#i wanted to compile these somewhere

[thegirlinthedirtyshirtmp3]

[somegrumpynerd]

Assorted Horror and Killer doodles since there aren't enough of them c:

Killer by Rahafwabas Horror by Sour-apple-studios

[nine-months-older]

ok WHERE is that yoko quote about yes im your angel where she makes a joke about the “you’re my fairy” line. i have a need for it.

[broodwolf221]

okay. aforementioned meta time.

aka: solas drew the veil and plunged the world into chaos... but my best guess is, he had to.

ft.: if he was wrong to do so (which i don't think he was), then the inquisitor is just as wrong during in hushed whispers

solas' goals were pretty straightforward: he wanted to liberate the enslaved elvhen. to do that, he had to stop the evanuris, who were, without a doubt, the world's most powerful mages.

and others have posited theories about more going on, theories i tend to agree with, at least in terms of broad strokes. specifically i believe there's a connection btwn the evanuris and the blight and that, unchecked, they truly would have destroyed the world.

in which case, he gets an additional goal: save the literal world.

i also tend to agree with the idea that red lyrium has something to do with the blight. so moving forward with these two theories...

things blight/red lyrium can affect (in game canon):

stone

animals (including moles and worms via ambient dialogue in suledin keep)

humans

elves

dwarves

qunari

dragons

so it's reasonably safe to say that not only does the blight impact people, but it impacts the planet/nature as well. so if he took action to stop the blight, then by doing so he sacrificed arlathan to save the entire rest of the world. and the extreme measure he took here was likely necessary because of the strength of the evanuris - one man, one mage, however skilled, could not effectively fight them all. as a direct confrontation he would have lost. but there's still a heavy implication that he warred with them (or perhaps for them - either way, he was a soldier) for some time, that he "spent lives," which to me implies that he was something of a general waging a war against the evanuris, at least at one point. so it's safe to say that he actually tried to go head to head with them - and he couldn't. not even with an army.

i have seen his actions within the timeline of dai contrasted with the inquisitor's actions during the in hushed whispers timeline, and i think that's a very valid comparison to make: he woke to a world that was unrecognizable to him, corrupted by his actions, but also saved by his actions! but he wants to bring what was good about the world back. as inky in that timeline, we are willing to destroy everyone in order to "reset" the world and have another chance to take down corypheus.

in game, the world doesn't seem too bad to us. sure, it has its issues, but it's still a functional world, right? the people inhabiting it, most of them want to continue to live the rest of their lives, right? i don't think we can say the same isn't true of the future timeline we saw. there was absolutely deep corruption and danger, and the inquisitor's companions seek a reset, but what of those outside southern thedas? we never know, we never see their lives. what if others were gearing up to attack - what if they'd been able to succeed? instead we determine that this future is so awful, so intolerable, through our limited, narrow point of view of it, that it should be erased, should be completely unmade.

and in-game, this reads as ethical! but it's also analogous to what solas is doing and to what he did in arlathan. i don't think that paralleling is unintentional, either: what we see in that future is very much what he sees in the present, and we're both right, these times are "corrupted," are "broken," are "different" and are "wrong." but as inky it's presented as an inevitability - of course we would seek to restore, to reset, and nevermind all that we'd be destroying in the doing. leliana says this explicitly to dorian, that for him this is a nightmare he hopes will never come to pass, but the rest of them lived it, it was real.

to solas, the world is half of what it should be. everyone is walking around not knowing how much they are missing, unable to recognize the deep loss of magic for what it is. it's a gutted world, and that it's all these people have ever known... well, does that make it right to keep it as-is? because if so, how did the inquisitor have the right to reset the world in that timeline?

(little note: i have not engaged with any media outside of the main game canon and certain dlcs. however, i also do not personally hold that canon outside the games/major dlcs is absolute canon and should be 100% trusted. this is just how i engage with this franchise. so if smth i said here is disproved by non-game canon, personally that doesn't rly matter to me uwu;; to each their own tho!)

