#where is your left hand GOING?

[il-predestinato]

Charles... I don't even want to ask... Why are standing that close? What's your left hand doing? What's your right hand doing (mimicking unzipping your suit)?!

Charles Leclerc & Max Verstappen | post-qualifying | 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix 🎥: F1TV

[aerequets]

trying to erase the trace of...

[meteortrails]

law and luffy are just like. what if I saw you at the peak of your miracle working competence, and then the literal next time I saw you it was at your most isolated and broken. and what if that moment of seeing you alone and grieving and terrified was the moment where I decided you were someone worth keeping, someone who I personally cared about and wanted around. how does that not make you wanna lose your fucking mind.

and then the other thing on top of that which always gets me is the way that you can just so clearly see that neither of them has any idea how to fit this relationship into any preexisting context - Luffy calls him part of his crew, but law is the captain of his own crew and would clearly die before giving that up; law calls them allies but it is glaringly obvious that they care about each other in a way that goes beyond that. of course Luffy is generally a lot less bothered about this than law, who routinely wants to put his own head through a wall about it, but it’s just such a fun layer to their dynamic I think.

[starry-bi-sky]

DPXDC Idea: Mother of Monsters Dan(yal)

Specifically Fem!Dan because I made this in mind with my Fem Danyal Au bUT. The best part about Dan is that I get to play dress up with her, and Fem Dark Dany is gonna go by Layal (pronounced lae-el) because it means "the nights" and it sounds similar to Danyal, and I think she'd choose that name to mock Dany. ANYWAYS

Mother of Monsters Danyal. She may be evil but she's an Al Ghul at her core (even with vlad's soul merged with hers - however, considering that Layal looks and sounds like Dany, she considers that soul to be the more dominant one.) and loves animals. And she might be heartless, but she adores the monsters of the infinite realms.

Mother of Monsters Layal who hates everyone but utterly dotes and adores on every manner of beast she comes across. Stealing the eggs and infant young beasts of the Infinite Realms to raise as her own because she wanted them. Her own island full of monsters, a monstrous menagerie of her own. She steals most often from poachers or exotic pet keepers and other menageries -- the full grown beasties can keep their young.

And with every monster she raises, she can shapeshift their features onto herself, allowing her to change her shape from humanish to any matter of monster or hybrid creature. She calls herself their mother, and them her children. Her precious little babies, capable of incredible mass destruction and mayhem.

From little griffins the size of kittens, to stymphalian vulture chicks, and leviathan young hatching from eggs the size of her pinkie, to creatures native of the ghost zone that didn't even have names in the living realm. There really wasn't a limit to what or who she would take in and she didn't limit herself to any form of mythology. If they were beasts and they were unwanted, she wanted them. And as such, amassed her own mini army of "children" willing to listen to her any command.

Earth doesn't know what hit it when she attacks them.

There are many monstrous forms she could take on, the first one I've thought of is a combination of various serpentine/reptilian features. The body of a naga -- her lower half long and serpentine, her upper still human -- with spiked fins connecting from the bottom of her arms to her sides, ever seen Sinbad where Eris goes "you might have seen my likeness on the temple walls" and her arms do that fin thingy? Same concept. Her hands are webbed and taloned, perfect for slicing through the skin of the living, and her teeth are needle-sharp and shark like. Her hair can either be spiny and feathery-like like the spines of a lionfish, or frilled like a frilled-neck lizard. It's perfect for dealing and doting on her reptilian and amphibian-inclined darlings.

I'm more of a fan of aus where Dan is a sibling of Danny's rather than their kid, so Layal's redemption(..?? probation?) proceeds with her legally becoming Danyal's "twin" sister, who had been lost to the foster system before the Fentons adopted Dany, and was only recently reunited with her. The two of them look so alike that the lie is easy to take root and spread.

