#still life is lonely

[thirdtimed]

double life pearl in this fit..

[lillotte17]

I have been in the solavellan fandom for...A While. (do not count the years, i beg) and everyone has their tropes and themes re: wolves/halla and hunter/prey and the New Herald being worshiped/the Old God nearly forgotten, and tbh I like bits and pieces of all of them, but like...

For me, the most compelling story is that Lavellan is just Some Guy (gn).

They meet Solas and accept that he is like them. He's an elf. One of The People. You are like me. I am like you. We are The Same People. And because of that, I will protect you with whatever power the humans around us have given me, because I know this is not the safest place for either of us.

And it just fucking... gets him, right? Because that's his whole deal. The world is broken because the people aren't People. He's not like them. They're not like him.

I just love the idea that this impossibly old, incredibly powerful sort-of-god, trips into a hole and nearly throws his entire game away because a regular person (albeit one who was thrust into extraordinary circumstances) decided to be kind. Offered him protection and friendship. Asked him to tell them stories. Grieved with him when he lost one of his oldest friends.

He could not deny that they were a person, because they treated him like a person.

I love how ordinary that is. How simple. How devastating.

'You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't.'

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[deoidesign]

when your main characters start dating after years of writing so they finally get to be like this

[motianz]

Why is He Tian here?

Because he wanted to see you so much

[rheya28]

See you tomorrow

[sunnlily]

"it hurts to be something, it's worse to be nothing with you" from promise - laufey

dan heng's indifference to jing yuan hurts :^)

[simandy]

do you guys mind if i go crazy for a moment

[hecksupremechips]

Mizuki and Date though like. Imagine being 8 and your parents are filthy rich and going through a bad divorce. Your mom treats you like shit, lashing out at you, hitting you, saying she wishes you were never born all because you were behaving like a child. Your dad is more comforting, but he doesn’t do anything to stop the abuse and he spends his time invested in a completely different family, a girl who you love and look up to but he loves her more than you and it fucking shows. Then your dads new friend, some fucking bachelor in his late 20s, is just like "wow you guys are the worst fucking parents ive ever seen" and next thing you know your dad is sending you off to live with him. And it’s just a massive kick in the head cuz you go from a rich lifestyle to living in some really shitty tiny ass apartment with this guy who’s clearly never been around a child in his entire life and he doesn’t know how to behave and does a really bad job of censoring himself like he has a bunch of dirty magazines that he can’t hide very well cuz it’s literally a studio apartment and also he talks to himself sometimes, it’s really weird. He doesn’t even have the slightest clue what he’s doing

And he’s the best parent you’ve ever had

Because fuck, it all really hurts. You have to cope with having never received any love from anyone, and with the fact that your parents clearly don’t want you and can’t even be bothered to send you with anyone even kinda responsible. And this guy has a scary job with crazy hours and you don’t know anything about him and neither does he. But still, he never once hits you or tells you you’re not allowed to cry. He just gives you space and doesn’t push you to feel any sort of way about him. And sometimes, he’s even kind. He makes you some stew, even though it’s a bit chunky. He lets you sleep in the bed and takes the couch for himself, even though he complains about the massive back pain he’d never trade his spot for a second. He pays attention to events at your school and gives you your favorite stuffed animal when you make good grades, even though you called it ugly. He gets worried sick when you come home with bruises and puts on a goofy voice and trains you to defend yourself and you develop some highly deadly skills and even though it’s really abnormal, he buys you a bench press so you can get stronger. There’s this distance there, and you feel really weird caring about someone who you aren’t related to, but you find yourself wishing it was meant to be like this all along, that maybe, he’s secretly your real dad and he loves you like his real daughter

And when you say "I’m back" he says "welcome home"

[mellohiizz]

i need some of your parrot art very sad. like, make him very very sad, as sad as you can make it. horribly sad. depressingly tragic sadness.

oops. sorry, i think i traumatized your bird.

[guardian-angle22]

I was rewatching 5.04 earlier, because it was such a good paul episode, and it really struck me the similarities of paul's nightmare in 5.04 and the one he had in 3.09.

they both start out relatively normal day-to-day... in 3.09, he's at the firehouse with the crew. judd backing in the firetruck and paul is chatting with mateo and marj about jurassic park... in 5.04, he's showing up for a catan game night like any other time.

but then in both of them he starts to die... in 5.04, he's choking...

in 3.09, he's being crushed by the firetruck...

and in both nightmares, his friends are standing by, seeing it happen but not caring or doing anything. in fact, they're physically turning away from him in both.

