#this got super long oops

[leidensygdom]

me: maybe i'm over it. maybe i can like, design a monster without my brain going to the absolute banging final fantasy x monster designs

the banging final fantasy x monster designs, tho:

(also i didnt want to clutter the post but there's a lot of rambling in the tags)

[biblically-accurate-dca]

super disorganized sketch page because i do what i want

[tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land]

I don't know how to describe it, but yesterday I had thoughts about how there's something so tender about having your hand gently clasped by a strong hand clad in a thick, battle-worn glove

Or I might have just been thinking about Haurchefant again, one of those two things

[clansunsharp]

My friend Cosma and I did a hatchling swap recently, where we traded a child of our progens to live in each others' clans as a ward. Mulvany isn't exactly fitting in with the warriors of Clan Sunsharp, but he's still making his parents proud as a budding maritime archaeologist.

[year2000electronics]

And of course Super Paper Mario and 4. Convince me to give this game another try perhaps :]

4. …why you should choose to check out the world of this story and choose three gifs that should underline my point.

NOTE: i will be forgoing the GIF part and using pictures instead because every single GIF search result has been clogged up with mouth-breathers on the internet who have been arguing over whether SPM is good or bad and have been doing it in GIF form for years. don't believe me? search "super paper mario" on discord's gif search. you'll see it. you always see it.

oh jesus. see the thing about liking super paper mario is that there's a lot of SPM fans out there who really like the game but can't really connect a very important dot as to Why they like the game. (HINT: THEY PLAYED IT WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG AND ARE NOSTALGIC FOR IT SO THE FLAWS IT HAS IS WAY LESS FOR THEM, AND BY PROXY, ME.) IM self aware. i will never be able to hate the game, but i am incredibly aware that the gameplay can be fairly lacking sometimes. if the story doesnt already grip you, it probably wont ever be worth it to go through the gameplay. thats my bit. thats my piece.

(but then youll have people who see how SPM defenders dont like to critique it when it deserves to be critiqued and start going after stuff like "oh the story isnt even that good"? MAN WHY DID YOU BRING THE STORY INTO THIS.)

but i digress. the life of a paper mario fan is a long and hard one.

POINT THE FIRST. MARIO'S "EXPERIMENTAL" ERA.

you can argue that ttyd also fits this bill, and i think it does, but this is about SPM so im focusing on that. if the mario series has never really Gripped you or you havent really been a lifelong fan, i always think the gamecube-wii era of mario has been one of its more interesting moments. the switch renaissance has allowed a breath of creativity to come back into mario, and mario's allowed to be Weird again, but gamecube-wii mario is weird in a really SCUFFED way and i love it. the gamecube's flagship mario game was a LUIGI game where he cant even jump. super paper mario came out before mario galaxy or NSMBwii. that was our mario rep on the wii for a while. mario games get a little crazy, a little weird here. and so what you get is a more melancholic story about the end of all worlds, and exploring what it really means to be a hero, and the closest many games will get to acknowledging that the mario characters can have emotions that arent Perfect. its just such a fascinating era for such a perfectly-marketable franchise and i adore it. it's a testament to what mario can Be, for me. Mario Is Weird. say it with me now!

POINT THE SECOND. GOODBYE TO A WORLD.

i just really like the theme of All Worlds Coming To An End. usually in these sort of things, it's "save the world so the world doesnt end!" but in this game, it really feels like "the world is ending and you have to fight even to have a chance to succeed". it colours the tone of the game in such a fantastic way. many songs in the OST have a ticking clock in them. the inescapable void is even in the hub world. it's like the majora's mask of paper mario. many people talk this up but the fact that in chapter 6, you're beholden to the traditions of a silly king who REFUSES to believe the world is ending even when HIS ENTIRE SKY IS PURPLE, and youre trying so hard to beat this 100-man duel faster and faster, only for the world to end and then youre forced to go back into the chapter and see this GRAVEYARD. it makes it so much more tangible. THIS is what will happen if you fail. and this overhanging melancholy paints the themes of love so much stronger. it's not just a love story, it's a love story in adversity. love conquers all, but what is the "all" in question? well, this. bleakness. sometimes the bleakness is part of the love. sometimes you make a sacrifice in the name of love, and nobody likes it, but you know it must be. the whole game is actually a love story between bleck and tippi and it just grips me so. it's such a multi-faceted depiction of love and loss that it feels so much more real to me, that love isn't always the Magical Solution. love is a sword, a shield, a prayer, a wish, a curse, a blessing, an order, an act of cowardice, an act of bravery, a sacrifice.

