#who knows shrugs

[lyss-sketchbox]

Have you played through Natlan a little bit yet? Because I love it except for one thing. Does the Archon quest feel...off to you? At least the first act. Specifically the character introductions and character acting?

Funny thing actually i JUST finished it last night!

Well uh spoilers ahead

I think its... alright-ish? Act 1 basically sets you up with the basics, the characters, the culture, the traditions, and lore so we know whats up. Cool. We are literally being fed information because we are tourists and i can excuse that.

Idk how to feel about traveller and paimon literally going 'ah look, an opportunity has arised, its time to do our thing and help with this major event'. I mean yes thats how its always been but mentioning it doesnt... help... it just points out a flaw.

The characters are fine enough imo. I really expected Mualani to have this super hyper attitude and squeaky voice we usually get from an 'everyone loves me' character but shes suprisingly mellow and i appreciate that alot. (May change with Citlali though and im not looking forward to it)

I do not like how it is very Tell not Show. Because you know what keeps being shown? The fact that Kachina is A CHILD. Maybe she's not an actual child who knows but hyv is clearly infantilizing her. Case in point:

The chief of the tribe literally asked you for ID because you are strangers hanging out around her. He literally said 'a good feeling isnt gonna be enough for your parents to trust these people'

After the chief knew who the traveller is, he said he could trust Kachina to go to the Stadium to sign up and not get into trouble. She HAS to participate because she has an Ancient Name and you can barely trust her to go to the stadium???

Kachina mentioning how she can't keep excusing her age for being a bad warrior. So she KNOWS shes young and either she or other people in the past has excused her for her performance because of her age.

The genuine actual side by side of her first match up. You know a child vs a massive buff man. Maybe it's just me but her kit is clearly not made to DPS and hyv making us fight these opponents with only her kinda makes it feel so much like a drag.

Everyone around her keeps saying oh shes actually really good, she almost made it last time, shes super powerful just lacking confidence. Well we dont really... see it. When the tournament started and we play as mualani and kachina all i can think about it 'yeah mualani is gonna do all the fighting here' and it adds to the idea that kachina literally did the bare minimum. But then suddenly we get a really cool cutscene of her defeating a 3 times winning veteran. It is not believable to me.

Also now that she's won we are literally sending her off to fight the abyss where she has a REAL CHANCE OF DYING but we gotta be ok with it because she can get resurrected? Are we not supposed to be concerned that we are sending a child to war with a real chance of her dying?

It is such a tonal shock and the traveller or paimon barely says anything about it so WE are supposed to be fine with it too? It probably is culture shock but like... SOME people still sees Clorinde as a killer despite doing her job as a duelist, how do you think those people will think seeing THIS tradition.

As for the bit where we go with mualani while we wait for kachina to come back from war, it was... alright i think. But the manufactured 'chillness' is there, like you can tell theyre trying their hardest to potray this tribe as the chill surfers one. Its also obvious they want us to like Atea. While she looks a lil overbearing i appreciate that they were being subtle about her 'my life isnt gonna last long so i am doing this dangerous task', they had to explain it anyway for mualani but i think them not stating out right at first that 'woah you werent going here because you can use the hotsprings again!' is a good choice, that is a good show not tell i think.

For now though the entire thing simply feels off because i feel like there's no stake at all for us. If kachina loses? Then she doesn't get sent to the war, thats kind of a good thing seeing how she did ended up 'dying'. We've met the archon but for some reason hasn't asked about our siblings or anything and the only reason we are staying is because its the right thing to do. Thats it. I think it's just... alot offered to us but none with actual value to the traveller personally.

While you can argue that fontaine is exactly like that, that we only stayed to help lyney with his trial and everything else because its the right thing to do. Lyney is fatui. Neuvillette is a dragon. And furina is an absent archon. Theres an air of mystery around how fontaine works and these people have MASSIVE connections. You almost want to stay to see how it'll turn up, what information will show up.

Natlan on the other hand revealed basically everything to us in the first 2 acts. Natlan gets abyss attacks because they dont have strong leyline connections. The fatui wants the gnosis and literally will just fight the archon for it. The archon is chill and kind and is the reincarnation of the original archon because we were told that. The facking traitor from night-wind is obviously the Ororon guy lmao. So what IS left to speculate? To look out for?

