#oops this is long

[majjiktricks]

9 + Venom Snake

9. a missing scene that definitely happened

im SO upset we never get to see venom interacting with the main cast outside of cutscenes. not even a little rpg-style chat menu to talk to your guys… dragon age camp style wouldve been ideal........ theres NO WAY he didnt go to sickbay and visit kaz or quiet while they were in there.

especially when you rescue kaz, because theres absolutely no way there wasnt some kind of timeskip for him to get back into active command of motherbase. that guy was FUCKED UP. heavily wounded with likely-shoddily-dressed severed limbs, probably malnourished and dehydrated, not to mention traumatized and at least partially BLINDED. so there had to have been at least a week (because hes insane and wouldnt have let himself rest longer unless someone forced him to) where v and others were visiting him in the sickbay that the game doesnt show you.

i know thats a really mundane scenario and it kinda makes sense that it was omitted from the game for story and mechanics reasons (since kaz is in charge of mother base and it would be difficult to run without him). but if mgs4 can have those scenes on the nomad where everyones just sitting around getting caught up on mission objectives and hanging out, we couldve gotten even a tiny montage of hospital visits……..

or quiet when shes recovering from the chlorine burns!!!!!!! v is obviously invested in the well-being of his crew, quiet especially, and after the chlorine tank scene with the necklace where he PERSONALLY CARRIES HER TO THE MEDICAL STAFF, she just.. gets booted to sickbay menu and we never hear anything about it again. like. REALLY??? the med team or r&d team have to have treated her somehow even if she would barely let anyone touch her- hell i bet she WOULD let venom do it. she trusts him. he (subconsciously) knows what hes doing with first aid, and anything more complicated he could either be instructed on or convince her to relax just by being there....

it just... if ocelot can bring bb and venom flowers… why cant we bring flowers for kaz or quiet… peel an orange for them or SOMETHING 🥺

[naoamaya]

I know exactly what you mean, that page from neverland really gives me a chill! I tend to prefer manga for the same reason, anime adaptations often feel more flat and I guess it's something that could be improved with bigger budgets but we can't always have that 💔 do you have a series that's your #1 favourite? - your santa 🧑‍🎄 ps. any space fact of the day? ❤️

yes! it does make me feel bad bc i know a lot of the time the animators don't get paid enough ><

one of my all time favourites is tokyo ghoul! (we don't talk about the anime) the manga was one of the first i read all the way through and couldn't put down, and i also really enjoyed the way the story followed up in :re

i might give it a re-read soon, what about your favourite?

and yes!! ofc!!

let's talk about cosmic latte. cosmic latte is the average colour of the universe, which has a hex code of #FFF8E7, this to be more specific:

it was determined by looking at the light emitted from over 200,000 galaxies. while this itself is very interesting (i could go into more detail about what it means and how it will change as the universe ages), what i can never stop thinking about is why they let astronomers and astrophysicists name literally anything. here's a list of the other proposed names:

[pangur-and-grim]

I love how you can use the environment in baldur’s gate.

for instance, I got my ass completely handed to me in a battle, so on my second attempt I piled barrels of gunpowder & wine near where the enemies would run out, and had one of my guys posed with a fire spell to ignite them. and THIS TIME, I triggered a massive explosion on my first turn of combat, instantly killing my entire party.

[flickering-nightfall]

Playing with some ideas mostly regarding gender/reproduction in RW, and slugcat colonies.

Full transcript under the cut!

Creatures in Rain World are typically simultaneous hermaphrodites but require partners to reproduce, with either individual capable of being a genetic donor or carrier. Alongside what we are familiar with, this has lead to interesting reproductive strategies such as rotating donor/carrier roles, or dual/simultaneous genetic swaps.

Rotating donor/carrier roles - A K-selection reproductive strategy. One partner carries the first child, the other partner carries the next child, and so forth. Allows each partner to recover from the demands of childbearing.

Rain Deer aren't quite monogamous, but they tend to choose the same breeding partner whenever mating season rolls around. They serve as a donor one season, then bear and raise a child the next. Calves are raised away from the rain and worm grass, in places that have less food but more safety. Calf wool is softer, not yet gunked up by the dirty rainfall. Their legs are sturdier as children, allowing them to run for cover while the parent wards off threats.

Dual/simultaneous genetic swap - An r-selection reproductive strategy. Parents fulfill the donor and carrier role for each other. The more children you make, the more likely some are to survive!