(you see what i mean? i can literally only be talking like this because i grew up with this stupid ass game)

POINT THE THIRD. FUCK ALL THAT THOUGH LET'S TALK ABOUT THE BLECK MINIONS.

so, the whole kind of crux of this game is that it's a love story between bleck, the main antagonist, and tippi, your companion, right. if you can't flesh both of them out you're in a bad way. obviously for tippi, she's hanging around you all the time, and you get to hear her journey play out throughout the entire game. BUT WHAT OF BLECK? HE'S HIDING IN HIS CASTLE! how are we supposed to know more about him and learn his story if he is IN HIS CASTLE? well that's why after every chapter, there's this interlude where we CHECK UP ON THE BAD GUYS.

i blame this game entirely for my love of villains. this gang of baddies has so much quirks and personality that i find it hard NOT to love them. they're not just gormless minions of the count- each shows their own personality in their relationship with him. mimi has a puppy-love crush on him, o'chunks has a sort of warrior's bond with him, nastasia pledges herself to him and almost uses the minions she controls as a conduit for her dedication to him, dimentio is like a cat in a bird store, and mr l clearly isnt supposed to be here but i dont think he knows that. the minions bicker amongst themselves but clearly have a bond of cameraderie because it all feels like teasing of people who've known each other for a long time.

you fight each minion at least twice, and even though the lackluster gameplay kinda comes in full force again, you get to see so much PERSONALITY in these guys. mimi is super-bratty but seems to know most people would see her as a monster so leans into it, dimentio is playful and jovial while also having his own motives, o'chunks is bold and brash but asks you to finish him off the second time he fails, mr. l is cocky to a fault and reeks of insecurity. i just love having these guys we can always check up on. it's like lord crump but MOOOOORE.

and through a combo of you inferring things about these people and some of the Deeper Lore (flopside bar stories), you kinda come to learn that these minions were kinda manipulated by bleck when they were at their lowest. mimi is a failed creation of SOMETHING. o'chunks' men all died because there was a traitor in his midst. nastasia was saved from a cage by bleck. and the more you learn about bleck the more you see that he is a man grieving the woman he loved, apathetically trying to end all worlds so the pain would end. he lies to the minion, he says he aims to make perfect new worlds, and they believe him, and they love him, because he saved them.

this sort of birth of a relationship through bleck's pain and manipulation comes through by the end, as the love the minions have for bleck is a KEY part of the final act. and idk it's a bunch of deeply-hurting misfits binding together and accidentally finding love in a world they found loveless. i think thats really cool. i think THEYRE really cool. such an awesome cast of villains.

but yknow. again. this is my childhood game. the special feeling i have for it can't really just be put into words. it's my diamond in the rough and nothing can really change that. it's Home.

[reploidbuddy]

I wrote for the first time in so long and it was so freeing holy feck

[foreststarflaime]

Does Genesis have a name for his sword?

If so, what is it?

Disregarding that the canon name is Rapier bc cmon Genesis. You’re the poet one. You can do better than that surely…

Indulging my Genesis as Achilles obsessed brain: κεκλυτε keklute, (pronounced phonetically, kek-lute-eh) essentially meaning (in ancient greek) hear or listen (as a plural command). It’s related to the word κλεος kleos, which is a difficult word to translate but essentially means something like glory. I go into it (and Genesis’ connection to it thematically) in more detail here. It’s a flashy as hell sword, he’s a flashy as hell guy, he wants to be noticed, to have his achievements heard and appreciated—and so he names the thing that he intends to make people listen to him with a name that encapsulates that idea.

