#but. yeah yeah this a hard choice.

[linagram]

[ 𝙺𝚞𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚒 𝚁𝚒𝚔𝚞'𝚜 𝚃𝟹 𝚅𝙳 ] 𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗, 𝙲𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝙸𝚝 𝚊 𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚠

RIKU. OH RIKU. enjoyed writing both his mv and his vd a lot! hope y'all like it too :) (his mv and vd destroyed me)

Warnings for Riku's VD: descriptions of toxic relationships, suicide, bullying and self-harm.

Warnings for Riku's MV: same as his VD, not counting the bullying part, Riku also gets to be really violent in this one and there are a lot of mentions of blood.

(sounds of footsteps)

Miki: .. So..

Miki: It's time for us to interrogate your brother.

Hinode: .. Yes.

Miki: .. Hinode-san, how can you be so calm even though your own brother is one of the prisoners here?

Miki: How can you just.. be so calm even though your brother has murdered someone?

Miki: And not just that, you voted him guilty too. Again, I understand Eiji-san's situation, but-

Hinode: Because I always knew it will end up like this.

Miki: Huh?..

Hinode: I knew that their friendship will end with someone's death. I knew that it will either be Riku or it will be Yue. 

Hinode: I.. I always knew it.

Miki: .. Why didn't you help him? 

Miki: Why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you tell your own brother that this friendship will only hurt him? 

Miki: Do you even love-

Hinode: NOT ALL OF US ARE AS OBSESSED WITH SAVING OTHERS AS YOU ARE! 

Miki: ...

Hinode: .. I'm so sorry, Miki-san. 

Hinode: It's just.. Haha..

Hinode: Who knows. Maybe I really don't care about Riku that much.

Hinode: .. I was too focused on my own pain to think about his pain too.

Miki: .. Sorry.

(the door opens)

Miki: .. Hello, Riku-san.

Riku: I heard you two arguing. Did something happen?

Riku: And, um.. Hello.

Miki: I-it's nothing. Please don't worry about it.

Miki: .. How are you feeling, Riku-san?

Riku: .. A little better, haha.

Hinode: ...

Riku: (to Hinode) .. Are you not going to say anything?

Hinode: .. I'm sorry about.. that.

Riku: *laughs* You're this scared to talk about your brother's suicide attempt?

Riku: .. No. No, that's not the right way to say it.

Riku: You're so used to my suicide attempts that you don't feel anything at all anymore. 

Hinode: ...

Miki: .. Hinode-san..

Miki: .. You really are a terrible brother.

Hinode: .. I know.

Riku: Hey, hey, come on, let's talk about my crime instead.

Miki: B-but don't you want to talk more about how your life in Milgram has been? 

Miki: I just want to know how you are-

Riku: I'm fine.

Riku: T-thanks to Akio-kun.. I'm fine.

Miki: But what about-

Riku: Guard 002.

Riku: Don't you think you should stop asking prisoners about things other than their crimes? Especially things that trigger them and make them uncomfortable?

Riku: If you care so much about us, why don't you respect our privacy?

Miki: ...

Miki: "His attitude towards me has.. completely changed."

Miki: "It's like he's not trying to make me trust him anymore."

(the sound of a screen turning on)

Eiji: That's what I like to hear. If you want to talk about your crime so much, let's start with your murder method.

Eiji: Guard 002 asked you about it the last time, but you didn't give a proper answer. 

Eiji: So, how did you do it?

Riku: .. I thought you would have seen something like that in my video.

Miki: "Hinode-san told me everything about it, but I can't just tell Riku that I've heard it from his brother."

Miki: .. Did you.. use your reputation to make everyone hate Shiozaki-san?

Riku: ...

Riku: Yep. That's what the popular guys do.

Eiji: Popular guys don't just drive someone to suicide.

Riku: Hmm, I disagree. Our whole existence makes others wish they were either just like us or simply dead.

Riku: I'm sure at least one person was close to committing suicide just because of how great I am.

Miki: .. And you're proud of it?

