#someone did their research

[livingsurreal]

Fiber Arts and Textiles in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Today I want to show some appreciation for the amazing people who created the armor ins DAtV. There is some really neat stuff if you look at it in detail. I have a tousand pictures of the companion armor, so here are a few outstanding details! LOTS of pictures below <3

I love the knitted pullover on Lucanis. So cozy and warm! Taash also has a really interesting pullover here.

You can see, that Emmrichs coat is made of woolen fabric, adorned with a lot of amazingly embossed leather. His west is a denim like textile and his shirt a fine weave with a starched cotton collar.

His silk sash has some amazing pattern. And the little elbow patches, stitched on to his coat? <3

Now Davrin clothes are made of rougher linen, wool and leather.

Neve wears a lot of leather (again, finely embossed), denim like textiles and her famous silk scarf!

Bellara likes leather, heavier cotton fabrics, her favorite silk scarf and she too has a nice knit pullover.

Harding prefers leather and sturdy, heavy fabrics, of course.

Lucanis is our leather boy, of course. Gosh the details!

And now to my favorite part!

The embroidery!

You can see the goddamn stitches!

The patterns on Bels scarf and puches are completely stiched. The fine stitching make of silk on one or Ems robes. A rougher wave pattern on Taashs sash!

And then there is Lace.

Look at Hardings sash, she things she stitched on it! Solas, Orlais Lion, Big Els helmet/horns, BEES!, Coles hat, the Inquisition eye, Varrics book (writing), a Tevinter snake, Iron Bulls Head with a little eyepatch, a griffon/dragon, one of Lelianas ravens, and Inkys hand!

So damn beautiful.

[sunflowermp4]

watched missing (2023) for the first time tonight and it was such a good time however the initial argument scene between her mom and dad felt WAY too real as a biracial child of a non-white mom and a shitty white dad

[justaz]

country bumpkin merlin not knowing anything about city life and accidentally courting arthur without knowing

merlin, watching gwen give lancelot her favor: why do you do that

gwen, heart eyes at lance and not paying that much attention to the conversation: so he knows i’m rooting for him

merlin, with an Idea: ah.

gwaine, lover of chaos, pisser offer of nobles and royals alike, ultimate wingman: merlin…you have such lonely lips. shall i introduce them to mine?

merlin, unaware of the game gwaine is playing: so you can steal my breath away? i think not, scoundrel

arthur, crushing his goblet in his hand:

merlin: arthur’s been in a bad mood recently :( i should cheer him up

merlin, remembering when arthur was put out when merlin brought morgana flowers and not him: i know just the thing

merlin, bringing a bouquet of carnations, roses, and tulips and setting them on arthur’s table while he’s eating breakfast: good morning, sire

arthur, trained on flower language in hopes that one day when he was to take a queen he could woo her easily, trying not to audibly choke on his sausage as he reads merlin’s declaration of love sitting in front of him:

arthur, who recently found out about merlin’s magic and was trying to find a way to bring it up, catching him in the act and watching merlin panic to explain himself:

merlin, Freaking: and i swear to you arthur, i have only ever used it for you. my magic is yours. my life is yours. i am yours. i would never do anything to harm you. i have protected you for years and will continue to do so at your side if you’ll have me

arthur, already believing them to be courting, desperately trying to figure out if that was a proposal for marriage or not but tired of being confused and deciding fuck it: here.

merlin, taking it: i…uh…huh?

arthur, watching merlin with hawk eyes and trying to figure out what he’s thinking and feeling: it’s my mothers sigil

merlin, confused as FUCK but is focusing on the fact that arthur is handing him something of his mother rather than a death sentence: my…my lord?

arthur, realizing how scared merlin’s must be about him finding out about his magic and trying to comfort him while also proposing, killing two birds with one stone: i will always keep you at my side, merlin, so long as we both shall live. if you’ll allow me.

merlin, almost collapsing with relief and tearing up, smiling at arthur as if he had parted the storm clouds to allow sun to shine down on them in that moment: of course…of course, arthur. always and forever.

merlin, watching the castle staff rush this way and that: wow. this banquet must be incredibly important

sir leon the long suffering, day one ride or die, one of the original merthur shippers: banquet? merlin, this is for your wedding

merlin, overworked and exhausted: my WHAT? to WHO??

leon, regretting everything he’s ever done in his life that led him to this moment: to…arthur?

merlin, over joyed but also absolutely befuddled: i’m getting married to ARTHUR?????

leon: you two have been courting for the past year or so, have you not?

merlin: i’ve been COURTING ARTHUR?????? FOR A YEAR?????????

