#from this situation in specific

[vaguely-concerned]

are. are you telling me that if the romanced mage warden dies and alistair is king, he deadass stares greagoir down over her dead body and grants the circle of ferelden its autonomy after ordering it rebuilt somewhere safer. first you have to deliberately leave him behind so he won't die for you and then he does that for you once you're gone, even when you're broken up??? absolute and literal king behaviour of the highest order????? the actions speak louder than words of it all??????? I think I hauve covid

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

illustrated guide to simons. i Think

[charlietheepicwriter7]

"Grandfather."

Ra's knew who the boy was the moment he'd snuck into the room. He'd allowed the child--more man than child now, but everyone was a child compared to him--moments to steel himself while Ra's refrained from acknowledging his presence. The boy's breath was barely audible but unsteady, and a drop of something fell to the floor.

His grandson was injured. "Danyal," he greeted and finally gazed upon him for the first time in seven years.

Danyal had grown into his father's height, yet stayed lean in regards to his musculature. His black hair had grown out of the League-regulation haircut, held back in a messy braid. He held himself as strong as he could, but kept an arm wrapped around his stomach. His shirt--standard American teenage garb, he dismissed--was spotted with blood and he could see bandages poking out from under the cloth.

With great care, Danyal knelt before the Demon Head and recited the Oath of Loyalty.

Ra's watched.

The boy's tongue, fat with English, spoke the League's variant of Arabic with the grace of a mace to the head, yet his words were clear. He took his time speaking the oath, carefully sounding out words, working hard to avoid mispronunciation. The Oath in question was the older version, from before Deathstroke's insurrection, but Danyal spoke it with a calm certainty that it would be accepted.

And without a doubt, it would be accepted.

Talia's eldest son had been born from her body instead of through science, a mistake that nearly cost her the child and damaged him upon birth. While the best doctors in the world saved his life, Danyal Al Ghul would always be weak in a fight, always prone to illness, always struggling to excel. When it became clear that the boy couldn't become the next Demon Head, Ra's sent Talia to create a replacement while arrangements were made for her first child to be taught business and science, for the betterment of the League. Danyal, very much his father's child, thrived in his intellectual pursuits while Damian grew and developed into a budding assassin.

But Danyal was more like his father than he'd ever knew. Ra's couldn't miss the signs of one of his family turning away from the League. Not the mission--Danyal had written several university level papers defending the environment by the time the boy was 10--but Ra's methods...

Ra's had a conundrum. Danyal was a dedicated conservationist; once the boy was an adult, Ra's was certain he'd take the world by storm and bring the League to new heights. But if he forced his methods onto Danyal, he could create an enemy of him, just as his father was.

Ra's gave Danyal an offer; Danyal would be allowed to leave the League and live a normal life if and only if he faked his own death in such a way that reinforced Damian's loyalty to the League of Assassins.

Danyal had been hesitant at first, but past his test with flying colors. Instigating one of the more unstable assassins into organizing a coup, cutting the insurgents off near immediately, but "dying" protecting both his younger brother and mother. It was a masterful performance. Even Talia hadn't known about the deceit.

And yet, here he was, on his knees, pledging loyalty. Danyal knew what that meant, knew what he was returning to, which morals he would be allowed to keep.

"And what do you bring with you, child of no one?" Why should the League accept the return of this child, who left once before?

Danyal met his eyes. "I bring with me, my team, who are loyal to me and me alone. I bring with me, research surrounding the Lazarus Pits, in origins and further uses for the waters." Ra's raised an eyebrow, and Danyal smirked. "I bring with me, my knowledge, nurtured within this very home and sharpened in the world outside. I bring with me, my weapons, built with my own hands. I bring with me... my body, finally healthy and whole." He brought his head down to the floor, trembling with pain. "I bring my whole self to the Demon's Head, for Him to accept or reject."

Ra's smiled. "By the shadows that guard our order and the blood that binds us, I accept this oath. From this day forward, you are an instrument of the League, a harbinger of justice, and a weapon in the hand of Ra's Al Ghul."

Danyal returned to his feet, swaying percariously. He needed immediate medical attention. Despite this, he continued, "Long live the League of Assassins. Long live Ra's Al Ghul."

And he collapsed onto the floor.

[corallapis]

[sorunort]

(You are bound to the Universe's will the same way the moon is bound to this planet, the same way the planet is bound to the sun, the same way a puppet is bound it's strings!!!!!!)

top ten pieces of dialogue ive screencapped because of how normal it is and how normal it made me feel

[flamealchemist]

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Phantom Thief

[dear-ao3]

society if people actually checked whats on the boycott list or not instead of losing their shit and trying to cancel people:

☀️🌄🌅

[protectorcraft]

thinkin about isat again (big surprise) and it would be a wonder if someone in the gang doesnt develop separation anxiety postgame. like other than siffrin considering that's the entire premise of the games plot, i mean.

