I think a lot about Shepard's fish tank wipeout in the Citadel DLC.

The entire DLC is this lighthearted love letter to Mass Effect, and it's beautiful. But then there's THIS moment. When Shepard falls through a fish tank.

The entire way down, they desperately try to arrest their fall. They have no shields. No combat armor. There is no one to catch them. It feels like this is one of the few times there is ever fear. And they don't land gently. And the cut scene lingers on it. There is no levity in this moment. Shepard is on the ground, groaning in pain, slow to get up, clutching their ribs. First instinct before they try to get to their feet? Reach for the gun. Have that first. Then see if you can stand.

And I think the only reason we can have this moment, where Shepard is vulnerable, injured, and in trouble, is because there is no one there to see. The moment Brooks gets on the comm, they crack a joke. "Yup. Feeling good." While unable to stand up straight.

We get this at the end of the game, too, but that's when the stakes are at their highest. That's when it's supposed to be hard. It's no less magnificent then, but now, in this moment? When everything was happy and fun and silly? MAN.

And afterward, everyone jokes about it. Every single member of your squad makes a crack about the sushi place. And Shepard plays along. Haha, yeah, fell right through it, while trying to change the subject.

No one knows what that fall was like. No one saw Shepard lying on the ground in the bowls of the Silversun Strip, water dripping off them, struggling to get to their feet.

And no one asks, because it's Shepard.

Forced my family to watch les mis (2012) with me yesterday. Half way through, we're watching Huge Jackman sing bring him home and my dad goes "who let him be this bad?"

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days and the original ending of the show is great and perfect and it Had to Be That Way with Aang sparing Ozai’s life

But I really want Sokka to kill Ozai

I want him to one day find out exactly how bad he messed Zuko (and Azula) up and I want him not to be able to take it anymore and I want him to just snap and go to Ozai and kill him

And I want Zuko to see it and I want him to see the blood dripping from Sokka’s hands and I want him to smile and feel such intense relief that the man who’s always held so much power over him is finally gone but the I want him to be overwhelmed by a Terrible sense of Guilt that Sokka felt like he had to do that for him

And I want Sokka, King of Repression, to look up over Ozai’s corpse, soaked with the man’s blood, and smile. Because now Zuko is safe. And Sokka will never have a single regret.

I FEEL LIKE WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS ONE ENOUGH

you just know lando has such a large number of pictures to choose from, even probably plenty of other pics of martin and yet he picked this one???? it's so fucking soft???? and almost intimate???? and it's such a contrast to one that martin posted but in a complimentary way????

like it's early morning, the soft dawn of a new day, and lando's woken up in his tent on his own, thrown his hand out to the side and done the patpatpat at martin's empty sleeping bag even before opening his eyes because it's quiet, too quiet

and he pries his eyes open, one still half shut and squinting and he can see something, a shadow through the fabric of the tent and he's wrestling a hat onto his bed head and wriggling out of his sleeping bag to worm towards the zip, just enough to poke his head out and he freezes

opens the zip a little more, disappears inside to grab his camera because the moment is too special, too valuable to not capture and immortalise in a photograph

martin, shirtless, not just comfortable enough to go no shirt but comfortable enough to keep his back to the tent, trusting, no guard up, soft and open and vulnerable in a way that screams that he knows lando could sneak up on him but there's trust that he won't, you don't turn your back to a predator but you do to a friend because you trust they'll have it

the light only hitting martin's face, so much that there's a single line of it visible on his shoulder, the rest in shadows but lando would still recognise that silhouette anywhere

what're the odds lando joined him like that, sitting together and watching more light creep into the cave, listening to the sounds of nature and the sounds of everyone else waking up around them shattering their peace, but it was still theirs, shared in that moment

I wonder how many times this happened.

It always hits me just how calm Loki seems to be when Mobius grabs him here. Yes, he is stressed and dismissive, but still he lets Mobius grab his jacket and hold him and ask. He doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t flinch. He calmly stands there, almost leaning into it, and lets Mobius be scared and confused.

