#mostly consisting of:

[essektheylyss]

I understand the impulse to clown on Essek for walking around in Vasselheim with his recognizable voice with the Bright Queen's spearhead commander, and of course we could turn to the metatextual elements (the necessity of signposting the world for players on the part of the GM, the ease of using a familiar ally to introduce a relevant NPC and new point of contact) to dismiss this if we wanted, but I think it's more interesting—and funnier, as you'll see—to imagine this as simply an extension of the laws and logic that dictate the Mighty Nein as a narrative entity.

Fundamentally, the Mighty Nein within their campaign pursue personal and collective agency, often at the expense or in denial of political power. Where they do interact with more political forms of power, they evade its grasp upon them, most notably in their interactions with the war, but also while they engage with the Cerberus Assembly, the Cobalt Soul, and even the Revelry. The way they pursue agency, on the other hand, has far more to do with their own support of one another and their own individual power, especially where there is magic involved, and manifests in having the freedom to move and act as they wish in the world.

The culmination of this, as we know, is the mechanical ability in their final battle against Lucien and the Somnovem to manipulate the terrain of the battle map to their advantage with only imagination. At the same time, Jester and Caduceus can both call in free favors from their gods, one of whom is unlimited by the Divine Gate and in fact is far more governed by fey logic. Fjord has made three different divine pacts and is virtually unrestricted by any of them. Caleb's hallmark is an almost infinitely malleable home that almost literally seems to operate as a hammerspace, with a pinnacle dedicated to the potentiality of the universe, the application of which is one of his signature spells—against all odds successful in his initial goal, no longer fueled by guilt and grief, of bending reality to his will. It's narratively and thematically cogent that this be the calling card of the party as a whole.

The Mighty Nein are, in effect, dictated by Looney Tunes logic, and nothing else. They have been so successful in their pursuit of their own freedom that they no longer abide by the cosmic laws of Exandria, let alone the laws of physics or sense. So yes, from an external point of view, it does look exceedingly foolish for Essek to be traipsing around in Vasselheim under the Bright Queen's nose, but it's far more entertaining to argue that being a member of the Mighty Nein in fact simply confers the capability of ignoring the laws of reality without consequence when it's narratively convenient, characteristically interesting—or just really fucking funny.

[frog-chemicals]

Part 2!

[egophiliac]

So I was doing some math, and I THINK Skully is almost as tall as Malleus without his horns

I think the main reference to his height is Epel being surprised they're the same age because he's taller than Sebek, yes? which I find interesting, considering Jade and Malleus -- two of the tallest guys in the main cast -- are also there. and, since I've never been one to not think waaaay too much about the absolute stupidest minutiae about fictional characters, I see two possibilities:

one is that Epel is extremely good at eyeballing heights (I actually do feel like he could be? like. I'd believe he can estimate someone's height fairly accurately by calculating based on the life stages of an apple tree, or how many apples tall they are, or something else apple-related like that.) and Scully does, perhaps, fall into that narrow margin between Sebek and Jade in height.

OR two, out of the three certified Tall Guys there, Sebek is Epel's main frame of reference because he's the only one he's had any real interaction with for, let's be fair, pretty obvious reasons.

SO in conclusion, we still have no concrete answers and will probably have to wait until next year when we get his card profile, alas alas. 😔

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[wardingshout]

you know those really big bunnies but also those really tiny bunnies... that's it, thanks for your time

[emkini]

Hmmm yeah this is acceptable enough to post I guess. Merry Christmas cbeeduo enjoyers

ft. lineart

[altruistic-meme]

i know it's been said a million times by now but Neil making the FBI agents give him a to-go container before going with them to the headquarters and then pulling it out MID INTERROGATION to continue eating is so fucking unhinged. i love him so fucking much. i fully believe that was a completely intentional power move on Neil's part i doubt he was even that hungry he just wanted to be a little bitch.

