#thinky-thoughts

[kariachi]

Okay, so everybody who knows anything about my love for Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles knows that the twins own my soul. I offered it up as tithe to the church of Yuui and Fai. And this has been great on the Yuui front! The Yuui front eats well, the supply lines are unharried, everyone is sad but everything is great.

The Fai front's rations consist of three bread crusts and a boiled shoelace.

There is, understandably, very little in canon for our boy. We know that he was the one in the tower, that he was more 'curl into myself and die' traumatized as opposed to the 'burning brightly like the end of the world' traumatized of his brother though we can't be sure how much of that was the difference in the trauma they were experiencing and how much was a difference between them, that he was suicidal ideation before Dickcheese even showed up, that he just straight up ordered Dickcheese to his face to save his brother (seriously, go look at those pages, I love them, in fact I have a whole post), and that he loved his brother more than anything.

Which seems like a lot when written down all together but it really really isn't.

But! There's hope! There is more Fai content in the form of Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen, which all TRC fans likely know about by now but for everyone else is essentially a school au series of shorts featuring a range of Clamp characters, including Fai and Yuui among the teaching staff. It's not a lot, but even like three more panels of OG!Fai opens the door for doubling what we know about him.

There is a problem- namely that I've heard conflicting information about who is who. I've heard a lot of people talk about how the names are switched to avoid confusion from fans- since Yuui goes by Fai for the whole of TRC- but I've also heard claims that this isn't the case at all. So, part of this my first read-through of Horitsuba will be figuring out which I believe is the case, based on what we already know of both characters from canon. To this end, I'll be keeping track of traits of each one as I read the shorts and whatever script translations I can find, and then working shit out after.

So let's get ourselves into this.

~~

"Yuui"

Home Ec Teacher

More chill

Ver nice, good teacher

Polite

Brother picked his clothes for a special occassion, was chill about it

Comforting Kurogane over his brother's shenanigans in one panel

Seriously man can fucking back

Plays piano

New to the area

Managed a restaurant in Italy

Happy for his brother's happiness

Wears glasses

Cooking for three because Kurogane lives next door and, well, *gestures down to "Fai" section*

If nothign else pulled pranks as a small with his brother

Can imitate his twin's voice?

Played archery

Not much of a voice actor

Seems rather modest and maybe a bit shy maybe?

"Fai"

Chemistry teacher

Nicknames for Kurogane

Just the general fucking with Kurogane we get from early!Yuui!Fai

Bright and smiley

Energetic

Playing up his emotions

Playful troublemaker

Crossdressing

Definitely leaning more towards the 'ship with Kurogane' end of things

Works with Kurogane on department budget shit in one episode of the drama

Can sew

Number one most precious thing is his brother, awww

Can imitate his twin's voice

Voice-acting-capable

Acted in school

Refused to be a club because too much time from his brother

~~

Okay, so what have we got here? Two very different characters, I'll give that.

"Yuui" seems to lean more towards late!Yuui!Fai in personality, but doesn't seem to be as playful, teasing, or bombastic. Especially that last bit.

"Fai" meanwhile very clearly leans more towards early!Yuui!Fai in personality. He's very playful, teasing, bombastic, and really trying to wear his way into Kurogane's heart. He lacks in a touch of the seriousness of him though.

In fact, when we look at the sequel to the manga- Tsubasa World Chronicle, one is seems quite reserved in comparison to the Yuui!Fai we get, while the other is far too bombastic. TWC Yuui!Fai is calmer and more obviously serious than he presented himself early on, but still very clearly teasing and playful, just less bombastic about it.

And that's an important point to make, because one argument I've seen for "Fai" being OG!Fai is that Yuui!Fai was mimicking his brother when he was acting all bombastic and smiley at the start, and I don't think that's the case for a few reasons.

As I just said, Yuui!Fai is a teasing, playful person, just not to nearly the degree as he initially presented himself

We see where his stepford-smiler stuff begins in the manga, where he begins to smile not because he feels it but to make other people happy and repay Ashura- the persona we first see is an exaggeration of himself with a thick layer of smiles acting as a mask between him and these people he's supposed to betray but cares too much about too quickly (because Yuui!Fai is a fucking gift who cares so deeply all the time)

While there's not exactly a lot of opening for it, we don't see any reason in the canon to believe that OG!Fai would have been the cheery bubbly sort if life hadn't had his balls in a vice

Not to say that this isn't the case, but that I just don't think it's likely. Gods know I'm not Clamp, I could be wrong.

