#then there's all the political intrigue

[loptrcoptr]

The blue eye samurai fandom, for some reason

#I am once again asking if the kids are alright bc it doesn’t really seem like they are #friendly reminder that mizu kills people ny guys including unarmed randos and one unlucky teenager pissing his pants in a corner #but sure Taigen is irredeemable. lay off my emotional support blorbo. #blue eye samurai #taigen #and hey I love Akemi a buttload but she has at least nine lives or something no way would getting robbed in the woods #running off to a brothel and getting re kidnapped go half as well for anyone else #no one ever took advantage of her it’s incredible I’m glad and all but my god those were stupid risks to take #I’m so looking forward to her political intrigue character arc but let’s not act like she hasn’t done some dumbass shit #and Mizu’s a fucking mercenary. does she kill for money? no but she killed for information and she’ll kill anyone in her way to get what she #wants. taigen as far as we know has only killed peoples in duels and fights. he’s not out ganking randos. #the point of this show is that this is not your average cartoon and none of these characters are average black or white types #everyone’s grey and it’s all delicious #enjoy it.

[emuanon34]

Something I noticed in the ATLA ship tags compared to ship tags in other fandoms is that when I followed the Zutara tag I expected to see a bunch of cute fanart and amazing fanfics being on my dash like with other ships, but instead I get a few of those and a bunch of shipping war discourse. Like the ATLA shippers are fighting for their lives to justify why they like a ship while I grew up shipping characters who have never even met.

#There are so much rich themes to pick apart with this show and y’all spend time fighting over who Katara should be with #Also the “Anti Bryke” tags are fucking psychotic #Avatar #Avatar The Last Airbender #Avatar: The Last Airbender #ATLA #Zutara #Maiko #Kataang #Karara #Zuko #Prince Zuko #Aang #Avatar Aang #Ship #Shipping #Like I’m not big into Kataang because they remind me of Dipper and Wendy and I wanted to see what political intrigue Zutara can have #I just checked the Zukka tag and you guys are all saints

[inkandarsenic]

I didn’t know I needed incredibly high stakes Candy Land in my life until I watched A Crown of Candy but now that I’ve finished it? I need more of it. I need more political intrigue high stakes d20 seasons in general, Brennan, @quiddie

#dimension 20 #brennan lee mulligan #aabria iyengar #a crown of candy #high stakes candy land baby #I live for the political intrigue #i wish i could do that #even HALF as well as Brennan did crown of candy #that being said #Brennan #I am in your house #i am in your walls #how dare you kill off Preston the Pig #also I was so invested in all of this campaign #and also kept being forcibly reminded that all of these characters? #they are food #dropout #dimension twenty #intrepid heroes

[yutaan]

The first of two illustrations I did for the MDZS WIP Big Bang! I’m paired with the upcoming fic "If I Should Fall Behind" written by theladyscribe, in which Lan Wangji and Wen Qing enter an arranged marriage! 

“The wedding was not what he had imagined, on those rare occasions Lan Wangji thought of his marriage. Wen Qing stood at the top of the steps, red veil dancing lightly in the wind. Red and gold suited her: a crimson gash on the white marble. Her stance was rigid, as if she, too, would rather be anywhere other than here, fulfilling the wedding contract made between their clans some ten years ago. A small comfort that perhaps he was not alone in this. * A wedding, a war, a friendship, a home.”

The fic will be posted later this month! :D Please keep an eye out, lovelies!

#mdzs wip big bang #lan wangji #lan zhan #wen qing #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #RAREPAIRS RAREPAIRS ♥️ #zhanqing #(...?) #zhanqing friendship agenda anyway #I confess I don't know their ship name #but I DO know I love arranged-slash-political marriage fics #and I am particularly intrigued when the married couple's bond is the focus but not necessarily a romantic one #and since wwx IS assured to be in the story I cannot WAIT to see how the three of them all fit together!! #will there be EMOTIONS??? You betcha #arranged marriage au #comics #my art

[brother-emperors]

you know that post about how scholars talk shit about each other when they write the phrase 'one might be tempted to assume,' or however it went. the entirety of crassus scholarship is like this.

