#side characters are interesting

[01432853]

:') they're cute and coming into my pocket

[chloesimaginationthings]

Was dissecting the SOTM trailer and apparently your monty is a mm member comic is now canon

ANOTHER WIN FOR MONTY ENJOYERS!!!

(Original comic)

[slicklitsilos]

“Hannibal is a sadistic psychopath who cuts organs out of his victims while they’re still alive to eat them later”

Okay, yeah, and he also cries at the opera so….

[starlingfawn]

through starless sky to blackest ground

[datcravat]

It seems there's a new lawyer in town!!!

[raineyraven]

man i feel bad for fans of the httyd movies who haven't seen the shows, especially race to the edge. like they don't know that the riders left berk and lived on an outpost together to go adventuring and fight dragon hunters as a team. they don't know that snotlout and astrid and fishlegs and the twins got character development. they don't know how cool and interesting the villains in the shows are compared to the movies. they don't know that the riders are filled with love and loyalty to each other and they bicker and train and play card games with each other and have sleepovers together and will risk their lives for their friends and their dragons in a heartbeat. imagine that.

[jojaxcola]

post-wipeout patch up on a tuesday afternoon (embarrassing) [electric guitar]

[fulcrum-1029]

I feel like so many people characterize Cass as this perfect angel who can do no wrong and never messes up that they have completely forgotten that Cass is a weirdo in her 20s who has beat up everybody at this point just because she could.

[ganondoodle]

Empress and her Bodyguard.

(OCs, grey haired lady Zaphira she/her, demon Shargon he/they)

(also some details up close)

and this guy bc i find him funny

[thesunsethour]

i always wish we could have seen jaime and renly interact because their dynamic is so hysterical

jaime: outright says “i rather liked renly”, said it was a pity he died, told a comforting lie to loras to help him in his grief, seems pretty okay about renly being gay

renly: bets against jaime in the tourney of the hand, tells ned stark not to trust any lannisters, makes kingslayer jokes during feasts

[firewasabeast]

The absolute hilarious thing (not really) is that I genuinely think they tried to make it so we’d feel bad for Buck and be pissed at Tommy. But they screwed that up so badly by making Tommy incredibly likable and flawed and sad and lonely, and making Buck so he kinda worships Tommy and the ground he walks on without ever seeing beneath the “cool” exterior. So you’re left understanding Tommy’s reasoning a little bit (even through flawed writing) and you’re desperate to see how it impacts him.

Maybe it’s just how much Lou put into every single fucking scene he did throughout his run, maybe his little micro expressions and unscripted touches added to all of it, I don’t know. All I know is, I’ve seen Buck’s circle of emotions so many times, and I’m far more interested in seeing things through Tommy’s eyes, whether they ever got back together or not.

[vaguely-concerned]

This might be due to the fact that on my first playthrough I ended up creating a Rook more emotionally guarded than any of the companions except Minrathous-route Lucanis and perhaps Neve, so I was primed to look for it, but I never got the sense that the companions don’t care for Rook (the thought never even occurred to me until I saw other people post about it) — to me it seems much more like it’s Rook who keeps the last bit of distance, Rook who pulls away when the companions try to extend their care or worry too directly, who keeps themselves slightly apart. (Rook who is so full of grief they cannot know as grief and thus process that there’s no room inside them to let anything else all the way in, perhaps.) They deflect and flinch back when someone gets too close or approaches them too overtly about their feelings — especially when it brushes up against the theme of grief. They can offer care to all the companions who are grieving, come along to any number of funerals as emotional support, but the moment someone turns that towards them they shut that shit down Immediately, like when Taash almost gives the whole game away with ‘Like you’d know? You act like you haven’t lost anyone!’ and Rook just blandly responds ‘We’re talking about you’ and doesn’t engage. But they can also admit that they struggle with accepting compliments, or knowing what to say, or having confidence in themselves without Varric’s help.

