#playing with angles

[setaflow]

The dichotomy of Brennan helping with ability score rolls for newer players:

Titan Takedown: Preps high-level base stats for the cast, with everyone having a 20 in their two most relevant ability scores and no one really having a genuine dump stat (no one's character has below a 14/+2 modifier in any ability), which allows the players to play to their class strengths and not have to worry about fucking up as much in a shorter, tighter campaign.

Fantasy High: Ally Beardsley rolls a 4 for Kristen's Dex and has to live with with the consequences of that for 6+ years

[hinamie]

not my usual lineup

[bluegiragi]

just for fun, i thought i'd redraw an old soapbox comic to see how much i've improved! you can read the original from 2 years ago here.

early access + nsfw on patreon soapbox masterpost (scroll to bottom)

[bigfatbreak]

they both got bonked for being silly.

[random-cockroach]

I am not cleaning and fixing this Based on Keferon's mecha reverse au

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[o0kawaii0o]

Up to no good 🔥

[narsh-poptarts]

my dark link thoughts coalesced into wonderful headcanons and crazy amounts of forced perspectives and dutch angles

also sorry HW i would have included your dark link(s) but i do not have passion for your game <3 maybe next time

Some thoughts below

I have thoughts about dark link that boil down to basically two things: 1. it's always the same dark link, and 2. dark link has a very difficult time changing.

No matter how many times dark link is brought into existence, he is formed from the shadow of link usually to test link's will. that shadow can be duplicated (as seen in HW) but generally speaking it's the same guy, sharing the thought space, you know how it is. In terms of sentience/thinking for himself, I don't think there's all that much of it. He is a dark reflection/shadow of link, so shares his abilities and thought patterns (for combat) with added aggression and. evil. i guess.

As said by navi, "conquer yourself", and all that. He's a challenge to the inner will power.

That being said!!! he can have a little bit of individuality, as a treat. Just in the form of being mean and sadistic <3 he's got thoughts, he's not just a combat doll (tho in times of low power, or a greater power having the reins, he reverts to that), so he can be frustrated, vindicated, happy, etc etc. though when your thoughts are mainly "evilevilevilevilevil" your idea of these emotions are a bit skewed.

When he's summoned for each different link, i hc that it's all the same magic, so the same dark link every time. he "remembers" in an abstract sense of his role in the same way a link or zelda "remembers" their own reincarnation. tho his is less of a reincarnation and more being used over and over again. a persistence.

The iteration that's summoned reflects the current link at the time, the part of link that needs testing/defeating, so it's not an existence that he himself can change to match the present. he's locked to that first copy/shadow only. So if he were to have a second encounter with an older link, he'd look like the first time they fought, unless he was specifically re-summoned. i hc he's got limited magic, so this is not something he can do himself.

in a links-meet scenario, his form would be limited to those specific forms of the links, and it would always be the points in time in which he first encountered them, unless there's other magic either he or someone else has access to to allow him to change forms to match.

now you might be saying at this point "wouldn't he be a weaker match if he was put up against an older link?" yeah probably lol. but also!!! i like the idea that with the limited magic he has, he's able to change juuuust enough to stay relatively evenly matched. being able to play to different strengths and all that. but the base stuff is still the same, so he is decently easy enough to read if link remembers the kind of stuff he was pulling back when he originally fought dark link.

dark link also knows about all this so while limited to the particular skillset, is able to adapt slightly.

but yeah been thinking a lot about a links-meet au where dark link is there choosing a different link to be every time he appears to the party.

though there are a couple links that he never impersonates in their games!!! so can't change into those guys unless he gets a new round of copycat magic.

Anyways goodbye guy standing there with standard camera angle, i have dutch angles and forced perspective

[bevioletskies]

thame looking at po: episode 1 vs. episode 6

[ar-mage-ddon]

the fountain at dawn

( EPHEMERWEEK 4: promise )

[hinamie]

inflict

[i-like-forcefem]

Turns out all girls have a built-in override command!

Just pat her head, give her a collar, get real close to her face and say "Abandon your worries, put this on, and become my pet" and just watch as she puts her collar on!

Then just give a tug on her leash and take her home! You've just removed an overworked girl from the world, and added an obedient-love filled pet! Take good care of her!

