#EVERYONE AROUND HIM IS A CHILD

[noknowshame]

why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth of Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born amongst the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Clockwork sees how stressed Danny is from trying to be the goodest boy and never do anything remotely bad that could turn him evil and thinks he may have overdone it. At this rate his panic over never doing anything evil is going to force him to emotionally burn out and stop caring. Then he'll turn evil anyway.

So Clocky does something that sounds completely ridiculous in theory. He scoops Danny up and drops him into a universe full of superheros and villains and tells him to "Do whatever you want. There will be no consequences for you." Then he leaves.

And just like that, Danny goes apeshit. He decides to do the one thing he always wanted to do but was too afraid to because he didn't want to be judged, or worse, forced to join his parents.

He becomes a supervillian. Not as Phantom, no. But as Fenton! He goes full super genius mad scientist and terrorizes whatever city he's in. The local superhero is being driven insane as Danny builds death rays, shrink rays, his own modified version of the GAV, ect.

The best part if that the local heros can never catch him for long and when he is caught he always escapes before he is transported to whatever facility they wanted him in. He always ends up back in his home dimension where he goes back to acting normal and no one from either human dimension or the Infinite Realms knows what he's up to (except the stop watch of course)

After a particularly fun day in which Danny highjacks all broadcasting services to teach everyone in the world how to make insulin at home so you didn't have to pay a ridiculous amount for necessary medication, the Justice League was now on his tail.

Danny just laughs, thinking there's no way they'd ever be able to arrest him. Little does he know some guy calling himself Batman is leading the mission and he has no intention of arresting him. Danny, much to his horror, becomes far to familiar with adoption papers. As in he keeps having to set them on fire.

[muninnhuginn]

Ngl definitely thinking back to the cartoon-making chapter now we know that Twilight doesn't realise studying/pursuit of knowledge can be fun. No wonder the cartoon he made sucked. He was approaching it purely from the educational angle with zero idea of the entertainment aspect that makes edutainment programming effective.

It's not that he was really bad at writing the fun parts. He plain didn't realise there were meant to be any in the first place for it to work.

Copying the aesthetics with no understanding of what was underneath.

[vvitchering]

I think maybe everyone should cool it with the “weird cult” comments regarding the covert, honestly. It wasn’t that funny to begin with but now that it’s the popular describer it’s starting to become a little uncomfy. No one is forced to join, no one is forced to stay. There’s a ton of parallels between them and real world cultures and religions and I just think MAYBE we need to be a little more aware of what message we’re sending when we say “haha that group of people who are in hiding because their lives were/are at stake and who practice anonymity to survive and follow certain rules that I don’t personally understand or like are a weird cult”.

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

I had an epiphany

The new event the cat petting

Cat sitter reader working for that place and finds fl and nurses him back

Everyone keeps telling them "no a 12 ft monster is not a cat!!!"

Reader: he's a cat!!!!!!

Pls pet FL on the nose...

alright listen, i know the event is super simple and sort of just filler but i adore the cats' animations when you pet them,,, arghhgh they're so CUTE

all you were doing was looking for a stray cat someone had told you about, that's it; you weren't trying to find an otherworldly beast, although some would argue that cats are little beasts in their own right- it just sort of happened, the exact cat you were looking for curled against the prone body of an injured Abyss monster, meowing and looking up at you curiously. well, no matter, your boss was talking about expanding the cat shelter to include creatures of all types, so you carefully drag the Abyss beast back to the building, apologizing all the while as the cat watched judgmentally from your shoulders. the other kitties come over to sniff the new resident curiously, the stray cat on your shoulder hopping down to join the rest as you get to work patching up the monster's wounds, earning a few pained whimpers, and you stroke the creature's hair with a gentle hush

you and the cats quickly become accustomed to your new friend- after all, to the kitties, the beast- or Foul Legacy- is just an armored oversized cat. he's also apparently a lovely sleeping place, since more often than not there'll be a cat curled up either on his head or shoulder or chest. Legacy absolutely adores you, following you around the shelter the moment he can walk and curiously admiring everything. the moment you sit down he snuggles his head against your lap and the other cats all hop up and join him. the only concern is that an enormous Abyss monster could scare off potential customers, but you insist that he's a cat. of course you know he's not really a cat, but he's cat-like enough with how he purrs and kneads his claws and bumps his forehead against yours, so he's staying. even if your boss does yell at you, the kitties have never looked happier <3

[sybill-the-seer]

Young ~3-y/o Harry following Petunia around the house while she does chores. Young Harry holding onto Petunia’s skirt and sucking his thumb while she does the dishes. Young Harry playing quietly in the grass near Petunia while she weeds the garden. Young Harry just wanting to be WITH someone at all times. Young Harry trotting along after Petunia all day being her little shadow until her patience wears thin and she sends him to his cupboard. Young Harry being a clingy child who desperately needs affection but never gets it.