Multiple batflies lay thousands of eggs in a single "blue fruit." Several eggs congeal and become nutrient paste for the surviving eggs (and for hungry slugcats). Like some plant seeds, batfly eggs that are consumed before pupating can survive passing through the digestive system. Ew.

Ancients also fell under this umbrella. Their genders (and the genders of iterators by extension, who have no sex anyways) could have been determined by a variety of other factors, such as societal role, donor/carrier preference, or simply different categorizations of personal expression.

It's difficult to say how well their common pronouns would translate to ours, but it seems they can translate to an extent, given what Moon and Pebbles use canonically.

Slugcats, like real slugs, can have children with a partner or self-fertilize. Unlike real slugs, they are often known to adopt.

In the case of self-fertilization: children who are born from one parent may display a large amount of genetic diversity despite the circumstances. Maybe slugcats have some sort of... genetic reservoir independent of their own genetic code?

Slugcats live 20-30 years on average... if they manage to reach adulthood. Their mortality rate is sadly rather high, especially in pups. If they were to develop as a civilization, it's likely their lifespan would increase dramatically.

Slugcats in a colony are more likely to have more children, and to successfully rear those children to adulthood, than those who wander alone or in small groups. The safety and stability of a colony cannot be understated.

Colonies either have a set, cycling migration path, or wander continuously. Survivor and Monk's tree home was a nesting site that their colony frequents about once a year. So it's likely that they'll see their family again!

...also, the strength of large colonies are why scavengers are likely to become the dominant species. In the time of Saint's era, continuous migration has become more of a risk, and it has become more difficult to support large populations. Slugcat populations have shrunk back to the more forgiving equatorial zones.

Saint's tongue is pretty unusual and probably unique to them, or to a small population that they hail from. Fur (of varying thickness) is much more common.

Meanwhile, scavengers are bulkier and covered in thicker insulating fur. They:

have seemingly massive populations

have a burgeoning society (the existence of merchants, tolls, bartering, elites and leaders)

are adept at communicating (non-verbally)

manipulate their environment

can build structures (scavenger-made structures were a scrapped idea from Saint's campaign)

can create complex weapons and tools

may have agriculture behind the scenes (unsure if scout parties prioritize exploration or hunting)

I would wager on scavengers developing more quickly than slugcats, but it would be nice if there was a future where both could co-exist.

[funkycloewn]

The aftermath:

The reason why Jax is intimidated by Ragatha lol

Moral of the story: Don't foolishly joke around like that smh

Credit to @sm-baby for the Carnival AU!

[c4tto626]

i'm not arguing with a man in full-body armor. whatever you say beautiful ♥

[applestruda]

Summer, Spring, Autumn, and Winter

(Aka hermit ladys as mucha's four seasons for week 3 of the design challenge)

[woof-squiggles]

nitten adoption day!

(psst, you can fill out an adoption form here)

[lgbtlunaverse]

This page from the adventurer's bible makes me want to cry

Like basically any neurodivergent dungeon meshi fan, I see a lot of myself in the Touden siblings. But I was blindsided by just how much I suddenly related to Falin in this little comic from the adventure bible's complete version.

It's about the Touden siblings' differing relationships with their parents, and why Laios still holds their treatment of Falin against them, while Falin herself doesn't.

We know that Falin was isolated and ostraziced by their village after she saved Laios from a ghost, displaying her uncanny affinity for magic. Her parents, instead of defending her, sent her away, which angered Laios so much he ran way himself before Falin even left for magic school, hoping to make a living so he and Falin could live together alone.

He tells Marcile this, but when she goes to Falin, she says she sees things differently. Her father sent her to magic school to protect her form the rest of the village without having to cause a conflict. He didn't explain that, and we actually see her burst into tears when he says it.

But, well... Laios was gone for a year before Falin went to magic school, and everyone else in the village avoided her. The understanding Falin has with her parents to me looks like one borne out of necessity, she literally didn't have anyone else to talk to.

And this is where we get to the page that made me want to cry

Like I said, I relate to the Toudens because I'm neurodivergent myself. that feeling of suddenly realizing you're disliked, but not knowing what you did wrong or what you should have done instead? Yeah... that's one I recognize.

When I was around 9 years old, the same age Falin is in this comic, a bunch of kids in my class decided to make a "game" where you lost if you touched me. It was basically the 'cheese-touch' from diary of a wimpy kid, except I always had it and couldn't pass it along. They'd pretend I was poisonous or disgusting and run away from me screaming or gagging. The point was to make fun of me. But my autistic little 9 year old ass thought "Oh I get it! It's tag but I'm always it!" So I... played along. Running at a boy and having him fall on the ground screaming in fake pain because you tapped him is, in isolation, pretty funny.

