#he IS constantly in danger

[fengren-art]

Okay, I want to show off my Rook and the Inquisitor too~

Vale Laidir-Lavellan

There was a time when he thought convincing his mother, a strict matriarch of the house Laidir, to refer to him as a man was going to be the most difficult task in his life...

But that went surprisingly nice and easy, with mother fully accepting her son's true self.

She even allowed him and his older sister to join Lords of Fortune! What has provoked the sudden change of heart of such an uptight and overprotective woman Vale didn't know but did not complain. And even all the misadventures he came through with the Lords will never be comparable with what was going to happen...

No, the real trouble came from where Vale least expected it. Namely, from his older brother Iris, who had to flee Rivain with their younger sister Elaine when someone started to hunt down the Laidirs.

Iris and Elaine joined their father's Dalish clan, Lavellan, and the story could've just ended with "The siblings were separated and communicated via letters trice a year". It fucking could have just ended with Iris becoming first to the clan's Keeper and with Vale becoming the most legendary of the most glorious Lords in their fabulous history.

But nooo, Iris just had to get near the poor old Chantry woman who was being killed by the magical Tevinter monstrosity who just happened to have some magical orb graciously given to him by no other than some magical elven god who wanted to perform some magical ritual or whatever that will make Iris' hand... Magical? Vale lost the thread of the narrative somewhere at the beginning but it doesn't matter, the point is, it could have been avoided!

But because Iris did not have enough consciousness to not accidentally become important at job, people made him (or his magical hand, Vale wasn't sure) the Inquisitor.

And... Look, Vale loves his brother, he really does. Iris has always been on Vale's side, was the first to help him figure out this whole gender thing, was the first to accept who Vale is and always has been. Objectively, he's the best big brother in the whole Thedas. Buuut he's also a magnet for misfortunes so ridiculous they don't even sound real (the trait that, to be fair, runs in the family). Like, man, how, just how could you become besties with the actual elven god and then get betrayed by him!? There's literally no other living mortal in the Thedas who had been dumped by a god (okay, maybe Elaine, but the matter of "get your fragile mortal heart broken by the ancient god who allowed himself a luxury of falling in love" is a story on its own).

So anyways! Now that 10 years later Solas made himself the whole world's problem, Iris, who really, really, really needed help, asked his little brother to make himself Solas' problem.

And Vale Laidir-Lavellan, who has far too much L's in his name, decided to make this absolutely insane task of slapping god's bald head one huge W. If only he knew in what kind of drama he was getting himself into...

[arkashas]

i'm not insane for making this parallel right

[thereweredragonshere]

Could you draw the gang as cats?

Actually got way too invested in this drawing. Not entirely sure if some of these colourations are genetically possible in cats but who cares. Look at them!!!!

[rorynni]

can we as armin fans agree that he can be manipulative and underhanded when necessary to protect himself and his comrades but it’s not something that he does regularly or for his own personal gain

[pocket-deer-boy]

I’m fully expecting matt’s twitter behavior rn to be an intentional harassment campaign of constantly poking and prodding at trans women until they say something that could potentially be construed as a death threat and then retaliating in full force to attempt to get them banned off of twitter as well. I mean, he really, REALLY wants to interpret these things as death threats.

[capricioussun]

He has anxiety

[weepingtalecowboy]

Shadow is a fucking menace of massive destruction

Fanfic prompt: The chain is telling eachother about their adventures and at some point they got to the point of dark or shadow links

And while everyone is considering their shadow or dark links the most dangerous

Four just one ups them all because shadow is a menace to society and genuinely insane

Like “my shadow link destroyed all of Hyrule in like a day or two ,a week at most he kidnapped my Zelda and forced me to remove a sword that was sealing one of my villains and essentially made me fight three villains at once him included and that isn’t even the worst of it”

The chain *thinking* : “how are you still alive with such a monstrosity running rampant”

Four continuing without noticing anyone being disturbed: “ he stole even more maidens from their shrines and burned down almost every single village and town he was also scaring the novice soldiers and possessed my dad while THE ARMY WAS TURNED against me because he impersonated me and racked up a high enough destruction count for my immediate execution not forgetting the fact that most of them were already under mind control”

