Well, Shit.

Fandom, Fiction, Fury. 30+ AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SK_Morello

[kesterite]

veilguard redesigns based on headcanons and details i find interesting. i was going to add more to these before i posted them but working on this frequently made me remember why I'm on such a high dose of effexor

[odyssiaca]

you are the hero of ferelden. no matter your origin you watch those you love most be ripped from you. death becomes an endless cycle which seems to follow you wherever you go. the fate of the world rests on your shoulders as you know you can never return home. home is gone now. home is buried with your family, jailed with your closest ally, cradled by the ancestors, forgotten like your beloved, lost to time in the murky glass of the eluvian- dead in your arms, killed at your hand. you are the hero of ferelden and it is your destiny to die. when next the world falls apart, you do not come. this world does not deserve your pity.

you are the champion of kirkwall. you are a refugee, cold and hungry and sold into labour. your mother hates you, though she will never say it. it's your fault the ogre killed your sibling, your fault the taint took the other. but you are happy. you have everything, friends and family and status and riches. you defeat the people plaguing your glorious city, you are the people's hero. you will always know even as she came back, isabela left you to die. you are happy but you are alone. you have everything and then you are rocking back and forth begging please please please do not take my mother as well. you have nothing, but for a single second, you had everything. you are the champion of kirkwall, and your ally has blown up the chantry. where is your home now that everything is your fault?

you are the herald of andraste. and you are so, so scared. these people do not trust you, do not like you, would feed you to the fade if they could. they do not care if you follow another religion, you are their herald. you can never return home because heroes do not have homes. they say home is the people you choose, but you didn't choose these people, did you? every step you take aches. thousands reach out to touch you, for safety. for comfort. you are a black hole close to destruction, and you cannot do this. you are the herald of andraste and you have not been yourself for so long now.

[gregtom]

[k-simplex-deactivated20241001]

Happy Pride

[lovepersimmin]

some anchor thoughts :D

[chialattea]

someone has to have done this before me, but every time I see this meme this is all I can picture

[biglawbear]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[biglawbear]

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

[biglawbear]

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

[biglawbear]

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

[three--rings]

Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.

[parkayquarts]

now im imagining what pride events in ankh morpork are like

[parkayquarts]

there will EXCLUSIVELY be kink at the ankh morpork pride parade

[wondersmith-and-sons]

(via @takiki16)

[just7frogsinapeoplesuit]

(Tags via @romanceyourdemons)

Extremely correct response, leaving out the inevitable debacle over citizens declaring counterfeit genders in order to have rarer pronoun pins to sell to collectors in the underground pronoun market.

Dibbler, only mildly discouraged, eventually realizes he can sell embellishments for your pronoun pin, which he claims will upgrade your gender.

Also of note is that there are no cops present at Ankh-Morpork Pride. This is not because they aren't welcome (everyone knows Nobby is as kinky as they come), but because the festivities include throwing bricks at the City Watch building and they are busy trying to make sure they still have a place to work the next day. The Night Watch prepares each year with a barricade, and pre-marriage Vimes always collects the good bricks so he can save for a house. Nobody is really sure where the tradition came from, but it's good fun and usually nobody gets hurt too badly.

The bricks are provided by Vetinari, who considers it a good test of city infrastructure and training for the Watch.

[skarabrae-stone]

Cheery would 100% march in the parade. She'd get Nobby to go with her, but Nobby would be completely oblivious as to why (he assumed she just wants company).

Moist von lipwig would have pride-themed stamps made; these would inevitably have some kind of issue, which would create some outrage and ultimately make the stamps more valuable as collectors' items.

I don't get the impression that Ankh Morpork ever had anti-sodomy or crossdressing laws, so I don't think the queer community's history with the police would be the same as it is in the real world. Especially because Cheery Littlebottom literally started the Dwarf trans/feminism movement as an officer of the Watch, with the Watch's support.

