#wow i'm finally done

[rumue]

the swing: jungkook edition 🐰✨

-like/reblog ☑, do not repost!-

[yasmeensh]

Got the Master sword! I believe there is still one more upgrade to go...

Bonus Groose after Link sealed the imprisoned.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[vaggieslefteye]

♫ This place reeks of death, there's a chill in the air. And I barely escaped being killed by a hair. ❝𝐆ʀᴇᴀᴛ 𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑, 𝐀ʟᴛʀᴜɪsᴛ, 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐅ᴏʀ 𝐇ɪs 𝐅ʀɪᴇɴᴅs?❞ Sorry to disappoint, that is NOT where this ends! ♫

[xitsensunmoon]

Who are you people (thank you all I love you all SM/POS<3333)

[ao3dorian-gay]

au where haku joins the akatsuki after zabuza dies & gossips about itachi with deidara (fic)

[prongsmydeer]

I watched Red, White and Royal Blue, and I gotta say that Gay British Macauley Culkin really carried it for me

[missingn000]

[cerealboxlore]

The number thing, I recommend numero 18

WIP #18: Loose Ends Tied Up In A Bow "Holy moly..."

Billy Batson was a boy who had seen wonders beyond the minds and imaginations of man. From monsters to the mythical and magical, Billy was accustomed to the strange nature of the universe and participated in being an active part of it.

He'd been to the depths of hell and farthest corners of space, experiencing what many could only dream of as a superhero. However, nothing could ever beat the pure joy of a childlike sense of wonder when experiencing something new.

Nothing could beat a cool-looking train.

"Billy! If you stop staring at the train, you might be able to get on it with the rest of us this century." Billy's sister, Mary, shouted at him, with a drawn-out yawn from the check-in entrance. She may have sounded irritated, but she was just as excited for this trip as Billy, if not more. Neither of them had gotten any sleep last night, staying up late thinking about their first family vacation together. They'd planned all the things they'd do together and all the sights they would see, the only thing the both of them didn't plan for was sleep.

Mary was not unfamiliar with the age-old tradition of traveling for vacations with family, but for Billy, this would be his first time ever leaving Fawcett that wasn't related to Captain Marvel or Justice League business. This would be his first time just...relaxing, with his new family, the Bromfields.

Naturally, Billy was hesitant at first, but with Freddy promising to look after Fawcett in their absence, sorting out any potential problems with the League, and most of their major rogues locked up in prisons at the present, Billy was eventually convinced to take some time off. Billy believed he was bullied into it by Mary and Freddy, but he wasn't too upset about it in the end.

What could go wrong on a train anyway?

Stopping his admiration of the cool train in front of him, Billy gleefully sprinted back to his family. Mr. Bromfield ruffled his hair the moment he got close and reeled him into a side hug, trapping him in his arms.

"Aha! There we go, Nora, I think we're all here now. Our boy's not getting left behind like some cheesy "Home Alone" sequel. Lord knows we don't need more of those movies going around." Nick Bromfield chuckled. The dad humor was something Billy was trying to get used to.

"Oh, Nick. Let the poor boy go, his hair is all a mess now. Here, give him to me." Nora Bromfield coerced her husband into setting Billy free, but upon the taste of freedom, he was just met with another trap which was Nora Bromfield "fixing" his hair. She cupped his face and pushed his hair back with a comb, straightening it out. Billy once again struggled to escape the arms of a loving parent, but ultimately let Nora comb his hair in defeat.

He never knew having loving parents could be such a hassle.

Mary did, apparently, as Billy heard her laughing at his misery. His face flushed red over feeling so fussed over. Suddenly, Billy felt a devious little idea pop into his head.

"Uhh, hey, Mrs. B, I think Mary's hair needs some help, too. You know, the hair she's hiding under her hat because she didn't want to tell you her hair was bad today?"

"Oh! Thank you, Billy. I need to get on that. Mary! Come here, let me clean up your hair real quickly. No, a hat is no excuse to be lazy about your hair. Come here- no don't hide behind your brother! Remember, we're sleeping in the same cabin. You can't run from your mom!" Mary zig-zagged away from her mother's comb in her hands, glaring at Billy with an expression that could make Medusa shake. Clearly, neither of the twins liked being fussed over, almost like cats who hated baths. Billy couldn't help but laugh in return.

While Nick Bromfield sorted out the check-in line for them, Nora Bromfield got to embarrassing her kids in front of everyone else around the train station. Multi-tasking parents. You can't get any better than that.

