#enjoys a little banter

[videcoeur]

@donquixxotes​

❝eh!?❞ doffy sneers, turning too quickly to meet the offender, reactive to the criticism. his feathers accent his movements, fluttering with him before falling dormant against his frame once more. despite not being physically part of him, something about them looks ruffled. perhaps it's the tense way he holds his broad shoulders, he's rigid. the king is bothered now with a sour mood he can almost taste. being as he can't shake it, he settles on leaning into it.

veins appear to protrude as his brow knots and his disgust is laid bare. he admits, he hadn't recognized the deep timbre that tempts a rise from him. this endless tug of war is always a welcomed distraction— even if the reptile is managing to genuinely vex him. he could always... hehehe, no no. he couldn't, could he?  he was supposed to lying low to avoid the navy after both losing and destroying dressrosa. problematic, but agreeable for now. a loss, but not one he couldn't come back from. his fingers twitch at his side, itching itching itching, begging for their summons and release.

❝what's this about? DON'T TELL ME! the warlords being abolished, maybe? if that's the case, i hate to break it to you, CROC— you got that ball rolling after the gum-gum brat took your hide and turned it into a hand bag. don't get me wrong, i'm sure it's STYLISH~❞

as if puppeteered by strings of his own design, doflamingo's expression suddenly shifts and weaves into a feral grin accompanied by a rumbling laughter. his tongue snakes out to glide over his teeth, his knees bend and leave him poised to pounce. the laughter continues, shoulders bobbing to its cadence, feathers rustling in time. why can't crocodile see how comical he is?

❝you should've teamed up with me. LIKE I SAID. then neither of us would be in this mess. TCH— a wanted man with a bounty again. you'd better be ready to put some punks in their place.❞

“Struck a nerve, did I?” Crocodile’s lips stretched into an arrogant grin, his self-satisfied demeanor amplified by how Doflamingo seemed to be ruffled. If there was anything to put a smile on his face, it was putting a damper on the eccentric’s mood. Unfortunately, this was of short duration, as Doflamingo coolly slipped back into character and turned the question on the sandman.

Not that it bothered him any, in fact, he was surprised by the question, more than anything. Why did Doflamingo assume he cared, to begin with?

“The warlords being abolished was a long time coming thing. Even in the confines of Impel Down, I knew it was to come. Murmurs and whispers and rumors make it even to the deepest, most protected place in the world. It shouldn’t surprise you- as for the rubber brat,” Crocodile sighed, thick cigar smoke rolling off his tongue before he took another drag and closed his eyes. It almost looked like he was savoring the moment.

“I don’t see it as a loss anymore.” Crocodile would not elaborate on that, but let’s just say that his defeat at the hands of the stretchy boy did not matter anymore. In fact, it only mattered in the sense that it knocked back some sense into him, and he was going to have fun with this other half of his life. Crocodile realized he’d missed the ship sailing to Raftel and his dreams of becoming king were over, but  something else... got to him. This old sense of anarchy, of destroying any figure of authorities, that, he could lean on.

“You should know by now that I don’t team up. I only do what serves my purpose and it just so happens that you do not serve any, for me. Besides, it looks like you could use a team up more than me. I’m wanted, but at least, the only ones after me are white-capped idiots. How’s Kaido, by the way? Still mad your dealings are off?”

Oh now, he was just having fun at Doflamingo’s expense. Marines were very little of a threat when compared to a pissed off emperor with missing merchandise.

[whatevertheywant]

I have a theory that probably isn't new,but I think that Galinda probably had a very lonely childhood and may not have actually been popular until like 8th-10th grade. She was obviously doted on and surrounded by yes-men from an early age,but I think she empathized with elphie from the beginning. I also think she was scared to express that for fear of losing the image she had so carefully crafted. She feels all this "loathing" as well as love towards Elphaba because she sees everything she still could be if she were braver...unfortunately this also includes becoming a pariah. Mind you,she does make wisecracks about elphie being green but they both enjoyed their little spat in history class. That Ozdust dance scene really seems to drive it home with how she joined Elphaba's dance. Okay,that might have been out of remorse for setting her up like that,but the comforting???? The wiping her tears and the embrace???? Ignoring her toxic ass friends trying to get her to stop when she's usually all about image???? Her doing the most to secure her date and position of love interest with fiyero only to ditch him entirely to run off with Elphie????

