#lol you're so silly

[nepotisim]

i just realized your username is a sims pun on the word "nepotism" 😐

LMAO! Surprise! The username I had before this one was Unsimscribe, a pun on unsubscriber.

If it makes you feel any better, I did this same thing @sim4areason a couple weeks ago!

I am curious tho, what did you think it meant? 😝

[alicornze7]

AvM fandom is this accurate-

(pls don't burn me at the stake)

[skrunksthatwunk]

GIRLFRIENDS POST-UHAUL (uhaul the second, i guess)

[simonsquest]

Happy 38-year anniversary to the first Castlevania game!

Also... happy birthday, Simon Belmont!

[inkskinned]

this is sort of pathetic, but when you were younger, you were sort of puzzled by the cartoon representations of fathers: how a kid would be outside with a mitt, waiting to play catch.

it's not that your father never played catch with you, but you also didn't like when he did. something about a hard ball coming quickly towards your face doesn't seem exciting. not that you'd ever say you don't trust him. you trust him, right?

it's not like he never tried to teach you anything. or never tried to parent. on rare days, a strange person would walk in your father's skin. bright, happy, magnificent. this version of your father was so cheerful and charismatic that you would do anything to keep him. and this is the version of your father that would laugh and gently coax you try again. this is the version of your father that would break down the small elements of a problem and point them out so you have an easier time with them.

as a kid, those days happened more often. but somewhere around 11, you started being too much of a person, and he was often cross about it. when he'd try to sit you down to learn something, you spent the whole time with your shoulders around your ears, nervous, uncertain. terrified because you didn't immediately understand how to navigate something. worried you will run out of his goodwill and then you will have the Other Father back, and you will have ruined a good day for your entire family. something about you being visibly afraid - it just made him angry. he would accuse you of not wanting to learn and storm away.

on tv, it's not like there's a lot of versions of men-who-are-mostly-fathers. they can be good dads, but usually their stories are not told in the household. so it's normal that your father is there, but he's never around. you know he was in the house, somewhere, it's just not that you guys ever... "hung out". he just seemed to get kind of bored of you, annoyed you weren't made in his perfect image. frustrated with how much energy it took to raise a kid. over time, you kind of adopt a bittersweet band around your throat - he knows nothing about me. he says at least i never abandoned my family.

and it's technically - technically - true. he was there for you. sometimes he even made an effort and made it to the big moments; the graduations and the dance recitals. he grins and tells everyone that he taught you. it almost erases the days in between, where he complains because you need a ride to school. the weeks that go by where he doesn't actually ever speak to you. the times you say i am struggling and he says figure it out on your own. i can't help you.

and that's fine! that's all fine. you can call him if you are having a problem with your car. or if you need a ride to the hospital. he loves playing hero, he just doesn't like the actual work that comes with being a father. and you've kind of made your peace with that; because you had to, because you don't want to live your life like he does; the whole world at a managed distance, a little rotating and controlled orb he can witness and take credit for but never truly love.

as an adult, you are rewatching some dumb cartoon - and again, the child standing in the rain, with a mitt, waiting for their father to come play catch. as an adult, there's this strange creeping dread - this little thing? this little thing, and their dad can't even show up for that? oh god, holyshit, it's not about the mitt, is it. oh god, holyshit, your father spent most of your life leaving you hanging.

[vaguely-concerned]

I'm playing through Dragon Age 2 again and I just can't get over how... idk how to say it exactly, but the way you feel, in every moment of this game, how much Varric loves Hawke. It feels entwined with everything, it breathes through every part of the narrative, it blooms diegetigally through the integration of story and gameplay, makes you a co-conspirator in that love in a way maybe only a video game could.

It's in the way I don't think this story is a defense of Hawke only -- or even primarily -- directed at Cassandra, but at Hawke themselves. Beneath everything else going on there's the quiet, utterly unshakable refutation of Hawke's worst fears: Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered? . . . You're a failure, and your family died knowing it. Rising through the story as Varric tells it there's a fiercely tender voice saying: Yes, you did matter. In tragedy or in triumph, for better or for worse, in love or in hate, you always mattered. The ultimate tragedy of Hawke is always right there in the open before the story even starts letting you in on telling it; they couldn't fix anything. They couldn't stop the downward spiral Kirkwall was set on -- the real truth is that no one person ever could. And yet the point of DA2 is that it matters that they tried, and it matters that there were people who loved and were loved along the way, however badly it all failed in the end. Hawke is the Bioware protagonist who succeeds the least, and they're the character who matters the most, to me. (This is also why the Absolution reveal did not shake me in the least haha, my love for Hawke has nothing at all to do with whether they succeeded or failed at anything.)

