud. She has always managed to regain control, to keep herself from causing irreversible damage to the plan. She has that strength, that wisdom that her sister Orin lacks. Dana’s kills are purposeful and deliberated over. Worthy of Bhaal’s attention, favour, faith. Compulsive, perhaps, when a far greater and darker power is channelling itself through her, but not without reason if she can help it.

Gortash finds that she hasn’t gone far, which is probably a good thing. A lord should not leave a house that no one knows about in little more than shoes and a robe that is designed for sleeping rather than spellcasting. The fucking butler’s here. Rancid little bastard. It had taken him a while to find the house, but he’d found it. He can track Dana quite effectively, but he can only zero in on her location if she spends enough time there. He worships Dana, in a way that would be disconcerting if he wasn’t an envoy directly sent by Bhaal to guide her. If anyone outside of her temple had looked at her like that, spoken to her like that…well, they wouldn’t even be afforded a headstone, put it that way. Gortash is civil to the butler because he has to be. The butler is under no such constraints. His eyes carve along the lines of Gortash’s bare chest as though nothing would please him more than to use that beak of a nose to slice the Banite open. Gortash doesn’t have a name to him. He is simply the Banite. 

“My little horror. Fel. Well met.” Gortash greets them from the foot of the stairs and yes, he knows how it incenses the butler to hear Dana referred to as his. It’s a large part of the reason he does it. The butler opens his mouth, no doubt to spit at the Banite, but-

“Be gone.” Dana’s voice is cold, but it's tired. She’s tired. She is wearing Gortash’s waistcoat from the day before, but no shirt beneath, and her tattooed shoulders are tense. 

“But Master-”

“Be gone.” Dana repeats, and he is gone. She is left holding the skull of a tiefling, horns still intact. Her fingers move over its crown with a strange familiarity as she drifts towards the fireplace and begins to move things on the mantelpiece to make space for it. Gortash waits for a moment to ensure the butler’s departure before he moves towards Dana. The air around her is thick with emotions that are damn near visible they’re so strong. Anger. Sadness. The urge. Exhaustion above all else.

“Bad night,” It’s a statement, not a question. She can’t deny it. Gortash’s hands, clear of rings and gauntlets and supports, go to her shoulders and smooth down her arms, “You know I’d rather you wake me.” To stop her or to join her, it makes no difference to him. He wants to be there. She shudders under his hands, then pulls her entire self into her chest as though to get away from him,

“Don’t.” This is the only word she says, but it’s enough. Gortash lifts his hands and steps back. Dana’s head tips forward until her forehead smacks into her palm. The empty eye sockets of the tiefling skull stare into Gortash’s very soul over her hair. When she turns to him there is no red sheen to her eyes, just endlessly deep brown, but her skin is more pallid than usual. She didn’t sleep. She fought her demons alone all night. She’s bickering with the butler.

“Slayer, talk to me.”

“I can’t.”

“Then go upstairs and sleep. Don’t try and tell me you don’t need the rest.”

“Gortash, I’m executing Contingency Plan F.” Dana tells him, hugging her elbows. He knows what Contingency Plan F means. Of course he does, he knows all of their plans. This is one he never thought would be employed. He’d rather Plan D over F. Hells, even Plan N. Myrkul can always Choose another. But she’s prepared Plan F. She’s ready. A heavily stained travel pack rests against the chaise. Her coat. Her boots.

“Why?” It's all he can fathom saying. It doesn’t make sense. Everything had been going well. Everything had been brilliant. The plan is moving seamlessly, the three Chosen top-notch cogs in a meticulously maintained machine. Gortash and Dana have risen above and beyond their upbringings and the expectations held for them. They attend balls, press conferences, charity events. The Iron Throne has been rebuilt. The Steel Watch Foundry is complete. They have everything. They have each other. Lord Gortash. Mage Carmine, as she’s known to the public. They’re two of the most powerful people in the city and they revel in driving their heels into the place. They’ve worked so hard, for so long. They’re over the top of the hill, hand in hand.

“I was given fresh orders a tenday ago. I have not carried them out. This is unacceptable.”

“What orders? Who is the target?” He’s had no word of this from Bane. The three gods operate slightly differently, this is true, and each has an altered version of the agenda that their Chosen are following, but-

“You,” She’s telling the truth. He can see it in the infinitesimal wobble of her bottom lip, the split in it threatening to open again, “Every night I have slept with you this past week I have used every ounce of my strength, of my focus, to keep from squeezing every whisper of air from your lungs, from slicing into your stomach until you wear your intestines as anklets, from shoving the black bloody hand of Bane so far down your throat you shit it out the next morning-” these words are ripped from her quickly, the cadence rushed and high in an anticipatory tone he knows well, stopped by the hand she flattens across her lips only for her own mouth to betray her, to open and sink her teeth into the soft flesh of the webbing between her thumb and her index finger until blood is drawn and Gortash lurches forward to prevent her causing more harm to herself. This is how Orin speaks.