[dinoburger]

[crimsoneclipse]

Sleep Token Lyrics + 'Blood' (part 1)

[deadpoets]

☆ playlist explanation in the tags (if you're curious)

[dxnse-macabre]

categorization of astarion's pet names (spoilers for... well... the pet names he calls you HAH)

ACQUAINTANCE

my friend (variations include: my dagger happy friend, my evil bloodthirsty friend)

you (in a sentence: hello, you.)

FRIEND

my favorite traveling companion

my dear

sweetie

you sweetheart

PLATONIC / LEANING TOWARDS ROMANCE / FLING (INCLUDING SEXUAL NAMES)

darling

my dear

lover

love

you filthy devil

tasty morsel (in a sentence: you're not the only tasty morsel here)

bad girl/boy

good girl/boy

you little scoundrel, you

my little treat

RELATIONSHIP (NOT ASCENDED)

my sweet

beautiful (in a sentence: yes, beautiful?)

RELATIONSHIP (ASCENDED)

my treasure

my consort

my right hand

[tirelessgopher]

thts all u get, i don't want 2 drain my poor q of shirtless dudes. </3

[h-worksrambles]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is somehow simultaneously both the game I’m most excited for next year and yet I also can’t remember the last time I was so anxious for a new release.

For context. I love Final Fantasy VII. It’s my second favourite game in the series. I played it in 2019 with no nostalgia and was stunned at how well it holds up. Its story is a compelling ride that’s still painfully relevant to this day. The characters are loveable and multi fascinated. The combat is simple while having enough nuance to sink your teeth into and the world is a joy to explore. It’s an iconic game but one that earns every bit of its reputation.

You know what I also loved? Final Fantasy VII Remake. It brought the world and characters I adored to life in a new way that captivated me all over again. It has some of my favourite combat in the series, and it visually captured the original better than I could have hoped. Even the controversial ending pivot was something I could respect for what it was saying on a meta level about the need for VII to evolve in order to keep discussion of it alive. But that new direction demands that what comes after has to be a worthy complement to what VII originally did. And now that Rebirth’s getting closer, we’re soon gonna get our answer about that.

And that’s the thing. On many counts, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth looks amazing. The pivot to an open world looks promising (I know that the devs citing Horizon as a source has got some folks worried it’s gonna go full Ubisoft in terms of open design but I’n cautiously optimistic that the exploration will be good). Every change to the combat in terms of new abilities, mechanics and party members feel smartly chosen to make for a smoother experience. Every scene they’ve shown in trailers promises to lovingly re imagine and expand so many phenomenal parts of the original. Red XIII’s self reflection at Cosmo Canyon, Barret’s symbolically facing his darkest impulses through Dyne at Corel. The entire Nibelheim incident with a PLAYABLE Sephiroth, letting us experience the terrifying gap in power between him and Cloud through the gameplay? I really couldn’t ask for more.

But that’s not all there is to this is there? Following on from Remake’s ending we now have an alternate timeline with Zack Fair, having survived the events of his tragic death, looking for Aerith. And on some levels, this could actually be really cool. The trailers imply that Biggs apparent survival also only happened in this other timeline. Our Biggs, Wedge and Jessie (that Remake did such a good job expanding and making us cry over) are still gone. And this other Biggs has been hardened by those experiences. That’s interesting and allows him to develop without undoing that fantastic death scene that Remake gave him. There is promising stuff here. It promises to be a legitimately NEW vision to complement the original without undermining its themes (and I want you to keep that in mind for what I say next).

And yet there is a troubling vision looming in the back of my head. And that vision is The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.

I do not like the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. I think it’s drab, baffling, incoherent mess that fundamentally does not understand the source material. And that’s odd because it’s made by many of the same people who made VII so legendary. There’s a tendency for uninformed, uncharitable takes to paint Tetsuya Nomura as a hack who went from character designer to creative lead and promptly butchered VII according to his whims the second Hironobu Sakaguchi stepped back. But all it takes is a cursory glance at the dev history to see that’s not the case. Many of the most applauded aspects of VII are things Nomura either suggested or helped with. Say what you will about Kingdom Hearts or the shudders …The Third Birthday. But Nomura does have a strong eye for game direction and ludonarrative. Many of the creatives on the Compilation have done sterling work elsewhere…

Which makes it all the more baffling that it’s so terrible.