[glazedcroissant]

I've been reading @post-it-notes7 heart and soul series once again, and I wanted to make some more fanart! As such, doodles:

Read their fic here!

[ravenlilyrose]

So I know we all talk about how strangely socialized Bart and Kon would be given that Tim “wouldn’t know normal if it walked up to him, introduced itself, and punched him in the face” Drake was the one socializing them.

But what about when Tim is questioning something and goes to ask Bart about it, who completely confidently tells him that something incredibly strange is very normal.

[rad-roche]

Date Night

[quibbs126]

Okay, I think I’m FINALLY done with these designs. Well okay, I said Megatron might need some reworking, but shush, I’ll do that another time

I was not expecting this to take as long as it did. Apparently I started making this at 9 in the morning, and it is now 9:30 at night. Optimus, I am almost certain this is your fault

Anyways, as mentioned prior, the idea here was to give the Earthspark Cybertronians protoform designs like the Terrans, what they might look like when they were in this stage, because I haven’t seen anything to claim Cybertronians in this series don’t also have this stage, unless I’m wrong

I mean theoretically, Cybertronian protoforms could look entirely different from Terran protoforms, but we don’t know at this juncture, so I used the Terrans as my main references

Pretty much the main thing was trying to turn their blocky features smooth, while also taking out a bunch of their little details, like their antenna and horns

Honestly I still think Elita turned out the best, which is maybe a bit sad considering she was the first one I finished, but oh well. I don’t think everyone else was horrible, but I think she just looks best

I think Bee’s design is fine, and it was honestly refreshing after struggling so much with Optimus, but I can’t help but feel like his eyes are still wonky

Like I’ve said, by the end of things I think Megatron came out the worst. He was the second one I did, so I wasn’t sure, but by now I think he is. The real struggle with him is that his entire helmet is comprised of angles, when I need curves. And then there’s his side things, which I still do not know how to translate here. The idea I was trying to go for here is the top half goes around his head, while the bottom half is attached at the ends, but it’s the bottom half that looks weird. But ah well, hopefully I can fix it later

And then there’s Optimus. The majority of the time I’ve spent on this was him. It was mostly the struggle of his vents and trying to make them un-blocky. It was getting really frustrating particularly because I couldn’t think of anything new to do with them to change them, drawing the same thing over and over

But then I remembered, this Optimus was once Orion Pax, a fact I was planning to omit. But that meant I had something else to draw on

And it’s what finally got my brain to make his side things into the curves you see now. It’s also why his middle thing is solid black, like how it seems to be in the picture above

But yeah, I wouldn’t rate his design as the absolute best, but it’s serviceable and I’ll take what I can get

But aside from trying to change their designs, I think I had fun. I noticed by the end of it that they all have different face and eye shapes, and that’s pretty fun

Speaking of which, I notice with this how small Optimus’ eyes are here. They may not look it in my drawing but they’re a lot smaller than the others in the show. Is that one of the reasons his design looks so off? Like I know it looks weird, I just can’t place how exactly

But yeah, take these designs, the culmination of my drawing abilities for the day. I’d like to do more with them, I just don’t know what. Best I can think of is like, a fic premise where the Cybertronians somehow get reverted back to these protoform stages, and the Terrans now have to help them out

[morganbritton132]

Modern Day Steddie where Steve becomes somewhat of a shut in after the kids go off to college and the highlight of his day is watching his heavy metal mailman on his ring camera.

[starflungwaddledee]

did you remember to leave space for all your phantom limbs?

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☀︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚★⋆｡˚ ┊ ┊ ⋆ ┊ ★⋆ ┊ ◦ kirbytober 2024 #03 ★⋆ miracle // phantom // magic

[turtletoria]

beardleitner revival

[bacchuschucklefuck]

species medley ft. gorgug and riz

[himbionn]

Uh self indulgent vampire x hunter au 🧍‍♂️(and then they started making out /hj)