#and is very acidic

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

hero/villain showdown but one of them has a spontaneous medical emergency and the battle gets put on hold while their archnemesis drives them to Urgent Care

[akanemnon]

Bad time for custody battles

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[sunlit-mess]

doodles bc im gonna lose my mind in research

[kooldewd123]

to me the bit of the journey that was most fucked was finding out marco had fucking rabies. like he was already experiencing symptoms if he hadn't morphed he would have just continued to have rabies and all that entails. they end up in life or death situations all the time but it's usually as a direct result of fighting aliens. but anyone could have been bitten by that dog, it just happened to be someone who could turn into a bug and stop having rabies

"marco gets rabies" is absolutely one of the wildest things to come out of the series, and that's saying a lot. it's one of those things that feels like it should be brought up more in fandom discussion than it does, but it's unfortunately stuck in the literal final page of an already insane book in the middle of one of the more overlooked stretches of the series. i do think it's always super fun when some normal earth thing unrelated to the yeerks turns into a big threat (them getting caught in the crossfire of a drug bust in 27 or tobias dealing with a broken wing in mm2 come to mind).

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

Bayverse Crosshairs

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

cytherea the first will drive me absolutely fucking bonkers if i let her. like, she knows that the cavalier system is fucked up. she knows that. but she's so willing to participate in it. she cradles gideon's head and pets her hair and tells her how awful it is that harrow is taking advantage of her, meanwile, they're performing a trial that cytherea asked them to do.

all of her compliments for gideon feed into the cavalier dynamic. gideon is strong, useful, helpful, marvelous, a thing apart, and cytherea wonders if harrow even knows what she has in her. she is never anything self-contained. she is a damn good cavalier, and even when cytherea pities her, even when she aches for her, even when she's angry on her behalf, she can never seem to find anything else to say about her.

and, see, the problem with cytherea is that she views herself that way, too. even knowing how toxic and unfair it is, ten thousand years can form a hell of a habit. she says herself, "i am a necromancer and i am a cavalier," and something about the way she interacts with john and the others tells me she's not just talking about loveday.

john says it himself. cytherea was the best of them. the kindest, the most willing, the most humane, overworked and underloved, and none of them noticed. the man she served and loved and worshipped as a god for ten thousand years didn't even notice that he was wearing her into the ground until it was too late to stop. and would he have stopped? i doubt it.

cytherea was sick. she was genuinely exhausted and physically weak and in pain all the time, forever, constantly, and that's how they talk about her. so yeah, no wonder she had a warped view of personal value and duty. that's how she was treated for ten thousand years. that's how she thought of herself. be kind, be helpful, be unbothered, be willing, be pleasant, be useful, be active, be happy, be strong, be strong, be strong.

is it any fucking wonder she snapped?

[lavender-phoenix-flames]

If all Wens were actually evil, Jiang Cheng would have been dead.

[twisted-wonderland-but-gayer]

There's probably discrimination between fresh and saltwater merfolk, maybe between different depths of the sea too

I can imagine there's a rule of

If you blink and see a merfolk swimming towards you looking for a bite, that's a seafolk.

If you blink and you see a mer that wasn't there before, that's a freshwater folk.

If you blink and wake up in heaven, it was a swampfolk

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

There is something so captivating and sorrowful about the Dynasty lore book that I honestly think makes it one of my most cherished lore books.

My Witness project is being discussed in a few days (my stomach just dissolved itself at that thought what) and for this project, I’ve collected thoughts on how species that use the darkness to form their spiritual beliefs (Psions and Qugu specifically) have similarities to spiritual beliefs often found in the Caribbean and in South America (with discussions over matters like spiritual substance use with ayahuasca (Qugu), ancestral veneration and communication from Western African practices (Both), and the suppression of panentheistic/pantheistic and harmonizing thought (Psion)). The Qugu have been such a comfort to me for a while now and whenever I think about their fate in Dynasty, I am filled with such a sense of anguish and mourning.

The unfolding of the events in the lore book is just plain devastating to read; seeing Te’Qal’s absolute best efforts to save their people not be enough to stop the Hive and the Witness speaks on something I think is underdeveloped in Destiny.

We hear so much about the annihilation of countless star systems at the hands of the Hive and Black Fleets, but often, due to the information coming from beings who lead those fleets or people reflecting back on their escape, the sheer scope and emotional impact of these losses is not captured in a way that is truthful to the matter.

Dynasty’s narrative following Te’Qal and the Qugu people changes this trend and it makes the extermination of the Qugu people all that more impactful.

It starts off with familiarizing readers with how the Qugu came to be; how they developed their spiritual beliefs and their way of life. It’s delicious world building (which I always love from Destiny writers), but it also establishes just how much will be ripped away and snuffed out by Savathûn, Oryx, and the Witness.

