xoxo...

24

[starleska]

how can anyone hate Flowery. he shows Aqua how to hold a knife safely. he teaches Seth how to be more confident. he's Orange's big brother and hypes her up. he's friends with Green, sparring partners with Yellow and dances with Blue.

and he's SO PROUD OF ALL OF THEM 😭💖

[mimosa-sexypeople-contests-2026]

Tumblr Sexyman Contest 2026 Final Round

Senshi (Dungeon Meshi)

Ryland Grace (Project Hail Mary)

Mr. Ant Tenna (Deltarune)

Voting ended onJul 20

Tenna art by @9Aaaalt29 on twt

[fwugradiation]

“And if you’ll give me 40% of the MOST POPULAR VOTE, I’ll give you my SPECIAL REWARD... A year’s supply of NON-GLOOBY SLIME!!! Never or BARELY used!!!” Tenna concluded his speech with a huge smile, jetting his hands up in double peace signs.

The crowd roared in confused enthusiasm as Tenna gave a gracious flurry of low-FPS bows, pausing only for the occasional stink-nose at his audience plants who weren’t throwing enough 3D roses.

Eventually, the room fell silent. It was Senshi’s turn to speak.

He puffed out his chest, took a long, sweeping look over the audience… and shook his head.

“I can see not all of you are eating properly.”

The crowd murmured with embarrassment.

“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s time to take the turkey out of your icebox. I have seen the ingenious technology with which your people store food... and I have also seen the waste which results from such convenience.

“The food you take had a life. Beasts grew fat on the grass of the field, plants grew from the sun’s rays, and mushrooms grew from minerals in the cracks of caves. And yet, it sits in your iceboxes, collecting moisture until it perishes.

“Eat what is given to you. Because its life will make you stronger, too.”

Without another word, Senshi left his podium and stepped away from the stage. The crowd murmured in confusion. “Is he really like that?” somebody said. “I only remember reblogging the photosets of him tripping and showing ass.”

--

Back in the Green Room, Tenna wrung his antennas nervously.

“Y-y-you think they liked me!? They HAD to!! I mean, I don’t know what Asgore was thinking, getting that weird haircut and running that food waste campaign, but… YOU thought I did good, didn’t you, Kris?”

Laios nodded aggressively, a streak of blue face paint peeling from his forehead.

“You did AMAZING, Tenna! By the way, now that we’ve seen all your insider campaign secrets, do you have any more videos of Susie? Especially her tail... If I could get a look at that, I could finally tell if she’s a dinosaur or --”

THWACK. Fake antlers butted Laios’s head.

“LAIOS?? Weren’t we dressed up to help SENSHI???” Marcille hissed, gesturing awkwardly with her hooves.

Suddenly, Tenna turned to the two adventurers.

“Hey, WAIT a second. SOMETHING’s not right here...”

Laios and Marcille held their breath.

“Where the heck are my POINTS!?”

Just then, the door opened. Chilchuck took one step into the room, whistling and holding a large bag.

Everyone turned to him.

Chilchuck paused, took a step backwards, and closed the door.

“CHILCHUCK!!!” yelled Tenna.

“How come Chilchuck got to stay Chilchuck!?” yelled Marcille at the same time.

--

Meanwhile, in outer space somewhere, some guy was making out with a rock.

[meltedmush]

Happy 520 Day!

[halveablock]

adolescence / revolution

stickersheet for utena stamp rally at fanime! it'll also have a sand glitter effect...

[maxximatics]

and the universe said you are not alone.

[stargirl230]

state of you // 花城

qifrey cover redraw! because i realized what's better than drawing blorbo once is drawing blorbo four times

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[thecalloffantasy]

Writing villains people actually fear (and remember)

It’s not about darkness. It’s about precision.

1. Give them a contradiction. Villains are scariest when they’re almost human. “He always apologised before hurting someone.”

2. Let them think they’re right. No moustache twirling — just conviction. “I’m not saving the world. I’m correcting it.”

3. Give them a normal habit that becomes unsettling. • humming off-key • straightening objects mid-argument • collecting people’s abandoned pens

4. Make their kindness selective. Kind to dogs. Cruel to friends. Kind to children. Absent to their own.

5. Make their presence change a room. Not with theatrics — with tone. “The laughter thinned when he stepped inside.”

How to make antagonists who aren’t evil (but still hurt you)

Some of the best antagonists are just… people.

1. Give them the same goal as the hero — different methods. Hero wants peace. Antagonist wants peace. Hero uses unity; antagonist uses control.

