#the storyline? too little and too long

[starflungwaddledee]

Oooo starstruck dee has little stars at the bottom of her feet! Are they just aesthetic or would they make imprints into the ground? (like pawprints)

exactly like that! though she's not the only one...

edit: might need to add some additional dialogue to this to make it more clear, but a clarification in the interim; he knows about his own footprints. he's just surprised to see something similar already there when he knows he's only just landed. he lifts his own shoe to confirm that they're not identical (and also to reveal this to the viewer). seems his stoicism beat off the clarity in this one, sorry 😭

[colorful-bees]

Volo's friendship story in the Trainer's Lodge is so interesting to me because it seemingly contradicts his usual way of thinking. He asks to take a commemorative photo with you in the event that the world disappears, obviously referring to what he wants to eventually accomplish in the future.

And I can only wonder why he does this. His exact words afterwards are, "Please remember me as you've seen me during our time together." He plans on erasing the world to build a better one, as per is goal in P:LA but the idea that he would want you to remember him as you knew him, someone who was simply friendly and nice to you, goes against how he views relationships with people. There's no transactional value to taking this photo with you nor is there for him wanting you to remember him fondly.

Volo is overly nice to people to get what he wants out of them, that's kind of his thing. You see it with the protag in P:LA, you see it with Jacq and Trevor, and later with Lear in the Mysterious Stones chapter. He likes to get in people's good books so that he might get something out of it later. But what does he want out of you in this interaction? What is he hoping to gain by telling you to remember him the way he is now? He plans on destroying the world and so... he asks to take a photo with you? I can only imagine that he wants it for himself since if the world disappears, you won't even be there to remember him in the first place. He plans on destroying the world and you won't even be there and yet, he still asks you to remember him.

I don't think Volo necessarily lied when he said, "It's just a matter of using them before they use you." Those were thoughts inside his head, he has no one to lie to there; that's what he truly believes. However, I do think there's a disconnect between the kind of person Volo is and the kind of person Volo believes himself to be.

I think maybe he does love his Pokemon, maybe he even wants to be your friend. I don't think he knows that though. His genuine view of himself is that he feels no love or care for others and relationships are just a means to an end and that is mostly how he comes across when showing his true colors. But he has moments that don't quite line up with that. He wants you to remember him fondly. He considers Pokemon tools and yet, there's that photo of him and Togepi. It's these two moments that make me question things. He looks after Togepi and in return, Togepi sticks by his side; that's their trade-off, what they both get out of their relationship. But the photo is what throws me off. If there wasn't even a little bit of love for Togepi, why does that photo exist? Why did he take it? Volo in this same conversation says, "Photos are wonderful things! They allow you to capture and isolate the best moments!" Why take a photo with something you don't love? Why consider that one of your "best moments?"

Volo honestly believes that he doesn't love his Pokemon and that he's no one's friend. That isn't a mask he's putting on, that's who he thinks he is and I can only assume that the reason for this is due to whatever event happened in his past that set him down this road to begin with. But he has these small moments that contradict that view of himself. Volo does have a capacity to care for his Pokemon, to have friends. I just don't think he realizes that. He's incapable of recognizing if he loves or even likes someone in a genuine way; so caught up in viewing every relationship like it's a barter or a trade that he has no idea that he can care and that maybe, at some points, does.

[0rchidm4ntis]

hey lol *pmmms your 2wink*

[llumimoon]

i think selkie aus should be more common they r very very fun to me. points at character you would make a good selkie in a selkie au

[sandinthepipes]

So what kind of mental illness is the unavoidable urge to get astarion’s approval?

[aliensupersim]

welcome to cottage 2 🏡 rachel is a little cautious when she's first introduced to her new roommate through anaïs, but she can't help but find her childhood best friend's enthusiasm infectious. things are looking up.

lot by: @farfallasims

[burinazar]

((sifting thru old story and character concepts)) oh hey look three people who were close to one another and founded a kingdom together like they had dreamed of since their younger days and the charismatic leader one was more or less fine and another one was disturbed and saddened by the situation and the third shy sweet one ended up magically cloistered and supernaturally chained in a dark pit for eons and forgotten by the world

[demonprodigy-kingofsheep]

Okay, listen to my wildly speculative prediction about what i think the upcoming chapters of BSD are going to be about, constructed with my extremely limited, fast-fading memory of the past events and plotlines. Feel free to correct and put in your speculations if you like.

