#this is trash i apologize

[aceroxluz]

closed - @greektragcdy

"Hold the elevator please!" Luz called out. With bright blue sunny skies ahead of her for the day and summer heat making an early appearance, she was fully set on spending the next few hours up on the rooftop with a bottle of wine and some suntan oil. As it was, she was clad in nothing but a bikini and a robe loosely tied around her middle (essentially not really covering up much at all). She ran in a second later, grinning at the man inside. "Thanks, you're a life savor."

[apieceofcrew02]

Alberu when Cale told him yet another batshit insane plan but it's beneficial for the kingdom:

[mangyraccooon]

No Regrets First-Master-Previous

Next-

can you tell which photo is garps favourite?

THEREs A PAGE MISSING I WILL FIX IN the next 24 hours I am so sorry!!! edit* the page has been added and problem fixed April; 8th 2025

[andy-clutterbuck]

[imlostinmy20s]

An art piece from a year ago, that I haven't posted anywhere yet might be quite out of character but eehhh whatever 😎👌🔥

[miyku]

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[emily-mooon]

Scott Pilgrim Characters as Text Posts but they’re mostly of Stacey and Neil cause I’m obsessed with them :]

[arealtrashact]

using this for maximum Arnie P consumption

[sodafrog13]

more pngs nabbed fr new OFF-icial material! fr both the game announcement and merch teaser

[disinherited-dornishman]

In honour of @helaenasbestfriend 's insane tags on my post, which inspired this two part trash from my end.

Part 2

Tags: angst, hurt/comfort, fantasies of regicide. TW: offscreen marital SA in part 2, because that's what doing one's duty as Alicent Hightower pertains.

Part 1/2

"I'm going to bed, Aemma," said the king.

The name rang through the courtyard like a tolling bell. Eyes turn, the beginnings of whispers follow, but some part of Criston cannot believe it truly happened.

He turns his eyes to his Queen.

When he sees what had been concern for her husband frozen still upon her beautiful visage, like a doe's last moments as it was struck in the heart by a hunter's arrow, he knows. And he cannot stop the quickening of his heartbeat, the clench of his jaw, that burning in his mind - not wild and rapid with panic and fear as the fire that had killed the Knight of Kisses. No, this burn was cold, pure rage.

"Shall I see after Queen Alicent, Your Grace?" Ser Harrold asks, pointedly.

The King stops in his tired shuffling, as though he finally noticed his mistake. Criston prays for a mere apology. Even that admission of wrong is better than pretending he had said nothing at all, and perhaps that would be enough to banish these thoughts of bloody dishonour from Criston's mind.

"No, Ser Harrold..." He shuffles along.

Criston watches his Queen's face fall.

"You have the night's watch, Ser Criston," Ser Harrold says. A look of warning as he walks away.

Criston is glaring. He knows it, but he cannot bring himself to care - cannot stop his grip tightening about his sword's leather hilt. The faint creak is defeaning in his ears.

Aemma. After all these years, all the humiliations, the unerring performance of his Queen in her... duties. The suffering.

Aemma.

One stroke, the voice whispers, swift and clean. That is all that's needed. More than he deserves. A fall down the stairs with no one around to hear and help him. They might whisper afterwards, but so be it. Let them. At least she would not need suffer-

"Come, Ser Criston." Her voice brings him back to reality. The horror is only brief.

They leave the courtyard together, sent off by whispers and looks she's grown accustomed to suffering. She holds her head high but she cannot fool Criston, for he had seen the distance in her eyes.

"Something disturbs your peace of mind, Ser," she says later the Red Keep's sept. Her voice is distant, but her attention is upon him, even as she kneels before the Mother's altar.

"It is nothing, my queen."

"Then nothingness has you terribly occupied." She looks at him over her shoulder. "Your silence concerns me, I must confess."

"I do not wish to not disturb the hallowed peace, my queen, that is all."