Riku: Sure. I had the same thoughts every single day, why wouldn't I be happy that someone feels the exact same way because of me?

Riku: It's like.. a compliment, really. Like wow, I'm so cool that someone would rather die than continue living their boring and pointless life that has me in it!

Eiji: .. We should've voted you guilty twice.

Riku: But anyway, yeah, I just used my popularity to spread gossip about him and told everyone how bad Yue is and that it would be better if the guy just killed himself already..

Riku: And it worked! Yay~

Hinode:  .. You're not actually that happy about his death, are you?

Riku: .. What do you mean?

Hinode: Sure, you still have your band, your friends, your classmates, but..

Hinode: Yue understood you like no one could. He gave you as much attention as you needed. 

Hinode: It could've been overwhelming, but it was the exact amount you needed. That's why you couldn't have just ended your friendship like a normal person would.

Riku: .. Why don't you just continue to sit here and not say anything?

Riku: You never understood me, Hinode-

Hinode: Your whole family doesn't understand you. That's one of the many reasons why Yue's death will only make your life more miserable.

Hinode: Your main source of attention and affection is gone. 

Hinode: Who will you start feeding off this time? Akio-san?

Hinode: You don't see people as people, you just see them as pairs of eyes that are supposed to only look at you.

Riku: .. Says the guy who stole all of our parents' affection.

Eiji: Shut up, you two.

Eiji: First of all, I don't want to know anything about what was going on between Riku and Yue. I'm only interested in the murder.

Eiji: And also..

Eiji: If your parents pay more attention to only one of their children, it's their fault. The other child is not the one to blame. 

Eiji: And.. maybe the child that gets more attention is not the one to blame either.

Riku and Hinode: ...

Riku: .. Yue was planning to jump off the school rooftop.

Riku: And not just that. I was the one who suggested it.

Riku: I left a note for him that said I'm tired of everything and that I want to end it all, but I'm not doing it without him.

Riku: Of course, he agreed and came to the rooftop, but..

Riku: This wasn't supposed to be double suicide. It was basically supposed to be.. murder that would look like suicide.

Riku: Me and my friends came to look at it and.. taunt him a little, I guess.

Riku: Like, we were just going "Jump! Jump! Jump!"

Miki: Were your friends really.. okay with all of this?

Riku: Eh, I don't know and I also don't care.

Riku: Maybe they really are this cruel, maybe they just didn't want to lose their status. Who knows.

Riku: But then.. I walked up closer to Yue. 

Riku: I just wanted to continue making fun of him, nothing more. Maybe, also, um.. Push him a little.

Eiji: Making fun of him and pushing him are two different things. You weren't trying to get him to commit suicide anymore, you were trying to kill him yourself.

Riku: Come on, I was just.. bullying him a bit. Like all friends do.

Miki: ".. Sometimes I forget how insane Riku-san is."

Riku: B-but.. Um..

Riku: Then, Yue hugged me. I thought that maybe he wanted to hug me for the last time before he jumped, but..

Riku: .. H-he wanted to fall with me.

Riku: H-he wanted us to jump together.

Riku: Y-you don't understand, he even pulled out a boxcutter that we used to-

Riku: A-and he said that he was going to stab me if I didn't jump with him.

Riku: He was that insane. I was the victim. Please trust me.

Eiji: So he was so obsessed with you that he was okay with dying, but only if that meant you kept your promise and you two committed double suicide..

Eiji: .. Heh. Things are getting interesting.

Miki: T-there's nothing interesting about it! It's just.. it's just..

Riku: So anyway, I tried to fight back, but he hugged me again and..

Riku: W-we almost fell off the roof. 

Riku: And then my friends tried to save me and..

Riku: T-they did. A-as you can see, I'm still alive.

Riku: My shoe fell off, but it's.. fine.

Miki: .. So Shiozaki-san ended up falling, but you survived?

Riku: .. Y-yeah.

Riku: Stop looking at me like that! Do you think it would be better if I died with him?

Eiji: Yes, actually.

Riku: What-

Eiji: You deserve it, like a murderer that you are.

