#and i might still be bitter

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Don't talk to me or my son ever again.

The thought of zim holding gir like a toddler has lived in my head for a long time now. I had to put it on paper.

[otaku553]

Thinking very hard about an AU idea of mine. Reluctant king Sabo AU!

In which Sabo isn’t saved by Dragon, but survives long enough to drift ashore and be saved by the doctors of Goa Kingdom, who do so only to ransom his medical bills from Sabo’s parents. Sabo’s parents take him back, thinking that his amnesia makes him a clean slate, but Sabo, young and stubborn and unsure of his entire identity, knows that everything is wrong and runs again, and again, and again.

Until at some point, he meets the Revolutionaries, and realizes that he can be useful to them, provide them information, make something good of an inescapable situation. From then on, he starts acting the noble that he was born as, in order to be a more useful informant to the Revolutionaries, until sunk cost fallacy hits and he believes that being a noble is the only way that he can be useful to the Revolutionaries. So at that point, why not take it all the way?

At 17, Sabo becomes one of Princess Sarie’s suitors, and at 17, he has doubts about using the princess for his own goals. Sarie is a romantic, and she wants a dramatic fairy tale of a romance, and she was already charmed, but the moment Sabo opens up to her about not wanting to use her to get to the throne, having lofty ambitions of helping the people (just not the people she thinks he’s talking about), Sabo becomes the one she simply must marry, because surely if she tries hard enough, she can make him love her back.

Soon after, the king and his son die. Sarie’s father and brother die. And while Sabo conveniently ascends to the throne, he also swiftly implicates his father, Outlook, in the assassination of all heirs to the throne, resulting in Outlook’s arrest and subsequent execution. And thus, at 18, Sabo becomes king, and begins to gradually institute great changes to Goa Kingdom.

Design-wise, Sabo wears an eyepatch because his damaged eye is considered a grotesque sight by nobles’ standards. Under the eyepatch, he wears heavy makeup to hide the burn scar. These are both at the behest of his birth parents, who spin a story about Sabo having been born half blind to hide the fact that Sabo had been shot by a Celestial Dragon and save face. To those who have seen his scar, they fabricate a second secret story that he was unfortunately kidnapped as a child. Sabo never does find out, until he regains his memories, where the burn scar is actually from.

[dazeddoodles]

Adding on to what I brought up. Raine immediately saying this to Kikimora, (the person who was in charge of petrifying Eda) with the context that Dana said they had been watching and were horrified, means that it has not left their mind. After this episode they definitely did not want to risk Eda almost dying a third time.

[disco-elysium-sideblog]

Fascinated by how the game rarely distinguishes between what you say you believe and what you actually believe. There’s a degree to which that’s just practical, of course, it’s already a very complex game and adding in some way to signal that you’re only intending for Harry to pretend to hold a certain belief would be extraordinarily difficult. But there’s a degree to which it’s thematically relevant too- you can’t pretend to take on Measurehead’s belief system to get past him. You believe it or you don’t. Characters will ask you constantly about your political opinions and if you only ever answer what you think they want to hear the game will start calling you a centrist or boring or both. You don’t get to pretend to be something you’re not in this game. If you say centrist things, you’re a centrist. If you say boring things, you’re boring

This is partially a side effect of the game trying to make Harry’s beliefs effect what choices are available to you (there really aren’t many ways of tracking what the player is having Harry believe outside of dialogue options) but I think it’s illuminating about Harry as a character too. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s not one to hide what he believes, no matter what. He’s the type of guy to ramble about policing being a corrupt institution while very much being a cop and planning to continue being a cop.

He is constantly lying to himself and simultaneously nearly completely incapable of presenting a false version of himself to anyone. It’s neat!

[matt-e-ress]

Patrick Stump played Spotlight on tourdust? What's next, is he going to take his shirt off?

[scintillyyy]

when it's written that way because it's a patented chuck dixon -ism but it unintentionally creates a really interesting potential narrative for the character-

[sangre]

LOST MYTH OF TRUE LOVE → for tav/the emperor | listen i'd be the immediate forgiveness in eurydice / imagine being loved by me. based on my ao3 collection of the same title, here is a mix for my tav, catarina, and the passionate calamity going on in her relationship with the emperor.

