#I love how affectionate and kind he is

[theoldkyokodied]

Uploading all my Tomgreg art at once from the past few week before season 4 hits, who knows in what kind of mental state i'm gonna be once it does :')

[sowearecleariamhere]

Penelope could easily be painted as the damsel yearning for her lover, the woman without much agency waiting for her husband to come home (which of course we all know she isn't, she is a literal and metaphorical queen), and in a lesser story*) she might have been cast into that stereotype. I think that is why I love her almost yelling "You're mine" at Odysseus in WYFILWMA.

It is so possessive and decisive, ruling out any "buts". It perfectly underlines her steadfastness, her loyalty, her agency. She claims Odysseus as hers without question once she knows it is really him, that he is finally back home. She is seemingly offended that Odysseus even suggests that she might not accept him after how much he has changed. (She will make her own mind up about that, thank you very much, and said mind has been made up for 20 years btw)

It is not only that Odysseus has come home and now she chooses him. No, she has been choosing him over and over and over for the past 20 years with every action she took. It is not him coming back that now puts her in the position to choose him - it only reveals that choice, that there never was another choice other than Odysseus. Which leads me to my honorable mention:

Ody: "[...] You’ve been waiting for love."

Pen: "I've been waiting for you."

Penelope definitely had a surplus of suitors (108) and even if their motives might have been questionable, she could have easily found a new husband if that was what she wanted, maybe even one that genuinely loved her. But Penelope's love is Odysseus. Love for her is synonymous with him. No one else is even worth considering, she would rather be alone or even die before she gives any other man the time of day.

tldr; I love love LOVE the wording in WYFILWMA, how it shows how Penelope is just not taking this shit from her husband. She knows what she wants and that is Odysseus, even if it is not the original model but the slightly banged up version, the heavily traumatized, now with grey hairs probably, war criminal, ruthless god torturer version of her husband.

Because he is still her husband, goddamn it.

This might very well not make much sense bc I am insane over them currently

*) "lesser story" is not referring to the odyssey or saying epic is better than the odyssey, I mean to compare them both to any completely different work (or franchise if you will) that does not give characters agency where they should have it

[starry-bi-sky]

Clone^2 - Separation Strikes

"Why do I have to go?" Damian asks, surly and accent-thick, it sounds more like a demand and a whine at the same time. Sitting on the kitchen table with his arms crossed, in a green t-shirt that Danny bought him at a whim when he was at a thrift shop, and black shorts, he's never looked more like a kid. There's a little backpack leaning against the table leg, Damian begrudgingly picked it out when they went shopping.

His English has grown in leaps and bounds since Danny found him -- er, or more accurately; since Damian was spat out in front of him. -- and very little did they have to use the translator on Danny's phone these days.

Which meant one thing: Damian can start attending school comfortably now. And 'go' was the Amity Smiles Child Care Center. Danny and Jazz went as kids until they were twelve, and Mom and Dad actually managed to convince the center director to let Damian enroll for the summer.

And it was summer; Damian starts today.

"Because," Danny says, trying and failing to hide the smile pulling on his face, his heart warm and soft, and also laughing at Damian's expense; "being cooped up in the house all day isn't good for you, and you're starting school in the Fall. And, in Jazz's words: you need to have interactions with other kids your age for the benefit of your social development. And besides, it's only for the morning."

Damian's nose scrunches up, and his eyes roll so violently that for a moment, Danny thinks about joking that he'll get his eyes stuck like that. He holds his tongue; his little brother already looks like he's five seconds away from committing an act of violence.

"I don't need social interaction." Damian sneers, his cheek in his hand; a neverend pool of pride. "I am--"

"The Blood of the Demon Heir, better than everyone else." Danny cuts off, waving his hand in dismissive circles, his voice mockingly deep. Damian's brown skin darkens in embarrassment, and he scowls at Danny. "I know, bud. But Jazz is right, -- don't tell her I said that, -- you should be around kids your age."

Especially when he starts First Grade in the Fall. Honestly -- Danny was a little nervous to send him to the center. Damian's long since cut the habit of trying to kill or otherwise maim people, his palms ache-burn with gentle reminder, but his tongue was as sharp and as cutting as his sword. He still struggles with trying to quell it when he's upset. Vicious child-weapon that he once was, and will never be again.

Danny knows that it comes from a place of fear and defense, that Damian lashes out because that's what he's been taught. That at the end of the day, he doesn't really mean what he says, and he's learning to express himself better. But the other kids don't know that, and kids can be unforgiving and cruel.

Danny just...

His slow beating heart sighs, melancholy settles behind his lungs.

He doesn't want Damian to be outcasted. He doesn't want him to be alone.

Not like he was.