It wasn't until months into the "game" that I realized it was meant to be meanspirited. That the reason I was the one who was always 'it' wasn't an arbritrary rule but the whole point. Because I was weird and gross. I wasn't in on the joke, I was the punchline.

Falin may have come to understand her parents' intentions, but she didn't always. The adventure bible actually tells us that she at first didn't even notice that the rest of their village disliked her. She clearly knows now, but she had to be told. So when her mom tried to exorcise her, she just saw it as an activity she got to do with a mother she usually didn't get to spend much time with because of her poor health. It's only Laios who notices something is wrong.

(Sidenote, Laios being hyper-aware of people's poor attitudes towards Falin but completely blindsided when he's in the same spot, like with Toshiro, is also very relatable as an eldest sibling)

It probably also took Falin months, until after her brother had left and she had no one but her parents, to realize why her mother had been doing all those things.

And I know they're not the same. Even misguidedly, Falin's mom was trying to help her, not make fun of her like those boys in my class. (Though, as a queer person who also cares a lot about the queercoding in Falin's storyline, a parent trying to 'exorcise' their child of a fundamental part of them the parent thinks is evil or corruptive? yeah... that's not perfectly wholesome)

But do you know what I did, when I finally figured out the game was always meant to make fun of me?

To me, it looked like I had a choice.

See, those boys eventually figured out I didn't understand that they were being mean to me. I'd laugh every time I managed to catch one of them, I was visibly having fun. And while it no doubt only made me more of a weirdo in their eyes, they never informed me that I shouldn't be enjoying myself. That the point was for me to feel hurt.

So now that I did know, I had a choice. I could either get upset, and let the insult land as it was supposed to. That wouldn't stop them, because making fun of me was the original goal. Or I could ignore it and go on as usual. They had already accepted that I didn't get it, and they weren't gona stop me from having fun, so why should I?

And the thing is that I had... one friend, in that whole class. One person who actually liked talking to me and hanging out with me. I was lonely. And the 'game' provided me with another social interaction, mean-spirited as it was, that I desperately needed. And it was so delightfully simple. Navigating actual friendships as a kid with autism and adhd was so fucking complicated, and I'd never know when I might break an inivisble rule. But I knew the rules to the game perfectly!

Sometimes, if I was chasing one of them, the others would trap him and hold him down so I could tap him. In those moments it actually did kind of feel like I was playing with them, rather than against them. And it didn't change much, they didnt start actually liking me. But they were willing to roll with the fact that I wasn't upset, and I took advantage of that because I needed to.

So you can look at Falin seeing the best in her parents as her being naïve, but I look at this page and I see myself, at first unable to differentiate between playing and being made fun of. And then later, when I did see the difference, deciding not to get mad about it because that'd mean losing that social interaction, and I couldn't afford to.

Like I said, Falin probably first realized this in the year she spent with her brother gone, and everyone else avoiding her like the plague. If she refused to talk to her parents, like Laios did, she'd have no one left.

I see a lot of people relating to the fight between Laios and Toshiro. that frustration when you realize someone you thougth was your friend actually hates you, and they never said anything, never gave you a chance to fix it because you had no idea that you were even doing something wrong! And I can see that, too. But sometimes, when people don't fully hate you, it feels better to go along with the pretending. Because adressing it won't fix it. Because the problem isn't a specific behaviour, it's you. And if they're willing to tolerate you, despite the fact that it's you, then you'll take it. Because other people do hate you, so this is the best you'll get.

[crimson-rain-smoked-flower]

I’m not trying to attack you, but do you know that proshipper means someone who supports and romanticizes pedophilia, incest, and abuse? Your reblog on that post seems to read that you think antis just hate on people for having ships they don’t like. But it’s completely different than that. Just looking on the proshipper side of Tumblr and the internet and you can see people happily shipping children and adults and making nsfw content of such things.

i appreciate that you're not being outright hostile, but i have to say, that on its own put you above basically every anti i've interacted with.

i understand where antis are coming from, i really do. there are a lot of things on the internet that make me deeply uncomfortable, including the minor/adult ships that you mention. i don't want to anything to do with those kinds of ships and i would be happiest if i never saw them again. which is why i'm proship.

