#he forever owns my heart

[callsignbaphomet]

The hate the community and even casual fans/players have for Preston Garvey is extremely telling of a lot of things but we're not gonna get into those here at the moment.

The hate Preston gets makes me physically jolt in utter annoyance. The character is very well rounded, the most human of the companions, and dare I say the most relatable. That man went above and beyond the call of duty. One day he woke up and the universe decided to fuck up his entire way of life completely. Not only was everything he believed in shattered by the actions of a bunch of greedy and cowardly assholes but he watched everyone he cared about, looked up to and loved die at the hands of said assholes. On top of that he was then thrown into a position where he was, by all logical calculations, meant to fail. He nearly did, don't get it twisted. He almost did until you, the player, showed up to help. By that time he was emotionally and mentally broken af and hanging on by a thread. All that happened and the few people he managed to safe were slowly dyin' because of things outside of his control yet he powered on for the sake of the survivors.

At any time he coulda said, "'Ey, yo, so I'm out. Glad I got to meet you before y'all died but fuck this." But he didn't because despite what he witnessed he still hung on to his principles and what he believed in even if it woulda killed him. He took one of the worst situations that could fall on any person, ran with it and did the very best he could. He made sure everyone else was safe (at least as safe as they could be given the situation), he looked after everyone else even when he was at his lowest and no one thought to check in on him.

He's also, game wise, one of the best companions to have. Give him a good weapon and he'll mow down every fucker in his way. Give him a good, fully customized weapon and put him in some power armor and he becomes the living embodiment of the phrase "Light 'em up!"

His sweet demeanor and constant checking in on the player is fantastic and wholesome. He took a hit but he got back up and carried on with what he believed in. Every other faction was out looking for themselves and you were always a means to an end. Preston wanted for the people to pick themselves up from the floor, to help each other, to look after each other, to fight back against the wasteland itself, to cooperate (insert obligatory jolly co-op joke here) with each other to build a better and safer world for all.

It's not his fault Bethany slaughtered the character by reducing him to a neverending radiant quest giver with a memeable phrase directing you to an annoying quest. Preston deserved better than what he got from the developers and the community.

[yea-baiyi]

say what you want about svsss but hands down the most distraught i have ever been while reading a mxtx novel is after the bing-ge extra. what do you mean he asked shen qingqiu to come with him. what do you mean “it’s not fair”. what do you mean he looked back.

[varpusvaras]

No but actually, I do have a whole character arc for Jason that actually takes account his Robin run and doesn't just go "and now he's eeeeeevillll", but if I could live in a utopia, I would love to see Jason just not wanting to do anything with Gotham anymore. Absolutely nothing. I have multiple of these au's but I am stating it again. He wants nothing to do with Gotham. He sees that there is a new Robin and thinks that Bruce wants nothing to do with him either. He sees that the Joker is still alive and does not want to be anywhere near him. Talia, being actually a good person and not whatever she was written to be later by whatever racist view in mind, does not want him to be anywhere near the Joker either. Absolutely not. In my utopia, they move to Singapore or something and Jason and Damian go to a nice private school and stay the fuck away from Gotham (because let's be real, I don't think Talia would send Damian to Gotham either if she has any sense, especially with Bruce getting more ruthless).

Alas it is not so but one can dream

[aquickstart]

i'm still hung up on oliver's "and i believed him" on felix's "if you get sick of us, you can leave. i promise". it's one of the rare cases when present-day oliver interjects and adds something to the past-oliver story, reflective, analyzing. it is sort of shift of responsibility post factum. felix promised; oliver believed; oliver didn't leave; felix was to blame. an act of revisionism, one attempt to absolve himself of many.

but if read in a sympathetic way, it is so painful to me. read in a way oliver was approached by barry keoghan, as a boy who was lost and confused and pulled apart by too much desire to know what to do with, it is probably the most tragic line in saltburn. refusal to go was impossible for oliver. all he needed was reassurance, knowledge that something would be there to understand, recognize, pull back, control. in the sea of confusing desires, tricks of the house, as oliver probably saw it, he needed something he could believe. and he was tethered to the world by felix, in every way; but felix was not insightful enough to realize it. not because felix is a horrible person, necessarily, but because oliver put so much trust in him it was quite unlikely that felix could ever answer in kind. it's a tragedy in so many ways and it is all contained in this one short exchange, through time. "and i believed him" is so, so vulnerable, and so, so betrayed.

