#the real treasure was the friends we made along the way

[art-by-ady]

The Portrait of an Unknown Person

Another collaboration with my friend @zthea 💝

✨Read the short story after the cut ✨

Astarion’s eyes roamed over the swathes of people discussing the newest additions added to the art galla. Some anonymous donor that came into pieces from the Baldurian era were quickly donated and naturally critics were enamoured. Why wouldn’t they? Not many pieces survived that era due to an event that left Baldurs Gate in ruins for decades.

Murmurs of praise and speculation swirled through the air like smoke—who was this mysterious benefactor? Why had they chosen now to part with such treasures? How did they acquire such a trove from that bygone era?

He knew, of course. He already knew.

It was easier this way. Let them dissect brushstrokes and composition, let them spin their grand theories. None of them would ever understand the weight of it—the ache in his ribs when he looked at a certain portrait, the way his throat closed up when he imagined hands wrapping around his waist, wishing him a good morning after Astarion stayed up to finish a specific piece.

He lingered at the edges of the room, a specter in the shadows. The champagne in his glass had long since lost its chill, but he didn’t drink it anyway. He simply watched.

The painting was beautiful—of course it was. He’d never doubted his own talent, nor his ability to capture something raw and aching in his subjects. And this one… it was no different.

But gods, it hurt.

Astarion turned on his heel and left before the whispers turned into something unbearable.

The gallery was silent by the time he returned.

Dim light from the sconces casted shadows along the floor, the once-bustling room now eerily still. The absence of voices left only the faint hum of the city beyond, muffled through the thick walls of the gallery

He walked slowly, steps measured and quiet, until he reached the painting.

Astarion painted Gale in a way only someone in love could—with an unbearable softness. It wasn’t just the careful rendering of the man’s face, the delicate detailing of his crows feet , the precise gray that was threaded into strands of hair. It was in the little things—the way his expression wasn’t guarded, how there was something tender in the slight parting of his lips. A version that made Astarion’s undead heart ache in his chest.

He let out a breath and traced the edge of the frame with the tips of his fingers.

“We had a good run, didn’t we, darling?” Astarion choked out, trying to hold back a sob that was threatening to spill.

He should leave. He knew that. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to say goodbye like he did with the real Gale a millenia ago.

The weight of memories pressed down on him.He had thought this would be enough—donating his collection, distancing himself, letting it all slip into the past like a dream half-remembered.

And yet here he was.

Fingers lingering, just for a moment longer, before he finally turned away.

He did not look back.

[dominik528]

Zombieland really said, Maybe the real Pacific Playland was the friends we made along the way.

[abirddogmoment]

"wow what a treasure!" i say to my dog as she brings me a pinecone she unearthed from the snow. she thinks i'm talking about her pinecone, but i know the real treasure is her little wiggles.

[lavendarneverlands]

Theory / Question (cause I adore / cry over it):

Did Feyre finally find the riddle’s answer of “love” only after she hears Rhysand shouting her name? 

[seasidesandstarscapes]

What if I put the boys in a different boat

I say as my brain cooks up a pirate AU

[berthindeath]

Hovers over her a bit. There’s a deep rumble coming from within the depths of the undead’s chest. Whatever this fear demon was doing, it sounded a bit… hungry. Predatory. Meanwhile the words spoken carrying nothing but the opposite in nature.

“Are you the reading type, or does this book I found belong to someone else?”

Lilac hues shift at the sound, a sort of abyssal rumbling that quirks a brow before she could tilt her head back enough to look upon the aberration above her with an inverted perspective. An unlearned soul might have found it frightening, a dread that could cling to bone and threaten a scream from the depths of their chest.

But for Gwendolyn Ingellvar, it has her eyes squinting as she reaches up to take the old tome from his skeletal grip. Lithe digits close around its worn surface, the uneven edges of the pages pleasant against her touch as realization finally flits across her features.

" Oh! I was wondering where I'd misplaced my copy of Spectral Manifestations and the Greater Fade. " She twists her body around to properly face Connor, an appreciative gleam in her eyes as a smile widens across her scarred face. The book now wrapped in both arms and pressed to her chest. " Thank you for finding it for me. "

[mookybear12404]

Love the fact that Luffy's main goal in life is to create a found family

[evilkaeya]

Leave it to wind breaker to give us the most homoerotic fist fighting scenes

[howmuchmoreshoulditype]

I really love that my favorite (classic?) novel has its own online bookclub and now, additionally, a podcast club (extended bookclub? Podclub? Pookclub?) where a whole bunch of cool strangers online become comrades in their journey with our blorbo friend Jonathan Harker, to experience his journey with his….(terrifying) client. Happy Dracula daily season ! 🧛🏻‍♂️

[2000sflipphone]

Maybe the real cycle was the ravens we made along the way

[neosatsuma]

adding mutuals who spoiler-tag stuff for me to my will

[millimononym]

long post?

