#plague diary

[moonmothmama]

i'm taking another test please please be negative this time

[lyraofthestarsss]

Just saw (an illusion of) my guy crush and my girl crush making out in the woods. This is so sad, Raven, play Pink In The Night by Mitski

[weekdaysend]

So me and my bestie began our annual rewatch of MCD and after several hours of discussion (and throwing pillows at each other) we concluded my previous redesign for Zenix didn't match what we thought his character was anymore so after an hour or two of sketching we concluded with this:

(Third image is my bestie @jvicybadvssy's sketch!) I am literally obsessed with him to an unnormal degree he is literal my bestie my soulmate my little guy forever I need to pick apart his brain like a surgeon !!!!! We wanted to go for something young but clearly tired and aged. He has the physique of a teenager but the mind of a bitter adult oouhh Zenix !! ZENIX!!! (Old design below for reference):

[galafandomnonsense]

I love all the linguistics major stuff at the TIT show, I want it to be a more significant meme in the community now lol

[kurithedweeb]

An idea I had last night: Jacob survives.

So, instead of the amulet just making everyone drop dead, we're going with the curse being a plague. (Thank you @irenes-journal for turning the plague amulet idea into what it is today.)

In canon, the amulet kills everyone save the person holding it, so the plague amulet would theoretically grant one person immunity, or at least resistance. How it grants some kind of immunity/resistance is by releasing antibodies for the plague, slowly at first to acclimatize the body a bit before it floods the system, and Jacob got some of the antibodies before he gave it to Aaron.

He was the first to fall ill, and he took twice as long to succumb to the illness than anyone else infected did. The town doctor died before Jacob did, so when he fell into a coma that looked a whole lot like death, he was mistaken for dead.

Lily was barely holding on herself at this point, and Aaron came back from burying the day's dead to find his wife and son dead in Jacob's room. Lily worshipped Menphia and some minor gods, being from Tu'la, and raised Jacob to do the same since Aaron's side of the family doesn't worship any recognized religion (Ultima stuff is for later), and there was a small tomb previously made for when Lily and her children died according to Tu'lan burial practices. Which gives Jacob some more time than he'd have in a grave to get out before he runs out of air.

Aaron goes on burying bodies and surveying the sick while he mourns his own family's loss. Jacob wakes up maybe a day or two later in the dark with what remains of Lily. Obviously, he freaks out, crying out for help, and no one comes. Fueled by adrenalin and fear, he manages to open the tomb door just enough for him to squeeze through, and he finds the streets covered in graves. He has no idea what's going on, no clue how long it's been, but he runs home and his dad's not there and all the streets he's run down are empty and stinking of rot. He needs his dad to not be dead, so he comes up with this idea that obviously Aaron thought he was dead like everyone else and left.

And so Jacob packs a bag and sets out to leave Falconclaw, and he leaves barely an hour before Aaron gets home. They just miss each other.

Jacob isn't well. He collapses on the road and wakes up in a merchant caravan bound for some village way North. He asks if any of them have seen his father, says he's the son of the Lord of Falconclaw, and one of the mercenaries hired to guard the caravan sees an opportunity. By the time the caravan reaches its destination, Aaron is already in O'khasis being groomed by Zane to become a Juror.

Jacob is snatched off the street by the same mercenaries who were guarding the caravan and sold to someone visiting from Tu'la, and he winds up a servant boy for one of the king's vassal clans. Maybe Nana's, maybe the one his mother escaped from. The plague left him incredibly scarred, so for a long time he's a faceless, bandaged figure in the shadows of the house, all this anger and frustration building up inside him at not being able to figure out a way home, until one day the master of the house thinks it'd be funny to match a servant boy against one of his soldier-apprentices.

And Jacob wins. No training, having thrown away his weapon and beaten the other boy with his bare hands until they were dripping in blood. He's sent to the gladiator pits, maybe the same ones Liochant grew up in, and as long as he has his anger he dominates. His contract is bought by some wealthy noble with a penchant for collecting pretty, broken things, and on the road he kills them and flees into the night.

By the time he gets back to O'khasis, Aaron's time on the Jury is over and he's disappeared completely, having forsaken his own name and become The Stranger. This is when Jacob finally hears about, finally confirms, the fall of Falconclaw. He goes to Zianna, waiting for her to be out in town before he approaches her. She and his mother considered themselves sisters, once, and Zianna had been an excellent spy in Tu'la, if anyone would help him it'd be her. All Zianna has to give him is rumors, but anything is better than nothing.

He takes it, he thanks her, he goes on the road trying to find his father, and gets waylaid a bunch on the way by saving people and taking out the mercenary company that sold him to that Tu'lan visitor and into years of servitude and gladiator rings. He had a number of names in Tu'la, but he goes back to the name from a lifetime ago, introducing himself everywhere he goes as Jacob Lycan, son of Aaron Lycan, last Lord of Falconclaw, in an effort to see if his father will be drawn to the man using his son's name. By the time he makes it all the way around to Phoenix Drop, it's the middle of the Irene Dimension time skip, and since no one knew who The Stranger was or ever really saw his face, they don't realize that that's exactly who Jacob is looking for.

