#I love this parallel so much oh my god

[sondheim-girly]

just thinking about how in hopeless war cherry says “you’ll still be the losers destined to fail and we’ll be the lucky ones” and then in stay gold Johnny and pony sing “can’t you see that we’re the lucky ones”

because while the socs are lucky with money and privilege, the greasers have love and family that they wouldn’t trade for the world.

[fumifooms]

Kaka compilation

Because everyone is sleeping on him. Witness his greatness!! First two Kaka colored icons were colored by me, lineart by Ryoko Kui though!

Kaka & Kiki are kinda like Laios & Falin… Kaka being stoic and giving repressed energy like early Laios, Kiki being cryptic and always smiling and kinda soft-looking. Autism siblings 2, ostracized and othered as kids and have a deep bond due to sticking together through it all, though unlike with Laios their parents are very loving so Kaka developed family as a big value more than Laios (bc asides for Falin Laios doesn’t care much about it).

In the gnome festival comic you can see Kaka is more emotive than he seems! Full with a :3 face, and he’s the one crying at the end. He’s insecure about his legs and being tall… It really got to him. Conceal don’t feel. In the gnome festival comic you also see him sensing others’ gaze on him and that something is off unlike Kiki, again Laios-like in the way that judgement from others gets to him more than her.

[leafsfromthevine]

something something, "i'm only me when i'm with you," etc. etc.

[sharknark]

⬇️rant about a really good hengren (reverse renheng) fic i read. link at the bottom give it a whirl

i've never read a fic so well-catered to my tastes before in my life and the best part is that i was so caught off guard by how good it was cuz the tags and summary had me like "right this is some omegaverse-esque, rawr XD mating shit"

but from the very first paragraph i realized it wasn't just ao3-typical possessive mating shit it was (dare i say) IN CHARACTER possessive mating shit. underappreciated dan feng lore is the two hearts shit, duty expects him to smother his own empathy and perform cruelty obediently (and that being in his dragon form literally numbs his empathy towards mortals) but then it's flipped around and he's criticized for being too heartless

there aren't a great many english fics that take advantage of the 'numbed empathy' thing, so this fic using that to explore the toxic codependency that drove dan feng to making yingxing immortal in the first place is so!

dan feng's dragon heart prioritizing it's own indulgence and power, his human heart screaming against it for empathy and restraint, but both hearts united in this possessive adoration of yingxing... dan feng is possessive to the point of harming his partner, forcing them to take his affection, inherently contradictive to the protective impulse to see the other unhurt.

dan feng makes yingxing immortal in a really sketchy operation, despite knowing that yingxing is literally defined by his pride in being a short-life. he wants yingxing to be with him so badly that he does the one thing that would hurt yingxing the most, too blinded by possession, this sickly overbearing affection, to empathetically respect yingxing's death.

yingxing lived cramming every second he could into his craft and his goals precisely because he has so much less time than all the immortal species around him, but when he's forced into immortality, his hands are scarred and ruined past the point of ever crafting again. he suddenly has so much time, all this time he would've cherished as a mortal, but is totally useless to him now that his purpose for living and passion is gone.

so there being a scene in this fic where dan feng is moping "yingxing doesn't wanna fuck because he's glued to his workshop", being followed up with a scene of dan heng fucking blade while kissing his scarred hand and crying that he's "so sorry", yeah no shit asshole, his dragon heart got what it wanted, blade has all the time in the world to fuck and nothing competing for his now limitless attention and no one's happy about it.

as arrogant about being a short-life as yingxing was, it really is compensation for the discrimination he faced for it. other immortals looked down on him, so having dan feng, THE top dog, be so deeply enamored with him stirred his own toxic codependent urges. he was so desperate to have dan feng's eternal regard that he's willing to die for him (as in the sedition), his death being the force cementing his place in dan feng's heart forever.

so the fic having yingxing ruminate on this, that he had hoped for dan feng to love him even centuries after he inevitably died, only for the fic to end with:

yeah yingxing... you left an impression... he made you immortal.... everyone's upset by this

(that's what makes dan heng forgetting blade was ever yingxing to begin with all the more painful because, you went and turned him immortal and when it backfired horrifically you went on and fucking forgot, bitch i'd be pissed to the point of centuries long bloody pursuit of vengeance too.)

here's the fic go read it and leave kudos and a comment, technically porn but i got so invested in the character study that part barely registered. also yeah if you hadn't realized already super dead-dove:

blah blah "renheng is toxic" sorry that's why i like it

[theirloveisgross]

when life... just... yeah.