The Bromfield family were so busy smiling and enjoying their time together, that none of them had even realized they were being watched by a pair of glaring eyes. Eyes that would follow them on the train soon after.

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Everyone tell me how cool I am and how good of a job I did please and thank you I want to wake up to nice messages. I'm so so brave I feel like I just had an insane day and I need external validation

[spacedustmantis]

so... episode 73, huh?

I've been having a lot of thoughts about gillion and his approach to emotions, and it's all been kickstarted by the last episode

(spoilers for the just roll with it riptide campaign up to ep. 73 below, also discussions of multiple not so nice topics, such as self-hatred, lack of parental figures / abandonment, atlas personality, physical and emotional abuse, isolation, neglect and indoctrination. be safe.

also i am very aware that most of what I'm gonna say is not necessarily new to a lot of people and it's by no means a revelation, this is supposed to be more of a getting-my-thoughts-in-order kind of post. I don't really have a structure planned for this one, so get ready for a lot of rambling and don't expect a conclusion or anything of the sorts

also every english teacher on earth is gonna hate me for this, but I'm not providing any context. this analysis is not gonna do you any good if you aren't familiar with the rough plot of riptide. I'll do my best to make it clear which scenes I'm referencing in case you want to watch / listen to them to refresh.)

basically this whole thing started bc I thought that gillion was behaving quite strangely this episode (ep 73). of course, considering his situation (everything he's learned about his "purpose" in the episodes before the feywild, being in a phase of change and finding himself etc.) and the catalyst being the kidnapping of pretzel, it's not surprising to see him act differently, but what threw me off was that he was hugely inconsistent in his behavior.

now if I wasn't aware that charlie is an absolute improv and acting genius, I might have waved this off as the player being unsure of the best approach, but charlie doesn't only know how to be in character, he also knows said character impossibly well. he's proven again and again that he understands gillion's situation and the effects of his life on him to a tee.

and so I took a closer look at the inconsistencies to figure out a pattern. surprise, surprise! I did!

most instances I found have to do with his projected intent and mood, and his actual intent and mood.

after pretzel got kidnapped, gillion took an oath of vengeance and, very in line with that oath, started acting scary, forward to the point of aggression and very, very angry.

yet despite his demeanor he does not resist when asked to cooperate by the staff (who as far as he knows works with the very people he suspects took pretzel), offers dirla his help with their stolen cub and shows genuine interest in helping everyone who's lost someone to the pig girl, and goes out of his way to save the pixie that fell off of the flying pug. and even though it might not come across that way because of the weird mix of behaviors, he still tries his best to be as polite and well-mannered as possible. these are all things that gillion would have done before, but now contrasted by this sinister act, that he seems to only half commit to, they feel weird.

one instance I wanted to highlight was the conversation he and jay had with the pixie in the big tent. here is where gillion gets really upfront and explicitly aggressive (even though his attempt at kidnapping failed) for the first time, and he immediately gets interrupted by a sudden outpour of emotions when the pixie tells him that her pet weasel is called peanutbutter. charlie tells us ooc that gillion broke out in tears because he saw himself in her. what that means is that he saw a person who clearly loved their pet a lot and gave them a food related name, and the resemblance to him and his own pet was enough to break through his normally very strong emotional barrier (we'll come back to this) In Front Of Other People!

this reaction could be due to the pixie and her weasel reminding him that he very much misses his own beloved pet, or because he gets hit with the realization that this pixie could also lose her pet, or, most likely, it's a mixture of both. normally both of these would act as a motivator to get going and fix things, but gillion instead just kinda falls down sobbing.

the way he talks to the pixie shortly after he broke down, also shows a weird juxtaposition between his tone of speaking, which is extremely childlike and sounds very vulnerable for once, and the words that he says (talk about murder and torture) which again ties into the previously established inconsistency.

all of this leads me to the most obvious hint at what is going on with gillion and why he behaves the way he behaves: the fact that he breaks down crying the second he's by himself. it's like a big, red, sparkly, blinking arrow that points us to the source of everything.

gillion is putting on a facade. one that crumbles the moment he is alone.

and sure this is pretty obvious - we've known that he isn't really one to be vulnerable - but the moment I actually sat down to think about what this facade would mean for gillion, all of the above listed inconsistencies (and more) started making perfect sense.

to understand we need to take a look at what we know about his upbringing.

what we know of course is the whole deal with being raised as a weapon for the elders, being taken from his family, his training etc. but we actually know shockingly little about his relationship to the elders and his day to day life. all we have are implications and speculations. however, even though not much has been confirmed, most things we learn about gillions childhood work together to create a picture and we can fill in the blanks with relative ease.