Continuing- "Yuui" has some Yuui!Fai traits, like his piano playing, his cooking, his archery. "Fai" acts (and what was Yuui!Fai's life for so long but playing a role), uses nicknames, and crossdresses.

But what I think is something really important to look at is the relations with Kurogane. Because this is Clamp, whatever they're writing, it's also a romance, and they're big on fuckers finding each other throughout space and time. Like who even knows how many versions of Sakura and Syaoran there are getting together anymore.

"Yuui" doesn't get much there. He pats Kurogane on the shoulder in for support while his brother is being A Lot. Kurogane helps him move a big cake. The trio all have dinner together every night. That's it. That's what he gets. "Fai", meanwhile, get so fucking much interaction, so much of the same brand of banter and dynamic the pair have in canon- leaning more towards early canon rather than the sequel, yes, but the dynamic is still there in the sequel, just at a chiller level.

So I can see why people would look at that and think "Yuui" is the real OG!Fai. I can also see how people would look at things like cooking and piano and not being to bombastic and think that "Fai" the real OG!Fai. Both sides are understandable. Personally I think...

It's neither.

"Yuui" is close but he's not quite Yuui!Fai- he doesn't seem to have that same teasing, playful nature that still is his nature even when the mask comes off and the world isn't weighing on him. "Fai" is also not Yuui!Fai, he's more like the mask become truth, an exaggeration of the character. Neither of them is the man we all know and love.

So, I present a third option to the board- Clamp didn't have anything more for OG!Fai than what they gave us in canon, which isn't a lot to work off of. To build a character off that, you'd essentially be building someone entirely new for what seems like it was supposed to be all familiar characters just in a different setting. So, instead, they split Yuui!Fai in two.

They took the bombastic teasing and playfulness that would be most familiar to casual fans, the relationship that's straight up canon, and put it under "Fai"- the name Yuui!Fai goes by for the entire series and that would be most familiar.

They then took the calmer, more mature aspects, alongside the hobbies, and put them under "Yuui"- a name that's only really used in one world and late into the series, combining the parts of Yuui!Fai that would be less likely for casual fans to remember clearly into a character who's still familiar enough to work with.

So, what would this mean for OG!Fai? Well for one thing, it'd mean we still only have a few panels to go off of for him, which is a damn shame. Especially since they take place in a time of his life when so much of what we see is colored with trauma.

But, we can always take traits from what we see here and add them to the character- they could be shared, or things that OG!Fai was interested in in those early years that Yuui!Fai took up in his name. Or just because. Or we can futz with shit on our own, work with what we have and, well, make it work.

And at the end of the day, we still have what's canon. That OG!Fai loved his brother more than anything. That he was broken or loyal enough to turn down Fei-Wang's offer of salvation thrice. That even as a small, broken child he still was determined and strong enough to stare Fei-Wang- the big bad of the series- in the face and give him an order.

And damnit if that's not enough to love him by.

[gaypirateslife4me]

Dread pirate, scourge of the sea (and queer icon)

Or

Zero rizz, silly lil subby kittieboy (and queer icon)

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

A few more thoughts from a "Sideways" One Piece fan

(I'm mostly following the series through recap, and review, channels on YouTube. Some of them are covering the very beginning anime and manga. Some of them are covering the most recent stuff. I figure sooner or later, they'll meet in the middle. I'll try to be vague, if I can't be spoiler-free)

I don't like the explanation we have now, in canon, for why devil fruit users can't swim in the ocean. And I hope there's a twist that gives us a different reason.

I think the two calm belts will turn out to be engineered, rather than wholly natural phenomena.

Did you know that in Norse mythology (as recorded in sagas written by Christians) that the jötnar (often translated as "giants")* were depicted as adversaries of the main gods? That makes me go: "Hhm." 🤔

*serious scholars point out that's not quite right. But Oda can use any idea he wants as inspiration.

[marta-bee]

So, Gaza.

I’ve been talking a lot about the upcoming US election but not delving into the issue I actually think is motivating most people around here who aren’t going to vote for Harris. And I have been talking a lot of politics, I know! Blame it on moral cowardice and not wanting to call out people on an issue so many people rightly care so much about. And blame it on not having a good answer. Realpolitik is neat enough on paper, but when you’re talking to real people and real suffering it can be damned dismissive.

What changed? This weekend I saw a video of a voter’s panel of Lebanese-Americans who all said they weren’t voting for Harris, and one in particular who said she planned to vote for Trump. Sadly I can’t find the link, but I’ve been thinking about her words. She said specifically she wanted to vote against the people funding genocide. And I’ve been wondering what I’d say to her if I was in the room.