Me waffling about runners-up and extra linguistics nerd stuff under the cut

Added the reduplication to keklute because I can and because it sounds a bit better than just klute—although that’s a strong runner up because it can be read both as the plural command or as the adjective for renowned and I like the way you can doubly twist that.

Kluthi κλυθι was also an option because I thought that sounded cool too, but it’s only a singular imperative, and I thought he would be more likely to yell at the whole world than just one person—although there is the potential for that with his rivalry fixation on Sephiroth. Could be pretty gay poetic, him trying to get at least one person, the only person who mattered, to listen and feeling like he couldn’t.

Also high in the running was κλυετε kluete, because it’s the present plural imperative of the same verb. I actually like this kinda better, only reason I didn’t put it up there as the main answer was because I thought keklute sounded better. Reason I like this one better grammatically is that the present imperative in ancient greek is used as a universal command, something you should always do, whereas the aorist imperative (klute) is used as a one-off command, like “pass me the salt” or something like that. I feel Genesis would absolutely go for the more dramatic “you should always hear of me” route—and it fits more with the Achilles theme of kleos aphthiton, undying fame, to have the tales of your heroic exploits be heard of forever.

Also all these e’s are pronounced eh bc they’re all episilons and not etas and greek is a phonetic language, unpolluted by the french like English. Blame the Normans for us never knowing how things are pronounced btw

[nyxofdemons]

this was going to be like a mile long essay but i just realized the most concise way to say it is that "it feels like a retcon that blitz has been so resentful and hostile towards fizz all this time since he was supposed to feel guilty" is simply not a good criticism when we have been shown, time and time again, that blitz's number one defense mechanism when he feels guilty or judged or attacked is to lash out, to deflect and ignore all his responsibility, and to shift the blame to someone else. that's like. his defining character flaw

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry if you've already mentioned but what (re?)ignited your love of comics/x-men/cherik? curious because there are so many different adaptations of them

i think im gonna speak for a few (or a lot of) people when i say that TL;DR the wolverine x deadpool movie that came out this summer is what pulled me back into comics and i COULD leave it there but i will go into excruciating and unnecessary detail instead because i love an origin story and i love oversharing.

under the cut tho because im nice sometimes (there's also wxdp doodles in here. if you want to see that)

ironically (and probably commonly), growing up i was more of an avengers kid. Kinda. Loosely <- binge watched the cartoons and movies and read copious amounts of comics and fics and i am hoarding fanart in my old dresser as we speak ok 'loosely' is a modest lie.

embarrassingly i remember getting into discus cause of captain america LMAO so yeah needless to say i was a Humble Fan- me joining my school's comic class/club didnt help either (shoutout to my teach from that she was the realest one out there for. A Multitude of reasons). she definitely is was inspires me to even draw still and make comics and i often think bout the tips i learned from her class tbh she was great

back to the movies t and comics tho, i got into em because my brother would offer to take me and that's how we'd hang out (i rarely saw movies in theaters and i even more rarely went anywhere as a teenager. still kinda like that today tbh ooops) and yk. it just snowballed after that.

my brother and i have always liked comics- he just more than me for a while (though he still very much loves comics and As We Know From My Posts we still talk about them whenever i see him To An Exhausting Degree)

durin then i was really into stony and i have a few surviving doodles i made but those are between me and god. and anyone who asks tbh LOL

'snap can you make this related to x-men again this is long' ok so fast forward to This Summer again I Still Don't Really See Movies but my brother offered to take me and this was the first time i'd actually seen an x-men movie in full

as a kid i only remember seeing the 'perfection' scene between erik and raven in first class while i was channel surfing. pretty sure i changed the channel after seeing mystique naked cause i was scared my parents would get mad at me if they caught me watching it LOL

