#finx has friends on the internet

[aethersea]

necromancy is that cheap compared to arrows bc the god of death is at your campsite doing it for a nominal fee bc unbeknownst to you your party is posed to knock some gods he feels have gotten too big for their britches down a peg.

that is extremely funny thank you. I was going to do a whole song and dance tearing my hair out over how the GOD OF DEATH is just AT YOUR CAMPSITE handing out FREE DO-OVERS, but then I remembered my friend describing the game she DMs where one of the npcs they keep running into, who was even a party member for a little while, is actually an old god who's waiting for the party to grow strong enough so they can smack some sense into his kids. so this checks out, really, perfect dnd experience.

#baldur's gate #finx has friends on the internet

[aethersea]

you just reblogged one of my endless orv reblogs with 'to watch maybe' so I had to infodump a bit

orv is Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, an excellent korean webnovel. it is LONG. The novel proper has been finished for years, but the side stories are still ongoing (it's more like a sequel at this point). Lightnovelworld.com has a decent translation, and an official english translation is announced but not out yet.

there is a webtoon adaptation from which the pictures are from. It started good and is getting better and prettier all the time, which is great. But since ORV is LONG it won't finish for years and years, which is sad.

It's going to be adapted into five movies, the first of which will be out next year. There has been talk of an animated adaptation as well, but I couldn't find official confirmation anywhere.

The basic premise is that the book our main character was reading comes to life, and he is determined to direct it to a better ending than canon. That book was an apocalyptic fantasy novel.

Orv has incredible worldbuilding and an amazing cast, all with their vivid personalities and time to shine. It has heavy focus on close platonic relationships.

It is incredibly layered, and some of those layers won't reveal themselves until you've finished it. It is also incredibly meta. The relationship between a reader and the stories they love is a core theme.

One of the reasons I'm insane about orv is this: This is a book that loves it's readers. It takes you gently by the hand and tells you that you matter, that you're worth everything. That to be a reader is something amazing, and this author and this world love you.

oh man that does in fact sound absolutely baller. I've seen it around on my dash enough that I'd picked up bits and pieces of all this, but I hadn't actually seen any explanations anywhere, just vibes and character art. thanks for the rundown, this sounds so cool!

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #to watch maybe #to read maybe #ngl both of those are optimistic tags #I don't generally get along with comics – the format doesn't agree with me #and I haven't been watching anything at all lately #but #this sounds very good #so it's getting bumped well up the list #finx has friends on the internet

[aethersea]

trick or treat!

so there's this remote village, right, and they want to dam the river that runs down the mountain so they can have a steady source of water for irrigation. but because the village is so remote, and halfway up a steep mountain to boot, it's really hard to get supplies in, and harder still to do construction at the point where it would be best to have the dam, and the village doesn't really have the funds to overcome these problems. so the city council and all the village's best engineering minds have been debating this a while, but they're going in circles arguing about it.

now as you know, reclusive authors are always looking for remote mountain villages and the like in which to dwell away from the cloying closeness of the world. and this village has once such author, who overhears these debates one day, listens to all the arguing, and says, "leave it to me."

the author hikes up to the optimal spot for the dam. it's a bit of a trek, but you don't move to a remote mountain village if you don't enjoy long walks over difficult terrain. the author finds a good vantage point, and then just looks out at the river. looks up the river, looks down the river, gazes upon the flowing churn of water, eyes the sloping banks, contemplates the glitter of sun upon the stream.

the author proclaims, loud in the mountain air, "it's a nice enough river, I guess."

when the author returns to town, the townspeople mob them. "what did you do? how did you stop the river? what happened up there??"

the author responds simply, "I dammed it with faint praise."

#just for you tano :) #trick or treat! #finx has friends on the internet #the pun is mightier than the sword

[aethersea]

📚 [sorry I didn't know what book to go with so I picked many haha]

You send multiple books, you get multiple fics! Kinda. See, I really want to read the stories that the people of Gotham come up with about their resident vigilante cryptids—rumors, urban legends, wattpad rpf with dubious content warnings, all of it. I have a whole list of increasingly insane theories about what the batfam’s whole deal even is, but I never got any further than writing the frame story for one of them.

