#not just killing all of your enemies

[lord-squiggletits]

When I think about it it’s actually kind of weird that JRO retroactively wrote in that around the time Megatron killed Sentinel, he was still trying to convince the populace to be on his side (”trying to convince the populace” as in caring about the people rather than fighting for its own sake as established in Dark Cybertron).

I mean when I think about the fact that Megatron had the entire Senate massacred (bar a few random Senators), that’s not exactly a move that inspires confidence broadly in a population? Maybe I’m coming at it from a privileged perspective but I feel like in any given society, massacring the entire standing government is a move that WOULD appeal to radical elements (aka the people that probably already stood with Megatron), but it would definitely not inspire confidence in the Decepticons to literally anyone else. The Senate being evil or no, a rebel group that kills (or arranges to be killed) the entire standing government body isn’t exactly a group that most people would look at and go “hmm they will definitely stop killing right at this point and they will definitely not continue to use violence as a form of political action and control.”

[magicpiano]

A lot of DCxDP AUs use the idea that the Lazarus Pits are just slightly fucked up Ectoplasm. I love this idea, but it does make me wonder what would happen to Ra's.

So, AU where Ra's dies, and they are confident he is going to stay dead this time. Yay! Except... Ra's turns into a ghost because of all that Ectoplasm.

It takes a while for them to realize this because he is keeping it quiet at first, gathering resources, planning, ect. Plus the bats don't really know anything about ghosts. (Yes, DC has ghosts, but they are like a different breed of ghost or something.)

Maybe they think there is a new player on the scene or something, but they don't think it is Ra's. They don't realize the truth till his plan is already in motion. Maybe he even overshadowed Damian?

Dying has somehow made Ra's into a worse enemy because this time they don't even know how to fight him. Luckily, the ghost hero Phantom is willing to help.

[wickjump]

lvl20 cross is my no.1 enemy btw. if i see him there will be an unspecified lethal weapon in my paws and it will be pointed in his general location

[copypastus]

"You never told me where you got it - where you got all my favourite dresses." Rhys arched a dark brow. "You never figured it out?" I shook my head. For a moment, he said nothing, his head dipping to study the dress. "My mother made them." (...) I gazed a reverant hand down my sleeve. "I- I had no idea." His eyes were star bright. "Long ago when I was still a boy, she made them - all your gowns. A trousseau for my future bride." His throat bobbed. "Every piece... Every piece I have ever given you to wear, she made them. For you"

Sometimes you just read something and can't help but think about the implications.

"aww how sweet his mom made all her favourite gowns how wholesome" nonono EVERY. PIECE. Ma'am please he's still a baby boy you're making a lot of assumptions about his future preferences.

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

tbh i think that even unwinnable fights should be winnable. some of the BEST fights i've ever run as a dm were ones i built kill the players (in a fun way. I had some cutscenes prepped so even the loss would be a different flavour of win)- but then they were clever bastards and managed to either win the fights or pull themselves out of trouble. I think it's perfectly fine to plan for a fight that players aren't supposed to win, but you need to let them. if they can't win, they can't lose, and the meaning of that encounter is diminished. do that too many times, and they stop trusting you to give them roleplay prompts and start expecting to sit there waiting while you drive the story for them.

but if they can win... if there is always the chance to win, no matter how impossible the odds, then they ALWAYS have hope. they always get invested. they feel the big emotions of success or the big emotions of failure, and you fucking Win as a dm/roleplay prompter/lead bastard.

[ladystoneboobs]

anyways, speaking of cannibalism, wrt frey pies in particular, it just hit me that the rat cook song is not just a way for wyman to slyly telegraph what he did w/o any of his in-world foes noticing, it could also be his justification just as much as inspiration. let's look back at how we learned of the legend through bran:

"It was not for murder that the gods cursed him," Old Nan said, "nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive." -Bran IV, aSoS

so, in other words: 1) violating guest right is the most heinous of crimes and 2) if guest right is not violated then murder and even cannibalizing the murdered to feed to their own kin is a-ok so long as the motive is personal revenge. by giving guest gifts to the 3 frey envoys to end any guest rite bond asap and get to the killings, wyman not only gets just a feeling of moral superiority by at least not committing the same type of crime as the enemies he killed, he also ensured that his vengeance could be divinely sanctioned as a natural right correctly exercised, unlike how the rat cook did his. he learned his lessons from this northern legend and improved upon the actions of this nightfort cook accordingly. thing is, the justified right to vengeance has to be just an old gods thing, not fitting in with the seven (which house manderly had converted to 1000s of years ago back in the reach) as the christainity stand-in, which is just evidence of the depth of manderly northern assimilation and/or that old dark ways never entirely disappear, no matter the religion. wyman manderly can still worship the "new" gods with just as much urge toward old-fashioned bloody revenge as any old gods worshipping northman, not so different from his vassal ser bartimus in the wolf's den who bragged to davos that his ancestors were likely among those who once hung slavers' entrails in a heart tree as a bloody offering to the old gods.