Riku: How- H-hey, Hinode! Don't you want to protect your little brother?!

Hinode: .. I knew that you were the one responsible for his death, but..

Hinode: .. How can I care about my little brother, when he's.. 

Hinode: When he's even more cruel than me?

Riku: .. Come on. Come on, at least someone in this room has to care about me.

Riku: Miki-chan.. Miki-chan, please..

Miki: .. Please, shut your mouth, Riku-san.

Miki: I'm so tired of you.

(the bell rings, machinery sounds)

Riku: .. You will forgive me, right?

Riku: You understand that I'm the victim, right?

Miki: I thought you changed, Riku-san. 

Miki: You could've died, but you were saved by the person you hated. I thought this would change you.

Miki: Even Miyagawa-san has changed. 

Riku: .. But I'm innocent.

Riku: I was just trying to survive. It was either me or him. It was basically self-defense.

Riku: You will just vote me guilty again? You want me to die this badly?

Riku: MY WHOLE EXISTENCE IS ALREADY THIS PATHETIC SO YOU JUST WANT TO KILL ME OFF?!

Riku: IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF SAVING ME?!

Miki: I-it doesn't mean that you will die-

Riku: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO TO YOU!

Eiji: You don't have the same power here that you used to have back in school.

Riku: WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? DO YOU WANT ME TO FALL ON THE GROUND AND SAY HOW SORRY I AM AND BEG FOR FORGIVENESS? DO YOU WANT ME TO JUST STAB MYSELF OVER AND OVER?!

Miki: "I should use the memory machine-"

Riku: DON'T MOVE!

Miki: ...

Riku: I know what you're trying to do.

Riku: If you use that memory thing on me, I will still find ways to hurt myself. And you don't want that, right? Because you're our savior, right?

Miki: You won't-

Riku: What, do you think my brother will stop me? Do you think.. uh.. I forgot his name, anyway, you think Guard 001 will stop me?

Riku: Nobody in this prison cares about me. I had to learn this the hard way.

Miki: .. But Miyagawa-san does.

Riku: ...

Miki: And I don't think he just sees you as a replacement for someone anymore.

Riku: .. He's just another source of attention to me.

Riku: .. Fine. Do whatever you want.

Riku: It doesn't matter if I live or die, I will still continue to suffer. It's like I was born to do exactly that.

Miki: .. Thank you for trusting us.

Hinode: Wait a minute, Miki-san.

Hinode: Riku.

Riku: *sighs* What do you want?

Hinode: .. I know that our relationship is impossible to fix. We'll never be as close as we should be. 

Hinode: You're mad at me and I'm mad at you. But..

Hinode: Sorry. I wish I could've been a better brother.

Riku: ...

Eiji: ...

Riku: .. I wish you could've been better too.

Miki: .. A-are you ready now?

Riku: Yeah. Guess it's time to sing my final song, haha.

Miki:��.. How can you still make jokes in this situation?

Riku: 'Cause I'm too used to suffering. No matter what you choose, it will bring me nothing but pain.

Riku: I want to live, sure, but I want to live a better life.

Riku: .. I don't want to go home.

Miki: .. Prisoner 009, Riku, put all your heart into this song and sing your sins.

42% ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░░░ 100%

[ Riku's Trial 3 MV: Sun Sets, Games End ]

The video starts with showing us many different scenes, all of them appear for a second or two. We see an orange sky with some clouds and then we see a seesaw, a swing, a bench, a merry go round and a tree.

We see little Riku sitting in his room and trying to do his homework, but it looks like it's hard for him to stay focused. He gets distracted again, sighs and walks to his window. He can see a playground next to his house from it. As he's looking at it, he gets scared when he sees a familiar figure playing there. 

"Press "START GAME" to begin

But I want this to end

Please go away, I don't wanna see you

Please go away, playing as your friend is getting tiring"

It's little Yue who notices him too, turns to him, smiles and waves at him. We see Riku still standing in his room and it looks like he's not sure if he should go outside. He looks at his homework again.