[umblrspectrum]

being grounded from devices means nothing when you have a robot boyfriend

[cathedralight]

i've been rereading the dream thieves and find it super interesting to consider ronan's sexuality and his second secret through a specifically catholic framework. throughout trb and tdt, there are obviously multiple nods to ronan being gay: "i'm always straight" "that's the biggest lie you've ever told", "ronan wasn't a fan of lamps," the double meaning of "i know what you are" said by both kavinsky and declan, etc. ronan grapples with both his identity as a dreamer and his sexuality in tdt—"please god what am i tell me what i am"—yet the culmination of ronan's self-acceptance isn't just overcoming self-hatred and admitting that he's gay. it's specifically tied to his feelings for adam: "ronan's second secret was adam parrish." this is a way to overtly communicate that he's gay in-text, but there's nuance in the fact that his second secret is not generalized and identity-based, but intertwined with his attraction to a specific person.

now allow me to dive into the catholicism of it all, because it's interesting how ronan coming to terms with his sexuality is informed by catholic vs. protestant stances on queerness (very broadly speaking). whereas many protestant christian religions encourage praying the gay away and becoming heterosexual through god's will (aka conversion therapy), the stance of the catholic church on homosexuality is more along the lines of "you can't control that you have same-sex desire, but everyone has their crosses to bear so just don't act on it." as such, the catechism states that “homosexual persons are called to chastity.” (in the 1986 letter, the cardinal says, "although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." this article also provides context to the catholic church's views on queerness.) all in all, there's that distinction between being gay vs. acting on it. gay thoughts vs gay actions. you can see this echoed in ronan's arc and how he struggles with his sexuality in several key ways.

for one thing, ronan is more concerned with concealment and repression than he is with changing or "fixing" his sexuality. his shame stems from lacking the vocabulary to understand or accept himself in numerous ways, but i wouldn't say ronan expends much energy trying to pray the gay away. ronan is pretty much allergic to attempting to change himself or conform to what others want, and this is no exception. for example, his acknowledgement that he has no interest in lamps, i.e. women, is very matter-of-fact. therein lies that catholic acceptance of his homosexuality; ronan cannot control what he is, but he can control whether he acts on it or not. i've seen analysis that considers ronan's sexuality as totally buried prior to tdt vs. his sexuality being something he's already open about prior to tdt; for me, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle because of that gay thoughts vs. gay actions split. the beginning of tdt cements this: "the second secret was perfect in its concealment. ronan did not say it. ronan did not think it. he never put lyrics to the second secret, the one he kept from himself." we know adam is his second secret, thus the tangible nature of his feelings for adam is what he's keeping from himself, not merely the fact that he's gay.

tdt is where ronan is specifically grappling with the possibility of his gay urges becoming action. imo the earliest example of this is the dollar city scene, with ronan wanting to punch the wall over gansey looking like "very clearly a real human, an attainable human." the word attainable speaks again to the idea of attraction as a contained feeling vs. something that ronan could act on (not necessarily with gansey, but it's broaching that difference as a concept). later on there's the adam-kavinsky sex dream after which ronan wakes up "ashamed and euphoric." the dream has given multiple faces to a nameless concealed desire, which has again made it a more real possibility and therefore what ronan has been trying to avoid. in a dream with kavinsky, "it felt like anything could happen. all of his secrets felt dangerously close to the surface." again, the idea of something happening, of a feeling being acted upon. and finally, when adam confronts ronan about his rent, "something inside ronan unwound and he almost said something." repeatedly an emphasis is placed on ronan's holding back, on concealing himself through refusing to act on what he feels.

all this to say! this is why it's so intentional and brilliant that the reveal of ronan's second secret culminates in his feelings for adam. in this admission, ronan's repressed sexuality becomes something with a tangible focal point. ronan has to confront his sexuality as something he can and DOES want to act on because of his attraction to adam, who is real and attainable. and to bring it back to his catholicism—this falls perfectly in line with ronan having an ingrained view of sexuality as an "inclination" that can't be changed vs. the sin being if he were to act on that inclination. it is a huuuuuuge step, then, for ronan to accept not just his desire for adam but the inevitability that he wants to act on those feelings ("it was hard not to stare at the odd and elegant lines of his face"; and in trk, "he’d let [his feelings] overflow and now there wasn’t a damn place in the ocean that wouldn’t catch fire if he dropped a match"). we don't see ronan attempt to talk himself out of who and what he is; rather, we see his indecision and hesitance when it comes to what he does and what he allows himself to do. that's why it's so impactful when ronan stops keeping his second secret from himself—and the way that reveal is informed heavily by his catholic faith adds so much additional nuance.

[very-tired-child]

checkmate.

based on ch 5 of Primum non Nocere by @aughtpunk!!

[simikae]

he lost a game of minesweeper :(((

[progress pics under the cut]