#like who is and isn't alive

[toysoldieralan]

One problem I have with the Rick and Morty season 6 finale is that they didn’t fix Rick-Bot. And I don’t mean physically, I mean they didn’t let him tell people he was a robot. That’s where his suicidal tendencies came from, the guilt of deceiving people he loved. Well, if he can tell people he’s a robot, then he’s not deceiving them, and he can become another member of the family like Space Beth.

Or is the only reason the family loves both Space Beth and Home Beth is that they’re in a kind of Schrodinger's cat situation? As long as they don’t know which one is “real” then they’re both equally real and unreal and therefore both equally deserving of love? But as soon as the waveform collapses and one is revealed to be a clone that Beth would be hated and potentially ostracized?

People have a weird obsession with someone being “real” or “the original” in media. Both Beths are worthy of love because they’re alive. Rick-Bot is alive as far as I’m concerned (well, he was) because he’s a sapient individual. This gets into the robot life debate, but if you think Data’s alive, Rick-Bot is alive too. He’s got Rick’s memories and a desire to love Rick’s family, the only difference is he’s nicer about it. If the family can tolerate both Beths, it should be able to tolerate Nice Rick and Dick Rick.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Making and Remaking Memories

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[cherrywhite]

every single time (template from @mhuyo)

[tubbytarchia]

shut up I'm on my drawing kisses arc

[dlartistanon]

Fellas is it gay to top the Radiant Knight

[cruelplatonic]

my personal headcanon is the vees were unremarkable nobodies when they were alive. i just love it as a thematic throughline for them. they love to let the public of hell speculate on them being famed and acclaimed since before death, but the the truth is they were a d-list failed influencer that got by on cheap controversey and scamming, a broke junkie who burned every shaky bridge he ever had, and a worn-out broadcast production assistant with more rejected auditions and tossed out script pitches than he could count. nobody missed them when they were gone, nobody cared who they were until they were dead.

[uncanny-tranny]

Good news! You aren't required to make your hobbies and passions "marketable." In fact, your crafts, hobbies, and passions don't even need to be public if you so choose. You don't have to spend all of your energy becoming perfect if you aren't enjoying the process. You are not a product, you are a person, a creative, and your work also does not need to be a product.

[prince-rowan-of-the-forest]

Hey guys

Just letting yall know that the only way a fandom dies is if we let it

Keep creating shit and it won't die that's just how this works the original content doesn't matter people are making shit for stuff thats never going to get more content

Y'all don't need a continuous feed of source content to keep a fandom 'alive' just look at like

A lot of fucking fandoms

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

henlooo just wondering if you have any sketches of morax' parents? or you can describe them and who he'd taken after?

i did have a sketch lying around, so i've cleaned it up and colored it!

in this hc zhongli would've gotten his dad's facial features, but like,, all the colors from his mom save the skin tone. also her smile. his dad is a qilin and i gave him a tail bc 1) qilin have tails 2) ganyu has no tail but she's half-human so that tells me nothing and 3) i can do what i want lmao

remember the mom was a jewelsmith so all the dangling bits and everything gold was made by her. the only reason the dad isn't absolutely decked in baubles like a christmas tree is bc he thinks it gets cumbersome at some point n the mom is like "you're no fun". he does let her use his horns as hangers for necklaces n shit while she works tho. the dad was also the one who saved baby zhongli from being a christmas tree, too.

zhongli does get his androgynous swag from both of them

[crystal-verse]

god i want. an au where it dosn't work. where it's just arr g'raha who's woken up, and he doesn't have all these memories and all these people keep looking at him like they're mourning someone. the world has changed and time has changed and all the people he knows have changed, but he hasn't changed, he was just sleeping, just sleeping, and the world nearly ended several times and apparently he helped prevent yet another end but he has no memory of this. they want him to join the scions. he does not know these people. (he barely knows the warrior of light, now, but did he ever truly know them in the first place?) his little sister is alive and well. she looks at him like a ghost. she's changed, and she's older than him now. he acts bratty and loud and brash to cover up the fact that he does not know anything it seems, and he is tired but he was sleeping for so long, so how could he be tired?

he doesn't know these people. they seem to know him. he wonders if he'd killed someone, when it was him and not that exarch who woke up. he wonders if it should have been him who was "killed" in that way, if it is him that lives and not that man who had known and become friends with all these figures from legend. he wonders if he'll always be fated to be a historian one step back from everything, because he simply cannot be a hero.

[anna-scribbles]

thirteen update 🍂 🎹 🏠 👻

chapter 2: November

chapter summary:

She was in a good mood. If she was ever going to take it well, it would be now.

