#I have not finished season two yet

[trash-and-trash-accessories]

I love how in Good Omens, when Aziraphale needs something he looks at Crowley the way someone looks at their spouse when they want them to deal with a spider. Like excuse me honey this is your job, you're the one who deals with the spiders. He's perfectly capable of doing a miracle to fix whatever situation he's in but he refuses. It is not his job. Strict but fair division of labor. Extremely married.

[fearandhatred]

the very first thing i did in 2024 was go insane aka i slept at 7am and among other things i drew these! they're unrefined and only two panels of a much larger thing i'm doing but since that'll not be done any time soon i thought i might as well post these first

panel 8 of panel 2

[jazzy-mass]

My friend that got me to watch X-men ‘97 described all of x-men as “two gays break up and make it everyone’s problem” and honestly? Yeah. Yeah that about sums it up.

[flowerakatsuka]

the flowers for the wake were lovely, weren't they?

[cautionwetfloor-png]

not to step where i dont belong but why do i see shippers and saiki aroace truthers beefing all the time ... guys :( .. guys PLEASE .. WE CAN HAVE BOTH. I WANTS BOTH CAKES.

[fictionadventurer]

Potential September Reading

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (ideally in audio)

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge

A Sherlock Holmes story (and/or a screen adaptation)

C.S. Lewis nonfiction

A sensation or mystery novel

A piece of one of the Psmith stories

Some kind of nonfiction book

[jaguarys]

Systems cannot love you

(Pose ref under cut)

(Pinterest link)

[wylanslcve]

Okay don't mind me I'm in the middle of a Crooked Kingdom reread and feel overwhelmingly inclined to rant about Jesper Fahey because this fandom just doesn't give him the treatment he deserves. I'm specifically going to incoherently ramble about the scene in Crooked Kingdom where he, Colm and Wylan are being shot at because I feel like that scene is representative of Jesper's arc - but, before we dive into that, let me contextualise a few things first. Jesper does things for the thrill of it: he thrives off chaos and spontaneity, hence why he "always felt better when people were shooting at him". It's because the sound of gunfire "called the scattered, irascible, permanently seeking part of his mind into focus like nothing else" - and it also provides a distraction from his pain and trauma, because whenever he'd think about it, "everything in him recoiled. Trying not to die was the best possible distraction". Whenever anything to do with his past or his debt is brought up, "his hands returned to his revolvers" because he found himself "longing for the cool, familiar feel of their pearl handles beneath his thumbs". It steadies him as much as it possibly can when he's not in a dangerous situation, momentarily calling his mind into focus, an attempt at distracting himself from his afflictions.

Based off similar instances, the scene in Crooked Kingdom where he, Wylan and Colm are being shot at should have brought him that same satisfaction that any other shooting would. He "should be buzzing from the excitement of the fight. The thrill was still there, fizzing through his blood, but beside it was a cold, unfamiliar sensation that felt like it was draining the joy from him." What makes this situation so different to the others is that he can't ignore his problems and trauma now: it's staring him right in the face. Colm is right there. The thrill of the fight doesn't feel the same because "all he could think was, Da could have been hurt. He could have died." And we know that Jesper's debt would cost Colm the jurda farm Jesper grew up on, forcing him to acknowledge the reality of his problems: with Colm being right there, Jesper just can't ignore his afflictions because all he could think about is how his father would "suffer for his antics". If you ask me, this is so representative of his character arc as a whole.

This is further emphasised by how he's reflecting on the first time he spun Makker's Wheel right before this ambush, its intention being merely "harmless fun", but it ended up evolving into an addiction that "split [his life] like a log into two distinct and uneven pieces: the time before he’d stepped up to that wheel and every day since". The rush of a high-stakes situation is the equivalent of the "harmless fun" - it's a thrill that Jesper enjoys feeling, but in reality it's doing much more harm because it's preventing him from acknowledging and facing his pain. And he's indeed in so much pain: there's so much anguish inside of him, but he'd do anything to distract himself from it because the reality is just too painful.

