#thanks take a listen

[chattematsu]

[4.0 archon quest spoilers]

[chaichai-draws]

Sometimes a family is a put out Earth Kingdom Captain and his three teenaged bullies

Go Team Steam! I’m running out of chapters in @lovelyelbowleech ‘s fic War Crimes…

[bacchuschucklefuck]

while teen while goblin while aroace while injured while doing your best

[missingexaltation]

Wayne coming home to find the boys viciously and LOUDLY arguing and immediately getting ready to a) throw that Harrington boy out on his ear and b) be a shoulder for Eddie to cry on.

As soon as he walks through the door the Harrington boy gestures at him and screeches "TELL HIM WHAT YOU TOLD ME", and Eddie just crumples in on himself in shame, refusing to look at anyone.

Wayne standing there listening to Steve rant about how 'he doesn't care about kids or marriage or any of that shit' and how he's going to throttle Eddie for trying to break up with him because he thinks he's trailer trash and therefore has nothing to offer Steve in the long run.

Wayne excusing himself to get ready for bed, chuckling to himself as he realises that 'that Harrington boy' is gonna be around for a long time, and he's actually good with that.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

The ''Are you trying to romance me?'' meme but with Barnaby and Howdy

i belted this out in like a half hour flat <3 bc Yes

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's the 6 month anniversary of this blog! Check out these cool bugs I found.

Part 2 - Part 3

[aflawedfashion]

Clueless Bisexual Elliot Reid | Scrubs (2001 - 2010)

And by clueless I mean, she's closeted/in denial as a result of growing up in a conservative household with a gay brother who was never fully accepted by her family. She repressed her bisexuality, but she can't fully hide it. Just like her brother, everyone knows. She doesn't simply passively accept a date with a woman while she's drinking. She actively seeks one out. Even her mother would rather celebrate that Elliot's actually dating a man than talk to her about her problems. And I almost didn't include that lesbian coach/athlete fantasy because it's questionable on like 12 levels, but she's fantasizing about finding a man to turn her straight. That's the kind of fantasy she needs to examine a little closer, one of many things she needs to examine a little closer.

[dragon-subway]

Steel wool is so cruel for making us just leave her there without even a proper goodbye

[beeduoo]

wonderful

[timdrakeslawyer]

my favourite genre of tim @ bruce we need more of this

[steddio]

Eddie finding Steve asleep sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the popcorn in the microwave, while the party are playing D&D. Eddie gently waking him up, accidentally letting some of his endearment show when he calls him angel and tells him to go get some sleep, that Eddie got it from here.

(I wrote a short little ficlet for this, I hope that's ok!)

“Alright! Enough!” Eddie tries and fails to be heard over the ruckus of seven teenagers each trying to get out of doing a task.

“Shut up!!!” he finally gets out at a register that demands attention. He is the DM after all, and a part of him preens at the way their startled, open-mouthed faces all turn toward him expectantly.

“I, your benevolent leader, will go refill the snacks,” he offers magnanimously. “While you all,” and this he punctuates with a sweeping gesture, “figure out how you’re going to get out of this dungeon without attracting the attention of Ezrog the Goblin King.”

There’s a new round of squabbling at that, Mike and Dustin convinced that they should take the west stairwell (a trap) while Gareth and Lucas arguing that they should swim out through the underground river (a good idea, Eddie begrudgingly admits).

He grabs the candy wrappers and empty soda cans within his reach and ascends the stairs from the Wheelers’ basement. He follows the scent of popcorn and a profoundly irritating beeping noise to the kitchen where he finds Steve perched on a barstool, slumped over the kitchen counter, fast asleep.

Eddie suddenly feels breathless. He’s never seen Steve so peaceful, so vulnerable. His hair is sticking up at all angles, he’s snoring slightly, and is that— it certainly is, there’s a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth. The permanent furrow between his brows is relaxed in sleep, although the dark circles under his eyes are still noticeable. Eddie knows Steve hasn’t been sleeping well. None of them have, still unable to feel truly safe.

Eddie tiptoes around Steve, careful not to wake him, and finds a cooling bag of popcorn in the microwave. Something clenches in Eddie’s chest. He hadn’t even heard Steve arrive, but here he is preparing snacks, taking care of them like always.

As quietly as possible, he takes the popcorn out of the microwave to stop that infernal beeping (how Steve is able to sleep through it is beyond him) and pours the popcorn into a bowl, grabs a few other things from the cabinet, and organizes them on the counter. He leans over toward Steve, as close as he dares, fingers ghosting over Steve’s hair, his cheek, admiring his long lashes and the freckles that dust his skin. He settles for gently grasping Steve’s shoulder.