"But I am still lonely, my heart's about to break

This desire for attention is getting too strong for me to handle

I guess I'll play another round today"

Riku and Yue are playing on a seesaw now and Yue is having a lot of fun and Riku is smiling too, but his smile looks forced. 

"We're going up, look at us, we're still friends

We're going down, we're arguing again

No balance, this relationship is too unstable

Friends? Enemies? What role am I supposed to play?"

Yue is laughing and suddenly, he falls off of it. Riku is already standing not so far away from him and we can see that Yue is definitely injured. But for some reason, Riku isn't in a hurry to help him and it actually looks like he's hesitating to do so. 

"We're supposed to be friends, so I'm supposed to help you

But I don't feel anything at all

My head is empty, I don't wanna do anything

Maybe this game will end if I just ignore you"

Now, they're on a swing. Yue's head is bleeding, but he doesn't care and even though Riku looks worried, he doesn't say anything. Yue is still laughing and enjoying this, but then, he falls again. And this time the fall is more serious. 

Riku runs up to him and sees that Yue is lying in a pool of blood coming from his head injury. He's visibly panicking and doesn't know what to do, but if you look closer, you can see that it looks like he's trying really hard not to smile. Suddenly, he sees that Yue is still able to move and Yue gets some of his own blood on his finger and starts drawing a heart on Riku's cheek. When he's finished, Riku is shocked, but Yue is still smiling.

"Let's play until the sun goes down, let's play until we see the sky turn purple

That's what they want us to do anyway

Hey, are you having fun? Aren't you tired? Don't you wanna go home already?

"Nope, I'm just getting started!" Well, let me end everything here"

We see the sky slowly turn pink. We see older versions of Riku and Yue now (17 and 18 years old) sitting on a bench. Riku is helping Yue bandage his arm. Yue also has some bandaids on his face and bandages on his other arm, but he looks like he's even enjoying the process and watches Riku do so with a smile. We can see their school bags on the bench as well and there's a box cutter and scissors sticking out of one of them.

"More years, more pain, more fighting

More attention, more joy, more love

Will this game ever end? Will it be as long as my life?

If that's the case, I know how to quit"

It starts raining and Riku is trying to get back home as quickly as possible, but Yue seems to be taking his time. Riku turns to him and tries to call him, but then we see a lightning flash. Yue gets excited and runs off somewhere and Riku tries to follow him and another lightning almost strikes Yue. 

"Why are you like this? Why are you doing this?

Do you want to end this game already, just like me?

Then let's press "QUIT GAME", please, this can't go on

With tears in your eyes, with blood on your hands, you smile again"

Riku and Yue are in Riku's room now and Riku is drying Yue's hair with a towel. The scene looks surprisingly peaceful. We can even hear rain sounds in the background. Yue still has the same happy expression on his face while Riku is really stressed. The door opens and we see a woman that seems to be Riku's mother and she smiles after seeing Riku and Yue together like this. Yue smiles too and holds Riku's hand. His grip looks really tight and we also can see that Riku's fingers have some bandaids on them too. 

The sky is purple now. We see the playground again. Riku and Yue are playing on a merry go round. Yue is having fun as always, even though he has even more bandages on his body now, while Riku's eyes look completely empty, his hair is more messy and he's not trying to hide his scars anymore. 

"It keeps going and going and going and going

I don't think I will ever be able to escape this hell

We keep playing and playing and playing and playing

Let me turn it all off, let me close my eyes and wait for the end"

The merry go round stops as Yue points at a tree we saw in the beginning of the video. 

Yue tries to climb it as Riku watches him. It looks like Riku doesn't want to join him, but he still follows him. They're climbing together now and Yue gets on the highest branch. He looks even happier than before as he watches the sky become a darker shade of purple, but when he turns to look at Riku, Riku quickly makes him fall off the branch.

"Let's play until the sun goes down, let's play until we see the sky turn purple

That's what you want me to do anyway

Hey, are you having fun? Aren't you tired? Don't you wanna go home already?

"Nope, I'm just getting started-" SHUT UP ALREADY AND LET ME END THIS!"