This is where the tables come in: later in Crooked Kingdom, when the crew are being ambushed by the Khergud, Jesper "could feel the pull of East Stave" because he didn't have anything else to occupy his mind with. Then, the minute he thinks about facing his father, "the need to be at the tables was overwhelming" because he desperately needs to distract himself from the reality of his circumstances: "since Kaz hadn't obliged him with something to shoot at, Jesper needed a pair of dice and long odds to clear his mind". He can't use the ambush as a distraction, so the tables it is. As Inej tells him, "they feel like medicine. They soothe you, put you right for a time. But they’re poison, Jesper. Every time you play, you take another sip." This isn't the first time poison has been used to represent something that is preventing the Crows from healing - we also see it with Matthias, when he tells Brum in Six of Crows, "the life you live, the hate you feel - it's poison. I can drink it no longer". Just like how the exploitation of Matthias' grief and pain as a means of fueling hatred prevented him from healing because it kept exacerbating the anguish within him (he had to stop drinking the poison to do so), Jesper's addiction - and, by extension, the thrill of a high-stakes situation - prevents him from acknowledging the wound inside him and working towards healing it. It gets to the extent where “he had always thought of himself as lucky… what if he’d been bluffing this whole time?” - he’s gotten so used to suppressing his pain that he, in a way, loses sense of who he is. His façade has distorted his perception of himself. It's not until Colm arrives in the Barrel that Jesper is forced to acknowledge just how deep that wound is and how much it's festering - just like how he couldn't even feel the thrill of a fight properly because of the possibility of his father getting hurt.

That scene is one of many cracks that start to form as Jesper continues to bottle up all of this pain and trauma, until he finally breaks when Wylan proposes that he's such a good shot because being a Fabrikator allows him to direct the metal of the bullets. Jesper protests, asking Wylan why he can't "just let things be easy" - why can't he just let him keep ignoring his problems, when it's so much easier than facing them? But Wylan stands his ground, explaining that "they’re not easy... You keep pretending everything is okay. You move on to the next fight or the next party. What are you afraid is going to happen if you stop?" This is why Matthias calls Jesper “angry and frightened” - he’s afraid of stopping, because he knows stopping means that he’s forced to face the reality that he’s deeply wounded. This is when he finally breaks under the burden of his own pain, under the reality that he can't keep ignoring it anymore - hence why he chooses to put his share of the reward in Colm's name because, as he explains to Kaz, "I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of money just yet". For the first time, he's acknowledging his problems and working towards fixing them, no matter how much time it takes (because trauma and addiction don't just disappear overnight).

n e ways this ended up being significantly longer than anticipated but this is what happens when I start analysing these books: it snowballs out of control and suddenly I can’t shut up.

[1jemmagirl22]

"You can't make me forget you."

Top 23 ships I loved(Or more accurately became obsessed/re obsessed with) in 2023, ranked:

13; Piper Halliwell and Leo Wyatt, Charmed

[novelconcepts]

Man, I really thought I'd be set to start posting this story for Christmas, but I vastly underestimated how exhausting starting work would be. My apologies. Soon! Hopefully very soon.

[quesoarts]

is this anything.

[septembermonologues]

im officially reading 4 books at once because apparently id rather die than focus on 1 media set at a time. and then i get sad because it feels like i never finish anything because i just start 50 different things and split my attention between all of them instead of just focusing up

[marshmellowtea]

evil and fucked up of the total drama ao3 page to turn me into a noah enjoyer only to learn that i get crumbs in canon. why would y'all do this to me

[sportsallover]

🤨

Where’s Quentin??

[kuromi-hoemie]

nooo im all caught up on my manhwa and now i have to actually do something else

hell world

[swallowtailed]

palisade 02!

thisbe and brnine’s gravity clock… cannot wait for these characters to all have History with each other

sooooooo many questions about cori. like, every possible question. Who Is She.

“nothing is stationary. this is the season about the inability of standing still, the impossibility of remaining one thing forever” so this season is arriving at the exact right time in my life to be both a steady throughline and a much-needed meditation on the whole [life stage] of it all. cool great cool

palisade!!! getting the planet onscreen immediately is a great move and makes me very excited about what other secrets may be out there. i also have one or two questions, first of which is, have we met this divine before.

immediately forcing the issue of brnine’s asepsis hook is very good, and i hope we get to see that play out in downtime

conflict turn next week!!!!!!!