#as if he were following rules

[dtaegis]

3 days. and the boy already feels bad for the decisions he took 🫥

[shorthaltsjester]

Why are your children bound by rules you will not follow?

Critical Role, Campaign 3, Downfall Parts 1-3 // Commandments of The Prime Deities according to the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn

[dykedvonte]

I think it’s so ironic that the Pony Express escapes a lot if not all blame in discussion. I can’t even say I am excused from it but it’s just how hard people circle back to the characters alone without considering the environment they were made to be in.

Why would they design a ship where only two of the rooms lock? Not the bathroom? Not the sleeping quarters? We assume that all the companies in the universe are this shallow and careless to their workers but we explicitly know the Pony Express in extra vile. They are fed processed slop pack they can’t even really cook and the ration of those pack is meager at best. They hired and made people with a plethora of conflicting demeanors and beliefs work together on a mission where cohesion is important if not an outright necessity and punish them for not being happy about it. There’s no social protocols, not chain of command other than Captain’s word/choice and the only way to enforce that is with a literal firearm. They don’t allow them to celebrate freely and even took away leisure activities that would make them less stir crazy. They are only allowed a few hours of sleep despite their being no other real responsibilities or work on the ship, no matter the position or its importance. With any crew, with any level of synergy, this was a powder keg waiting for a spark.

I’m not saying characters that made mistakes didn’t make huge ones, but I think part of the horror is that at least for some (this is targeting Jimathan) those mistakes are partly made by a force of the hand. There’s a running theme of lack of choice and being forced into something and the very nature of how The Pony Express expected them to function plays a big part.

[paunchsalazar]

Dean should have been the new new Bobby… I’ll kill myself

[brucewaynehater101]

i want you to know that i scroll through your posts and interactions just to find all your fic recs and open new ao3 tabs.

your tim parenting Bruce au has destroyed me and I love it so much thank you for your service.

do you have any more particularly gut wrenching aus cooking up in your genius noggin?

Heeeey. How'd you know I had a new AU I haven't released yet?

But before we get into that, thank you for the compliments. Angst is my favorite flavor.

As far the AU, you know the saying, "You either die as a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"?

I feel like that could fit Tim so well.

How I imagine the AU to start out would be Tim as Robin. He's in the batcave with Bruce as the man is showing him a particularly devastating case. Bruce, his mentor but not his father, turns to Tim with a grimmace.

"There's a reason we have a code, Tim."

They both glance at Jason's memorial and Bruce's hands start to shake.

"As much as we may want to give in to our desires and emotions, we can't stoop down to their level. There needs to be lines we won't cross, even for the greater good."

Azure eyes snap to arctic ones, begging for the younger to understand.

"We do this to protect others, even those who are twisted and foul. We aren't the judges or executioners."

Tim nods in agreement, and Bruce's shoulders lose a little of their tension. The older man pats the teen's shoulder in pride before his attention goes back to the murder case.

Tim, as Robin, had many interactions with Bruce that shaped who he was as a vigilante. How much force to apply when fighting, what lines to cross, and acceptable codes of conduct were taught to the kid in several instances. It didn't matter that Bruce himself had broken them or that, on very rare occasions, Dick also broke them. They were rules Tim was expected to follow, and they were reasonable lines. Of course, Tim did everything he could to meet those standards. He may have trained with Lady Shiva, and YJ may get into so whacky ordeals, but there's no excuse to go outside of those bounds.

It became difficult, though, when Jason beat Tim into the floor of Titan's Tower. When Jason, after hurting several family members, was welcomed back. It became a strain on Tim when Bruce enacted the 16th Birthday present fiasco or Tim found out about what the man had done to Dick (the bruise he left on Dick's face after Jason's passing). It was demanding to follow those rules when Damian came into the picture and when Dick handed him Robin.

When Tim found that painting of Bruce, when Dick and the JL turned their backs on him, when YJ wasn't there to support him, some part of Tim said "fuck it." Why should he follow standards he had to leash Bruce into obeying? The man wasn't even here anymore.

He still tried, but he gave less effort to it. He didn't want Bruce to find out when he returned after all.

