#Properly explored

[iamthetruestrepairman]

honestly no movie I’ve seen has come close to capturing the dread of going through the wrong puberty. The average trans person has been through literal body horror shit and I feel like we don’t address that enough

[thatrandombystander]

Ashur's whole Deal in Veilguard is extremely ripe for the sorts of identity shenanigans I love very dearly. I think Tarquin shouldn't know who he is so he can get to have a whole crisis because he's got a crush on both his day job boss (the Pope) AND his extracurricular job masked revolutionary leader (basically Batman)

Throw in a bit of religious imagery and devotion, and we are COOKING

[starry-bi-sky]

this just in: danny fenton is just as much of a mask as Brucie Wayne? - another danyal al ghul au

Turns out, being placed in a civilian family who have no knowledge of your background is actually detrimental to the health and development of a child assassin due to lack of proper support! Surrounded by strangers in a foreign city, Danyal Al Ghul does as assassins do best. He hides. Espionage is one of many teachings one learns in the League, and it only takes half a day for Danyal to construct a new persona to hide behind: Daniel Fenton.

By the time dinner rolls around, Danyal al Ghul is safely and securely tucked behind the face of Danny Fenton; brand new adoptive child of the Fenton family who came from overseas. A shy, quiet little boy with a thick accent and curly hair, with brown skin and blue eyes, and an avid interest in the stars. The best fictions are always cobbled together in a little bit of truth, it's some of the only truth he ever lets through. He apologizes in a meek voice for his behavior early, he didn't mean to be rude, and he watches the three of them eat it up with coos.

Lies roll like silk against his lips, he struggles to meet their eyes and offers them his weakest, shyest smile. It's too easy. It's easy to go from there.

Danny Fenton, adoptive son, shy and awkward and unconfident but friendly. Who struggles in his classes and isn't the brightest, but tries his hardest. He makes bad jokes and has a quick tongue and a sarcastic mouth. He wants to be an astronaut. He's got the best aim in school, and is a terrifying dodgeball player. He's one of the least athletic kids in his grade.

It's like playing two truths and a lie, but there's only one truth, and the rest are lies. It's easy to pretend when he knows it's insincere.

Danyal Al Ghul, grandson to the Demon Head. Deadly, trained assassin. Has spilled blood, has had blood spilt from. Environmentalist, animal activist. He loves the stars. He owns a calligraphy set. A sharp tongue, an even sharper blade. He's clever, quick-witted, he would be top of his grade if he tried harder. He purposely doesn't.

He misses his family. He misses his mother, and he misses his brother. Mother visits a few times a year, so few times that he can count it on both hands. He cherishes every visit, as brief as they are. It helps remind him who he is.

Sam and Tucker are Danny's best friends. They've never met Danyal, but Danyal's met them.

It becomes routine to become Danny Fenton. As familiar and as easy as pulling on a shirt in the morning. Danyal wakes up and is always first to the bathroom in the mornings; stares at himself in the mirror until he can finally see Danny staring back at him. At night, he locks his door and sheds the mask.

Dying throws a wrench in his mask; splits a crack straight through the porcelain. He's able to smooth it over with sandpaper and liquid gold, but it's a little hard keeping his ghost form under wraps. It instinctively wants to shift to show his true self. Danyal can't have that, he's spent four years as Danny Fenton, he'll spend another four as him as well. Even if the feeling of the hazmat suit in his ghost form feels restrictive, like a too-small shirt suctioned to his skin that needs to be peeled off.

He'll live. Er-- well, you know what he means. It's frustrating however, trying to keep his Danny Fenton mask up even as Phantom - fighting in the air is something he needs to get used to, and the sudden propping of powers throws him off. But he is nothing if not adaptive, and he hates that he needs to slow his own skills down in order to keep pretenses up in front of Sam and Tucker.

The first time Danyal summons a sword when he's alone, is one of the few times Danyal gets to grin instead of Danny. He's fighting Skulker, and from an invisible hilt he draws a katana from thin air. It startles them both. Skulker takes a step back at the smile that spreads across his face.

They're both silent as Danyal examines his new sword.

"Do you know what people like me do to people like you, poacher?" Danyal finally asks him, the accent he began to hide a few months in slipping through. He drops all pretense, dragging the flat end of the blade slow and appreciatively against his palm. It's a good make, and when he cuts it through the air, it slices through like butter. He looks up at Skulker with a smile; "are you ready to find out?"

When Sam and Tucker ask about why Skulker seems so skittish around Danny now, Danny shrugs at them and says with a playful smile; "I don't know, I guess I kicked his butt too hard after our last fight." and he watches as Sam rolls her eyes exasperatedly, and Tucker snickers with his own joke.

