#very minor role but he’s there

[cak3o]

Having thoughts

[benadrylcandlewhack]

I bring a sort of "Optimus and Elita both get to live and least be on good terms with one another" vibe that the majority of Transformers canon doesn't like

[undefeatablesin]

Watch out ya'll, Sin's sketching Bloodborne comics again! 💀

[seilon]

certainly feeling some things about the fact that simon. bullied edwin, yes, because he clocked him being gay. but not out out of hatred for him because of it. instead it was because he thought edwin was cute and felt sad and confused by edwin not paying attention to him. because simon is also gay. that is some beautiful and tragic storytelling and such a good way to come back around and give edwin some amount of closure on that chapter of his life wow

[cringefaecompilation]

people are already saying that the vision won't change anyone's mind. i mean, it might change one guy's mind, one in particular who's really been deadset in his ways. won't make him hate the gods, but it'll kick his butt into gear about another problem he's got.

orym and cassida are so alike it hurts. i thought i was helping. i am helping. i want to walk alongside you. why won't you tell me anything? please trust me. i'll do anything you ask me to. all my suffering to get where i am had to have been for a reason. there is hope in everything if you just hold on to it. please don't make me do this. i'll do it if it helps you.

cassida is used time and time again by everyone, by aeor, by the gods, by ludinus all to justify their actions and to assuage their guilt. who remembers her? she was just another nasty hubris wizard, another victim killed by the wicked gods, another casualty of a war that higher powers fought amongst themselves.

orym is much the same. kicked around by the world but always staying on top. he'll do anything anybody asks of him with no care for his own well-being; pragmatic to a fault and goal-oriented as a perfect little soldier. these are not virtues.

when he cannot do something he overexerts himself. he seeks out dangerous pacts with fey hags with his own life as payment. he'll tell everyone else that they are good and kind and more than their powers, but he doesn't believe it himself. and what he gets for this devotion is mission after mission with no rest and the swinging sword over his neck telling him that it will be an eventuality that both his dearest friends will have to die by his hand.

(this isn't keyleth's fault. i'm not trying to take orym's agency from him or blame her influence fully on his suffering.)

if orym keeps pushing himself this hard and keeps justifying his self-harming, it isn't a question of if he will die, but when. ever since he got back from the moon he's been coming closer and closer to realization but hasn't quite reached it. we can only hope he sees himself in someone like her, trying her damnedest to see hope against all odds before it's too late.

[wonder-worker]

"As for the government of the kingdom, [Edward V] had complete confidence in the peers of realm and the queen."

"According to the Crowland continuator, [Elizabeth Woodville] seems to have taken the king's place in listening to his council immediately after Edward IV's death. It does appear that she expected to have some role in her son's kingship, and the Crowland continuator’s report of the letters sent to her by [Richard of Gloucester] indicates that she had good reason to expect to be able to work with him and the other councillors: 'the duke of Gloucester wrote the most pleasant letters to console the queen; he promised to come and offer submission, fealty and all that was due from him to his lord and king, Edward V, the first-born son of his brother the dead king and the queen'."

"[However], in what was Gloucester's first coup, Edward V was separated from his household and Woodville advisors. When the young king questioned the move, Buckingham was reported to have told the boy 'It is not in the business of women but men to govern kingdoms'. The blunt remark referred to the authority of Elizabeth Woodville as queen and the power she must have anticipated within the new political climate left by Edward IV's sudden death [...] While the veracity of this scene is questionable*, the words attributed to the duke no doubt seemed plausible to Dominic Mancini who believed they exemplified the popular sentiment held by men [...]."

-Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard the Third / J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Alexander R. Brondarbit, Power Brokers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485

*One of Mancini's key sources seems to have been Edward V's own doctor, John Argentine, who attended to him in the Tower. It's very likely that he was the one who recounted this scene to Mancini, which suggests that it should probably be considered more credible than not.