we aren't given a specific age that gillion was taken by the elders but we know that he was already in training by age eight (gillion's first secret in the meat room ep. 52) and I think it's safe to assume he was taken way earlier, seeing as the prophecy and the incidents surrounding his birth (allegedly) lined up perfectly and the elders would have been informed immediately, since the whole prophecy thing is a huge deal to them. (Edit: as of ep. 79 we know that he was taken at age five or younger)

we also know, thanks to the description of young gillion in ep. 72, that he was bruised and wearing "clothes and armor that's a little too big for him". so the elders clearly had no issue harming a small child (even if it was due to the training, you don't just hurt a kid like that) and the not-fitting clothes indicate serious neglect. even form-fitted armor would not have been a huge trouble for the elders, the literal highest authority in the undersea, to get.

the isolation from any friends or family (except edyn) gillion experienced while in training isn't even just implied, it's outright stated multiple times, most notably during the conversation with edyn in ep. 58, when she is talking about pretzel being intended to help with his loneliness. the elders even held control over how much he was allowed to see his sister and restricted the frequency more and more the older he got.

in that conversation gillion talks about how he was not the best student and had to take "extra lessons" (Edit: we now know that these extra lessons stem from the elders refusal to explain their expectations to gillion, ep. 77), and how he did not get much time (if any at all) for hobbies, which leads me to believe that any deviation from the intended path (such as misbehaving or interests in non chosen one stuff) was punished and beaten out of him, figuratively, or even literally.

the elders made gillion do stuff he did not want to do (also ep. 58, same conversation) (Edit: also ep. 75) and did not let him do stuff he did want to do, and still he holds an unwavering trust in them for a very long time even after he was exiled, a clear sign that his perception of the elders as rightful authority has been really deeply ingrained in his brain. not once would he question the elders since to him they are infallible.

and of course we are all quite familiar with the very core of gillion's story; the ideals instilled within him by years and years of influence by the elders and the prophecy: the very black-and-white view on morality, the "greater good" being much more important than his own life, the undersea being superior to any other faction and the clear correct choice once gillion's destiny rolls around, the idea that he carries all of the responsibility for literally every creature of the undersea and also every other person or creature (in that order of priority), the justification of murder (as long as they're "evil" of course) and the notion that he is only of any worth if he can be a weapon for someone to use, or a shield for someone to take refuge behind. (all of this is displayed in his behavioral patterns over the course of the campaign and I won't be digging out any scenes for you to go back to. if you aren't familiar with these patterns why are you here? /lh)

all of this paints a picture of abuse, neglect, isolation (and the distance from actual society that comes with it, which in turn results in easier manipulation), control and indoctrination, not to mention the absolute abandonment from his biological parents.

the amount of psychological issues that stem from this is enough to fill a whole book:

a lack of self-worth bordering on self-hatred and a very self-sacrificial nature, abandonment issues, an atlas personality (if you can't infer what that means through context clues, google it, it should be the very first result) and trauma from the elders' abuse.

the following part will only really talk about the last two, since they are the most relevant to how gillion approaches his emotions.

the whole facade that gillion puts on again and again is essentially one big trauma response. as many have already observed, gillion has two very strongly contrasting sides to him. one is his more "true" self which shows more and more as he stays with the riptide pirates. he starts finding joy in otherwise "useless" activities such as joking around and even pulling pranks (ep. 42), he stands up for himself instead of just others, and he begins very slowly and cautiously opening up to his friends.

certain situations (his friends being in danger, a village in need of saving, an insult to his honor) tend to trigger the other side of him (which used to be the only side that ever saw the light of day) to show: heroic, righteous, strong, but also closed off, self-sacrificial, and afraid of failure. part of this side, or this trauma response, is this facade. he falls back into old habits, habits that used to keep him alive: do the right thing even if it means the death of yourself or an enemy, if in doubt the undersea is superior, be on your best behavior, and whatever you do Do Not show weakness.

on top of all that comes the atlas thing, the idea that the world is resting on his shoulders and it's his job to fix everything.

so he restrains any show of emotions not just because back in the undersea that was dangerous, could get him in trouble, but just as importantly he was taught that his own emotions come last and being emotional could harm others. and it's his job to help everyone else no matter the cost.

