#i could literally talk about all the characters forever

[howlsofbloodhounds]

The way people are complaining that jinx isn’t the same character this season because she’s “sane” (aka not actively having an episode of psychosis, even though she literally did experience a hallucination when seeing vi with the enforcers), is strange.

also I find it strange that people talk about jinx and powder as if they’re separate people. they aren’t. jinx is powder, grown up and traumatized and mentally ill. like i completely understand that jinx likely struggles to realize this, because extremes are often the stable of bpd and she shows all the signs, and well—a personality disorder is a personality disorder.

but no jinx did not kill powder and taint her memory. powder is not gone. jinx can not exist without powder, and vice versa—because they are eachother. that’s what vi needs to realize and accept as well—her sister is not gone.

her sister just grew up and changed and is traumatized and mentally ill. it’s impossible for jinx to kill powder, or for powder to “come back,” the exact same she was. vi could never have powder back because the powder vi remembers was a scared, helpless little girl who depended on her for almost everything. powder was never going to remain that way forever—not if she wanted to survive.

powder has grown up and changed without her. that was always going to happen, it happens to everyone. if nothing happened as it did, their family was still alive, vi was never thrown in jail and powder never taken in by silco; powder still would’ve changed, somehow, someway. She’d likely still just be going by powder rather than jinx.

[kurthummeldeservesbetter]

literally every character in arcane is so compelling because Ambessa is clearly the most manipulative and power-hungry characters (willing to put her daughter in danger to get power) but she also fucks twinks on the regular and has the actual skills and intelligence to back up her claims. shes evil but damn shes hot and interesting. (also her music video slaps). shes committed war crimes but also walks around naked and has a body like a marble statue.

and like. Sevika, who was at first just someone who switched sides in S1A1 for power/control, now is helping and defending the girl who cant seem to die/literally is the reason she doesnt have both her arms. she gambles and is a regular at a sex club. shes also very level-headed, smart, and only wants whats best for zaun even if it means war.

not to mention Mel, who is introduced as this like manipulative and "only in it for the power" councilwoman but is very intelligent, is wary of war because she knows what it does to people, wants peace, is willing to stand for her morals even when others are against her, and knows there are greater evils out there and is willing to do whatever she can to make sure they dont happen. shes also gorgeous. holy shit.

[cerealmonster15]

i guess ive always loved media where characters are bitches to each other for No Reason other than It's Funny........... im watching a lot of retrospective videos of thomas the tank engine, and also animal crossing. and it's like that paired to my fixation on twst right now........ im sensing there has been a pattern here all along .....

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[bitchthefuck1]

The fact that Jesper is like. a mid-tier fabrikator at best is actually so important to me.

So much of this story centers around the fact that these people are not chosen ones, that they have no sacred destiny or otherworldly power, but that they're children doing the best they can in a system that doesn't care about them, and all they have are their wits and each other. Jesper isn't an especially gifted grisha, and he has no formal training, but he takes that teaspoon of unremarkable talent and applies it to a skill he spent years perfecting to make something even greater and wholly his own. He isn't special because he was born that way, he's special because he made himself special.

[murdleandmarot]

hello!! for that ask game, 3 and 17? :D

hi hello!!!! I already answered 17, so I’ll just talk about a couple of my favorite movies :)))

1. The Secret of Moonacre (2009)

Jesus Christ I love this movie. It’s based on a book that is bad, but it was made into a movie that is my favorite thing in the world, me and my sister watch it ALL the time.

There’s just so much to love about it. It’s a fantastical movie that I don’t want to spoil, but it’s got magic, it’s got 2008 CGI, it’s got fairytale worlds, it’s got so many queer undertones that it’s insane, it’s got historically inaccurate but stunning costumes, sets and scenery to DIE for, some of my favorite scenes in movie history just for the whimsy of it all, and Tim Curry.

The main character Maria is LITERALLY just me, and very Jemima coded, and you’ll see why if you watch the movie, I cannot recommend it enough. Someday I should do fanart

And it’s got this gayass mcr teenage guyfailure silly boy with eyeliner who my sister clocked as gay the MINUTE he walked on screen.

