#Pre-Loved Journey

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[aquanutart]

I absolutely LOVE the Squirtle/Wartortle illustrations by kantaro in Pokemon 151!

The Squirtle jumping so joyfully from the rock into the ocean, the colors are STUNNING! I love the contrast of the Squirtle's aqua blue framed in the vivid orange sky, the soft bit of blue reflecting in its shell and its tail just catching the sun, how little and squishy its body looks as it launches itself towards the water with such tremendous excitement!

The lineless style of the background gives me the feel of a travel poster and I sense the tropical environment around it from the rocks and trees framing the corners, the waterfall splashing with as much energy as the Squirtle!

The layered blues on the surface of the water and the bubbles rising at the corner make me FEEL the liquid rising to meet the Squirtle--I can just feel how the next moment it's going to break through and be immersed in a cool island swim!

And the Wartortle running along the sunset beach, this is somehow everything I always imagined for Wartortle! I adore the way the rich purple melts into the warm red/orange sky, the matching purple clouds and shadows in the foreground, and how the dimming sunlight glows red on Wartortle's deep blues!

I love how the yellow and orange of the sky illuminate the lapping waves, I can just feel the gentle motion of the sea at dusk. The aqua color of the ocean matches Wartortle's ears and tail and sets off the red-orange sand, I just love how the colors are here!

Wartortle looks so round and squishy, I love its happiness as it goes frolicking through the shallows, chasing the bubbles caught in the setting sun! The shine and deep shadow on its shell give it an almost jewel texture like real tortoise shell; I love the silhouetted splash Wartortle leaves as it goes running across the shore. It's so full of energy and delight at the end of a gorgeous day! The colors in these are SO vivid and harmonized and the style is so cute and bursting with energy and joy. I just LOVE it (also Squirtle is my starter)

[beanghostprincess]

I know we Sanuso shippers sound like a broken record moving in between Skypiea, Water 7, Enies Lobby, and Sabaody, but... Those really are crucial arcs for both of them. They show their core personalities, even before their actual arcs (WCI and, hopefully, Elbaf, if Oda gives my boy Usopp all the attention he deserves there) and they're always together. They're paired together in each of those and they're together to witness each other's important moments and growth. And I just think it's something so beautiful. It's not exactly that they have crucial scenes, it's the fact that they're together to support each other in them.

[sketching-shark]

JTTW retelling that deals with everyone's favorite pilgrims "beginning" their redemption arcs getting trapped under a mountain for 500 years/getting stabbed hundreds of times daily/having their bones broken with a mallet constantly/whipped approximately a bajillion times when.

[isdalinarhot]

ok whatever dalinar and navani trapped in the spiritual realm scary bodes poorly awful I DONT WANT TO THINK ABOUT THAT. i want to think about radiant implying that sadeas ALSO murdered his way up a couple dahns WHILE BEING 15. and im guessing this was a joint effort with ialai? again, when they were Fifteen Years Old. like holy shit

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

Early morning I-can't-sleep-for-stress-over-a-medical-procedure thoughts: Well, OBVIOUSLY I have to make my weird Mourn Watch Rook something like Moritani so that her nickname can be Mori. Obviously.

[rexscanonwife]

Ok new poll time even though my mind is lowkey made up already

[raayllum]

The stages of saying I love you (insp)

[pokimoko]

On Waxen Wings We Soar, In Spite of Inevitable Ends - A Baldur's Gate Fic

Written by pokimoko

Chapters: 1/1

Word Count: ~15.5K

Fandom: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Astarion & Karlach (Baldur's Gate), Astarion/Karlach (Baldur's Gate), (it's fairly ambigious; is it romantic? queerplatonic? platonic? yes), (the love and devotion is there regardless)

Characters: Karlach (Baldur's Gate), Astarion (Baldur's Gate)

