#[ he's about to find out c: ]

[saint-hymn]

mercy, mèrci

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[egophiliac]

this is basically what happened, right?

(these guys are very lucky that everyone at NRC 1) has the combined intelligence of a sack of bricks, and 2) is easily distracted by shiny things.)

[apprentice-s]

what a hit!

[bietrofastimoff23]

Okay, it's funny how Aemond calls his uncle a challenge, but the only person Daemon is talking about is Aegon-Aegon-Aegon-Aegon-

so real hate triangle: Aemond thinks about Daemon, Daemon thinks about Aegon, Aegon doesn't think about any of them lol.

[crowsgrudge]

fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.

dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.

but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).

like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?

[sharkaroni]

working on some zosan wips and im having trouble deciding which one to prioritize. what do you guys think

[fereldanwench]

first night in his hideout

vp faq | mod list | pillowfort | twitter | instagram | ao3 ⚠️ do not reupload or edit my shots without my permission ⚠️️

[hoofpeet]

The vision

[rat-rosemary]

Okay so, I know some people are happy that we got this litte look at he future (because I don't think the nuke end was really retconned) but like. If it was, wouldn't it make it 100 times sadder?

The world is empty. Most people have left, most to just die somewhere else. Tommy is a ghost haunting a server long abandoned. Its dead but he just can't let go

Not even Dream is here anymore, Sapnap and George chasing after him like they always do, gone the second they woke up from their long dreams. If you were to look into their eyes they wouldn't recognize you

Wilbur and Quackity have both left to decay and explode somewhere else, and with them took a good handful of Tommy's friends. Bad always had a home-base to return to, and the original members rest there peacefully

And Tommy just. Stays. Hopes for a visit. Never grows, never changes, isolated from anyone. This is a worse ending then forgiveness and understanding and fire and brimstone.

He's just alone collecting dust

*JUST AS AN ASIDE THIS IS NOT HOW THE STREAM WENT BUT I SAW SOME PEOPLE CELEBRATING IT JUST BECAUSE IT DIDN'T GO WITH THE SECOND SEASON THING

Please what you're describing isn't a happy ending is just a second worse bad ending. Healing comes from community and connection, not from defeating the big evil

In the corpse of your biggest enemy you will find no peace, only more blood

[spaciebabie]

if you are someone like me who has trouble processing life events/mental health stuff create an oc. like. make a guy who's entire story is yours, who knows every inch of your suffering b/c they are you but maybe all their troubles stem from being in an intergalactic war with goob noobs or something. hurt them in terrible ways so that you dont hurt yourself.

[mourningmaybells]

"Fifteen years ago, he jumped or was pushed to his death."

Grief, Resurrection, and Grief again.

The Exorcist (1971) | The Exorcist dir. by William Friedkin | Legion (1983) | The Exorcist 3 dir. by William Peter Blatty | It's a Wonderful Life dir. by Frank Capra

[vaguely-concerned]

on the one hand I think inner demons could stand to have a bit more romanced rook specific content, but on the other hand the underlying in-built implication that 'yours is the one true voice of comfort and safety in my inner world' is a sentiment and intimacy so way beyond the romantic or the platonic or any secret third thing you could care to name that it makes me lose my entire poor little mind a bit. it's so big and fundamental — near-existential — that in that exact moment at least the distinctions kind of seem irrelevant.

all the people lucanis' mind conjures up along the way are relationships he has that are unavoidably mixed and fraught in some ways even when they're also full of love (they are fraught BECAUSE they're full of love) — the good in them inseparable from things that hurt him at the same time. (it's about: the basic disorganized attachment patterns this poor guy is dragging around with him. careful with those, they're dellamorte heirlooms. what you love also inevitably hurts you and you won't be allowed to have one without the other, you have to surrender parts of your soul to hold on to what little you have left: this is the story up until now.) and the idea that rook isn't that to him — that beneath the fear of wanting them when romanced (which is more its own separate thing because within this psychology, actively wanting something and not just clinging on for dear life to even a meager status quo lest you lose it is in itself dangerous bordering on catastrophic), this is a relationship where there isn't resentment, or guilt, or shame, or dread, or rage, or self-hate, or any of the other emotions that keep him paralyzed, unable to move this way or that. no debts, nothing owed of yourself and your soul's substance except what you can freely and safely and happily give. love and freedom don't coexist — but, I mean, you're almost starting to make me think........... unless...👀👀👀. the unconditional and undramatic 'you are here and I am here with you, you can be exactly how you are right now with me and it's safe for us both even though you're afraid it won't be, I'm not going anywhere' acceptance rook shows him here that he returns to them in the big romance scene, when it's rook who needs it. the way he's just. standing there in the center of it all, like a child desperately helplessly waiting to be found, hiding in the place he hopes you'll know to look first. (rook does know. it's one of the first things they say in there.)