“Maman, what if I went to school this year?”

excerpt:

“Heh.” Adrien flicked a finger beneath his chin and strutted the length of his bathroom floor, glancing at himself in the mirror. He twirled a rose—a red one, one he’d grabbed from the vase downstairs—between his fingers and then presented it to the mirror with a flourish.

“Haruhi!” he declared, “the spring of my heart surges upon the sight of your fresh smile, my love. My heart beats at the command of your drum! Your face is the fierce longing of my soul, and I present to you now this token of my lavish, undying—”

A sharp knock clicked against the bedroom door and Adrien froze, his hand still passionately hovering over his heart.

“Adrien?” Nathalie’s voice called, and Adrien—true to character, if he did say so himself—startled so hard that he slipped and fell onto his butt on the tile.

“Yeah?” he called, hastily pulling himself up and trying to find a place to set down the rose.

Nathalie peeked her head through the bathroom door and took him in, his rumpled hair and the too-small blue blazer he’d saved in the back of his closet for occasions such as…this.

“You have a guest,” she said flatly, and Adrien could not for the life of him figure out whether she was making fun of him.

She left before he could decide, and then it was only a matter of seconds before his bathroom door was thrown all the way open and a blonde ponytail bobbed into view.

“Adrikins!” Chloé crashed into him, wrapping him up in a hug that nearly knocked him over again. “It’s been way too long. You’ve been neglecting me. Aw, did you get me a rose?” She plucked it from his hands and then scrunched up her nose. “Ew, is this real?”

“As real as the current that springs from the well of my heart,” Adrien invented, and Chloé frowned at him like he’d just spoken Greek. “Nevermind.”

She looked him up and down and scrunched her nose up even more. “What did you do to your hair?”

Adrien frowned at his reflection in the mirror and pushed his hair further over to the side.

“I was trying to make it look cool.” He’d been trying to make it look like Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club.

“It looks like you just rolled out of bed.”

read on ao3

[perfectharmonyloveschaos]

I've been fascinated with Barb's character since I finished Fallout and I'm glad that she hasn't been completely vilified by the fandom. Because I cannot help but sympathise and see her reasoning, even if it is horrific, because in the end she parallels Cooper.

Something people don't take into account is that they were both pawns of Vault-Tec, only Barb went along with it because she got something out of it. She got to protect her family, something that seems to be the most important thing to both her and Cooper.

Because neither of them could've stopped Vault-Tec. Neither of them could've stopped the bombs from falling.

If Barb had spoken out, had disagreed, all it would've done would guarantee that her family would die. We saw how Cooper's career/life was ruined after he assumingly spoke out against them. If you speak out against Vault-Tec, you lose your job, your friends, you are labelled a communist or communist sympathiser, and (in Barb's case) you lose access to a Vault which can guarantee that you and your family survive the nuclear war that everyone knows is inevitable. The war was always going to happen. Someone was always going to drop the bombs. Barb was just another cog in the machine, and she would've simply been replaced.

Barb had no power. Either she played along and her family lived, or they died. I don't think Barb wanted the war, and we can tell that her love for Cooper and Janey is genuine. She wanted to protect her family and keep them alive.

It was an awful thing, and Cooper had every right to feel betrayed. But I don't blame Barb either. Because I think a lot of people would've done the same thing in her position. It still makes her a villain, and it doesn't negate the awful things she did, but like Cooper it makes us understand why she did what she did.

She traded the many for the few, for Janey and Cooper. The exact same way we see Cooper, two hundred years later, trading life after life for his own survival, so he can keep going and find his family. They would both tear down the world and ruin countless lives so they could survive, for Janey.

[altocat]

More cringe memes. Lucrecia Edition.

[sealrock]

the major arcana, shuffled: 5/??

THE TOWER; ⤉ disaster, destruction, upheaval, trauma ⤈ resisting change, avoiding tragedy, delaying the inevitable, avoiding loss

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm back on my bullshit thinking about the Hawke siblings again and how much I love a "both twins live" AU... but y'know what I love just a little bit more? An AU where all three Hawke siblings are alive, but one of the twins still get attacked by the ogre in Lothering and is presumed dead when they actually survived.

I like to think that since the narrative in DA2 is framed as a story Varric's telling Cassandra, we can play around with the fact that he's an unreliable narrator. Varric wasn't there in Lothering. He only knows what Hawke told him. It makes for a better story if Leandra, Hawke, and the surviving twin get to huddle around the dead twin and say their goodbyes... especially if they didn't actually get to do that. I mean, a lot of us already have that train of thought when it comes to Leandra's death and Hawke getting some closure through her final words telling them how proud she is. Whose to say Varric didn't do that for the lost twin, as well?

