#[ meme response ]

[zebracorn-chan]

"sped up" "slowed down", IT'S NIGHTCORE AND DAYCORE.

[nando161mando]

[starspray]

🌹🌹🌹

Until then he had not quite understood how Beren could have been struck dumb by Lúthien’s loveliness, yet now he stood with his mouth agape, unable even to take a breath until she turned away to call to someone coming up the path behind her. She had not yet seen him, so he ducked his head and sucked in a breath, glad that he was alone. When he looked up again he saw Celeborn and Galadriel joining the silver-haired lady, and knew her then to be their daughter Celebrían.

[iknowmorethanyou]

Follow up

[bigshot]

@armstrongstyles asked: 🤕 - to dress your muse’s wound .>:)

"[[#^%#]] !! ! ! C O L D --- !!!"

The first bit of cold pvc filler Brad applies to the crater in Spamton's chest has the puppet's complaints hitting embarrassingly high octaves, voice actually cracking.

He's not sure how Brad convinced him to let him do this, but he understands why he wants to. It's much the same reason Spamton insisted on bandaging Brad's shoulder after he'd bitten him- a sense of responsibility. The need to make things right,

"Y0U DID-- YOU DID SAY 1T [[Watch as it changes color!!]]??? RIHGT??" But no number of good intentions will make him feel less exposed or anxious. He can only imagine what Brad's thinking...

Little hands grip the edges of the chair he's on hard, trying to look everywhere but at his own disgusting body or Brad or the pink goop he's holding. All that's doing is winding him up more, though, "YOU'RE-- Y-YOUR SURE YOU'RE [Okie dokie] DOING THIS???"

[kareenvorbarra]

I was tagged by @captainkaltar - thank you!

Vote in my character poll and make one of your own if you'd like! (choose your 5 characters of all time)

Tagging @child-of-hurin, @wizardysseus, @squirrelwrangler, @chthonic-cassandra, @yavieriel, and anyone else who feels like it!

[aparticularbandit]

Out of Context WIPs Game

tagged by: @adhdavinci - I moved it to a new thread; hope that was cool!

Rules: Pick a few wips and badly summarize them. Ask your followers to select which they'd be most likely to read!

tagging: @our-blood-is-our-ink, @only-freaking-sunflowers, @princescar, @allofthebeanz

[oddlyhale]

Reposting this because I was sorting my files and found this. It's still one of my favourite gifs I made. (Me responding to the meme above.)

[bedlamsbard]

POV

Natasha POV of the opening scene of Of Home Near! (Original version here.) About 1.1K below the break.

*****

Sometimes Natasha thought that Howard Stark just liked looking at Steve.

She had seen Tony watch Pepper when he thought no one else was looking, and there was a little of that in the way Howard watched Steve, his chin propped on one hand and his eyes going soft and pleased.  Part of it might have been only that Howard had missed his best friend while Steve had been presumed dead and was more than a little afraid that Steve would vanish if he looked away, but if there was one thing other than how to kill people Natasha knew, it was how to read men.

She couldn’t exactly blame Howard for it.  She liked looking at Steve too, and she was the one who was in his bed every night.  She had the right to look, which was still a fairly novel sensation for her.

By the time they had been there for a week, everyone in the SSR was getting fairly stir-crazy due to the lockdown Howard had imposed.  As far as Natasha could tell, no one was actively opposed to it; despite Howard’s attempts to spread a more mundane version of the story, rumors of Captain America’s dramatic return had spread and at this stage in the war everyone in the SSR was paranoid enough to understand the reasons for the lockdown.  It just didn’t mean they enjoyed it.  It also meant that they were running short-handed since Howard had instituted the lockdown in the middle of the night, when most of the SSR’s personnel had already gone home.

They were in Howard’s office, Natasha watching Howard watch Steve and wondering if Steve had any idea that Howard Stark was in love with him, when she heard the sudden silence in the lab outside.  Steve cocked his head to one side, listening, then suddenly went white.  Natasha looked at him in concern, then turned as the door opened behind them.

“Stark, you are aware there’s still a war on, aren’t you?  We can’t drop everything to hop across the Channel just on your say-so.”

