#reporting for duty!!!!!

[yangjeongin]

😪😪😪

[augustinewrites]

it’s been…a while since you and satoru have gone on an assignment together.

having two young children at home made it difficult to take off on short notice and be away for days at a time. they needed stability and routine, so the two of you had decided that one person would stay home while the other was working.

for a while, that’d worked fine. but now that megumi and tsumiki were older, self-sufficient teens who loved nothing more than being left alone, satoru had seen this as an opportunity.

you’d still been a little hesitant, but it was a simple surveillance mission. easy, right?

“water. you need to stay hydrated.” you instruct when he gets back into the car. he takes the water bottle you’re holding out, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig.

“gakuganji isn’t even home yet,” he reports with a sigh. you hum, distracted as you check your phone. gojo reaches across your knees to pull open the glovebox, rifling through colourful snack wrappers.

“tsumiki hasn’t texted me back,” you mutter. “should i ask nanami to check in on them?”

“nah, i’m sure they’re just super busy trashing the apartment and racking up charges on the emergency credit card. ah– found it!” he pulls out a black silk sleep mask, slipping it on so it rests on his forehead.

“really?” you ask, unimpressed as he holds a second one out to you. “you’re taking a nap?”

“yeah, it’ll be easier to sneak around when it’s dark, why stay awake till then?”

“is that a good idea?” you ask, though you know there’s really no point in trying to argue with his logic.

“your fault for keeping me awake all night. late night laundry folding is no joke.”

“if you’d put it in the dryer when i’d asked—”

“can’t hear you,” he sing-songs, pulling the mask over his eyes. “you can take a nap too, you know. that old fart couldn’t get past us even while asleep.”

“i’ll pass on the nap. need to wait for tsumiki to text.”

he grumbles something incoherent that you’re sure is meant to be argumentative as he reclines his seat a little and lays back, getting comfortable and quiet.

…for about 45 seconds.

you watch out of the corner of your eye as he pulls the mask up a half inch, just enough for his right eye to observe you.

“what do you want now?” you ask.

then, with casualty akin to asking what you want for lunch, he clears his throat and asks, “do you want to have sex?”

“do i want to have what?” you ask, turning to stare at him incredulously, but your face is hot and for a split second, you’d considered agreeing.

“sex,” he repeats, patting his lap with a shit-eating grin. “we’re going to be here for a while, anyways. these seats recline way back—”

“i am not having sex in this car with you, satoru!”

he groans over-dramatically (as he tends to do). “will you at least cuddle with me then? i’m desperate and touch-starved and hopelessly in love with you!”

you make a note to figure out what cheesy rom com he stole that line from, but lean across the console to trail kisses up his shoulder, his neck. satoru does nothing to protect himself from your overly affectionate onslaught, he’s quick to catch your jaw, pulling you in for a proper kiss.

“wait. no, no, no!” he protests when you pull back, eyes suddenly trained on the house you’re meant to be watching. “you can’t just leave me high and dry—”

“he’s home!” you whisper, pressing a hand over his mouth (though he continues with muffled complaints). “pull the car a little further back before we get out.”

you’ve already summoned your shikigami as satoru maneuvers the car into the dense forestry, about to send them off when your phone vibrates in your lap.

“oh! megumi texted me,” you inform him. “he said…‘already made dinner. tsumiki is out on a date—’”

the car grinds to a halt and abruptly turns, the momentum causing your to slam into the side of the car as it peels out onto the dirt road. you curse loudly as your fiancé, devoid of all his playfulness from earlier, speeds through the forest.

“what the— satoru!”