And THEN we get the Popular sequence. It's not just a flirty or silly little number (it is those things but it's more than that). Popularity has helped her rise up the social ladder despite a lack (at the time) of talent. Her ambition to become a sorceress is altruistic if also self-serving. She wants to actually DO and BE good and feel like the adoration she seems to acquire so easily has been earned. She tries to help Elphaba become popular because Elphaba IS good and has so much talent. BUT Elphaba lacks social skills and isn't conventionally attractive. Elphaba gave her a leg up towards her goals by not only insisting Galinda be in the seminar as well but also THREATENING TO QUIT THAT INSTANT if morrible didn't include her and give her the training wand. They both spend the rest of act 1 bar like a couple of scenes helping each other advance until they have to part ways inevitably. That's love born of empathy and understanding. The "galindafying" was her protecting Elphaba and literally the best gift she was able to give in return

[geminison]

Late night preparations

[spicyraeman]

something about veilguard is mindlessly addictive to play, like I wouldn't call it great or worth full price (or even half price really) but theres a bunch of little things about it that i really enjoy

[allastoredeer]

Totally agree with the vent. I'm Ace myself, still trying to figure where I fall on the Aro spectrum. I always imagined Alastor knowing exactly what type of attachment he's forming to others. He's just one to Deny it to hell and back. Haha.

It's always funny when characters realize that they have accidentally developed relationships in fiction and go: Dammit!

Alastor doing so? *Chef's Kiss" Especially with how antagonism is his love language. However he expresses his affection to others, I want him to be mad about it. Unless it's making others mad, then he finds it hilarious.

His teasing dialogues with Rosie are some of my favorites. The man enjoys his banter.

Hahaha exactly! Alastor seems like the type that he's always aware of other people and his dynamic with them. He pin-pointed Lucifer's insecurity about being an absent-parent within, like, minutes of meeting him. He was with Charlie for a whole week before he pinned down her daddy issues (He literally says, in his totally hilarious commercial "while she (Charlie) avoids her daddy issues by fixing you!" (paraphrased I don't remember the exact sentence).

Alastor is very good at reading people and establishing a dynamic between them (whether it be negative or positive).

So him accidentally developing feelings for one of the characters and going "FFFFFUCK" is the best XD I love it! Especially because his love language can be so antagonistic, that just makes it so much better.

He really does enjoy his banter.

But yeah, Alastor is aware of himself, and even if he doesn't have an exact word for asexuality, he's been in Hell for a long time, and that place isn't exactly known for it's pearl-clutching celibacy. If he didn't know he didn't want sex before, he's well aware of it now LMAO

[kanerallels]

Occasionally I think about the fact that I have an intense burning indifference toward a fairly popular ship that several of my close friends absolutely love, and they simply do not know about that. Neither do you guys, for that matter

[froschli96]

you know, i always find it really funny when dudebros complain about syndicate and odyssey being too "jokey" or not "taking its characters seriously" or whatever…

like, did y'all collectively sleep through "it's-a me, mario!", "i meant besides vaginas", ezio inventing the latte, bartolomeo's... just... *gestures vaguely* entire character, etc?

like, it's fine to have preferences of course, i myself prefer a more serious and grounded tone, but these are usually the same people who tout the ezio trilogy as "peak assassin's creed", call ac1 a glorified tech demo and hate on connor for being "too serious and boring", like? make it make sense!

[maliro-t]

replaying dav act 1 and the way i instantly prefer the minrathous route is wild sorry antiva 💀💀💀

[scatterpatter]

HEY YOU SHOULD WATCH THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER

Oh nooooo if only there were an easy way to find it tho... if only... oh man... if only- oh oops sorry I tripped-

Oh man if only it were easy to watch... oh man...................

[invinciblerodent]

and another very small, very minor entry on the list of Things I'm Getting Just a Tiny Little Bit Miffy About Seeing Repeated (Not Angry Just Ever So Slightly Annoyed)TM:

dnd elves do, in fact, mature at the same rate humans do. they're not "like children" or "not considered full adults" until they hit 100- not to anyone other than other, older elves.

like I get where the thought comes from, I fully understand it, I've read many of the source materials myself, I've read Mordenkainen's and see where the misunderstanding comes from, but... to a human, or a tiefling, or anyone else shorter-lived than an elf, a 50-, 60-, 90-year-old elf is just like a 50-, 60-, 90-year-old of their own race would be. they just look much younger than their age, and act in accordance with their personality, which is.... much less tied to someone's age than many may think. (I mean, have you never met a 50-year-old who seems just staggeringly immature? a 20-year-old who is wiser than their years would allow? have you never been to a retail establishment???????)