[mixmangosmangoverse]

So when a celebrity says something pro Palestine or even pro Hamas everyone goes "yeah woo celebrities should always use their platform to talk about issues"

But when a celebrity says "actually killing Israelis is bad" suddenly celebrities shouldn't get involved in conflicts and shouldn't use their platform to talk about issues

It's so blatant that people just mean "celebrities should only boost the opinions we deem correct and should never ever express sympathy for Jews, that's so lame"

I'm so done

[astralleywright]

the thing about humanizing the Gods, showing all their virtues and faults and loves and failures, is that it renders the amount of power they hold over the average mortal-over mortals as a whole-horrifying. even in their own approximation of mortality, they obliterate the city that posed by far the biggest threat to their existence in a single night. in the hospital Father Milo plays with the doctor's body like a toy, casually puppeting her and breaking her wrists while discussing family matters with Ayden. Ayden casts a spell to free her from his grasp, and then disregards her gratefulness to continue arguing with Father Milo.

it's relatable, of course, to protect your family no matter what. but: "it's a war to us. to them, it's a squabble." the Gods are not responsible only to themselves. are mortals not their family? not their children? with families of their own they're desperate to protect? Aeor is a passive threat, an unfulfilled promise, but the betrayers are very much not. they are actively attempting to annihilate all mortals. they're very clear about this. they've already killed most of them, and even in the truce their goal is to kill more. and the primes fought against this, until the mortals retaliated. the mortals are their children, yes, never allowed to grow up, to reach, to even protect themselves from their parents. at best, the primes are too emotionally compromised to wield the power they have. at worst, that power also makes them a threat to the people of Exandria.

this is all, of course, the reasoning for the divine gate. but this does not reshape the relationship between Gods and mortals positively, instead witholding the incredible blessings they have from the people that could truly benefit from them. it's as much a punishment for mortals as it is for the Gods. this doesn't mean we need to let Predathos eat them up or hand it to Ludinus (who represents this same cruel stratifcation as seen among mortals), but isn't there any other way that their gift can be distributed instead of hoarded? diffuse it among the people of Exandria, let everyone access a Healing Word or two. surely they can figure something like that out. they are Gods, after all.

[swamp-cats-den]

Hey, remember the people who, at the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion, were all over tumblr and twitter whining 'oh but why is Ukraine getting all this attention as soon as something happens to it while other suffering countries arent', while also completely unaware of the fact that the war had already been going on for 8 years at that point?

Well, the same people are now posting 'imagine the reaction if that happened to Ukraine!' [insert a thing that has, in fact, and still is happening to Ukraine, bonus points if accompanied by a war video actually taken in Ukraine but misrepresented as coming from a different country]. Which shows that no, even the full-scale invasion didn't make them pay a slightest bit of attention.

And, you know what, it's actually totally ok to care about one conflict more than another, so I'm not chastising anyone here for that. While, as a Ukrainian, I certainly care about the war in my country the most, I have no problem with people who feel more strongly about other wars. I understand they have their own reasons.

What is not ok is living nowhere near the places under attack, posting from the safety of your own (mostly western) home, and diminishing one war to show off how morally righteous you are about another. But those do not see us as real people, only a way to score some woke points anyway.

[kungfuactiongripe]

so happy for her transition <3

[whilomm]

note: pollmaker is thinking of the USAmerican lottery system (powerball, mega millions, state lottos, scratchoffs, etc), but poll applies to other countries lotteries systems so long as its still the same concept of "big ol state sponsered gambling shit", but not like casino style gambling. u know what i mean, Lottos.

questions for the tags: how regularly, what stuff you play, if you have limits for yourself, if you feel like its a Problem for you, and for funsies the usual 'first thing youd do if you won the lottery' shit

reblog to have absolutely zero effect on your luck either way. just like, absolutely no change in luck whether you reblog this or scroll past. this is the luck neutral post reblog in the next 30 seconds or dont who give a shit

[haunted-xander]

Respectfully, anyone who believes that Roxas shouldn't have come back in kh3 is wrong and also doesn't know how to make a satisfying end to a characters narrative.

I could maybe forgive thinking Naminé or Xion shouldn't have returned, as they at least got to make the informed decision to return to their counterparts themselves. It would still be wrong but I can at least forgive it.

But Roxas? His entire story is about being allowed to be yourself regardless of what anyone else around you says you should be. It doesn't/shouldn't matter if he comes from Sora, because he is someone else entirely. It's his life, not Sora or anyone elses. Having a story like that end with him being violently forced to return to Sora when he doesn't even know anything about what's going on is flat out bad writing.