(Why do people keep doing that to me. First with this, then my friend with Misto (HOW DID HE DO THAT??? IT WAS THE FIRST LINE!!!))

2. Clue (1985) and Glass Onion (2022)

I LOVE detective and crime movies that are focused on shenanigans, aesthetics, and actually SOLVING the crimes. So much of true crime to me is just ‘and then the violent and misogyny person ate 8 children 😔’ like okay. Thank you.

I actually can’t stand it and that’s why I like murder mysteries more than thrillers.

Clue is hysterical and has shaped my humor to an insane degree, my dad and I quote it each other all of the time. The murder mystery element is incomprehensible but the shenanigans are so good that you don’t even notice the entire movie is nonsense until the end. 10/10 no notes.

Glass Onion is a masterpiece. Eat the rich <3. Also they should keep making Knives Out movies forever.

3. Wait Till Helen Comes (2016) and Bluebeard (2009)

OBSCURE INDIE FILM GIRLIES UNTIE!!! I’m a huge fan of movies that are spooky, but not horror, and these movies delivers on both accounts, at least for me. Also they’re free on YouTube :))) double win!!!!

WTHC was one of my FAVORITE books as a kid, (alongside like. Dork diaries and Frozen Charlotte), so when I saw it was a movie on YouTube I lost my mind. Watched it in the middle of the night at my great-aunts house while writing horror fanfiction. Truly the teenage dream.

It’s SO crazy to me, atmospheric, makes almost no sense, but is still one of my favorites.

Bluebeard is Bluebeard :)) so so good, in French, watched it for the first time about two weeks ago? And my computer started screaming at me. Like actual screams. Super creepy. I love the acting, I love the ambiguous ending that is SUPER dark and abstract. What was going on there. I love it.

[lesbiangiratina]

Not very fond of people like waving off testament’s gender as just a Gear Thing but well at least it becomes funny when people apply it to gears as a whole. Like yeah i can agree with that. It has nothing to do with being a gear tho theyre all just transgender

[afterthefeast]

re lrb in any case to me astarion’s arc is less about regaining agency than becoming aware that he already has it and has to act like that. there's a distinction between agency as a material fact, ie having the ability in theory to make your own decisions and act on your desires, and the awareness of having that agency.

i'm no psychologist, but in my experience one of the most helpful steps in recovering from mental illness has been the awareness of my own agency ─ yes, sometimes I feel as though my life is completely run by my intrusive thoughts, but invariably getting out of that place has involved a recognition that ultimately, I am the one in control of my thoughts and I have the agency to work through them. that doesn't mean that it isn't hard, or time-consuming, and sometimes I don't succeed in the way I'd like, but nonetheless the ability to at least try is and always has been in my power.

in baldur's gate 3, your companions appear with varying degrees of agency (aside, obviously, from the tadpole they all share). they range from gale, whose current situation physically and magically restricts him but who at that moment in time doesn't have many other immediate restrictions on his day-to-day actions, to wyll, whose every move is watched by his abusive warlck patron.

nonetheless, your companions benefit from being shown that they not only could have agency at some point in the future, if they break their pact/shar's curse/free cazador/free orpheus/fix the infernal engine/get the crown of karsus, but they have agency now and must therefore use it responsibly. wyll is already to some degree aware of this, i think, even if it's only because he is so morally forthright ─ he's one of your companions who remains actively trapped by their abuser during the game, yet he refuses to kill karlach because he knows that would be wrong. even within his severely limited circumstances, he makes a choice, he demonstrates agency. in the shadowfell, shadowheart ─ a cult victim subjected to extreme psychological and religious abuse ─ has the choice whether or not to kill aylin, and can make it either way.

astarion, at the point at which you meet him, has just been given freedom for the first time in, essentially, his life. it's no surprise that he doesn't know what to do with thise newfound agency, and doesn't recognise it for what it is, given that he literally cannot remember ever having control over his own life. that's deeply tragic, but it doesn't erase the fact that he has control over the things he does during the game. those actions (for example, given i am still talking about that last rb, talking about the children he kidnapped and gave to cazador as though they were nothing), are things he has agency over and is responsible for. nonetheless, he acts as though he does not, lurching from one attempt to gain power to another (killing the druids to suggesting you use whatever's in moonrise to your advantage), because his own self-perception as someone completely powerless is so overwhelming. he must accrue power because that is the only way he can make sure he's safe and can never be hurt again. it's just that that self-perception is not completely accurate, he does have agency; if he makes choices that result in moral wrongs, those moral wrongs are his to bear.

