#sorry if this feels like a cop out

[madbard]

In this multiverse, the Stars have been around for a very long time. Stories of their adventures have spread from world to world over the centuries, cloaked in legend and myth.

Ink and Dream are both immortal. Swap wasn’t. When he died in battle, Dream swore to never recruit another mortal to the Stars. It was too dangerous, and Dream couldn’t lose another friend. Ink had other ideas.

Carefully, exquisitely, Ink recreated his friend. Not exactly as he was - that wasn’t possible, and Ink didn’t want to take any risks with this creation. They wanted this to work. So instead, he created a young child. This child would be bold like their friend - clever, resilient and kind. With care, he would grow into a magnificent warrior.

Just before Ink finished drawing, he looked at his creation and hesitated. Was he really trying to copy Swap? It felt wrong, somehow, to make such an exact replica. So in those final moments, Ink carefully drew on the scars Swap would have borne if he had survived that final blow, then brought the child to life.

The child, affectionately nicknamed Blueberry, was brought to an Underswap universe where Swap had died. Hesitant, but ultimately grateful to have his brother back, Swap Papyrus raised him.

Now, Ink couldn’t be there all the time. After all, they had their own duties as the God of Creation (and he had an unfortunate tendency to forget Blueberry existed). But he did visit, and every time he did he told the child of his adventures through the multiverse, of Dream and a legendary hero named Swap. Blueberry idolized the Stars and grew up dreaming of the day he would finally join them. Every day, he trained and sparred, imagining that he was facing deadly enemies. One day, Blueberry knew he would defend entire worlds.

This image shows Blueberry at age 13, 15 years prior to the current events of the story. This is the year Error attacked his universe.

Theme Song:

[were-wolverine]

me: all vigilantes are inherently anti-cop because the whole point is they literally do what the cops can’t/won’t do

someone: but dick grayson-

me: IS NOT A FUCKING COP BECAUSE FUCK DC AND THEIR IDIOTIC MINDNUMBING IDEAS THERES NO WAY HE’D EVER BE A COP OKAY?

[skunkes]

longlegs fucking sucked 😭

[distant--shadow]

prompt for u: jewelry. do with it what you will (or wont) king of imodna fanart

king4king

[leosulfurous]

Hi underpantsposters

I thought this would be funny

[a-carnie-and-a-cop]

Travis.exe has stopped working

[paimonial-rage]

Ask meme - 6 and 9 for the dragon men (zhongli and neuvillette) please!

This took so long I am so sorry, but here we go!

[Character Analysis Ask Meme]

What is Neuvillette's biggest insecurity?

Neuvillette’s biggest insecurity is not something he's ever tried to hide. Anyone that has spent enough time with the Iudex has probably heard him mention it before. Simply put, Neuvillette doesn't understand the emotions of humans very well. He never has and sometimes he doubts if he ever will? How many times has this flaw of his costed him dearly in the past? How many mistakes has he made? And how many are there yet to come? How he dreads the thought.

What can’t you trust [Neuvillette] with?

To chase after you - Iudex Neuvillette is many things—polite, kind, intelligent—but he is not a man without faults. Only a few know him well enough to realize he holds many regrets upon his shoulders, majority that were never his burden alone to bear. Should you ever become the source of one of these regrets, you can surely expect to know. With somber eyes and a weight upon his shoulders, he will apologize to you. But don’t expect anymore than that. Not understanding human emotions is not only his weakness, but a prison. He will not attempt to make things up to you nor will he try to make things how they used to be. You’re best off where he can hurt you no more, even if that means he will be left alone to the rain.

What is Zhongli's biggest insecurity?

Who knows lol.

What can’t you trust Zhongli with?

With mora - As knowledgeable and talented Zhongli is with many things, it is a surprise to many to hear that businessmen don’t exactly enjoy making deals with him. How can they when contract discussions always leave them with the [shorter end of the stick]? How many [unforeseen business expenses] do they end up incurring in such a short amount of time? In the end, they always lose more than they gained. What they don’t know is this unfortunate occurrence happens with any Mora dealings with the man. But what can you expect for someone that, by contract, has the Traveler liable for all expenses during his outings with them? It's simply best to leave all matters of mora out of any relationships with him.

With your heart - If there's one thing true about Zhongli, it's that, while he may withhold the truth, he does not lie. So when he speaks of a person warmly, they can very well believe his words to be true. That being said, it is important that one does not mistaken his warmth with depth. One cannot simply entrust their heart to him and expect his in return. How could anyone hope to understand the weight of many a millennia, after all? So while the desire may be cute, it'll never be something he would even consider to reciprocate.

