#complicated-problems

[thepersonalwords]

Problems are very complicated when you don't know the solutions.

Debasish Mridha

[greykolla-art]

⚠️Please don’t touch the sexy deer, it’s not flirting with you. ⚠️

I’ve got a thing for Vox being a fuckboi who keeps thinking their tension is gonna lead to hate sex. 😂

[sadisthetic]

the madness frustration loneliness of the dissonance of a mismatch of the rotten heart to the rest

allosexual aromantic swag happy pride *peaces out*

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The dog days are over.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

The ring was small and silver with a single emerald embedded in the metal.

It wasn’t something flashy, it probably cost less than the smallest gem from his vault all together.

But it was perfect.

Which made it so heartbreaking to turn it down.

“Dick.. you know me so well.. I wish I could take this ring, i really do.”

Dick was still on one knee in the little apartment, but he put the small box down on the floor as he asked.

“Then what’s stopping you?”

Danny let out a bitter chuckle,

“The US government.”

[adhdevankinard]

If I hear one more time how Buck is making his emotions about himself

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[lunarcrown]

Haha bravo’s new hels sponsor am I right……???

[rachelazegler]

buck woobifiers and eddie haters DO NOT INTERACT. i'm serious don't. but thinking about how angry buck gets when he finds out the people he loves are withholding things from him. thinking about the fact that he didn't know he had a dead brother for the first 30 years of his life

[citrusandrottefruit]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Steve probably should have had surgery after Vecna ​​died, because Hanahaki's roots seemed deep, but he chose to alternate between Max and Eddie's hospital rooms. There was no time to waste on his own health.

His parents were back this time. They had sold their house and bought a huge apartment for Steve, who wanted to stay in the city. His parents didn’t even question it, they just demanded his time for a week before leaving with a big hug and the promise of a trip somewhere nice that summer. If he had been a little younger, Steve would have been happier, but after so many years of neglect, all he could think was that this was as far as he was going to get.

A side note, an afterthought. They cared about their son, just not as much as they should have.

Steve's new apartment had four bedrooms, more than he needed, but he was glad his parents tried so hard to make up for it, because it meant he could offer Robin a room when she graduated and there would always be room for the kids. And Eddie and Wayne, who stayed with him while the government found them a new place to live.

Eddie made a joke about Steve's parents being more powerful than the government, for being able to find Steve a great place to live so quickly in a broken city while he and Wayne had to wait.

Wayne was usually around, and despite being a somewhat taciturn man, it was easy to see the love that overflowed for Eddie. It made Steve think of his mother, who had loved and suffered so intensely that she had developed Hanahaki.

And yet, she was not with him.

The cough got worse.

One day, Steve woke up in the middle of the night, struggling after yet another nightmare of torture. Some days, it was easy to forget about Vecna ​​in favor of that hour beneath the Mall, with his life in someone else's hands. On days like these, Robin was needed more than ever, but her parents didn't want her away so much, so sleeping in his new apartment was hardly an option. Calling her wasn't a good idea either, because all it would do was stress her out and they'd end up up all night on the phone. So he resigned himself to taking medication and going out to the balcony, longing for the fresh, clean night air.

He would turn on the TV or music, but he didn't want to wake Eddie, so he just stood outside with his eyes closed and imagined being alone again when Wayne and Eddie left, then tried to imagine what the trip with his parents would be like, if it were to happen. Steve still wasn't sure if he wanted to go, but it might be nice. Maybe he'd get something out of being away from Hawkins for a while. Maybe the coast would make it easier to breathe.

As lost in thought as Steve was, after years of trauma it was impossible not to be aware of the sounds around him, so when Eddie opened the bedroom door and started walking down the hall, he heard it. He stayed silent, not wanting to disturb Eddie.

Of course, Eddie didn't care and showed up a few minutes later with some tea.

For your cough, man.

After that, it became almost a ritual between them. Eddie was always there when Steve woke up startled, and Steve reciprocated. They always had nightmares, so who went to who depended on which one of them woke up first.

Sometimes they would stare at the stars in silence, other times they would talk. Most nights, they would end up in Eddie's bed, in one of the spare bedrooms, without touching each other.

Steve's room, which was definitely his and not a temporary arrangement, felt too intimate.

At the same time, Eddie began asking more and more about Steve's throat, about his shortness of breath, if he was okay, when he planned to go to the hospital. The questions became so frequent that Wayne noticed, too.

The feeling of being cared for was too much. Feared and desired in equal measure.

Eddie shouldn’t even be doing all this, because he was still bandaged, still covered in pink scars, still had a long way to go in physical therapy.

For the second time in his life, Steve felt suffocated by love.

This time, Steve almost hated it. Because he was in love with Eddie, because Eddie didn’t know the things Robin knew. Even if he loved Steve back, how could Steve demand that Eddie take care of him?

