#she didn’t want to post this herself

[gafurtle]

“Wax’s son is Maxillium? Is the next book gonna be about him and Minestrone - Max and Min?”

—my wife

[harrowedsoup]

A reminder that Harrow didn’t HAVE to take Gideon with her in GtN. She very much could have taken Ortus but choose to let him escape to keep Gideon with her. She might have said that she had to take Gideon but she put herself in that position because she can’t let Gideon go.

Gideon was her pretty boy toy !! She got taken because Harrow likes her muscles and probably dreamed of kissing her under the moonlight when Gideon said the lights were busted because she didn’t know how the sun works

[silverhalla]

Back at it again with another theory: What if Lucanis’ betrayal wasn’t a betrayal at all?

(obviously, spoilers below the cut)

During The Wigmaker Job, we have some dialogue between Illario and Lucanis about their position within both the Crows and the Dellamorte family. Illario wants Caterina to step down so he can take the coveted First Talon spot. Lucanis reassures him that his time is coming, to which Illario makes a snide comment about whether his cousin would ever go against their grandmother’s wishes. When they continue the conversation after the job, Illario states that Lucanis is the potential heir, that he’s her favorite, and that he’s unlikely to say no to her. Lucanis doesn’t argue, only insists that he doesn’t want to be First Talon, and that he hopes she’ll see reason before that. It’s mentioned again in Eight Little Talons - Caterina favors Lucanis. It’s well-known enough among the Crows that Viago and Teia discuss it in front of her (not on purpose, but she doesn’t deny it). He’s her prodigy through and through.

In the opening scene for the Lucanis quest in Veilguard, Caterina is poised, as you’d expect of the First Talon. She’s certain that the body they buried wasn’t her grandson, that it had been altered with blood magic. She doesn’t pose it as a theory, though: she poses it as a fact. It could, of course, merely be her confidence, but there’s another very unusual aspect to the scene – everyone else discusses how Lucanis was clearly betrayed, that someone must have sold him out in order for the Venatori to capture him. Caterina is the only one in that room who never speaks on it. She doesn’t ask for justice, doesn’t mention vengeance, never acknowledges that her grandson was sold out by someone he trusted – perhaps because he wasn’t. 

What if, when Caterina comes to him with a plan, with an impossible request, he’s still her favorite prodigal grandchild, and he still does whatever she asks? She’s had him tortured before as a child, has tortured and starved and beaten him herself before, because it makes him stronger and more resistant to it in the future. He says in The Wigmaker Job that he used to hate her for it, but now he understands. He justifies it. All Crows justify it, because they have to - if they don’t, then the cruelty wasn’t for survival’s sake, and their suffering meant nothing. Perhaps he doesn’t even question it. When Caterina tells him that she has a job for him, he takes it. 

What if the contract has a caveat? Sure, Calivan must die by his hand by the end of it, a little treat for a job well done, but what if his primary mission is reconnaissance, is discovery? The Venatori are using blood magic to torture and corrupt prisoners. It would behoove the Crows to find out what it entails and how to resist it, before it’s turned back on them. It would have to be someone so deeply, unabashedly loyal to her that when she asked them to infiltrate a Venatori prison, expecting torture at best, their own death at worst, they’d take the job anyway, no questions asked - someone Caterina can trust, certainly, but also someone who has never once said no to her.

And Lucanis has always been a loyal grandson. 

[ilovebeingaturtle]

Made an 1987 Venus, and a 2012 Venus, so I’ve been long overdue to make a 2003 Venus! Tada~

In this interpretation, Venus wasn’t initially separated from her brothers. Instead, she was raised alongside them-up until the family went on the trip to Japan to return Hamato Yoshi’s ashes. The whole ordeal with the ninja tribunal happened around about the same, however at the end, while erasing the turtles memories, the tribunal saw Venus’s mystic potential and took her away to be trained by them, wiping her families memories of her as well.

Skip ahead a few years, and when Leo his sent away from is family-instead of the Ancient One, he meets her. Another turtle willing to help who feels so so familiar…

[makotonaegiunderstander]

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

[narugen]

thinking about this post i made (anime only’s there are spoilers for manga) and with the release of episode 10

i can't even imagine how mina felt when she came back to HER base in ruins, her men injured, or worse - dead. she came back to her base destroyed, and her second in command on the verge of death.

do i think mina's faith in hoshina is so little that she thinks he would have died? no. do i think that she was terrified regardless, seeing everybody risk their lives - especially hoshina, the person she kept by her side for years, almost get himself killed for the sake of the division and for her? yes.

this shot in particular (which was not in the manga) makes me wonder if mina was thinking: ah. here we go again. everybody's risking their lives down there and i'm up here. alone. i have to do well. i have to make my mark.

it's just so important to remember mina quite literally almost lost her home base, her childhood friend, and her vice-captain overnight.

[heireign]

WHAT TAROT CARD ARE YOU ?

