#gods the sponsors too

[perish-the-creator]

Give these four a studio, microphones, and some energon snacks and I'm telling you they'd produce the best Podcast across the whole multiverse.

[asleepinawell]

there are waaaaay too many options for a tumblr poll, but I'm curious, which ffxiv zone is your absolute LEAST favorite? which zone fills you with blinding rage whenever you teleport there? which zone do you wish bahamut had blasted into non-existence?

and sure, why not, what's your favorite?

comments/replies/tags welcomed for responses!

[marionmorse]

MARIONMORSE, DROP ANOTHER HELMETPARTY SCENARIO AND MY LIFE IS YOUUURSS 🙏🙏🙏🙏

do u think... Do you think sometimes when the team has a movie night, when they watch those 60's action war movies like "Von Ryan's Express" and "Battle of the Bulge" or spaghetti westerns like "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and "Death Rides on a Horse," Soldier pauses during or right after fight scenes or duels or whatever to obsessively overanalyze them. Like, he'll try and turn them into strategies to use on the job, takes, uhm, 'notes', (tactical doodles,) sets up nerdy models using a whiteboard map and improvised figurines, uses these examples when he does those psyche-up pre-battle speeches or during strategy meetings.

'Cause I bet he does, I bet he does that, and it completely kills the momentum of the movie to the point where the rest of the team gets disinterested and slowly leaves him behind to do their own thing.

I genuinely bet Engie wouldn't though, nah, I bet he's enough of a patient kind of gentle kind of man willing to stick through these pauses 'cause he's just that into the movie. And maybe he's just a teeny bit into Soldier's dissections of actiony chaos. Maybe gleans a bit of an understanding of Soldier's thinking that way. Admires the guy's passion about his 'research,' how thoughtfully he gathers details in an effort to help the team. Starts mixing in tapes for these sorts of movies more regularly to their movie night pool maybe subconsciously, maybe on purpose. The rest of the team doing their own movie night. losers.

[sinna-rou]

guys the funniest fucking thing happened on my dash

^screen rec for proof: these two posts immediately after each other, just from the mdzs tag 🥲

Posts: 3rd person omniscient via @/lancabbage ; 3rd person limited via @/mr-squiggley-poufs

[chaosinstigator]

daniel… I will get on a plane to perth

[kirisaki-daichi-scenarios]

Someone Worth Loving | Yandere!Imayoshi Shouichi

for anon who asked "in which a popular s/o was the crush of imayoshi in first year until there year, but  s/o didn't want to be tie down so they just play around, and yan! imayoshi was a delusional to think that he's special. i think imayoshi will be very oc, so feel free to change something hehe. i love your writing style and works" this was fun to write, challenging but also a good chance to have a think about yandere!imayoshi further and outside my usual box for him. he's not particularly delusional here - i just can't see someone as socially aware and intelligent as ima being a delusional yandere. but i figured the combination of a) him not being a control freak and being pretty laidback; having that darker side, but also not wanting people to perceive him as evil unlike hanamiya + b) probable abandonment/grief issues after losing his mum + c) liking prim and proper girls = a more intriguing and unique yandere than i usually give him credit for. so thanks for the ask anon, and without further ado... content warning for slight explicit-ness. this is a yandere fic - it's not romance, and it's written accordingly.

It was love at first sight for Imayoshi. 

On that fatal first day, you skipped through the doors of the Touou classroom that you would share with Imayoshi for the next three years, holding hands with a ‘friend’ you had befriended just minutes prior (whom, Imayoshi already understood, would be forgotten about as soon as someone more suitable appeared to take her place), asking her where they should sit.

The other girl pointed to two empty desks near the front. That was when you let go of her hand. 

“I just have to sit by the windows,” you said, not at all apologetically, as if it was a given, not even sparing a second glance at the girl beside you - her eyes a little wide, almost a touch teary as she realised that she was already being demoted to rank of Friendless First Year. 

There was only one seat left near the windows. They’d have to split up. And the remaining chair was by fellow first year Imayoshi, who was pulling a pen out his backpack, pondering whether to ignore you or put on a show of bored confidence and do introductions.

As he pondered, you sat down beside him. Your knee briefly pressed against his. Then panicked, pulled away. You looked around the classroom as if you were ignoring your seatmate by accident, just curious about all the new faces. You had felt the sparks too. 