Some highlights from the list include:

Batman is a warlock and Robin is a demon bound to serve him. When ten years are up, Robin gets Batman’s soul.

Batman and Robin live in the sewers and can pop up anywhere in Gotham via manhole covers. They’re always fighting Killer Croc for real estate.

Obligatory vampire theory! Batman is a vampire and Robin is the person he feeds from. If Robin dies, Batman will go into a frenzy of bloodlust and drain half the city dry.

Robin is a trickster spirit who helps Batman out because it’s fun, and because the Joker’s bad sense of humor pisses him off. Batman has to keep him constantly entertained or he’ll run off and join the Riddler.

Cass (in her terrifying void-black costume) is the vengeful shade of the previous Batgirl, who finally clawed her way back from the afterlife and is here to take no prisoners.

Vampire theory v2: This Time With Duke! Everyone’s a creature of night and darkness except Signal, who is the sun incarnate. STRONG teen paranormal romance vibes, heavy-handed metaphors of self-destructive love or something, definitely involves shipping Signal with one or more batkids.

Batman is a professional comedian who got sick of Joker’s bad clowning. Things got out of hand.

Batman & Robin aren’t real. Criminals are making them up. 

One of my favorites, though, is the theory that Robin is the ghost of a murdered child, who wants revenge for his murder but, in the meantime, is willing to help Batman make sure no more children end up like him. This would be a story written by one of Dick’s classmates, maybe for English class. Dick reads it and it’s a whole emotional roller coaster ride, especially the scene where Robin’s ghost looks in on his living parents, as he does often to make sure they’re safe, and wishes more than anything that he could hold them and be held by them just one more time.

#dc comics #batfam #finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #these are free to good home btw #anyone wants to write this you have my blessing and my encouragement #you just have to tag me and let me know so I can go read it and squeal in delight

[aethersea]

📓!

There’s an atla au of star wars that I have tried so hard to bend into a shape that I can actually write, but alas, all I have are ideas. This is the one that’s in the wips folder as Everything Changed when the Clones Attacked, which is ironic bc I cannot for the life of me figure out what to do with the clones. Maybe they’re being brainwashed at Lake Laogai? Or something???

Anyway. The story has two parts, prequels and sequels. Details under the cut, because this got a bit long.

In the prequels, the elderly Master Yoda of the airbenders is Avatar, and in his old age he’s stopped traveling the world and instead dispenses his wisdom from one of the great Air Nomad temples, nestled deep in the mountains where only Air Nomads can reach. He’s unofficial leader of the council of Air Nomad elders, which is….not great, really, not how things should be, but it’s mostly been okay. He’s been a good avatar overall, and it’s only in later years that he’s leaned so heavily toward the Air Nomads, and really none of this is enough to push the four peoples truly out of balance. 

Our story starts with Qui-gon Jinn, an airbending master traveling with his apprentice, helping a besieged queen from a minor Earth Kingdom escape her city. (I saw a post once asserting that the Earth Kingdom is actually a collection of largely autonomous kingdoms that all loosely recognize the authority of the Earth King in Ba Sing Se, and I like that a lot, so that’s the worldbuilding I’m going with here.) Qui-gon agrees to take Queen Amidala to the Avatar’s council to beg their aid. 

Along the way, they encounter a young boy living with his mother. The boy can do a bit of earthbending—and also a bit of waterbending, and a bit of airbending, and a bit of firebending. Which is impossible, because Avatar Yoda isn’t dead, but there he is, bending all the elements anyway.

I don’t think there’s slavery in the atla universe, but we could probably get away with indentured servitude of some kind, and Qui-gon acquires Ani in much the same way as he does in canon. He takes him to Avatar Yoda—and Yoda rejects him. Says, essentially, “This is weird as hell but it’s also not my problem.” (Frankly I can’t come up with an actual good reason for Yoda to do that, but just go with me here.) So Qui-gon angrily responds that if the Avatar won’t take responsibility, he will, and then gets himself enmeshed in Amidala’s political problems to boot. 

And then he dies.

