ASAGIRI EXPLAIN

Hey runners (and walkers)! Thought this might be helpful :)

I’ve only ever seen this in YouTube compilations and Pinterest 

I made a mistake

This. This is storytelling done right.

The thing is, if Shepard acts all paragon-y throughout the series then you don't get that admission from Mordin because he can just fall in line behind Shepard. Don't get me wrong, Mordin sacrificing himself in order to spread the cure is still an amazing act of repentence and a fantastic, if tragic, ending of his arc.

BUT the thing is, he doesn't have to admit that he was wrong, he can just agree with Shepard while still maintaining that his initial decision to modify the genophage was correct.

Doing the right thing, the heroic thing, the noble thing is something different entirely than admitting your were wrong and fixing your mistake.

His modification of the genophage was the one thing that defined Mordin's career like nothing else. Amazing work, from a scientific point of view, but morally questionable even when seeing "the big picture", Morally reprehensible and ultimately inexcusable when seeing "the little pictures".

It's clear that after his loyalty mission in ME2 and meeting Eve, he's already changed his mind. But he can't admit it, not really. It's easier to keep making excuses, to explain himself, to rationalize. The great Mordin Solus does not make mistakes.

And it's only when Shepard takes the other route that Mordin has to step up. If Shepard won't be paragon, then Mordin has to. And that's much harder and it's the most amazing, the most heartbreaking thing. And when Mordin yells at a Shepard who takes the pragmatist appprach - which is what Mordin did for most of his life - he's actually yelling at himself.

Mass Effect did a lot of things brilliantly. This was one of them.

If only Shepard's ultimate ending decision had come with the same depth and weight, characterization-wise.

people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.

they try, honestly they do, but the doctor isn't a stationary creature and never has been, especially not when they know there's something they could help with. which is to say, it takes a week of soft quiet life before he starts begging kate for a job. kate in turn withstands three weeks of the doctor's incessant begging and big puppy dog eyes while donna noble stands right behind him and mouths don't you fucking dare before she makes a counteroffer: he can work in a lab (the 'very far away from active duty' is implied) as long as he meets with unit's therapist.

and he refuses, of course, loudly and profusely, right up until donna very gently but very firmly tells him that it really could help, actually.

so. therapy. the doctor assumes it won't do anything. the unit therapist is no nonsense and unflinching and very very bright, and twenty minutes later the doctor sits outside the room hyperventilating while kate finishes paperwork and kindly doesn't mention the way he's all but curled into her.

the second session ends much like the first, and the third, and then the fourth he walks out with dry eyes and a tremulous smile. the fifth, kate calls donna and she takes him home and they drink hot chocolate and he doesn't start talking again until the next day. it takes him seven sessions to be able to stay in the room for the full hour; kate pats him on the back and then finally allows him to build a shield for her office as a reward. she sits outside the therapist's office every time he has a session, even though she has to have better things to do. they don't talk about it.

unit only has files on things the doctor's done on earth, and even then, only sometimes, which means that when the doctor talks about some things he just. edits, a little. talks about two weeks in a confession dial and a month in prison, because maybe then he doesn't have to think about the enormity of it all. and every single time he does this, the therapist looks at him and very kindly calls bullshit. it's weird, being known. it's different with donna. he is donna and donna is him, in ways they will probably never talk about. but he sits in that cluttered little office for an hour a week (sometimes two or three times, if he's doing particularly badly) and he feels seen.

after four months, there are memories he can touch without flinching, and people he can talk about without crying. he starts spending a couple of hours just sitting in the vortex, not because he's hiding or running but just because he likes the way it feels against his skin. he cooks dinner every other night and washes up when he doesn't. he takes out the bin every week even though it's rose's job, because he loves her. and he can say that now, and he doesn't think about her short lifespan or about all the other people they've loved and lost. he can say that and just mean it.

part of his contract is an agreement to never offer a trip to a member of unit unless it's actual life or death (the small chemical leak in the lab doesn't count; he takes shirley to new mars anyway) but he finds himself toying with the idea of asking for a session in the tardis. just once, just to see. the therapist looks at him and sees him and it is monstrous and they keep looking anyway and now the doctor can sit through a family dinner without wanting to tear his skin off and he doesn't know any other way to say thank you.

it's funny, almost, how quickly he grows attached to this person who picks through his hurts and rifles through his traumas and holds direct eye contact while doing so. the doctor talks about their deaths and their crimes and their cowardice and the therapist nods and asks him how he feels and it's. it's terrifying. it's beautiful. it's the worst thing he's ever ever been through, and the best. he feels ripped apart and put back together in a way that few people have ever been able to— huh.

after his sixty eighth session (he's unable to not keep count) the doctor walks outside to where kate is annotating a schematic and says, thoughtfully, they're the master in disguise, aren't they. and kate says oh 100% and please don't let them know that you know because they will definitely go to the second stage of whatever long con they've been hatching and they're too good at this for us to let them go

Clone Wars playing the imperial march every time Anakin is mildly inconvenienced will never not make me laugh.

I was today years old when I learned that when you type “otp: true” in AO3 search results it filters out fics with additional ships, leaving only the fics where your otp is the main ship

In today’s modern society, Riddler would be the EASIEST of Batman’s villains to rehabilitate 

All you have to do? Give him a job designing/running an Escape Room facility

It’s perfect for him. A non-violent outlet for feeding his need to flex how intelligent he is, he still gets to create his elaborate puzzles and riddles, and people will willingly PAY HIM to lock them up in a room where he can mess with them for an hour or so

Someone get Bruce Wayne on the phone I have an idea for a thing he should invest in

I think Nuwho companions give a lot of leeway to The Doctor for some of their odder behaviors on the assumption of oh well they're an alien I'm not gonna hold them to human norms but tbh if they knew other time lords (not the master. The master doesn't count bc the master is also a freak) they'd probably be like ohhh. Never mind it's not a species thing it's a you thing