and this explains pretty much all of gillions behavior this episode, especially if one considers that he is very emotionally affected by pretzels disappearance, which means that it is much harder for him to keep up the act. the mix of threatening and weirdly polite, his oath to get vengeance and yet not hurting anyone who might have been involved with the kidnapping, the stark contrast between cornering the pixie and collapsing on top of her sobbing, are all a result of all of his different pre-established patterns and systems of how to function clashing, and so of course it's a mess. he's angry at the pig-girl, rightfully so, but that also triggers the anger towards the entire world he's in that isn't intrinsic but has been instilled in him by the elders. he wants to be threatening but his instincts tell him to be well-behaved. he feels like he cannot let anyone see how he's actually feeling but he's so strung up that it only takes the name of the pet of a stranger to make him cry. and he expresses the most amount of emotion he probably ever has in front of others while talking about harming and killing people.

even the very fact that he made the oath of vengeance points us to his childhood; the moment something happens which he does not know how to solve otherwise, something that he cannot deal with in the same way he deals with other things, he makes an oath, or a deal, or a bargain. it's a pattern that's wormed it's way through the entire campaign ever since his talk with niklaus hendrix (ep. 8) and found it's beginning in his original paladin oath, one he took due to the conditioning and expectations of the elders. (my theory is that he finds something comforting in making a deal with someone higher up in the food chain than him. fucking freak.)

another interesting aspect to look at under this new light is his initial reaction to finding pretzels bowl empty. first thing he does is scream. multiple times. to me that is a very clear very vulnerable expression of emotion. and then - he does nothing. until he's prompted to break the mirror by jay. and it's only until after that plan fails that gillion starts his whole vengeance spiel, which we now know is most likely an attempt at fixing things the way he should as instructed by the elders. in that short period of time before that he is aimless. he's just gillion and he lost his pet and he doesn't know what to do. in that moment his initial reaction is utter despair, pure emotion, and once he had time to gather himself that's when he doesn't see any other way than to do something painfully familiar. and with that also comes the whole barrage of old behavioral patterns that lead to him acting the way he does.

so that's this episode, but of course, similar, less obvious cases are sprinkled all throughout the campaign.

the one that immediately comes to mind is the fight for honor between him and chip (ep. 15), where the moment his honor is wounded, he opts for a fight to the death, even though at this point he already considers chip his friend.

or in ep. 8, insisting on a fight with niklaus and even going for a second round after getting downed by niklaus in one hit, and then accepting a deal that he knows is bad news, all because it would save the mayor and his daughter (because, quick refresher, they could have just let the mayor die and that would have lifted the curse). and "what is one more burden" right?

or the fact that he still sees having fun with his friends as an actual literal sin!! (ep. 71)

or letting jay down him willingly, even removing his armor (ep. 53)

and so on and so forth. there's probably a lot of subtle one-liners or passing ooc remarks, that I can't remember, but you get the gist.

the gist being that gillion grew up not being gillion, but The Chosen One instead. and now that he has the freedom to be both, there are some really messy consequences, and it's actually incredible what a grip charlie has on all of these layers and behaviors and I get more and more fascinated by him the deeper I dig.

we have not even touched certain aspects of gillion's character and journey, there's his fish out of water issue, very subtle hints that he might have been suicidal at one point, not to mention what his banishment from the undersea did to him. but all of that is another conversation entirely.

anyway! I hope you enjoyed this very all over the place, rambly analysis post, even though there's not many new thoughts or revelations in here and I basically winged it! the moment I started this train of thought on saturday I just couldn't get to rest until I put this whole thing together.

now I finally know peace.

can't wait for the next episode on friday to disprove all of what I said

(also please feel free to add onto this, tell me how I got it wrong, derail the post etc. I love reading other people's thoughts on stuff I say)

(@wrinklemcdinkle

@snails-in-spaceships

@keenscribbles

@poly-pirates-my-beloved

@enby-ralsei

@littlefoxwithbighat

@burning-sol)

[nutklcker]

HI (I LOVE THE PARAGRAPHS EACH OFYOU LEAVE IN MY TAGS SO FUCKIMG MUCH) do any of your ocs have ref sheets. or even just full-body drawings . totally not asking for any specific purpose ....

