#and then after saving and saving and sacrificing more and more of my mental health for 5 goddamn years

[starguardianniom]

Harumasa's health after his agent story

Let's be real here, his master's cure definitely changed things for him.

Probably in both a good and bad way.

Good because it literally saved his life and most likely bought him time so he might actually see past 26, though that's my headcanon since the game makes it clears that even the doctors have no ideas either.

Bad because well, it definitely most likely changes Harumasa's habits and gives him probably even more fear and anxiety to worry about.

Hear me out.

Harumasa is used to taking a lot of pills and most likely knows the patterns to his illness by now.

But with this cure he injected into himself?

It probably will change a lot of things for him.

I mean, for starters, if it controls his illness well, does that means he needs to have some changes in his prescriptions? Will he have new symptoms or something?

I can imagine Harumasa freaked the hell out when he awoke in the hospital after dealing with Kirishima and wondered what the heck was going on and how was he still alive because he was pretty sure he was a goner.

And then when his doctors told him he got better on his own he probably had a little mental breakdown because no way that happened and the doctors must have found a miracle treatment or something because his illness was really killing him there and with his master's "drug" he definitely thought of himself as a dead man.

Later, when finally getting through his head that he is really alive and well, he starts freaking out more because for once he doesn't hurt anywhere and it's probably the healthiest he's ever been and given he was on death's door he can't help but be extremely paranoid about his being alive and well and is scared to hell and back about what it means. Like did his illness mutate when he injected himself the drug? Is it just the calm before the storm? Is he about to get much worse? Could he suddently have worse symptoms than before? I imagine him being afraid of suddently having a seizure just like that because of the drug.

Also I see him not being in the best mental state when he wakes up because he just had about the most stressful week of his life, pursuing his master only to find out he turned into an ethereal right before he could find him which also means his years of searching for him for answers amounts to have been for nothing and losing the only person he could consider family after his parents abandoned him, having to fight him to the death while his illness was acting up badly, dealing with Kirishima, trying to save the kids, trying to get the drug before Kirishima, and then sacrificing himself so no one else would suffer like he did and to stop Kirishima for good, and then miraculously surviving and being healthier than he can remember most likely. His survival is something that happens in movies, not to him and not in real life, but the facts are there and he can't refute them so he does lose his mind a bit about it before he finally calms down.

So I headcanon that the first couple of days he stayed in the hospital and the others he stayed at home to get time to process everything before going back to work to be warmly welcomed back by his teammates and the proxy.

I bet he had a long talk about his doctor about how to proceed forward since his miraculous brush with death, like should they change his prescription, should he takes more or less pills, should he probably retire, should he takes a long vacation, and probably wanted to be tested for everything thrice just to be sure that there would be no surprises.

You're not gonna make me believe he was just fine after almost dying, he probably really was scared out of his mind afterwhat and only pulled through after much reassurances from the doctors that he was doing fine for now and that he could relax.

I mean, in his place I would be scared beyond belief as well, given the situation.

I should probably try to make a fic about it, unless someone else wants to do it, feel free to ask if you want it I'll happily let you have it first come first served.

[wcnderlnds]

here for you | peter parker

・❥・ summary: after getting kicked out, peter comes to the rescue like always ・❥・word count: 1.1k ・❥・warnings: n/a ・❥・ authors note: this is my first time writing for my beloved peter parker!! its also the first time ive wrote anything in like a month. this was a request from this list. feel free to request any!

The rain was falling hard in New York City. It was one of those cold, rainy nights that had most people bustling through the streets with their umbrellas hurrying to get home. Unfortunately, you were one of those people. The heavy thud of the raindrops falling on your umbrella and the usual sound of the busy New York traffic were the only things keeping you grounded in that moment. The puddles on the pavement soaked your favourite pair of boots as you aimlessly wandered, suitcase full of belongings trailing along with you as you dragged it across the concrete. This wasn’t how your day was supposed to go. Your original plan had been to sit in front of the fire, cup of cocoa in your hand as you watched Love Actually. Too bad you had forgotten to pay your darn rent. 

Money had been tight lately. Balancing a part time job and university was no easy feat. So much so that you had ended up sacrificing your job for the sake of your mental health. You had thought your savings would be enough until you had a better grip on things to find another job but you were wrong. The well had run dry and after another missed rent payment, your landlord had kicked you out. 

When it rained, it definitely poured.

As you stepped into a particularly deep puddle, the familiar sound of a ‘thwip’ sounded above you. Craning your neck up, you spotted none other than the famous Spider-Man perched on a lamppost, head tilted as he looked at you almost like he was examining you. The corners of your lips almost tugged up into a smile as you imagined the concern in his eyes under that mask. Peter Parker had shared his secret with you almost the day he’d found out himself. You were his best friend after all – the two of you told each other everything. The eyes on his mask widened in questioning.

“Got kicked out,” you shrugged. Saying it out loud made it feel all the more real. Not that walking through the streets with everything you owned in a suitcase didn’t.

After checking to make sure nobody was around to hear, Peter spoke. “Meet me at my place. Gotta take care of something first.”

With that, he swung away no doubt on his way to tackle some crime. At least in a city like New York, Spider-Man was never short of something nefarious to keep him occupied. The whole city was like a hub for superheroes and criminals at this point. It was so much so that you were almost desensitised to it. Maybe that had something to do with the fact your best friend was one of those superheroes. Your feet carried you to Peter’s apartment, knocking on the door when you approached. No answer. He must still be out. A sigh passed your lips as you sat on the floor, back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of you as you waited for that nerdy, cute friend of yours to arrive. The raindrops from your jacket were dripping on the floor. Huh, you hadn’t realised it had been raining that hard. Probably too lost in your own thoughts. 

It was ten minutes later when the door to the apartment opened – Peter must have swung in through his window. The pros of being Spider-Man meant you didn’t have to deal with such meander things as walking. Sometimes you wished that spider had bit you so you could swing your way through the city without a care. His mask was in his hand as you stepped through the threshold, the door shutting behind you. His big, brown eyes looking at you with concern.

“I know you have questions and I’ll answer but I really need to get out of these wet clothes right now,” you cringed as you pulled your jacket off, your jeans sticking to your legs.

“Oh! Uh, yeah, sure, sure. You can… use the bathroom. You know where it is,” Peter nodded, his cheeks tinting pink at the mere thought of you getting changed in his apartment. He knew he shouldn’t have thoughts like that but he couldn’t help himself. Throughout the years Peter had somewhat started to develop feelings for you. It was something he beat himself up about every single day because there was no way you felt the same way for him. Why would you? You were incredible and he was… him. No, Peter would always keep this secret to himself. There was no way he was ever going to lose you so if it only meant friendship then he’d take it.

“You should have told me you were struggling to pay rent!” Peter exclaimed. Once both of you had gotten changed, you’d situated yourselves on Peter’s couch, a blanket thrown over the two of you as you filled him in on your situation.

“Peter, no offence but you can barely afford to pay your own rent let alone help me.”

“I would’ve found a way.”

A smile lit up your face, hand reaching out to give his a squeeze. “I know and I am so lucky to have someone like you looking out for me like that but I could never ask that of you.”

Peter’s eyes glanced down at your hand atop his, barely containing how sweaty his palm was starting to feel at your simple touch. He was down bad. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed down a gulp, shaking his head. “You know I’m always going to be there for you, right? Always. No matter what happens. I would do anything and everything in this world to help you and protect you. There’s nothing more precious to me than you.”

His words hit you straight in the feelings, your heart beating a mile a minute like it was about to burst out of your chest. The sincere look in his eyes, the way he always seemed to make you his number one priority – there was nobody who looked after you as fiercely as Peter did. Despite everything he’d been through with his family and losing Gwen, he had never let you down. The second your eyes met his it was like the whole world had stopped still. Your breath hitched, caught in your throat as Peter’s delicate fingers reached out to gently tuck a stray strand of your hair behind your ear. His thumb brushed your cheek, the gesture making your stomach do flips.

“Stay here with me…. for as long as you want,” his voice was barely above a whisper.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” you leaned into his touch. The moment lingering between you, neither wanting it to end. There would be many, many more moments just like this one – you just didn’t know it yet.

taglist: @strawb3rrystar @decaf-mother @ldydeath @mistysconcilium

[sunflowerandstrawberryspice]

What up y'all! I return bearing what was originally gonna be survival!shipping fluff (I sketch the face first and drew young Garmadon instead of his full Oni version) but morphed into this because my ass was listening to Ethel Cain and Flower Face while drawing. Honestly I took it and wound up playing rendering/color and quite frankly I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out!

Translations: Vertical word- Destruction, bottom text- "You are no man, men don't have claws they can't cut."

Garmadon is my favorite character to use for these more painterly metaphorical art studies because:

A) He's my babygirl and favorite character, this is very well established lol

B) He's a fundamentally tragic character. He's doomed by the narrative in every sense of the word, he was a child when he was bit and after that he was left to deal with the fact that there was this evil snake in his head and his father as well as his brother (seemingly the only people he interacted with as a child) were now somewhat afraid of him. By his young adulthood his relationship with his family begins to strain due to their belief he's "turning evil" especially when going on the quest for tea leaves in Spinjitzu Brothers which shows he actually feels rather upset/angry that his brother and father believe he's turning evil simply because he experiences negative emotions (you know like a normal person) but then after he see's himself in the mirror in book three he goes on a downward spiral believing he's doomed to turn evil and be alone. We don't really know what happens after book four since the fifth and final book never came out but it's easy to assume that the tea didn't work and Garmadon is left all the worse for it coming out of the trip with his mental health in the gutter. We don't know to much about what happens in-between then and when he goes to Chen's Island but we do know that he doesn't seem to have gotten better since in Shatterspin he's still pretty self sacrificing and other people have begun to notice his less than stellar mental state.

Then we know what happens after the war, his mind is consumed and he is left to be less than himself. Even then when he comes back from the underworld we see that he still cares about his son, he kills the Great Devourer, he still wants to be a person. At the end of season two he gets what he wants, he cured, and for the time that he is fully himself for the first time in years he begins to apologize and try to make up for all that he did (even if it lowkey wasn't 100% his fault seeing he was being controlled by an evil snake), but even that didn't last. He dies, or moreover sacrifices himself to save Ninjago from Chen's Anacondrai army, but he dies a good person, he gets a memorial and family that mourns the truest version of himself. And then he was brought back again, ripped from the afterlife but only as half of himself, only the evil side, the side he spent thousands of years repressing until he couldn't anymore and regretted the second he was himself again. Despite that despite the fact it is supposedly only his evil side left he is still trying to be good, with the Garmadon comics showing his desire for redemption and his care for his son even in what he had thought to be his dying moments.

I think this is what makes one of the beginning lines from the Garmadon comics all the more tragic "Who knows what life he may have lived had he not been corrupted by the Great Devourer and cast into the underworld." He might have gotten to live a different life, he may have gotten to be happy and not fear what he might become, he might not have had to die multiple times over, but we'll never know because that's not what happened instead his fate was twisted by something completely and utterly out of his control.

So yeah he's a little fucked up and that's why he's my favorite! Hope y'all enjoyed my long winded rant, I have so many opinions on this man and don't even get me started on how much I hate crystalized for how it fucked up his development from the comics, but uhhh I think that's it!