Like wow she's gonna carve us an Ancient Name? Why lmao. What for? We can purify the abyss we are not dying in the Night Kingdom.

Shrugs idk feel free to fight me on this. I am just a lil jaded because i literally cannot take the archon seriously when shes literally just called 'Archon' with no special title or anything

[koolaidashley]

THATS HIS BABY ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[lizardsarecute]

LMFAO my guy you barely fit

Don't mind me just playing with my action figures :) She's poppin in to say hi! (the light color tint is working on the characters now, I can set it to be as strong as I need it to be. The hideout is still uh...really rough lookin lol but I'm slowly getting each of the materials in.)

[shivroy]

werewolf!!

[conditioned-to-obey]

I can't be your daddy, but I can be the grisled alcoholic stranger, found family, father figure with ptsd who begrudgingly takes you in. You'll come to grow familiar to the sound of me stumbling in the front door drunk and the soft clink of my dog tags. Smelling like cigarette smoke and booze. My knuckles are rough and my hands calloused, but gentle when it comes to you. You complain when I still call you kid–even though you're a grown adult–but you'll always be that scruffy dirty little stray to me. That gave me puppy dog eyes and followed me home in the rain that day. We eat greasy food at even greasier dine ins. I wake up with you curled up at the foot of my bed—you sneak in my room when you have nightmares. So I begrudgingly let you tuck in with me for the night. You always want to tag along for drives. Sitting, bouncing in your seat. Happy to just spend time with me, swinging your legs, whether that's running errands or getting some air. Quickly I find myself with a soft spot for you. I'd drop everything at a moments notice to come bail you outta whatever trouble you get yourself into. Just holler and I'll be there. You know I've always got you.

I'd protect you with my life, kid. Even from myself.

[justaz]

a spell is cast on camelot that thins the veil enough for ghosts to appear. the catch? the ghosts that appear are spirits of people that were killed by the person they’re haunting. the knights have a good amount of bandits/raiders/whatever that they took down in battle, maybe a few shady knights have genuinely innocent people that they murdered and got away with. the executioner’s killings are transferred to the king since he was simply acting out the king’s commands. arthur has quite a few. uther has hundreds of sorcerers in various states of gore and horror. those who were hanged have perpetually bent necks, those who were beheaded have either no head or just a head floating a bit above their body, and those who were burnt are more charred remains (the most grisly of them all). merlin has more than anyone expected (which was zero) and all of them keep calling out for arthur/uther’s death and camelot’s downfall while also turning to merlin and calling him a traitor.

[hoolyelina]

happy anniversary :) ❤️💛💚

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 317

IMAGINE THIS: Lil baby Damian, bored and being not quite old enough to start learning how to use proper weapons (curse these wooden ones, he wants true steel!) is wandering the base. This is not out of the ordinary, he’s the prince after all. What is out of the ordinary is that his shadow, his Akhi, is not here. 

Technically, he should be napping, but he woke up and neither his mother or his brother- who is quiet but gentle and isn’t a good speaker (mother said it was from a head injury)- is there. Which is how he finds his way to the Pit, which he’s not supposed to be at. Or at least not alone. 

But! His mother and Akhi are there! And- and Akhi is screaming and he’s never heard him scream like that, like he’s in agony- His eyes are green- they were blue, had, had Mother placed him in the Waters- 

And then the pool is bubbling- he should be running away, get assistance or something, he’s five, he shouldn’t be running towards it when everything is screaming to flee. But one moment he’s at the doorway, the next he’s clinging to his akhi as something writhes in the Pit, a mighty bellow echoing even as the Shadows take defensive positions. 

The water cascades, laps at their feet, splashes everywhere as a scaled form rises from the depths, wings like a bloodied sunset spreading as fur bursts into flames. Crimson eyes glare down at them all, pupils slits as they bare down at his Akhi. 

The creature- the dragon- dips its head down, its breath warm as it chuffs at his akhi, wings folding as though it is bowing. His akhi is clinging to Mother, shivering, several scars glowing as they fade and a burst of hair burned white. 

Oh. 

Oh.

