#it's like a stream on consciousness

[slushglow]

the price of your mercy

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

SHE ANIMATED IT TOO?????????

Plus some practice with his hands.

[soullistrations]

the thing about haikyuu is it’s a love story. but it’s everybody’s love story. it’s asahi saying, “when have my friends ever been a burden,” and kageyama saying, “with me you’re invincible,” and the neighborhood association laughing about him saying that and then putting hours and hours into teaching and supporting these kids who love the same sport they do, and it’s kenma saying, “thank you for getting me into volleyball,” and it’s hinata screaming with joy because his friend is having fun, and it’s tsukishima learning to give his all to something even if there’s more risk in actually caring, and it’s in kageyama and hinata counting and counting and counting their victories and defeats, and it’s in kita telling his team he’s proud of them, and it’s in kageyama saying he wished he could have gone further with this team, and it’s in shimizu stumbling through a simple good luck speech, and it’s in coach ukai reminding his kids to eat well, and it’s in. everything. i could pull a hundred more love stories from these characters but it’s just. it’s in everything.

[borealing]

the first time gihun nearly cracks a smile in the games is when inho calls him by his name and then goes oh i just wanted to try calling you by your name.. do you mind? which raises the two incredible questions of 1. was that a slip of the tongue and if yes, does inho call him gihun when he thinks about him? not player 456, even though that's how the frontman addresses him? and 2. was gihun actually suspicious for a second there or was he completely appeased by the idea that a random guy in the games is trying to speedrun being his bestie given what happened last time (everyone he was friends with died)

i really wonder how badly the games traumatised gihun, like hes meeting these new people and expecting them to die within days. he meets them and has mourned them before he knows their names. he nearly cracks a smile when someone becomes his friend despite the pre-emptive grief he must be feeling. it just speaks to the kind of man he is, trusting to a fault and desperate for any kind of connection

[potato-lord-but-not]

in my wtnv era 10 years too late but uhhhh trying to figure out how to draw the guy nonetheless

[gothsuguru]

the blood in your mouth tastes sweeter in mine

geto suguru x f!reader, mentions of blood. w.c: 0.6k

suguru thinks you look pretty like this.

blood dripping from your lips like pomegranate juice, smeared around your mouth like lipstick, coating your teeth like a layer of red rubies — like you bit into something you shouldn’t have. something about your sick smirk makes his stomach churn, it’s lecherous and all-knowing, he knows you can sense his unease and his discomfort. he knows that you enjoy it — something about wanting to see him squirm is fun to you.

he won’t give you the satisfaction.

(his hands won’t stop shaking.)

he doesn’t know why violence comes so easily to you — why’s it’s such a natural part of your being, a second nature of some sort. why it’s something you revel in, take pride in, surround yourself with.

you’re a dog who likes to fight.

he also doesn’t know why it’s something you always tell him not to do. you tell him that a face like his isn’t meant to be ruined; he should keep it safe and pretty, like it is.

suguru thinks you’re a fucking hypocrite.

(his mom told him to stay away from you, you’re a bad influence. his dad thinks he’s a lost cause just like you.)

he doesn’t know why he’s friends with you, if he’s being honest with himself. there’s no transactional relationship, you don’t offer anything up to him except physical scars & wounds that need healing. he thinks he allows it because he likes taking care of you. he likes abandoned strays — likes the way he has to put you back together, likes the way your lowlidded eyes follow his form around his bathroom as he gets gauze from the cabinet, bandaids from the drawers, and rubbing alcohol under the sink. he likes this little routine you’ve both created — a dance of some sort. it’s muscle memory now.

most of all, he knows he likes being needed. that he’s of use, that someone stronger than him needs to be taken care of, that someone like you can only rely on someone like him — the polite, pretty boy down the street.

the wince your face makes when he finally dabs your skin is just a fun little bonus.

you don’t mind the sting because suguru is the one nursing you, but on the flip side, he’s also the one putting you in momentary agony — inflicting pain just to take it away seconds later.