What Varric is saying, in the only way he seems to be able to say the really real things -- through stories -- is so simple and so fundamental. You were here, and I loved you. There's the emotional heart of it, at the end of it all, that love and grief and recognition. It's so dizzyingly intimate. There's so much distancing, layers upon layers of obfuscation, to be able to say it. It drives me insane!!!! It makes me feel the same way that 'Poem' by Langston Hughes does:

I loved my friend.  He went away from me.  There's nothing more to say.  The poem ends,  Soft as it began,— I loved my friend. 

He loved his friend. They went away from him. What more is there to say. (Many, many, many things, when you're a compulsive liar and storyteller, but hey sometimes you have to deploy a whole armada of lies to tell one simple truth, I understand, I'm a writer too lol)

[sysig]

*You’re starting to feel very sleepy... (Patreon)

[shannonsketches]

[emily-e-draws]

catventurers meowlphabet (first half) 😽✨

[kieras-scrapbook]

towards the setting sun

[hiding-under-the-willow]

A little go at @andaboop 's draw this in your style :]

[a-lonely-dunedain]

ok question! related to this post by @gwynbleiddyn that I see resonated with the folks here on lotro tumblr:

the devs have given you permission to add 1 (one) quest of your design into the game, specifically doing something fun/low-stakes with one or more Rangers post-war. What are you doing and with which Ranger(s)?

I'll go first: (under the cut bc it got longer than intended)

Corunir has been enlisted to help do repairs in the lower circles of Minas Tirith. And by "enlisted" I mean "Corunir Does Not Know How to Take A Break and needs to be constantly helping people, so he showed up wouldn't leave until the foreman gave him something to do"

Now, as this quest would have to be located in Minas Tirith Midsummer, the foreman is not particularly comfortable saddling this war-hero with busywork when he should be celebrating the end of the war he helped bring about! nevermind that that's what literally every other quest in midsummer is making the PC do shh don't worry about it

ANYWAY, he's got a plan, but he needs your help with it. Around dusk, he wants you to tell Corunir that there's some repairs that need done on the top of the wall at east side of the 2rd circle, which coincidentally just so happens to be where the best view of the fireworks they're setting off at the gates is. Also be sure to bring along this plate of snacks and some comfy pillows to sit on.

so when Corunir gets up there he's like "that's weird, I don't see any damage up here-" and then he sees the fireworks starting to go off, that you brought snacks, and puts two and two together and is like "oh darn, it looks like I've been tricked into watching a fireworks show, you devious trickster you (affectionate)"

so you guys get to hang out and watch the fireworks for a bit, and afterwards Corunir laughs at the fact that you literally had to trick him into relaxing and having a good time. Perhaps you have a point, he should allow himself some time to actually enjoy the peace they fought so hard for. He recalls Radanir had proposed the Rangers should do a pub-crawl later, and now thinks he should take him up on the offer. (and, of course, the PC should be allowed to join in, but alas I'm only allowed to add One quest as per my own rules lol)

[5hehzada]

was talking w ree about lelouch's casual outfit and was like hold up but the cropped red jacket paired with a black tank is reminding me of something. and so,

[brinkle-brackle]

family

(a/n: SURPRISE FIC!!!!!!!! I wrote this prose poem thingy for a class writing exercise last semester and I'm very proud of it, and I wanted to put something out for bttf day so here it is now :) I hope yall enjoy it!!)

- - - - -

I have a father. A father who I am unsure if I will ever truly know in any real way. His eyes have been fixed to the television every night for as long as I can remember. He blinks in tandem with the static. He is wired, he laughs along with the laugh track. He is wired to cringe and cower beneath and stutter and laugh and laugh and laugh. His laugh, what a shaky, unsure laugh. He laughs and nods and laughs, full of fear. "Yes, sir, of course, sir, I know, sir-- hah, ouch-- yes, sir, I know, sir. You can- can count on me, sir." I ask him why he does what he does. He tells me he can do nothing else.

I have a mother, although I wonder if I ever truly had a mother. I wonder if this was something that developed as I grew up. Maybe it is just that I cannot remember her for who she used to be, or maybe she has always been like this. So jaded, so distant. A haze lies over her eyes, they are glass. Every evening they become glass. Tonight she is two vodkas in.

I have a brother who does not take his life as seriously as he should. Ever since graduating he has sat in the same place, flipping and frying. He does not like effort. He tells me that he is content as he is. A lazy smile, the stench of grease lingering from the spot he stands in even long after he has left. It is everywhere in his room. It creeps out in the wash and corrupts the rest of our clothes and bedsheets. He is turning gray before my eyes. Any longer, and I fear he will become a stone.