If you want to you can check out my fic What Doesn't Kill You it's mostly me putting him in a jar and putting him under a microscope lol, other than that I hope yall have a great day/night and I'll see you when I appear from the mist again! PEACE OUT!

[hussyknee]

Still on a mental health break. Frankly gonna be a while before I want to step back into this racist cesspit. Just coming back to tell them, from the bottom of my heart, that I hope the ghouls saying, "The leftists and Muslims that wouldn't vote for Harris can now watch Trump bomb Palestine into glass," spend the rest of their miserable lives in terror, lose everything they love, die a drawn-out, agonizing death, and burn in the fiery pits of hell for eternity.

Biden-Harris wanted to maim, bury and burn alive, starve, and torture a thousand children a day more than they wanted to save your goddamn country from Project 2025. They sacrificed your lives for their own bloodlust as surely as they are doing the same to Palestinians. They continued nearly all of Trump's policies and went further right than the Bush Administration until even the Cheneys supported them. They deliberately hemorrhaged voters because they depended on you to scapegoat every minority they threw under the bus and the people having the correct reaction to having a genocide live-streamed into their pockets for 400 days. And now they tell you to blame Muslims, Latinos and Black men while white women voted for Trump in the same numbers as in 2016.

For once in your fucking life speak truth to power, stop going after the fucking left whose sole demand was an arms embargo to Israel and tried to negotiate with these demons every step of the way, stop making up conspiracy theories about commies and hold your fucking party accountable for their behaviour. Because you cannot fuck over so many voiceless people and expect your own lives to never be affected.

[puzzleglum]

I posted the original version of this giant Lanyon and Hyde analysis essay (plus theories!) on the 30th of December last year. That was when this page was the latest. Since then, I’m happy to say that it still holds up well, so far! But since I never posted it properly on Tumblr itself, I thought I’d do so now. Especially since I’m planning to write more about Lanyon and Hyde very soon! That will be a bit of a follow-up to my thoughts in this. This version includes edited in comments to account for the NEW pages that came out since I first wrote this essay. So for anyone who’s read it before, you’ll find the new stuff I wrote between brackets! [Like so.] It ended up being about 750 words longer. Total wordcount is now around 3150. I had…a lot of thoughts. For future reference, the latest page, as of the time I posted this edited essay, was this one. Enjoy!! ——— I believe this conversation has the potential to be radically important to the story, the themes, and character arcs. Even lifesaving. Why? Because Hyde has already given up. He knows that saving Jekyll is impossible. It’d be like diving into a black hole and then trying to get out again. You just can’t do it. Hyde would get exactly as stuck in their mind as Jekyll currently is, if he tried to go after him now. But, he didn’t yet try to think of a way around that problem. It’s hard to think when you’re having a mental breakdown, though, so I don’t blame him. What Hyde needs is some help. A chance to calm down and think about any and all solutions he missed. Enter: Lanyon. One of the stubbornest people Jekyll and Hyde have ever known. And thank heck for that, because that stubbornness might be exactly what Hyde needs, right now. There is no way in hell Lanyon is just going to stand by and let Hyde give up. Just like how he couldn't just watch as Jekyll was sacrificing his health and sanity in the name of the Society. He even threatened to close the Society to try and save him!

What Jekyll has done, his mind-suicide attempt, is exactly the end point of what Lanyon was worried about. Because Jekyll did it to save the Society from being destroyed by his secret getting out. He’s placed himself on the altar, deliberately, to bleed out. One final sacrifice as their leader. But of course, on an emotional, visceral level, he really did it to make Hyde suffer.

Hyde’s the one who is now literally bleeding. He’s been abandoned, condemned, and feels like a worthless monster. This is the end for him, and he knows it. So. What will Lanyon do, now that he’s let himself into the office? If I were him…I’d get out the first aid supplies, because Hyde’s glass cuts aren’t going to clean themselves up. [EDIT: this prediction about the first aid turned out to be right! Hooray! But that still leaves the question of whether Lanyon will convince Hyde not to give up on the idea of getting Jekyll back…which requires a more emotional kind of help.]

But the question is, can Hyde allow himself to be helped? He’s prideful, and stubborn. Always has been. And just like Jekyll, he hates to feel emotionally vulnerable. That’s why Hyde’s first reaction when Lanyon opens the office again is to taunt him. Anything to get back even the smallest feeling of control. He refuses to drop the act and admit the obvious: he did make quite a mess of himself. But Lanyon sees through him easily. He, too, knows the feeling of wanting to seem in control. [EDIT: there’s also an element of fear as to why Hyde tries so, so hard to keep up the act. I’ve written more about that here. And, on the latest page, Hyde DID admit that he made a mess of himself! Gradually, Lanyon is managing to chip away at Hyde’s mask. If you ask me, it’s just a matter of time before he drops the act entirely.] But before I talk further about Lanyon and Hyde, I want to talk about Jekyll for a bit. I’ll circle back to those two, no worries. Jekyll never wanted to ask Lanyon for help, either. When Not-Lanyon suggested it, he shut it down immediately. Looking anguished at the very thought of Lanyon finding out about his secret.

It’s not that he didn’t need help. He knew he was struggling, that the conflict with Hyde was wearing him down. But, it’s the idea of letting others in that’s torture to him. The moment he’d let anyone in to help, they’d see how profoundly imperfect he is. They’d see him as a monster. He can’t stand the thought of being seen as anything less than “good.” So he thought he could fix it by himself, because he had to. It was always about shame. He couldn’t let Lanyon know how he had failed to “fix” himself with his experiment—the thoughts he shouldn’t have, the things he shouldn’t want. All so terribly improper. So evil. Asking for help would mean they’d see how truly “rotten on the inside” he is. And Jekyll would’ve rather died than let that happen.

And now they can see it. The secret is out. It’s over. This is the end for him. All his failures, his madness, on full display for everyone to see…it’s his worst nightmare come true. And the worst part is Lanyon seeing him like this. Jekyll has always admired Lanyon, always considered his opinion highly, always cared what he thought of Jekyll. He even used to think of Lanyon as exactly the kind of Perfect Gentleman that Jekyll so desperately wished to be. Until it became clear, during Hyde and Lanyon’s first talk, that Lanyon is simply human, not perfect after all. But I digress. Jekyll was very good at hiding his secrets, until the events of the story slowly took that away from him. Suffering in silence, until he couldn’t anymore. The involuntary transformations, the instability of his and Hyde’s form, was the final nail in the coffin for that secrecy. Lanyon finally got to see why Jekyll thought he was “rotten.” Because the rot has a name, and it’s Hyde. The embodiment of everything Jekyll hates about himself. Everything he could never show others. Everything he tried to separate himself from, in the pursuit of perfection. Everything he never wanted Lanyon to see in him. But, let me rewind a moment. What happened before the reveal? What did Lanyon do?

While Jekyll never asked Lanyon for his help, that doesn’t mean that Lanyon wasn’t trying to help him anyway. He’s been trying to help Jekyll this whole story. But he had no idea what the problem was. And you can’t truly help someone if they refuse to let you in. It hurts, when you want to help your loved ones, and they don’t trust you with knowing what ails them. It hurts, to reach out and be rejected. So Lanyon tried again, desperate to be let in. To help, no matter what it was.

Lanyon still doesn’t know what the problem is, but he can make a reasonable guess. After all, he’s no stranger to internalized homophobia. Or fear of commitment, or attachment. Not to mention that the kind of relationship they have will always carry risk with it. We can’t forget that it was criminalized to be gay in the Victorian period. That fear is perfectly understandable. Which is just one of the many reasons that Lanyon confessing his love for Henry carries such weight for them. He truly wants to be there for Jekyll. No matter what it takes. Even if it means being emotionally vulnerable, something he’s usually quite allergic to himself. It’s something he, Jekyll, and Hyde all have in common. All of that is to say, it’s such a shame what happens next, isn’t it?

Hyde refuses Lanyon’s attempts to reach out, just as Jekyll did. He tricked him so he could make his escape attempt. Once again, Hyde runs away. How ironic then, that Lanyon was just talking about how he understands the urge to run away! [EDIT: not only does Lanyon understand wanting to run away, he also understands putting on an act. Keeping up a certain reputation. Something Jekyll and Hyde are both concerned with. Lanyon’s persona of a cynical dandy who doesn’t care about anything, Jekyll’s persona of a perfect gentleman, Hyde’s persona of the evil spirit of London at night…it’s all a performance. It’s defense, and sometimes offense. It’s excuses. It’s coping strategies, and armor to hide behind. It’s a lot of things, for all three of them. Personas are tools, and we may adopt them for lots of different reasons.] Of course, it’s different from Hyde’s perspective. From Jekyll’s point of view, Hyde is the problem he so desperately tried to “fix” on his own. Obviously, Hyde doesn’t want Jekyll to succeed in his efforts to control or contain him, or get rid of him. What he ultimately wants, what has always motivated him, is to be free. And to that I must ask, free from what, exactly? I’ll get back to that question later. Let’s put a pin in that for now. [EDIT: this is one of those things I’ll talk about more in a follow-up post. No worries!] I’ve seen one read of this scene being that Hyde is jealous. That he wishes that love confession was for him, not Jekyll. Which could certainly be true! But I’d like to add a different read, or at least, to add something else to that read. Earlier, Hyde had been taunting Jekyll with the idea of Hyde stealing Lanyon away from him. Jekyll, naturally, got defensive. What could Lanyon possibly see in Hyde? To that Hyde replied, what could Lanyon see in Jekyll?

So another read I have is that Hyde finds a certain bitter irony in Lanyon’s love confession. Because Lanyon doesn’t even know who Henry really is, and he doesn’t know that Hyde is the Sweetheart side of Henry that he so jealously wanted for himself, fifteen years ago. So, from Hyde’s perspective, perhaps that love confession actually IS, or at least SHOULD be, aimed at himself. And Lanyon doesn’t know there’s such a distinction to be made in the first place. Isn’t that just so deliciously ironic? To say you love someone, without even really knowing them? Maybe Hyde thought that Lanyon got the wrong guy when he said that he loved Henry. (But, in another sense, he absolutely didn’t. Because Hyde is every bit Henry, too.) …But, that read only makes sense if you take Hyde’s taunting towards Jekyll seriously. Obviously, he said all that stuff about stealing Lanyon to upset Jekyll. But does he actually believe any of it? I think he wanted to. Tried to convince himself. Because it would prove he wasn't NOTHING. Remember, he had that whole identity crisis where he realized his Spirit of London persona is, and always was, a lie. But if he can be the Doe-Eyed Sweetheart instead, then he must still be worth something. Still the owner of some kind of identity. But now, with Jekyll gone, he might feel different; he's a worthless monster, and it's silly that Lanyon could ever think otherwise. After all, just because Lanyon wanted the Sweetheart…doesn't mean he actually wants the rest of Hyde, too. The destruction. The ruin. The pathetic, worthless wretch that he is. There is NO WAY Lanyon cares for THAT. Could ever love him when he's obviously NOT being the Doe-Eyed Sweetheart right now, and isn't capable of it in such a bad state, either. So Hyde clinging onto that label of Sweetheart was foolish of him, he might think. Maybe he believes he was delusional to think he was ever anything more than an evil monster. That he COULD be more.