She gives him a look that almost feels like a plea. She dislikes his avoidance. He averts his eyes to the ground.

"That was unworthy of his grace," he says, impotently.

"He is unwell, his mind muddled," she says, more graceful in the face of injustice than Criston. "Do not hold it against him."

An act.

He hates it. He hates that he cannot punish the king (what a thought for a Kingsguard to harbour.) He hates what she must endure, and that he must endure watching her endure it, as useful in his vigilance as a gargoyle on Dragonstone.

"May I be honest?"

"Always, Good Ser."

"My thoughts disturb me. They too are... unwell."

There is a silence. His confession makes the hairs on his body stand. His heart races at the thought that he might have overstepped. It is one thing to say too much of the Queen's enemies, but her husband the King?

"Will you pray with me then?" she says, unreadable. "That your anger might be abolished?"

Her generosity, her trust, stuns him. Suddenly he cannot help but admire how beautiful she is in her furtive sorrow, and wish that he could see her smile. Banish all her ills and worries away. How long has he watched her suffer them?

"You honour me, your grace..."

She shuffles aside and pats the pillowed floor with a warm smile.

He swallows his heart back down his throat, removes the scabbard from his waist, kneels at her side, and clasps his hands together.

They pray in the comforting silence and stillness of the sept, under the warmth of the sunlight that is coloured rainbow by stained glass. Beside him, her warmth is radiant, crossing the distance between their flesh. It cools the fire in his mind until he is afloat.

He finds himself wishing he could shuffle closer and truly feel her flesh against his, just an arm, that it might comfort her...

But it is unseemly. Inappropriate. Unworthy.

So instead, he prays harder. Not for his own peace of mind, but for the gods to free his queen of her burden as swiftly as possible.

[panchulien]

Makarov and Nikolai have a conversation. (Abrupt Ending)

The cell door opened with a loud buzz.

Nikolai welcomed himself in, cautious in his steps as if trying not to disturb the man inside.

The room was small and dimly lit, consisting of only one table and two chairs on opposite sides. Said man was currently sitting at the chair close to the wall, his head bowed and his wrists tied together with cuffs. He didn't bother looking up when Nikolai entered.

Nikolai approached the chair, pulling it towards himself and taking a seat. His eyes never left the other man for a second.

A few moments passed, Nikolai quietly observing the man before him. It felt strange actually sitting across from him for the first time. Makarov looked exactly like he did in the newspapers and the camera footages. Although, slightly less intimidating now with the cuffs tied to his wrists and the grey jumpsuit he wore.

Nikolai remembers seeing him once or twice when they were younger, during his time as an informant inside the Ultranationalists. The organization was operating through multiple divisions and they never had the chance to talk or even acknowledge each other as Nikolai was busy climbing up the ranks. Makarov was probably doing the same, he thought. Two bright young men, with very different ambitions.

Nikolai wanted to see it for himself, that Makarov was finally taken down, his empire crumbling along. He had spent the last few years of his life working towards putting an end to the man's plans. It had been a slow and deliberate process, Nikolai witnessing every single step of it, watching as Makarov unleashed hell upon earth. But all of that was over, and now here he was with the man sitting across from him, stripped of all his power.

"I know you." Makarov breaks the silence, pulling Nikolai from his thoughts.

"I know everyone Price works with. You're his lapdog." He says with a smile, his brown eyes locking directly onto the matching pair across him.

Nikolai keeps his face straight. He knows what kind of a man Makarov is, having studied him long enough to have somewhat of an understanding of his tactics. He won't let Makarov have the upper hand by getting a reaction out of him.

Nikolai simply raises one eyebrow, prompting him to continue.

"I am quite familiar with your work, Nikolai. Russian Air Force, the Allegiance... Your very own Chimera." Makarov knows his enemies, Nikolai expects nothing less from him. He only briefly wonders just how much Makarov actually knows.

"Funny, isn't it? They let just about anyone into our army. Even a traitor such as yourself." He looks straight into Nikolai's eyes with barely contained disgust.