But Tim? He never returned from that desert. As far as the Bats become aware after Tim sends them the data for Bruce and then blows up the bases, Tim died in the explosions he caused.

And the rest of the AU goes into Tim exploring how the guidelines Bruce gave him were bullshit, so he slowly starts to let more and more go until he has no moral bounds anymore. He's seen Bruce, Jason, Damian, Barbara, Alfred, and Dick all break one or more of these "rules" that were placed on Tim. So why should Tim go along with it?

What does it matter if he betrays, manipulates, tortures, and kills if it saves the most people? What does it matter if he commits suffering if he's helping people?

Until, one day, Bart and Kon are on the other side of the battlefield from Tim. While Bart is steadfast in defeating Tim (no matter how much it pains him), Kon is devastated that Tim never told him he was alive. He doesn't even care that Tim is a villain. If he had just asked, Kon would've joined him.

It's too late now. Bart needs Tim to stop, Tim can't let Kon join him, and Kon is torn between his duty and his friend.

So Tim does what he always does, he sacrifices himself. He allows them to take him into holding, executes his plan to murder all villains left, places restrictions on the JL (so they'll never hurt anyone the way they hurt Tim and abandoned his friends again), and then Tim disappears. Bart opposing Tim was the sign that Tim was in the wrong. He knows that. If he wasn't, Bart would've been on Tim's side no matter how morally grey he got.

Tim had crossed into the black.

He became what he always feared he might one day be.

[skrunksthatwunk]

man. y'know that scene where little hiei realizes the bandits are afraid of him bc he kept killing them? how he thought it was fine because they were killing others and he thought they understood, that their system of might makes right would be consistent no matter his actions, until all at once the only family he's ever had shuts him out for doing what he thought would help him fit in? for doing what he thought they wanted from him, at least to some extent? sigh. heartbreaking levels of autism in this small faggot

[bitchfitch]

I had a shrink appointment today and while I could not see it I knew my doc was going through the five stages of grief while I explained my fool proof strategy for doing my t shots despite a crippling fear of needles: By abusing my vastly more crippling fear of being an inconvenience.

My mother and I play phasmophobia together every week. she usually has a pretty limited time to do this bc she's like. a doctor and a college professor whos always busy. So I asked her to just. hold me to doing them. We don't start playing until the shot is done. so my needle fear doesn't matter because now it's Wasting™ her time and I have to do it quick. Using one neurosis to defeat another.

It's a horrible coping mechanism because it's feeding the inconvenience fear, but it is definitionally a coping mechanism.

[atalldrinkofcaprisun]

someone for some reason: JINX IS A PRODUCT OF SILCO! SHE WOULDNT DO THOSE THINGS IF IT WASNT FOR HIM GROOMING HER!

powder: *down to fight for the undercities independence. has weapon skills. was going to NAIL BOMB ANOTHER CHILD IN THE FIRST EPISODE. wants to help fight and has already gotten a proclivity towards explosions, gadgets and guns*

me: i want to hold your hand and let you know i’m so serious when i tell you to please pay attention

[tangledinink]

Do the boys just never take off their cloaking charms? Between showering sports and just childhood shenanigans... how?

Yep! The long and short of it is that Splinter invested in the good shit. (How did he afford the good shit? Donnn't worry about it. Same way he was able to cut a deal with Big Mama...)

The Cloaking Crystals are specifically designed for long-term wear, the bracelets are small and minimal so as to not get in the way of day-to-day, and are enchanted so that they fit snugly and won't fall off by accident-- they have to be deliberately removed with intention. Splinter spent weeks teaching his sons how to wear bracelets without bothering them (even before he got the actual cloaking brooches) and drilling into them how important it was to never ever take them off.

After a while, the brothers just got used to having them on, and really didn't have any reason to ever take them off. I imagine that there was at least one occasion (when they were still young,) where one of the brothers (probably Leo...) started messing with his, but...

Dad didn't even get mad. He yelled a little, sure, and he stopped Leo right away, but... They could tell he wasn't angry. He was scared. They had never seen his face look like that before.

