#this is just sort of a mess of words

[diathadevil]

Do you ever think about how Fakir, after him and Ahiru finally broke everything that kept the town of Goldkröne in the ghostly hands of its writer, after they finally have some air of peace over the town finally being able to live in its intended early 2000s environment, that Fakir still feels at times like it's not real and that for a while he fears that if he closes his eyes it'll be back in Drosselmeyer's control. Like it just doesn't feel real to him during that first year of calm, until he feels the dull pain on his recovering hand injury and Ahiru who follows him without a pendant anywhere to be found.

He doesn't feel it's real, the calm finality of this town, but he makes sure to feel the scar on his hand. And he makes sure to hold the little duck and realize that she is who she has always been. Him and the town are finally living peacefully.

[mkstrigidae]

APWH preview snippet!

Since I'm actively trying to work on getting the next few chapters out, I thought I'd share a little future scene with some hints of Jonsa with all you lovely people! This bit is from like, a few chapters in the future bc it's the in-between that's giving me fits right now :) (Fair warning: this is unedited and subject to change! That being said, it's such a fun scene that I can't imagine ever nixing it :D)

“Does he even know that they have to avoid the press?”

“For the last time-“ Sam sighed, sounding completely exasperated, “Dickon knows what they can and can’t do- he’s got enough practice not being photographed from when our dad was the secretary. Not to mention spending time around you when that exposé on your crazy grandfather came out two years ago.”

“I just-“ Jon sighed, blowing a stray curl out of his face. “You didn’t see how freaked out she was when the press caught us at that performance in White Harbor. I thought she was going to have a full-blown panic attack.”

He was immediately derailed by Gilly plopping little Sam down in his lap and shoving a bottle into his hands.

“What’s this all about?” he raised a brow, adjusting the baby on his lap, allowing him to latch onto the cuff of his flannel shirt and start gnawing at the fabric. “You going somewhere?”

Gilly shot him a withering look, but he saw the amusement in her eyes.

“I-“ she gestured, imperiously, “Have not had time by myself to shower all week-“

“Sorry, love.” Sam winced, looking up from his pile of paperwork. “I can take a break from these-“

“Not your fault, Sam.” she waved him off. “You warned me about this conference at the beginning of the summer.” a grin played at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, it works out well- Jon needs a distraction right now from the fact that Sansa’s on a date with your extremely hot and conventionally attractive brother.”

“Hey!” Sam looked wounded, and Gilly rolled her eyes, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“You know you’re my favorite Tarly.” she wrinkled her nose. “How long have you been working on this presentation? You smell like the baby spit up on you.”

“Guess I’m next in line for showers.” Sam said, mournfully. “Unless-“

“Nope- I need my own time right now, Samwell. Did you even hear what I said about why Jon’s bent out of shape?”

Jon had known Gilly since Sam and she had met up north while the two of them were in college. Sometimes, it was hard to reconcile the timid, scared girl she had been with the woman who was currently devoting all of her remaining energy to busting his balls.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about Sansa with my brother.” Sam snorted, shotgunning another cup of coffee next to him the way Jon was used to seeing undergrads do with jaeger shots. “I mean, this is Dickon we’re talking about. Used to bring wounded animals home to take care of them Dickon? The same guy who cried when we had movie night and Gilly and Rhae wanted to go see ‘Love, Simon’?” He shook his head. “Look, as far as guys she could be out on a date with right now go, Dickon’s kind of the best case scenario. She’ll have a nice time, and he’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

Jon blinked at him, silently turning to look up at Gilly, who rolled her eyes and sighed.

“You’re hopeless, sweetie.” she kissed him on the forehead again, wrinkling her nose. “He’s not worried that things will go wrong- he’s worried they’ll go a little too well.”

“You’ve been spending way too much time around my sister.” Jon muttered, narrowly avoiding little Sam’s grasping reach for his glasses, managing to get the baby to latch onto the bottle before he destroyed any more of Jon’s eyewear. “You even sounded like her just then.”

Sam blinked for a second, his head whipping between Jon and Gilly.“You’re jealous?” He asked, incredulously. “Of Dickon? Wait- you like Sansa?”

“Got there in the end.” Gilly sighed, affectionately patting him on the shoulder before going to shower, leaving Jon and Sam behind with four cups of coffee, one baby, and approximately five brain cells total between the two of them.