Something something evil emperor, yadda yadda you know the drill. (Though I think the empire isn’t going to be the Fire Nation, despite the thematic appropriateness of fire spreading unchecked to consume all in its path. Palpatine is gonna usurp the Earth King, I think, and I do feel the prequels’ themes around entrenched systems with deep flaws, which are too big to fight as individuals and too implacable to change, will fit well with atla themes around earth.)

The sequels portion of things is even less plotted out. All I know is that Luke grows up in the same nameless patch of Earth territory his father grew up in, and he doesn’t actually discover he can waterbend until he’s practically an adult. It’s a shock to everyone—except, somehow, weird Old Ben who lives in the desert, who tells him that the next Avatar is supposed to be a waterbender, and won’t explain why he’s so convinced Luke is that Avatar given that he’s pretty emphatically not from the Water Tribes. 

Luke is finally convinced when he manages to airbend, under Old Ben’s suspiciously skilled tutelage. He can’t pull off any other elements, though, so they go off on a road trip to that swamp where you see spirits, to try to reach the past Avatars and get some guidance.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to both of them, Leia has grown up knowing she can firebend. This is kind of an alarming skill for the princess of an Earth Kingdom to have, and even more alarming given that she’s already an earthbender. So she’s kept it secret, and no one but her parents has ever known.

They can meet in some way analogous to the Death Star raid in A New Hope, idk I have zero plot in mind here. The point, as far as I’m concerned, is that the Skywalkers have fundamentally broken the Avatar cycle. Anakin shouldn’t exist, and yet he does, and he was born while Yoda was still alive. If he hadn’t existed, the next Avatar would be a waterbender, and that’s Luke—except he’s from the Earth Kingdom. If Anakin is a true Avatar, then the next one would be an earthbender, and that’s Leia—only then she shouldn’t have been born until after Anakin’s death. Nothing makes sense! Even Yoda and all the other past Avatars together have no goddamn clue what is going on!

Imagine their consternation when they discover that neither Luke nor Leia is the Avatar: it’s actually both of them together. Luke has air and water, Leia has earth and fire; Luke can visit the spirit world and be the bridge between humans and spirits, and Leia can speak to kings and maintain the balance between the four nations. The two of them, together, can defeat their father, defeat the emperor, and restore harmony to the world.

#finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #star wars #why yes I do still have an ask from you from a long-ago wip wednesday for this fic #I stared at that google doc for SO LONG trying to come up with something I liked even a little #I just have no clue what to write! can't make the words happen! #so here instead have this

[aethersea]

Ok so (according to good ol' Bram) there's a superstition that on certain nights, at certain times, blue flames spring up over sites of buried treasure. Dracula's all chill, driving Jonathan back to the castle taking and simultaneously taking the pups for a run (even wolves need enrichment) and suddenly there's a popup window that says $$CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'RE A WINNER! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!!$$$ so he marks the spots to dig them up later when he's not cosplaying as a carriage driver.

ok that is phenomenally funny, thank you so much for this information

#finx has friends on the internet #dracula daily #finx reads dracula

[aethersea]

BAPS YOU ONE MILLION TIMES.

MUAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA

#finx has friends on the internet

[aethersea]

📓

I definitely played myself here, bc this post spat out when I was in fact too busy to answer asks :P but! I have some time today, so here we go!

So Leverage ot3, right, and it starts with Eliot. Eliot Spencer is a soldier, he’s one of the best soldiers out there, and one day he does what soldiers so often do: he dies. And death, he finds, is a strange country. He wanders the eerie disjointed landscapes of the afterlife, searching for…something. The truth of this place, maybe. 

What he finds is a man in a cage. The cage is of a metal as black as a starless void, and so cold that even Eliot's dead hands ache to touch it. The man, by contrast, is warm, his dark brown skin so flushed with life that it draws Eliot nearer like a moth to flame.

The man is asleep, or seems to be, though he stirs as Eliot nears. He’s wearing a strange draping garment of deep green, so vibrant a green that it seems wrong, alien, in this shadowed place, but the warmth of that green is nothing compared to the warmth of his face, even as it pinches and frowns with waking. He blinks open dark eyes, and they’re warmer still, like the sunshine Eliot knows he will never see again.