The speaker was a tall army officer with a weathered face, wearing a colonel’s insignia and SSR pins.  There was a woman with him, mouth painted red and brown hair perfectly coiffed, and four years ago Natasha had seen both of their portraits flanking Howard Stark’s in an old SHIELD building in New Jersey not long before Hydra had blown it to hell.

Howard’s gaze flickered quickly to Steve’s still face before he straightened up. “I didn’t think this one could wait,” he said.  “And you took your time coming back; I called you a week ago.”

“Because there’s still a war on,” the woman said.  Steve shut his eyes at the sound of her voice, breathing hard, and Natasha closed her hands into fists.  She might be sleeping with him now, might have his name and his borrowed ring on her finger, but she was under no illusions about where she ranked on a scale that included Peggy Carter.  “Well, what is it?”

Howard looked at Steve again instead of responding.  Steve breathed in deeply, then opened his eyes and turned around.  “Peggy,” he said, then swallowed hard and added, “Sir,” to Chester Phillips.

Phillips blinked once, clearly startled, and said, “Rogers.”

Peggy didn’t say anything at all.  She just walked forward until she could put her arms around Steve.  Natasha bit the inside of her cheek as Steve hugged her back, his whole body briefly going slack with relief, like he had gotten something back that he had never expected to have again.  Which he had.

When Peggy finally pulled back, she reached up for him, and this time Natasha looked away, belatedly aware of Howard Stark’s sharp gaze tracking the motion.

Steve said, “Peggy, wait – wait –” and Natasha looked back, startled.

Peggy seized his left hand, staring at the ring on his finger, and said, “You –!”  Then she punched him in the face.

Steve staggered backwards and almost fell.  Natasha and Howard caught him to steady him as he got his feet under him again, staring at Peggy with huge, hurt eyes.

“Well,” Howard said, releasing him once he was sure that Natasha had a good grip on Steve’s other arm, “at least she didn’t shoot you this time.”

“Thanks, Howard,” Steve said, touching his jaw gingerly. “That really makes me feel better.”  He was trembling a little under Natasha’s hands, but his voice was even.  Since she had seen him take a punch from a god without flinching, she suspect his reaction was more surprise than anything else.

Peggy shot Natasha a hard look that both took in the ring on her left hand and quite obviously found her wanting.  Natasha met her gaze calmly, not willing to let herself waver and undermine Steve.

“Glad to see you’re in fine form, Rogers,” Colonel Phillips said, turning to shut the door on the audience they had acquired in the lab.  He looked at Natasha and added, “Is this the lucky lady?”

“Natasha Rogers, Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter.”  She let go of Steve and offered the colonel her hand.  His grip was firm and dry; she saw him register her pistol calluses and nod a little, giving Steve a contemplative look that was probably at least as much evaluating his taste in women as gauging anything about Natasha.

Natasha felt the pistol calluses on Peggy Carter’s palm and fingers as the other woman squeezed her hand a little too hard, her expression suggesting that she would have liked to rip Natasha’s throat out with her teeth.  Her gaze tracked the scar at Natasha’s hairline from the Battle of New York as well as the way Natasha shifted her weight after Peggy released her, one professional’s quick evaluation of another.  She didn’t look at Steve, whose expression was miserable.

Howard and Phillips were both looking back and forth between Steve, Peggy, and Natasha like spectators at a three-way tennis match.  Natasha let out her breath, then took Steve’s hand in hers, folding her fingers around his and squeezing a little to reassure him.

She had only been thinking about how Steve might react to Peggy Carter.  It had never occurred to her to worry about how Peggy Carter might react to him.  Or to Natasha, for that matter.

“You were able to bail out?” Phillips asked Steve.

Steve took a deep breath. “Not exactly,” he said. “I didn’t walk away from the crash, either.”  He glanced at Natasha, who nodded a little in response to his unspoken question, then took another deep breath and looked back at Phillips.  “I’m Steve Rogers, but I’m not your Steve Rogers – I mean, I am, I’m just not from 1945.  Nat and I are from 2018.”

[janzoo]

OC Smash or Pass: Drakyr Saovine

Rules: pretty self explanatory. include physical descriptions or pics, and propaganda. the “other” label can be used for “sexuality misalignment” (ie: oc is femme and you’re gay, vice versa or you aren’t into smashing but a specific thing you wanna do with them like perhaps hug or study them under a microscope idc).