“Dana-”

“Don’t touch.” She yanks her hand back. Her blood is already smeared on his fingers. This is worse than normal, much worse. Very rarely has she injured herself to prevent hurting someone else. Never, actually, now he thinks of it. Gortash has never seen her draw her own blood instead of spilling someone else’s. He’s never known her to use her own pain to satisfy the urge. To protect someone. Then again, he has only ever incidentally been the target of the urge.

“I don’t understand. Why would Bhaal order my death?” He asks. Dana’s panting like a cornered animal, her eyes darting for escape.

“I can’t-” her words stifle themselves and her head shakes and her eyes shut as though she’s fighting off a headache. She holds herself tighter and tighter and tighter. She’s going to leave bruises on her arms. Then she is still. Her eyes open. They shine red.

“Dana. Dana, don’t.” The warning is hardly out of his mouth before Bhaal’s Chosen launches herself at him. He hits the wooden back of the chaise at an odd angle, knocking it over and spiking pain in his back. It’s a mad scramble of hair-pulling and nails scraping and wild snarls. A hand cold and coated in ice pushes into his cheek and maddening whispers worm into his ears. Her spells are melting together, compounding as the inescapable aura of Bhaal and bloody murder lowers over him. He will not die here. He will not die at her hand. She will not give in. He’s never been scared of her before. He isn’t scared of her now, even as she manages to push him down onto the ground with her hands wrapped around his throat. She will shake this off. She has to. He starts to choke. 

Through faltering vision he sees her blink. Her features contort and a word squeaks from her, no. A break. Push-back. Something. Dana. It’s the best chance he has. He manages, somehow, to flip them so she’s pinned under his weight and one of her arms is trapped under his leg but the other…he doesn’t catch it in time. A shortsword of pure darkness grows from her fingertips. He knows this blade. It might be made of shadow, but it is still sharp. He’s watched her cleave through flesh and mind alike with it. As it slices the skin it tears into the brain. It has not cut him yet. Dana breathes out and it’s a painful-sounding rattle. Her arm trembles. She’s trying. Her eyes are still her own. He’s never seen this before. He’s never been scared of her before. He isn’t scared of her now. She’s more than this, more than mindless murder. He says her name. Her full name. A tear slides from the corner of her eye to the floor, not translucent and salty but thick and red. The shadows recede under her skin.

“Because I love you,” her voice is still her own, thin and reedy and scared as it is. He has never known her to be frightened before. It’s an icepick in his very heart, so much so that his understanding of her words is delayed. She’s never said that before. Neither of them have. A second icepick, “Because I defy Him for you. The very flesh and blood and bone of Bhaal bends to mortal whim and he will not stand for it,” she’s crying now, sobbing, shaking in Gortash’s grip. Making no attempt to wriggle free from him or even stop him from restraining her other hand, “I did not think Bhaalspawn were capable of love. I did not think that we were more than harbingers. You…” her breath is quickening again, on the edge of hyperventilation, “You made me think I might have a soul. A heart. But I am not my own person, I never have been. I am Him, and He is me, and He wants you strung from Wyrm’s Rock by your entrails and He wants me to do it so that I know-” A wail stops her words and she pushes back against Gortash as best as she can, writhing until she is out from under him and she keeps moving away until she hits the wall opposite him.

“Dana-”

“Do not speak. I can only hold for so much longer,” Her breathing is still erratically rapid, but her eyes are her own. She’s resisting. She is actively defying her god, her father, the blood that runs in her veins. For Enver Gortash. Her body trembles with the effort of it as she rises to her feet. He wants to say something do something but he doesn’t know what. Everything has happened so fast, so shockingly that even he hasn’t been able to process it. He doesn’t even get the chance to think. She holds a cord in her hand, a cord she’d ripped from his neck without his noticing while they’d fought on the floor. A small, flat piece of iron hangs from it, “Non movere.” 

Gortash is stuck. Glued to the floor by the fallen chaise that she’d been so fond of. She wouldn’t let him throw it out. Now it’s broken. They are broken. Words fight to escape his vocal cords. He can scarcely blink.  Now he can do nothing but stare at Dana as she calms her breathing. She has overcome the urge. For now.

“There is only one way to avoid your death. I must go to Ketheric. With Orin. Be under their watch at Moonrise. I must repent. I must atone. You cannot follow me. The Grand Design will proceed,” She retrieves her pack and her shoes, but her fingers are too shaky to tie the laces, “I’m sorry.” She’s going for the door, she’s leaving him, she’s forgotten her daggers. Leaving him alive despite Bhaal’s will. He has been spared not by the grace of any god but by her. His ally, his friend, his…everything of over a decade. He can’t even try to stop her. He can blink. He can speak. As she steps across the threshold, thin tracks of blood running down her face, he finds he can speak,

“I love you.”

[ryuzatodraws-archive]

going back to the concept of Omega eating Terzo's body (thank you anon for that request drabble) I went back and forth with this with @comp-lady and well it snowballed so good XD

what if the only honorary death a Papa can have is to be eaten by Their™️ ghouls? 

Done mostly in a ceremony or a private attendees of the Papa’s most loyal friends and worshippers. 