(To be extra clear: I, myself, don’t believe any of the harsh judgments of Hyde in the previous two paragraphs. I just wrote it how I believe Hyde might be seeing it right now. His personal perspective. My own thoughts are very different!) Thus, the insincere taunting towards Lanyon. Because he knows he's no sweetheart, and Lanyon was a stupid lover boy for ever giving him that false hope. That hope of an IDENTITY. A place, or person, to belong to. But, moving on. I can totally see a moment, in the current confrontation between Lanyon and Hyde, where Hyde might be confused as hell if Lanyon doesn’t just…abandon him. Because he should, right? Jekyll is gone. It’s too late to rescue him, as Hyde already told Lanyon. What reason could Lanyon possibly have to stick around? To Hyde, it’s clear as day that he’s hopeless. Saving Jekyll, and thus saving Hyde as well, is a futile endeavor. So that’s my first theory: Lanyon will stick around, and try to help Hyde. Likely starting with cleaning up Hyde’s glass cuts. Hyde won’t get it, at first. Lanyon knows Hyde’s not Jekyll, right? He knows Jekyll is never coming back, right? Then, why, pray tell, won’t Lanyon just leave? Can’t he see that Hyde is evil, and doesn’t deserve any help? [EDIT: judging by how shocked and bewildered Hyde looks when Lanyon goes to patch up his injured hands, I think there is truth to how I envisioned Hyde’s thought process here. But it will be clearer as the scene goes on. Hyde asking whether the fact he caused those injuries to himself horrifies Lanyon also fits with Hyde’s very negative self-image and self-hatred. He’s expecting the answer to be yes, of course it horrifies and offends Lanyon’s sensibilities. Jekyll and Hyde share this fear that Lanyon would hate them if he knew the truth about them. But thankfully, Hyde is wrong. That’s clearly not what Lanyon is leading up to with that “But…” and as for me? I’m expecting a note of acceptance from Lanyon, and likely a re-affirmation of love. That’s what I predict, anyway.] And thus I circle back to my question at the top of this post: Can Hyde allow himself to be helped? Can he find it within himself to let Lanyon in? And to that I say: may I present some visual parallels? :)

“Now, it’s only a matter of time.” This was the start of Jekyll’s resignation to his own fate. There was no getting better. There was no saving him. Inevitably, his secret would get out to the wider public, and then the Society would fall. Everything they’d all worked so hard for, sacrificed for, lost in an instant. The only option left, he realized later, was to bury himself within his own mind, and let his secret die with him. Note that the door is closed. He’s alone, isolated, and left with no hope. Barely any light in his dark office. Now check this out:

It’s the same angle on the office. The same top-down view. This was right after Hyde threw Lanyon to the ground and tried to escape the Society. Both Jekyll and Hyde had refused Lanyon’s attempts to reach out, to help, and be let in. He’s utterly confused, powerless, lying on the floor. But look at the door. It’s halfway open. It’s letting light in, even if it’s not enough yet. The secret is so, so close to being revealed, and very soon after, it will be. Soon, Lanyon will know what Jekyll was dealing with, this whole time. And that brings us to the end of this lovely trifecta:

What a stunning reversal! Now, the one with the power in this scene is Lanyon, unlike before when Hyde was in power. Hyde’s the one who now lies powerless on the office floor. His taunts are completely ineffective. Note the way Lanyon looms over Hyde. Those beautifully piercing eyes of Lanyon, the eyes that Jekyll and Hyde always loved so much, are trained directly on Hyde. He has no intention of letting him out of his sight, for Hyde to run away again. This time is going to be different. The doors are now open all the way. Letting the light in. Because Hyde will not escape being known, anymore. No more secrets, and no more hiding. [EDIT: I love the fact that Lanyon sees through Hyde, just like how Henry saw through Lanyon’s nonsense, all those years ago. I hadn’t expected that flashback story from Lanyon, but it was SO lovely, especially in how it was used to illustrate that Lanyon GETS IT. He understands the desire to keep up an act, a reputation. He gets what it’s like to hide certain aspects of yourself from the wider world. He can RELATE to both Jekyll, and Hyde. Love it!!] In other words, here’s a handy dandy tweet from Sage, which perfectly illustrates my point:

(This was a comment on an update post for the last page of Chapter 15, where Lanyon finally showed up.)

And it IS mortifying, letting people in! I get it! I do. But sometimes, there is no other option left…except for accepting your own annihilation. Resigning to suffering. But Lanyon has always been familiar with Henry’s tendency to resign himself to his own suffering. For fifteen years, in fact.

And he’s not afraid to force the issue. Lanyon, as I’ve said before, is one of the stubbornest people Jekyll and Hyde have ever known. And sometimes, that’s a really good thing. So Hyde will probably try to reject Lanyon’s help at first. But it won’t stop Lanyon from trying to help anyway. And I do believe Hyde will be the first to give in. He’s in a crisis, remember? One’s stubbornness may tend to give way in such extremely high stakes circumstances. The stakes are literally life and death! What’s worth more, then? One’s pride? Or one’s very life?

———

Final new writing starts here: It’s interesting to me that Hyde didn’t physically push Lanyon away when he started with the first aid on Hyde’s poor bloodied hands. I was right that Lanyon would just help him anyway, without waiting for Hyde’s approval, but I was wrong in thinking Hyde would clearly try to reject it. Instead, he’s just…bewildered. Like he has no idea what’s happening anymore. Lanyon isn’t acting how Hyde would expect at all, and that’s throwing Hyde off in a big way. Hyde is probably thinking something like, if Lanyon knows I’m me and not Jekyll, but he’s helping me anyway, then…?! And it just…doesn’t make sense to him. It does not compute. It goes against all of Jekyll and Hyde’s views of themselves, and of the world. If Lanyon--a handsome gentleman who dislikes gross stuff, and never understood Henry’s fascination with monsters or rogue science--is willingly helping Hyde, who believes himself to be a wretched monster (brought forth with mad science! Wicked alchemy!) who ruined himself, ruined everything, then what is even going on anymore? Has the whole world turned upside down?! And so it becomes clear that, not only are Jekyll and Hyde bad at understanding themselves, sometimes they’re quite bad at understanding their loved ones, too. But to be fair, Lanyon was putting on an act, too. He spent so long brushing off any accusation of feelings, of sentimentality, and worry for his best friend. It’s only recently that Lanyon decided to be open with how much he truly cares about Henry. And it’s still a bit hard for him, I imagine. Being vulnerable. Opening yourself up. But Lanyon has learned that it’s worth it, when it counts. And this? This is absolutely the time when it counts the most. The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been. And I hope, and theorize, that soon enough, Hyde will learn the value of opening himself up, too. It might just help save his life.

It might just help them save Jekyll.

...And that's the end! Thank you so much to anyone who reads to the end, and leave a comment in the post reply section, if you feel like it! I love any and all feedback!! I'll be back soon with a follow up where I examine some other things Lanyon and Hyde have in common, among other topics. Stay tuned! :D

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not paying for my fiancee's trip?

(Sorry mod, sending this again as I forgot to add an important context detail)

This is going to be long, I'm so sorry!

Okay, so I (23M) am engaged to a very wonderful fiancee (27NB). She's fantastic, and I want to make it very clear that our relationship is great - we have good communication, we never argue, we're always on call without getting tired of each other, etc etc. There is just one issue we have - her financial habits.

For context, I am disabled and can't work due to both mental and physical health issues, so I'm on disability benefits. She can and does work.

We're long-distance (she's in America and I'm in the UK), and we've been dealing with it pretty well so far. At the beginning of our relationship, we agreed that before we got to the point of talking about moving in with each other etc. we would need to have her visit me here at least once to meet my family and get used to how things work here (as she wants to move here), and I would need to visit her at least once to do the same there re: meeting her parents etcetera.

The agreement was that I'd pay for her to come here, and then when it was my turn she'd pay for my visit there so it was fair.

She first visited me about a year and a half ago and came over here for two weeks. I paid for her plane tickets, our transport everywhere (we don't have cars), the AirBNB we stayed in, etc. This ran me about £2k, which was all I had at the time, and I didn't have enough left over to pay for her food on top of that, so I asked if she could cover her own food costs while she was here. This caused a bit of an issue at the time as she was very clearly frustrated at having to do it, and would make comments like "Ugh I wanted a new computer but now I have to save for this trip", "I'm having to sacrifice so much to pay for this" and it made me feel incredibly invalidated, like I was covering everything else and also sacrificing a lot to pay for everything else for us but the one thing I'd asked her to help with was too much. We had a conversation about it at the time and she apologised and said she'd work on it, so we moved on.

Plans changed a bit very early this year, as I was due to get surgery and the friend who was supposed to accompany me there dropped out last minute. I had no one else nearby to turn to and I couldn't go alone (it was the kind of surgery where I would need someone around for at least 1-2 weeks afterwards to help me move around and do daily tasks). As a last ditch effort I asked my fiancee to fly over again and help me out, and I paid for this again which I was completely fine with doing as the trip was a favour for me and it was unplanned from her end. This was another ~£2k.

So cut to summer this year. This was when I was supposed to have my visit over to America. She, at this point, was making pretty good money at a school job. However, when I asked her if we could finalise the plans and buy tickets, she told me that she had no money.

This is where I explain that she's really, REALLY bad with money. She impulse-buys clothes and things for her room etc., she plays gacha games like Genshin Impact and spends quite a lot of money on 'pulls' and the gambling mechanic, things like that. It turned out that through the whole time of having this job she'd been basically spending money as soon as she got it and she now had nothing for the trip. I was admittedly frustrated with her (especially as she initially lied to me and told me she hadn't spent money on games etc. and then later confessed that it IS where the money had gone), but we agreed we could push back the trip to winter/Christmas-time to give her more time to save, and honestly I didn't really mind because I've never spent Christmas/New Year with anyone before, so shifting the visit to over those days would be a nice experience.

However, soon after this she was fired from her job for too many call-outs/absences. For the next few months, she didn't get another job - she said she was doing all she could and was applying for, but I often got the impression that she wasn't and was sort of throwing out an application every few weeks and then writing it off as 'done', which I could be completely misinterpreting so take that with a grain of salt. I kept pushing her to get a job so we could get the trip sorted out and I know she got kind of frustrated with me a few times for it.

I ended up giving up the closer we got to the time and offered to just cover it again if she could pay me back when she did get a job, and she agreed.

Unfortunately, after this I was rendered homeless due to my abusive home situation. I was fortunate enough to be offered government housing and I now have an apartment in town, but it's completely unfurnished (literally all that's in it is a single bed and a cooker, there's no flooring or anything yet). I now have to put all the money I have saved (about £3k) towards getting flooring (which is a little over £1k by itself), furnishings, getting the walls painted, sorting out gas and electricity, etc. I'm also now paying the bills for this apartment. As a result, there's no possible way I could afford to cover the trip anymore myself.

It looked like things were getting sorted because my fiancee got another job recently. It's pretty well-paying, she seems to enjoy it so she's not calling out, and she kept prompting me to talk details of the trip with her so it felt like it was all getting figured out and she was ready to finalise it.

Then today I asked her how much money she had ready for it and she said... $15. I'm genuinely lost on how she still hasn't saved any money, she claims she used it all on "bills" but she doesn't pay rent or cover any housing costs as she still lives with her parents, so I don't understand at all where it's all going. We have less than a month before the trip is supposed to happen, nothing is sorted, we still have no clue where we'd be staying, no plane tickets have been purchased, and now it's looking a lot like it's going to have to be pushed back AGAIN to next year.

