#pick a distraction any distraction

[madalice31]

I swear police and media make me sick. American Nightmare literally has me heartbroken. The fact that people were and are more willing to believe some movie shit happening in real life. Life is much stranger than fiction. It’s just the fact that people weren’t doing their jobs and making blatant accusations. I mean to straight up tell her boyfriend that he killed her with all the confidence in the world. Only to turn around and tell the very much alive girlfriend, equally as confidently, that you know she’s a lying piece of shit jealous bitch like that blonde off Gone Girl. See, you even look like her.

Does she though? 🙄

The only thing that really stuck out to me about that documentary is how gullible people are (the DMs were craaaaazy. People really be on high horses. Like no, let’s pause and talk about the type of person you have to be to go in someone you don’t know DMs and tell them they deserve to die. Like what about the situation hurt you that deep? It had absolutely no effect on your life 🤯). Anyway, the other thing I learned is how fucking useless the police are. Im thankful for the female cop that broke the case but she is one in a million.

This is what I expect people to get outraged at, but things like the police being trash never go viral. I guess yall still fighting over pronouns or some shit.

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

do you think color or killer would like jewelry?

I think Killer would want to feel and look pretty, and Color wants to hoard shiny, pretty things, and sometimes he may even be tempted to eat them if they’re gold and look delicious.

I feel like Color actually has a ridiculous amount of jewelry he simply can’t bring himself get rid of or throw away, even if he doesn’t even wear most of them, but he has specific ones that are either special to him in some way (gifts, memories and/or sentimental value attached, specific ones that reminded him the people he loves, those shoddily made friendship bracelets and rings and necklaces, perhaps ones that the souls like more than others as well), or are just ones he wants to keep because they’re pretty and nice to watch glint in the sun.

I like to think he lends his jewelry to Epic for his cross dressing stuff, and they definitely allowed Killer to use and experiment with them. Either on his own body, or using Color as a canvas of sorts.

[highfantasy-soul]

My view on the Elrond/Galadriel kiss:

Cultures be different.

Kisses on the lips are not always sexual/romantic. (I, as an American, have kissed certain friends on the lips in completely platonic ways)

In many cultures, closed-mouthed kisses on the lips are a sign of love and emotional connection in a platonic/familial way.

Specifically American aversion to affection in any form is rotting people's brains - here, a lot of men won't even HUG each other because they think it's 'too intimate'. Other cultures kiss on the hand, cheek, forehead, nose, and yes, lips too, in completely platonic ways. [And we're not even going to get into the large portion of the population who thinks that men and women literally CANNOT be just friends, if a man and woman are close, it HAS to be romantic/sexual.]

Just because YOUR culture/personal preference reserves lip kisses for romantic/sexual feelings only doesn't mean everyone else is wrong for feeling differently.

I didn't read the kiss as Elrond secretly having romantic feelings for Galadriel at all - to me it was clear it was a platonic show of how much he cared for her and how sorry he was that they had been at odds all season (and largely in S1 too) and was afraid it was really going to be the last time he saw her. He wanted to show her just how much she meant to him - PLATONICALLY - and a tender kiss (while also using it as a distraction to slip her a lock-pick) was the way he did it.

Obviously it's ok for people to interpret it as romantic if they ship Galadriel and Elrond, but to say that's the ONLY interpretation based on your own limited cultural understanding of what a kiss could mean is just frustrating.

[kineticallyanywhere]

we're all so distracted by the norm-scary parallels we're blinded to the reality that link is the one turning into early-season scary right under our noses

[gildedmuse]

Listen.... Trafalgar Law is like Opposite Pick Me Girl.

Evidence:

He stole Doffy's whole look down to the shirtless sluttiness, feather coat and the earrings.

He COPIED DOFFY'S ACTIVATION METHOD. How "notice me, senpai!!" is THAT!?

Like Doflamingo, he acts as though your attempts at torturing him are absolutely precious.

Law straight up based his jolly roger on Doffy's. Like it's not even kinda subtle. (Not that Law does subtle. Which is weird for someone trying SO HARD to be dark, mysterious, and edge-y as Kikoku. )

Trafalgar spent years of his life travelling around the world, gaining notoriety and power, putting into place a series of intricate moving parts that all had to come together in just the right way all so Doflamingo would notice him and remember his face forever.

Law: Please, Young amaster-sama! Oh, please pick me!

Law: To kick your pathetic, subhuman ass.

[Thanks to @revlischarm who gave me this idea.]

[pearl-kite]

Hi I know this is out of nowhere and sorry if you answered it before. Also totally ok if you don’t want to answer

But your blog got me super interested in the redacted asmr thing

I did some research and you seem to know a lot about so do you know if there’s any like, chronological order I should watch them?

Love your blog!

Absolutely no worries! I like getting stuff to respond to, it's the opposite of a bother <3

So Redacted Audio, formerly Redacted ASMR, is a channel on youtube with a, quite frankly, massive amount of audio, and since it's been running for over 4 years now it can be a LOT to sort through. Fortunately, he's done a really good job curating and organizing playlists for the different speaker-characters.

Everything is within the same universe, and many of the characters have interacted with each other. The context is that the location is a fictional city named Dahlia set somewhere in California, which is a "cornerstone" city for magical society. The best way to get a solid rundown on magic and the setting is to listen through the Freelancer Season 1 playlist.

