#she said the system

[leadmeastraylittlefairy]

i wish that my student loan people would stop changing my shit for no reason with no warning or at least make sure your employees understand what’s happening enough to be able to explain why…

[anbaisai]

Boop!

(Part 2)

[hinamie]

i fear i can never date a man bc none of them will ever be makoto tachibana

[rikan-oo]

To my rogue SY jiuyuan AU, where he is Peak Lord Shen's spouse and sometimes teaches disciples too.

Luo Binghe: Shijie, I think I fell in love with Shifu.

Ning Yingying: Huh? Don't worry, A-Luo. It's only a phase! Everyone here had a crush on Shifu. Consider it second initiation.

Luo Binghe: Everyone?

Ning Yingying: We have a secret club too. Here people help each process feelings and appreciate Shifu.

Luo Binghe: And did it work?

Ning Yingying: Well... don't worry about it. Like Shifu says it's all about journey and all friends we made. And unless you're Liu-shishu, it will pass. Are you in or not?

Luo Binghe: ... Of course

[lambiesvault]

You know what fucks me up but also makes my heart sing?

The fact Shen Jiu The Person™, living breathing and being is nowhere in the canon. We know of a Shen Jiu in the novel and all the character information is gleaned off anecdotes, author's notes and second hand reports, reactions of others to him and their perception of him.

We got what Shen Yuan's thoughts are on him (The scummiest villain to scum), we got Airplane's scraped backstory for him (erased and forgotten), we got reactions from other peak lords to the before and after in SQQ's behaviour and their limited interactions. We even get Luo Binghe's gratefulness for the 180 personality shift. That's all in reaction to ripples to Shen Yuan's presence and is again filtered through his biases.

The closest we could get to a real portrayal of Shen Jiu would have been from Yue Qingyuan but that man would not speak of what SQQ would not bring up himself. And it will still just be a portrait, very much flawed and altered.

He is the one character we will never truly meet.

All of those are outside of Shen Jiu. We never actually see him, only glimpses of him through others.

There's no Shen Jiu in the canon. He doesn't just show up in the novels, not even for a scene. (Even og Bing-ge does what the hell). Point being, Shen Jiu was whatever people saw him as and as what changed, even us readers.

But here's the kicker

We ourselves participate in building him anew from love and that makes me so feral

We as a fandom decided to make him whole, beyond the canon, because we saw those crumbs and said, no, he's more than that, he's a person, he deserves a voice that's his own and we will write to give him it and we will make him whole rather than the sum of others' perception of him.

(I might not make sense but tldr, Shen Jiu doesn't ever show up in the novels and he still got people who love him enough to create for him makes me so weak)

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

[stark-lord]

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES (2024)

1.06 - The Case of the Creeping Forest

for @nix-nihili

[3kidsinacoat]

Liu Qingge: I have feelings for you

Shen Qingqiu: I have feelings for you

MXTX, trying to gaslight us: the feeling was friendship

[mollysunder]

I think it was a mistake for s2 of Arcane to gloss over the implications of Amara and the Black Rose's deception in Mel's story because it fundamentally unmoors her perspective. Mel believed that violence like war could be avoided through diplomacy, and she applies that philosophy by maintaining the complex political environment in Piltover where every house is in some way content.

In the face of the nobility's discontent with Jayce's anti-corruption measures, Mel sought to appease them to stave off retaliation. Through her lesson to Jayce, Mell didn't just help potentially enrich her colleagues but also the woman and by extension the organization that KILLED HER BROTHER AND STOLE HER FAMILY'S ASSETS.

Can you imagine the horror and disgust she would feel at having trusted Piltover to be different? Mel thought she understood the game but she wildly underestimated the machinations of the nobility in Piltover. Mel accepted Piltover's corruption as a means to avoid violent conflict, only to indirectly enable the recent violence harped upon her own family. And the worst irony is that even though politics and corruption have largely been viewed as a cynicism game, for Mel this was an avenue she genuinely believed conflict could be avoided but in fact it was just more insidious.

The opera scene was a lesson for Jayce in politics, but the effects should be the real education for Mel as she heads to Noxus. From what I can tell Noxus is in its pre-Trifarix but post-First Invasion of Ionia, which means Swain has his demon powers but he hasn't overthrown the emperor yet. She will probably ally with him as they're both opporpsed to the Black Rose's existence, however once he's in power he will alienate a large portion of the nobility as they root out the Black Rose's influence.

The challenge for Mel (possibly as Guile) is to deal with these disgruntled nobles because as Piltover proved, you can appease them through corruption all you want, but once their ideology is truly set against you, diplomacy becomes a far more complicated balancing act.

[bucket-puns]

Bite the hand that needs me, y'know

(I need the pen taken from me)

[beastwhimsy]

FINALLY drew every single person in the system after half a decade of knowing I have osdd. IT ONLY TOOK 5 YEARS.....

