#but these scenes do have echos of that

[buffyspeak]

the moment of truth // the castle of fyrien

[rusty-courage]

a woven life session 5 doodle of me vs chrisrin

[ariadne-mouse]

"It's just Delilah."

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

fuck, ok, i'm watching episode forty again because i am nothing if not supportive when someone i know needs to devastate themself, but it does mean that i have once again watched the 'i'm a little hungry now. go make me a meal,' exchange.

i have noted before that this scene kills me, because it's the one time that fang duobing doesn't let li lianhua distract him. he sees the attempt at the distraction, he thinks he knows what's happening, and he says 'actually, no, not this time,' and he brushes it off.

li lianhua hands over the 'recipe book' knowing full well that if fang duobing opens it, he'll see what it is. he'll see what it is and he'll know what it means, because how could he not?

you have to wonder if part of li lianhua hoped he would. if he hoped that fang duobing would open it and realise what it was, because that would change things. it would have to change things. it's a quiet, miserable bet that he makes with himself: he knows fang duobing well enough to know that he won't look.

and he wins. fang duobing runs off, hoping against hope that he can still fix this, that he can still save li lianhua. he won't realise until he comes back and finds li lianhua gone and opens the book on the table to realise what he's been left.

you have to assume that fang duobing spends the next three months, if not longer, playing this back with a lot of what ifs in his head. what if he'd listened. what if he'd waited. what if he'd looked. it's the last thing that li lianhua ever asked of him, and he brushed it off.

li lianhua, on the other hand. fang duobing brushes him off, sets the book on the table and runs off to find guan hemeng. li lianhua wins his bet with himself: he knows fang xiaobao just as well as he thought he did. he knows him well enough that he can tell himself that he'll be fine.

he's known all along that it would end this way. he's known all along that he was dying and he would leave. he knew fang duobing wouldn't open that book, and he didn't; he freezes li lianhua and he leaves. and li lianhua watches him go, protesting, and when he thinks fang duobing is out of earshot, he goes quiet. he sighs. it worked just like he knew it would. he slumps a little bit. (maybe it worked just liked he hoped it wouldn't.)

and then

he fucking

smiles.

[gothteddiesdotcom]

thinkin about how important it is for submissives to take control of their own submission and understand their own agency in kink and to communicate for themselves

[galedekarios]

the plagiarist posting an "apology" to creators, including myself, who he has ripped for months on end despite us asking him not to while he still has us all blocked is... a choice

[oneluckydragon]

Started writing a fic back in early October and had to abandon it for a while due to IRL situations. But I've started working on it again little by little, and I am so excited to eventually share it with my mutuals and followers. I hope you guys enjoy it (I am trying my best to get it done)!

TBH my only motivation anymore is thinking about my friends having a good time reading it when it's finally posted (I love all of you very much). I cannot wait for all of these ideas to be fleshed-out on paper at last.

Over 16,000 words and I am nowhere near satisfied yet. I feel like I can write WAY more. Stay tuned!

[pynkhues]

Devastating on many fronts, but also comedy gold on even more.

(The energy of this scene though too makes me think this isn't the first time Louis' brought a man home).

[perenlop]

when i was a kid, pmd2 was my first pokemon game ever. and while this enhanced my experience with the story at the time in a lot of ways, it meant i was really bad at the sentry duty minigame. and i got this cutscene! i remember it felt really bad to get it since i also got loudred in trouble. but i thought i’d post it because i’m not sure how aware the community is of it? since i never see it come up when people talk about the apple woods incident. and my gf said he never saw this scene so i’m mostly posting for him tbh

[redbean-nom]

star wars by silm logic

for the silm-sw dual citizens:

I was wondering what would happen if star wars (particularly tbb bc that's the currently-releasing bit of star wars) adhered to silm logic:

Hunter is the local leader of a hidden city (Pabu)

Omega is the heir

Rex is the overall leader of a warring people (clone rebellion)

Hemlock is the local leader of a branch of the Forces of Evil

Palpatine is the overall Enemy

so therefore

Rex and Echo gather an army of escaped clones. They rescue Cody or Wolffe from the Empire. Song and fire are greatly involved.

Themes of rising hope are invoked as they make a stand against the Empire. The clone rebellion grows further.

They are initially victorious and manage to rescue the clone prisoners from Tantiss with few casualties. Hemlock is ousted and flees to the heart of the Empire (but his operation will return in time)

Echo goes to check on the Batch on Pabu and ask them to ally with him and Rex in the upcoming battle.

They march on Coruscant. Things suddenly go disastrously wrong. Cody is killed in battle. Rex faces Palpatine in single combat.

Rex dies tragically.

Eagles.

Echo tells Hunter about the battle. They are delayed on their way and attempt to ride to the rescue. The Batch arrives just after the deaths. Echo is sad.

Pabu is betrayed while the Batch is on Coruscant.

Pabu is invaded by the Empire. Hemlock subjugates the people into his weird clone experimentation program.

Dragons.

The Batch returns to destroyed/invaded Pabu and is unable to intervene.

While attempting to protect their city most of the Batch dies.

Echo is very sad.

Hunter is captured and killed in front of Omega.

Omega escapes and swears an Oath mourns the Batch.

Echo is broken by grief for the ghosts of his past and vanishes.

Omega later becomes a Rebellion leader, carrying the memories of the failed clone rebellion and the haven of Pabu with her.

Echo fades/dies on some random planet as the forgotten remnant of the GAR/Clone rebellion.

[itzmellooo]

Request from @echodeltacove for their TOH AU! I hope you love it, and thank you so much for the req!

I included a rough sketch of Luz and Gracie under the cut :)

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[sunforgrace]

the problem about the finale is in a lot of ways it’s like one of those funhouse hall of mirrors that show you fucked up distorted reflections and though it doesn’t really necessitate anything longer than walking through looking at the reflections for a minute or two going huh look at that and then leaving my brain keeps going hey remember those fucked up little images. remember the weird reflection. perhaps we should consider them again. here look [I am deluged by fucked up distorted reflections in my mind’s eye]

[exhaustedwerewolf]

when the dnd session was so insane you’re like “damn I want to rewatch that bit” but you can’t because it was not an incredible fantasy film but just you playing make believe with your friends

[crystalkitty1220]

Man I wonder where the leader of the fear realm could've gone, it's alMOST LIKE NEVIN HAS AN

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

yaz voice: i keep thinking,,, i keep thinking abt the.....future affecting the past of it all. the "if he runs out of time the hostile action would end and a time machine would know", "im fine because you fixed yourself", and "because it's not a grave"

like if it were me. if it were me. i still would have gone with the villa diodati conundrum. "save the poet, save the universe" what do we do when the poet IS the universe. "watch people burn now or tomorrow" like the distinction exists? like tomorrow isnt yesterday?

so we make them face the child. the doctor loses this one, right? too beholden to their rules. lost with shelley, will lose with the child. because there is no way to win it. not with the rules of the universe theyve clung to up to this point. not without play

so theres a child that needs to be saved but the doctor cant do it because it will take the foundation out from under the universe. she Can Not interfere. she fails to be the doctor when it comes to herself. but yaz is there. doctor's doctor. wont accept this. saves the child

the universe crumbles, but this or tecteun's revenge the outcome is similar except. the universe that crumbles if you save the child is the timelords' universe, their imposed histories, their laws, their logic. nothing makes sense anymore. it's terrifying. gotta let go gotta let go gotta let go. you HAVE to play. play or perish. please it's not that serious. it's just identity! funniest game there is. listen to the master; tag, youre it