Tags: Post-Canon, Post-Game: Baldur's Gate 3, Spoilers for Act 3 (Baldur's Gate 3), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, (in which a certain scene on a certain dock doesn't happen right at that very moment), POV Karlach (Baldur's Gate), Astarion as Player Character (Baldur's Gate), Vampire Spawn Astarion (Baldur's Gate), Astarion & Karlach Friendship (Baldur's Gate), Ambiguous Relationships, Queerplatonic Relationships, Non-Sexual Intimacy, No Smut, Location: Faerûn (Dungeons & Dragons), Dungeons & Dragons Game Mechanics, Road Trips, (minus the car), Canon-Typical Bag Packing Physics, (how are they fitting all that food and a whole tent into one bag? don't ask me), Polymorph Spell (Dungeons & Dragons), Animal Transformation, Corvid Token (Baldur's Gate), Birds, oh? my wisdom check engine light is on? well i'm sure it's nothing to worry about, (and yes i know that joke doesn't actually work in terms of d&d mechanics. shhh), Quest: Our Fiery Friend | Karlach's Companion Quest (Baldur's Gate), Karlach Needs a Hug (Baldur's Gate), Astarion Needs a Hug (Baldur's Gate), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Humor, Karlach-centric (Baldur's Gate), Astarion-centric (Baldur's Gate), Protective Karlach (Baldur's Gate), Protective Astarion (Baldur's Gate), Karlach Has Chronic Pain (Baldur's Gate), Dying Karlach (Baldur's Gate), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Character Study

Summary: With her engine breaking down, and little time left to live before she burns up completely, Karlach takes one last journey across Faerûn. And thanks to a little bit of magic, it's a journey she won't have to take alone.

[theartisticdoofus]

so... it's done. i finished yu gi oh. it was... definetly an experience, that's for sure but i can say with confidence nd love a very fun one! atem is...dead i guess. he already was but this timeit's like, official and that... is understandable. yugi also has the chance to grow into himself in a way he would never be able to if he kept relying on his other self. i hope atem's found peace in the afterlife and it was a great way to end the series! of course, according to the sopilers ive gotten, it won't stay that way for long...

reading/ watching this alongside arcane was... an experience to say the least and the dual brainrot i am recieving is confusing to say the least lol. i can't help but think of their themes side by side, how they directly conflict each other. arcane is about the destructive potential of love and the violence that breeds from it and yet how important that love is and how it is worth fighting for. it's also very morally grey and touches on themes of redemption. yu gi oh is about learning kindness (atem) and the eternal battle between love and hate, how it's better to love and search for revenge and find comfort in the darkness. in that way, it is a timeless tale. And of course it is about the constructive effects of love and friendship and the strength of community and others we can rely on. what we can see but remains unseen... it is a question with many answers. one's own heart and self. friendship. the next card you draw, everything. it's also very much a coming of age story, for both yugi and jounouchi who have fantastic character arcs. it's definetly simpler (and the quality can't really be compared) than arcane and quite straightforward but the ideas it brings to the table and communicates hold the same significance nad merit (well pre memory world and post s0) and while in different ways, both speak of empathy and love as some of the most important parts of the human experience. it's... fascinating and hopeful and the love for the project is clear in both and the themes carry over to the audience well. it's sweet <3

[lyricalchrysanthemum]

pokemashe sinnoh trio relationship chart ft two joke ones

[exopelagic]

everyone was so harsh to alola it deserved so much better. like this region is so well designed and so pretty and the story is actually really fun? will never forgive everyone for what we did to her

[witharacket]

i think it's both important to not erase tashi in the throuple post-2019 new rochelle match and it's also important not to diminish the bond that art and patrick had pre-tashi either

[robinsnest2111]

babes, as soon as I get a couple more sketchbooks and pens so the anxiety of having to make every sketch perfect lest I waste one of the last 7 pages and run out of ink halfway through will be lessened, I'll get back to all your beautiful requests in my inbox!!! y'all are so creative and you conjure such beautiful images in my brain <3333 hugs and kisses to all of you!!!

[rockoblanco]

This might seem random but I'm asking bc you have a good body and seem like someone who doesn't let laziness/frustration get the best of you. I exercise a lot for body building stuff and I'm pretty good at being consistent but I HATE doing bent over barbell rows and I often skip it bc I do so much other exercises I get tired and I also hate spending too much time in the gym bc I work a lot a guess I try min max my time spent in the gym. I do other lat focused exercises which I justify in my head as making up for it (which rlly it doesn't bc theyre not compound lifts). How do you deal with exercises you hate/you want to skip. Feel free to ignore this if you want I just saw you on my dash after I finished a workout after again ignoring my bent over rows...