I thought about trying to pay for it again, because I DO really want that Christmas and New Year with her. Delaying it again would also mess up our future plans, as the plan was to get this trip to America and meeting her family done this year, then spending the first half of next year on the Visa process and then the latter half getting her actually moved over. It also means I would have to delay my college education, as I was going to start my course early next year, which I wouldn't be able to do if the trip is next year instead as it would require me to take weeks off.

If I tried, I probably could cover it - I need to spend the ~£1k on flooring as that's already arranged, but I could technically use the remaining £2k to fund the trip. However, this would mean my house would remain unfurnished and barely habitable for months longer. It's not so bad if I know she'd be able to pay me back quickly, but the reality is that I don't know how long it would take for me to see the money back.

Part of me also feels like she's kind of expecting me to give in and pay for it last minute in order to not delay it, because I offered before and I was willing to pay for the last two trips. But it's just so depressing and frustrating, because it feels like I keep giving things up and putting things into these trips and getting her over here, and trying to get it back from her is just like running into a wall.

We've talked about it before, but she insists there's nothing more she can do, she's trying as hard as she can, and that she's upset about it too. I just don't know what to do about it anymore.

So I guess my question is, AITA for complaining about the trip, missing Christmas/New Year and pushing her on money and nagging her about what she does with hers instead of just taking the L and covering the trip again until she can pay me back?

What are these acronyms?

[cosmicheartz]

finished my updated Solange ref!!

i have a lot of lore abt her but some general info

does not like most of the bishops ( leshy is kind of the exception ) and HATES Nari. I'm toying with the idea that Solange ends up kicking the Bishops & Nari out of her flock for her mental health ( she only kept them around bc she'd feel bad but it gets to a point where its either keep them around and have her mental health/sanity suffer even more or kick them out so she can heal )

polyam ( in my current save i married Aym, a follower named Lavender and Jalala ( not sure if the Jalala relationship will be canon though ).

Solange and Lavender ended up splitting sometime postgame on semi good terms because Solange felt heavily uncomfortable pursuing a relationship with Lavender due to her newfound god status ( and the cult leader aspect )

Solange really only accepted Lavender asking her out/the proposal in the first place is because the last time she rejected someone ( the farmer she lived with prior to her execution ) he ended up selling her out to be executed. Solange also was under the assumption Nari would make her mortal after she killed the Bishops so she was planning on convincing Lavender and her sister to leave the lands of Old Faith so maybe Solange would feel less gross about the relationship. Unfortunately that didn't pan out so Solange decided to break it off

loves and cares for her flock but didn’t really want to be a cult leader in the first place. If not for the fact she would have been killed Solange would have given Nari the crown so she could leave the lands of the old faith and try to find a place to call home.

Postgame she tries to make the cult less cultish and encourages her followers to have some free will and be self sufficient w/o her ( which does sorta work to her credit ) but deep down Solange knows it doesn't really matter as a cult is a cult no matter how hard she tries to make it not so.

on a small side note i hc she isnt the last sheep ever but definitely the last sheep in the lands of old faith and the areas close to it. Sheep are still very rare however ( especially what would be considered " purebred " sheep )

voice claim is Sam Boole from PN2 ( example here )

moral code is a bit loose. She doesn’t exactly like to sacrifice their followers ( she much prefers ascension which she primarily does for her elderly followers ) but has little to no issue with sacrificing/killing off spies along with other things.

She can hold a nasty grudge ( see: her hating Naris guts ) to the point its probably detrimental to herself

Solange also made a sort of " deal " with The Fox that while she wouldn't give him Ratau she will give him both the bodies of followers who passed away and any spies that sneak their way into her cult ( along with offering him minced follower meat meals )

wanted to be an artist or a baker when she was younger ( They technically achieved the baker part as post game she starts growing wheat and making bread/pastries for her followers )

more doodles of her + concepts for some of her followers

[elementaldoughnut12]

"Hallucinations"

*warning it involves mental health, blood, crying and general nostalgia*

*Happy Shield Anniversary everyone!*

Doughnut Team: @afterdarkprincess , @thlayli-ra , @chainsawmoxley

Roman should've seen it coming to be honest… He lost his championship to Cody and his family turned on him. The sickening crack of a chair against his spine felt like a twisted reminder of how his life was a joke. He never wanted to be the tribal chief! He just wanted to wrestle and have fun with Dean and Seth. The elders told him it was either him or Jey and he would do anything to keep his cousin safe so he sacrificed his happiness to save Jey's.

Being tribal chief ruined his life and the past four years are proof of it. After Dean left and Seth abandoned him, Roman was alone and left with his thoughts. The two men that said they loved him just disappeared and left him to deal with the aftermath. He knows WWE didn't treat Dean well and Seth went to RAW but the voices told him otherwise. He believed that Seth and Dean only dated him cause they felt bad for him. If they loved him… why did they leave him?

It got even worse when he won the universal championship and got the “tribal chief” title. He thought that having a championship would fill the hole that his lovers left but it just made him feel more empty. The voices got louder and told him that he didn't need Dean and Seth, all he needed was to be powerful and to intimidate others. So he played the role of a monster until it wasn't an act anymore. It broke his relationship with the only person he swore to protect… Jey.

He tried to make Jey understand that he was protecting him but he didn't believe him. “You ain't protecting me! You just want the spotlight all to yourself!” Jey told him. He thought that breaking his walls and showing the most vulnerable part of himself to Jey at Hell in a Cell would finally make him understand. The only thing it did was make Jey call Roman a liar and a coward for playing the sympathy card. So with tears streaming down his face, he defeated Jey and started his empire. The “Big Dog” was dead and long lived the “Tribal Chief”... until tonight.

Roman felt like he was slipping in and out of consciousness. His back was blooming with pain and blood was flowing down his face. He's surprised he's still awake with all the blows to the head he's receiving from Solo. He sees Jimmy's sickening smile as he grabs a kendo stick and bashes Roman's arm repeatedly with it. Roman wants to scream but all he can let out is fearful whimpers like a scared child.

The pain is too much for Roman so he just cries and hopes it ends soon. He wished he begged Dean to stay so they could've all gone to RAW together. He imagines what the past four years would've been like for him if they all stayed together. Maybe they win championships and they go to a nice hotel and Dean and Seth make love to Roman and they snuggle up together like they used to. With that, Roman closes his eyes and waits for the final blow that he surely will never wake up from…

“SIERRA! HOTEL! INDIA! ECHO! LIMA! DELTA! THE SHIELD!”

Roman slowly opened his eyes when he heard the familiar words. He had to squint to properly see what's going on because of the blood in his eyes. The figures were a bit blurry but it was clearly Dean and Seth in the ring and beating the crap out of Solo and Jimmy. “No, they can't be real… my mind is messing with me again” Roman thought to himself. He felt like he was gonna pass out again when he felt two sets of hands on him. “We gotcha Roman” Seth said gently. “Don't pass out on us yet big guy” Dean says with a quiet laugh.

Dean and Seth pick him up and help him out of the ring. “They're not real! Would they really waste their time on you?” Roman heard in his head. “You ok babe?” Seth said curiously. “Don't go quiet on us Rome” Dean said worryingly. “You guys aren't real… you wouldn't waste your time on me” Roman said quietly. Dean and Seth shared concerned looks. “He doesn't think we're here helping him?” Dean asks Seth sadly. “It's ok Dean, we just gotta take him to medical and see what's going on” Seth tells him reassuringly with a kiss on his cheek.

They make it to medical and there isn't a doctor in sight. “I forgot how much medical fucking sucks here” Dean says as him and Seth set Roman on a table. “Be quiet you fucking baby! You wouldn't let the doc touch you unless you got a lollipop” Seth says with a laugh and receives a middle finger from Dean. “See! They're laughing at you! The real Dean and Seth wouldn't laugh at you! They're not real!” The voice said. “You're not real… why can't you just leave me alone?” Roman said through tears.

“Roman, we're right here in front of you see?” Seth says as he slowly walks in front of Roman and is face-to-face with him. “We're really here Roman” Dean says as he gently grabs Roman's hand, causing him to flinch. “They're in your head! They're not here! Get them out… GET THEM OUT!” the voice said. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” Roman screamed through tears. He tried to bang his head against the wall until he felt a pair of arms around his waist and a pair of hands cradling his face.

“Look at me Roman” Seth says gently. “I can't” Roman whines through tears. “Yes, you can big guy! Just open your eyes on three ok? Can you do that for us?” Dean asks quietly as not to startle Roman even more. Roman nervously nods his head and takes a deep breath. “Ok, one, two, three” Dean says quietly as he stands in front of Roman next to Seth. Roman slowly opens and sees the smiling faces of his soulmates.

“D-Dean? S-Seth? You're actually here!” Roman says in disbelief through tears. “We've been here the whole night, Roman” Seth says gently as he and Dean sit next to Roman. “What made you think we weren't real or we wouldn't help you?” Dean asks curiously and receives a quiet glare from Seth. “The voices in my head told me that you weren't real” Roman says truthfully, causing concern to flash across both his lovers faces. “Roman, when was the last time you took your medication?” Seth asks worryingly.

“My medication? I had to take meds?” Roman asks confusingly, making Dean and Seth even more concerned. “Yeah, remember? Seven years ago we took you to the doctor and they diagnosed you with psychotic depression and they put you on antidepressants and other stuff?” Dean explains as they watch the wheels turn in Roman's head. “Oh yeah, my meds… last time I took them was when I first won the championship” Roman says truthfully, causing Dean and Seth to freeze in shock.

“Are you telling us that you haven't taken your meds in four years? Roman, that's not a healthy thing to do” Seth says worryingly. “It wasn't my choice! Paul said I didn't need them anymore and that the elders didn't want people to know that their champion has a defect” Roman explains sadly, turning both his lovers' concerns into anger. “I'm gonna kill that fat meatball walrus! He doesn't have the right to do that!” Dean says with a growl.

“Roman, Paul does not have the authority to tell you if you need your meds or not! Does he not know that you fucking suffer when you don't have them? Also screw what your fucking family is saying! Having a mental problem doesn't mean you're defective or screwed up, it means that you need help and the support of your loved ones! Something your family clearly hasn't done” Seth says truthfully which makes Dean growl.

“I-I'm sorry! You're not gonna leave again because of this are you? Please don't leave again!” Roman says as fat tears roll down his cheeks. “Roman honey, we're not gonna leave you! We shouldn't have done it the first time so we're not gonna do it now! Right Dean?” Seth asks as he gently wipes away Roman's tears. “Definitely not big guy, we love you too much to leave ya a second time” Dean says reassuringly. “O-Ok” Roman says through sniffles. Seth walks over to his bag and pulls out two pill bottles.

“I'm so glad I didn't stop refilling these” Seth says as he also fills a small cup with water from the sink. He then walks back to Roman and hands him the cup and two pills. “These will stop the voices in your head and make you feel a bit better” Seth explains nicely. Roman takes the pills and drinks all the water. He lets out a sigh of relief when he feels like his mind is slowly going back to normal. “You feeling better puppy?” Dean asks with a smile. “Yeah, I actually forgot how it felt to not be surrounded by fog all the time” Roman says quietly.

