#that last one always kills me

[stil-lindigo]

the fox god.

a comic about a trickster.

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creative notes:

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all my other comics

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[aru-art]

long time no tma, here's the archival gang in my friends' & i's outfits :]

[obsob]

making and weaving and loving! like we have done for millennia!!

[vaperarmand]

have you ever seen two people more married in your entire life. please

[withdenim]

Lullaby <3

[princescar]

Twinning.

[qpjianghu]

Li Lianhua + saying "I love you" without saying "I love you" (2/?)

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

[3416]

AM51

Leafs @ Yotes | 02.21.24

[oh-no-its-bird]

I kind of ended up w a small pile of Hatake ocs and lore to fill the early konoha timeline void, and a big thing is like. They all die to preserve the narrative. A lot of them very young bc again, made to fill the time line, so logically, there had to be some Hatake kids/teenagers who met an unfortunate end.

So I'm kinda sitting here considering a 4 part fic where each chapter revolves around a specific Hatake and their inevitable death, w maybe a bonus chapter at the end being about Sakumo

"Death of the Wolves," the unfortunate end of the Hatake's, told in 4 parts

The Hatake's helped set the Konoha standard rule of "a team can only be made up of so many % of one clan" (with special exceptions) after a large chunk of them got sent on a mission together bc of their specializations and all wound up dead, wiping out a solid 90% of the clan in one night.

Actually, expanding on that bc the tragedy is so good -> I already established that in my time line, the Hatake head, Haruka (Sakumo's mother, Tobirama and Hashirama's aunt) died under a week after Tobirama's death, and she would have lead that failed mission. Does that mean one of Hiruzen's first acts as war time Hokage resulted in the accidental slaughter of his beloved dead Sensei's mother's clan? That's amazing actually, so much drama there. I bet him Danzo and Kagami argued like crazy after that monumental fuck up, probably went on to define how he feels ab being Hokage / what that entails. Fun times!

Anyways, I'd also be very interested in exploring early konoha politics n stuff. Especially from the multiple views of not the people in charge of making the village but the ones who are living in it. The view from the ground up, instead of looking down from the tower. The younger generations being brought to this new village, going from their isolated clan lands to suddenly being surrounded by others their age from different clans, possible for the first time ever depending on their age and their clans level of secrecy.

Also, I really wanna poke at the outsider pov of Madara and other founders— but mostly Madara bc I find his downfall very fun to think about, especially from the POV of someone not in his clan.

I'm so in love w the take of the Hatake's being fond of Madara bc "he'd make a very good Hatake." Something about the two tropes of the Uchiha being a clan that loves love and the Hatake being a clan w similar values when it comes to family and loyalty just meshes so well.

Comedy moment where Haruka is weirdly insistent on Madara potentially marrying into the clan, not even for the politics or anything but specifically bc she NEEDS a cute squishy Hatake baby with his massive hair. She NEEDS IT, MADARA.

Anyways also just the early konoha inter clan drama but like. From the eyes of the clan kids. The Uchiha kids seem to be having some sort of terf war with the Senju— but it was interrupted by the Hyuuga, and now the Senju and Uchiha kids are somehow banding together against the Hyuuga? But oh no now the Nara kids are teaming up w the Hyuuga, and the Hatake kid (singular bc there's literally only like 1) seems to have an actual blood feud going on with the Hyuuga clan heir— but the older Hatake teenagers are fond of the Hyuuga's baby clan heir so it's just a mess. All the clan drama but with none of the tragedy bc everyone involved is a child.

Meanwhile the older clan members are somehow bonding over their children's fights bc they're all struggling to pull them away, or going "what the fuck do you mean you teamed up with the SENJU??" Then sharing a disbelieving Look(tm) w the opposing Senju's parents before realizing what they just did and having a crisis of faith ab it

Meanwhile the teenagers are having a wonderful time, especially those from smaller more isolated clans like the Hatake. There's so much romantic drama, there's probably a whole shinobi soap opera happening in that direction. Hormonal shinobi teenagers from opposing clans just got dropped into the same dating pool it's gonna be a MESSSS.

