#we all know he would let him go
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gabihime-jegulusseeker · 2 years ago
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jegulus incorrect quote: James is captured by the death eaters during the war
Regulus: I should kill you or turn you over to the dark lord right now.
James: You wouldn’t! Would you?
Regulus: Give me one reason why I shouldn’t. Give me just one reason why I should let you go
James: Because… I’m cute?
Regulus:....
Barty: oh my god you are considering it!
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demaparbat-hp · 8 months ago
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He truly did.
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egophiliac · 3 months ago
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I loved your drawing(and I love your style in general) with Leia in your recent post! If/when you have time can we see more of her in your style? I get so happy whenever I actually see people mention/talk about her and she’s not just forgotten because we didn’t get to see much of her. 😭
thank you! 💙💙💙 Leia/Leah/Lea/whatever is fascinating to me. she is the ultimate unknown. what was she like? how involved (or even aware of any details of the invasion) was she? Silver's basically a physical carbon copy of his biodad, so what did he get from her? like, I understand why the two of them kind of have to stay as these super vague and mysterious figures -- the whole point of them is that their story ended 400+ years ago and they're not really relevant anymore (and. well. the more that gets explained about them, the less that can just kinda be handwaved as "oh the politics were Very Messy") (we can sit here and theorize all day but let us acknowledge that, ultimately, canon gave us almost nothing about them post-Meleanor and we'd just be making things up). I do still wonder about her though! RIP Lea, we never knew you and we probably never will.
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actually you know what, as long as we're here, I think I WILL go ahead and just make some stuff up about what Silver might've inherited from her instead.
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#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#twisted wonderland episode 7 spoilers#twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers#twisted wonderland episode 7 part 13 spoilers#twisted wonderland book 7 part 13 spoilers#there may be answers somewhere that i just forgot about so uhhh if so#whoops ( ᐛ )#having one of those art days where chances are good i'm just gonna wake up and throw this post out the window so be warned#but yeah idk. i've talked before about the parallels between silver and dawnatello and how i see him as basically bad end silver#he chose the easy option that let him stay loyal and fulfill the obligation he felt to his adoptive family#he knew it wasn't right and that he was being manipulated but he went along with it anyway until it was too late#i think he ultimately had a good heart but my man folded under the slightest bit of social pressure like a wet mcmuffin#so while i'm continuing to make things up out of whole cloth i wanna say that by contrast#lea never had a chance to do shit but if she had i like to think she would've had a spine like galvanized steel#like just personally i don't think she knew much about what the silver owls were actually doing#seriously does henrik seem like the kind of person who would tell her shit about anything#i think he basically took advantage of their dad's failing health to go off and be a warmonger#and if he thought about lea at all it was to be like :) you stay here and do boring domestic princess stuff#while i tell your husband to Do It For Her#i mean this is 100% me writing baseless fanfic here#i just think it'd be fun if the part of silver that was IMMEDIATELY like 'actually no. we aren't doing this.' might've come from her#she just never got a chance to show it#(it didn't seem to come from the knight is all i'm saying)#lilia might've given silver a billion complexes but at least he raised him to do the right thing#man someone left a reply or reblog on an older post and i cannot find it so i apologize for the lack of credit BUT they pointed out#that one of the big differences between silver and the knight is that the knight's family did not really seem to like him very much and lik#yeah i think so. lea might've been the exception there for him.#rip ma'am we'll never know if you deserved better or not
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thebrainrotsreal · 8 months ago
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Drew this real quick because I fucking love these two so much ???? Especially Bee. I wish they interacted more so badly. PLEASE.
Also learning how to draw these guys.. slowly.