Nikolai is taken aback at first, but decides to indulge. "A traitor?" He smiles, amused.

"Da. A traitor who works with the West against his own country. Tucks his tail behind his legs and cries to the Brits just to save his own skin. What do you call that?"

So, Makarov was aware of the accusations made against him. It wouldn't surprise Nikolai if Makarov was the one behind them in the first place.

"Against my own country? That's a rich accusation coming from an Ultranationalist." Nikolai calmly responds, leaning back against the chair with his arms crossed. "MI6 came to me, just to stop you from starting another World War."

Makarov ignores the comment as he continues, "Not even man enough to accept an honorable death. If I had known you'd be such a problem in my plans, I would've personally seen to your execution." He doesn't even try to hide the resentment in his voice, almost sounding regretful.

"Shame, Nikolai. A man like you would've been a great asset by our side, but you just had to go and sell yourself to the West. I pity you, almost." Hatred hangs from his every word.

Nikolai lets the words wash over him, taking a second to process. It almost amazes him how Makarov still believes that his cause is righteous, even when he's completely powerless and reduced to nothing. It's the end of the road, doesn't he realize that?

"I must have done something very, very wrong if I earned the pity of a man like you." Nikolai responds, unflinching at Makarov's poisonous words.

"You don't see it, do you? Price is using you. That's what they all do." Makarov leans forward, the cuffs clinking against the metal table.

"I would hardly call it using if it meant the end of all the death and destruction caused by your hands." Nikolai leans forward. He was a fairly patient man, but Makarov was slowly working towards getting under his skin. Nikolai had always been a true patriot at heart, it was what drove him so strongly to work against Makarov. It had pained him to see his beloved country get ruined by a man like him for a violent and pointless cause.

"I did everything for the motherland, Nikolai. We grew up watching everything crumble, all of its glory gone and forgotten, turned into a joke by the West. I swore to restore it." Makarov's condescending smile was long gone, his expression troubled instead. "But like most, you lack conviction. Turned puppet at the hands of the West, it's exactly what the ancestors feared." He finishes, wide eyes darting between Nikolai's.

"Do you even hear yourself, Vladimir?" Nikolai would honestly laugh if it wasn't for the fact that the man looked dead serious.

"You did all this for the motherland, killed all those innocent people for what, a greater Russia? Is that what you want me to believe, that you're supposed to be some kind of hero?" Nikolai was genuine in his question, Makarov's words were messing with his head, every confession surprising him even further.

Makarov shakes his head. "Oh, no. I am no hero. I was simply the messenger." He replies, huffing out a laugh.

"I only ignited the flame, and it will only spread from now on. You cannot stop this, Nikolai. All other attempts will fail, just like Mactavish did."

Nikolai's hands twitch at the mention of the Sergeant. There had been many sacrifices made along the way, just to put the man where he was currently locked up, and John Mactavish was only another name in that long list of people who gave up their life.

Nikolai grits his teeth. "You keep his name out your mouth." Memories come flooding back to him, the Lieutenant's devastation, the funeral ceremony, the Captain going off the radar to hunt down the General partly responsible for this. He remembers the young Sargeant, his boisterous laugh and thick accent, his warm and inviting presence. That bright light in his eyes extinguished by the man sitting right in front of him.

Nikolai takes a second to pull himself together. He swallows the lump in his throat, dismissing the sudden urge he has to kill the man right then and there. God knows Makarov would benefit from it, no, Nikolai wasn't here for revenge. He didn't even know what he was here for, his mind was foggy. The man had really succeeded in getting under his skin.

Nikolai pushes his chair back, loudly scratching against the surface. He has to get up and move, regain his focus. Makarov smiles up at him, knowing very well he managed to get inside his head.

[lichqueenlibrarian]

Self explanatory, really.

[westeallen]

Grant Gustin photographed by Ted Ely

[mllkymash]

mllkymash likes other ships??????????