#tourist stuff

[sovietpostcards]

Electric samovar with the logo of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow (USSR, 1979)

[notimeforlaugh]

once I promised phil as a tourist dad

here he is

[deadsetobsessions]

Between the whole “clone trying to kill her original version” thing and the whole “trying to find herself after being freed from the millionaire fruit loop halfa” thing, Danielle “Ellie” Phantom figured that she’d fit right in with Gotham.

They’ve got shades, a concerning amount of undead, and the people there seem to have traumatic backstories galore. Perfect.

Danny might die again if she told him where she’s staying, though. So she won’t tell him!

Ellie touched down in an alley near the first bus stop into Gotham, returning to the visible spectrum and returning her intangibility. She wanted to explore everything, and where better to start than the entrance of Gotham?

She slips out of the alley, walking past the terrified looking tourists. Ellie ignores the smell of soot they gave off, attributing correctly that it came from the explosion she heard before she approached Gotham. The city, like any other major city, was littered with trash and odd bits of metal. There’s graffiti too, but less so than the sunnier cities. The clouds- and smog, because Ellie could smell it miles away from the city- that obscured the sky left the city in a chilling atmosphere. Hazy. Like, a graveyard at dawn. Perfect for someone like Ellie.

It’s so different from Amity, stone where she dreaded plaster, gloom and doom where she dreaded seeing sunshine she couldn’t reach. 

Ellie wandered, under bridges, and in between paths. She danced through shootouts, glides past brawls, laughs when pick pockets find their hands empty after bumping into her.

She gets a coffee and one of those delicious lemon bars, with Vlad’s money. Hers, now that Tucker’s gotten his hands on Vlad’s inner systems. The barista gives her a suspicious look, but she brings out her strongest midwestern accent and the look melts into exasperation. And pity, but Ellie doesn’t really care about that. She “ooh’s and ahh’s” at the grimy stone, the gothic inspired architecture that Sam would kill to experience, goggles at the boarded up buildings. There’s a cathedral or two or five, she doesn’t remember, but the pretty glass seems to be broken at most of them. She wonders what happened. Then she remembers that there are vigilantes here, and concludes that she has to remember to look up more often. A giant clock-tower. A district with less people and fancier homes. A university! She might apply after she’s done traveling around and have gotten her GED.

Her shoes pound the pavement, something about the effort it takes to take a step burns in her soul. Yes, this is what it means to be free. She kicks the knees of two would be robbers in as she passes them on her way to purchasing three bars of the best chocolates she’s had in her short existence.

The cashier looks at her like she’s odd. Oh, well.

And then night falls. Ancients, does the city truly come alive. There are screams and sirens and surges in ectoplasm that balances her essence of being out. Ellie, with a new pep in her step, follows the trail of ectoplasm right into an area called “Crime Alley.”

“It feels almost like… a haunt…?”

Ellie hums and keeps walking. Maybe this is the territory of one of the undead Gothamites…?

She’s got a bit of Danny’s saving people thing after all, because the three bars of candy on her is gone in minutes to children with hollow cheek and dead eyes. 



Ellie startles backwards as a body slams onto the pavement in front of her, barely missing the risen steps of the building they were in front of.

“Oh.” She says. Because this is one of the Undead. And he’s Red Hood. Danny is going to flip.

“Run- run, kid.”

Ellie tilts her head. “And why would I do that?”

“You’re gonna get hurt, brat!” The man barks, and winces as his ribs shuttered. The red helmet’s tinny voice doesn’t intimidate her nor does it hide the concern and fear bleeding into the guy’s body language.

“Not really?”

And with that, Ellie slams her elbow into Goon 1, knocking him straight into another building. Goon 2 tries to grab her and she phases out of his reach, floating upwards and slamming her fist into his face. He joins Goon 1 in decorating that building’s new mural, called the two dumbasses that picked a fight with a wandering Ellie.

Hood watches her, cradling his ribs.

“You a meta?” He grumbled at her, wheezing as she crouched down and poked his sides. He smacks her hand away.

Ellie, who has clearly spent too much time near Danny, replies, “Being dead is a medical condition.” without missing a single beat.

Hood, on the other hand, misses several beats.

“What?”

Ellie barrels on, amused at his fumble. “Did you know you died?”

Hood looks at her and Ellie swears she can see the dumbfounded expression.

Ellie laughs, free and sharp. Yes, Gotham is nothing like Amity.

[unclewaynemunson]

Water was wet. Nights were dark. And Steve Harrington was straight. Those were all facts. Sure, Steve could see what made a man attractive, but that merely meant he wasn't blind, not that he wasn't straight. He loved girls. He loved holding delicate hands, he loved feeling soft curves underneath his fingers, he loved the taste of lipgloss on his lips, legs sticking out of skirts, the sound of high-pitched giggling, elegant feet in high heels...