Did he accept that he had to die for Sora? Well, sure, but only after getting to beat him within an inch of his life. Only reason he accepts it is because he literally has no other choice but to. He can't keep clinging to the anger and misery at his circumstances forever.

And, you know, it probably helps that the person this was all for also fucking hates it. In no way is Sora happy about what happened to Roxas. Of course he'd bring him back, it's Sora. The situation is so unfair and tragic that having it end with him just staying in Sora forever would literally go against the essence of the entire series.

Kingdom Hearts is, at it's core, a series about bonds. Roxas was established basically immediately as having very important bonds! His best friend literally died for him! He has friends that don't even know it because it was another version of them, but they still feel that bond to him anyway! You really think they should've just thrown away a character whose bonds transcended the boundaries between data and reality just like that? Get real.

[clarionglass]

so i have been bitten by the sam reich!master bug courtesy of some phenomenal art by @northernfireart and uh. as is too often the case i had to write something otherwise if i didn't get it out of my brain i would go absolutely insane

(there may be more vignettes coming if i have ideas..... there are definitely other episodes i'd like to give the Treatment to, plus with the new dw series coming out on the weekend i may have ideas for how to incorporate the dw gang! however, i promise neither more writing or no more writing. that said, this was a lot of fun so there'll probably be more at some stage :D )

this has full spoilers for the game changer ep "escape the greenroom", but hey that's been out for a while now so,,,, if you haven't seen it i'd highly recommend it as an episode!

so, without further ado:

--

Samuel Dalton was a complete fiction, of course, but that didn't mean that when Sam Reich snuck back upstairs to get tied up in the “out of order” bathroom, the Sam that remained on the monitor, laughing at the contestants, was a pre-recording. And if Brennan, Siobhan and Lou had snorted at the idea of a time-travelling evil magician great-grandfather (for good reason), going in with the actual truth of the matter would have sounded like jumping the shark.

It sounded bizarre, but the time travel bit was the only part about his new partner in crime that was confirmably real. Admittedly, the jury was still out on “evil”—he gave off a weird vibe at times, but so far, no lines had been crossed, and it had all been funny as hell—so for now, Sam was willing to roll with it. But perhaps most surprisingly, there wasn’t even the possibility of blood relation between Samuel Dalton Reich and the guy who had shown up out of the blue one day with his exact face and a plan to really fuck around with things on Game Changer.

Yeah, the whole alien thing had really ruled out that particular prospect.

There had been various bits and pieces of confirmation that this guy wasn’t human through the time Sam had known him, but the final nail in the coffin for that one was when his doppelganger had looked him dead in the eye and tried on one of the heart rate monitors—sorry, “range extenders”—for As a Cucumber. The damn thing had literally sparked up, then died completely. Trying to process input from two separate heartbeats at once would do that, apparently. 

His doppelganger was a Time Lord, or so he had nonchalantly said one afternoon in casual conversation, though Sam still wasn’t sure if that one was a joke or not. It was hard to tell, sometimes, because he said the wildest things with the straightest face, and so far, most of them had turned out to be one hundred percent certifiably true. The time travel, the space travel, even the changing faces thing—it sounded objectively insane, but the proof was undeniable. 

There were some notable exceptions, though. Saying he’d been trapped for aeons inside Neil Patrick Harris’s gold tooth went just that bit too far to be believable, though Sam did appreciate his double’s slightly warped sense of humour.

It was that offbeat line of thinking that lent itself well to game design, as it turned out. He had a knack for coming up with ideas for Game Changer episodes, albeit with the occasional suggestion that went way beyond the bounds of good taste, and, as in the case of Escape the Greenroom, had devised some blinding twists on concepts Sam had already half-formed. The letter puzzle unlocking the secret door? It was perfect.

Understandably, Sam’s doppelganger had wanted to observe the fruits of their labours in real time, rather than watching the recording later. It happened, sometimes, particularly when it was one of his ideas that had made it through to the episode list—they’d swap places for a session, with nobody being any the wiser. Watching those edits back always felt a bit weird—it was uncanny how flawless the mimicry was—but hey, the guy was right. It was always fun.

Escape the Greenroom, specifically, with its “Samuel Dalton” conceit, provided them with a unique opportunity. Instead of swapping out the camera feed for a recording when the cast piled into the tiny secret room behind the wall, as per the original plan to get Sam in position to be discovered in the bathroom, they could just swap out the people. Sam would go upstairs, and his double would take his place at the podium, ducking out of sight when everyone came back to the main stage to “defuse the bomb”.

