#.with simple desires

[sansloii]

Shared Royal AU stuff with friends last night but now i will repeat it because bbrrrr--

Roderick: Dragon King of Exulan

Evan: Dragon Prince of Exulan ( still Roderick's nephew )

Mikah: Evan's baby sitter Evan's personal assassin. Also secretly a disgraced noble.

Penny: Former Princess who supposedly died.. Probably the head of a Peaceful Enclave now. 100% cursed still.

Wynn: Prince of a sizeable kingdom.

Dakota: Queen of a nation and she totally didn't usurp the throne. Totally not

Joseph: attached to @soulsxng's Lerato at the hip so he is probably working for the Ahnian crown

Andris: Very very very fucking tempted to make him a King in the Fae realm or something similar. With a capital Very and I like mess.

[dandelion-roots]

[ID: a series of drawings featuring Riz Gukgak from D20 Fantasy High. In the first, Pok holds Riz's shoulders in heaven as says, smiling, when you work until the dead of night, your friends know you do it because you love them. In the second, Riz is having a group hug with his party and the text reads, but is it really love that drives you, Riz Gukgak... In the next, a desperate, pleading Riz clutches the shoulder of an indifferent, faceless person and the text continues, ...or is it fear? In the fourth, Riz is younger and digging through crystals with bleeding hands; the text reads, what use are you when you can no longer dig. In the fifth, Kalina, shrouded in darkness with only her eyes glowing, reaches towards the camera with a smile; the text reads, when you're too scared to think. Sixth, Riz is filling out Fig and Kristen's papers under the light of a lamp, serious and tired; the text reads, when you're too tired to work. Seventh, Riz is lying in bed, eyes hidden behind hair, hand on his father's picture; the text reads, too sad to keep the mood up. Eighth, Baron stares into the camera; the text reads, too lonely, too insecure, too weird. Ninth, Baron is holding a defeated Riz by the throat; the text reads, to keep moving? Tenth, Riz is standing in the distance, holding his briefcase, and behind him is a football/soccer ball; the text reads, what use is a ball that can no longer roll? The last drawing just says none in brackets on a dark background. End ID]

[arcana-arcane]

I ship Meljay and Skyvik cuz I think black women should get whatever they want

[pavo-dence]

finally finished ghost trick

[curapicas]

This is dungeon meshi. "I don't want the meal you're offering" might be the cruelest thing a character gets to hear.

Well. Maybe second most cruel...

"I won't offer you food again" might be worse

[tenderjock]

The end was soon To Bethlehem, it slouched And then, must've caught a good look at you

[i-like-forcefem]

When browsing through the wares of a newly opened magic shop you passed by an item that caught your interest, a massive mirror

You peaked inside expecting to see yourself, but instead you saw, a girl? About your height, quite pretty, good taste in fashion… Maybe your mom when she was younger?

It feels weird, in a good way, to see this girl follow all your movements, you couldn’t help but smile, and her smile is radiant

You felt an odd sense of relief… until you looked down to see that, you’re you, of course you are

Why do you feel so sad?

…

“Quite the item isn’t it?”, the Witch tending the shop noticed your interest and started talking to you “a magic mirror that shows you what you’d look like if you were born the opposite sex”

You stare into it

Why do you feel this deep dread?

“But that’s not all it does!” The witch continues “want to see a magic trick?” The witch asks laying a hand on your back

You’re curious to see where this is going, so you nod your head

In one swoop the witch pushes you against the mirror and as you brace yourself to slam into it, stumbling on your feet across the floor, you find yourself slamming into the witch face first

She laughs “I probably didn’t need to push that hard”

As you lay on the ground you feel different, you look as you prepare to push yourself up from the ground you notice your hands… are they smaller?

As you get it up and oriented yourself you glance at the mirror, still the same showing girl you, but how did you get turned around did… did you get

“Sorry” the witch says as her laughter days down “that’s the first time I’ve pushed someone through a mirror, should’ve seen that coming”

You look down and see the dress you’re wearing

“Now cutie” the witch claps her hands, and jumps up! She has a grin you don’t trust “I hoped you enjoyed the trick! If you ever want to become a guy again And I hope you have some savings! Gender-bending magic is quite expensive!”

You stumble back, you can’t turn back? The mirror is showing yo- Girl You, not the real Guy You, so… that’s a no go? You’re way to poor for anything

“But don’t worry cutie, we pay quite well here and just so happen have an opening for a maid and I can assure you, you’ll look just adorable in the uniform”

[ruporas]

all I wanted was to save them... (ID in alt)

[being-of-rain]

In Classic Who and Dr Who EU fandom I regularly see the take 'The Doctor is a bad person' or 'The Doctor is not a good person' declared like obvious fact, so this might be a hot take in my circles, but I can't really wrap my head around that view of the character.

I get that the take comes about as a reaction to some parts of the franchise and fandom (especially some parts of New Who) hero-worshipping the character as a pillar or morality and ignoring a lot of flaws, but 'they're not a good person' feels like it's swinging just as far out-of-character in the opposite direction. It feels very much like a recreation of absolute morality, where you're either perfect or evil, no in-between.