JUSTICE — what would you do to ensure justice? you know full well i don’t speak of lofty ideals and courts and magistrates, dearest. what would you do to those that hurt you? if I dropped them in your lap, what would you do? what kind of pain could you possibly inflict upon them? you are right to do so. you are right to want to do so. ignore the screaming, dearest, you are the hand of justice now, and they hurt you. do not look too closely at their faces, dearest. you are within your rights. you spell out your own rights, now. are you happy about it? are you certain that this is the right person you hold by the hair? does your anger hurt less now?

tagged by: @nonpareil

tagging: @lenfear , @wulfmaed , @oflorien , @belayadeath , @sanctamater , @lcerys , and @zalarys

[thewingedwolf]

they were doing “is madeleine a pedo for being attracted to claudia” discourse on twitter the other day and i would like it very much if twitter was just nuked as a website lol

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

.

[galacticnova3]

elfilis got bodied by a decrepit truck i think a Giant Fucking Magic Starship would turn it into rat roadkill

I think the biggest question is not “Would Lor be able to defeat Elfilis in a one-on-one battle?” but instead “Would Lor be able to bring herself to land a fatal blow on another sapient being, even knowing that they have done horrible things that cannot be undone nor made up for in any meaningful capacity, even knowing that they might never WANT to be better, just because she is in a position where she gets to decide to give someone a chance or assume that they will never choose to change and thus do not deserve the opportunity to try?”

Lor wasn’t there. Lor doesn’t know the full extent of what they did, and nobody but Elfilis knows what they did to the original inhabitants of the forgotten land. Elfilin is just a delightful little guy who came from the very same flesh and blood as the psychic tyrant; they consider Elfilis to be their other half. How is it her place, as someone who never interacted with them, was not victimized by them, doesn’t even really KNOW them beyond what others have claimed, to finish them off, even if the opportunity was there? Regardless of how much she trusts them, is witness testimony without observable evidence on her part enough to deliver a death sentence?

Would it not be hypocritical, too, considering she adopted someone who at one point tried to take over the universe(in his right mind or not) and kill some of the very same people the two of them consider friends now? Someone who used her as a weapon when she wasn’t awake to resist? Would she ever be able to justify the choice to see one of these people as family in spite of his misdeeds and the harm he sought to cause, and another as someone who gave up their right to live and grow when they chose vengeance and violence against a world that had, at one time, deeply wronged them?

That said, one might say in that situation Elfilis’ fate would be in their own hands. They could back down and recognize that such a fight wouldn’t be worth it, sure, but that’s something that would probably be out of character for them considering the lengths they went to already. Recognizing an optimal path and following through in spite of one’s emotions are two very different things. Their other option is that they can fight to their own death, like an animal with no concept of walking away for a second chance later, because when in their life have second chances not come at costs they didn’t want to pay? When you believe yourself to be perfect, you forget that survival of the fittest is more applicable to the next generation than oneself. There is no such thing as perfection, and yet to admit that would be to acknowledge their own shortcomings— is that something Elfilis would be willing to do?

[moszeel]

I never post my OCs or their lore on here so literally no one is excited to see her except me. Which is probably a good thing because she is the worst boss ever. Her names Allison (last name pending) and she runs a morally questionable branch office for a big pharma company

[heycoyotegirl]

the way that ben makes the same mistake at the end of his junior year that paxton made as a freshman and then doesn’t even apologize for it

go king give us nothing

[trevisos]

my biggest goal for my dai replay is to figure out how to have quinn be better friends with/care more about solas so i get more emotional payoff in datv. i think this isn’t a very tall order but it’s an extremely funny problem to have to puzzle out. how do i make the antisocial lesbian care about the overcooked egg man

[helioptilie]

I have very mixed feelings about The Fall of The House of Usher. As much as I loved Carla Gugino’s performance, I think connecting everything to Verna and The Deal lessened the impact of all other storylines. Edgar Allen Poe follows similar themes, but his works are short and distinct. The Black Cat, Murder in The Rue Morgue, and The Raven; all involve death, but have different approaches to the subject and a different end effect on the audience. Idk it worked well to make the show cohesive but I feel as though it might have been better to keep it as an anthology.

[swordmaid]

i think shri’iia when she was still in menzoberranzan would def be an oath of the crown paladin/ or even conquest but i think oath of the crown is more fitting. she pledged her oath and loyalty to lolth and to her Matriarch to serve and enact lolth’s will and she punished anyone who turns away from the spider queen. enacting lolth’s/or her matriarch’s will meant that she helped instigate conflict and war between the noble houses (bc lolth thrives on chaos), and generally just killed anyone who her matriarch orders her to kill so that she can forever keep their house as the 4th most powerful noble house in the city. in short, she really was her matriarch’s well trained hound and she was like … devoted and loyal to lolth that it bordered on fanaticism. like she was so obsessed ok, hence why i think oath of the crown is more fitting since she wanted to preserve the status quo bc it was what lolth desired.

[mom-friendtm]

period blues