It took only this long - just those few seconds - for Imayoshi to stumble across realisations that would affect the rest of his life. 

(1) For all that confidence you showed off - confidence that, as you grew older, would become glam and men double your age wrapping their arms around your shoulders - you were an insecure coward like the crowds of girls who looked up to you from the distance.

(2) Imayoshi was feeling something. At the time, he called it curiosity; it would take later introspections for it to be correctly labelled as love. 

Not that there was much reason to love you, at the beginning anyway. Though the two of you talked often, quick conversations in at least a couple classes a day, they were nothing but the usual seatmate discussions. You, an idiot, had cottoned onto the fact that Imayoshi was breezing through every class. You put on your usual batting-eyelashes persona, cutesy obsequiousness (“I’m so sorry to bother you again, but for number 13...”) punctuated with meaningless sweet-nothings (“Honestly, Shouichi, you’re the best. I love you.”), and who was he to deny your requests for help?

Of course, with anyone else, Imayoshi would have gotten fed up by now - the occasional question was fine, but in almost every lesson? - yet it was cute how you thought you could rely on him. Like you seriously believed that him talking you through integrating exponentials meant you could trust him. 

When he’d walk into the classroom at break, while you were sat gossiping with all your girlfriends (an ever-expanding plague of copycats, B-rate versions of you), they’d all stop talking but you. 

You’d say, “don’t worry about him - that’s my bestie, Shouichi. He’s literally saving my grade right now.”

And then everyone would go back to gossiping, and you’d flash him a quick smile, and Imayoshi would never comment on how he technically hadn’t given you permission to use his first name, or on how it was so fucking stupid of you to dismiss him as the nerd who let you copy his answers sometimes. Like he didn’t have ears; like he was just one of your pawns; like he didn’t own you. 

Okay, that was an exaggeration. Maybe. But Imayoshi did in fact have ears, and he was a being with agency who overheard plenty of gossip and rumours, gossip that could destroy your sweet little reputation - not to mention your relationship with your parents - if he so chose. The fact that he didn’t was chivalry in action. Anyone else would have faced his bored wrath - he’d already manipulated a few rumours such that you had discarded one of your close friends on account of them.

Yet, for the time being, he was content letting you bathe in the sunlight. 

After all, he couldn’t have his future wife kicked out of school for being a pathetic, needy slut who couldn’t let a party finish without having at least slammed her lips on at least one total stranger.  

If you got expelled, you wouldn’t be in the yearbook. And then what would the two of you reminisce over, twenty years from now, cuddling on the sofa? 

So he tried to be content with observing you, playing his part as the polite nerd, and it worked for over a year. There were highs (you cheering him on during the final basketball match in your first year); there were lows (you had brought some brainless baseball jock to the match). But Imayoshi endured. Imayoshi took his time. Imayoshi let you gush over how happy you were to be sitting next to him again in your second year - “you’re my guardian angel, Shou-chan”. Imayoshi turned a blind eye to the partying and the boys, who lingered by the classroom door hoping to catch sight of you, and the never-ending stream of friends, and the way you’d smile at him like you adored him, only to switch it off as soon as the class was over. As soon as you had no more use for him.

Imayoshi, mature for his age, understood that he couldn’t make you who he wanted you to be overnight. Unfortunately, it seemed that girls like you just had to go through this phase. 

It was in the third year that things went downhill.

When it rains, it pours. On the first day of term, you hadn’t greeted him when you entered the classroom, too busy texting frantically on your phone, a new fluffy pink keychain dangling from it that didn’t match any of your girl friends’ and so had to be a gift from a stranger.

Imayoshi had greeted you, of course.

But when you had looked up briefly to smile and say hi back, he had been demoted: "Shouichi" instead of "Shou-chan". 

You were working harder than before too. Suddenly, the two of you were working in silence side by side, your hair falling over your face, hiding it from Imayoshi. You never once tucked it behind your ear to ask Imayoshi for the answers to the next section. You just sat and wrote away, like you fancied yourself the best in the class now. Clearly, you’d been studying over the holiday. Fine. Good even - Imayoshi couldn’t marry a complete fool, even an obedient housewife needed some brains. But to reject him because of it? Discard him like all the other toys you got bored of using? 

He felt his anger swell and spin in a strength of feeling he had not known since his mother died. Murder occurred to him; abduction no longer seemed unreasonable. He tucked away duct tape and rope and sleeping pills in a shelf his sister could not reach, locked it for good measure, and spent his nights tossing and turning and questioning his own identity. 

