#or lack thereof really

[enigmatic-mystery-777]

🙃🙃

It's fine, though.

[maranull]

anyway, Elden Ring is about love and hope

Marika burns everything she has build out of sorrow

Ranni banishes the Outer Gods and also fucks off the Lands, giving agency back to the normal beings of the Lands

Fortissax endlessly fights Death for his friend/lover

Melina burns herself and Erdtree in hopes of a better world in the hands of the Tarnished

Blaidd fights against the very reason he was created out of love for his sister

Ranni and Rykard always keep an eye on their mother, protecting her

Radahn evokes so much love from his troops that they organise a whole festival to give him a honorable death even in his madness

Radahn learns an entire new school of magic in order to still ride his favourite horse

Boc's love for his mother, his mother's love for him

How all but two endings are build on the hope that this new era (whatever it might be) will be good

Miquella attempting to create an whole new world-tree to host the forsaken and the damned

Miquella turning on the faith he was raised and even believed in to an extent, when it was unable to cure his sister's curse

The Cleanrot's loyalty to Malenia and their endurance of the Rot, only to stay in her service

Malenia marching through the entire continent in search of her brother

Finlay traveling all the way back on her own, carrying the incapacitated demigod on her back

Tanith's love for Rya

Dialos' entire questline

Edgar being driven mad after his daughter dies

Vyke embracing, to a point, the Frenzied Flame in order to save his finger maiden

or you know, that's just how I see it

[currymanganese]

"Bold strategy cotton, let's see if it pays off!"

[tsilvy]

"Crowley doesn't have Gabriel. Where would he put him?" says Aziraphale talking to Shax.

Where would he put him?

He knows. HE KNOWS. He knows that Crowley doesn't have a house anymore. That he's living in his car. But he hasn't said anything because he hasn't yet fathomed why Crowley wouldn't say anything. And he's trying to change that, too.

"You like waiting inside." Subtle, subtlest way to tell him that he knows, he understands, has noticed the telling signs. And he's saying it's very much okay for Crowley to keep staying in, whenever he wants, to consider the bookshop his place even when Aziraphale is not around.

The whole "our car", "our bookshop", "we both got plenty of use out of it". Look, I know what the common speculation about the plenty of use is, but realistically? He's heavily implying that Crowley, too, needs the bookshop. Not likes, needs. Let's spell out the analogy: I need your (our) car because I don't have my own car, the same as you need my (our) bookshop, which is my house, because you don't have your own house.

He's been dropping hints right and left that he already knows anyway, and that it's okay to ask, he'd totally say yes. And even if Crowley doesn't ask, it's still okay. He's saying yes already.

And I marvel continuously at the complexity of the character that is Aziraphale, because he can be the most infuriatingly callous bitch in the world, and then in the same breath he can be this sensitive, gentle, emotionally intelligent person who really, really loves Crowley more than he could ever put into words.

[tavtime]

There is something skittering around in my brain tonight about the way that BG3 intends the audience to view mind flayers as individuals vs as a species, and the way that plays out in the player's relationships with Omeluum and the Emperor.

I mean, one of the primary gears upon which the story turns is that when a person becomes illithid, the soul they previously had is destroyed (but not their memories of the person they were). This is presented as an insurmountable wrong - literally socially aberrant - and it certainly is so from both the point of view of the gods concerned with mortal souls, and illithids' mortal prey concerned with keeping their brains in their heads.

The Emperor's storyline takes this to the conclusion that the condition of being soulless is, in and of itself, a complete destruction of the individual; that whatever it was before, the illithid will be invariably manipulative, inherently untrustworthy, and unable to reconcile its needs and desires into peaceful coexistence with non-illithids. It's certainly the conclusion you're intended to draw from Duke Stelmane's story, as well as numerous supporting texts, most notably from the creche.

But then... Omeluum offers the refutation to that. Here he is, leading a peaceful life because he just... wants to. Absent a soul or comprehensible mortal desires to operate as a moral compass, Omeluum still chooses to contribute to the Society of Brilliance. He voluntarily and at personal cost researches alternative food for himself so that he doesn't need to feed on sentient beings. He helps the player character multiple times, despite the fact that doing so carries variable risk with little promise of reward.

So clearly, being illithid in and of itself is not what makes someone manipulative or untrustworthy: it's not a baked-in species trait. The Emporer isn't Like That solely because he's a mind flayer; he's like that because... he's like that. That's who he is as a person. That's what he has become, in his current incarnation, and yes, some of it is certainly due to his transformation (having your soul shredded and your will broken would screw most people up pretty badly, I imagine), but not all of it! If something about his circumstances had been different, maybe he could've been different as well. Maybe his moral compass would have pointed in a similar direction as Omeluum's.

[ohlexa]

AVA SILVA + her little gay dangling earring

[commandertartarsmoocher]

If anybody is curious who I ship the funny telephone with... Here is my super awesome and long awaited answer:

🎉 Nobody 🎉

[thatonegaybrit]

; the sentences " micro labels are valid and can be helpful and validating to people " and " people don't have to specify every part of their identity to you to be valid, and can use broad terms even if their actual experience is more specific " can and should coexist.

[thevoicefromthestars]

twisters (2024) is a rom com in disaster movie drag the way that the mummy (1999) is a rom com in horror movie drag and you can't change my mind

[contagious-watermelon]

so what is it with people being incapable of talking about, thinking about, raising awareness for aromanticism without bringing up asexuality. why are we acting as if aromanticism is just some special status buff for aces

[aetsiv]

every time i see someone mischaracterize matthias as a dumb, blonde, malewife with no personality except being nina's (dead) boyfriend i want to fistfight god and cause the mass extinction of humanity

[superkitten-poison]

i guess my biggest party pooper opinion on hazbin is that it feels like a bit of an oversight to have sir pentious and cherri bombs big romantic moment be him just pulling her in for a kiss when hes only ever gotten negative indication that shes into him at all. and she still asks if hes out of his mind and protests a bit when he does it. well.

[passive-agrestive]

what is adrien agreste but the rose bride, blonde-man version

[headphonemouse]

redraw (light mode users try clicking it! dark mode users there's a solid version below)

My favorite tags from @borealiszero that gave me the strength to finish this

[espurr-roba]

strelitzia being in kh4 is everything to me, especially considering the true dandelion sitch. like the reasonable assumption is that this is strelly after being slain by darkness, quadratum is like her afterworld, that sorta thing. that on its own is fun bc, hey, more strelitzia! she's stranded in mortal limbo without any of her loved ones and that's something she and sora can relate with, it's already a terrific set up

but imagine if this is data strelitzia, the one in the white cloak that luxu sends off in the lifeboat. we know from melody of memories when apprentice xehanort's sending kairi off that ending up in unreality is assumed to be possible via the pods (see: "However, if you arrive in a world that's neither of light nor darkness, but somewhere on the other side, your task will be far from easy.")

picture you're a copy of the original person, with full knowledge that you're a copy, and between the both of you, you're the one that gets to live on as "you".

[friezaglasiencold]

‘Smouldering coals’ my ass, you clearly adore Kuriza. Emotionally repressed man who cannot comprehend that he loves his child unconditionally because his own father was awful my beloved and detested.

My father was a rat of a man, but that’s hardly relevant. I never said I didn’t care for my child.

And to think… here I was, being so vulnerable with my feelings. Shame on you, and shame on me for trying.