Layal is very indignant to the fact that she's now ten years in the past and has to restart her menagerie all over again. Do you know how much blood and sweat went into raising those children? How dare you separate them from their mummy. Although she'll admit she does miss their juvenile years, so she won't mind (too much) needing to raising them again. Dany is helping her retrieve all of them though, dammit.

long story short: epic the musical's "Scylla" has a CHOKEHOLD on me and this is the result of it

Unlike her Dan counterpart, Layal's voice is dancing and sirenic. It's purposely alluring and motherly, in order to lure people into a false sense of security until she feeds them to her "children." Echidna doesn't have shit on her. She almost seems friendly and reasonable, until you get too close and realize it was all an act and she drops it to metaphorically swallow you whole. She's like an anglerfish that way. She and Dany both sound like Scylla from Epic.

[sforzesco]

TRY AGAIN LATER

it's like. well. its several things.

(Plutarch's Crassus, trans. Warner)

and also this

(ibid.)

that compliment sounds like an insult, baby.

anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—

it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it

and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard

(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)

EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.

[tennessoui]

brain will not let me sleep until I say

same age padawans au where they’ve been in a weird wired frenemies thing for ages but now that they’re both mature adults (all of 24/25 years old) they’re more friends than enemies….

And it’s Obi-Wan that Anakin tells when he’s decided he’s going to leave the Order, not anyone else. He has a wife. There was a pregnancy scare a few weeks ago and it made her want their relationship to stop being a secret so they could really have kids. He has to leave the Order. Doesn’t Obi-Wan understand?

Obi-Wan, who has been a little in love with Anakin since they were younglings, does not understand. Not one bit. Instead of wishing him well and helping him pack, he goes to the Council and requests a mission in the Outer Rim….perhaps a month long or more…perhaps undercover? No contact with anyone on Coruscant. And maybe they could assign Anakin Skywalker as his back up? He can help with the undercover aspect.

And at first, Anakin is pissed because he was planning to resign from the Order in the next few days, but Obi-Wan convinces him to go on this mission with him….one last mission as a Jedi. To say goodbye to the Jedi life.

Obviously, Obi-Wan sort of wants to go on one last mission with Anakin because in his dreams, he wants the mission to go so perfectly that Anakin stays with him the Order. But realistically, he mostly wants to go on this mission to say goodbye to Anakin and then let him go, soaking up all his warmth and light, memorizing every casual touch bestowed on him because he knows they’re ticking down to the last handful of seconds together.

But then obviously the mission works TOO well and Anakin falls in love with Obi-Wan but doesn’t admit to it even to himself before they’re on the ship about to head back to Coruscant and Anakin realizes he doesn’t want to leave this planet because he doesn’t want to leave Obi-Wan if it could always be like this so he crashes the ship during take off so they can stay longer because he’s 24 and doesn’t know how to handle the immensity of his love except through destruction

[marimeeko]

One fear: the BkDk hospital scene is all we get for postwar bkdk content(where it's focused on them)

[uncriticalbunny]

sydney and carmy have such a deranged dynamic so it's very funny when people try to put them in a "professional coworkers" box like bffr nothing about their relationship is professional

[pulchrasilva]

I can be soooo normal about barely concealed suicides. When you make a decision knowing it will lead to your death, but to anyone else it might look like a mistake. When you throw yourself into dangerous situations and don't care if you come out the other side. Maybe you want to die but not enough to take your own life. Maybe you're not brave enough, or too ashamed. Idk whatever the reason I eat that shit UP

[skunkes]

if life is categorized by Before Loss and After Loss then I exist in the before but with a countdown to the after. and the countdown is always always present and debilitating. the loss will be debilitating too but i cant help myself. i will always suffer twice.

[blujayonthewing]

me, constantly: one of the most frustrating things about playing for this DM is that he clearly just wants to have things happen to the characters without anyone ever questioning why

me to this DM, explaining felix: his entire thing as a character is that whenever anything happens he wants to find out as much information as possible about what's going on and why

me about his backstory: so my concept is that Something happened to him and he doesn't have any information about it so he's desperate to find out what exactly happened and why

DM: okay here's what I was thinking we'd do for your backstory: you went to this place seeking this group and talked to this person there and then, immediately after that, Something Happened. like, very obviously directly connected to that person and their group, which you already know about, and whom you'd obviously already know exactly how to find again if you wanted to get more information on what (else) exactly happened and why

[cave-monkey]

Six Ears, and being left.