It grants the Papas the highest seat in Hell, some said almost next to Lucifer himself.

Tombs are said to be empty , sometimes shrines are built instead allowing people to pay respect to the previous Papas

Unfortunately this custom is slowly dying with the ghouls being passed down to the next of kin or the next Papa, Bodies are instead being entombed or embalmed. 

Now…we know what Sister Imperator did with the 3 brothers right? Their bodies paraded tour by tour. 

Usually Papa Ghoul doesn’t meddle in earthly problems like this, he stays to his lane of picking who’s going up and greeting back the ghouls who had returned to the Pit. 

But his brain set into panic mode the moment he couldn’t find Secondo in hell, he searched for many years (hell is a big place after all) and then, he found out about the whole thing from a banished ghoul. 

Papa Ghoul pays Sister a visit, threatening her about this …this disrespect that shes doing with her own sons. 

He then pays Copia’s ghouls a visit, via the tv 

Copia is confused. What channel is this? Who is this creepy looking guy? Where’s Miss Daisy?

‘’Shush!’’ Cirrus hush the Papa before all the ghouls swarms the tv to listen. 

‘’I have a task , only you can execute this. Copia, I’ll be needing your help as well’’

[nocturnalghoul]

i would love to hear more abt frakenghouls appearance and if they have any elemental powers ♡

Frankenghoul by beloved! I honestly talked a bit more about them than just what you asked (including a little about their summoning) but it's related so yay bonus creature lore.

Slight allusions to gore at one point, but its brief and purposefully vague. It's all contained within the indented section if that is something anyone is sensitive to or does not want to read. Skipping that section does not affect comprehension of anything else about their lore.

Their features have changed over time (partially due to self experimentation with rituals of their own in the woods). Their appearance is different from when they were freshly summoned, to shortly after, to now.

When they were freshly summoned... well there is a reason the clergy termed them "the abomination". It was partially their overall look, but more so the way it was achieved. Nobody really knew anything about how to contain ghoulish features and reconcile them within a host body. The clergy definitely beefed that part of the ritual, along with their element. Several clergy members present at the ritual fainted during Frankenghoul's summoning. Their ghoulish traits (eyes, horns, tail, claws, etc.) quite literally ripped their way out of the host body in a graphic display.

I picture it as sort of similar to the werewolf transformation scene in Hemlock Grove. (Warning for anybody who isn't familiar, while I would easily call it one of my favorite werewolf transformation scenes, it is also kinda graphic as the wolf inside of him literally tears and eats it's way out. If you are sensitive to imagery like that do not look it up!). Essentially their ghoulish characteristics had to tear themselves out of the human vessel in a brutish manner.

This is part of the reason they have a lot of resentment towards the church. They had attempted to tie human glamour to the vessel itself instead of putting a ghoul into the vessel and fixing it later. Essentially the magic they used was not strong enough and everything broke through.

Immediately afterwards though, they looked like what observers at the event could only describe as a nightmarish impersonation of a person. They looked like if you took a human man and put them in a taffy puller then added cheap monster makeup. They were far too long, with weird bruised purple-gray skin. The long spiraling glowing horns and glowing eyes (each a set of one violet, one green on opposite sides of the face), fanged maw, and razor sharp tail did very little to help that spooky vibe they had going. They looked neither human nor fully ghoulish. Between the traumatic experience of creating them, and seeing the shocking end result everyone decided to immediately dip out and hold a long series of meetings deciding what to do with this thing that they created.

Good ol' Creature Feature tho managed to eventually recover and come back to their senses enough to run off. As time went on and their scrambled mind returned to them, they were sort of able to fix some things themselves. They are now probably the best and most accomplished ritualist topside so they were able to make themselves less concerning. They don't really have a use for a human glamour, seeing as they live deep in the woods and purposefully do not interact with people, but it is still intrinsically tied to their vessel.

Nowadays they look similar to how the other ghouls look "unglamoured" but the ghouls can still tell that they are a bit too beastly to be quite right. They appear overly strong and oddly proportioned. Their ears and fangs are a little too sharp, and there are lines of elemental magic that shine though out of the scars left behind from their summoning. Other ghouls can occasionally be seen glowing with magic from places besides their eyes when they are channeling their element or feeling super emotional, but Creature Feature just sort of does that constantly. It makes them rather unsettling to come across in the dark.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They do in fact have elemental powers! It took them at least a decade to figure out how to channel them, but it's there.

Part of the reason it was so hard was because they were an Air ghoul down in hell and accustomed to drawing from their element in a particular fashion. Being forced into the opposite element meant that they had to draw from their magic in a completely different way and essentially relearn how to ghoul magic.

With time, patience, and a few midnight personal rituals deep in the woods, they also figured out how to switch between their original and new element. Whichever element they are currently attuned to will make the eye and horn corresponding to that element glow brighter. The glow from their scars though is always whichever element they are not using at the time.

They still haven't figured out how to channel both elements concurrently, but hope that by researching the modified hybrid and multi rituals the clergy made for Dew/Swiss/Sunny they can write their own ritual to make it happen.