The chain : “how did you kill somebody like him”

Four: “I gaslit him because he luckily had one weakness I could exploit pretending to be evil and all that stuff so when I killed him

he didn’t get the message and was still terrorizing me but now he was upset and not just sadistic so he tied me to a stake and set it on fire”

The chain *internally* : “WTF WTF WTF WTF how is he not dead”

Four still talking: “I somehow miraculously got saved and the only reason why I won was because he destroyed his one weak point and thereby helped me defeat the other villain and both died but he still didn’t accept that so he came back to life AGAIN (ignoring to tell that it was me who brought him back)

Four : “we decided to give up on fighting and now he stays with us because he is the most difficult to kill creature in the whole entire world and that way me and Zelda can keep an eye on him”

The chain: “man and we thought our darks were bad yours sounds like a nightmare”

Four realizing something: “I forgot to tell you about his massive bombs ,his dragons and his hammer strong enough to give me a concussion from several feet again”

The chain: “THERE IS MORE…!!,!?!.!.!!.?!

Warriors * hesitant* : “Cia probably still could be worse right…?”

Four : “maybe but he also was always in my personal space and I couldn’t tell him to get the fuck away from me because I had to befriend him pretty sure the only reason he isn’t the second coming of Cia is because he wasn’t interested in a sexual relationship”

The chain: “how is your dark side capable of one upping over four of our most vile and evil enemies without even trying”

Four : “pretty sure it’s the purple hair … that is a clear sign of evil”

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

I have all of these extended thoughts on my head about the amazing way themes and character relationships are handled in Iruma-kun and the inclusion of queerness and the handling of the coming of age narrative in this shonen manga/anime

And every time all that comes out when I'm reccing it is "You should watch/read it"

Do it. Go watch/read Mairimashita! Iruma-kun/Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun

Please.

[violentbirds]

Anyway I got back into starwars again and this fanfic^ by @jackdaw-kraai has been one of my faves. Vader redemption, found family, BAMF Luke, world building, & humor.

Here’s some illustrations & sketches

[yonemurishiroku]

something something the ghosts don’t just fear Nico. They love him. Love him.

[motleyflash]

TW: disturbing ??

zim's antennas are also exposed nerves but we don't talk about that

[wickmitz]

I decided to start talking about Wick and Rocky's relationship because I like their dynamics too, I like seeing Wick scared of Rocky and Rocky being aggressive with him, which is unusual because Rocky is rarely aggressive with anyone, but of course Wick is an exception to rule

Also my mini opinion about their possible relationship, I think that if Rocky didn't have to fight for his place, then he and Wick could become friends, or at least tolerate each other a little, I also see some superficial similarities, their gentlemanly and romantic natures, and their common love for explosions (remembering the quarrymen chapter), but this is my assumption, I think that I don't understand the characters' personalities well, so I can be wrong in this assumption, something like that. So, what do you think about their relationship?

for starters, i cannot thank you enough for this ask! as i’ve said previously, i have many thoughts on these two, so it’s nice to finally be able to share some of them. although given the extent to which i think about them, i apologize in advance if this is sloppy and sort of everywhere … while i’ll try to structure things the best i can, i cannot promise i’ll succeed! but hopefully this is an enjoyable reply nonetheless.

one of my favorite things about rocky and wick’s relationship is absolutely how aggressive rocky is towards the aristocrat ; he is prone to glares and cruel jokes and borderline hissing whenever the man is within his line of sight, or can be brought to a wailing-fit over the mere mention of his name from miss m’s mouth. there is a childishness to it, but a very prominent threat as well in spite of rocky’s usual incompetence. so he goes out of his way to posture around wick, readily lying and adorning himself with the gangster drapes he so badly wants to wear, in the hopes that it intimidates … will even badmouth wick’s family and make fun of his name and rock related obsession to mitzi, and so on so forth! yet all of this is very reminiscent of schoolyard bullying rather than anything too severe, though we as the audience understand rather quickly that rocky would bash wick’s head in with a tire iron if he could. ( translation : if it wouldn’t earn the tears or hate of a certain beloved mitzi may ) and it’s all very intense despite the absence of actual violence! and i understand why many fans see this as unusual for rocky and believe that it’s only wick who makes him act so aggressively, but i’d argue it isn’t really wick at all that prompts such scary reactions from him … and that rocky is a deeply angry character who’s a.) been boiling quietly for a long, long time and b.) has turned wick into a punching bag of sorts for this inner world of resentment and hurt. basically, when he’s judging the well-to-do or poking fun, his eyes don’t look at wick and actually acknowledge him as sedgewick sable ; instead this is a being, something vague and metaphorical, who threatens to upseat rocky’s permanence in the lackadaisy and steal away his savior, and he’s had a hand in the violinist’s misfortune for a long time.

