#i am a joy to be around

[olivegardenhunter]

I am always the light and beacon of hope in every class I am in. but my classmates may never know this, because I have a zero in attendance

[phin-tastic]

making my neighbors regret coming over for bbq by talking about fight club non stop.

to my surprise they have not yet seen it… i might have invited myself to watch it with them. even showed them my many fight club dvds🫡

[platoapproved]

OH NO I'VE JUST REALIZED SOMETHING. It's so obvious how did I just catch it.

So Lestat and Armand meet up earlier in Memnoch the Devil, and Armand is wearing all denim and is super dusty. Lestat sees him and lovingly thinks about wanting to clean him up, do his hair, etc. Armand responds 'yeah, you're always wanting that, back in Paris you wanted to perfume me and comb my hair and put me in velvet and embroidery'. (see here for excerpts)

WHEN LESTAT GETS BACK NEAR THE END OF THE BOOK ARMAND IS WAITING FOR HIM! Wearing velvet and embroidered lace! He has left his hair down and uncut like it was back all those years ago in Paris, only it's cleanly washed. (see here for excerpts)

He.... he gave himself the Lestat-likes-it-when-I-look-like-this makeover while Lestat was out.

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

the Jewish attitude of surviving and celebrating life at any cost is finally putting my 10+ years of suicidal ideation to rest. no matter what, i have to live

[leafsfromthevine]

something something, "i'm only me when i'm with you," etc. etc.

[highlynerdy]

When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire. x

[hanafubukki]

Happy Three Year Anniversary 🥹💚🌺

It’s my three year anniversary since I first started writing fanfics on tumblr. I think back about the first time I published fanfics on here and everyone I met along the way because of that one moment of time.

When I took that step to allow myself to express/be myself and publish something I wrote. It led to meeting so many wonderful people here and irl and I am forever grateful to myself and to all of you.

I am forever grateful for all the encouragement you all give me and I can’t say it enough. Be it comments, asks, reblogs, likes, tagging or what have you.

Everyday is fun and brings a smile to my face. I look forward to the future because of it.

So really, thank you everyone. I’m so happy to have met and interacted with you and hope to continue to do so ☺️💚🌺

[blujayonthewing]

GRIPPED with the sudden overwhelming desire for a pumpkin-shaped soup bowl to eat pumpkin soup out of

[dragonsbluee]

I see your gay uncles of the straw hats Jimbrook and raise you old, gay, heartbroken, pirate captians who find a loving, romantic relationship in each other as they watch over a group of chaotic youngsters.

Because Brook and Yorki had a heartbreaking goodbye, and Brook spent 50 years mourning, but now he has a second chance. He wasn't expecting anything, but then, lo and behold! A handsome, kind, capable fish man enters stage right, and Brook is smitten. Here is someone who understands the grief of losing a captian and partner, then having to take their place to hold the crew together, but ultimately watching thier crew fall apart or suffer due to factors outside their control.

For Jimbei the last few years have been a whirlwind of chaos. He was looking forward to a new adventure full of chaos of his own making and choices. Now, enter stage left, this fantastic, enigmatic, adorable skeleton (and he's a musician!), who is a wonderful presence on a ship full of younger pirates. Jimbei never really moved on from the loss of the Sun Pirates, and hasn't had time to mourn all the friends he's lost in the past few years. But now he finds companionship and comfort in Brook. Someone who doesn't expect him to move on, let's him reminisce, but keeps him from getting stuck in his mourning. He's never thought of romance seriously before, but now he finds himself wanting.

The two meet in the middle, center stage on a ship of dreams as they forge a new one together. They still keep and work towards their individual dreams but find pieces of each other in them. Brook looks forward to the day he can introduce Laboon to Jimbei, and Jimbei has promised to translate the whale's words for Brook. Jimbei will see freedom for his people and finds motivation in every new song Brook writes and story he tells. Together, they find peace, calm, and rest. They find excitement, companionship, and a harbour in the other after years of storms.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[beliscary]

i believe in a thing called love,, ,

[saturnvs]

life update: we found an apartment and managed to get our hands on it, yippee :D

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A Blorbo You Treat Nicely, Right?

[jils-things]

happy mothers day to my first and best momma concept ever designed 💚💚

[sera8273]

“Eurylochus ÑØ!”

Odysseus, If one were to describe him, was a fucking madman, a trickster, a genius, a captain, a damn lunatic. A caring soul, a father, a king, a warrior, a champion of Athena. The nemesis of Poseidon. The grandson of Hermes.

He was described many, many things. And yet…

Being a furious, hothead, dictator was never one.

Well… More like he never had the chance to be one.

“You doomed us….”

Being Athena’s warrior meant that you couldn’t let emotions get in the way. He did once. And it cost him everything And the results weren’t pretty

“You doomed us âļł Éũřŷłøçħūš!”

When fighting in a war, emotions clouded your judgement. They mess with your thoughts and thinking process, something that he had allowed a bit too many times.

“…..Captain?…..”

And when presented with the opportunity for actually letting out his anger, he just couldn’t do it.

“We need to get away from this island now!”

He didn’t get angry when his crew opened the windbag even though he practically saw home. He was too tired to do so.

“Grab an oar with all the strength your arms allow!”

He didn’t get angry when he saw the many many obstacles blocking his way back. He was getting tired.

“These cows were immortal, they were the Sun God’s friend!”

He didn’t even get angry when Eurylochus mutinied against him.

He was just…

So…

Țıřèď…

“And now that we’ve pissed him off?”

And yet….

“ŴĦØ ĎÖ ŸǑŲ ŤĦİŃĶ ĦÈ‘ĻŁ ŚÉŅÐ!?”

When Eurylochus sliced open that cows neck…

“Full speed ahead….” “Full speed ahead….”

The cows which were immortal.

“Faster!!”

The cows that were the Sun God’s Friend

“Full speed ahead….”

Well…

“Faster!!”

He just…

“Full speed ahead….”

Felt all of that pent up anger….

“We’re too late…”

Get suddenly released.

And…

It.

Felt.

So.

Śæțışfŷìňğ….….

[whentherewerebicycles]

it is a really gorgeous morning out—crisp and sunny and totally clear—and that feels weird when everything online is so, so dark. but also I am weirdly grateful for the beautiful day and for my baby, who is as usual delighted to be alive and is currently in his crib having an animated little conversation with himself and trying to grab his toes. I think what was hardest about those first four years, especially the first couple years, was swimming every day in the horrible toxic sludge of darkness and anger and betrayal and despair. I can’t go back there. I can’t live in that perpetually heightened state of constant doomscrolling and emotional spiraling. I don’t want or plan to disconnect/disengage but I know I will have to find ways to find balance. bad things are going to happen. people whose hearts are rotten through with hate will exult publicly and shamelessly in the suffering they cause. my baby will grow up in a world that feels darker and more uncertain than the one I grew up in. but I just can’t do the thing where I wake up every single morning and let the full grief and horror of it flood my body. I am sure this means that I have a weak character or I am avoiding the reckoning or I am so insulated by privilege I can afford to turn the noise off for a bit. that is what it is. but I just gotta like. I gotta figure out how to still feel happy that it’s a beautiful day out and my baby is chatting joyfully to himself about how nice it is to be a warm cozy little baby in a warm cozy little bed.