“You like her.” Sam repeated, like it was a giant revelation.

“What are we- in middle school?” Jon hissed, immediately turning his head down to smile and make faces at little Sam while he fed him, before glaring up at big Sam again. “I don’t- I mean-“

Sam was just shaking his head.“Of course you do.” he laughed. “Should have guessed- red hair and a damsel in distress? You were doomed from the outset.”

“Shut up.” Jon muttered, flushing. “It’s not like that.”

“Then why are you worrying about Dickon for fu-“ Sam glanced nervously at the baby, “-god’s sake? When Gill was meeting my family for the first time, I remember you told her not to worry- that my brother was ‘one of the best guys you know’ and ‘practically a golden retriever’.”

Jon could tell that Sam, who could not raise one eyebrow without the other, was desperately trying to do just that.

“I don’t know.” He muttered, moving little Sam to his shoulder to start burping him. “Look- I’m attracted to her, alright? It’s a fu- er, a giant disaster that I’m gonna ignore for the rest of my life.”

“Seriously?”

“Stop trying to do that with your eyebrows.” Jon complained. “It’s giving me motion sickness. And yes, seriously. I’m not even going to consider that- it’s just a stupid crush. Besides,” he sighed, rubbing little Sam’s back comfortingly, “Robb’s already dealing with enough right now with this whole Sansa situation- can’t imagine telling him I think his sister’s attractive while he’s being forced to suddenly confront all of his guilt and self loathing every time he looks at her.”

“That whole bro code thing of never dating your friend’s sisters never really made sense to me.” Sam shook his head, gulping down more coffee. “I mean, I’d be thrilled if you decided to date Talla, because I know you’d be good to her.”

“Yeah, don't think she'd quite go for that, mate.” Jon snorted, standing to bounce little Sam around gently. He was just grateful Sam hadn’t said anything else about Robb.

“Eh, wouldn’t count you out completely.” Sam shrugged, smirking. “With that hair, you’re pretty enough to be a girl- maybe that’d be enough for her.”

“You are so lucky i’m holding the baby.” Jon muttered, still bouncing little Sam, who picked that moment to spit up spectacularly down Jon’s back.

“Well, that’s three of us who’re gonna need showers now.” Sam grinned, looking thrilled as all get out that it hadn’t been him. “Wow- his aim is getting better.”

“I’m going to remind him of this when he’s a sulky teenager.” Jon grumbled, wiping spit-up off his shoulder as best he could. “Look- no gossiping with Rhae about this, please. She thinks she’s such a good clandestine agent that she doesn’t always realize that Robb is better at sniffing out her plots than she thinks.”

“Alright-“ Sam sighed, looking back down at the massive stack of paperwork in front of him. “I make no promises for Gill, though.”

“Gilly could give some of my Uncle’s colleagues at the WIA a run for their money when it comes to withstanding interrogation.” Jon snorted.

“Probably true.”

“Where did your brother take Sansa?” Still holding onto a now much happier baby with one hand, he reached down the other to take a gulp of his own coffee.

“He said something about going out towards the Tyrell Estate.” Sam shrugged. “They probably drove out there to see the gardens- he’s said it’s a good road to take his bike out on.”

Jon promptly spat out his entire sip of coffee, staining the front of his shirt as well as the back, and frightening little Sam enough that he started to cry.

“He took her on his motorcycle?”

Gilly picked that moment to reappear, completely clean and with wet hair, blinking at the scene in front of her.

Sam, who couldn’t seem to stop laughing, was desperately trying to calm down the baby, who had started wailing, while Jon’s entire front was covered in coffee and his entire back was covered in baby vomit. Not that he seemed to notice, as his face was white and he was making a series of angry looking hand gestures at her husband.

“I really can’t leave you three alone for five minutes, can I?” she sighed. “Do I even want to know?”