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I’ve had this in my to-draw list for two years

[ministarfruit]

day 1: if only ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[i-dont-know-how-this-site-works]

It's the domicilegate

[wulfhalls]

sister // my dearest brother

[tritoch]

i know a lot of people (very understandably) dislike the paladin job quests in ffxiv, particularly HW, but i do think it's fun that, now that the pre-ShB MSQ revamp is complete, paladins now have a very cool and thematic in-game storyline that happens without a word being spoken: the development of passage of arms.

none of the below is directly stated in the script, but imo it's a fairly obvious gloss on what the game presents, if you assume a paladin warrior of light. spoilers for all expansions through the end of 6.X.

in the new version of steps of faith, as vishap breaks through each ward protecting ishgard from attack, lucia mounts a final desperate effort to hold him back, with a very familiar looking animation:

but even lucia can't hold back vishap's flame alone, so the temple knights surge forward to assist her. their efforts make the shield visually more powerful and larger. the temple knights here band together in defense of ishgard, and their knightly resolve to protect their home is the difference between victory and defeat.

lucia and the knights do ultimately succeed in defending the last ward, as you have to defeat vishap before their shield falls or you lose.

later in heavensward, obviously, we will get ffxiv's most famous (failed) attempt at blocking something with a shield.

this moment can be read as fairly impactful on the warrior of light's development; as i've noted elsewhere, after the trauma of watching haurchefant bleed out in their arms at level 57, at level 58 paladins learn to channel their magic into healing (and it's called "clemency," or mercy. mercy for whom? who was guilty?), and as someone pointed out on that post, at level 58 dark knights used to get "sole survivor", letting them heal in response to a marked target's death.

for a time, you literally carry haurchefant's shield with you, and 3.3 very much literalizes in genre fashion the idea that even when you are standing alone, your fallen friends stand with you. you don't need to call any allies to stand at your side and raise their shields with you because they are already there, in spirit.

stormblood marks a pretty important turning point in the warrior of light as a combatant, in my opinion, and the text makes this clear in several ways. first, in pretty much all your jobs, you've now far exceeded your trainers and are pioneering new techniques. this is no less true of paladin, which for 60-70 abandons any trainers at all for you to show off your peerless skills in a tournament.

second, stormblood is straight up a story about you getting stronger. at level 61, zenos kicks your ass. at level 70, you kick his ass. why? because you fought and got stronger and developed incredible new techniques and became a one-man army.

for a lot of classes, this story lines up nicely with the big rotation changes or flashy new finishers on the way from 60 to 70. SMN is now busting out bahamut and casting akh morn; RDM gets verflare and verholy; DRG starts harnessing nidhogg's power directly through dragon sight and nastrond.

the tanks are divided in two: warriors and gunbreakers get huge damaging upgrades at 70 in the form of inner release and continuation, each of which lets them hit the same button many times for lots of damage and satisfying animations. paladin and dark knight get more protective abilities; dark knight gets the blackest night, and there's been plenty said about that already by pretty much everyone.

paladins get passage of arms. instead of a relentless new attack (and you get requiescat at 68, which is a way bigger deal for your dps rotation), your big reveal at 70 for zenos in your fight in ala mhigo is a superior way to protect your party, a shield that lets you stand for your allies so they never have to fall for you again. it's lucia's same shield, except you need no allies' shields to reinforce you, proof of your martial prowess and your ability to transcend limits, and perhaps in truth a reminder that you never really stand alone.

in many respects passage of arms should really feel like a paladin signature move to you now if you are playing it at this point, because you should be popping it in pretty much every fight (you are using your mits, right...?). basically every FFXIV fight has at least one big AOE with downtime that warrants passage of arms usage, usually after the mid-fight add phase with slowly filling bar. since that AOE usually drops during downtime, there's no reason not to pop passage of arms (which otherwise restricts your movement and actions), and even on normal, sometimes every little bit counts on a damage check even if it means dropping DPS (thinking here of harrowing hell P10N on release, which was...less consistent for a lot of roulette parties than you might hope).

so from 70 onward, passage of arms is in a sense a paladin warrior of light's signature move, and certainly the one a player gets to most actually enjoy (since if you're using it, you're by necessity not doing anything besides moving your camera and admiring your sick animation). it doesn't have any competition in terms of spectacle until confiteor, and those you're usually throwing out in the middle of movement.

it's such a signature, in fact, that the only other person shown using your one-person version of passage of arms is your greatest admirer, who studied your legend for over a century.

and it's when he fails (should've popped arm's length, bud) that the warrior of light decides they can't let their friends fall for them, and sends them away with the transporter beacon. this is all wrong: you were meant to die for them, not the other way around. yours is the shield that stands between your allies and defeat. it is you who will win this passage of arms and break your opponents lance. and you do.

