#if ur seeing this ur a real one

[lily-alphonse]

What are your favorite fanfic tropes out of curiosity!

WHAT A LOVELY ASK dang the asks are making my day today

Rivals to lovers. RIVALS TO LOVERS (I screech like an insane person) I could also say enemies to lovers but I default to saying 'rivals' because booktok gets angry about the use of 'enemies to lovers' if its not laid out just-so. Idk, that's a whole other story. But I love banter. I love bickering. I love two people intimidated by each other's skill and trying not to show it. I love people who loathe each other finding similarities in the other person and having an Oh No moment.

Comrades in Arms / Any hypermasc activity. Knights. Cowboys. Racecar drivers. Soldiers. Anywhere there is a lot of macho men I am looking for two hot boys to make kiss, sorry not sorry. Extra points for internalized homophobia.

Childhood trauma. I go wild for angst but I wanted to give a specific flavor if we're talking tropes. Everyone has to have a traumatic past I eat that shit up. 'I cant be with you because [traumatic past]' 'I love you despite your [flaws] and [traumatic past]' RRRRAAAAAAAAA

Hurt/Comfort. Bandaging wounds. ESPECIALLY with sexual tension, and the person being cared for hating to appear weak. Or arguing and making up. ESPECIALLY if it ends with an explosive makeout after screaming at each other. GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEE

Do those count as tropes? I hope so. Trope-adjacent maybe. If you squint there are tropes in there. Thank you for the ask, anon!

[hinamie]

alongside someone like you

[ariaste]

Me: [sees everyone talking about how Assad Zaman was "literally" coming up with RPF about himself and Eric Bogosian in an interview]

Me: ah, fandom's doing its little "interpret an innocent comment in Some Kind Of Way" thing again, let's go find the video and do our own critical thinking about what was actually said here--

Assad: What would happen if I said-- [words that cannot be interpreted as anything but RPF fanfic]

Me:

Me: ok fandom gets a pass on this one actually

[decarabias]

forever thinking about royal’s bad ending. my thing with it is that maruki doesn’t necessarily give anyone what they want most, he gives them what’s most appropriate for them to want within a maruki-approved framework. iirc there’s a really interesting text sequence in the game where he just straight up changes someone’s career because they’re not “good” at it, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want. why struggle at all? ever? right?

and so ultimately i don’t think goro akechi’s greatest wish is necessarily ren. i think it’s a wish for sure, but his greatest wish is his own agency. despite any regrets he has and the fact that shido and yaldabaoth treated him like a pawn, he's generally pretty adamant about owning his choices and their consequences. he doesn't want that erased. and instead, you end up with pleasant boy™ if you take maruki’s deal. maybe maruki (incorrectly) thinks sanding off all of akechi’s rough edges will make him easier for ren to love. but the crux of it is really that maruki has to essentially lobotomize him to preserve the illusion of his perfect reality, because their ideologies are so diametrically opposed that akechi would spend every waking moment fighting back.

this isn’t to undermine ren’s importance to akechi btw — he explicitly acknowledges that he wishes they had met earlier, and there are countless moments throughout their confidant that underscore how much it means to him that they mirror each other so well. he absolutely does want more time with ren, just not under these circumstances.

and that’s also what makes ren’s choice on 2/2 doubly devastating. he knows that either way he loses akechi. and if he takes maruki’s deal, he loses him knowing that his last moments with the real akechi involved the two of them being unforgivably out of sync.

[thessaralka]

the most romantic thing about the solas romance is how much love there is for lavellan in the act of breaking up with her.

solas breaks up with lavellan because it is objectively what is best for her. not because it's what he wants. not because his mission is just more important than she is. because he loves her.

it is in lavellan's best interests that she know who she falls in love with and has agency in that decision. solas breaks up with her because he is not entirely truthful about who he is. she can't make an informed choice about being with him without the truth. and because solas isn't ready to tell her the truth, he backs off.

whether we like it or not, fen'harel is part of who solas is, even if solas is part of his genuine character, the face he shows us in DAI is not all of him.

what is so sexy about solas showing his love for her in this way is he sees the clear power imbalance between them (him with all his secrets), and he chooses her well being over his desires, he puts the power back in her hands - by breaking up with her. he says, "it isn't right of me to continue with this when you don't actually know me". only his reveal in trespasser opens the door for her to accept him, or deny him.

ultimately, it is up to lavellan to decide what is in her best interests. does she accept solas, now knowing the truth, or does she say "wow yeah i actually can't live with that" and walk away?

[obsob]

making and weaving and loving! like we have done for millennia!!

[drykoolaid]

One more day….

In advance, thank u Liam Vickers!!! 😖🙏✨

Severe yapping below 👇

Ong he a real one….and is prob never gonna see this tumblr post, or acc, which also means I can talk openly abt how I’m gonna hide in his floorboards and attack on January 8th, 2025 at 2:42 am :3

No but fr

A year ago, Murder drones dragged me out of my HxH phase, filled the void, inspired me to create art and ideas, make this whole damn account, and improve my art and taste :>

Anddd to think that if Liam didn’t make the batshit insane silly robot pilot, none of this shit would’ve happened

Kinda wild yall

Anywayysss I’m happy to be in this community and it kinda sucks balls that it’s gonna end, like tmrw (the fandom will rise from the ashes tho)

I love those silly robots and they r sure to be in my heart for the rest of my fucking life <3

Gn

[dhmis-autism]

a few experimental ducks in dresses originally made to mess with some brushes, then some palettes, then some textures...

do yourself a favor and listen to some caro emerald while you look at these ones lol!

[ell-begins]

I’ve said this in reblog tags but I wanna say it again lol

you cannot watch the cemetery scene from last episode and tell me that those were not wedding vows?? like hello?? You cannot look me in the eyes and say that buck looking over at tommy when he says “our people are what make life worth living” doesn’t mean something 😭 like cmon now that’s something you would hear during a wedding don’t even play with me

[lynxalon]

i've seen a fair bit of... pessimism about dorym lately, esp with the ep107, for example wondering if dorian's opposing views on the gods making orym fall out of love, and i have to say. i very highly doubt it, ur fr talking about the man who has held on to will for so long, holding onto will's family and affectionately calling this *his* family too because that didn't stop when will died. i dont think falling out of love is an option or even a thought to orym.

that said, we know that orym has contingencies for if anyone in bells hells crosses the line into being a version of themselves they would despise, for anyone who jeopardizes their mission. his mission. i think, for the first time since knowing dorian, orym finally has a contingency for him. the longer dorian is back, the more orym sees how scarred he is by what's happened (understandable so) and knows that dorian is with bells hells all the way. but if he isn't...

[laurzvahll]

my bugs

[superstarcadet]

"The flames persist and so do I." I SOMEHOW FINISHED DAY THREE OF @byler-week BEFORE THE DAY ENDED FOR ME?? Idk how but I did! A couple of my favorite panels of the week are in this set, so I hope you all enjoy it <3 Today's Prompts were: Defeated, Berry, Picking, Purple/Black color scheme Part One || Part Two

[bathroomcube]

guys... i dont think im gonna recover from this one. i fear i may have been...

pwn'd....

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[lyss-butterscotch]

Can we get more Bat Wing Suns?

Apparently birds can't see windows because they have less depth perception and their eyes are super sensitive so they just think their reflection is the real deal. But i do think it's funny if Suns still crashes into windows because glass isn't exactly common in iterators

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).