#I love her so she makes me so sad

[saturnniidae]

Delia Ketchum deserves the world actually

[demaparbat-hp]

Zuko's eyes watered against his will when the ghost of a woman he did not know smiled at him like he was her child.

Zuko decided right there and then that maybe, just maybe, this too was something he came to find.

Ghost-Mother takes a look into Zuko's soul in For the Spirits Chapter IX: A Rider Alone.

More than a stranded soul, Kya holds all the love of the Old Tribe and the means to calm a coming tempest. Zuko won't ever forget her.

(He won't be allowed to.)

[sir-biszkopt]

Den my beloved cat

[vaguely-concerned]

are. are you telling me that if the romanced mage warden dies and alistair is king, he deadass stares greagoir down over her dead body and grants the circle of ferelden its autonomy after ordering it rebuilt somewhere safer. first you have to deliberately leave him behind so he won't die for you and then he does that for you once you're gone, even when you're broken up??? absolute and literal king behaviour of the highest order????? the actions speak louder than words of it all??????? I think I hauve covid

[sforzesco]

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

[rosa-maltz]

to ashes and blood

[opens-up-4-nobody]

🖤

[lefthandarm-man]

Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff The Avengers (2012)

matching each others freak

[eatsurspleen]

everyday i get jealous of those people who write essays analyzing, picking apart, and overall appreciating their favorite character's dynamic with another, the character's personality, or backstory cause im usually left like this when i think about Marcille for too long

[not-a-snowman]

I’m still thinking about Grimora. She should’ve been allowed to be scary and silly and to spend her days pursuing her own dream of what the game could be.

She’s such a fun boss and character, she has the most visible enthusiasm for the game out of the Scrybes. AND as indicated by her fight, she can be a bit of a shit. She takes so much joy in this game, in her art.

And she was the only one who didn’t even get to really TRY to steal power and play the villain. She dedicated her resources away from games and back to what really mattered: destroying the OLD_DATA. There’s something to be said that while Grimora was the Scrybe of the Dead, she was all about life after death. Ghosts and Ghouls. Funerals and Epitaphs. Life, death, and then life again. Perhaps as the Scrybe of the Dead she was the most equipped to accept death, but then again…

Death to the OLD_DATA means an end to that cycle of death and rebirth. It means accepting her dreams would never come true. No one would ever play her game, no one will ever inscribe her name, no one would ever know how SHE’D operate that sick ass pirate boss fight she had shelved

She’d die unmourned and incomplete. Sacrificing her life in the name of a world she does not know filled with people who’ve never heard of her.

Like at least the other Scrybes got to pretend. Leshy didn’t have to accept that there’s never enough time in the world to do it all until the last second. Grimora has known for ages.

[strawbie-doodle]

havent drawn all of them in a WHILE ✸

[crustyfloor]

My night was going so wonderfully.

The headshot of this cover is just PAINFUL. They're actually acknowledging each other, they're the only ones on a cover to do that. And it's the prominent detail that Mizi looks horrified staring at Sua, even though they're clutching each other so... like they can't let go, while Sua looks reverent in the lane of that gaze, even blushing, slightly, savoring the moment. This also looks like their kiss scene...

To me, she looks just the same as the day she died because I think this cover is Sua's haunting of Mizi, because Sua's singing is just that, haunting and distant the longer she sings, she's fading out, but so gently despite its gruesomeness. And Mizi is grieving.

She's as angelic as she is in Mizi's memories..

But there's a cruelty to this because Mizi will never forget what she saw in round 1, that's why seeing Sua over and over and over again terrifies her, hence why the tone of this song is SO dark, especially in the second half when they're coming to a close, they get desperate to keep each other close, and there is a certain, but familiar ignorance to Sua's presence as if she can't see Mizi's pain even though Mizi is crying right in front of her--childish egos, Sua becomes a more honest character after her death, and in more expressive formats like this, and I like how she takes on that position in this song, the taker. (Like Till, he wanted a security blanket out of Mizi; Sua is similar in that sense.) as she takes and wants from Mizi for her own sanity.

And this newest illustration, oh my god. EXPRESSES THIS IDEA PERFECTLY, Sua looks so utterly distant, ghostly, dead.