[lovingoverwatchguys]

Overwatch Lore Compilation: Jack Morrison being blamed for things that aren't his fault

[mariocki]

A young Christopher Lee guest stars as dastardly Larry Spence - a rising star in the world of journalism, turned blackmailer and then murderer - in The Vise: The Final Column (1.16, ABC, 1955); the episode wasn't seen in the UK until 1963, as part of ITV drama anthology Tension

[spinnysocks]

What if Kiara Tiifu and Zuri were in Warrior cats?

anon i love this.

assuming that kiara would be in line to be leader like how she is in line to be queen, she has a lot of weight on shoulders. tiifu and zuri would be kits / apprentices at the same time as her - the trio as apprentice best friends to lovers would be so adorable!! tiifu and zuri are probably the kin of senior warriors or something, so essentially they come from respected families in the clan and have expectations to perform well. kiara bonds with them over that and learns to relax herself like they do. kiara definitely becomes a warrior first - i'm willing to bet she passed her assessment early - with tiifu next and zuri last. though, i would love it if they all graduated on the same day because then they could do the new warriors' vigil together!! those girls would NOT keep their vow of silence <3<3

whenever kiara isn't learning how to be future leader, she is escaping camp with her girlfriends :] they are frolicking in the fields, climbing trees, basking on rocks, you name it. their favourite activity is sharing tongues. grooming fur and gossiping? c'mon, that's made for tiifu and zuri. kiara just enjoys the all quiet time with them she can get! :D

[domoz]

Girl help i keep Hikaku posting instead of writing the fics I need to.

In this one, Tobirama takes a gamble:

No good sense has brought them here, just Madara's grief and rage.

Hikaku cant begrudge the man that after what's happened to his brother, but in this moment he wishes it had manifested another way. A battle with the Senju is nothing new, but in all of his perfect memory he can never quite remember things being this chaotic.

Hashirama is tearing up the landscape just to match Madara, who in his fury is trying to break past his usual opponent to go after Tobirama.

Tobirama, who without Izuna there to stop him, is currently beating Hikaku to a pulp.

This guy is on another level, he thinks breathlessly. He'd always known that, in theory. Izuna had been one of the best, after all and Tobirama had always matched him (until he surpassed him).

In practice, the only thing keeping Hikaku alive is the sharigan's ability to predict movements and whatever it is that's stopping the Senju from using whatever technique it was that injured Izuna.

He stopped trying to block the water dragons after the first and has gone from disrupting their paths with boulders to trying to shred them apart with pebbles as he's grown more exhausted. It hardly slows them, but it's kept him from being completely swept away so far, and if that keeps him alive than that's what he'll do.

That's what he's just done (ending up soaked, but still on his feet) when Tobirama pauses, landing on a high branch a decent enough distance away that even Hikaku might have a chance to avoid whatever he throws at him.

From his perch, Tobirama tilts his head, looking over Hikaku with a considering gaze.

"You have excellent chakra control." He says after a moment, "Even better than Izuna's."

Hikaku blinks, but he does not un-tense, remembering Izuna's many rants about how Tobirama liked to play games with his opponents -- to let them think they’ve won, until they haven't.

Hikaku does not think himself anywhere close to winning, but every moment they aren't actively fighting is another moment he hasn't died.

"It's hardly worth comparing us." Hikaku frowns, "And pointless. He still lives."

"For how long? Days? If that." Tobirama purses his lips, a tiny thing that Hikaku would have missed from this distance if his sharingan weren't still activated, "No, I don't think there's much time left at all."

Hikaku has no idea how he knows that, but he isn't wrong. The gut wound he'd left Izuna with has been festering. He wouldn't be surprised to return to the compound to find him dead already. What kind of sick taunt is this?

As he talks, Tobirama starts making hand signs -- a long string of them, and not a jutsu Hikaku recognizes. His breath catches and he readies himself, prepared to run from whatever devastation this is going to bring -- but when he finishes the only result he can see is a pale green glow coating the Senju's palm.

Tobirama raises his hand, touches it to a cut on his cheek where a bit of rubble had caught him. When he draws it away, the wound is gone.

A technique that can heal injuries with chakra. When he realizes what he's just been allowed to see -- what he's just been allowed to copy with his sharingan -- Hikaku nearly staggers under the weight of it.

His next thought is 'I'm going to die'. Because surely, surely, there's no way Tobirama Senju is going to allow him to walk away with the knowledge he's just been given.

There's a piercing two toned whistle, a bright white flare high in the sky. Retreat called, on both sides. And contrary to everything, to all rational thought, Tobirama does not leap forward, does not cut his throat or snap his spine, but turns, gives Hikaku a long glance, and follows the rest of the Senju in their retreat.

It takes Hikaku a long moment to unfreeze. To go regroup with his clan, mind whirling.

It must be a trap, but what use is there to lay one for a man already as good as dead? If this was some ploy to give false hope, then why pick him, when he could just keep what had happened to himself?

His clansmen are all silent as they return from the battlefield, Hikaku most of all.

I don't think there's much time left at all. That's what Tobirama had said. But time for what?