(This is in no way accurate and i really hope this list is proven wrong, but I want to put this out there for me mentally prepare myself to stop looking for Chuuya and get disappointed every time a chapter drops.)

So here we go:

Nov 2022 - FukuFuku backstory Dec 2022- FukuFuku faceoff continues (probably ends with Fukuzawa being stabbed) Jan 2023- Atsushi and Teruko and whatever their storyline is, kenji and techhou join because why not. Feb 2023- Akutagawa/Bram/Aya. Tachihara and Jouno also join ADA and co because why not. The Hunting dogs somehow team up with ADA. March 2023- More Akutagawa/Bram/Aya. Possible Yosano and Jouno return? (idk it's been a while) FukuFuku are still fighting or something, with Ranpo and Poe in the fray. Atsushi and co + rest of hunting dogs probably have to band together save their asses now. April 2023- Aku/Bram/Aya conclusion. Akutagawa turns back to normal now? Everyone is somehow magically unvampirized. (is Bram okay?) May 2023- FukuFuku arc ends with Hunting Dogs and ADA teaming up and defeating big ole man with the power of friendship. June 2023 - Meursault arc continuation. Fedya somehow breaks out of the prison but Chuuya is no longer a vampy. And he beats the shit out of fedya while dazai drinks the antidote or something. Gogol thinks Fedya is too funny to die so he changes his mind and reveals the poison was fake and the real poison was their feelings towards each other or something lol. Sigma is done with everyone's shit.

Oh wait, i totally forgot the book is a thing. Huh.

[softquietsteadylove]

Hi! I just had this sudden idea and I have to ask you!

For the ice queen/tyrant au!

Thena asks Gil what and how exactly the assasination happened and if he can remember anything. While Gil summarizes what he can remember Thena listens quietly without interrupting him. When he finishes Thena says nothing a while and Gil gets worried but before he can say anything she softly takes his hand with the ring tattoo and kisses it while looking directly into his eyes, saying a lot without actually talking. Just this intimate, soft and quiet moment.

"Hey," Gil smiled as he heard the door to his hospital room slide open and shut. He was improving by the day - maybe even by the hour, at this point - and Ajak had promised his release within the week.

Thena remained silent.

Gil kept an eye on her as she came over to her chair, same as she had been. His jacket he had been brought in with was still thrown over the back of it, providing her a shawl of sorts when she was sitting in the chair (and not in bed with him, despite Ajak's complaints about that).

"Gil," she finally spoke up, pulling off her gloves and shedding her coat. She had come from work, either her office or his. "What can you tell me about what happened?"

He let his surprise show. He hadn't expected her to ask--at least not right now. She hadn't asked at first, and as time went on, he just assumed she had been briefed on things.

When she had been poisoned, he had demanded to know every detail of it.

Thena was quiet, sullen, pulling his hand in between both of hers. She looked at him, her brows pulled together and her lips pulled down at the corners, "please?"

Gil inhaled and sighed, looking up at the ceiling. He had thought about it some, dreamed about it more. It was hazy, at first, but the longer he spent recovering the more of it came back to him. "I was headed home after work. The weather was nice, so I wanted to walk."

Thena's hand was already tightening around his.

"Tires screeching," Gil narrated as he sorted through his memories in real time. He had woken from a nightmare or two in his time in this room. Thena had been there for all of them, comforting him silently but resiliently, every time. "That was the first one, but when they realised they missed they got out."

"I tried running, but I guess my guard was down. The other two shots landed, and I went down hard. Part of it was the actual shots, but part of it was also figuring that maybe if they thought they got me, they'd leave. It kind of worked."

She didn't return his little smile, or his shrug.

"I laid there for a little bit before calling the office. They used the civilian line to call in an anonymous tip for an ambulance for me. I also asked them to notify Ajak and Sersi. I...I trusted they would tell you."