WE'RE SO GLAD YOU LOVE OUR RAMBLING you have such pretty art and reblog some of the best posts and you're so good at writing so we just have to explode in the tags sometimes hehe

Also we saw this ask like four? Five? Hours ago and went Oh Shit No We Don't and have spent the whole time drawing and we were like Oh we should throw our LC alters in there too since this is their blog and their mutuals should know who they're talking to! And then we got distracted and ONLY drew the alters and host's self insert and none of our OC's so :> we'll do that eventually though but we'll also do like another post with more info ANYWAYS here's the art we made of the self insert and the Lethal alters :3

Info for each of us under the cut (also Rend and Anno are heavily derived from a fever dream March had after we got surgery and had complications, as such they have a story and are pretty attached to it so we'll go into that too)

The "Story"/Fever Dream:

There were two crews who led a revolution against The Company about fifty years before the game takes place, and of them were eight people named Experimentation, Assurance, Vow, Offense, March, Rend, Dine, and Titan, and they weren't named after the planets, the planets were named after them. (Rend, March, Assurance, and Vow were on a team with Rend being the captain, and the other team was led by Titan and had Dine, Offense, and Experimentation.) Eventually, the revolution got pretty popular and widespread so The Company gave in and agreed to meet with the two teams to discuss their requests, and at the end of the discussion they promised the requests would take place within the next few weeks. The eight members of the revolution were satisfied and went back to work, but the next day they were given news that due to their conjoined efforts they would have to all split up and join different teams to ensure that they didn't again backstab the company once their requests were fulfilled. They, unfortunately, did not put up a fight against this and within the next quota cycle each of them were abandoned and killed on different, new moons none of them had ever seen before. The company never enforced the things they agreed upon but because the leaders of the revolution were killed before word of the promises got far, and because they mysteriously went missing and had new moons named after them, nobody said anything and nobody acted out against The Company.

Pace:

- Pace is Geno's self-insert OC and he uses He/Him pronouns and is transmasc <3

- He was an employee for The Company AFTER the time of the revolution and worked not as a scrap collector but as a biologist. His team was tasked with finding specific monsters and collecting some bio matter from them to then bring back to The Company. Pace had a rivalry with one of his teammates who was tired of Pace always succeeding, so, he pushed for Pace to receive a Bracken as his quarry and succeeded. However upon arriving Pace was easily able to find the Bracken of Vow (who was actually Vow from the revolution) and collect bio matter from it by befriending it, which enraged his competitor and led to both Pace and Vow being shot. Vow tried to protect Pace after realizing the shot that hit him was not meant for him, but both were too wounded to survive. Vow disintegrated atop of Pace, leaving him and his open wounds covered in Bracken spores, and his competitor left to eventually be killed by a coilhead. Their other two teammates made it out.

- The spores found the decomposing body of a human to be the perfect place to reform and create a new Bracken; that being Pace. Pace spent about twenty years hunting loot bugs and hiding from scrap collectors before a woman named Kite and her captain Calamity found him at the fire exit of Vow. The two found that he was friendly and took him upon their ship, but one of their teammates was appalled at having a "friendly" Bracken and, as they were leaving, pushed Calamity out of the ship in anger, landing her between a dog and a baboon hawk. Pace jumped to rescue her and while he was successfully able to lure the dog away enough for Calamity to safely jump back on the ship, he was grabbed by the Dog and torn to shreds. The ship's autopilot took off while he was fighting the dog and the crew (excluding the asshole) started to panic.

- The next day Vow was eclipsed and, much to Calamity and Kite's disdain, the crew decided to wait for the eclipse to pass before landing back down on Vow and looking for Pace. Meanwhile, Pace had managed to crawl his way back to the fire exit, tumbling down the ravine, and set himself up on a pallet just inside the door. There, sleeping through the whole day, he was able to slowly heal.

- The third and last day of the quota cycle, Calamity's crew got into another argument with Asshole over going to save Pace, and landed at Vow without realizing another team (March's team, as he had already been rescued by a crew by this time) had already landed there. Calamity and Kite rushed in to find Pace while Sail, the crew's navigator and Kite's twin brother, argued with the asshole. The captain of the other crew, who's ship was nearby, overheard an argument about saving a "friendly bracken" and connected the dots that another crew must have found someone like March, their friendly coil-head, and walked out to confront the two. Sail left to help Calamity and Kite find Pace, and the captain (name yet unknown) spoke with the asshole, found out he wanted to kill Pace and attempted to kill his own captain, and promptly hit him over the head with a shovel in order to protect not just his crew, but March as well. The asshole was left there as the captain rushed in to inform his crew of another friendly monster and tell the other crew bus was happy to help, and the asshole was left there to be picked up and carried away by a Giant.