He heard rumours you were in trouble. Kicked out the house, financial issues, an abortion: almost everything got mentioned. Someone had a friend whose mum was a cop, and apparently you’d been visiting the police station following a domestic violence case, a prostitution case, or maybe just a mugging. The specifics were unclear and frequently changed, but Imayoshi took sight of the bruises on your neck and arms, just visible under layers of concealer, and on he went pondering.

He would never get the truth out of you directly, no. These days, whenever he entered the classroom at break, you and your few remaining trusted friends whispered until he left. The trust was gone; and the gossip no longer appropriate for male ears to hear.

A complete stranger would have been treated in the same way. A stranger. 

He’d put so much work into you, spent two years as a loyal servant, letting you feel smug and superior, and this was what he fucking got for it? 

"Imayoshi was not rash," he told himself. 

"Imayoshi wants to be rash," his reflection parroted back to him. 

“Imayoshi?” called Susa, nudging him in the middle of a study session, “you okay?”

“Tired,” replied Imayoshi, realising that the page in front of him was still empty. 

He smiled an easy smile, and forced the thought of you out of his mind before he snapped his pencil in two. 

----

And “he’s tired” was what Susa repeated when Harasawa, fiddling with his hair, asked why Imayoshi acting a bit out of it today. 

The coach glanced at Imayoshi with critical eyes, and saw a stranger in him. “Do you want to take a break?”

“I’ll be alright.“ Imayoshi forced the familiar grin across his lips yet again. “Some match play will wake me up.”

The last thing he needed was some time away from basketball. For every minute he wasn’t concentrating on the game, he was thinking of you smiling at male ‘friends’, you cuddling up with police officers, you flirting with strangers on the street, you and that miniskirt you wore everywhere outside of school and the men who would stare and you feeding into their attraction, and they’d put a hand around your waist and let their fingers slip underneath your tights, and they’d murmur “hotel?” to you, and you’d rub up against them and- 

Sakurai passed the ball to Imayoshi, and the captain dribbled and felt a moment’s peace. He passed it back to Wakamatsu, standing ready under the hoop-

You’d be pulling off your clothes real slow, really teasing them, and they’d be touching and licking and sucking on that skin that belonged to Imayoshi alone. They’d throw you to the bed; you squeal, maybe whimper at the big bad man standing in front of you. God you’d be noisy, slut that you are - you wouldn’t talk to Imayoshi any more but you wouldn’t shut up for these salarymen (why did Momoi have to mention that word on the street was you were in the JK business now? If hearing of you being with classmates wasn’t torture enough!), even when you were gagging you’d be crying out, tears in your eyes, and maybe they beat you, maybe they ground into you until you couldn’t walk, your underwear ripped, miniskirt stained around your hip, lying hopelessly on a bed in an empty room, your skin littered with both hickeys and bruises. 

Maybe you’d pray for a better life. The audacity to pray having spent all these years betraying him. 

“Are you sure everything’s alright?” muttered Susa in the changing room, briefly squeezing his friend's shoulder. 

Imayoshi looked around feeling like he’d awoken from a nightmare.

Everyone but Imayoshi had long finished changing out of their kit. People were talking, laughing, bouncing a spare basketball against the wall. Aomine, despite being a known virgin, was proudly announcing his list of the easiest lays in the school. Your name came in at number two. And before Imayoshi could ask Aomine how he knew that if all he spent his free time doing was jerking off to magazine pages, Wakamatsu interjected. 

Wakamatsu told Aomine not to talk about you like that.

Wakamatsu was blushing. 

"You fucking siren," murmured Imayoshi under his breath, thinking of the way you used to bat your eyelashes at him. 

Something about the blonde made Imayoshi see mistakes like never before. God himself couldn’t have made it any clearer. Imayoshi had let you run wild for too long, and in your own sickness you had diseased everyone else too. You had brought shame to yourself, and - worse - to the Imayoshi name that you would one day take on as your own. 

It was time to remind you to whom you belonged. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be too late to make you an honourable housewife, an obedient little dog. 

“You still there?” said Susa with a little more concern, nudging Imayoshi again. 

“Don’t worry,” and this time Imayoshi didn’t need to force that closed-eye, cruel grin. “I’ve got something to sort out, and then I’ll be back to normal.”