[usertoxicyaoi]

"And what's with all that stuff you said about me not liking you or you wanting to leave? How can you say that after accepting my proposal? I said I'd support you. Of course, that's a proposal."

MY PERSONAL WEATHERMAN (2023). Episode 2 -> Episode 5.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Every time I rewatch S1E2 Guess Who's Coming To The Wedding?, Dorothy's behaviour hits me harder. Not just how she acts around Stan (that final speech, oh my god Bea Arthur you magnificent actress), but how she acts around Kate and the whole premise. She's so excited about the wedding!! She's always wanted to give Kate a great wedding!! She says "Your wedding day should be the most beautiful day of your life" and you know she's been dreaming about her baby's wedding day ever since her own. You know she's desperately trying not to think of how anxious she felt, how trapped, how terrified, how chocked she was when she herself walked down the aisle. She says "And I just hope that you and Kate have all the happiness in the world!" and you can just see the memories of those 38 years of her life shoot through her mind, you can see her hold on to all the happy moments she can and pray that Kate's marriage is nothing but good years and happy Christmases. And the way her voice chokes up when she says goodbye to Kate?? "Now, listen, you be a good wife, you hear? Be his friend, be his lover. Don't be his slave!" Do you think these are the things she told herself during her marriage? Do you think these are the things people told her and she desperately tried to be all that -- to be the perfect friend, to be the perfect lover, so her marriage would work? Do you think that don't be his slave! was a desperate plea -- don't accept it all, don't stay no matter what he does, don't be like me? Listen this is just a rant and I am going nowhere with this but the truth is Dorothy is the strongest woman who ever lived on television and I love her so much and I want to bundle her up in a nice blanket and go beat up Stanley Zbornak with a baseball bat!!!! God!!!!!!

[nimrism]

hello! daily morgana pendragon deserves the world. also, i'm very curious to see what you think a morgana and lena interaction would look like! i feel like the universe would break. oh! this is me realizing they both have something against their brothers. what a nice realization to have! anyway, just wondering what you think that might look like :)

DAILY REMINDER THAT MORGANA PENDRAGON DESERVES THE WORLD!

i'm so sorry it took me THIS LONG to get to replying to this but i wanted to do it JUSTICE cause i love this ask with all my heart it speaks to my very soul :)) (i do apologize for this getting really really long, though)

lena and morgana!! they're so similar and yet so different at the same time it's so awesome to delve into their characters and try to dissect what's happening in those brilliant heads of theirs like i could write thesis papers analyzing their characters without ever getting bored. they're just so special to me :,)

what would an interaction between them look like, though? hmmmm i guess it depends on the context of the interaction like why would they be in the same room in the first place? has morgana been reincarnated? what is she doing in national city? or is lena the one who crossed the pond and went to england? are we talking canon s6 lena who has magic? has she gone to england to get closer to her witch ancestors? IS MORGANA HER WITCH ANCESTOR? DID SHE ACCIDENTALLY/ON PURPOSE RAISE HER FROM THE DEAD? i think the concept of morgana being lena's ancestor is super interesting cause it would influence lena's opinion on arthur and merlin and camelot in general. so, if we consider the connection between them ancestral, i think their interactions would be reverent (at least on lena's end) and morgana would (maybe after initial reluctance or hostility) sort of accept lena as her descendant and her protégé and teach her all sorts of magic. lena's part in helping morgana adjust to the modern world would also be a huge aspect i feel like cause morgana would be so confused with modern technology and the fact that technically there are no more "kingdoms" and camelot is no more so what exactly is her purpose in this modern world? lena helping her through that (or at least trying to) would form a huge part of their relationship i think.

buuuuuut if the context is different like maybe lena has discovered a way to time travel and she finds herself in camelot or in the woods around morgana's s4 cabin and morgana happens to stumble upon her there, it would be different. because WHY is there a woman in morgana's image in the STRANGEST clothes walking around with glowing objects (technology) that aren't inherently magical (morgana can't feel the magic in them) but MUST be because this isn't just something anyone can conjure up?? no matter the time we're talking (s1/2/3/4) i feel like morgana would react very negatively until lena can earn her trust or at least convince her she's not a sick joke merlin/emrys is playing on morgana. i also think lena would be wayyy out of her depth in medieval england like yeah she's a genius but she eats salads and fast food and has a bajillion-dollar penthouse equipped with all the latest technologies so living without the luxuries of the modern world would be a CHALLENGE even for her so i think it'd be fun to see morgana's reaction to lena absolutely STRUGGLING to get through her day.

