#it's tragic because.... the potential

[cyberhunts]

𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫?

the forgotten — you die alone. maybe they find you right away, maybe it takes weeks. it doesn't matter because no one will remember a few years down the road. if people come to your funeral, it is not a memory they engrave into their mind. you leave no mark in the world, no legacy at all. your grave grows moss and collects dust, cracking under nothingness. soon, someone will think of you for the last time.

[mohntilyet]

about illario working with the venatori, we can't forget that elgar'nan gifted him blood magic, so I do think that he somewhat influenced him and that's why he's so much more vindictive and jealous in comparison to tevinter nights. I don't mean that he's being mind controlled, but it's a bit like cyrian, a god just amplifying those negative emotions in you and promising power and glory can push a person to that edge and to make stupid af decisions.

im also not forgetting that zara line in inner demons where she talks about an envy demon. like. why an envy demon in specific...there's THINGS between zara and illario that were not shown

no literally if you get me talking about illario + envy + the possibility of getting him possessed, you will have me here for fucking ever. a non mage doing blood magic (any magic at all) is really weird and interesting to me and i don’t remember an example of this happening before (feel free to correct me tho lol. i’m discounting possessions and dwarves)

i had started wildly theorising after bloodbath that he had been possessed and he was tapping into the fade using an envy demon. especially like you said, zara mentions it, AND because i swear there’s a codex in the ossuary where it mentions an envy demon whereas spite is obviously determination, right? so i thought it was a breadcrumb trail to a big “illario is being influenced and doesn’t even know” reveal— same as you anon like great minds am i right— but i’m not sure there is actually any evidence of that lol. like maybe if you squint but i do believe it was explained away by “oh yeah, and elgarnan let him do special blood magic”

it does also make sense to me that illario can only control lucanis, due to being part of the same family. a bloodline thing, and it is very poetic to me that their shared family connection in caterina is what allows him to control lucanis, even for a moment lol. spite being the extra magical boost that lucanis needs to block that out ALSO makes sense to me so i’m not too fussed abt these details lol🤔

the envyllario in my heart also gets spectral weapons for himself. lucanis gets wings, illario gets talons, PLUS green-purple are complementary colors so it would have been really fun to see them clash with their spirit/demon-powers. the talon thing is also a kind of reflection of his end-goal desire, how envy demons already have those freaky hands, and it manifests as claws and is a much more aggressive, strength-augmenting manifestation (as opposed to manoeuvrability and speed-augmenting that spite’s wings give lucanis.) anyways that's what the diagram above is supposed to be (this is extremely hot to me)

[besiriusiamwild]

can’t stop thinking about asterid hearing prim’s name being called and instantly thinking of maysilee, her best friend who didn’t come home, because she knew that would be the fate that would await her youngest daughter.

vs her seeing katniss volunteer, and instantly thinking of haymitch, burdock’s best friend who came home but was never the same again, because she knew that would be the fate that would await her oldest daughter.

then, when seeing prim scream for her sister, asterid finally thought of merrilee, her best friend who was bedridden with painful headaches and pushed her away in grief for her twin, because she knew that prim could become the same if katniss didn’t come home, like how maysilee didn’t.

years later, asterid watched katniss lose prim, and disappear into herself like she did after losing burdock; like haymitch after losing lenore dove; like merrilee after losing maysilee.

and she thought of everyone - the friends that didn’t return home, the friends that got spared but lost themselves to grief, the people that should’ve been alright but were in the wrong place at the wrong time (burdock in the mines; the donners / undersees in the bombing).

realising that no one was safe from the impact of the capitol, and snow. and that those who got reaped and didn’t come home were actually the luckiest of them all. because they didn’t have to see everything and everyone fall apart, over and over again, like a never-ending row of dominoes collapsing again and again and again….

[azriaann]

if fairy tail was peak they would’ve had natsu become genuinely evil when END took over and KEPT HIM LIKE THAT. make his friends (cough lucy cough) WORK to bring his ass back from the depths!!!! it keeps me up at night…..

[abyssal-ilk]

trespasser wedding with sera and my viv/bastien kid (who has been named luciana and nicknamed lucia/lucy/luce!! inspired by @kitkaedatidler who suggested lucienne 🫶!) hits so different with the added tension of lucia being bastien's bastard. in what i have for her so far in terms of lore, bastien's son and lucia's half-brother, laurent, raises lucia's status as a recognized bastard/potential heir as it was bastien's wish before he died, and it causes. so many interpersonal issues for lucia. namely with the fact that since lucia is both inquisitor and has the blood of such a prestigious family, there is a constant pressure from other noble families of orlais to try and form alliances through marriage. lucia has no interest in becoming any more involved in orlesian politics than she already is, has no interest in marrying or having children with any of them, and it is a massive strain on her when she's already struggling with everything going on with the inquisition, solas, and the anchor actively trying to kill her.

sera's solution is to, of course, marry her. no bigger way to flip the finger to the entire court of orlais than to have the inquisitor marry an elven fereldan woman who fucks over nobles on a daily basis.

