#i know about whispers

[jayfeathersstick]

Unpopular opinion

First burn is better than burn

[anonbinaryweirdo]

you've published the letters she wrote you

you told the WHOLE WORLD how you brought this girl into OUR bed. and in clearing YOUR name you have ruined our lives

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[minxinq]

blazamy band/idol au lalala

[gongyussy]

“if you could pick up another language, what would it be?”

“i’d go russian. i’d love to know what geno says or has said over the years… i’d love to know 🥰 i just want to know (giggles) 🥰”

[divineandmajesticinone]

THE HEART KILLERS (2024) I EP. 3 "I want you. Nothing more than that."

[alexturntable]

"Hello, maaate!" - Mexican GP Full Access

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[dol--blathanna]

I have mixed feelings about Zerxus in season 3 of TLOVM, but I’ve gotta say hearing him give a Totally Unbiased Account of EXU: Calamity with Definitely No Omissions Whatsoever was kind of funny. Like “ooh I thought I could count on my friends….they condemned our civilisation….” Ok Zerxus. Buddy. Last time I checked, Nydas was actually the only one trying to stop Laerryn from blighting the tree. You sat there like a chump and did not help whatsoever. And uh. “They condemned our civilisation with their hubris” ummm pal I think you’re missing an important detail there. Like yes the point of EXU: Calamity is that everyone played a role in the disaster, everyone was responsible in some ways for that ship crashing into the iceberg, but uh. Zerxus I think some people were maybe a little more responsible than others. Like, for example, the certain someone who pulled the Lord of the Hells into Exandria. I think that individual’s hubris is maaaaaybe a little bit more important than some of the other hubris on the table here.

And like, this isn’t me bashing the writing, I think it is in-character for TLOVM!Zerxus to say this, since he’s been a jaded miserable devil for a thousand years. But omg when he had the CHEEK to be like “in the chaos I found myself face-to-face with the Lord of Torment himself” like EXCUSE ME??? Buddy you just happened to “find yourself” face-to-face with Asmodeus huh??? Just coincidentally, on accident??? You were just taking a stroll around Avalir and he ran into you without warning??

Zerxus. Please. Be serious for a moment. Would you like to explain to Pike the exact circumstances of HOW you found yourself face-to-face with Asmodeus, hmmmmm? A certain “pulling Asmodeus through the tree and unleashing him upon the world” situation?

Like, I know it was meant to be a serious moment with lots of Calamity-related hype but like, it was really giving “Girl what were YOU doing at the devil’s sacrament” energy. In the most literal way possible

[kiyomitakada]

in which L's successors engage in riveting debate (post source, B sprite source)

[bumblydumbly]

i think that if kabru saw that “laios meeting falin for the first time” strip he’d be sobbing uncontrollably

[lightgamble]

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN | 1.09

So... you talk to Frank a lot?

[abbybubbls]

So I know very little about the IDW Sonic comics (and don't really plan on reading them) but have seen most of the characters being thrown around long enough where I have to pretend like I know about them when I know close to nothing about each of them... So I took em all and summarized my assumptions about them along with what I actually know, just because I thought it'd be fun! I can't wait to be wrong.

[treviso-nights]

the significance of rook as a protagonist who is 'unable to be evil' is because the inquisitor can be. and hawke. and the warden, for that matter. in dai there are companion disapproval cutscenes for a reason: you have either fucked up so badly or killed so many people that they literally stage an intervention for you. rook, by contrast, is a tremendously appropriate protagonist for veilguard—not just because they’re handpicked by varric but because they are good. like their goodness is the point. it is the story.

and i get why some players would be upset by that and feel constrained by the moral paradigm the narrative inherently embodies. players like options. however, rook's goodness (in whatever capacity) does not necessitate that they're a bad/flat protagonist considering they have unique backstories which tells us about the quality and the context of that goodness. in my opinion, it's a natural byproduct of the overarching story of the dragon age games: yet another person thrust into a role and political position they did not ask for but must pursue for the greater purpose of all.

the thing about veilguard though is that no possible protagonist could be as bad or as evil as the evanuris (and by extension, the chaos ripping the veil down would do at this point in time), so to play as an evil!rook feels counterintuitive to the point of the game regardless.

if we WERE to get the option to play an evil!rook who, for example, supports the evanuris and blights the world alongside them, it just means there's no more world to play in. dragon age is over.

furthermore, there's no option to help solas bring the veil down because it is an evil option. it's not a dev mistake that rook doesn't get the opportunity to side with our favorite war criminal. to most thedosians, the end of the veil means the end of their life. solas is one of the most unreliable narrators in the series, so the idea that he has harm reduction measures in place is unmeasurable because he is a proven trickster. those who'd take the chance anyway would still be considered evil by all who are affected in the wake of it.

—and i agree that it would be fun! but it's not veilguard's story because the stakes are higher than they have ever been in previous games, and thedas needs someone else to save it once again.

[sunlit-mess]

I can only take so much, but lately, they have replaced my reflection. And realize I'm just as bad as them.

[trappedinafantasy37]

"Minthara is so abusive to the player" *INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE*

Minthara would literally go to fucking hell for the opportunity to personally beat the absolute shit out of the person who actually did abuse you. She will throw hands with gods and devils just to avenge you.

And you will not be able to convince her not to.