So yeah, even if he saw what made a man attractive, he was still straight. Even if he could, hypothetically, see himself being attracted to some abstract man in some abstract scenario, he was still straight. He loved girls, so who cared if every now and then, he would turn his head to stare at a strong pair of male arms or a particularly well-shaped male bum? Who cared if, by high exception, he could lose himself in some fantasies of doing certain things with a guy instead of a girl? He loved girls. He would fall in love with a girl, and she with him, and they would get married and have kids, and he would be perfectly happy with that. So he was straight. It was a fact.

Or, well, it was a fact until it wasn't. Until the most mundane afternoon possible happened. Until he was sitting on the steps in front of the Munsons' trailer, with Eddie beside him and a sixpack placed between the two of them. It was one of those early spring days, when birds chirped louder and the sun made all the colors pop out just a little bit more and life was good.

Their beer wasn't cooled properly. Their snacks were very mediocre. They weren't talking about anything remarkable. And yet, they were only one moment away from Steve's whole sense of identity changing irrevocably. They were headed right towards a moment he would remember for the rest of his life.

Maybe deep down, he knew that he had been falling for a while, but he was an expert at ignoring inconvenient things. He had been able to call it friendship, or fascination, or even annoyance when he needed to get creative. So later, whenever someone would ask him when he fell in love with Eddie, he would always go back to this particular moment.

Eddie laughed about some lame joke Steve made and took another sip of his beer. And Steve's senses zeroed in on him like he had just unlocked some higher plane of existence. He noticed everything like he had never done before. The movement of his adam's apple when he swallowed, the curve of his neck, the way his curls cascaded over his shoulders looking as soft as sheep's wool... And, when he tilted his head back and looked at Steve again, the color of his eyes when the sun hit them just right: brown as rosewood and dark chocolate and acorns. As a small piece of autumn undefeated by this early spring day.

He felt an overwhelming urge to clash his lips against Eddie's right there, to feel stubble instead of lipgloss and wrap his arms around someone who was made of sharp edges instead of soft curves, to hold a big hand adorned with rings that were anything but delicate, to hear deep laughter instead of high-pitched giggles, maybe even a low moan against his ear...

It was in that moment that he understood what it really meant to be straight – and that it wasn't what he was.

He understood that it didn't matter how much he loved girls. It didn't exempt him from loving boys, and he couldn't choose who he'd fall in love with like he thought he could. He loved this boy right in front of him, the one who was currently talking a mile a minute and didn't notice a thing about the current drastic renovation of Steve's entire brain chemistry. And if he allowed himself to keep falling, he might just end up loving boys just as much as he loved girls.

---

(idc how overdone the eddie-being-steve's-bi-revelation trope is, you can pry it from my cold dead hands. Here's yet another version of it and yes i will project my own experience on steve, no one can stop me)

[wingedqueenlynx]

The average Tourist experience in Gotham

Then we got what the boys were saying lol

And of course, no captions lol

How would you react @faeryblade in this situation? XD

[leafofkudzu]

Hi hello my computer exploded earlier this week so apologies for the cursed and late announcement post, but prepare yourselves! The first Saturday of a new month is tomorrow, which means it's time for another...

[VS] Art Party

July 6th, 2024 Captain's Cut, Stormbluff Isle Bloodtide Coast

Round 1 (EU): 9pm-12am CEST (3pm EDT) Round 2 (NA): 7pm-10pm EDT (1am CEST)

For those who aren’t familiar with art parties, they’re a concept carried over from Final Fantasy XIV - in-game get-togethers for artists/writers/creatives of all types to hang out, chat, and create together! Get your favorite character/look together, head to the location, find someone that catches your eye, and create! Afterwards, everyone posts their creations in a shared tag (ours is #VSArtParty) so others can see, interact, and share! Tl;dr: the ‘goal’ of an art party isn’t to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!

Time and /squadjoin information is under the cut, but will also be posted again via reblogs as the squads go up on the day of the party!

Location Information:

It's another, proper beach episode! While I don't have the technical capacity at the moment to get a map screenshot of the location, it's essentially the southwest edge of Stormbluff Isle, the nearest waypoint being Stormbluff Waypoint! Here's a picture from the wiki of the entire island for reference:

Time & Squad Details:

As we always do, we’ll be having two parties - one on EU servers and one on NA ones - with an hour break in between. People tend to arrive early and/or jump between accounts as soon as the break comes up, so don’t be surprised to see tags and announcements going up ahead of schedule!