Even funnier if you take crumbs from my senju weed empire au and like. Some of these clans regularly smoke n stuff. Meanwhile other clans have never touched a psychedelic in their life. Some are especially vulnerable to drugs due to heightened senses (Orochi, Inuzuka, Hatake) while others have been smoking since they were younger and have an insane tolerance and very much distorted views of a reasonable amount of weed to smoke (Senju, Nara, Shiranui) There is no way in hell that goes well. Someone is going to get fucked up in a MAJOR way.

Well-intentioned Nara accidentally gets a bunch of dog wired guys and one snake high out of their fucking minds, the high lasts a full week for some of them and one sometimes wonders if they ever really came down from it

Anyways I got a bit off track but yeah! Early Konoha fic that revolves around the daily lives of differently aged Hatake ocs, taking a look from different angles of Konoha and all the silly clan drama and daily lives of an early Konoha shinobi— each chapter being different degrees of generally lighthearted, but ending in the Hatake's death. The fact that each Hatake is in with a different crowd and is a different age would make it even more fun and easier to explore the different layers Konoha has to offer! It's for sure on my list of things I wanna write

(Also I'd really love to have it just so I can point to it as a good introduction for my Hatake ocs. I love tricking people into learning ab my ocs it's great)

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

I FORGOT TO THROW OUT AFTER THE EPISODE RELEASED NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[xxplastic-cubexx]

idk the consensus on the last stand but old man charles and erik rolling up to lil ol young jean gray's home and sitting down with her like two old men about to adopt their daughter .. it makes my brain happy at the very least

[mohntilyet]

i’m having illario dellamorte thoughts. what if instead of knowingly betraying lucanis he did it like, unknowingly. idk how this would work but i’m intrigued by what it gives us. illario ‘i accidentally caused my cousin’s death & can never tell anyone’ dellamorte. genuinely grieving. blaming himself. does he take advantage of the year before lucanis comes back?? does caterina still ignore him the whole time?? how different is the canon plotline once rook shows up with lucanis post-rescue…..

anyways i would love your thoughts!!

95% of what i do with illario operates on the idea that he is frighteningly competent so you can see why the way the crows plotline plays out in the game might frustrate me. it’s also this reason why i don’t actually think too much about ��illario got lucanis killed, but didn’t mean to do it”, because i like the idea that everything illario does in his life is planned to the second and that he’s too well trained to mess up this badly, if that makes sense. with that being said. 5% of my brain power does sometimes go towards “and what if he just sucked actually” and it was a theory i enjoyed before the game even released. so i have in fact been thinking about this anyway LOL . maybe he tries to honeypot zara, accidentally actually reveals lucanis’ next assassination job, and zara gets rid of him as a ‘gift’. illario is horrified and that gets even worse when lucanis’ body shows up, and he assumes this must be because he spurned zara by leaving her and not having the guts to seize power.

i think we could make his inferiority complex worse. illario’s worst fear confirmed: he is as worthless as his grandmother believes he is, botching something so badly that he accidentally sentences his cousin to death when what he wanted was lucanis just… out of the way for a bit (maybe while he kills caterina. LOL. i still think his resentment of caterina trumps his jealousy for lucanis though those two things are very intertwined its hard for him to differentiate them). so incapable that he got the only person who actually supports him killed, and now he’s dreading the idea of becoming first talon. he doesn’t want first talon without lucanis backing him, and now the only person left is caterina which is suffocating and makes him even unhappier. at least he hadn’t lived through her alone, and now through consequences of his own decisions, illario has no choice but to.

i think that would affect his plans for talon because of how horribly he’d fucked up, and tries to mask it because if he suddenly actually doesn’t want to be talon that would be a red flag for everyone. lucanis coming back would delight him (talon is within his sights again if lucanis comes back!) and freak him out. i think the plotline would actually be pretty similar because of this freak out, so he still shows up to zara’s fight to cover his tracks. lucanis can never know, caterina can never know, because what little faith they have in him will be lost. like he committed fratricide and didn’t even MEAN to😭 ...corpse whispering still happens, and zara is like “ohhh that coward. he can never finish what he started, can he?” + “elaborate.” + “i gave him what he most wanted in the world and instead of being grateful, he ran away.” so lucanis finds out about what happened but feels a mix of “illario, you idiot” + pity because turns out he didn’t even mean for it to happen, and keeps his secret for now, otherwise he’d probably have to kill him.