Riku gets down. There's even more blood than in the beginning of the video. Yue's eyes and face expression make it look like he really is dead. Finally, Riku shows a genuine smile for once, even though this smile makes him look more insane rather than happy. He starts laughing and he sees one of the branches on the ground and starts hitting Yue's body with it. 

"Beating you with my words, my power, my reputation

If I say "Kill him", they will follow me

Please, just die, just die already 

That's the only thing you have to do to make me happy"

But then, it's revealed that Yue is still alive and just like in the beginning, he gets some blood on his finger, but this time he puts his finger in Riku's mouth. Riku is shocked and disgusted, but Yue is still smiling. 

"No, no, what are you doing

We weren't supposed to end up like this

I'm not gonna follow you, you're going there alone

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, WHY WON'T YOU JUST END IT?!"

Riku continues to hit him with the branch, until he eventually gets tired and his body is just lying on top of Yue's now. Both boys are covered in blood and there's so much blood that it's getting harder to recognize them.

"And we're still repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating

This cycle of pain and abuse and torture all over again

INNOCENT? GUILTY? Both options are too painful

Even though you're gone, my heart is still broken"

We see someone watching this scene from what appears to be a classroom. There's not just one person, there's a lot of students watching and we can't see their face expressions. One of the students turns to the camera. It's Riku, who is still covered in blood. He looks happy.

"I can't see the sun anymore, the game's finally over

Congrats, you're the winner, you got your prize

Haha, don't worry, I'm not mad at you

You got there first, but I'm okay with the second place"

The video ends.

[sczawr]

some mobster au doodles while I was taking a break from work

[lygma-nygma]

Honest to god Titans Tower is probably the funniest thing that's ever happened in comics to me? Like, there's so much to unpack here it's insane?? The tear-away stripper Red Hood costume? The knock-off Robin costume with the stupid ass yellow tights that somehow looks worse than if Jason just rocked the bare thighs? The way Jason is drawn like he is fully 35 with two stepkids and a mortgage? Jason inventing fanfiction about Tim and Bruce's relationship in his head because he refuses to believe Tim actually stalked his way into being Robin?? Trying to mimic his crowbar death by beating Tim with his own staff but I as a reader am entirely unable to take it seriously because of those stupid fucking tights-

And then you get to Tim's side of things and he says like, all of 5 things the entire time and three of them are a coded 'fuck you'. He has absolutely no time or respect for Jason's pity party and it's actually hysterical because Jason cannot stop yapping. Meanwhile, Tim is like, definitely losing the fight which makes it funnier?? Then the ending?? Jason scrawling "Jason Todd was here" on the wall in blood (or red paint meant to look like blood, up in the air) and signing it with a handprint like he's a middle schooler who just discovered Creepypasta???? Ripping the 'R' off Tim's costume when he's literally already unconscious?? Zipping away from the scene thinking "damn I actually like that kid, wish I had friends tbh"??

And then it's literally never brought up again.

[actual-haise]

When Youtubers say that Fate is soooo difficult to get into and the watch order is sooo confusing

[thisisadonaldduckblognow]

all the rise boys get done dirty on characterization by fandom in different ways i think. (not ALL the time every fanwork etc etc these are just like, trends i tend to notice?) every fandom suffers from losing character nuance.

- leo i’ve talked about plenty on this blog, how some of his canon traits (genuine belief in his skill and cockiness, capacity for joy, his manipulativeness whether for good or ill) seem to get watered down or wiped off the board and supplemented with generic sad boy. his struggles with purpose and identity and not wanting to fail somehow morph into “he hates and completely holds no value for himself”

- donnie’s canon personality gets blurred out and largely replaced with whatever list of Neurodivergent Traits. and i think there’s such a fine line to walk between exploring a character that’s been word of god confirmed as on the spectrum and overwriting what’s canonically there. it’s a hard needle to thread. it also feels like a lot of his canon emotiveness gets left off the table for some reason. bc he does have his moments of flat/deadpan delivery, but a lot of the time he’s honestly very emotive. he has the passion of a theatre kid and the vindictiveness of... also a theatre kid. and the mind of a scientist.

