finished the game loved most of it but i have a small rant (donut read unless you did the part of wyll's quest that involves searching for something underground esp bc there will be spoilers about the emperor)

highkey insane and kind of brainless to me that the emperor will straight up betray you and fuck off to join the netherbrain of all things like a moron if you don't want to condemn an entire race of people to being a lich's pawns forever.

Yes I am trying to have my fucking cake and eat it too but fucking come on, this is the type of thing that should've been set up and determined by how you treated him throughout the game and there should've been a persuasion check to convince him to stay. It's insane bc there are serious pieces of lore about him that you can completely miss out on and that is fucking insane given what a main character he is lol, esp when some of these things I think could've been worked into some kind of relationship system or dialogue that would've served as persuasion checks to not make him just casually flip and do the thing he's just been avoiding for no fucking reason especially when you find out WHO HE ACTUALLY IS.

Wyll hints at the "change" in duke Stelmane and if you're mean to emperor squiddie when he wants to fuck he reveals the truth to you: that he was dementedly puppeteering his precious duke the whole time and they never had any kind of friendship or relationship. (This is also just what's in the descent into avernus blurb on Stelmane. A mindflayer induced a seizure in her and she's been waging a silent battle against the thing and can't break free or cry for help). (and his whole demeanour changes after he reveals this to you and he becomes a villain: YOU ARE MY PUPPET AND YOU WILL DO AS I SAY).

Oh and of course, if you do Wyll's quest and are sent to find Ansur you learn the truth, tentacle man is not just any old adventurer HE'S FUCKING BALDURAN. Does this make any impact on any of the final decisions or become relevant literally outside of that. NOOOPE. He murdered his best friend dragon who rescued him from the elder brain to begin with the first time and we can basically never talk about it again lol.

Like this one is especially egregious because it's not the outcome of you calling him a freak or anything, this is literally just the truth and his fucking origin story. You can't do at least one persuasion check on DUDE THIS YOUR FUCKING CITY. THAT YOU FOUNDED. WHAT THE FUCK.

Anyway I just feel like there are these big pieces of lore that should've informed how the emperor behaves and whether or not he betrays you. Why can't you say "remember Ansur?" or something idk. Like it takes all of two seconds for Orpheus to not turn on you, so he behaves exactly as Voss said he would. Throw in a difficult persuasion check for him too!! IDK!! I think it would've been better if they at least let you free him and THEN forced the ultimatum on you bc it would make the emperor look less like he's throwing a fucking temper tantrum and doing the one thing he absolutely never wanted to do because you absolutely have to trust him but heaven forbid you want a chance on something lol. At least it would make sense if he chose to act out of self preservation when the threat was direct instead of being like 'no he hates you pc, you're ugly to him, listen to meeee'

i think we should remind musicians they can absolutely make up little stories for their songs btw. it doesn’t have to be about them at all. you can invent a guy and put him in situations to music. time honoured tradition in fact.

the rock scene in the dnd movie is especially hilarious because of the sheer COMMITMENT. i completely missed simon and dorics conversation afterwards because i was so focused on the fact that you could still see a tiny regé jean page disappearing into the background bit by bit, for like an entire minute, still walking in a perfectly straight line

well, guess who lost control of my hands again and was compelled to scribble down designs for ANOTHER Deltarune AU? yeah. me. it doesn't really have a proper name yet so I've just been calling it Changeling AU for now, I'll figure that out later.

these would be the cast's dark world designs; they parallel early Deltarune concepts in which the lightners would turn into monsters in the dark world-- with a few medieval fantasy fae-flavored twists this time around. mortals become a variety of magical beasts in the fae's dark realm, with only 'Kris' strangely unaffected... aside from the hue shift and conspicuously pointed ears, that is.

the main 'Kris' of this AU isn't the only human in town. instead, they're ironically the only one in town who ISN'T human, though not even they know it yet. in reality they're a Changeling, a fae creature that was left as a 'gift' to replace a taken human child. they can do things, strange things. animals come to them in the night, and the cool touch of iron burns their skin. they're afraid of what they see in the mirror; human eyes don't gleam in the dark, and their teeth shouldn't be so sharp. so they hide their features, and they ignore the whispers of the townsfolk, and they keep their head down.