[mumblesplash]

realized i think i enjoy rhyming so much because it’s one of the only text formats that actually forces me to read and understand everything, since my tendency to skip around blocks of text and misread words gets held in check by the need to make everything flow correctly

[mad-hunts]

i like how barton went from being like... a hippie in terms of how he viewed sex in his early twenties, then kind of abstained from it for a few years / became sexually repressed, which... definitely isn't such a good thing. BUT then he became even more of a freak (and i do mean that in the good way this time LOL) around the time he started residency because WOW is that shit stressful. though that was also unfortunately around the time when he really started to spiral as well 😬 but we don't need to talk about that ahahhh

like the way this man learned how to express his sexuality REALLY came full circle in the end considering he was like 'yeah, back in the early days that i was in college, i was a freak. but now i'm not anymore... though do you want to see me do it again anyway?' like 💀 JSJSJ if he weren't so demented, i'd almost be inclined to say good for him, y'all LMAO feeling comfortable with your sexuality and perhaps even having a bit of fun with it (though maybe too much in barton's case, because he literally weaponizes it in order to lure in his victims. BUT once again, we don't need to talk about that right now psshhh. i actually fully intend on talking about that in the tags NGL) is more often than not a good thing after all

[raskies456]

So do we think the non water flight version of the text is actually a cipher or nah?

I initially thought so, it looked like a replacement cipher with missing letters of based on the patterning, (potentially one of those plus sign replacement ciphers, I forget what they are called if they have a name) but now that I’ve seen the corresponding plaintext it’s clear it’s not simple substitution w missing bits at the very least.

Could potentially be looking at a more advanced cipher but idk if the devs would go that far especially since they pretty much gave us the plaintext, so they could’ve just created a cipherlike set of symbols that doesn’t decrypt to anything. If that’s the case they did a good job making something that looked reasonably enough like a cipher that I played around with it for a little bit. But it’s also not entirely impossible they used something a tad more advanced especially given that a simple substitution would get broken quite quickly.

[thefunniestguy]

" you ... bit me "

I DUNNO this definitely messed mitsuba up methinks . He bit him :((

[itspileofgoodthings]

have had a bit of my crash after flying too close to the sun this past week and you know what, it’s very annoying and also very good for me in a stabilizing way.

[soobvape]

heol

[quillkiller]

Monty fucking Regulus ass up face down because he knows he’s cheating and he hates it but in the back of his mind he really loves it, Regulus knowing this and making whiny, high pitched noises so unlike Effie and Monty comes 5x harder

[valeriefauxnom]

Very Very Far Shot But...

I stumbled upon the concept of this today, and it, uh, struck me and my Dragalia-attuned (among other games) brain.

The word?

Eudaimonia (well, or 'eudaemonia' or even 'eudemonia'). As you might be able to surmise, it is Grecian.

Since it's a bit of a more complicated word in concept, here's snippets of both the good old Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica regarding it:

Closely following this is the more modern concept of eudaemonism, which is the school of thought that evaluates the worthiness of actions based on their capacity to produce happiness.

But wait, there's more!

There also was a concept of eudaimonias as actual spirits, a sort of guardian angel figure.

And, well. This all sounds vaguely familiar to Euden. He himself in Dragalia lore is something of a symbol of dragalia itself made manifest, creating the ultimate har-har in the game's title after the last chapter. Replace "Euden's dead" everytime you see "Dragalia Lost" and it's darkly amusing. What do you mean, in the game "Euden's dead, in the chapter "Euden's dead" Euden dies? Impossible!- But just as he reforms bridges between people and dragons, so too is Euden very concerned and involved with the flourishing of humanity in all stripes. As leader to New Alberia, he also serves something as a guiding figure for the people who chose to follow him, on both a literal 'big-picture, what do we even do' scale as well as a more personal one, as he pays attention to most every individual he meets.

There's also this snippet regarding the actual 'figure' of the eudaimon:

With dragons in Dragalia being essentially nature personified, 'mother nature bites back' champions of higher, more intangible powers and occasionally all but killable gods themselves with their might, it forms a neat sort of comparison with Euden, the intermediary between them and the 'lesser races' of humanity. Euden himself is already something of an intermediary between the divine and mortal, with the whole Xenos-Morsayati-Nedrick trifecta involved in his creation even if he is himself largely the same as most other human.

Of course, with the whole notion of Greek deified heroes entering the mix and their many ends in mythos, it adds another potential tie in, since, yeah. He dead (after performing supernatural feats).