i also think not meaning to kill lucanis would sour his feelings towards the venatori, who are a reminder of how badly he failed, so the alliance wouldn’t happen. this does mean if the story goes on as it does in canon, he has to take desperate measures another way and kidnap caterina for some other reason but i can’t think of why….. maybe a thing where illario is like “ok. lucanis is distracted by the elven gods. this time i just have to kill nonna for real and then nothing is in my way” and recruits disgraced houses or houses that don’t like caterina to do so? not sure tbh but i don’t believe caterina made it so far without making enemies lol. this would happen post bloodbath + corpse whispering— lucanis leaves his cousin unchecked because while he knows illario didn’t mean for him to die, he has no idea how far he would go to have caterina dead. teia could find out about this and send word to foil the kidnapping and assassination attempt

so ‘murder of crows’ is still about saving caterina, the illario-lucanis fight still happens, but it’s a little more hesitant and lots of “why won’t you just let me kill her? i’m doing this for the both of us”. he’s had to live with being the un-favorite, but never would have thought lucanis would actually pick caterina if it came down to it. with all of his missteps here, i think the final decision (and i think it should be like this in canon anyway) would be to imprison illario or kill him. imprisoning him is just a lot of “i can’t kill illario as much as he couldn’t kill me”, vs killing him as is expected from him as talon, and what he knew he would have to do after finding out about illario's failures. unlike canon, where illario is actually meaning to kill him and can be seen as a 'good crow' despite the sloppiness, here he's like. just bad at everything. the allied traitor houses that went against caterina would also have to be imprisoned or killed. no happy ending at all here, and lucanis still becomes first talon. now that i’ve written it out this is actually probably the worst ending LOL

the above sticks a lot to what is canon to the game (plot points, choices, etc) and i didn’t go very far away from it so it's like canon 3 inches to the left. tho my thoughts on this are not fleshed out* because i think illario works better as an antagonist character that sets things in motion !! not necessarily the villain in a cain-abel story, but a character who opposes lucanis while still not wanting to hurt him. that kind of discipline where he finds a way to get what he wants (first talon) without compromising what he also cares for (family) is so much more fun for me than a man who apparently just loses it and decides to enact a bad plan to get rid of his cousin. if he waited 20+ years to become talon i think he’d be more careful when it came down to it. if i had my way illario would be playing insane 5d chess to rival solas (insert black sails “i once thought that to lead, to be liked was just as good as feared. and that may very well be true. but to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being.”)

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (1/2)

part 2

Gepard notices that it's been. Quiet lately. Like weirdly quiet. TOO quiet. He hasn't seen Sampo Koski in almost a week, which is about the longest he's ever been absent. And he is NOT worried. He's not! So what if they've been getting along more lately! So what if Gepard sometimes looks for him in his favorite hiding places! So what if he's been dreaming about blue hair and green eyes! It's nothing!!

But they're….strange, these dreams. Gepard doesn't usually remember what he's dreamt. It's out of his mind seconds within waking up. But these stick with him, they won't leave him be, they feel different somehow.

He dreams of Sampo bringing food to the frontlines and eating breakfast in his tent with him. Sampo always sneaks him extras. He dreams of chasing Sampo through the alleyways, Sampo sometimes letting himself be caught, Gepard sometimes catching him, and trying to ignore how it feels more like a game now more than anything else. He even dreams that Sampo tags along with him on one of his few civilian days. Sampo runs errands with him, prattles about inane bullshit while Gepard picks out groceries for the week, drags Gepard into some bakery he's never been to but he thinks Serval mentioned once.

And sometimes, it feels so close to reality, that Gepard half expects to see Sampo, shamelessly swaggering into the frontlines with all the guards' breakfast like his wanted poster wasn't only recently taken off the walls of Belobog. He's disappointed when it's always someone else instead. He tells himself his disappointment is ridiculous and if Sampo wants to go prowl around the Snow Plains or wherever he is, then fine. It's not any of his business.

…But it IS his job to investigate any unusual criminal activity relating to the frontlines. And the frontlines are Sampo's usual haunting grounds, and this is unusual activity, and Sampo IS technically a criminal, so it is absolutely part of his duty to look into this - is what Gepard tells himself the entire tram ride down into the Underground.

