#can you tell i'm really normal about him

[fenkko]

happy birthday, childe! this 2 hour playlist is my love letter to childe... who along with scara has captivated me like no other character before

scara's playlist (which i haven't finished the cover art for yet) was pretty easy for me to make, but childe's was difficult for me because at the time not much of my favorite music really felt like it fit. i listened to a lot of new music, got into some new albums and bands, and built this playlist slowly over months.

it's themed around his devotion to his family and his god, his duties as a soldier, his vicious and selfish impulses. his future --  will the story of ajax be a tragedy, as was his namesake? will ajax ever return home?

i hope this playlist is interesting for you all and evokes something of this complex and interesting character. building this playlist inspired many of my own art pieces about him. (i've never made playlists like this before HAHA they've really done a number on me huh)

if you have any of these songs in your playlist too, or if you enjoyed anything here, or if you have any songs you'd like to share, please do 🥳 i really love talking about music

[wretchedbroth]

Some little tenth doctor inks in honour of me finally watching series 1-4 properly.

[hailsatanacab]

A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc

"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."

"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.

"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.

"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"

"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.

"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."

"This is where I live."

"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"

"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"

"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."

"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."

"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."

"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"

"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"

"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"

"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."

Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.

"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."

[stubblesandwich]

[rainbowreindeer]

Hope isn't ethereal, soft, and gentle. It's not naive or blind and it's not a passive state.

Hope has dirt behind its nails and blood all over its face, as all seems lost - but it's still getting up for another go, if only to protect just one more person.

Hope works its fingers to the bone to make the slightest difference. You may fall for its easygoing masks but it's hilt is heavy and to wield it is one hell of a workout.

Hope exists despite suffering. It knows the oppressive darkness intimately; yet stubborn as a mule, that's where it sees stars shine the brightest.

Hope doesn't wear rose-colored glasses. It can only envision a better tomorrow because it knows exactly how fucked up the today is; without ignoring problems of the present, it simply prefers to look towards the future.

Hope can be afraid but it doesn't cower; facing its fears head-on, it claws its way out of any pit life dug for it.

Hope can be stained, dirtied by the world around it. There can be no glory or recognition found within it - and still it doesn't cease bending over backwards in the name of its ideals.

Hope sees potential where there's good intentions. Whether someone has been a victim or a perpetrator, it wishes to support a path to change and breaking free from past cycles; because the option of growth proves that nothing has to stay horrible.

Above all, hope is a daily choice, made against all odds - to keep living, toiling, trying. It's often mundane, it takes small steps; and yes, it really does take time.

Hope smiles in the face of hardship and sees past the temporary. It's seeks to be constructive rather than destroy; its paths may not be the smoothest but it trusts they lead towards a bright-lit aim.

Hope is complicated. And yet, don't we kind of need it?

[keithsautism]

I feel like Keith and Lance are both ND but in different ways. Keith is the kind of guy who would really like physical contact and words of affirmation as love languages. He's pretty good at telling Lance how he feels about him later in the series. He'd probably appreciate the lack of ambiguity and take things at face value/put trust in I love yous.

Meanwhile Lance grew up in a big family so they might not have had as much money. Receiving gifts was a really big deal for him growing up. I can imagine Keith giving Lance a cool blue shell he found at an alien market and being all confused, thinking Lance doesn't like it when he goes still. Like he wants to take it back and is disappointed that Lance doesn't like it. But he does, he's just a bit overwhelmed by the gesture. Trying to show why he thought getting some silly shell was a good idea, Keith meekly tells him to look at this pretty part of it, turning it over in Lance's hands, pointing out an opalescent part that's all different kinds of blues. Says it reminds him of Lance's eyes.

Lance says something like "How would you know what colour my eyes are" because eye contact is not Keith's forte, but there's no bite behind it, and Keith doesn't get the joke anyway, just looks nervous. Keith just says they're pretty, as if he couldn't not have noticed. Lance puts it down on his side table gently. Keith says "You don't like it?" Lance gives him a super tender kiss. They kiss for a while holding each other, and Keith hugs him, sighing with contentment into lance's shoulder. Says "Holding you feels like home" then Lance dies on the spot

[the-wine-dark-sea]

I've recently been thinking about the difference between Edwin’s experience in Hell in the comics vs. the show and what it says about the differences in characterization.

(Please note that I haven't read the comics completely yet, this is really just what came to mind when re-reading the boys' story from The Sandman.)