#thankfully all i do is make comics and i can do whatever i want as long as i can justify the narrative beat #otherwise id be. ough. id be tempted to write a 600 page biography on him attempting to unravel this #B.A. Marshall mentioning Rawson's article on Crassus that initially intrigued me about him and he counters her assertion #that pompey overshadowed him with the triumph in a footnote like in a way we have come full circle #everyone collectively agrees that pompey and crassus were not the rivals that a lot of people seem to think they were #so im glad that we're all shaking hands on that. and that the rivalry they did have was just. the usual kind expected from the political #scene. very fun! for narrative purposes i will continue to make them periodically bite each other #because every time someone goes 'oh yeah they were heirs to sulla' i think im going to lose my mind #it does in some ways make their repeated alliance a little unsettling tho. like. haha ha ehgh. now we have to contend with #other kinds of parallels

[hitemwiththeoop]

am i the only one who's really interested in roku's novel like, fr. he's like the avatar of whose companions we know more from the show but at the same time know so little. back then his waterbending teacher hadn't even been named. his earthbending teacher taught the earth king of his time. we'll get gyatso moments and political drama with sozin, appart from kyoshi's moments of guidance. i would think he might even contact szeto. we might follow on his journey right after leaving the fire nation and how he assumed his duty as the avatar in a world that had MAJOR conflicts and tensions by involving himself in his worlds politics in diplomatic missions

i honestly hope that the fandom's perception of his character won't make everyone completely disinterested in what great worldbuilding and expansion of character his novel will bring

#i love the novels political intrigue #i honestly just love all the avatars ok #im excited for my man #atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar roku #roku's novel #monk gyatso #fire lord sozin #sozin #fire nation

[quibbs126]

So I’m still working on the All Ancients Disappear au page for Dark Choco, but this has just been something from there that I’ve been wanting to make for a while because I thought it was funny, so I thought I’d just show you on its own

While I plan to tell this in the full page, I might as well give you some context. So in the Dark Cacao Kingdom, with the king gone, there’s trouble finding someone to properly replace him, considering that the prince is far too young. The First Watcher is put in charge, and they’re trying their best, but it’s not the same. The kingdom holds out for a bit, but with the increasing conflict and no one being able to truly fill Dark Cacao’s role, things start getting worse. This all comes to a head when one day, the Licorice Sea makes a particularly powerful attack, and because the inner conflict inside the Citadel has caused them to somewhat neglect the Wall, it ends up falling and the monsters get in the citadel. While the Watchers put up a fight, it’s ultimately too much and the Citadel ends up falling

Meanwhile, Toffee Cookie (aka Second Watcher), whom I’m keeping as Dark Choco’s caretaker when he was young, saw the attack and decided to take the prince somewhere safe, and when it became clear that the Citadel wouldn’t hold, he fled with him outside the Wall. Considering that the prince now has nowhere to go, Toffee took him in to raise as his own. And I’m saying that Caramel Arrow Cookie is his daughter, though right now she’s only freshly baked. And since Toffee worked at the Citadel, which is no longer standing, destroyed by the Licorice Monsters, he’s kind of out of a job, which is a bit of a problem when you’re now a single dad of two. Ultimately though they manage pull through

But yeah, the image of a stressed Toffee with his two children has just been rolling around in my head. Funny enough, this was also what got me to get back into this au, since I wanted one where Second Watcher raised Dark Choco, and this was my solution

So yeah

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run au #all ancients disappear au #dark choco cookie #second watcher cookie #caramel arrow cookie #my au #not a poorly drawn comic #wip #technically #I’ll admit my reasoning for the kingdom falling is a bit weak #I just wanted the Dark Cacao Kingdom to fall and Dark Choco to not live as a prince #I had to try and make up something for that to happen #given all the political intrigue of the Episodes I thought a power struggle/vacuum would be fitting #thought tbh that seems more likely for the Hollyberry Kingdom #given all the noble houses #oh well I don’t really have anyone to bounce ideas off of #oh yeah Crunchy Chip will also join the family #but that comes later #my art

[sweet-rabbit]

made it on time for 3x4 2024, yaaaay at the expense of my trowa series meh (also made this seem like mpreg, didn't i... i'm cool with that)

#gundam wing #trowa x quatre #quatre raberba winner #trowa barton #heero yuy #duo maxwell #chang wufei #relena peacecraft #the fic ideas were fun to imagine #and also think who would like what genre #admittedly wufei's is not fic genre but like actual genre #and while it's also chinese i legit think he'd be SUPER into it #we shall also support heero and his coffee shop au #... which out of all of their fics ends up being the most popular by a landslide #duo's is inspired by ffnet early 2000s fic/baby's first fanfiction #while relena's is polital intrigue with that underlying romance factor #also trowa is a furry

[shadowkat678]

Looking for players for a Dragon Heist game!