I have a sister, and she is miserable. Wanting and yearning, yet stifled. Aware, though. She is aware of what our parents have and what they do not have, and what they do not have she wants for herself. Her heart calls out. It tires of living in such a perpetual state of stillness, it wants to beat. A companion. A dinner for two, caring not if it will work out, just to try. That is what she wants: to try.

I have a family, and they are not you.

I have a girlfriend and she is my world. She is the sun when the clouds get thick and the clouds when the sun gets hot. She is musical laughter and stolen kisses before algebra class. She is planned-out road trips and a walk hand in hand through the town square. She is off-key, loudly-sung ABBA under the stars after leaving the cinema. She is a ride through the neighborhood, a skateboard date to 7-Eleven at twilight. She has been in the front row of every gig I have ever done (exactly two). She sings along when I practice my guitar-- not loudly, not off-key-- but just right. From her heart. She is solace.

She is everything to me, but not in the same way you are.

I sit down at the dinner table. My brother eats, but my sister prefers talking over chewing. I do not blame her, I am not hungry either. My fork becomes a rake on my plate with its slow and languid movements. Our mother speaks of her brother who will be visiting tomorrow. My sister makes a snarky comment, a blunt knife shot from between her teeth. Our mother just laughs, and it is the closest thing to genuinity I have heard from her in a long time, although it is not quite there. She calls out to our father. He does not answer, he has wired himself up to the television the way he does every night. Our mother waits, but he does not answer. He laughs along with the laugh track.

I have a father, and he is not you.

Stomach turning, I retreat to my room for the evening. I play my guitar until I hear my sister snap through the wall for me to quiet down. I prop my guitar against the wall and dial on my landline, and it rings one, two times before you answer. You greet me with warmth in your voice, you ask me how my day was. I tell you. You ask me about algebra, and I make a strange noise. You help me with my homework, we are on the phone for hours as numbers clash and meld together in my mind's eye. It is late now, and you can hear the tiredness in my voice. The math book is long gone, but we are still talking, although there are more pauses in our voices. Tomorrow is my audition, I say. You know, you remember. Come by my garage in the morning before school, you tell me-- I made something for you that might help you out with practicing. You can play without having to worry about waking your family up.

I have a father, and he is not you. But he does not ask me about my day with genuine interest. He does not help me with my algebra homework. He does not tell me his dreams and aspirations, and he does not encourage mine with equal enthusiasm. He does not give me pep talks. He does not get Burger King and offer to watch cheesy older movies with me when I have had a bad day. He does not put his heart into everything he does and include me in all of it. He does not stay on the line with me until I fall asleep, smile on my face and phone resting limply in my hand.

I am not in his world and he is not in mine. But you and I, we are engrained, woven into each others'.

I have a father, and he is not you. But family is not always the thing written in one's blood.

[kor0kke]

I was unsure if post a drawing I did or old stuff, but I'm working on other doodles and I wanna post all at once so... 😁😁

A pretty old mini comic(? I did :)) the drawings ain't the best but I like the idea so much 😭😭😭 probably one of fav pieces ever lollzz

Might redraw someday tho idk

WAUGHHHHHHHH EPICEXPLOSION

[borgialucrezia]

alright i've gotta say that i'm genuinely so obsessed with people feeling collective panic and threatened by the idea of juan being in love with lucrezia (mind you, it's just one-sided) even when everything about his arc on the show makes it very clear. and it always happens every time i post about lucrezia/juan lmao

anyway for instance, juan choosing a wife that resembles her, his aggressive overprotectiveness towards her, how furious he was over paolo because, unlike cesare who knew who paolo was to lucrezia, juan never knew he was lucrezia's solace but instead saw him as someone trying to have his way with his sister and cause her a scandal, (newsflash: one of juan's character aspects is that he's the black sheep of the family and always being excluded from everything), and he thought he genuinely did something to protect her honor. and how her attempt to kill him to avenge paolo broke him entirely in different ways (in the sense that he realized he hurt her and that she hates him for killing paolo), yet he tried to reconcile with her because he doesn't want to lose her affection and respect, and after being rejected again by someone he loves deeply made him lose his mind which caused him to hurt her back.

seeing people downplay his feelings and affection towards her simply because they can't stand his character and don't even want to understand him while desperately wanting cesare to be the pinnacle of almost everything just screams of copium and an inferiority complex and this only gives in to how interesting and compelling juan's character and his potential is when they could've simply just enjoy how tragic these three siblings are and how juan being trapped in a position to protect the family with massive expectations set him in opposition of his siblings and his ways of not knowing how to react caused them all to misunderstand each other and made them forever disconnected.