Tagged here by @thevikingwoman thank you! This has turned out to be the best character info/lore page I've put together for Drakyr so far so I'm glad for the tag. 💙

Tagging - oh man who hasn't been tagged in this by now lol uhh @rabid-catboy @paintedscales @hopes-legacy @sebille @raynshyu

@ishgard @dytabytes @hydaelyns-bitch @forishgard @morgan-aleghieri and whoever else wants to do this, it's fun!

(7.0 graphics w/photoshopped black sclera. The beach pic is a remake of an old fave.)

(Pre-7.0 graphics)

(The last pic is from here, with some lore and the original (real person!) pose.)

Quick Facts

Height: 5'2"/159cm

Age: I'm still working out her timeline, but she's in her early 30s by the end of Dawntrail.

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Pros

An excellent cook/baker! She is a level 100 Culinarian and absolutely shows it. She also loves tea and is adept at crafting blends.

A foodie in general - come enjoy lots of good/new food with her!

Generally very handy and an excellent craftswoman

Confident

Loyal and dependable

Very passionate and compassionate - she's gotta lotta heart 💙

Not afraid to do dirty work (as long as she can have a good bath afterwards)

An amazing musician, vocalist, and instrumental composer.

Drakyr is in excellent physical condition. She was an athlete and hunter before becoming a warrior proper.

Good sense of sportsmanship. (She does preen over her victories, but has enough class to save it until she's among the right crowd. She also does appreciates the competition and doesn't think less of them for losing to her.)

She's generally good at turning negative experiences into lessons as opposed to being dragged down by them. (She's not immune to grief and the like; this is after the initial shock has passed, so to speak.)

Body- and sex-positive.

Cons

Vain - not in that she flaunts her looks over others, but she spends a lot of time and effort on her appearance. What other people do or don't do with their appearance is on them, but she has to look her best.

Claustrophobic

Ruthless in that once she gets started on something, it's difficult to slow, stop, or redirect her.

Will try to fix everyone's problems.

Is prone to heading into danger/potential traps because she figures that, as the Warrior of Freakin' Light/Darkness, she can handle whatever gets thrown at her.

She is stage-shy about singing in particular, and doesn't do it often unless enough of the audience consists of people she trusts. Struggles to come up with lyrics for her compositions.

Her loyalty can blind her to the wrongdoings of those she's loyal to.

Details

Primarily a Bard, and was raised in a travelling show/competition - she can entertain and handle being the centre of attention.

She's competitive (put here because that can be both a pro and con lol)

Her family/tribe was killed in the Calamity, save for her younger sister, Lakelta. (I do have something in the works of her finding some surviving tribe members that were abducted/conscripted by the Garlean Empire, but the idea is still very tentative/WIP.)

A night-person

Drakyr prefers to carry both titles of Warror of Light and Darkness, in acknowledgement of everything that happened in Shadowbringers, and of the fact that there is no one "evil element". (I'd love to make some kind of combined title for her, like "Warrior of Twilight". But I'm wary of getting Twilight series remarks in turn. 😬)

Drakyr is spiritual, and does revere Nhaama and Oschon as her personal deities. (Less so the latter after Myths of the Realm, though she does occasionally send a prayer/well-wishes his way anyway.) She spends enough time in Ishgard to pay respects to Halone too.

A "work hard, play hard" type who enjoys relaxing/decompressing with a good meal, a soak in a hot tub, and some chill sightseeing/stargazing/lazing around - parallel play is a bonus for any of these. ("Play hard" in that she completely shuts out "work" and any thoughts of it unless an absolute emergency comes up.)

Loves water and swimming, though prefers freshwater over saltwater.

Drakyr believes that destruction is easy, but that ease is a sort of cheat that makes it seem more intimidating and powerful. True power lies in the ability to create and construct.

Not afraid to throw around her weight as Warrior of Light/Darkness (again, can be both a pro and con).

Her intelligence is much more applied as opposed to booksmarts. She's had to stop Alphinaud or other scholars/Scions from what feels like talking at her and have them show her what they need/mean. What books she has are field guides and story books. She does some light journaling.

She loves holidays! Her birthday is on All Saints' Wake/Halloween.

Pierced nipples (link contains non-sexual nudity). She has several different kinds and can change what colour they glow as. Wears simple rings by default.