2. Let the antagonist be right sometimes. That stings.

3. Make the hero almost agree with them. “You’re not wrong,” she admitted. “But you’re not right either.”

4. Show glimpses of softness. “He tucked the child’s drawing into his coat.”

5. Let them break their own rules. Instant complexity.

[hehearse]

And he asked: "Forget what?"

a commission of a scene from this fic ! ^^

[blackfoy]

Little svsss fic idea that I will probably never get around to writing:

There is a spiritual artifact that heightens cultivation to the point that the cultivator goes mad. This is because it shows the truth of the universe, which is half the point of cultivation in the first place, but to most inhabitants of the world it is like an unknowable eldritch horror. For Shang Qinghua, who already has a pretty good idea of how the world came to be given he was the one to create it, he is mostly just a little stunned/overwhelmed/dazed by the effects of the artifact. 

"Oh yeah, I can totally see how that would drive any righteous cultivator mad. Nobody touch it, I don't want to have to deal with any insanity or suicides today."

"Are you alright Shang Qinghua?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, I knew most of that already. I mean, how things went from words and code into become a full fledged world I didn’t know, so that part was interesting and a bit mind-bending, but I knew about the words and the code already and so it wasn’t too terribly hard to comprehend. I probably would have understood it a bit more if i understood the inner workings of computers, but I've never been a big computer nerd, so some of it flew over my head a bit. But yeah, the transition from idea to code to matter and qi is such a fascinating thing. Definitely won't be doing that again, but still fascinating."

"Alright, how about you sit down and we'll get you to Mu Qingfang."

"That’s probably a good idea. I know that my body adapted well enough, but it still feels like I've got way to much qi for my body. Not really helping my god complex any, let me tell you that."

From then on, Shang Qinghua has spells where he will fall into a trance-like state with little filter. If prompted while in this state, whether on purpose or by accident, he will casually talk about secrets of the past and future of the people, places, and things around him, along with minor traits and other things he should have no way of knowing. Everyone chalks it up to an effect from the artifact, so they don't get upset at him knowing things he shouldn't, but the things he says certainly tend to cause a stir. (And fix things in a way not even the system could have predicted.)

[glendoriel]

We are gathered here today in loving memory of past me, who was so devastated by 3.4 that she started immediately drafting a Phaidei fic, no plan, no outline, just fueled by pure, raw emotion, only to realize that writing an Amphoreus fic unfortunately involves untangling the Canon Timeline™

[starcurtain]

So It's Phaidei After All

Way back at the launch of HSR 3.0 (I can't believe it's been almost a year?!), I started posting about Phaidei, combing for tiny crumbs with the assumption that a little *wink wink nudge nudge* fanservice might be the best we could expect from Amphoreus's dedicated "regional yaoi." After the feast that was 3.1, I spent a lot of time wondering whether we were seeing queer bait of the highest caliber, whether Hoyo actually had any intention of making Phainon and Mydei's relationship relevant to their story and character arcs or if they were just being pushed massively for that quick yaoi fan cash grab.

But by the time Phainon's 3.4 trailer rolled around, I wrote:

And look at where we are now.

The fact that they got the library's name wrong again is sending me.

In their post-quest cutscene, Phainon and Mydei reunite in a hilariously awkward initial showing ("Yo!" "Sup?" I'm cryingggg from laughing), and then we're treated to these devastating lines: Phainon acknowledges that his quest for vengeance and then subsequent desperation to become the hero that Amphoreus required left him entirely void of any sense of self, unable to articulate his own desires separate from what everyone else needed him to be.

Mydei tells us players that he thought Phainon's dream would be to return to Aedes Elysiae.

But Phainon says no.

Phainon says that that wish was fueled by his frantic attempt to run from the reality and pressure he faced, and that his true desire--his first desire all of his own since his childhood--is to be with Mydei. (Like, look at the wording there; it's not even "I want to go to the library," it's "Can you take me there?" Hello???)

Man, let's just take a second for that to sink in.

Phainon's marketing, Phainon's role in the story, Phainon's entire character arc dragged us kicking and crying to the conclusion that Phainon had entirely lost his sense of identity, that he wholly severed himself from his own emotions, that he couldn't even formulate his own wishes, let alone articulate them--

And then the writers deliberately linked Phainon's healing to his relationship with Mydei. Phainon's budding attempts to reclaim his identity and define himself as a person with individual desires is now inextricably tied to his wish to remain near to Mydeimos--to the promise they made to each other.

It's just crazy. As one of the two main push characters of Amphoreus, a massively anticipated expy of one of the most well-known Honkai Impact 3rd characters, Phainon was given a character arc that sees its "Hero's Journey" end when he is able to return to the side of another man and tell that man ("formally," even) that the very first wish of his new life is to spend time together in a cherished place.

Phainon's relationship with Mydei (hell, even if you don't define it as a ship!) isn't just for decoration. It isn't just for fanservice. It's central to Phainon's character development arc, central to his sense of closure and personal growth, and central to his first step in healing from the trauma he went through over 33 million cycles of suffering.