Mr. Harrington had reasons to stay with Mrs. Harrington. Although no one talked about it, Steve was sure that his father had been the trigger for his mother’s Hanahaki. And maybe if she had never left, chasing her father across the country, trying to be happy with him to stay alive, maybe… Just maybe, Steve wouldn’t have been alone and maybe he would have been healthy.

Neither Eddie nor anyone else had a good reason to pursue any kind of happiness or emotional stability with Steve.

In addition to the burden of living with a chronic, progressive disease that would possibly become terminal at some point, being emotionally involved with someone with Hanahaki was very complicated. It required loyalty, responsibility, patience, a willingness to accept endless arguments and a desire to reconcile.

Communication was essential. Making sure the other person felt good and loved, comfortable and safe. All of this was too much work, too demanding.

Loving Steve was a prison.

I'll try to post part 3 soon. I've already written the ending, but I'm thinking about how to connect this part to the ending, which will be happy.

[gabelew]

gaddison my beloved...

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

assorted weredoc doodles for @bttfjanaury! seeing as i’m the one who submitted it i might as well do it also hahaha.

bonus weremarty (au of au lmao):

[deadofreddo]

Who fw my admin designs

Individual refs + notes under the cut!!

Here they are!! I wanted to give them all animal features for funsies

Romeo is a goat purely because of his goatee lmao. He's also the only one with animal legs, I like to think he gave himself them to make himself taller and he's actually the shortest. If you're seeing this post again and wondering if something changed about him I decided to give him yellow trims LMAO

Fred is a mooshroom, for reasons that are probably obvious. I don't have much to say about him other than everytime I look at his starry eyes so filled with kindness my heart shatters into a million pieces

Xara is a bird, maybe a feathered dragon? Idk I knew I wanted to give her an elytra and other End things but couldn't quite lock in on the dragon vibes. Wanted to give her horns but it didn't work with her hair </3

[veveisveryuncool]

HII ok so would anyone believe me if i said i'm like 17 pages into my Moominvalley S4 rewrite......

yeah so! here are some fake storyboards i've come up with for a few of the episodes i have plotted out! right now, i've only got about half the episodes with a rough plot, but i've written a crap ton of analysis for each character arc, episode, and overall narrative and how they could be improved, especially since i felt really... unsatisfied with the final season? it didn't feel like a satisfying conclusion to the characters nor story as a whole (due to a lottt of problems, but i think i've rambled about them for too long lol), so i plan to rewrite that fourth season through a mix of art and writing to attempt to give this show the impactful ending it deserves :]

[inkyrainstorms]

guys. listen i am gripping you by the shoulders. she is. so awful. so sad. so tragic. i love her.

[embershroud108]

As much as I love the cold open in 2x9 where Ekko repeatedly saves Jinx from blowing herself up (one of my favorite scenes of the show), Ekko's sudden and impeccably timed appearance feels....a bit contrived. But it occurred to me that there's a possible really cool in-universe explanation for it that I haven't seen anyone suggest yet; namely that Jinx's Hexgem bomb effectively summoned Ekko back from the alternate universe.

Recall in 2x5, in the scene where Jayce returns from his AU. His re-materialization in the main universe is immediately preceded by Salo manipulating a Hexgem "battery" (for lack of a better term) that we see has started to deteriorate

Salo pulls the battery out, starts to carry it away, and then the Anomaly appears and Jayce re-materializes.

I don't think the timing is a coincidence. I think Salo's physical manipulation of this deteriorating Hextech device triggered the Anomaly and Jayce's reappearance at that particular moment.

This is consistent with the first appearance of the Anomaly in 2x3 which appears to be triggered when Heimerdinger touches the deteriorated part of the floor in the same room.

Now, Jayce was at the Hexgate tower when Viktor essentially opened a portal for him back to the main universe with the Anomaly. But what if the other side of that poral (the one in the main universe) didn't open until someone (Salo, accidentally) triggered it or "unlocked" it in roughly the "same" location. In other words, Jayce went from the Hexgate tower in the AU back to roughly the same location in the MU, but the timing of his return was contingent on Salo accidentally triggering the Anomaly at that particular moment.

With me so far?

Ok, so what if something similar happened to Ekko? What if, like Salo with Jayce, Jinx unintentionally "unlocked" Ekko's portal back to the MU with her manipulation of a Hextech device?

Jayce's portal back was at the Hexgate, but Ekko's portal back was in Powder's lab in the AU, which means his point of return would be in the "same" location in the MU, Jinx's lab. Similar to Jayce, the point in time of Ekko's return was contingent on the release of energy of the exploding Hexgem in Jinx's grenade (or perhaps simply her handling of it before exploding it) which inadvertently opened the other end of the portal Ekko had created and was using in the AU.

Meaning that from Ekko's perspective, this

was immediately followed by this

Which would explain how and why he was there at *exactly* the right moment to save Jinx.

So the very thing Jinx was trying to use to kill herself actually ended up helping save her.