#they made her in a lab specifically for ME.

[kanotototori]

The welcoming and friendly and bright facade of "Mother" and the family she raised at the Hearth, whose cruelty was hidden just beneath the surface - raising children as brothers and sisters so that they might slaughter each other in the future for the title of "King",

Versus

Arlecchino as the "strict" and "unfeeling" and cold and emotionally distant Father, who teaches her children that they should rely on each other, love each other, cherish each other and their own lives, stand on their own two feet in the world. The names of Arlecchino's constellations - "You shall become a new member of our family / You shall love and protect each other henceforth / For alone, we are as good as dead / From this day on, we shall delight in new life together" - are her teachings to the children of the House (and her hopes, too - we shall delight in new life together).

And the warm gentleness in her voice when she begins speaking - "come with me" - that turns into cold monotone, "like a strict and unfeeling Father". You can literally hear the moment she creates the persona of that "cold", "unfeeling", "strict" Father, when she puts on her mask.

And that's not even getting into how it's also a continuation of this vicious cycle - "I will raise you as my child" - because while Arlecchino's House is certainly leagues better than Crucabena's, she is still raising soldiers and ultimately leading many of them to their deaths* (despite her best efforts, it seems), she is actively priming Lyney to be the next "King", and the throne of the "King" is upheld by much death and bloodshed.

*As an aside, I gotta wonder if Arlecchino's crimes were pardoned only in exchange for her becoming a Harbinger, so now she's locked into a job where she has to raise more child soldiers and send them to die, just like her siblings were sent to die. It would explain why Childe clocks her loyalty to the Tsaritsa as being very shaky (him being a Tsaritsa fanboy in the first place, anyway). But if she didn't become "King"... well, wouldn't that mean all her siblings' sacrifices would be in vain? That would be kinda fucked up innit.

[abirddogmoment]

A lab joined our brittany party 💚💙💜

[silverspleen]

STUPID SHIP MEME DRAWINGS.

I just think they should kiss maybe?

Obsessed (positive??) with the dynamic of guy who betrays his country so he can run off with the militia he's been working with because he gets a case of loyalty feelings so bad he goes and blows himself up X morally upstanding traumatic backstory woman having the worst fucking time of her life (again) who really just needs someone to be as fanatically loyal as possible to her, as a person who is really into the inherent eroticism of the hierarchical military power dynamic focus on loyalty and the use of "yes ma'am" as I love you.

Obsessed (negative) with the propaganda implications that we seem to have ignored of the fact that the three most important people in an arabic woman's life are 2 (two) white guys and her brother, who betrays her and becomes a villain in the later games, and the fucking insidious-ass narrative choice of placing one of said white guys in said militia as like, the tacit fact that this organization is ok only because the western white guys are cool with it. Stop introducing more ULF people just to kill them!!! I SEE YOU WRITERS!!! YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME!!!!!!

because, once again, the character dynamic? I am sick for it. He dropped a building on himself for her and then came back???? He came back???? He could have gone anywhere but he came back to her???? I'm unwell. I think I have covid. I need to go lie down.

Anyway my city now my characters now smashing them together like barbies watching that .gif of them staring at each other eighty times reading all the fanfiction goodbye

you shouldn't blow yourself up in the furnace I want to blow myself up in the furnace for you as my own personal choice and you should order me to do it because you're such a good leader what is wrong with youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh *gnaws on furniture*

WE DON'T EVEN GET TO SEE HIM COME BACK TO HER. THANK YOU FIC WRITERS YOU KNOW THAT REUNION MUST BE SO ANGST THE COMPLEX DYNAMIC OF SACRIFICING YOURSELF FOR SOMEONE AND MAKING IT OUT AND BACK TO THEM AGAIN!!!!!!! THE GUILT! THE YEARNING! THE LOYALTY! I AM GOING TO EXPLODE.