“It's good to have you back babe, now let's actually get you fixed up cause you got brutalized out there” Seth says a bit worryingly. “I've never seen our sexy Samoan look like a mangled piece of meat before! Scary shit dude” Dean says truthfully, ducking when Seth tries to smack him. “Ain't that what we used to do? Attack when someone is down?” Roman says with a quiet laugh. “Don't remind me that we were assholes when we were younger” Seth says as he grabs some medical supplies.

“More you than us but that's just my opinion” Dean says as Seth glares at him. “Do I need to remind you that you have the worst timing possible! You literally broke up our team and became a dick on the same night Roman had to go away for a bit!” Seth argues as he sets the supplies on the table next to Roman. “As much as I missed breaking up fights between you two, I really just wanna go back to the hotel and cuddle” Roman says, causing both men to smile at him.

“You'll get your wish puppy! Now nurse, can you give me the peroxide?” Seth says jokingly, causing Dean to roll his eyes. “You calling me nurse just means I'm the pretty one” Dean says as he hands Seth the peroxide spray. Seth sprays the peroxide on a cut on Roman's forehead. Roman hisses a bit as the cut starts to foam and bleed. “Doing good big guy” Dean says encouragingly as he holds Roman's hand. Seth then proceeds to wipe the blood off the cut and put a bandage over it.

“Luckily that doesn't need stitches and your back seems to just be bruised but your arm on the other hand…” Seth says as he gestures to Roman's arm where there's a semi-deep cut near his shoulder. “I never thought a kendo stick could do that much fucking damage” Dean says with a surprised tone. “Beating the fuck out of Jimmy is gonna be a delight now!” Seth says happily as he sprays the cut with peroxide. He wipes the surrounding blood and passes a sewing kit to Dean. “Your turn to stitch Deano” Seth says as he sits back down next to Roman.

“Thank God my mom taught me how to sew or you would be screwed” Dean says with a laugh as he starts sewing Romans arm up. “Weird you have a delicate touch when doing this but you're literally brutal everywhere else” Seth says, causing Roman to laugh. “You guys love it when I'm brutal” Dean says with a cheeky smile. He finishes sewing Roman's arm up and Seth bandages it. “Finally! Can we go now? I don't want to risk running into them” Roman says worryingly.

“You forget that we used to be the masters of hiding in the shadows!” Dean says excitedly, making the other two men laugh. “Let's just grab our stuff and we can go to the rental car” Seth says as he puts away the med kit. Roman gently puts on a shirt, hissing when the fabric touches his bruised back. They make it to the rental car which brings a smile to Roman's face. “Yall really bringing back the nostalgia tonight aren't ya boys?” Roman says as Dean grabs his bag.

“We're technically nostalgia at this point babe” Seth points out as he fishes the keys from his pocket. “Plus, who doesn't love being squished in a tiny ass clown car with busted air conditioning and seats that smell like week old ass?” Dean says sarcastically as he puts all the bags in the trunk. They all get into the car and start driving to the hotel. “Why did you guys come out and save me? I believed I wasn't worth messing with?” Roman asks curiously from the back seat.

“Roman, you have been protecting us since we all met and we thought we could return the favor and if we're being honest…we missed doing things as a group like we used to and we missed loving you” Seth says truthfully with a sigh. “We know we fucked up by us leaving and causing you to be broken and alone and we feel like shit for that! We're not forcing you to do this but can you give us stupid fucks a shot again?” Dean says hopefully as he looks out the window. “Knowing you guys actually have to ask me that means you truly still love me and I really did miss you guys so yeah you guys get another shot” Roman says with a small laugh.

Both of his boyfriends upfront smiled at each other and without warning they both reached back and kissed Roman's face. “Glad to be back together babe!” Seth says, giggling at Roman's blushing face. “Fuck yeah! The team is back together!” Dean says as he drums his fingers against the dash. “Also babe, don't ever doubt if we love you or not cause we'll always love you flaws included” Seth says sweetly. “Yeah I agree with the walking ego balloon over here even though I don't have any flaws myself” Dean says innocently, causing Seth to glare at him.

“Dean babe, you like to piss in litter boxes when no one else is around” Seth points out, causing Dean to freeze up. “Oh look, the light's green now!” Dean says, trying to change the subject. Seth just lets it be as he continues driving to the hotel. When they make it to the hotel parking lot, Dean practically flings open the door and barrel rolls out the car. “Does he know that we're not in our twenties anymore and doing that could like fuck us up real bad?” Roman worryingly asks Seth. “Still fucking got it!” Dean says with a smile as he pops up and runs behind the car. “Nope! No matter what we say or do… Dean's still gonna be Dean” Seth says, causing both of them to laugh.

They both get out and walk to the back of the car to see Dean sitting on top of his suitcase. “No” Seth says automatically, causing Dean to whine. “Sethie, why not? We used to do this all the time!” Dean says with a pout. “That was before you decided to weigh the same amount as a grizzly bear and look like one too!” Seth says as he kisses Dean on the lips to comfort him. Dean sighs as he hops off his suitcase which gives Roman an idea. He lets go of his own suitcase to swoop Dean up into his arms, causing Dean to yelp.

“Fuck Roman! Don't scare me like that!” Dean says as he wraps his arms around Roman's neck. “You're not the only one with surprises baby! Also don't worry I can still carry you with a hurt arm” Roman says as he grips onto Dean's ass. Dean just giggles and kicks his feet. Roman looks over at Seth and kisses him deeply, leaving Seth a blushing mess. “L-Lets go inside already” Seth stutters, causing Roman to laugh. They make it into the hotel and the moment they make it into their room, Roman plops Dean down onto the bed and kisses him. He moaned a bit when Dean plunged his tongue into his mouth.

He pulled back when Dean started nibbling on his bottom lip. “Down boy” Roman says, causing Dean to whine. “Come on Roman! You can't get a guy riled up and blue ball him afterwards!” Dean says annoyingly. “As much as we'd love to fuck you Dean, I don't think any of us have the energy to do it tonight” Seth says as he sits on the bed next to them. “I remember on the night we debuted in WWE we all went to some cheap hotel, drank some tequila and fucked each other til three in the morning! Man… that was twelve years ago” Roman says with a smile.

“Oh my god don't remind me how many years ago that was! Makes feel old as fuck!” Seth says with a whine as he lays back on the bed, yellow fluffy hair spread around his head. “Is that why you dyed your hair again? To hide all the gray roots?” Dean says teasingly, causing Seth to gasp. “Uce, you can't say shit considering you look like Mr. Clean going through his second divorce!” Roman says, causing Seth to laugh and Dean to glare at him.

Dean then proceeds to grab a pillow and puts it over Roman's face. “Go to the light Roman! Go to the light you smug fuck!” Dean says as he straddles Roman's lap. “Deano, stop! You really gonna kill Roman cause he called you bald?” Seth asks as he tries to take the pillow away from his boyfriend. “We all gotta make sacrifices Sethie! He must die so he can rise from the ashes and become anew or something like that… I don't know I kinda skipped that part in history class” Dean says with a shrug.

Seth just sighs as he tackles Dean off of Roman and onto the edge of the bed. Roman pulls the pillow off his face to witness his two boyfriends slapping each other. He lets out a quiet laugh as he then scoops both of them into his arms and traps them in a big hug. “I missed you guys so much” Roman says affectionately as he lets out a small yawn. “We missed you too puppy! Tomorrow we can talk to Trip and see if we can do an official reunion” Seth says sweetly as he cards his fingers through Roman's hair.

“Kinda interesting to be on two different promotions now but I'll definitely do it for our sexy teddy bear” Dean says as he spoons Roman from behind. Roman lets out another yawn as he feels his eyelids drift shut. “Go to sleep Roman, we'll be here when you wake up” Seth says as he spoons Roman from the front. “We won't disappear on you again big guy and believe that” Dean says quietly as he turns off the bedside lamp. “I love you guys so much” Roman says before drifting off to sleep. “We love you too Roman” Both men say before going to sleep as well.

These past four years were hell for Roman where he chased after things that weren't there. With his mind clear and the empty space in his heart refilled, Roman can finally be happy again with the two men who weren't hallucinations anymore.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Review 10.3 of Dragon Age Veilguard

74 hours in, 72 playtime

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard

Section 10.2 here.

So. I didn't want to play tonight, didn't really have the energy. But I legitimately fear if I don't play for even one day, I'll drop it and not come back. I have ADHD, its a strong possibility, and I still want to see what happens in the story for myself.

I hereby announce that I am, in fact, Eating Crow. Game Lucanis is way better written and developed than in his intro story.

And Lucanis did let Emmerich help, after all. Plot hole taken care of.

That's it? That's all we get about The Titans? After all the previous foreshadowing, we get a single companion quest to find out and resolve (completely unrealistically) the entire issue of The Titans? Are you seriously kidding me?

I need a stronger word than flabbergasted.

Discombobulated. I'm discombobulated at the sheer level of mishandling so many incredibly important aspects have been treated to in this game.

Yes, it's nice to get confirmation about my guess to the history of Titans and Elvhenan... but are you seriously fucking kidding me?

Lucanis talks about coffee more than we get something as important as the Titans settled.

Anywaaaay.

Called it on the identity of the Gloom Howler. And the 'reason' for Isseya to be doing the exact opposite is 'she's been driven mad by 400 years of guilt for following orders'? Edit, it's been pointed out she's suffered the blight for 400 years, too. The blight, in the Lore, basically makes creatures start digging out dragon/arch demons. Because all they can hear is 'the song'. There have been speaking hurlocks working for the benefit of the unblighted. There's the Architect, who keeps showing up and is sane. If directly opposed to anything mortals would want. There's no support in the Lore for blight making someone mentally ill. I truly just feel it's bad writing.

That is so over the top ableist I'm not sure if I can describe it in small enough words why we shouldn't say grief and guilt makes us fucking mentally ill in a dangerous fashion! There isn't a mental illness that I'm aware of that includes a person completely reversing deeply held, sacred beliefs so they do the exact opposite of what they've previously sacrificed so much for.

Crazy and mad both mean mentally ill. That's why calling Isseya mad or crazy is ableist. Isseya would protect those griffins, She’d very possibly steal them to protect them from the wardens. I could see where, out of fear, she'd decide that the Wardens weren't worthy of the griffins after all.

What I cannot see is her sticking a knife into the skeletal remains of a 400 year old arch demon dragon and actually finding liquid blood. That's some foolish jurassic park nonsense. Thinking maybe she got it from the blood marrow? That's dried and almost dusty within a century. Or turned to a rocky like consistency. I don't care how magical the creature those bones came from was, that's just not happening. It's ridiculous.

What I cannot see is her then using that to infect the griffins she fought so hard to save from that very fate.

Last Fall wasn’t my favourite of the books. But both the writer and the character Isseya deserve fucking better than what the end of her story will likely be. I can think of two ways that dumpster fire could be satisfactorily fixed, but I have zero trust in the Bioware writers anymore, so I highly doubt they're going either direction.

And outright stating that too much emotion makes us dangerously mentally ill... I've always said Bioware had ableism problems. I've said they need to hire diversity editors.

I'm utterly appalled that they thought that whole storyline was even remotely okay on any level.

So. Do I have this right?