This one is already arranged in chronological order* and also has the benefit of giving a sampler of sorts for a wider variety of speakers. One thing to be aware of ahead of time: While this was actively being published, Erik hadn't decided who the listener-character (nicknamed Freelancer) would be romancing, so it starts off with a lot of potential toward all of them except Caelum. As it went, there were polls in the discord server that he used to run, and popular consensus eventually narrowed it down to Gavin. The first time I listened was after all of that, and I was more fond of Damien, but I'm personally pleased with Gavin now, and this playlist has been one of my favorites to just revisit if I'm bored.

*Well, mostly. There was a point where the channel got a strike for some of the audios being too spicy and he removed and/or edited some of them to try to avoid being demonetized. The first Gavin audio is one of the ones that got edited, and #3 on the playlist accidentally got relocated. It's been a long time, but I think it was originally after what's now #6, the second Caelum audio.

Aside from that one as a good introduction to the channel as a whole, there are some "main" characters that have had the most attention.

One is a group of wolf shifters: David, the current head of the pack (Chronological for his listener. A lot of people aren't super fond of the earliest ones for him, #3-5, because the character evolved a bit and they aren't really representative any longer) Asher, his second Milo, another pack member, which is absolutely underselling him, he's one of my favorites

There are a couple of vampires: Vincent, the OG for the channel Sam, a common favorite who's listener is a member of David's pack

While most of the playlists are specific to character, there are a few thematic ones as well, all of which are chronological within themselves. Now, chronology with respect to each other can start to get a bit confusing, because of how long it's taken for some of them to play out.

If you want to get a feel for the characters before worrying too much about timeline, I'd listen through most playlists as they're arranged with one main caveat:

When you hit the audios titled Inversion, give those a pause until you've listened to more speakers. Inversion was a huge crossover he did that has 10+ speakers involved.

A personal favorite has been Vega. I'm actually super not fond of the first audio he's in, which is also in the Freelance list, so I skip that one when I relisten. The first one in this list is that one with the Freelancer, but the second and onward has a demon listener nicknamed Warden. We just got an update on his story today/last night and I've been a little unwell about it 🙃

I am realizing I could go on and on and on and I kind of have, so I'm going to stop there. Hopefully that's enough to dip your toes in. I'll gladly help out with any follow-up questions, too :3

[elibeeline]

im gonna need my brain to Chill The Fuck Out pls

[shadowslocked]

Lucanis vs Davrin

Rather than Harding, the choice of which companion dies should have been between Lucanis and Davrin instead

My problem with Harding vs. Davrin is that in general the choice feels like it was created for shock value and trying to keep in line with the RPG elements. Both of them are chosen not because of their stories but because of of the immediate emotional response it can pull. Harding because she has been around since Inquisition so old fans feel attached to her; Davrin because Assan dies with him. It's shallow, it cuts into their stories and makes working on their personal quests irrelevant depending on who you plan to off.

Even if this was better written though, I would consider making it Davrin vs. Lucanis instead.

These two are introduced as having beef with each other which gets worse after the first failure to kill Ghilan'nain. It's part of their personal quests to help these two work through their issues so they can fight together. Both of them have reasons to personally go after Ghilan'nain that provides them a reason to go after her: Davrin being a Grey Warden and not dying at Weisshaupt; Lucanis failing to Ghilan'nain during the siege.

Sure, Lucanis is automatically the one selected to kill her, however the decision could easily be about which one confronts her directly. Davrin providing the opening attack, or Lucanis confronting her head on himself.

It would be nice if their Veilguard Hero status actually played a role in this decision as well; instead of being an assured kill, the Hero status would instead act as a prologue for the final battle and whoever you choose still survives. Versus without it where they WILL die.

It would also be interesting to see if reconciling Lucanis and Davrin would have an impact on how they confront Ghilan'nain; such as, instead of having to choose, they're able to combo her and take her out

Except, you may say, what about the old switcheroo Solas pulls? He needs Rook to have regret so they can take his place. Well, as the Fade breaks down with Ghilan'nain, he does the same thing he does in the original. He tricks them. He shows them visions of Lucanis and Davrin dying, the same trick he pulled with Varric, and doesn't give them time to see through the illusion.

Upon returning to Thedas, you find out the truth for yourself.

[spaghett-onaplate]

it's been a bit of a day. seethed for hours over an interaction with a customer. i shit my pants. then i moved furniture around in my room but the way id planned to move it didnt work so i put it back

[infitsovermisfits]

unfortunate and awful news- I lost my job and we're getting evicted from our hous🙃

[nyxofdemons]

i think the best way i can articulate why this episode is my favorite of the whole show so far is that it was so emotionally gratifying i don't even care about the pacing issues

[punkcherries]

everyone whittled me down and i watched arcane. it was alright

[ghoulodont]

raindrop christmas edit for @midnight-moth

[icouldbeluckyagain]

I keep coming back to how bizarre this all feels

[yellowocaballero]

hey, do you have a favourite child out of all of your fics?

Oh, New Wave by far. Like. By far.

I think I've written better stories, but New Wave is really close to my heart. I've been writing Steph and Tim since I was 15, and there is something incredibly satisfying about writing a character for so long until you finally get her right. Her depiction in that story is different from how I usually write her (I try not to get attached to one characterization), but I was worried it was actively detrimental to the story how fond I was of my girl. Hopefully she doesn't feel too Mary Sue.

I related to her a lot as a kid, and she was my hero. Somebody stupid, incompetent, white trash, and a failure. But someone who always got back up again. Somebody who was relentlessly told how worthless she was, and who said 'fuck you, I'm worth something'. I wanted to be just like her. And now as an adult, I want to express love for that kid who thinks so little of herself, but who chooses to be brave anyway.

Also I spread my agenda and now other people love my girl too so <3.