[frameconfessions]

Valkyr Prime No Forma Queen Steel Path Circuit Armor Strip Deluxe Build AKA Can We Get Much Higher

There's room for improvement (like adding forma and maxxing out the other arcane), but I don't feel like it right now.

Here's the Valkyr Prime mods & arcanes setup. Use Terrify (Nekros helminth) over ability 3 for armor strip ability. Use these archon shards to get the 100% armor strip too and good energy economy. Feel free to ask about any of these mod or build choices, this build is from like 2 years ago that one of my partners helped me set up and still going strong. Delusion helmet and Gersemi skin for appearance.

Prime Talons mod setup. Blast damage is the current meta as of December 2024 so you can see the original before Damage whatever number update point 0 we're at now compared to the original build.

Equip Naramon, it's extremely important for power scaling and end-game level damage.

Fully ranked up Power Spike is the only focus school stuff you need, but having the waybounds unbound is always good for operator/drifter survival, combat, and movement.

Manage your energy economy by getting parazon finisher kills on eximus units if you start running low, just edge the health bars until you see the prompt and your energy will shoot up to almost max if not max. More than half the time arcane energize should kick in and give you a boost on top of the archon shard energy boost (not sure if the effects of the shards and energize multiply/stack or not as I'm not a build math gal but it feels like it does).

Here you go @issilya and anyone else wanting a no forma Valkyr Prime that scales well into higher levels.

[serenedash]

Yeah no I'm fine why (<- guy who is always 2 seconds away from exploding into a million pieces because of Kingdom Hearts Union Cross)

[gatoraid]

Wayama Yama - 女の園の星　(Onna no sono no Hoshi)

[mcrlboro]

miss kendall eagan roy i have grown extremely fond of you

[courtney-deserved-better]

do you think that priya’s relationship with her parents will change because of her win? i really like her but i almost wish she didn’t win because im so curious about how that would affect basically what’s been made her entire life’s goal, but do you think her parents will accept it as enough, since she mentioned them wanting to do “the whole reality tv circuit”?

ooh i have a lot of thoughts on priya and her upbringing but ill try to be concise enough to be coherent. i think she's gonna be super pumped that she's won and achieved this lifelong goal and i think her parents are going to be very proud of her and thrilled. but i think priya is going to fall into a slump of "what's next?" before she goes to med school because once you achieve something you've spent years working toward it's a massive change to no longer train for that goal (im speaking from the perspective of someone who spent a decade training for a black belt in karate). i can understand why you think it could have been valuable for her not to win but for me personally the thought of someone giving up their childhood and passions for their parents' dreams (the reapings of which would fund her own dream to go to med school) only to fail is just. too harsh. im really glad that all of priya's training was for something. and while winning td isn't her goal, she's passionate enough about it that i personally headcanon her parents as making some of the training fun for her even if it still was training, or at least being kind and loving enough for her to want to do this for them. not to say that that relationship is healthy—it very much seems that they only had a daughter to win this for them and they're definitely prioritizing their pursuits above her own. i do think priya loves her parents and is grateful for the training, she wouldn't have been as upset with millie about writing about her family if she didn't, imo. but i think as priya comes off of the high of winning, and spends more time with millie who can put her parents' faults in raising her into perspective, priya is going to lose affection for her parents and possibly blame them for why she didn't have many friends/much of a childhood growing up (not sure if that's explicitly stated in canon but im extrapolating. if they push her to do the whole reality tv circuit instead of or as an extra ultimatum for doing med school, her relationship with them will definitely sour. i think whether or not they push for that will partially depend on priya's own willingness to be pushed into someone else's goals or be assertive about pursuing her own. god i love priya so much and have so many thoughts i really need to write like. a headcanon list or fic or something about her. priya my beloved <3

[panicroomsammy]

i want to keep mary winchester in a jar like a bug

[funtomcafe]

oh twt is just straight up down rn. awesome

[pencilcult]

monday night i decided to rewatch poor things instead of sleeping and it is the best decision i've ever made in a long fucking while