By the time he reunites with Damian before their 15th birthday, Danyal is buried beneath so many layers of Danny Fenton that his brother will need a shovel to dig him out. He's not sure what he'll find.

[hattedhedgehog]

Keeping it a secret for so long has been torturous, but now that the game reveals are happening I can finally say that for the past few years I’ve been part of the player council for the upcoming DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD!

(The only photo proof I'm able to show is of me appreciating the Arishok's huge...tracts of land at Bioware Edmonton)

At this time all I can tell you is that my role was to provide feedback to the development team to help improve the game, something which has been very special to be able to do. Now that things are in motion, I’m excited to see what gets revealed with each official announcement…

[teatitty]

B-127 being significantly older than everyone else. B-127 knowing some of the older bots personally, having vague memories of what things were like Before, being surprised that the archives aren't publically available anymore, B-127 who doesn't remember his own age because it's been so long but he remembers enough to know Orion (Optimus, Optimus his name is Optimus now) and Elita are so young to be given so many burdens

B-127 is older than all his new friends. But he doesn't remember how he got to Sub Level 50. He doesn't remember what he was like Before. That building is new. What happened to the road that lead to ____? Where is ____? Was his cog taken at emergence like everyone else? Or was it taken later? Is there a reason he thrives with violence? Did he really lose his mind down there, or was he always programmed to be just a little stab happy? He doesn't know. He doesn't know.

Hey Optimus! You don't mind if I stick a little closer than usual right? There's just so much noise and colour up here haha. Has it always been this bright?

[lyqiche]

heat stroke photoshoot redraw with my muse 🐈‍⬛☀️

did a follow-up of this kuroo from another angle too (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

[gin-juice-tonic]

I deleted that last post because frankly I got embarrassed. But ultimately, I really would like to know if the new journal pages are suspicious on purpose.

Them being fake pages made by Bill is a theory I believe quite heavily in, and in my opinion there's a decent amount of evidence for it. It feels percentage-wise very few people agree. But I guess I just want to say, it's not that I'm just out here grasping at straws to discount a book I didn't like. What we know Ford to be like, what we know Bill to be like, and most importantly what we know journal 3 to be like, those are what the theory is driven by.

When I first looked at TBOB for myself, I got to the second page of the journal pages and the perception that I was reading pages written by Ford himself was shattered instantly. It was not repaired through the entire rest of the pages. When I was sitting around at work later, the next day after I had finished reading, I was struck in my mind by a bit in Ford's final message. "He's making it all up as he goes along." I know people have different readings of the meaning of that line, but for me that's what made me feel like maybe there's something to all this.

Suddenly it wasn't just "This book sounds nothing like Ford..." But rather "Maybe this book sounds nothing like Ford... because it isn't supposed to." And I started realizing stuff. Like "Hey... wasn't Ford drawn super incorrectly here?", or "Could this part really have happened?", or "Does this page make sense to even exist?". "What is it that creates such a strong sense of dissonance to these pages?" I have kept digging into more and more of what felt wrong ever since.

If you read through them without feeling like anything was off, or if there was it wasn't something you felt to be important, it makes sense my theory would not be for you.

But I believe in it.

And if I had my own chance to ask Alex, I would.

(Update: if you haven't seen the additions I made to this post, I ask you read them too)

[mtreebeardiles]

Every so often I’ll see interpretations of Liara’s N7 armor display as creepy/obsessive behaviour — and that’s a fair interpretation! But it got me thinking about my own interpretation and, well

It kinda makes sense, doesn’t it?

Whether you romance her or not, she still has that armor display. The archaeologist. Displaying the armor of someone Important™️, someone whose most recent importance was downplayed by the Alliance — support for Shepard’s Reaper theory was waning, the Alliance sent them off to more remote spots, Alchera happened…

Liara is first and foremost a student of history, and an Asari one at that. She’s trained to see those patterns of history, and knows a legend when she sees one — beyond whatever else Shepard may have been known for before ME1. And in the aftermath of Alchera, I’m sure she got her first real experience with how humans, and the Alliance in particular, will try to bury or gloss over inconvenient truths — if they can be bothered to acknowledge those truths in the first place

They didn’t memorialize Alchera until Shepard was back, two years later. They didn’t want to keep a spotlight on Shepard, on why they were even out there. But Shepard didn’t stay buried, and, well, maybe other ghosts wouldn’t either

All this to say I personally see Liara’s display as her own way of honoring Shepard as a historical symbol, as someone Historically Important™️, and part of that history is a part the Alliance wanted to forget, was happy to forget until they couldn’t anymore

But Liara wasn’t going to forget, and she’d make sure galactic history broadly wouldn’t, either. And in ME3, she takes that conviction one step further, seeding Shepard’s story, the story of the Reapers, all throughout the galaxy

