Great job, Kris. You gave the child an existential crisis.

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MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[ “SOMEBODY TOLD ME”]:

BREAKING MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME. SEVENTEEN TRACKS AND I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS GAME. A BREAKIN’ MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME—BUT HEAVEN AIN’T CLOSE IN A PLACE LIKE THIS.

— The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)

Princess Rhaenyra’s insolence is wearing her stepmother’s patience thin. Queen Alicent is not ten years her senior, but even during her own sixteenth year, she cannot recall herself behaving so brazenly. She would never burst into courtly discussions in nothing but gilded armor and the underskirts of her riding leathers, awash in blood. (She would never be spotted in blood that was not her own, anyway. Alicent has never picked up a sword, not one that belonged to her.) Nevermind that Rhaenyra is attending to diplomatic affairs with bared teeth and scales, no—the crux of the matter is just that, her affairs. Rhaenyra is the Realm’s Delight, a beauty incomparable to any fair maiden, Alicent included. She indulges herself with appetite of a spoiled child, the confidence of man, and the pickings befitting only to her royal blood. Criston Cole. Daemon Targaryen. Harwin Strong. Laena Velaryon. She’s full of love, isn’t she? That selfish, foolish girl. What does Rhaenyra Targaryen know of love, of duty? She is a child in so many ways—she thinks killing makes her a man, thinks the throne is hers despite being a woman, thinks she can have her knight and her uncle and her protector and Laena Velaryon in one fail swoop. She’s wrong. She doesn’t know herself half as well as Alicent does. Alicent, who sees her for what she truly is, who wants to see all of her and more of her and none of her. Alicent has been stolen into the Keep by her own father—both of their fathers—but Rhaenyra is the key to this place, is the window to everything barred. Rhaenyra Targaryen has a dragon. Rhaenyra can fly.

That’s what Rhaenyra had promised her once, with her lips pulled back in a grin, exposing the white of her teeth like the violently radiant creature she was. “Perhaps when you grow tired of plotting against me, we shall ride on dragonback together,” she had said. The tease.

Alicent had yanked her into an empty corridor by the silk of her sleeve, ready to chastise her for her ill behavior. Conversing with the lords and ladies of the court at a feast was one thing, but chattering about her bloody encounters in battle over the pudding tureen were another. The lord at her elbow was going green. Alicent’s own face was likely red; her heart raced whenever Rhaenyra got like this. Alicent had never seen the battlefield—only seen battered men in dented armor and the slumps of corpses lined along dirt roads in the aftermath of war—but her own imagination terrified her like nothing else.

(Rhaenyra is better with a sword than half of the knights in Westeros, and more lovely than the lot. Her reign has not yet begun, but already the commoners flock to her—lured in by tales of her beauty and fine hair—and soldiers would follow her into battle. Alicent would not follow, but she would watch and bite her nails down to the quick.

She thinks of the figure Rhaenyra cuts in full armor, the heat in her gaze underneath the slots of her helmet. Alicent remembers the weight of her own hand in Rhaenyra’s—which was gloved—when the princess rode up to the spectators box and grasped it in her own, bringing Alicent’s knuckles to her lips. She thinks of Rhaenyra murdered in the sky, skewered with another man’s sword, plummeting to the ground, torn in half, streaking crimson across the clouds. Alicent would scream, or cry. She might laugh. She would throw herself from the window of her tower. Rhaenyra’s bloody exploits terrified Alicent for reasons she could not identify, and excited her for reasons she refused to.)

“I’d sooner be confined to the castle for the rest of my days than get on the back of that bloody lizard,” Alicent scoffed. Rhaenyra only tucked her hand over Alicent’s, where it was resting on her forearm. She flexed her fingers, moving to release her grip on the dark fabric, but Rhaenyra intertwined their fingers and held them fast.