Sam was keen—hell, if their situations had been reversed, he’d want to be there to watch, too—but caution raised a flag. “You don’t think it’s too risky?” he’d asked when the subject was first raised. “Both of us being in the same place?”

His doppelganger had shrugged one shoulder with supreme unconcern. “The crew won't notice.”

At the time, Sam had shot him a sceptical look, but right now, Sam-Reich-in-a-purple-tie and Sam-Reich-in-an-orange-tie were standing backstage post-record, clearly visible and and calmly chatting, and not a single member of the crew had given them so much as a second glance. 

…Hardly even a first glance, come to think about it. If anyone looked over their way, their eyes seemed to… not exactly go through them, but slide over the two of them like water. He was tempted to wave to Nico or Ash or someone, just out of pure curiosity, but something in the back of his mind told him that wouldn’t be the world’s greatest idea. He had a funny feeling he wouldn’t like to see what would happen next.

(He’d given the prop bomb back to the crew once the cameras stopped rolling, and though it looked the same as the one he remembered from before he’d headed upstairs, it felt different in his hands. Heavier, more… serious, somehow. He was sure nothing would have happened—but at the same time, he was suddenly very glad that the cast had cut the correct wire with no less than a minute fifteen to go.)

(The jury was still out on evil, after all.)

“Worth coming in for?” he asked instead.

“Absolutely,” his double replied with relish. “Locking those three in a small room for an hour? Brilliant, fantastic. Inspired. It was absolute chaos.”

“Have you seen up there?” Sam asked, a smile starting to spread across his face. “They messed up the set real bad.”

His doppelganger smirked at him. “You know it took literally two seconds from you telling them to escape the greenroom for Lou to smash that guitar?”

Sam shook his head. “Oh my god. Yeah, they were stressed.” 

“Mmm. Some real panic in that room,” his doppelganger agreed, and Sam chose to ignore the faint note of satisfaction in his voice.

He shifted his weight, settling back to lean against the table behind the set, in the exact instant his double decided to do the same thing. It really was freaky how similar they were, down to the smallest mannerism—like looking in a mirror, only weirder, because the face that looked back at him was truly his own face, not mirror-reversed. Even now, it still caught Sam off guard from time to time, but at least it had faded into a more comfortable kind of strange. He had an exact lookalike who was an actual time-travelling alien. Cool. Doesn’t everyone?

The pair shared a companionable silence for a few moments, before a thought Sam had been turning over for a while rose to the top of his mind. He shifted again, this time on his own, and he felt his double’s regard swing up to fix on him like a magnet. 

“Okay, real talk,” he started, and his doppelganger frowned back in an approximation of confused innocence. “What’s all this for?”

“Who says it has to be for anything? Aren't we just having fun?”

Sam hummed, considering. “Yeah. No, I'd believe that, if I didn't sometimes walk into production meetings and find out I'd apparently been very specific about the people I wanted for certain episodes.”

“Point for Sam,” his doppelganger acknowledged with a grin. “You got me. Wasn’t hard to make a few phone calls on our joint behalf.”

“Yeah, but why?” Sam pressed. “I mean, Siobhan, Brennan and Lou are always great comedy value when you put them together, and it was awesome to have them for this, but I get the feeling you’re thinking of something other than making good content.”

“Who, me?”

With that, his double gave him a look of such overdone pantomime innocence that Sam suddenly and thoroughly understood why, not half an hour earlier, Brennan had very seriously threatened to push him down the stairs. 

He rolled his eyes, which earned him a smirk for his troubles.

Dropping the act, his doppelganger continued. “I’m expecting an… old friend, I guess, to show up at some point, and—well, I’d like to put on a really special show for them. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a few things out, you know?”

Ominous pause aside, that was actually kind of sweet. Sweeter than he’d been expecting, that’s for sure—he was half anticipating the revelation that he and his cast were subjects in some weird experiment. Hey, that still couldn’t fully be ruled out, but still.

“Okay,” he acquiesced. “Well… just let me know, next time? Before you start ordering in my cast like takeout?”

“Who says they’re your cast?” his double shot back with a twinkle in his eye, and Sam snorted.

“Fine. Our cast, then. But seriously, let me know?”

His doppelganger nodded, which, if not quite fully convincing, was good enough. 

“Oh, and do you know when your friend might be arriving?” Sam asked. “Because if you wanted to plan something, we can—”

“I don’t know,” his doppelganger interrupted. “So yeah, we’ll have to move fast when they do get here. But I’ve got it under control.”

He broke off, then shot Sam a mischievous grin. “In the meantime, though, I’ve had this fun thought about time loops…”

[just-null]

are you oka- oh.