obviously, rocky doesn’t think wick robbed him of his family twice over and made him homeless, but he is channeling the fear and anguish of those events into his loathing for wick, if that makes sense? it’s easier that way -- to finally have an outlet for everything bleeding inside of you, to be able to bite and claw at something without feeling conflicted or having to take personal accountability for your own mistakes … which is something that i think rocky does struggle with to a degree. he is sort of a finger pointer! his pain has to be worth something, it has to be for someone else ; spending years homeless and losing his last bit of family was for freckle, and the scrambling of his literal brain was for mitzi, and that means he can’t ever be angry with them! well, except that he is, somewhat, but he buries it deep down instead of feeling it. with freckle there is a sense of strain between them -- an air of ‘you owe me’ from rocky to freckle as he uses freckle to appease miss m, and he constantly pokes fun at his cousin too. it’s lighter than his jabs at wick, but there’s a constant pestering, a reminder of how good freckle has it : how he’s got the mom and the house and the job and the girl most notably. i don’t think rocky is intending to come across as mean, and to his credit he hardly does! but it’s rather clear to me that some part of him, some hidden and deeply hurt part, is rather indignant about taking the fall for freckle all those years ago. which he can’t understand, because how could he? he made that choice, he decided to take accountability for something he didn’t do because he loves freckle and knows it’d be so easy to believe this family tragedy was roark’s fault ; the devilish child he was, all troublesome and too broken to properly fit anywhere. so there is a disconnect born here, where rocky can’t comprehend that he’d be angry at freckle, so instead these not so great feelings are placed elsewhere and silently boil over time. and with mitzi … i don’t think he’s angry at her per se, but there is a frustrated and desperate chorus of : why him and why not me, when i’m the one out here dying for you? which is certainly unpleasant. of course, rather than allowing those feelings to be more aimed at miss m, whom he feels unloved by, he ( again! ) represses these emotions and allows them to fester into his greatest fears and fantastical complexes. i think there is a lot of other miscellaneous anger he could have towards others too … perhaps some part of him is sore upon seeing ivy’s normal lifestyle, watching her go to university and knowing that’s been taken from him. or an ache felt when hearing stories from zib and the band and how they used to travel successfully, living as nomads, and rocky is all too reminded of his similar lifestyle and how he couldn’t make it work as effortlessly. people with immense trauma are more prone to irrational anger and jealousy, to viewing everything around them as unfair and believing it’s even more unjust that so many people get to live comfortably while they’ve suffered. a situation that gets more messy when you’re someone like rocky, a man who’s willingly made choices that have harmed himself and wants to continue on with his smiling, bumbling fool of an act. he does not want to be angry, does not want to see it within himself, i think, which leads to an accidental increase of it.