The Evanuris did lots of bad things. One of the worst was severing the Titans and the dwarves from their dreams.

The Evanuris bound themselves to high dragons, blighting them, and they did this for more power.

The blight is somehow The Titans' or dwarves or both severed dreams? If that's the case, the blight should now be receding or cured because the Titans have been 'fixed'. In a completely unrealistic and ridiculous manner that does a disservice to the whole damned Titan Evanuris war, but hey. I'm used to bad, nonsensical writing. Especially in this game.

Solas made the veil to imprison the Evanuris? Bad side effects. Which, in the Lore, include the death of magic in THEDAS and the eventual death of the realm itself. But we're apparently conveniently brushing that under the rug of bad writing to drive through a story that makes no sense.

He tied the veil, their prison, into their life essences.

So the theory they seem to be going with is that by killing the arch-demon dragon, the Evanuris will become mortal.

They were mortal before they bound dragons to themselves for more power. Mythal was mortal. She was murdered. (Oopsie, even bound to her dragon.) But the Evanuris, the first elves, didn't age and were eternal. They could be killed, sure, but just regular living, even inside a prison, wouldn't have killed them. So why exactly would all the other Evanuris be dead? Just killing their dragons wouldn't have killed them. If they were somehow dead... Wouldn't that have thinned the precious veil that they've spent three games, numerous books etc. stating was thin and as full of holes as my grandmothers crocheted doilies?

Somehow, the veil is completely all better now and holding back a world of blight that never existed in the fade except maybe in the black city? We've been to the fade several times in this game and seen no blight.

How exactly is the blight the corrupted dreams of dwarves or Titans? Does that make any sense to anyone else?

Does that mean that Genlocks (blighted dwarves) dream?

And the veil is what separates the world and magic/dreams/world of spirits?

If the so precious veil is tied to the life energy of the Evanuris... and the veil was created to contain them... what exactly is going to happen to said veil when those Evanuris die?

Either I've figured out the end of the story, or found plot holes the size of Texas if they try to say that veil is still in place once Gilly and Eggy are dead. (Why again are there only two Evanuris left? Have we gotten an answer to that? That makes any sense?)

They've made the answers to everything too pat and yet so convoluted they're tripping over things they've said are fact in this very game.

I just... how? Why? What the actual fuck? How is the writing in this so reprehensibly bad?

I can write better stories in my sleep FFS. And have. One of my published novellas was a dream before I wrote it down. And at least everything makes sense in it.

Section 11 here.

[defira85]

2, 5, 6, 10, 18, 19, 24, 28 TELL ME ALL THE THINGS ABOUT KASSARA *chinhands*

From the Dark Urge ask game here!

WOAH THERE lmfao this is going to have to go under a cut because some of these got long fast

#2 answered here

5. How's our mental health? Did we get out unscathed, are we still tormented by nightmares? How do we cope with this absolutely life changing journey we just went thru? Any lifestyle changes to deal with?

All things considered, Kass could be worse haha. I think the first six months are the worst, especially the first two months when she has Enver back but Not (ifyky), that's when the depression hits the worst because she's watching everyone else move on with their lives and she's just. Stuck. Frozen in this one place in time wondering if she's sacrificed everything and gained almost nothing, if she's going to be alone with her pain for the rest of her life

Then he wakes up properly, and she's ecstatic! She's deliriously happy again! And then she gets pregnant, and her fear of Bhaal comes roaring up again and she spends a few months of the pregnancy gripped with severe anxiety to the point of agoraphobia, unable to leave their new house, unable to leave the bed at times

It comes and goes in waves over the years. Sometimes she's blissfully happy and content, and sometimes she's so overwhelmed by the weight of her depression and her guilt and grief and her anxiety that, like with her chronic pain, she's bedridden and grey and gaunt

6. Have we learned from the mistakes of our predecessors, or are we fully embracing the Abdel Adrian route? Are they trying to establish themselves as an influential figure or trying just to live a lovely little peaceful life?

Kass went full Abdel Adrien, from trying to kill Bhaal all the way up to finding herself immersed in local politics after her redemption and very publicly sacrificing herself to save the city. She and Enver can't hold seats in parliament, but she's treated as like... I said mascot earlier as a joke but she's like the local city superhero. She's Kassara Ansuran, Heart of the Gate. They trot her out for holidays and big public events, when she gets her corrupted valkyrie look on and her wings and stands there on the podium looking uncomfortable just like Abdel used to

Heart of the Gate does become an inherited title, and her son Flynn takes it up after she retires, so they're arguably nobles? And there's plenty of less desirables and less scrupulous members of society who keep trying to lure Enver back into politics but he keeps his involvement as lowkey as possible because he's already been tortured in the afterlife once, thanks, he's not going to tempt fate and do anything to earn it a second time

10. Does any of the traits they learned in their old profession ever come in handy down the line? Have they opened a clinic, do they get by as a mercenary, are they staying far away from everything even slightly connected to their past life?

I think in about twenty years time, when the kids are all in their teens and she has more free time, she would like to teach at the Physicians College. Or, arguably more in character for her, she'd run her own classes for free to the outrage of the college deans and the lofty establishment, to teach people medicine and biology who might never have been able to afford the fees or have the "right background" to gain admittance

18. Do they ever meet any of the other Tadfools again? Are they questing together once more? Do they purposefully stay away from some?

Oh, all of my giant extended family of Tavs and Tadfools stay in touch. No escaping this giant Forced Found Family

Carmela is reassigned to Baldur's Gate by her holy order, to oversee reconstruction and to help dampen the effects of the corrupted magics that were unleashed by the Crown. That means Astarion stays around, and they're never all best of friends but they get along better over time. Carmela will always be too zealous for Kass, and Astarion will always be too flippant for Enver, but they have dinner at least once a month

Gale and Rhyme live in Waterdeep, and Rhyme has far less capacity for forgiveness than Karlach does for either of them. Despite that, second child Orin desperately wants to study at Blackstaff after being declared a magical prodigy, and so Orin spends her semesters living with the Dekarios' and comes home for the holidays. This necessitates a certain degree of closeness that's probably uncomfortable for everyone, but gets less fraught over time

The Ravengard-Cliffgate-Brightiron clan settles in Baldur's Gate as well once Karlach's heart is mended by Gortash, which goes a long way towards mending the rifts there. Wyll immediately goes into politics to help represent the poor, the working class, the refugees etc, and so this means a lot of Wyll's work involves Kass and Carmela. The family gets even closer when Hope Ansuran, the youngest daughter of Kass and Enver, marries Hypatia Ravengard-Cliffgate-Brightiron aka Hypatia Ravengard, daughter of Wyll and Karlach and Violet. As I said, Karlach's capacity for forgiveness is grudgingly better than Rhyme's

Lae'zel and Zhier come and go for special occasions, like the epilogue party, and bring Xan along with them when they travel

Heron, Halsin and Shadowheart live between Reithwin and Moonhaven, and are more likely to have Kass come visit them than they are to visit the city. They add their own children to Halsin's brood of adoptees, so Kass wouldn't miss visiting her nieces and nephews for the world

Jaheira lives down the road. They have dinner regularly. She seems surprisingly fine with Enver despite everything, and when the kids come along, she calls them her fat little bhaalspawn grandchildren

Minthara takes a few years to forgive her after she decides to try and save Orin, so there's a few years where Minthara won't come to group dinners if Kass is there

Sometimes Kass wakes up and walks into the kitchen and just finds Minsc at the table with Sceleritas, both of them eating badly burnt bacon with cereal without milk and gossiping about mutual friends they have that she's never heard of

19. How are the others doing actually? What's Durges opinion on it? Do they think their old companions are doing well, are they glad about it or maybe even resentful? Do they ever even find out?

I sort of answered that one with the above, but I will add a few additional details

I'm not going to say anything else about Rhyme and Gale because that's spoilers for their current WIP story, just that they're both alive and living in Waterdeep

Carmela and Astarion are happy. They never have kids, which suits both of them splendidly, and Kass thinks they balance each other well. Carmela mellows thanks to Astarion smoothing some of the rigid edges off of her, and Astarion is growing into a more grudgingly conscientious person

Wyll and Karlach and Violet are doing SO well. They're helping people, they're fighting the good fight, they have a happy loving family, they all have everything they needed when they were struggling for purpose and self worth at the start of the game. Kass is desperately happy for them, and was aggressively proactive in helping design and implement Karlach's new heart

Zhier and Lae'zel likewise, very happy. Leading rebellions, raising their son, uniting their peoples, all the good stuff

Minthara needs time. Kass understands that, even if it hurts. Like with Rhyme, they might not ever be close

Heron's happiness with Halsin and Shadowheart quietly hurts her, for a time, because she feels a little like she's being forgotten and left behind, but she overcomes that with time and her own healing. Shadowheart becomes the sister her heart longed for that she never quite got with Orin

Jaheira and Minsc are fine. Kass doesn't know quite how she got adopted by these two, but they're regular fixtures in her house

24. What happened to the stones? Where are they? Do they still exist? Remember most of those idiots only wanted the crown, nobody ever said something about those pretty gems that spend god knows how long with the others. Basically how freaky is Durge about them?

Mmmmmmmm this is a spoiler for Rhyme and Gale's fic, I shall not be tempted to spill a word!

28. Wild Card / Dealers choice

I know that everyone loves the tragedy of Durgetash, the grief and the loss and the forever mourning what could have been. And I do too! I love reading other fics about it. But I also like my devastating angst with a sickening dollop of happy ending, and I'm always interested in how one goes about..... mmm, I don't want to say repenting or earning their happy ending, because that reeks of christian morality, but like. You've hurt people. How does that knowledge shape your life? How does it shape your decisions and your actions? How do you go about improving the world when you've been given a second chance? Do you make any attempts to improve the world when you've been given a second chance? Like, Enver 100% improves the lives of the people of Baldur's Gate in my epilogue, but he doesn't do it because he feels sowwy or because he wants to help people - but! Does that matter? Is moral repentance and genuine humility required, if people's lives are still physically improved by your actions? It's probably too moralistic for a durgetash smut fic but yeah.

The physical world is a fucking awful place and I like happy endings. Sometimes I just want my escapism to cater to me in excruciating detail

[alpaca-clouds]

About Redemption stories - and Enver Gortash

I decided to be a bit self-indulgent today and write about this a bit more.

As some people might know: I am currently kinda hyperfocusing on writing a redemption story for our dear wanna-be tyrant from Baldur's Gate 3.

This originally started out mainly as me being kinda pissed about the fact that a) the game does not really have a happy end for Karlach, and b) that you could not convince Gortash to give up even though from his perspective it should be the logical thing to do, given that he should realize at the point that he has no chance winning that fight. And also: I played a fucking bard with +18 on persuasion at that point, and I got kinda annoyed with the game for not allowing me to persuade Gortash after destroying the guard. Especially given how ridiculously easy his bossfight is.

So, originally all of that happened completely out of those reasons - I wrote an alternate ending in which he lived but was put under house arrest, because duh. And originally I kinda left it at that, because... yeah. Let's face it. There are villains in stories, that kinda ask to be redeemed. My other big fandom is Castlevania - mainly the Netflix series - and pretty much all the villains there are cut out for redemption, and many of them do actually have some redemption in the show happen.

And I mainly write for some of those. Mainly Hector, Isaac, Striga and Morana, all of whom are at least partly antagonists in the show.