[algrenion]

not to be a downer or anything but it's really hard to perform basic tasks when you live moment to moment riddled with guilt and shame without really knowing why it's there

[bonebabbles]

God the new ultimate guide sucks

It's not JUST the awful art, either. The art's just worth mentioning because even if the book's info had been terrible or contained nothing new, really cute art can make it still worth having.

But, no, it's even full of recycled lines we've been hearing for years like "Bramblestar Can Match Squirrelflight's Fire Not Contain It," and that's when it DOES get everything right. These entries leave out major, important details (making them bad summaries) and are sometimes even straight-up incorrect.

SUMMARY THOUGHTS

Leafpool is said to have watched Brambleclaw kill Hawkfrost to save Firestar-- but for one, no, she was not there because Ashfur was still leading her and Squilf towards the scene. For two, no, Brambleclaw did not kill Hawkfrost just to save Firestar, it was self-defense. Hawkfrost had him pinned and was going to kill him.

They're REAL cute about Leafpool's death, too, neglecting to mention WHY the Sisters needed to be saved at all and just saying Leafpool's "generosity" lead to her death in that cave-in.

I'm not even going to get into everything on Bramble's entry jesus christ.

Sagewhisker's entry is ESPECIALLY fucken' dandy, framing Yellowfang's Secret like she was simply waiting patiently for Yellow to realize her 'destiny' and not actively shoving it on her at every opportunity.

Leopardstar's entry states that romantic interest in Tigerstar was part of her motivation. "Perhaps she'd hoped he would be her mate" please speak to a woman irl for once in your life.

Gray Wing's entry forgot that the reason he "blamed himself" for Bright Stream's death is because he was literally staring at his big strong brother too much and tripped on a root in front of him. It IS his fault she died.

Clear Sky/Skystar's entry is just obscene. "He regretted abandoning his son and after a fire, he encouraged him to live with him" instead of "saw his teenage child was useful now and bullied and belittled the kid and his uncle into letting Thunder come with him." "Retaining his fierceness towards his cats and outsiders which caused his son to leave" instead of "murdering, brutalizing, and abusing everyone around him caused Thunder to leave." I'll just say this tho; "Fierce" is an interesting way to spell "Cruel."

It's interesting that they don't point out that a major part of Jagged Peak's arc was proving he was "Just As Good" as every other cat in spite of his disability, thanks to his introduced-and-pregnant-in-the-same-book wife becoming his life coach, only earning Clear Sky's respect after being allowed to physically lead a patrol in Blazing Star. Instead they frame him finding his place through taking care of kits, which... was something he seemed to resent in the actual series, considering how the books suddenly treat Gray Wing's protective treatment of him as a terrible thing in Blazing Star because he "didn't give him a chance". But at the same time I actually strongly dislike Jagged Peak and his messy, frustrating character arc so I'm not really UPSET with it. Just... noting it. I suppose this is the official direction they're taking away from it?

Shadowstar's entry is barely even 3 paragraphs yikes.

SHORT STORY THOUGHTS

And if you're wondering if the 4 brand new stories they smooshed into the end in a desperate attempt to make the rush job worth buying are good? No. Of course not. They're all slop.

Story 1: Firestar and Graystripe

First one's a marginally cute story about Graystripe and Firestar which is setting up the framing device linking the mini-tales together. They both remember this situation where Firestar fell into a ditch wrong. The punchline is that Thunderstar remembers it perfectly and they're both like, "WOW! Too bad Thunderstar's memory sucks!"

It's not terrible, but it does feel a bit pointless. But, hey, if you want more Firestar and Graystripe in the series that tosses them fanservice at every turn, who am I to judge?

Story 2: Dovewing and Ivypool

The next one is the Dovewing/Ivypool reconciliation passage everyone's talking about. It's... fine, but immensely dissatisfying to me.

Dovewing is apparently having problems adjusting to her Clan, grapples a little bit with the fact she has no friends but is going to be finding meaning in helping tigerHeartstar "bring the new ShadowClan into existence." She ultimately decides that she needs to talk to her sister, and begs for reassurance that Ivypool believes in her, feeling that her support can help her get through this difficult time in her life.

I think its biggest problem is that Dovewing was not the right choice for the POV here.

Dove was never the one responsible for the rift in their relationship. Ivypool is. Ivypool is the one who was jealous, willing to sabotage anything that would put Dovewing closer to Tigerheart, and continues to be generally aggressive towards her. So when Dovewing is reaching out to Ivypool in hopes of them reconciling, it feels wrong because Ivypool is the one that should be reaching out to Dovewing. SHE is the one who has some things to apologize for, and to show how much she loves and misses her.