Damian sneers again, but says nothing, his shoulders crawling up to hide his ears like a turtle receding into his shell. Danny watches him silently, leaning against the kitchen counter with his own arms crossed. The clock hanging on the wall ticks in their ears -- it's almost time to go.

He watches Damian, careful, and so he sees it when his little brother's stone-shell pride and petulance shudders, and cracks. The darkened furrow of Damian's brows weakens, and for a moment, slants back.

Ah, Danny thinks, his own shoulders slumping. Epiphany washes over him, and his sad-heart soothes in warm understanding. So that's what it is.

His head tilts, and his hair spills over his shoulders, messy and fluffy, tickling his neck. Some of his bangs fall into his face. "Hal 'ant easabiatan ya habibi?" He asks, voice low and soft. Just as Damian's English has improved, so has Danny's Arabic. He still stumbles over himself some days, and Damian says his accent is trash, but they can have whole conversations now in Damian's mothertongue.

(Danny was incredibly proud of himself for it.)

Damian's face darkens, his blush spreading across the rest of his face, and he ducks his head down. Grown-out curls, black-brown and springy, falls over his eyes. "La!" He yells, loud and indignant, and not at all convincingly. "La 'asheur bialtawaturi!"

He was nervous. Danny can see it now, in the hunch of his shoulders and the tightness of his face, and faintly, he can feel it too. In the ecto-rich air of the Fentonworks House, it thrums, barely-there, like a hummingbird behind his lungs.

Danny can't stop the little, fond smile that forces itself across his lips and upticks the corner of his mouth. "It's okay to be nervous, little brother." He says, he sounds like Jazz when he says that. He doesn't think she'll mind him borrowing the nickname.

He pushes himself off the counter, and Damian refuses to look at him, hiding behind his hair and in his shoulders. It takes three long strides for him to reach the table, and Danny turns, plants his hands on the ledge, and hoists himself up. Right next to Damian.

Damian leans into him easily when Danny's arm wraps around his shoulders and tucks him close to his heart. He can feel his ear against his ribs. Danny hunches over him, resting his chin on Damian's head. "It's so okay to be nervous, actually. I was nervous, Jazz was nervous." He tells him, scratching the blunt edge of his nails across his scalp. "Everyone gets nervous."

"'Ana last aljumiea." Damian mumbles, as small and feeble as he was the night on the OPS Center balcony, realizing that his mom and the League weren't coming for him. Realizing that he was replaceable.

Danny's half-working heart squeezes; in grief, in rage, and his faucet eyes sting. He breathes in carefully, and presses his nose into Damian's hair in a loving faux-kiss. "You're right, you're not everyone." He says, steady and strong, because if he's not a pillar for his family, who else is he?

He can feel Damian's eyes flick up to him, and Danny smiles into his black-brown curls. Tilts his head to squish his cheek against him instead, hand dropping to thumb below Damian's lashes. "You're Damian Fenton," Because the adoption went through a few weeks ago, and he's still riding that high, "You're my baby brother. O' Artist Extraordinaire, Kickass with a Sword, Vegetarian and Wonderful Co-Ghost Hunter."

Damian tries to stifle a smile, and fails. Score! Triumph gathers in Danny's gut, his smile grows wider. He squeezes Damian tight, and only releases him so he can look him in the eyes. "And if anyone gives you a hard time at school, and I mean anyone--"

Danny has bad memories of the teachers looking the other way when the other kids were bullying him, all because he was a Fenton.

And Danny, bleeding heart, bleeding hands, loves his family more than he will ever love himself, will never let Damian experience the same injustice. Not if he can help it.

His eyes narrow, and the buzzy-film of ectoplasm covers his eyes, making them glow, "--You tell me. And as your awesome great big brother-and-technically-dad-but-only-biologically, I will handle it."

Damian, wonderfully made, full of light, his little brother Damian, giggles weakly at him. A sound that's worth it's weight in gold. The scary eyes dissipate, and Danny matches the sound with a cock-eyed, impish grin, dragging Damian into a soul-crushing, too-tight hug. The kind that only annoying older brothers can give. "Got it?"

That gets a proper, if short, laugh out of Damian. He wriggles in Danny's arms, trying to break free. But Danny does calisthenics, his arms are as big as Damian's head, so it doesn't work. "Understood, now, daeni 'adhhab ya 'akhi!"

Danny laughs, loud and bright, and loosens his hold just a smidge, only so he can adjust his grip and hop off the table with Damian still in arm.

"Never!" He crows, hoisting Damian slightly. One eye flick at the clock, and in one quick move, he secures Damian under one arm like a football, and hooks his foot under the strap of his backpack. Kicking it up, he tosses it into the air and catches it with his free hand, and slings it over his shoulder. "Now, to the car, my boy! Before we're late and Mom and Dad get charged."

Damian groans, childish and dramatic and long, but his face is all squished up with a wide grin and glee. Danny can taste his joy beneath his tongue.