BUT MOVING ON As A Kid i think it's also natural you'll sometimes watch 92 if it's on And I Did though evidently it didn't stick too hard (i do remember really liking beast and gambit though.... still do really): my knowledge of x-men was. INCREDIBLY sparse. like diabolically so so i didnt have too much expectations (aside from the fact i vaguely liked deadpool beforehand).

tbh i dont know why my bro never took me to see any of the x-men movies. it's not like he doesn't Also like x-men (90% sure nightcrawler's his favorite but my brother will be caught dead saying he has absolute favorites like that)- he owns a bitch load of deadpool comics/omnibus sets too (of which ive read over the years and reread this year) but Shrug moving on

Much Like Most Of The Internet i fell down the rabbit hole that way. i have some doodles i made a couple days after seeing WxDP that i now have an excuse to throw at all of you Look And Perceive

and so. As I Do. i got curious and told myself i'd binge watch all the x-men movies the week before i went back to school And Then I Did ft. My Brother Sometimes and then i said i'd binge watch all of '92 and And I Did That ft. My Brother Sometimes But Less So and now we're here. currently watching Evolution...

once i got to school i realized i lived near a comic shop and started getting into the comics that way (the first ones i got since going down this rabbit hole was Magneto Was Right!, The Resurrection of Magneto, and The Trial of Magneto. if you were curious !!!!! clearly i didnt care too much about context i just needed to see My Guy jelvejlkvj i have no regrets and Evidently ive read more since)

i'm pretty sure what dragged me into cherik specifically was the fact i saw a clip of The Famous ending to 92 where erik's aghast at the notion jean even has to question his love for charles. i think that was what officially had me refocus my lens on them: not a single poolverine thought after that LOL (all the cherik posting i saw on twitter definitely helped too but that was the nail in the coffin for any other interests i had: i was locked into cherik and x-men in general now)

that clip specifically, i was surprised at the fact they- frequently even- have the x-men franchise say erik loves charles and vice versa so bluntly. even if it's not meant to be romantic, i fear im just a fan of how casually the word's thrown around with them two and i got tender bout it all. Then Yk. i just live for the drama. the hilarity even. the sincerity .... they make me sick if i think of them too long so im gonna end it here

before i go tho ironically enough, the first x-men issue i owned was This one (story a this is that while stuck in some wacko dimension charles accidentally gets himself trapped in logan's mind while utilizing his astral projection. if you were curious). pretty sure i got it for free with another comic set i got years ago since our old comic shop loved to do that, but it's poetic aint it. maybe ill doodle something referencing it..

i should probably look into finishing this arc someday im Dummy curious to even know how it started and how it ends.....

[shannonsketches]

lays on the floor do you guys ever think about how in ResF Bulma falls for Vegeta's fake-out with Freeza and both she and Yamcha are worried about Vegeta's villain fake-out strategy in Champa and Beerus' mini tournament and how it's only been a couple of years since the Buu saga and how Vegeta straight up stopped using that strategy after that tournament

[holopossums]

With the recent vent, bro, I feel you there. You first don't feel safe in a server thats for anyone because the kids there bully you for your age, calling you all sorts of terrible shit (welcome to why my age is "adult" now) so you go to an adult only server, hoping ✨finally✨ you have a safe space, only for kids to violate it and access the server when they shouldn't in the first place.

Oh, thank you for your empathy and understanding! I'm sorry you've had to deal with this too. Glad to know I'm not the only one, though. Us adults are really in the trenches here.

I sat down to write a more in-depth response and was going to go with my typical "Oh I haven't been bullied, it's not that bad" shtick I normally do. But if I'm being honest with myself, that's not true at all. I have to start admitting that I've been a target for tons of dumb crap as well. I just rarely talk about it since it's all been more private drama on Discord, not anything public.