[angrybatart]

Some veteran Sky Kid is screaming like a banshee while frantically searching for their moth.

[samarecharm]

Love being able to write. I can do whatever i want. I can make Ryuji interact w Lala-chan and u literally cant stop me.

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

history 101 💛

This was originally just supposed to be me having fun exploring what Ephemer would be like as a teacher but it got a bit out of hand in a good way (but I think I spent way too long on this lol)

Notes:

I wholeheartedly believe that teaching is Eph’s true passion. While writing Overmorrow, I came to realize that his role as a teacher/master is necessary in ensuring that light and the will of the keyblade lives on, but it’s also something he would just genuinely enjoy doing on a personal level. Aside from being able to infodump to his heart’s content (that’s a big deal! 😄), he can also help, inspire, and lead as a teacher! I think if he does actually establish the Keyblade order/academy in canon, it would be his pride and joy

Eph’s actual classroom may not have looked like kh3/dr’s, but I like to believe it was probably similarly designed. (He learned a lot about teaching from Hestia 🥰)

Lyra first appeared here :) the rest of the students are new, I made them up on the spot

my ass could not have handled making Overmorrow as a webcomic

[hedwig221b]

me with Eli Stilinski-Hale

[good-wine-and-cheese]

A weird thing about reading ATB is definitely how relatable Tobio's "power" is as an epileptic person. Like just this description is like yeah that's exactly what its like when a seizure is coming on (and since auditory hallucinations are part of my seizures I can interpolate that from Tobio "communicating" with others)

What I kind of like about it is that sometimes Tobio will experience one of these "communications" and within seconds go back to what he was doing, basically unbothered. Which is sometimes just what seizures look like (and sometimes they don't even 'look' like anything and go completely unnoticed!) I'm sure they aren't deliberately going for epilepsy when writing this narrative but even so seeing a character experience relatively muted and unobtrusive "seizures" is kind of nice for a change

[confusedfoam]

look I love it for him that he's like super hot now or whatever but if I'm honest I wish Nicky was more of a loser

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

This week on "CJ needs to gush about DAO": Morrigan's dark ritual.

I adore Origins because depending on how serious you take roleplay, every decision you make is a thread that leads back to your origin, and in this case of the ritual, who you choose to romance can have a major impact on how you handle this choice.

For context, my canon run is with a female Tabris who romances Alistair and keeps him as a Grey Warden, and is close friends with Morrigan. It's more in character for my Tabris to reject Morrigan's ritual and not even bring it up to Alistair, which would result in her leaving him behind while she makes the ultimate sacrifice in killing the archdemon... however, agreeing to convince Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan is the only choice in the entire game where I break roleplay because I'm selfish and weak and I want Tabris to live.

I have a lot of strong feelings about the ritual, like it hurts me. It makes me want to chew on furniture. I can talk about it until I can talk no more. I so badly want to be strong enough to remain in character and reject the ritual.

Let me explain: Tabris survives an origin that deals with sexual assault. She gets kidnapped on her wedding day, she watches the other kidnapped women and her husband get murdered, and then is too late to save Shianni from being assaulted... and Tabris carries that trauma with her throughout the entire game.

If the way to save her life is to ask the two most important people she cares about; one being her lover and the other being her best friend; who she knows hate each other, to have dubiously consensual sex in order to make a baby to absorb the old god soul... she's saying no. The last thing Tabris would ever do is put someone into a sexual situation where consent is at all dubious after what she saw happen to Shianni and nearly happened to herself. She'd rather die than force that upon Alistair and Morrigan.

That's what I mean when I say origin affects everything; I know some will side eye that with "Really? Your warden would rather die than let Alistair sleep with another woman? It's one time, and Alistair agrees to it, so no one needs to die?"

Let me be clear in saying this isn't a "Morrigan slept with my man" issue. Sure, that part's awkward and it sucks, but that's not even breaking water tension, let alone diving into the deep waters to the core of the issue.

For my Tabris, this is about betrayal, consent, and accepting fate.

The person offering Tabris this deal is someone she thought of as a trusted friend who has actually been lying to her the entire time. It doesn't matter what Morrigan's intentions are now or if she genuinely wants to save the wardens. She knew from the beginning why Flemeth sent her with them, she admits as much. She knew a warden would need to make the ultimate sacrifice and then leveraged that to get what she wants. Morrigan waited until the night before, when Alistair and the warden learn one of them has to die to defeat the archdemon, and took advantage of the high running emotions and possibly the fear of dying to make the warden agree to her ritual.

At least, that's how my Tabris interprets this confrontation. She feels betrayed by someone she came to love like a sister and went out of her way to help Morrigan with her mother upon learning what's in Flemeth's grimoire. And then that someone tells her no one needs to die, she just needs to convince Alistair to sleep with her... which is a huge fucking problem.

