#zero protection at all ?????

[1001aus]

Phantom is a member of JLA when everyone finds out that the Bats have contingency plans against everyone else.

While everyone else is shouting about trust and betrayal, Danny can't help but be relieved. He's seen his bad future, after all. Dan is reformed now, but that doesn't retroactively save the timeline he wiped out.

Danny only has one issue with the contingencies for him: Batman mistakenly believes that his intangibility works the same as Martian density shifting.

It doesn't. In fact, they're very different powers. Intangibility is more of a phase shift where he turns his physical form into energy.

This means that none of the contingencies in his file will work because they don't accurately account for one of his basic powers.

(The shouting actually gets derailed for a bit when he brings it up. All the scientists are a bit horrified about the implied energy conversions happening whenever he uses this "basic" power. As a halfa with an actual physical form, Danny should be giving off enough energy to blow up the planet whenever he transforms.)

[bixels]

Reminiscing about Little Witch Academia.

[tending-the-hearth]

listening to "i can't help but wonder" and sobbing profusely over telemachus' hope being that his father will be able to connect with him, that they'll somehow be able to bond despite the years away, telemachus wanting his father to know that even if it's a struggle, he wants to know his father and see how similar they are. telemachus just hoping for a chance, because he knows his father has missed his mother, it's silly to think otherwise, but he believes that there will be a struggle for his father to connect with him.

meanwhile, odysseus literally has not stopped thinking about his son in the twenty years he's been gone. penelope and telemachus have been the only things on his mind, the only people that have gotten him through the war and every single struggle he's gone through. the fact that some of odysseus' first words to his son are "oh my boy, sweetest joy i've known" because despite the fact that the last time he saw his son, the fact that he was just a baby, and even though he's grown, despite the time lost between them, odysseus wants his boy to know that he is his entire world, that he loves him more than anything.

just telemachus being so hesitant and hopeful, and odysseus not even doubting for a second how much he loves his son and wants to hold him in his arms.

[worldxwonders]

One thing I haven't been able to get off my mind since Khao Reigns;

HE DESERVES BETTER.

[rook-jpg]

lord have mercy, god is a woman

[silentsockfeet]

so when are we as a society going to talk about how cait hitting vi and then leaving her sobbing on her knees is a direct parallel to vi hitting powder and then leaving her in season 1

[mnemosyne-xiv]

I'm sorry but his smile is just so--lord give me strength

[mmmthornton]

Its so freaking embarrassing how the simplest, basest expression of feminism - men hurting women for sexual gratification is bad - has been so easily abandoned by so many people on this, the Virgin Website.

[catherine-sketches]

I’m on a Once Upon A Time resurgence and MY GOD did they underutilize Archie

Man is the only therapist in town, only adult male figure in Henry’s life for a good chunk of his formative years! Potential father figure? Waisted after season 1

He was raised a thief! Any bonding with Emma over shared criminal past and trying to be better now? Waisted

Dramatic scenes where everything seems lost only to everyone to find out he sly-of-hand got the McGuffey from the bad guy that underestimated the cricket? Waisted

Any funny scenes where he pickpockets Killian as a retribution for being kidnapped? Waisted

The moral complexity of being raised to steal and lie and having old habits dying hard or even having to go back on these habits to save the tiny boy you see as good as your son (maybe a scene where they have to break into some place and Archie know how to pick a lock) and being very concerned on how EASY it was to do it. Natural even.

Was this explored? No

Did he know other thieves? A potential friendship with Will Scarlet? Waisted

Mulan had a Cricket friend. Since OUAT loves to mix and match where YOU, Jiminy Cricket, her companion in the years Geppetto was a grown man that didn’t need you as much only to go back when the war was over and Geppetto was thinking about a son? WHO KNOWS! CERTAINLY NOT ME

You also are not only Jiminy Cricket! The sheet music in your office, the instruments there (a clarinet and a violin if I can remember correctly) and your dog, Pongo, mark you as Roger Radcliffe

Where is your Anitta? Where is your romance storyline promised to you from day one the moment we heard your dog’s name? Where is Perdita?

Where is your interaction with Cruella DeVil?

The moment these two were in the same ESTATE Archie should get a fifty yard stare like he can sense a disturbance in the force

Did we get that???? NO!

Justice for my man Archie Hopper they waisted you

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[ghost-bxrd]

Ngl I'm lowkey intrigued by the idea of Jason being considered an actual "Al Ghul Prince" (even if Damian is still the Al Ghul heir) and what kind of drama that could entail in your fic XD

A…. lot. Honestly at this point “What you’re longing for” is more of a soap opera than anything lmao.

I’m not sure if it’s gonna fit into the fic yet, most likely it will stay heavily implied, but if the Bats do end up finding out about Jason’s status as, well, royalty in a way, Bruce is sure to get some more gray hairs lmao.

Jason for his part… mostly doesn’t realize what it means to be so thoroughly incorporated into the al Ghul family. He just thinks he’s finally lucked out on a family that would (and has already) killed for him. He remains largely oblivious to all the deference the regular league members show him now and thinks it’s due to his rank as a general.

(He is also not aware of the couple Shadows that Talia and Ra’s have tailing him at all times in case he ever gets in over his head with a bust, but that’s neither here nor there.)

[bixels]

What did/do you like about Pharah?

Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.

Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).

But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.

There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.

Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.

[kittleskittle]

niloy november day 9 - dark

(i'm on a massive angst kick i'm sorry)

this one also comes with an accompanying ficlet by @mythicaitt!!

READ HERE:

[qoldenskies]

cc!leo is so weird and fun to write because i have to capture the spectrum of him impossibly gentle and caring, goofy and nonchalant to make everyone feel better, and INSANELY invested in the prospect of brutally murdering someone all at the same time and writing ch23 really illuminates that for me lmao. like the characters just kind of take me places that i dont expect and apparently the answer to "what happens when you strip leo of all his layers of facade and make him forced to hurt the most important person in his life through horrifying mind control?" in this extremely specific instance was uhhhh. Bloodthirsty! apparently

he's so funny to me like bro can you CHILL

[kelsochronicles]

Everyone’s favorite ember in the wind! Ol Gildun, what a gem. Anyone else sob during his quest in Burning Shores? I need that man to join up with Morlund’s crew in H3