#because I'm hooked

[salamispots]

it got turned into a 17" x14" pillow instead haha

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[rosemarytrash]

this is so needlessly chaotic but so is act 4 so really if you think about it i'm imbibing the spirit of it all into a lot of gaussian blurring

[kurai-kurairin]

I don't think some of you understand that pre-Canto DonQui is still Sancho. That's literally Sancho. No she didn't get her Father's memories that's literally just Sancho!!!

Rocinante doesn't do anything other than suppress her bloodfiend traits. The reason she thinks her name is Don Quixote is because Rocinante was made by Papa Quixote so it had his title on it!! She forgot her name because she was too obsessed with all the fixer stuff in the lighthouse that she didn't even remember what her name is like ajsksnykaIT MAKES ME ILL SHE'S SUCH A NERD I LOVE HER

Anyways. She forgot her memories because of the river. That's it. Full Stop point blank. I think some of the river's essence might be on Rocinante so that's how the WARP Train shenanigans happened, or maybe Sancho associated her "Sancho" identity with being a bloodfiend so much that she let Rocinante suppress that side of her too. Idk man it's a plot hole but that's how I would explain it.

"Don Quixote" is just the purest form of Sancho and her autism special interest hyperfixation love for fixers and the dreams and ideals of justice. That is the purest essence of who she is, untainted by the cynicism her past and trauma has given her, and free to express her true feelings. It is still Sancho, Don Quixote is Sancho. She is not erasing herself to be replaced by another identity, she is simply embracing that childish, innocent form that was lost to time while carrying on with the shared dream her and her father has.

Thank you for reading my very short ted talk. Have a good day.

[sergle]

remembering waking up post-op after my breast reduction is SO FUNNY because it's such a wild thing to have a Fond Memory of. but I distinctly remember croaking "hell yessss" to my surgeon after he told me I was done and everything went great.

[duckprintspress]

Given how common it is for book posts that say "just give me the book blurb! stop with all the other things!" to get tens of thousands of notes, I feel the need to say, as a tiny micro-publisher: if only sharing the book blurb sold books, trust me, we wouldn't be wasting our time with all the other shenanigans.

But just sharing the blurb doesn't work. Most people scroll right by.

And so we try every single method we can think of, including sharing the blurb among them, to try to get whatever eyes we can on the book.

Of course the description of the story is the best way to sell the book and get people interested, but it only works if y'all actually read it. And getting most people to the point where they'll read anything that isn't already immediately and actively part of their existing interests is fucking hard, so we use splashy graphics and short hand to try to hook people, and then hope that when they read the blurb, that hook will go from "oh, that's worth a glance" to "oh, that's worth a buy."

Also: just because the exact post you saw promoting a book didn't include the blurb doesn't mean other posts about the book don't!

Sorry. I just have seen so much of that recently (and not just because of that poll about "what convinces you to buy," I actually found that whole poll extremely interesting and informative) that I'm kinda losing patience with it.

Just posting the blurb doesn't work.

Signed, someone who sells books for a living, or at least tries to.

[smokingcitrus]

THE REST OF THE SAMPLES CAME AHHHH 😭😭😭 they're so cute...

[salamispots]

working on a smaller guy here and there ('m also pleased with how the sky is more galaxy-feeling then just dark tones compared to other backgrounds I've done)

[jennifersminds]

A one time thing,

[saxandviolins77]

[dailypokemoncrochet]

Oh if only you could hold it in your hand and really see how automaton-y it is! The body is like a yoyo shape with a yellow gap/indent separating the two distinct front and back plates that are connected with a few thin flaps, and the limbs are connected in the sockets. Hard to explain. Also the feet and legs have protruding bits like stacked stones. The effect is very subtle and cool in person.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

So, I started watching Link Click...

[feroluce]

Me: I wonder what Hook calls Sampo in the Japanese dub? Probably oji-san, since it's shushu in the original Chinese?

Hook: Sampo-ojichan!!

Oji is "uncle," which is hilarious because Hook calls Natasha by "older sister" when she wants something. So Hook either just really wants to get on Natasha's good side, or she takes Sampo at face value when he refers to himself as an old man. She trusts him a lot and takes him at his word and she calls him as such!

And Sampo calls Hook either ojou-san or oujo-san (I can't find the Japanese sub to see the spelling, and I can't tell them apart by ear)!

One spelling, oujo, means "princess," it's how you would refer to royalty. The other, ojou, (which I assume is what he's actually saying) is something you call the young lady of a high-class family with a high social standing. In Genshin Impact, the intro scene for a popular ship, chilumi, shows Childe calling Lumine ojou-chan, which the English dub translated as "girlie." Since Sampo uses -san instead of -chan, his is more formal and respectful, it's more like "young lady."

...It's also how you would refer to the daughter of a yakuza leader, which I love, since Hook leads her own little gang (the Moles) skzhkskdkd

But it really gets me in the heart, because! Hook is generally looked at as a delinquent by most adults. Which I mean. Not without good reason, she

calls Natasha an old witch

frequently sneaks out into the Fragmentum

has left graffiti all over the side of the orphanage

was constantly picking fights with other kids

beat a man unconscious for stealing from her dad

and has already picked up on how business gets done in the Underworld, and uses/actively participates in it to get what she wants- she basically acts an information broker

like Hook earns her reputation haha. The Underground is lucky that what Hook wants is just like. Candy and toys and to play hide-and-seek. I'm sure she'll have the capability to raise all kinds of hell and be more like an actual gang leader when she's older, even if she chooses not to act on it.

So Sampo calling her so politely and respectfully is really sweet and cute! Yes, he's polite and respectful with everyone, but that's just it- he treats Hook much like he does everyone else. He doesn't tell her to buzz off because she's a kid. He doesn't lie or try to cheat her or assume she's naive because of her age. He never talks down to her. He really does just treat her like a respected business partner and he takes her seriously, which Hook really seems to appreciate. And even when Sampo does treat her like a kid, it's not in a negative way; he guides her on little adventures and chats with her and takes her for joy rides on his moped. All of which Hook also really appreciates, since everyone else is too busy trying to get by to make time to play with her. She absolutely adores him.

I hope they officially join forces someday and terrorize all of Belobog with their shenanigans JSKJZNDKSJ

So Hook calls Sampo "Uncle Sampo" in a particularly affectionate/endeared tone, and Sampo calls Hook "Young Miss Hook" in a very respectful tone! And to reiterate:

[timetravelingsherlockian]

I've seen mixed reports. So based on your knowledge....

Where "confirmed" means a) explicit in the text, b) an average straight viewer would notice.

Please reblog for sample size.

[transingthoseformers]

One of my absolute favorite Opmeg mechpreg tropes is the idea that because Megs is so stupidly big and bulky and Optimus was sparked as a smaller civilian frame first before the primacy stuff, megs just, doesn’t know he’s pregnant. Like 100% doesn’t know until he’s either in emergence or at a doctors appt and they find it while seeing an unrelated issue and he’s like third trimester, that little bit of weight he noticed? That’s his tiny ass full belly bump. It’s so funny to me, especially when Optimus realizes his been fighting a PREGNANT megatron who’s been CARRYING THEIR SPARKING FOR MONTHS. Primus help them both.

SGSSGSDGGDGF

IM JUST IMAGINING THE CLOSEST MEDIC'S FACE DURING ALL OF THIS

You're absolutely right though

I'm just imagining that Megatron keeps coming up with incorrect explanations for all the symptoms he's experiencing the entire time

And the war is still going on during all this too? Damn