Hikaku is not a fool -- he does not try to use what he's learned on Izuna, or even on himself and the many cuts and bruises he's come home with. When everyone else goes off to see their own hurts treated, to see their loved ones, when Madara goes straight from the battlefield to go sit by his brother, Hikaku slips away from them all.

The main house has a koi pond, and though the landscaping leaves much to be desired after years of Madara and Izuna using it for their sibling rivalries, it still holds fish. Hikaku mentally apologizes to the late Lady Uchiha as he grabs a koi by the tail and yanks it out of the water, but he thinks, if this works, he will be forgiven.

He waits for the fish to stop thrashing before he makes a cut down it's side; nothing too deep, nothing it couldn't survive on it's own. He lets his sharingan spin, calls up the memory of the hand signs, the way Tobirama's chakra had been stripped of its element, how it had condensed thicker than he'd ever seen.

It only takes him a few moments to understand why Tobirama had made a comment on his chakra control. It's difficult -- more than any technique he's ever tried. But… Not impossible.

If he had more time, he thinks he'd be able to get it to work. As it is…

Hikaku is not optimistic. But he will try.

He lets the koi back into the pool as, for the first two hours he focuses only on the chakra -- cleaning it, folding it in on itself over and over and over again. He gets his hands to glow green once before he pulls the koi out of the water again.

There's a delicate balance, he learns. He very nearly overloads the fish's chakra coils before he understands what he's meant to be doing. The information the jutsu gives him is nearly incomprehensible, but there's a feeling to it. The cut feels like metal in the back of his mouth -- and it wants to heal, its already trying to, all he has to do is help it along. To hold his chakra on the bits that make his ears ring (and nowhere else, or the chakra will burn healthy flesh) until they've knitted themselves together again.

He thinks he's starting to get the idea when he released the koi back into the water -- cut gone but side covered in chakra burns. The chakra is giving a place for the scar tissue to form sooner than it should, or something like it. Hikaku shakes his head. It's interesting, but the theory will come later when he's got less important things to think about.

A chill has fallen as the sun has gone down, but Hikaku finds himself wiping his brow from the exertion of it all. If he could, he would rest, would at least find another animal to test on, but… Time.

He's not ready for Izuna quite yet, though. Hikaku goes home, throws together the most nourishing food he can in as short a time as he can manage, and tries to heal himself.

It's easier and harder than the fish; humans being the more complicated animal. Hikaku ends up getting a lot more feedback he has no idea what to do with -- but he can tell when he's coming close to hurting himself, too. That probably won't be true, when he tries this on another person. To avoid that he needs more control, and more than anything else, a hell of a lot more practice.

By midnight, Hikaku has managed to heal a bruise that had been starting to bloom on his thigh. Nothing, compared to the wound Izuna has, but he did it.

He feels dizzy when he tries to stand up, to walk over to the main house. Hikaku curses, but it seems like his body has made up its mind for him. Sleep is the best thing for stamina, after all, and he's not certain how much longer his control will hold out without rest. If he's too late, he still knows he's tried his hardest.

He's asleep nearly as fast as his head touches the futon, for all of four hours before anxiety has him rising right before the sun.

Well, he's a shinobi, he's done more on less. He eats old rice, drinks tea that's hardly had time to steep, and walks across the compound in the pre-dawn twilight to try and perform a miracle.

Madara is awake when he steps inside -- hunched over, face in his hands, looking like he's aged about ten years since Hikaku saw him last. For a heart-stopping moment, Hikaku fears that he was too late after all.

"He asked me to take his eyes." Madara says in lieu of a greeting, voice muffled.

Hikaku grimaces. The mangekyo is as horrifying as it is powerful, but if Izuna is asking that, it means…

He's given up. He's conceded that he's going to die. Hikaku has even less time than he'd thought.

"…Is he awake right now?" Hikaku feels breathless, like he's walking on a wire.

"He was when I left him." Replies Madara, voice rough. For him to have left Izuna's side while his brother was still awake, they must have argued. Probably about the eyes.

Hikaku nods, turns to walk to the room where Izuna's sickbed is without asking any more. He won't explain, not yet, won't give false hope. Explanations can come after, right now he's just got to try.

Izuna doesn't react to his entrance -- he's still breathing, but asleep or unconscious. Just as well, Hikaku thinks wryly, pulling the chair he knows Madara has spent hours in to give him better access to the wound on Izuna's side, He'll be less distracting like this.

He's changed this wound before, and when Hikaku pulls the bandages off its still as ugly as it was the day Izuna got it, the blood clotted and dark. It doesn't smell, at least. Hikaku has no idea how this jutsu handles infections.