[humanitys-strongest-bamf]

guys i made my own matcha and it's not overloaded with sugar like the ones from starbs or the pre-mixed powders and i'm so happy bc i can enjoy my matchas again without having to worry about my blood sugar skdlfjslk

[peniscat]

i know that jesse armstrong is more than capable of knowing when to end a series but the way it was announced that season 4 is going to be the last one kind of made me feel like the whole process behind it is a bit sketchy. they only revealed that s4 is the last one only a month before the premiere, even after posting teaser trailers that never even hinted at the season being the last, and even the cast got the news only during the table read for the final episode. the promotion of season 4 has been disappointing especially when compared to season three. while the actors are not the ones writing the show, most of them have been very clear that they could have seen the show go on for another season and their disappointment over the show ending has been clear as day. while an ambiguous ending will be a very fitting end to succession and i am not against it, i am definitely wondering if the decision to finish with season 4 was something that developed during the filming process instead of it being a clear guideline throughout the creative process of season 4.

[takealookintheback]

Andreas Pietschmann as Konstantin von Brendorp in ‘GSG 9 – Ihr Einsatz ist ihr Leben’ (2009); season 1

season 2

more gifs under the cut:

[thelastunicornflipouts]

Why is the scene where Schmendrick lies about what he sees so important?

One thing I love about rewatching - and rereading - The Last Unicorn is the amount of subtle details you can infere without further exposition.

Schmendrick lying about seeing just a white mare is just apparently a simple introduction of his character. The viewer/reader can immediately tell he is on the unicorn’s side and he is trying to protect her, still the real meaning of the scene it’s not clear right away.

Schmendrick lies about what he sees immediately after he has been teased about his capacity as a wizard, both by Mommy Fortuna and Rukh. A first time viewer/reader still knows nothing about Schmendrick, so this does not seem very important. Those who instead know Schmendrick understand how much he yearns for recognition and praise as a true wizard, as he is shown to do on later occasions in the movie/novel (especially). Schmendrick lying is essentially him biting down his ego once again and accepting to not be recognized for what he truly is just for the sake of having a chance to help the unicorn at a later time.  If he had been anyone else, he could have simply told the witch, “Hey, f*ck you! I know perfectly what I am looking at, who do you take me for?!” Instead, Schmendrick chooses to lie, even if that means more scorn and giving in to more insults and mockery from people who already see him as a hack. Nothing would have stopped him from telling what he truly saw, still he willingly lied for the unicorn’s sake (and this is especially true in the novel, where he is much more mean-spirited). It is such a short exchange between him and Mommy Fortuna, still it flawlessly introduces Schmendrick as a character. 

This makes the scene where Molly accuses him of not caring about anything but his magic even more tragic - and it is one of the very few times Schmendrick loses his composure in the movie. He cares to the point he accepts to be still treated like a worthless fool, in spite of his desire of being a true magician, contrary to what Molly is accusing him of. Hearing Molly - whom at this point should know the lenghts Schmendrick has gone to protect the unicorn - rubbing it in his face must have been devastating.

[sovonight]

;

[wonderr-skyy]

Loving You - Page 11

Beginning / Next

[somestorythoughts]

Radioactive Eldritch Jedi

Okay so when I say radioactive. The Force is primordial and eldritch and the jedi (and any other force users of a comparable level) resonate with the echoes of this primoridal of-the-world-and-yet-not-the-world energy like your body when you’re so close to a marching bacd you can feel the drums in your bones and they’re not the music or the instruments, they’re only the echo thereof, but the echo of something from the depths that bore the universe is still A Lot.

And when you look at them. There’s teeth that aren’t there the next minute, you could count them again and again for half an hour and never get the same number twice in a row. And that’s not mentioning when their teeth don’t fit in their mouth, don’t match each other, when there aren’t teeth in their mouths but claws...

That’s just one element of their face which is one element of their body.

