Unstableplague - Mercury

Remembering that Yuuken literally smacked the OB outta Riddle (The others helped too. And Deuce dropped a cauldron on his head)

So hyped to see this scene in the anime.

Literally knocked the sense back into him.

why does sans know the expressions of someone who's died anywhere from 1-10 times in a row

@dreary-giraffe

This is a good question! And the answer is: I think the community made up the 'Fritz' part. Pretty sure that's what his name is in Emesis Blue (which is, incidentally, the video that reached up from my Recommended list and violently dragged me back into this fandom, hahah).

But as far as I know, the only name we know canonically is 'Ludwig,' and we're not sure if it's his first or his last name.

HOWEVER:

This sign is featured in the Man vs. Machine map 'Rottenburg.'

According to the wiki, this is a blurb from the official update that included this map:

"The second of our Two Cities finds the mercs defending the Medic's vaguely European hometown of Rottenburg — a sprawling village famous for its centuries-old traditions of 1) chasing the next in the resident lineage of mad doctors out of town with torches and pitchforks whenever they swapped out too many super-charged baboon hearts,"

Huh. Interesting.

Now, this is just conjecture, but this implies two things:

Ludwig is his first name, and his last name is Humboldt

HIS ENTIRE FAMILY LINE IS LIKE THIS

Of course, it's also possible that he was unrelated to whatever local mad scientist there was when he was a kid, but he decided 'hey, I'd like to do that too' and then grew up to eventually take over the pharmacy for himself. There are plenty of mom-and-pop type places that are operated by someone whose last name isn't actually on the sign.

So until Valve says something, we don't really know what his last name is - this is just an extremely strong hint.

For the purpose of this blog, though, his name is Dr. Ludwig Humboldt. I haven't yet decided what Misha's last name is.

Speaking of Misha... apropos of nothing, but here's a shot from the supply room in the same map.

(Hahaha floating syringe. Why is it floating? Because players aren't supposed to be able to look at this room from this angle. When viewed from above, you don't notice it's floating.)

Anyway, I saw someone else once point out that our boy Ludwig is fucking obsessed with making diagrams of Misha. He studies him like he's the perfect specimen.

What's that? You want a close up of the diagram? Of course!

"This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like." -- Ludwig, probably

Anyway, as you can see, we unfortunately can't read the text when we zoom in. (EDIT: Actually, yes you can, at [this link]!) But I do have to note that it is hilarious that the ammo pouches and bandolier are part of the diagram, as if they're an essential part of his anatomy. That is also literally just an A-posed model they loaded in and slapped a skeleton on top of.

I choose to believe Ludwig made this diagram in Blender himself.

gl!ranboo and gl!charlie are basically brothers btw. if you even care.

Hear me out baby dragon Malleus and child Riddle meeting as a hypothetical

Cause the way you draw those two is either the cutest of children or CURSED CHILD

It happened beause... let's say time travel shenanigans. Malleus was sent to the future, landed straight into Riddle's head, and now, Riddle has fully shifted into Caretaker mode because he is fully convinced that Malleus is a baby. Let's also say this happens before he meets Trey and Chenya so he still has his 1 entire hour of free time.

I think that Riddle would try really hard to be rational about it, but man, he is also a kid that found a whole ass dragon. He is happy, enchanted, and he is having the best damn summer of his life. He can't tell it to anyone, because he has no friends AND he is sure his mom would take Malleus away AND he is sure the police would also just take him away, so he just tries to spend as much time with Malleus as possible and makes sure he has everything he needs.

They spend a lot of time together. Riddle believes he is finally making a little friend, and then, Malleus disappears. Magic is over, he is back in the past, but Riddle has no way of knowing this.

So, he just assumes he imagined the whole thing. Silly him, why would a dragon meet him like that? Those are super rare, and there are no faes around. He must have read something about dragon fae and dreamed something very sweet for himself. It's fine. He tries not to think about it. Hurts a little. Life goes on, regardless.

Years pass, he enters Night Raven and then...

...well, suddenly he is forced to remember that little lizard he met years ago.

currently obsessed with a twitter account that has a bot set up to record their cat leaving and returning to their house

the best part is that the replies are a wave of sadness and depression whenever the cat leaves and then rejoicing when it comes back like the cat is some kind of messiah

frankly im on board with out new lord and savior Pepito. let the people rejoice in his presence as he is the messiah

lukewarm take but i personally do not give a shit if poor people cheat a system that was designed to fail them anyways. i also coincidentally do not enjoy the taste of boot rubber

you know a fic is good when it has this

Soldier, do you know that the ridged edges of a ritz cracker is actually intended to be used to cut cheese

Soldier: [stares at the letter and then gets up to go into the kitchen and get out the box of crackers from the cabinet, staring at it for a while before muttering to himself] ..I could turn this into a weapon.

THIS!!! THIS!!!! Durge and Wyll are so cute and so poetic anD IT NEEDS TO BE SAID MORE!!!

aside from everything else about durgewyll I am loving how it highlights wyll and gortash as narrative foils. both their upbringings lead them to interact with demoniac entities, both can only become archdukes and join baldurian high society through uldred, both are swaying the dark urge from simply following bhaal (and arguably the dark urge sways them from simply pursuing an ideal and the dark urge can recognise both as their equal) and by playing your card right in act 3 wyll just...gets everything gortash was trying to get? wyll really is a hero saving baldur's gate from the legion of the absolute. wyll influences gortash's favourite assassin into becoming someone they can defeat the netehrbrain together. they can even become archdukes together! ...or they can turn it down and then they can go to he hells to sneak around and have adventures (like gortash and durge used to) and save karlach's life (the same life that is at risk because gortash mindlessly threw it away).

like. it's a lot, wyll and durge can even murder raphael.