Advent Children is an aimless collection of admittedly cool action scenes that also entirely misunderstands what VII did so well thematically. An attempt is made to continue its themes of grief and the cycle of life by effectively giving Cloud PTSD. But the execution is so one note and heavy handed that it only comes off as forced, and fails to do a character as nuanced as Cloud any justice. It doesn’t feel like a meaningful expansion of his character. It feels like it’s regressing him so he can learn the same lesson again. Which would be easier to stomach if it was done in the service of a realistic portrayal of depression, but it’s really not. When your depiction of these issues is so flat and cartoonishly one dimensional, maybe you just don’t have as much to say about grief and trauma as you think you do. Sure, the old 2000s critique that AC is bad because it’s ‘emo’ is surface level and bad faith. But that doesn’t make the movie any less shallow or badly written.

Crisis Core does admittedly do a wonderful job expanding on the character of Zack Fair to make for one of the series most loveable protagonists. But it’s also a 101 in bad prequel writing. A story dedicated to over explaining and cheapening the world and characters of the original. All in a bid to make room for a string of uninteresting, shallow new characters that are placed on an absurdly high level of importance in the lore at the cost of everyone else (please tell me whose idea it was to rob Sephiroth of all agency in his own downfall by having him be manipulated by Gackt’s OC?). All capped off with a faux intellectual, badly translated script that, for all its words, has so little to say compared to the original.

And the less said about Dirge of Cerberus or On the Way to a Smile, the better.

I’m worried that this is making me sound like some bitter purist. I don’t think Nomura or Nojima ‘ruined FFVII’ much as people love to parrot that. But I do think when these continuations chiefly exist because executives are breathing down their necks to milk the giant cow, even good creatives are going to make lesser art. And even then there are signs of ambition in the spin offs. But they’re tainted by a lack of restraint, and often compromise what worked about the original. Sometimes I could see what they were going for, but that didn’t make VII’s world and characters feel any less bastardised. Which is why I want to stress how much I loved Remake. It did have that tight execution and understanding of the original and its characters that the spin offs lacked. Hell I was even excited for the new potential of its ending.

But now a few years on, I have to wonder. How much of it is actually going to be ‘new’? And how much is just going to be dredging up the series’ old mistakes? The DLC for VII rounded off by reintroducing Nero, an antagonist from the much maligned Dirge of Cerberus, making him a canonical part of Yuffie’s story. 2022 saw the release of a remaster of Crisis Core shortly before marketing for Rebirth showed off Zack’s parallel story throughout the game. It is thus heavily implied that you should play Crisis Core Reunion, because this stuff is going to matter to Rebirth. And it was recently announced that Advent Children Complete is returning to Japanese theatres for the first time in years. The movie that so fundamentally damaged the perception of what FFVII is, is not so subtly being presented as being very important to whatever comes next. And that’s to say nothing of how Sephiroth’s portrayal in the Remake so far matches up scarily well with the novels’ revelations that he and Aerith are actually still alive in the Lifestream and can technically come back whenever they want (a retcon that actively makes my blood boil for how little it understands ANYTHING about VII for the sake of fanservice).

I mean…is this it? Is this all the ‘new story’ we have to look forward to? The same mystery box sequel baiting that dogs the later Kingdom Hearts games, and a bunch of heavy handed fanservice for all the worst excesses of the Compilation? Honestly, Remake was actually really good about how it used the Compilation. Carefully and selectively and threading in minor characters, worldbuilding details and homages so they fit more organically into VII’s world. It really felt like Square Enix had done through a wildly experimental phase, learned what worked and what didn’t, and were now exercising an ambitious but controlled hand. But maybe we’re sliding right back into that excess and schlock.