He would teach you that he had never been your toy. 

[skitskatdacat63]

This is my personal crossover event of the century

[dipplinduo]

Chapter 7 of Bet You'll Fall In Love With Me is Out!

This one...LMFAO. When I tell you I had to stop myself from making this a double chapter. Unfortunately need to go to bed. Wouldn't it be funny if a bed showed up this chapter?

Yeah this chapter is unhinged more than anything but I just dialed it up to like 13% of the rollercoaster we're going on LOL. Very unique vibe to BYFILWM. The type of vibe of why you started reading the fic in the first place. Suffer. xDDD

Anyways, dipplinshipping content will be coming at you hard next week. Your only warning about that is here. :)

ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~

[gaysparkler]

Ara Ma'Athlan Vhenas

Yes okay it's my turn to post Solavellan. I'm late to the party but it was going to happen eventually... Read on AO3 Title from the lullaby "Mir Da'Len Somniar" Nialen Lavellan is non-binary and uses she/they interchangeably!

They must have been at this for well over an hour at that point, long enough for the sun to begin its descent and dip into the horizon. Nialen had enough physical strength and energy to keep running after that damned halla in rocky terrain all day, but she wasn’t sure about her companions—notably, Dorian had complained a few times already about rocks in his boots and flies refusing to leave him alone. Nialen only had eyes for the golden fur ahead of them.

“Why don’t we just kill it?” Iron Bull whispered during a short break for everyone to catch their breaths a moment.

“Hanal'ghilan is sacred,” Nialen hissed back before stretching a bit and resuming their jog. “You can go back to camp if you wish.”

“Oh, thank the Maker,” Dorian sighed. “Be careful, and all that.”

Iron Bull chose to follow him, but Solas remained with her, and her heart beat faster, not just because of their running—which if they were not currently doing, Nialen would have reached for his hand. In any other circumstance, this would have been quite a romantic affair, but as it was, she was growing somewhat frustrated and tired, and though they did enjoy Solas’ company, it would have been more enjoyable if they hadn’t spent a ridiculous amount of time chasing a stubborn halla who refused to be herded. Still, Solas kept up, and did not complain.

“I thought you were supposed to be good at this,” Solas’ voice appeared right by their ear, warm and teasing. Nialen could practically hear its accompanying smile.

“I’m a hunter,” she said as she brushed away a lock of hair that escaped from her braid. She could feel Solas’ eyes on her, following the movement of her hand.

“Is this not like a hunt?”

They turned their head to glare at him, and there was that wicked and lovely smile, the one she always looked at a little too long, this time enough to lose track of Hanal'ghilan—again. She swore under her breath and picked up the pace and followed its tracks until she could see it once more, its fur almost glowing under the setting sun. Over the tall rocks was the orange and red sails of the aravels. Just some more gentle coaxing, and—

“I can track, which I have done, since we found what we were looking for. I never said I could shepherd. There’s a reason I wear Andruil’s vallaslin and not Ghilan’nain’s.”

For a second, a deep sadness veiled Solas’ eyes, but it was gone before they could reach for him, or ask about it, or anything at all. It was around the same time that they finally reached the Dalish camp, Hanal'ghilan well ahead of them, already settling with the clan’s herd. Nialen took Solas’ hand, now that she could. It seemed to surprise him for a second, but again, that look quickly vanished from his features. Nialen deliberately bumped into his shoulder, which he did as well, keeping their fingers intertwined.

“Ma serannas,” she said. “For staying.”

His smile was kind, but the sadness was not fully out of his eyes. Perhaps it would never truly leave. Nialen could only tighten their grip on his hand, for now.

“Of course, Vhenan.”

There was that word again, from his mouth, setting her heart ablaze, and it still felt so surreal to her. She leaned closer, hoping for a kiss, and he obliged, dipping his head down to press his lips to hers. When they parted, Nialen noticed that Solas’ eyes lingered on her vallaslin. On their walk back to camp, they couldn’t help to think of Solas’ lack of one, despite his knowledge of their culture—

“You have done a lot of good today,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers. “Helping them.”

“I couldn’t—” they stammered. “It hurt when Keeper Hawen said he couldn’t trust me. Like I wanted this title. The shems decided I was their god’s chosen.”

Solas wrapped his arms around them. “These names are never kind.”