That just reads as more narratively consistent to me, anyway 🤷‍♂️

[balis77]

Transformers: Earthspark (2022)

[taxkha]

I think about their relationship a lot

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

omegaverse thought:

even in settings where alphas are dominant, it could be well known that there are certain scenarios where omegas are not to be crossed. not if you value your peace of mind. or various pieces of your body.

force your way into an omega's nest? you fool. you absolute nugget. that omega will turn from happy purring to a whirlwind of deadly claws and rending teeth faster than you can say "oh f-"

put a hand on a nursing omega's pup without knowing it's fine? "there are no alphas around, its fine." lol. lmao even. as if the alpha can save you from an omega that's protecting their pup. you should know better, idiot.

"how dare that omega not cater to my request specifically! i'm the most important person in the room!" do you want rumors spread about you? are you doing a "never get a date again" speedrun? cause that's where you're headed.

just...omegaverse settings where you ignore the power of omegas at your own peril. including settings where "you fight like an omega" says something about focus or determination.

(used omegas for the example here, but I'm very in support of this applying to betas as well! regardless to if you give your betas unique traits or not, they're still people. still members of a species whose greatest abilities include creativity, endurance, and social bonds.

a single asshole alpha can and should have their life ruined by a group of driven betas with the desire to do so. the less likely it looks, the more interesting it gets!)

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

Thinking about Terapagos' beef with Amethio tonight

[felassan]

ouugh i just cant wait to return to thedas

[jackietaylorsghost]

the real tragedy of tlou is that in saving ellie’s life, joel dooms their relationship. it’s not tragic that he killed a hospital of ppl and prevented a cure bcus we have no emotional attachment to any of those people or the notion a cure might actually work and fix the world. we’ve travelled across that world with ellie and joel and seen how it’s in pieces and how unlikely it could ever be fixed the way the fireflies imagine. but emotionally we ARE with joel and ellie and as we see them in that car and hear joel tell his lie and see ellie’s face, we know that things can’t be the same for them again. i am now and have always been of the opinion that joel lies in that moment to protect her from her feelings of guilt and the burden of thinking she has 2 save the world (and ive always said too he should have told her the truth eventually instead of her having to force his hand to get it), but regardless of that the choice joel made and the lie is always going to be between them. things will always be a little different now. an unspoken thing that eats away at the space between them, making it bigger and bigger. and that’s why it’s really tragic because joel picked ellie’s life over and above anything else cus he loved her and thus knew her life had value independent of being a cure to save the world and she should get to live it, but whilst she is living it (something she is only able to do cus he saved her), he has to watch from afar. he saves her and loses her at the same time.

[casscainmainly]

Hi! ✨ I was wondering what you thought about Duke's part in the latest episode of WFA?

Hi!! So I was very optimistic given last week's We Are Robin intro, and my hopes aren't dashed or anything. (I don't have FastPass btw so I'm talking about the latest free one!). Duke was fine here, him pushing back against Damian is maybe the first time he's stood against anyone in WFA so it's definitely an improvement! The conflict fuels Damian's character, though, not Duke's, which is still disappointing.

Obviously in canon neither Duke nor Damian would've been so nice in their argument, but WFA is a universe where every emotion is halved so I'm not mad about that. I am a bit wary about Damian vs. We Are Robin kids, and the rhetoric about 'field training' and 'field readiness'; firstly, this is a watered down version of what we already got in Robin War, and secondly it shows a misunderstanding of what We Are Robin is. Having Damian beat up Riko and Dax, even if he's called out for it, just kinda fuels the image that We Are Robin aren't 'real' Robins and need proper Bat training. Idk this was an issue in Robin War too, but the point of We Are Robin is that they're not trained like Bats! They're something separate, and that is their strength!!

I just think a WAR + Damian story could be so good if you treated both sides as equals. They both challenge each other' ideas about Robin; Damian has relationships with both Duke and Izzy; in fact, a story about Duke's loyalty between Damian and WAR would be so intriguing! This episode uses Duke + WAR more or less as a prop for Damian, so it isn't the best, but hopefully it's just a temporary thing and we actually get WAR/Duke spotlight next.

Anyway I will stay tuned in as long as We Are Robin are here so I'm hopeful they'll have bigger character/story moments later!! This is just the second ep they've been in so we'll see. For Duke, the major things WFA has left to fix are: 1) his personality (we still need way less 'timid'/normal Duke); 2) mention his parents more!! 'i don't talk about my parents much' are you kidding; 3) differentiate his relationships a little more. He should not interact with Cass and Dick in the same way! But this is kinda a WFA problem across the board rather than a Duke-specific one. Curious to hear other Duke fans' thoughts!

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Olympus