#what is it with these second-in-commands

[lunar-system]

Last week I was at a cabin with friends and it became a joke there that i was unable to shut about Izzy Hands for any reasonable amount of time. They watch the show casually and were supportive of me even though they couldn't really understand how I was in so deep. Anyway, I'm half expecting to receive consolation flowers in mail this week.

[cabbagege]

It's always one of them

[artbymesa]

Playing Mass Effect for the first time in 2025 and This is basically what Shepard did, right

Am I missing something

[cj-kenobi]

otter-wan says it's time for BIG yawn and commander cuddles

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS x Firefly AU: A ragtag crew.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

A bit ago I was looking through the g1 timeline wiki and I saw that Skyfire and Starscream now had a 5 million year old age gap and I was like oh? That makes their dynamic so much more interesting especially how innocent he was portrayed in fire in the sky, I also wanted to share my hc on why Skyfire never brought up Starscream again

[oh-no-its-bird]

Contender for funniest moments in Naruto: when Danzo tells Kakashi to kill Sarutobi, and Kakashi LITERALLY FUCKING SNITCHES ON HIM DIRECTLY TO SARUTOBI, who it is to be noted is also LITERALLY NINJA PRESIDENT DICTATOR, and Sarutobi just kinda goes "damn that's wild. He's my childhood friend tho. So." and it's just kinda left at that.

What do you MEAN Danzo didn't even get a slap on the wrist what do you MEAN there are no real long lasting effects of BEING CAUGHT RED HANDED TRYING TO CONVINCE SOMEONE TO MURDER THE HOKAGE ?????????

Funniest shit ever, I don't understand how Kakashi didn't immediatley go "ok I hesitated on killing u out of loyalty and hope u could do better but ur kind of proving the point here that ur a shitty biased Hokage who's willing to forgive anything as long as it's Danzo who's doing it"

[biobe]

so the story goes that this body-swap fic by @otooga is actually the reason for my elite trine obsession! love love love the chaos vibes these three give at all times <3

if anyone has elite trine fic recs, i'd love to hear them!

[joetamy]

Whoever mentioned a post about going to war and meeting Maglor is like going to war and meeting Beyoncé, I love you lmao- Now consider, going to war and meeting Maedhros, which is basically like going to war and meeting the world's top super-model✨

[nickysowl]

commander renée minkowski my beloved :)

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[zkyfall]

I know Mel is supposed to always be composed and strong and beautiful but can you imagine if they let her ugly cry? If in her finale scene, after we see everyone elses happy or ambiguous endings, she's alone on the warship, hunched over herself, gasping for air between retched sobs.

Because she watched Elora die in front of her.

Because a horrific enemy kidnaps her from the sanctity of her own home.

Because she's imprisoned in solitary confinement for months, then thinks she finds her long lost brother only to lose that hope in the same breath.

Because after all else fails, she's forced to kill the only family she has left to protect the city she'd grown to love, in that very moment taking up the mantle of the family name she dreamed of making proud but not like this. Never like this.

And, worst of all, she's become a mage a wolf something she doesn't recognize. Something feared by the city she loves, feared -for a moment- even by the man she loved.

But he's gone too now, isn't he?

So she has to leave her home, again.

Alone.

Again.

[vorbarrsultana]

i finished rereading the first four vorkosigan books (+ "the flowers of vashnoi" because ekaterin!!!), and you really have to feel for piotr vorkosigan because what a nightmare life, truly.

imagine you are born just in time for your world to be unified by dorca vorbarra and rediscovered by people from wider galaxy. things are finally looking good, for the first time in 600 years of isolation there is no more feudal infighting, and the promise of galactic medicine and technologies being available lightens everyone's perspectives. sure, your grandpa is called count pierre "le sanguinaire", but who doesn't have terrible relatives?

then you are 15, and suddenly your planet is attacked by the aggressive eugenecist space empire hell-bent on subjugating your people and turning them into disposable material for unethical genetic experiments. you flee into the mountains, away from your family, and create guerrilla forces from locals sworn to your dad, and it's really terrible for a very long time. you have no high-tech weapons and no food, you sleep in a cave in the dead of winter, and the cetagandans try everything (from carpet bombing to chemical weapons) to murder you.

but hey, at least you now have your bff ezar vorbarra, and (from the bff's words on his deathbed) it sounds like you two had so much fun between unimaginable horrors and despair, and it's not surprising, since no one really believes in death after life at 20. then the emperor makes you a general at the tender age of 22. fortunately for him, you & bff make a frighteningly competent dream-team, and the joke's on cetagandans.

then, several years later, you ask the emperor for weapons, because you still sleep on the bare cave floor, there are little resources, and every ghem on the planet is trying to murder you. he offers you the hand of his granddaughter instead, like it's some sort of twisted fairytale, but you grow to love your olivia more than anything, and the tide of war is finally turning, and you allow yourself to entertain the idea of peaceful life, and then...

the space eugenecist empire nukes your hometown, killing your mom, dad, surviving brothers, and two hundred thousand of your people. plus your bff (ezar) gets a radiation doze large enough for it to cause severe cancer thirty years later. great.

but you win! your district is in shambles, your capital is an irradiated crater, your castle is in ruins, but you win! the old dorca dies, and yuri ascends the throne, but politicking is secondary to the fact that you are alive.

