#it's about the dread...

[pynkhues]

I think TVL will need to answer: If Lestat just wanted to see Louis and Claudia again, why did he not try to escape and warn them about the truth? He looked healthy at the rehearsal. Why did he not flee through the tunnels after the coven's curfew? And so forth.

If Armand was keeping him prisoner, that explains it. If that is true, I also wonder how long Armand was keeping him prisoner. It would be so Gothic if Lestat went to Armand for help soon after murder night and Armand had him already when Louis and Claudia arrived in Paris.

The rehearsal scene is actually kind of an interesting one to unpack, and I've talked about it a bit on here before, but I don't tend to read that as a memory? After all, it would have to be Armand's if it was, given Louis wasn't there.

Rolin and Sam have both been pretty specific in saying that the only time we've seen the real Lestat so far is in the reunion scene, and the way they flash to the rehearsal as Louis' reading Armand's script notes makes me think that's more Louis' imagining of something that happened based on a note Armand's made, most likely about Lestat saying something about Claudia's strength that the Coven needs to consider in restraining her. Louis' as in the dark there as we are about the state Lestat's been kept in, so it makes sense to me that he'd see him as more put together than he perhaps was. In other words, I don't really see that rehearsal scene as a reveal of anything beyond Armand having directed from the beginning, and Lestat having defended Claudia.

Given the bruises on him during the trial and the way they kept showing glimpses of him looking a lot sicker than he seemed in Louis' memory, I feel like the show's been pretty clear that he's not well and has been held captive already, honestly, which again, is in line with what it is in the book. In that, Armand's been feeding him dead blood to keep him weaker too, so if they keep that, I don't think Lestat would have the strength to escape, especially when he likely doesn't know where in Paris Louis and Claudia are, and he'd still have to outrun an angry Coven and an Armand at full strength.

I think the real question is ultimately more when did Lestat arrive in Paris, because you're right that it'd be intensely gothic if he's been there the whole time! I also think it opens up for some pretty delicious Lestat and Claudia moments if he's being trapped in the theatre itself. Watching your child get pulled deeper into a community you created with your dead ex-lover, knowing it's now run by a man who enabled the death of said ex-lover and would enable (at best) your daughter's death too, and not being able to do anything about it, is top-tier, capital-g Gothic, haha.

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[thesoftestbloom]

As a trans woman, girls, sometimes y'all need to shut up and listen to trans men. They also face a lot of discrimination in various areas that we don't.

Likewise, trans men, sometimes y'all need to shut up and listen to trans women. We face a lot of discrimination that you don't.

Both need to 100% listen to non-binary and intersex people. The amount of hatred I've seen from trans men and trans women toward enbies and intersex people is staggering. I'm really starting to see what all the jokes about the average tumblr user's reading comprehension are about. Some of y'all cannot see past your own identity and the discrimination you face.

Little secret, cishets don't like *any* of us. All of us should be free to speak on our own experiences of discrimination *without* the other groups dismissing, belittling and patronising us. We are all degenerates in the eyes of society and the only way we survive is by listening to eachother and caring for eachother as a collective.

Nobody else in the trans or intersex community is your enemy. We all have bad apples, but broadly we are all in this together and I really don't see why trans women can't understand that trans men face discrimination and I really don't get why trans men can't do the same.

Why are you tearing into your closest allies like this? Why are you reducing the chances that any of us survive? Accept that sometimes, you aren't the affected party and own up when you make mistakes.

[hoshizoralone]

reflection

[prettyinaccurate]

having some big feelings abt the instability of the arts in today's climate

((so uh... heres my etsy and commissions))

[corseque]

I realized that I could easily do the same to DAI's script, and I did that, but then I immediately created my magnum opus:

A Text File of Everything Solas Says In Inquisition and Veilguard, The Ultimate Fanfic Resource For Writing Solas' Voice*

and I fell on the floor because it made me happy.

*edited to correct a minor mishap

[cliveguy]

i love dread in a story i love hurtling towards something terrible and wanting to stop but the only way to find out what happens is to keep getting closer to it

[wardensantoineandevka]

Warden Antoine is so funny for being someone who will make a stirring declaration about how the Wardens have an opportunity to reach for a future in which they are dedicated to protecting and restoring and nurturing the life and landscapes lost to the Blight, that it is their duty and it will give them purpose as they reckon with the end of Archdemons, then immediately provide you with like three hundred pounds of explosives he personally developed from scratch so you can blow something up for him

[postboxrose]

get haunted, fool!!!

from the fic on ao3 🪻

(uncensored version is on bsky)

[leoholzer]

Things end. What I feel when I see you, when I see your heart... that's truly immortal. The Old Guard 2 (2025)

[wng0re]

Two Wolves

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

commission me on kofi

[yes-asil]

Discord friends keep telling me Kinger is going to abstract next when talking about theories just to be contrary and in my 'distress' this is how I cope

[gladeflare]

Solas & Felassan | A story, unfinished .

