#one to wrap your head around

[gale-dekarios]

I think Gale is a touchy feely person who needs to keep his hands on the Tav whilst they make love. He's gotta believe they're real, that they're with him, that it isn't a hallucination or a dream. He strokes their hair, he plants kisses along their neck where the heartbeat is strongest, and feels their breath against his shoulder. Even the simplest act of fingering or stroking them is a way to know they're truly in front of him. Tasting their arousal just to have evidence of their existence. He loves knowing that this is his newfound life. His new purpose. His new reason to live and not give up so easily as he almost had. Mystra wanted him to die for her. Tav wanted him to live for himself. So forgive him if he constantly needs the littlest of reminders to know Tav is truly real, and not just a hopeful dream.

retrospective edit: hi im charlie and welcome to my tedtalk. 50/50 on whether or not any of this makes sense, because i did in fact pop 9mg (prescribed) sleeping aides a half hour before writing this, so i could wake up tomorrow and realise this was all gibberish. or maybe not! i should not be the judge of that rn

regardless of how you or your character feels about the line, i truly believe that gale believes that tav/his romantic partner is a god/dess, and it's the things like this that cement it for me.

when you think about it, (traditional) worship is very much devoting your life to a diety, and receiving some benefit back, which could really be a range of things from feeling comforted and secure about your place in the world, to moreso your clerics with actual divine gifts bestowed upon them, to chosen, like gale, who, (at least in his case) gets to kind of... tap into the wellspring of that god's domain and understand it more than any other mortal could.

this type of devotion is even purer than his devotion to mystra. the reason being is that whilst i dont believe gale ever was devoted to mystra for nefarious self-serving purposes, it would be remiss to gloss over that he did enjoy certain luxuries that he wouldnt have if he wasnt so close to his goddess, and whilst tav offers a lot more than mystra ever could both emotionally and in the service to him living an actually good and normal enriched life, this doesnt translate to any practical benefit that could compare to a literal deity -- (clumsily worded, but again, in this case im referring more to endless knowledge and immense mastery over the weave and recognition of status among his peers rather than curling up on the couch companionably).

which is to say -- i promise there's a point -- a tav, in all of their mortalness, that gale truly worships, with all of his devotion (which is a lot, he practised), must be very special for him indeed.

so gale gets ""nothing"" in return for the same if not a higher level of devotion than he ever shows mystra (i mean, when it literally comes down to it, he completely ignores her, an actual literal goddess's, direct orders bc you asked him to, so theres no doubt who wins that particular fight.) BUT -- and this is the point that i promised -- the real clincher here is that tav ASKS for nothing. well, again, not in the way that a deity asks for something. a deity asks a devotee to give them their life, what tav asks for is that gale HAS his life to do with what he chooses, and for that, gale chooses tav.

devotion, with gale and tav, is both freely given, but also freely taken. not selfishly, but in acceptance. gale had no choice, really, but to follow mystra's orders, but he followed tav anyway. how does that make tav anything less than a deity? that level of blind faith? tav accepting gale's devotion by virtue of just loving him is such a beautifully mundane piece of godhood, and comparing that to something as shallow as the ambition mystra offered is like comparing night and day.

so of course gale treats tav like he caught lightning in a bottle. he spent his whole life in the service to a goddess, devoting his whole life for the celestial equivalent of breadcrumbs -- as awesome (and i use that word as its original meaning) as godly power can be, nothing that was ever given to him truly cost mystra any real exertion -- but with tav, there is no expectation of exchange, only the full weight of one man's worship, and that is what would cause gale to treat them like an illusion. of course it does. gods that ask for nothing but for you to do the things that are in your best interest are not a thing. but tav does exactly that. how wonderful is that? how pure is that? is there truer devotion? so unmarred by any external benefit?

touching divinity is something that gale's had the extraordinary luck of having twice, but that does not make those experiences equal. his deity, that allows him to run his hands through their hair, to kiss their eyelids, and yes, indeed to also have desperate, sweaty, mortal sex with, without ever once asking for anything in return except that he remain whole and healthy? by fucking god will he make sure this is real.