I like to think I’d listen first, and if I thought she was open to an actual discussion of politics and ideas rather than just wanting to vent her feelings (understandable!), I’d maybe point her to Bob Woodward’s recent recount of how Biden and Harris feel about Netanyahu and how they’re trying to balance our alliance with them against softening somehow what Netanyahu is doing to Gaza. He apparently writes about it in his new book, which I’ve not read, but for expediency you can listen to his recent interview with Colbert starting about 4:00 in. I might also point out how Trump gave lots of money to Israel too and how he promises Israel has no better friend to him to the point that American Jews who vote for him are being bad Jews. (Hello, antisemitism! But leaving that aside...) The numbers are actually complicated because there’s been a real uptick in military aid to Israel under Biden, but most of that is after the October 7 attack and from Congress refusing to approve more aid for Ukraine without upping what we give Israel at the same time. Whereas Trump increased the spending back in 2018 just because.

The point is I’d push back that a vote for Trump was hardly a vote against America funding a genocide, and if anything it was a vote to replace a reluctant funder of genocide who feels obligated to support a historic alliance but who tries to differentiate supporting Israel from supporting Netanyahu’s policies, and voting instead to replace him with someone who also funds genocide and would do much worse. But like I said I do understand there’s emotion involved, and for someone clearly going through this mess in a more direct way than me, I understand she may not want to defend her position even after sharing it so publicly. It’s hard to know what’s just and kind until you’re actually talking to someone directly.

(That word genocide always catches in my craw. I don’t think of violence against Palestinians in those terms. I also don’t think it’s any less bloody if it’s just good old-fashioned state-sanctioned murder.)

Let me say I do wish Americans weren’t giving military aid to Israel, certainly not in the context of a war against their own people. We apparently have real national interests in having an ally in the Middle East to help navigate the situation against (say) Iran and Saudi Arabia; I’m not qualified to say otherwise, and there is a long history behind it that would be messy to undo at this point. But that’s different in emboldening them to the point they can go after their own people like this. They don’t need it. We’re not actually mitigating the human suffering in Gaza and the West Bank by having our hand on the purse-strings. All it’s doing is enabling them to fight longer than they would, not feeling like they have to work seriously toward peace, and giving America a moral black eye in the process.

I’m also painfully aware that that’s not going to happen in one swoop, and we’re less likely to make progress at all under Trump than under Harris. It’s all so bound up in America’s love affair with our gas guzzling cars, the way we connect gas prices to whether we think the economy’s doing well, and the fact so much of the world’s gas  comes from the Middle East. And that’s before you throw in the activism and Christo-nationalism behind this idea that Jews (of the Judeo-Christian tradition) are automatically bound by shared values with America in a way that Muslims aren’t.

It’s messy, morally and literally. I don’t like it. But like I said: Realpolitik is neat on paper, and I don’t see it not being the guiding force of foreign affairs for decades to come. The trick is to change the situation so supporting Israel so heavy-handedly isn’t actually the best way to manage American interests in the region.

At the same time, I’m not going to sit here and tell that woman on the focus group she should suck it up and vote Biden. Maybe she has family still in Lebanon. Maybe her cousin was killed in an Israeli strike decades ago. Maybe her family thought they had to send her away from her homeland to keep her safe. Maybe she’s just politically humiliated and tired of her own country so readily taking the side of people trying to kill people like her. And with all Harris’s focus on courting Republicans we really haven’t listened to or talked about Arab-Americans’ concern over how we’re so involved with Israel, or given them much specific hope for change. I don’t know her history so I can’t say where the balance is between voting like she feels she needs to versus making a practical choice that even in light of all that, a vote for Trump isn’t the answer.

I think at the end of it I think of voting for Harris on this issue as akin to getting a vaccine to protect people who really can’t, immuncompromised people or children who are too young and the like. There probably are people who are too directly affected to be able to make that mark. Even if practically it’s the best of other bad choices. It’s too personal. It feels like too much of a betrayal against their friends and family. But I can vote for imperfect option #1 over cyanide-laced option #2, on all our behalfs. So they don’t have to. The same way when I get my COVID jab, it’s not just to keep me safe but so there’s less virus in the air and so the kid fighting off leukemia can still go to school and not get sick.

