#back on my shit again

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Tuberculosis is both a form and an expression of global injustice: A disease that has been curable since the mid-1950s is nonetheless the world's deadliest infectious disease in 2024.

[luthiensaralonde]

Gale Dekarios and his respect for women

It has become increasingly common in certain circles of discourse to dismiss Gale Dekarios as an “incel” or to accuse him of misogyny, based primarily on surface-level misinterpretations of his demeanor, his failed romance with Mystra, or his initial "arrogance." However, such takes fall apart when you actually delve into his relationship with women throughout the game. When examined holistically, Gale’s character is not only deeply shaped by his reverence for women, but he is, in many ways, a man defined by them.

Let’s begin with the obvious:

1. Mystra

Gale’s entire identity as a wizard is shaped by his worship of Mystra, the Lady of Mysteries, a goddess who not only governs magic but also represents the divine embodiment of the Weave itself. His desire to please her is not rooted in blind servitude or entitlement, but in reverence, devotion, and a sincere need to be worthy. The rupture in their relationship breaks him (not because he was spurned, but because he failed in her eyes).

Rather than rejecting her divinity in anger, Gale continues to refer to her as his goddess. There is no bitterness, only regret and longing. He blames himself, not her.

2. Morena

Gale proudly claims his mother’s surname, Dekarios. This is not just trivia, it is narrative choice. It speaks volumes about the figure who raised him. We hear nothing about his father and perhaps by design. The person Gale claims, honors, and symbolically identifies with is his mother.

3. Tara

Even Gale’s most loyal companion, Tara, is female. Gale never belittles or dismisses her, but listens to her, even when she challenges him. Their relationship is playful, but deeply respectful.

The idea that a man would form his closest companionship with a magical female creature, one who scolds him and still follows him across Faerûn, hardly aligns with any definition of misogyny. She's basically his second parent.

4. His Dream Guardian

Gale is notably the only origin character who refers to the Dream Guardian as "she". This subtle but significant detail shows how he relates to femininity even in liminal, psychological spaces. It’s not just that he can project a female identity onto the Guardian, it’s that he chooses to.

5. His Reactions to Female NPCs

Take, for instance, the scene with Mayrina. While other characters show skepticism or even irritation toward her plight, Gale immediately expresses concern:

"She's a pregnant lady in distress, we can't just stand by and pretend she's not here."

This moment reveals his instinctive protectiveness and empathy, particularly toward vulnerable women. He doesn’t question her intelligence or her choices, he simply believes she deserves help.

Another subtle but telling scene is with Isobel at the Last Light Inn. Gale’s interactions with her (especially if you let him speak) are marked by concern and measured respect. He doesn't undermine, or try to dominate the conversation. He listens, asks questions, and is genuinely invested.

This probably isn't as important to my point, but I just want to mention his protectiveness/concern for children, most of them in the game, female: Arabella, Mol, Yenna etc.

6. His Respect for Female Companions

Gale’s interactions with the women in the party are often gentler, more complimentary, and emotionally open than those with the male companions. I could list an abundance of dialogue examples, but I'll save that for another post perhaps.

Meanwhile, Gale’s interactions with male companions (like Astarion or Wyll) are often tinged with sarcasm, rivalry, or distance. While not hostile, they lack the warmth and admiration he reserves for women.

With that said, Gale Dekarios is not a perfect man, but he is a profoundly emotional and thoughtful one. His arrogance masks deep insecurity, and his charm belies years of shame, grief, and loneliness. What is undeniable, however, is that women occupy a place of importance in his life, not as objects of conquest, but as guides, caretakers, protectors, friends, and potentially lovers.

To reduce him to an “incel” is to ignore the text in favor of a meme. At the heart of Gale Dekarios lies a deep and abiding reverence for the divine feminine.

To dismiss his love for Mystra as toxic entitlement is to misunderstand heartbreak.