[corporealchaos]

I FINALLY GOT TO WATCH DEATH FOR A DOLLAR AND IT’S AMAZING!!! I HAVE EXACTLY ZERO COHERENT THOUGHTS RIGHT NOW!!! IT HAS RENDERED ME THOUGHTLESS!!! I AM BARELY RESTRAINING MYSELF FROM JUMPING UP AND DOWN, LITERALLY HOW DID I WAIT TO SEE IT FOR SO LONG???

[light-glue-blazed-terracotta]

everyone shush im thinking. what if a life series au where dogwarts and martren happened in the same place. the king who wont let go of his loyal hand even after death so he fuses himself with the corpse on the black altar. dog and master, king and soldier, two friends bound together by a red thread of fate so strong it can sew their bloodied bodies together. people love to frame the beheading as a wedding but what could be more like a marriage than the merging of two souls into one unholy monster driven equally by love and fury. in some fairytales the kiss of true love brings the princess back from a curse, but this isn't that sort of story. ren had to get his hands bloody to bring his true love back.

[nightwngobssd]

Hey friendly reminder that there're more Batfamily members than Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian :)

[youngyoo-apologist]

When it comes to OG!Cale ships I like both OG!AlCale and OG!ChoiHan but it really depends on the scenario

For example, I like OG!AlCale in both regression aus and TBoaH adjacent timeline things because I think a huge thing I like in their dynamic is how mysterious they both are to the other party. The fun of their dynamic is them discovering more about each other and the various miscommunications they have cause of their own personalities, and I think that works very well no matter the universe.

But with OG!ChoiCale, I feel like I can really only enjoy it in TBoaH adjacent things or if they both have the memories of the first life.

To me, a big thing about OG!ChoiCale is about the life they lived together, how they hated eachother, how they both didn’t know eachother for years, how they could have spent time together during the war due to unfortunate circumstances(there not being enough people left)

Like, I think OG!ChoiCale can be such a cool dynamic, such a sad, but comforting one at the same time. It’s a little bitter how the man you thought you would hate forever became a close companion, how he’s more similar to you than your younger self woild have ever thought, but do you really hate it?

Can you really hate having a person who understands you, when so many people have died? When so many are gone?

Something about the sadness of it all, how it was tragedy that brought them against each other at first, but now it brings them together. How they could only ever grow to understand eachother because of the pain they face, the pain that they shared. At some point, can you really hate him, even until the end? After all those years? After coming to understand him? No, you cannot.

Like, it adds in extra layers when they both care about each other at some point mid-way through the war, but they still can’t really talk to eachother properly. They care, but they frustrate one another, anger each other. Choi Han doing increasingly more risky and self sacrificial things because ‘I’m a hero’ ‘I have to do it.’ ‘It is justice to save people’, despite the fact that it’s at the expense of himself

And Cale’s frustration at Choi Han’s attitude. He can never wrap his head around the fact that Choi Han destroys himself for the sake of other people, and believes it’s heroic(He knows Choi Han doesnt, he know Choi Han hates it too, but he doesn’t know what else to say to himself other than the fact that ‘it’s for the greater good’, because he will go crazy if he doesn’t)

He’s mad, but there’s some twisted sense of understanding in there too. Cale understands, because he became trash for his family, he became trash to protect them, he had to do it.

But that’s only what he thought.

He was older now, he had lost them all, and he had seen how his trash act hadn’t done anything to protect them. It only distanced him from them, and now they were gone, and he could never see them again, he could never make amends.

Cale is mad at Choi Han for sacrificing himself because while Choi Han is hurting himself, the people who he loves, and the people who love him, watch him do it over and over again and he doesn’t listen to their worried cries.

He’s mad, but he understands. It was frustrating to be on the other side, watching someone destroy themselves for the sake of others when the people who cared about them wanted the exact opposite. The only difference between him and Choi Han was that Choi Han was never a good liar, he could never hide how much pain he went through.

In a way, Cale thought it was better that way.

At some point, there is love that is there. Love that follows them, and it’s so painful because they both know the tragedy edy to it that is how they are doomed, how they can never be happy in the first time line where they knew each other.

Because as Cale and Choi Han, they can’t be happy. Not when so much has been lost, not when the world is falling apart, they may love each other, but loving each other as they are means being in a world where everything else they love is gone.

It is a cruel kind of love.

