#they don't even need words sometimes

[wenellyb]

One last post overanalyzing Sam and Bucky's relationship because why did I never realize that Sam gives Bucky the same "I need you" look in TFATWS AND in Endgame?

In Avengers: Endgame, Sam looks at Bucky as if to say, "what is happening/what do I do"?

In TFATWS, Sam tells Bucky that Karli wants to see him alone but his eyes seem to be silently asking "Will you come with me?".

And it both cases, Bucky seems to understand what Sam needs because he gives it to him, first with the reassuring head nod, and in the 2nd scene by telling Sam he'll go with him.

I love that Sam's first reaction was to look at Bucky in Avengers: Endgame, as if asking for reassurance, and Bucky gave it to him with a simple nod. And I love that in TFATWS, Sam didn't even have to say the words, Bucky just knew.

I feel like they have had this really close relationship for a long long time, even when they were just supposed to be 2 guys who had a friend in common.

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[borgialucrezia]

so heartbreaking how they used to stare at their father with so much vulnerability and trust in their eyes and gullible to his words of comfort because even though he did love them very much he ultimately loved the power he could achieve through them more...

[uinferno]

Every so often I remember Lirin was a doctor while Dalinar was Blackthorn, and his entire worldview makes a shit ton of sense. I can go on and acknowledge that he was a subject of Sadeas but really... nah. That man absolutely witnessed first-hand the casualties of that war.

[canisalbus]

Different Italian anon, but the thing with Tuscan C is that it's pronounced like a very strong H sound, which is extra weird cuz the letter H makes no sound in Italian, normally. It sounds the way Spanish pronounce the J. We say it's "aspirato". So then people from there will say things like Hoha Hola (coca cola), and it's funny. It's also extremely contagious, I got family in Florence, you spend 3 days with them you start doing it too before you even realize.

.

[mars-ipan]

they're so GROSSSSSS (<- desperately wants what they have)

alt color under the cut:

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I think of so many stupid shenanigans between Wriothesley and his daughters in the Addison Lee verse. They tell Wriothesley crazy shit all the time, their daddy-daughter secrets, and it drives Neuvillette nuts that Wriothesley won't snitch.

Sigewinne, whispering into his ear: Today at school I punched a boy because he was being mean. I waited until it was recess, and made sure that no one was watching, and I punched him. Everyone knows he is a liar, so noooo one believed him when he cried about it. And Sigewinne is aaaalways a superstar so Mr Vautrin didn't suspect a thing !

Wriothesley, mildly concerned: Uh huh.

Sigewinne: Papa would say Sigewinne has to be nice to everyone, but, Sigewinne thinks bullies need to get punched sometimes, b'cos, b'cos otherwise, they think everyone is just gonna let them be mean

Wriothesley: Y'know what. That's fair

[invinciblerodent]

Another case of the "I'm not done"-s seems to have possessed me, because the immortality and rebirth of elven souls and this fucking elf/vampire!elf romance I'm doing right now is kind of ruining me.

Because, well... look.

This shit is ripe for angst.

For so long, there is no real reason to think much about the passage of time. Death, it's but an abstract far in the future- a bridge to be burned when they get to it. It's easy enough to practically forget that mortality is a thing to account for: with both the endless stretch of centuries they have and her body as unchanging as his, that thought can be kicked further down the road for what feels like it might even be an indefinite amount of time. Their lives just inch along, endlessly, and twine together like the roots of an ancient forest, building around- and with one another. Friends come and go, live and die, and yet, every moment, every day, is permeated by the other's presence: even in their "sleep", they're reliving shared memories (there is scarcely another kind, by now) while holding one another.

Talking about which of their adventures they chose to remember in Reverie is one of his favorite parts of the night.

Until one evening, as she opens her eyes to greet both him and the nightfall with a smile, he catches... just the faintest opaque, silvery glint in her pupils. It's barely a flash, gone in an instant, as if it was merely a trick of the light, but the thought, like a pesky insect, begins buzzing in his head. It will not let him rest.