and then later, when they need to quickly establish zero's domain as a place of fallen grandeur, the home of someone who once believed in heroes but is now a cool and cynical vampire hunter d, what do they use? a decayed statue of someone in the paladin endwalker gear doing the passage of arms animation, of course.

from a visible instantiation of knighthood as a joint effort to defend what is sacred, to a tribute to the fallen friends whose memories stand by you and animate you, to a symbol of the wol's power as emulated by their allies or darkly mirrored in other shards.

not bad for a mit button you hit once per fight and otherwise never think about!

[mschismosa]

sketch request: dahlia hawthorne x april may toxic yuri

I'll never say no to yuri!!!!!!!!!

This was SO funny thanks for the ask 🩷

[084392]

doodling hc designs for gti characters as they show up(in person) in my replay<3

[nevermind-i-dont-wanna-know]

We all know Wymack would have easily accepted Jean as one of his players and I have no doubt that he already considers Jean one of his kids. But like, you can’t tell me that man didn’t almost fall to his knees in relief after realizing he won’t have to deal with the PR nightmare that would have been Jean and Neil doing press duty (and Kevin “I’ve never been skiing” Day) Like he’s been exposed to Jeans sass and I just know that man sent the Trojans coaches a nice bottle of liquor each with a note that just says thoughts and prayers

[yangjeongin]

[askfordoodles]

Ok, fellow Emmrichmancers, I need to defend my girl Harding here for a bit, cause she's been getting some disdain and eye-rolling for being the supposed 'discourse-mouthpiece' (ie. being the only one calling out the age gap thing).

Listen, ... when she first brings it up, that's what it SOUNDS like she's doing. Harding has a tendency to struggle with wording things well, she's life-smart, not book-smart - so that first banter does read as though she's worried FOR Rook in that patronizing way like a parent or older sibling, who thinks they know better... (heck even Emmrich potentially falls into that trap during the argument)

but then there's follow-up banter and it becomes clear that, no, she's not worried Emmrich might be taking advantage of poor innocent younger Rook; it becomes increasingly clear she's worried about HIS feelings. She's always addressing her concerns to HIM, and worrying about how they're "going too fast" (even IF he's made the promise to Rook to move slowly during their first dinner-date).

Harding's making observations about how he's becoming noticeably "mopey", she can TELL something's worrying HIM. (mind you, not even Rook seemed to have picked up on this)

And in turn he's very honest with Harding about how, despite defending himself against Davrin's juvenile jabs and appreciating/enduring Taash's sentiments and all that jazz, the age gap thing DOES secretly bother him. (the fact that he doesn't start moping straight away suggests that Harding was right, they DID go a bit too fast and Emmrich especially, was blinded by the honeymoon-phase so to speak). He does end up genuinely thanking her for her concern and advice, to try and think ahead about the relationship.

(Although sadly it still takes their potential impending deaths for him to reach their crisis-stage of needing to address his worries and I could do a whole essay alone on how he chooses to handle it, but others already have, so not now)

Say what you will about her, out of all their mutual friends, Harding was the ONLY ONE to see the pre-battle argument coming from A MILE AWAY, and she was trying to gently warn them; to try and nudge her two friends to have a serious talk about the consequences ahead, rather than blithely avoiding it.

tl;dr: Harding's got that serious emotional intelligence, and y'all best RESPECT her relationship advice.

[oddishblossom]

The smile was purely unconscious, but Luo Binghe felt like he’d been pricked by a small, fine thorn.

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: S1 EP2

SYSTEM: [Shen Qingqiu would never do anything to alleviate Luo Binghe’s troubles.]

[kusanagihaku]

haku's thrift store lookbook .𖥔 ݁ ˖

inspired by @kaitofuji and @aayakashii's post here!

[leatherandlipstick]

oh, good little thing, aren't you? already on your knees, so ready to be touched and used however I see fit. fucking adorable, really. whine for me a little bit? come on, darling, make me smile.

[moonsua]

moon sua ♡ 191024