#“what's his greatest fear?”

[namig42]

This is the kind of aesthetic that I feel like Astarion would think looks super cool even though it's giving "angsty middle school boy who thinks guns are just soooo cool"

[haunted-xander]

So. Fatebreaker, right? Ryne's biggest fears made manifest, daddy issues personified, yes?

He's an amalgamation of Thancred and Ran'jit, his face, his voice and his weapon is Thancred's, but his body, his fighting style and his words are Ran'jit's.

Throughout the fight Fatebreaker constantly makes comments about how only he can protect Ryne, only he can provide for her, only he has even the right to so much as stand beside her, to be in her general presence. He's possessive and obsessive, repeatedly asserting that she is HIS and his only. Which is exactly what Ran'jit says basically every time we encounter him.

But this time it's in Thancred's voice. This time it's with the voice and face of a man she actually cares about.

Ryne isn't scared of Thancred, she never has been. Even when she first met him she was barely even nervous (as clearly shown in Thancred's short story). There's a lot of different feelings happening between those two, but fear has never been one of them.

But now, after things have gotten so much better, she is scared of Thancred becoming like Ran'jit. Because if Thancred was just a little further gone, if he was just a little less compassionate, he would've. It wouldn't be hard for him to go down the same path as Ran'jit did, to be incapable of letting go of the ghost of that girl he loved so so much to the point he'd stubbornly grip anything close to her he could. He didn't, but the fact he could've is terrifying.

It makes his final words, words that are Thancred's, so very important. This is her deepest fears made manifest, but he still says he wants her to be happy. Her happiness not only matters, but is important to him.

[blowingoffsteam2]

“What are you so afraid of?”

“Sora, let’s take the raft and go! Just the two of us!”

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

We as a fandom don’t talk enough about how Game of Thrones decided to combine Jon Snow and Young Griff into one character and how that was absolutely ridiculous on like 1000 different levels. Because how do you combine two characters who are FOILS to one another and then play it completely straight?! Then to make matters worse they gave Jon the boy’s stupid name?! Goddamnit I knew they didn’t get Jon as a character pretty early on, but why mesh his arc with the one guy you shouldn’t combine with? 😭

[vaguely-concerned]

sophia seeing cailan's body hanging there when they go back to ostagar, and suddenly all she can see even through the rot and the ruin is just how much he looked like alistair...... :'(

a mental image that totally will not haunt her through alistair's many years on the throne as rebellions and assassination attemps come and go. doesn't send her unhinged and unwise even a little

[cushfuddled]

I've been rewatching Voltron

[ryley-robinson]

Ryley starts doodling specifically to draw the Sea Emperor, because he's afraid of forgetting what she looks like.

[the-mighty-het-speaks]

august 3rd, 1963, downey, california, usa

[magpie-trove]

There’s this trend toward kind of villainizing self sacrifice going on and it’s honestly kinda baffling

[lloydfrontera]

had a thought. if lloyd were to ever be infected with a poison/curse that makes him think of everyone as a threat and/or something happened to him that made him lost a limb and became increasingly paranoid to the point he'll resort to irrational solutions (basically if he got alicia's fate instead), would javier stay loyal to him and still follow his orders despite it all? :<

because imagine if things got too extreme and javier would have to be the one to kill him (⁠˘⁠･⁠_⁠･⁠˘⁠)

mmhhh i gotta say i don't particularly like that change of the webtoon. alicia's not paranoid because she's under a curse. she's paranoid because she went through a traumatic experience, is under a lot of stress and her mind is just prone to turn towards paranoia. which is much more fun imo!

but! let's focus on the second scenario for the sake of fun mental exercises.

would javier stay loyal to lloyd if he started becoming paranoid and irrational? mmhh,,, i think it would depend on who lloyd becomes paranoid against.

if lloyd turned paranoid against absolutely everyone, including his own family, then no, i don't see javier staying loyal to him no matter what.