He goes back to Falconclaw, thinking maybe he can find some clues where this all started. It's practically the same as he left it since everyone thinks the land is extremely cursed, and in looking through their home he finds books on the teaching of his father's faith. He fits his father's old clothes, his old faith. He takes whatever he cares to keep from the Lycan estate and visits Lily's tomb before he leaves, and not a day later he comes across Abby, who's taken to the road hoping to find a lead on the woman she believes killed her father, Lady Katelyn the Firefist, who disappeared without a trace years ago about the same time High Priest Zane Ro'Meave and a few other Jurors did. She and Jacob agree to help each other and become good friends, and eventually they round back to Phoenix Drop.

A week after Aaron died.

Jacob introduces Abby first, notes that the Lord, or maybe she's the Lord's mother, seems to know who Abby is, and then he introduces himself. As Jacob Lycan, son of Aaron Lycan, last Lord of Falconclaw. And the look on this Lord's face is indescribable. She asks to speak with Jacob alone.

She tells him about his father in the last part of his life. She tells him how he saved her several times, taught her to fight, saved her guards, those two over there. That one he sacrificed himself for just last week, when he saved the man from another realm and finally got vengeance for his family and village. How he once said that when his journey was done, when he had taken the life of the man who cursed them all, he would finally be at peace with his wife and son.

Then there's a child's cry, and suddenly Jacob is being introduced to two little girls who his father helped raise. To his sisters.

He can't even process it properly before he hears Abby scream, and suddenly he is running to pull her off a blue-haired woman and holding her, thrashing and spitting vitriol, yelling how she thought of Katelyn like her mother, as Katelyn explains what really happened that day, and everything Abby has been keeping inside her for years spills out in wave after wave of tears. She clings to Jacob, and he finds himself crying too. If only they had known the truth earlier.

If they'd only learned the truth earlier, Abby wouldn't have spent so long hating an innocent woman she once adored, and Jacob could have seen his father again. Maybe if he'd known Aaron was The Stranger, if he'd known to wait in Phoenix Drop, Aaron would be alive. He would have had his son to live for.

They can't make themselves stay there once they know the truth. They're not ready. Abby tells Katelyn she'll be back to catch up later, and Jacob tells the Lord he'd like to meet his sisters another time, and with Jacob's quest over they go to hunt the Jury of Nine for Jeffory Goldenheart.

[measlyscrapofseafood]

how i picture murderbot and three 😄😄

[lord-squiggletits]

Answering that ask is a good reminder for me to remind everyone else that Pharma actually did nothing wrong in the way that he handled Tarn/the DJD and the t-cog blackmail, and the only reason he's villainized and seen as irredeemable scum is because the narrative wanted to have Pharma as a villain.

Literally every other time the DJD are shown attacking people on the page (or the aftermath of their attacks) it's constantly hammered in how brutal and unstoppable they are and how traumatizing it is to suffer even as a survivor who merely witnessed their methods so like LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON Pharma got singled out as selfish and cowardly is because JRO wanted him to be a villain.

And it sucks too because it's not like making the DJD terrifying was some retcon that happened 30 issues down the line. The DJD made their first on-page appearance in MTMTE #7, during which there's a whole page dedicated to the Scavengers describing every reason why it's impossible to stop the DJD-- including one person outright describing fighting the DJD as "suicide with delusions of survival."

There's no way JRO didn't know what he was going to write for #7 while he was writing the Delphi arc (#4-5, so only two issues beforehand more or less) so like. I'm sorry but there's no actual in-universe reason why Pharma should be considered evil for how he handled the DJD when every other person got to be seen as a victim/underdog hero defending themselves from horrible death. JRO just wanted there to be a mad doctor evil Autobot villain and that was that lmao

[ken-okamoto-official]

Tis the season!!! Would you please consider my persona as a plague doctor?

damn your art is so good gurl

(/mod i'm actually gonna be a plague doctor this Halloween lol)

[pinetreeshack]

i cant stop thinkingabout that ford head scratching post

[lesbianusahana]

I realize that newer followers might not be all that familiar with the elusive phenomenon known as Gastoning. So for your viewing pleasure, I dug up this infographic I made in February to hopefully provide a simplified explanation for those who might be confused

[moonmothmama]

covid timeline

so, me and Brian have covid for the first time ever. our years-long no covid streak is finally over. here is the timeline.

sometime last week: one of his coworkers comes in sick to work with what he thinks- and maintains- is just a cold, although we have had NO other contact with ANYONE sick, so you do the math.

Sunday, Oct 29th: Brian has a very slight sore throat, which he attributes to snoring harder than usual (which he was). this isn't out of the ordinary. has no other symptoms at first.

Halloween: i have a pretty fucking good day carving pumpkins and then hanging out on a voice call watching movies with a friend who lives in another state. late at night, i start feeling sinusy. pass out all at once. also, Brian has realized he might be coming down with something.