- Pace was eventually found , missing most of his arm, leg, and leaves on his left side, and the two crews met up and became friends. Pace was placed in a large pot covered up to his shoulders in dirt and for the next few quota cycles his crew would place him outside to soak up the sun and look around. Because his arm and leg were fully submerged in the soil and water, they regrew, but his eye never did. He doesn't mind too much though, he can tell when things are looking at him and, in his opinion, that's all he really needs his eyes for. He helps scavenge for scrap and is able to carry two heavy items at a time, however, he can only carry one light item when doing so as it's uncomfortable to hold in his big hands

March:

- March was our first LC alter and has been around since about late October? He's not too conncected to his source and is actually the version of March from our fever dream BEFORE the revolution ended. So though the March in our dream was a coil head by the end of it, our March still thinks of himself as human. Being compared to a coil doesn't bother him though, they're his favorite enemy in the game :) also he's mute and considers himself cis and demiro-ace.

Rend:

- Rend is also one of our alters but is a lot more attached to both the game and the "story" so he has some funky false memories and is a little delulu about it, but he's happy and healthy and aware of reality and not hurting anyone or our system or himself so we don't mind hehe also, Rend is transmasc just like host and his pronouns are he/him but he's trying out they/it

- Rend is of course based on Captain Rend from the "story" but, unlike March, is from AFTER he died and he much prefers being seen as a nutcracker than a human. Our assumption over why is because Rend had actually been a fragment for most of our life who managed family interactions, and since that was all our brain found him fit for he never really gained a personality or sense of self and as such thinks he looks exactly like our host and would probably share the same name and everything. We think subconsciously our brain makes him like being a nutcracker more than a human in order to make it easier to distinguish him and host

- Rend, being much more intrigued by the fever dream likes daydreaming about it a lot, like he's roleplaying in his head in his own, and as such he likes talking about it and thinking about it a lot more than March does. So, here's some things he daydreams about a lot and thinks would be "canon" continuations of the "story"/fever dream:

- Before March's team found Pace and his team, they got to a pretty high quota and started visiting Rend and Dine. One of their first times visiting Rend, Melody, an employee on March's team, found a seemingly deactivated nutcracker deep in the facility. The team had split up so Melody knew she would have to be careful, but she wanted the shotgun so she crept close and clumsily grabbed it, setting it off. This startled here and she backed off, watching in silent horror as the Nutcracker slowly started to move and stand and, eventually, open up and look around. In panic, Melody ran despite being looked at and, for a moment, Rene stood there confuse before he realized he had finally found someone. Forgetting his voice, he chased after her for a bit but she would frequently stop and hold still so he had trouble. Eventually he shouted to her to wait and she paused, turning to look at the apparently able to speak nutcracker just as March had sped up beside her to block the path between her and Rend. Staring down at an employee with his shotgun and a coilhead that was looking at him and not said employee, Rend ran. In instinct, as she had gotten used to March by now, Melody turned and March gave chase. He was scared and angry that the nutcracker had presumably tried to shoot his friend and, upon trying to push the nutcracker to get it to stop running, he sent a surge through its body and caused it to bleed (like how we headcannon them to work, building up pressure in the body's blood). Melody followed a few rooms behind, having trouble keeping up with the two big monsters but, when Rend was hurt he screamed, and Melody knew that wasn't any of her teammates so she picked up the pace. Rend had been cornered but Melody caught sight of March which forced him to stop moving, and tried to rush to the nutcracker when she saw him bleeding, but, turning her back to March Rend panicked and stepped between the two, telling Melody that he wanted to talk to her but couldn't protect her with the state he was in, so she needed to look at the coil head. He was seemingly trying to protect her. For his comfort she did look at March, but tried to assure him to calm down, sit for a little so she could try and tend to whatever part of him was bleeding, and that she would be more than willing to talk. They spoke for a while, Rend having trouble believing that the coil was friendly given how it seemingly tried to explode him, but he let bygones be bygones. Melody and March both started to wonder if this was one of his old friends but they had decided beforehand not to bring it up to any possible teammates without getting a gauge for their mental state, and Rend was very frazzled so they decided to wait to ask his name or story until he calmed down. They gave him back his shotgun, he turned the safety on, and Melody convinced him to open up so she could tend to his bleeding eye, and eventually the three started to make their way back to main in order to meet up with the rest of the team and get Rend out to their ship

- On the way there they met up with the teammate March had been with before he came running after he heard the gunshot, but this teammate was actively running from a thumper. Rend tried to shoot it but missed due to his eye injury and urged the rest of them to run as he'd hold it back as long as possible. The three left and Rend dragged the Thumper around for a bit before it got loose and rocketed down the hallway after the three. Rend, knowing the layout like the back of his hand, took an alternate route to get to main in order to hopefully outpace the thumper. He made it in time to tackle the thumper and send it and him over the balcony railing where they landed near Melody, March, and their other teammate who were actively trying to scare off a Bracken. Rend urged them to head outside and leave for their safety and they did. It took them a while to get back enough money to go back for Rend, and in this time they met Pace and his team. Rend is still actively daydreaming about this all the time so I'm sure he'll infodump about it more another time.