- raph loses so much of his rowdy teen boy energy it’s kind of wild? like interpretations sand off that he’s also impulsive and can be reckless and dumb and LOVES fighting and roughhousing and isn’t the most eloquent person. suddenly there’s this pitch perfect soft boy big bro who would never hurt a fly and always says the exact right supportive thing and singlehandedly raised his 3 brothers (which simultaneously sands off all the nuance of splinter’s issues emotionally connecting with his sons and how that affected all of them). and like i LOVE raph, he’s so full of love and care and anxiety, he clearly has learned to put a lot of work into being aware of his strength and size. but there’s a difference you know?

- mikey is like. where raph gets overparentified by fanon, mikey gets over “family therapist”-ed IMO. the impulsiveness, the goofiness, the powerful emotions including a VERY powerful temper, the flat-out dumb teen boy choices... they get ignored. suddenly there’s this only very sweet and earnest boy who has read a hundred psychology books and runs group family therapy weekly or something. he is crying in his room bc leo and raph are arguing about something. which is so. he IS very sweet and can be very earnest and is full of love! he HAS come in with his opinions and unsolicited advice a couple of times and life coached for the greater good. but there’s a difference between what he does in canon and the role he gets in fanon.

[wistfulpoltergeist]

Nothing unusual. Decided to play Divinity 2 with my sis. Created my characters there, found a home for them, decorated it, imagined a story and then went back to Sims 4 to recreate my Sims-Divinity Characters back in Sims :D

CC credit: Me :D, @simstrouble, Nelfeah, @giuliettasims, @chocobunsims, @golyhawhaw, @joliebean, @uxji, @thisisthem, @goppolsme, @johnnysimmer, @introsims, @pralinesims

[she-who-loves-the-night]

My apologies to Bellara and Emmrich

but I have been waiting for this opportunity from the moment I met with that First Warden

[ratatatastic]

Complete Chaos: The Cats pick their band members 🎸

matthew: finns (good music taste but the best energy)

kuli: sasha (dj), maffhew (singer to which he refutes and insist hes a hype man), and himself as director/manager because hes bad rhythmically

ekky: maffhew (hype man/lead singer), benny and reino (guitar and drums), forsy (pure eyecandy quite literally just there to take his shirt off 😭😭)

swaggy and benny: sasha (dj), swaggy (singer/guitarist), benny (guitarist), ekky and gadjo (no other role than to look like "bandguys")

reino: also finns lmao (popular choice)

sasha: himself as dj, and swaggy (singer, his karaoke insistence proceeds him)

roddy: forsy (guitar), benny (drums), himself (no role whatsoever lol), reino (second guitar) and sasha (cymbals, girl what kinda band 😭)

mikksy: sasha (dj) just sasha no one else just him actually :)

BONUS: sasha finally revealed his dj name to which last time he staunchly refused to do so and its DJ Layz!!!!

[jackass-jones]

Thinking of vlr Akane is so conflicting cuz on one hand I’m so upset that she doesn’t ever get a moment to just rest and enjoy being alive again I’m upset that she just gets deeper and deeper into this role she’s built for herself and she loses her humanity and will never ever be that girl who died in the incinerator. But on the other hand, I need her to get so, so much worse I need her to be so obsessed with perfection she has this unique ability to change the course of history and she will burn everything and everyone to the ground in the blink of an eye if it means she can "reset" and get a perfect timeline and I desperately need her to never be satisfied with anything because really, is there anything that’s worth all the damage she’s caused?

[altschmerzes]

I want to hear about your fics. Tell me about your wips. What are you working on now. What's got you really excited?

