#she wasn't annoying

[vulpixelates]

i know it will never happen but i so desperately desire an origins-type playable backstory thing in all games but especially veilguard. i feel like it added so much depth to origins and made you feel instantly connected to your character in a way that gets lost in games like inquisition where you fill in the blanks as you go except for the bare basics. like, i do enjoy the freedom to willy nilly decide where a character was before the events of the story from a creative perspective, but the playable origins were just so good! especially when you go back to where your warden is from and can engage differently with the arcs there

[elyfonart]

finding each other post-battle

[thottybrucewayne]

People get so pissy when they're told to be mindful not to overstep when discussing the oppression of a community they aren't a part of and it's sooooo obvious too like, how are you being supportive if you can't take criticism from the group of people you're "supporting"

[livwritesstuff]

i was writing a totally different thing and then all of a sudden it was thundering so here have this

Steve had always loved a good thunderstorm. There’s something sort of magic about them, he thinks, about the greenish, unnatural darkness and the way lightning turns the sky a kind of purple and how the air is both cool and warm at the same time.

Back when he was a teenager, when he was stuck by himself the mausoleum his parents called home, he’d sometimes sit by the patio door and watch the storm, watch the clouds opened up and beat rain down on the pool water, and Steve would feel more alive than he had in ages – even if it felt like he was living vicariously through…something. Maybe through how nature gets to storm and rage in a way Steve never will.

But he tries not to psychoanalyze himself. He’s got his own therapist for that.

Twenty-five years later, here he is still watching thunderstorms. He might not have a pool, but he does have a porch which, in his old age of forty-two, he’s learning might be even better.

He’s sitting on the porch with his husband by his side, and Eddie’s got their youngest daughter sitting in his lap while the older two dance in and out of the rain.

Eddie doesn’t like thunderstorms the way Steve does. It had sort of surprised Steve actually, when he first found out years and years ago because…it’s Eddie. Eddie is like a thunderstorm personified in the best way – all sharp smiles and dark eyes and wild hair and loud, reckless rebellion. Sure, Eddie isn’t bothered by the noise of thunderstorms, but over their years together, Eddie has shared some things — things about his dad and what he’d been able to get away with during a dark, loud storm that maybe he couldn’t otherwise.

So Steve gets it if Eddie still isn’t quite himself during thunderstorms.

Their youngest, Hazel, isn’t a fan of them either. She’s just a few months shy of her second birthday, so this really is the first summer she’s had her own opinions about these kinds of things. The verdict – not a fan of the thunderstorms, though she’s been a trooper about this one.

"Hazy, come play!" Robbie exclaims from the porch steps, but Hazel just shrinks further back against Eddie.

"She's a little afraid of the noise, Beans," Steve tells her, and he watches Robbie's face take on an expression of protective (albeit a little confused) concern.

“How come?” she asks as comes up the steps.

“It can be scary if it’s brand new.”

As if to illustrate Steve’s point, lightning flashes above the trees, and Hazel makes a whimpery kind of whine as thunder follows only a few moments later.

“It’s not scary, Hazel,” Robbie tells her, “Because you always know when thunder’s coming because lightning comes first. And it’s only loud when the storm is close.”

Steve raises his eyebrows, reminding himself that one of these days he’s gotta stop being so impressed by how damn smart his kids are.

Another flash of lighting lights up the dark sky, and Robbie covers Hazel's ears with her hands as she looks out into the rain, "And now there's gonna be the thunder."

A few moments later, thunder rumbled around them, maybe a little bit quieter than the last one because the storm is definitely moving away from them now. Still, Hazel reaches up to grip at Robbie’s wrists, her eyes wide and fixated on the stormy sky.

“See?”

Hazel manages a nod.

“Come play!” Robbie urges her again, “I’ll cover your ears before the thunder comes.”

And this time, Robbie actually succeeds in dislodging Hazel from Eddie’s lap, and together they head for the front yard where Moe is still running around in the rain, wet bangs plastered to her forehead.