Anno:

- Anno has been around for the least amount of time, we had a major allergic reaction while Rend was fronting and so he spent time curled in a ball daydreaming as he always loves to. For comfort he daydreamed about cuddling a friendly masked, but eventually got so fed up he told our partner, aloud "I really hate this body" and our little asshole of a brain (/lh) essentially went "oh really? New alter be upon ye" and turned that cute little Masked Rend was daydreaming about into a new fragment. Anno has since become more concrete, he's transmasc and uses it/its pronouns, and it's not very interested in Lethal Company but LOVES Rend a lot. It's just kinda gay and likes Minecraft, like those are its things so far. Rend has decided that if Anno was in the "story" it would've been from far before the revolution and was left behind by mistake. That's about it for Anno, it's just kinda a thingy that's very gay

Wow so that's the end of that, I'm incapable of making long stories short apparently tee hee. I've been talking for way too long and I doubt anyone got this far, but this was mostly for us since we're soupy right now and it made us feel grounded. If you got this far Anno gives you a cookie.

[mattodore]

just realized both theo and matthias's playlists are over a hundred songs long now... that's six hours for each playlist 😁

[thefirstknife]

can we please. go one (1) week without the PVP obsessed people going off about how PVP is the only thing that matters in the game. im so very tired. "PVE people are probably about to find out that PVE can't carry the game because PVP is ruined and we're all gonna quit and play better games" please just can they shut up and go already instead of threatening us with a good time they never follow through on??

I saw that stuff as well, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's incredibly disingenuous and deliberately incendiary to cause more people to bitch about the game being doomed or whatever.

They are constantly using "steam numbers" to show that this is the lowest population count that Destiny 2 ever had and how that's proof that the game is being ruined and dying, that pvp bros and content creators are more important than we think they are, that Bungie needs to make Destiny 3 (yes, that is unironically stuff that people are saying) and other really incredibly tiring things.

Not to mention the vitriol towards the devs. Every time they bitch, more and more people show up in the comments saying awful shit about devs and how they are lazy, they don't work, they don't care, they are bad at development and so on. This is what eventually fuels harassment.

These "steam numbers" are disingenuous because they are taken out of context and they strip all other external reasons from the "low player count."

Is there a low player count? Yes! That is correct. Even when we account for console players, it's still low.

This is nothing new. This is a constant trend. Last month of the season ALWAYS has low numbers. People finished their story and their pinnacle grind and their seals and are doing other things.

More under for length:

Is this the lowest it's been so far? It seems to be, though the final month on steam charts isn't over so we can't fully tell yet, but it seems to be one of the lowest. However, there's been similar numbers before during seasonal end. It's quite literally nothing new. We go through this every season, except this season it's slightly lower than usual.

Why is that? Well, the chart Aztecross put to prove there's not many people playing happened on a Monday before the final Tuesday reset of the final week of the season. Yeah bro, very few people have things left to do in the season. They're not bothering. Unlike you, other people have other hobbies and games to play. I haven't played in days, I only got on on Saturday to finish my King's Fall seal and that took 10 minutes. This is what I mean by "disingenuous." It's a cheap bait tactic. Find the lowest number and ship it for cheap outrage engagement.

Others are constantly also posting the cummulative steam chart for every month of Destiny since the game came to steam and they're pointing out that we have lowest numbers now. Which is, again, posted for cheap outrage. They look at the number and see it's low and their conclusion is "game is dying." They don't care about the trend (every season end is "dying"), they don't care about external reasons (other game releases), they don't care about overall how some seasons are just weaker and have less interest (not the first time), they don't care about anything.

They just want people to be mad enough to harass the devs. Because like, what do they think is going to happen when they spend 2 months blogging to hundreds of thousands of people about the game being ruined by evil devs who don't do their job? When they constantly talk about how everything in the game is bad, pvp is bad, pve is boring and easy, story is bad, seasons are bad, events made for fun are bad, small community event is bad. What's going to happen is thousands of people are going to harass the devs. That's what going to happen.