Ok so while i do hate season 3, i do like the idea of D'jok being the one being manipulated by the seasons' main villain instead of Sinedd for once (not counting how it was done in s3, the rest of the post is gonna be completely detached from that. Actually now that i think about it after i wrote it, it's barely even about the first sentence in the post. I got carried away ok)

While it also serves as a parallel between Sinedd and D'jok(you tend to be open to being manipulated when you've lost your friends for one reason or another), it also kind of makes sense when you think about it in the context of the universe.

Like, why DID we need D'jok to relearn the "don't let the fame get to your head and don't be an asshole to your friends" thing again and again? The obvious, out of universe answer would be that the writers didn't know what to do with his character arc so they just repeated it, but that's the boring answer(though i do think it's the correct one).

Why DOES D'jok go through these constant relapses of character(which allow him to be vulnerable to manipulation in the first place)? i think an interesting concept would be that he's coping with the fact that he's unsatisfied with his life, at least later on, in season 2.

Maybe at the start, it was really just about fame getting to his head, which led to him damaging the relationship he had between him and his best friend, which led to Micro-ice running away, which snapped Djok out of it and made him rethink his values. If even his childhood friend couldn't stand his behavior anymore,so much that he'd RUN AWAY, then surely he was doing something horribly wrong. But everything turns out fine in the end and goes back to normal. Better than ever, even. His belief in fate and that he was destined to be something great is surely proven right. He's famous and rich now, he knows what happened to his biological parents, he's got a great friend group and a girlfriend who loves him. He couldn't have expected or wanted anything more.

Could he have, though? Him becoming the team captain after Rocket's disappearance in s2 was more stressful than he'd ever imagined it'd be, and he sees things in a different light while he cracks under the pressure. After four years of what seemed to be perfection, he's slipped back into his old habits again as a defense mechanism. Maybe he wasn't really that happy anymore. His friends sure weren't, and his outbursts didn't help. Not to mention his father getting framed for terrorism, and his friend becoming a completely different person than the one he once knew. But everything goes back to relative normalcy, through all the pressure, and his near death experience,the Snow Kids manage to barely get a win against the Xenons in the finale. Everyone's happy.

Except him, maybe. I imagine you tend to rethink your life when you almost die. Was all this trauma and pressure him and his friends were going through really worth it in the end? Surely it was, it had to be. He now had an adopted family, biological family, fame and money, it's all he could have dreamed of as a kid who believed in destiny on Akilian. So why wasn't he content with it? Why did he slip back into his old habits even though he logically shouldn't have, if he was happy?

Was it because what he thought to be fate wasn't as great as it once seemed? He knew this couldn't last forever. The Snow Kids were bound to lose their title eventually. If that was the case, then did it all really lead up to this? Did he really hit his peak so early? At the age of 21, or 16 even? Did he really go through all of this just to be remembered as someone who was a famous footballer at 16? Did he treat all of his friends like shit, go through all of the trauma he did, just for that? It couldn't be like that.

So he relapses to his old behavior to cope with such thoughts, which leads to tension between him and his friends and leaves him open to being a target of manipulation, especially by people who seem like they have his and his careers' best interest in mind. So instead of leaving his friends because of simple arguments, he leaves because of what was essentially a culmination of years' worth of insecurities. He eventually realizes though, hopefully for the last time, that his friends are more important to him than any idea of fame. Even though this wouldn't last forever, he's still got his friends who went through it with him together.

[ranger-kellyn]

you know. as i'm looking over my new outline for my scarlet/violet fic i realize i have to be. careful. how i write this, because i know who i am. i know what kind of fic this is. yeah, there's romance, but the heart of the story is the adventure.

aka. a story i would have absolutely Zero Trouble turning into a 500k epic. an epic that is 500k words of fucking nOTHING because i know who i am.

[kiiraes]

aaaaaand goodbye forever to my x reader era

[pegasusknightsonly]

i don't think we'll ever get another fódlan game and maybe that's for the best (they could never replace Billy Kametz, RIP) but i am so grateful that we got hopes because scarlet blaze Edelgard is so good and fixes everything that made me so uncomfortable about crimson flower (Byleth) but also she's there in her fun little miniskirt hanging out with notable alive girl Monica von Ochs and Hubert is committing romantic patricide to impress a boy with the help of his platonic best friend Shez and Petra gets to do something about Brigid's political situation and Bernadetta is so fucking good after how one note she was in houses and Caspar doesn't know how to pronounce the word "chapter" and of course Linhardt and Dorothea and Ferdinand are there too and throughout it all Edelgard is writing "Mr Claude von Hresvelg" in her diary with little hearts doodled around it and i love them. i love the bleagles. they're thriving

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

I know Oda has said that the One Piece is a real, actual treasure, and I’m only really invested via the live action series, but the thought of “the friends we made along the way” being the answer after this many years and chapters makes me giggle. The fandom would burn Japan to the ground.

The End