#I think about them every day of my life

[pangolinheart]

I almost never read the journal entries in final fantasy xiv but I happened to be looking for something and in my search found that the journal entries for the Stormblood Dark Knight quests are actually "written" by Esteem AND I- Here are some choice selections from the sb drk quests, from the mildly amusing to the ones that ripped my heart out:

Four more times must he do this. Four more times must he employ his powers to make broken men and women whole, so burdened by his deeds he is. Again you consent to the plan for...reasons. 

But, for now, Sid could do with a drink. Or a nap. Or one, and then the other.

...you realize it is none other than the woman who led the protest against the peace conference at Falcon's Nest, and poisoned your drink, which was not very sporting at all. 

...she admits she once looked on you with hatred, but no longer. Fight, if it be your will, and if the gods show you favor, then so be it. And when we are called to account, so be it.

Her heart knows naught but guilt. Seeks naught but forgiveness. Ware the penitent, for theirs is a compulsion all consuming. 

Myste is nevertheless troubled, as is his wont, though at least he is grateful. And you are still a good person, apparently. That's nice. 

And so, in a fit of what can only be described as temporary insanity, Sidurgu has proposed that you return to Moghome. Apparently he hopes that the fresh air and the quiet might cheer the boy. Alternatively, he may long to punch a moogle in its furry little face. 

Myste stares out at the endless expanse and speaks of loss, which we know all too well. So, so many friends and loved ones. Close your eyes and you can see them pass, one by one, in solemn procession. A lesser woman would be tempted to forget, but we know better. 

As feared, Sidurgu will require some time to recover from his wounds. So poor is his condition that he is not even fit to make the journey back to Ishgard. Alas, this means that he must enjoy the company of the moogles at Moghome for the foreseeable future. But all is not lost─he did give you leave to punch a moogle for him. 

He laments his fate, wishing he could go back and convince his former self not to place his trust in the Griffin...but if such things were possible, you wouldn't have a broken shield, now would you? 

She is not the first, nor will she be the last to betray you. She will implore you to see reason, to seek solace in the fiction. And when you refuse, she will have no recourse but one. As I did not. Be ready.

And now, the betrayal. Myste believes that the only way we can atone for our sins is to “undo” them with his simulacra. Every life we took, every death that weighs upon our soul, he would make amends for it all with his beautiful lies. I can end this charade, godsdammit, I can end it! Now is the time! You need me! YOU NEED ME!

The little girl who wanted to make this cruel, twisted world a better place, futile as that is. She's going to get us killed one of these days...but what can I say? I love her. I forgive her. And you... 

(the very last sentence really got me afhajkfla)

... he knows that your destiny leads you elsewhere, for you are still a hero. You are still a good person.

[chicago-geniza]

I understand intimately why Jelonka dropped out of school to be Stefania's personal secretary, you know

[bitd]

unfortunately they're best friends. okay?

[queer-ragnelle]

[cgerice]

Been four years, time for this again.

With the trajectory these redraws are going, Merlin and Gwaine are going to end up just,,, making out. Full on sloppy style right in front of Arthur.

And honestly? Good for them they deserve it lmao

[shorthaltsjester]

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.

[gentlebeard]

If I could hold you for a minute, Darling, I’d go through it again

For @edsbacktattoo & @stedesearring 💕 Show: Our Flag Means Death - Season 1 & 2 Music: Francesca by Hozier YouTube

[manchesterau]

happy 15 years of dan and phil!

[eveningrainstorm]

you can take the family out of the psychics but you can't take the psychics out of the family

[rottengurlz]

toxic yuri vampires you will always be famous to me

[beanghostprincess]

this is my roman empire.

[johnmurphysgirl]

My heart once again yearns for Thorin and Bilbo; to realize what it is they felt, and have it all ripped away from them at once with a sickening crunch. From Thorin watching his nephews die, and then to realize in order to kill Azog, he, too, must die; and the utter relief he had upon seeing Bilbo unharmed as they say their final goodbyes.

