#both bad things and good things

[kirby-the-gorb]

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Puppet is burden with knowing the truth,,

[lucabyte]

some thoughts on Claude

alt title: diversity win! this Butch Nun is crafting bombs in an unventilated room in her convent while actively courting Mother Superior! Do Not Give Them Access To Unlimited Power No Matter How Nice They Are

+ bonus

[stealingpotatoes]

heres a crappy venn (??) diagram explaining the dynamics in the tl4j time travel au bc it's easier than trying to write a full plot

[frownyalfred]

the best reader advice I ever got was to write your comment on someone's fic like it's the only comment that author is gonna get

[markantonys]

For a moment Rand was silent as well, looking around at the faces turned to him. At last he said, “I hope to return, but who can say what will happen? The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” He hesitated, with every eye on him. “But I will leave you something to remember me by,” he added, sticking a hand in his coat pocket.

Abruptly a fountain near the Roof burst to life, water gushing from the mouths of incongruous porpoises standing on their tails. Beyond that, a statue of a young man with a horn raised to the sky suddenly was putting up a spreading fan, and then two stone women farther on were casting sprays of water from their hands. In stunned stillness the Aiel watched as all the fountains of Rhuidean flowed once more.

“I should have done that long since.” Rand’s mutter was no doubt meant for himself, but in the hush, Egwene could hear him quite clearly. The splash of hundreds of fountains was the only other sound. Natael shrugged as if he had expected no less.

It was at Rand that Egwene stared, not the fountains. A man who could channel. Rand. He’s still Rand, despite everything. But each time she saw him do it was like learning that he could all over again. Growing up, she had been taught that only the Dark One was more to be feared than a man who could channel. Maybe Aviendha’s right to be afraid of him.

But when she looked down at Aviendha, open wonder shone on her face; so much water delighted the Aiel woman as the finest silk dress might have Egwene, or a garden full of flowers.

– Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven

[yrsonpurpose]

Mary & George (2024) Episode 3 'Not So Much as Love as by Awe'

[turtleblogatlast]

I love Raph and haven’t said that enough so to be more specific I love that Raph is a soft boy who loves bear plushies, a gross boy who eats an assortment of things that are definitely better left alone, a smart boy who is more than capable of taking down villains through planning and fortitude alike, a strong boy who is dedicated to training his muscles and fighting prowess, a teenage boy who loves his brothers but is more than happy to tease and roughhouse with them, an angry boy who sometimes lets his anger take a hold of him to cover the fear, a gentle boy who is generous with hugs and affirmations to those he loves, a capable boy who takes on more than should ever be expected of a teenager, a good boy who just wants to be a hero and slowly comes to realize the cost of that duty, a good boy who has no reservations about putting himself in the way of harm coming to his family, a good boy who’s a great brother and son and person and deserves only the best the world has to offer.

[wizardysseus]

"the best characters are heroes" "the best characters are villains" wrong the best characters are beaten and bloodied on the ground and choose to get back up again & again

[hey-hey-j]

(sort of a companion piece to this)

older brother instinct

(★ my Kofi)

[vaguely-concerned]

This might be due to the fact that on my first playthrough I ended up creating a Rook more emotionally guarded than any of the companions except Minrathous-route Lucanis and perhaps Neve, so I was primed to look for it, but I never got the sense that the companions don’t care for Rook (the thought never even occurred to me until I saw other people post about it) — to me it seems much more like it’s Rook who keeps the last bit of distance, Rook who pulls away when the companions try to extend their care or worry too directly, who keeps themselves slightly apart. (Rook who is so full of grief they cannot know as grief and thus process that there’s no room inside them to let anything else all the way in, perhaps.) They deflect and flinch back when someone gets too close or approaches them too overtly about their feelings — especially when it brushes up against the theme of grief. They can offer care to all the companions who are grieving, come along to any number of funerals as emotional support, but the moment someone turns that towards them they shut that shit down Immediately, like when Taash almost gives the whole game away with ‘Like you’d know? You act like you haven’t lost anyone!’ and Rook just blandly responds ‘We’re talking about you’ and doesn’t engage. But they can also admit that they struggle with accepting compliments, or knowing what to say, or having confidence in themselves without Varric’s help.

Despite all their determination and even in their most stoic no-nonsense incarnation, Rook is awkward, with the struggles that entails. Someone who is eager and happy to be the helper wherever they can, and helplessly unequipped to know how to be the helpee, as it were. It’s not that the companions don’t return Rook’s attachment to them, there’s MUCH more of a ‘okay so what are the ways you will allow me to be good to you??’ desperation of care vibe behind all their invitations to conversations and hangouts together, to my mind. They bring Rook to their favourite places and share the things they love with them, they ask to spend time together (many times just to have their company, not because they have a problem they need help with! Sometimes the problem arises anyway b/c video game quest narrative of course), they bring them out for some direly needed grass touching, they introduce them to their families. Everyone is clearly getting the sense that Rook does Not want to talk about Varric especially (this is in fact what Harding says in banter, if she’s still alive after the reveal :’( ), but they are absolutely SCRAMBLING to find ways to show that they’re there for them even so. AND from the companions’ perspective, with the situation as they have the means to understand it, accepting that Rook isn’t ready to have that conversation and backing off is also a kind thing to do. (tl;dr: To Me Rook is that weirdly socialized friend who is a great hang once they’re actually there but you have to directly invite them or they don’t quite know how to initiate the contact themselves lol) 