“Steve, wake up,” he whispers. Steve mumbles something and then buries his face in the crook of his arm. Eddie can’t stop himself from reaching out and touching Steve’s hair, his heart bursting with fondness.

“Angel, you can’t sleep here, you’ll hurt your back,” he whispers slightly louder. Immediately he realizes what he let slip and waits, frozen, for Steve’s reaction. But Steve just grunts, and doesn’t move.

“Steve, man, c’mon,” Eddie tries again, and this time Steve lifts his head and looks at Eddie blearily.

“Wha-“ he gets out, looking adorably confused.

“You fell asleep in the kitchen,” Eddie can’t help but smile. “Come on, let’s get you over to the couch. You can nap there. The heathens and I still have quite a bit longer in the campaign, plenty of time for you to get some rest.”

Eddie helps (well, more like manhandles) Steve over to the living room couch, thrilling at the way Steve’s body is pressed to his side, loose-limbed and uncareful. Steve drops to the couch and is immediately asleep again, sprawled on his back, looking every bit the teenager he is. Eddie forgets that Steve is only 19, with how much he’s seen and done. But here, at rest, he is young, pure, holy. Eddie’s savior in more ways than one. He grabs a blanket off the armchair and spreads it over Steve, tucking it in on the sides. Stoops down in a semblance of a forehead kiss, just breathing in the scent of Steve’s hair, relishing a stolen moment of closeness.

“Sleep tight, angel.”

-

Three days later, Eddie finds himself in the passenger seat of Steve’s BMW, bickering, as usual, about music. He finds a sick sense of joy in being able to go toe-to-toe against Steve Harrington, King of Hawkins High, even if it’s about something innocuous, like the merits (or complete lack thereof) of Steve’s favorite band.

“Listen, Harrington, listen!” Eddie is getting into it now, feeling himself metaphorically jumping on top of his cafeteria table pedestal. “Wham! is the devil’s music! It’s demonic, only hellspawn can listen to that shit without their ears bleeding.”

Steve glares at him for a brief moment, before his expression fades into a cocky smirk. “Hellspawn?” He meets Eddie’s eyes. “I thought I was an angel.”

[verstarppen]

nothing like watching your favourite driver dnf on your birthday after a disaster of a day irl, it's like poetry

[leverage-ot3]

hozier starting to sing take me to church and then unfurling a pride flag healed something in me actually

if you listen closely you can hear me yell ‘oh my god’ when he does it

[office-worker-91]

I know the Lumity kiss is old news, but I sometimes feel like I never processed it properly, because...

Look at Amity. She missed her awesome girlfriend SO MUCH. She's so happy that the girl who changed her life for the better is safe after so much time of not being able to talk to her. All of her social inhibitors are turned off because she's holding Luz's face in her tiny little hands and she can't stop smiling.

And LUZ. Poor traumatized, touch-starved Luz is so VULNERABLE with Amity here. She's not smiling. Her eyebrows are raised and her eyes are shining. A lot of emotions are overcoming her and as we see in Thanks to Them she couldn't express them to Amity verbally. But HERE, just for a moment, her guard is totally down, because her awesome girlfriend is holding her face in her tiny little hands and smiling at her like she's the most precious thing in the world.

Whew. Okay. Fully processed. Finally.

[weadapt]

I think it’s interesting storytelling how in the beginning of the game Cal says the Sixth Sister’s name, Masana Tide, and reminds her of who she used to be—and it visibly distresses her because it hurts what was done to her and Cal isn’t wrong in what he’s saying. The shocking thing for me was the moment when Cal said “It’s time to set you free”. It was such a surreal feeling hearing Cal say that, those kinds of words, to know he decided it was time to strike her down; it’s understandable because she killed his entire crew, but for Cal to be the executioner in that way was scary to see coming after only experiencing the young kid he was in Fallen Order. Now you really get the feeling Cal has been through a lot, he’s grown as a man since Fallen Order and he’s calloused, not entirely in a bad way given he’d have to be to survive but still in a depressing way, as a result. I know overall and gameplay wise, Cal has killed a lot of people, it’s nothing new, but storytelling wise it’s a serious moment for Cal. It’s a moment you know is going to follow him the rest of the game for character development. After he kills her, it’s made clear by the music and by Cal’s body language that this isn’t a good thing coming from him. It isn’t a triumph. Even BD-1 knows and worries for Cal with his little “Boop…?” and Cal is only able to respond rather shakily, “Yeah… I’m okay”.

When he meets up with Bode and Bravo and they ask him what happened to the Inquisitor, he gives a simple, no emotion, “Dead”. The long pause of Bravo not saying anything in response to me says a lot; it feels like he isn’t used to Cal having a reaction like that.