@fairy-lights-and-blobs @f4nd0m-fun @hdgnj @radiance1 pspspspsps

[moeblob]

Friendship.

[blood-orange-juice]

It feels so weird having a centrist stance (if it can be called so) in most Childe debates. People want him to be just one thing so badly.

I think whatever dichotomy you can come up with he's probably both.

He's a sweet boy and also an abyssal horror, neither part is a mask.

He obviously has cPTSD but also a lot of his behaviours that look like trauma-induced responses are just him, real him. To deal with trauma you have to dig deep enough to find the real you and, well, that's what he found.

He's obviously Abyss-tainted but it's for his goals and seems voluntary and he's very much in control of himself, so can you really say it's not him?

He does need help and acceptance but no way it will make him "normal".

Remember that domain inside Canotila's book? A dog who was a dog and a rifthound at the same time. I think he's that.

[ratatatastic]

Vanha Kauppahalli date: en full, a 2 minute 50 second masterpiece...

Primetime Panthers | 11.6.24 (x)

[puppyeared]

Design notes (+ a little Portal clownery)

[omegalomania]

people bitching and moaning about fob "turning mainstream" as if that was never the entire point of fall out boy. that's In the goddamn dna of the band, it's baked into the ethos of why the band started in the first damn place. to be accessible to kids and especially to girls, who were often ridiculed and shunted out of the hardcore community. to be a gateway to bands that aren't as mainstream. to comment on the society they live in, as they live in it. people act like fall out boy "turning mainstream" was some kind of "betrayal" when from the start they were seizing on the trends of the time, putting their unique, unhinged fall out boy spin on them, and shooting them back out as a funhouse mirror. take this to your grave capitalized on the pop-punk zeitgeist that was big in the late 90s and early aughts and put their own spin on it: enmeshed catchy choruses with high-dexterity lyrical & linguistic skewerwork. infinity on high was basically a massive critique of the scene they were in - this ain't a scene it's a goddamn arm's race is a fucking thesis statement on what it is to be catapulted into fame in an industry that wants nothing more than a thousand cookie-cutter copycat acts of a successful formula, and fall out boy WAS the formula everyone desperately wanted to emulate. american beauty / american psycho blended sampling and modern hip-hop stylings with polished pop-rock and pointed those songs back at the snapshot of the 2010s we all lived in: commenting on racial injustice and the freeze-frame nature of relevancy. but even then they weren't doing it quite right - because fall out boy never does things quite right, they're never quite conventional, whether it's wentz's darkly confessional lyrics double-bagged in metaphor or stump's distinctive clear tenor or trohman's inescapable rock 'n roll edge or hurley's thunderous hardcore-punk-rock soul.

this band has always been too clever for its own critics, is the thing. but then, they always knew that. they knew they had a thriving fanbase of largely female fans so they were going to be mocked and belittled and ridiculed. they weren't quite right. they weren't quite so easy to market. pete wentz had to have all his hard edges filed off and cut down to size, skin lightened, literally whitewashed ("i feel like a photo that's been overexposed") to hell and back, even as he was marketed as the pretty boy of the band. and the other three members never even bothered with the spotlight: the soft-spoken vegan straightedge anarchist drummer and the wry, wisecracking, whip-clever guitarist who was more concerned with being the connective tissue than anything and the reticent vocalist who sang the words and wrote an awful lot of music but wasn't really the guy fronting the band. wentz's charisma carried the band, because the rest of them were really just some guys and never aspired to be anything else.

fall out boy is too pop. fall out boy is too mainstream. fall out boy isn't the real poster child of the emo movement. other bands are better. even within fall out boy's own narrative, they are repeatedly ignored, sidelined, and belittled, as though they weren't one of the only acts from the big 00s emo-pop movement to successfully not just survive the transition from the aughts to the '10s, and then later from the '10s to the '20s, but to thrive in it without banking on nostalgia. this band was supposed to be a flash in the pan. they weren't supposed to last and they weren't supposed to get big. they started off in joe's parents' attic because joe and pete were sick of how exclusionary and homophobic the hardcore scene was.

i think it's high time that people acknowledge how fall out boy has repeatedly succeeded where most of their other peers failed. cunning, clever, capable, and hyper-aware of the space they occupy in the culture surrounding them. that they are just as powerful, important, and artistic as any of the other bands in the scene that others might deify at their expense. that they deserve a hell of a lot more respect than they get from critics or hardcore punks who think they sold out. i hope one day they get that recognition. because they've earned it, time and time again, and the more i see people pushing back against that, the more certain i become of its inevitability.