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

feeling suddenly v ill about forever forcing dapper through an item scanner when an item scanner was used against forever during the happy pills arc. dapper's entry about the item scanner in her secret lab... and bad using it against forever to take the pills from him. to help him. and now forever used the scanner against dapper to take her warpstone. to hurt bad.

[heartlittledesires]

HE'S SO 🥰🥹

[dekusleftsock]

Hey tumblr… how are we feeling…

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

and now, a break from our normal schedule for my Favorite cat dad and his lovely vagabond son

[fistfuloflightning]

…the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years bring.

Arwen for the MXTX-Tolkien remix

[blackhholes]

Teen Wolf as Arthurian Characters

Theo Raeken as Sir Mordred

[sharknark]

⬇️rant about a really good hengren (reverse renheng) fic i read. link at the bottom give it a whirl

i've never read a fic so well-catered to my tastes before in my life and the best part is that i was so caught off guard by how good it was cuz the tags and summary had me like "right this is some omegaverse-esque, rawr XD mating shit"

but from the very first paragraph i realized it wasn't just ao3-typical possessive mating shit it was (dare i say) IN CHARACTER possessive mating shit. underappreciated dan feng lore is the two hearts shit, duty expects him to smother his own empathy and perform cruelty obediently (and that being in his dragon form literally numbs his empathy towards mortals) but then it's flipped around and he's criticized for being too heartless

there aren't a great many english fics that take advantage of the 'numbed empathy' thing, so this fic using that to explore the toxic codependency that drove dan feng to making yingxing immortal in the first place is so!

dan feng's dragon heart prioritizing it's own indulgence and power, his human heart screaming against it for empathy and restraint, but both hearts united in this possessive adoration of yingxing... dan feng is possessive to the point of harming his partner, forcing them to take his affection, inherently contradictive to the protective impulse to see the other unhurt.

dan feng makes yingxing immortal in a really sketchy operation, despite knowing that yingxing is literally defined by his pride in being a short-life. he wants yingxing to be with him so badly that he does the one thing that would hurt yingxing the most, too blinded by possession, this sickly overbearing affection, to empathetically respect yingxing's death.

yingxing lived cramming every second he could into his craft and his goals precisely because he has so much less time than all the immortal species around him, but when he's forced into immortality, his hands are scarred and ruined past the point of ever crafting again. he suddenly has so much time, all this time he would've cherished as a mortal, but is totally useless to him now that his purpose for living and passion is gone.

so there being a scene in this fic where dan feng is moping "yingxing doesn't wanna fuck because he's glued to his workshop", being followed up with a scene of dan heng fucking blade while kissing his scarred hand and crying that he's "so sorry", yeah no shit asshole, his dragon heart got what it wanted, blade has all the time in the world to fuck and nothing competing for his now limitless attention and no one's happy about it.

as arrogant about being a short-life as yingxing was, it really is compensation for the discrimination he faced for it. other immortals looked down on him, so having dan feng, THE top dog, be so deeply enamored with him stirred his own toxic codependent urges. he was so desperate to have dan feng's eternal regard that he's willing to die for him (as in the sedition), his death being the force cementing his place in dan feng's heart forever.

so the fic having yingxing ruminate on this, that he had hoped for dan feng to love him even centuries after he inevitably died, only for the fic to end with:

yeah yingxing... you left an impression... he made you immortal.... everyone's upset by this

(that's what makes dan heng forgetting blade was ever yingxing to begin with all the more painful because, you went and turned him immortal and when it backfired horrifically you went on and fucking forgot, bitch i'd be pissed to the point of centuries long bloody pursuit of vengeance too.)

here's the fic go read it and leave kudos and a comment, technically porn but i got so invested in the character study that part barely registered. also yeah if you hadn't realized already super dead-dove:

blah blah "renheng is toxic" sorry that's why i like it

[seaquestions]

↑ bearer of the curse (guy who always dies and reincarnates before learning the true nature of his life after death, after death, after death (times infinity). also he's a bounty hunter living in a tiny r/malelivingspace studio apartment of a starship.) [alt under cut]

[ID: a fullbody drawing of my honkai star rail oc, aji. he is a broad-shouldered asian man with tan skin & short wavy hair with orange & white streaks. he has one brown eye and one gold eye. he wears a half-down orange pilot jumpsuit, a black sleeveless turtleneck with a metal breastplate over it, knee-high boots & gloves, one of them being metal and clawed. he has a sword in a scabbard on his hip (a keris bahari). to the left is a closeup drawing of his face. on the right is text that reads "aji, also previously known as hu lin, rimau, sunyi, etc." his in-game element and path are also indicated, "imaginary" and "the hunt". End ID]

[funtheysaid]

That’s got to be the best, most insane, most satisfying, MOST FASCINATING season finale I’ve ever watched in my life. Holy fuck.

