#are we sensing a theme

[branzinos]

things I have experienced so far in the USA in my last 11 days that would kill a Victorian child

1. loaded baked potato omelette the size of my head

2. blue raspberry sour patch kids energy drink. entire aisle of energy drinks for that matter

3. deep dish pizza with what appeared to be two whole blocks of cheese in it

4. burrito also the size of my head

5. ice cream but the bowl was a waffle cone

6. ice cream sundae inside a gigantic conch shell with a gravy boat of hot fudge

7. comically large Starbucks drink the size of my head

8. the indulgences of the Alamo drafthouse and having some guy bring me two mixing bowls filled with buttered popcorn, unlimited soda and a burger to my reclining chair

9. banana chocolate chip waffle the size of my head

10. hot cheetos mozzarella corn dog a terrifying shade of red

[infiniteseriesofhalfways]

sometimes I'll see someone reblog a post half a dozen times in a row so I'll take a screenshot to ask if it was intentional, but then i get worried that it's just a tumblr glitch on my end and they'll hate me for bringing it up, or a tumblr glitch on their end and they'll hate me for bringing it up, or it was intentional and i just missed the joke and (you'll never believe it) they'll hate me for bringing it up

[neoheros]

“morning samu!”

the bells that hang by onigiri miya’s front door ring loudly as you enter the building, the sound of your voice accompanied with a chipper smile on your face as the early morning begins.

osamu barely looks up from the counter at your arrival, not needing to see you to know that it is you, and even if he is too busy fiddling with the register, he still smiles knowing that you’re here.

not that it would be anything special if you were, you were here practically everyday at this point, it might as well be part of osamu’s morning routine to welcome you in.

not that he minds — he’d never — but not that he’d tell you that, anyway.

“good morning.” he says to you, the smile on his face obvious now as you can hear it in his voice, but he still doesn’t look up from the register, too immersed in the work to tear himself away.

“seat yourself, will ya? bit busy here at the moment.”

you shrug off your coat from your shoulders as you hear him, nodding to yourself as you pick the table you like the most, and you call out, teasing, “alright but if you ask me to serve myself too, i’ll be expecting a paycheck from you.”

you slightly hear him chuckle a bit at that, too busy to respond, but you understand anyway considering the incoming morning rush.

knowing osamu, your closest friend for years, he must be knee deep in question marks as he tries to commandeer both the cashier and the kitchen by himself, too stubborn to hire anyone else, and way too confident to ask for any bit of help.

you’ll save the scoldings you have in mind for him later.

now, you’re preoccupied.

you pull the chair on your table out for your guest this morning, a small gesture of your hand to get him to seat across from you as you make yourself comfortable, and once all that’s settled, you hand him one of the menus to choose from.

the menu isn’t complicated at all — mainly the reason you took him here — and you’re sort-of proud of yourself for bringing him here in the first place.

after all, what better first date than the restaurant you already go to every single day?

your date gives you a smile, “so, you come here often?”

from the counter afar, there’s a sound of the register suddenly closing in on itself that can be heard loudly, a loud “clang!” echoing throughout the entire building.

osamu blinks, his attention suddenly torn away from the register in front of him, confusion settling in his face as his eyebrows furrow together, his languid smile dropping slowly and he looks up — finally.

from where he stands, the first person he sees is you, you’re laughing and smiling and you’re all dressed so nicely today that it almost makes him smile — but then he sees you’re talking to someone else, someone you brought here, someone across from you, and that doesn’t make him smile at all.

“yeah, it’s my favorite restaurant.” he hears you reply, the smile in your voice evident.

and as much as osamu just loves to hear how much you like his establishment, he’d rather you say it to him and not to anyone else.

there’s a bitter taste in his mouth. he feels like he just got the wind punched out of him as he continues to stare.

did you seriously bring a guy to his restaurant for a date?

“what can i get ya this mornin’?” there’s an obvious frown sitting on osamu’s face as he stands near your table, a pad of paper in his palm as his other hand holds a pen lazily.

it took him a lot of energy to force himself away from the counter and actually walk over to you and your … date, but he figured the more he ignored you, the more likely you were gonna come after him for not … well … doing his job.

“jeez. reign it in with the joy, please.” you tease, your morning spirits undeterred by his newfound persona of he-who-hates-all-things.

osamu sighs, dramatically, and he straightens up slightly to look at you more professionally now, “i’ve got the new flavors in this morning, they’re new and experimental so you get the chance— alright, what the hell is that?”

you look down to where his pointing, an exasperated look on his face as he gestures at the very bright object you brought with you today that was just distracting enough to bring him out of his spiel, and you smile even wider— proud.

“my shoes!” you nod with excitement, grabbing them from the paperbag on the floor as you take them out to show him.