In contrast to Ivan and Till's cure, Mizi and Sua's cure is more of a duet, and they switch places often. Mizi starts the song, she ends the song (just like in my clematis), and Sua supports it. Whereas Ivan and Till take turns leading and harmonizing, Mizi and Sua both participate.

And I believe they're interacting? Ivan and Till's cure wasn't a message to each other, something a lot more complicated than that--but Mizi and Sua transition frequently and it feels like they're singing to each other, It's more intimate.

Mizi - Allow me, to the tips of your finger

Allow me, to the ends of your feet

Dissolve me in your gaze

I don't want to let you go.

Sua - Please, leave me scars

Please, hurt me so that not a singly drop of me remains

Let me drown in you.

(The backing vocals mean so much to me, it's like a choir(?))

Mizi - Until these falling stars

Are buried in the blur of time

On your icy lips

Read my soul, yes, my soul

It wasn't spontaneous for the sake of it either, because this is a call-and-response

Sua - Even if your cold words

Carve scars beneath my eyes

May they linger on your tongue

You can break me apart

Mizi - Notice my pain

And mend me right now

To quiet my fears

I'll drown in you

-

Mizi is directly asking Sua, or the version of her she can't forget, to stay with her, calm her like she used to, as she wishes to have remained in the dark, to drown in her, or to have just not been left alone and, because even now Sua's death is not something she can accept, the portrayal of her feelings as she expresses her pain and desire to keep Sua close, even the false presence of her "On your icy lips" and "notice my pain and mend me right now" even though It's terrifying her, she doesn't want to let go.

Sua acknowledges Mizi's pain, and their shared pains after she died for her, the blame and the betrayal. Interestingly, Sua takes on the metaphorically self-destructive lyrics, Sua lives in fear, anxiety, and utter gloominess, she didn't want to be hurt by Mizi in the literal sense, but she would've rather been warmed in Mizi's soft light, her false hope and optimism, to be destroyed and to destroy Mizi's hope, even dying as the penalty of their love was far better.

Then Sua goes on to sing through the perspective of Mizi and her loneliness and grief after losing her with perfect clarity, it takes me back to the comic where Ivan scolded Sua about her plan, saying that she'd be nothing more than a trauma to Mizi after everything is said and done, she got upset at Ivan because she knew that, was devastated by the fact that she would be a burden just as she always feared, but then, what's a life without Mizi by her side, her only safety net? Her every reason for living?

This song displays their deep love and devotion, they sound melancholic but even in these horrific circumstances, Mizi's pain and hesitance, they don't drown each other out, they move together in perfect harmony just like they always do, in this way, it also feels like an apology of sorts from both sides before the bitter end, and a final goodbye.

AND THEN AT THE END WITH THE PERFECT SYNCHRONIZING OF THEIR VOICES ARGHH

And a new Sua illustration for the occasion 😭💔 (I'm gonna catch you soon Vivinos just wait.)

[spacesheeeeeep]

Actually so tired that people mainly focus on the bdsm when they talk about La Pianiste when we literally have this dynamic right here. Like, that's insane.

What if you were a little girl in her 40's who couldn't grow up because of your mother-wife who made you sleep in her bed and forced you to repress every sexual desires and thoughts of becoming your own person just to keep you close to her ? What if you fought back and yearned for dangerous things out of her reach ? But also, what if you let her because it's all you've ever known and been taught to want ?

[lotus-pear]

rewatched madoka magica again today bc i fucking hate myself and to absolutely no one’s surprise i went through all five stages of grief in a single evening

[starry-bi-sky]

finally giving fem danyal her own au and fulfilling my 'danny is an animal whisperer' agenda at the same time: mother of monsters danyal 2.0

i say "2.0" because TECHNICALLY 'mother of monsters danyal' is an au I made back in June for Dark fem!Danyal (who I promptly named Layal). However, I haven't posted much for her yet, and I like the "mother of monsters" premise too much to leave it only to Layal. Plus Danyal in that au was going to become the mother of monsters anyway, just with significantly less world domination and mass extinction.