Wednesday, Nov 1st: wake up with the worst fucking sinus headache i can remember having, like ever. note that this is very distinctly a sinus headache. the day wears on and the headache does not go away. nose becomes slightly stuffy/runny. i start feeling Off. Brian, who now feels like he has a cold, takes a covid test just to be sure, which for the first time comes back positive. i do not bother testing because there's no way in hell that he has it and i don't. fever hits me like a train, i spend the night freezing or boiling or both. head still hurts. body aches set in, but almost exclusively lower back and down. my hips, knees, and leg muscles all hurt. spend the night sleeping fitfully.

Today, Thursday Nov 2nd: Brian is the same as he has been. my fever is either down or gone completely. still have body aches but noticeably less severe. still having mild cold symptoms, very slight cough, sneezing, stuffy/runny nose. also fucking hives appear on my legs. HIVES. i have never had hives in my LIFE. this is so FUCKING weird

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

sending people hopeful little texts like "updated covid and flu vaccines are available now, if you want one!" and attaching graphs of the local numbers as if I am not already calculating how much time I will be able to spend in-person with anyone this coming fall and winter now that literally no one is taking any precautions at all.

[xdarkeningkrystals]

It will always be criminal the way Stefan would be treated by the end of the show. TVD was also Stefan's story yet he gets sidelined and díes for Delena. The fact that Plague and Derides had no plans for Stefan in S5 before realizing "Ugh, I guess we HAVe to write him something" shows just how much they actually cared about him once Delena happened. Which is why I don't blame Paul for checking out

He deserved so much better. 💔

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

'A plague courses through the city. A priest watches idly by, his skin festering with infection, as he preaches unto others that God will save them.'

but its Zane with Shad worshippers.

[bellabellaci]

wait wait wait whaaatt ok ok so I’ve been on a nostalgia kick recently and have been looking back into old fandoms I was apart of, like minecraft diaries. and I was going through the wiki to try and refresh’s myself on the lore because I don’t feel bothered to watch all the old videos😭 but but I realized I recognized some of the titles of the divine warriors! They’re also title of gods from ffxiv (the fury, the destroyer, the matron, the keeper, the wanderer)

The Matron The Destroyer The Wanderer The Fury The Keeper are the titles of 5 (of the 12) deities from ff14

both matrons symbols are the same too :D!

and! One of the other deities by the name of menphina, within eorzean mythology resides within a heaven/hell of ice with another deity by the title of the fury!

so we got another link with a divine warrior (menphia the fury)

Also excerpt from menphina the lovers wiki page to explain a bit (definitely not me being biased over my characters patron lol)

Idk if the mcd wiki is accurate/up to date or not! But I thought it be cool to share what I learned today (there’s def people who knew this b4 I just have the brain power of a shriveled walnut haha) I also do vaguely remember in one of Jess’s old videos she did say she met Jason through a final fantasy game and I do think some names and references from probably also from that game and other in the franchise but I don’t really know much since my knowledge is very surface level or non existent for most games

CICI FROM 5 MINUTES IN THE FUTURE

Yea she’s played ff14 haha! She’s posted her and her husband(pretty sure it’s him sure cus of the last name lycan) characters to twitter a few years back.. y’know I’m surprised it took me this long to make the connections because I’ve been watching my brothers play ff games for as far back as my earliest memories and even got some of their hand me down games NOT TO MENTION that their was a significant overlap in the time I lived and BREATHED mcd and would watch my brother play ff14 around the same time too?? To be fair though my brothers were going through the broody teen phase at that point too so they only really tolerated me watching them craft and gather or wander around for a bout an hour max before going to play cod or basketball with their friends😅

But back to main point I was trying to make is that it’s really neat how the series that started me creative journey is inspired by the franchise that has and is currently still fueling that drive^^!!

anyywhoosies that’s enough of my insomniac ramblings for tonight! thank you for joining me today in the cavernous maze that is my noggin🫡

I’ve got nothing else to say but look at my art if you want! and listen to dedicated to moonlight pls���✨ do it for me!!~ nphina💕

[chaoticgoodcaptain]

i don't remember who you are random internet person who advised to treat your chores as blorbos when facing executive dysfunction but i just want to say i fricking love you and you have my eternal thanks

every advice i read before went like "just divide it into manageable parts" and so on and maybe it works for a shit ton of people, but for me it's like dividing one unmanageable task into 6 slightly less unmanageable ones, which makes it so much worse

pretending that one big task (here thesis) is a little blorbo who just wants to hear me yap about the topic of my choice and will be sad if it's not gonna get the whole story before the deadline? goddamn precious if you ask me.

my tutor or the opponent? judgemental and i need to write the work perfectly so it won't get rejected.

blorbo? forgiving, non-judgemental, it just wants the story.

thesis structure? makes me anxious and makes me cry because i cannot move on unless i write the introduction.

blorbo? does not care when i tell him what, he just wants the whole story

like this is such a life-saving hack if you struggle really hard and have no way to get the help you need, i love it so much