And to overlook the way he trusts, follows, and loves women is to miss the deeper beauty of Gale Dekarios entirely.

[bloggerspam]

A Christmas Carol AU

Inspired by a prompt found in the @haunting-heroes-creative-games :) (i.e. back on my shit again)

When a 15 year old Jason, pissed at Bruce for taking Robin away from him, finds his birth certificate he realizes Catherine Todd is not his real mother.

Just as he resolves to go out and search for his birth mother, Jason finds himself accosted by three ghosts in his room, talking about A Christmas Carol of all things.

===

"So, what? We're gonna Christmas Carol him?"

Dan scoffs, crossing his bulky arms with an unimpressed look. "We hated that movie."

"I didn't." Dani chirps, disturbingly cheery, "I didn't see it!"

"We hate Christmas," Danny corrects, "But the movie was alright, and the logic is sound."

"I don't hate Christmas," Dani once again interjects cheerily, "I've never participated!"

"Sound my ass," Dan growls over her, throwing his hands up. "We don't even know this guy!"

"Minor detail." Danny insists, "Tuck can look him up."

"He's a fucking Bat, Danny." Dan scrunches up his face, pinching the bridge of his nose just like Vlad does when he's disgruntled with any of Dad's shenanigans.

"He's a Robin, actually." Dani pipes in, "And he's just a kid. How hard is it gonna be to pretend to be this kid's Ghosts?"

"You're a kid," Dan reminds her, crossing his arms, "And you didn't believe me when I told you sticking a fork in the outlet would shock you."

"I believed you," Dani sniffs haughtily, crossing her arms and pointing her nose up with a snooty voice, "The warning simply did not deter me from doing it anyway."

"We don't have to convince him we're his Ghosts, or even that we knew him before," Danny reasons, needling, "We just have to convince him that we're…"

He hums, pointing at Dani. "Past."

He points at himself, "Present."

He points at Dan, "Future."

Dani does a little cheer, arms up and twirling into the air before landing with her legs over Dan's shoulders, hands and head settling atop Dan's fiery, but harmless, hair. It flickers, before going limp into long white strands that Dani messes up by gently scrunching up the strands and running her fingers through them.

Dan lets her, huffing and looking weirdly like a downtrodden, wet cat. "Why am I future?"

"Because." Danny doesn't continue, because he knows it makes Dan annoyed. True to form, his scowl gets worse, like sucking on a lemon. They all know why anyway.

Dani grins, triumphant and knowing, letting her voice go real deep, "The future," she intones into Dan's hair, "is here."

"The future is now," Danny corrects her, but doesn't lose his smile, floating up to tuck a strand of her hair back behind her ear.

"The future is already here," Dan mumbles his correction, or is it a follow-up? "It's just not evenly distributed."

"How about you distribute some of those muscles, Gibson," Danny sighs, shaking his head "Waiting for puberty is such a drag, and we both know you didn't get the mass from Vlad's side of the family."

Dan makes a moue of disgust, but it serves him right. The consequences of his own actions, and whatnot. He looks up at Dani, who simply shrugs. "I think you'll do great." She leans down to give him two pats on the arm.

"So how's acting out A Christmas Carol gonna help us stop this Jason guy from blowing up?" Dani fiddles with Dan's hair, tongue poking out as she attempts a braid, "Will he even see us? Ghosts in this dimension taste funny."

"He'll be able to see us, it's magically rich enough for some ghosts to maintain a semblance of themselves," Danny explains for the third time. Dani and Dan hum at different pitches, and even though Danny is the common denominator he kind of hates that Vlad has more of a lasting impression on them. "The ectoplasm here is scarce and mostly corrupted, though, so it's rare."

"So there's lotsa bad ghosts here?" Dani eyes the messy braid she's made, proud, even as Dan's silky hair immediately causes it to fall apart, "Or 'mentally unsound' or whatever Frostbite called it."