All that to ask what if the ogre attack happened, but the group was so overwhelmed by darkspawn they had to flee further and couldn't check the twin who "died?" Flemeth still showed up, but it was too late to go back and say goodbye.... so Hawke made a deal with the Witch of the Wilds and they all pushed forward to Kirkwall.

Imagine Bethany, left behind with broken bones and bleeding in the sand, fading in and out of consciousness as the remaining darkspawn surround her. She knows how to heal, how to fight back, but she's weakened. Her staff lays out of reach. Air shakes in her lungs. She tries to call for help, but only wheezes come out. Where's her mother? Her siblings? Did the ogre get them, too?

At this point, we all know what happens to the women darkspawn take, and Bethany could've met that fate; she doesn't have the strength to fight back as they drag her away. But before they can bring her underground, she's saved by another group of survivors. Perhaps they're more soldiers fleeing Ostagar, or townsfolk who recognize her from Lothering. They do what they can to treat her wounds but she needs a healer, so they bring her with them to seek refuge in Redcliffe... except they eventually realize she's an apostate. Well, she doesn't seem dangerous, but they still contact the templars.

Bethany wakes in a warm but unfamiliar bed with skilled healers tending to her. Templars hover by the doorway. First Enchanter Irving greets her, gentle in explaining she's safe inside of Kinloch Hold and that she's going to survive. When Bethany asks about her family, he gives her a sympathetic smile and says they only found her.

Bethany, who never took to embracing her magic the way her older sibling did and always felt like it burdened her family... has lost that very family. Could they survive the ogre and darkspawn? Or did the ogre tear them apart, too? How did she survive... but not them? Did the Maker really have such a sense of humor? How else would she end up in the Circle, a place her family went to great lengths to keep her safe from?

She doesn't want to think about it. She hopes they made it to Kirkwall, but the prickle of dread that crawls up her spine knows how unlikely it is. Bethany finds comfort in speaking with the mages who rotate in to heal and bring her food. Some feel trapped by their magic just as she does, but others remind her of her older sibling in the way they embrace their magic, a gift from the Maker. The younger apprentices who aid the mages ask her questions about what lies beyond the walls. The templars mostly keep their distance, but one is friendlier than others. A man with curly blonde hair and a sympathetic view of the mages bothers to speak to her more than his fellows do.

She's still in recovery when Uldred and his blood mages attack the tower, but she survives. Bethany heals, even as she's haunted by nightmares of the ogre wrapping its tainted hand around her body to crush her, flinging her aside to lay among the limp bodies of her family... haunted by the horrors the blood mages unleashed on the tower. She aids in restoring the tower the best she can, and accepts her new home, her new life. When she's well enough, she lights a candle for each of them; her father, mother, her eldest sibling, her twin... she even lights a candle for the family mabari, and prays to the Maker to give them her love as they stand at His side.

The Blight ends. Years pass. Bethany settles into her new life, becoming a fine example for the younger apprentices she mentors. She witnesses wrong doings against her fellow mages, loses friends to their harrowings or tranquility. She accepts what she is, even if bitterly. The Chantry's teachings about magic scar more than enlighten; she sees it in some of her fellow mages, feels it in herself. Secret meetings. Whispers of escape, of freedom. More escape attempts. Harsher restrictions.

Around this time, back in Kirkwall, Knight-Captain Cullen stands where he always does in the Gallows courtyard. He notices Hawke appear with some of their companions. It hurts to think back to Kinloch Hold, but something occurs to him: he knew of another Hawke who was brought to the Circle while he served there. They only spoke once before... well, before. He wonders if there's any relation. When Hawke wanders over to speak to him, as they always do, Cullen brings it up.

Hawke pales. A beat of silence. Cullen recognizes heartbreak; he sees it unfold in their eyes and swell in their throat as they realize that all this time, their baby sister was alive.

Then the day comes where new whispers float among the mages in the Circle. A visit by a Grey Warden. Most, including Bethany, assume he's here to recruit... until Irving comes to her. He says this warden's requested, though more like insisted, he see her now. But then Irving smiles; the warden in question said his name is Warden Carver. He received an urgent letter that his sister is here, alive, and he demands to know if that's true.

Bethany nearly collapses when she sees him.

While the reunion can't last; she can't leave the Circle and he has his calling; the twins embrace, sobbing out apologies and exclamations that they thought the other was gone. Carver tells her of Kirkwall, the expedition that led him to the Grey Wardens, and their older sibling's status as Champion. With a gentleness she never knew her brother to have, he tells her what happened to their mother, and more tears flow freely. Their sibling learned about her from a templar, though Carver grumbles that the bastard could've said something sooner.

There's the Maker's humor again.

...Now flip the script: imagine Carver being left behind instead.