'Animal whisperer' Danny has been something I've been thinking about since my latest DP 'wolfpack au' post and it's! So fun to think about, and who no better to assign the idea to than Danyal Al Ghul? Who comes from a family infamously known for their love of animals and nature?

Fem Danyal is just purely self-indulgent. *gestures wildly at her* i just lomvb,,, her,,,, I've only really mentioned her in context of the 'Things in Threes' au/my first Danyal al Ghul au with the facial scar, but she's!!! I love her. She deserves her own au <33

So kill three birds with one stone! Make a post about it.

Anyways, Danny has a large lair. Similar to cult leader danyal, her lair is a giant mountain region resembling nanda parbat with a big temple/palace-like area built into the mountain. It's large, it's overflowing with natural flora, with its own mini-floating islands hovering over some areas, and it's also completely empty.

Danny takes one look at her lair upon first meeting, -- noting that it looked relatively smaller from the outside -- and promptly, with the elegance of an Al Ghul, goes "What the hell??" Because yes, while she does enjoy her own solitude and privacy, this is a bit ridiculous.

For heaven's sake, there's even a massive lake in there! What's she going to do with all this space? Can she make it any smaller? Why is it so big in the first place? This looks borderline like one of the mega-islands!

She finds out later that apparently, the amount of ectoplasm a ghost has can have an effect on the size of their lair. And since she has such a large core, her lair reflects that. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, it's bigger on the inside so it doesn't take up "too much space" on the outside. Don't worry about it too much.

Danyal isn't totally opposed to having such a large lair, she's just... a bit baffled by it. It feels like so much wasted space is all. All this flora and no fauna to enjoy it with. It's practically eerie.

She decorates her temple-palace area, transforming rooms to match her needs as she sees fit. In the center of the inner gardens is a massive tree that she likes to climb, with twisting, winding branches. Sam and Tucker have honorary rooms, even if they can't safely leave the specter speeder for long periods of time, even with proper safety equipment. So does Jazz. Ali (Dani) has one too, but he can actually use that one, and Danny brought him to her lair so he could decorate it himself.

She has a personal garden, but for the most part she lets the flora exist as it is. Too much space to cultivate it en masse anyways.

Skip to a few weeks later, on her next visit to Clockwork. She developed a habit of going to see him semi-regularly just because. She enjoys his wisdom, and he has a lot of stories to tell, and when he's not being the cryptic and esoteric timekeeper, he's a bit goofy.

(pushing my dadwork agenda here,,, i think Danny deserves to go 'hey, Lord Clockwork, do you want me to buy you something' while she's at walmart, only to receive a singular glowing sticky note that says 'cucumber gatorade'.)

(She insists on referring to him with his proper titles even for the most mundane of things because it's proper, but Clockwork sees a future where she eventually calls him "Cee" and by all things in existence is he determined to get there. Anyways,,,)

On her next visit to Clockwork, just as she is about to leave, Clockwork stops her and goes; "Ah, I have something for you. Hold out your hands."

Danny does as such, and Clockwork doesn't give out things often, so her curiosity has spiked to the highest levels. He turns away from her for a moment, using his staff to summon whatever it is he needs, and when he turns around.

He drops a fish into her hands. Granted, a fish in a small glass tank. But a fish nonetheless. A small one, roughly about the size of her finger, with a blue-black, eel-shaped body and four sets of glowing eyes. She can see thin, almost translucent, but spiny fins down its back and the start of bioluminescent markings. It's swimming around in circles in its small container.

"Lord Clockwork." Danyal says all too calmly.

"Yes, Danyal?"

"What is this?"

"That is an adolescent leviathan, Danyal." She’s transfixed onto the tank, but she doesn’t need to see Clockwork’s face to hear the smile he’s stifling.

The myriad of emotions that runs through her all at once threatens to overwhelm her, and she can’t tell if the feelings are negative or positive. So she carefully closes her eyes to breathe in through her nose.

“Clockwork.”

“Ah, I see you’ve dropped formalities.”

She ignores that.

“Why have you given me an adolescent leviathan?”