#IT WILL NEVER NOT BE FUNNY TO ME HOW DELIGHTED B GOT ??? FOR VIOLENCE?#the brainrotsreal's art tag ✧˖°:*♡#like okay you have d17/megatron okay#d17 got consumed by vengeance. iconic of him. you SEE him grow more ruthless/ violent........AND THEN YOU HAVE B 127#he got knife hands for 0.00937 seconds and immediately KILLED PEOPLE SO EASILY IM SCREAMING SDJKJSDS#did by accident and then did it gleefully. AND SO WELL TOO LIKE ???? bro got that hunger for violence ig. got that delight.#i wish we got to see d17 and b127 interact more cause imagine b got his knife hands early and d17 was like.... alright start stabbing#and b127 is LONELY. mf is deprived of interaction and CLEARLY clingy. i see him telling d17 to stand down so he isn't hurt.#not necessarily because he has the SAME morals as orion/optimus#like look me in my eye. tell me if d17 didn't say something like “needing an ally not a leader” (friendship bait)#AND UR TELLING ME BEE WOULDN'T FOLD AND HELP HIM? HM? HMMMMMMMM?#like i feel like b's morals are mostly match whoever he's around. if he was around d-17 more? WELP? let's assassinate together bestie!#anyways optimus and elita gotta watch b fr cause mf is already an incredible ally on the battle field SDKJKDSS#like just tell him where to go and that place would DESTROYED. NO WITNESSEES LEFT. LIKE HELLO#transformers one my beloved#d 16#megatron#tf one#tf one megatron#tf one b 127#b 127#transformers one fanart#never know how many actual tags to use istg.#imagine being isolated for years and all that shit went down like what is going on in b's brain rn. mf got 3 friends and then lost one#SO QUICKLY
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bottombaron · 2 years ago
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The scarest thing about Nandor being actually smart in all things Guillermo is that this is the reason why he'll never make the move to be with him:
Nandor already knows how he feels about Guillermo.
He's not even repressing it. He's just made peace with it. Because Guillermo was never an option.
Guillermo is human. He'll choose to stay human. He's fleeting. He'll always leave in some form or fashion. Nandor doesn’t choose to act on his feelings for Guillermo for the same reason why he never turned him. It would just be a curse.
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 7 months ago
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Bonus 12: Beware the Grapes of Wrath.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#wen qing#wen ning#WWX's main weapon as the Yiling patriarch is considered to be 'Wen Ning' - which makes sense as far as the whole necromancer thing goes.#However...That *is* Wen Qing's beloved baby brother!#In her perspective WWX skipped town for a few days (or so) and took WN with him#only for them both to show up bloodied and in a state of disarray.#There's no way he told her he was going out to duel Jiang Cheng. For several reasons.#He doesn't want to involve her in his messes anymore than he already has.#It's less that she would try and stop him and more so that he honestly wouldn't even think to say something about it to her.#WQ and him aren't partners in this situation. He actually openly disregards her opinions several times.#Wei Wuxian's emotional distance from everyone around him is a big part of this arc.#Like all good tragedies...his biggest flaw is his hubris. He doesn't *need* anyone when he's so capable on his own.#He doesn't need to ask permission when obviously this is the only way forwards.#He has to do it all on his own! No one else needs to be involved!#And if you've been in the position of realizing you have a problem of toxic self-reliance - you know how harmful this mindset is.#It's why it's so satisfying to see WWX in his 'new' life start to let other's share his burdens.#I will die on the hill of 'love means carrying each other's weight. All a burden means is that I can give you support and you support me.'#YLLZ is less 'competent and sexy' and more 'depressed and can't see it'.#Another lovely nod to the main theme here is how he starts leaning more and more into the rumours about him.#Though we are also still confronted with how these rumours fail to actually live up to reality.#Rumour has it the Yiling Patriarch is undefeatable. What a shame if that rumour turned out to be untrue!
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a-most-beloved-fool · 6 months ago
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spirk using telepathy to keep each other alive. kirk, desperate, psy-null and untrained, reaching clumsily into spock's dying mind and pulling, dragging spock's essence into himself, wrenching him forceably from the very jaws of death and holding him there through sheer strength of will, saying you can't die, i won't let you, you can't leave me, i need you, and binding him to life and to himself until it's impossible to fully separate them. spock, more skilled, carefully managing each one of kirk's vital signs - keeping his heart beating steady, his lungs drawing breath, his temperature within a safe range, all while suppressing kirk's pain, and at the same trying, vainly, to keep their minds from tying themselves inexorably together, but they're pressed too close and he can't, and he hopes that kirk will forgive him, for bonding them like this (he will, of course he will), but the alternative, letting kirk die, was - unthinkable.
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theloveinc · 12 days ago
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Jason Todd who always notices when (in your attempt to care for him) you serve him the better cuts of meat or the more beautifully plated meals, where the sauce hasn't spilled over into the greens and the scoop of the rice hasn't browned on the bottom...