it's only the other elves who view a younger one as emotionally immature, and that's mainly because they have yet to bury their first generation of friends and loved ones: something a shorter-lived person only has to do once, while elves may very well go through several cycles of that in one lifetime. They have also not yet had their Drawing of the Veil, when they stop being able to access primal memories, memories of their soul's previous lives, but it's mainly the "all my once-powerful and vibrant friends are now frail and dying from old age, and yet here I remain, as young, strong, and beautiful as the day they met me, untouched by the inexorable crawl of time, what is mortality, what is death" thing.

if the people of Faerun in general thought of a 40-year-old elf as immature, as if they were a child, Astarion would have just patently not been an appointed civil administrator and judicial officer (which is what a magistrate is) 200 years ago. like he could have of course been lying when he said that that's what he was, but taking it as the once-truth, nobody would have let someone they see as a child fill such a position of responsibility. It was, however, a perfectly mundane thing for a learned adult man, such as he was, to do. (what he may or may not have done with the power he allegedly had, the kind of person he was, and whether letting him have power was the right move overall, is pretty much completely irrelevant at this juncture. corrupt officials exist regardless of age, just look at the judicial system of any country today.)

an older elf like Halsin, their maturity is not just on a different level, it's measured by a different metric than that of a shorter-lived character.

it's hard to accurately roleplay or grasp something like this with our human minds, none of us have ever spoken to a 300-year-old after all, but.... a 100-year-old elf is not a "young adult", unless you're an elf yourself. If you're a human, they're just... an adult.

[taoofshigeru]

Also it's still in progress but like, really great villain arc from The Spot.

He goes from just a grunt in an evil organization, gets cursed/sucky powers, turns to a life of crime and can't even get that right. Spiderman runs into him, stops him while not taking the fight too too seriously. But then he has to go do Miles Morales stuff, and Ganke doesn't call the cops to catch the guy, and he's back causing trouble again. But now he's a little wiser to the tricks that worked on him in round one. Threat level upgraded.

Miles fights him again, then he gets hoist by his own petard into the weird gap dimension, which is where he realizes he's got dimensional portals. Threat level upgraded.

Gwen is sent to Earth-1610 to clean up The Spot, but she takes her time with it to go see Miles, and by the time she gets to it, he's already on the dimension-hopping junket. Threat level upgraded.

Now he's facing three spiderpeople at once in Mumbattan and handling them, and he pulls a whole bunch of power juice out of that universe's collider. Threat level upgraded, and now he's a gainaxy crayon drawing and shit's entirely too real.

Honestly, it kinda mirrors the growth of a protagonist in a JRPG or shounen battle manga, where the evil org keeps sending stronger bosses out to hunt the main party down. Problem being that the bosses who get sent out are just barely beatable, and beating them helps the party level up and learn to control their powers.

The Spot is the personification of Miles' problems. Didn't follow through when he was small, and now he's a big effing problem.

[rin-hanarin]

Sometimes I realize how much self-indulgent dirkjohn I made and it's like. Genuinely impressive to me. I'm impressed by my own art/fic and even analysis posts because damn, I miss my own energy, you mean I was able to just make shit up because I tend to be a little bit bonkers when I'm really passionate about something? For real?

[angelsdean]

mm yea rewatching eps where meg interacts with cas just reminds me of my initial thoughts and feelings re: megstiel from the first time i watched spn which is that meg is just. flirting to be a nuisance and push buttons but there's no real feelings behind it until *maybe* later in like s8 and even then it's more just a playful fondness. and cas' response to her flirting ranges from open disdain to disinterest to playing along to use her to eventually playing along bc they're both in that *fond* of each other state but like, it's always been apparent to me that there's no real attraction / romantic or sexual feelings behind their antics. it's just, banter. (and later when meg catches on to the destiel of it all she is def pushing buttons to purposely make dean squirm)

[fereldanwench]

this watcher stuff is an absolute trainwreck that i cannot turn away from

[optiwashere]

What does Ashreera and Shadowheart like about each other respectively? Fluff qn :)

Heya anon! I really enjoyed writing the answer to this one 💜

Because I'm me, this got kinda long-winded. All of this is stuff that's in the fics. The fluffy fics show the domestic side of things, but It Is the Wound She Gave Me and Like I Am Safe Again are the linchpins to their relationship. The Gauntlet/Nightsong fic that I'm chipping away at will be equally as important!