It's even kind of frustrating, because Dovewing can never catch a break. She has to have these problems to force her to reach out, Ivypool even ends up suggesting that she leave and come home and take her kids with her, but in the end even a LITTLE bit of assurance from her aggressive sister helps.

I feel super bad for Dovewing, man. She deserves better than this cheap writing. What was the point of such an unsatisfying, rushed reconciliation, shoved into a crummy field guide, when we KNOW from the newest book that they're just going to use tension between them as part of the drama anyway?

shouldn't have even been written, imo. Even ends off with, "They'll always have each other :)" which is so... cliche. It's TIRED. Are any of you really happy with just getting a retconned platitude in a good-for-nothing field guide, instead of seeing complicated, INTERESTING feelings in a main book?

Story 3: Alderheart and Twigbranch

A tale of Cherryfall getting sick during TBC and Alderheart sneaks back into the territory to treat her. Also Crowfeather has a scene where he yells at him. Charming.

Twigbranch comes up with a diversion while Alderheart does his work, which is cute. It's a fine story.

Story 4: Clear Sky

Trash. Three dogs spawn in the middle of a gathering so that Skystar can have an uwu big boy sendoff saving his grandkit. Then he goes to StarClan and throws a fit because they can't give him ANOTHER life, becoming so upset that he attacks the nearest woman. Naturally, Shadowstar brushes it off because it's not the first time Clear Sky has pummeled her in the midst of an adult tantrum and this book series thinks violence is fine if their favorite sadboy does it.

Then Gray Wing brings him to the magic mirror pool where you can see the living, to confirm that Star Flower is ok and that makes him feel better.

Then it launches into Firestar saying "ouuuugh yum I LOVE the taste of his butthole. Clear Sky is so misunderstood, He Just Loved Too Much."

to which Graystripe responds, "Yes, he was a good and amazing person and his farts smells SO good, and can you believe that some people think StarClan punished his Clan for his arrogance? As if he ever did anything wrong, ever?"

Firestar, indignant, refutes it with, "Ugh!! StarClan would NEVER be interesting, we don't punish living cats we just float around and make vague, frustrating prophecies that do nothing but pad the word count. Why cant ppl understand that, gosh."

who wrote this? Gray Wing??

[gayasslovestory]

now we know why all of the comments made about this episode have been about glenn's performance and not the actual like. plot lmfao

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my least favorite parts of how JRO wrote Optimus is that he wanted so badly to continue his dark and gritty world building making the Autobots problematic, but evidently couldn't reconcile this with Optimus being a Heroic Paragon, so instead he leaned way too hard into "oh Prowl was the one who did this and it was behind Optimus' back" which if anything I think makes Optimus look worse, not better. Because then it's like, okay I know Optimus trusted Prowl a lot as his friend but you CANNOT TELL ME that over the course of 4 million years, Optimus as the leader of the Autobot army who literally would have access to 99.9% of all the records they produce, would never notice or question where some of these odd/inconsistent details were pointing. It just seems really inconsistent with how a real military would actually function, especially regarding Optimus' character, who is incredibly thorough and responsible and wouldn't neglect to keep up with all the details of his army.

Hell, Optimus knows who the Wreckers are and had them on call for tricky operations when he needed them (Stormbringer) so he's literally not at all ignorant of/averse to the use of special wartime units composed of dubious individuals. He's the fucking commander of an entire army, of course he knows that War Is Hell (TM) and no one's hands are clean. That's not even getting into all the stuff he got up to in phase 2/3, I mean everything from the annexation of Earth to OP breaking humans out of prison against Council orders shows that Optimus is no stranger to immoral and/or unlawful means.

It also leads to a lot of annoying fanon where people write Optimus (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not) as like some sort of ignorant fool who's unaware of the machinations of his own army or has some sort of naiveté of "b-but we can't use bad tactics against the enemy! I would never condone the use of morally gray means in war!" No, IDW Optimus knows perfectly well all of the bullshit he's enacted/condoned for the sake of trying to win the war. Some stuff is definitely out of character for him and was only machinated because of Prowl, but I think this fandom REALLY underestimates Optimus' personal agency/responsibility as the commander of a whole ass army and ESPECIALLY underestimates Optimus' capacity to condone morally gray Bullshit Of War while still being a good person individually as well as, comparatively, the lesser evil compared to Megatron/the Decepticons.