"And, if my little pep talk didn't encourage you," He says, reaching the door to the garage, flipping Damian up onto his hip instead. "If you have a good day today, I'll make you bal mithai when you get back."

Like all kids at the promise of sweets, Damian's eyes widen and glitter. Danny loves seeing Damian be a kid, it's his favorite thing in the world. "I will!"

[clown-busters]

Andrew Minyard is such an enigma because he's constantly going "this is nothing" and "shut up" and "I don't care what you do" with the oddest levels of sexual tension a man could force into those words and two days later he's wearing matching outfits with his boyfriend

[aiai-cafe]

seeing discourse pass by on the periphery is so crazy like what do you mean a majority of the fandom hates kabru?????? that boy is the most character ever?? hello??

[unriding]

EVIE !!!!!

I SAW U USE MY ART AS UR THEME SO I WANNA DO A REMAKE !!! mostly cause the other one was full of mistaks hurrrrr orz

keeping the color palette the same so itd still fit + use softer shading so convey how soft u are + moze is now IN UR HAND !!!! >:3

oh nick :’)

[daddy-ul]

There is only one person in this world to whom I made a heart sign with my hands.

I'm okay with that person being James Hetfield.

[wheres-my-pencil]

(read more for a short pseudo-fic?? that i wrote kinda by accident?? it's kinda shit and doesn't have anything about stanley and it's mostly just describing a half baked idea but have it if you want. also this has definitely been done before but whatever)

au where the narrator, unbeknownst to stanley, finds out that he can be physically affectionate in a form that stanley can't see or feel.

after countless careful testing of stanley's reactions to confirm this, he starts to casually sort of. walk side by side to him and brush their hands together.

after a few hundred resets, he's at a point where he constantly holds hands (phases them through each other) with stanley as he yammers on as usual. sometimes he floats around him in circles and studies the folds in his clothes and the way stanley moves, still blabbering about, until, carefully, he leans reeeal close to stanley's face. he takes in every wrinkle and dimple, every reflection across his eyes, and watches the way his character model's hair sways a little as he walks, still pretending to have some sort of strong opinion about whatever he's talking about. once again, he starts to do this regularly.

when stanley happens to look at something that lines up their eyes to seem like eye contact, the narrator gets all freaked out and goes strangely quiet. he makes up some excuse (let's see here.. the next door is .. hmm .. .. (the first time it happened he actually did get them both lost)), and the next few times it happens, he starts rambling faster, trips over his words, and flusters himself in his own monologue.

after another few hundred resets he calms down and gets used to the fake-outs and gradually forgets it was ever even a worry.

during one reset in this peaceful phase, the narrator hugs him from behind, wraps his arms over his shoulders and around his chest, and sighs somewhat like a dog as he rests the underside of his chin on stanley's shoulder.

of course, sighs of yearning and disappointment sound similar enough that this one fit nicely for his current monologue. in fact, he starts getting so caught up with sarcastically praising stanley for staying in the employee lounge for more than two whole minutes, that as he leans into his face, yawning mid-sentence from the pseudo-warmth of stanley's neck and left cheek, he doesn't even notice that stanley has not only stayed in the same room, but hasn't moved an inch for the past five minutes.

worse yet, the narrator only finally realized when he happened to look up admiringly again, and nearly flew across the room at the sheer intensity of stanley's eyes staring dead into his own. he paused his berating. he didn't even have an excuse prepared, and he wouldn't need one, considering how stanley's first movement after the narrator's nearly endless stream of complaining was to turn to look at him where he hovered slightly above the floor, somewhat disheveled and panicked.

that's all i got for now fhdwds

[caramellody]

THIS IS WHY HER SECOND FAVORITE MOVIE WAS DR JEKYL AND MR HYDE!!!!!!!!

[wildsaltair]

Maximus was constructed of husband material to my exact specifications

[ganymedesclock]

So that #Syrin the Dread Blade tag, thats a new one. Seems like a interesting character, a sentient sword, how did Tyler happen upon them? What does the sword look like, and does it have any special magical abilities? How do they like the other members of the party? Do they actually speak or do they have a telepathic voice?

Technically it's just a tagging misconception; I haven't tagged Syrin reliably before because his nature as a sword does mean he's kind of attached to Taylor. But he is his own dude!

A short primer: magic items in this setting tend towards a level of awareness. Magic is essentially what souls are made of, ergo, if you stuff enough magic in anything, it starts to have a soul, and behaves accordingly. Entities as fully developed and chatty as Syrin are rare; far more common is that magic items tend to feel just a little bit haunted, inclined towards some things and away from others. It's a bit creepy if you're not used to it; enchantments are commonplace and widely accessible, so that 'not being used to it' is more a statement on if the individual is used to handling a particular thing.

