#this is basically his introduction

[yunoftheclouds]

What’s with this sassy, lost child?

[witchhazelevesque]

Imagine when Frank was walking (walking) from Canada to California and Camp Jupiter, in the middle of winter, that he passes a store front with music spilling out the door and he hears the lyrics, But I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more just to be the man who walked a thousand miles…

He’d be like. “Shut the fuck up.”

[patolemus]

and god will cry out

sterek | teen wolf | wip

No one knows what really happened in the preserve the night Scott McCall died. Some say it was an animal attack. Some say someone killed him and tried to cover it up. Some say he’s not even dead, and that he faked his own death to escape the small town life.

Stiles knows better though, knows that what he saw that night was neither a person nor an animal, and he’s determined to find out the truth behind his best friend’s murder.

Enter Derek Hale.

Or: the rewrite where Scott dies twenty minutes into the first episode and Stiles goes on a quest to avenge his best friend's murder, unknowingly stepping into the supernatural world until he's drowning in it. He meets Derek along the way.

[zuko-always-lies]

Unpopular Opinion

The people who become master benders without having to put in the hard work and without having to struggle aren't Azula or Toph or even Aang, they're Katara(becomes a master good enough to teach the Avatar within a month of finally getting formal instruction) and Zuko (get's a convenient dragon-shaped powerup rather than having to actually master the fundamentals).

[capt-zjaybird]

Kick could've gotten his callsign for something cool like downing an enemy like this video.

But knowing the military tends to give clever callsigns that remind the soldier of a bad memory, he also probably could've gotten it from a shitty experience with old tech he needed to work with and he just kicked the stupid machine in the side and it worked.

Kick, opening up his old portable laptop for a mission: "C'mon ol' reliable, be good for me again and don't get me killed."

[werewolves-are-real]

I keep promising myself that ONE DAY, I will do enough research into 1800s China to write a proper Temeraire fic taking place there. But there's sooooo much I would want to research first. Even if I skimmed over court details as much as possible - which I don't want to do, tbh - it would just feel very shallow. And it's hard to properly flesh out any characters without any understanding of court life, dynamics between different classes... also just, you know, common beliefs? Attitudes? Religious beliefs too, etc etc.

One day! Hopefully. And we just get so little of Mianning (much less the other Chinese characters) it's hard to do them justice :( Doesn't help that no one really wants to tell Laurence or the aviators what they're actually thinking lol.

[silverwhittlingknife]

Has Tim ever put Dick on a pedestal?

100% yes! This is basically Tim's backstory IMO. Prior to meeting Dick in Lonely Place of Dying, Tim's a kid who's got a distant, idealized, made-for-TV vision of Dick and Bruce - mostly Dick - and he sets out on a quest based entirely around that misperception.

Aaaand then he immediately crashes headfirst into reality, because the Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne he remembers from his childhood memories and daydreams are like this:

But it turns out that the actual real-life human people are a bit more, uh, cranky than Tim's glossy vision - things are tense and neither of them are super-happy to meet Tim:

And Tim has to rethink a bunch of his mistaken deductions as it slowly dawns on him that - far from being a plucky team - Dick and Bruce are actually not getting along at all:

And so Tim has to realize his whole plan of "Dick has to be Robin again!!! That will fix everything!!! :)))))" was actually wrong, and based on a misunderstanding of Bruce and Dick's relationship. And having realized he was wrong, he immediately sets about trying to figure out what he’s failed to understand in the most intrusive way possible—by asking lots of nosy questions!

Actually-meeting-Dick is basically the end of Tim’s super-idealized vision of Dick. It's not a vision that can survive contact with an actual human being who's snapping at you. And kid!Tim is (I love him but) extremely pushy and annoying, and Dick's a prickly young adult who is not above getting annoyed, which means Dick snaps at him pretty regularly.

But Tim does continue to admire him.

So for their various interactions after Lonely Place of Dying, IMO "does Tim have Dick on a pedestal" is kind of a judgment call based on your assessment of Dick's relative strengths/virtues. What's unambiguous: Tim has a consistently higher opinion of Dick than Dick does of Dick, and they argue about it a lot.