[bestworstcase]

whys and hows aside, ultimately what “summer joined salem” comes down to is:

salem has one more person working for her whose existence has been confirmed (seer call in v4 from beacon after establishing that all known agents are not there) but identity never revealed.

none of her other agents have had their identities obscured: even lionheart is revealed to be her spy upfront. the mystery surrounding the identity of this character is unique—ergo, narratively consequential.

“what happened to summer rose?” is a central narrative mystery which has thus far been partially answered in this order: a) she met salem, b) salem perhaps did something other than killing her, c) raven was involved and whatever happened turned her past admiration for summer into the scorn on display at haven.

the timeline on summer being made into a hound does not add up (the hound is “an experiment” and a novelty to both salem’s enemies and her inner circle now—salem met summer approx. fourteen years ago) but it’s deeply unlikely that the narrative would have flagged the possibility of fate-other-than-death if she were actually dead.

the conclusion that salem turned summer into a hound is offered by ruby, on minimal evidence; in v4, ruby hears tyrian waxing poetic about his “goddess” and with no hesitation goes “cinder,” which is to say ruby has a demonstrable tendency of jumping to conclusions based on incomplete information that are close but nevertheless very wrong.

so the narrative has given us these pieces:

summer met salem.

salem probably did not kill her.

summer can’t have been grimmed.

summer broke raven’s trust, badly.

salem has had an anonymous agent holding beacon, we have known this since v4, and we have yet to find out who this person is.

what happened to summer rose?

the anonymity of the person on the other end of that seer call is the keystone holding everything together. the facts pertaining to summer rose alone don’t necessarily add up to “turncoat,” only “not dead and not a hound,” but when taken into account with the open question of who salem has at beacon, then the simplest, most straightforward answer is that summer joined her.

the point of keeping the beacon lieutenant’s identity a secret is to maintain suspense. it is a character the audience already knows—or knows of. (the reason salem’s reveal at the end of v3 works is because she’s been the narrator since the beginning, for example.) with the way the cast is set up, this more or less requires that the beacon lieutenant be a turncoat; the other possibilities are tai, glynda, oobleck, and port. if it’s any of them, the separate mystery of what happened to summer rose remains and must still be answered in order to resolve that increasingly central narrative question, and the how and why tai or glynda or oobleck or port joined salem needs to be answered too. if summer is the beacon lieutenant, the narrative answers two questions with one answer.

[thetrinitytest]

if ianto jones (NOT gareth david-lloyd. actual ianto jones) walked through your door and said he wasnt dead and he needed a kidney and you were the only match what would you do

i am holding his face in my hands, kissing that man on the forehead, and asking him if he wants the left or right one

[puppyeared]

people who do STEM or administration as a career full time and continue to do art as a hobby, I am scared of you but like in a hot way. youre like if we were allowed to have cold drinks in winter. i look at you and think of miles morales with his two cakes. do you want to make out sometime

[missmungoe]

If you have a moment, you should go check out TricksterMelon on Twitter :) I hope you like it <3

I am speechless

[faaun]

i think if i painted my ex situationship i'd be cured it's the most shallow but intense connection i've had w anyone i think i am so obsessed w how she looks i want 2 photograph her/paint her forever rant in tags but ive talked abt it b4 so feel free to ignore

[eraserbitz]

this is a Nothing Post but i have considered before that if radiocomputers have games on them... then its not a stretch to say that much like in the real life history of computers, theres bound to be porn games being published in elysium

if we accept that porn games are Real in elysium, we obviously have to consider the likelihood that the resident computer nerds in Disco own or play them. first, we have soona, who probably has an awareness of them, though i can't say if she really cares about them in particular (sorry). she is passionate about coding and gamedev so i still wouldn't brush it off as a possibility.

and for the sake of thoroughness let's include the mentioned but off screen developers in fortress accident: also wouldn't say no to that, though they strike me as being quite pretentious about it in either direction.