[sodrippy]

alright I'll bite, who is this fish guy and why do u tag the most unhinged posts for him, I'm so intrigued

HI reading this made me laugh, he is a little unhinged youre right.

jackson 'jax' 'axe' 'fish' fischer is a guy i made for a laugh while my friends and i were brainstorming funny dnd character concepts, but now he's real and serious to me. he's the knight of a righteous god, blessed with a healing touch, taught since childhood that he was born to do good and help people, and he does all that (and does it well), until one day it just...doesn't work. he loses his power and he can't help anyone anymore. he still has his sword and his strength, and he uses those to aid those in need, but its not the same, its not what he was made for. he prays and prays and prays and hears nothing back, and then he gets angry.

all he can do is fight, and watch the carnage left behind with nothing more to offer. he leaves. he turns away from the people who need him, he uses his sword and his strength for the people who can pay, instead. he's bitter and blood soaked, and all alone, and makes the insane decision to go find god. he deserves some kind of answer, right? and definitely the logical way to talk to the god who abandoned you a la spiritual ghosting is to...seek them out in the material world...

so he sets out, man on a mission and all that, gets a lot more blood on his hands and really falls into a sunk cost fallacy of like, 'if i stop now all the ugly things ive done and the way ive made a monster of myself have been for nothing' that makes him push ahead despite it all.

one time when he's almost dead, he feels a new bond in the place where his link to his old god was, but he has no fucking clue who it is or whats going on, and he tries to ignore it for a while, but eventually he accepts the help and lets the new presence guide him, because it seems to be working out. if nothing else, it seems to heal him every time he falls, and with all the shit he's doing, that's enough of a reason to follow.

now, who's to say if he was almost dead when this new thing found him, or he was actually dead. we just don't know! (because we are actively ignoring thinking about it because it goes against everything we were taught as young, blessed children!)

[pa-pa-plasma]

genuinely not kidding when I say that Tears of the Kingdom is not only a bad Zelda game, it's just a bad game in general. it's inaccessible to casual gamers who previously could play Zelda games because of their structure. there is virtually no plot, & what little plot there is sucks ass, is predictable in a bad way, & doesn't make any fucking sense, with the absolute lack of emotional reactions from the characters making it all the worse. the references are only there to distract from the absolute nothingness, despite a main timeline Zelda title being the perfect game to have them as a type of storytelling (what happened to Skyloft??). the sky islands are just rocks with nothing on them except fruit, or maybe a chest if you're lucky. the underground is a walking in the dark simulator. the overworld is the exact same shit as in Breath of the Wild & I already explored that twice so why do it again. the caves are pointless. they didn't add much to the game besides that (the shrines & towers are just reskinned, do not fool yourself) & what they did add is just more sidequests to fill the gaps between the bits of non-existent plot. the dungeons suck. the boss battles are okay which is just sad for a Zelda game. it's just a $90 DLC & if that doesn't explain why I'm so mad about this idk what the fuck will. maybe the fact that this "new formula" is a severe step down from the old one, where you had an actual full fucking puzzle game to play with an actual fucking characters & a story that wasn't just more MCU "cameo! reference!!" bullshit

[awkward-teabag]

I'm so tried of the response to the new Dragon Age game. You can't criticise decisions or the writing without being lumped in with bigots unless you caveat a hell of a lot, which fewer and fewer online spaces allow for. I'd say this is by design but I don't know if the people fanning the flames and pushing this bigotry are that smart.

It's been in development hell for a decade, cancelled and revived, stopped and started over from scratch multiple times, was infamous for staff turnover, and had senior staff quit the first time it was cancelled then EA fired 50 more people which included senior developers who had worked on previous Dragon Age games. The reason given was EA wanted to be able to "pivot faster" but it's pretty obvious they wanted to get rid of people who had the experience and seniority to push back against decisions.

Because the game very much looks like what happens when execs want to chase trends rather than let developers do what they have experience doing or what customers expect from a franchise name.

But once again the focus isn't on major issues with the AAA publishing industry or MBAs calling shots, it's about a non-issue that's a symptom of that at most and it prevents actual criticism from getting through.

[theworldthrukaleidoscope-eyes]

Not having soap in your restroom should be a health code violation.

Not having working sinks in a restaurant should be a health code violation.

If you cannot wash your hands in a food establishment, you should not be serving food.