#otp: still here

[kamibanani]

I need to know everything about Nathiri immediately. Tell me about the moment she realised she LIKE-liked Astarion?

I love you so much for asking!! I do have a fic that I will post when the time comes (I'm writing through things chronologically), but to answer I have to give a little background.

They're like oil and water at first. Nathiri (Nattie to her friends) is, on the surface, entirely too good. A cinnamon roll so sweet looking at her gets you cavities.

But the thing about her is that... well, she's a bard. And a damn good one at that. You don't get to be a bard without being willing to get your hands dirty, being more than a little freaky, and without being very good at observing others.

Nattie clocked Astarion for what he was with about 80% certainty when he held a knife to her throat. She invites him to join them out of pragmatism, not kindness, though he takes it as such. She finds him to be a bastard — being annoyed because she was nice to some tiefling kids? Really? — but his mannerisms are charming and Nattie's made her share of bastard bard friends, so what's a rogue to add to the bunch?

Plus he's hot.

Act one stuff happens and it boils down to the tiefling party. She knows for sure what he is by this point, and knows his intent is to play her. She's eager to rid herself of her V-card, but wanted someone experienced that she was physically into, with no risk of feelings.

From that point, their relationship is one of mostly playful banter, though they still bicker about Nattie "helping everyone in Faerûn wipe their arse".

The Moment she realises she actually LIKE likes him is under the cut for spoilers.

It's when Astarion is trying to look in the mirror and says he's never seen his face since he turned. She offers to tell him what she sees, and as she's describing his face to him she realises that she's in love with him.

It's a sort of... quiet realisation. There's no one observation of his appearance that really goes HEY YOURE IN LOVE, it's just... a bunch of little double takes. When did she start thinking of his eyes as being beautiful and haunting? When did she notice the way his hair curled around his ears or the lines on his face when he smiled — and that he would absolutely be mortified if she mentioned them? When did she start noticing that little eyebrow arch he did when he thought he was being witty?

Moreover, when did she start offering her neck to him at night because she looked forward to a moment alone with him, as opposed to the pragmatic view of making him stronger? When did the smell of bergamot, whisky, and rosemary start making her heart flutter? When did the songs she composed in her head turn from battle hymns to songs specifically designed to grant him strength? When did someone that annoyed her become her actual friend? And when did that turn into more?

Then he tells her to tell him he's beautiful.

And she does, resigning herself to just keeping it under her hat and somehow working through it (maybe over a bottle or six of wine with Shadowheart) because godsdamn it she was an idiot.

[mischievous-thunder]

The silly Wade variants and their favourite feral Peanut variant

[bronzeagepizzeria]

DAVID TENNANT VIDEO DIARIES <3

[wistfulwatcher]

in a n o t h e r life

[bertoyana]

charles and erik with each other: oh dear, oh dear. gorgeous 🥺👐 charles and erik with the villain of the week/the x-men: K1LL YOURSELF 🔥🔥🔥

X-Men: First Class (2011) | X-Men Apocalypse (2016)

[andy-clutterbuck]

The Ones Who Live | 1x05 - Become

[hollygl125]

Dulé Hill, Janel Moloney, and Bradley Whitford in THE WEST WING (1999-2006), “A Proportional Response” (01x03)

I don’t think we’re allowed to make up our own words.

[meldoesthedraw]

💙💚🕯️✨🕯️🔮🕯️ Better be careful or she'll put a spell on you...👀

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, everyone!!!��✨🎃✨

(the original meme I referenced for this silliness)

[a2zillustration]

The desire to draw these two again but without the motivation to make something more than one of these little charts (oops)

Thank you Valc0 for making the sheet!

[thirdeyeblue]

“Nine would have treated Martha better than Ten did”

I need to talk about this argument that never seems to stop circulating.

Note: Not a venomous/anti post. There’s more than enough of that across fandom spaces as is, and this is supposed to be a place for ✨sweet, blissful escapism✨

When making this argument, people seem to envision a scenario in which Nine never met Rose.

While I can appreciate a good hypothetical, recognizing Rose's significance to the Doctor (Nine and Ten) is essential to understanding why things with Martha played out the way they did in the first place.

In the third series, the Doctor is grieving. This grief is deliberately threaded into nearly every script, whether spoken aloud or not (and these are just a few examples):

He's burning in Rose’s wake the entire time Martha travels with him, which is why it’s so frequently called upon: It’s 100% deliberate in framing his grief. He grieved as Nine too, of course— having been fresh on the heels of the Time War — but then he met Rose, which changed everything.

Back then, he was still a rude, traumatized pain in the ass, but we watch Rose soften more of those jagged edges with every episode as they grow closer; as he lets his guard down and forms a deep connection with her.

He falls in love (against his better judgment) and it's game over.

And yes: provided S1E1 had been titled 'Martha', one can realistically assume things might have unfolded similarly to how they did with Rose. However, it wouldn’t have been that way just because the Doctor was Nine and “Nine was different” — it would be because he wasn’t already in love with someone else. The same can't be said for the start of S3.

Think of it like this: if Rose AND Martha had been in that cellar — if Nine had taken both of them along with him in S1 — we’d eventually be looking at the most melodramatic love triangle ever, what with him living in close quarters with two brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate young women... But Doctor Who is plenty “soap opera” as is with just one woman in the TARDIS.

(I certainly wouldn’t object to reading that fic, though)

Now, regarding the unrequited elephant in the room…

His inability to be romantic with Martha isn’t because he thinks her lesser, nor is it for lack of compatibility. It isn't because Rose is any better than her. It certainly isn’t just because he’s Ten.

It’s really only for one reason, which can't be denied — and now I’m a broken record:

He is still in love with Rose.