[kindnessoverperfection]

Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

[heyhanibee]

courting dance♡

[your-local-granny]

"Our job is to find truth, no matter how painful it may be."

[theartofmadeline]

okay but did you celebrate pride by researching & making a zine about abraham lincoln being gay??? don’t worry becuase I did! :)

[afterthelambs]

I'm not sure if I believe the "Wakaba Isshiki did unethical experiments" theory in the fandom, but I do think this is the biggest proof of it in-game:

Because how the hell would she know that?

The first explanation is that she did experiments by sending people into palaces and then testing what happens to them if the palace collapses. Which is messed up for obvious reasons.

The second explanation is that she did NOT test it, meaning she was just making shit up. Which is funny but also would make her a terrible scientist. This explanation is less believable because everything else about her research is too accurate.

There's also a theory that Wakaba did unethical experiments on Akechi specifically. I'm not sure I believe that, since the evidence for it is pretty shallow (like the featherman game scientist experimenting on grey pigeon). But this scene is once again the biggest argument you could make for that theory. The researcher in the image above refers to palaces by their correct term 'palaces', which they say was based on Wakaba's research. But that's only something you would know with firsthand experience of the metaverse. And the only person they know who could access the metaverse was Akechi (that we know of, but i dont think Shido would rely only on Akechi if there were other options).

So yeah this scene is very sus. It's most likely the writers didn't think too deep about the implications. There's no way they wanted Futaba's mom to be sketchy, right? But even if it's not intentional, the scenes and their implications still exist. So in conclusion those theories make sense, I get it, and I don't blame anyone for headcanoning them and having fun. And tbh anyone involved with cognitive psience was portrayed as some degree of unethical (maruki for example), maybe this is just on-brand

[zoe-oneesama]

In the Angelic Layer AU what are the glitches that the angels use? (I have never heard of angelic layer until you started posting about it so I don’t know things about it unless you’ve posted about it)

In the original story, some of the angels had strange "abilities", almost like powers - the ability to lift up a shield, the ability to go "hyper-mode", the ability to grow angel wings and fly, etc - and these were explained in the original manga as "glitches".

Angels that had a slight malfunction, they weren't built with these abilities, but the Deus (the one controlling the angel) discovered them and incorporated them into their fighting styles. The creator of Angelic Layer decided that he liked the creative way Deus' took advantage of these glitches and opted out of patching them out.

So in that spirit, I think it'd only be natural that by the point in the timeline that my AU would take place (20 years after the game was created), people would be going crazy thinking of different ways to break the game in unique ways. Thus why basically all the ML kids Angels have glitches.

[fistfuloflightning]

‘Oh! I must tell you, that just after we parted yesterday, I saw a young man looking at you so earnestly - I am sure he is in love with you.' Kattika coloured, and disclaimed again. Isara laughed. ‘It is very true, upon my honour, but I see how it is; you are indifferent to everybody's admiration, except that of one gentleman, who shall be nameless.’

Day 16: Gossip for @janeuary-month with a Thai Northanger Abbey AU

[cha-melodius]

hiyaaa! so excited for these prompts. firstprince hug prompt #3? 💖

(Firstprince and... alpine skiing? Idek, I blame the weather and the fact that I want the winter Olympics even though they're not for another year. Enjoy! read all the hug ficlets)

3: The way too excited, golden retriever filled energy hug where they literally topple you over.

Henry’s final trip down the course is, quite literally, a blur. The weather had turned during the last few skiers’ runs, and the snow is now falling hard enough to transform everything into a muffled world of white. The only things he can see through his goggles are the bright red lines marking the course—rapidly getting fainter as the snow covers them—and the gates that appear out of the whiteness mere seconds before he encounters them. The conditions are awful, but Henry had honestly been more afraid that officials would call for a postponement before his run than he’d been of the course itself.

He doesn’t know his time, or whether he’s ahead or behind the current leader, Alex Claremont-Diaz—an American who’s become a close friend over years and hundreds of competitions, a man that Henry’s fallen more than a little in love with—who’s been sitting in the gold medal seat since he descended the course almost fifteen skiers ago. All he knows is the slice of his skis through the snow and the way he whips around the curves, rocketing down the hill so fast he can hardly breathe.