If you’re less directly affected by the situation in Gaza, if it’s a concern about moral purity and not getting your hands dirty, maybe it helps to think of it in those terms? Because it's messy for us but it's not the same direct kind of poison pill it would be for them. We can vote Harris so we can give those folks most affected by the violence and human rights clusterfuck in Gaza a little anti-Trump herd immunity.

I don't know. It's very difficult to talk generally about this because it is messy. And voting is ultimately a decision we each need to make for ourselves. I'm not so boorish I think I can just tell you how to vote. But it is something we each have a responsibility to think through, and as hard as it can be to feel part of the situation leading to American-bought bombs landing on Gazan homes, staying home or voting for Trump doesn't excuse us from that dynamic. To borrow a line from Star Trek: The hall is rented. The orchestra engaged. It's now to see if [or how?] we will dance.

[ao3commentoftheday]

so here's the thing. abandoning fics is good actually.

if you're a writer and you hate writing a thing? you can just stop. slap THE END? on the last chapter if you want to pretend like it's really finished, but mostly just free yourself from the prison of your own guilt. you're spending your valuable free time and mental space beating yourself up about a thing that was your choice to start writing in the first place. you decided to start making the thing, and you can also decide to give it up.

this also applies if you're a reader! starting a fic doesn't mean that you have to finish it. maybe the tags looked good. maybe the summary was intriguing. maybe you even liked the first couple of chapters. But if the story starts going in a direction that you don't like, if the author writes your favourite character in a way that doesn't vibe with you, if you just get bored with the premise and want something new, you're allowed to stop reading. Just because you sit down at the table with a whole entire cake doesn't mean you have to eat the whole thing. Sometimes you just want a little sliver, and that's just fine.

loving a story for a couple of chapters is still a lovely way to spend your time. get your enjoyment out of however much time you want to spend with it, and when that time stops being enjoyable allow yourself to move on.

falling out of love with something doesn't mean the love was never there. the love was there in the beginning, and it mattered, and it stays a part of you - even when it's not still there anymore.

[purplehairedwonder]

I need Tumblr to get obsessed with Sirens on Netflix. It's a dark comedy with an excellent cast, and it's a fascinating deconstruction of society's portrayal of women as sirens, luring men to their doom with their "feminine wiles."

The three women at the center—Simone, Devon, and Michaela—are ostensibly the titular sirens; at various points, they have men pursuing them and then later blaming them for their mistakes (Ethan with Simone, Ray with Devon, Peter with Michaela). But these are damaged women just trying to survive and cope with intense trauma.

In some ways, Peter, a rich white man, is the true siren, luring women in (Jocelyn then Michaela then Simone), blaming them for his issues (like saying Michaela is to blame for the strained relationship with his kids, but that was all on him), and then getting rid of them the moment he gets bored (literally in the middle of a gala) and replacing them with a younger model.

He has all the power, no matter how laid back and friendly he seems, and he isn't hesitant to use it when it suits him. And, because of his wealth, the society he lives in never pushes back, allowing him to get away with it over and over again.

I could write essays about this show; needless to say, I loved it.

[nerdygeekypastrychef]

I look at this and all I can think about is how GOOD he would look in the 1980’s men’s slutty little shorts. My god.

[purpleminte]

Not me getting secondhand anxiety looking at the absolute chaos of this hypothetical discord user’s life based on these messages-

This person is apparently

• Travelling internationally likely very soon

• Currently having homework for an active biology class

• At least somewhat present in the moderation of a server

• Actively involved in competitive sports

• Has an engagement or event currently planned (that is understandably being ignored)

Maybe I’m lazy or something but this is enough to make me curl up and die

[thebibliosphere]

With hindsight, I probably should have realized I was polyamorous/ambiamorous sooner than I did. (And to be clear, I realized it pretty young. I just didn't have the terminology for it.)

Ignoring the fact that five-year-old me used to watch Signing In The Rain! on a loop and was already making up stories about Don, Cosmo, and Kathy all living together in Don's big house and *gasp* holding hands (maybe kissing), I was never any good at shipwars.

Like someone would ask me, "What's your OTP?" and I'd be like, "Well, I guess I like X/Y, but also Y/Z is good too..."

And they'd be like, "No. I mean your one TRUE pairing," and I'd just blink at them like, I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.

I'm sure they thought I was trying to stir shit or being deliberately annoying, but I just... couldn't wrap my head around it. Why did I need to pick one thing? There were multiple options with different things that made them appealing. That's like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet and just drinking water. Which is fine! If water is all you want, great. But you don't get to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and judge people for eating different foods...