Back when Remake came out, I remember seeing many comparisons to the Rebuild of Evangelion movies. But now I’m wondering. What if this isn’t a deeply personal meta-textual commentary on how the creators’ relationship with their art has changed? What if it’s just a multiverse punch up filled with fanservice for a bunch of mediocre spin offs from the 2000s that people are apparently nostalgic for? Is Zack actually back because the writers think he would meaningfully enhance the story? Or is he back because they know how popular Zack is and know fans would eat up a potential reunion between him, Cloud and Aerith, no matter how little sense it makes?

But that’s also where I can breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief. Because a lot of my worries are still just ‘what ifs’. At the end of the day, what we have so far is a great remake of a classic, which has a highly promising sequel on the way. And I’m excited as hell to play it. And yet I can’t deny the uncertainty makes me uneasy. This trilogy of reimaginings has so much promise and potential. And I hope it doesn’t opt for shock value and fan service to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It’s from many of the same minds who made VII so special, but many of those same minds have proven they can also miss the mark of what they previously got so right. VII is a powerful story of identity, environmentalism, the nature of death and self reflection. It’s a scathing critique of capitalistic greed and our lack of respect for the planet. While also being a hopeful story of love and self betterment, that tells us the people we lose are in some small way still with us, as long as we remain in harmony with the natural world around us. If the Remake isn’t going to fully recreate that story for a new audience, then I hope at least that it’s got something equally worthwhile to say that can stand alongside it. But only time will tell.

[everwisp]

nyehehehe

[lumafly]

Want to print a copy of the draft to keep and treasure forever but I think I might run dry an entire ink cartridge and possibly explode the printer burn my house down subsequently lose all progress on the book if I set the thing up to print 750 pages

[quicksweetdreamer]

(Non-exhaustive) List of behaviors I did as a kid/am still doing as an adult/started doing as an adult that I’m starting to realize was me stimming all along :

Rubbing my blanky on my lips when I was a kid (and also as an adult to be honest)

Sucking my thumb as a kid (did it for a really fricking long time)

Reorganizing my things every once in a while for no particular reason (ex. My pokemon cards)

Making sounds with my mouth while I work (ex. Pop-pop-pop, purring, groaning, etc.)

Singing/humming

Turning a ring on my finger (once I discovered this one I did it so much that I broke the ring after a few months; now I have a spinner ring that I wear everyday and I love it)

Rocking on a rocking chair

Playing with a deck of cards

Rubbing my fingers against the inside of my other hand’s palm (drove my mom crazy)

Tearing off the skin of my navel (definitely one of my weirdest one… and not a good one either cause it hurts and scars)

Massages and having my hair played with (absolutely obssessed with it; always was always will be)

Lounging in my bean bag as a kid and playing with the baseboard heating with my feet while watching tv

Turning left and right indefinitely on any chair that can turn

Tearing off the skin of my lips

Picking at any scab I have on my body (leave it ALONE please I am begging you!)

Drumming my fingers on any surface

Cracking my knuckles/wrists/toes repeatedly

Rocking (at different moments but I often do what I call "the food dance" when I eat food I like)

Chewing gum

Drawing in class to listen better (I tried to not do it once to see if it was just placebo… and lost like 15 minutes of my lecture because I was concentrating on concentrating and didn’t hear anything)

Standing in front of my lava lamp for 15 minutes almost every day when I first got it

Mic scratching ASMR (it feels like someone is scratching my head)

Listening to the same song on repeat for a very long time

My weighted blanket (sleeps with it every night and brings it on the sofa to help on a bad day. I also discovered that my really big and heavy leather jacket has a similar effect)

Playing with a stress ball

That’s all I can think of right now but I’m sure there’s more.

All my life these behaviors have been called "nervous habits" and were associated with stress and anxiety by my relatives. And I realize that some of them come out more when I’m stressed but they aren’t just symptoms of stress, they help to manage it. Also some of them are just always soothing or even just happy stims!

I guess I never thought of them as stims until recently because they aren’t the most common stimming behaviors that we hear about.

[jwowwsboobs]

[cryptidsdad]

wAIT NO !! what if robert, when he laughs really hard, leans into the person closest to him like danny does with arin?

[mintjeru]

just a little update!! bc i feel like it