"No," Dan grumbles, annoyed and indulging all at once, "Corruption begets ecto-rot, but the scarcity means they're not strong enough to actually retain their sense of self enough to rot."

"Shades," Danny explains when Dani looks even more confused, "There's lots of shades."

"Is this one of the Olympian dimensions?" Dani groans, flopping over Dan's shoulder as he sits down on the sofa, "I love Pandora and all, but if I see Zeus again I'm gonna lose it."

"It's one of the hero dimensions," Danny hums, taking over braiding Dan's hair the way Jazz made him when they were little, "There's a couple of Amazons walking about, but on the whole no Olympians."

"I don't know why he didn't just dump me in a Norse dimension." Dan leans back and closes his eyes to their ministrations. "Especially with my current occupation."

The three of them are sitting in Dan's apartment, a large loft studio located somewhere in the UK of the aforementioned hero-dimension. Alber-something, Danny can't remember. Doesn't need to, it being a different dimension from his anyway.

Dan doesn't have a lot of things: a sofa and TV, a bed in the corner, a decent but small kitchen. They're still trying to figure out decorations, but Dan on the whole is a minimalist so it's been slow going.

He's working as a bartender these nights, whiling away his odd existence now that his form has stabilized.

And wasn't that a trip? Learning that hey, adult lightning halfas shouldn't really be mixed with teenage ice halfas, actually!

Apparently, ectoplasm can become corrupted if you try to combine incompatible sources.

Apparently, side effects include (but are not limited to) unmitigated violence and a devastating need for vengeance.

Sound familiar?

"This dimension has a lot of time continuity errors," Danny reminds him, "Dropping you here gave the least amount of pushback."

"Yeah, yeah," Dan flaps a lazy hand, "Praise be the speedforce and flashpoints and whatnot."

"Plus," Dani adds softly, absent-minded as she watches Danny finish up the braid, "Lotsa heroes to help out if you relapse."

Dan heaves a slow, controlled sigh. Danny and Dani both pretend they don't notice.

"Is it bad?" Dan doesn't open his eyes, his voice is so low Danny can only hear him by virtue of his ghost powers, "Like me levels bad?"

"No." Danny shakes his head, leaning into his older self, his older brother of sorts, "He decapitated eight crime lords, killed a couple of assassins, maybe an innocent or two depending on your definition of things."

"Past tense?" Dan scrunches his nose. They all hate how confusing Time Shenanigans are.

"He's living as Red Hood, right this very moment."

"Red Hood?" Dani questions, "That his hero name?"

"Crime lord alias." Danny corrects her, "But he's more of a vigilante these days. Has a bat on his chest and everything."

"But it's bad enough to warrant a trip to the past." Dan points out, "Bad enough for us to try and persuade him. Does he relapse?"

"Not…exactly." Danny scrunches his face, not wanting to explain Clockwork's ambiguity.

Dani floats to spread over Danny and Dan's laps, sprawling out and purring like a cat. Self-soothing, though it's more for their benefit than hers.

"Like Dani said, there’re lots of heroes here, and he doesn't have powers." Danny continues, petting at Dani's soft hair, "The world doesn't end. He doesn't have the means to, even with the ecto-rot."

Danny pauses, and chooses his words deliberately and carefully. "And deep down, Jason Todd is a hero through and through. Relapse would be…difficult. His Obsession is similar to yours."

Dan lets that sit for a moment, but nods, Danny moving a little with the motion. The tension slowly bleeds out as they wait like that, enjoying each other's company.

"If the world doesn't end," Dani whispers, "Why is Clockwork sending all of us?"

Danny thinks on that, on his meeting with Clockwork. The Ancient's voice when he explained what would happen.

He thinks about Jason Todd, about Bruce Wayne, and Catherine, and Sheila. He thinks about Batman, and Robin.

He thinks about Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, about Damian Al Ghul, about Cassandra Cain, and all of Jason's Outlaws.

