#Stop forcing this relationship on us

[puppppppppy]

this place is so fruity

[souenkun]

Judging from these panels, would it mean that there's no other yorishima exorcist that's still alive (since natori said that the yorishima family "was once" a big name, past tense) in the canon timeline, and that the yorishima we know probably ended his family's exorcism business for good by retiring himself? If so, was the reason tied to the youkai living in his left arm, or is there another cause? And when exactly did he retire— was it before or during seiji and shuuichi's high school days, which was why his left arm appeared with the thick bandages when he gave them the loquats in the anime, but he still lived in the estate during that time, or was it after the two became legal adults, which lined up somewhat with him moving into his forest home, abandoning his family estate in favor of living in isolation?

And, speaking of retirement, I wonder if we'll ever know why midorikawa told us that the takis were "famous" (which presumedly meant they were strong enough to be well-known) as occult diviners, since tooru herself only ever mentioned what their previous family business entails, and never about their status in the exorcism community? We don't really need this extra bit if she wanted to further establish how tooru has an aptitude for spell-casting, either. Again, there's another "strong" family (whose members are still alive in canon) that went into retirement, but did the taki family lost their power because the ability to see (if they were needed for diviners) disappeared for at least the last three generations (if we assumed that tooru and isamu's parents couldn't see youkai too), or was it due to another reason? How close was shinichiro (tooru and isamu's grandpa) to the matobas that even the current clan head came to pay his respects during his sixth death anniversary; was his relationship with seiji's father strictly resolved around exorcism business, or was anything else involved? Does tooru herself doesn't fully understand the prowess her family once had, hence why seiji was the one who told takashi (and us readers) about it? What would this tiny bit of lore mean for tooru with it revealed this late into the manga, when tooru herself only talked sparsely about her ancestors in previous chapters?

[mamawasatesttube]

timcassie is so compelling to me. they were not into each other even a little bit. it was such a messy coping mechanism fuelled entirely by grief. they were making out with each other because they were both substituting each other for kon. cassie was far more aware she was doing this than tim was. unironically, dating a girl here is one of the gayest things tim has done

[thanatologie]

anyone that says emmrich never actually faces his fear isn't actually paying attention. hear me out, okay, i've talked before (so many times) about how i think for emmrich his fear of death is less actual thanaphobia and more...his fear of being alone. of living alone, of spending eternity alone - especially in a culture and a society that places emphasis on lovers being buried together; he's terrified of it. and a romanced emmrich is so terrified of his relationship with rook - and how he feels - that he's willing to try to end it on the eve of a battle one or both of them might not come back from, because he's worried it might not be the big damn love story he's been aching for his whole goddamn life.

and guess what! rook doesn't come back.

he spends almost a month making that damn dagger - and like the rest of the crew - trying to find rook to pull them out of the fade prison because he's lost them. he's lost them right after realizing his fear's gotten the better of him and he's staring down the barrel of eternity without them. he was already trying to backpedal the whole thing before solas pulled his switcheroo and you know rook telling him they'll talk about it at home was like...a constant refrain in his head that whole almost month they were lost.

(which raises a good point with the mortal vs lich path in this respect, because a mortal emmrich was ready to tear open the fade to get rook back, imagine how many lines a lich emmrich might cross, especially given his line about never letting them be parted in this or any other world again. i have thoughts about how emmrich doesn't come back wrong from that, no, but he definitely comes back changed, he's...off. i've seen speculation that lich emmrich isn't emmrich - which i don't buy - or isn't entirely emmrich - which is a little more interesting and there may be some truth to the latter, or it could be he thinks he's indestructible at that point and gets really reckless and less measured but that is another argument for another time.)

and basically the point i'm leading up to here is...you can complain all you want that he never uses the l word before the final battle, but even with harding pointing out he's gotten a little spacey and distracted and mopey with a relationship on the burner, and all the other pet names he uses so damn liberally (dearest, darling, flame of my heart), he's still holding a lot of stuff back. he's still holding himself back, quite a bit, until that moment when he finally (finally) tells rook he loves them. he never calls rook my love until after the fade prison in the mortal path, and it's just the once, as far as i can actually remember. and it's because of all of that shit above.

(lich emmrich does it earlier, because that this may be my last chance to say it comes a hell of a lot sooner, and he uses my love liberally after that point.)

this is intentional on his part. this man has skirted around using the word love so much ("very fond of you" my ass) that rook totally has the option to call him out on it and it's like a record scratch.

he's, i think, terrified of loving something that can die? and he's terrified of being alone. and ultimately a romanced mortal emmrich has to face both of those things, one after the other, between manfred and the fade prison. and i think, going forward, it's not going to be completely gone - in fact for a hot minute after everything it's probably exacerbated to a large degree and he's probably extra...like that for a while - but it makes him confront those things head on in...very blunt ways. here's a reminder of what losing someone you love deeply to death feels like. here's what losing someone you've given your heart to for safekeeping feels like. it's kind of disingenuous to claim his fears are left untouched, when he's given a one-two knock out punch and is left having to deal with the fallout of that.

eta: and none of this actually touches on the fact that it's him that tells rook to grab the dagger before they go poof, so he's siting with that constant weight on his chest, too, but we'll dig into that at a later time because it's cold and my fingers are starting to get stiff.