He sees Eliot, standing there at the bars of the cage, half reaching for him without having consciously chosen to. He smiles. Eliot’s dead heart squeezes in his chest.

The man coaxes Eliot into conversation with such casual good humor that it takes Eliot several minutes to realize he has no idea what’s going on. But although the man answers his questions willingly enough, it doesn’t really clear anything up. “Who are you?” gets him a name, though not one he recognizes; “Why are you here?” gets a sigh and a rueful, “Communication issues.” The man refuses to elaborate, claiming it’s not entirely his business to say.

Eliot is charmed in spite of himself. Charmed enough that, against his better judgment, he helps the man escape.

So yeah this is a Hades & Persephone au, where the goddess of Death can’t explain to anyone, much less herself, why she keeps kidnapping the god of Spring, who’s surprisingly good-humored about the whole thing. Eliot is just a random shade who gets dragged into their bizarre courtship, and somehow all three of them fall in love. At the end, when Hardison has eaten six pomegranate seeds and bound himself to half the year in sunlight and half in the dark, Eliot goes back and forth between them in the six months of summer, carrying messages and helping them weather the time apart.

#leverage #finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #I love a good death & spring au #I never get anywhere trying to come up with a plot #but the vibes? unbeatable

[aethersea]

hey, what about conman in a bottle? <3

wip wednesday game

Elizabeth Burke, née Mitchell, was from a minor branch of one of the oldest families in the kingdom. Her marriage to a merchant’s third son had been something of a small scandal, but even when he’d had nothing to offer her but promises, she’d never hesitated in her choice. 

So Neal liked to believe, anyway. By the time he’d had reason to look into the Burkes, Peter had already been a rising star of the [magic crimes division], and everyone agreed that Lady Elizabeth had been either very shrewd or very lucky.

#finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #white collar #I've loved the idea of the demon au for two years now but it's so hard to come up with anything beyond Vibes #but! I am determined to try!

[aethersea]

Goblin . Tools

Might be of interest

For ADHD /Au folx

me and the girlies at the hyperfixation swapmeet

#no fr I have no idea what you mean but I love the energy #finx has friends on the internet

[aethersea]

Hobbit coded potato blogger (affectionate)

THAT'S THE BEST THING I'VE EVER BEEN CALLED

#omg nav #finx has friends on the internet #hobbit-coded!! I'm honored #honored and touched #I will be thinking of this for weeks thank you

[aethersea]

warlock not paladin, but yes that not-a-god is very predatory

I have since been informed that this is a demon who keeps hassling the party throughout the game, trying to....win Wyll back? trick him into giving up his soul again? demand dread payment for his powers? idk details but I have heard she's absolutely terrible, love that for a warlock. I've also been informed they made their initial pact when he was just a teenager, and that's why the piece is called Seventeen.

#finx has friends on the internet #baldur's gate

[aethersea]

hi I hope i don't seem rude but what do you mean by "prev has been outlawed by staff"? hope you've a good day!

(in reference to this post)

so when you look at a post on your dashboard, or perhaps in the like blog-specific view that looks like the dashboard, there's that bit at the top that says current-blog [reblog symbol] other-blog, where other-blog is the one that current-blog (the one you're looking at) reblogged the post from. and it USED TO BE that when you clicked on the url other-blog, it would take you to this specific post on that other blog.

but no longer. staff recently pushed a change so that now when you click on the url of other-blog, it'll just take you to the top of other-blog, not to this specific post at all.

personally this pissed me off, because I like to follow reblog chains sometimes, especially of my own posts – it's neat to see what mutual spread the post so far and wide! or sometimes I come across a post reblogged from a friend, and I want to see what my friend said! or when someone reblogs something off my blog from a while ago, sometimes I wonder what it was I said on that post, so very long ago, and I want to go back and see what my tags were! but no, now we can't do that anymore.