With this new thought gnawing at him, he can't not see that there's almost a... strange distance, to her now. Even with this hazy half-awareness, it would have slipped his note if he hadn't come to know her quite so intimately over the past half millenium, if he hadn't memorized her cadence and heard her every loving thought as if it was his own. But he's attuned to her: even as her fingers glide through his hair, and her lips speak her words of love like they have so many times before, the same words, they... ring slightly hollow, robotic, automatic in their sweetness now, and once the dreaded Sun begins inching over the horizon and he's forced back into the shadows once more, her kiss goodbye lingers just one second longer, she holds him just a touch tighter before she'd be out the door.

All day, he circles the darkened room like a trapped animal, mind flush with thoughts of robotic words, silver glints, and a creeping dread. Surely, it cannot be what he thinks. It cannot. It wasn't a half-moon, it's not the Transendence, it was merely a... a reflection off something, moonlight bouncing off a silvered picture frame, or the twinkle of a magelight lighting the street glancing through an improperly closed curtain, a... a stomach bug that she's toughing out and is too stubborn to say anything about, something. It cannot be what he thinks, fears that it was.

The day drags on, the hour he'd expect her back comes and then passes, and when she returns, it is closer to sundown than it normally would be. Usually when she must leave for the day, she tries to time her return so that they can rest together, and then emerge from their chambers at the exact moment of nightfall to maximize the amount of time shared, the time he can walk free with her on his arm, but today, she returns with darkness on her heels, and bittersweet sorrow marring her face.

"Arael, we need to talk," she says, and the beloved endearment in their shared native tongue, 'heart' and 'hearth', 'center' and 'lover' in a single word, turns to acid in his ears. Instantly, he knows what she's going to say.

"How long have you known." It's not a question in tone, only phrasing- the hiss of his own voice feels alien in his throat. "When were you planning on telling me."

"It's been... a few days."

A few days. A few days, she's been...! He can't bring himself to think the word 'dying'. He can't. His knees give way under the weight of her words, and he crumples onto the nearest chair.

"You.... should have told me right away." He wants so dearly to be furious. His hands itch to rip, to tear, to destroy everything, his tongue aches to spit bile that'd make her feel exactly the pain he does in this moment... Gods, it was so easy to grow complacent and start believing in forever, to stop counting the hours, the days, the years, and still, it's her godsdamned near-forgotten mortality that's come knocking-- now, that his life is inexorably intertwined with hers, that she's been the other half of his soul for long enough to see the birth and death of friends and enemies, the rise and fall of monarchs, nations. And yet, her life's thread is soon to be clipped, while his must stretch on, infinite.

He buries his face in itching palms and swallows the bile to make room for the flood of grief. "I could have prevented this," he whispers now, "We could have had the chance, at forever... forever, if I could have turned you, if only I had-- if I--"

A soft hand on his shoulder stills him now. "Arael," she repeats, and traces a line to his chin, gently urging him to look at her. "I could not have dreamed of a more blissful, blessed life, than the one I shared with you. But--"

"Don't say it!" She winces as he snaps, and his hand is now grasping her wrist, insistent, hard enough to almost hurt, as he presses her palm against his cheek. "Don't, it's not over yet-- she may be calling, but you don't have to answer, you can stay--"

"I can't, my love."

"But--!"

"Arvandor is calling my soul, Astarion. The Gate is open. Sehanine has shown me; I must answer."

"But not yet, there's still time, you--!"

Her thumb gliding feather-light over his lips cuts off his desperate shout. "I have time enough to get my affairs in order," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, "but I can delay it no longer than maybe another tenday. For now, please... simply be with me."

~

That night, they make love. Tender, aching love that leaves them both tearful in one another's arms- his whole body shakes, racked with heavy sobs as he buries his face in her chest, as if that way he could melt into her, to keep her here, keep her safe, keep her for himself, or... or follow her, anchor his soul to hers, stow away and smuggle himself into the afterlife that rejected him, so they can be reborn together, find one another again, have another six hundred years, and another, and another...

