#you deserve good days

[rosicheeks]

my own good news: uhhhhh i got to talk with friends today and it made me smile and the weather is nice and my hair is nice and uhhh yeah 🥰

-🌸

🥰

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The indescribable tension between an overworked and underpaid smut writer, and his biggest fan hater.

(for @frummpets)

[anghraine]

It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.

If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.

Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.

I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.

There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.

This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.

Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.

Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.

And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.

And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."

[arthursfuckinghat]

Arthur Morgan is the kind of man to save you from harm only to look at you with his sorrow-ridden eyes and tell you how much of a bad man he is when you thank him

[shorthaltsjester]

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.

[popponn]

so what if mikage reo is running late and crashes to you—a culinary student, also late—on his rush. predictably, the coffee in his hand got spilled all over his expensive coat. unpredictably, you—a scholarship student too busy trying to survive—don't know how rich he actually is and automatically offer to compensate him somehow.

since washing his coat somehow will cost you ten times your rent while buying one is simply asking for a lifelong debt, you offer to him what you do best—your cooking for a full month. at first, reo really doesn't want it as he doesn't mind. also, stranger danger? but since you are adamant enough to even offer him "i will make it in front of you!" he ends up accepting it.

and somehow, as people say, a way to a man's heart is through his stomach. reo kind of falls in love a bit too hard and a bit too clumsily before he knows it. but hey, if the love of his life is offering him lunch with a full-blown smile maybe learning to be a proper domestic husband while juggling soccer and business is worth it.

#1:

"so, is it good?" you asked in the manner of a true excited cook.

reo wanted to say that he knew it would be good even before he put your food in his mouth. or say that even if you offer him to eat a marshmallow that is one fire he will still do it for you at this point. or maybe he really should just blurt out, "it is. please marry me and let me have your cooking for the rest of my life. i love you."

but, reo has his pride as your trusted food tester—so, with a wide grin that was objectively handsome if not a bit too full of love, reo answered, "very! guess, studying and testing all those spices really paid off, huh?"

#2:

"can you guys—" nagi paused, making a face as if he was tasting the words on his tongue, "—just get it together?"

you blinked. "uh? pardon?"

nagi didn't raise his head from his phone. "reo keeps looking at you like he wants to—"

"dude," chigiri interrupted, kicking nagi's leg visibly. nagi grunted, which chigiri ignored him in favor of offering you a nervous laugh instead. "sorry, reo kind of ruined his game yesterday. he kept grudges—"

"hey, reo kicked my head—"

chigiri immediately kicked nagi's shin hard enough that the table shook. you spared the white-haired male a pitying squint as you tried to not wince too much. you really should have gone to pick up the food with reo.

note: aka a post canon romcom au no plot no braincell just vibe of supportive x supportive. it's reo just falling in love with you who offer good food and good mental support. and hey this au entails classic "rich guy tries domestic mundane things he never even touch once" which of course would let to reo getting your guidance (while staring longing at you like a boy in love). at least this is reo, so through sheer power of natural learning capability and also love, he will do it right at the second or third time. oh, of course nagi and chigiri is there. chigiri wishes reo would stop bragging about your food and you if he isn't going to grow a bone and confess. nagi wishes reo would stop hitting him each time you send him an emoji or a praise—reo you are ruining his full combo. aka do you see idiot 1 & idiot 2? there is never too many idiots to lovers. might have went way too self indulgence thinking about this—"after bllk they still go to uni" this kind of thinking should tell you enough how many braincel is present here. but. uh yeah. "i want to support and comfort reo" is a feeling. anyway ok. thanks for reading this blurb i should be doing something else rn but 🫶 yeah have this. take this. love u.

[bizarrelittlemew]

top/bottom discourse and dom/sub truthers this and that, none of that can touch me because i headcanon them as vers and switch and whatever is best for the bit and therefore always win. look at all the beauty in the world

[fortheloveofexy]

I've seen a lot of posts in the wake of tsc calling out how the Foxes mistreated Kevin and never really gave him the same degree of compassion and patience that they gave Neil (and like, fair enough, there's definitely a disparity in how the two are treated by the broader team) but I think it's important to remember that it's very likely most of the Foxes didn't know just how bad things in the Nest were, especially when Kevin first came to Palmetto.

Like, they knew he'd been hurt badly, but were they ever told the full extent of the abuse in thr Nest? Probably not, because unlike Jean, Kevin was media trained. It was ingrained habit for him to conceal the true conditions inside the Nest to all outsiders, and that's not a habit he'd have been able to break easily. The only people who knew the full extent of what he'd been through were probably Wymack, Bee and Andrew.

Add to that Kevin's abrasive personality and his tendency towards nitpicking and perfectionism, and it's no wonder that the Foxes' patience with him ran thin after a while.

[mostlyfate]

LOVE NEXT DOOR 엄마 친구 아들 · 2024

— ✧:･ﾟHAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS TO SARA (@sjoongki​​):･ﾟ✧ —

[ipostmysimpingstuffanonymously]

If you are still taking requests, could we possibly see some tsumiki and Shoko bonding? 🥺 like Shoko helping Tsumiki with her hair, Tsumiki helping pick an outfit for Shoko to wear? 🥺

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[rendevok]

your narumitsu art made me weep with joy and I heard you want more requests 👀

idk if this is the right place to put them but I think phoenix coming with miles to try on his glasses for the first time would be sweet :,) miles asking how they look and phoenix being just smitten. the good stuff

Dear anon… you sure know how to pick em! Things got very out of hand very quickly while drawing, and well. You inspired me to draft a comic! I didn’t want to make you wait long, so here are the sketches for the pages relevant to your request <3

Thanks so much, and hope you enjoy~! 💜

[synth-ab]

Zelink is taking over my brain again

[itsscottiesstark]

I take it as a personal attack that AO3 would shut down for 10 hours on the first day of the month that marks a year of good omens s2 but okay.

[emeritual]

31 Days of Ghost | Day 6: Favourite Song from: Prequelle

↳ Life Eternal (2018)

[sandushengshou]

happy birthday, @yibo-wang! please enjoy barbie from your shows <3