I had way too many thoughts about this, so below the cut:

Comics where Dick and Tim have conversations along the lines of Dick: "I suck and I'm failing at everything." Tim: "That's not true!! Actually you're great and you're succeeding at the thing you think you're failing at!!"

So who's right - Dick or Tim?

Dick and Tim's high opinions/expectations of each other: the plusses and minuses

Comic examples

Here are a couple different variations on Tim thinking that Dick is great (often when Dick's less sure):

in Showcase, Tim thinks that Dick’s a way better teammate than Azrael, even as Dick’s thinking himself as a failure who let the Titans down; 

in Prodigal, Dick tells Tim a story about confronting Two-Face which to Dick symbolizes a moment of great failure and which Tim insists was a no-win situation where Dick did the best he could;

also in Prodigal, Dick’s despairing over how badly he thinks their encounter with Killer Croc went and meanwhile Tim thinks it went fine (after all, Dick listened to him and called an ambulance instead of beating up Croc!), and Tim tells Dick to lighten up and Dick talks about how he’s a failure; 

in Nightwing 6, Dick thinks he’s doing badly in Blüdhaven and he’s self-conscious about it and paranoid about what Tim might tell Bruce, and Tim insists that the fact that Dick’s being targeted means he’s succeeding and getting close instead of failing, and Dick retorts that this won’t be comforting if he winds up dead because getting close just isn’t good enough; 

also in Nightwing 6, Tim thinks Dick was a better Robin than Tim is, and Dick thinks he wasn’t that great and that Tim’s better;

post-Last Laugh, Tim’s insistent that Dick's being too hard on himself about attacking the Joker whereas Dick's really haunted by the experience and confides that it feels like he's discovered a terrible dark side of himself;

way later in Nightwing 110, Tim’s seeking Dick out and Dick’s trying to avoid him because he thinks he’s a bad person who’d be bad for Tim;

in BW: Murderer, Tim doesn’t trust Bruce absolutely, but in Red Robin, he does trust Dick absolutely (or at least, more than Tim trusts himself);

etc. etc. etc.

Who's right: Dick or Tim?

So, is Tim being too easy on Dick and looking at him with rose-colored glasses, and Dick’s harsher view of himself is the correct one; or is Dick a perfectionist who’s being too hard on himself, and Tim’s the one who’s actually seeing Dick’s strengths more clearly?  

I don’t think the comics really commit one way or another! These are moments of multiple-perspectives, where we notice that Tim has one attitude and Dick has another attitude and that tells us things about the characters, not moments that are meant to resolve to a simplistic “one person is Right and one person is Wrong.”  I think often you could argue that they're both right? So, like, if you wanted to take the approach of, "Tim's idolizing him but he's not actually as great as Tim thinks," I don't think the comics precisely contradict that interpretation.

... THAT SAID, look, I am a Dick Grayson fan at heart, and I tend to lean toward “Dick’s being too hard on himself.” 

Tim’s not oblivious to Dick’s flaws—he immediately figures out, for example, that Dick’s gonna attack the Joker, and rushes off to stop him; he just isn’t as judgmental about this moment as Dick is, and he doesn’t think it makes Dick an awful person forever.  The point is (Tim says later, practical-minded) that it was made right, and Dick shouldn’t beat himself up about it.  In Prodigal, Tim’s not unaware that their fight with Croc went badly; he’s just focused on how Dick’s morals and teamwork-centric attitude feel right to him in a way that Azrael’s didn’t, and look, Tim didn’t get shot even though he got shot at, and isn’t that the important thing?  Tim gets caught in the same ambush that Dick does in Nightwing 6; he just takes the glass-half-full attitude toward it while Dick takes the glass-half-empty attitude.  And so on.

Tim admires Dick, looks up to him, trusts him, interprets his flaws generously, and doesn’t think he’s a failure. And... this isn't quite in the comics, but it doesn't contradict them: I like to imagine Dick feeling like he's on a pedestal, and feeling kinda uncomfortable with Tim's admiration when he's forced to realize it exists, and feeling like he doesn't deserve it, and sometimes subconsciously braced for the other shoe to drop, convinced that Tim can't possibly really think this forever, that he's deluded somehow, and that eventually Tim will realize who Dick really is and get disillusioned and leave.