A lot of younger folk, both kids and younger adults alike, have lied to me and about me a surprising amount over the past 3 years I've been a part of the TMNT fandom. It's been multiple instances. Usually it's due to me being a mod or setting a boundary with them. Sometimes I'm even just standing there. They do this when they don't get their way or they mess up and point fingers. I have adult friends who have gone through similar experiences. It's really fucked up, and I hope one of these days it stops, because I'm tired of it.

It's part of the reason why I don't interact with kids on a personal level and will only be in adult servers now. Sadly I've found it's not exclusively a kid problem either, it's an issue of maturity that extends to some adults too. Very disappointing, from my perspective. But eh, there's always gonna be shitty folk around, that's how it goes.

Regarding kids getting into adult spaces and lying about their ages, yeah it really sucks. It's unsafe for them. And it doesn't just affect the kid, but also everyone else there too. It definitely feels very disturbing to know what a minor saw that they shouldn't have seen, and it weighs heavily on my mind. Even though it's out of my control, it's a horrible feeling. And it does make me feel unsafe and paranoid. I just want my own kid-free space, man.

And yeah, I feel ya. I wish I could be more secretive about my age too. Unfortunately, I doubt I could hide it well. I talk a little too white millennial to come off as any younger than I am. Easier to just disclose it. Besides, it makes it easier to find folks my age in the fandom, which I desperately need. But for you adults who don't want to say your age, definitely do it! It ain't worth the trouble.

In any case, I hope things get better for all of us adults who are not doing anything wrong and just minding our own business, regardless of who's around us. We deserve better treatment.

[reel-fear]

people who still make Joey the ink demon despite canon steering far away from that being the case this is for you I am sending u kisses XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO <3

People who make Joey well-meaning, sympathetic, a lighter shade of morally grey than canon I am also sending u lots of love <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3!!

And people who generally steer wildly from the direction Bendy takes with its characters and has fun with it I hope to see more from all of ur aus and rewrites!!

[starsasunder]

🕯️/ a candle for a cat

a 🕯️ for my muse's inner thoughts about yours

'Ophiuchus... Are there even words to describe what I feel for him? Nothing feels sufficient. I suppose the simplest thing to say would be that he completes me, but... that sounds so cheesy. But he does! He holds the key to my heart, and... He's the one person in the whole world I can trust to protect me. When we are together, I feel invincible - like we could take on the whole world. And we could! He doesn't just protect me - he empowers me, he teaches me, and he's not afraid to humble me when I'm being a reckless idiot. Were he here, his pride would likely grow even more insufferable from the praise, but... I suppose that's not so bad. He's quite cute when he preens.

'Y'know, sometimes it hits me: the fact that we are here, that each moment we are allowed to know and love each other, and that is a miracle in and unto itself. In a world where fate made us its puppets over and over, forcing us against each other at every turn, who would have thought one day our strings would finally be cut? That at the end of it all, we could find not enmity, but healing, and love?'

'There are times when it all clicks into place in my mind and I find myself adrift, stunned by my own luck. I never believed in soulmates before, never thought there was any such thing as 'true love.' But I think I do now. And I know that no matter what, I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And then the next life, and the next after that... He is going to be stuck with me for a very, very long time. He did literally bind his soul to mine, after all.'

[lcngdays-arc]

@spokewar from [ here ]

The sound of the voice has the young child's antennae perking straight up. While his hearing is good, he had not detected the approach of another sapient being. Much too focused on the strange, otherwise alien sounds all around him. Dex would have scolded him for not being present enough, but... Dex was not here. It was only him.

Slowly, Zaxaria turns. On his person he holds a simple messenger bag, the clothes on his back, but nothing more to show for his midnight hunt. Slowly, his head tilts to the side. He understands the language for the most part, Dex had taught it to him for some time before sending him away, but he can't place the name of what it's called. Nor can he quite place the name Jedi Order, either.

Still, faintly glowing pink eyes settle on the emblem. That, it seems, inspires at least some familiarity.