But I like typing about my babies soooooooo!

Shadowheart finds Asheera's bad jokes and obvious flirting endearing. Asheera's also pretty forward without disrespecting her boundaries, and Shadowheart loves that. In-game Asheera challenges her without trodding on firm "no" areas, and that's a huge show of respect. Shadowheart's low level of self-esteem gets big validation from someone like Asheera.

Even when Asheera is being a Paladin-ass Paladin™ she is always leaving room in their relationship for Shadowheart to have agency over what to share, who to be, and things like the events in the Gauntlet/Shadowfell. That's not something you get as a Sharran, and from someone that's dedicated to redeeming monsters and creating change in the world... I mean, the themes are right there!

Asheera finds Shadowheart's love of animals very telling of the kind of person she is. Asheera thinks someone who is as willing to say, "I'd rather not talk about this" as Shadowheart has a firm command of what she wants. Even if she needs nudges to know it's OK to express her desires and needs as well as what she doesn't want. The slim difference is actually huge.

Even when Shadowheart is potentially on the road to becoming a Dark Justiciar, and therefore someone that Asheera must kill, she is taking these things for herself that she deserves. Asheera might hate the choice that Shadowheart could make, but it's Shadowheart's choice. Shadowheart spares Aylin for whatever her reasons are (crisis of faith + wanting to know the memories and past that Aylin can give her) but Asheera sees it as someone that's finally embracing the fact that she is a person and she deserves to choose. When Shadowheart turns to Asheera and asks, "what should I do?" Asheera says nothing. She just nods. Shadowheart chooses for herself from that point onward.

As for in a love sense and not just a general "companionship" sense?

Shadowheart loves that Asheera isn't complicated in her love. There's nothing for her to hide with Asheera. She's tired of darkness. Asheera embraces her faults and all the things she's done as a Sharran without any hate in her heart. Though Asheera is a paladin of Redemption, she also doesn't treat Shadowheart as a project to fix. Shadowheart is just Shadowheart, and that makes it easy for her to love Asheera. She likes that no matter how she's feeling, no matter the kind of day she's had, Asheera is there for her. In anger, in joy, and in darkness.

Asheera loves Shadowheart's strength and perseverance, and the fact that she can pick herself up after something that would destroy most people. That she's extremely capable, but also that she's strong enough to share her moments of vulnerability or uncertainty. That she cares so much more than she lets on. That Shadowheart knows she can trust Asheera with anything, and that after a certain point she does.

Love is something that changes shape, especially in long-term romantic relationships. Sometimes the changes are good, though.

[chevelleneech]

Today’s realization:

As much as I’m enjoying Buck with Tommy at the moment, I don’t want them as endgame. It doesn’t have to be Eddie either, because as much as I do think Eddie also being queer makes sense, I don’t see it happening no matter how known ABC is for pairing up lead characters.

Point is, I want Buck with someone Oliver has more chemistry with. He has some with Lou, but it feels firmly rooted in platonic, and is not enough to overshadow Buddie, which I think is the problem. At least for me. Add that into them not really writing BuckTommy as anything more than Buck’s bisexual awakening arc, it’s not pulling me in any further than, “I like Tommy because he’s not a bad character.” Outside of that though? There’s nothing really there yet, which s8 will hopefully rectify, but chemistry is also so important, so I think they need to do a chemistry read with Oliver and a new boo, and try again.

Lou is nice and I don’t want to see him go, but after the short af scene of Buck throwing popcorn at Eddie and it having oodles of domestic cuteness, I don’t see how BuckTommy continues down the line apart from us having to accept it because it’s canon. Buck shouldn’t have better tension with his straight friend than his boyfriend, especially when all the other locked in couples have great romantic tension. So I hope if they’re not going to do Buddie, they realize chemistry matters too.

I also know people are going to say they think they have chemistry, and that’s fine. I don’t think they don’t, and they’re nowhere near as flat as Ryan and Edy on screen, but idk. It’s not working for me, when I think Oliver is naturally charismatic and has romantic chemistry with people pretty easily. Say what y’all want, but I still think there was some between BuckAbby, BuckTaylor, and BuckNatalia even with the women mostly being written less complex.

At the same time, I also kinda think Tommy should be written more toward Lou’s strengths, which is clearly a little sillier and comedic relief-like. Tommy’s a tad bitchy and sarcastic, but idk! I want s8 to spunk him up a bit, make BuckTommy fun if they plan to keep them a couple for a while.