[dootznbootz]

You can horny post and thirst for Circe and Calypso without making fun of Odysseus, a victim of both, btw. 👍

[tunastime]

hiccuping tears into the shoulder + ranchers by chance?

hiccuping tears into their shoulder (1087 words) (x)

For the first time in a good, long portion of his life, Tango despises how silent the night gets. It's not without its natural noise—the balmy, sticky humidity and breeze in the grass, or the crickets, the cicadas quieting down, the sounds of animals rearranging themselves to a comfier sleeping arrangement. He should be doing the same, but he's sitting on the edge of the bed, his spine a rigid line. He can feel the blood in his body, he can feel the spaces where his muscles connect to each other, with every breath he can feel his lungs separate out the oxygen. It's at the very least startling, and at the very most, he feels like he might dissolve on the spot if touched. 

Tango knows how death feels—painless respawn and a few seasons of a life game behind him, but to feel someone else die, too. The echo of death alongside your own. He didn't like that! Not good at all. All his blood and heartbeat-y things are rushing around in his ears. He doesn't even hear Jimmy the first time he speaks up from the other side of the bed, with how his voice scrapes out.

"I didn't know they were aiming for us," Jimmy says.

"Of course not," Tango says, furrowing his eyebrows. "I know you didn't."

He's still looking at his hands, running his thumb over the lines in his palm and pushing into the tiny bones and muscle there. Jimmy flexes his hands like he can feel the pressure and bones moving around. He watches him fold his hand tight around each other and slump, pulling his shoulders to his chest. His breath squeezes in his chest as Jimmy deflates tiredly.

"I just don't want you to think—"

"I'm not gonna think this is your fault, alright?" Tango says, frowning at him. "Why would I?"

Jimmy sighs. His jaw works.

"Cause it usually is," he grits. Tango scrunches his nose on instinct, recoiling out of habit before he manages:

"That's not fair, man."

"This whole game isn't far!" Jimmy huffs, waving a hand about.

"Sure but—"

"But nothing, Tango. I just—I can't lose and drag you with me. That's more than not fair."

"I don't care."

"I care."

Before Tango can argue, though, he tastes the faintest hints of anger and frustration at the back of his mouth fade. He watches Jimmy's face contort as he tries to come up with a better sentence, something he probably thinks Tango deserves. Maybe an apology. 

Tango just looks at him. He kind of feels bad, that little bit of gut wrenching cold that trickles in, but mostly he's just confused. Jimmy's words bat around in his brain like dust particles. Dust bunnies. He definitely assumed they were done with this. That maybe Jimmy made peace like he did—though really he hadn't had that much time to make peace, if he's being honest. He's still bitter. He's sure a lot of people are still bitter. But in terms of Jimmy's whole situation? It's not like it could be helped. They just had to be careful. So Tango was being careful, and Jimmy was taking what Tango thought was a calculated risk, so he was mad, sure, but he couldn't really stay mad for a long time. So he takes a long breath and sighs it out his nose. It still tastes surprisingly reminiscent of smoke.

"So what are we going to do?" he asks softly. Jimmy inhales.

"I don't know," he says. "Go to bed? Wake up and start planning?"

Tango hums plainly. He likes that idea. The small spool of feeling in his chest that must belong to Jimmy gives a little tug, like it wanted to take him down with it. 

"Yeah," Tango says, voice coming hoarse. "Yeah, I think so."

For a moment, Tango runs his tongue over his teeth, runs his thumbs over the seams of his knees. He sighs, and then he leans into Jimmy's shoulder with a definitive huff. He's tired. From the ache in his bones, to the breathlessness of dying, to just taking in Jimmy's stress. Man. He's exhausted. Jimmy snorts quietly. He feels him press his cheek against Tango's head. The hand Jimmy had been fiddling with in his lap ends up at the base of his spine, splayed over the fabric. Tango squeezes his eyes shut.

