#wow he/she really gets me

[rororow]

I’ve decided Sparrow is AroAce, Rebecca is AroHet, and Lark is PanPoly and I’m writing them all (+ Nick) into a sitcom/soap opera. In my head.

[pangur-and-grim]

one thing that took me embarrassingly long to learn is "sometimes when people say things, they will not be true."

I used to tell people about this revelation and they'd be like yeah.....duh.....but like, why wouldn't my base assumption be that you're communicating to me in a straightforward manner. anyway, I get scammed a lot.

[casscainmainly]

There's something so beautiful about Cass' belief in people. Not only is it consistently rewarded, but it's often the very thing that allows people to change:

Batgirl (2000) #36 / Detective Comics #972

Her belief isn't enough for her, but it's enough for so many others.

[courtmartialme]

woag .. otp

[szynkaaa]

Zhu Bajie: do you exercise Travel Companion: I like to run away from my problems and feelings

The dialogue is based off a scene from Doctor Who. I don't think that my OC would be going with Zhu Bajie and the Destined One into the rock for the final battle (probably cause she is not able to enter) so she has to sit outside and wait anxiously for them to return.

She is happy to see them return but then also immediately notices how the Destined One's whole demeanour and aura changed. She knew that this point was going to happen where he inherits everything and becomes the new Monkey King, but I also think that she has a hard time wrapping her head around the concept of reincarnation and struggles with accepting it.

So yeah, I imagine the moment after new Sun Wukong comes out of the rock, it's an angsty moment. He just wants to see his best friend and tell her what happened, and now that he is finally "whole" again be able to propely have conversations with her and ask her about all the weird things she says and does, but instead she looks at him like she is very unsure of everything.

Sun Wukong doesn't really have the temper imo or at least here things get a bit heated and he snaps and well, she does what she is best at in situations like this: fucking book it :)))))

Obviously SWK wants to chase after her but Zhu Bajie helds him back and says "ayo kiddo give the lassie some time to process everything, she will come around" he doesn't want to but he knows that is what she needs atm.

Where is Travel Companion hiding meanwhile? In the Zodiac village, the Yin Tiger offered her a spare bedroom, and in exchange she helps around, with the crops, bringing materials back and forth and also has some good times drinking and sharing stories with the villager. Maybe also crying about her woes, and I think that the villager sharing their stories about SWK and explain more about his backstory and stuff helps the her to come around more.

also SWK knows she is there and comes by every day to get his harvest and the free medicing from your local meth dealer Xu Dog. She is hiding in Yin Tiger's lil blacksmith hut everytime he is visiting, but she knows that he knows that she knows that he is there.

And then one day when he is visting Yin Tiger, SWK sighs and goes all "hey bud can you pass this message to Travel Companion," and inserts some very sweet and sappy stuff, knowing that she is there and can hear him. Just as he is about to leave she decides to come out of her hiding spot and go "Hey... let's go talk somewhere more private".

SWK is not showing any emotions but you can tell by the flicker of his tail that he is relieved to see her. Bit worried about the dark eye circle and how not well-rested she looks like, but he will make sure to fix that soon.

[teeth-draws]

Chase suffers in love but the other Norms still let him come to their little photoshoot

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando Chair Lore: 2013 edition(no lore, just pics haha):

[youmakethelight]

I need scenes where Daryl explicitly shows that he loves Carol for all of who she is as a human. I know we know it, even though that feeling has been fading since the spin-off and even in parts of season 11. But I reallyyy need at least one scene where Daryl catches Carol doing something distinctly Carol and looks at her for a *prolonged* time with unambiguous love all over his face. And then he actively shows and tells her. Like the scenes where Aaron and Rosita see Carol putting herself through pain to kill the horse to feed Alexandria. I need to know that Daryl sees that in her. And I need to see him radiate intense love in her direction because she fucking needs it.

[hanzajesthanza]

god we need to bring crackfic back. or just short and idiotic ideas that wouldn’t happen but would be funny to read

[grahamcarmen]

[saturnniidae]

Astrid showing Hiccup a drawing she came up with for some weapon idea and he likes it but then proceeds to keep tweaking it (so it's physically possible) until it ends up looking nothing like Astrids initial draft so she gets mad and leaves (they both have autism)

[spacedlexi]

the post about the mirrors between the Kenny & Jane fight and the Minnie & Clem fight just reminds me of all the similarities between Violet and Kenny. like obviously they’re different characters, I just find it interesting how they share so many traits (being very loyal, may or may not sustain an eye injury, like fishing even if one is rod fishing and the other is spear fishing). there’s some more similarities I forgot to mention but I’ve been patiently waiting for someone to draw Violet and Kenny fishing wearing “women love me, fish fear me” hats or something.

oh yeah, ALSO. they both have moments where you can fight them and calm them down (Kenny on the train, Violet in the ending where you didn’t save her).

this is just so interesting! wish other people acknowledged it.

anon unknowingly unlocking my beef with kenny defenders who hate violet

vi was one of the first characters for me where i realized that a female character can have all the traits people will defend in their favorite male character(s) and yet theyll still find a way to absolutely despise her for some reason

kennys #1 defense is that him losing his family is what drove him to the brink and its soooo understandable for him to act out the way he does (brutally killing people, abusive even if it comes from a place of wanting to protect "his group"). but violet, who acts the way she does (isolationist loner) because.... she lost her family... is a disloyal bitch for some reason 😐 even while shes nothing but loyal to clem regardless of choice (people are quick to defend louis' actions in ep 2 as well and his behavior never makes Him disloyal for some reason 😐 "he lost his best friend!" and vi lost her best friends/gf because of marlon so?), and only has a lapse in judgement after you (determinately) "betray" her 💀 AND she apologizes for it if you do!!

if nothing about violet changed besides her pronouns the fandom reception to her would be so dramatically different and i refuse to believe otherwise

[moeblob]

Alright I told someone I would give propaganda for these two so here we go. As a warning, I didn't play mobile or Re-Mind soooooooo. Yeah there's that. I know they're apparently involved in past stuff but shhh.

So first off, everyone's weapon is super useful! Except theirs. Which I always thought was really funny? Even in Re:CoM Zexion's book was more direct than these two. I really enjoyed them just as the most indirect fighters? And figured they'd be pretty chill and after playing KH2 as a kid I'm like. I think Luxord would be most tolerable to music while vibing. He could play Solitaire or something while Demyx played music and possibly chatted. Therefore, my younger self was like "it's perfect".

ALSO CONSIDERING THEIR NUMBERS! And the line in KH3 during the scene where Demyx is like "yup I got benched", they've probably got a history. However, the number they get originally is supposed to be the order they joined. So with Marluxia and Larxene obviously tied together in the past, all I can think of is these two just being absolute bums wandering around pre-Organization and just hitch hiking their way into a cult. Which is also REALLY funny to me because what if they joined at the same time but Demyx got to be IX and Luxord is X.

Demyx would hold his rank over his head for the dumbest stuff (in my head canons of the past).

Like there's so many things we specifically do not know about these two so basically, until I'm proven absolutely incorrect in game (which might have happened and I just don't know) ! I think they'd be a good match.

And I mean, it's also just (gestures) LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY ARE. Great designs and I think that's good enough for me!

[teeth-draws]

“What do you mean he’s scary!! Look at him!”

— taking artistic liberties to scrunkle the face of @shepherds-of-haven’s Blade Bronwyn - a man with 0.6% body fat lol