(cut from a tenrosedaily gif)

Nine is Ten, and Ten is only such a mess in S3 because he’s just lost the love of his life. Martha merely got caught in the crosshairs of a volatile Time Lord in mourning, and yes — it sucks. Absolutely.

But it also feels dismissive to chalk Ten and Martha’s relationship up to little more than some sort of mindless dance of pining, jealousy, and toxicity.

Ten trusted Martha with his life over and over again — and hers, with him. He constantly praised her brilliance, happily carting her around time and space with no intention of letting her go. In the BBC’s extended universe of novels/comics/cartoons/etc, there’s so much depth to their relationship: love and trust and trauma and sacrifice. They had their own special bond as mates, their own complexities — so it’s a bummer that it's forever overshadowed by the other things.

I’m not denying that there was a lot of stuff that sucked/was for sure toxic about Ten's S3 behavior, but so many of the things I've seen him catching flak for can be directly attributed to being A Clueless Fucking Alien Idiot (not a trait that’s unique to Ten) — as well as his flat-out obliviousness to Martha’s feelings.

So yes, I agree: if Rose never existed, he would have treated Martha differently as Nine. He also would have treated her differently as Ten. Certainly.

But Rose did exist, and when discussing canon, it matters.

“He tells me that he absolutely, 100% loves Rose... He tells me how my daughter; my wonderful, beautiful, clever little girl saved him from himself before… And he says that’s all because of me! I made her into the Rose Tyler that saved him.”

-Jackie Tyler, Flight Into Hull!

Martha got the short end of the stick in S3. She came round at the wrong place and time, but that doesn't mean it was all bad. It doesn't mean the Doctor didn’t adore her. It certainly doesn't mean the time they spent together was wasted or worthless. They were brilliant!

Sure, he could be a twat, but let it be known that he was a twat with Rose as well, both as Nine and Ten. I’m sure Tentoo can be plenty infuriating, too. So while I'll defend Ten (and Tentoo) into the ground forever and ever and ever, I'll concede that he's fucked up.

The Doctor is a certified Pain In The Ass. It’s one of the things I love so much about this character — dynamics.

But never forget that Martha was goddamn tough as nails and overcame every bit of it. She moved on with her life, and the Doctor moved on with his. One can only pray that, when they inevitably drag her back onto the show (which feels inevitable if I'm honest), we see at once that she's been living her best life for all these years.

[esmes]

look at me baby, dead in my eyes it's the end of our holiday, but it isn't goodbye carry me with you all of the time eat of me baby, skin to the bone body on body, until I'm all gone but I'm with you, inside

🎥 @theriddletrades

[charlieconwayy]

Top 50 OTPs of All Time ☆ #44. Naomi Campbell & Emily Fitch

"I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. I think I was twelve. It took me three years to pluck up the courage to speak to you. And I was so scared about the way I felt, you know, loving a girl, so I learned how to become a sarcastic bitch to kind of feel normal. I screwed guys to make it go away, but it didn’t work. When we got together it scared the shit out of me. Because you were the one person who could ruin my life. I pushed you away. I made you think things were your fault. But really I was just terrified of pain. I screwed that girl, Sophia, to kind of spite you for having that hold on me, and I’m a total fucking coward because I got these… these tickets to Goa for us three months ago, but I, I couldn’t stand… I didn’t want to be a slave to the way I feel about you. Can you understand? You were trying to punish me back and it’s horrible. It’s so horrible, because really, I’d die for you. I love you. I love you so much it’s killing me."

[howtodisassembleyourdeviant]

Gavin fingering Connor and finding out his artificial prostate is designed like a fidget toy. Gavin doesn't even realize how long he's been playing with it until Connor finally musters the strength to grab his wrist, body trembling from his fourth release, steam coming out of his mouth from how much he's overheating.

[ghostoffuturespast]

Matching in red 💗

Trying to get new and interesting pics on console is always an exercise in creativity. I sometimes get bummed out seeing everyone else's PC VP, because it's so shiny and cool. And, well, most of mine isn't as shiny or cool by default. I sometimes waffle back and forth on whether any of my pics are actually worth posting. I have so many of them. Too many of them. Everyone's seen everything before. I usually talk myself into posting them though. In the end, there's no reason not to.

It's nice to have all the tools and a blank canvas to make things, but I think there's also something to be said for making within constraints. It challenges you to think differently about things. Forces you to intimately understand your confines.

We often persuade ourselves into thinking spaces are finite. But that's something we trick ourselves into thinking, because imaginations are infinite.

[pridoo]

this blog started as an Obito/Kakashi blog twelve years ago (yeah……) and since we've been re-watching our high school era animes with the guy I slid down the memory lane just this once!

(back to star wars tomorrow lol)

[leviiackrman]

SIMS 4 OC BUILDS: Saitama Loft

Finally got my builds sorted and photographed! First up is my first build, Ms Enatsu’s apartment with her boyf Katsuki! The ‘house’ is what their flat would look like in an apartment building but I’ve made it more livable in the sims lmao.

Lookbooks: Ackermans || Rikihisas || Enatsu || Kyutoku || Olalias || Hatakes || ATLA || Ginnivan || Ishimoto

Tag list (ask to be added or removed): @carrionsflower @statichvm @risingsh0t @simonxriley @tommyarashikage @kanos @bbrocklesnar @confidentandgood @unholymilf @florbelles @thedeadthree @shellibisshe @roofgeese @aezyrraeshh @faerune @tekehu @jackiesarch @minaharkers @sergeiravenov @carlosoliveiraa @rosenfey @greenecreek @queennymeria @heroofpenamstan @alexxmason @tethrras @jamessunderlandgf @a-treides @solasan @bigbywlf @delzinrowe @fenharel @imogenkol