"Thanks Tango," Jimmy says shakily. He sounds like he's on the knife's edge of crying, so Tango fumbles out a hand and lands it solidly on his knee. It's not a terribly comfortable thing to stretch one of his achy shoulders or biceps that far but he does anyway, and Jimmy huffs out a damp laugh. "Guess I'm just... pissed off."

Tango snorts.

"If you think you're pissed, just wait until they rile me up," he says into the fabric of Jimmy's shirt. Jimmy laughs. Tango tries to hold in a grin that he also smothers into his shoulder, but fails. Jimmy's hand skips over his knuckles and squeezes the hand on his knee.

"Sure thing, Rancher," he teases. Tango makes a half-suppressed noise of indignation, squeaking as he bolts upright. He nearly knocks into Jimmy's jaw as he untangles himself with all the grace of a cat trying to weasel out of someone's arms. 

"I'm just sayin'," he grumbles, crinkling his nose. "You seem like you're in a better mood though."

Jimmy sighs, rounding out his shoulders. 

"Think so," he says, working his cheek between his teeth. Tango feels the sensation of prodding in his mouth. Bleh. "Think so."

"Probably a good idea to make good on that sleeping... thing,” he says, reaching up to scrub at his eyes. He barely stifles a yawn as Jimmy stretches, twisting his tall body around in a way that feels surprisingly pleasant to Tango’s stiff muscles. He can’t imagine, especially with the way Jimmy holds all his emotions in his shoulders, that his upper back is doing him any favors. Jimmy makes a little noise in confirmation as Tango turns, attempting to make ample space for him in the small bed. He knows they’ll end up back to back at some point, but as he lies down, shoulder to shoulder, an easy comfort rolls over him. Sure there’s all the red blood rushing around in his ears, and sure he feels it right up on his skin like a bad rash, but for now, next to Jimmy, he shuts his eyes.

They’ll make this time count for something, at least.

[shannonsketches]

I don’t care if it’s boring I’m 10000% in love with the idea of Vegeta having a quiet happy domestic home life throughout the 7 year gap and as his end game.

He was raised in an intergalactic mafia and by an absolute miracle got out and was granted his life back. Twice. One of the two last men standing when an entire population gets wiped out. Twice (counting the Freeza Force, by the end of ResF).

His father stopped fighting on the front lines once he became king, to watch over his domain. Frieza didn’t personally get involved in battle (not wipeouts, but actual battle) until Namek. Vegeta was always (told he was) intended to take both their places.

Letting him grow into a protector has been such a great arc and imho it would be so beautifully wrapped by letting him finally get to go home and inherit his crown as the guardian of his new planet.

[hulloitsdani]

What do u think Kiran is

How do u think the order sees kiran

*slowly sits up in my chair*

I think Kiran is a very normal person. This is someone you and I have met before. Be that from the other side of grocery store cashier, waiting in the same elevator, or walking by on a crosswalk. Kiran is a civilian from our world trying to roll with the punches of being warped somewhere completely alien. And you can see it in how they conduct themselves.

I always have a lot of fun writing Kiran’s dialogue because their casual modern speech almost feels like a dialect in comparison to the more formal fantasy tone everyone else speaks with. An “ain’t” will never exit Alfonse’s mouth, you know? And there’s a difference in “Do you have gold?” vs “You got gold?” To me, this gives Kiran an air of unfamiliarity to anyone they interact with. Let’s use Grima as an example, because it doesn’t sound like this grammatical change would make much of difference until Kiran has the audacity to hit Grima with a bro mid sentence. But that’s just how they talk. And as sweet and friendly as they are, there’s always moments like that to remind that no one has the cultural context to fully understand Kiran. Except for the audience, who can realize that Kiran let the customer service voice drop to talk to Grima like he’s an actual person.