[thecrow1994]

one thing i really miss about college are the medieval art history classes. my teacher would take her sweet time going on about the symbolism behind stained glass art and the unicorn tapestries it was so good. wish my laptop hadn't died so i would still have access to my essays but well what can you do :/

[doctorwhoisadhd]

auauguaughgh assignmence

[inkskinned]

i think probably magic is real.

the thing is that i was a teacher for a long time and sometimes i come back to this moment in the classroom where a 7 year old asked me are mermaids real? and i stared at her and had no idea how to answer.

for a really long time i just assumed that glow-in-the-dark paint/etc was a result of something made in a lab. i just recently found out that a specific mine in new jersey that just has rocks that do that naturally and it sent me for a loop about stuff.

because first of all - let's be honest, all of us: if there was going to be a naturally-occurring location for uv-activated glow-in-the-dark rocks? it would have to be in New Jersey. that's just the place that makes the most sense for that to happen. probably 10 thousand years ago cavemen were like. "oh this place is gonna be new jersey one day. this has new jersey energy."

the rocks only glow in the presence of uv light and are otherwise just normal rocks. in lord of the rings, there's a special sword that glows in the presence of orcs. it is magic, except that's a real thing that exists (and exists, as we have discussed, in new jersey, of all places). i guess maybe this implies orcs give off uv light.

yeah, okay. magic is just science. i know all the stuff about how ghosts are probably just caused by vibrating pipes. i knew about how there's a reason-for-all-of-this. but what do you mean that there's rocks that give you poison damage if you touch them. what do you mean that we live on the same planet as electric eels. what do you mean that a battery just, like - stores power?

and i don't know. in 20 years maybe they will find a mermaid but they will say something like well she's technically not a mermaid she's this other species, she has whiskers and not hair. and i will have to travel back in time and tell a 7 year old not technically, but there's something that is like a mermaid.

and she will look at me and think that what i am saying is science means magic isn't real and what i am actually saying is science is our word for why magic works. and then i will teach her about uv rocks, and new jersey. i will tell her to be a scientist, which is the same thing as being a wizard. there is probably a reason why sci-fi and fantasy are often grouped together. it is very lucky to be here, i think. if you squint, the improbability of it all - it does kind of feel like spellwork.

[just-an-anon-reader]

The Forgotten Sister

Pairing: Ekko x Fem!Reader

Tags: Minimal use of Y/N, no specific description of the reader, friends to lovers, CW blood, CW injury, CW, violence, CW guns, TW death.

A/N: Soo I just couldn't wait! My brain was goin into hypersimp

Prologue — Chapter II

Chapter 1

It's been seven years since then. You've grown and changed. Granted, your leg remained weak, leaving you limping, but the rest grew strong. Responsibility tends to have that effect on the people who bear it. Almost immediately after Ekko founded the Firelights, group consensus made you the resident saw-bones.

How? You hadn't the slightest idea. You did, however, have a lingering suspicion that Ekko had a hand in it. Especially with his vastly exaggerated recounting of the time you popped back Vi's dislocated wrist after she thought it would look cool to punch a concrete wall with her bare knuckles. Although you initially accepted the role reluctantly, you performed it in great stride. Applying everything you knew from your own experience as a sickly child while learning the rest from tomes Ekko would you bring every now and then from their scavenges. You grew to become a pretty skilled makeshift doctor. From common colds to bullet wounds, everyone entrusted their lives to you. Ekko, most of all. 

And today was supposed to be just another day as a makeshift doctor. 

Just beneath a set of branches on the firelight tree stood your infirmary. Big enough only to house ten patients at a time, it was considered one of the largest areas in the hideout. It might not have been the prettiest, made up of strewn-together sheets of steel and wood bolted at the seams, but it did just fine. Inside, standing in front of a row of cabinets, assumingly counting the stock of medical supplies, was you. Your lab coat swayed with the gentle breeze that drafted in from the open doorway. The wooden floorboards slightly squeaking as you leaned against your cane. Mind adrift to the events from earlier that morning. 

