#I got the goddamn

[sickgraymeat]

Fucked up how I know taking a shower would solve all my problems and perhaps every problem in the history of the universe but I can’t take a real shower bc I can’t get my bandage wet 😢

[emberglowfox]

birds of a feather

[hinamie]

long way home

[cyberpunkboytoy]

[the most awful, horrific, violent, traumatic, horrible thing happens]

Nikki: Wow, this really makes me want to design clothes!

[astrhae]

crowley used the metal tool in season 1 to start time, and we learn that he's used it first to start space. to create the stars -- he still remembers how. he still remembers all of heaven's passwords: in the book crowley is described as an optimist because he has the "utter surety... that the universe would look after him". not god, but the universe. and of course he does: he helped create it and he's looking after it, too.

think about it: aziraphale had a sword, but crowley is about to face satan who wants to destroy the world, and crowley's only weapon is a tool of creation

[deadpoets]

DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) dir. Peter Weir

[zillychu]

i have entirely too many people enabling me to stop at this point

[umblrspectrum]

the Solver of the Absolute Fabric, the Void, the Exponential End acting like an entitled toddler is the funniest thing

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[gherkinlizard]

oh how indeed ezra... how indeed

[vivvy-of-the-lake]

ikuyo kita emoting stimboard

[alloverthegaf]

on episode 5 of Squid Game 2 and watching Gi-hun come to the realisation of the microcosm he's fighting in real time - the pitfalls and propaganda of capitalism, the "you can build your dream if you just work harder", the desperation to succeed overcoming their desire for everyone to survive. Everyone recognises the faults, the danger, the gamble of what they're participating in - the lotto over the bread - they know some will not fare as well as others. What's more they know in order for them to win, they know more people have to die. But they still willingly participate, not because they're evil, or blind, or lack empathy - but because they think they have no other choice. They allow themselves to become complicit and justify it by saying it's for their own survival.

[bonebabbles]

Toshiro Dungeon Meshi really said "I am an autistic man and I've suffered quietly my whole life, the way I'm supposed to, the way that's expected of me. The way you're supposed to, the way that I expect of you. It infuriates me that you don't. It envies me that you don't. I've never expressed this before because I don't know how and I snapped and all of my emotions came tumbling out and I said it in a way I don't actually mean, just like how you never mean it."

And then he said, "And then we fought. And you won, of course you did, and now we're talking openly because you're someone I CAN talk to. I always COULD talk to you. I just never DID. Of course you're taking this seriously. And you know I take it all seriously. Why are you like this? Why do I RECOIL every time you speak to me, even when you aren't doing anything wrong? How can a person even be like this?? Why do I sometimes wish that I could be like you?"

AND THEN HE SAID, "Wait. Please. I need you to know I do care about you. I can't tell you that directly because I have been taught my whole life that to love someone is to lessen their burden, to BE less of a burden, shrink yourself, don't have demands, don't have needs, don't eat more than the bare minimum to sustain yourself. I'm working on that now, because of my family, because of her, and because of you, but I still can't bring myself to settle the full weight of my being onto another person. Here is a magic bell that will let you safely become my burden. I will not lose you too."

The magic bell rolls around in Laios' bag and rings constantly because Toshiro didn't think to stuff it with a piece of paper before giving it to the most physically active fighter in the group who does all the runnining aroundening.

The one he JUST brawled for being imperceptive.

Blurting out that he would help him escape the Elf Cops took priority. He NEEDED Laios to know this so bad. I just know he was thinking about putting that bell in his hand as soon as he started sharing how he wished that he'd told Falin how much she meant to him sooner but was trying to think of the right moment. He was absolutely BESIEGED by the autistic swagger of the Touden siblings. How can you not start scratching the furniture thinking about it

[redsportscar]

"Leclerc is boyish, an enthusiast."

"Sainz is more modest and lightly brushed by melancholy."

[silverhalla]

just thinking about the Lucanis banter where he mentions gifting a knife to his crow crush and getting rejected HARD vs. Rook buying him a wyvern tooth dagger before the coffee date….. same love language :’)

[royaltea000]

Mama a monkey behind you