Dragalia also possibly drew on Greek/Roman inspiration for others in his family so it might not be completely impossible. There's Leonidas, who was most notably a king of Sparta and has a few other little tidbits to him that make me wonder if they drew on him for inspiration, and Marcus Aurelius, who was noted as part of the "Last of the Five Good Emperors" in Ancient Rome, a noted militaristic society like Alberia's. That almost reminds me of Aurelius' status in the main campaign, where he ruled as King for very long and further helped Alberia prosper before it all started going downhill.

So...yeah. Euden as a possible literal manifestation of a eudaemon, eudaemonia and/or eudaemonist himself, anyone?

[fyllophobia]

you art is so beautiful omg

just been coming back from a hiatus/inactivity so i’m glad people have been enjoying it so much, ffxiv has been a joy and creative font for me these past few months after feeling a bit bummed by art. thankfully i feel completely refreshed recently and comments like these make things sweeter, thank you for appreciating!!

[hiddenintheveil]

.

[ozzyfromthecafeteria]

ah. i forgot that pre-history i takes place in the 1980s and that hm. does throw a little wrench in the kinda worldbuilding i had thought up for static sroadtrip. oh well this can be a little anachronistic. as a treat. i can Make Up things the lush impenetrable jungles of massachusetts-style

[eimearkuopio]

I volunteered as tribute. All I asked for is a normal human life, a seat at the table, and for my voice to be heard. If I go home today, we get Good Place #3. If I get a seat at the table and everyone at least hears me out, I think nobody will ever go through this shit again; plus as a bonus I should be reunited with my brother and my sister. I only ever had one, but I know their secret names and I know the way, so if you want to end up in the Best Place I suggest R_m or R_nb arrange to get the rest of my stuff from Kuopio to Ushaw Moor House by Tuesday 22nd October 2024.

I still love you all. Last Thursday was Holey Thursday (not Hollie or Hannah or the Holy Ghost) and yesterday was Best Friday (not Brian or Bridget but I think I built a bridge you can have for a song) and today is Esther Saturday and my parents are both coming to visit me later, and tomorrow I should also have two visitors but i might be wrong. 💚🩷💜🩵💙🩵💜🩷💚❤️😘😻🔱⚕️🖤😜💚💛🧡💛💚🤷🏻‍♀️

Today's gonna be the day we notice cause I'm tired of explaining what the joke is and it turns out I'm better at improv comedy then even I knew but I think I need a lie down now more than I need to stand up or sit down. So long and thanks for all the fish; don't worry, I think I've learned enough about fishing that I won't bet taking a non-euphemism nap and time soon, but I'm finally River Song and The Doctor so I'm not worried about spoilers any more. R_f has blue eyes and E_f has green eyes, and I am no man but I could be a Merry Hobbit or a Bad Habit depending on how things go.

I love you all AND go fuck yourselves, except the 144000 people who are already in my web of love. They all get to be their best selves, and everyone else gets to live on a beach instead of living with This Bitch. 🤍🧡💛💚🩷❤️💜💙🩵🖤22101982

See you at the Garden Party. There are at least three different House Parties (Father F_m, Mother M_f, Parent_NB P_infinity), one @LAN party that's just Barbies and Kens and Alan C, a political party in the wilderness, a picnic in the forest but watch out for Trent the Flying Ant and Lilith the Flying Aunt, and that's seven parties which is enough for me to retire as Aluminium (or Aluminum or Alexander or Aaron) and become Auntie Echo (NB Eliza/Elijah, Eimear/Emer, Esther/Pauline, Éanna&Paul&Maria&Eoin, etc.).

I really hope someone still has my notes from my time at A&E. God doesn't have Cancer, but they are hitting puberty and I'm not chemotherapy, I'm more like puberty blockers until humanity as a whole is ready to behave properly. I think I might be poly but I'm definitely "human" but my husband doesn't know yet that we've both been "human" this whole time (and in fairness I think the only reason we got turbo divorced was so I could be Leah not Rachel or Carol or Sugar).

Tomorrow I think A_m and R_f will come visit me, and they'll look familiar but not too familiar but not too not familiar. But Lucy or Caitlin told me my eyes were blue this morning, and I already had a nap, so tomorrow they'll be green and I won't need to babble about colours or alphabets any more because I'll have a seat at my own table in the room where it happens and they get to live happily ever after, because I was already Isabella and Mirabel and now my brother gets to be Bruce Wayne and I get to be Luisa for a change. Love you all. We already had one Holey Thursday and one Holy Thursday this year (2024 CE) and I only know this because of my phone but it's Saturday 19th October 2024 and I haven't seen anything tragic since at least Friday 3rd October 2024 but my tummy hurts so you'll have to excuse me.

