#and i tell you. it's divine!

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

i love just sittin' around doing nothing and having nothing pressing to do in the immediate moment. it's grand.

[dairyofateenagegirl]

black women as vampires

[avephelis]

we are locking into BEAST MODE to unleash our SUPER MONSTER BLAST chip

[spooksier]

relistening to tma and losing my mind more with each episode. anyways. today we're talking about how there are three characters in the show who are meant to be/groomed to be "the chosen one" for some specific purpose (agnes for the lightless flame, gerry to carry on some esoteric bloodline, jon for the watcher's crown/the web's escape plan) and all three of them have that running theme of being completely powerless in every aspect of their lives despite being made to be something powerful. we never get agnes' own perspective on her own life, gerry dies and is kept in limbo for *years*, and jon is marked to be the antichrist from age 8, like all of them were used as tools rather than people and if you couple that with all three at some point expressing that their fantasy is to live a normal life and be a normal person but they were trapped by divinity......fucked up if true

[maeo-png]

Of course it's fucking THESEUS

okay. i havent shut up about the greek myth aspects of Simon's story and i wont stop now. At first it was a statue of Persephone in the garden, with it's head replaced to be Betty, giving the implication that Betty is the Persephone to Simon's Hades, and it was Simon's status as an antiquarian. and now we've gotten Simon being a huge nerd and bringing up Theseus completely unprompted (so real)

a bit of context in case you need it, Theseus was one of those greek "legendary Heroes" (Achilles, Heracles, etc.), and previously King of Athens, but had managed to dodge most bad things that happen to Greek heroes. he was just stupid and i guess they took pity on him.

The Ship of Theseus or "Theseus' Paradox", which I'd imagine all of tumblr knows by now, but if you don't, is the question on whether if a ship, specifically Theseus', is still the same ship after having all of its parts replaced exactly. To me this makes for such an obvious connection to Simon. Simon's story factors around identity, first and foremost. (yknow. "I Remember You" and all that?) The concept of not knowing what you are fundamentally was originally Ice King's thing, as his previous life as Simon was essentially history. But now that's being brought to Simon. and Simon has the lucidity to process what that means for him.

[thesummerestsolstice]

Whenever Numenor experienced a plague or outbreak, Elrond came, without fail, to treat the sick and offer the people of the island comfort. He did it for many reasons– to honor the legacy of Elros and his descendants, because he sometimes considered the Numenorians more his people than either elves or men, because he was a healer who believed deeply that all life had value.

Of course, treating mortal plagues is a hazardous business– especially for a part-human medic who is just as susceptible to the disease as his patients.

Elrond, never one to be dissuaded from trying to save lives, tries to find a way to protect himself from the infection while being able to treat his patients. No one in Middle-Earth knows exactly how mortal diseases spread, but it's clear that it spreads from the healthy to the ill– through bad air, coughing, infected blood, or some other means. So, Elrond has to find a way to not make contact with or breathe the same air as his patients. While treating them.

Eventually, he settles on a set of robes that leaves no inch of his skin uncovered, along with heavy, opaque veils and a mask of his own design for his face. The mask– full of athelas flowers to purify the air– is fashioned in the shape of a bird as an homage to Melian, who was said to have healing powers. He made the main piece mask with his own hands, carved it from dragon bone– sturdy, and thought to have protective powers against against diseases and curses. The eyes are made of dark tinted glass that glows faintly– a gift from Celebrimbor.

In all fairness, Elrond did not realize how creepy the bone white mask and fully-black outfit was, especially given his general aura of strangeness ad birdlike mannerisms. He had bigger concerns at the time. That said, his outfit, which kept him from getting sick even during the worst of the outbreak, was soon adopted by many of the Numenorian healers. Over time, the story of the plague doctor shifted became part of Numenor's legend– that healers dressed in such strange outfits to frighten disease away. In that way, the odd, birdlike appearance of the plague doctors soon became a comfort to the Numenorians, rather than a fright.

As gifts for helping with various outbreaks over the years, Elrond also got several plague doctor masks that were decorated, more for style than for purpose. He wears them at fancy elvish events sometimes, just to mess with everyone. And whenever he heads off to Numenor, he always makes sure to bring his full plague-doctor regalia, just so the people there will know he's always there to protect them from any lurking plagues.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

they all get called pullingo and are kicked out of the city

Pavitr and Bhim Rajeshkumar and Karna Prabhakar.. the spider bros...