"You be careful out there, Ekko. Salve and bandages can only do so much," you say, stuffing his right jacket pocket with supplies.  Bandages, salves, ties for bleeding, pain meds... were you missing something?

"You make it sound like you haven't saved lives with those," he chuckles.  

Noticing the subtle trembling of your hand, Ekko reaches for it. Pausing your mission to stuff his pocket with the whole infirmary and instead giving it a gentle squeeze in the hopes of comforting you. It always worried you every time they went out on missions. They never ended cleanly. Some would never come back. While others would end up rushed into a cot in the infirmary. Their blood soaking the floor, staining it red. It was never a pretty sight. 

"Salve won't magically close bullet wounds or weld back hacked-off arms," you bite back, returning his comfort with your own. 

"Just... come back home. In one piece, preferably," you say, looking up at him. 

"We will, Firelight," he replies, gently bumping his forehead against yours. Closing his eyes as he breathed in the scent of you. Antiseptic and lavender. Weird, but uniquely you. 

You did the same. Basking in his warmth, in the feel of him. Letting the butterflies flutter in your gut as you felt the tips of your ears flush. After a moment, you step away from each other. Confident and resolute. Ekko gave you a firm nod before walking away... 

"-C! DOC!" A voice boomed, snapping you out of your reverie with a squeak of surprise. 

A man stood beside you. He had large wing-like ears and a cut pink button nose that looked out of place on his gruff face. Scar. 

"Geez! You scared me! And when did you get here?" you say. 

"I've been calling for you since I got in here. Get your head back on your shoulders. You got a few to patch up. Nothing serious this time, " he said as three boys from the group started filling the space. 

You saw to them, one by one. A couple of bruises, some cuts, a nick or two from a grazed bullet that'd need a few stitches. But nothing too serious. Good.

"What happened out there?" you asked, cleaning away the filth and gunk that stuck to the dried blood on one of the boy's shoulders.

A hush fell over the conversation. Confused at the sudden silence, you turn your attention to the chimeran. Scar had that look. The one you've gotten used to since the situation with Silco started to escalate. Started to turn more... violent. When it began to become... personal.

Jinx...

"I see, and Ekko?" you ask as you grab a pack from the cabinet. 

"'Course you'd ask about him." Scar teased. Earning a glare from you. "He's fine. Just finishing up. I'm sure he'll come over soon." He says, walking away, his tone not any less teasing. 

You could only scoff at his antics. For such a rough and gruff person, his penchant for teasing certainly takes some getting used to. Focusing on the task, you tenderly clean the area around the wounds. Expertly stitching and bandaging with a quick and skilled hand. Before long, all three boys lay fast asleep on their cots. Ice towels on their bruises and bandaged arms or legs angled away to keep them from snagging. Satisfied with your work, you started cleaning up. Throwing away bloodied gauze and used needles while saving the rest for future use. After all, supplies down here in the under city don’t come cheap. Just as you were about to put away the last pack, Ekko's voice called to you from the entrance of the infirmary. 

"Firelight! Get over here. There's something you need to see," he said, tone urgent. Almost... somber. 

Worriedly, you hobbled to him as fast as you could, a difficult task when you're also trying not to trip over your cane. 

"Hey! What's wrong? You hurt?" you ask, hand on his shoulder, nudging him left and right as you inspect him for any wounds he may or may not be hiding from you. 

"I'm fine, I'm fine... but there's someone else you should see," he said, placing a hand on yours on his shoulder. His eyes shifted to something to his right, then back. Pointing. 

"Who-"

You felt your breath catch and the wobble in your knees. There stood a young woman. With wild pink hair that glowed where the sun would hit it. And blue eyes that sparkled as they looked at you. She looked tired and haggard. Like she hadn't had enough sunlight in years. But that face... you knew that face. It may have aged over the years, but it was still... hers. 

"Vi?"

"Hey there, shortstack. But I see you aren't so short any more. And, I guess it's Doc around here, huh?"