yes, you are probably not entirely sane, and you've long forgotten what the peaceful times look like, but you are alive, just under 35, and your entire life is ahead of you. olivia is alive too, and ezar, and you now have three wonderful children, and the extended vorpatril-vorbarra family that hosts regular get-togethers. sure, your mom-in-law is a betan with all sorts of crazy ideas in her head, but she is not pierre vorrutyer. small mercies.

but then the new emperor goes mad, and decides to murder your entire family overnight. your brothers-in-law are gone, one of your sisters-in-law too, and all your nephews and nieces except little padma. but all of this pales in comparison to the facts that olivia is murdered, and that your heir and daughter lay dead beside her.

all you have left of her, of your house, of the family you've lost in vashnoi not a ten years ago, is aral, whom you keep by your side throughout the bloody civil war to put your bff on the throne.

but you win again. you are 43, and ezar vorbarra is now the emperor. you are responsible for the imperium's entire ground forces. you are also responsible for a severely traumatized boy of 13, and the only children you've interacted with without olivia's genle guidance were little messengers of guerilla companies.

what a mess.

[blanceyblance]

Lance is such an interesting character to me in part because of how the narrative wants to portray him to the point it becomes contradictory.

His "arc" is supposed to be "cocky and immature teenager grows from his need for glory into a reliable team member"

And he does! He becomes Keith's right hand man, taking charge in battle, covering the team's backs and becoming an emotional support for other members when the time was needed.

But he is also a Comedic Relief™

Other characters have comedic relief moments too, like Hunk's love for food, Pidge's excitement about tech, Keith being socially awkward, etc.

And as aggravating as Hunk's fat jokes can be they don't contradict the fact that he is a brilliant engineer and became a brave paladin. Keith's social awkwardness doesn't contradict the fact that he became a capable leader.

But then you have Pidge and Hunk, making fun of Lance being "naturally dumb", and then a space deity calling him "the dumb one"one moment then following Lance's orders in battle and having him give emotional speeches to others the other.

The writers want us to take him seriously and see he is growing only to make fun of him when its needed for a laugh.

I feel the episode The Grudge is a good example of this:

Lance finds a way to find where they left their Lions.

Hunk and Allura seem impressed but Pidge dismisses it.

That would be the end of it until later when Veronica is talking with "Keith" (actually a hacker pretending to be him) and the says "Lance has it figured out", Veronica then in a sarcastic way says "Lance, the navigation genius".

Keith agrees and that's what clues them about something being wrong.

Is it a joke about Keith being openly nice to Lance? A joke about Lance's navigation skills?

Either way, the joke is at his expense, even when early in the episode we see him actually suggesting a way to correctly navigate.

In the end what I'm trying to say is, that the writers want to have their cake and eat it too. Showing Lance growing and being capable but also making fun of him and not really having that much respect for his character.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Beach episode pt 2

[shocked-collar]

ok but AU where Strade was never killed but he was somehow paralyzed from the legs down in the scuffle with MC. Ren still plays out as if he had died, taking control of the entire household now that Strade lacks the movement necessary to maintain it the way he did before, and he gets to actively watch his little man go from a small, frail little pup straight into Fox. Eventually Strade begins to lose himself, as even though Ren's hand will always be more merciful than his own was, it's still nothing short of agonizing. At first, Ren is still very immature, so he often finds himself locking Strade in literal closets when he needs to dish out discipline or remind him who's in control now, but it eventually gets easier to raise a hand or take a knife to him. He even gets him a wheelchair early on. Not that he ever helps him down the stairs, but still.

Let it be known, Strade losing mobility in his legs is not a punishment. It's not a punishment, it's not karma, it's just a what-if. If Strade were to rely on Ren, could he trust him?

For the first two days perhaps.

But now he's a 70~ year old, weak, practically malnourished man with overgrown, ratty hair, reminiscing on how loud and powerful he used to be, nestling into the hip that's been given to him for comfort, feeling a sharp hand scratch his scalp as they look out the window together. Together, as they have always been, through everything. Just like this. Even way back at the bar, Strade unknowingly adopting his solace, his caretaker, his downfall, now knowing almost nothing but him, a day he fantasizes about jumping back to sometimes.

"You smell awful." The fox comments, continuing to pet and cuddle his paperweight. "Didn't I bathe you recently? Are you not using all those spray-on deodorants I've gotten you at the very least?"

He receives no response. Strade finds it easier that way. In a world of Fox having it his way, this is the one thing he can control.

The older man felt a cold wave as the fox removed his claws. "You really need to take better care of yourself. Look at you.. Skin and bones, rolling around my home smelling like shit... Though I should expect this much decency from you by now." He began to trail away, finding a seat of his own and plopping down, taking a cup from the small table beside it. "Were always a... pampered little thing, weren't you? Every beck and call, ha~!"

Strade wanted to disappear. Wanted to sink so far into his worn chair it would swallow him whole. Wanted to vanish into thin air, wanted to die right here. Ren is entering one of his fits again. Where he just goes on and on and on about their earlier dynamic, and how much of a fucking idiot he is to have gotten himself hurt. It's exhausting for a man whose first love is his ego.

There wasn’t very much that scared Strade. But the first time he came to the realization that Ren looks at him the same way he looks at his ‘products’ was definitely a moment that dragged his stomach to his feet. In an AU where Fox never had to handle the loss, the devastation, the hole left in his heart and the need to fill it, he found that Strade is now… kind of a tumor. Something he got used to. Something Ren, as Fox, is not able to appreciate, like a Fox who suffered Strade’s absence when he wasn’t ready would.

Not anymore.

They both died a long time ago.