Anyways what I'm saying is JRO may be a good writer but he's really hesitant to make Optimus morally gray and does some asspulls sometimes to justify most of the bad things the Autobots did as "Optimus just didn't know," and since the majority of the IDW1 fandom only reads JRO's stuff they go running with this premise of ignorant/uninformed Optimus when there's evidence elsewhere in canon to show that Optimus is, in fact, very highly aware of the bullshit he's allowed "for the greater good" and the only stuff he was "unaware of" was the stuff he would literally never agree to the ethics of, like bombing innocent neutrals disguised as Decepticons to get them to join the Autobots.

[qlala]

madly scribbling a coldflash water for elephants AU do NOT text. (unless it’s about the coldflash water for elephants AU. then text)

[autistic-katara]

there r fics that make u insane (so amazingly good it’s removed ur sanity) and then there’s fics that make u insane (you need to fistfight the author for how they did a specific thing that caused u to rant for hours)

[therealturbovicki]

I haven’t really seen anyone talk about this yet so there’s a possibility I could be the only one but I hate Chevreuse and how they wrote her

Even if I ignore the fact that she’s a cop and most cop-like characters piss me off anyways, within the context of the region she’s apart of, she’s just plain boring. As it stands we already have a good handful of characters in the game, a lot of them from Fontaine already, with the exact same motivations and high held personal morals; the law is there for a reason, if people enact revenge and take what they think is just and right All The Time, then there would be chaos and unfair violence everywhere. And from a real life ethical lens it WOULD be really chaotic if anyone, anywhere at anytime could take their views of justice into their own hands.

but that’s the thing!! kind of like how it is In the real world, Fontaine is not a wholly just and fair nation (e.g. the Entirety of the Fortress of Meropide, the trafficking and various other crimes that constantly happen within the nobility of Fontaine and the fact that it has yet to be thoroughly investigated/solved and continues to happen, the extreme economic and social juxtaposition between the court of Fontaine and its underground Fleuve Cendre area and Poisson) And it really sucks that the game fails to admit that or acknowledge it because then you have characters who they Want you to believe are doing the right thing and fighting for the right causes, but it winds up feeling meaningless when what they’re fighting for is the law of Fontaine.

Chevreuse would’ve been an Infinitely more interesting and compelling character if her passion for justice wasn’t rooted in upholding the law and order of the nation, but rather what justice means for individuals. How the injustice and discrimination happening in that nation breeds people’s want for revenge and justice outside of the law.

And yeah I get that they wanted another character who fights against evil and is unwavering in her beliefs of what’s right in the very conventional and legal way, but I find it really funny that Chevreuse herself says what makes the argument for her character being boring In the same event quest; when asked about possibly changing the ending and meaning of the Two Musketeers, she says she wants to keep the ending the way that it is because fiction exists in a realm separate from that of reality, where things like the morals of what’s just and unjust can be explored. and like!! that’s it’s!!! I’m literally sitting here playing a Fictional game that has the opportunity to showcase just how fascinating it can be to talk about those kind of things in a fantasy setting where your main player character has literally Killed mostly innocent human people before because they betrayed someone they cared about deeply. but whatever. WHATEVER!!!

[skrunksthatwunk]

thinking about how the primary way sensui and yusuke are foils to each other is in how they were affected by and conceptualize injustice in the arc about whether or not humanity is worth saving due to the injustice and atrocities done by humanity. how yusuke got to see how people distort and demonize those they don't understand/see as different by being on the receiving end and learning that there's always another side to consider. how sensui never questioned humanity's universal good and demonkind's universal wickedness until he saw something awful and instead of gaining further nuance about the dynamic switched sides. sensui was white stained black (or so itsuki says) and yusuke was always, always gray and on the margin. how sensui had the chance to see what yusuke has known for years and is unable to shake his ideas about the world's basic structure (good guys vs bad guys) that he just swaps which side is which. yusuke who met demons he liked after only a couple of experiences with ones who only wanted to hurt others. yusuke who trusts hiei easily, a kindness hiei doesn't expect. hiei who does not trust humans, but begins to change because of that moment. sensui who only met a demon he saw as worthy of life after years of fending them off, after years of exterminating them without mercy. sensui to whom itsuki was "one of the good ones" vs yusuke who trusted hiei with little reason, who sacrificed himself for kurama moments after hearing him out. yusuke who can't help but let in strays because he's one too. sensui who takes in strays because they can help his genocidal aims. sensui who purges, and yusuke who saves.

[trans-axolotl]

have not left bed today + found out another friend got locked up + want to beat up every single adult that saw what was happening to me and looked away or actively made it worse