This isn't even close to queer bait anymore--like heterosexual romances have been the backbone of young characters' coming-of-age/self-identity-quest stories for ages, this is a queer romance being directly woven into the narrative's resolution and to the story's most apparent theme: No matter how hard the struggle, life is worth fighting for, because one day you will reach your happy ending.

Actually, while that is wild (for Hoyo) in and of itself, one of things I think is even more wild is how explicitly this cutscene is laid out to mirror a love confession or a confirmation of two characters' romantic feelings.

Phainon and Mydei stand alone beneath a dome full of stars. When the Trailblazer walks up, it's to discover that the pair are being painfully and uncharacteristically awkward with each other, clearly struggling to get out any of the words they actually want to say. Trailblazer is even given the option to point out the extreme strangeness of the atmosphere:

For a few lines, they try to banter with each other to take the emotional weight out of the moment, but in the end, both of them seem to know there's nothing to be gained by being roundabout anymore.

Mydei's words reveal that he was watching Phainon basically from the moment they returned, while Phainon's words imply the exact same thing in reverse. Despite reuniting with long-lost family, both of them were looking for an opportunity to speak to each other. More than this, Mydei effectively says "I thought you would only get around to greeting me later" and Phainon says "Of course not!"--because Mydei is not less important to him.

Then we get:

He might as well be saying "There's something I want to confess." This moment was explicitly and very intentionally designed to mirror the famous confession scenes of shoujo romances everywhere, where trembling girl holds out her confession letter or stuttering boy meets his crush behind the school and fumbles his way through "I like you. Like-like you." This line was supposed to make fangirls' hearts skip a beat, that's why it cuts off with the "...", so you're stuck for the two seconds it takes you click and load the next line, wondering if THIS IS THE MOMENT(?!) that the protagonist will confess his true feelings--of course he can't, it's a Hoyo game, but the devs deliberately invoked romance confession scenes in this cutscene to imply what cannot be said out loud.

Despite the deliberate invocation of a confession scene here, savvy players know the actual confession took place already, back at the end of 3.1, when Phainon gave Mydei a ring and Mydei effectively accepted, asking Phainon to meet him again in the library in their next lives, with the implication being that the new world of peace would allow them the chance to finally be together:

And even realer fans might realize the actual "promise" that Phainon is referencing may not be this moment but yet another moment they swore that fate would not be able to separate them and that they would reunite again:

(The word in other language translations is "promise".)

Thus, Phainon and Mydei's reunion scene is framed not just as a confession but also as a "renewal of vows."

We can actually see Phainon fishing, trying to find out whether the commitments he and Mydei made are still on the table after everything that's happened:

"Are you going to introduce me to your parents? Please say you're going to introduce me to your parents."

And Mydei, of course, being who he is, simply drops the most devastatingly romantic confirmation he possibly could:

Okay I know this line is supposed to be nonchalantly beautiful and all but I'm kind of dying; dude was so focused on making up a metaphor to imply his heart has and will always belong to Phainon that he forgot that doors without locks don't have keys. No thoughts, just declarations.

But Phainon is the king of rationalizing, metaphor is no good for him, so it gets to the point that the Trailblazer feels they have to interject, interrupting to literally clarify for Phainon that "The promise still stands":

Yes, Phainon, the wedding is back on.

To which Phainon reacts with enormous relief and excitement (three whole exclamation points, oh I know the boy was doing that dumbass fist pump in his head):

This is what he was there for. This is what he actually came into that conversation hoping to hear. Phainon wasn't sure whether any of the past he and Mydei had together had survived their 33 million battles to the death, whether Mydei was still committed to the promise they made so "long ago," and he came into the conversation with the intention of telling Mydei: "I'm figuring myself and my desires out, and the promise we made to each other is the thing I desire most. Even with all that's happened, do you still feel the same as you did in our past lives?"

And Mydei says yes, again, always.

It's about the library, but also no, it's not. The promise to visit the library has clearly and unmistakably, very intentionally on the writing team's part, become a metaphor for the deeper promise to simply "be together," to spend their new peaceful lives doing the things they weren't ever able to do together before.

The Trailblazer even hammers this home for the player by interjecting in the "confession" scene to tease Phainon for the fact that his dream was always to go to Castrum Kremnos, even from the time he was a silly, carefree kid:

Because the writers cannot say out loud "They want to be by each other's side" as part of the text of the story, given the game's circumstances, they instead code this message clearly into the story's subtext, letting symbolism do its work. The library isn't just a place--it's a symbol for both of their dreams and hopes for a future spent together.