Starting up another group. Unfortunately, one of the players who asked me to start this who I thought seemed extremely interested disappeared on us, and now I have three other players waiting to start.

I could go ahead and start now normally, but one of my players might have to miss more regularly for a while, though not so much so that it'd be disruptive to the campaign. It could potentially be enough where I would prefer to have another player or two to make up for it.

I've been creating content and running this module since it's release back in 2018, and I feel like I've grown a lot in that time. It's a game that I feel really passionate about, and that I am currently already running for two other groups alongside my Curse of Strahd game and occasional short adventures and oneshots.

If you all could share this around for me, or send it to someone who you think would enjoy the kind of gameplay offered, I would highly appreciate it!

Join this module if you enjoy:

🎲An Open-Ended And Character Driven Urban Sandbox

🕵️‍♂️Investigation Focused Gameplay With Plenty of Social Intrigue

🎭A Huge Cast of Diverse NPCs In A Dynamic Living Setting

🖼️Beautiful Art, Handouts, & Maps With Carefully Picked Soundtracks

🧾A Tailored Campaign With Post Game Driven By Previous Choices

If you like the Forgotten Realms setting and the Legend of Drizzt books I can already tell you you'll probably love it.

*somewhere in the background my Jarlaxle playlists begins to play*

#waterdeep dragon heist #jarlaxle #dungeons and dragons #Who wants to see all my way too many handouts and obsessive extra shit I've done for this game? #I have a lot #I have playlists #Come on it's fun #We can have political intrigue adventures together with drow and various crime syndicates #and other...groups involved #Take my hand. Lets go cause problems.

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things, Ch. 73: Bound

Summary: In the day following the harrowing turn of events at the Winter Palace gala, Rose recovers and attempts to strike a bargain with Empress Celene.

Fic Summary: Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke. Excerpt under the cut 👇

I awaken to the sound of knuckles rapping on glass. Moonlight illuminates a pair of familiar shoulders through the seeded glass of the balcony doors. A muffled entreaty comes through.

“Psst. Rose.”

“Hawke?” I answer, sleep dragging on my voice. 

He peers through the glass with cupped hands. I motion him inside, but the door requires picking which leaves me waiting for this ham handed brute for the second time tonight. My heart is raw with anticipation as he fumbles his way through the procedure. He finally trips his way in and crosses the distance between us in a second despite his obvious limp and drops to the floor beside my bed. We fall into a desperate kiss, sloppy and brutally uncomfortable, but we kiss. There isn’t any better evidence that we both made it: the chafe of his nascent stubble against my chin, the warmth of his lips, our mutual stink of elfroot and antiseptic. We clutch each other too tightly, yet much too gently and when I pull him closer suddenly for more he hisses in pain.

“Sorry,” I mutter against his lips.

“Don’t stop,” he answers, drinking me up.

I twist to reach more of him, truly an atrocious idea. “Ow, fuck!”

We both retreat a few inches. “We should stop,” he whispers on a huff of laughter. “Maybe. Before we tear something anew.”

He eases me back against the pillows, lips pressed to mine the whole way down and then pulls back, stroking my banged up face in the whisper of moonlight. His pitying, commiserative look nearly draws a chuckle out of me. And then bound together by our shared worry, our saved up words tumble over each other.

“I was so scared something happened—”

“I thought you were dead—”

He laughs and then winces, clutching his ribs. “Maker, same.”

I feel around the nightstand for the brass matchbox in the darkness. “Let me get a look at you.”

Obliging me, Hawke lights a lamp and puffs out the match before dropping to his knees again. The swelling around his eye has calmed but purple bruises flower all around it. His fingers graze my tender right cheekbone.

“We’re a matching set,” he says. By the glisten in his eyes, I suspect we are in more ways than our twin shiners.