This is how Edwin describes Hell in the comics, when his character is first introduced:

"It was just corridors.

And I was hurrying down these corridors, because I knew I was late for something, but I couldn't quite remember what.

And then I realized that there was something behind me. Something horrible. But it was always one or two bends of the corridor behind. And even though it wasn't making any noise I knew it was always there.

And if I started to run it would get me.

So I just kept walking, as fast as I could. Down these corridors. With something silently walking behind me. Something sad and lonely and terrible."

So at first glance, his torture simply seems more purely psychological here than on the show. And it sounds horrific, especially for this even younger version of him. Now, it's obviously a different version of events, two seperate canons, so it's no use to speculate if the thing that stalks comic!Edwin through Hell is the Babydoll Spider or something completely different, or if the same parameters apply. But I don't think that really matters. Because it is his reaction to this situation that truly stuck out to me:

"And if I started to run it would get me. So I just kept walking"

This Edwin knows he is going to get caught, not from experience, but he is aware of it in the way you just know certain things in your dreams sometimes. (He does describe it feeling like a nightmare, after all.) He can feel that he would get caught, and so he just keeps walking. He never tries to make a run for it, just to see what would actually happen, or to try to outrun whatever would give chase. He keeps walking, as fast as he can, but still walking.

And then we have show!Edwin. He knows he will get caught eventually from excruciating experience, over and over and over. "The moment I run it'll chase. And I can't get away from it." He knows he'll trip it off if he runs, or if he is too loud. And yet he runs. He doesn't stop running for seven decades.

[redjennies]

me in 2011: idk Oghren wasn't my first choice who should be the returning companion from Origins to Awakening, but I like him. I think it was cool that they showed that just because he married Felsi, he's still fucked up from what happened with Branka and you can help him with some things that he wasn't ready to deal with in Origins so I guess it does make sense for him to return. also he's my bestie now, and I love him. :)

me in 2017: okay, yeah Oghren's writing and "jokes" often are the result of misogynistic and homophobic writing that plagues Origins, but let's not pretend Alistair doesn't also make openly misogynistic jokes and he's the fandom darling who "respects women." so let's not pretend this is about Oghren and social justice so much as it is about who the fandom at large finds fuckable.

me in 2025: fuck it, Oghren is utterly fascinating and rivals characters like Loghain and Morrigan in richness of character. he is a reflection of the ugliness of the Orzammar caste system and how even the relatively privileged warrior caste are chewed up and spit out by dwarven society once they stop being useful. by the nature of his caste, he was supposed to die a long time ago in battle, but because of his wife's elevated status as Paragon, they were thrown into a world they were both entirely unprepared for as that sort of class mobility is nigh impossible to achieve in Orzammar, and neither could adjust to a life of idle luxury. they hated each other, and still, that deeply ingrained sense of honor and loyalty has him track her down through the Deep Roads years after she abandoned him to his disgrace and witness the trail of horrors she left in her wake as she betrayed and sacrificed both her family and his to feed her obsession with the Anvil. and still, he thinks he can talk some sense into her and asks the Warden to spare her because that's his wife and perhaps, because he sees that same maddening lack of purpose in her that he feels in himself. worse yet, he is painfully aware of all this as evidenced by how he pre-emptively monologues all his faults and self-loathing to the Guardian in the Temple of Sacred Ashes before the Guardian has a chance to say anything. by his own admission, he is a thoroughly humiliated man who has lost his family twice over, his dignity, and now, his home. he is so thoroughly removed from what his culture taught him honor and purpose looks like, and unlike Sten, there is no easy fetch quest that can fix that. so of course, he spends the majority of Origins milling about in camp, drunk and unable to talk about much less move on from his grief. he only starts taking the smallest of steps towards a better life fairly late into his approval, the biggest of which is not completing his personal quest but by maxing out his approval and having real conversations with him about what happened with Branka and assuring him that he isn't useless and that he can change. of course, when he returns in Awakening, he is still only on the second half that journey. of course, he runs away from his responsibilities out of fear of fucking it up again when traveling with the Warden is the only thing that has given his life meaning in Maker knows how long. obviously abandoning his wife and child is not the "good" thing to do, but it is the understandable thing to do given everything that's happened to him, and he shows his growth by rectifying that mistake and not accepting defeat. that is how you do a fucking damn good character arc, and anyone who disagrees with me can meet me on the Proving Grounds.