Just as a crushing sense of responsibility for their family is a trait that is built into Hawke no matter how you play them or how you make them respond to that, I feel like Rook — however helpful and earnest, warm, charming, jocular, stoic or straightforward they seem at a surface glance — is always someone who struggles deeply with connecting to themselves and other people. (Emotional Intimacy, the Final Frontier.) As, indeed, is the case with all of the Veilguard companions too! It’s clearly a deliberate theme. These are all lonely people struggling with their sense of identity and belonging in some sort of way. AND having, working on and eventually starting to overcome these difficulties also makes Rook a direct foil for Solas, who doesn’t learn that lesson unless you corner him at the end of the world to force feed him his medicine lmao. They don’t manage to break out of the regret prison under their own steam, it’s because even struggling and grieving they have managed to create mutual bonds with other people who show up for them in turn now — and with all the protective walls of denial around what happened to Varric crumbling and making them less of a stranger to themselves, Rook is finally able to let them. An outcome Solas seemingly didn’t even consider to guard against, because he’s become that deeply entrenched in his loneliness, the utter isolation of the self — he can no longer truly imagine an alternative. (It’s not that he can’t form these bonds, obviously, it’s that he resolutely refuses to value them. Whether it’s because he feels like he doesn’t deserve it or out of a need for control or the martyr complex where he must sacrifice everything he loves on the sacrificial pyre of fixing his mistakes, all of the above and more, the result is the same. Mind!Varric, who I think is mostly Solas speaking, even calls this out directly. So yet again a situation where he has some self awareness about it and it doesn’t help At All haha. Solas falls to the temptation of making people into tools again and again and again, no matter how many times it comes back to bite him in the ass and the eternal solitude it traps him in.) 

And that deep deep loneliness… There but for the grace of… well the theological state of thedas being what it is right now, let’s just go with the grace of Something, Presumably go you as well, Rook. The same capacity/tendency to pull away from connection clearly lives in them as well in some form (again, for whatever reason and with whatever motivations and instincts behind it for any individual Rook). Solas and Rook coming together to create a blood magic paper doll of the mind Varric in response to acute loss and loneliness is one of the most deep , deeply fucked up and invasive acts of intimacy I’ve ever contemplated. I don’t think that’s accidental, there’s something There’s Something Wrong With You (there’s something wrong with you that’s also wrong with me (derogatory)) here that resonates no matter how both parties would hate to hear it. (A fitting legacy for Varric and his wild ‘I made my best friend into a story because it’s the only way I know how to love with this desperation of sincerity’ brain to leave in the narrative, methinks. I feel he’d appreciate it on a craft level, if nothing else.)

If you read through all of Rook’s potential backstories, one of the common threads through all of them, along with a certain maverick ‘I’ll do whatever it takes’ streak, is a sense of profound alienation. They did something or have some sort of quality that made it hard for them to fit in with the group they’re from, causing a conflict that cuts them off from parts of their identity as it’s been up until now. All of which also adds to how important Varric is to them — he was clearly able to break/see through some of that and be closer with them, even in the relatively short time they spent together. No matter what else goes to shit, they can trust that a) Varric sees them, b) he genuinely likes them and believes in them not despite who they are, but for it, and c) he’s got their back, we’re in this together kid. And then he is gone, and it takes them the whole game to be able to bring themselves to accept that and know themselves again, be able to let new relationships in fully. The very understandable ‘the last time I let someone in, they got stabbed before my eyes and the world ended’ flinch away, even if they’re not consciously aware that’s what it is. Anyway I love Rook. So much space to play around in here as to WHY they might feel or react like this, even when the framework is more defined.

[sparrowlucero]

this is the iconic dinosaur horror jurassic park wishes it was

[bunbunism]

AHHH A TOTAL OF 50 SM HOURS IT'S DONE 🐡

I'm a bit late but like genuinely the last song made me bawl for hours, it means so much to me be represented, I barely see anything actually portraying bipolar, ocd, osdd, (lots of D's hehe) autism, pots yk all the crazy stuff I got and even if they are it's in an negative light, where they end up miserable forever or they'll some horrible person

Forgive me for the yap 🙏

( thank you on notes + reblogs on the sketch, made a grown man cry tears of joy fr)

[emmavakarian-theirin]

ah yes i do love these bad ideas

[blizardstar]

Me when Ashton Greymoore is denied honorable and meaningful self-sacrifice, and now must face the reality that they MUST keep living after it’s All Over

[francy-sketches]

hating on game of thrones in current year is a bit cringe like girl move on etc. However my complaints are more specific than the average person so I can at least feel like I'm bringing something new to the table. Instead of writing the one bilionth 'they butchered dany we were robbed' post I'm instead going on coke rants about how they character assasinated jaime by making him unfunny and how they didn't give my favorite irrelevant minor characters enough emotional depth and actually now that I'm saying it out loud that sounds worse