Natasha tells him he's gone, and Gepard has to steel himself. He knew Sampo made enemies wherever he went, there are a lot of people who would love his head on a platter, but he didn't think-

Natasha corrects him that she means literally gone. As in off-planet. Sampo always leaves her a note before he goes anywhere, so she knows not to expect any supply runs from him. He should be back in exactly two weeks. Thank the Preservation.

Gepard goes back home. He waits.

The uneasiness doesn't leave him.

"Where did you go?" Sampo stops dead in the middle of some story about Seele, and how you'd think someone with as blunt a mouth as her wouldn't have so much trouble asking a woman out, even if that woman IS the Supreme Guardian, and stares at him. He nearly fumbles his cigarette.

"Ahaha, what do you mean, I'm right here?" Sampo smiles at him the same way he always does. Gepard has no idea why he asked. It just popped out. He can never tell when Sampo is lying, anyway.

"I don't know. I feel like I haven't seen you in a long time." Gepard idly mouths at his own cigarette. He almost never smokes, but he wants to ration their stocks of Blizzard Immunity, and it helps with the cold. It's seemed colder lately, for some reason.

Gepard flicks his lighter once, twice, sighs at the third time because a metal prosthetic and thick gloves make the damn things so difficult. Sampo reaches over and wordlessly kisses the end of his cigarette to Gepard's, lighting it. "Thank you."

Nothing happens for almost a full 30 seconds. Something churns behind Gepard's ribcage. Because Sampo never leaves a "thank you" hanging. This is the part where he gives his spiel about how helpful and kind he is and Gepard either brings up how long his rap sheet was before Bronya helped clear his name, or just stares deadpan because seeing Sampo squirm is weirdly satisfying.

"…I'll be back in one more week."

Gepard jolts awake in his cot, mouth dry and eyes bleary.

The hell.

The next dream he has, Sampo looks tired. Sometimes he seems normal. Sometimes he says strange things, like how he wishes he'd gone to some restaurant in Belobog. Ate his favorite food more recently. Brought something with him. Gepard asks why he can't do that now. Where would he bring something? Sampo only shrugs. His rebuttals have less energy.

Gepard doesn't know if he wants to dream more, or less.

He ticks down the days on his calendar. Natasha hasn't told him any different. She promised she would if she got any kind of message. Sampo returns tomorrow, from whatever vacation or seedy business dealings he's been off having. He is not excited about it. He is not looking forward to it. He's not!!

Gepard falls asleep late that night, unable to settle. He dreams again.

He's alone. There are tons of people everywhere, the frontlines are always crowded. But he's alone. They all pass right by him as though he were a ghost. Gepard starts to walk before he realizes his feet are even moving.

He checks the trashcans in the dead end alley. He checks the supply crates that someone always stacks too high because they don't feel like finding more space for them. He pauses to check the soldiers that march past him, watching their footprints in the snow.

He finally finds Sampo on the rooftop along the northernmost wall, the one that looks out over the plains, towards Everwinter Hill, towards where the Stellaron had once been kept. With a full moon and an entire land of white snow, Gepard can almost see clear out to the horizon.

"Found you." Sampo stiffens, and Gepard is almost prepared for him to sprint off the roof. He doesn't. But he doesn't relax either. Gepard sits down next to him and stares out at the wastelands.

"…I fucked up." It wasn't what Gepard had been expecting. Sampo never 'fucks up,' Sampo just gets into incidents that are entirely, supposedly, not his fault and that he just happens to always be within the vicinity of.

"What did you do now?" It must be really bad if Sampo is coming to the Silvermanes for protection.

Instead, Sampo ignores his question completely. "See out over there? Right on the other side of that mountain. There's a safe house that way. It's hidden under a lot of snow and dead trees, but it's there. And in that safe house is a box full of letters. I need you to deliver those letters for me."

Gepard's brow furrows. It's a weird favor to ask. Sampo would never tell anyone where his hidden safehouses were. It defeated the whole purpose of a hidden safe house.

Something is wrong, something is really really wrong.