For as strong and passionate as he is, that ogre still picks him up and slams him to the ground. Bones crack. Black splotches flood his vision, agony exploding across his skin. His sword flies from his hand. The soulless bastard tosses Carver aside like he's nothing, and he's left to lay there. His mother's cries muffle in his ear as though he's stuck underwater, sinking slowly into the dark.

It figured, honestly... that he'd survive Ostagar while his fellow soldiers were cut down all around him, that he and his eldest sibling would flee the field when all hope was lost... that he'd make it home to get his family out of Lothering... only to die protecting his mother. And why not? He is a protector. A warrior. It's a honor to die saving those he loved... so why didn't it give him peace?

Carver eventually wakes in the night among the bodies of fallen darkspawn. Everything aches painfully hot and his thoughts reject coherency. He knows his family is gone; they're dead, or they've fled... either way, he's alone; left behind. Something's broken inside of him, but he has just enough will to pull himself up at the sound of approaching footsteps. A group of survivors find him- funny enough, the same group who aided Bethany in an alternate timeline. Imagine that.

That's how Carver ended up in Redcliffe's Chantry with an overworked healer tending to him. He doesn't even flinch when the mage works their magic on him, knowing all too well the sensation of healing magic seeping into his skin, mending the flesh. He tries not to think of Bethany, or what might've happened to her.

The Chantry's overwhelmed with townspeople hiding from a danger outside that he can only assume is darkspawn... except it's not. He wonders how hard he hit his head when he hears the undead have come from the castle to slaughter what they can of the town every night. But then he sees it with his own eyes when one breaks in, taken down by a templar, and never before has he ever felt so useless.

Then the last two remaining Grey Wardens arrive. They're crucial in the final fight against the undead, swearing to enter the castle to stop the attacks at the source. While Carver couldn't participate in the final fight, something he complained loudly about, he did what he could in his condition to help like sharpening swords and handing out supplies. Mostly to keep his sanity and quite his thoughts throughout his recovery.

When the time came, he took up his sword again in the name of all those he lost.

An archdemon was said to be on the horizon, and the Grey Wardens needed everyone they could get to fight. Carver fights in the battle of Denerim where the Hero of Fereldan defeated the archdemon. He cuts his way through every darkspawn he sees. Ostagar flashes red behind his eyes. Lothering clutches at his heart. So much anger and sorrow built up inside him, flooding out in his tears and screams. Blood everywhere. Fire and smoke.

Then it's over.

In the aftermath of the Blight, like so many others, Carver has no home to return to. No family. He thinks to go back to Lothering to help rebuild, only to hear the lands were too tainted. These tainted creatures took everything from him... That's what eventually brings him to Vigil's Keep, standing before the Hero of Fereldan themself, asking to be made a Grey Warden. He already dedicated nearly two years of his life to killing darkspawn, and he had nothing else. Even when faced with the Joining, holding the chalice of darkspawn blood and being told to drink, he didn't flinch.

Life as a Grey Warden isn't as simple as he assumed it would be, but Carver finds purpose in his calling. Over the years, he grows to view his fellow wardens as family. He travels all over Thedas, venturing down into the Deep Roads to help clear out hoards of the darkspawn. But then comes the day he finds himself in Kirkwall, and it doesn't take long before he hears the name Hawke on the lips of the townspeople. His eldest sibling was not only alive, but they're quite popular among the people. But what about Mother? Bethany? He doesn't have to snoop too far to learn templars took Bethany away to the Gallows, and that Leandra Hawke was the final victim in a string of murders committed by a blood mage.

Carver finds himself standing outside the estate, glaring at the door. Furious. Heartbroken. Bitter. He wants to scream. This entire time, they lived. He's torn between wanting to reunite with his older sibling again, to get the truth from them, and wanting to barge into the estate, demanding answers to how they could let the Circle take Bethany... after what Carver sacrificed, how could they let Mother die like that? Was it all pointless in the end?

He leaves without knocking. He can't bring himself to see them. Not that it mattered. Before he could leave Kirkwall, the tensions with the qunari finally overflowed, and chaos fell upon the city. He's forced face to face with his older sibling again, but he wasn't prepared to watch the recognition slowly bloom on their face, or for all his anger to turn to mush. Carver's the first to speak.

"Somehow, I knew it would be you."

.............So, yeah. I really like this idea.

[uncanny-tranny]

"haha, are you an art gay, a science gay, or a math gay"

Actually, I find the division between art, science, and math to be a very nebulous idea and useless when you actually interact with the universe. The more you learn about the world, the more you surround yourself with art and science and math, and you'll never be able to see it any other way and it will be beautiful. When I take your hand, it won't be the science of our atoms closing the distance between us that we will experience, but the math of our fingers interlocking and the art of our bodies that we will experience. You are math and you are science and you are art, and nothing will make you any lesser💛