... They kind of decided after that that they really shouldn't ever take the bracelets off. Dad said it kept them safe, and it seemed like he meant it. Now that they're older, they mostly just chalk it up to it being some kind of superstitious thing on their Dad's part, but they remember how important it is to him, and that he told them not to, so... They just haven't.

Not yet, anyway.

[shakingparadigm]

horrendously sick and twisted btw

[coolnonsenseworld]

Omg your instagram story is so right! I can’t believe I’ve never even noticed that, probably because in fanon keith and shiro are so close that I’d forgotten that isn’t canon :0

Deserves this awesome quote which I had to dig out of my sideblog reblogs

[gingersnaptaff]

🔥 hot takes on anything Arthuriana related

btw love your welsh legal history posts

Oh, hello!!!! I love ur blog so like hi, hi, hi!!! Ahh, thank u for saying u like the legal posts!! They're super fun to do so I'm glad you've enjoyed them!!!!! :D sleep deprived but okay, hot takes.

Purely Welsh myth but Arthur should've left Bendigeidfran's head where it was. Like bruh, you brought the misery upon yourself. Plus, I don't think I've seen a lot of lit exploring this aspect of the myth but I think it would be fun cuz it shows Arthur as being hubristic which does get glossed over I think.

Also, Geraint needs to be chucked off a cliff. I volunteer to do it.

And I don't think Guinevere / Gwenhwyfar was ever a goddess. There's nothing to suggest she was at all. That's silly. That's stupid.

Also, authors stop using Bedwyr for the Lancelot stand-in when u don't want to put him in. EDERN IS RIGHT THERE.

(This isn't a hot take but I have many bugbears either Marion Zimmer Bradley and have a deep, deep dislike for her work. She's just ehdjxjcjx)

Also, this is a Welsh myth thing but I guess I'm putting it in because Arthur does have Welsh gods in his retinue and has his roots in Welsh things but can we stop using Gwydion as a good guy, pls? He is a Bad, Bad man.

Also, Arthur was never a real person but a lot of the lads who got folded into the mythos are and that gets overlooked because we all want this king to be super fuckin real and for what? I think if we'd had evidence for a real Arthur then we'd have gotten it by now.

Also somebody pls write me a book about real irl cousins urien and peredur / percival. I need it like I need air.

[purplelea]

Something that just occurred to be is that is isn't extremely weird for Neku and Sho to only be allowed to use one pin at a time? Because we know for sure that in the og Neku was able to use six of them and we can easily guess that Sho could as well, given his Imagination level. It's likely that Beat could, too, but I'm not well versed enough in the og's gameplay to tell.

In any case, neither Neku nor Sho can use more than one pin at once. Another piece of dialogue from Sho also reveals that the level caps on the pins have been removed, making them usable by any player regardless of their level.

Those two factors are some pretty big changes—we see how surprised Sho is when he realizes the latter. My question is: how were they made possible?

There is no reason why Kariya or Uzuki, when in control of Shibuya, would make those changes. Joshua wouldn't have either, because they make no sense in Shibuya's Game. So that only leaves Shiba, who probably made them to fit Shinjuku's rules better. Only thing is, that Sho has been Conductor before, so he should have been aware that this was a possibility. Yet his reaction makes me believe that he never considered it possible (it is possible that he didn't consider it simply because he didn't think about it or because it wouldn't have helped him with his plans anyway, but I think he genuinely didn't know it could be done) which then leads to the logical conclusion of: only a higher power could've done this.

I believe Kubo's the one who made those changes to Shibuya's Game, or Shiba, but thanks to Kubo's powers—in any case, it's a intervention of the Higher Plane. Sho isn't stupid and probably guessed it right away. I am thus adding this to the list of hints he got in order to guess who was behind all of this

[thatfaerieprincess]

The FCG doodles for a friend that jump started me somewhat out of art block the other day! Turns out I love drawing this goofy robot <333

I'm particularly fond of the one of him bending over to pet a cat 💛

[lunarharp]

thingies

[americankimchi]

tcw is so good at introducing us to characters and bite-sized stories that capture our attention and so, SO bad at following even a modicum of logic when it comes to the consequences of actions under military law