[solargeist]

Can we pretty please get a Grian and Xelqua meet-up?? I love how you draw Xelqua and Grian and I just need to see what they would do if they meet......for science of course

wait hold on.. goes crazy .. I don’t have a design for Xelqua, that was just Grian earlier, but…. I think it’d go well

I think Xelqua is his patron, so he’d be excited to meet him !

but I was also playing with the idea that Little Grian here is a reincarnated version of Xelqua, but still looks up to him, prays to him, would want to be picked up and hugged by him, the safety of it. (How can he be reincarnated and still have a form here ? Well the divine can be a bit finicky)

[caeslxys]

Something I think is extremely interesting thematically when it comes to connecting what Downfall and the ideas it tackled to the overarching narrative of campaign three is that the things Downfall made a point to showcase of Aeor—Cassida, Hallis, the visual of an aeormaton proposing to her partner, the specific and intentional decision to shed light on a far from insignificant amount of the population being civilians or refugees—is that it plays in perfect parallel across from what is happening (and, really, has been happening) to the ruidusborn on Exandria in present.

Bear with me for a moment. Aeor is ultimately a city that was collectively punished for the decisions of its leadership. We could (and, judging by the amount of discourse around this particular topic already, probably will) argue about what the Gods’ motivation for all of this was—whether it be that they could not, in the end, bear to kill their siblings or that they were terrified at the prospect of mortality—for me it is a very healthy dose of both—but for this I am much more interested in the latter. They were scared. That, really, is the driving force behind both this arc and their role in c3 as a whole.

Why I point this out is: It is far more interesting to me, especially as we go back to Bells Hells this week, to dissect the Gods and their decisions not purely on sympathetic motivation alone but as beings in the highest seat of power in the highest social class in Exandria.

So, having established that the Gods (in relation to mortals) are more a higher social class than anything we could compare to our real life understanding of divinity and that Aeor was eviscerated largely because of their fear—what is the difference between those innocents in Aeor caught in the trappings of their autocratic government leadership and a divine war on the ground, and those of the ruidusborn being manipulated both by Ludinus and by the very thing that inspired such visceral fear in the Gods to start with. I would argue very little.

I think of Cassida, doing what she genuinely thought was right and good and would save people, her son, and the object of her worship—and how that did not matter enough to any of them to spare her because of the fear they held at the very concept of mortality. I think of Liliana and Imogen, one of which we know begged for the gods to help her or send her a sign for years on years, and how every single one of their largest struggles could have been avoided had the gods loved them, their supposed children, as much as they feared what they could be. I think of how the thing that did save Imogen, in the end, was a woman who herself existed in direct defiance of the gods will. I think of that young boy, sixteen years old, that Laudna exalted on Ruidus.

I think it’s completely fair to judge Aeor’s overall society as deeply corrupt—it was!—but its leadership and police force are not a reflection of every one of its citizens. Similarly, it is fair to judge the Ruby Vanguard as corrupt—it is!—but its multiple heads of leadership and even the god-eater further are not a reflection of every one of its members.

Notably, and what I think the Hells will latch onto, this did not matter to the Gods. It did not matter that Cassida was trying to help. She was still too much of a risk. Will it matter, what Imogen does? Will it matter, if that young boy is in the blast radius when they decide to take no further chances?

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Hells will side with the gods and I don’t think I agree. Especially as Imogen has been scolded and villainized over and over for daring to try and save her mother—who herself has been seen by some as an irredeemable evil in spite of her drive being the exact same—her family—but when it’s the Gods it’s justified? When it’s the Gods, it’s sympathetic? Too sympathetic to criticize further than “they’re family”?

I obviously do not think the Gods should die or be eaten or what have you, and I certainly don’t agree with Ludinus (though I find him much more compelling than just a variation of hubris wizard), but when talking about the Gods in Aeor and in present it isn’t really at all about their motivation or their family. It can’t be. Too many people, including our active protagonists, lives have been effected for it to be as cut and dry as “they’re family”. These are your children. They are your family, too.

[virsancte]

if we have to be alone, why not be alone together? ( .. ♪ )

[blue-likethebird]

The explanation for why totk’s story is so Not Great and how disconnected from its predecessor it feels being that the devs didn’t want to alienate new players who didn’t know anything about botw’s story just falls apart the more I think about it. Nothing from this stupid half a plot works unless the player is familiar with specific details from the better games that came before it.

The believability of Link and Zelda’s connection to each other hinges on you knowing about the nuance of their relationship in botw. The ancient sages fighting with the champions’ arms and divine beast helms will only be impactful to botw/aoc players because totk doesn’t bother to explain the significance of that callback at all. Fi’s cameo is meaningless unless you either got every memory in botw or finished the master trial dlc (and know about her from skyward sword). You’ll only get the full context of Teba being sidelined in favour of a 12-year old if you played a specific chapter of Age of Calamity’s second DLC. Like sorry but I think Nintendo just made a bad story tbh

[thesarosperiod]

epic poem smackdown! tell me which epic is your favorite (and why! if you feel so inclined). apologies in advance to everyone whose favorite i left off but unfortunately tumblr is stifling my power with this ten option limit

[whos-hotter-jjba]