I took the "steam numbers" chart that people are throwing around and I went into it in-depth to explain what the numbers mean and add context to them. You can see it here. It's a big image but you can zoom in and explore. It makes more sense when you see it separated by seasons; you can CLEARLY see the main trend of "low population at season end."

Another thing to consider with these numbers is the scheduling pattern. Shadowkeep released in October, Beyond Light released in November after a delay. October-November are usually months with a lot of other game releases and holidays. In 2019 and 2020, Bungie had an expansion themselves to cover that time. In 2021, there was no expansion in Oct-Nov; and that was the last time the game had the lowest population record ever. WHAT A SURPRISE. In this period, if Destiny doesn't have an expansion, people move on to play other games!!!! WOW! We have the technology to decipher the low numbers!

It's important to also note that back in 2021, that was the first time a game was delayed properly and significantly, so the year was without an expansion and there was a lull in Oct-Nov period. However, at that time, it was the first time this schedule happened and people generally didn't know how will it go. We were also kept in the dark about the seasonal story end (the infamous When Is Exorcism incident) so people had to keep coming back. Now, we're in the same situation; no new expansion in Oct-Nov, seasonal lull, nothing is happening. However, now, we know how this goes. People know how this schedule works AND we're not dealing with an extended season. We know when this season ends and there's nothing to wait for. People are more comfortable taking a break. So there's less people in Oct-Nov 2022 than there were in the previous lowest point, Oct-Nov 2021. It's almost as if there are reasons for this that go beyond "game is obviously dying."

These people also seem to be incapable of understanding that some players just... stop playing. For no specific reason. The game isn't dying, some people just lose interest. Content creators are especially guilty of this, because THEY can't stop playing, because they tied their income to a single live service game. To them, quitting the game is losing a job. Curious, maybe that influences their views about the game and about burnout and taking breaks and the quality of the content?

They simultaneously want Bungie to drop FOMO and reduce burnout, but they ALSO want for there to never be "content droughts." Which one is it? Because these two things cannot both be gone. If you want less FOMO and less burnout, then there will be less content. If you want more content, then you have to get on that burnout grindset.

It's the end of the god damn season. Yeah, nothing is happening. Yeah, fewer people are playing. Players finished their grind in the Destiny mines and are doing other things before the new season drops. Stop catastrophising it for cheap outrage bait. You not being able to take a break and having to keep making new content even when the season is ending and there no new content is your problem. Not Bungie's, not the other players'.

Bungie is not going to force their devs to crunch 80 hours per week so you can have brand new content every Tuesday that no regular player can catch up with. As it currently is, I want MORE downtime. I want seasons to be 4 months and to have less time and more downtime to catch up with stuff. Imagine the outrage though. Genuinely, society if these people would actually deliver on their promise and leave. Someone else will take your place, bro.

Also, as a final note before a dissertation in the tags: these pvp mains are weak. They whine about only having 2 new maps in 2 years. Gambit got -2 new maps. Like, literally we had 6 maps and now we have 4. LMAO. Crucible has a total of 24 maps and 8+ modes, constant updates, Iron Banner rework, multiple Trials reworks, incoming competitive rework, Crucible labs, three different sets of armour, prestige weapon loot, three different seals, entire twabs dedicated just to it. And they whine about not enough attention for the Crucible?

It's getting more attention than any other core playlist. Their problem is that they're not the ones being catered to. An update doesn't count if it doesn't satisfy mister Crucible Main #37. Fuck everyone else I guess! They are the most entitled selfish childish little pricks I've ever seen. They do not deserve Bungie talking the players at all.

[lonestardust]

good morning i still can’t believe carlos and tk got married!!!!!!! can't believe their wedding exists and it has carved a place in our mortal realm!!!!!!!

[reanimatestar]

art fighttt

[image description: three digital illustrations of the artist's persona, designed specifically for art fight. the first is a reference sheet, showing them standing with their hands in their pockets against a grey background. they are an east asian person with brown eyes, tan skin, and black wavy hair. she also has two moles on her face, fangs that curve outwards and a black fluffy tail. he wears a black collared shirt over a white turtleneck sweater, and blue jeans tucked into black boots. she also wears glasses and silver ball chain necklace with a star pendant. a swatch with their colour palette is available. the second is another reference sheet, this time with them as a black anthropomorphic wolf with sharp claws and digitigrade legs. the third is an illustration of him from the chest upwards. the atmosphere is dark, with dramatic shading. the glare of the glasses obscures one of her eyes, with the other exhibiting blue eyeshine. the background is purple and teal. /end description]