Because I freaking love good redemption stories. And also one of my hobbies is to rant about the redemption stories we get in media, mainly because a lot of it puts more focus on character making those big gestures (like almost or completely sacrificing themselves and such) rather than going more into how the character realizes the evil they had done and such.

So, at some point I looked at Gortash, this pathetic asshole of a man, and I thought to myself: "Huh, what would it take for this asshole to admit he had been in the wrong?" Because from all I had written at that point (which was Hurt begets Hurt and Cheesy Noodles) he very much was of the opinion that sure, maybe things he had done had not been nice - but they had been his right, because people were shitty to him, so why should he not be shitty to other people. Again, his giving up was mainly just him not wanting to die and realizing that in the situation he had no chance to get out of that situation alive. (And also Tav promising him, that he could just get away - which mind you, Tav actually meant, but Tav had kinda forgotten at the moment, that Ravengard was hanging out at the camp, and Ravengard would be obviously like: "How about no?" And in fact putting Gortash under house arrest, rather than having him executed was a compromise that was won only after Wyll unhappily sided with Tav.)

And so... the "depressed Gortash" storyline - as some people have called it - was born. Basically going into two core ideas:

Gortash was only a Chosen because of the second sundering, and while Bane was kinda fine with it as long as Gorts was winning, he instantly pulled his support for Gorts, once the guy lost. (We know in the game when Gorts dies, Bane punishes him for losing, too.)

Without a purpose or anything, Gortash's mental health takes a big ass nosedive afterwards and he is bloody miserable.

Throw into this mixture my Tav, who himself is a survivor of a ton of abuse, who has the core believe that outside of devils and some gods, there is no true evil in this world. This man will stop people from killing monsters, because the monster could theoretically be just nice, but misunderstood. xD So, Tav feels a lot of pity for Gortash and the abuse the man has suffered, and he is of the firm opinion that Gortash's soul can be saved. And he tries to convince Gortash to try and be a nice person for once.

Now, my Tav is - just like my interpretation of Gortash - on the autistic spectrum. However, kinda on opposite ends of it. My Tav is autistic, yes, but the very social kind of autistic person. (Or to put it differently: He is a total and absolute people pleaser, who has core values he will always prioritize, but also fears that people could not like him.) While Gortash very much is not. And Gortash, who is bad at reading other people, and also in his life has basically never had any relationship that was not somehow dominated by fear of being abused/backstabbed, looks at the guy and goes: "Okay, either this dude is shitting me, or he is the biggest gods darn idiot who ever existed, and the only reason he is here is to make me aware of the fact that I was defeated by the biggest idiot that ever existed!" Which to me as a writer is hilarious - but in a very whumpy way xD

The aspect, that I decided to go with in the end is, that while Gortash is really bad at relating and empathizing to people, he somewhat kinda does know that he did the exact thing to Karlach, that his parents did to him. And despite him struggling to admit it, he actually at some point liked Karlach. So, yes, if he is fully honest with himself, he can understand that this specific thing he did was a bad thing, actually.

And everything else has to come from there. Partly also from the very logical analysis of: he is aware of how fictional stories go. And he has enough awareness to understand, that someone who does the stuff he does, usually gets to be the antagonist in those stories - and hence would be seen as evil. So the rational thing is to assume that yes, indeed, he did bad.

But yeah. It is so interesting to me to write this and explore the redemption of a villain, who does not instantly see that yeah, they might have done wrong. And he needs a long while to see it.

(Also: yes, this is also absolutely me being a prison abolitionist who does not think that a system of law that punishes does any good for anyone. Because yeah, guess what: Nobody who was killed is alive, just because the bad guy is inprisoned or executed.)

[woodlaflababab]

Hot Take: The Lion Turtle wasn't that out of left field.

Was it a deus ex machina? Yes. Technically. But it wasn't like some sudden dip in writing or like this was unprecedented and had no basis or reasoning in universe. Hear me out. This is Long.

Let's go back to book 1, specifically the book 1 finale. At what point prior to that are we told that there's a spirit that can turn into a giant koi monster and wipe out everyone? We didn't even know about the whole Tui and La thing until we are in the midst of the battle and there is no viable solution. Aang as he is, does not have the ability to solve this problem.

However, Aang is the avatar.

50% of that is having all four elements. It means mastering diciplines, practice, it's skill that you gradually improve on, it's being clever with the tools avalible to you.

But the other 50%, that I feel is too often forgotten, is spirithood, or being the bridge to the spirits. Spirits are not tools. They're explicitly shown to be things that just kinda Do Shit, and Are There. They don't care about the human world for humans' sake, that's the Avatar's job. The spirits are unexplainable. (I am ignoring Korra) Dealing with the spirits isn't something you can learn. There's not really a special technique Aang learns on How To Spirit 101.

But as the Avatar, Aang has the ability to comune with spirits, to seek them out, call to them, ask them for help, and give them help in return. Part of being the Avatar is doing things no one else can, and again, 50% of that comes from having four bending abilities, and the other 50% is his connection to spirits.

The Lion Turtle is the earned pay off of Aang's actions. Aang, like in the Northern Water Tribe, faces a problem in which neither he, nor anyone around him, knows what to do, and just like in the NWT at the twelfth hour, he turns to the spirits. He chooses to find a place where he feels connected, and calls out. He opens himself to a world outside of human control knowing that, as merely human, he is not capable.

It's the same set up.

Aang faces a problem: Giant Invasion/Having to defeat the fire lord

He does everything he physically can: Takes down a dozen ships/Masters three extra elements

But pulls back when he realizes continuing this way will destroy him: Retreats and admits hes in over his head/Refuses to commit violence with the intent to kill because that means sacrificing his values and the last remaining shreds of his people's values.

(PSA: Taking care of your mental/emotional health is just as important as taking care of your physical health)

He opens himself up to other people for solutions: Yue is just like 'you gotta dude :|'/His friends mock him

He chooses to turn to the spirits: Brings it up with Yue and Katara and Yue brings him to the spirit oasis/ Leaves the others to meditate

[Enter Magic Meditation Here]

He Goes To A Weird Spirit Place: Spirit World/Lion Turtle Forest

Fucks Around for a while as he tries to figure out wtf hes supposed to do: talks to spirits and Roku/talks to the avatars and momo (best place of advice obvs)

Finds the spirit he needs to help give him info: Koh+Ocean Spirit/Lion Turtle

Is granted sudden new powers that can solve his impossible situation: Giant Koi/ Energybending

Uses that shit

Saves the day

The end.

And I don't think this is really a cheat for him either. Aang still gives his everything to trying to fight those ships, even after seeing how many there are. He still has to go through all the hassle of the spirits fucking with him.

With the finale, he still admits to Momo that he may have to kill Ozai. He still accepts that, if literally no other solution is avalible, he'll do it even if it means sacrificing himself and his nation. He still has to do the battle to subdue Ozai and still has to risk being internally fucked by bad mojo from Ozai.

He still has to prove himself. In my opinion, he has to prove himself far more in the book three finale than book one. Book one he just kinda takes out some ships and then chats with some spirits and then the Ocean spirit does everything for him.

In the fight with Ozai, AANG had to learn all four elements, HE had to learn the avatar state (even if it conveniently got taken as soon as he did and then given back at dramatic moments), HE had to face Ozai even without the avatar state, HE still tried to reason with Ozai to the end, HE still used the avatar state (apon being gifted with a poke in the back) to fight back, HE still decided to not take the easy way out, HE still commited to and accomplished taking Ozai's bending.

He earned his use of the elements

He earned his use of the Avatar state (prior to lightning bc they couldn't have Aang be op too soon jebdjsbdn)

He continuously believed there has to be another way

He sought out solutions.

And he still had to get ragdolled some to top it off.

And as to the other Avatars' advice, and the idea that he was selfish.

He followed the wisdom of all the Avatars he spoke to.

He was decisive: "No, I'm not going to end like this."

Justice brought Peace: the firelord being rendered powerless and stuck to suffer jail the rest of his life weak and helpless is justice

He actively shaped his own Destiny: he decided how he was going to end things and shaped his destiny and the destiny of the whole world

"Selfless duty calles you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs and do whatever it takes to protect the world": to which Aang says "I guess I don't have a choice Momo, I have to kill the firelord."

The Lion Turtle did not come out of left field and Aang earned/deserved his ending.

[wetcatspellcaster]

How do you think Rosalie would handle having Durge as a companion?

Hi anon! (anons, I've copied and pasted a previous ask with the date to own my own failure, i'm sorry previous anon - the Darkness Claimed Me for a while there).

I think meeting and learning about Durge would cause Rosalie to have another bout of "oh boy, thank you for telling me, I can never share my problems or issues with you, ever, they pale in comparison" (a la the final chapter of A Bleeding Heart).

A redeemed Durge would be very straight forward - Rose would be able to understand their Urge in terms of her own mental health, and empathise with your life being determined by forces outside of your control that you're desperately trying to fight. I think in that case, based on the general self-sacrificing optimism and her total lack of self-preservation, she'd stand by a Durge wholeheartedly in everything they do. She'd definitely be fully supportive of second chances.

if she was a romance option for Durge, she'd be the one to get kidnapped <3 the bleeding heart pun is just too good for Orin to pass up x

A Durge who chooses to embrace Bhaal... that one's a lot more difficult. I think the murder of Alfira, if no remorse is shown, might trigger some of Rosalie's black and white morality. I don't know if it would be kill on sight (kinda hypocritical, after Astarion and the bite scene/vampire reveal), but she did really like Alfira so I think it would be a 'one strike and you're out, this cannot happen again'. Which means that when Isobel is killed, I'm pretty certain Rosalie would turn on Durge - or perhaps she would leave the party in protest, and join Jaheira and the remnants of the Harpers in Last Light, which means that Jaheira, Minsc, and Rose would likely all fight to the death on the bridge to Bhaal's temple in protest, on a full-Bhaalist run.

Dialogue snippets for the other anon under the cut to avoid a long(er) post!

Rosalie: so.... Durge: so? Rosalie: Bhaal, huh? Durge: ...apparently. Rosalie: and... you're the reason we even have our tadpoles at all Durge: it certainly seems that way. Rosalie: And your cousin is just... walking around... dressed... like that. Durge (aside): how we're actually related is unclear. Rosalie: you know... I suppose I could be angry with you. But if I'd never been given this tadpole, I'd never have gotten outside. Seems kind of pointless to be mad at you for that, given that if this hadn't happened, we'd never have met in the first place.

Romanced!Rosalie in Act 2 with Resistant!Durge:

1st Saving Throw

Rosalie: ok. ok. we can do this. I know you can do this. everything's ok. I'm sure we'll be fine... do the knots chafe? I hope they don't chafe.

2nd Saving Throw,

Rosalie: hey. it's ok. I'm not afraid of you. you are not this. you can fight this. And I'll be here, when it's all over. I'm here.

3rd Saving Throw, and total success

Rosalie: look darling, it's almost dawn. [Insight check DC 14: Lie] rest now. I love you.

[bioticbooty]

I finished Dragon Age Veilguard last week and started another playthrough this week.