One bracing breath is all he allows himself before making the handsigns, pulling the chakra to his hands. It's easier after rest, but harder, for the nerves.

Izuna twitches as Hikaku places his hands over the wound, as the back of his throat fills with the taste of copper. His entire attention focuses down to his hands, to the skin and muscle under them, to threading his chakra back and forth and pulling things back to how they should be.

"H'kaku?" He hears after a while. Izuna's voice, but he doesn't look, even as the man goes tense beneath him. He seems to understand that whatever Hikaku is doing, it needs concentration.

It could only have been minutes, or it could have been days by the time Hikaku's chakra starts to waver. He dismisses the technique, not wanting to undo his work. He hasn't done nearly as much as he'd wanted to but he thinks… He thinks he might have stopped the downward spiral, at least.

"Hikaku." Izuna's voice again. When he looks up, Hikaku's vision goes white with spots. He's sweating with exertion, he realizes, and now that he's dropped the jutsu his hands are shaking so badly he doesn't think he'll be able to form the hand signs again.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder. When his vision finally stops spinning Madara and Izuna are both staring at him with wide eyes.

This is the most lucid he's seen Izuna in over a week.

"Hikaku." Madara is the one who speaks this time, sounding breathless, "What was that?"

 "I think…" Hikaku gasps, "That was Tobirama Senju's way of asking for peace."

[femmesandhoney]

oh you definitely can't underestimate how homophobic people are... there's a singer i follow and i remember the time he recommended a movie and then the fans found out its a movie about a gay male couple. for at least a couple weeks the comments under anything related to him were full of self-identified fans going "how could he do this to us" "there are hundreds of thousands of women who would kill to have his children and he does this" "we are doomed as a society" "how can he call himself a man" "i can't support this". all from american zoomers. i can't imagine what would happen if a world class celebrity with a cult following came out in this day and age with social media being a thing if a movie rec from a honest to god not so popular guy gets people acting up like this

jesus thats terrible, can't even rec movies now, homophobia is so pervasive

[menofsweaters]

(a foreboding encounter in my youth)

Friend 1: I like Aragorn because he's so handsome and strong!

Friend 2: I like Legolas because he's so beautiful and nimble!

Friend 3: I like Frodo because he's so cute and caring!

Friends: which is YOUR favorite?

Me, sweating buckets: um...

Friends: come on, tell us!

Me: I LIKE GANDALF BECAUSE HE DEFEATED THE BALROG

Me: ...BUT NOT IN A SEXUAL WAY

[shiveringsoldier]

“Introducing Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence” and this unknown actor gave one of the greatest film performances of all time

[naradivision]

“Merry Christmas,

I wasn’t sure of the things you’d like, but I do know your division’s famous for its deer parks, I thought this might be something you can get behind. Have fun with this little guy.

— Makina Setsukura from Akihabara Division (did you know that? I dunno, maybe you do, maybe you don’t)”

Yuuya Kanata chuckled, shaking his head as he set the little notecard down. He lifted the lid to the present that was delivered to him.

Inside was a somewhat firm stuffed animal in the shape of a deer that was almost half the size of his upper body.

At long last when the reddish haired boy had returned to his home after relaying his Christmas presents to another division due to the ‘Secret Santa’ campaign, it seemed like his turn had come to receive some gift from his secret ‘Santa’ too.

Looking at the big deer plushie while softly chuckling, Yuuya picked up the fluffy stuffed animal from the box he found at his doorstep and took it inside his room.

“Here we go, newcomer. Why not befriend Mr. Greenie over there?”

The boy gently placed his stuffed animal gift beside the dinosaur plushie he received from his graduated senior last year, then he recalled his secret Santa’s name.

Makina Setsukura? Oh, that’s the gamer girl whom he and Hi-chan had sent some birthday presents to previous September. Nice to know that she still remembered him even if he didn’t really interact much with her in person. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she was one of those numerous streamers Takane had befriended online.

Takane was the name of his classmate who, in fact, had an alter online-sona known under the name ‘Aozora’ and was actually Makina’s upperclassman at the academy —Only if she knew his true identity. This low-energy friend of his was also happened to be the regular client of Kiyozaki-san as well since he still had some problems with his insomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness ongoing from past two years. 

But Yuuya was sure his friend didn’t know that one of his online fellows did turn out to be a resident at his therapist’s place too

—Pfft, internet and coincidence were definitely curious things, weren’t them? 