it’s not too bad when you think about it.

it’s not so bad when his fingers brush your hair away from your face, it’s not so bad when he tilts your jaw upwards, it’s not so bad when his bangs tickle your cheek, it’s not so bad when he brings his face closer to yours — his minty breath fanning into your face, sweet and warm. it’s not so bad when he softly tells you to, “be careful.”

it’s not so bad when you look at his lips, plush and rosy. not so bad when you look at his pearly white teeth. not so bad when his lips form around your name, urging and heeding, imploring you to take his advice.

he’s a sensitive boy at heart, is what you’ve figured out.

you never say anything back because you know you won’t be. careful, that is.

you like this routine you’ve both created a little too much.

he sighs, soft and light. gazes at you tiredly, but oddly fond, pools of topaz burning through a ring of obsidian. he puts his fingers to your lips, pressing, softly at first. then a bit harder. he gets closer. he wonders if the blood in your mouth will taste sweeter in his. he thinks he wants to breathe life into you, that if anyone can do it, he can. you think you just might let him, just to see if he could.

it’s night and the lights are dim, only a soft sepia tone illuminating the features of the boy who lives down the street — the one who’s in front of you now. his pulsating chest is pressed up against yours. a heart for a heart.

you think suguru looks pretty like this.

[heartorbit]

revstar emu save me

[amygdalae]

im not very familiar with northernlion but ive been enjoying watching clips of him ask his chat about the intimate logistics of gay sex with a sort of befuddled detached non-judgemental anthropological fascination

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I've been doing a lot of reflection as of late, especially after this past class.

This past class was about the Torah and Tanakh in general, and the way the rabbi talked about the commandments (specifically the ten commandments) has made me really reflect on how I interpret them, specifically the fifth commandment, or honoring your mother and father.

This is a commandment I have wrestled with for a long time - in fact, it brought me away from g-d at multiple times. I was severely abused when I was incredibly young by my mother, and I used to feel insulted at the implication that I were to honor her while she got to live a better life. It was hypocritical, in my eyes.

But this rabbi surmised that this particular commandment was because parenthood is an act of creation, something that is like the g-d from which we come from. My realization is this: I don't think we're necessarily meant to take even these commandments literally.

I this particular commandment is more of a call to honor creation - creation is a gift, and like any gift, many people simply will not like it and will discard it. The person who abused me created me, but she did not honor creation. She didn't honor me, but I can still honor it.

I have started to honor creation much more. I'm too young, too unstable, not mature enough to be a father (though I fantasize about it), but I create all the time. I create relationships, I create with my hands through crochet. I create memories, I create my world. And I can honor who I am and where I came from that made me who I am. I've been learning one of the mother tongues of my family (Italian, since part of my family originates there) and it was judaism that inspired me to do this.

I don't think g-d wants me to honor my abuser. I think He wants me to remember the Holy action of creation. When I am a father, that act of creation will be Holy, and indeed, I am already joyful about the thought.

I have seen many people struggle with this particular commandment, but I think this perspective helps me personally. I don't think I ever have to forgive my abusers (plural), and I don't think I am commanded to simply because they happened to be family. I am commanded to recognize the holy, to elevate the mundane. In doing so, I will remember g-d. Through creation, I honor g-d and everything he has done for us, for me, and for our collective people.

[rin-rin-kururin]

puts plushies in a box and ships them to your house

sketch because everyone should know that I suffered while trying to position them

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[willgraham-manwhore]

[knightforflowers]

You are spontaneous, both in character and in origin. You set out on a mission to discover the world and discover yourself, and you have completed that mission with aplomb. So. Now I ask you...what do you want now?

I— want to help my friends.

[graciegrumps]

15 dazai's camera roll but it's just like......

Like that.... at that specific angle.......... just big, black eyes far too big for his skull and an overall off-putting vibe.

Oh! And there's also Chuuya 'cause when is there not Chuuya (affextionate)

....and Akutagawa

Ango...

Oda's in there too...