Let me just preface this by saying I only finished it with a completionist playthrough because I was having one of the worst weeks of my life (which is quickly turning into the worst month of my life) and all my birthday week vacation plans had to be canceled, so I was stuck home, alone, and disassociated myself into Veilguard to cope. So please don't feel bad if you've not beaten it yet. I poured over 90 hours into this game in the span of 6 days.

I liked it. It's fun to play, the combat is a good balance between learning combos while also being easy to do if you don't want to learn combos. I like that I don't have to worry about the health of my companions. I played a warrior and I fucking loved throwing my shield at enemies far away like Captain America.

I chose to save Minrathous over Treviso, and the gut punch of losing Lucanis for a few missions, and then him returning only to say, "Not now, Rook," was so fucking real. I like that it took effort to earn his trust back.

I romanced Neve and that burn was so slow it had me screaming (good). I do wish the ending romance scene had a bit more oomph to it (and it's something I'm seeing in a lot of other people talking about their romance scenes). In my heart of hearts, Rook and Neve are doing their detective agency thing together with Rana.

The end game missions fucked me up. I have not cried that hard playing a video game since Legion said, "I must go to them," to me for the first time. I chose Davrin to lead the other team, because Harding and Neve were my go-to party of detonation combos between the three of us — and when he made that leap to save us, I lost it. And when Assan dove down after him?

I didn't stop crying for two hours.

I'm crying right now just remembering it.

After I returned from the Fade, still sobbing, I changed all the decor and monuments in the lighthouse to Grey Wardens.

I saved my game at that point and titled it, "For Davrin, For Assan."

Overall I really enjoyed this game. The emotional beats of the story hit right for me — and some of them hit hard. I think against what seems to be current popular opinion (or at least from what I'm seeing in the tags), I actually enjoyed a lot of the lore reveals — and I can see how a some of them have been there for years. I'm still really deep-diving into a lot of it, but really what it boils down to for me is: I started this game with no assumptions or expectations. (I also started it wanting to escape — I hadn't actually planned on purchasing it immediately but then everything fell apart and I needed something, and BioWare has rarely done me dirty (looking at you ME3 ending).)

I don't think what happened in Veilguard wipes away the importance of what we accomplished in the first 3 games, and I don't think it makes what our characters did and sacrificed not matter. Part of that is because I am an organizer in my Real Life Job and I don't think any action, however big or small, doesn't matter. Just because the world might go to shit in ten or twenty years doesn't mean it's not worth saving now. Ferelden might be in utter ruins after the events of Veilguard, but does that mean the Hero of Ferelden was wrong to save everyone 20 years ago? Kirkwall might be shattered, but does that mean Hawke should never have tried?

There's a cynicism to "everything we did in the past games doesn't matter anymore" that I don't like, and possibly I dislike it because of where we are in the world right with *waves hand* you pick. It's a "what's the point?" and "why even bother?" mentality that I just cannot get behind.

Veilguard has not and will not destroy the importance of the stories of the first three games for me.

Would it have been nice if more decisions had been carried over to be referenced or change some specific things? Absolutely. But folks, we'd be waiting another 10 years for that game to come out. There's so many branches, and weaving all of that together is like tracking hundreds of versions of the same story, some of which could be radically different. That's what fanfiction is for.

So anyway, Assan lives on in my heart forever and my second playthrough is dedicated to Davrin and Assan.

[kimberbohwrites]

Writing Interview Tag Game

Thank you to the amazing @honeybee-bard and my bestie @savriea for the tag. I am slowly getting caught up on my inbox and tags after my little crisis of confidence in my own writing haha. Plus, not going to lie, I stalled on this one, the only way to answer these questions honestly is a little sad so while I try to avoid it mostly TW: Child Abuse (only in the first answer so just skip question one if you want to avoid)

When did you start writing?

Hard question to answer, because when and how are intermingled so buckle up for a bit of a journey. I started daydreaming stories as a way to escape a rather unpleasant childhood pretty much as soon as I could. I was Cinderella with two bad parents, then I was a princess from a magical kingdom hidden in this terrible place for my own safety, then I was a brave heroine on dragonback saving the day — you get the gist. However, I learned pretty early on that there wasn’t a safe space to actually write my stories down as my journals were routinely stolen from me by my parents. So everything was laid out in my head, whole stories and universes of my own creation.

I started being able to write stuff down when I was 20. Then my own stories were joined by ones I wanted to write about animes I liked. Since I had been so isolated as a youth, I didn’t realize that what I was writing was fanfiction and there were whole communities of people who did this. My writing skills started to be honed professionally and my writing shifted from creative to professional as I began to make more of a name for myself with my ability to craft messaging. I didn’t realize though, that at the same time I was sacrificing all of my creative energy to get out of a bad place and into a safe one.

Eventually, 15 years after that BG3 is released and around the same time, I realize that while I achieved by goal of stability and safety in my own life — I stopped reading, writing, and dreaming creatively. The game reignites my childhood love of fantasy into an inferno as I realize that I LOVE reading romance and romantasy novels. You know the rest.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

YES! I love really dark fics actually (I love the sweet ones too) and I can’t write them at all. I read and support my love @redroomroaving Drider romances despite not having any romantic interest in driders myself.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I have never been compared to another writer and I am not trying to or wanting to emulate anyone. I really want my writing to be… me? Like, my own style if I can manage it. Now are there writers I’m inspired by? Absolutely and I could name a few dozen and I’m not going to tag them all here but if you haven’t read fanfics by GreySparrow, ViennaCherries, and DutifullyLazyBread (these are their tumblr handles) you haven’t read fanfic.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space?

I have two writing areas in my house. In my sunroom is my primary one, I have a lovely arm chair and I like to curl up in it with my iPad/Magic Keyboard setup and write. I love the sunlight and the fresh air but it’s also the reason that I write a lot less in July and August than I do for the rest of the year. Then I have my home office/craft room where my gaming set up is but is mostly a place for reading, writing, and painting. When the weather is too extreme I work from here.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

So far it’s been: stop looking for a muse. It’s usually when I stop spinning my wheels on my writing and walk away for a few days that I’m able to find inspiration. I also love reading peoples fics and drabbles because it usually reminds me why I love writing in the first place. There are few things more refreshing than reading someone’s fic and seeing the amount of love they poured into it.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Mental health, childhood trauma, and abandonment issues — so surprising. *HEAVY SARCASM*

What is your reason for writing?

I have wanted to publish one of my own stories as a novel since I was a little one daydreaming about escaping a shitty situation. I am starting to save up some money to self publish in a few years, because I have decided that I want to make my dream a reality. But I want it to be AMAZING, so I need lots of practice and writing fics helps with that.

But mostly, it’s a great way to explore themes that are beneficial to me and others— I’m not alone in the traumatized boat in this fandom, a lot of us are PTSD sufferers, abuse survivors, or just dealing with their own mental health issues and I want to make a safe space both on THIS blog but also in my writing for us.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Any/all of them. I literally still cannot believe people like my writing and it blows my mind if someone even leaves a two word comment. People have left me ones that have rendered me a sobbing mess, complete strangers have had me blubbering. Also when I realized my work is being digested in other countries by people who have learned English one way or another. Holy crap that shook me. I am so grateful for every single one of them. They all motivate me so much.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Hopefully they think I’m a good writer? I’m not sure I could hope for much else haha

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I honestly think my greatest strength as a writer is building community with others in our space. Other writers, readers, and artists. How is that a strength? Don’t be silly — nobody functions as an island. Having my writing server friends (palps crew for life) or just other creators around me who are all so talented, makes me better. They inspire me with their pieces of art, they challenge me when I struggle, they sit alongside me in a silent discord channel as we use each other as accountability partners to bust down writers block. I would be half the writer I am without them.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I oscillate wildly between liking my work and thinking I am the worst writer ever. As evidenced by my most recent crisis of faith. So. Yeah.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

Mix of both — if I’m writing a request for someone or a prompt, I try to make it more what others might enjoy reading but even then I always put a little “me” in there too. When I write my multi-chapter fics, those are really for me with a light look at what others might enjoy. Especially as our fandom slows down (I’m not going anywhere) I think it’s more important that YOU like your work because the praise isn’t going to be as constant.

Tagging: @lemonsrosesandlavender @falcatamandarina @jellyfitzjelly @barbwillbrb @faerunsbest @tealfling @ra-scheln

[your-friendly-neighbourh00d-fag]

seeing as you are a fellow mcr enjoyer i have a question for you of the utmost importance: do you think mike wheeler would like mcr or not

OHOHOHOHO YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE ASKED ME THAT. you just need to know beforehand before i am doing the answering of this uestion that i am ooo osooooo normal about this topic. trust me. the most normal

ok.

he absolutely likes mcr are you kidding me look at this man

he's struggling with his mental health, he's struggling with his sexuality, he's idolising a dude with long hair, piercings and pronouns, he's trying to be more metal. it's right there. plus the fact that he is just like me fr fr so i am going like this

and giving him all of my interests + autism (BECAUSE I SAID SO)

so. the question is, what's his favourite album. what's his favourite song. which one of the members does he have a crush on. does he read the killjoys comics. does he listen to summertime at 4am and cry and think about will. ("the song as a whole is about those people you meet who pull you out of your sleep, and make you wake up to real life, the good, beautiful things...")

i think mike would have a contentious relationship with bullets, it took him a long time to get as into it as the other albums, one week its his favourite, one week he hates it etc etc. his all time favourite album is three cheers and he actually told me that himself so idc. black parade is a very close second though, and disenchanted will always make him feel feelings.

favourite songs from all the albums: Our Lady of Sorrows and and Honey This Mirror and Headfirst for Halos (<< ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME IT IS SO HIM) and a smidge of Demolition Lovers. as a treat.

Give Em Hell Kid (BFFR!!!!), The Ghost Of You (another one that makes him feel The Feelings and will get an emotional reaction always. UM SEASON ONE??) and Cemetery Drive.

I Dont Love You, Disenchanted, and Teenagers absolutely. (are you fucking kidding me??? the most mike wheeler songs EVER and i will die on this hill nobody TOUCH ME),

Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back (his self sacrificing instincts are showing), S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W (at first he hates it, but after he reads up on the lore and the whole TTLOTFK thing he gets way into it), and Planetary, for no reason other than it sounds great 👍

EDIT: Conweap his favourite overall is cw5 and his fav songs are Burn Bright, The World Is Ugly and AMBULANCE

he absolutely looked at gerard way and said i need that man's gender RIGHT NOW and was just absolutely in awe of all his tour outfits and woke will up in the middle of the night to show him a video of cheerard with a flamethrower. that was a big 'wait i can dress less masculine if i want to??' thing and helped him find his personal style i think. and i also think. he has a n eeensy weensy teeny little crush. on gerbar. shh.

also.

look at this dork.

this absolute cringefail loser.

this nerdy nerd nerd.

the absolute second that mike finds out there's a comic that inspired danger days, he s p r i n t s to the local bookstore and cleans them out immediately. he binge reads them for like two nights straight and wakes will up constantly because look look LOOK WHAT HAPPENED WILL NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THEY-- he then spends the next month entrenched in killjoy lore and ends up with posters up all around his and will's apartment like this

trying to figure out the universe. (he also writes fanfiction but nobody tell 🤫)

anyway. this is a. bit of a long post and as you can tell from my introduction i am so so so so normal about mike wheeler, mcr, and my precious little headcanons.

tldr: yes he would love mcr and no one can take that away from me.