Thena continued to listen to him in silence, although he looked over and caught her tears dripping from her long lashes. "Hey."

She let him reach over and brush them off her cheeks. She sniffed, pressing the back of his hand to them and then clasping them together again. "Go on."

Gil sighed. He wasn't sure what she was after, or if she just wanted the full story from his own perspective. It seemed to be distressing her more than anything. But she asked, so he would answer. "I was pretty surprised when I found out it was her. Didn't think she had balls like that."

Thena frowned at him.

"Either way," Gil shrugged, not nearly as bothered by the mere concept of the Little Heiress as his Ice Queen was. "That was the last I remembered before they got the drugs in me. When I woke up...well, you were here."

He smiled, pressing his palm to her cheek. His heart skipped a happy little beat as she leaned into his touch, her expression so tender it could make him fall in love with her all over again. That was his Thena, looking at him like that.

She sighed, just looking at him, taking it all in. She let him brush his thumb against her cheek as he liked, allowing the comfort both of them. Her hands held his other one, running over his palm.

Gil automatically leaned as she pulled at his left hand faintly. He watched as she brought his hand to her lips, kissing the tattoo of his ring. His eyes locked with hers. "Thena?"

But she had no answer to his question. The kiss was its own statement, and really, it was all she had to say.

Gil nodded, running his fingers through her hair, "I know. Me too."

Thena, satisfied that he had understood what she was saying in not so many words, stood from her chair. She pulled back his covers, crawling into bed with him.

Gil made room for her, pulling the covers up over them and holding her against him. "And what happened to listening to Ajak?"

Ajak, who had told them multiple times that Gil's IVs could come out if they were all snuggled up in the tiny hospital bed together.

But Thena curled up against him, forehead pressed against his collar bone, hand over his heart as if to order it to keep beating so long as she was present.

Gil kissed the crown of that hair of hers, settling comfortably on his side so they could both fit together. "I love you, too, Thena."

She had said so much when she had kissed his hand--the ring he had imprinted into his skin to mark that he was hers inseparably. Telling him how much she loved him was just one of those many things.

[death2you]

just finished yakuza 0…

[vounoura]

me thinking abt how Naryu, a Tong executioner from birth and thus Mephala adherent, has love and violence closely entwined all the way down to even the concept of parenthood as the Tong makes sure to frame even business relationships like teacher and student as parental (not to mention how her position, as most definitely is pretty standard, is an inheritance from her father) or between Tong members as familial by calling a few ranks words like ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, and how for Naryu as a Mephala adherent sex and violence are explicitly connected and sex is often simply a tool through which to conduct violence, and how a close relationship with an outside party like the Vestige, romantic or otherwise gives her a snapshot of a life without the blood that she never got the choice to have even if she otherwise doesn’t regret who she is:

[halforcdad]

Thoughts on how they will explain a possible 3 episode Lucy absence?

The first thing that comes to mind that makes sense to me is Lucy's family.

We don't really know much about Lucy. Take it from her, her entire life is just work, gym, and Kate. She doesn’t really have anything else going on (I really thought her being a junior agent and wanting to follow in Tennant's footsteps was gonna be up there, but they seemed to randomly drop that after they futzed with the timeline to give us that Kacy backstory). The only thing we really know about her is that she has issues with her rich family and potentially burned that bridge when she left Texas. Given NCIS: Hawai`i's focus on ohana and the crumbs she was dropping last season (they were her third-most talked about thing behind work and Kacy angst lol), Lucy’s family troubles seem to be shaping up to be her other big long-term storyline. 

Among the bits of bts we've gotten from 2x07 (presumably the last episode she would be in if she were to be absent for 3 episodes) was this interesting little sneak peak:

(from a bts video a crewmember uploaded, these are tori and yas's stand-ins while the crew is setting up the shot)

Looks like the perfect set-up for them to get personal, like talking about Lucy’s fear of the water or quietly reflecting on her insecurities or her family/childhood (we already have a Whistler focused episode so this could be Lucy’s moment). Like something on the same level of seriousness as the scene where Lucy’s comforting and encouraging Kate outside of the FBI BBQ, but maybe with less anxiety and more chill vibes lol. It could be a great opportunity to finally introduce some substantial Lucy backstory and or a long-term background storyline that isn’t just about her and Kate.  