“No.” Nialen tucked their head under Solas’ chin. “I was happy to do this. Even herding Hanal'ghilan, annoying as it was. It felt like I was back home.”

Solas hummed in her hair and rubbed her back in their embrace. His hands were cold.

“You must be tired,” Solas gently led her the rest of the way to their camp. “Come, I will help you with your braids.”

Nialen followed Solas to their tent, which recently had become shared. With a quick flick of his hand, the small lantern in the corner flickered alight. After shedding their armour and weapons, they sat cross-legged together on their bedrolls, Nialen’s back to Solas, who deftly began to unravel her tightly braided hair—a ritual they both came to relish. Solas’ cold fingers were a balm against Nialen’s scalp as he meticulously untangled the curls at their root before separating them in strands and re-braiding them in a simpler fashion for sleep. Nialen had only shown him once, but he seemed to remember every detail of the routine perfectly.

Now done, Solas ran his hands down Nialen’s back, settled them at their waist, and leaned forward to hook his chin on their shoulder. Nialen reacted in kind by pressing her cheek against his.

“Thank you, Vhenan,” she said quietly, as to not disturb the peace in their tent, purposefully using the name Solas had given her—not all were kind, but this one was. Solas slid his arms around their midsection and pressed himself close. Outside, crickets chirped their tune, the Inquisition field agents on their watch paced and whispered stories of their day to each other, and a not-so trained ear could pick up the Iron Bull’s snoring.

“Sleep, then?” Solas asked, as quiet as them, his voice low in their ear.

Nialen just hummed against him. For a moment, in the dim light of the tent, surrounded by nature, it was like they were home again.

[clearallcathy]

Good lord. maybe its my headache making me a hater but i cannot stand the way people do pd positivity sometimes. do you not have anything to say to me other than "uhm i dont think youre a serial killer"

[whipplefilter]

Bristol [2] 2024

I'd been entertaining these deep fears all week (or for the last two weeks) that the fates would align against my favor and both the 5 and 11 would manage to knock themselves out of the playoffs in the Round of 16. And it would feel really really stupid because the 5 came in with 2429402 points and, despite his penchant for incurring Biblical retributions, I maintain that Denny Hamlin is the best active driver in NASCAR.

Of the many reasons I'd never hack it in NASCAR, my being risk averse and perpetually glass-half-empty is a big one, so I spent an entire 2.5 hours of this race TEMPESTUOUSLY anxious--anxious dinner! anxious tea! anxious sewing-buttons-back-onto-things! anxious dishes!--until the were fewer laps remaining than the 21 was down and the 5 locked in. I was like, I don't care if Kyle Larson swept both stages and is running at almost a 5-second lead over P2. What reason have I to trust that!! The 5 should not be trusted!

And I was also like, okay, self, what if tonight could channel that Kyle Larson Knoxville energy. Knoxville Knoxville Knoxville KNOXVILLE. And then the 5 ran a perfect race and my insides are a chemical disaster zone regardless.

I always laugh when the booth mentions some very Hendrick-specific milestone or record--which they've done a lot this year on account of the 40th anniversary--because I feel like the only person who could possibly care about these niche accolades is Rick Hendrick, but Kyle "most laps ever led in a single race by any Hendrick driver" Larson seems so statistically unlikely on account of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie I'll allow it.

I'm sad for MTJ, but I hold out hope that he'll be able to pull a Kenseth and win a final-season race, even if he's out of the playoffs. And congrats to Daniel Suarez for rising from the ashes!

[kjzx]

One day there's gonna be a person online that will take people's requests of any color and draw it in a person's skintone in a convincing way, see: a brown that looks like a light skinned white person's skin in a darker lighting, a green that looks like a healthy person's skin in neon lights, and so on.

And this will be a huge thing for the online art community in the west. I think the thing it lacks right now is this realization that the knowledge that tree trunks are brown and leaves are green are just something observed under the specific conditions of a sunny day, even in these very conditions these very leaves and trunk can look blue and purple and gray and so on if cast in shadow, especially in art

[lepakonpaska]

[happy rambling in the tags because i love my job so much ✨️🌻]

[skitskatdacat63]

I have a problem.

Further evidence:

[attila-werther]

alright I gotta put da:i down and go back to the musketeers, I miss enjoying things

[ayoyoungg]

I finally met JO1 😭😭😭

8.20.23