see the thing about javier is that his loyalty is not mindless or just dutiful. he's not loyal for the sake of being loyal. he only gives his loyalty to the people he genuinely thinks deserve it. he's not sir blanc, who was loyal to the queen til his very death and only in his dying moments allowed himself to ask tkobai javier to stop her. javier is constantly thinking about whether the things he's doing are good and he protests and speaks out when he thinks something is wrong.

he's loyal to arcos because arcos has proven to be good and kind. and he's loyal to lloyd because lloyd has proven to be good and kind (in his own way) too.

if they weren't, then i don't see javier being all that loyal to them in the first place

(that's not to say that javier isn't flexible with his morals if it comes down to doing things for the people he's loyal to tho! a big step in his relationship with lloyd, is him being willing to compromise in things he thinks aren't in complete alignment with his own moral code, because he either 1) comes to understand where lloyd is coming from 2) thinks is the best way to protect lloyd and the fronteras or 3) just because lloyd asked him to. but that only comes after lloyd proves he deserves being trusted and he does by proving he wants to help and protect the fronteras and the estate.)

so if lloyd turned against the family and estate that javier loves so much, i don't think javier would be able to remain loyal to him, no matter how much he'd want to

now, if lloyd's paranoia were to manifest in an extreme need to keep his family and home safe from everything around them that may hurt them, that would give us a lot more wiggle room to play with

and we have to take into account that even in canon, lloyd looks irrational plenty of times. sure, he finds way to justify himself, but a lot of the things he does make no sense from an outsider perspective! javier is already working from a 'this may as well happen' kind of attitude in canon. if lloyd were to suddenly get paranoid and act out in irrational way, i don't doubt it would take people a while to notice that there's something amiss lol

so let's say something terrible happens, something that none of them can avoid, something javier can't defeat in time and lloyd is horribly hurt because of it.

no one would blame lloyd if turned more wary and cautious after that, least of all javier, who'd be wrecked in guilt at not being able to protect him.

they also wouldn't bat an eye if lloyd started to raise his estate's defenses, increasing their power and preparing their people for an attack. they just saw the consequences of not being on guard, their young master just paid the price of their complacency, no one would protest against making sure it never happened again.

and if lloyd suddenly declared that another territory, another kingdom even, was plotting against them, scheming for their downfall, well, why wouldn't they believe him? a trusted knight betrayed their lord, another territory already poisoned their water, a good portion of their population is formed of refugees from an attack of a foreign power, this wouldn't be the first time they've been hurt by others. and it had always been lloyd that saved them. why wouldn't they trust their young master this time?

and lloyd, who's been hiding how he knows things he shouldn't know for a long time now, has a lot of practice making irrational things sound perfectly acceptable when coming out of his mouth. and in his mind, his paranoid thoughts would make so much sense, he'd be convinced he's acting for their own good, he'd be able to spin all his incoherent fears and anxious thoughts into something compelling. he always has.

and javier, who already said before that he would trust lloyd no matter how insane what he said sounded like, would follow along because to do otherwise, after he failed him like that, would be unthinkable. and lloyd's acting for the good of the family, for the estate, just as he always has, why wouldn't javier follow him this time too?

he'd want to prove to lloyd and to himself that he can be trusted, he can be worth having lloyd's trust, he'll try harder, he'll do everything to keep him safe this time.

it would take quite a bit for javier to decide he can no longer follow lloyd's will, not when everything he's doing seems to be for the good of the family. it would have to be something truly horrible for him to reach that point.

i'm also torn?? on how likely it is that javier would even be around to see what lloyd is actually doing. because on one hand, lloyd is not the sort to stay behind while his people are working on getting rid of anything he deems a problem and anywhere lloyd goes, javier goes with. but on the other hand, if lloyd's paranoia is about keeping the people he loves safe at all costs, then javier is very much included in there. and maybe he'd think it too high of a risk to have javier risking his life when the entire world has turned against them.

