#man needs validation

[deathbirby]

it's kind of awful this fandom seems to have been hijacked by fear of raxis and his toadies, to the point I've gotten warned by multiple people not to talk about Edelgard doing shit out loud because he'll show up with his army of alts and harassers. there's got to be something we can do about this besides living in fear of being sea lioned and maybe doxxed, just for having opinions that aren't "waifu good and right" ?

every time I interact with another Edelgard fan I see them parroting the same talking points, too. it's really getting incredibly creepy and insular, like there's just a little cult of people who think they're smart enough to know better than to get sucked in, and because Edelgard bi and girlboss then she can't be wrong, so they're so self righteous too. it's sickening.

Warning others and spreading more awareness helps. Also it's generally just a good idea to point out how weird that shit is. That or you ignore them, but they seem to take ignoring/blocking as an invitation for somer eason.

it does suck tho

[egophiliac]

2025 is the year of the DRAGON SLIPPERS

[onionninjasstuff]

carrying each other :з

[chapollynh]

I finished DS9 and here's my first offering to the fandom.

The show is just SO GOOD!! I wanna talk about it so bad, so I will spam the tags quite a bit... My bad. Also, the people who said Bashir would get better - you were right, he became a lot more fun! Plus he's got a teddy bear, that's peak character right there.

[lotus-pear]

free will is drawing ur two favorite characters together and making them gay

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[loverofpiggies]

How does it feel to have those three make it this far in the sexyman vote

I want to see Error and Fresh go neck and neck, that would be the best thing in my entire life ever

[ellifromspace]

these are the murderbot artworks Tommy Arnold did for the Subterranean Press omnibus editions of the series, and a photo of Kevin R. Free, who narrates the murderbot audiobooks. when fans complain about the casting for the tv show, there is a very real basis for it in these past official/canonical aspects of the book series

[m1stm3]

older bf! aizawa fixing all of my daddy issues. yeeeea. yeeeeeeeeeea.

i don’t even mean sexually!! like imagine opening up to him for the first time. you’ve been dating for a while and he knew some of your familial relationships were… strained to say the least, but he didn’t know the extent of it. you’re recalling some of your experiences — maybe a specific event, maybe just an overview — and he’s humming and nodding while listening to your words, his brows knitting together in a pitying expression. you think he’s pitying you anyway, you’re kind of avoiding his eyes as you speak.

your voice starts shaking after a moment and you’re internally cursing yourself for tearing up because why are you still so affected by the actions of your father? you pause for a second, swallowing against the lump in your throat and it’s so humiliating to fall apart in front of your boyfriend like this and—

and shota places a hand over yours. his hand is rough and calloused from hero work but so warm. he’s gazing wistfully at where your skin meets, his thumb so gently grazing over your knuckles before giving your hand a small squeeze. “i’m so sorry that happened to you, baby. you didn’t deserve that.” oh and his words are just barely there, but they ring louder than what anyone has ever told you in response to your past.

your eyes meet his after he speaks. you want to snap back out of some deep seated need to defend yourself (to make yourself seem less vulnerable, less pathetic, perhaps). of course you didn’t deserve what happened to you, that’s a dumb thing to point out. that’s what you’re about to say when your lips part, but only a small, shuddering breath leaves you.

you don’t even notice the tears rolling down your cheeks until shota brings up a warm hand to wipe them away, his body leaning closer to yours to press his lips against your forehead. you want to curse at him, to push him away and storm off for even daring to see you in this state… but you don’t.

instead you wrap your arms around his middle and hide your face in his neck (shame, maybe?) and cry. you’re not sobbing, but you can’t help the hiccuped breaths that leave you when his hand slips under the hem of your shirt to run his warm palm up and down your back. he doesn’t say anything after that.

[sacredfixation]

Loki and the Deeply Valid Fear of Being a Government-Issued Android Without Knowing It

Imagine living for over a thousand years, committing intergalactic crimes, then one random underpaid TVA clerk with a monotone voice suddenly introduces the possibility that, oh, by the way, what if you were secretly a robot this whole time? And Loki, who has always carried himself with the absolute certainty of a god, pauses. Like. “Wait. What if I am?”

He hears that question and immediately does a full mental diagnostic. Have I ever glitched? Ever felt oddly mechanical? Experienced an unusual fondness for oil? Maybe he’s too good at lying. Too good at surviving. What if that’s just the programming?