i'm not getting at astarion here, I don't mean to imply that he's at fault for this attitude. it is, obviously, the natural response to 200 years of enslavement and abuse. kind of the whole point of the game, of all of your companions' quests, is that if people are hurt and abused often they will feel as though their only avenue towards power is to do the same to others. but being severely traumatised doesn't make his behaviour okay; he doesn't get a free pass to do whatever he wants because of cazador. you can like him, literally who am i to say otherwise (i like him too!), but don't just excuse everything he does or get rid of the most interesting parts of his character because you're unwilling to grapple with the fact that as it stands in the game, he's morally incredibly complex.

i think there's a tendency to assume that a character either must or must not have agency, and to present it as a binary, because for some reason it's used as a shorthand for moral culpability, when in reality the relationship between agency and culpability is significantly more complicated. i haven't really been getting into coerced choices here because that's a whole other kettle of fish (though i will give the necessary disclaimer that my stance on this is quite clearly influenced by the fact that deep down i'm a bit of a virtue ethicist). nonetheless, while this is my pop philosophy take and i'm not trying to impose this overall moral framework on people, i think it's pretty reasonable to say that lack of agency does not mean that what you did was not wrong.

implying that astarion is at fault here would be indicative of the very attitude I am trying to oppose ─ the idea that people either have agency or don't, and if they do bad things with agency they are evil, but if they don't have agency they are victims. astarion is both ─ he is the victim of horrendous, harrowing trauma and yet he has done bad things and in fact visited that same trauma upon other people. there's no escaping this, and i think it would be bad for astarion to just brush everything he did for cazador under the rug because he did it for cazador. he still did those things ─ he might not be culpable, i do not think he can be considered as such, but there's no way you go through all of that and don't feel guilty for it.

notably, if shadowheart kills aylin and wyll kills karlach (if he can? i actually don't even know if he can do that, but hypothetically), they are still responsible for that action and it was still morally wrong. they have to deal with that: part of dealing with it can be to recognise the coercion they were subject to, but the fact that they lacked agency doesn't just erase the wrong or mean it was never wrong in the first place. likewise, astarion becoming the ascended vampire is still obviously a terrible thing to happen for him and everyone else, and is in no way justified just because it might finally give him the sense of safety and control he craves. the whole point of that moment is that even when he is being retraumatised, when he has returned to the place and person that hurt him, astarion has the capacity to choose, and to choose the right thing. acting as though his trauma means he has absolutely no agency whatsoever and so never has to address the fact that he can, at various points, greatly fuck up, just removes one of the biggest themes of his whole character.

tldr: astarion has agency, one of his greatest challenges is realising that he does and that he must use it responsibly, and acting as though that is not the case does a disservice to his character and the story it is trying to tell. also it is deeply deeply boring. the end.

[maxanor]

st*rek fans wanna be destiel so bad. but you’ll never be as iconic as them.

[sableprince]

i really want to sit down and make a proper Real lore doc for these goobers and not just the paragraphs of shtuff from whatever-ago, but like....... (buries myself underneath the dirt) lazy!!!!!!!

[anthromimicry]

sorry, halsey — hopeless fountain kingdom.