and if he's giving in to all of his paranoid thoughts, then i can also very easily see him being too wary of letting javier be too involved in his plans, precisely out of fear javier will turn on him. lloyd knows javier, he knows the way he thinks, what he cares about, he knows javier is, more than anything, a good person. and good people don't always have what it takes to do what's needed. he wouldn't turn on javier, he's a part of the very thing lloyd wants to protect no matter the price he has to pay, but i can see him hiding the truth from him, convinced as he is that he's doing the right thing.

crying and throwing up at the idea of javier having to be the one to kill loyd to stop him tho. because. javier is the person lloyd trusts the most in the world. 'There was no one else he would be able to trust as much as him'. imagine this lloyd, lost in his paranoia thinking the whole world had turned against him, but still trusting javier wholeheartedly, believing he's the one person he can count on no matter what. only to be betrayed and killed by him. oh i would go insane actually

very fun scenario thank you for sending it!

[dutybcrne]

I love to think Capitano is extremely possessive/protective of his soldiers, send tweet—

[luminaryofblood]

"... Dearest Trina... You do not know the feeling of abandonment... The Mother of Truth craves wounds, and there is no greater wound than that of abandonment... It is a unique pain... An awful pain... That you never experienced such is, itself, a blessing."

[silviakundera]

Is it true that the wet paper towel came back too? I haven't read the novel

I love arbitrarily assigned character nicknames, we all should keep using this one as much as possible thx \o/

when reading the story, the first time i went oh. he's back too is in the confrontation over Li Rong kidnapping the Qin prisioners. The entire tone and behavior of SRQ wasn't that of a young nobleman with little political experience and no prior relationship with LR. Plus, in both novel and drama his expression visibly changes when LR references the ~hypothetical~ conviction of the Su family.

The moment in the drama when you should be certain of it is when we see wet paper towel actively align with Consort Ruo (and thus the other prince's camp) and demand to be the one giving direction. Taking sides in the fight for the throne like this and that level of competence & confidence is all completely out of character for a young Su Rongqing. Why would he pick this side and plot against Team Crown Prince... unless he's seen the future?

Honestly, the way we are forced to consider the different clues to try to guess wtf is up with this bitch is why I find him such a compelling character.

What misleads at first is that initially, when first reborn, wet paper towel is working harder to Act Normal and Be Cool. And so we all think, oh he isn't into her. That can't be future SRQ!

Yet that's deceptive, because both LR and PWX discuss that the emperor would totally murder her if he thinks she was aligning herself with the Su family (because that would avail her and thus the crown prince with more resouces & power). Showing active interest in her and snatching her marriage would be incredibly dangerous.

ah HAH! you say. But future towel was pro-murder! Isn't he her enemy? ??? Well, clearly yes and no. Logic dictates that some factor must have existed in that alternate timeline that doesn't exist today. 🤔➖➗➕✖💯🤔

If we accept that this damp towel does love LR and would prefer her to be well, beside all the other machinations he has going on, then his pretence to not be interested in her in the early episodes makes total sense.

(what's clever is that once we figure out he's reborn, our instinct is to stop interrogating his behavior and assume his sole objective is murdering the crown prince in revenge for his family & penis (rip). at least in the novel, it's more complicated than that. which I won't spoil and it's probable the drama will replace the ending arc anyway so we'll just have to see what happens)

[lesbiradshaw]

if theo and liam weren’t supposed to end up together then what was up with that shot of theo (former murderer who claims to care about no one) appearing behind liam in the cracked, blood-spattered mirror right as he was considering killing someone just to talk him down.

[todayisafridaynight]

If i could give daigo a bowl of pasta with parmesan and olive oil and a lil salt i would its what he deserves ultimately

[fiapple]

...the "nothing happened" scene has caused my brain to latch on to zoro with a vice grip. send help.