I shake my head and flip down the blankets beside me. “Come here.” There’s no telling whether my body can take what I need, but I need it nonetheless. He stands and eases out of his usual jerkin and then winces as he pulls off his shirt and kicks off his boots and breeches. The glow of the lamp lights up the bandages all over him. One plastered down over a wound on his right shoulder with some kind of resin, his left forearm and right thigh are wrapped completely. His ribs are mottled in large shadowy bruises, one precision bash by the look of it. He slides carefully in beside me under the covers, opening his arms to me. I roll toward him slowly enough that I won’t tear the tenuously renewed flesh inside me. He handles me like fragile bloom, folding his arms around me in a gentle cage.

“I told the guards to let you pass, you know,” I say, the words catching on the knot in my throat as I fidget with the bandages on my forearms.

“You did?” he replies, genuine surprise brightening his face. “Well, climbing the drainpipe did the trick in a pinch.”

“It’s certainly more romantic,” I manage through the strain in my voice. “If a bit reckless given your state.”

I press my lips just beneath his collarbone as he does the same to the top of my head and we lie in silence. There’s so much to tell him but I can’t decide where to begin. He grazes his fingers over my wrapped up forearms in an inquiry.

“Defensive wounds,” I explain.

A nearly inaudible gasp catches above me. “They told me you took a knife for Celene,” he says, his lips skimming against my forehead as if to confirm I’m actually beside him.

“I did.” The words are barely a whisper, barely anything.

Read the rest here!

DAFF Tag List

@warpedlegacy | @rakshadow | @rosella-writes | @effelants | @bluewren

@breninarthur | @ar-lath-ma-cully | @dreadfutures | @plisuu | @ir0n-angel

@inquisimer | @crackinglamb | @nirikeehan | @oxygenforthewicked | @about2dance

@exalted-dawn-drabbles | @melisusthewee | @blarrghe | @agentkatie | @delicatefade

@leggywillow

#Dragon Age Fan Fiction #Hurt Comfort #All the comforts #Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts #Empress Celene #Hawke x Trevelyan #rose trevelyan #dragon age inquisition #in the shattering of things #cullen x trevelyan #garrett hawke #dragon age #cullen rutherford #political intrigue

[lizasweetling]

OK FROTHING AT THE MOUTH NOW

"something to fight for" and the dance are definitely the most overt examples but I am vibrating about this! I have so many thoughts I can't hardly begin to express!!!

#girl genius #page react #do you have any idea how full of speculation on this man's neuroses my brain is right now??? #it's!!!!!!! in here #can I point at all the scenes where he praises Gil or compares the two of them (generally coming up Gil when sincere #and himself only in bombast???) #Can I point at the scene where Our weasel- the one known for his 7 layer intrigue and fine attention to skullduggery- #needed Violetta to explain why he was not automatically going to lose Agatha to Gil and was in fact a Superior Political Suitor??? #and the bit right after Agatha saves him from the augmented Wasp Queen where even when he's making a big romantic declaration of intent- #he's also talking up how impressive Gil is?? #God they are So Poly #if this is bait I am caught #hook line and sinker and though I may die I enjoyed the meal

[redbuddi]

GATE would have been so fun if only it wasn't overt military propaganda

#read 'a gate opened on my first day as a politician' instead #it doesnt have the same fun GATE promised but the political intrigue is really good #but ye we could have had wizards and dragons vs tanks #and magic and technology being reconciled #and all sorts of cool shit! #but no instead we got 'oh yeah the japanese military is so cool wed just kill them all' #and NO ONE fell for it

[homonationalist]

Once the veneer of fantasy is stripped off, the setting terrestrialized, and the orcs recognized as human, then, all the classic themes of Western racist thought become immediately visible. Tolkien’s aesthetic judgment on Mongols and orcs simply repeats Meiners’ aesthetic classification of races, and the even earlier medieval hierarchy: “The figure prized in medieval romances corresponded to Greek statuary, physiognomy was important, and a ‘skin of dazzling whiteness’ exemplified true beauty. Such beauty symbolized goodness, while blackness, small stature, and an ill-proportioned body meant ugliness and evil.” Similarly, twentieth-century German racists would contrast Aryans and dark “ape-men.” Blacks themselves, of course, had traditionally been seen in racist thought as close to apes, and possibly even prone to couplings with orangutans. In keeping with the foregoing, Tolkien describes an orc as “a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground” (TT, 62), while at the siege of Helm’s Deep, we are told, the orcs “sprang up [the ladders] like apes in the dark forests of the South” (TT, 178). The pure-blooded orcs’ fear of the sun also has its precedent in one German anthropologist’s contrast of a diurnal Aryan and a nocturnal non-Aryan race.

