#I'm back on my shit again

[11cleyvaart]

They've been dating for years and still have worry.

Dedede would be just nervous and sweaty being anxious.

Meta Knight is an extreme panicking mess. (he wears the same thing regardless)

[seriouslycalamitous]

My beta reader, Jae, mentioned Ethubs in regards to my deity au two days ago, and it sent my brain into overdrive. I already had plans for both of them as characters but I realized it'd be such a neat side story to explore.

I started a oneshot for fun, expecting to just write down a basic idea and then move on to the stuff I'm supposed to be writing.

But now this document is 5k words long.

Uh. Centaur!Bdubs x Deity!Etho oneshot fic anyone?

[bixels]

in case you wanna know how bad things are on twitter rn.

[egophiliac]

A-anime?

you know, sometimes I forget that Twst is actually an isekai that starts with the protagonist getting run over by an inexplicable horse-drawn carriage. and every time I'm reminded is a delight because that's AMAZING.

also. look. okay. there's a lot of very fun stuff in the trailer but I am obsessed with that Crowley surprised pikachu face. me when I spend all my keys and gems literally hours before they announce overblot SSRs and drop the anime trailer:

[lotus-pear]

top 10 moments before disaster (dazai is about to step on his toes)

[teaboot]

Sometimes at work it's not my place to tell people the things I want to say, and I find I often go home at the end of the rougher days to stand blankly in my shower and tell myself over and over what I wish I could pass on.

This accomplishes very little, and mostly just gives me a tension headache, but through it all I think I've narrowed myself down to a few solid things I'd like to tell people the most.

You can't change people. Not permanently, not for anythig. You can support them, encourage them, love them, give them tools and opportunities and resources, but you can't make them change. They can change themselves if they want to, but they have to want to, and they have to want it for themselves, because they're the only one that's certain to be with them forever.

For better or worse, you make your own choices, and blaming bad choices on others doesn't only work to absolve you of responsibility- it also robs you of control. Because if you say you only did something because I did something, then you arent only shifting blame- you're admitting that you cannot control yourself, that you cannot truly make choices for yourself, that other people can control you- and as long as you truly beleive that, you'll keep facing the same problems over and over. You'll keep letting others dictate your choices, because you'll beleive that they can, and you'll never be free.

White knights on horseback are from fairytales. Nobody can help you if ou're not willing to help yourself. To try, to put the dirty work in, to belive you're worth that effort- Act as though nobody is coming to save you. From a struggle, from pain, from bad relationships, from yourself. And when you do save yourself, because you will, because failure here isn't an option if you want to survive, you'll never find another dragon that can keep you prisoner.

Don't say anything to anyone that you wouldn't want them remembering forever.

Doing the right thing in bad circumstances is hard. It's the hardest thing. But if you make the choice to do that hard thing anyways, despite your fear, you'll go on the rest of your like knowing that you're the sort of person who did something.

The present only seems the hardest because the past I over and the future hasn't happened.

There's so much joy ahead of you, the kind you can't possibly understand until you see it yourself.

The responsibility of consequences is often disguised as the power of permission. "I won't do this if you help me", "I'll work on my anger if you do this for me", "I promised you I'd quit, but can I have just one?". The unspoken question is, "Can it be your fault if this goes badly?"

You cant make someone love you the way you need to be loved. Someone can love you very much and still be bad for you, even if you love them very much in return. Two people can love each other very, very much, and try their very best, and still be wrong for each other.

Sometimes being near to someone changes you, even in good ways, and the people you become don't fit together as well as the people you were.

Caring takes work. Even if it's real. Especially if it's real. And the most important gestures aren't the grand, poetic, songs-and-flowers-and-tears moments; they're getting out of bed even though you don't want to. Paying attention to things you don't enjoy. Scrubbing pans, or opening a window, saying "thank-you", or helping carry groceries into the house. The small things fill the big things- without the small, boring, mediocre things, big things feel hollow.

Thrre is honour and dignity in humble work.

If you are a cruel and spiteful person, then you will find every place you visit to be full of the same cruel, spiteful people. This is not because the world is as cruel as you, but because everywhere you are, you will be disliked. This is the curse that comes with being persistently cruel and spiteful.

If you are a kind and ppsitive person, you will repeatedly encounter kind and positive people, because as they grow familiar with you, they will be happier to have you near. This is the reward of being a kind and positive person.

When splitting paths with loved ones, briefly or forever, aim for your last words to always be "I love you".

[vaguely-concerned]

I understand and agree with a lot of the frustrations about the shortcomings of Inquisition as a story. but sometimes when I hear people complain about the chosen one narrative in it I do want to just be like... you know it's a deconstruction of the concept more than anything, right. the inquisitor isn't actually chosen by anything except stumbling into the wrong (right?) room at the right (wrong?) time because they like, heard a noise or whatever. or if you think they are chosen, as many do in-universe, that's something you have to take on faith, the maker-or-whoever moves in mysterious ways indeed-style. the Inquisitor isn't actually a Destined Chosen One, they're a Just Some Guy in a fancy hat, self-delusions of grandeur to taste as you'd prefer.

a running thread that goes through all of the personal quests of the companions is the concept of a comforting lie vs. an uncomfortable truth, upholding old corrupt structures vs. disrupting them, and the role of faith in navigating that. (blackwall the warden vs. thom rainier the liar and murderer. hissrad vs. the iron bull, or is that the other way around? cassandra and the seekers -- do we tell the truth about what we find, even if it means dismantling the old order of the world? and so on.) and your inquisitor IS at the same time a comforting lie (a necessary one, in dark times? the game seems to ask) and an uncomfortable truth (we are the result of random fickle chance, no protective hand is held over the universe, it's on us to make a better world because the maker sure as hell won't lift a divine finger to help anyone, should he against all odds exist). faith wielded for political power... where's the point that it crosses the line into ugliness? is it before it even begins? what's the alternative? will anyone listen to the truth, if you tell it?