And that’s just about how they talk! This view is only emphasized by every other thing about them! They’re a lovable goof, which is normal chill person behavior in the audience’s eyes but feels REALLY ODD to the characters of FE’s medieval fantasy war setting. There is this air of unknown about them that the more socially perceptive will pick up on and will try to come to a conclusion about. Example, I imagine Soren would interpret a lot of this as a dangerous and deeply annoying lack of intelligence from someone he has the displeasure of sharing a tactics table with. Or looping back to the Grima example, he would totally think Kiran has greedy ulterior motives behind that pleasant facade. It takes a lot of work for those types to realize that the discrepancy present isn’t really any of those things. But I also wouldn’t be too surprised if Kiran doesn’t try to directly prove any of those assumptions wrong unless they have to.

Why? Well now it’s time for the implications! Oh how we love the implications.

Because the Summoner is a different story. No one has any fucking clue what that is.

I can tell you what Kiran has pieced together so far. Summoning people from across time and space is apparently not easy. It’s not some school of magical study that some mage could pull off with enough time and research. Trust, Eitri tried. It’s a lot of complex moving parts. For example, the contracts. The contracts Kiran automatically binds their summoned to don’t even compare to the ones Veronica used in book 1. They are far more intense and infinitely harder to break. The only way out of them is if Kiran wills it so. Not even death is an option, because Kiran can come in for the revive. If they had to guess, it’s an older, more completed version of the art. Something lost to time. But no matter the case, Kiran has the ability to take full control of whoever they manage to summon. From a lowly farmer to the divine. And their power only grows.

In a similar vein, if there was any character to canonically see the hud, I think it would be Kiran. It’s genuinely part of their power set. I have previously described Kiran as the party mage until Veronica shows up to be the actual mage, but it would be way more accurate to call them a mystic/seer. They see the map, everyone’s stats, and is doing a fast amount of math to give the combat forecast. Then, upon processing all this information their enemies couldn’t dream of having at their disposal, Kiran can telepathically communicate any change in plans to anyone under contract. Kiran is not inherently some great tactician the moment they touch ground in Askr; they simply can do things no one else can. They’re learning the actual tactics part on the fly. This makes them simultaneously the largest ace up the Order’s sleeve and potentially its biggest liability. If they fall, it could cause a whole system cascade. By that same token, some of the biggest threats the Order has faced are the ones who do their research and rightfully target Kiran.

Now. Thinking critically about all that. That’s downright terrifying. A ridiculous amount of power has been dropped callously into Kiran’s lap and they have to work extremely hard to be moral with it. It’s terrifyingly easy not to be. It would actively take less effort to ‘take the reins’ as it were. But in order to be able to sleep at night ever again, they go the extra mile to not invalidate the will of their summoned. To take over like that. To make a colony of worker bees out of people. Because oh dear god they just summoned a child and the fact that they could easily force them to fight and die for them, only to be revived and do it all over again, is HAUNTING. No. No the Order has an in house orphanage now. This kid is getting adopted and cared for god damnit or Kiran might just pop a blood vessel. And sure that child is going to be a child and there will never be a world where they get along with everyone else, but that’s just going to need be a problem they address when they get there and not an excuse to use Hubris; the power set. Now replace the word child with everyone they ever summoned and you have the wider philosophy they apply to the entire Order.

They’re hyper aware of the power imbalance. They hate it with every bone in their body. They work really hard to correct it in whatever way they can.

So Kiran might not jump on the opportunity to correct those who think lesser of them. It’s… oddly comforting to know someone is keeping a critical eye on them. Holding them accountable. Especially since so much of the order just thinks of them as this quirky yet well meaning host. And, really, what can they even do about that? They have gone over the contract with every hero they summon and despite that they still choose to stay. So, what, do they try to inspire more mistrust? The problem with that they would have to actually do acts that intentionally inspire mistrust. And even if that was successful they can’t just waste the extra man power because every other month there’s some new divine asshole who wants them all dead. And if they fail that means they have to start their life from square one and god they can’t do that again so—

Just breathe Kiran.

It’s fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.

You have work to do.