Hopeless. A fool's desperation, no more. There's no tricking the Seldarine: he had rejected rebirth in favor of this wretched, eternal half-life the moment Cazador's fangs sunk into his flesh so long ago now, and his soul was rent from Arvandor. There's no changing that now, no fighting it, and no putting it off longer either. So he kisses her through the sobs once more, makes love to her once more, and drinks deep from her once more, willing his tongue to carve this memory of her taste, her essence, her love as deep into his mind as it may.

She takes the promised tenday to get her affairs in order, and to set up all that may only be done during sunlit hours: she organizes herself a nighttime funeral, arranges for her assets to be dealt with as she may, and makes sure to hold him tight, to mourn with him as if she herself wasn't the one dying. And each night, she speaks sweet, reassuring nonsense of the permanence of memory, of rebirth, and the aching, heartrending beauty of gentle endings.

And once no more minutiae is left to handle, there is no more delaying the inevitable.

She is laid to rest in a modest ceremony, in a small circle of trusted friends, under the light of a waning moon.

~

He mourns, bitter and alone, for years- barely leaving his chambers out of necessity, flitting through the nights as a ghost not entirely unlike the one he was so long ago, until one evening he wakes to find the pain... bearable. There will quite possibly never not be a wound on his soul now, but even the deepest wounds, they scar over: there's new, tender flesh, pink and gnarled, stretching over the void of her absence now. And life, it continues as it does, relentless.

Decades pass. The new flesh, it toughens, thickens, until it can scarcely be seen, unless you know where to look for it: the loss now lives only in the absent-minded seeking of her warmth in his cold slumber, in the automatic gesture of taking two wine glasses from the cabinet only to set one back down; it lives behind the locked door of her untouched workshop and in the slip of parchment left between the yellowed pages of the book she had never finished reading.

Until one evening, shortly after nightfall, there is a knock, hard and insistent, on the door.

His body redies itself for a fight, as if a hunter might be so bold as to announce their arrival- but curiosity, it's too hard to resist, and he scarcely makes an effort.

It's... an elf. But not any elf- a woman, younger, taller, and fuller in figure than she was, and her hair, it's a tightly curled warm chestnut rather than her blood-red waves, but it's unmistakable: her features, they are exactly the same. The same fire amber eyes, the same freckles dotting her cheekbones, even the same raised mark at the edge of her jaw that sits there like an insect had folded its wings and chosen to make its home on her skin. And the stranger speaks, with her voice, before he could find his own.

"So you do live!" she says, equal parts disbelieving and relieved, "Or, well, something like that. I could tell that you were a vampire, from the-" she gestures vaguely to his face, "-fangs and all, but I still wasn't sure I'd ever actually find you."

There's... a prickle of understanding. It's her, but... not quite. Her soul. Her, but born anew. And she returned in a way, to reminisce, to meet him once more- and his mouth opens, but the words, wary and elated and tender at the same time, get lost on their way to his lips.

It's an imperfect replica of her laugh that leaves the woman's mouth. "Gods, don't gape at me like a beached carp like that! I've been seeing nothing but your damn face in my trance for decades now; I was looking for you, hoping you could answer some questions I have." The familiar stranger flashes her mischievous smile. "Can I come in? I feel we have a lot to talk about."

~

There is no love in this. But, there's nevertheless something... bolstering, in the unique opportunity he can present to the new owner of her soul: the opportunity to get to know, truly know, who she once was. Halting and strange as it may be, they do talk quite a long time, and when she leaves, it's with gratitude, and a short, awkward, one-armed hug that she bids her farewell.

And time stretches, infinite yet again.

As long as he may live, her soul, it continues seeking his across however many lifetimes, until one day, the strange elf finds the door in their hazy memories hanging off its hinges, and the home, collapsed and empty, maybe for decades now.

Occasionally, it is still said that in each generation, there may very well be an elf born whose soul feels an irresistible need to make a curious, solitary pilgrimage to the ruins of a city once known as Baldur's Gate, and hope against hope to find a pale man with red eyes wandering the empty streets.

And maybe, a woman who had once lived there so many centuries ago was right: there's an aching, heartrending kind of beauty in that.