“You’re confined already. You are already accustomed to such a thing. I know you. But—”

“But you forget yourself. You think you’re invulnerable, Rhaenyra. You don’t know who you are.” Alicent intends for it to be a sneer, but instead it comes out quietly, and too gentle for disdain. She can’t know. Rhaenyra is as trapped as she is, but they’re trapped together. They belong together. She belongs with Alicent.

“I am Rhaenyra Targaryen, Heir to the Iron Throne and all of Westeros. I am a dragonrider. I am—I am your daughter. In a way. Your sister, too. Your enemy. Your sword, your shield.”

“And what am I?” What else is left for me? Alicent wonders.

“My Queen. For now.” Rhaenyra cocks her head, and the gleam in her eyes burns like fire raining down. “When I am Queen, you will be my lady.”

also can I just say. the difference between the joy of fit and bagi having a full day with blue, getting acquainted with the base, reuniting with their loved ones, all relieved to have more materials and more of a team - and then the absolute misery of etoiles and roier, moving the few valuable possessions red has to a new base that got immediately discovered anyway, losing all their gear, getting it back, then burning it themselves before killing eachother, is just so fucking funny. the new blues had freshman orientation while the new reds had a trial by fire canon event

there are so many accidentally gay shows made by and for straight people but red dwarf is really on a whole nother level

eyestrain warning

Seija Kijin and Shinmyoumaru Sukuna from Touhou Project

this was supposed to be a simple drawing but then i went crazy with the effects and now it physically hurts to look at

animalic chapter 6 no context spoilers:

BELOVED DND PARTY OF A BUNCH OF FREEEAKS <333 I LOVE THEM SO MUUUUUCH

silhouette of the comic cus i think it looks cool :D

Hey friends!

A new work, Business Partners? by phoenixash234flames was published today, with 1/1 Chapters released! It has a rating of General Audiences and No Archive Warnings Apply, with additional tags "starting the business"

You can read it here:

WEDDING WISHES LORE !!!!! Prismo, you drunk GOOBER (affectionate). I love seeing them together and being all kissy-kissy :]/hj. My little guys <3. Scarab is going to have an aneurysm from just how 'Prismo' Prismo is/lh.

Nirmata, by datwheatlyboi, was updated today, with 3/? Chapters released! It has a rating of Mature and Graphic Depictions Of Violence, with additional tags "Post-Canon, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burnm Character Study, Prohibitedwish is real, Action/Adventure, Detectives, Slow Romance, Adventure time but for gods"

You can read it here:

I'm excited for this one :] !! I love them both going :flushed: over each other's disguises; they're being so obvious and in PUBLIC/j. Prismo has never ever been outside the Time Cube, so it makes sense that he's filled with the whimsy and beauty of nature/j but. MY KING. THE FATE OF EXISTENCE IS DEPENDENT ON YOU. P;EASE. The bookshop scene made me so scared, the second-hand embarrassment was building up, but it was okay in the end <3

A new work, Roadtrip by heirozphant was published today, with 1/? Chapters released! It has a rating of General Audiences and No Archive Warnings Apply, with additional tags "Alternate Universe - Human, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Flirting, Awkward Flirting, Alternate Universe - Office, More tag to be added, How do ao3 tags work aah??"

You can read it here:

I LOVE ROADTRIP AUS THEY'RE MY FAVOURITE THIS IS MY FAVOURITE !!! I'M SO EXCITED FOR THIS ONE AAAAGH/pos. They're already being so sillay <3 around each other and now they gotta sit in a car together for hours >:]. And howell has to be stuck between them; what else is new/pos. Also, two pennies that they get pulled over when Prismo is driving/j.