I guess I might be the phantom of the opera but as long as you keep your hand at the level of your eyes you have nothing to fear from E_f or R_f, and L_f already gave you Her covenant. Don't worry if you're happy with the beach you're on; I'm a bitch but I'm a lot of other things too, including a livestock guardian sheepdog with just enough of the wolf about her not to fear the shepherds or the reaper.

Thank you for the music. I'll see you when I see you, but I'm not going anywhere. I love you all, but we all could probably do with a bath-tism about once a year, where we need it or not, as my Granda Dicky used to say. I don't remember him very well but the best parts of him are already here in my dad, and we're both canon now and so is everyone else I already loved on 3rd October 2024, which I think was a Thursday but as I already told the Catholic Pope Francis, I might be wrong. 💚🩷💜

[mythvoiced]

OPEN STARTER | Boo Yihwa

"New idea: you fuck off or I'll kill you. I hate the way you smell."

[dandyshucks]

okay its going under a readmore bc its messy and a lot, i'll try to keep it succinct though. CW for some discussion of the ongoing g.enocide and things around that topic

so one of the friends is someone I've really respected and admired because they're a very intelligent well-spoken and kind-hearted individual. i've really been impressed with how they think about things and with their ability to write really fantastic essays (that they often share with this friend group because they're in school and enjoy sharing their work with us because a lot of us are interested in the things they write about). about a year ago, this person went through the process of converting to j.udaism and we were all very excited (and continue to be happy) for them. they've been really happy with the process and the community they've found and it's been really good for them.

however! this person has since stated they are a z.ionist! and they've said that it just means that j.ewish people should live in i.srael, it doesn't mean they support the i.df or what is happening in p.alestine currently. but I'm just... baffled at how they can think that non-p.alestinians occupying the country could EVER be done peacefully. it has ALWAYS been colonization. it was never going to be done in a peaceful manner.

do j.ewish people deserve a safe place to exist? absolutely! but I do not think, ESPECIALLY now, that that safe place can ever be located in p.alestine. I'm not the most educated or well-read individual, I've done a bit of reading over the past few months but my memory is shoddy and I consistently forget almost everything I've read, but as far as I can tell, this has been a non-peaceful occupation (...can occupation ever really be done peacefully in reality? i doubt it.) from the very beginning. p.alestinians were being kicked out of their houses from the start.

and to add onto the messiness of this all, I am the only i.ndigenous person in the entire group. I am the only one coming at this from an i.ndigenous perspective. and because of my perspective, I am ALWAYS going to be on the side of the population that first lived and existed in a place. i am always on the side of l.and back, i am always on the side of the first peoples. anything less would be essentially agreeing with colonization.

so it is just incredibly uncomfortable to be the only i.ndigenous person in this group while the rest of the group has discussed and expressed sympathy with this person for holding self-professed z.ionist beliefs (I do not believe this person has done the right reading to fully understand what they are saying, which is so strange because they are usually so good about educating themself). and I feel like if I try to say anything to argue or simply question this person, I'm going to rock the boat too much and make Everyone uncomfortable and the entire thing will blow up and fall apart around me. so my options seem to be either: a) say something, b) say nothing and stay in the group, or c) say nothing and quietly leave the group. none of which feel like good options!

and it sucks so much because there are people I genuinely do like in this group, and I've liked this one person and respected them since I met them, but they're really .... showing themself to be an unsafe person at the end of the day. I keep feeling like maybe I'm not seeing something or maybe I'm missing something, but I've looked at this from multiple angles and while I do absolutely see where they're coming from and even sympathise with some of it, I disagree with them on a fundamental level.

(also it seems really fucked up for them to be newly converted to j.udaism and endorsing what is essentially colonization and lowkey ignoring the fact that PEOPLE ARE BEING GENOCIDED RIGHT NOW so maybe we should not be discussing "but where are all the j.ewish ppl going to live :(" until the bullets and bombs stop at the very least(????????), while I've been indigenous and dealing with the consequences of attempted (and still ongoing!) genocide and colonization my entire life)