And Jason Todd, the fucking bastard, who always makes you trade plates with him.
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blue-mood-blue · 6 days ago
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Of all the missed opportunities with Gongyi Xiao (of which there are many, why would you do that to my boy), I think the one I pine over most is that open and available invitation to Qing Jing Peak.
Because, if timed right, the possibilities are fucking hilarious.
You’re Gongyi Xiao. Your pride has taken a little bit of a hit after the Immortal Alliance Conference both because everyone expected you to place first (and you didn’t) and your teacher got so distracted by the one who did place first that you’ve felt a little… neglected. But you’re a nice person, and the conference ended with the deaths of so many of your shidi and shimei that you let the petty concerns roll off your back.
Except then the guy who pulled the upset at the conference shows up at your sect and pulls an upset on every other aspect of your life. The girl you like and who you thought liked you has heart eyes for him only, your teacher is definitely putting you on the backburner to the point of handing this guy most of your responsibilities (and he’s killing it, he’s doing amazing, it’s the conference all over again), and everyone else in the sect seems to prefer him to you. No one’s cruel about it, and they’re still listening to you - mostly. Most of the time. But you have the sinking suspicion that if it came to an actual disagreement between the two of you, you know who’d end up on top. Plus he looks just like you, except hotter. Maybe that’s not the kind of thing a guy like Gongyi Xiao outright perceives but there’s a vibe. The vibe of inadequacy.
(And because you’re Gongyi Xiao and a good person, you don’t have the kind of suspicion in your heart to start looking for ulterior motives or conniving plots - but even if you did, what would you find? The guy who is looking more and more like your replacement came to the sect injured. He looks sadly and deeply into the distance every time his original sect or shizun are mentioned. He’s polite. He’s talented. What are you supposed to say, that he survived unexpected disaster at the conference only to hatch some sort of hostile takeover plot in the meantime? Who would believe that.)
So, maybe it’s time to step back. Clear your head. Shake off the ridiculous and unfair jealousy, and give both yourself and Luo Binghe some space. What better time to take Shen Qingqiu up on his offer to visit Qing Jing? You can’t stop what’s happening regardless, so maybe it would be better not to be there while someone else swoops in and steals your whole life. (And maybe, tucked away deep in a not-so-good-of-a-person-after-all corner of your heart, there’s the possibility of slipping a few hints to Shen Qingqiu that his disciple is alive and well at another sect. Purely because Shen Qingqiu deserves not to mourn for someone still alive, and not at all for the sliver of hope that he’ll take the disciple he misses so much back so you can go back to the way things used to be.)
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone else and especially not Gongyi Xiao, Luo Binghe is losing his mind. He had a plan. He was establishing himself. He was moving slowly and carefully so as not to startle Shizun, and this guy gets an invitation? Just, welcomed right in, specially, by Luo Binghe’s teacher? What did he do to deserve that? Is Shen Qingqiu going to poach Gongyi Xiao? As his replacement? So he can have a squeaky clean, good, human disciple like he wanted? Luo Binghe is better than him. He proved it at the conference. He proved it before the conference. He’ll prove it again if he has to. (He’s more attractive than Gongyi Xiao, too, and Shizun can hardly fail to notice if they’re side by side in front of him, so there.)
The Old Palace Master is using every trick in his arsenal to keep Luo Binghe from following right behind Gongyi Xiao while cursing Shen Qingqiu under his breath and frantically moving plans around to push up the date for the peak lord’s fall from grace, Luo Binghe is packing his bags furiously and tearing his own plans to shreds in the wake of his determination to prove himself absolutely irreplaceable, and Gongyi Xiao is enjoying a nice cup of tea and personal tutoring from Shen Qingqiu while making increasingly pointed comments about how sometimes missing-and-presumed-dead disciples just… pop up somewhere, at random, a few years after the fact.
Shen Qingqiu is blissfully (miserably) unaware of the chaos about to descend upon his peak.
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lightgamble · 2 months ago
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DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN | 1.09
You asked me for a favor. I did it.