Suitinrix, the planet that housed Idavians and Saffa alike, had had its borders closed for some time. Before Zaxaria himself was born. There were no visitors from outside worlds permitted. Zaxaria knew why, vaguely. It was because of the ongoing war between Idavay and Safin. And while there were many intricacies in relation to that, the young prince did not exactly understand all of that. He only knew that until he had come to this planet, the only flora and fauna he had seen outside his planets' had been in books.

Zax returns the smile, showing off sharp teeth with the front two jaggedly broken off. Slowly, he speaks, voice accented but understandable.

"hallo...." Nervous, but hopeful. "i am so like, i am looking for like... for something you can eat. i am like, awake at the night and sleep at the day. there is a word for this, yes, but i can't remember it right now."

His tail twitches, then curls up around himself. With no other comfort to turn to, the child hugs it while the fluffy end flicks and twitches.

"maybe you do... have little snack?"

[gobblewonkrs]

THE. THE FUCKING. GASLIGHT DISTRICT PILOT HOLY SHIT

I LOVE. The style of it oh my god both like the sorta choppy and quick (in a good way) animation the sort of wonderfully grimy style and aesthetics good lird. I love how this looks and how everything moves and. augh.

THE STORY ITSELF IS ALSO INCH RESTING AS HELL. I'm kind of obsessed. Its such a unique depiction of heaven/hell/angels/whatever and the way it goes about it. And the snippets of worldbuilding? Lore? IDK. But I like how deeply it plays into the main cast. I want to see how it gets further expanded. I'm so curious. And i love that. Also its a smaller part but I love the act structure? I love the idea of presenting it in acts. That's so neat.

Also I'm a sucker for good character design and god is that good character design. They all look so cool.

Anyways. you should: fucking watch this please I've been so excited for it since it saw it announced pleasepleasepleas--

[glaiveprime]

37 👀

37. What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners / their best friend and don’t plan to tell?

OOOH this ones juicy as hell.. thank you dusk

again.. depends since in my mind he has three options lolol... two romantic partners and one best friend. two of those are other peoples ocs so ill mention their usernames

arthur: just. so many secrets. hes a man who likes to keep his different lives very separate and clean from each other, when he came to hollenvia he wanted to leave his entire life behind, so frey would nearly always choose to avoid questions that arthur asks of his past.

though specifically, i dont see frey ever having the heart to confess to arthur (unless its through a lot, a lot of convincing) that hes committed dozens of atrocities on the zariman; hunting and stealing from other kids just so he can feel a sense of pride, "survival" was the fuel his justification used for his cruelness. its a period of his life that he looks back with a lot of shame (and therefore, would rather just... bury).

beck/drifter (@/alligade's oc): frey's long time boyfriend... to be honest, theres not really much that comes to mind at all about what frey would keep a secret from him. but there is something that i think frey took a very, VERY long time to explain: his decoys.

theyre very similar to loki-typical decoys, but due to the fact that frey is made of high concentrated void energy, he has to use that in replacement of warframe energy to create these moving decoys. since frey's void energy is also saturated and act as storage for his memories, this also means that he essentially places and splits off pieces of inconsequential memory (say, throwing a piece of trash away in strata relay) to create a decoy. when the decoy expires, the memory returns to him.

the trick is, that there is a certain threshold of memories that frey can safely give to these decoys. the more memories, the more life-like. decoys dont bleed- yes, but right up until the point where if let's say, for some reason frey lets go more than 50% of his memories into a decoy. and only THEN a decoy will bleed.

frey has reassured drifter that this will never happen, so he wont ever have to worry about it. but a quick and easy way to tell if a frey is real or not is to see if it bleeds. certainly it'll never come up that he creates so many clones he doesnt know who he is anymore !🤭

theres a bit more i have for these decoys but maybe for another time......

ophelia (@/azurennne's drifter): frey's bestest friend! very similar to beck, theres just not a lot of things he wont tell her. though maybe all sorts of shady contacts hes come into connection with... and some horrible, horrible experiences hes had fresh out of the void and the zariman. she knows of his hurt and pain, but he has never once fully explained what had happened to him near the start of the new war....