Seraphyllic, by DrakianDH, was updated today, with 7/15 Chapters released! It has a rating of Teen And Up Audiences and Graphic Depictions Of Violence and Major CHaracter Death, with the additional tags "scarab the god auditor - Freeform, prismo the wishmaster - Freeform, Priscrab, ProhibitedWish, Scrabby, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, no beta we get turned to legos like the lich, Adventure & Romance, Story within a Story, Eventual Happy Ending, Maybe - Freeform, Author Is Sleep Deprived, The Author Regrets Nothing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, You gotta work for the comfort, begining poem important, each chapter a word, prepare"

You can read it here:

Ao3 was glitching out with this one, but I think it's all good now !! I went back and reread the whole thing (which I do normally bcdhnfjv) and OH MY BOOOOOYS <3333/pos. They get to be so soft with each other :,]. I love them watching movies, they are definitely both studio ghibili fans, I can feel it in my bones.

wishes for bugs by VioletThePorama was updated today, with 12/12 Chapters released! It has a rating of Teen And Up Audiences and No Archive Warnings Apply, with additional tags "Enemies to Lovers, Sort Of, Enemies to Roommates, Workplace, Post-Canon, Prismo is lonely, Mentioned/implied Prismo/Jake, Saw that this was called Prohibitedwish, The funky artists on tumblr and twitter got me interested, in thinking about their stupid relationship, they haven't made many Fionna and Cake tags yet I can tell"

You can read it here:

wishes for bugs is over, and I don't know whether I should feel happy that I can reread it over and over or sad that there won't be any new content/lh/j. SCARAB GETS TO DO WISHES MY BOY GETS TO DO WISHES!!!!! THEY'RE SO HAPPY IT'S GOING TO MAKE ME CRY I LOVE THEM.

NSFW works are below the cut :].

Misery Loves Company, by othersin, was updated today, with 2/2 Chapters released! It has a rating of Mature and No Archive Warnings Apply, with additional tags "Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Failed Relationships, I am partial to the idea of Scarab and Prismo being ex's, but how about an ill-advised rebound, some delicious angst, ProhibitedWish, References to Egyptian Mythology, DepressionGrief/Mourning, Not Healthy Relationships, Slow Burn, Falling In Love"

You can read it here:

Yes, hi, the boyfailures are back at it again/j. I like the use of Egyptian Gods in this fic, it's super creative and adds extra wondrous lore >:]<. Prismo trying to have a normal conversation with Ra while also being VERY INTIMATE with Scarab made me giggle. They're both so dumb <3/lh.

Silly Bug, by TJade, was updated today, with 5/? Chapters released! It has a rating of Explicit and No Archive Warnings Apply, with the additional tags "Genderbending, Domestic Fluff, Teasing, Humor, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suggestive Themes. Awkwardness, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkward Conversations, Communication, Healthy Relationships, Voyeurism, Oral Sex, Threesome, Frottage"

You can read it here:

THE YURI IS HERE !!! Priscilla is trying her best but it's hard when her brain keeps turning off/j. It's ok queen we still love you <3333/pos.

A new work, Wish Granted by Finn565 was published today, with 1/1 Chapters released! It has a rating of Explicit and No Archive Warnings Apply, with the additional tags "Porn With Plot, human!prismo, Scarab makes his wish, Alien Biology, Brat tamer Prismo is my favorite, cus hes just that cool of a guy, and secret bottom scarab is also my fav, Begging, Bottom Scarab, Top Prismo, Power Dynamics, Tentacles, hermaphrodite, Edging, Love Confessions, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Consent, Oral Sex, Their dynamic is just so tasty"

You can read it here:

This one was so nice and happy <3. Dom Prismo is always a win in my book ! And they TALKED I love it when they talk.

Honestly though saying (or implying) that vocaloid or vocal synths in general "devalues the human voice" is SUCH an incredibly shit take for SO many reasons.

Like yeah Saki Fujita getting so many other roles in voice acting because of her contribution to Hatsune Miku (the anime cameos and stuff are usually done with her original voice, them modified to be robotic) is a bit of an outlier when most other vocaloid and sythns don't have that influence.

You can even sort of wave off the dozens upon dozens of people who go for realistic tuning- like whenever a synth has any sort of clarity, there are like five people commenting about how real they sound. Clearly people do still care about human sounding vocals, because they go nuts over realistic vtuning.