“those are shoes?” his eyebrows furrow together tightly.

“well, i broke them, that’s why they look so clanky and the steel stuff ended up hanging outside the sole part, so i was planning on fixing it today during my break time at work.”

osamu looks at you, deadpanned, “they look like they could kill somebody.”

and you scoff, “so dramatic today.”

you sneak a peek over at the other side of the table to check on your date, and your smile remains when you see him still pre-occupied with the menu, browsing his options as he gives you a small smile while he listens to the conversation.

back to osamu now, he still looks frustrated at — well, you’re not really sure at what — and there’s a deep expression that settles on his face as he looks at you like you’ve just stolen his pen.

a second passes.

“hand them over.” he suddenly tells you, a big sigh coming from him as his shoulders fall with defeat.

you turn to him, “what?”

“hand over the shoes.”

“samu, i know they look bad, but that doesn’t mean you can take them from me!”

osamu breathes in very loudly as he stares at you, his frown impossibly getting deeper the more he stays here it seems, and with another swallow of possibly his last straw, he puts the pad down.

“give me the shoes so i can fix them, you idiot.” he tells you, his tone as quiet as he can make it, and he swears, if you had not been one of his closest friends, you’d been out of your seat five minutes ago.

you cross your arms over your chest, “you know how to fix shoes?”

and he scoffs, “i don’t, but i figure my chances are better than yours.”

your expression finally breaks into a small smile, defeated, yes, but you did get out of fixing your shoes yourself, which is a win in its own case, and a scenario only possible with osamu by your side.

“you win.” you throw your hands in the air, and show him a wide grin as you hand over the shoes, “thank you very much.”

osamu takes the shoes from you and puts it at the empty table behind him, begrudged, but amused, not like he wouldn’t do anything for you anyways.

your date leans over to you slowly — an action that makes osamu want to roll his eyes all the way to the back of his head.

he gives you a smile, “you get good service here.”

and you reply back, “i know the owner.”

osamu ignores the wink you give him, and he gives you an unamused look as you grin. he shakes his head to himself and grabs the pad of paper once again before clearing his throat.

“order?”

“i’ll have two of my usual orders, and then one of each of the new flavors to go.” you tell him, proud at not having to look at the menu anymore to know what you like.

you do come here every morning after all.

osamu gives you a short nod, listing down your request, and begrudgingly, he turns to the other person at the table, “and you?”

“i’m just not sure.” your date tells him, humming to himself as he picks up the menu again. “give me a second.”

the gray haired man gives you a look; almost 10 minutes with that menu and he still hasn’t decided?

you give him an apologetic look, “oh, then, i guess hold off on mine too.”

osamu shakes his head, sighing, “i might run out of the new ones.”

and your date looks up from the menu to give you a wanton smile, “go ahead, order, i’ll be fine.”

you shake your head, polite, “no, it’s okay, i’ll wait for you. take your time.”

osamu clears his throat. adamant. “i’m almost out and i can’t make more.”

you shoot him a look. “then set some aside for me.”

and he squints his eyes. “it’s first come, first serve.”

there’s a stark frown on your face now too. your eyebrows tightly knit as you shoot the man in front of you a hard glare.

you have no idea why he’s making this morning so hard on you for no reason at all, but you’re about to say something to his remark if it weren’t for the sudden ringing on the phone that interrupted the conversation.

“i’m sorry, i might have to go.” your date intervenes suddenly, the ringing of his phone going off as he stands up and grabs his things from the table.

you look at him expectantly, “you do?”

“yes, something came up,” he tells you, apologetic and giving you a sad smile. he leans down anyway to come squeeze your hand quickly, and he says, “i’ll call you?”

you give him a small nod, “sure.”

not that you can do anything else about it, you say your goodbyes, and suddenly, not even twenty minutes in to your first date with him, he’s off and leaving.

the bells on the door ring loudly as the door closes with a slam.

your head falls on the table once he’s gone.

“well.” you grumble. “that was a bust.”

osamu puts a hand on his hip as he watches you, “ya seriously cannot be hung up like this on the world’s slowest reader.”

you lift your head up slightly to roll your eyes at him, watching him with squinted eyes as he walks away and disappears into the kitchen.

obviously, you weren’t hung up on this stupid date. you didn’t want to go on this stupid date anyway!

dating sucks. and it sucks even more when it’s forced on you last minute by a work friend who you’re definitely not talking to outside of the work place anymore.

you grumble again at the thought.

great, and you were having such a good morning too.

you let your head fall back on the table.

a minute passes in your sulking mess before you hear the sound of a plate being pushed across the table breaks you from your world of wallowing.