I feel like this really speaks to not only Paul's biggest fears: being left behind, shunned, and ignored. but also the things that truly matter to Paul the most: family and friends. He is so absolutely ride or die for all of his friends and his biggest fear is that it's not reciprocated in the same way.

[dykedvonte]

idk if you've written any head cannons about this before but i'm curious what your thoughts are on arcades previous relationships

I think this is a very interesting question because we can even know if he had previous relationships? I don't know if you want platonic or romantic, so I will answer vague enough to fit both.

Arcade is a man that wants to be reserved and self-assured. When he first vaguely tells you about his past you can 100% tell he is very mournful of something and I really think its partly him not knowing his place in the world and being incredibly lonely. One of the ways you can recruit him is literally just by being gay and showing interest. That's not someone who is used to having deep, long lasting relationships of any kind. He never mentions friends his age growing up or otherwise and he is honest (once he opens up) about how he is considred too young to be taken seriously by the older remanents when enlisting their help (Imagine like trying to be friends with your much older aunts and uncles who like wiped your ass).

He is desperately trying to find a place and I feel like that applies to being among people as well, I mean he does hide himself in a tent with the followers. When I think of his past relationships I think of fleeting hook-ups or abrupt endings with him often being the one to do the skedaddling or walk of shame to wherever he was residing at the time. I say shame becasue I know he'd want to stay and get close but he's just too scared. It's understandable when 75% of the factions would want you dead due to your family lineage... even if you had no part of their actions. He has so much baggage and hang-ups I don't think he thinks it'd be worth it to unpack that with a friend or lover.

But since your asking what I personally think his fleeting, wasteland relationships were like here's my thoughts:

Most of his relationships (friendships and otherwise) started occurring later in his like, likely his early to mid-twenties. He had seen Enclave remnants be hunted and those who survived did so by staying alone...

His first friend was a wasteland girl who liked how well-read he was. It wasn't so much a traditional friendship but like two people who frequent the same places a lot. He provided the closest thing she was getting to an education and she provided pleasant conversation.

They barely knew anything deeper than each other's names or the topics they discussed but Arcade had never had a non-enclave friend before so it meant everything to him.

She was inspired to get a formal education and do something with her life and thanked Arcade before leaving to go do that. Arcade liked the feeling of helping and sought out ways to do that.

His first kiss is actually how he got into the followers in my head. It was the first chance he took to form a relationship outside the remnants and he wanted to follow him (him as in his lover). He wanted to join a diplomatic Follower group in the NCR and Arcade was terrified of being that close.

Following the last point it was a big blowout fight because Arcade refused to explain why he didn't beyond "Aren't we fine here?" and received a very harsh reading about his inability to open up.

His first actual boyfriend was a king gang member that liked to brag about how he was dating the smartest follower on this side of the wasteland. Arcade felt bad cause he knew he was only dating the guy cause he was crushing on The King at the time and the guy made him feel good with all the praise.

He broke it off under the guise that his work made him feel like he was being neglectful to their relationship and due to the kings' strong sense of duty/principles he understood

Gave Arcade his fav hair comb as a token of no hard feelings and Arcade felt extra bad cause it was like the one real and safe feeling relationship he had and he hated it was built on lies and half-truths.

Hence why he only tells the Courier half-truths, both is too much

After that he made a rule to only have FWBs and casual friends.

This worked as well as you think it did for a man like Arcade.

Most of the people he "dated" (weird coy flirting until he shut them out when they asked something deeper) were all people who wanted to go somewhere with him. He has a deep desire to live, experience and find himself but never has the courage to commit

This explains why you can so easily recruit him with flirting and promising to whisk him away into adventure. (Daddy issues much?)

All his "friends" were either the socially weird Followers who never asked much or people who were passing through and wouldn't question the random guy they hung out with for a bit knows too much about energy weapons or power armor or that old defunct faction that almost killed everyone with evil water... twice.

Silly Headcanons is he loves to rag and joke and is a little shit. He has a chip on his shoulder about how smart he is but he's never a direct jerk about

Not a touchy friend but he clings and hovers around partners and people he has a romantic interest in. Hand brushes, pats, standing close, and wanting to be very involved. Sad but he really wants a connection and even a small sign is enough to make him lose his sensibilities.

He hates it but he knows he's touch and emotionally starved so sometimes he allows himself to get a little lost in the love sauce.

Prefers friends and partners that are a little dumber than him. This has nothing to do with anything, dude is just attracted to idiots platonically or romantically.

This post is long just because I need to explain just how I think these characters think. Arcade is a guy who wants to be gay and own a garden and drink a glass of non-irrated wine with his friends while snarking to his partner. But he's also affliated with violent war crimminals and genocidal factins and settles for just trying to give that life to someone else.