And I tend to think of Dick having this problem a bit with everyone in his life who thinks highly of him, but especially with Tim, because he doesn't feel like Tim's ever needed him or that he's done anything worth Tim's admiration. I feel like Dick - despite some insecurities - does know his own worth as a team leader, and he knows he was a good partner to Bruce, and he understands when he's helping people who are clearly floundering, like Damian and Rose. But all he's ever done for Tim is...hang out, and be nice. And he doesn't think Tim ever needed fixing or saving, and he vastly underestimates both the value of his own friendship in general and how much it's meant to Tim in particular. Not all the time, because later in their relationship when they've known each other for years I do think Dick does feel a bit more secure in that friendship and entitled to make demands based on it (and vice versa, for Tim). But I do imagine Dick periodically feeling like Tim lets him off the hook too easily, and thinks more highly of him than he should, and alternating between being grateful for it and uncomfortable with it.

But I would argue that Dick does deserve Tim’s admiration! 

Look, Dick's not a perfect person - no one is. He does screw up sometimes, and sometimes he's petty or jealous, and sometimes his temper gets the better of him. But he is pretty great! He's brave and thoughtful and kind and generous and caring. He takes his own grief and his own suffering and devotes himself to helping other people. And Tim sees that. Tim watches an orphaned kid crying on stage, and has nightmares about it - and later recognizes the hero in him. Tim stops Dick from beating the Joker to death, and he holds Dick back from strangling Hugo Strange, and he talks Dick down from two separate panic attacks, and he listens to Dick monologue about his various perceived failures, and he gets yelled at a lot when Dick's annoyed with him, and his takeaway from all of that is that he believes in Dick, and trusts Dick, and thinks he's a hero.

You could see that as Tim having him on a pedestal and refusing to acknowledge the ugly reality. But I tend to see it as Tim understanding that Dick's flaws and occasional missteps don't define who he is - the fact that Dick's human doesn't make him any less of a hero. Tim can see the hero that Dick can't always see in himself.

Dick and Tim have really high opinions of each other... for better or worse

Tim's not alone in having a high opinion of Dick - Dick thinks Tim's pretty great, too! Dick repeatedly compares himself to Tim and finds himself wanting, whether he's thinking that Tim's a better partner for Bruce, or having a fear toxin nightmare where Tim's a rival who's beating him out of a job, or deciding that Tim would never have let Blockbuster die (and that he'll be better off if Dick avoids him), or musing that Tim would be a better Batman. Dick calls Tim his equal and closest ally in Red Robin; Tim thinks Dick is "the best" in his origin story and basically never changes his mind.

I think nowadays we're sometimes pretty highly-attuned to the way that high expectations can be bad or oppressive, and... I have mixed feelings about this? On the one hand, it isn't untrue! Dick and Tim's mutual high opinions of each other, and correspondingly high expectations, are not an unmixed blessing! They 100% cause problems! Dick and Tim think highly of each other, and expect a lot from each other, and sometimes they're pushy or abrupt or demanding when they could stand to be more sensitive. And the iffy side of high expectations is something I find interesting, and I do think it's solidly canon-based - you see aspects of this in several of their comic conflicts - LPoD, Graduation Day, BftC, RR, etc.

But at the same time, it's complicated! I don't think you can fully untangle the higher expectations from "they rely on each other and have a lot of faith in each other." Love and trust are different things, and Dick and Tim care a whole lot about being trusted, not just about being loved.

I also think it's important that their belief in each other is often a gift rather than an inevitability: Dick and Tim choose to see each other in positive ways. Something they both do is after they have a conflict, they'll apply on a retrospective very positive gloss to whatever just happened. So e.g. Dick starts Resurrection mad at Tim, and ends it by declaring, "I let you make the choice... because I knew you'd make the right one." Tim spends most of Red Robin 1-12 mad at Dick, and ends it by declaring that he knew Dick would catch him because Dick's always there for him. And in both cases, we-the-readers are aware that they knew no such thing! But to me, that doesn't make these declarations meaningless - it makes them more meaningful. Their faith in each other is sometimes genuinely felt, and sometimes it's something they stubbornly brute-force into existence because they want to give that gift to each other.