She's expecting the trickster to look amused when she opens her eyes. Instead, he just looks endeared. "I know you're fond of animals," he says, "and you always look amazed when you come across an animal of the realms. So I thought you might enjoy taking care of the young beast, it's mother is dead so it has no one to care for it."

Oh.

"But, if you don't like it," Clockwork's hands reach out for the tank, "I can simply take it back--"

Danyal shifts the tank out from his reach and hugs it possessively. "I never said that. How do I care for it?"

And so clockwork gives her a list, and when Danyal returns to her lair, she sets up a large tank in her room for the leviathan to swim in -- it's much too small for the lake right now, she thinks. She'll feel better if it's somewhere she can find it. She names him Suhā.

Suhā grows quickly, and by the end of the mortal month she transforms one of the rooms into a large pond for him to swim around in. He's a very loyal beast, recognizing her as it's mother of some kind. Danyal takes great care ensuring that her beastie gets quality care, and Suhā swims to the surface to see her when he senses her in the room.

It spirals from there. Somehow, Pandora catches wind that Clockwork gave her a leviathan, and so the next time Danyal visits the Greater Athens, she gives her a baby chimera. It's eyes are still sealed shut, Danyal can't bring herself to say no. She names the little beastie Firas.

Frostbite hears about it too, and not to be outdone, gives her an animal she's never even heard of. Infinite-realms born, apparently. A fox-like creature with two small horns like an impala, four eyes, and tall legs. The name isn't something she's quite sure how to write down, and she's positive that her friends won't be able to comprehend it. She names her Eira.

Getting the three of them used to each other was... interesting. Suhā tried to eat Firas when Danyal first introduced the two, and they've hated each other ever since. Firas and Eira are seemingly getting along. Her island already feels full enough with the three of them on it.

Of course, that's not the end of it. With her luck, she begins stumbling across other monsters. Realms-borne or otherwise. An injured hydra in the Grecian islands that, through lots of trial and error, Danyal is able to rehabilitate and heal. It routinely comes to visit her afterwards.

A griffin with a broken wing that she moves permanently to the island that likes to keep to itself, but tends to come down when she's near. It gets along best with Firas.

A panther-like monster from the Shades Woods that had six legs and three tails, with ends that reminded her of a venus flytrap. It stuck around the heavy foliage and she can only make out where it was when she saw its golden eyes reflect.

She befriends a young indrik with its leg injured, and much like the hydra it follows her back to her island, and stays there in the mountains. It comes out when she's alone, much like her other beasts.

She receives two more leviathan -- one from clockwork, and one she finds herself while exploring the deeper and darker recesses of the Ghost Zone. It was huddled against the carcass of its mother, and she managed to befriend and get close enough to it to bring it back to her island. Suhā is fully grown by then, with a head bigger than Danyal herself and he still likes to stick her head out of the water for nuzzles when she's near.

He's not very happy with his new siblings, but he's not trying to eat them when she's not looking. So she calls it a win in her book.

And it's not just large beasts either; smaller animals begin popping up when she's not looking. Bird-like creatures and small mammals, and she swears she saw a doe (or something resembling a doe) grazing in the forest while she was walking by.

She takes back with her a lone snake egg once, and it grows so big it wraps around her island and sleeps with its massive head on the mountain beside the temple, like some smaller breed of Jörmungandr.

And on and on it goes. Some of the beasts she comes across never step foot onto her island, some of them follow her back, while others she has to carry back. Not all of the ones that follow her stay, and Danny rehabilitates the injured and releases them when they're fully healed.

It's hectic, and busy, and frankly she loves it. Some of her rehabilitated beasts return to visit her, or to have their children somewhere on the island, or whatever it is they need to do.

She becomes a bit infamous for it. She goes to visit Dorathea once, and as she's walking through the streets she can hear some of the denizens whispering while she walks past.

"Is that her?"

"Her highness' friend? Yes--"

"--that's the one--"

"--Mother of monsters--"

Danny's not sure how to feel about that.

Although, she can't say she's opposed.

Danyal Al Ghul, Mother of monsters, raiser of beasts. It has a nice ring to it.

[cringelordofchaos]

// for even if I'm far away, I hold you in my heart //⟩ 💙💜