apparently there's an xkit fix for this! I've been busy but I'm going to install xkit this weekend and give it a try, fingers crossed bc this has been really annoying. I'll report back once I've done it

and in case you're new here, explanation of what 'prev tags' means: a little while ago a trend arose of tagging a reblog 'prev tags' to mean "I liked the tags of the person I reblogged this from", instead of copying those tags onto the reblog itself. anyone who wanted to see those tags you liked would just click back in the reblog chain. only now you can't do that, bc staff took out that functionality.

it may surprise you to know I really disliked the prev tags trend :P tumblr blogs disappear or change urls all the time, or sometimes people delete posts, and then poof! the previous tags are gone! can't find them, can't see them, they'll forever be a mystery! plus I don't want to be constantly following reblog chains, I want to follow them when I'm actually interested. there's no need for this prev tags business, just copy the tags onto the reblog if you like them! (or into your own tags, which is also perfectly fine and friendly so long as you indicate that's what you're doing.) that's what we do here!

I say 'disliked' past tense bc I did see a few people say "prev tags isn't for ppl reading my blog, it's for the person I reblogged from, I am sending them a little kiss" and you know what I respect that. that's a conversation between two people, that's you two hanging out, that's chill. so these days I assume, for my own happiness, that that's what everyone intends when they say 'prev tags'. it's possible they don't always mean that, but I am assuming it, for me.

and I have had a good day, thank you! you're not coming off rude at all, don't worry about it, you're doing great <3 I hope you're having a good day too!

#finx has friends on the internet #tumblr stuff #we all blamed the twitter refugees for the 'prev tags' thing #bc it happened concurrent with an exodus #but idk if was actually them. that might have been unfair #whoever they were I'm just glad it didn't gain traction #at least not among the people I follow #I see it from time to time but only rarely #and it hasn't supplanted the thing where you just copy people's tags onto your reblog as the wifi gods intended #which is what I was concerned about #it'd devastate the ecosystem if we stopped doing that #finx rambles

[aethersea]

(I’m not sure I’m the character limit on replies so I’m just sending an ask instead, re:Wyll Baldurs Gate 3. Contains some BG3 spoilers)

Yeah Mizora is his patron and she keeps harassing him, and by extension the party, cause she owns him and he has to do what she says.

He entered the pact to gain the power to defeat a cult that was threatening his city while his father (the grand Duke) was away. But then afterward, when his father came back, mizora magically prevented Wyll from explaining the situation to his father and also she cleaned up all the mess from the cult fight so his father just saw his son with a devil hanging around him and cast him out and disowned him.

When you meet him he’s on the trail of a “dangerous devil woman who murders for fun”, but then you meet the woman and actually all the murder she did was because she was a conscripted soldier sold to a devil against her will, and she just escaped that situation and doesn’t want to be killing random people anymore (only bad guys :)). But when you convince Wyll to not kill her, Mizora shows up like “hey, I told you to kill her” “but she’s not evil” “yeah but like. This technically in our contract means I’m still allowed to tell you to kill her. And you won’t. So you have devil horns now. Ta ta!” And that fucks with Wyll for most of the early game

Then there’s a plot point mid game where Mizora asks Wyll (and by extension the party) for something else, and you can negotiate and say “yeah we’ll do this but only if you let Wyll out of his pact” and she’s like “ok” but then you do the thing and you’re like “ok so let Wyll go” and she’s like “mmmm… no” “but you made a deal” “yeahhh… but the official wording of our contract says that if I agree to let him go I have to do it within six months sooooo… six more months babe :)”

Then in late game she can like. Try and sleep with the player. The majority of companions will break up with you instantly if you do this. I think Wyll leaves the party entirely if you do.

Yeah Mizora sucks

man she sounds so awful, I love this, what a great antagonist. what a horrible woman. what a fantastic demon.

#baldur's gate #finx has friends on the internet #this is so toxic and cruel it's perfect

[aethersea]

📓

So love potion no. 9, right? Three options here: one for comedy, one for sappiness, and one for angst. 

For comedy, Morgan drops the curse bottle and now everyone’s in love with them. Barnaby and Ohio are suddenly pining desperately. Rex Roofer kidnaps them for a romantic weekend getaway. All their tenants inexplicably have a dozen maintenance requests crop up all at once, just so they can offer Morgan some fresh-baked pastries oh no I just happened to make extra, really it’s no trouble, haha yeah it’s a family recipe, if you wanted to come by sometime I could show you how to make it…?