Trant, however, is the guy who went to an abandoned building because he knows that a prototype for a computer system used to be developed there (computer history nerd), and plays adventure games in his free time (Gamer). maybe he doesn't love porn games, but it just SEEMS like he would at least take note of them. he would just never talk about them like he talks about anything else, out of a sense of propriety. all this to say that to me, trant is this guy:

[sophieinwonderland]

what's your thoughts on DNIs that include everyone on the website

Tumblr users DNI (for example)

(obviously they serve no purpose and i don't know anyone who does this, but i am here to ask a silly question not a serious one)

(also have a good day)

I would assume that would be a joke DNI, and joke DNIs are cool because they make fun of the DNI concept, and I have no issue there. 😁

(I've occasionally used "#anti-Sophie DNI" on some posts as a joke.)

Actually, I think from now on, whenever anyone asks what a "basic DNI" is, they should be informed that it applies to all Tumblr users and that nobody should interact with anyone who uses it.

[south-sea]

i think a lot of people don’t always realize the difference between “this is how i interpret canon” and “this is how i want to write it because that’s what’s fun to me”. a lot of times the latter is all headcanons or AUs are, not an indication of what the writer thinks “is” or “should be” canon

more power to those who are super tuned into actual canon and know these details like the back of their hand, but sometimes people just wanna use a series as a sandbox, not a ruleset. genuinely nothing but respect for people who ARE that knowledgeable, but i and a lot of other people are just here to have fun with characters we enjoy—and want to put them in more accessible settings

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

literally so done with rhaegar antis at this point. we know practically nothing about this character besides all the good things other characters say about him and the fact that robert baratheon hates him and says things about rhaegar that ned disagrees with. and robert baratheon is a pos so being hated by him only does favors for rhaegar’s character imo.

but somehow all these characters who think well of rhaegar are just lying. even though almost all of the characters who have spoken/thought well of rhaegar come from different families and have different allegiances. make it make sense. explain it to me like i’m five. what do jamie and ned have to gain by thinking positively about rhaegar? what about jorah? and barristan?

seriously. stop with the “prophecy obsessed freak” and the “rhaegar was mad” bs. none of this is supported in the books.

for 1) the prophecy is real! this is a fantasy series! and it’s very likely that jon snow (his likely son) is one of the azor ahai/prince that was promised figures! the other completely certain azor ahai figure is his own sister! so yes this prophecy seems to be centered around rhaegar’s family.

2) rhaegar being “mad” is not supported whatsoever. prophecies and magic are very real in asoiaf. so believing/trying to figure out prophecies is not an act of a madman. if anything, we should praise rhaegar for having the foresight to be actively concerned about this world ending threat! he was right. and one mention, if not the first mention, of the song of ice and fire comes from a vision in the house of the undying… from rhaegar. please remember what the title of this series is…

now, it is fair to criticize rhaegar for how he treated elia at the tourney at harrenhall. he was wrong there and that was a terrible thing to do to elia. however, saying that rhaegar was awful to elia throughout their whole marriage is not supported. and saying that rhaegar was awful to his children is not supported at all.

also, getting angry at a fictional character for needing a son to secure the succession to the throne is hilarious, especially since it was necessary for not just rhaegar, but also for elia to secure their own positions at court. they both needed a male heir, but elia needed to have a son more than rhaegar to secure her position. so why are people so mad that rhaegar and elia had aegon? andal tradition says that a son comes before a daughter and a daughter before an uncle… but aerys had viserys to threaten rhaegar with because aerys was king and had the power to change the succession. having aegon was very important for both rhaegar and elias futures and protected rhaenys position as well. just look at what happened to alys karstark when all of her male brothers were gone. she was almost usurped by her uncle. do you really think aerys would let the throne pass to a girl? aerys??