all of this is to reiterate that wick is a scapegoat for rocky and nothing more. it’s why he’s rather hypocritical whenever it concerns the man. for example, it was stated by tracy that he looks down upon wick for his excessive presence at the bar, yet he appears to enjoy hanging out with zib -- who drinks just as often! he makes fun of how all wick ever talks about is rocks, when he himself is prone to poetry rambles that people find irritating or boring, and etc etc. this is also just a human nature thing, to critique someone you heavily dislike and even going as far as to belittle things you love or do in your own day to day because you just hate them that bad! but given rocky’s willingness to befriend anyone, it more so reeks of a dehumanization element. wick is every obstacle in his way, every divine force that threatens to send him packing again, so he is equal parts unnerved by wick’s presence and angry about it. it is mostly a fear response we are seeing, an emotion that’s morphed into long held resentment and anger. so his actions are extremely defensive, with him trying to push wick far away and keep him and mitzi separate, like some sort of animal attempting to ward off a threat that’s come too close to their home. despite the loaded animosity there, this hate has hardly reached its peak … but it shall only grow more intense as things continue onward i’m afraid, since as it stands ( in the comic at least ) rocky is at an all time low … and is ten times more desperate. i’d honestly say wick has become so warped in his mind’s eye that he can only strive towards ‘winning’ over the other man, because that’s all he can see anymore. i think mitzi implying that wick willingly helped her out, the intense head injury, and rocky’s fragile emotional state is exactly what pushes him towards premeditated murder in look-see. i don’t know how people perceive that arc, but to me it’s very clear that rocky actively sought to see the deaths of wes and fish that night. going as far as to lament that he’d be, “very disappointed if ( he ) dreamed them,” and purposefully luring the marigold duo away to have freckle pick them off. while you could argue that this was a smart move, in a gangster sort of sense, there’s still no denying that rocky is oddly chipper about the whole thing and is now seeking death out ; whereas before his methods of vengeance were just, well, ruining people’s livelihood but ultimately leaving them alive. this isn’t to discredit the fact that rocky is going through something! he is in a very muddled and dark place, mentally and physically, but even tracy has said that the head injury hasn’t changed rocky’s personality -- it’s only brought things to the surface.

source : q&a with tracy .

which, yeah! makes sense! head trauma can cause a person to become a wreck emotionally ( think mood swings, irritability, etc ) but it doesn’t completely morph someone either. personality changes may occur, but it’s not like you’re being rewritten entirely, you know? and given tracy’s old statement, it’s clear that ‘personality changes’ aren’t a side effect he’s suffering from. something that adds to my beginning statement, which is that rocky is a deeply angry and troubled person, more so than fans give him any credit for.

however, to touch upon your mini opinion about these two, i actually wholeheartedly agree that rocky and wick could become friends if circumstances were different. they do in fact have many superficial similarities, but one of the more prominent things they deeply share is never really belonging in the groups they frequent. this is more overt with rocky’s character, yet wick faces it too in subtle ways. the well-to-do crowd, seen through the investors, find the gentleman to be lacking in about every place imaginable ; to them he is an obsessive freak who cares too deeply for meager rocks, something they constantly mock him for, while he’s also being noticeably set apart from the rest of them … he seems younger than the investors, more excitable, passionate, and a little less experienced, and doesn’t seem to care for money or reputation as much as them either. there is a constant rubbing between him and them, where what he enjoys is seen as wrong, such as his love for the lackadaisy and his choice in paramor, a grieving widow with extremely dangerous ties. we also know that wick doesn’t have many friends at all, with the only two he has being lacy and church ( church is listed as such on his character profile, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way ), both of whom work for or with him. they are obliged to hang around, and while they care in varying ways, they are prone to judging him just as much. honestly, it’s not shocking that wick seeks refuge at his chosen speakeasy! but even there he is rather distant from everyone else. he doesn’t speak to zib ever in the comics, nor seems all too close with viktor, ivy, or horatio … it is merely mitzi he is close to, even if he knows of the other people who work there. and, once again, wick very obviously doesn’t fit in. he is not gangster material, could never be an atlas may replacement, much less someone who could get his paws dirty in such an active way. so he has his feet in two different worlds and doesn’t know how to fit into either of them, or which one he actually wants to fit into more. i think in many ways rocky could relate -- these are two very lonely people who wish to belong somewhere and be accepted by some group or another but go about it in all the wrong ways. wick, who is too hesitant to fully commit to what he wants and is worse off for it, and then rocky, who obsessively throws himself against what he wants until he breaks every bone in his body. they also have explosives to bond over, lol, and other miscellaneous things like their taste in women i suppose … but this potential bond adds to the tragedy of lackadaisy, where we see two people who on every level should get along but we’re burdened with the knowledge that it’s an impossibility anyway, because there’s no removing the circumstance of which they’re in.