Te’Qal is a competent, determined Warden who vows to do nothing but their best to defend Seht, both before and after they understood their vision of the fall of the Qugu. They were well trained and the various descriptions of their armada’s defenses provides evidence of them being a masterful tactician. In fact, Dynasty even admits that on the basis of skill, the Qugu were beyond the Hive, who were winning off of their brute force and numbers (“When evenly matched in numbers, Te'Qal's superior tactics pick the Hive forces apart” - Dynasty)

Te’Qal is relentless in their desire to preserve their people, their beliefs, their home. They sacrifice their well-being to offer hope to the Qugu people during a hopeless time, pushing their body and mind beyond its limits to keep themselves alert enough to lead ark ships and give speeches to bolster morale.

Te’Qal did everything they could and it wasn’t enough and I don’t think there is anything more devastating than that.

To have hope against intentionally-made hopeless, only for it to not be enough to save your people?

What a defeating, soul crushing, utter helpless feeling.

Destiny tells us that hope is worth having and it will lead to you defeating impossible odds, but as shown in Dynasty, hope is also a tireless thing that sometimes doesn’t pay off fast enough to save everyone.

Te’Qal’s determination to not just give into the Black Fleet and the Hive, their determination to let their hope go out loudly instead of fizzling into nothing, lead to them destroying a pyramid with their final stand and thwarting countless hive vessels that were in their star system.

Their final stand left a mark on the universe and set the Hive and Witness back, even if it was momentarily, but that still wasn’t enough to save their people.

However, I think the cruelest part of it all is how the Hive and the Witness refer to the extinguishing of the Qugu; how everything Te’Qal held dear and fought til the very end for was meaningless to them.

Oryx, in the Book of Sorrows, speaks of the Qugu in such a disgusting way, completely minimizing them as sentient beings and acting as if ridding them from existence was a noble act of “liberation”.

“Savathûn and her broods have liberated the Qugu from jaw-beasts, and indeed from existence…I know more joy and more anguish than the entire Qugu race could ever experience… Joy that we have put down these blights. Scoured them away and left the universe clean, ready to move towards its final shape. “ - Oryx, Verse 3:3, “Fire Without Fuel”, Book of Sorrows

Part of his view of the Qugu as lesser is their veneration of Jaw Beasts and their ability to receive visions, saying “For millions of years of evolution the Qugu have been infected by a virus so insidious that it wrote itself into their genome…They venerate these beasts and treat them as gods”.

He says the relationship between the Qugu and Jaw Beast is “insidious” and there is a tone of condescension when talking of their spirituality. Oryx sees Qugu spirituality as a blight and burden, but if it truly was so, then the Qugu wouldn’t have spent so much effort in preserving the land around their “mountain” for their ark ships. To the Qugu, there could be no new home for them unless their beliefs came with them.

The ancestral visions Te’Qal receives are so heart wrenching and beautiful, and when they are at their lowest, when all efforts seemed futile, they wanted nothing more than to drink the nectar and receive those visions. They speak to their Te’Dura for support and it is by remembering all who came before them as well as their capabilities that Te’Qal finds the strength to prove that the Qugu not only existed, but existed proudly ("Not because you forget, but because you have been hopeless before." Te'Dura rears into a taller posture. "There is victory in that darkness. A kind. Find it." - Dynasty)

The Qugu and their belief in the power of the darkness were intertwined, making it a key part of their identity. It gave them meaning, it guided them to become more than what they could be alone, and yet, in the eyes of the Witness, it didn’t mean anything at all compared to its belief in the Final Shape.

“Far distant, there is a people lacing ribbons of Darkness through their thoughts to bring them closer together, that no one might be divided from the purpose they have dreamed for themselves. But they have not come to Darkness through the Gardener's neglect — it is simply their natural course. In time, we shall enfold them into our shape, but they need not urgent salvation…Some resist the rampaging Hive, crying out into the Darkness. It is to us they reach, in the end. We hear their pleas and grant them succor, salvation, enshrining them in our monument. Toward our inevitable final shape.” - The Witness, “Cacophony, Euphony.”, Destiny Grimoire Anthology, Vol. VII: Penumbra

“The purpose they have dreamed for themselves” was not a respectable purpose to the Witness for it wasn’t the purpose it wanted to enact upon them. The Qugu are not specifically mentioned, but they fit the description of the darkness species mentioned.

The Witness saw the “waywardness” of the Qugu as a problem to be solved, something that had to be corrected to give them a proper place in their vision for the universe, and though the Qugu never asked for anything more than safety and the ability to keep their connection to their ancestral lines, the Witness forcefully responded by sweeping up every memory of the Qugu people into an echo, extinguishing them and turning a cacophony of expression into a euphony it found fitting.