[oddly-casual]

Fiona and Cake spoilers seriously

(Something I noticed abt Betty and Simons relationship)

I love Betty and Simon’s relationship, I think their back story is so cute and romantic and all that lovely stuff don’t get me wrong.

But there’s this under tone of Betty constantly giving things up for Simon and we don’t really talk about it a lot???

Like, Betty let Simon have his moment with the artifact and the pubic, she also doesn’t go to her trip in favor of going on an expedition with Simon. Then when she goes to leave again she stays for Simon.

Even Fiona is like “you went with her on the bus?” And Simon just looks all confused like “what? No, why would I do that?” Like- hello???

Then after that she gave up her entire life and mind to get Simon back to the point where she literally says “I don’t know who I am without him anymore.” And that just sucks! Since the beginning Betty has been the one giving up the most, her mind, her own possible career, and it’s a story of love of course and it’s very sweet but it’s also a story of sacrifice.

Their love wasn’t a perfect solution, it was already sort of imbalanced when it started and I lowkey love how we see those cracks even before they’re together.

Again, I love their relationship and I think it’s sweet. I just think we should talk about Betty’s side more, especially when she tells a story of what most women do in relationships, sacrifice.

[lemongogo]

i wish we saw vash interact w the plants more T__T

[fidgetspringer]

The tentative truce between my arachnophobic ass and the baby orb weaver currently living on the inside of my chronically open window.

[garmgeyr]

The Art of Remembering

@omnipicureans: OPIA ( . . . ) the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive & vulnerable. Obscure Feelings prompts | no longer accepting

« After that, Gallagher used the Enigmata's power to once again activate this soaring Dreamscape unfettered by The Family's shackles — this is the origin of Dreamflux Reef. »

”Do you see it yet?”

”Bring her down.”

With a roar of the engines, the ship rocked violently. A shrill, out-of-sync cacophony of alarms filled the cockpit in a flurry of red and white flashing lights. Micah had been a pilot for years by then, once a member of the rebellion’s combat fleet, now the newly-crowned heir to the Watchmaker’s name, but no amount of experience could save you in a contest of raw strength. He wrestled the wheel, the points of every knuckle pressed up against the leather of his gloves in sharp ridges, the soft lines of age between his eyebrows darkened into deep furrows of concentration. The stabilizer blinked rapidly just off to his right. His eyes darted to it, but the wheel jerked out from his loosened grip the instant he tried to reach for it. He grabbed it again and pulled back hard, the muscle along his jaw tightening until the blue vein that streaked under the pale, nearly translucent skin near his temple raised.

”I hope you’re holding onto something back there,” he said through gritted teeth, and then all at once the ship settled with one long, metallic groan.

An unsteady stillness overcame the cabin, its sirens still blaring in discordance until, one-by-one, the pilot flicked them all off. Then there was only the creak of cooling metal, and the hum of idling engines over yawning memoria.

”I don’t know what that was,” Micah admitted and hesitantly took his hands off the wheel to twist around and check on his passenger, who was just now picking himself up off the steel floor with the help of the leather straps bolted to the wall.

”Are you alright?”

”Where’d you learn to fly,” Gallagher grumbled as he massaged the back of his neck, but the exchange of relieved, albeit uneasy smiles settled the ripples of underlying anxiety. He was a few years younger than Micah, both of them at this point in time pushing into their late thirties, their faces prematurely aged and worn by the demands of war and the hardship of exile. Although one was fair-skinned, blond and blue-eyed, and the other darker in all features, they were, by all appearances, brothers, and the look that passed between them carried a message understood only by those who’d spent decades developing its code together.

So Gallagher gathered himself and went to the door, where he took its handle in both hands and threw his weight down onto it until it turned. Metal screeched against metal as he pushed the door out and then dragged it back along its sliding track, opening to a vast sea of dense, rolling fog that stretched on as far as the eye could see, blending into the dusty navy of a distant sky. Refracted moonlight cast a diffuse, shadowless glow across the gloom. Slipping his hand into his pocket, Gallagher stepped up to the edge and peered down into the sea’s fathomless depths.

”Is this the place?” Micah asked from the cockpit, flipping a switch and turning around again.

”There’s something under the waves, that’s for sure.”

Uncertain silence fell over the cabin for a long time.

”… Are you sure you want to do this?” It was Micah who broke it first, even though his voice barely crested above the steady hum of the engines. He draped his arm around the chair’s headrest and tried to make anything out from the rigid lines of Gallagher’s back.