#Daredevil Born Again#ddba spoilers#Frank Castle#Karen Page#Kastle#Daredeviledit#Daredevil Spoilers#Not Revolution#GIF set#Mine#He blinked first.#(I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? Let them kiss.)#Credit where credit is due - I don't always agree with the creative choices or the writing but the actors all clearly love their characters#and put alot of time and energy into portraying them with a more realism (and sincerity) then you'd expect for a superhero show#And Deborah and Jon go above and beyond for Karen and Frank.#I did not mean to love either of them and I did not know either of these characters before Daredevil was on Netflix but they made me fall#in love with them as individuals AND as a pairing. That whole tortured we can't be happy in this life sh*t is always going to f**k me up.#She challenges him & he meets her beat for beat. He's attentive. Sweet. A little awkward. He's head over heels for this woman who's always#5 minutes from running into danger with little to no hesitance or self preservation. Which is ironic because he doesn't give a sh*t about#his own survival and is merely existing as a form of spiteful vengeance at this point. Hoping to take out as many people as he can on his#way out. And what strikes me about this scene is his need to keep his hands busy. The way he looks up and then away again before deciding#not to let her have the last word. Because letting her walk out - thinking he doesn't care about anyone - would be a mistake.#He never knows the last time he's going to see her. Not the way he lives his life. So it matters. SHE matters.#And she needs to know it.#(But seriously would it kill the writers to just let them makeout once? It's beyond teasing at this point. It's reached bullying.)
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starrynightarchive · 4 months ago
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i think it's fucked up and foul that during situations he feels trapped or unsafe, oikawa doesn't have a fight or flight or freeze reflex. to be specific, he does have a fight reflex, but it doesn't involve fighting by himself. if he thinks he's unsafe or trapped or in danger, he turns to iwaizumi.
during the last set of the second seijoh v karasuno official match, you can see oikawa beginning to crack when karasuno bridges the gap and makes the score 16-16. his next toss goes to iwaizumi, because he knows his iwa-chan will be there. he knows his palm will connect with the ball. when he loses his footing, he reaches out his hand, blindly trusting iwaizumi will pick him up. and he does. everytime, he does.
kageyama mentions once that iwaizumi and oikawa are always in sync, both by body and mind. and it's true because even when they're on the court, they're not the ace and the setter. they are iwaizumi and oikawa. iwa-chan and shittykawa. oikawa knows iwaizumi's favorite beetle and the flex of his wrist when he spikes. iwaizumi knows oikawa's real smile from his fake one and he knows the number of milk bread packets he eats per week (too many) and that's just the thing, isn't it? even in court, they're not just players. this is a dance that only they know the steps to, a kingdom that has always been theirs to rule. how beautiful it is, to know the sound of his footfalls without looking, to know the exact place he's going to set to in a court of 6 players without hesitation, with full certainty.
during the final point, oikawa sets the ball to iwaizumi. he could've chosen the person closest to him. he could've crafted his toss so masterfully that no one can see whats coming. but he chose to get it to iwaizumi at the other end of the court. it doesn't matter if his set isn't perfect or clean. it doesn't matter, because it's set to iwaizumi and that's enough. he knows he will take care if the rest.
and the thing is, the thing is, right, i firmly believe that in that moment if he chose to set to someone else, it wouldn't have been as beautiful and perfect as it was when he set to iwaizumi. there's something about knowing someone like the back of your hand and being aware of the beat of their heart more than your own that brings that kind of perfection. when oikawa reaches out, iwaizumi always reaches back. he knows iwaizumi will do everything he can to spike the ball.
and just like that he is 7 again with a scratched knee crying for iwa-chan to carry him even when he's not by his side. but he screams for him because he knows with absolute certainty that he will come. he will help. he is not alone.
the final set of his official high school career goes to iwaizumi, loud and proud. he points to him before he sets. he tells the court to watch. watch me. because he is certain that when it's him and iwaizumi, they're invincible. he wants the world to know of his worthless pride. he wants the world to know who he is proud of.
and just like that he is 7 again, screaming "iwa-chan!" in hopes his best friend will find him.
and he does. he does.