You can find more info in Drakyr's lore tag.

Sexuality: First and foremost, it doesn't matter to her if it's vanilla or kinky, slow or fast, as long as there is passion. Otherwise she's an open-minded switch, though she does have a bit of a preference for topping-from-the-bottom. Haurchefant introduced her to some kinks that she enjoys still, namely shibari, light dom/sub, and using/wearing leather. (She is not a lacy gal.) Drakyr also enjoys intimacy for more than just insert-dick-into-hole; it's still sex to her whether there was penetration or not. She especially loves oral (both ways). When in a top/dom position, she is patient and gives lots of praise.

Emotionally: Again, she is passionate - she puts her whole heart into whatever she does. By that I don't mean high-energy - passionate as in her partners will never feel the need to question her conviction. She is unwavering in her love. She is a wellspring of adoration and affection. She's in it for keeps. Drakyr also tends to make herself a sanctuary for her loved ones. They can find solace in her presence, and safety at her back. She expects the same in return from her partners. Drakyr loves to love and be loved.

Cast your vote!

[ameliarating]

writing pattern tag game

thank you to @lu-sn for tagging me!

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 posted fics and see if there’s a pattern.

There is something about nausea that Song Lan cannot stand, the way his stomach feels as if it is curdling and pleating, the way he can feel his old food wake up inside him, the way his saliva grows hot and angry in his throat, filling his mouth. (from Knots)

Pete can hold his breath for five minutes and thirty two seconds underwater, but normally he doesn’t have to. (from Deep Dive)

A cultivator in white kneels by the body of a man in black. (from Remains)

It’s not the violence that bothers Pete. (from Civil Hands)

He’d had a tail for a while. (from Lex Talionis)

Baoshan Sanren descended her mountain. (from Three Treasures)

The man was Xue Yang. (from A Wiser Fool)

As a child Wangji tells you secrets and slips polished stones into your sleeves. (from Scholar's Rock)

He found Xingchen. (from Restoration)

Xiao Xingchen is sick. (from Lover to your Nightmare)

Okay, so it looks like, with a few exceptions) I have a penchant for starting fics with short, declarative sentences. Not very surprising, as I like to alternate very long and very short sentences, and it's often easier to set the tone with a shorter one.

Fun meme! Tagging @veliseraptor, @silvysartfulness (who I encourage to do this with chapters and not just fic as she has been slaving away a long time on a multi-chaptered fic), and @gloriousmonsters

[nando161mando]

[starspray]

☮️ for Celebrian?

☮ - friendship headcanon

If Celebrian decides she wants to be someone's friend, that someone really doesn't have a choice in the matter. She will cheerfully bulldoze all barriers and attempts at reserve, and this includes the times when she decides that other people should be friends with each other.

And she's so goddamn nice that no one can ever even be mad at her for it.

[bigshot]

not accepting

He was right to hire security.

Being in a rough part of town, carrying occasional high value goods, and just being Spamton make it a necessity. It was only a matter of time until somebody tried a robbery.

Deafened by the sound of shots fired, Spamton ducks into the reinforced space beneath his shop's counter with zero hesitation. The noises that follow keep him rooted in place. The sounds of a struggle and gunmetal hitting the floor should be some kind of comforting, but when they're quickly replaced by familiar fury and the sound of a man's skull repeatedly being bashed for a few too many minutes...

"HEYHEYHEY!!! HE'S [Well done]!!!" It takes a lot of strength to peek out from his hiding place and even more not to duck back in, "BRAD- HE'S [[Down for the Count]]!!!"

"JUST... GOOD DAMN,!MAN!! [Cheese And Rice ],!! YOU'RE MAKING A MESS...EMPTY HIS [POCKET SAND] TOSS HIM OUT BACK,, ALRIGHT??!?"

[kareenvorbarra]

Meme: favorite books read so far in 2024 (tagged by @child-of-hurin)

Ju's post doesn't say how many books to pick but she listed four, so that's what I'm doing.

Honorable mention goes to the six other Sayers novels I've read so far this year, because I've been absolutely devouring them and it was hard to pick a favorite (and no I'm not done with the series yet)

tagging @wizardysseus, @anghraine, @yavieriel, @thecrenellations, @roseofbattles, and anybody else who would like to do it!