“Steve,” Eddie mutters in disbelief as Robbie patiently waits for Hazel’s slow descent of the porch stairs, breaking his and Steve’s subconscious agreement to keep their traps shut while that glorious scene was unfolding, “Oh my god, Steve. What the fuck was that? Are we actually doing a good job raising these kids?”

“I guess so, Jesus Christ.” 

[whetstonefires]

The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.

If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!

If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!

If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.

After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.

But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.

All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.

And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.

The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.

The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!

[sergle]

loving chappell roan's music and vibe and also having a positive association bc her music was shown to me by my favorite person in the world but slowly developing a chappell roan intolerance over time bc people keep telling me i Look Like Her Except Fat

[bumblingbabooshka]

The worst trope in the universe is when someone accuses character A, who is part of a real or fantasy or coded minority, of doing something bad and everyone's like "That's just your prejudice against [real or fantasy minority]!" and it turns out character A actually did do that bad thing and everyone else was stupid for not believing they did that bad thing.

[viksalos]

so that new Kristin Hayter record huh

[blaintism]

@gleesource 500 followers celebration day 4: tina cohen chang + her pop rock playlist

(in/sp)

[yardsards]

the true lumity dynamic is just

(luz is the btw and amity is the tbh)

[salty-aivia]

Save me mitsuaya,,,,

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I've said it before, but Ashton really just reminds me of my sister who is a punk. It isn't a compliment.

However, it sure is fascinating as a character choice and COMPLETELY consistent with what Taliesin said is his inspiration, touchstone, and framework for the character.

[elfen-alcibiade]

"You realize that firefly hunting is about catching them, not beating them up, right ? -Aw, I wanted to catch it but you went and squashed it ! -Geez, this is lame... don’t get me wrong, I was just dodging it !"

Poor Nightbug...

just wanted to make something related to Wriggle Nightbug because her stage reminds me of the scent of night walks in the countryside. I really miss it sometimes, so I love being able to feel like this again 🥰 (and her design is so, so cute!)

another drawing about Touhou 8: imperishable night here <3

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

One of my favorite things that happened during my last mage Hawke playthrough was during the final battle against Meredith. Everything's going well. We're kicking her ass, she's got just this much health left, we're so close... but then everyone gets stunned dizzy.

Hawke is stumbling around all confused, seeing stars. The rest of his companions are stunned. I'm annoyed because I just want to end this fight. Don't know how or who did it, probably Meredith, but the situation's dire.

Meredith's standing by herself at the center of the Gallows, shouting nonsense and smugly believing the Maker's going to come down and make her his new bride after she murdered a bunch of innocent people.

Truly, this is the part of the story where Varric says they all thought hope was lost, that in the end, Meredith would pull a fast one on us and claim victory...

Until the REAL hero of dragon age 2 comes storming at her. I don't know why Carver was the only one to not be affected, but he literally jumped out of no where and just started bashing Meredith with his sword while everyone else was too dizzy to do anything until she was dead and the cutscene played.

"Hawke defeated Meredith-" LIES, VARRIC. I know the truth! I was there! Hawke didn't do shit! Carver Hawke was the main character all along! He got shit done and Varric gave Hawke all the credit!

I bring this up because last night I finished my warrior Hawke run and when we got to the fight with Meredith, I kind of hoped the same thing would happen where Bethany dashed in all heroic and got the killing blow on Meredith.

She did not.

She got squished by a statue.

But it's fine, Bethany Hawke was the true main character in my heart.

[tetras-stuff]

I hate when people criticise the newer jill (remake jill) because it's just dudebros who are annoyed that she has agency now. they want re1 jill who was really stupid, naive, and behaved like a child instead of a full grown military woman because innocent childlike female character with boobs = hot. let jill have her agency. let her say fuck. let her be the one to take wesker down in re5 instead of sitting back letting chris do everything. don't be cowards.

[awesometothe3rd]

"No doubt, I'm sure you have expensive taste." "Actually, I don't."