And I mean... Tim did make the right choice. Dick was there when it really counted. Just because it isn't the whole truth doesn't mean it's not a truth.

Now, does this positivity also put some pressure on them? Absolutely! They're both people who are very upset by failure, so they tend to reassure each other by insisting that there was no failure, could never be failure, failure is impossible, even when they know perfectly well that's not true. They praise each other's skills as a love language, when what they mean is I love you no matter what. They talk about other people's needs but don't always acknowledge each other's. And it'd probably be healthier if they said instead, "Even if you'd made the wrong choice, it'd be okay, because it's okay to make the wrong choice sometimes," or "Even if you're not always there for me, that's okay, because no one can be there for someone else all the time."

And they do not say that, because Dick and Tim are relatively well-adjusted by Batfamily standards but that is a very low bar, and at the end of the day they're still deeply messed-up perfectionists who deal with their emotional problems by punching crime in the face.

But look, they're trying. And isn't that the important thing? <3

[utencils]

double posting fr her

[claire-starsword]

Authentic Story of the Shining Force - Saint Fencer Max - Chapter 4

Translation notes:

This is the last boob joke. We're free at last.

Here's the retranslation of every scene with the Spring of Recollection in the game. Overall, her speech here is fairly close to what she says in Waral in-game, with a few details from her final appearance sprinkled in, like her care for Cain. It does misses a few nuances though, like the Legacy being more than just Dark Dragon.

I don't think I've ever seen art of the Spring, but notably, she gets a portrait in the GBA version, and it looks a lot like the manga design, with the slightly wavy hair and especially the blank eyes.

Obviously, the manga rushes through the plot since it's short, thus a lot of places are skipped. I didn't even feel like pointing them out before. However I will point out Waral not being here this time, because Waral happens to not be in the beta map either, and it has very contradicting lore between the ASCII guide and the World Book, meaning it might have not been well developed. Besides, Chapter 5 is very weirdly structured. You get two ship battles that are basically the same, you get to Waral by accident, you advance the plot by going to Ring Reef for no reason and everyone telling you it's off-limits while letting you waltz in anyway, and hardly anything happens in the shrine besides you hearing about the Manual, which is not even a big deal because you get to Rudo by accident later (two ship accidents!! why repeat this plot point!!) and would go to Dragonia anyway to help Bleu. Basically, I obviously can't prove it, but it wouldn't surprise me if the ocean shrine was initially thought off as only a plot scene, and the battles/town added much later for gameplay reasons.

Perhaps worth mentioning, the GBA version also makes a point to mention that Max got lost in the shrine alone, and everyone was worried about him, which does remind me a lot of the ship scene here.

uh oh. i hit image limit for the first time and i don't wanna remove either of these pics. more notes on a reblog later.

[the-whispers-of-death]

Kali's Introduction to the Shadow Company

Asks are open, feel free to pop in and talk or request something!

When Commander Phillip Graves recruited the Marine captain "Kali", he had heard all about how over the fifteen years in the Marines that Kali served, Kali had been approached by several private contractor companies because of his sniping skills and they had been turned away with a sneer from the man each time. But when Graves came knocking, well, Kali hadn't turned him away.

Graves said it was his charm that drew Kali in, made Kali retire from the Marines and make the switch to the Shadow Company. But in reality, Kali had lost his entire squad of five a year ago with him being the lone survivor. He had spent the entire year, bitter and cold at the Marine Corps because they had been the ones who sent him and his squad out on what they knew was a suicide mission with bad intel. Though he loved serving his country, Kali could no longer fathom being a Marine. So he made the switch.

And now here he was, outside a Shadow Company base.

Everyone passing him by, whether exiting or entering, was giving him looks, something he was used to. Kali was extremely tall and burly, but not taller than his old friend Stone, and not only that, but he wore a black neck gaiter that covered his lower half of his face which was then also covered by a full hard-plated mask that was half blue and half black. The colors were a respectful nod to the Hindu goddess of time, death, and rebirth, Kali, whom his callsign was named after.

It wasn't a callsign he was particularly happy with, as he didn't dare compare himself to the goddess, but it was one that stuck to him no matter how he protested it. The least he could do was honor her as best as he could.