[pyrovilian]

IS he hallucinating again!!??!!!/!/!: I CANNOT deal !??!;!!:

update: HE WAS NOT HOUSE CUDDY FINALLY REAL WERE POPPING THE BIGGEST BOTTLES TONIGHT

[recareels]

What do the genshin men (ajax, thoma and ayato and alhaitham) feel towards the reader? Do they all think they are in love?? Somehow I cant picture ayato in love, it feels more like how much he likes the power he holds over both thoma and reader. Ajax feels like a puppy overflowing with love and lust, obsession and passion...and somehow alhaitham seems like the most normal one hahahaa what do you think??

omg anon IN LOVE with this question!!!!!! beware, i rambled a LOT beneath the cut!! <3

so for the most part, i agree with you! i do think ayato is capable of being in love but it definitely isn’t healthy or ‘real’ love and it absolutely comes from a place of power, control, and ownership. i was talking to my best friend about this not too long ago and was saying that irl i don’t think ayato and i would get along because to me, he would want a precious, obedient, submissive little thing that’s going to almost always be good for him and dote on him, that absolutely lives to please him and do exactly as he says because they find their primary worth and validation in being good for him—he is such a busy man with so much resting on his shoulders that the last thing he wants to come home to is a serious brat (me). i, on the other hand, would act out because he’s been gone *all day* and i want attention, and i just don’t think he would want to deal with that at all. i think he can handle a very slight brattiness, just to keep things fun and interesting, but anything more serious than that and he’s throwing u out.

(and then with thoma, i see him as a service dom/switch. he aims to please, and he enjoys pleasing his baby (and ayato). he likes to be told what to do and how to do it, and he finds a lot of validation in serving others/caring for others).

ajax my beloved!!!!!!!! YES YES YES one hundred million percent yes anon!! like i said, i personally feel like he has these borderline yandere tendencies. he’s possessive, protective, obsessive, and extremely clingy. but his love is fierce and real and absolutely smothering. when he loves, he loves HARD, he loves forever. he’s extremely committed to you and he is willing to fall on his sword for you in an instant. BUT he expects you to feel the same way. he expects you to love him back just as fiercely and he expects you to submit to him completely and wholly. he sees you as his most prized possession, and he fully intends to treat you like the royalty you are (whether you like it or not). he believes it’s his job to protect and support you and he takes this incredibly seriously.

alhaitham i could write you an entire paper on to be honest!!!! he’s really interesting. i think that it’s difficult to genuinely catch his attention but when he does fall in love with you, you have him for life. i agree that his love would be the most healthy/normal out of the four. i think he enjoys taking care of (and being smarter than and teaching) you to some extent; he likes that power and control, and i hc him to genuinely enjoy teaching others as well, one of those types that just loves to whip out their impressive breadth of knowledge—a vast collection of carefully curated facts and pieces of information—and show off. so he would enjoy teaching you new things and/or about topics you are not knowledgeable on, relishing in the way your eyes sparkle at how intelligent he is, secretly basking in the praise and the adoration—the only hints he likes it at all being the slight quirking up at the corners of his lips and the way his gaze softens and shimmers, the way his voice is suddenly dusted with icing sugar; tender, sweet—and he would enjoy learning new things from you, too!

with that being said, he is not here to lead you (like ayato would), he is here to guide you, to journey with you, and be just a teensy bit smarter, stronger, wiser, and better than you (leading requires way too much responsibility and, as we all know, the man is not about that. he doesn’t ever want to be bogged down with obligations and duties in that sense! they get in the way of his own endless pursuits of knowledge, and hinder his spontaneity). he isn’t looking for a pet to own, he’s looking for a genuine partner. this is why i think he’d be such a great daddy dom!!! he genuinely wants the best for you and genuinely wants you to keep improving yourself, while also being able to enjoy being the superior, the one in charge, the one calling the shots.

[anpiels]

[dangoulains-devotion]

every time I have to wade through inane ship wars where people are willfully ignorant to the depth and facets of cloud strife's character, circumstance, and story just so I can find some cool screenshots or fanart my 'cloud is ace' agenda simply grows more potent out of spite

[captain-kraken]

for some self-ship because you deserve love! If you don't have one do some book ships!

Thanks for the ask!

Who would end a heated argument by defending their actions with ‘because I love you!’ ?

Does shipping myself with one of my own characters count? XD Because there's one OC (Wolfie) from The Unnatural that I adore <3

Honestly, it could be either of us. We're both the type to bottle up our emotions until they spill out, especially when it comes to love, because neither of us feel like we deserve it so we don't go for it no matter how much we might want the other person.

Emotions always come out eventually though, no matter how hard we try to keep it in, and arguments always make me feel vulnerable so stuff just slips out without me meaning to.