Oh jeesh, I appreciate that, but I certainly let both laziness & frustration get the better of me a lot so ur not alone ! 😭 honestly tho , I’ve been lifting for years now, some years better than others, & I personally am at the point in my life where i just truly do not do lifts i don’t like lol. Like to me, there’s already so much time & energy being spent in the rest of our lives doing things we don’t want to do, so if we’re choosing to be somewhere doing something we don’t HAVE to do, then we should at least not be doing things we don’t like!!! I also don’t enjoy barbell rows, but I don’t feel like im missing out bcs there are many other exercises that will exercise the same group of muscles. Heck, I’ve never seen some of the older, biggest guys at my gym ever do a squat on a squat rack — they only use the leg press! that’s not to say don’t do squats, but everyone has a routine that works for them, & i just feel like there are very many ways to work out one group of muscles, so you should just stick to exercises that you enjoy doing and aren’t a chore imo !

[spainkitty]

Why Can't You Be Happy?

Pre-DA:I/Pre-DA:O

I headcanon my Lanil Lavellan as formerly Lanil Surana. So I realized: why not write a little from her time in the Ferelden Circle, mostly so I can think about what was her relationship with Anders like? Based on WOT canon(?), he's around 30-32 at the beginning of DA2!?! So I'm going off that idea for his age. Surana is 18 for her Harrowing in my 'verse, so there's a good 12 year age difference. No. Romance. Here. Purely platonic, hints at a sibling-like affection for the future.

Lanil's Pieces Masterlist

“Why can’t you just be happy here?”

The words whipped through the air, blunt and forceful, but without heat.

The older mage, an actual mage not an apprentice like her, jerked around. For a mere second, she saw the glare, the fury, but when their eyes met he was smirking, eyebrow quirked, ready with one of his infamous quips.

She liked the anger better. Anger she understood. Whatever the smirk meant, that she didn’t understand in the least.

Instead of lashing out as expected, the mage froze. Both eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. Which was impressive with a forehead that big.

“I know you. Surana, right?”

“Lanil. You’re Anders.”

“The one and only.”

She propped her fists on her hips, legs braced wide and elbows akimbo. His smirk returned but it was softer, more like a smile. He moved to face her more fully, crisscrossing his legs and propping his elbows on his knees. He’d been perched on this windowseat for hours and hours, ever since he’d left the solitary room that morning. It was the only windowseat in the entire library, so of course he’d taken it even though he didn’t have a single book or scroll with him. A few times, other mages and apprentices had started to come over with arms full of books, but had realized who was sitting there, and discreetly turned away. Lanil was tired of the silence. Of no one saying anything. Absolutely useless.

“Well? Aren’t you going to answer me?” she demanded, stomping a foot. And immediately regretted it. Stefani said only little babies threw temper tantrums.

“You’ll have to repeat the question. I was distracted by the scowl,” he said. Teased.

Rude.

Lanil scowled harder.

“It’s a wonder I’m not already on fire, with a scowl like that on a baby mage like you,” Anders said, still teasing her.

“I have excellent control. Wynne says I’m a prodigy,” Lanil retorted, chin rising proudly. A frown flickered over Anders’ face.

“She said the same about me once. Let’s hope you don’t end up the same as me,” he muttered. His gaze dropped to the floor, his shoulders slumping.

“You wouldn’t be so sad if you would just be happy here,” Lanil said, and then frowned. That didn’t make as much sense out loud as it did in her head, and Anders was chuckling at her. “Well, I’m right. This is our home. We can learn all the magic we want, we have food to eat every day, and nice beds and clothes, and we’re family. We’re never alone. Why can’t you be happy here?”

Something odd happened to her voice. It twisted and pitched upwards and her nose stung. She rubbed at it with her fist and scowled at her slippers peeking out from under the skirt of her robe. He remained silent and so did she. She also fervently wished she’d never come over here. It was as useless as everyone saying nothing at all.

“How old are you, Lanil?”

“Twelve,” she whispered.

“You came here… it was six years ago, wasn’t it? It wasn’t long after my Harrowing.” She nodded. “Don’t you remember your real family?”

“This is my real family!” she shouted, hands balled in fists at her sides.