I wonder how many times it has happened before this. I wonder what Loki felt the first time he said “trust me” and Mobius said “no!” I wonder how many times it took for him to stop fighting it. I wonder if there was a time he let himself stay there for too long, feeling the grounding touch of Mobius’s desperate hands keeping him still, only this time, just for a moment, if he let himself rest there. I wonder if his heart broke a bit each time, but he couldn’t make himself change his choices, making it happen again, and again, and again, and again.

liko and roy

Happy International Women's Day to trans women. To BIPOC women. To GNC women. To intersex women. To fat women. To all the women in the world who have been marginalized and mistreated and isolated from womanhood at large by the dominant narrative of femininity.

Remember that womanhood is intensely personal as well as communal, and there is no one right way to be a woman. You are the only one who gets to define your womanhood.

Happy International Women's Day

So I keep seeing this take on Gerard's storyline in Neverafter and it's bugging me. The problem is not that divorce is terrifying, or terrible or the "real horror". The horror in Gerard's story is that after the kiss, after 'true love' turned him back from a frog into a human, he didn't learn anything. He thought that was it. He thought that was all he had to do to beat the curse.

So he stopped he trying.

He stopped working on himself and he stopped courting his wife. He stopped engaging with her and went back to a spoiled prince, while the kingdom burned around them.

Elody is left to care for the Kingdom. She's the one in charge, listening to advisors, sending out troops, responding to the demands of running a country.

Gerard sits there, ignoring everything. Not just the changes in his body as he denies the curse is returning, but the effects of war on his Kingdom. The effects of the devastation and the famine and probably plague that comes with large wars. This is not a small war, there is evidence that two other kingdoms have fallen, Rosamund's and whoever Pib put in place where he's originally from. Given Pib's drive to be comfortable, we can assume he didn't leave a good situation, he left with the rats.

The tragedy of Gerard is that he learned nothing. He changed just enough for Elody to see something in him and take a chance. But the moment he was back in the lap of luxury he turned to old habits, old customs, and stopped trying to be a better person.

He wants to go to parties and play the part of a prince, but never take the responsibility of running a kingdom on his shoulders. So he left it all to Elody to manage.

This did not happen overnight, this was years of him neglecting her and their kingdom. He bought into the idea that happily ever after is the be all end all.

Never once recognizing, that after the wedding there is work to be done.

He's still living in that oblivious state at the beginning, he believes the curse has taken Elody from him. And I think if pressed he'll blame her leaving on him being turned back into a frog. And not the years of neglect that mounted before she finally stopped trying.

He is going to have a reckoning this season, he is going to have to face the truth that he never changed, never sought to better himself beyond the bare minimum to wed Elody. And that even if he manages to change enough that it works this time, he may never be with Elody again.

kenneth branagh should actually just not be allowed to touch poirot again. pls let me have my silly little detective back. pls. make the mysteries cozy and let him be fucking silly and imperfect again. he is overdramatic, he has a big ego but he doesn't run around firing guns and kicking in doors.

he has someone kick in the doors for him. and then he pays for the damage. and gets a better more sturdy door as a replacement.

also what the fuck did he do to my girl ariadne oliver? poirot and her are besties. they're friendship is literally so important in the books. put some respect on her name.

also where is hastings? he should be there.

try not to think of adam from saw hearing that nasty ass bathroom door siding open and seeing the outline of a person appear from the light thinking that it’s lawrence coming back to save him only for that hope to die when it turns out to be amanda coming to mercy kill him instead

rip adam you deserved better bby

i really hope buck and tommy have at least a couple episodes together where buck can feel free to explore this new territory and tommy makes him feel safe about it. bc the way tommy looks in the trailer after buck says this is his first time he's been on a date with a guy, that kinda shocked and maybe a lil uncomfortable face? i'm so worried tommy is gonna be like "hey buck i wanted to mess around and have fun with you for a while but i don't think i'm ready to be your first queer experience" and that's totally valid, especially since we can probably assume tommy's been out for a lot longer, maybe since he was a teen? or he at least knew for that long. so it's understandable he might wanna take a step back, especially if he wanted to just have some fun for a while with a pretty guy he met but now he's realising that, not only is he kinda standing in the way of this guy and his best friend/years long crush, but it's also this guys' first time exploring all these new feelings and emotions, and he might just not wanna be a part of that? which sucks but if he does that then i really hope he let's buck down gently :/

he says i’m so american 💕

And he did. And they did.