The TVA worker just moves on. He doesn’t elaborate. no reassurances. theres no safety net. Just the terrifying possibility that he might get instantly vaporized for something completely outside his control.

Id like to note, his hesitation isn’t even just some random existential crisis, it’s trauma-informed. This man already lived through the experience of waking up one day and realizing he wasn’t who he thought he was.

He grew up thinking he was a prince, a god, Odin’s rightful son, only to find out he was actually a stolen relic of war. A Jotun. A creature he’d been taught to hate.

He thought he knew himself before, and he was wrong. What if he’s wrong again? What if theres something else about himself thats been hidden? If he didn’t realize he was a Frost Giant, whats stopping him from not realizing he’s actually some highly advanced synthetic being?

It’s not just a funny existential gag, it’s a callback to one of the most devastating truths of Loki’s existence:

He has never really known who he is.

It’s the muscle memory of having his entire identity ripped out from under him. It’s the learned fear of asking, What am I, actually?

Because the last time he asked that question, the answer ruined him.

[rarilight]

me: i write for myself and no other, art is a passion project that comes from my heart, the only approval I need is my own

also me, as I think this: -refreshes comment section of story over and over and over and ove-

[omegalerc]

LOOK AT HIM!! HOW DOES MAX ALLOW HIM TO LEAVE HIS SIGHT WHEN HE JUST LOOKS LIKE THAT UNPROMPTED 😩

https://x.com/leclercsletters/status/1903838044265775326?t=MjCGUtUwWp2XcZ4AhN_xCg&s=19

i loooove pictures like these i hoard them in a special folder called charles begging for cock eyes (CBFCE)

[jaskieriswitchersexual]

With Hob having lived for approximately six and a half centuries, he's done a lot more sleeping than most living creatures (except maybe cats) and with that, he's probably met a significant number of the dreams and nightmares in The Dreaming at some point.

Hob is the quintessential dreamer, the dreams adore him, but his life has also not been easy and he's well-acquainted with the nightmares as well.

What I'm saying is, when Dream finally brings Hob to the Dreaming to introduce him to the family give him a tour of the realm, the dreams and nightmares come out to meet Hob like he's their old friend. Hob is strangely touched and also having the time of his life, while Dream is pouting that his creations have stolen Hob's attention away.

*edit* if you'd like to make a fic of this idea, please go ahead, just send me a link when you're done because I'd love to see it!

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

STOP I'm thinking about the part in Gravity Falls where Stan shows up with freshly bought (stolen) light bulbs only to see Ford screwing a new one in surrounded by family.

And OH my GOD. AGH.

Stan gets a little (ir)rationally upset about this because... It's.. Guys,,,

Stan perceives it as Ford once again easily receiving the praise and love of their family when he had to fight tooth and nail to receive even half of it.... I'm not well ✋😔

[starrynightarchive]

it makes me want to tear my hair out when someone mentions that platonic relationships need to have sexual/romantic undertones to be interesting. friendships that blur the lines between romantic and platonic is great, friendships that have sexual relations are great, any kind of friendship is great. but these days im seeing this awful thought of "friendship needs to not be strictly platonic to be interesting and platonic" and people don't realise that this is just "friendships are less important than romantic/sexual relationship" in a different font. im very intense about my friends and each of my relationship with them is different than the other. one of my best friends is also almost like my partner. another one of my best friend is just my best friend. there is nothing romantic or sexual orientation whatever between us. i love both of them dearly and one relationship here is not more important than the other to me. i smile so wide my face hurts when i see her walking towards me. we used to live a few streets away and yet everytime i saw her i used to run to go embrace her. i have seen them in their lowest and they have seen me in mine. i do not want to kiss her on the lips or make her my girlfriend. the thought has never crossed my mind. but she has saved my life multiple times. she is a part of my soul. she is my friend. and if you say "yeah, that's what i mean, that emotion and its intensity is inherently romantic!" then that means you haven't experienced the height of love and care friendship can offer and im so sorry for your loss. also you are subscribing into the inherently harmful thought of "everything that is intense and meaningful is romantic". like my wonderful friend vik once said, "they're not my just anything. they're my friends."

[itadooori]

yea i rewatched the s1 finale. did a lil doodle about it