Dibbler would totally sell pride flags with the wrong colors (and then insist it was the "new, updated version" if anyone questioned him)

The nobility are all scandalized, meanwhile the Seamstresses Guild has a float in the parade

Adora Belle Dearheart is deeply involved with at least one queer organization and is one of the main organizers of the Pride festival, but refuses to answer any questions about why

Ridcully decides the wizards should be involved, and Ponder Stibbons should make a float and organize the refreshments for them to eat while riding on the float. Ridcully's concept of allyship is loudly saying, "Well done, that man!" and pointing at anyone he thinks is exhibiting particularly queer behavior.

Madam Sharn and Pepe release a whole new line of Pride-themed chainmail

Bengo Macarona is embraced as a gay icon

Reg Shoe decides the main pride event is too corporate, and organizes an alternative pride parade for the same time and place; this immediately gets subsumed by the main pride event. Some Omnians show up to Pride to protest and Reg is delighted to have someone to fight with.

[just7frogsinapeoplesuit]

More from the tags, I love all of you

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

The Assasins Guild have a float for queer youth dealing with unsupportive parents that has a banner that reads "Over their dead body? WE CAN HELP"

[digitaldiscipline]

Nobby is voted Most Genderful for the ninth year in a row.

[dduane]

This thread has gotten seriously better since I saw it last. :)

[the-witchhunter]

Suddenly being smacked in the middle of this by the fact Vetinari was disappointed Vimes didn't properly handcuff him and made a note to get some proper shackles for next time

 'You're not going to handcuff me?' Vimes's mouth dropped open. 'Why should I do that?' 'Treason is very nearly the ultimate crime, Sir Samuel. I think I should demand handcuffs.' 'All right, if you insist.' Vimes nodded at Dorfl. 'Cuff him, then.' 'You haven't got any shackles, by any chance?' said Lord Vetinari, as Dorfly produced a pair of handcuffs. 'We may as well do this thing properly -' 'No. We don't have any shackles.' 'I was only trying to help, Sir Samuel. Shall we be going?' - Jingo

[makingtrouble]

Dibbler pitches his mismatched flags by swearing up and down that each flag represents one of the lesser known genders and can be verified, absolutely verified, by the kind hardworking ladies/gents/et cetera of the Ankh Morpork Bureau of Gender.

Just reach your hand into the pile and pull out the flag that resonates with your unique gender!

[nastymageling]

Happy Trans Day of Visibility! 🩵🤍🩷

Art made for @transthedasfest! Check out the AO3 collection to see all the amazing works created by the community 🫶

[boarred]

Happy pride demon!

[barbarayuhimeart]

Fenris, Dragon Age II

[orcaking]

Wishing you all a get more hairy and naked summer <3

(available as a sticker on patreon through june 2026)

[maxmorkson]

Happy Pride, bite a transphobe today 💙

[luna-azzurra]

Some writing advice I will never give up:

Your characters are allowed to be bad people. Your story is allowed to have no moral lesson.yyour ending is allowed to be sad. The villain can win. The good person can do something unforgivable. The lovers can destroy each other. You are allowed to write the thing that no one asked for and everything that everyone told you doesn’t work and you are allowed to not explain yourself.

It’s your story. Burn it down if you want to.

[an0neemouse]

Two things absolutely changed my life as a writer. You ready?

One- as OP said, your characters can be bad people, they can do bad things. There doesn't have to be a reason or a moral. You can make them bad if you want to. No other reason needed.

Two- it doesn't have to be good, it just needs to be written. On my last book i literally wrote the words "dumbest version" on the top of the page because I had seen some advice to do that. It changed everything. I stopped trying to make it perfect, I just tried to make it. Period. Full stop.

And honestly? Defiance is the best writing I've ever done. All because I let my characters be bad and I gave myself the freedom to write it badly.

[modernbluem]

don’t you hate when real life keeps interrupting your extremely serious commitments like your wip, your fanfics, and the emotional support music group you’ve been hyperfixating on for the past three months.

[alashi-nailartis]

clair obscur: expedition 33

Other design: https://www.instagram.com/alashijx06

[lovesicklobotomy]

[metal-autistic-coven]

Happy pride month to him

[mylosingdogs]

Contemplating a both twins lived world state where you take Carver into the Deeproads but leave Bethany at home....... you lose both of them in one fell swoop......