”I don’t have a choice.” Emphatic. They’d had this conversation a dozen times before, and as if to make a point of that, Gallagher raised his arm out over the sea of fog, then slowly curled his fingers. Wind began to whistle through the cabin, softly at first, but mounting gradually into a gale that whipped the loose ends of Gallagher’s shirt and brushed his hair back from his face. He stared steadily out over the rippling fog, even as the swirling dust and debris forced Micah to shield his eyes behind him. Heat burgeoned after it and the temperature within the ship swelled until its insides shimmered like an oven, skipping sparks of magenta scoring black lines across the floor. Outside, the fog seemed to boil. And boil. And boil, until it spurted geysers of bubbling memoria that rocked the ship as if by a stormy sea.

Gallagher pulled his free hand from his pocket and groped blindly for the strap by the door, but his fingers slipped limply across the worn leather as he doubled over with an anguished gasp. Biting down so hard he felt he might crack his own teeth, he held his right arm steady even as flesh burned away under strips of magenta flame.

”Gallagher!” Micah shot to his feet, but the ship bucked and he fell back. Clamoring for the wheel, he hauled himself over it to hold it steady.

”Gallagher!” He called again, glancing helplessly over his shoulder. “Stop! It’s too mu— ah?!”

His eyes widened and his jaw slacked as the tops of skyscrapers, waterfalls of memoria cascading from the rooftops, emerged beyond the windshield: one - two - three dozen - an entire city in all, risen from the forgotten depths of the primordial dreamscape. They reached for the stars until they eclipsed the moon entirely and plunged the cabin into sleepy darkness. The rumbling stopped soon after, and the ship rocked gently into stillness.

Something heavy hit the floor.

”Gallagher!” Micah scrambled out of the cockpit and rushed to the back, where Gallagher sat on the ground, pallid and out of breath, arms draped loosely over his knees. Sweat plastered his hair to his face, and with sunken cheeks and the lines beneath his eyes carved out by the red-green lights of the cabin, he looked suddenly quite old. Micah knelt beside him, but Gallagher pushed him back.

”Just gimme a minute,” he huffed and leaned back on his hand. The good one. When he looked at the other, which was crisscrossed with bright red lines from wrist to elbow, he grimaced. Micah saw it then, too.

”You never said it’d be that dangerous—“

”I’m fine.”

”No, you’re not!”

”I’m still in one piece.” To prove it, Gallagher tried to shake out his arm. It burned, and despite how he tried to hide it, his lip twitched. Micah shot to his feet in a furious storm.

”You just did exactly what the old man always did!” He shook his head. “Does. Haven’t you always been the one nagging him about being reckless?”

Gallagher smiled distantly at the dead city in the sea.

”Yeah, he’s more important—“

”You’d really leave me to do all of this by myself?” Micah crossed his arms, and the smile faded from Gallagher’s face. “There are people depending on us. On both of us. We could have found another—“

”Look.” Exasperated, Gallagher heaved himself to his feet to look Micah in the eye, a match lit in a room that reeked of gasoline. A second passed. Then two. Then ten. Until he finally shrunk back and looked out the door with a sigh. Drawing the woolen collar of his coat around his neck, Micah turned away as well.

”… It’s done,” Gallagher said after a moment. He flexed and curled the fingers of his right hand. “The rest doesn’t matter.”

”You’re right,” Micah begrudgingly agreed.

The old city loomed ahead of them, silent, geometric shadows carved out of the star-streaked sky. The ship hummed. An engine turned over. Then, over the yawning emptiness came the eerie echoes of an aria. Both men looked up at the two tallest skyscrapers, each haloed by ethereal white light.

“You can hear the performances at the Grand Theater out here,” Micah noted with muted interest. Gallagher snorted disdainfully.

”Better find another place then.”

”I hope you’re joking.”

[autumnhobbit]

would you all think that continually rescheduling even up to the last minute before an appointment, regularly switching from call to texting even when i’ve said i find texting less helpful because it comes off more brusque, no consistent linear topic directing, constantly directing focus to my day to day life/relationship rather than anything else about me even if i express concern about the rest of it is reason to consider breaking up with a therapist

[wilsonsmcgillsweatshirt]

brb going to start proclaiming that the term "bromance" is homophobic

[heartshattering]

There's no guarantee that a best friend is truly going to be a best friend *forever* even if you have known each other for the majority of your lives and think you know each other inside out. Things change and not enough people understand that.

[maiyuyuns]

my reaction after ()’s attempt to gaslight me for the uncountable time into trying to repair this broken relationship that they ruined

[navree]

i am once again asking people who are adapting wuthering heights to read wuthering heights and stop casting white men as heathcliff

[lesbiansanemi]

*through gritted teeth* ppl can ship whatever they want and it’s fine it doesn’t affect you ppl can ship whatever they want and it’s fine it doesn’t affect you ppl can ship whatever they want and it’s fine it doesn’t affect you people can—

[johndonneswife]

someone really should be talking about how difficult it is to plan a wedding - a gay wedding - when both of your families fucking suck

[quietwingsinthesky]

so many of even's worse decisions are motivated by not being left alone.