“Okay, okay, I hear you, Laney,” Anders said quickly, half-scrambling from his seat and raising both hands in surrender.

Lanil grimaced at him. “Laney?”

“What? It’s cute like you. Under all that frowning, there’s a cute little girl in there,” Anders said, ruffling her short ivory hair.

She kept on scowling, but her face was heating, her mouth pulling upwards. No one ever called her ‘cute’. Stefani, though, with her honey-blonde hair and big brown eyes and wide smiles, she was the cute one. Some of the older human apprentices would tug at her ears and call her ‘batty’. That was the closest it got to a compliment on her looks, and only because she thought bats were cute and ignored the obvious sneering. She climbed onto the windowseat next to Anders and pulled her legs close to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins, chin on her knees. After a moment, he resettled on the seat next to her, one leg hanging off the edge and the other crossed and tucked under the opposite knee.

“I don’t remember them,” she muttered. “Not much.”

“What do you remember?”

She screwed up her mouth and her nose scrunched. “I remember… a woman singing. My mother, I guess. She sang to me while brushing my hair, when it was longer. It wasn’t… I think she sang in Elven.” She tugged at the short spiky fringe falling into her eyes, probably the longest her hair got these days.

“That sounds nice. My mother sang often, too.”

Lanil shrugged. “I don’t really remember the words. I remember… the smells, I remember those better. Sometimes the cooks make something and it’s like I’m back there. It was small, and dirty, and I was hungry. That’s what I remember more than anything, being hungry. That and someone crying and crying. And sometimes a man shouting. Why would I want to remember more? It’s better here. I’m not hungry or sad or dirty.”

“That’s… true,” Anders said softly. “But there’s no one to sing to you, either. You’ll never remember those words now.”

Her fingers dug into the thick cloth of her robes, curling, uncurling, kneading like a cat with none of the contentment.

“I was twelve when I came here. I remember my mother, my home town, my home.” Anders said. He leaned back and his head bumped the wall behind him. He turned to the window and stared out into the blue summer sky and the iron-grey lake, to the distant shore and maybe farther. All the way to that home that was better than Kinloch Hold.

“What was it like?”

Anders smiled. “Fun. For a long time, it was fun. Happy. My mother loved to sew, she made me clothes and always added these pretty little embroideries on everything. Flowers, bees, cats, horses, you name it, she could embroider it. It used to be a game for me and my father. Finding what Ma had hidden somewhere on our shirts or trousers. One time she made a giant pink and purple butterfly on my pa’s smallclothes, right on his butt cheek.”

Lanil burst into giggles, smothering it against her knees.

“My father wanted me to be a farmer like him, and I liked it well enough. I like animals, I like making things grow, but all I really cared about was playing with my friends. Then, suddenly, between one day and the next, I was a mage. My father was scared of me, hated me, and my mother begged him over and over not to say anything. But he went to the Templars anyway. They put me in chains, dragged me away screaming while my mother cried,” Anders said. He broke off with a scoff, but Lanil could see how his eyes gleamed. “It was so pathetic they let me take something from her. A pillow she’d made for me.”

“A pillow?” Lanil asked quietly. She had nothing from the Alienage; she wanted nothing from there. She chose to keep her hair cut short. The first time someone had tried to make her brush her hair that first year here, she screamed and screamed until she set the hairbrush on fire. It was better not to bother with it.

“Yes. It’s a small thing. I could carry it myself even with the manacles,” he told her, dryly. “Probably why they allowed it.”

“Did it have a butterfly, too?”

“No. Cats, dozens of cats running or sleeping or prancing around,” Anders said, laughing a little. “I’ve always loved cats. Maybe the pillow came first, or maybe my love of cats. I’ll show it to you one day.”

“I like dogs better.”

He recoiled, his hand pressed to his chest, his eyes rolling back. “I have been wounded. Dear Andraste, save this girl’s soul. She prefers dogs.”

“Andraste had a mabari. She prefers dogs, too,” Lanil said, but she was grinning at him. He was so ridiculous.

“Uh uh, she may have had a warhound for her little revolution,” Lanil snorted at ‘little revolution’, “but there’s no Chant about her not liking cats. I’m sure she had the good taste to have plenty of happily vicious mousers in her war train.”