Despite all their determination and even in their most stoic no-nonsense incarnation, Rook is awkward, with the struggles that entails. Someone who is eager and happy to be the helper wherever they can, and helplessly unequipped to know how to be the helpee, as it were. It’s not that the companions don’t return Rook’s attachment to them, there’s MUCH more of a ‘okay so what are the ways you will allow me to be good to you??’ desperation of care vibe behind all their invitations to conversations and hangouts together, to my mind. They bring Rook to their favourite places and share the things they love with them, they ask to spend time together (many times just to have their company, not because they have a problem they need help with! Sometimes the problem arises anyway b/c video game quest narrative of course), they bring them out for some direly needed grass touching, they introduce them to their families. Everyone is clearly getting the sense that Rook does Not want to talk about Varric especially (this is in fact what Harding says in banter, if she’s still alive after the reveal :’( ), but they are absolutely SCRAMBLING to find ways to show that they’re there for them even so. AND from the companions’ perspective, with the situation as they have the means to understand it, accepting that Rook isn’t ready to have that conversation and backing off is also a kind thing to do. (tl;dr: To Me Rook is that weirdly socialized friend who is a great hang once they’re actually there but you have to directly invite them or they don’t quite know how to initiate the contact themselves lol) 

Just as a crushing sense of responsibility for their family is a trait that is built into Hawke no matter how you play them or how you make them respond to that, I feel like Rook — however helpful and earnest, warm, charming, jocular, stoic or straightforward they seem at a surface glance — is always someone who struggles deeply with connecting to themselves and other people. (Emotional Intimacy, the Final Frontier.) As, indeed, is the case with all of the Veilguard companions too! It’s clearly a deliberate theme. These are all lonely people struggling with their sense of identity and belonging in some sort of way. AND having, working on and eventually starting to overcome these difficulties also makes Rook a direct foil for Solas, who doesn’t learn that lesson unless you corner him at the end of the world to force feed him his medicine lmao. They don’t manage to break out of the regret prison under their own steam, it’s because even struggling and grieving they have managed to create mutual bonds with other people who show up for them in turn now — and with all the protective walls of denial around what happened to Varric crumbling and making them less of a stranger to themselves, Rook is finally able to let them. An outcome Solas seemingly didn’t even consider to guard against, because he’s become that deeply entrenched in his loneliness, the utter isolation of the self — he can no longer truly imagine an alternative. (It’s not that he can’t form these bonds, obviously, it’s that he resolutely refuses to value them. Whether it’s because he feels like he doesn’t deserve it or out of a need for control or the martyr complex where he must sacrifice everything he loves on the sacrificial pyre of fixing his mistakes, all of the above and more, the result is the same. Mind!Varric, who I think is mostly Solas speaking, even calls this out directly. So yet again a situation where he has some self awareness about it and it doesn’t help At All haha. Solas falls to the temptation of making people into tools again and again and again, no matter how many times it comes back to bite him in the ass and the eternal solitude it traps him in.) 

And that deep deep loneliness… There but for the grace of… well the theological state of thedas being what it is right now, let’s just go with the grace of Something, Presumably go you as well, Rook. The same capacity/tendency to pull away from connection clearly lives in them as well in some form (again, for whatever reason and with whatever motivations and instincts behind it for any individual Rook). Solas and Rook coming together to create a blood magic paper doll of the mind Varric in response to acute loss and loneliness is one of the most deep , deeply fucked up and invasive acts of intimacy I’ve ever contemplated. I don’t think that’s accidental, there’s something There’s Something Wrong With You (there’s something wrong with you that’s also wrong with me (derogatory)) here that resonates no matter how both parties would hate to hear it. (A fitting legacy for Varric and his wild ‘I made my best friend into a story because it’s the only way I know how to love with this desperation of sincerity’ brain to leave in the narrative, methinks. I feel he’d appreciate it on a craft level, if nothing else.)