[anistarrose]

what I mean when I say I'm tired of people making found families into nuclear families:

among other things, it's kind of annoying when people act like the romantic couple are automatically the "most obvious" candidates to adopt a kid; or act like a pair of people in a romantic relationship can't happily co-parent a kid with people outside of that romance

what I don't mean when I say I'm tired of people making found families into nuclear families:

people using "siblings" or "parent and child" as a shorthand (or even non-shorthand) for characters' relationships sometimes

[airenyah]

Hey so do you know where I could find this acting manifesto of yours?

I usually try and avoid publicly expressing my opinion on things like this but I recently saw some people commenting negatively on his acting again and I’m starting to doubt my own judgement.

I’ve truly never had a huge problem with his acting but I keep seeing people using really harsh words to describe his prior and current work. I genuinely think he’s doing a good job in THK but these comments sometimes make me think I’m missing something.

That conflicts with the fact I know at least three people he worked with on THK specifically had positive things to say about his acting too and I trust people who do this for a living to know what they’re talking about for the most part.

I guess I’m just looking for your post to have a more detailed perspective of the opposite viewpoint to “he’s a terrible actor” to help affirm some of my thinking so I’m more confident in my positive opinion of his acting.

Overall though I’m enjoying everyone in this show but for me I’m specifically enjoying the four mains the most. Kudos to them honestly.

(Disclaimer: Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion but the harshness of some of the opinions took me off guard a little.)

fuck these people. they don't know shit.

(mind you. this manifesto was written based on his performance in just star in my mind and hidden agenda. his 2024 shows weren't even out at that point. in fact, thk hadn't even been publicly announced yet. you can see from the start there is talent in this boy if you actually know what to look out for)

bonus: i rant some more in the last reblog

[meownotgood]

I just want to say, if you're a fellow writer, never feel bad if most of your stories wind up unfinished or scrapped

literally only like 1/4th of the fics I start ever wind up coming to fruition. writing is hard man, sometimes things just don't click into place and that's okay. every time you write, no matter if it works out or not, you are working so hard!! every not-so fortunate idea is just one step closer to the idea that will truly grip you and make you grow so much as a writer!!!!

[dollopheadsandclotpoles]

Kinda fucked how even authors of queer literature or creators of queer media refuse to use the word "asexual" in relation to their characters. Why do I keep seeing these people say things like "yeah I consider this character ace but I didn't want to commit to it in the text"

[satari-raine]

I'm still not sure if I'll ever get used to people, both strangers and those I admire - and more than one person overall, surprisingly - telling me that my writing is publication-worthy. Feels like a far-off dream for so many reasons, but it's nice to know what I do, when I can actually manage to do it and put words down somewhere, means something to someone.

[mel-loly]

Dont mind me:3

I- Tsu.. You didn't need to... But.. Yeah, uh... Thanks..😅💛

(no pressure, but if you can read the tags, I'd be happy! and that doesn't just apply to tsu but to everyone)

[brandileigh2003]

I'm not looking forward to 8 hours in car and then non child proof house with special needs kid who's been having a rough couple of weeks.

With in laws where I flip a coin whether they're going to be assholes or not.

And I'm still sick with a not so fun new... I don't know what to call it. Not necessarily side effect. Or complication. But. It's freaking embarrassing.

(ha! Tumblr goes... You've reached 30 tags. So write in your post. Not in tags. It's not the p.s.s.s.s. that you used to write to your best friend 😂)

[tsundereition]

omg guys proshipper isn't "basic dni criteria", like that list is supposed to represent actual irl issues(*), not some 2020 internet discourse. you guys are so annoying like if you're uncomfortable interacting with proshippers i understand and respect it, although you probably have a very twisted idea of what the word means (would make a separate post abt it but there are hundreds already). but please don't equate it to actual crimes. (*)also do you seriously think that a bigot troll is going to read your dni and be magically expelled from your strong aura. if anything it's going to make them want to harass you more. it's obvious that those lists are just a pose like "if i don't put racists dni they're gonna think i'm racist" NO aaagh you don't have to over-specify(?) everything about you when interacting online can we please go back to being normal istg. reject modernity embrace not writing a dni list and just blocking people like a normal person <3