My view of the character lines up pretty well with the show's take during the Capaldi era, which is that they're just Some Guy who Tries Their Best. In my mind they're a complex character who isn't perfect, who does some narratively-interesting shady stuff sometimes, and who has spent the better half of a few thousand years trying to help people and save lives because they think its the right thing to do. Feels very weird to sum that up as 'definitely not a good person.'

(note that personally I like the characterisation of the Doctor as 'not a good person' before they meet Ian and Barbara, who beat some ethics into him, but this post is about people's take on the Doctor of the show/as a whole)

[inkcrab]

I am re-listening to TMA and I do really adore the story as well as TMP, I have plenty of feelings and things to say but man am I tired so fan are :)

[chiimeramanticore]

had too much to drink during their night out at the Tops

[shorthaltsjester]

it is quite funny to me as someone who studies philosophy and has had to have the conversations that bh and ludinus have been having many times over and often with people who like ludinus do not have any reading comprehension and truly like. the notion of “this shouldn’t exist” is almost always one that comes up regardless of whether it’s a discussion on the metaphysics of a potential God(s) or divinity, high political powers, or vehicles of systemic oppression. and what anyone who cares about people more than their ideals (even, sometimes, ideals that started out being about people but quickly come to be about the ideals themselves) realizes very quickly in a philosophical discussion about what should and shouldn’t exist is that it does not matter if what you’ve decided ‘shouldn’t’ exist does in fact already exist. like that tends to be the difference between sociopolitical philosophy that actually has teeth and substance in the world — a willingness to engage with the world as it is, not as it should be. because you can have the perfect image of a just and wonderful future world, but if you do not at every step reckon with the unjust world from which you are aiming at that future, you’re doing nothing. ideals are helpful because they aim us toward goals and hopes, but they’re nothing without a reality that grounds them.

and so people like ludinus, who in the real world would play the role of a graduate student with critical thinking skills that make every professor he comes across question how he arrived at his level of study, they don’t have Wrong ideals, there’s obviously plenty of reasons why an exandria without gods might in fact be a better place for mortals (there are also many Many reasons why it would not). but ludinus has also chosen his ideals to weigh heavier than the mortals he claims to uphold them with. i think ashton is also interesting, because i think a lot of their positions have a fun fluctuation between being ideal focused and person focused, where sometimes they’re focused on how unfair life is in a very nihilistic position, and at other times they seem quite clear about how much ideals help no one if they’re not second to the desire to help others. and i think that made their role in the convo with ludinus in 102 especially interesting and irritating (but in a narratively fulfilling way). anyway, truly so fun watching ludinus argue with the amount of fallacies and undeserved confidence of like right wing first year students in an ethics class explaining how actually the ends justify the means and thanos had the right idea actually if it means no more starvation. get a grip old man.

[letitbehurt]

Whumper having a muzzle fitted around Whumpee’s head even as they scream and struggle against the bit shoved into their mouth, their hands pinned to keep them from yanking at the buckles. Rough leather digging into their skin. Every curse warped into an animal’s whines. They have no weapons now, not even their teeth.

“If you’re going to act like a rabid dog,” Whumper tells them, unmoved by their defiance, “then you’ll be treated like one.”

[anghraine]

I know it's well-understood at this point that Kirk/Spock is much more of a nerd4nerd ship than a nerd/jock thing, but it's just been kind of percolating around my mind that both of them aren't just space nerds but space nerds who were personally bullied.

Like, 18-year-old Kirk was targeted by an older bully who combines "total asshole" with "the most grating man in existence":

MCCOY: Well, yeah, I'm beginning to feel a little bit picked-on, if that's what you mean. KIRK: I know the feeling very well. I had it at the Academy. An upperclassman there. One practical joke after another, and always on me. My own personal devil. A guy by the name of Finnegan. MCCOY: And you being the very serious young— KIRK: Serious? I'll make a confession, Bones. I was absolutely grim, which delighted Finnegan no end.

This was five years after Kirk survived a genocide, btw, and likely well before his stint as an Academy instructor known to be strict and demanding (which is the period the "stack of books with legs" description of him comes from). By the time he's 33, fifteen years after all this, it turns out one of his deepest fantasies is just beating the shit out of his bully, but only if he can do it According To The Rules (the replica of Finnegan sneers, "Always fight fair, don't you? True officer and gentleman, you").

Spock, meanwhile, is viciously targeted by his Vulcan peers for being biracial from at least age 5; he's described as being tormented by other boys by that age, and "at home nowhere except Starfleet." I think he'd have been 18 or 19 when he left for Starfleet and it's... the least bad of his options, but he seems to have spent his entire career among humans and being persistently subjected to raw racism and profound disrespect for his culture at every turn.

Like, their histories of being metaphorically shoved into lockers are not identical or anything, but I think it's interesting that they both have them.

[casualavocados]

An idiot like you...an idiot like you...

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 9

[wildfairies]

devora wilde honestly deserves the same amount of praise and hype as neil for her portrayal of lae'zel