Like let’s say they do pursue these feelings, even though knowing those two I don’t think they’d ever say anything in that scenario. If they did it would probably be Cale going like:

“Choi Han, do you love me?”

Choi Han doesn’t say anything, but his silence in place of adamant refusal is enough of an answer.

“Do you love me, Cale?”

Cale doesn’t say anything either, only smiling at Choi Han with his signature, cynical and bitter smile.

He didn’t deny it either.

It was a confirmation of feelings, but unlike the confessions from romance novels and stories, the main character and lead do not end up together and live happily ever after.

They stay together, but the world around them is not happy, not at all. They are together, but not as partners or as lovers, but two people who live in their suffering because all they can do is live.

I feel like anything they do together would always have an air of melancholy to it. Maybe they kiss, once, and no more, because there is no point in making it a regular thing. Not when everything in their world will end, even if they keep on fighting for it to not be that way.

They kiss, and it’s short, but in that short moment, the world is nothing but Cale and Choi Han.

Isn’t that selfish? If it’s like this, then they could ignore how everything has gone so badly. But that is exactly why they cannot be together, there is no ignoring the reality of their situation, no matter how sweet it would be to live in a false dream and never wake up.

I like my OG!ChoiCale a little doomed.

[holland-vosijk-antari]

[heyacris]

Can't sleep right now, I'm daydreaming about hypothetical routes and the good and bad endings to a Blush Blush visual novel

[stinkypire]

is it just me or did season 5 ep 8 soldify that it wasn't a plan? like in the manga, you think that way bc there's only sm art can show. but the anime, dazai sounded genuinely devastated. his expressions and the way his voice was so strained at the end of his speech. i don't think there is a plan, he had no choice but to kill chuuya because he thought it was the only way to get rid of dostoevsky and save the world from him. his voice sounds so similar to when he sounded when odasaku died, just so unbeliveably devastated.

[catenary-chad]

It’s a relatively vague song that can be twisted to mean a lot of things but I think the lyrics to The Show Must Go On fit the general precarity of rail electrification in the US. It’s actually one of the best ways to describe how I see Electra’s reality for people who can’t parse the tragic history of US passenger rail and rail electrification. The song just captures that constant uncertainty and gloom combined with perseverance and confidence that undermines Electra for me. It has the gears turning on giving Electra a parallel demise to the GG1s (pulled out of semi-retirement for a last gasp on fast passenger service out of desperation) based on current issues and rolling stock shortages with Amtrak because it ties in to the “striving until the bitter end” aspect of the song.

“empty spaces, what are we living for, abandoned places, I guess we know the score”

The apocalyptic state of passenger rail circa early Amtrak, where palatial stations were left to rot. General mass die-off of passenger rail and electrification in the US since WWII. Not as applicable today since demand is growing and capacity is the problem, you could swing it towards Covid-era emptiness though. Or a reflection on how little of what was lost was rebuilt since 50 years ago.

I’ve seen some interpret this line as being about the hole left by AIDS which further fits with how Reagan also wanted to let Amtrak die. A very dark but not inaccurate double entendre.

“does anybody know what we are looking for?”

perpetual knifes’ edge state of Amtrak and many transit lines and whether they will finally be killed for more highways or ever expanded.

“another hero, another mindless crime”

Amtrak struggling to find “heroic” reliable passenger engines has been a repeated problem. De-electrification is the “mindless crime” as something usually done for stupid, short-sighted reasons. Unpopular rail defunding and dismantling in general also works. Any turn towards highways really.

“hold the line, does anybody want to take it anymore?”

this is laughably literal with trains. Literal rail lines to “hold on” to, questioning who still uses them (genuinely or as an avenue to defunding and destroying them)

“outside the dawn is breaking, but inside in the dark I’m longing to be free”

The US is one of the least electrified rich countries in the world (1%), Electra would literally long to be free due to being so physically restricted.

[coke-vapor]

my posts are basically exactly the level of analysis i’ll text anyone willing to listen but i’ve only now started putting them on here so i hope they’re decent.

[magpie-trove]

I am not immune to the one specific version of the myth of Achilles and Penthesilea where she is bound to serve Priam and defend Troy to regain her honor and goes out in full armor and winds up fighting Achilles in an equal match of heroes, some say even with her striking his heel fatally except Zeus cheats him out of it, so that he kills her with his spear and as she falls forward to the ground she pulls her helmet off, and Achilles is struck dumb with sorrow seeing her as she is; no words are spoken, and an exception is made so that she can be buried

[kc5rings]

Satono Diamond and her trainer have the dynamic of all time

She’s the family maid and personal attendant to her Lady but said lady is a horse who she is the trainer for

The circles of dynamics going on here are fantastic