Charles W. Mills from “The Wretched of Middle‐Earth: An Orkish Manifesto” (2022)

#charles w. mills #the wretched of middle earth #lord of the rings #reading #i wish someone would do a dissection of the white supremacy in asoiaf like mills does for lotr #i mean maybe someone has i havent looked 😭 #but im revisiting a dance with dragons and the like white supremacy and orientalism is so insane #i read that in middle school so i didnt pick up on it but my god #even just looking at the wiki page for meereen like its alarming #the martells??? like im sure this has been discussed before but i havent read these books in like 10 years so its the first time im #seeing it with my own eyes #idk the way i find lotr repulsive after reading the wretched of middle earth #im like.....how are the people who make hours long youtube videos theorizing about asoiaf #not like intrigued or bothered by this at all #the only allegiance i have to hotd is alicent #otherwise that really is the white supremacy show #edit: all the ppl saying dany abolished slavery and has good intentions so she cant be imperalist or colonizing etc #and saying asoiaf is a fantasy so it doesnt have our current racial system in it....youareallsostupid.jpeg #if u can discuss the misogyny and gender politics in asoiaf u can discuss the racial politics goodbye #i feel like white ppl think discussing white supremacy or colonialism or etc in a work immediately means that work is bad and so they #do gymnastics to avoid having those conversations

[powerbottomzoro]

If I was better at writing (political) intrigue, I might put it on my List. But I ain’t, so I won’t.

I’m currently watching Suits and it’s fun. And of course I have to imagine Zoro as an aggressive but honest lawyer in a way too expensive suit. He looks good in suits. Evidence A

Sanji’s of course a rival lawyer from a different firm who can’t believe how this gorilla got a law degree in the first place. Who’s he kidding to believe Zoro, Mr Burly Muscle Man himself would do all this tedious legal paperwork. Let’s be real!

But Zoro’s nothing but dedicated. If he wants something, he’ll get it.

Nami’s a para legal who will become the best finance lawyer in the Western hemisphere, but she wants to pay for law school on her own. (Some bad blood with loan sharks in her past.)

Usopp is fresh out of law school and his grades are top tier but when he has to speak with opposing council or god forbid a judge, he freezes and/or says the dumbest shit imaginable.

Brook is a sophisticated partner at the firm, disillusioned by years of practice. He’s seen some shit. But these younglings are changing his perspective.

Jinbei is the DA and works his ass off to make sure only actually guilty people are put away on his watch and then young offenders get a chance to learn from their mistake (when applicable). He rather be a public defense lawyer but he did what he had to do.

Vivi is a diplomat and needs good legal council, so that’s an easy in.

The most headache is Luffy. There’s no way in hell I can find an argument to make him a lawyer and that be believable. Him? No Way! And it all falls apart 😭

#one piece #zoro #luffy #sanji #nami #usopp #one piece au #lawyer au #I will never write this #legal dramas and political intrigue is not for me #fun to watch but awful to write #besides #all I’m gonna write is sexy hot smut in suits #the office won’t be the same

[loveoaths]

i can’t believe i’m saying this, but if i were to start another Star Wars fanfic, it would probably be maul/padme/thrawn and i just don’t know how to cope with that???

#something about this rarepair intrigues me… the color scheme. the politics. the fucked up compromises padme must make for a safer republic #thrawn is the most intelligent dude ever but he sucks at politics and needs a politician: padme #maul wants sidious GONE (mostly) and thinks he can overpower padme (he can) but is temporarily thwarted by thrawn #who sees the usefulness in maul — and the cracks in palpatine through him #thrawn would figure out what palpatine really is; feeding on what padme suspects when she realizes palpatine is Off #they’re all playing chess with and against each other simultaneously for the future of the republic and their individual goals #but they can’t dispose of each other too quickly bc they Need each other l #and along the way… things happen? i don’t know #throw a clone in there for good measure and it’s a party #walkie talkie.

[bunabi]

Gundam Seed is so good I really do feel like I'm losing my mind

#I wish I bothered to watch this when it was on CN #theres so much drama people are having sex on the ship theres political intrigue and best of all theres a Char clone we eatin #the progression and BGM is almost 1:1 MSG maybe thats why im gnawing at it like a bone