“Like Mr. Wiggums?”

His brown eyes lit up as he beamed. “Exactly like Mr. Wiggums. I didn’t think anyone else called him that.”

“Everyone does now. He didn’t have a name before.”

“I’m sure Mr. Wiggums will more than earn his name. He’s got the makings of greatness, I can tell,” Anders said. Lanil shook her head, but she wanted to smile. “So do you.”

“Me?”

“Wynne did say you’re a prodigy, didn’t she?” Anders reached out and placed a hand on her head. This was the most physical affection she'd ever had. Only Stef ever hugged her or held her hand, and sometimes they shared the same bed. It was... nice. “You’ll be a great mage one day. Exactly the kind the Chantry wants.”

Even though Lanil felt her heart swelling, pride lifting her chin, she couldn’t help scowling. That last bit, those last few words… sounded so sad.

“You’re a great mage already,” she said slowly. Anders’ eyebrow rose. “I’ve heard Wynne talk about your Healing, and First Enchanter talks on and on about you. Even the Templars like you and laugh at your jokes.”

Anders glanced away, back to the outside view. His jaw looked tight. His mouth pulled down even tighter.

“You still haven’t told me why you can’t be happy here,” she added mulishly. And she realized she wanted him to be happy here. She wanted him to ruffle her hair and tease her and praise her magic, too. Like everyone else in Kinloch, she couldn’t help but like him.

“Haven’t I?”

“I don’t like it when people answer questions with questions,” Lanil muttered, scowling. “It’s annoying.”

Anders smirked. “For someone who wants me to be happy, you’re not exactly happy yourself.”

“Of course I am.”

“And yet, this was one of the only times I’ve ever heard you laugh. I almost never see you smile.”

“I’m not going to laugh at everything like an idiot,” Lanil snapped at him, her face heating.

“Everyone needs a job, and I do fill the role of fool so well,” he said breezily.

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to be a fool,” Lanil said vehemently.

“Sometimes only fools survive.” Anders’ smile looked fake and she hated it. “I hope you survive, too. I wish we all could live. Fools and forceful little bullies like you.”

“’m not a bully.” She scowled and wondered why he said 'live' like that. Like it was something he could only dream of, not something he was doing right now.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could do whatever we wanted? Jump in the lake and swim on a beautiful summer’s day, or play with as many cats or dogs as we wanted… or sit still and listen to our mothers sing while they brush our hair…” Anders trailed off. Again, he was staring outside.

Lanil watched his face. Watched as his false smile fell until there was nothing in his expression at all. His brown eyes, so lively and golden-hued, became flat and dull. Shadows as deep and dark as bruises under his eyes, his complexion already shades and shades lighter than her own now the color of ash and milk. His cheeks looked hollow, almost gaunt. It made her remember those blurry memories of hunger in a dirty little room where that woman cried and the man shouted. How many days had his solitary been this time?

As if he could feel her intense stare, Anders inhaled with a breath that shuddered. He broke his own gaze on the horizon and turned to her. His smirk came back, small but genuine, and it made Lanil’s chest expand, as if she hadn’t been breathing properly during that silence.

“Well, Laney--”

“Don’t call me Laney.”

“--if you really want me to be happy, there’s only one thing for it.” Anders stretched his long, long legs out over the floor. Then, he stood and stretched his arms high over his head. One day she’d be that tall. If he wouldn’t keep running away, she’d have a chance to ask him how to do it.

“What one thing?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Cookies. That’s what I need.”

Lanil blinked. “Cookies?”

“Stolen cookies.”

“Aren’t you too old to be stealing cookies?” Lanil said with a frown. Anders covered his eyes with a hand, swooning back against the wall.

“Old, she calls me. Old. I’m twenty-four, you little brat. Aren’t you too young to have the face of a hag?”

Lanil grinned. “At least my forehead isn’t bigger than a slate.”

“It is not!”

Lanil uncurled from the seat and grabbed his hand. “C’mon. Stef is the best sneak-thief. She’ll help us steal cookies.”

“Another brat ready to make fun of me, I assume?” But he let her lead him by the hand and was only a little stooped doing so.

“Yup.”

He sighed behind her.