By some miracle, he stays on the course. He pumps a fist in triumph when he crosses the finish line, not because he thinks he won—he’d be surprised, given the conditions—but because he made it in one piece. He fought his way down, tooth and nail, and he finished, which was far from a certainty.

He tears off his snow-crusted goggles and turns on his skis, looking for the clock through the falling snow, but what he sees first is someone barreling toward him, a blur of red, white, and blue that doesn’t slow down until they slam bodily into him, throwing their arms around his middle in a crushing hug. The force of it sends Henry careening backward until the quick releases on his ski bindings give way and they tumble to the snow in a heap, both laughing.

Because there’s no question who Henry’s assailant is—there’s only one person mad enough to tackle him like that at the World Championships, and certainly only one already within the barricades.

“You motherfucker!” Alex yells over the cheers of the crowd, still lying fully on top of Henry. “You fucking did it! That was incredible!”

Henry doesn’t believe him—that’s impossible, Alex was the hands down favourite to take the gold in this event—but sure enough, he tips his head enough to see his own name at the top of the leaderboard. When he looks back Alex’s smile is so blindingly bright, so happy for Henry even though it means he got knocked off the top of the podium, that Henry’s self control is stretched to its limits with the effort not kiss him.

Particularly considering that Alex is looking at him like he’s struggling with a similar internal conflict.

Henry doesn’t kiss him. Instead, he hugs Alex back fiercely, and smashes snow into his curls where his hat’s come off, and thinks maybe, just maybe, that tonight’s celebrations might even more special than he ever could have dreamed.

[onesnoopyaday]

I AM AT MY LIMIT

Snoopy #90

30/12/2024

description under the cut

[description: a cartoon-style drawing of Snoopy's head. Snoopy is a white dog with black ears. His eyes are shut and his mouth is a horizontal line. There are two large blue teardrops, one under each eye. The text "I am at my limit" is handwritten across the top of the image.]

[otaku553]

2 am thoughts about roommates

[puppppppppy]

Why are ppl scared to call it what it is and say we’re still going thru covid on top of seasonal illness. Like. That’s pretty important right. I was watching the news and they were like oh yeah we have an unprecedented number of flu cases “as well as other sicknesses” without actually saying Covid. No announcement abt vaccinations or masking or anything. Also if I hear someone joking abt “war flashbacks” for mentioning covid I fucking hate u

[ali3nboyfriend]

whyyyy do so few people actually put consideration into their dog's breed when assessing unwanted behaviors

[hopeless-eccentric]

i dont do a lot of book recs on here (i think ive done one before?) but the Henry Rios books by Michael Nava are so criminally underrated!

They're these mystery novels from the 1980s-1990s about a gay, Latino lawyer (Henry Rios, our protagonist/narrator) solving mysteries--usually while trying to prove his client's innocence. He's a long-suffering idealist written as this kind of hard-boiled detective.

This is actually something the whole series tackles, subverts, and deconstructs in a really interesting way! Instead of being this stoic detective, the archetype gets broken down in a lot of really fascinating and human ways earnestly discussing love, grief, intergenerational trauma, racism, homophobia, illness/disability, toxic masculinity, and substance abuse.

What I love is that these books realize that the hard-boiled detective is stuck in a point of hurt and trauma, and so the Henry Rios series makes a big deal out of fighting tooth and nail to GET BETTER--whatever it takes to improve yourself and your surroundings. While the books maintain a lot of the dark and morose vibe of the original genre (especially given the looming, perpetual grief of AIDS-era queer lit), they always come back to a death match against apathy. It's really moving stuff, especially as the books take this approach to Henry's recovery from alcoholism.

if you're interested in queer history, the books are in touch with queer legal/political history during the HIV/AIDS crisis. The first few books have been rewritten/published as well since Michael Nava's retirement, so I think a comparative reading could be really interesting. For the record, Nava was a civil rights lawyer, so this is all done REALLY well (not to mention the legal drama is engaging, theatrical, petty, gutting, and sometimes hilarious).

if you're interested in detective fiction, they're brilliant deconstructions of the genre. instead of taking the depressed alcoholic white guy with repressed desire for male companionship at face value, the series considers a gay Latino man struggling with machismo, racism and homophobia, intersectional identity, and processing/recovering from grief, childhood trauma, alcoholism, and Catholicism.

Stylistically, the books are smart, poetic, introspective, dark, and witty. There's a lot of suffering, but there are also a lot of intense moments of joy and catharsis that feel really earned.

Also, if you read the rewrites. uh. there's a lot of smut! Happy retirement, Mr. Nava!