“here.”

osamu looks at you from the side, his gaze much softer now as he keeps his hand on his hip, and he watches as your confused look when you see him falls on the playe in front of you.

your usual order, and the new ones to go.

you look up at him, “but i thought you didn’t ring my order in?”

and osamu, defeated, rolls his eyes slightly, but you don’t miss the way his lips curl upwards even just a tiny bit.

you come in here every single day, every single morning, and order the same exact thing. rain or shine, he can also expect to greet you in as you come in those doors and greet him with that big smile you never fail to give him.

he can’t help it, it’s part of his routine now too.

atsumu keeps pestering him on hiring somebody to man the front desk so he can lessen his work load, but that would mean what? give up the chance to see you come in everyday? give up the way you say his name when you say good morning? give up your smile and your laugh and the way you tease and mock and tarry?

you’re the best part of his mornings working here, even when you’re with somebody else, you’re still the person he looks most forward to seeing every single day.

he rolls his eyes but you see him smile anyway.

“i already set these aside before you came in anyway.”

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Something Borrowed, Something Blue.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[redshoes-blues]

By the way, Will is explicitly written not only as a gay character who is in love with his best friend, but also as a character who grew up believing that he’d never fall in love. He’s someone who still believes that he doesn’t deserve to be loved, because he feels like his feelings are a mistake. This isn’t the type of character arc that will end with him watching the only person he has ever expressed interest in, the boy he’s in love with, be with with someone else. That wouldn’t be satisfying for viewers, wouldn’t make sense for Will as a character, and it would be needlessly cruel. In a story focused on demonstrating why society’s outsiders deserve love and acceptance, he’s going to find just that. It’s the only end for him that fits with his arc and the show’s narrative themes. To have it end otherwise is terrible writing.

[fallofthecelestial]

Okay. Since we're going over all the takes on Mr. X at this point.. What if his powers really don't have a backside. What if (the state of) his normal life is the backside.

What if his normal life is akin to that of heroes where he has to pretend to be something he's not and follow rules that the people who control his life came up with to further their own goals. What if he can only be free of other people's beliefs and expectations when he's a hero.

What if in reality he truly is like everyone else. The other heroes. The ordinary people. All those who work themselves to the bone, who are tired and overworked and sick of all the exploitation...

What if when he's in the form of the number one hero.. when he becomes the most sought after product on the hero market..

Is when he gains the freedom to truly be himself

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

It's been a long, strange year...

[starlingstalk]

Sinking dagger

Favourite individual screencaps!

Unicorn symbolism is inspired by @absolutelynotsanebaby unicole!! <33

[gothicrepetitions]

“The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Supernatural (2005-2020)//True Detective (2014-)//Time and Personal Identity in Nietzsche’s Theory of Eternal Recurrence, Scott Jenkins//Purgatory with Color TV: Motels Rooms as Liminal Zones in Supernatural, Lorna Jowett//Yellowjackets (2021-)//Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997)//Quote by Guillermo del Toro//One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Marquez Garcia//Trauma Reenactment in the Gothic Loop: A Study on Structures of Circularity in Gothic Fiction, Andrea Juranovszky

[randomness-is-my-order]

complicated feelings on jiang fengmian aside, i think the reason i don’t buy into the whole “jfm favoured wei wuxian much more than his son” and tend to agree with wwx’s words to jc that of course jfm would be more stern with jc because jc’s his son is because—my asian parenting experience has been somewhat the same (and i actually think this might be a bit of a universal experience regardless), not in the exact way mxtx portrays this relationship but in that my parents and parents of every single person i have ever known (mostly; there are always a few exceptions) show this pattern of being sweet and cordial and generally non-disciplinary towards kids who aren’t their own and being way stricter and more stern with their own children because they are the ones they are parenting. there’s almost this mutually known boundary that you don’t go and yell at another’s kid to correct bad behaviour, rather the impetus of imparting important values and lessons is reserved as your right for your own kids. that’s how i’ve always read jiang fengmian’s dynamic with wei wuxian vs jiang cheng. he was stern with jc because that’s his son and heir, someone he cares for very deeply. on the other hand, he does care for wei wuxian as well but he has never crossed that mental boundary from uncle to father figure in his head and his interactions with wei wuxian have never read as paternal or favourably partial over jc to me.

[ingoodjesst]

have you put the pieces together yet, detective

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 12: Beware the Grapes of Wrath.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[leona-florianova]

Historical fiction from a war period, where the events and setting are sooooo interesting, that the authors prolong and loop the time in such way, that the characters can thoroughly "enjoy" n explore it all in its glorious horror. n_n

[chaosgenasi]

I’ve had a life. I think a lot of us here have had a life. And I can count the really good days practically on two hands.