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ganondoodle · 21 days ago
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okay now, im a little pissed off- i wont be reblogging the post bc its and old shitpost and i dont want to attract more notes on it but
i am so fucking, and i mean FUCKING, tired of all the shit ass excuses some people try to make to defend ganondorf being a nothing burger character
this dumb ass comment really goes all in too, and here i painfully see how much damage skyward sword has done to him bc people cant fuking think i guess "as of skysw he doesnt have an true motivation of his own- hes evil just bc he is there nothing else to it" shut the fuck up man oh my god, you dont think thats a problem? you just accept that? no no OOT also already showed hes nothing but evil tm uwu he doesnt have a reason - AND THATS A PROBLEM YOU ABSOLUTE BUFFOON
if you think that giving ganondorf a miniscule amount of ANY sort of sensical reason to do what he does, a backstory, fucking anything 'changes him into a different character'- HOW in the FUCK do you not see the problem here
and my favorite (refernceing a different character) "If hes evil, like ganondorf, which means an absolute evil, then his backstory wouldn't matter a lick" HELLO??? HELL FUCKING O???? "absolute evil" do you know how you sound like??? also EVERYTHING MATTERS oh my god, but no no of course it wouldnt matter and make no difference if you knew more about a character, no, actually, knowing less of a character is better even! why even write anything tbh? you just give them a label of good or evil and then you dont need anythign else heehoo i cannot believe this shit is now hanging on one of my posts, im struggeling to even dismantle it bc its just so goddamn stupid what do you mean it woudnt matter???????? if i knew ganondorf had a personality (especially totk bc its the worst case), if i knew he had loved ones once upon a time, he laughed and was allowed to feel like a person, whatever made him go down a bad path to end up making you defeat him would mAKE IT ALL HAVE MORE OF AN IMPACT (this is assuming that whatever path it is leads him to oppose you but also .. it doesnt have to mean hes evil or done all bad deeds, guess what, you the player could also be playing the real "villain", wouldnt that be a change of pace .. or it wouldnt, depending on how you look at it (oh NO shift of perspective???) it already is, even if i personally prefer it ALL being a spectrum and not just a label of good and bad and just rolling with this badly definable bunch of words)
do you know why i didnt give a flying fuck about the final battle in totk?? bc its all fucking NOTHING, ganondorf is a goal post with a face that got "BAD GUY" written on it in big red letters stapled on it and nothign more, you cant care about nothing and the point of any story at all is to fucking CARE
honestly a reason why i hate both "redeemable" and the good and evil descriptor is that its so ... limiting, redeemable, what does that even mean really?? it just sounds like you are applying some weirdo christian sins to make up for with good deeds shit onto characters that are, or should be, meant to make you feel something and be a pinnacle of jesus instead, like a checkbox, a scoreboard, and now its being mainly used as a negative word to dismiss legitimate criticism of boring or shitty writing bc giving any character any depth at all now automatically means you want to redeem them and thus absolve them of their sins or some shit, make them uwu perfect little good guys which is not the point (even if there are people like that, sicne guess what, theres lots of different ideas of things all around, inlcuding this hellhole- and yes there are shitty ways to give a character depth! the problem then isnt the motivation to give them depth, its the WRITING of it)
the whole good and evil thing also is just so darn limiting, what does evil even mean, who defines it matters alot, what does good mean, the definition is also really really bendable- link kills more living things than ganondorf ever has yet he isnt evil (bc hes on the side of hyrule, the designated good gouys uwu which means anythign they do is okay), the royal family having a torture dungeon and persecuting the shiekah into submission doesnt make them evil uwu but the gerudo have to suffer for the "crime" of having birthed ganondorf at some point for all eternity i guess
(as well as the very very obviously stupid turns and things ganondorf does and doesnt do literally just bc they needed him to do soemthign you could call bad even if it makes no sense at all, why would he attack his own fucking people out of nowhere, why destroy everything, literally what for, why give himself up if he wants to rule its jsut as stupidly nonsensical as the dumb magic pebbles that just gives random powers out just to force the outcome they wanted to happen)
redeemable, saveable, whatever, giving a character depth doesnt have to mean you want them to join the good tm guys either and im so fucking tired of this way of thinking, EVEN considering that hey ... it would be cool actually to have a ganondorf as the main guy, but we all should know that would only happen if he is a servant of hyrule, which i would consider to be more out of character than ... GIVIING HIM ANY SORT OF DEPTH??? to sympthaize, be conflicted or see the guy you need to defeat has a point is like, not a bad thing?? you can make someone be the most sympathetic guy of all time and still make you fight him ??? and i will repeat again, ganondorf being a nothing burger (espeically in totk) hurts EVERYTHING, everything suffers from shitty writing and lack of writing, the thing that link and zelda are almost just as flat istn .. isnt good either?? its also bad but hes got it way worse (and the racism oh bOI)!!! (there is a reason why ww ganondorf is widely seen as the best one and itse literally bc he says ONE or two lines that may make you think omg .. he is person.... he might FEEL OoO- man the bar really is below the ground isnt it)
and they dont even care to try to make him actually be dislikable, he doesnt tease zelda with killing her father or soemthing, he doesnt have any sort of connection to any of them, every line he says (in totk) is like a prepackaged microwave villain line, you could apply it to anyone, even rauru and it wouldnt seem out of place tbh (which is BAD), more depth would have connected him to the story, the world the literal everything which means people care which means a better story i dont know how to explain to you that you should be able to care about characters??????? he gets the stamp of "evil guy" on his head and they expect you to be happy with that, accept any stupid thing they make him do and others say about him without question? do you NOT feel at least a little insulted???