once we're past the logistics of the interaction and the awkward introductions and general initial animosity phase and they FINALLY get to talking, they'll have lots of things in common. like you mentioned, they both have this innate hatred for their brothers, but with lena, lex has caused her unimaginable trauma and pain and despite all of that she's managed to get back up and say to his face that yeah she hates him but she loves herself more and that she's finally letting go of that hatred to go live her life. with morgana, however, that hatred for arthur has become all-consuming, even though it only stemmed from uther sort of unknowingly pitting them against each other forever by acknowledging arthur as his son and heir but never morgana. morgana's hatred for uther extended to arthur and when uther died, arthur became the sole recipient of that hatred. unlike lena, morgana doesn't have anyone to pull her out of the darkness, to show her that even when family fails to understand you and/or accept you, there are friends who will. she doesn't have that support system, and so she succumbs to the darkness and the hate and lets it eat away at her soul. this is where they differ, in my opinion, lena had a support system and the innate strength to stop the generational trauma cycle, while morgana had neither (doomed by the narrative from the start maybe i'll just cry).

this part's a bit controversial cause it depends on your headcanons and who you ship and stuff but another thing i feel was detrimental is UNREQUITED LOVE. lena's half-hearted "villain" arc only happened when she found out that her best friend had been keeping such a huge part of her identity from her (which isn't something you would do to someone you love) so she was like fuck it i'm going to fix humanity cause you guys SUCK. but when she eventually realized that wait, maybe kara does actually love her and care about her and she didn't entirely mean to hurt her (whether you read it as platonic or romantic, her love was requited) she went back and apologized and everything (even though she didn't need to apologize she's never done anything wrong in her life). morgana's brand might as well just be unrequited love, on the other hand. it goes as far back as her biological father (bro didn't even acknowledge her as his daughter), and extends to pretty much everyone she may or may not have been in love with (whether you ship her with gwen (the only right answer) or merlin or even the dumbass alvarr guy). she's been made to feel unlovable her whole life and at some point she believes it and takes it at face-value as the truth, and that's part of what pushes her to extremes like the ones she goes to in the show. ("if i can't have love, i want power"). with both gwen and merlin they're both so devotedly loyal to arthur that even if i were in her shoes i'd get pissed off, so, since she doesn't believe that they'll ever be loyal to her just because, she tortures and brainwashes merlin to get him to do her bidding, and she kidnaps gwen and brainwashes her to get her "old friend" back, because, in the state that she's in by s5, she doesn't believe that anyone will ever be devoted to her for HER, so she forces them to be. this concept of never having love requited voluntarily plays such a huge part in shaping morgana's character and making her that much different from lena, in my opinion.

i could go on and on about the implications of the dark tower episode and every word morgana said to gwen, but that's a story for another post because this one is already getting waaay too long.

ANYWAY i may have strayed from the point a few times BUT I JUST HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THEM, OKAY? thank you so much for this ask it was so much fun to answer and AS ALWAYS if you want to further discuss morgana or lena or both and speculate on how they would meet/interact i'm always up for a fun discussion 😼

[averlym]

some very very quick costume shorthands!

[castlescrumblingdvwn]

writing this in the middle of watching episode 7, so this is not as coherent as i would like to be, but:

mokha met kiho's father without telling kiho/bogeol, probably to protect him? and i can't help but think how this is such an obvious and poignant parallel to when young kiho fought her dad without telling her so she could escape. they were so scared (you can see it in the way mokha is so nervous throughout, and the way young kiho flinches just before tackling her dad), but did not back off. not for a second.

and, in both the cases, it... didn't really help a lot.; mokha ultimately escaped her father but ended up stranded in an island, while kiho's father now knows that he is alive, meaning he is going to be even more relentless in his search for kiho and his family... which is far from good news for our main characters.

all the while my heart aches so, so much for bogeol, in particular when he and woohak argue— he's lived like this for fifteen years, but now that mokha is finally found, the cracks are beginning to show. and well. of course they are. he had given all he could to help her, even throughout the years he never gave up the hope that he would find her (and i say this especially because of the scene where he smiles after he sees mokha on the island. that's a sigh of relief and gratitude- the kind of relief that he has been waiting to feel for freakin fifteen years. the gratitude that she is alive and finally found).

there's no way he would be able to stop himself from helping her now that he finally has the chance to correct past wrongs.

the little reversal of roles this ep–with mokha being the one trying to protect kiho this time around– made me tear up. i hope we get to see more of that, as kang pd continues to support mokha's dreams and be her silent anchor like he's always been.