nine times out of ten, if i see that kind of ship brought up on my dash, it's because i was following an anti without realizing it, and they brought it up unprompted and untagged, to talk about how bad it is that they exist. they are the ones putting that kind of content in front of my face and making it harder to avoid.

the thing about people who ship those ships is that they're generally very aware that not everyone wants to see that kind of content, and so they tag it. they make sideblogs to talk about it. they don't go out of their way to shove it in people's faces. that means i, and everyone else who doesn't like it, can avoid it.

what antis want is for it to not exist at all. they want the tags to be purged and blocked, and for anyone who uses those tags to have their accounts deleted. and sure, that might get rid of some of it, but do you know what would happen to the rest? it would stop being tagged. people who don't want to see it wouldn't have the tools to avoid it. this isn't just a hypothetical, that's what's happened any time a fan space has tried to do that.

that's not even getting into the rabbit hole of what should be banned and what shouldn't. obviously any content that depicts real children or real life abuse shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed to be posted, but basically any platform that people use already enforces those policies, and there's not much of a slippery slope to go down there. if it involves real living breathing people being abused, it's bad. end of discussion.

but the same can't be said for fiction. ask ten antis for a specific list of all the content that should be banned, and you'll get ten different answers. what about kink? what about roleplay? what about horror and murder and anything that involves fictional characters being graphically tortured? what about people using art to process terrible things that have happened to them? what about art that uses dark themes as a horror element? if you just want to ban anything questionable to anyone, that's the line of thinking that gets any mention of lgbt existence banned. and again, this isn't just a hypothetical, this has happened before, and that's generally where it leads.

i know, from personal experience, that antis do, in fact, send harassment to people just for shipping things they don't like. i've gotten accused of absolutely vile shit for shipping two fictional characters who were both consenting adults. i've seen ship wars turn into moral battlegrounds, over ships that an average person wouldn't bat an eye at.

the thing about "romanticization" is a whole other can of worms. the anti logic goes like this: if someone sees something (even if it's very obviously fictional) in a positive light enough times, they will start thinking it's okay in real life, and go on to hurt real people. the problem with that is that it's just. blatantly untrue.

if it were true every horror movie fan would be a serial killer, every person that studies dark media would be an unhinged psychopath, and everyone who is into ddlg would be a pedophile. but they're not. they just aren't. people have directed movies just as fucked up as the darkest shit on ao3, and are still capable of being normal human beings who know right from wrong in real life.

even if someone is that impressionable, scrubbing away the existence of every piece of questionable content isn't going to solve their problem, because they're still going to be vulnerable to con men, scams, and cultists. the only thing that would actually materially help someone like that is developing their own morals and critical thinking.

children are also more impressionable, and there's a lot of content that's not suitable for them, but that doesn't mean that content shouldn't exist. it just means that they should stick to spaces designed for them (which most social media sites, tumblr included, are not) or, if they're old enough to be responsible for their experience online, they, or a trusted adult in their lives, should block and filter out things that they aren't comfortable with.

which is what everyone on the internet should be doing. it's what i do, and it's made the internet a much more pleasant place to be. and it's why i sometimes worry for antis mental health, especially teenagers, because they're being told it's right and moral to seek out content that makes them uncomfortable and to engage with the people making it. and that's just. really bad. it's not good for the creators that they're harassing obviously, but it's also really bad for them! it's not healthy to seek out things that make you feel bad, and it's a terrible internet safety lesson to teach minors that it's okay for them to seek out and engage with people making adult content.

individual harassment and crusading is never going to succeed at removing dark content from the internet. it just isn't. at best you might get a small percentage of people who create that content to stop sharing it, at worst you're just going to make people stop tagging it, and either way, you're exposing yourself to things that make you feel bad, when you don't have to.

if you want to materially change the type of content you see, you can. the block button is your friend, use it liberally. same with content filtering and tag blocking.

[gammaraydeath]

it would have been really hard for him, but i think joker should have seen the wreckage too

[pixlokita]

Fam visited and brought new bebe so had to draw glammike and baby Greg to get it out of my system

[rushinintolove]

insp:

[kiwinatorwaffles]

the pushback against the discord mobile update shouldn’t be based upon “if you can get used to it” or not. some people might like it. some people might get used to it faster. but a lot of people won’t. and the point of the pushback is that discord keeps thinking they can change this shit and get away with it.

nobody asked for discord to change its color to a brighter blue. remember that? we all got used to it. but that was one of the first instances of the userbase just tolerating a useless change.