in short the most important room in his little mind palace for the romance is the very first room — the one where rook isn't. where, in fact, rook cannot be, because they disprove the entire structure of the place with their existence and presence in his life. with everyone else he's putting words in their mouths about what they think of him, and rook is the one who actually gets to come in to speak their own words to him — and have him listen. ('he'll listen to you, he always listens to you', 'your voice is a comfort'.) of course rook isn't present anywhere else in there — at the risk of stating the obvious to a tedious degree, they aren't one of the locks, they're bringing the key. in the very finest 'the messenger and the message' sort of way.

[dykedvonte]

I think the most baffling thing about the Tulpar as a vessel to me is the fact that the ship really did only have a one way communication system.

I know it was cheap but even the most basic of vessels regarding major transport would have some way, shape or form for outside communication. Not only that but there was absolutely no form of innate emergency signal to show they may have been offline or in trouble despite clearly having a system to dock credits if they went off course. It's another factor that really shows that bad situations are made to get worse by design. One person who is required to relay all information to the crew and make all the choices without feedback. No way to update or call for help in case of a dire situation. No way to inform of inner personal conflicts and acquire procedures accordingly.

It really is like they are all in some sort of fucked up solitary confinement. They have their own world with strict roles that are meaningless in the end, as long as the cargo makes it, it doesn't matter what happens on that ship to the company. They don't want to hear anything and will come to conclusions on what happened based on how much pay they can withhold from the workers. Even what they do send is short, sterile and corporate to the extent it was likely written and sent out with a command by some random unmanned computer in an office.

There's something to be said about how unfair it is to force absolute power and control onto one person when you as an entity could do so much more to offload it but I've said it many times before so I won't again.

[i3utterflyeffect]

What if stick!Alan gains powers at some point? He’s fidgeting with a random item and accidentally resizes it somehow, and he just silently stares at it wondering how that just happened and what it means

god that'd be funny. SC is so excited because HOLY FUCK THAT'S SO COOL!!!!! and alan is just unsure if he should be worried about this ability or not. i think it'd be fun if he could do similar things to what agent does with his array of tools as well. plus like. that'd be hella interesting when vic comes around

[hanzajesthanza]

anyways wish regis was there when geralt screamed for the entire druidic forest to hear that he was his przyjaciel.

Sylwia of Warsaw: 'Przyjaźń is an intimate relationship even though platonic, so boasting of it to strangers is like boasting of sex.'

in context of how regis was like 'eheheh? 🥺 friend?? [shyly tucks hair behind ear]' when geralt even just called him druh in private, in the darkness... under the earth, amidst rock and stone where not another soul, where absolutely no one else could hear them.

- Możesz liczyć - odrzeka poważnie Geralt. - Nie zostawię cię w potrzebie. Druhu. Wampir uśmiechnął się, a ponieważ byli sami, pełnym garniturem kłów. - Druhu?

that geralt yelled aloud in the daylight not just that they are friends, but close friends, to the flaminika, actually to anyone within earshot...

- Jestem Geralt… Wiedźmin… Przyjaciel Emiela Regisa… - Powtórz, bo nie dosłyszałam. - Geraaaaalt! Przyjaciel wampiiiiira!

i mean, regis would intuit, he would know that geralt was only emphasizing their friendship (and kind of lying because they haven’t known each other long at all) to save their skins from the ent, but... at the same time. logic doesn't overwrite fact. and the fact was geralt screaming under torture that they are very close