(please don't refer to how we look as character designs!! thanks!)

notes! - I've been evaluated by multiple professionals and they've all gone ya you have guys in there. good luck man - I can remember experiencing pretty damning symptoms since I was like. a wee lad. - I'm guy number 2. hi! waving!!! - sunny and moon don't really have a concrete age but can be considered adults - there are 10 girls, 7 guys, and 3 people who aren't either - some of these guys formed based on some childhood friends I had - there are 6 fictives overall. most of them consider themselves their own people and don't identify much with their source material - the most frequent fronters are robin, sunny, phoebe and francis - if you have any questions please feel free to ask! if anyone says anything nasty I won't respond. I love pressing the block button

[jewishbarbies]

ethel cain is actually so funny and by funny i mean stupid bc what do you mean Kamala “got on that debate stage and said israel had the right to blow the levant to smithereens”? are you just dumb? is that what it is? I genuinely don’t understand where she got that from bc it doesn’t even sound like we watched the same debate. if you take “israel has the right to defend itself from terror attacks (as all countries do)” to mean “israel has the right to blow everyone up indiscriminately bc why not” you should probably refrain from public speaking, bc that’s embarrassingly intellectually dishonest.

[biohazbat]

Hate when people replace Babs with Tim. As if she isn't the information broker and tech specialist of the batfamily. I think Tim learned most of his computer skills under her wing.

His expertise lies more in gadget tinkering and straight-up sleuthing. He helps gather information but Babs organizes and controls it. As if she would let him get away with attempts to hack her system, successful or not.

[zaahvi]

a little breakdown of the new mural:

the context: this is part of a quest named "regrets of the dread wolf" in which rook uses a wolf statuette to "restore" this damaged mural in the lighthouse. it's referred to as a "regret" and seems to echo a memory linked to the events shown in the mural

"[Solas'] history, along with the history of the other elven gods, is baked into the Lighthouse, and you learn more and more about the threat you face as you unlock Solas' murals with various wolf statues. You even get to see some of his memories firsthand." [source with timestamp]

first, the imagery:

these "star" symbols are the same as on the "death of a titan" mural from trespasser, and even have similar halos. there are three visible in the circle here, which itself is cracked and there's a beam of light coming from above, sort of mirroring the titan mural:

it's interesting that the beam of light is coming from above, and is hitting the circle at the bottom, illuminating the outline; it seems like the light itself is what "cracked" the circle? there's also light shining from above, and elgar'nan is looking up at it, so... maybe it's the sun? the halos around the hands are also reminiscent of the left figure on the titan mural.

for triangle symbolism enjoyers... there are triangles around the light beam a little further up 👀

this is also our first look at mythal <3 she had dark hair and her headpiece is silver like flemeth's, a nice contrast to the golden crown elgar'nan has! they're like the sun and moon...

elgar'nan appears to have silver hair here, much lighter than the dark greyish he seems to have in-game. i'm thinking that either the blight darkened it, solas painted it differently, OR that the lighting that we've seen him in so far just hasn't shown off the colour properly. on his robes there is a sun pattern on his shoulder :) the bottom of the robes seem greenish and has patterns similar to the lyrium veins(?) on the titan mural above, and now that i look at them side by side... he kinda looks like the figure on the left, doesn't he?

solas with hair real!!! and he has his signature wolf pelt :) he's standing among some kneeling elves, and, notably, none of them have vallaslin.

these leafless trees - usually used as symbols of mythal - are almost framing the piece. the blue coming from the cracked circle is also interesting: solas rarely uses blue apart from his murals inside skyhold, so maybe it means something? it could be lyrium, or the titans' power?

the story:

remembering the context: this is one of solas' old memories, and a "regret" of his. looking at the imagery and pairing it with the dialogue seen, the events portrayed become clear:

Elgar'nan: They need strength. Mythal: And wisdom. Elgar'nan: They need gods who can protect them. Solas: We are not gods. You will learn that.

this is the evanuris first declaring themselves gods, seemingly after whatever war the elves fought; possibly with the titans, judging by the hints in these murals.

elgar'nan and mythal came first, which lines up with the dalish legends. i'm very curious if they were actually a couple or if they were just paired together in legends because they were the first gods (like how falon'din and dirthamen were paired as twin brothers in dalish tales but had no familial connection in elvhen lore). and from what they say... using "they" to refer to the elves rather than "you", implies this was a private conversation, which leads me to believe that they did originally intend to protect the elves. for instance, if they'd said "you need gods who can protect you", that's a whole other story which could be clearly interpreted as installing themselves as rulers in order to gain power and oppress the people. but this? the elves need strength, and wisdom, and protection? it's our first real clue that the evanuris were not always tyrannical, and that is just so interesting! i am very excited to see the story of how they became corrupted 👀

solas has an interesting line here also. using "we" instead of "you"... there's a popular theory that solas was a spirit of wisdom who was asked by mythal to join her, as implied by these lines from cole:

"He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face." "Bare-faced but free, frolicking fighting, fierce. He wants to give wisdom, not orders."

so maybe solas was a general alongside the evanuris, and was clearly opposed to becoming a "god" like the rest of them. i find it interesting he doesn't have vallaslin on the mural here. the cole lines implied he had mythal's vallaslin, and i would've assumed he "burned it off" when he started his rebellion. the only thing i can think of is that the vallaslin may have originally acted as a spirit binding (like binding a spirit to a body) but if it could be removed then... idk.

finally, circling back that this is referred to as a "regret"... i suppose this is his regret of not having stopped them before everything that followed. and with regret mentioned as being one of the key themes of the game... aghh this is gonna be so good

[avelera]

What if S2 Jayce / S1 Viktor fic but it's me trying my fucking damndest not to write Giving Sanctuary all over again in a different fandom and I already have 2,600 words and 3 other fics I want to finish first?

[typheus]

Clown time for grimm :)