though i like to believe that despite wick’s fear of rocky, he maintains a kindness towards him regardless. i think his worries about rocky are rather surface level … he doesn’t know the boy at all, really, and thus can’t make heads or tails of him, hence him believing the lie in balderdash. so when i’m feeling particularly self indulgent, i like imagining a world where they’re forced together and sort of ‘stuck’ together ; to which rocky finally breaks and exposes his wounds to wick, in every sense of the word, and wick finally gets him. the aggression, the possessiveness of mitzi … it is all fear and desperation and a profound sadness, things he’d sympathize with. if rocky was able to explain that he loathes wick because if he saves the lackadaisy then mitzi won’t need him anymore and that it’s not fair that wick gets to so easily fix things when rocky would give his soul for his home, for her, and how wick could render every sacrifice he’s already made for naught by smoothing things over with some greenbacks and he can’t lose this, he just can’t --! … which, well, wick is too kind of a man to be able to do anything except feel awful, even though it’s not his fault at all. here we have two people who could coexist! and they should, since rocky logically can’t do every speakeasy job ( band member, rumrunner, mitzi’s shadow, also the guy who gets the money for the hooch ) by himself, just like how wick can’t save the lackadaisy with only his cash and limited booze stash. it’d be a joint cooperation, a collaboration between them, both equally important in the grand scheme of crime’s every turning wheel … but rocky’s rage and fear won’t let him see that, and likely never will. still, in scenarios where everything ends up alright for the lackadaisy and the people involved in it ( which is not how canon will go, by the way ), i fancy wick and rocky getting better within their relationship. rocky will always be prickly and quick to upset around the other man sadly, but perhaps he could see wick in a softer kind of light. or at least understand vaguely enough that he isn’t out to get rocky, so to speak. and then maybe wick learns that pancakes soothe rocky’s ire and poorly makes them anytime he wishes to talk to the man, and other fun things like that! but you should have more confidence in your character analysis skills, because you were spot on ( at least in my eyes ) about them potentially getting along if things were different. it’s certainly a fun aspect to play around with, and is important to note when discussing their relationship so you can fully understand just how warped rocky’s perspective on things are. and how unstable and traumatized he is too, of course </3 sidenote, but i also hope that throughout everything i’ve said here, or anything i’ve said before on my blog, that my love for rocky and my own sympathy for him comes across well enough. while he’s deeply flawed and i have no qualms discussing said flaws in depth, i also don’t think of him as some insane freak who’s evil at his core or anything like that. honestly, i adore analyzing him so much as a character because of how far down his issues go! he’s very well written, i’ll say, as is wick and many of the other characters, but i digress.

once more, thank you for the ask! i’ll end this here because i fear if i don’t i’ll start going in circles, since their relationship is so vast and very important for rocky in a character sense. hopefully i shed some more light on it though! i love these two to bits and pieces and i wouldn’t be half as invested in lackadaisy if their dynamic wasn’t so monumental -- at least to me.

[lesbianleonardo]

sooo normal about this (lying)

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

Fraz-Urbluu, demon lord of illusion and deception. Sorry, were you wanting the usual size and weight and such? Unavailable, reality itself is at his whim. He has innate magic to basically control all of your senses. Your touch, smell, vision, hearing are shrouded in illusion, he can create things and terrain that your brain treats as real and make the whole area seem to be whatever he needs. And if he REALLY wants he can even modify your memory once per day, making you forget something or gaslighting you with a fake memory. He can terrify, grapple, even make temporary clones of anyone he sees. He can even modify the room your in, shuffling doors and walls around. A modicum of his power, as his (currently lost) staff let him literally shape the entire layer of the abyss instantly and at his whim. Yeah, he's not just an architect of lies, he's also an architect in general. However, note that there's no domination, no mental orders or suggestions, no forcing you to like or believe him like other lords. His charms are through skill and pretty settings. frequently tricking even demon lords who KNOW what he's about through sheer Charisma. In the past he's shown to court clever and creative individuals, so if you're chosen I'm sure it'll be a ride of your life!...but not one in your control.

[nias-keca]

miorine!!! miorine she was smiling so you wouldnt be frightened!!!!!!

[castielsprostate]

supernatural if it had been a sitcom. oh what we could've had