I know a lot of people theorize that her family has cut her out completely or vice versa, but NCIS: Hawai'i already has one parent-child relationship that started out like that with Wally and Kai so maybe they want to differentiate a little (though they could use that similarity as an opportunity to get them to bond over it whenever that storyline happens, a more in-depth version of 1x04). I could see her not reaching out, but not having their numbers blocked either or still keeping minimal contact with them, birthdays and whatnot. Maybe something happened with a niece or nephew or her parents and she needs to go back and see them. It would warrant Tennant giving her extended personal time to take care of it. Plus, it would be easy to explain why she’s not in the episode at all if she’s back on the mainland and if they wanted to, they could include her without her needing to be on location/the sets via either phone or video calls and she could record all her scenes ahead of time. Though, the cons to this would be that if Lucy was absent from the episode, that means we wouldn’t get to see any of the angsty family scenes! (unless there were flashbacks shown later) and it could turn into a lot of tell not show type story writing which I hate. It would be a neat way to introduce angst though if Lucy is keeping it all in and not telling anybody about what happened even though its clearly affecting her (or if Kate feels hurt that Lucy didn't want her to go with her/isn't telling her either). It would be an interesting bump in the road in a season where she's been building trust and communication with Kate. My dream would be for it to progress slowly, more mentions of her past here and there, her family slowly becoming more present in her life (good or bad), maybe a brother or sister shows up in an episode down the line as a suspect or to visit and that throws her off, but I want the parents showing up to be an unexpected monumental thing that doesn't happen until like at least late s3 or s4.

Each of their cases takes places over the course of a few days minimum and that’s not even accounting for the amount of time that might take place in between them. Unless they threw in a few Nightwatch type cases (which they solved in one friday night and one entire saturday) then I don’t see how you explain away that big of an absence in-story unless you introduce a big storyline like Lucy needing to go back home for some reason. 

Another possibility I’ve seen floating around is Lucy getting hurt in the upcoming episodes, which is very doable and I would not hate it at all. My only potential concern with that is I would want her to have scenes with the whole team and not just Kate while she's recovering. So maybe if she’s in the hospital, Tennant comes by to see her and tells her about the case or the boys throw her a little party in the hospital or they video call her because she’s bored out of her mind. Though, since Lucy’s in the crossover, I don’t know how keen Tennant would be bringing an agent who was recently seriously injured with her to LA on a mission like the one being described in the crossover (Noah is also listed as being in the crossover, but I don’t know if I’ve heard or seen anything at all about him filming out of state). IIRC, the synopsis mentions something about agents being targeted so Lucy being separated from everyone while in Texas could make her an easy target? Or if she hears about Tennant going to LA, it would make sense why she’s the one accompanying her because she’s already on the mainland and would probably be looking for an excuse to leave her family (or maybe she wants to leave Texas to protect them since she’s a target). 

Hell, since we're speculating let's just throw shit at the wall. Maybe they do something wild like Lucy went on a long undercover thing or oh she's suspended because she fucked up.

Of course, they could still go with, “oh Tennant just shipped Lucy off to help another division since she's the only one who doesn't have family they need to take care of in Hawai’i or Lucy needed to help a friend or something it’s nbd,” and have her come back like nothing happened. 

tldr; keeping up with the taras, she gets hurt, they just brush it off casually, or they throw something out of left field

(i am in the camp that if she were to be absent entirely, id lean more on it only being a one or two episode absence at most)

[prophecystation]

i feel like discourse about hockey (and sport in general) would really improve a lot if more people realized that spectator sport is a form of narrativized media and applied their literacy skills accordingly

[speakercrab666]

if horror game in horror genre, then why monster have scary face???? i want horror game!!! NO SCARY FACE!!!!!!!!! only horror game <3

[casasupernovas]

Remember ages ago when I said Freema did an interview talking about Martha and what she was and wasn't happy with in regards to the story? I found it!