they made a mistake, a terrible one... and they need to set it right.

meanwhile, the human they replaced is still out there somewhere in the fae world, twisted by its curse into a cornered, desperate beast seeking any escape from the realm that has held them prisoner all their life. it's said that when the full moon casts deep shadows over the woods, you can still hear their anguished howls in the dark begging for the name that once was theirs. they can never leave the dark world without it. they'd do anything to get it back.

all they've ever really wanted was to find their way home.

my mental health task for the past few months ☀️🌱🪴

still have a lot to go for improving the lives of my neglected sprouts but the worst is over! even got the alocasia to make sprouting corms before it went terminally dormant

i can't decide which i like more:

the idea - very much canonical and in the author's original concept and view of magic - of the dark arts taking a toll on one's exterior and looks. tom riddle sacrificing his beauty willingly in the name of eternal life, black magic as something that innately corrupts. bellatrix escaping from azkaban with the barest vestiges of her ancient beauty. going from one of the most beautiful women in england to a shell of her former self and no amount of dark magic being able to fix it. and she just. doesn't care. goes from pretty, proud and vain in her youth, to the feverish, fanatical glow harry sees in the department if mysteries. finally she sheds the petal of the rose - look like the innocent flower, her master had once said - and only the thorns remain. the parallel with voldemort himself. the idea that they like each other better now, the only ones to like their respective new appearances better. bellatrix because she can taste the power radiating off him, because she knows how resentful he was of his old face. (oh, he's never said anything explicitly, he would rather be flayed alive than speak of his filthy muggle father to her, but she knew he didn't like himself, took no pride in his aesthetics, it was most unusual, really.) the dark lord because he's reminded of her sacrifice - she was the only one who didn't denounce him, who tried to find him - every time he looks at her. she gave up everything for him: her reputation, her family, her freedom, her health, her beauty, her youth.

or.

the horcruxes are an isolated case. not all prices to pay for power are physical. some dark magic sucks at your humanity, your emotional regulation, your empathy and gives back superficial little gifts. its roots are far from the deep anger, desperation to cling to life of an horcrux. these are ancient witches' remedies to be the most envied in the village. the idea that rotten cores hide behind the prettiest faces. and bellatrix was always vain, always took immense pride in her beauty, her black, pure features. when she escapes from azkaban she tries everything in her power to be herself once again. she still drips with obsession but gradually regains all of her beauty too. cruel people can still be beautiful. gorgeous people can still be inhuman. and yet there is something so human about a woman making her way through the ranks of a very militarised group and still caring so much about what she looks like, still having insecurities, being preoccupied with mundane things like age and decay - and hating it because he would hate it, he hates weakness, and still not being able to help herself. the dark lord was always a collector of shiny things, was he not?

*silently slides Twig/Ark content onto your dash* *scurries away into the night*

(Read the rest under the cut!)

[ID: Earthsea fanart. A digital artwork depicting Sparrowhawk and Vetch under starry sky. They are both sitting under a warm brown blanket. Exhausted Sparrowhawk sleeps leaning on Vetch and Vetch sings softly as he holds his hand. End ID]

Vetch singing for Sparrowhawk

ok so. in retrospect, this is something i really should've figured out a lot sooner (like. as in the very first time i picked up literally anything from this era, let alone when i actually read the wholeass arc), but i JUST NOW, after all this time, put two and two together and realized that pre-crisis(ish) connected-to-the-mainland gotham was retconned away and completely replaced with No Man's Land's always-an-island-city gotham

i have gone this entire time thinking that the nml earthquake literally ripped this wholeass city off the map and threw it out to sea as its own brand new little island chain. like shitty new jerseyan atlantis

PSA to all alphas: let us take care of you, goddammit!!!!! Y’all don’t have to be at your strongest all the time. I don’t care what the stereotypes say; you’re not the sole leader of the pack. We are a team that relies on each other for support!!!! So let us fucking support you!!!!!!!!!!!