It was never once mentioned that the Qugu ever knew about the light or Traveler, yet they were still treated to ruinous assault for the crime of crafting their own meaning out of a power granted by the Witness’ pyramid; a pyramid they had revered as a mountain and watched turn on them in their moment of need.

Even when Te’Qal and all the ancestors they drew power from showed that they wouldn’t let their sacred mountain become a cursed pyramid without a fight and that they were willing to do the ultimate sacrifice to refute the corruption of what they exalted, the Witness still forced them to accept it’s “salvation”.

That is cruelty beyond imagination and no justification the Witness could ever offer or belief in its righteousness would erase what it did to the Qugu.

The Art of Symbiosis entry from the Inspiral lore book is one I have read again and again and again. To be completely vulnerable, it is an entry that has elevated me from the depths of gripping grief time and time again. I actually have the entry printed so that I may reach over and read it when I need my resolve strengthened.

It’s a bit strange to feel this way towards an entry, I know, but The Art of Symbiosis and it’s Qugu narrator offered assurance to me that the beliefs I held that gave me meaning, that allowed me to move on from scorning a universe I didn’t truly believe in, weren’t as “meaningless” and “distant from the truth” as others made me think.

The way the Qugu speak of those who have passed is just so consoling and it reminds me that the person I’m doing this project for mattered as much in death as they did in life. They may be no more, but I still am, and there is meaning in wanting to create an impact on a finite world that will show that people like them existed, and that existence mattered. There is meaning in being perfectly fine with a finite existence because you don’t need your lost loved ones to be eternal and “perfected” to matter to you.

I don’t want people to think of people like them the way Oryx and the Witness thought of the Qugu. I’ll do everything I can to ensure it isn’t that way and I thank the writers for giving the Qugu a voice beyond the one in the Book of Sorrows years ago to remind me of why I feel so strongly towards this matter.

I’m doing this project for them like Te’Qal did it for Seht, and though my efforts and hope may not win now, I hold onto the idea that this tirelessness will help those who come after me win in ways my lost loved one couldn’t have imagined.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

So mimic Stan can eat other things

Is eating human beings a need, a want or just like something he can't help? Either way good for him.

To be honest none of the mimics are supposed to eat humans in the first place. It's not a thing "in their nature" or coded into their evolutionary DNA. They've existed for A WHILE (like most anomalies) and initially, they were more into infiltrating groups of wild animals like a pack of wolves or wild horses or something.

However, since over the last few millenia humans have become such a hot commodity easy to find EVERYWHERE, the mimics as a species just adapted to our presence (and also because humans posed as an predatory adversary since we kept domesticating the animals making it more difficult to blend in, AND hunting their food sources down.) They decided "eh, humans are basically the same as animals, right? Meat is meat and they're stupid enough to believe our disguises." So in went humans in their long list of "things mimics can eat".

So yeah, I suppose it is sort of a need to eat humans, but only through necessity and efficiency. It's not more of a "want" as plain old hunger is a "want", yaknow?

But like, Stan also just likes eating humans. He doesn't have to go out of his keep his diet mostly human based, but he just does. He likes the way humans taste and squirm when he eats them, he's a bit of a dick like that.

[vatoffakeacid]

What happens when you give me three days to draw whatever I please

[grandtourz]

clips of gohan that make it obvious he does not talk to people his age

[diceverses]

Yesterday I binge read everything with the Martian Stan AU tag and before actually seeing the official Polly Definitely-the-Parrot-Don’t-Argue-with-me-I’m-the-President art, I had an idea of what she could look like so I had to draw it. I thought, what would I, a coddled European urban dweller, consider to be the equivalent of the Nightmare Realm, a vast, distant, barren place filled with incomprehensible horrors? Australia, of course! So I took the official Polly palette and combined some of its most famous creatures into this wonderful abomination.

So, @aroace-get-out-of-my-face and @inkyrainstorms are to blame for this. Could it be another resident of planet Stan, Polly’s more aggressive (and rude) form, or a vivid dream Stan had after eating a wrong kind of space potatoe? Up to you to decide!

[koboldfactory]

how do you let your teeth get that bad, besides wiping your ass and showering its the most basic way of grooming

simple. Years of depression during and after college where I took very poor care of myself. Despite having very good dental hygiene now, the damage was already done and problems just keep stacking up over time

[silverware-is-interesting]

I'm sick rn but hey. i can still draw. with only mild inconvenience!!

i fucked up eucerin a bit but i think it's good for using no ref

here. have some ms pain too