later came the dreaded username change. nobody asked for that. in fact, it caused a fuck ton of trouble. remember the markipkier username situation? yeah. but we all just “got used to it.” i don’t hear anyone talking about it anymore. we moved on, even though it really fucking sucked.

now it’s a complete overhaul of the mobile app that removed pretty much everything people liked about discord in the first place. removing the right swipe to see members and pins just made everything clunky and slow. the swipe to reply they replaced it with doesn’t even work all the time. the nice and cozy gray is now colder and darker, which would be fine, but there’s literally a midnight mode that they just released out of beta after 7 years. (edit: i actually used the app for a little more and realized just how fucking hard it was to read anything with the new contrast. it's a genuine accessibility issue. jesus)

they removed the community. want to see which friends are online? fuck you! click the top of the channel that is much slower and cumbersome than just swiping! want to see the funny and/or important messages you pinned? too bad, because we’re cutting off longer messages and hiding links/images that were attached to the message. and also, you can’t see who sent the message in a dm or group chat. also^2, you have to click into the channel and click into ANOTHER tab to even access the pins. fuck you.

regardless of if you like the changes or not, the point of protesting isn’t due to personal preference. it’s that discord keeps thinking they can change this shit that nobody wanted and get away with it. staying complacent will just let them know they can roll out changes and their userbase will still stick around, even if they hate it. which is not true. because users (including my friends and i) and even NITRO USERS are considering jumping ship to alternatives that don’t hate its userbase.

don’t let discord think it’s invincible. send feedback (go to settings and appearance, and there will be a button), even if it’s likely they won’t read it. review them in the app store. if there’s enough genuine feedback that outlines the faults and focuses on the performance and usability of the app, there’s a chance they might change Some things. because we don’t WANT to move and leave all our friends and communities, but a lot of us will have to if the situation gets worse.

the best case scenario is that they let us choose the format we want, but considering that this is discord we’re talking about, i don’t think it will. the least we can do now is to make sure at least some things get changed back for accessibility and convenience.

[emry-stars-art]

My Jeremy what sharp teeth you have

Find the mer aus masterpost here 💕

[evnnkinard]

thinking about buck either being super sleepy after a long shift, or minorly hurt, or maybe both. and he's in his bathroom, using the counter to hold most of his weight up and staring at himself in the mirror. he's somehow managed to successfully shower, after waving away tommy's earlier worried offer to help, and now he's trying to muster up the energy to grab his razor so he can shave his stubble, but losing more of it the longer he stands there. debates leaving it, knows that with the way he's already feeling, the feeling of it against his pillow is going to be sensory hell and drive him crazy if he does.

and then he startles as tommy knocks on the door, always respectful of buck's space, and waits for buck's quiet consesnt before popping his head in, saying, "evan, are you okay? you've been in here for a while."

buck hums, shoots him a smile that he hopes actually looks like a smile and somehow manages to respond, "m'good. just need to shave and i'll be out."

he looks down at his razor sitting on the counter, misses the way tommy's brows furrow in concern. hears a soft sigh, hears tommy say, "evan," in the way only he can and his footsteps as he crosses the bathroom to where buck's standing. he expects tommy to wrap his arms around him from behind, but instead he's gently but firmly spun around until his back is against the counter and he's staring into worried blue eyes.

tommy rests one hand against his waist, brings the other up to cup his cheek and rubs his thumb, soothing, across his jaw once, twice, and says, "you gunna let me help you now, huh?" and when it looks like buck's gunna protest, says "evan. let me take care of you, please?"

and buck deflates, drops his head to rest against tommy's shoulder, murmurs his consent and then lets his boyfriend take control. guide him and carefully deposit him on the closed lid of the toilet. says, because he's buck, "you- you really don't have to. we can just leave it, go to bed. i-i'll be okay."

he's familiar with the two fingers tilting his chin up in response, and then he's looking into blue eyes again, framed by a raised eyebrow, "yeah? you gunna be able to sleep with it scratching against your pillow?" and buck opens his mouth. closes it. feels his cheeks heat slightly and doesn't respond because they both apparently already know the answer. can't help the way his body, his heart, quietly hums, feels pleased and warm and safe at being known, being seen so well.

"didn't think so, kid," and tommy leans down, presses a quick kiss to buck's lips, and then his forehead, says, "i like taking care of you, okay?" releases buck's chin and moves away before buck can respond. fills the sink with water, grabs what he needs, and then he's back between the space of buck's legs, gets to work, careful, gentle, like taking care of buck is the most important thing he'll ever do.