With a stumble, you shuffle towards her. The thunk of your cane against the hardwood floor being the only sound between you two. You stop in front of her at arm's length. Slowly, nervously, you reach out to her, hand trembling as you carefully cup her cheek. It was warm, it was soft, it was... real.

"You're... real?" you whispered.

"I sure am," Vi whispered back. Her own hand reached out to cup yours. Thumb gently rubbing circles on the peak of your cheek.

"You're not a nightmare? Or some ghost here to haunt me 'cause you're still bitter about that time I popped your wrist back wrong?" you said, wet hiccups mixing with blobs of tears gushing out of your eyes. Sniffling as you felt snot beginning to drip from your nose. You always were a messy crier. Pulling you in, Vi embraces you tightly, letting you sob against her shoulder. Drenching the fabric of her jacket with tears and snot.

"I missed you, baby sis. So, so much. I'm so sorry I left you alone. It'll never happen again. Ever." Vi says, holding you tighter. Feeling her own tears beginning to fall, staining your white lab coat gray.

"I missed you too..."

[otaku553]

Straw hat women redesigns :) I was trying to doodle some of the crew and came to the realization that I just Could Not with Nami so I wanted to play around with it a little bit

Some more design notes below:

Nami’s design actually went a lot smoother for me than Robin’s! I think canon post timeskip Nami is a very low bar. While you can argue that to some extent Nami being vain and seductive is part of her character, I do feel that there are many more integral parts of her character that can be highlighted in her design, namely map making and her combat. Though not one of the stronger straw hats, Nami does seem to be well practiced with her staff outside of its use for weather manipulation, and I think her being a physical combatant, even slightly, can be better reflected with more loose clothing for better mobility.

For her mapmaking, I wanted her to have constant easy access to her tools and to information about the locale, so around her waist she has one large pouch at the back for books and scrolls and maps in progress and one small pouch to the side for writing utensils and measurement tools. As backup she also has 2 pens in her bun, which also act as pins for keeping her hair up if she ever needs to move a lot.

I’m not sure how clearly it shows up in the notes, but Nami’s shoe soles are also made from whatever artificial cloud material makes up the weather island she stayed on during the timeskip, so that it both pads her steps to make them soundless and bounces for better mobility. The shoes are naturally shaped like heels but without the actual heel, since she tends to move around on tiptoes anyways- a nod to her epithet as cat burglar and her past as a thief.

I made her shoulders a bit broader because I think they probably get a lot of exercise with her staff, and changed out the bikini top for a more supportive chest wrap, with a loose tank over it for breathability. The compression socks and sleeve are more stylistic than anything, since I like layers, but they might come in handy for her if she spends extended amounts of time sitting down making maps for the crew.

Robin’s was a bit more difficult for me to figure out, and I might go back and revisit it at some point. For Nami, it was a bit easier to imagine what would pair well with her combat methods and her needs as a mapmaker, but with Robin, she’s an academic who fights almost completely hands off, without a specific weapon to her name. Because her strength lies mostly in her devil fruit, she has a bit more room for style over functionality, but I also still wanted her to have something that made sense with what she was. I don’t really think I succeeded in that regard, but it’s also hard to convey what she does visually— she’s more of like a professor than a field archaeologist I think.

I really really enjoy her cowboy hat but I didn’t think it would match with the rest of the outfit so I switched it out for a wider brimmed hat and kept the orange sunglasses on it, as a nod to the revolutionaries with the combination of headwear and eyewear. She deserves a trench coat. I don’t make the rules. And the rest of the fit mostly came down to things I think I would enjoy wearing, haha

The trench coat is partially a nod to the scholars of ohara, who seem to wear white coats like lab coats in some screenshots of robin’s backstory. I think also the reading glasses help to make her seem a bit more academic, but aren’t prominent enough to leave a strong impression. All in all I do wish robin’s design had more functionality in it but I also think that robin is a character who probably enjoys dressing up nicely like this, especially in the comfort and stability of the straw hats.