↳ Cole: They are not gone so long as you remember them. Solas: I know. Cole: But you could let them go. Solas: I know that as well.

[bunabi]

Is it wrong to say we just shouldn't make AAA games anymore if it's making devs miserable and the most annoying rich people imaginable wealthier

[bloodbluepearl]

i feel like people don't talk about the impactfulness of swansea immediately ditching his sobriety when he found out that the mouthwash had an alcohol content.

from the very beginning, he was accepting the idea of not getting out of the situation alive.

it takes a strong man to commit to sobriety, especially after 13 years of (presumably) heavy alcoholism, and an even stronger one to remain sober for 15 years, though he hadn't done it for his own enjoyment- that thought of him dead in some ditch somewhere because of some accident or another made while he was drunk out of his mind scared him into it, and pushed him to his decision. he enjoyed his time while drunk, but he knew that he wouldn't make it anywhere in his life and he knew that his time was running out (in many ways: he was getting older, so he would have less of his life left to steer himself in the right direction, and also the amount of alcohol he was drinking could kill him any day at that point, especially as he got older), so he put in the effort to try and 'better' himself- clean himself up, get everything he thinks 'successful' and 'happy' people have, and get sober.

of course, this doesn't make him a happier person, as much as he felt like it should. that was the entire point of his speech before his death- everything he worked for was a lot less exciting when he finally achieved it. but he stayed sober, because he knew that, in a more objective sense, outside of any of his own personal feelings about himself and his life and what he actually enjoyed, he was better off that way. he had more opportunities in life, he could keep a job, and he could maintain his relationships with his wife and kids much better than he could if he was still an alcoholic.

but when the ship crashed, he accepted that it was likely his final resting place, probably from the very beginning. he'd already had his shot at life, he already tried his best to be a model 'functioning member of society', and it was every bit as unfulfilling as it possibly could be. and now he was reaching his mid-life, or even late life. there wasn't much time left for him to be able to try and work toward an invisible goal of 'true happiness', whatever the hell that means. the way he saw it, he'd already lived his whole life. nothing more for him to do.

so when he found out that there was alcohol in the mouthwash, he barely hesitated a second. he drank it because THOSE were the best days of his life. he no longer worried about what kinds of consequences that such a relapse could cause, because at that point it didn't matter. he didn't care about continuing to live his 'model' life because that ship was his grave. he didn't have to worry about how it'd affect the relationship he had with his family, he didn't have to worry about being unable to get a job because he couldn't go half a day without drinking, he didn't have to worry about turning up dead in a ditch because of some mistake caused by his inebriation- it didn't matter in the end. the six months of food supply would run out far before the alcohol could kill him.

he did not for a second consider the possibility of him escaping the ship, even though he was the only person (for the majority of the game) that knew about the working cryo pod. it was never for him- he saw it as being a waste if he got in himself.

he'd already run his course. he would rather save it for someone with more potential to get somewhere in life, someone like daisuke or anya.

[kittenscookie]

Currently thinking of omegaverse epic Au where Omega Odysseus is constantly fighting off his alpha suitors. My thought process is Penelope's a beta and it's common for omega kings to take a second spouse that can...well you get the picture. Anyway one day he's just trying to enjoy himself at the beach (skinny dipping in the tides) when a few of the suitors pull up like "Heeeeeeey~". So Odysseus finally snaps and says something along the lines of "The only alpha who could be worthy of an omega such as myself would be Poseidon!"

"Oh really~?"

Thunder rumbles above them, they all look up, and there sits Zeus on his throne of women shaped clouds (did I watch Neil Illustrators God Games animatic earlier, maybe). Looking smug and putting on his best bedroom eyes,

"What about Zeus, king of the gods~?"

Odysseus considers it for like 0.5 seconds, before swallowing nervously and essentially saying "I said what I said". Zeus is completely taken aback, absolutely dumbstruck as Poseidon finally busts from the sea, grabs Odysseus by the hips and basically goes "HA! Now fuck off jackass he's mine!"