[margindoodles2407]

so here's the deal guys. in the past week i reread my way through prisoner of azkaban, goblet of fire, order of the phoenix, and half-blood prince. i am currently halfway through deathly hallows. and as i was eleven the last time i seriously read harry potter. i forgot that it allows me to unlock secret shrimp emotions that humans aren't normally capable of feeling

[sysig]

Challenge level: Impossible (Patreon)

[all-lars-bars]

I want to get it across to everyone that Ethan Winters, while very much just some guy, is also definitely not normal.

[quitedisastrous]

i wish i could just do nothing for a few days straight. maybe even just sleep for a few days straight. sooo excited for constant misery over the next 20 days

ranting in the tags. i would just scroll past if i were you

[unproduciblesmackdown]

omgg lol [guy who won't stop going "more like scapeGOATED" voice] now hold! on!! lmao [same guy just saw encanto voice] Hold on!!!

[offthewall1979]

my review of Moonwalk: hot mess. ★★★.

[pynkhues]

I apologize to reach out to you from a side blog I am just not comfortable to do it from my main. I agree with everything you have said so far about louis except the part about how armand is a trophy spouse but that’s a topic for another time.

I think interview with the vampire fans are being incredibly unfair to label any fans of the show who have a different read on louis’s character as antiblack. I agree wholeheartedly that nonblack people especially white people have an innate antiblackness because antiblackness is global and exists in nearly every culture. However there are nonblack people who are dedicated to knowing their place and comforting their antiblackness and are very aware of the antiblack tropes that are often used for black characters in media. However I don’t believe you to be antiblack or any other interview with the vampire fan who has a not-fem read on louis as antiblack either. I have a lot of black friends in the fandom who agree louis is androgynous at best but he is not feminine and neither is he hyper-masculine. He likes being a man and he is attracted to masculinity as a concept and performs it himself just like the other men on the show. There is no canonical confirmation or even clues that louis is gender non conforming or that louis wants to be feminine. This is to say that does not at all mean he is hypermasculine or a dominant sex fiend- he truly is not hypermasculine. I think fans who want everyone to only have a specific fem reading of louis and try to beat everyone else into submission by accusations of antiblackness are doing a lot of damage to this fandom and the well meaning people in it. I have come here from the hamilton fandom and these types of accusations were very normal there and the hamilton fandom for a long time was made fun of by the entire internet for its endless in-fighting over characters and I think iwtv as a fandom is headed for the same fate. It is very saddening and very heartbreaking to see people who have not displayed any abuse apologia like you be accused of abuse apologia and racism. I think louis’s masculine personality makes perfect sense for the time he existed in. During Jim Crow black men were seen as ‘less masculine’ by white men just because they were black. The fandom argues that not viewing Louis as feminine is antiblack but stripping away his masculinity in the time period of Jim Crow is also anti black that is how black men were emasculated by white men back then. It makes sense that louis as a black man in the 1910s and beyond would perform masculinity-not hyper masculinity- because white supremacists took away masculinity from black men to dehumanize them and take away their social power. I believe it’s much more antiblack to ignore the historical time period Louis lives in so you can force a feminine reading on him because that is what aligns with your fetish. A lot of interview with the vampire fans are ‘fujoshis’ who have previously consumed boys love media in which often the ‘bottom’ is feminized because these stories are written by women who aim to feminize the bottom because they either view bottoming as inherently a feminine thing -which is not a progressive social view but a rather conservative one- which is why boys love written by gay men do not fall into these tropes. This of course is not the case for all boys love media but it is a present trope. I wish for iwtv fans to not use inflammatory language to control people who utter a different view of Louis. It is very dangerous to try to beat everyone who views Louis differently-and not in a racist way either- into submission by accusing them of racism when they prove to be well educated on racial matters like you have. I want everyone especially that user who replied to you calling you a white supremacist to know that you are being dishonest with your intentions. You are just angry people are able to see Louis as the actual version he is on screen and not as the fanonized version. Please stop this latent form of violence and abuse which is accusing everyone of being racist and please look inwards yourself as to why you wish to control how other people think of Louis especially people who are not racist and do not box Louis into racist tropes and readings. Please stop this harassment

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, these were both really insightful and interesting reads, and I really appreciate you taking the time to send them.

[rotisseries]

i don't read enough loz fic to know what the popular fanon is so maybe this already exists but there should be a revali and zelda besties agenda i think it would be good for them