Nevertheless, he made for a rather terrifying sight and he was someone new on base. He understood why several Shadows were just blatantly staring at him as they passed.

After staring at the base for way too long, Graves popped his head out of the building to usher Kali in, eager to introduce the tall man to his new family. Kali walked forward with feet that felt like lead, heading to the door and heading inside.

He had expected the Shadows to be more ordered than they were, his brown eyes widening underneath his mask as he watched several Shadows roughhousing right then and there in the hallway. Those who weren't roughhousing, were taking pictures and videos of it all.

"Shadows!" Graves said, his voice booming through the base. The effect was immediate, every Shadow in the vicinity moving to stand at attention. Graves grabbed Kali's arm when he noticed Kali was standing a bit behind him and pulled him forward to stand beside him. "I'm proud to introduce our new Shadow, Kali! He's a sniper, former U.S. Marine captain. Now, I know he doesn't look friendly, but that's because he has been through some shit this past year. I know you'll make him warm up to you all though!"

With those words, Kali was pushed deeper into hallway, now surrounded by Shadows. They all greeted him, making his head spin with all these names that he was suddenly being introduced to. He spent the entire day being shadowed (heh, get the pun?) by several extroverted Shadows, who didn't even flinch at seeing his tall, masked form.

Well, at least now he knew how Stone feels when being placed with a new squad. It was disorienting to be around people, especially since he was still a little raw from the loss of his men, men he had served with for years. And these new people were...characters for sure, people he'd get along with when he opened up again.

His first few weeks at Shadow Company was a whirlwind, just getting settled in. He was still standoffish by the end of it all, but he understood now that the Shadows were family and despite his guilt at being a lone survivor, he craved a family again.

And maybe this was his chance to have a family again. Though, he was definitely writing a letter to Stone.

Reblogs are welcomed & appreciated!

[scentofpines]

in class today i felt so incredibly out of place again, why does it have to be so hard for me? and, i like this girl, but every single time we have class she mentions her "autism" while happily chatting with 3+ ppl at a time, completely effortless, while im sitting there, staring and trying to focus enough to even understand the conversation bc there is so much noise around me that i feel like i'm about to either explode or shut down completely and i feel like an alien trying my best to somehow socialize and understand what is going on and really to just get through this.

[henryscircus]

Never tried making an introduction post but.. might as well!!

Hello! I'm Henry but you're free to call me Brooklyn or Clown as well! (Henry is preferred)

I'm 17

I'm bigender and use she/him, I'm panromantic (asexual and pansexual) too so PLS keep this in mind <:3

I'm into a lot of stuff so my content may vary depending on what I'm in at that moment but I hope you guys enjoy my stuff anyway LOL

I really love clowns and the circus <3 thought I'd add

My ask box is always open if you have any questions or want a doodle from me don't be afraid to ask! It's totally free :3 I will draw ocs but I also prefer to draw things from fandoms I'm in, makes my life a lil easier LMAO, also.. if I have drawn something for you THIS DOES N O T MEAN TO KEEP SUBMITTING CHARACTER AND/OR OCS. I am not a free art machine!!!

I have real bad social anxiety in real life and online but I do still love talking to new people so don't be afraid to say hello!! I don't bite LOL

[rayhantochtli]

Don't really like seeing everyone say "grown up seng!" Like.. that's not seng!!!!!! That's Alfie!!!!

[desalvar]

 . I'VE DIED EVERY DEATH I COULD .

    and i have survived each one ( MAIN VERSE. )

He is more myth than man. So happens to creatures with lives unreasonably long and caprices insolently frequent - they exist in endurable fractals. At once Nikodemos and Undying, for a time Octavian, for another Matteo, then Wolfslayer, Giver, Eris, Lucien; the Necromancer has been much and many, and will be many more. A self-contained legion of selves and lives lived.