Suddenly, he felt the intense glare from somewhere behind his back.

“Phew. Is it just you, Ojou-chan?” 

Facing off his intensely staring kitten who was now hiding herself in the empty present box, Yuuya gave out a sigh of relief. He was never good with the spooky kind of stuff and that made him wonder how those two streamers could have fun playing some hair-raising horror games even in the middle of night.

“I’m afraid this unfortunately isn’t your new toy. I just got this from one of my friends out there. Uh, so, no scratch on this one please?”

“Meowwrrr.”

“Okay, okay. Aren’t you satisfied with the new toy I got for you last week? Fine, want me to add some more scratching posts to your house?”

“Meowwwrrrrr.”

“This isn’t it? Eh... Then what else can I do…”

Slightly tilting his head as if using his thought, he soon followed the direction of her stare and finally understood why his petite kitten was glared daggers at him.

“—Wait, are you looking at this thing? Hi-chan had made it for me and everyone in the team, so don’t worry, it can neither hurt you nor me.” 

He picked up one end of the weird-looking cat scarf on his neck and hurled it around in the air to show his petite roommate that this lifeless piece of cloth can’t be harmful to anyone.

The Siamese kitten looked at him in disbelief as she gave her final hiss while jumping out of the box. She cautiously stepped back, still eyeing his scarf like some kind of paranoid predator until she thought herself was far enough and ran away.

Even though she was always behaving like a little kid with him, somehow Yuuya felt like his Ojou-chan was a tad bit more understanding than normal cats. 

But, oh well, this funny thought might be nothing but his imagination anyway.

—Thank you for the gifts and Merry Christmas! 🎄

[wonder-worker]

"The feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist being appointed as the day upon which the coronation of the king [Edward V] would take place without fail, all both hoped for and expected a season of prosperity for the kingdom."

-Excerpt from the Croyland Continuator / David Horspool, Richard III: A Ruler and Reputation

Even though Edward IV’s death was unexpected, after twelve years of peace there need not have been too much of a sense of foreboding about the succession. The great dynastic wound from which the Wars of the Roses had grown had not so much been healed as cauterized by the extinction of the House of Lancaster. There was no rush for London, as had happened in earlier, disputed successions. The royal party didn’t set out from Ludlow for ten days after hearing the news of Edward IV’s death, while Richard took his time, too. And the new king had [his mother the dowager queen and] two uncles to support him: his mother’s brother, the sophisticated, cultured, highly experienced Earl Rivers; and his father’s, the loyal and reliable Duke of Gloucester, to whom Edward IV had entrusted unprecedented power and vital military command.

... [Richard of Gloucester] had achieved his goal by a mixture of luck and ruthlessness, and if he made it appear, or even believed himself, that destiny played a part, this only made him a man in step with his times. Modern historians have no time for destiny, but sometimes the more ‘structuralist’ interpretations of the events surrounding the usurpation can come close to it. When we read that ‘the chances of preserving an unchallenged succession were . . . weakened by the estrangement of many of the rank-and-file nobility from . . . high politics, which was partly a consequence of the Wars of the Roses and partly of Edward IV’s own policies’, it is hard not to conclude that an unforeseeable turn of events is being recast as a predictable one. But without one overriding factor – the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester after he took the decision to make himself King Richard III – none of this could have happened. That is, when the same author concedes ‘Nor can we discount Richard’s own forceful character’, he is pitching it rather low*.

Edward IV had not left behind a factional fault line waiting to be shaken apart. Richard of Gloucester’s decision to usurp was a political earthquake that could not have been forecast on 9 April, when Edward died. After all, Simon Stallworth did not even anticipate it on 21 June, the day before Richard went public. We should be wary of allowing hindsight to give us more clairvoyance than the well-informed contemporary who had no idea ‘what schall happyne’. This is not to argue that Richard’s will alone allowed him to take the Crown. Clearly, the circumstances of a minority, the existence of powerful magnates with access to private forces, and the reasonably recent examples of resorts to violence and deposition of kings, made Richard’s path a more conceivable one. But Richard’s own tactics, his arrest of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey, the rounding up of Hastings and the bishops, relied on surprise. If men as close as these to the workings of high politics at a delicate juncture had no inkling of what might happen, the least historians can do is to reflect that uncertainty [...].

(*The author who Horspool is referencing and disagreeing with is Charles Ross)

[asparkofhopeiswhatimafter]

absolutely iconic of cs lewis to be like "these three housemaids are ivy margaret and betty but they don't come into the story much" and then never once mention them again