Alex is busy that weekend and doesn’t notice for a few days, and in fact doesn’t find out about it until Morgan remarks that it’s funny how Alex has been acting completely the same. Maybe they’re immune? Just too powerful for the curse bottle…

Alex freezes. This is it, a voice screams in their head, this is the moment, the universe has crafted this opportunity for you, just SAY SOMETHING and if it goes wrong then you can play it off as being the curse after all! Say something! SAY SOMETHING!!

“Yep!” they squeak. “Immune! Ha! Too strong for that curse!”

Then they teleport themselves into the sun to scream for a while.

.

For sappiness, Alex cracks that thing open, not knowing what it is, and Morgan’s behavior doesn’t change at all. “Huh,” Morgan says when this is pointed out to them. “That’s funny. I wonder if I’m immune somehow? All those jungle adventures with Ohio finally paying off, I guess.”

This is it, a voice screams in Alex’s head. This is your moment. The universe is giving you a gift. 

“I—uh—I don’t think—” Alex takes a deep breath, then stops time for a bit so they can psych themselves up. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” they finally manage. “But I can—Or we can get an expert or something—I think you should—uh—We should scan you for curse immunity. That seems like a—a thing you should know. About yourself. If you have it.”

Morgan gets a bit of a deer-in-headlights look and tries to dissuade them, but Alex has grabbed onto their courage with both hands and will absolutely not be dissuaded. So Morgan breaks down and confesses that yes, they’re in love with Alex, have been for a while, but they can totally be chill about it, really, they swear, so if they could just not make a big deal out of this—

Alex’s brain finally comes back online, and they jump Morgan’s bones immediately.

.

For angst, Alex cracks that thing open, and Morgan falls desperately, dramatically, visibly head over heels for them. And Morgan, of course, knows exactly what that curse bottle does, and so they know exactly why they’re suddenly feeling this way about their best friend. 

So they try to be cool about it. Try to keep a lid on it, keep it under control. “Sorry,” they grimace every time they catch themselves saying anything too sweet, too adoring. “Sorry,” they wince when they realize they’ve been filling the fridge with all of Alex’s favorite foods. “Sorry,” they cringe halfway through leaning in for a kiss.

Morgan is in love with Alex, and they’re doing everything they can to shove it down like it’s some embarrassing disease they don’t want to admit to having. Morgan is in love with Alex, and it isn’t real.

Alex is in hell.

#finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #s & d tier #annnnd that's the last of them! #last time I queue one of these ask memes lol it had to spit out right before a super busy weekend #thanks for sending in asks though! it was honestly a fun way to unwind between Tasks

[aethersea]

dark prince Sizhui au for a belated Wednesday wip ask?

wip wednesday thursday game

Jingyi hadn’t expected there to be an inn in Yiling—surely the enormous cloud of resentment overshadowing the western sky would encourage travelers to keep right on traveling—but if there was Burial Mounds tourism, then there had to be at least one inn. Wu Yuan informed them that there were in fact three. This seemed downright excessive to Jingyi, but apparently one of them was just an elderly couple who rented their spare rooms at generous rates to anyone new to the city who needed time to find their feet before settling in. 

People moved to Yiling. On purpose. Truly it boggled the mind.

Of the other two inns, one was apparently much nicer than the other, with soft beds and breakfast included. That one catered to traveling cultivators and the wealthier class of tourist. If they’d been adults, or if they’d been on a sanctioned mission, that was probably where they’d stay. As it was, there was only so much silver to go around, especially since Jin Ling threw a fit and refused to pitch in.

#finx writes #finx has friends on the internet #the untamed #this fic has been sitting there untouched for MONTHS bc I went and did that thing #where you stop at a really natural stopping point (ended the scene) and then go to bed #and then I just had no idea where to start the next scene #immediately after? late at night? mid-dialogue? #but I did have a few wayward ideas for it written down in the doc #so thanks for the push tano ^^