If you read through all of Rook’s potential backstories, one of the common threads through all of them, along with a certain maverick ‘I’ll do whatever it takes’ streak, is a sense of profound alienation. They did something or have some sort of quality that made it hard for them to fit in with the group they’re from, causing a conflict that cuts them off from parts of their identity as it’s been up until now. All of which also adds to how important Varric is to them — he was clearly able to break/see through some of that and be closer with them, even in the relatively short time they spent together. No matter what else goes to shit, they can trust that a) Varric sees them, b) he genuinely likes them and believes in them not despite who they are, but for it, and c) he’s got their back, we’re in this together kid. And then he is gone, and it takes them the whole game to be able to bring themselves to accept that and know themselves again, be able to let new relationships in fully. The very understandable ‘the last time I let someone in, they got stabbed before my eyes and the world ended’ flinch away, even if they’re not consciously aware that’s what it is. Anyway I love Rook. So much space to play around in here as to WHY they might feel or react like this, even when the framework is more defined.

[mint-termsandconditions]

Random subject,

but I need someone to make a video essay about the bastardization of female characters and the woobification of male characters in media/fandom spaces

because I think it’s a really interesting subject that probably stems from biases that plague our society

from

“He’s such a silly little guy.”

to

Literally calling fictional female characters worse than Hitler or something

Like, I feel like people talk about specific characters but not the topic as a broader subject

I feel like there’s so much to talk about

but I don’t have the elegance, critical thinking skills, the experience, or consume enough media to talk about this

So anyone who’s reading this please, please make a video essay about it

Or make one arguing against it idk

I just need a good video essay to watch while doing homework

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok is not as autistic coded in-narrative compared to what I've seen of Spock or T'Pol where they're othered heavily by those around them and have themes and arcs about struggling/striving to fit in BUT I do think he provides the vital autistic representation of not really angsting about your differences from other people because you're too busy and unaware and then even when you ARE made aware you mostly just think 'glad that's not me'. I think it's vital to have that sort of totally unbothered rep. I love that Tuvok is completely satisfied and proud of being Vulcan, doesn't long to experience emotion or struggle with a desire to express himself in a way his crewmates will understand, to be closer to them. I love that he has a long time and close friend that respects who he is and doesn't try to change him and that how close they are isn't framed as being in spite of his Vulcan nature. I love that being Vulcan isn't framed as a hindrance to him, like a roadblock to living a full and rich life. He has a wife and four kids and is a devoted husband and father. He's getting into gay horror scenarios. Tuvok was born on autism planet and he's thriving.

[zuzuzolsstuff]

HC with the Purgatory Hall guys

• Simeon often zones out while listening to music and imagines scenarios for his books

Luke once found him just sitting in the kitchen with headphones on and staring into the void. He tried catching Simeons's attention by calling out his name multiple times and got worried when Simeon wasn't responding. He later apologized to Luke.

• Solomon's actually bad at almost anything that's not magic. He spent a lot of his time only studying and researching magic so he paid little to no mind to other hobbies. During the exchange program he started showing interests in new things thanks to Simeon, Luke and MC.

Now they all have weekly meetings in which they try different hobbies together:

- Luke's good at crochet and makes a lot of plushies to gift

-Simeon enjoys drawing and as he says 'it helps him visualizing the TSL world'

- Solomon finds himself enjoying those logical puzzles, the harder the better.

• Luke was quite surprised when he found out that human kids his age, can't do the same amount of things he does. He just thinks it's supposed to be normal being able to cook a whole meal and to study college subjects at age 10.

So when he went to the human world and saw kids acting their ages, he was rather confused and told MC that human kids are quite... interesting and surely lack manners. MC and Simeon had to explain to him that even if he's technically also a 10 years old in angel years he can't expect human kids to grow in the exact same way since he lived longer and got more time to spend on learning different skill. He shouldn't worry about it, after all , MC also was a childish gremlin once and now they are a grown adult that can take full care of themselves.

(On that note, Luke's also slightly more mature than the kids in the Celestial Realm, since he spends most of his time with Michael and Simeon and doing minor errands for them)

[villa-kulla]

oh nothing, just book lawrence and bellini being work husbands who have each other's backs...

....and praying together...

...and supportively sassing each other...

...and being soft ...

...and passing notes during conclave like schoolchildren...

AND WHATEVER IMPROMPTU 'GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE' REPRESSED TENDER ROMANCE MOVIE YEARNING BULLSHIT THIS IS

i'm crying, they're married, they're dating, they're confirmed bachelors, they're courting, they're besties, they're flirting, they're in love, they're everything to me, amen