(By the way, tiny aside, but I think that making this symbolic place a library of all things, in a plot that is commenting in a very meta way about storytelling itself, is just a fantastic choice: A "library" is a place full to the brim with stories--that is, it is a place full of both uncountable memories and myriad new beginnings, every tale in it a world onto its own, with its own happy ending, just waiting for people to come find it. In a story about storytelling, a library represents infinite possibility, and therefore also, finally, freedom--the freedom to embrace new ideas and new joys by finding the story you end up loving the most.)

A final thing I think is worth considering about Phainon and Mydei's reunion is that framing this as a "confirming where our relationship stands" scene doubles down even harder on the fact that Phainon's act of returning the signet ring to Mydei was meant to be seen in a romantic light, evocative of a wedding proposal. Throughout the course of Amphoreus's story, players get to see three rings shared between characters: Mydei's ring returned by Phainon, Trailblazer receiving a ring from Castorice, and (presumably) Trailblazer giving a ring to Cyrene.

In the latter two cases, the rings are undoubtedly meant to be read in a romantic light: Castorice can't embrace the Trailblazer (or at least thinks she can't), so the ring represents a symbolic form of being able to wrap around and touch someone directly. This ring was written by the devs as part of Castorice's (relatively mild) ship bait with the Trailblazer, and no players who have Castorice as their waifu would have remotely mistaken the fact that the devs wanted her gift to come across as something like a "promise ring" for the player.

And then of course there's Cyrene's ring, gifted by the Trailblazer (I'd assume), as part of the animation in which Cyrene reinforces her love for the world as a whole, but which absolutely and inherently evokes images of wedding proposals and engagement rings:

By insisting on romantic readings for both Castorice's and Cyrene's rings, the game strongly associates the very act of ring-giving with love, retroactively insisting even harder on a romantic reading of Phainon and Mydei's ring exchange as well.

With this connotation in the background, the fact that Mydei and Phainon's reunion centers specifically on answering the question "Is our promise still in effect?" basically makes it impossible to read the scene as anything other than "checking to see whether the engagement is still on"--then confirming that nothing in the world could ever have undone it.

What do you even say?

Oh wait, I know:

I'm not even going to say anything else about this; they really just said "If we get fined by the censors, we get fined by the censors."

So... yeah. That's... Yeah.

We all know that Hoyo will never be able to make a M/M ship canon--they've been sanctioned for W/W content before too and rules are even stricter for content depicting men--but this closure to Mydei and Phainon's story by doubling down on the answer "These two male characters want to be with each other across lifetimes" was so overt that I'm actually shocked that it made it past all the barriers to stay in the final release of patch 3.7.

This wasn't a small thing. This took major commitment from Hoyo, a major gamble on whether or not enough fans would buy hard into the Mydei/Phainon ship to make putting themselves out on the limb like this worthwhile, and I'm sure that some long and serious talks were had about whether making their most pushed male character ever read as queer to just about every player (who isn't in blatant denial) was really a "safe" business decision...

After the release of 3.1, I wrote:

From the very beginning, I felt that Hoyo was moving on Phaidei in ways beyond how they had pushed their M/M ships before, and to the end of Amphoreus we see that act borne out, going so far as to now label Mydei and Phainon "the perfect ship" in their own game text.

Genuinely, my hat is off to them for this part of Amphoreus's writing.

I'm sure there are still those who will deny Phaidei, who will always deny it, simply because the developers can't have the characters flat out confess to each other. (Some people simply won't accept what's presented to them unless the actual words "I love you" are said, like the incels abandoning Star Rail over the line "It's a date, Mydeimos" but managing to overlook the literal suggestive-of-sex scene in the baths lol.)

However, for the large number of fans who have been playing Amphoreus with an eye for Hoyo's own intentions, I think most people will now agree: Phaidei is about as canon as an M/M ship will ever be in a modern Hoyo game.

[worm-on-a-blog]

happy halloween, i expect you will spend the day doing THE MOST mad science you can possibly do. ⚡

+ old black and white film version:

[mckinlily]

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

[ibblescribbles]

Injury 💔

[subatoism]

Love love love characters that present themselves as emotionally open social butterflies but the more you see of them the more obvious it is that they’re the most closed off fuckers in the story. Sure, they want to help you with your personal problems and messy emotions, but if you turn that shit back on them, they’ll shut down or deflect every time. Why are you sticking your nose in their business anyway? It’s not like it matters. They’re not a person, they’re just a role being played. They’re the guy who fixes things and saves people. Please ignore the man behind the mask, he’s fine. Everything’s fine.

[naturalnecrosis]

taking way too many liberties with the diionysan swap au. forgive me. the concept of tenna just not registering he's being atticwifed and collared like a dog by his hot ceo ex was too hypnotic

[saturnvs]

i hear the wind across the plain a sound so strong, that calls my name