OOOOOOOO YOU HAVE UNLEASHED ME, MY FRIEND...

the thing about me that i'm sure you will have noticed by now if you've spent more than five minutes on my blog or in my general company is that i am always working on five hundred projects at once. this is not... like, great, so to speak for my ability to consistently finish one thing but i don't know how much steam i'd be able to maintain if i wasn't constantly playing hopscotch with projects so like. win some lose some?

anyways. i have five hundred projects always. right now i would say the ones i am working on with the greatest degree of dedication/effort, in terms of Major Projects at least and not just like. oneshots here and there are wriggle up on dry land (baby jamie ted lasso fic), history rhymes (ted lasso fic centred on sexual trauma), loneliness into loneliness (the qpr two aces fic and its associated concepts), and the newest of the bunch that i don't think i've really talked about, which is titled 'drive the wedge' (from the tmg song 'heel turn 2'). here is a needlessly thorough explanation of THAT fic. the short version is, in the excellent words of my friend @cartwrong, "Thought River had a bad time in s4? Its about to get to worse."

drive the wedge is a slow horses fic wherein at the end of 4x05, patrice abducts river at gunpoint and when he does so he doesn't drive him to that cafe to meet with frank. instead, patrice takes river to a remote, isolated manor where frank is waiting for them.

it goes downhill from there.

the horses do not see or hear from river again for almost five months. during that time, frank does his level best to break river and rebuild him into a soldier, into a weapon worth using. this... doesn't really work. in fact, the process ends up breaking not river, but patrice, who watches his father torture the only brother he has left until he can't take watching it anymore.

meanwhile, slough house is on overdrive trying to find a missing colleague who the park is all to quick to deem missing (presumed dead) and rubber-stamp his file as such before tucking it away in a dusty corner. louisa almost quits. (she tries to quit. the only reason that she doesn't is because lamb shows up to ask her back, because she's at least almost competent and if they want any hope of getting river back they're going to need her. he also promises that he won't make her do fuck-all that isn't to do with finding river. she agrees to return on these conditions. catherine comes back too, of her own accord, because she can't tolerate the idea of being outside of the loop on this one. she has to be there.)

louisa is generally having a bad fucking time. she is dealing with grief and terror over the maybe-loss of her best friend, and she is also trying to find him, not to mention dealing with his mother. she ends up spending a lot of time working late with lamb, and filling out that dynamic is one of my favourite things in planning this thing out. they're astonishingly similar sometimes, and they inadvertently keep each other afloat during the long, difficult months river spends in captivity. (lamb is not handling this well either. he will not be acknowledging this. he WILL be yelling at the park for trying to legally declare river dead.)

ultimately, everything comes to a head when louisa follows a lead that she knows better than to follow, and comes to in a room in a manor she's never been to before. she is intended to be the final blow that breaks river's resolve, except that it doesn't quite end up shaking out that way, and they're both found alive, if not exactly well.

the following months are hard, too, in their own way, as everyone tries to re-find their footing again. there's endless hours of debriefing from the park, who aren't totally convinced river didn't go dark-side during his captivity. there's what to tell david, whose condition has deteriorated sharply thanks to the sudden and traumatic loss of his grandson. there's the severe physical and emotional trauma river is carrying and trying to recover from. there's louisa's own profound trauma from the whole ordeal - from his disappearance and his absence and everything she had to deal with during that to her own abduction and near-death. lamb tries, with varying levels of success, to be a human being, because they need him to be and because catherine told him in no uncertain terms that this time he has no choice. we all know i'm a rescue and recovery bitch, this is the part i am All About.

anyways. it's a mess, it's so much fun, there's so much going on here. im having a blast. :)

[idlesuperstar]

Freddie Fox as Edward Bellingham in Lot No. 249 [A Ghost Story for Christmas, d: Mark Gatiss, 2023]

[shorthaltsjester]

me as an imogen’s selfishness built from her isolation is one of the most interesting things about her truther (which, before someone vagues me on twitter . i don’t think this doesn’t mean she can’t and hasn’t been altruistic but that’s a separate post) + someone who loves when my favourite characters have their lives threatened and/or they die. i am eating well after last night’s ep.