Batfam Prompt #3

Give me an au where Jason Todd doesn’t die bc he just never becomes/stays Robin.

Like he still found out Bruce is Batman and that’s cool as shit but he tried being Robin for like a week and decided it wasn’t for him bc of how sore and sleepy it made him. (And then he found out that’s what Dick’s mother used to call him and adds it to the list of reasons he’s not gonna be Robin bc Bruce doesn’t have the right to give him the name)

Bruce has been providing Jason with a safe place to live with plenty of resources he could take full advantage of and he intends to do so. Jason wants to learn, to travel outside of Gotham, to do something he enjoys, to help people and give back to his community.

Let Jason be a nerd. Let him enjoy classics and join the school theater. Let him go to college and get a degree. Let him find a profession he’s passionate about. Let him get involved in charity and humanitarian work. Let him have hobbies he does for the thrill or for fun. Let him live the life he could only dream of as an alley kid.

Give me civilian Jason. Give me Jason the Scholar. Jason the Patron of Arts and Theater. Jason the only living Wayne with doctorate. Jason the Gotham Celebrity, beloved particularly by the Alley folk for all he does to help them. Jason the big brother that helps his vigilante sibs with homework. Jason the man who lives his life to its fullest potential

Give me a Jason Todd who gets to live.

Marsh was an incredibly skilled Seeker even before he became an Inquisitor. He’s had well over three hundred years to practice, he has the power boosted by a spike for bronze, and he can burn duralumin.

Consider: he can sense not only allomancy, but whenever a feruchemist is filling or tapping a metalmind. He can sense whenever a new hemalurgic spike is made or put into someone. He travels so much and has such a powerful range that he can, given enough time, track down the usage of investiture nearly anywhere on Scadrial.

But he can also sense surgebinding, or soulstamping, or any other use of foreign magics. If it’s on Scadrial, he knows about it.

And sure, there are the Ghostbloods, but they have their rules and structure and Kelsier’s insufferably large ego, and besides, they protect the planet from the big grand threats like the Set or other shards.

Marsh, though. He works on his own, and is powerful and efficient. He confronts worldhoppers on arrival if he thinks they’re a threat, and watches them carefully even if they’re not. He investigates anything new or strange. You can’t hide investiture on Scadrial from him.

And so, the rumors spread. Tales of Ironeyes, the supernatural, superpowerful watcher. Of course rumors of him have been heard of him on other planets, like Khriss says in the LM Ars Arcanum, because how could they not?

Just, Marsh as the guardian of Scadrial.

thoughts on whatd happen to davey without jack? canon or modern day

we would never have "davey" without jack.

we would have david, yes. we would have david, the more reserved older brother, the bookish type, the bitter-brained boy with no real care for himself. he's a family man, he takes care of others, he takes care of his siblings and parents and academics- but would he take care of himself in the same way? would he ever find that spark for himself, or would he resign himself to being David, the boy who gives his last pieces of himself away to appease others?

would he still be outspoken? yes, but not to the same degree. he would still have a fire in his chest- "i'm no charity case, i don't even know you"- and he would still be fiercely protective- "who says we want a partner?"- but he wouldn't be... davey.

he wouldn't be Seize The Day davey. he wouldn't be "tell me how quitting does crutchie any good" davey. he would be david, the boy with folks at home, the boy who just wants to pay for his family. any and all self-confidence (and self-preservation) would fly out the window.

and maybe david would eventually find his voice. maybe he would eventually figure out that, yes, he deserves to fight for himself, too. but without jack kelly, without the newsies? david would be bitter, and david would accept the hand he's been dealt, and david would figure out how to handle himself in a much different manner. he wouldn't joke around. he wouldn't let himself hope, or dream- there's not enough time in the day for that.

jack kelly gave david- davey- the permission to hope, and dream, and wish, and fight. without jack, david is... just a Jacobs boy. he's just a boy in a class. a boy who will get an education, and go into work, and live his life without spark.

and, really, is that even a life worth anything?