#but it is the boy playing with it!

[ffxivtribehydrae]

#2 Bark

For FFxIvWrite2023 Characters: Zo'tall

Tranquil stream to raging sea.

Waves battered the rough hull of the ship, fragments split away to be forever lost to the depths, forgotten. What would be lost did not matter; the wood was already destined for demise. A fate accepted. But existence was not a meaningless one; a greater purpose served the vessel up until its time was to come.

It had to stay afloat, for the sake of a young life and its mission to bring but a brief moment of joy and happiness. It was so much more than what any insignificant piece of bark could ever imagine their journey to be like.

With a twig and leaf sail the miniature ship was a proud construct.

With every rock and branch found in the river a great challenge to overcome.

With the youth running along the shore chanting the story unfolding, a life was created.

It fought, it persisted, and it made its creator proud with the distance it sailed. Until a waterfall saw the ship fall to its eventual demise. Currents ripping away the once magnificent sail, strong mast crushed against rocks, the once proud ship was reduced to its true self. Piece of bark all it was, now lodged at the bottom of the pretended sea. Here it would rot, pieces be washed away by the flows of the elements, join the endless cycle of Etheirys, and eventually be gone.

Did the child cry over the end of the story? Did it fulfill its purpose to bring a smile to their face? Never would it know, embracing the return to its purposeless existence…

Or so it thought. As the hand of the creator grabbed hold of the piece of bark, brushing away the gravel and debris, it was once more raised high, purpose yet not completed.

The child’s eyes were bright with pride, smiling with his entire being. He’d tell everyone about the journey, how the perfectly shaped bark had been ideal for the task. A new mast and a new sail were needed; maybe even a gift of a crew! Perhaps a race for glory, or the attack of a beast, or a peaceful fishing tour laid in the bark’s future.

Ah, to become a loved toy by a child was the greatest gift in the world, to something so insignificant.

[taffywabbit]

they should invent a new type of "staying in bed for 2-3 hours after you wake up repeatedly opening and closing apps on your phone" where it makes you feel awesome and energized and emotionally fulfilled

[heavensickness]

[theanxiousbookdevourer]

A Collection of My Favorite Parenthetical Asides in Disco Elysium:

[p3stie]

been playing disco elysium

[goryhorroor]

“horror movies of the 1980s exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally catch up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. technical advances in special effects (animatronics, liquid and foam latex) meant the human frame could be distorted to grotesque new dimensions on screen. 1980s horror movies delivered the full colour close-up, look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous practitioners of the art could only dream about. everything lurking in the shadows in older horror movies was now dragged into the garish light of day. the monsters were finally out of the closet.”

[godhurts]

How am I supposed to stop when you're making such pretty whimpers, baby? It's only your fault for acting like a prey animal and making me go feral for you. Now you have to bear the consequences of being so vulnerable and cute around me

[egophiliac]

he did it! 🐍 and it only took...uhhh...well, there probably could've been less punches, but why hold back!

PUNCHES FOR EVERYONE

[draculings]

an incredibly sensitive instrument.

[trannydykes]

twitter rly think butch means "looks like a trucker but has tits" like "tank top, short hair, cargo shorts, and muscles"

like do they know butches can be formal? that butches can be scrawny? or that maybe butches can be nerdy?? AND MAYBE BUTCHES CAN HAVE LONG HAIR?!??!!

like not all butches are macho grease monkeys some butches are dorky academics, some are gamers, some are just guys that dont define their style by their hobbies

[charlietheepicwriter7]

Despite Danny's best efforts, no matter how much time past, Amity Park refused to see Phantom as a hero.

Sure, there were pockets of support, particularly among teens, but most of the town blames Phantom for the property damage, saying if he didn't fight the ghosts then it wouldn't be so bad, to that time he got mind controlled by Freakshow and "attacked" the mayor. It wears him down. It wears Tucker and Sam down. Jazz can only try to support them all.

Then one day, a member of the Justice League visits. Someone minor, and kinda a jerk... maybe a Wonder Twin? Zan? Whatever. They don't investigate; they don't look deeper. They listen to the town folks and declare the ghost hunters, Red Huntress and the Fentons, to be the official heroes of the town.