and like, this is still written, this is a piece of fiction, they had to sit down and write all that, or .. well, NOT write it, they decided to do it like this, despite the ocean of potential in front of them, you could do so many itneresting thigns with this world and they jsut dont and then theres people like this that are so entrechned into this boring ass writing they think that its the point, liek the point is its bad hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
"but hes not meant to be a person he jsut ev-" SHUT the hell up, nevermind the whole curse thing is an englsih trnaslation thing and also perhaps not meant to be taken literally, you think that makes it ok? that well there was a demon once (who also doesnt get any sort of depth btw!!! problem shoved one place over but still the same problem!) so that means hes not actually a person but idk a demon puppet or soemthing- doesnt change anything imo, are you not bored? are you not tired? are you happy with not thinking? not being engaged with at all? to see chaarcters to utterly flavorless you fall asleep and choke on them? i am not, i love thinking, im addicted to it even, i think every day even, right now too, they got a convenient excuse to put not even the barest fucking minimum of writing care into a character and you are jsut going with it!! where are your tastebuds buddy??
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azaracyy · 11 days ago
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rokushi week 2025 day 2: homework
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ef-1 · 8 months ago
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If I think about the double standard and the disparity with which the media handled Daniel in comparison to everyone else I may lose my mind.
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spacetimeaccordionfolder · 3 months ago
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"The soul is subject to the mind and my mind is my strongest weapon" and yeah we knew that the soul could be shaped by the mind slowly already thanks to exposition in arc 1 chapter 8 and that seemed feasible - makes sense that the mind can shape the soul- but then today's page! Erin reshaped his soul! And yeah we knew that from arc 2 chapter 2 but! Not just malformed, unusually high capacity soul channels that needed some shaping and sealing so he didn't have headaches always but like. He opened his own soul. He moved the channels. WHAT?? okay yeah I can see why he's "my mind can do anything I can handle all this" guy his mind literally reshaped his soul. "No one has mapped the Storm of Magic because I haven't tried yet" guy made his own miniature maelstorm as a teen no wonder he was so confident he could navigate the Storm.
I'm having a low ache everywhere, high pain in a few areas, pain day and Erin is feeling even more relatable than usual. He can feel his channels opening, so he'll be able to properly channel and not have chronic headaches or however his malformed soul links affected him- he's been there for months and is so close. So close to a solution and is told to wait. Of course he immediately overstretches his abilities and injures himself again. His smile in panel 7 feels like that of someone finally able to do something they haven't done in a long time, he's marveling in what he can do, of pushing through whatever pain or difficulty is there and being- and then there's the consequences of that.
I just. He.
okay I don't have a good ending to this post Erin's just neat
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carpe-mamilia · 2 years ago
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Ghosts’ Larry Rickard Explains Why They Chose the Captain’s First Name
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Photo: Monumental,Guido Mandozzi
It couldn’t be a joke. That was one rule laid down by the Ghosts creators when it came to choosing a first name for Willbond’s character. Until series five, the WWII ghost had been known only as The Captain – a mystery seized upon by fans of the show.