There are many different aspects of vocaloid that use human voices, too- from Set It Off's duet "Why Do I?", human rap artists using Miku's vocals as background, and the entire CONCEPT of Project Sekai which releases AND COMMISSIONS songs for vocal synths and real people.

But the sheer number of vocaloid producers who use their own vocals as back up (MikitoP, PinoochioP, and I believe Kira off the top of my head), the number of producers who can sing and/or do self covers (again Kira, GIGA, Ayase, Teniwoha, syudou and so many more), and the amount of vocal producers who have gone forward with legit musical careers after working with vocaloid (Kenshi Yonezu, most notably, who did work for years under the alias Hachi)

I mean, hell. There are vocaloid producers who go on to become vocaloid vocals themselves- like nostraightanswer, the vocal provider for DEX, who has made both vocaloid and original songs. Some even duets.

That's not even including creators like JubyPhonic, Rachie, Will Stenson, Lollia, Octavia, Razzy and Co., and SO many other HUMAN cover artists who gained following or honed their skills on none other than vocaloid covers. (And that's just a handful of English Cover artists, not like Sati Akura a Russian cover artist or Ado who has commissioned songs from vocaloid artists)

It's also not including UTAUites who input their own voices to use for covers.

"Devalues the human voice" is such blatant bs. They ARE human voices. They are OUR voices. "You'd think by now that we would have learned, behind every piece if art is a human to be heard." (- CircusP, 'Better Off Worse')

I have this toxic trait that whenever I’m experiencing a horrible event if I am going through it with a buddy I am no longer suffering but instead excited to be trauma bonding with my pal

What even *is* the plot of the Beetle? Other than Racism and Bad Writing?

Well, there was some hope for a fever dreamy what-the-fuck nightmare scenario where an unemployed clerk gets turned into a brain slave by a bugperson who forces him to do naked burglary

But then it kind of went downhill after that into Masochism Land

It's not even fun garbage anymore. It's straight nuclear waste that we're wading through, hoping for another glimpse of Bare-assed Blorbo or the BEETLE (their pronunciation) for some oasis of weirdness to make the shittiness worth it. So far it's just Dick Marsh inflicting a genocidal incel on us and hoping we find him quirky. It is not working.

Do not read The Beetle. Absorb what filters out here the way you would drink still-questionable water that's come through a tormented strainer of readers who sift through Dick's awful Marsh of Misery. I guarantee whatever you piece together yourself will be 100000x more artful than the literary slog that is this hellbook. -100 out of 5 stars. Dead beetle do not open.

The one silver lining is that it is so wretched, so abysmal, so mind-breakingly rancid, that it's genuinely inspiring. Hatefully so. It's made so many people sit down, stare into eternity, and decide, rightly:

I could sneeze on my keyboard and write a better story than this. I could slam finger paints blindly on a piece of paper and draw a better story than this. I think I will.

It's a motivator. A muse sculpted out of scarab wings and shit. All the charm and power of a sign reading TOXIC WASTE DUMP BEYOND THIS POINT, sending you careening in the other direction towards art and talent and creation free of any self-judgment.

This thing outsold Dracula when the books first came out, you will think to yourself. This piece of crystallized offal, woe, racist caricatures, endless grammatical purgatories of enough dashes and commas to turn a single sentence into a filibuster. It did that. I am better than that. There's no amount of self-doubt in my heart or on this Earth that can convince me otherwise. I am free and spurred to manifest the better things that exist in my imagination. Thank you, Dick Marsh, in whatever xenophobic murder gas death pool you're marinating in in the afterlife. Thank you.

I say again, do not read The Beetle. The Beetle is not for reading. It exists for the same reason The King in Yellow play exists in Chambers' universe. To seed madness and disgust and the full antithesis of sense and taste and all that is good.