fundamentally i think the difference in my post there is that if you told rose what would happen to her at the end of s2, she’d go ‘cool 👍 so that’s not going to happen on my watch’ and then it would happen anyway because she can’t actually just avoid her fate by believing that she will. but if you told donna what would happen to her at the end of s4, she would be horrified not only by the situation but by the sudden realization that she doesn’t think she can avoid it, that this life won’t be something she’ll get to keep even if she did try to fight fate for it, and it would be whatever her reaction is to that feeling of helplessness that would break time so thoroughly that she’d escape.

like listen i dont think russia needs any defending but its amazing to me how "all russians are evil genocide supporting warmongers" mentality so often coexists with "every representative on every political level in my country is actively supporting a genocide in palestine and overwhelmingly anyone speaking out against it is punished and blacklisted and arrested" like ????????????????????????????? are we not on the same page? that our political systems as a whole inherently support the murder and disenfranchisement and ethnic cleansing of vast swathes of population for a nations own political gain?? how is my uncle being pilled by russian propoganda any different than your uncle being pilled by the every single Palestinian is a terrorist and deserves to die narrative being pushed out??? is it not a curse that we must collectively organize and fight against ???

does this phenomenon annoy the everloving fuck out of anyone else, or is it just me

After consuming a questionably healthy amount of hostage!Lucerys works, I think the most powerful move that boy could pull in a no escape scenario is not engage with Aemond. And I don’t mean a silent treatment or livid wall, things that might goad Aemond into breaking him. I mean a withdraw. A shut down. Disengagement. The power of lucemond to me was that mutual obsessive attention they display, and the thought of Lucerys legitimately disconnecting from that???

And if you want it to be a more manipulative Luke, he could be doing it on purpose, but it would probably come naturally at some point, depending on his treatment and stress. (My usual thought is when he gives up all hope on ever being done ‘paying’ his debt, or just becomes convinced he is not being perceived as a person, just an enemy or a ‘bastard’ or a means to an end.) Withdrawing and disassociating in a brutal situation is very natural, and a quiet method to NOT break.

So just, the image of Lucerys initially burning with rage, with tears, with a ‘I will not shame my family’ pride against the loss of his dragon or insults or threats or brutality or how Aemond/the Greens treat him. And then one day like a snap, he switches to quiet, still, unfocused unless prompted, then tense as stone listening, watching, responding as needed but quiet otherwise, no color to his words, no comments or anything beyond direct answers, then regressing back into unfocused as soon as it is safe.

And the Green support team might not care, Aegon might find it boring, Alicent may be surprisingly worried, Helaena is oddly attentive to the boy, but Aemond is the one shaken. Bereft, but the feeling is filtered through confusion and outrage and frustration, especially if Lucerys proves he CAN still emote beyond tension and fear when he talks to Helaena’s kids, smiles and easy focus and (perhaps strained) wit all blooming back to the life in an instant when Aemond thought it all long beaten out of the boy. Then the children go, and Lucerys looks at Aemond, and that life is gone again, his dark eyes back on the walls.

And Aemond could rage or grow desperate, depending on how cruel you wish it to be, but you know whatever he does will be feral, because what he wanted most, whether he wishes to accept it or not, was Lucerys’s regard. And he might have destroyed that with his own hands.

had a very sad dream last night that had something to do with fizzarolli but i don't remember it. that's it that's the post

still on my no graduation kiss au's bullshit:

where jack and bitty kept in touch for a while but eventually drifted apart. before they did, though, bitty filmed a silly baking video with tater for his youtube channel.

bitty's channel takes off and the video with tater grows into a series of baking videos with increasingly well known celebrities. it leads to occasional offers to do red carpet interviews for movie premieres, and as more and more celebrities praise how respectful and easy to talk to he is, eventually a regular gig at a widely popular online magazine.

years later, jack zimmermann comes out, and when bitty finds out his heart does things it hasn't since college.

it only takes three mini pie deliveries to get dibs on jack's first ever interview about his sexuality and mental health.