You can smell them, even the species that don’t have particularly good senses of smell though it is far more distracting for them. Something fresh with light or rotting with dark, herby or sea salty or citrusy or floral and threaded with sweat or blood or sex to suit whatever they’ve been doing and it wouldn’t be remarkable except they smell simultaneously like their species and like something else entirely in a way that is clearly but indescribably not caused by soap or perfume or oil.

There’s a resonance in their voices. Something like there’s a drumbeat in their throat, like they’re speaking with the vibrations of a song you’ve always heard without knowing it, but always perfectly understandable. The sound of jedi singing in harmony with feeling has reduced cities to tears of joy or tears of pain, blood dripping from their ears in mirror of their tears.

Don’t get me started on their shadows, on the way they move in the dark

And they’d be leaking this strangeness 24/7 except they keep themselves so tightly shielded, not only hiding themselves so that they appear uncanny and not terrifyingly Other (they’ve been there time and time again and it is a problem. There are Consequences) but also keeping any of this force-energy-resonance leaking out into the world. Places where force sensitives have lived a long time thrum like a pulse, are touches with the energy of generations of force users relaxing enough to let their shields lower and their selves to leak and brush the walls and tables, etching their presences into the place like fire into wood, and when this touches people it changes them.

Not immediately. Not quickly. It can take months for anything to change and this is why jedi keep their shields maintained, because if you’re fully shielded nothing will happen, and this is part of why attachments are risky, because the emotion can affect the shields can change the one you love, because to say you love a jedi is not the same as accepting all that they are and being willing to change along with them because you can’t dodge that forever, and saying you’re willing to do this isn’t the same as being willing.

The changes aren’t quick, and not as Eldritch as the jedi, but they are permanent and definitely Other.

When shields crack or break, when a jedi lashes out with the force, it brushes an imprint on everything around them (those with any kind of vision skills can find this difficult or comforting to deal with, like a too-large gulp of hot tea) and a few times on the same thing doesn’t matter. Genuinely. Repeition is an entirely different matter.

War is hell. 

War is hell, and the jedi are holding on to each other for support, clinging interlocking arms, but they’re scattered around the galaxy and it’s so hard to actually reach each other.

Sometimes to know you’re supported isn’t enough. Not when you can’t reach their shoulder to lean on, for just a moment.

And the clones are going through hell with them, are dying around them, and they reach out to support the jedi who are doing their best not only to help them survive but to help them live in a war that wants them dead for a senate that doesn’t care and the jedi recognizes them as people so they reach out and the jedi can’t help but reach back.

The clones catch them when they fall, love them in different ways each as sure as the tides, and the jedi relax into it without realizing. Their shields crack over and over again because war is hell, but they also find them relaxing them, instinctively and unconsciously, because so little is certain but the clones’ willingness to go to hell and back for them is one of them and they feel safe.

And the echoes of the force that resonate in the heartbeats-nervepulses-bloodflows of the jedi leaves imprints on the clones that rises like paint added layer by layer and it changes them.

The clones don’t have a childhood of familiarity to fall back on, much less the shielding techniques to keep them looking “normal.” What they have is legions of brothers willing to support each other come hell or high water or unending clankers and jedi who at first beg their forgiveness for changing them (because it wasn’t supposed to happen and because they like how they are but everyone already sees them as strange and to beg forgiveness for making them like them is many jedi’s first instinct) then teach them how to hide it when they need to and the comfort of singing together, their voices ringing through their ships in tune with the thrumming in their blood, bone-deep.

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

i don’t think your first kiss or first time has to be special or touching nor do i think there’s anything wrong with going out with someone for the purposes of losing your virginity or getting your first kiss. that’s not the part i regret…….but still quite literally everyday i do wish i was still a kissless handholdless virgin instead of a desperate moron with bad memories. i knew better that whole time i just wanted so badly for it all to be real i actively ignored my instincts……unfortunate! the only one that has to pay is me

[daz4i]

i will say tho i'm p proud of myself for managing to be relatively non judgemental and mostly keeping my tendency to assume things abt strangers at a minimum. ik we all do that but i also know it's not the healthiest thing especially when it just makes me feel worse too, but i've been practicing it for years and i think i'm doing well at it. like even well enough that it's noticeable to other people and they point out how nice it is. i dunno i think it's cool i think it's a good thing abt me