anyways, we don’t know enough about rhaegar and elias relationship to actually make any concrete statements about them, but, from danys house of the undying vision of rhaegar and (likely) elia, their relationship seemed fine and they seemed open with each other. not every marriage of duty ends in nedcat and five kids, but their marriage was clearly far from the robert and cersei nightmare.

another thing rhaegar antis love to harp about is how he is a pedophile. i’m literally so sick of it. rhaegar, someone who seemingly struggled with some form of depression, finally found some joy outside of a marriage of duty. the author himself called rhaegar a love struck prince. ned never thinks ill of rhaegar, even though if the stories robert baratheon would have us believe were true then ned would be the first character who thinks rhaegar is some sort of monster. but ned doesn’t. back to the pedo argument… anyways i have issues with the age gap as well. but i know where to lay my criticism. with george. he’s weird about ages and it pisses me off. however, i won’t let this change the way i see a character, especially since westeros doesn’t have any age of consent laws.

god just criticize george already.

but to be clear, rhaegar, a tragic character who died trying to protect his family, who’s daughter hid underneath his bed for protection, is not some monster. he was born in grief, lived in grief, found some joy, and died whispering the name of the woman he loved. that’s sad. and it’s horrible that he’s blamed for his family’s deaths even though he fought and died trying to protect them. and then robert baratheon sat on his throne and drunk and whored the realm into debt. thank you mr. boar. and good riddance. cersei slayed with this one.

now if you want to blame someone for the war and what came after, then blame aerys for his cruelty. blame brandon for his foolishness. blame robert for his warmongering. blame tywin for his monstrous actions. blame gregor and amory for their terrible violence.

stop blaming the guy who died trying to protect his loved ones.

and tbh, we literally have so little knowledge of what happened before the rebellion and after harrenhall. we just don’t know what happened between rhaegar and lyanna besides what george has told us and whatever small scraps we get in the book. we don’t know if it was a rash decision or if there was some plan in place when rhaegar and lyanna ran off. we just don’t know.

so please stop treating your headcanons like canon facts. especially when your headcanon isn’t supported anywhere in the books! it’s so tiring to see! i get it! you hate this character! whatever! but stop acting like what you’re saying is canon!

rhaegar is simply a ghost haunting the narrative. but his legacy lives on in dany and (likely) jon. and both of them are saviors fighting the good fight. and based on the descriptions we have of rhaegar, i can say that he’s likely very proud of his sister and son.

[sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes]

TSS compilations need to stop popping up in my reccomended I don't want to be back in the fandom 3 years after I left in the year of our lord 2024 I think my brain would explode

[glutenfreehimbo]

Reblog and poorly describe your ttrpg characters in the tags

[puppyeared]

for like 3 weeks i was wondering why i was sleeping so much and felt listless. and just now I managed to email 3 people and responded to a month old message in the span of an hour because I got back to TAKING MY FUCKIN MEDS..........

[secondhandskoot]

How I think the Quody dynamic works

Note: I got an anonymous ask on my blog, secondhandskootur (which Tumblr nuked suddenly and with no explanation why a few days ago), regarding my thoughts on how the dynamic between Quint and Brody would work. I never got the chance to actually post it so I've decided to go ahead and answer it over here, just in case I'm never able get that other blog up and running again. Like many of my longer posts, this is moderately ramble-y.

In the majority of my headcanons and fanon-fueled scenarios, Quint and Brody are just platonic friends who hang out every once in a while, mostly because I actually really like Brody with Ellen, and I've also been liking Brody/Meadows as of late. Additionally, I'm a total Quooper trooper, so that also factors in to why I don't often pair Quint and Brody together romantically. However, I do occasionally enjoy romantic Quody shipping as well so I'll discuss my thoughts on their dynamic in regards to how I usually view it, and also in a romantic/more-than-friends way.