All that, and the Beetle exploring their imprisoned mind-controlled pet clerk's body while they rant about a hot politician they're obsessed with.

The Beetle does not exist to be read, but to be endured.

You may not make it through. I'm not even sure I will.

But the challenge is there.

The option to look upon the Beetlebullshit is here.

>be me, taking a specialty medicine that is actually really helping me >type of medicine you see in commercials >need to fill out a whole application with my doctor for their financial aid program to take it >need to re-apply every year >know it can take a while for the application process to be finished so i re-apply in may >my year runs out in november so that should be plenty of time >havent heard anything back in months so i ask my doctor if they've heard anything since they submitted the application >"if you got your last shipment, then you're re-enrolled" >yeah ok thats a relief >call the specialty pharmacy a few weeks later to schedule my next shipment >"we can't schedule your shipment, it seems you aren't in the program anymore. call the medicine company" >call the medicine company >"we sent your doctor a form a few weeks ago and they haven't answered us. call your doctor" >call the doctor >doctor is fucking allergic to answering the phone >spend two weeks trying to figure out what form they needed to fill out >it was the same goddamn form i filled out in may >doctors never sent it >fml >call the doctor again and pester them into sending the application "again" >(tell them the medicine company probably messed up instead of them so they don't get pissed and fuck up more shit) >call the medicine company two days later to ask if they got the application >apparently i need to babysit this goddamn application >they got it though thank god >need to call back in seven business days to see if they've approved it >give em eight days just in case >application got approved!!! >(apparently they didnt feel the need to like, notify me or anything. but whatever) >call the specialty pharmacy to schedule my next shipment >they haven't gotten the news yet so can't schedule yet >need to wait a day or two >give em two days just in case >call em again to schedule my next shipment >"sorry we can't schedule your shipment just yet because your doctor didnt specify on the prescription whether it's the pen or the syringe" >"i've been on the medicine for a year i know it's the pen" >"sorry we can't do it" >fml >call the doctor and miraculously get thru to a real person on my first attempt >"i'll leave a message for your nurse but she only comes in on tuesdays" >been the perfect patient >gave them several months for this application so i dont risk going off my meds >pestered everybody i needed to pester >still been off my meds for almost two weeks now bc my doctors cant do their fucking job >mfw

for @littlewrensx continued from here

Lucian simply nodded when Wren admitted that she wasn't sure that she wanted to come either. He wouldn't have blamed her for leaving him. They hadn't spoken in years, he had had no right to call her yet she was the only one that he had wanted to call. He followed her out to her car, taking a moment to just sit in the seat. Despite the awkwardness that filled the air between them it was still so much better than sitting in a cell with an old drunk man who had pissed himself.

"Some guys mother never taught him manners so I decided to give him a lesson or two." Lucian shrugged as if it was no big deal. Everyone in the bar had been in unanimous agreement that the guy Lucian had pummeled had deserved it. "Bartender probably would have let the whole thing slide but an off duty deputy sitting three stools down from me wasn't so inclined."

“i love reading about/seeing art of everyone’s ocs :) keep posting!! :)))”

untrue + nobody wants to see my shit + please stop lying

i hate those "incredibly spesific poll where all the options are things from my life" polls only because im a jealous little freak who hates fun and is mad that i never have any. the fuck do you mean ur out there having a good time. my poll would be all about moments of total earth-shatrering idiocy that i think is funny in retrospect, that's it

Joy is muscle memory. It shouldn't be, since it's an emotion we know from birth, but eventually, other people will make you feel silly for embracing it. The world will try to take your joy away. Your misery is an exploitable commodity, your hate is socially rewardable. You have to relearn joy. You have to start grasping at every opportunity for joy like a baby grabbing an adult's finger. You have to white-knuckle grip your love and passion until your joints lock in place and the joy can't slip away. You have to build the muscles that know how to be joyful and let the muscles that care what others think about your joy atrophy. Joy is muscle memory.