And when I eventually found out multi-shipping was a thing, I was like, "oh neat, that's what I do!" and while there was a definite feeling of having found my people, it was weird having the moral judgment from other people who seemed to think multi-shipping was a symptom of a greater moral character flaw. Like my inability to settle on just one thing meant I was more likely to cheat irl.

This wasn't helped by the fact that I... kinda already didn't care about monogamy? Not the way my friends did. I didn't mind that my then-boyfriend liked Sarah, too. What I minded was that he went behind my back and kissed her when he'd told me I couldn't kiss anyone else.

It was the betrayal of the agreement that hurt. Because we'd agreed. He'd asked me to be exclusive with him, and I did. And then he... didn't. And my friends couldn't grasp that.

It was all, "How could he kiss someone else?!" and my chief complaint was, "Why didn't he tell me first?!"

Anyway, if I could go back in time, I'd tell teenage me, you're not weird and amoral, you're just queer, polyamorous, and have ADHD, lmao.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I've been doing some introspection to try to figure out why I have such an intensely strong emotional reaction when someone takes a post with a hopeful or positive message and reblogs it with negativity.

I've blocked a lot of tumblr users for calling an OP stupid for being optimistic or hopeful. You know, people who are just being mean and hateful because it's edgy or cool or whatever. I think that's a reasonable reaction and a way to keep toxicity out of my feed.

But I've also blocked folks who read a post about being kinder to oneself and they respond to that with, "That's okay for other people, but I'm not allowed." They don't usually use those exact words of course, but that's the message. And that message cuts me to my core every single time I read it. Blocking those people isn't about avoiding trolls. It's about protecting myself from being hurt.

Because that's the thing. It hurts to see that and feel helpless. To see someone being so cruel to themselves and know there's nothing I can do to show them they don't have to be.

I'll write a post about how oneshots are amazing, or I'll see one talking all about how doodle art is so expressive and charming etc. and I'll see in my notes or in the reblogs a lot of people agreeing and a lot of people appreciating someone sharing that point of view.

But I'll also see a lot of people who say things like, "Maybe so, but my writing still stucks." or "Sure, OTHER PEOPLE's doodles are cool but mine are dumb."

When I see that, I just want to tell them they're wrong. That the post applies to them too. That they're allowed to love themselves, and they don't have to wait until they're better or perfect to do it.

Except you can't just roll up into a stranger's ask box and say, "I don't know you and I've never read your writing or seen your art, and the only piece of you I've seen are one set of tags on one post on this entire website, but you're wrong."

I think part of the reason why it hurts so much to see that is the feeling of wanting to help and knowing that I can't. But I think another part of the hurt comes from recognizing that feeling and remembering what it was like to be stuck believing my own lies about myself.

I don't think those things anymore. Or if I do, it's pretty rare. But every time I see those comments the pain wells up inside of me and brings back that feeling of hopelessness I had once upon a time. The feeling of shame that went along with it. The guilt and the anger and the frustration and the desperate need for someone to tell me I was really okay.

I wish I could do that for all of you out there who need someone like that right now. I wish you'd believe me if I tried. But I guess, for now at least, I'll just wish that when you see those posts that you let yourself believe them. Let yourself apply them to you too. Just for a little while.

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[kariachi]

Random- So if you measured an acre in a perfect square it would be 208.7 feet on each side, cube that and you get 9,090,072.5 cubic feet. Which converts into 257,402.1 cubic meters. A dollar coin is about 3381.8 cubic millimeters. This makes for 295,700.5 dollar coins per cubic meter. You then times this by 257,402.1 to get 76,113,933,408.2 coins. Then by three gets you 228,341,800,225 coins.

So with his money vault supposedly containing three square acres of money, and that money seeming to be primarily in coins, we can assume Scrooge McDuck's cash wealth is at minimum two-hundred-twenty-eight billion, three-hundred-forty-one million, eight-hundred-thousand, two-hundred-twenty-five American dollars.

[an-idiotic-villager]

Soooo today I got the denial ending, and I only ever found Joel, Leigh and Dan as followers so I had them up on the roof with me and it made me feel feelings and imagine imaginings and now all everyone who sees this has to do the same

"CHAT IS THIS REAL??" (Just saw his best buddy get deconstructed)

The other side of the equation, Leigh is prolly pumped since Sam's gonna get a monster form

And once they get back inside... my baby... my poor baby boy. He loses literally so many people I just want him to be happy.

Dan has no clue how to deal with this... Have I mentioned how much I've grown to love Dan throughout this run?