Worse? Danny Phantom is officially considered a villain to the Justice League. Tuck hacks into the Watchtower and confirms that they have a file (a heavily inaccurate file) about how to defeat Phantom.

Danny doesn't think he can do this anymore.

A few weeks later, a young villain escapes into Amity and demands (begs) that Danny help them escape from the hero after them. No idea who, I can't find a lot of info on teen villains in DC, so let's fudge some ages and make it Kyd Wyckyd from the Teen Titans cartoon. Danny agrees, because to hell with the Justice Losers, and they defeat the hero, becoming friends in the process. Kyd confesses that they became a villain after being ostracized bc of how they look, and they've been trying to avoid villain organizations because HIVE was abusive, but it's really hard to be a villain alone bc of all the heroes.

Sam gets an idea. Tucker agrees with the idea. Jazz is just happy they'll end up making friends.

The next day, the Teen Villain Alliance is formed, ready to assist with any teenage illegal shenanigans their allies might get into.

Some notes:

It's created to be a healthier option for teen "villains" to connect with others and support each other.

It's more important that this is for Teens rather than Villains. They're tired of adult villains taking advantage of them. The TVA would rather ally with a teen vigilante than with an adult villain.

Again, no idea who the teen villains are, but Klarion is definitely here. He leaves the Light for the chaos of the TVA. Maybe Ember is there too?

Timeline wise, this is around when Tim is still Robin, but Damien has arrived at Wayne Manor.

This is because, when it comes time to try to infiltrate the TVA, they'll have a convenient child-assassin who has none of the monitors of a teen hero that Phantom immediately picks up on.

Damien, who at this point has been abandoned by his mother, dismissed and scolded by his father, and has had no success at carving his own place in the family, jumps at the chance. He is then surrounded by peers who don't insult him or try to change his behavior (too much; jazz is trying to help him find healthier methods of expressing himself). He... might not want to continue being a spy.

Danny, Sam, Tuck, and Jazz are the founding members.

Danny reinvents himself as the High Prince of the Infinite, Prince Phantom Dark. He got kingship from fighting Pariah Dark, but since he's still alive, he's only a prince. He steals the last name Dark as an intimidation tatic against those in the know; only Danny would have the balls to claim family with Pariah.

Sam works as a powerless villain, but she might no be powerless? Either way, Danny gives her a bunch of repurposed Fenton tech, and she buys the rest with her parents credit card. She does NOT care if that's traced back to the Mansons. She would choose something goth, maybe something spider related or even bat?

I love Pharaoh Tucker, so I think he should get magic powers? Since pharaohs of old were considered the balance between the real and the divine. He's still a tech guy, now he's a tech and magic guy.

Jazz isn't really a villain, more of a team mom who's planning on using everyone's psyche's as her thesis paper. You know what, that's her callsign, she's Psyche. Sometimes she flirts with Nightwing.

[mearchy]

The best fics are the ones that recognize that although Luke Skywalker may APPEAR on the outside to be a normal friendly twink who happens to have cool powers, especially when contrasted with such ship partners as Boba or Din or even Han, he is arguably the scariest person alive in the galaxy around the prequel era. AND, crucially, he is also a fundamentally weird guy. This man was homeschooled on a rural farm his entire life and then apprenticed to a swamp gremlin who showed him how to tap into the cosmic power of the universe. He blew up the death star age 19, killing approx 2 million-ish Imperials. He is a vortex of Force power that can communicate with the ghosts of dead Jedi. He’s staring into the distance and mumbling to himself and doing Yoda aphorisms and casually pulling out the “yeah I could crush that guy into a paste with my mind (:” and nobody around him knows what to do with that. I think he is a character who has very little frame of reference for how a Jedi or a person in general is supposed to act and there is some thing about him that is by necessity really fucking weird and a little scary but he’s so nice that it can throw you off the scent a little bit. Thanks for coming to my TED talk

[dat-soldier]

how knife of him 🔪

[chaoticpuppie]

I love being told what to do,

Tell me how to masturbate, how to touch myself, how to slide my fingers in, and to lick them clean after. Tell me to hump my pillow,

I love being told to do what you want me to

[reunitedinterlude]

it's all about confidence