The Alistair and Tabris romance is slow; it took a long time for either of them to be comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable and trusting each other with basic intimacy, let alone sex. Tabris is mortified at the idea of putting Alistair in this situation. Not only would it feel like a betrayal on her part to ask that of him, but she knows the last thing Alistair ever wants to do is father a bastard who then goes on to grow up without him. How could she possibly ask him to do that?

Then you consider that ritual or no, there isn't a guarantee that they'll survive anyway. Say they do the ritual and Tabris dies anyway; she made Alistair sleep with Morrigan in order to save her and then she died anyway. Or if Alistair dies then Tabris gets to live with the fact that the last person Alistair was with was a woman he hates because she asked that of him… and either way, Morrigan gets to walk away with what she wanted.

Tabris led the group, and she's accepted that if Riordan dies [which he does] then she'll be the one to make the sacrifice, even if it means breaking both hers and Alistair's heart.... except she doesn't because I'm a coward who doesn't want to lose her because my worldstate isn't good without her in it but I also refuse to lose Alistair so I just pretend it plays out differently in my head it's fine-

But... that's how I play Tabris and view the situation. My friend @pi-creates and I have discussed the dark ritual at length. While I play a Tabris who romances Alistair, Pi plays a Mahariel who romances Morrigan, so we have vastly different interpretations of the ritual itself and Morrigan's intentions.

Which yeah, it makes total sense that someone who romanced Morrigan with a different origin, and has the option to do the ritual with her rather than asking someone else to do it, wouldn't see this the way I do.

To quote Pi: "Playing as a male warden in the Morrigan romance makes the whole situation feel different, and maybe it’s because she’s presenting it differently due to the emotional connection, but it feels more like she’s opening up about her initial instructions (that she had been given by Flemeth) and offering a solution to avoid the possibility of death. And for my Mahariel, the constant threat of sudden death has haunted him from the start – he caught the blight and was ripped away from his clan (something he did not want to do in the slightest), got forced into a Grey Warden ritual that could kill him, was forced into a battle that could kill him, going on this whole quest that he never wanted but has now become responsible for regardless of his thoughts on the matter… the dark ritual may be one of the few moments where he is presented with an option to decide if he wants to walk into certain death, or take actions of his own volition to stop it.

"The idea of the ritual still feels like a dodgy thing to do since the ultimate outcome is unknown at that point, he’s taking Morrigan at her word that it will save the warden and that this child would be unharmed, just with an old god soul that she isn’t exactly clear on why she wants that and is determined to runaway immediately after the battle to secure it properly. It could be interpreted that it’s purely a preservation thing, but I’m biased to wanting Morrigan's intentions to not be power based.

"But also, taking part in the ritual isn’t as outlandish for my warden since he and Morrigan have already been involved in an intimate relationship. It’s the future of the ritual that is scarier – the idea of this old-god baby, and the idea of Morrigan insisting that she’s leaving afterwards when Mahariel and her have a loving relationship. He’s hurting, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Alistair to die, he doesn’t want Morrigan to leave, he definitely doesn’t want pregnant Morrigan to leave on her own… it’s complicated, but for completely different reasons."

And I find that fascinating. I want to know how other players approach this part of DAO, what origins they play, and who they romanced. Seriously, this is an invitation to anyone reading to share their thoughts.

What about a warden who doesn't even have Alistair in their party because they made Loghain a warden? Is there anyone out there who has Loghain do the ritual with Morrigan and why? What about male wardens who don't romance her? Do you choose to do it with her anyway, or do you ask Alistair or Loghain to do it? Do you tell Morrigan to fuck off with the ritual? Why? Who makes the ultimate sacrifice in that case? And what about Morrigan herself? How do you interpret her intentions/motivations? I want to know.

I'm telling you, this is a discussion that gets me excited, as most discussions about DAO do.

[sherbetyy]

my reaction to ppl hating on some human designs for the main 3 bc they aren’t conventionally attractive 🖕🖕

[archduke-enver-gortash]

mmm essay about sally and kid gort in the tags (cw for child abuse, mentions of suicide, animal cruelty and a murder attempt. i always hope i don’t have to say this but just in case: i don’t excuse or condone any of her or gort’s behaviour at all.) this is literally not even touching upon everything i have to say because i hit the fucking tag limit lmao. NOBODY READ IT’S BAD BRAINSTORMING I JUST NEEDED TO GET IT OUT SOMEHOW

[fauvester]

Julian, suddenly realizing how much chaos he's been spared

HHWHAUAIGUHFH

Garaks just been thinking about betazoid-cardassian hybrids for ten seconds but now he wants to see it so badly it physically hurts