Overall, I'd say the Quody dynamic is somewhat the opposite of Quooper. It's more mature, less chaotic, and generally just a lot calmer. It's arguably more boring, but from an objective, irl stand point, Quody is also probably a healthier relationship than Quooper is. Quint does push Brody's buttons and pick on him, but not nearly as much as he does with Hooper mainly because Brody isn't super reactive to what Quint says. Generally, at most, Quint will just say really dumb shit with a serious tone of voice and get Brody to fall for it.

I'll go into detail about how I typically view Quint and Brody's dynamic first: in a purely platonic, sittin'-side-by-side-crackin'-open-a-beer-and-not-sayin-a-got-damn-thing way.

Usually when Quint and Brody hang out, it isn't just the two of them. I have a whole headcanon that Hendricks and Meadows are Brody's best friends so whenever he has any kind of hang out/event going on, there's a good chance that they'll be there. If Hooper is in town then there's a decent chance he'll come along too, oftentimes being the one to bring Quint with him. Furthermore, Quint and Brody are both introverts so neither of them are typically conversation starters in a group setting. Having all of this in mind, it's much quieter on the occasions when they are alone together. They absolutely do have conversations -- with Moby Dick references/jokes included -- but they tend to be far and few between. And that's pretty much the gist of how their dynamic usually goes in my mind: two introverted guys who hang out and enjoy a nice silence together.

Now, in a romantic/more-than-friends scenario, there's two ways I could see Quint and Brody's dynamic working and it depends on whether or not Ellen is also in the picture -- and yes it does matter and does change the dynamic in my opinion. In both scenarios though, Quint is usually making the first moves and he knows what to say/do to get Brody flustered. He's also just a flirt in general.

In Scenario A -- where Ellen is in the picture -- I think Quint and Brody would most likely be friends with benefits. I prefer to view Brody and Ellen's marriage as an open relationship where both parties are happy and love eachother. Because of that, I think Quint and Brody would have a typical fwb relationship and remain fairly casual. So yeah they smooch, but it isn't romantic here. Quint's also super flirty Quint also hooks up exclusively with Brody because I just can't imagine any timeline where Quint and Ellen are anything more than friends. If you're 18+, see the ao3 fanfic called Ramrod for more on how I view the Scenario A dynamic to work (and also because it's great).

In Scenario B -- where Ellen isn't in the picture (she either divorced Brody or just literally doesn't exist) -- I could see Quint and Brody being moderately domestic. I say moderately because no relationship involving Quint is ever going to be really and truly domestic or conventional. This is the scenario where I could see Quint and Brody actually having a standard romantic relationship and I also have more to say about it than I do Scenario A. Quint would probably move in with Brody, but he'd still keep the shack as a workshop. They'd also both be breadwinners; I can't really see either of them being a trophy/househusband. Brody would have his day job and do his reading & writing as a hobby, while Quint would make his money primarily from boat chartering and/or making alcohol (he quits shark hunting post-jaws incident). I like to imagine that Quint would frequently come up behind Brody and wrap his arms around his waist. He'll also mumble things into Brody's ear, but it's a 50/50 chance that he'll either say something really sweet and heartfelt, or something so utterly stupid and goofy that Brody starts immediately cracking up. It's also not uncommon for Brody to come home first and then get so immersed in a book or his writing that he won't notice Quint coming home until he actually physically comes up behind him and wraps his arms around him. They do occasionally bicker and have arguments, but most of the disagreements/problems they do have get solved fairly quickly.

Anyway, this is the majority of my thoughts on Quody, and to the anon who sent me that ask on my old blog: may this answer find your feed.

[cosmossystem]

i love yall but the sooner you realize you're arguing with a wall, the sooner we can all get on with our lives. Sysmeds don't like the "future is plural" phrase because in their minds, they're broken and there is no "healthy form" of plurality. That's it. They think there's nothing good about being plural at all and can't imagine anyone would be proud of it, and they see themselves as being 'woe-is-me' shattered-identity types. this is like, the fundamental core of their argument. they are sick and they do not want to get better. let it go

[transgender-catboy]

God, he looks downright exhausted here...