Then we have Rayvis. Cal defeats him in battle and asks him to join in the fight against Dagan. He doesn’t want to kill Rayvis—“You don’t have to do this”. The oddly tragic part to me is that Rayvis has dreams of seeing Tanalorr again. If Dagan succeeds his dream will be realized, but he’s given up on the dream and wants a warrior’s death now. He wants to die, and in his mind, honorably, by Cal’s hands, and he’s going to force Cal to do it. But for Cal it’s another execution on his part. He pauses before he lifts his saber and kills Rayvis. It isn’t a triumph. Again we’re given a sudden swell of music to tell us the emotion behind the action of killing Rayvis. You can see it’s affected Cal badly. BD-1 seems to ask Cal the same question as before, “Boop…?” but this time Cal doesn’t acknowledge the question and just replies, “We should go”.

Killing Dagan hurts for Cal too. Dagan is a Jedi, someone who held onto the Order, who tied his entire identity to it and all of his goals are focused on restoring the Order and fighting to change the universe. Just like Cal in a way. Dagan is single-mindedly focused on the mission, so obsessively, he lost himself and the one he loved as a result. Cal understands and see the parallel of that kind of drive in his own mission against the Empire and it terrifies him. Dagan could’ve helped him fight the Empire but it became another tragic moment of having to kill a once fellow Jedi. This is another tragedy. Bode doesn’t care about Dagan being dead on the floor but Cal does. Cal has enough respect to place Dagan’s lightsaber on his chest. Cal pauses to reflect but Bode immediately gets back to getting the compass.

We have this interesting arch of reactions to killing his opponents. They were each killed for the mission. It was necessary. They each started the fight against him. No matter the reason though, it’s still very painful for Cal.

Cal is being pushed into this direction of forcing him to question his beliefs and who he is. His whole identity at this point has been tied to the Order, of being a Jedi, and it’s very clear by his conversations in Fallen Order that it really matters to who he is. By the end of Survivor, we have three fallen Jedi: Masana Tide, Dagan Gera, and Bode Akuna. So who is Cal Kestis? What will he become? Is he doomed to fall like they did? That’s what troubles him—“Let’s just say I don’t wanna end up like him [Dagan]”.

He’s afraid he’s going to lose himself.

The fear is almost realized when he’s about to kill another opponent. The one behind the murders of his friends and mentors. Cal’s been killing each of his main opponents up to the point at Nova Garon—this one will be no different. Except killing the man who sent Bode on the mission to infiltrate his team is different. Cal is on the edge of losing himself to the Dark Side. In Fallen Order he pleaded for Cere not to use the Dark Side because “She’s stronger than that”, “[she] still had a choice”. But Cal is failing to remember any of that for himself. He wants to kill because he’s angry, grieving, and in immense pain. Merrin has to bring him back—“This is not you!” There’s a question of whether or not Cal would’ve been able to stop himself if Merrin hadn’t been there though.

When we get to the final battle, Merrin is warning Cal of what’s likely going to happen but he ignores her for a while which prompts her to say, “Well? Say something!” He doesn’t want to acknowledge that Merrin is right and they’re likely going to have to kill Bode, and with that, taking Kata’s father away—a loss of family Cal and Merrin know too much about. So they both try and give Bode every chance to stop and turn away from what he’s done, despite how much Bode had hurt them. Sadly, Cal once again is forced into using the Dark Side to prevent Bode from killing Merrin. It was worth it. It was worth using it to save Merrin. He couldn’t let her be killed. He couldn’t see that happen before his eyes like he had with all of his friends and mentors.

After everything is over, there’s this sickly feeling left behind. Not simply because of Bode’s death, but because of the impact on Merrin realizing Kata has lost family just like she and Cal had, but also because of the impact the death of Bode has on Cal. And after Cal carries away Bode’s body, the music changes to an eerie, ominous, high pitch, minor key when we see Cal board the Mantis. The kind of change in music which lets the audience know there’s something seriously wrong. Things are different now. Cal’s different. And he knows it.

He’s lost in time watching the pyre, reflecting on everything that had happened but also on how grateful he is to Cere, but he knows the impact of her loss will continue to be with him for the rest of his life. Just like Jaro Tapal. Another guiding force in his life is gone. With Cere and Cordova gone, there is no longer any Jedi wisdom to seek out. He’s now alone in that way as a Jedi.

“I’m scared… I almost lost myself… I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Cal and the audience are left with the dreadful realization—

“I don’t know if I’m ready for what comes next”.

[twilight-deviant]