[shannonsketches]

something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

thinking about 4halo again and dying

they just. they used to be so sweet together. and then the election arc managed to genuinely turn them against each other (and bad is still affected by being caged in the museum) and i would NOT have been surprised if a rebellion had started within the next few weeks after their last fight and. they used to be friends and then they almost destroyed each other

and then the eggs went missing

and there are so many parallels between them, but one of the biggest parallels is how they're both protectors. they both protected the eggs (and, when he became president, forever extended that protection to the other islanders) but the eggs went missing and they had to put all of that aside. Forever was quicker to put it down than Bad was (it felt like only a very temporary truce, from Bad's end), but they put their problems on hold, because their eggs. were gone.

and another parallel. the destruction. both of them with their plans to cause ruin because then, maybe, theyll get their kids back. bad caused most of the grieving arc damage directly, and got aypierre and antoine to help him. he dug holes in the ground. he placed mines everywhere and leapt into them. he started the lavacasting process of the fed building (and was interrupted by admins, so he stopped, but philza and fit were still right to laugh at him lmaoo). he drilled a hole through the side of the federation office from a huge distance away. he has chosen to hurt his friends and himself to get the eggs back. whatever the cost.

forever destroyed the island. or he planned to destroy the island. or he was interrupted just before he destroyed the island or or or. I don't know. but it was big, and it was bad. bad enough that the feds had to step in and forcefully drug him, and kickstart the happy pills arc.

and the happy pills arc..... oughghghgh as fucking awful as it was for their characters to experience i genuinely truly think that it saved them from each other. when he was first told about forever being fucked up bad was still in the "i need to kick his butt" mindset, and was all ready for an excuse to kill forever. and then he saw forever. and the first proposal happened. and bad was angry and he was sad and upset and he was careful. forever tried to kill him. bad decided to save him. forever kept trying to marry him. forever kept taking the pills. forever was so scared of his own anger and all of the damage he could and would have caused to his family that he kept taking drugs that kept him so out of his mind he hallucinated his son was just sleeping safely at his house.

and they both tried to kill each other. and they both failed.

and bad showed phil and cellbit (and tubbo) the item scanner that dapper discovered, which could destroy him, because nothing else was working. because they needed to save forever. because bad was reminded by then that forever was a victim of the federation instead of just a mouthpiece for it. and then when forever woke up he saw bad, suffering, and so excited to see him awake.

and now they're here on opposite sides again with forever projecting his protection urges onto the fed worker in bad's basement and bad frustrated that he isn't being believed and his evil plans of giving ron lemons apology brownies is being interrupted and. look at them. soft "i hate you" and the appreciation room and bad's quiet heartbreak when he learned about forever being missing and the "i miss you" book bad got mad at because it asked him not to torture fed workers. does anyone hear me im so ill about them. do you understand they care about each other so much and the happy pills arc reminded them of that. forever realized bad is colourblind and bad assumed forever was poisoning him and then forever helped bad cheat on another colourblindness test and forever was giving bad flowers and bad was accepting them and accepted that he was colourblind despite his previously constant denial and! i don't know if im being comprehensible and i dont really care i will be honest i just need you to know i am frothing at the mouth like a rabid little beast. they are a TRAGEDY of miscommunication and external pressure but they love so so much. platonic or romantic or qpp they CARE and it tears me to shreds

[thethespacecoyote]

The end of journal 3 and the added pages in the book of bill made me emotional man, I just feel like Ford bottled up his bill trauma for years because he blamed himself for being a fool and getting manipulated and thus shouldered it alone. but his family is there for him and supports/protects him in their own way despite this

It’s an interesting contrast like. Ford and Bill are so similar and that’s made explicit in the book, but Ford grows and overcomes his issues and learns to open up and love and trust people again, meanwhile Bill is stuck in cosmic therapy because he can never do that.