[johbeil]

Lonely, strong, nearly symmetrical

Thinking back to the days when kids were running around here, when cows were mooing, roosters crowing, dogs barking and cats meowing – life.

Unlike now when there’s only mechanical clatter of machines – sometimes.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note This was written to accompany the photo, which shows a tree next to the remains of what used to be a farm (Lazio, Italy, southeast of Rome). Originally published here.

[sapphic--kiwi]

so @emsprovisions's tarlos hc post yesterday inspired me...i had to make tk in the bucees pajama pants real

+ a bonus nighttime variant bc i liked it too much not to post it too

[feroluce]

For reasons to be expanded upon at a later date (because I love the little bits about Boothill and possible paranoia/betrayal canon gives us so very dearly HNGH) I think Boothill like... He won't let himself fall into disrepair or anything of course, but he reeeeeeeeeeally does not like letting other people poke around at his body. It's a necessary evil to him. He does whatever maintenance and repairs he can himself. He started out with a massive knowledge deficit, simply because he didn't really have any exposure to that kind of technology until he left Aeragan-Epharshal, but he's taught himself a lot since then, he worked really hard at it!

Anyway, the point being, Boothill generally isn't super trusting of people.

But I think he would come to make an exception for Himeko, since he trusts Dan Heng a lot, and Himeko is one of Dan Heng's once-in-a-lifetime dearly beloved companions.

Himeko is so unflappable, I don't think she would even bat an eye about anything he throws at her, either. Like she enters the Parlor Car one morning (she's always the first one up) and Boothill is already there, waiting for her.

"Mornin', Madam Navigator."

"Good morning, Mr. Boothill."

And despite the fact that he blatantly broke into the Express (Pom-Pom is NOT happy about this JDKSAJDSKL), Boothill tips his hat, greets her politely, and is nothing but respectful when he says he has a favor to ask of her. Except it won't stay a favor long, of course- he has every intention of paying it back.

Himeko never agrees to things blindly, but she does bring up that all the knowledge Boothill contributed during the Charmony Festival was essential to preventing the universe from being pulled into Ena's Dream. And they were able to hold onto the Jade Abacus because Boothill used Tiernan's burial relic to summon the Galaxy Rangers instead. The Astral Express owes him a debt of gratitude, and besides, he's a friend of Dan Heng's. Of course she'll try to help him.

Boothill fidgets a bit, quickly brushes off the thanks, and tells Himeko he's having a problem with error codes. He keeps getting the same one, seemingly at random times, but the darn thing has no obvious cause. Dan Heng mentioned Himeko had been the one to rebuild the Astral Express. He knows it ain't the same, but it's not like he's askin' for any major repairs or nothin'. He was wonderin' if she could just take a look, maybe offer him some insight, since she seems to be somethin' of a mechanical wonder.

So Himeko walks him back to a another car, where she goes to tinker with machines without them crowding her bedroom. It's all neatly laid out and organized, and it only takes a second for Himeko to locate some specific device with a long cord. Instead of plugging it in herself, she holds the end of it out to him, like an offer rather than a demand, and Boothill visibly relaxes a bit. He still eyes it just a little warily for a second, but he accepts and plugs it into the port on his side.

Himeko pulls up the list of all recent errors, and they really are all the same. Boothill has had multiple temperature alarms over the past couple of weeks since the Charmony Festival, and they know it's not the environment, because Penacony is mostly dreamscape and kept mild year-round. The long-forgotten natural deserts are too far away.

Boothill is staring from the corner of his one good eye, so Himeko turns the hologram to let him see what she's doing easier. They don't appear to be false alarms. His internal temperature spikes and then slowly lowers again, high enough that if it lasted it would eventually cause damage.

One option is for her to start rooting through personal data, figuring out what he was doing at the time of each code, and tracing cause and correlation.

Instead, Himeko reads out the timestamps, and asks Boothill if he minds sharing what was happening around him when it occured.

Two weeks ago: He and Dan Heng went to explore Dreamflux Reef and found a bar- nice place, good atmosphere. Woman runnin’ it was a doll. Boothill left fer not even two minutes to get them drinks (Dan Heng knows like nothin’ about liquor, Madam Navigator, can you believe this guy) and when he came back, someone had already stolen his seat and was hittin’ on Dan Heng! Dan Heng didn't even care, just shooed ‘em off. Boothill laughed and said not to let him get in his way if he wanted to meet someone. Dan Heng looked at him like he'd grown a second head. Why would he want to leave with someone else, when he came here to be with Boothill?