Transcript:

Interviewer: ...Do you still think about her? How do you think about Martha in the year 2019.

Freema: Ah yeah I just did a convention with David [Tennant] recently actually and he said something that um, I hadn't heard before, and he was asked about that relationship between the two chatacters and he said 'I think that the Doctor wasn't fair on her' and I sorta looked at him and I was like...I've never heard your take on that before because I knew at the time you know she was...for me there was definitely a kind of beat that they struck on that stayed maybe a little bit too long. It was the unrequited storyline an I think they stopped exploring her as a fully rounded human being in light of that and Russell [T. Davies] did say you know, it's important to him though that people can sometimes see that...you know love doesn't always have to be reciprocated and it's okay to kind of...most of us probably have that in common that we have unreciprocated...emotions than reciprocated and I was like no that's cool I get that but people also tune in for escapism and for romance and all of the magic and the, you know, the imagination so sometimes to be like grounded back down into hard truth isn't very attractive. *Laughs* So I kind of felt like she got stuck a little bit amd when people ask me if if I would go back it would only be to explore her as a fully rounded person more and she had so much going on and then it got stuck for whatever reason. But I had the best time and I feel like there's so much more potential to that person.

[leeloooonfire]

Steve hasn't read out loud since 4th grade - he still remembers the snickers of his classmates when he stumbled over the words as the letters twisted and turned on the page.

He doesn't like to read in general. It takes him so long to finish a story, let alone an entire book. He tried to read Hamlet once. When he and Nacy were a thing and he knew she liked classic literature. He hated it. Shakespeare, while the storyline seems to be interesting enough, nearly bored him to death.

So, that's the thing: Steve doesn't read, especially not out loud.

But then Vecna happened, and while Max and El finished the bastard off, they barely managed to get a deadly wounded Eddie out of the Upside Down.

(Eddie died in Dustin's arms and came back to life under Steve’s furious hands.)

While Eddie is bound to the hospital bed, unable to move, Steve picks up The Hobbit. He doesn't intend to read it, but when Edide can't hold the book long enough, let alone concentrate on it, Steve takes over. (He always does these things for the people he cares about. It is a small mystery to Steve when he started to care about Eddie.)

So, he reads - stumbling over the words, stuttering and slowly, but instead of laughing or making snide comments, Eddie listens to him patiently, a small smile on his lips.

(They finish The Hobbit and the first of Lotr before Eddie is allowed to leave the hospital.)

Steve thinks with Eddie free to go, that's it. No more hours sitting together and learning the tale of Frodo and Sam.

He is surprised when Eddie wants to hang out with him every other day. (He didn't think Eddie would want to be his friend.)

Two months after Eddie was allowed to go home, they lie in Eddie’s bedroom, sharing a joint and listening to Dio when the cassette comes to an end and Eddie turns slowly to him, brown eyes wide.

(Steve doesn't try thinking about kissing Eddie. He fails. Just a little bit.)

it's then when Eddie turns and grabs something from underneath his bed. A book. The two towers. "Aren't you interested how the story continues?"

Instead of waiting for Steve to answer, Eddie lays back down and starts reading. He is so much better than Steve at it - voice animated, each character distinguished.

(Steve loves it. Maybe even loves Eddie a bit.)

After a while, Eddie's voice gets rough and he pushes the book into Steve's hands, "Your turn." And he's too high to say no, so he reads. Less animated, less practiced, but Eddie lays his head on Steve's stomach and he smiles, humming whenever they reach parts he especially likes.

(If Steve's free hand runs through Eddie's curls every now and then, there's no one here to call them out for it.)

The letters still play tricks on him, turn and twist and make it hard for him to read, but Steve gets better. He doesn't really care if he comes to a stuttering halt or if he doesn't know how to pronounce a word, because Eddie doesn't seem to mind and only speaks to help when Steve gets frustrated with himself. Then they take turns and Eddie takes over reading.

(If Steve gets frustrated on purpose so Eddie reads for him, it's our tiny secret.)