[vaguely-concerned]

just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)

'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

I'm kind of obsessed with Blackwall's idealized ideas about the Wardens. He was once picked up by a Warden and lulled by the promise of atoning for his crimes and turning his life around, only for that opportunity to slip away when the Warden not only saved him, but sacrificed his own life to do it. This whole experience makes our Blackwall become a Warden in heart, if not in blood, but with his own ideas of what a Grey Warden should be - noble, brave, inspiring, heroic, self-sacrificial. Everything he now wants to embody. He knows well that he's not there, but he wants nothing more than to start from scratch and be that.

In his beliefs, he reminds me a bit of Wynne in Origins who tells the Warden at some point that the Grey Wardens are supposed to be more than killing machines and weapons against the blight.

“There’s more to being a Grey Warden than killing darkspawn and saving the world from the Blight. Ultimately, being a Grey Warden is about serving others, about serving all people, whether elves or dwarves or men. As a Grey Warden, you are a guardian of men. And you guard them because their continued existence is more important than you are.”

However, we know that's not exactly how it works. That's what they want the Wardens to be. The light against darkness. The shield against monsters.

Although it's not entirely wrong, either, I suppose, all things considered. The more darkspawn they obliterate and push back, the more people are protected from them. Of course, sacrificing their lives to fight literal monsters, which means those same monsters don't eat everybody's kids, ultimately is heroic, and it's something that must have been born out of the need to protect the world and its inhabitants (from the Blight). But to have idealized opinions of the Wardens to this degree, you have to ignore all the other shady stuff and the mentality we, as players, also know the Wardens for. The fact that the Wardens are primarily weapons to slay darkspawn, prevent and end Blights, by any means necessary. The last part is important. After all, they are the Grey Wardens, not the White Wardens. They recruit from all walks of life and are famous for taking in criminals. Not to redeem themselves and get a second chance at life, but because they usually have nowhere to go and nothing left to lose. It's not a coincidence that each of the Origins gets chosen by Duncan, not only because he sees them as capable, but also because they are in a situation they can't escape from. Either they join the Wardens, or they're done for.

We know the Wardens from a few games now, but does the public in the setting even know? Does the average person have any idea how far the Wardens are willing to go? Besides grand stories of slaying monsters in the dark and preventing the end of the world? Probably not. The order is very secretive. And it explains a lot. The Wardens end up sounding almost romantic, when being a Warden is anything but. Is it ignorance talking out of these characters? Perhaps.

It once again shows us this aspect of Dragon Age where you can't take everything a character says as a fact, because the setting is full of people who have no idea what they're talking about, but who are absolutely convinced that they do.

And yet, I can't help but also like Wynne's and Blackwall's romantic ideas about what the Wardens are or should be, almost knights in shining armour and all that. They're fairy tales, but they're beautiful fairy tales. And I can't fault the characters for wanting to believe it or even live it. Especially in case of Blackwall, who sees it as a way to make up for the crimes he committed, somewhat. In the end, this might actually be a bigger draw to join the Wardens than, "Got nowhere to go? Come suffer horribly and probably die gruesomely with us!" It all sounds great on paper, though. I can't fault Davrin for trying to find purpose in life by becoming a monster hunter, either.

And maybe a little bit of idealism doesn't hurt. Not only it's good motivation, but in the end, doing things by "any means necessary" doesn't always pay off, either. It led the Wardens into all kinds of trouble, like getting tricked into employing dangerous forms of blood magic and demon summoning, basically into doing their enemy's work for them. In their determination to win at any cost, they helped trigger a cataclysmic event. Maybe having some principles isn't so bad after all.

In the end, I can appreciate that we get to see the clash of the old and new blood in Veilguard, where there's hope for the order to transform into an organization that's less secretive, less exclusive, and hopefully less prone to letting corruption spread through its ranks and make other devastating mistakes. Duncan once said that letting people join the Wardens isn't an "act of charity", and I like how Evka and Antoine go, "Yeah, you know what? Fuck that." And that likely inspires more loyalty. I imagine Blackwall would like that.