Much like his history, his nature is vague and indistinctly capricious. Once upon a time a human, as human as his accursed kin of feeble, hollow-souled demonfood 'sensitives' could be, he fights the hand dealt tooth and claw long enough to become a thing transcendental and ineffable - neither living, nor dead, nor human, nor quite witch. The void at his core goes from inborn burden to weapon when he wrests control over what he can take unto himself and swiftly takes to taking souls. Magical talent he steals from the naturally gifted, mortal coil he trades in for manufactured immortality, his grimoire he writes in blood atop his very skin and in ink into his soul, and at last emerges from his doomed fate a terrible creature of his own creation - the first Eater.

And the Eater surely goes on to taste all he can of the world. From early antiquity onward one can encounter him in many places as many things. Amongst creature kin the terrors he once sowed still echo in certain places. Quiet about his dealings, his reputation as killer-eater have earned him few allies, even fewer friends and some of his more abhorrent titles. Where the esoteric and magical can be studied, he studies it, where it can't, he hunts it down. All for want of crafting his own perverse version of it. Magic is one thing, necromancy another, but a thief is a thief no matter the scale. Amongst humans where lies are far easier, he wears kinder masks. Covers himself in glory in battle and jewels in castles, becomes pauper, rebel, noble, knight, king, kingslayer. Becomes priest, saint, martyr, god. He crafts and sells the sweetest lies and seals the cruelest fates. Most of all, he eats. Gorges himself on meat damned and divine alike, morsels from any rare and rotten and terrible thing if he finds he can chew it (he finds he can), feeds himself in fists of human herds or handfuls of great big beasts. Swallows power too, and knowledge, adoration, love, all things a man may hunder for, he devours in excess. Most of all, he eats.

CHARACTERIZATION NOTES.

he can be played as far back as early antiquity where Nikodemus began his journey, all the way up to modern times

there is a time before he was Nikodemus - that history is available only upon extensive plotting

most names he's taken are self-contained lives he's lived. and while he doesn't always abandon those names and has allowed historical records of them to survive, connection rarely exists between them and one would find themselves hard pressed to find one. at best, the notion would count as a conspiracy theory. as a rule of thumb, only the preternatural and immortal tend to be aware of more than one of his reputations. otherwise, muses should know him only as what he introduces himself to be

despite the ironic title the undying, nik can in fact die, does it often, very well and rather casually. after each death he resurrects to full health, regrows all physical structures and then 'wakes up' back to square one - a reset of sorts. on the flip side, he feels the pain normally and experiences death like a human would. he just doesn't entertain it long (unless something interrupts his renimation).

he's something of an undead creature in technicality. he breathes, eats, has a pulse et al, but his soul and metaphysics are unnatural, his blood is rotten and his flesh performs odd processes. to blood-drinking creatures his palette would be disgusting or, in some cases, deadly.

he can sense souls. nothing whimsical like colors or anything, but he can metaphysically feel their energy and, after millenia of contact with various creatures, has learned to tell some apart. humans, spirits, undead, shifters, demonic and celestial he can pin down fast, while the outliers of the preternatural world are trickier. still, more often than not he can tell what caliber of power he's facing.

he can also eat souls. says it on the tin and everything. most times he can't do it freely and necessitates physical touch to put his binding mark down, through which he syphons out lifeforce. this ability won't be forced on any muse unless specifically requested and thoroughly plotted out, and may only appear connected to miscellany NPCs.

around the time of the early medieval period henceforth, Antonín Cainhurst may be mentioned in threads.

out of touch accents in everything he speaks.

notable liar.

HEADCANONS.

where i'll link all metas n studies i do of this bassard in his main verse ♡

On immortality

[cowboyhorsegirl]

Steve is most likely to end up in a lavender marriage and Tony's most likely to end up in a “married for tax/immigration/inheritance fraud” reasons.

They meet as married men and pine for each other hardcore and are also trying not to read too much into how their interest seems reciprocated and oh nooooo both Immigration/the IRS and the the Church/in-laws/DADT era army dudes or whatever are snooping around at the same time at each of their marriages and they have to be so good at being married at the people they are married to oh noooooo and they other guy doesn’t know why they are suddenly being iced out and maybe they were just imagining things? maybe it’s for the best with all these eyes around on them…

[cataclysmicamomile]

!!!

I'm sorry, Leonard reciting his poetry when the intruder broke into Klein's house in the audiobook???

This part

My ears, it's so good...