[starheirxero]

Do you guys ever think about how the first thing Eclipse did when he got absolutely god-like power was just, make everyone love him without questions. cuz I do. I think about it a lot.

[rohirric-hunter]

I know it's a reference to Bilbo, who the class was based off of, but I love that burlgars in LotRO have the Riddle skill. Love the implication that in the middle of a fight you're just like, "Hey, by the way, you're in a dark room in front of a door. On either side of the door are two guards. One always tells the truth and the other always lies. What question --"

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I love how Brennan as a DM was all "Riz, you need more than good grades. You need to stand out. You need showstopping extracurriculars." and to Kristen he was all, "I'm going to throw the weight of an entire religion at you, make you relive your family trauma through your brother and give you relationship issues."

Yet, SOMEHOW, when Brennan introduced little miss four dogs, the driven type A rogue, and had her run for president, setting up the perfect foil for Riz's character and an amazing extracurricular for Riz to aim for in one fell swoop, THE ENTIRE PARTY WENT "KRISTEN 4 PREZ!!!! SHRIMP PARTY 2.0!!!"

Don't get me wrong, I love that Ally went for the fucking throat on vibes alone. Like, that was truly loathing at first sight and I love that for them, I really do.

BUT ALSO THAT WAS RIZ'S PLOTLINE KRISTEN. YOU HAVE LIKE THREE PLOTLINES KRISTEN. WHY ARE YOU ADDING MORE TO YOUR PLATE KRISTEN.

[freakinator]

i need to get crazier about zamdoons i think

[dark-side-blog3]

not really a request! just saw ur tf2 post and uhhh about went a lil feral at the mention that u may consider writing for the characters? 👉👈 love ur content so much pls pls if u choose to write for tf2 i will be in ur debt- 🙏

no pressure tho pls write what u wanna! love ur blog!!!

I really like the idea of the power imbalance that could come from a victim who can't use the respawn machine; especially if everyone else on the base can. The isolation that comes with being a new member of the team that already has years of chemistry, knowing that assassins don't exactly get an HR for interpersonal conflicts on the job site, anyway. You're more vulnerable, socially and physically. If a Pyro decides to light you up, you're permanently dead. Even if you manage to kill someone, they'll just come back a few minutes later.

Maybe Medic or Engineer saying it will only take a week or two until your respawn is available (and "delaying" it more and more, simply because it's funny to watch). Pauling calling you and saying they're not planning to give you respawn until you manage a higher killstreak.

Everyone in the base is a sadist. They probably don't even like you, let alone feel deeper emotions when they all nearly kill you during off hours.

It's probably only after months of constant near misses that one of the members starts to think of just how far they could take your desire to stay alive. Your respawns still not up, so you're not in a position to say no...

OR, for your consideration: someone on the other team realizing you don't have a respawn because there isn't a version of you on their team. Spy is probably the first to pick up on this (maybe Medic is a close second) since keeping a level head and multitasking is his job description. He knows you're vulnerable. And then it just becomes fun to try to single you out every round.

[nejackdaw]

(reads my own fic) woah. I'm so good at my job

[iwasbored777]

It makes me wanna facepalm whenever I remember how hard Poppy was crushing on Creek cuz she's so in love with Branch now and that could've been Creek but he was a fucking idiot and blew it

[rhinco]

i think it's a really interesting phenomenon in sci fi and fantasy stories where an entire species is assigned a moral code with no room for nuance because it most often seems to be used as an excuse as to why it's okay to just slaughter them. come across a group of goblins in dnd? oh well, it's fine if you kill them, all goblins are bloodthirsty and would kill you without second thought anyway. it's okay if we do horrible things to this alien, their species has a ruthless moral code and every single one of them adheres to it with no exceptions. we don't need to feel guilty about this because if it was the other way around they would kill us, with no exceptions. the species that are labeled as enemies are unilaterally bad. but of course there's nuance among the species that are your allies. why do we assume that other species are so uniform when humans are so incredibly varied?

[kuroo-hitsuji]

(Minor?) NB Spoilers (lesson 35 (normal))

I'm losing it over the fact that I spent literally the Entire beginning of the train dinner situation telling my partner that I was gonna throw Lucifer out the fuckin window

And then Mephisto shows up and Lucifer says something about fucking throwing him out the window--

Please this Keeps happening fjsjgdxj stop stealing my lines, asshole

[fourswords]

one au idea i think would be super funny is if shadow somehow figured out that vio was only pretending to be on his side so he could get information and kill him like. almost immediately. like instead of them having time to actually get attached to each other that whole thing is foiled before it starts. and so instead of shadow flying into a rage because of a betrayal instead he's like "y'know what fuck it i can do that too" and starts talking like this whenever vio fishes for information