interesting how you also get a mix of companion agency in this -- you have characters like dorian who ALWAYS choose one side of the comforting lie vs. uncomfortable truth dichotomy. he will always make up his own mind to go back to tevinter and try to dismantle the corruption of the old system no matter what you say, or how you try to influence him. meanwhile iron bull is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum -- so psychologically trapped and mangled, caught in an impossible spiritual catch-22, that his sense of identity is left entirely to you and your mercy. you cannot change dorian in any way that matters; you can be his friend or not, support him or not, but he is whole no matter what. you are given incredible and potentially destructive-to-him power over bull's soul. it's really cool (and heartbreaking) to think about.

this is a game about how history will eat you even while you're still alive, and shape you into whatever image it pleases to serve it, and for all your incredible power right now you are powerless in the face of the gravitational force of time -- of more than time, of History. you won't recognize yourself in what History will make of you, because you belong to it now. you don't belong to yourself anymore and you never will again. the further you were from what it needs from you to begin with, the more you will find yourself distorted in its funhouse mirror. (why hello there inquisitor ameridan, same hat!)

and to me this is so much the core of what Dragon Age is about right from the Origins days -- how and by whom history gets written, the inherent unreliable narration of it all. I hope you like stories, Inquisitor. You are one now.

I do think it's probably still the weakest of the games narratively, and it's hampered by its structure and bloated systems. but I also find it disingenous to say that there's nothing deeper or actually interesting going on with it, thematically. if you're willing to engage with it there is Some Real Shit going on under the high fantasy-tinted surface.

[disgracefulthings]

Shang Qinghua Leaves The Room

Luo Binghe: I don't like it when you two do that

Shen Qingqiu: Do what?

Luo Binghe: That

Shen Qingqiu: What, interact?

Luo Binghe: Yes

Shen Qingqiu: ...

Shen Qingqiu: You know what, same

[cangrellesteponme]

wife

[otome-dissection]

Dude I can't Luka's expressions in wiege fuck me up so bad all the parallels between Luka now and himself as a child get me so fucking bad like:

The wiege MV (for the mostpart) is about going back to the beginning. It's about the in-betweens we didn't get to see. It's about the journey and it's about all the small moments that built all the characters (most importantly Hyuba and, imo, Mizi) up into what they came to be. For better or for worse, Hyuna and Mizi both grew up so far from what they used to be, went through the whole spectrum of experiences that humans in their position could possibly have, and its shown by the wide range of scenes/experiences/flashbacks they have just how much they've lived.

Meanwhile Luka, who is, objectively, on top of everything, far above what Hyuna, Mizi, and everyone else could've been or ever was, is by far the most stagnant as a person. Where we see Hyuna and Mizi go through all the motions of loving and losing and loving again (and losing again), Luka has always been stuck on Hyuna, and the second he sees her everything he's built up to is all thrown to the wind without a second thought, without any fanfare, because nothing for him as changed.

Internally, Luka's still sitting against that tree in the garden and watching someone else grab his hand, Luka's still watching Hyuna count with his fingers and making him laugh for the first time ever, still clinging to her arm, still crossing the grass field to reach her.

Even years later, even as an adult, he's still looking at her like she's his salvation. When he sees her again on the stage he looks at her like he's just found his way back home after far too many years away from it, and when that gun is pointed at his head to stop him he looks at it like he's wondering why he's not allowed back inside.

And then when he looks at Hyuna more and remembers the moments with her that he's been clinging onto more he forgets about it entirely. And then you know what happens from there. I'm sickkkk

The fact that a lullaby. A Fucking Lullaby, and presumably a song that most if not all kids of Anakt know and learned when they were still young (see: that scene of the main 4 singing it) was the song choice for this video. The fact that seeing Hyuna, just seeing her again like that is what brings that lullaby back, a melody from the beginning of it all that should be so far beneath Luka by now, but isn't. I can't bro.

Luka, live with love. Or whatever. Augh I don't even know

[cgerice]

I love Sonic Boom

[martyryo]

"How long are you gonna pretend I'm the one tugging on your tie?"

[sichore]

I do think one circumstance in which Mydei would let Phainon fuck his wife (gn) is like. On a leash, figuratively or even literally lgmsnks. And it's not that Mydei is all that domineering, he really isn't. He's already wary of Phainon fucking him because he's so chaotic but with Mydei's most precious treasure? Oh he better be on his BEST behavior.

Because the thing is if you think Mydei is touchstarved - and he is, no doubt, Hephaestion was the last lover he had - Phainon is ten, a hundred times worse. Mydei has discipline and restraint and is ever conscious of his strength, and in this case is in an established relationship. Has had an established relationship before.

Phainon has nothing and no one but his destiny and frankly cannot be trusted to be unleashed in the bedroom. He's too excited, too eager, too enthusiastic to try all these things he's only ever imagined and

And it probably ends in either tears for Phainon from overstimulation or bickering between him and Mydei who's maybe being nitpicky and micro-managing according the Deliverer.

[bastardcatthings]

Shaking Jenson so hard all his buttons rattle inside him: "JUST BECOME LANDO'S MANAGER"

[purrvaire]

if I had a nickel for every time David Tennant has played a genderfluid, trauma-filled immortal having the worst day of their life in 2023, I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but apparently it's enough to making me going insane

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!