[nvuy]

jiaoqiu lovers i see you yelling at me in my inbox… my apologies…

i, however, do think that before he leaves, he’ll brush his tail underneath your chin as he walks by. and i fear he probably smells really good. like marshmallows.

[moderndaypandora]

The LAYERS needed in a modern/human Dreamling au.  Some level of Endless family dysfunction, obviously.  Hob's family can be be dead or not, it's all good. Are they old enough to have individually gained the awareness they are off-puttingly intense and should hide it a bit at first, or still in that "no, why would I need to Elsa this" stage?

Option A is both of them trying to play it cool, like "don't scare him off" except they so badly want to go from zero to sixty.

(Death and Desire have ruthlessly drilled Dream with flashcards about how to react appropriately in situations.

Desire: it's your one-month anniversary, what do you do?

Dream: [hesitantly] NOT propose?

Desire and Death, conferring, because that's technically correct but the delivery was suspect.

Death, encouragingly: Good start. And?


Dream: a nice dinner and maybe a walk?

Desire: well done!

Death: and for a three-month anniversary?


Dream: give them a key to my flat.

Desire: [airhorn] NO. RED CARD.)

Option B makes them the classic anecdotal "my grandparents got engaged within seven days of meeting each other and still are happy together".

(Death, rubbing her temples: so you met this guy--

Dream: Hob

Death: -- Hob, and within 1 day you gave notice to the Registrar's Office and figured out the best day to get married. And Hob agreed to this?

Dream: NO.

Death: oh thank go-

Dream: Hob SUGGESTED this.

Death: . . .

Dream: are you going to be a witness or not?

Death, 29 days later in the Registrar's Office, to Hob's witness: Is he sane?

Johanna Constantine, drinking heavily from a large flask: unfortunately yes, by all legal definitions.

Death: fuck

Johanna: [passing the flask over] if your brother's even a tenth as intense as Hob, they'll be fine. Probably.

Death, brightening: Is Hob that bad?


Johanna: You know how sometimes you meet somebody and think "oof, they're a bit much, best give them a wide berth"?


Death: yeah.

Johanna: Hob's like a camouflaged hole in the ground of muchness. Except he's done the hole up all nice and he knows that sometimes you just want to be left alone in the hole to sulk and rattle the spikes for a bit, and occasionally get a F&M hamper tossed in.

Death: [hmmmmmmm'ing approvingly]

Johanna, morose: the bastard.

In the background, Hob and Dream are pressing their foreheads together and basking in each other's presence)

[necrotic-nephilim]

Roytim is such a fun crack rarepair for me! Dick’s best friend sleeping with/dating Dick’s baby brother Timmy is 10/10 drama on a more personal note than I’d picture it with Jason. Absolutely no shade I just have always read Dick as being more protective of Tim and Damian.

Do you have any Roytim headcanons to share? <3

oh i LOVE RoyTim on it's own! likely bc i'm just a Tim multishipper and if it fits i ship, but Roy is especially fun via the Dick connection. and i 1000% agree, *especially* pre-Flashpoint, would even argue it's outright canon that Dick is far more protective of Tim and Damian than he ever was with Jason (not out of dislike, but simply bc Dick and Jason were never all that close and the tragedy of losing Jason was losing what could've been, not what he already had) and especially with Jason as Red Hood, Dick holds no particular protective brotherly feelings toward him. it's all Tim and Damian. so you're so right, the drama of RoyTim is just a smidge more upped than of JayRoy and i'd love to share headcanons-

i think it makes for a fun "crush on your older brother's friend" situation. where like. Tim knows it's unrealistic and he has no *actual* intentions to chase it when he's just 15/16 and Roy and Dick are in their twenties, often hanging out around Tim. and Roy is handsome, he's funny, he's similar in personality to ppl Tim has dated (Steph, Kon) so, it's a crush. one that he hides *well* and never makes it Dick or Roy's problem, and one Tim never expects to pan out. he just fantasizes about Roy a little bit and mostly grows out of it by the time he's an adult.