He thinks about a tattered uniform that stays up in a glass case for a long, long time.

Most of all, he thinks about Dan.

He thinks about regrets and one bad day away.

And then he stops thinking about it, because sometimes the past is the past, and other times, it's the future that never happens that haunts you instead.

"You know, Dani." He settles on, "I'm not sure. He probably has his reasons."

Dan leans heavier onto him, and they lean together like that, with Dani in their laps.

Ghosts of decisions made, unmade, and never to be.

Follow the story on AO3 here!

[canonplag]

Dead in America John is so fine guys I can’t be normal about it

[apatheticrater]

𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐙𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐠 𝐱 ‘𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐤’ 𝐛𝐲 𝐍𝐨𝐚𝐡 𝐊𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐧

(It just fits too well)

[accio-sriracha]

Wolfstar Angst </3

Remus sat, breathing in the ashes of a fire long since put out. He looked broken. He was broken. Maybe there was poetry in that. He didn't care.

"I should hate you," he whispered, staring at the blood coating his hands. It wasn't his own. "I should hate you for everything you put me through."

Sirius, in all his glory—in every ounce of pride he somehow still managed to carry—could only stare.

Remus didn't know what he was expecting. Sirius wouldn't reply. Not while they were both so vulnerable. Not when this was bound to be the breaking of a dam.

Remus shook his head. He let his red-stained hands fall to his sides. "Why can't I hate you?"

They both knew the answer. The very same that kept Sirius' feet planted where they stood. Remus only wished that made it any easier.

It didn't.

[sylaurin]

[epicfirestormer]

Whoops

[losingmymindrn]

Coral, about to leave the house: Don’t spend all day watching YouTube, okay?

Mizzen: I FORGE MY OWN PATH!!

[monowritestoomuch]

Going on my GBA arc let’s talk about it—

I have started on GoodBoyAudios The Bastard Warrior

Have I finished Nomads Tales & Audios’ work? Nope, but I’m almost there. I’ve been getting through them over the course of TWO MONTHS.

rest assured, I’m going to get to scythe, but Tumblr has been pushing GBA on me for the past week and after finishing Arcane (I’m traumatized thanks arcane writers) I’m trying out something new and hoping it’ll be minorly therapeutic (i need to learn that trying to get into a new fandom and going ‘oh this should be nice and peaceful 😄’ is only going to lead to more heartbreak but OH WELL)

just, watch out in the next few weeks if I lose my mind.

[v1nsincl4ir]

Would You still love me if I was still clinging desperately to the deranged hope for a House Of Wax prequel

[crybabycola]

“if Light never used the Death Note he would be a cop and work alongside L isn’t that sad” personally I think it’s infinitely more tragic if the only way they could’ve ever possibly met was due to the Death Note idk I’m a Real Angst Lover

[tarrenterror25]

I have a very long work shift ahead of me tonight! Feel free to send in some Black Mask or Two-Face or Rogue thoughts, mayhaps!

Gives me something to think about to pass the time! 😌

I've got a couple left to answer in my inbox!

Soft thoughts, spicy thoughts, anything really ☺️

[misha-69innit]

i love how safar fades out and i'm almost asleep when butterfly starts by jumpscaring me

[canonplag]

If anyone’s wondering: my John wears eyeliner. His eyes look too soft without it so he does it to give himself that extra intimidating edge. Loser.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

I swear to fucking god. I would claw out OneDrive from my computer if I could. I would burn down their servers if I could. I would run down their stocks to the ground if I could. I hope every single one of their workers gets a better offer from a competitor in the next 24 hours. I hope every single one of their light bulbs explodes at the same time. I hope every single carton of milk in their fridge will always be expired.

Stop backing up my fucking files.

Stop asking me to back up my fucking files.

Stop taking my fucking files off my fucking computer.

I don't want a fucking reminder in three fucking days. Let me fucking say no.

Fuckers.