Twelve days ago: While laying low- er, just rustlin’ up some grub- in the Moment of Blue, Boothill passed Dan Heng with March and Caelus playin’ on the beach, buildin’ sandcastles and the like. When he passed by again almost two hours later, they were still out there, with Dan Heng pullin’ March through the water on her inner tube and Caelus hangin’ off the back of it. He swam so fast! You'd think he was part water snake or somethin’. He looked happier ‘n a cat in a sunbeam… He has a nice smile, doesn't he?

Eleven days ago: Boothill was killin’ time in Dreamflux Reef when he turned the corner down a shady alley and saw Dan Heng, surrounded by three men demandin’ “protection money.” None of ‘em stood a chance, they were all on the ground before Boothill even blinked! So cool! Boothill wants to see that spear of his closeup- Anyway, Dan Heng stepped on one of ‘em on his way out, hahaha! Boothill stepped on the same guy a second time as he hurried to catch up.

Eight days ago: Here on the Express, actually. Boothill had mentioned bein’ curious about the archives, and Dan Heng personally invited him.

(“I remember that day, I saw you in the hall.” “Was there any problem with the heating that day?” “No, none. I don't think the temperature has anything to do with these error codes. I have a different theory, keep going.” “If ya say so.”)

Boothill was fascinated by an entry on aeons, and from a single question he asked about Lan, the two of ‘em ended up talkin’ fer hours. About aeons and Paths and Emanators, Acheron and Self-Annihilators, the Sea of Nihility, Tiernan, the Nameless and the Galaxy Rangers, their burial relics and their customs. Dan Heng finally just started writin’ and editin’ the entries in real time, with Boothill pointin’ things out and tellin’ him what to add in. They were at it so late that Boothill ended up sleepin' on a couch in one of the cars.

He'd figured there had to be something to make Dan Heng chatty- he'd caught just a glimpse of it that first night they met, sittin’ at the bar in the Reverie together. He'll have to ask about the archives more often, if it gets him all revved up like that.

One week ago: After that night of energetic discussion, Dan Heng was apparently hyped up, because after he'd downed some of Himeko's coffee (“You had some too, right? What did you think of it?” “It was great, even better'n chewin’ bullets!” "Thank you! That was my newest brew, I can't wait for everyone else to try it.") he actually asked Boothill to go hunting with him. Boothill asked who their target was, and was surprised when Dan Heng pulled out photos that looked like they were from March's camera, of all things, instead of a bounty or wanted poster.

And as he sat there, studying these pictures, Dan Heng explained that he wanted to hunt down these specific memory zone memes to record them into the archives. Planets with so much memoria are a rarity, especially with the Stellaron's activity thrown into the mix, which has surely affected the local “wildlife.” He might not get another opportunity like this for a long time. And Boothill had talked last night about his extensive expertise in tracking and hunting, so he should have plenty to offer here, Dan Heng would like to learn from his experience and see how he does things!

And oh, Madam Navigator, by the time Dan Heng was done speakin', his eyes were practically sparklin'! Just lit up like the sun! Boothill could scarcely believe it! The two of them couldn't even wait another day, they set out that very morning. It had been a long, long while since Boothill had tracked someone- er, somethin’- without the intent to capture or kill. It was…actually really nice. Nostalgic, but in a good way. It might even have been his favorite day on Penacony…so…far…

Boothill trails off as a couple of realizations crash into him. All the temperature alarms he's spoken about thus far- they've all happened in the company of Dan Heng. And now that he's thinking about it, he's pretty sure even the ones he hasn't yet talked about were with him, too. Dan Heng has been responsible for all of his error codes, every. single. one.

The screen in front of Himeko suddenly refreshes to the top of the list, displaying a new notification for the current time. Alert! Core temperature above normal range.

Himeko's knowing smile is sly as a snake.

Wwwwwelp, would ya look at the time, Boothill has some errands to meet, people to run, y’know how it is, he should really get goin'-

“Oh, Mr. Boothill? About that favor.” And Boothill jolts to a stop in the doorway because fudge, he can't just leave without hearing her out. He'd given his word. He has no problem running out on someone he thinks deserves it, but Himeko really had been kind to him to try and help him out. Her voice is just as knowing as her smile, Boothill can't turn around to look at her, or else he knows he won't be able to disguise the sound of his cooling fans kicking on.

“Don't make Dan Heng wait too long, ok~?”

“Y-Yes, ma'am.”

[qpmuseluvr]

being aroace in a qpr with a bi person is so funny like They Should make a Show About This