i think more fics need Lian, so i like the idea of them co-parenting Lian. especially if they're both. sort of bad at it. like Roy loves her and he's trying, but he's doing this basically alone and it's not like he has experience. Tim also has no experience. neither of them know what on earth to do. it's a very cute idea that just relies on the two of them being terrible at parenting and Roy getting so mad that the first time Lian says "dada" she says it to Tim that he considers breaking up for a good five minutes.

how they get together can happen in a lot of ways, but i'm interested in the idea of Dick asking Roy to talk to Tim during Tim's Red Robin arc. Roy has experience helping kids through his work helping young addicts and nothing else has worked, so he offers to at least try with Tim. and Roy, who also doesn't handle grief well, understands at least some of what Tim is going through. especially since Roy dealt with Oliver dying and then suddenly coming back, he's at least open to the idea Bruce could be alive. he's just around to try and help Tim keep some emotional stability, but it ends up with Roy helping with the search and somehow, falling for Tim along the way

they go to sitcom levels of chaos trying to keep the relationship hidden from Dick. they *both* know Dick is far too protective of Tim to react well to it. but also, i think Roy would get *just* a bit of an ego about sleeping with Tim under Dick's nose. he makes a point of strutting around when Dick invites him over, finding reasons to be shirtless just to make Tim squirm a little bit. it's that sort of kink where you're excited about the risk of being caught. that fits these two so well and i can't explain it.

because Roy is used to mentoring younger heroes, i think he would have a bigger than normal moral panic about dating Tim. he fights his feelings for a *while*, to the point Tim can tell Roy is fighting his feelings and he's trying to convince Roy he's fine with this. Tim telling Roy about his childhood crush does not help. it makes Roy feel *worse*. it makes them take things very slowly, and i could see Roy being the type to never fully touch Tim until Tim is 18, no matter how much Tim insists it's okay.

i do think they have unhinged sex when they actually get into it though. no matter how sure Roy is that he'll be gentle the first time, the minute he gets his hands on Tim, it is feral. there is blood and foul dirty talk and Tim cannot walk the next day. i think Roy makes for a very mean dom, the type who will make fun of you for being a mess in bed. he just has those vibes, and it works great for getting Tim to just. turn his brain off.

i think Roy, who's struggled with picking hero names before, would be someone to try to force Tim to let go of Red Robin once the whole Bruce thing is over. it's not Tim's name and Tim doesn't need to keep punishing himself with it. Roy is nice about it at first, but then i do think he threatens to set that damn suit on fire if Tim keeps wearing it and doesn't come up with a new hero name. and the worst part is, Tim does know he's serious.

when Dick does find out, chaos. an absolute shitshow. when Roy tells him, Dick punches Roy in the face before he even finishes explaining himself. it's a pure gut reaction. even Bruce isn't as protective over Tim as Dick is. it takes a *lot* of convincing from Tim that it's okay and he wanted this before Dick calms down, and he still doesn't talk to Roy for like a month until the rest of the Titans are forced to hold an intervention reminding Dick of his own dating history with age gaps, like Babs. Dick does cool down, but he is not afraid to stoop to "you're fucking my brother" in an argument bc he wins everytime when he brings it up.

i think Tim is the protective partner. everyone *expects* it to be Roy, he's older and more experienced, but it's Tim who will absolutely lose it if someone threatens Roy's or Lian's life. like not fanonish "committing murder" Tim, but more so canonish "i have a contingency plan for everything" Tim. Roy has had to hold him back a couple times. honestly i think the moral conversations Roy and Tim have are so interesting. because Roy will cross the line for those he loves, so bc of that, Tim is careful to make sure Roy is never in a position where he has to protect Tim bc he knows it would turn lethal quickly. it's a very "i know what you're capable of and you don't scare me but i won't let you become a worse version of yourself bc of me" sort of self preservation vibe. i think it'd be very neat. Tim fights like hell when he's close to death bc his thought is always "i refuse to let Roy feel like he has to avenge me" which i find very crunchy.