as someone who cares for the world of exandria and despises everytime ashton opens his mouth about the gods and clocked into ashton and ludinus wearing the same hat a while ago . having to listen to them talk about how they’re better than ludinus because (checks notes) they want to do exactly what ludinus wants to but their motives (the exact same kind of trauma that made him tell ludinus to “grow up” . me BEGGING him to take his own advice) are better ??? i’m not eating as well but what can you do.

my grip on this campaign as a completionist who Is enjoying cr even if i don’t think this is a particularly strong campaign is truly resting on the shoulders of imogen impulsive-and-single-minded temult, fearne “if the world’s burning i want a front row seat” calloway, orym “only member of the group capable of a thought for the ‘little guys’ the party claims to stand for” of the air ashari, and chet who is there for vibes (and to protect his family). also shout out to braius for joining the one party where betraying them would make him easily break into the top 3 morally upstanding members of the party.

[satsuha]

just wanted to draw the outfits

[revvethasmythh]

So I went and watched all the possible endings, and it confirmed something I had been thinking, which is that the redemption ending choice is, perhaps, the most immediately regretful one--but that they all come with some form of regret. In the redemption ending, Rook has to knowingly deny themselves the catharsis of retribution (should they desire it, which, at least for me it felt difficult not to) in order to offer Solas one last, painful chance to do the right thing. That willful denial of your own catharsis feels like an immediate regret. Giving Solas the opportunity to pursue atonement might very well be the best choice all around, but it is also incredibly painful to offer that to someone who has done so many terrible things (not a small amount to you personally). Why does he deserve another chance? Especially when so many dead (including a beloved mentor) lie in his wake? Which, I suppose, is the point: he doesn't. But you offer it anyway and it SUCKS ASS, because how could it not?

I don't know how this plays with other story choices (a sacrificed Davrin or a Harding who embraced her anger, for example), but within the context of my own choices, I can imagine an immediate satisfaction to either tricking or fighting him--especially the trick ending, where you can actively name drop Varric--but it feels like the sort of thing that would feel worse as more time passes. Once you've calmed down and are able to ask yourself if that's what the people you've lost really wanted. Varric, in Regret Superhell, didn't want vengeance. He just wanted his friend to walk a better path. And Harding always believed there was another chance for anyone, so long as you kept reaching a hand out for them--even when it sucked ass. So the redemption ending feels like a sort of indignance, an instant regret for not doing worse, for not getting comeuppance, for being forced to eschew satisfaction (related: I wonder if the Inquisitor feels those things as well coming out of this ending, considering how long they've lived under the shadow of Solas' actions). Conversely, the other two endings feel like an immediate satisfaction, because you got to trick the trickster with all the wits Varric taught you, or because you finally got to punch him in the face and it felt really good. But I feel like those endings would come with a creeping regret, something that sneaks up on you later, especially when remembering the fallen and what they would have wanted you to do. Ultimately, because of that, it feels like no ending is devoid of regret. Which I suppose, is rather thematic.

[coridallasmultipass]

TG: bro flew off the handle TG: theres seriously something weird going on with him TT: So you finally noticed. TG: no i mean it TG: just beat him in a strife for the first time TG: he fucking lost it TT: That would imply he ever had it to begin with. TG: if you saw what i saw TG: ugh i dont even know TG: forget it

So listen, everyone loves a Decap Dirk, that's my main excuse. I thought about what if Bro tries to get Dave to finish him off early. IDK. It was a shitpost kind of idea, but I just kept making the drawing a more finished quality, and so I had to commit to finishing it.

Bro and Dave are trans men.

Still HQ versions and image text under the cut:

Image text: Fuckin' do it, Dave. C'mon, man. You won. Finish the job. DO IT! Haa Haa... [Image is from Dave's point-of-view. Bro's neck is pinned under Dave's sword, his sunglasses are askew and he has a wild grin and facial piercings. Bro holds Dave in place by grabbing his shirt. Bro's eyes are wide, and his left one shows a flash of billiard ball patterns before returning to normal.]

[butchrindou]

need to draw baji and rindou as bffs tbhhh i feel like they’d get along but it would take a while also literally because i have some music baji would listen to in my rindou playlists but who said that.. must’ve been the wind