[chipeanuts]

After a month of hyperfixation, I have finally come to the conclusion that Majimako is, and will always be, one of my favourite ship of all time at this point. Thanks for coming to my ted talk stay tuned for more 🤓✌️

[mayashesfly]

Rain Code Chapter 5 and Epilogue Spoilers

The ending of this game has given me such intense major brainrot it's unbelievable. And not to mention all of the FUCKING SYMBOLISM AND PARALLELS AND FOILS I CAN SQUEEZE OUT OF THIS THING

Yuma and Makoto being Number One, looking for a Perfect Solution without Emotion.

Yuma taking the first step to grow out of that ideal by entrusting his memories to Shinigami.

Essentially shedding himself from the chains of his previous identity as Number One. By giving Shinigami the Key to his memories.

Shinigami who creates Solution Keys. Solution Keys that can unlock the Chain of Mysteries blocking the path to the truth. (Chapter 4 Mystery Labyrinth)

And time and time and time and time again throughout the game, Yuma had others helping him. Being there for him. Taking care of him. Loving him.

And despite him falling in despair time and time and time and time and time again, as Shinigami reaps the soul of the culprit, someone was there to pick him up again.

It might've hurt. It might've been painful. Uncovering and facing the truth. But together, he was able to handle it. He was able to live more freely, more happily being unchained from mysteries. Having people there in his life.

Maybe he been different when he was Number One.

Maybe he had been alone.

At first.

But now, he is not.

And though he may have lost Number One, he has gained freedom and happiness through others.

It's ironic how The One chained to a Death God was the free one.

Now let's think about Makoto.

Did he had anyone there when he learned the painful truth?

Had he known during then that there was others like him?

Facing the truth of being a Homonculus all alone...

It would be painful.

It would be lonely.

And even then, when he had found out he wasn't the only one.

He alone was the only one that could've saved them from themselves.

Saved them from the sunlight.

Caging them all in the unending rain.

He faced all of the problems of Kanai Ward by himself.

Manipulating those he see fit in order to keep Kanai Ward safe.

Despite being Number One, He could not seek the Perfect Solution through the Truth.

He covered and chained himself in so many lies and mysteries that he could not help himself.

And others could not help him.

There was no Solution to be found.

Here was no keys to be found by him or someone else who could've helped him escape from the entangle of chains of mysteries he had trapped himself in.

Think about it, in the Mystery Labyrinth, his Mystery Phantom acted so much like the lost and scared Yuma we have known. So blinded by all of the mysteries and alone that he refused the truth.

There was noone in that Labyrinth helping Phantom Makoto except Actual Makoto.

There was noone in that Labyrinth helping Actual makoto except Phantom Makoto.

He, quite literally, wrapped himself up with all of his clones that wore masks.

He, quite literally, continued to change his masks as he see fit.

He, quite literally, hid himself among his clones that wore masks.

Masks upon masks upon masks.

And despite having had multiple Solution Blades at a few points, he had cut nothing. (From what I remember)

I can't help but think about how Yuma said Makoto was asking for help.

And how in Makoto's last stand, he was quite literally asking for help.

Makoto needed Yuma to use the Solution Blade, the Solution Keys, to cut his mask.

Makoto needed someone to help him.

He was looking for a Perfect Solution, no, an answer, as we stared at his real unmasked face.

He had begged for us to search for the truth and now here we are.

If Yuma making a pact with Shinigami was his cry for help to change.

This was Makoto's cry for help to change.

We just have to wait and see if Makoto can finally be free and happy.

(Though seeing the Epilogue, it seems like Makoto still needs some help to truly finally free himself fully.

His journey isn't over yet.

Let's just hope that help won't come too late yet again.)

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Mel for the unhinged character bingo!

yessss YEEEESSSSSSSSS

[aupermittymeowmeow]

yall cannot tell me you did not think that one scene was Christain Brutal Sniper in Emesis Blue

[hella1975]

no one is doing fanfic like me btw

[imminent-danger-came]

(1x00 A Hero is Born)

(2x07 Shadow Play)

“The Hero and the Warrior were like the sun and the moon, their light like a protective glow shining upon the world. As the hero’s light grew, so too did his shadow—and soon, the Warrior was cast into that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the Hero.”