Syrin himself is the ostensible opus of the previous Lord of Darkness, a Dark Sword that was meant to contest and cancel out the legendary sword of light wielded by the hero. Ostensibly, because for unknown reasons Syrin was left in storage the eve of the fateful battle. Being groomed exclusively for this purpose by someone he regarded as a father and then abandoned for ten years definitely wasn't traumatic or terrifying for someone with the cognitive level of a child, we promise. Especially since Syrin needs to eat.

Syrin's construction, and what leads Taylor to point out he's a bit like a 'needle', is a crystal-bladed thrusting sword with a hollow core. Despite its delicate looks, the blade is actually both quite sharp and highly durable; the thin tube at the center being essentially his mouth, by which he is supposed to drink blood. His victims', if he can get it, or, failing that, magically drawn from his host. As a result his blade itself ranges from grayish translucence to dark red if he's gorged to fullness.

From there, he has the power to generate and shape a kind of magical flesh, allowing him to weave more elaborate forms around his core body, the sword.

As you can guess, this gives Syrin a somewhat unpleasant and brutish first impression on people, as he has no verbal filters, was raised by a would-be conqueror of the world, and is dependent on blood and thus interested in more fights than not. I've described him before as like a preteen on xbox live who talks up a nasty game mostly out of loneliness and a need to be liked, where you can tell the kid themselves is not as bad as the people who taught them all those words and that they were "funny".

Deep down (and not all that deep, like I said, no filters), Syrin is a vulnerable child who was groomed to do violence and got no experience with it until strangers came to loot the dangerous ruins he was held in, at which point he did what you'd expect a strong but sheltered child to do faced with a home intruder, and killed/devoured that individual in a panic. His first kill being no glorious conflict or victory approved by his father, but essentially a desperate scramble in the dark with himself on the edge of fatal starvation messed him up even more than ten years of silence.

Enter Taylor and party, who happen to pass through those same environments. Syrin makes an attempt to body-snatch Taylor that fails due to the latter's particular properties, and Taylor, being both a good-hearted person and a stubborn busybody, feels obligated to bring this chatterbox with them and attempt to bully him into developing some sense of tact while Syrin attempts to Corrupt His New Wielder To Violence.

This doesn't work because Syrin has no real ideas how to go about corrupting someone besides loudly telling them to stab things more, while Taylor is an apprentice surgeon and mortician who is a lot more desensitized to bodies and their workings such that if they have a weapon, they'll at least consider it as a solution to most problems. So the punchline is that Syrin is more often thrown/flabbergasted by Taylor than vice versa, while the latter just sees him as a sort of annoying kid who's easily talked into almost anything as long as you compliment him first.

[forcebookish]

quick question... why force doesn't call book phi?

i've been wondering this for a while

well, despite them having been born in different years, book is only six months older than force, and they were in the same graduating class - it's a little weird to call someone in the same grade as you "phi."

that being said, force still sometimes does! there is at least one occurrence i can recall, in a livestream, where you can hear him casually say "p'book." i think he mostly pulls it out as a laugh, but in that context he seemed to say it just 'cause. so who knows! maybe he does it even more behind the scenes?

AND book sometimes calls force "nong/ie" (and i could have sworn he called him "nong peuan" once, but listening to it again it's probably "na peuan" and i was just delulu). see fbsr:

but i think most of the time they just don't think of each other in terms of one of them being older and the other younger 🤷‍♀️

sorry, anon, i know you said quick question 😅 but it was such a good one, i wanted to get into it! thanks for stopping by! 💕

[monstrsball]

i don't know if i've said this or if that was just in discord but i simply enjoy pairing suga with people his friends will look at and go "... him?"

[sotc]

dorian: *relentlessly teases the inquisitor*

juleic: *is just happy to be with him*

[amelikos]

I love when they casually reveal that Spinel hasn't stopped tracking the main trio once in this arc.. retroactively makes some of the past lighthearted episodes of this arc have a worrying edge to it, because you just end up wondering how long he's been watching, or if he was already watching at that point etc.

He is also even apparently keeping an eye on the Brave Asagi being repaired. He followed Friede around without his knowledge a while ago too. He just knows everything, and could act but just doesn't strike until the time is right.

I wonder if he is the one orchestrating Liko being separated from Roy and Dot in HZ064. The preview mentions that she is separated from them. And next ep will be exactly fifty episodes after HZ014, which was also when Spinel lured Liko away from the RVT to steal her pendant. He used her kindness against her by sending a fake ad about that one spice Murdock wanted. He spied on their conversation in that episode and used that bit of dialogue against Liko because he knew she would be exactly the type to want to go get that spice because it would make Murdock happy. Maybe he is creating some kind of diversion to separate Liko from her friends in the next episode. It wouldn't be the first time he messed with people's phones or other devices.

[jelliebeanbitch]

exploding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!