The first party will be on EU servers and begin at 9pm Central European Summer Time (aka 3pm Eastern Daylight Time or 5 hours before in-game reset). This time due to work conflicts I will NOT be the one starting the squad, but will instead be joining about an hour or so in! So, please welcome our first 'guest' [VS] tag, @vampiricsheep! Please /squadjoin or whisper Vegetarian Maneater for an invite in my absence, it'll treat you well and with my blessing. ♥

The second party will be on NA servers and begin at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time (aka 1am Central European Summer Time or an hour before in-game reset). I’ll be back to hosting this one and be on my main account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Kirslyn for an invite.

Closing Words

I said it at the top of the post but here I am saying it again - I am so sorry for the delay. The intention was to get this out on Mon/Tues at the latest due to me being busy with Dawntrail, but both my SSDs thought it was time to fry themselves and I've been scrambling to rebuild everything from scratch ever since. I've more or less got things back to a usable state now though, so I look forward to seeing everyone (and their shiny new anet-sanctioned beach outfits?) tomorrow! Thank you for always coming out to these and making them fun, they're one of the highlights of my time in game! ♥♥♥

[nondelphic]

sci-fi writers will spend two weeks researching quantum physics just to write one paragraph, but when it comes to naming planets? oh, that’s just Bobtron-7.

[stealingyourbones]

I 100% believe that Vlad would not only do his damndest to purchase the Packers, but also the House on the Rock

[brucewaynehater101]

Bart can be the neurodivergent angst analogy of realizing the world isn't built for you.

No matter how much you shove yourself into the constraints of the modern world, you weren't made for it. You constantly have to change yourself for mere survival. It's exhausting, but what else are you supposed to do? You're stuck here.

[dailydegurechaff]

Today's Daily Degurechaff is… random vacation prompts 6 - bring pocket sized tanya with you

[thesinglesock]

ngl I was a little surprised when I first saw people describing Falin as a "masculine" woman. like this is just what the average Northern European woman looks like on a regular day:

and this is literally what me and my roomates look like when we "dress up" to go out and eat:

(image source) Maybe add like a neck cerchief and some bright nail polish. if you go any more "girly" than that and the waiter might ask whose birthday it is.

[so-very-small]

borrower who decides they’re long overdue for a vacation, and sneaks into the human’s bag to tag along on their lazy beach getaway. except they climbed into the human’s roommate’s bag, and now they are dragged along into an intensive wilderness hike in the middle of nowhere with a human that doesn’t even know they’re there (yet!)

[oozeandgoo-art]

This is (vertically) pretty long; the rest is under the cut to save your dash.

Haven is a lot of things. An effective communicator isn't one.

This is very much intended to be Taran retelling the story of the time this happened to someone else, given the eight-thousand anachronisms and the level of comfort Taran has in talking to Haven. It's so specifically anachronistic in such a specific "I'm telling you a story and I don't want you to get bogged down in the inconvenient details" way that it got me to write 6000 words (and counting) of a stupid wip so I could justify this existing.

Bonus notes: Haven is specifically pretending to be asleep because he doesn't want to talk about the mess in the kitchen. Taran isn't remotely annoyed about that but he would like for next time Haven to come downstairs and say hi instead of putting on a shirt and then pretending to be asleep again.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[zvezdacito]

TWST should have a body swap event tbh... The story and card concept potential would be crazy...

Like it would be kinda fun what character/dorm category would you technically put each bodyswapped character's card in since they'd have the looks and physical capabilities of the body but the mind and personality would obviously be someone else. Idk they could do so much new stuff even gameplay wise with it

[caliginouscreature]

Sorry for being so inactive lately... been busy irl, and have been meaning to post here more often, but also, like... I always feel a bit shy approaching the 'kin communities on here because it kind of feels like everyone is sort of... "internet poisoned"? For lack of a possibly-better word. A lot of folks here on tumblr in the 'kin and alterhuman communities are children, and a lot of more prominent community figures treated like "elders" are only about my age or younger, and it feels really strange, to be honest. There's a lot of discussion of feelings and terminology, but very little "lifestyle"? It's like there's a universal expectation for everyone to just figure everything out on their own; you get some definitions here and there yeah, but the amount of variance says much more loudly "just figure out what it all means on your own, pal". ex. Not only can no one actually explain what "otherhearted" actually means sans relation to otherkin, but it feels like I never see anyone talk about dealing with what one could call "kin feels" in the workplace, when unable to acquire your habitat, etc... Othercon is online-only, and while I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to attend an in-person event, part of me has a hard time feeling like everyone is really taking it all seriously and is really unafraid of being "cringe" when obviously it's so much easier to act like you're so confident online. I kinda feel like meeting some wolfkin stereotypes in a park for snacks and doing a group howl would do more for me than years of reading essays on tumblr ever has.

I dunno, I tried watching a recording of an Othercon panel I felt would be relevant and useful to me once, and was floored at just how... utterly useless it was. Despite its promising title, it was just shallow "you're valid" garbage and internet discourse... Makes me feel severely alienated, to be honest.