“It was the question we got asked more than anything. His name,” actor and writer Larry Rickard tells Den of Geek. “Once we got to series three, you could see that we were deliberately cutting away and deliberately avoiding it. We were fuelling the fire because we knew at some point we’d tell them.”
In “Carpe Diem”, the episode written by Rickard and Ben Willbond that finally reveals The Captain’s death story, they did tell us. After years of guessing, clue-spotting and debate, Ghosts revealed that The Captain’s first name is James. At the same time, we also learned that James’ colleague Lieutenant Havers’ first name was Anthony.
The ordinariness of those two names, says Rickard, is the point.
“The only thing we were really clear about is that we didn’t want one of those names that only exists in tellyland. It shouldn’t be ‘Cormoran’ or ‘Endeavour’. They should just be some men’s names and they’re important to them. The point was that they were everyday.”
Choosing first names for The Captain and Havers was a long process not unlike naming a baby, Rickard agrees. “It almost comes down to looking at the faces of the characters and saying, what’s right?”
“We talked for ages. For a long time I kept thinking ‘Duncan and James’, and then I was like ah no! That would have turned it into a gag and been awful!” Inescapably in the minds of a certain generation, Duncan James is a member of noughties boyband Blue. “Maybe with Anthony I was thinking of Anthony Costa!” Rickard says in mock horror, referencing another member of the band.
Lieutenant Havers wasn’t just The Captain’s second in command while stationed at Button House; he was also the man James loved. Because homosexuality was criminalised in England during James’ lifetime, he was forced to hide his feelings for Anthony from society, and to some extent even from himself.
In “Carpe Diem”, the ghosts (mistakenly) prepare for the last day of their afterlives, prompting The Captain to finally tell his story. Though not explicit about his sexual identity, the others understand and accept what he tells them – and led by Lady Button, all agree that he’s a brave man.
Getting the balance right of what The Captain does and doesn’t say was key to the episode. “It wasn’t just a personal choice of his to go ‘I’m going to remain in the closet’,” explains Rickard. “There wasn’t an option there to explore the things that either of them felt. That couldn’t be done back then – there are so many stories which have come out since the War about the dangers of doing that.
“We wanted to tell his personal story but also try to ensure that there was a level at which you understood why they couldn’t be open, that even in this moment where he’s finally telling the other ghosts his story, he never comes out and says it overtly because that would be too much for him as a character from that time.
“He says enough for them to know, and enough for him to feel unburdened but it’s in the fact that they’re using their first names which militarily they would never have done, and in the literal passing of the baton”.
The baton is a bonus reveal when fans learned that The Captain’s military stick wasn’t a memento of his career, but of Havers. As James suffers a fatal heart attack during a VE day celebration at Button House, Anthony rushes to his side and the stick passes from one to the other as they share a moment of tragic understanding.
“From really early on, we had the idea that anything you’re holding [when you die] stays with you. So it wasn’t just your clothes you were wearing, we had the stuff with Thomas’ letter reappearing in his pocket and so on. And the assumption being that it was something The Captain couldn’t put down, it felt so nice to be able to say it was something he didn’t want to put down.”
Rickard lists “Carpe Diem”, co-written with Ben Willbond, among his series five highlights. He’s pleased with the end result, praises Willbond’s performance, and loved being on set to see Button House dressed for the 1940s. He’s particularly pleased that a checklist of moments they wanted to land with the audience all managed to be included. “Normally something’s fallen by the wayside just because of the way TV’s made, it’s always imperfect or it’s slightly rushed, but it feels like it’s all there.”
Rickard and Willbond also knew by this point in the show’s lifetime, that they could trust Ghosts fans to pick up on small details. “Nothing is missed,” he says. “Early on, you’re always thinking, is that going to get across? But once we got to series five, there are little tiny things within corners of shots and you know that’s going to be spotted. Particularly in that very short exchange between Havers and the Captain. We worried less about the minutiae of it because you go, that’s going to be rewound and rewatched, nothing will be missed.”
The team were also grateful they’d resisted the temptation to tell The Captain’s story sooner. “We’d talked about it every series since series two, whether or not now was the time, but because he’s such a hard and starchy character in a lot of ways you needed the time to understand his softer side I think before you had that final honest beat from him.”
“What a ridiculously normal name to have so much weight put on it for five years,” laughs Rickard fondly. “Good old James.”
From Den of Geek
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