[justabrowncoatedwench]

Dragon Age NPC Ages in DA: The Veilguard

This assumes that the 9 10 years between Dragon Age Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard refer to the Trespasser DLC (as in the last time Varric would have seen Solas; confirmed in Dev Q&A on 6/14/24). This places DAV in 9:54. Characters who showed up in a previous game will not be repeated in the lists for later games they also appeared in (i.e., Leliana is under DAO, not DAI).

Read more for length & spoiler reasons. The ages listed are assuming they have not had their birthday in 9:54 yet.

ETA1: I used the ages & evidence summarized by @dalishious in this post, superseding those ages with newer evidence where available or my own interpretation of textual evidence (when given a range I personally favor smack in the middle more often than not).

ETA2: Changed year/ages to reflect the Q&A information that Veilguard is 10 years post-Trespasser, not 9 as originally stated.

ETA3: It's officially set in 9:52, so just subtract 2 years from everyone.

Dragon Age: Origins - 9:30 - 24 years prior

Alistair Theirin - 43

Morrigan - 49

Leliana - 50

Zevran Arainai - 48

Oghren Kondrat - 66

Wynne - RIP (would've been 71)

Shale - Eternal

Sten (now Arishok) - 67

Loghain Mac Tir - 75

Anora Mac Tir - 50

Dragon Age: Awakening - 9:31 - 23 years prior

Nathaniel Howe - 53

Anders - 54

Sigrun - 48

Velanna - 48

Dragon Age 2 - 9:30-9:37 - 24-17 years prior

Hawke - 48

Carver/Bethany Hawke - 43

Fenris - ~54

Isabela - 54

Merrill - ~47

Sebastian Vael - 46

Aveline Vallen - ~59

Varric Tethras - 53

Dragon Age Inquisition - 9:41-9:44 - 13-10 years prior

Josephine Montilyet - 41

Cullen Rutherford - 42

Cassandra Pentaghast - 50

Solas - ~2000 (appears mid-40s)

Sera - 33

Vivienne de Fer - 57

Blackwall/Thom Rainier - 58

the Iron Bull - 50

Dorian Pavus - 42

Cole - Ageless (appears 20, or he may have aged into his 30s if he were made more human in DAI)

Kieran - 22

[sunlitlemonade]

what's better than making a suicidal idiot immortal

[ao3commentoftheday]

the stats spiral

That's what I call it when I start obsessing over the numbers I get on fics or posts. When I refresh AO3 every five or ten minutes to see if I've got more hits or kudos. When I keep my tumblr activity page open in a tab to see new notes as soon as they come in.

It's not fun. Not really. Even when I sometimes tell myself it is.

You see, it starts out exciting! I've put a thing out there and now I get to see the reactions to it! I'm like a kid on their birthday who can't wait to see their presents. What are people going to say? Will they like it? Will they talk to me about it?

I'm lucky enough that I do get notes on tumblr posts and I do get comments and kudos when I post on AO3. But depending on how excited I am about the thing that I made and depending on how uncertain I am of whether it's any good, I want to get a lot more attention than I end up getting.

I know that that's a normal feeling. I know it's even a rational one! I've put a lot of effort into making something, or I've made something that I think my community will like, and not hearing back like I'd hoped can sometimes feel like rejection. It can be a huge disappointment that makes me doubt myself, my abilities, my connection to my community.

That's why I say it's not fun. Because even though 'engagement' can give me a really high high, it can also give me a really low low.

When I finally realize I'm in one of those lows (and it sometimes takes me a while to realize that I am), that's when I know that I need to step away.

When it's really bad, I just stop posting until I'm in a better mental space. For me, I now recognize that those feelings are often coming from me wanting a connection of some kind. The need for attention is coming from a feeling of loneliness or isolation, and so I need to counteract that by reaching out to people I know and care about to have a chat or a meal or just some time spent doing something communal.

When I can catch it early, then I force myself to close the activity tab here on tumblr and hide whatever stats are making me spiral on AO3. I've learned to recognize that I'm looking to those metrics as a way to feel important or special or cared for in some way and that I need to figure out where I'm feeling insecure in my life and how to get some reassurance - because strangers on the internet won't be able to give me what I need.

If you're currently spiraling, first of all lemme give you a hug ❤️ I hope you can take some time and figure out what it is that you want those stats to tell you about yourself or what it is that you think those stats will give you that you're not getting from somewhere else.

And if you haven't heard it lately, I'm glad that you're in this world - no matter what kind of numbers you have on your posts.