The Results are In: The Top 10 Hottest JoJo Characters

As chosen by you! (characters in places 5-10 ordered by the amount of votes they got in their last rounds)

Number 10: Hot Pants (Steel Ball Run)

Number 9: Caesar Zeppeli (Battle Tendency)

Number 8: Leone Abbacchio (Vento Aureo)

Number 7: Dio Brando (Phantom Blood, Stardust Crusaders, Stone Ocean)

Number 6: Ermes Costello (Stone Ocean)

Number 5: Joseph Joestar (Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders)

Number 4: Bruno Bucciarati (Vento Aureo)

Number 3: Kars (Battle Tendency)

Number 2: Gyro Zeppeli (Steel Ball Run)

And officially the Hottest JoJo Character:

Jolyne Cujoh (Stone Ocean)!

Congratulations to all the characters, and thank you for voting, everyone!! Hope you enjoyed this bracket as much as I did <3

[gruesome-beauty]

julien baker @ the hollywood bowl

[beedreamscape]

As per the announcement

º The story will be set 100 years INTO the Calamity.

º The PCs will be six "divine figures" and the role they played in the downfall of Aeor

º The story has been stored in the Downfall relic

[zukosdualdao]

the moon will sing a song for me (i loved you like the sun)

zutara month, day seven: divine intervention, @zutaramonth.

summary: when zuko takes the lightning aimed for katara, it takes a little more than her usual healing to get him back from the brink. feat. yue's words of encouragement and empowering influence on katara, medically necessary bloodbending, and a zuko who is too out of it to understand much of what is going on, but that's okay. katara has him.

content warnings: general references to violence and wounds, nothing more explicit than the show.

notes: title is from "the moon will sing" by the crane wives. yes i do too many lyric titles. no i will not stop <3. idk when sozin's comet officially ended but for fic purposes we are imagining the timing makes sense for the moon to be out after the agni kai. two pieces of dialogue were taken from the show.

Zuko groans as he's being turned over. His bones feel like liquid, his skin set alight, his heart like a crater in his chest.

Katara, he thinks, he tries to say, he doesn't know.

Katara looks at him with a worried expression, her lips turned in a frown, her eyes wide with fear and sadness as she presses a watery hand to his crumpled, prone form.

She is worried but alive. She is alive, and if she is here, then she must have defeated Azula.

Katara is alive. That is what counts. This was his destiny, then. To save her.

It wasn't a bad note to end on.

Zuko closes his eyes. There's a hammering thud in his chest. He is so tired. Normally, he'd associate the feel of it with exertion, or else desperation, and he would feel frantic. But he is so tired. He has been so tired.

"No," he thinks he hears Katara say. It sounds like she's underwater, or perhaps he is. "No, Zuko, don't you dare."

He struggles to open his eyes again because he doesn't want her to sound so angry with him and doesn't want her to be sad. It only feels like a moment has passed, or maybe it has been hours.

She is looking up. Pale, yellow light shadows her.

Katara is speaking with the moon.

The moon is also a girl.

Someone told him a story like that once.

A spirit, he thinks a little redundantly, with white tresses of hair and a glowy form and a gentle smile. The moon spirit?

Zuko jerks, a spasm of his body as he lights up again with the pain, and Katara looks back to him, alarmed.

"—but you know another way," the moon-girl insists softly to Katara, whom Zuko looks at as her mouth sets in a thin, determined line. Unless he's imagining it all, which is possible. "And I am here with you now."

After a moment's hesitation, Katara nods and sets her left, water-encased hand against his chest again and raises her other in a motion he faintly recognizes.

"This is going to hurt," she says warningly, sadly. "But it will help. I think. It has to." She shakes her head, torn.

Zuko doesn't know what's going on, but if Katara says it will help, that's all that really matters.

"I trust you," he slurs. Is that him? Does he sound like that?

Katara blinks. Zuko watches tears slip from her cheeks.

And then, it starts. She did not lie about it hurting. Despite himself, Zuko feels his body rising from the ground in pain and panic, and Katara has to keep him pressed down. His blood is boiling, his chest swelling. This must be what dying feels like. But then, he's pretty sure he was dying before. He supposes it's a process.

"—sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry—" Zuko makes out the words, faint in his ears, though Katara sobs them out.

Eventually, though, the beat of his heart evens. His blood begins to simmer down. The pain melts.

He watches as Katara pulls back, resting on her knees. The moon-girl smiles down on them before fading back into being just the moon, high in their war-torn sky again.

Nothing that just happened makes any sense, Zuko decides dazedly. But it was Katara who saved him, and that made all the sense in the world.

"Thank you, Katara," he rasps, looking up at her through heavy eyes. Looking at her made everything in the world seem alright again.

She looks down at him with a soft expression and a watery smile.

"I think I'm the one who should be thanking you."