Gepard turns back to look at him again and startles, all of his questions dying in his throat, because the entire left side of Sampo's head is suddenly matted down, dark and sticky, his skin is dyed red red red-

"In three more months, there's gonna be something big happening." Gepard grabs Sampo's hand and it feels slick and warm against his palm. "I won't be here. So I need you to do my end of things for me." Gepard tries to keep hold, but something is fading, something is slowing, the sun is coming up but the colors are all wrong, everything feels like encroaching fog, Sampo's hand slides right through his. "I was gonna come back with my mask to finish setting the stage, but…" Gepard makes a frantic grab for Sampo's wrist, the air twists, he comes back empty-handed. "They have you. And you're the Iron Wall of Belobog. So it'll be ok."

Gepard finally manages to find his grip, snatches the front of Sampo's dark wet jacket and yanks him forward to hold onto him, and this close up, he can see it better, his colors are bleaching out, leaking outside the lines as if Sampo will become part of the background, as if he's fading into the strange fog that's been closing in on them. His fingers are already starting to feel empty again.

"Wake up."

Gepard jolts awake, uncurls his hands from where they're fisted in the blanket, scrubs the dampness off his face. Breathes. Breathes. Breathes. Today is supposed to be the day.

He throws on his civilian clothes, and he goes down to the shipyard the IPC had built. He finds a spot where he can see every person that returns to Belobog, and he waits.

And he waits and he waits and he waits.

No one he recognizes appears.

[deangril]

Hello, Dean

[ender1821]

session was fine (/lh) highlights for me were gem's power being one of the coolest feeding the "associated with the watchers" allegations and her almost succesful escape of a practically impossible trap (yes im gonna ignore pearl's comment about gem's eye, i want to smash pearl with a hammer after that). and also gem is so obsessed with pearl it’s maddening, sadly pearl is the most oblivious player on the server 💔

so now lets focus instead on the potential of superhero!gem whose body practically dies when she projects her soul and superhero!pearl who excessively worries and protects her in that state while fearing one day gem won't come back to her body :D

we got a session with relatively normal gempearl moments!!! (well. as normal as they can be. anyway)

glad that watcher lore enjoyers are getting fed with watcher-leaning Gem and listener Martyn, i dont go here often but god thats some good material

the wild card this session is honestly very fun!!! mostly banger episodes, i would’ve taken a whole season of just this gimmick ngl but i also see why it’s only for a single session (currently watching Martyn’s ep and god it’s amazing if you ever were/currently are a bnha fan), also Gem trying to get joint custody of the zombies is. peak. gemrot enjoyers get your food

THE PEARL COMMENT…girl…she’s trying so hard to justify failing that trivia bot question it’s just funny. sorry to all the fic writers who have to find a way to justify Pearl not noticing/remembering the eye of ender situation. somehow simultaneously down bad and horrible at remembering what Gem’s done

like i said, the superhero AU stocks are skyrocketing… i dont do superhero AUs that much but if i were to spitball one rn it would be interesting to explore both superheroes Gem and Pearl, who aren’t on the same team/agency but know of each other and have this ongoing rivalry, where their powers are both useful in intel gathering (Gem by projecting and Pearl by flying nearby and listening in on conversations, though Gem’s probably better at it), but they’re also fighting villains on the field, and Pearl’s ability gives her an advantage in combat, while Gem makes up for it with her on duelling expertise

and yeah. maybe sometimes Pearl would fly by and spot Gem using her powers by herself. and maybe Pearl would hover around the area just to make sure nothing happens to her while she’s out of it… she doesn’t really know how Gem’s powers work in its entirety, but better safe than sorry, right?

(one time Gem finds out that Pearl is watching over her body while she’s astral projecting, and she decides to scare the ever living hell out of Pearl by suddenly jumping back into her body with no warning— Pearl nearly falls off a building with how much of a spook that gave her and Gem has never let that go since)

[narugen-moved]

alright buckle up it’s time for me to spread my hoshina/mina agenda

1. mina being unserious as hell with the most serious face when it comes to hoshina (taking a picture of him being upset over losing kaiju #8)

2. “could you be the one to carve the path for me?” she specifically asked him because of his swordsmanship that every elder/senior in his life had dismissed him for citing it was an end of an era. she’s the only one who believed in him after years of being put down by everybody (even his own family)

3. devotion & loyalty & trust - do i even need to say anything they make me go crazy

i can’t add anymore pics so i’ll word dump properly in another post but wow i’m bonkers abt them 😭 something something thank you for choosing me / thank you for being someone i can rely on