#THIS SLOW BURN KILLS ME

[andi-o-geyser]

despite how you feel about the changes from the stream to the show, if you like or dislike them, i love how inherently hilarious the narrative path tlovm is taking regarding perc’ahlia is because a situationship would literally kill campaign percy and vex like how the internet would kill a small victorian child. they are NOT built for that

[captainkirkk]

I'm normally a very slow reader of published novels, but I devoured The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard and now I can NOT stop thinking about it.

Everyone who has read my Fire Lord Zuko content knows how much I love 1) people of power working tirelessly to make the world a better place for all; and b) kings, slowly being crushed under the weight of their crown and duty, finding love and care in their loyal servants and staff

Except this story is more. The Emperor is worshiped and treated as a god, bound by extreme taboos and protocols that he can't break. It's about his staff (his found family) looking BEYOND the exterior of godhood and finding the human being underneath - who is dying under the weight of being the Emperor - and deciding to reach out, even if by acknowledging his humanity they are technically breaking many laws.

God this book is about so many things, including:

Found family can be the Last Emperor and his senior members of staff

The Emperor learning how to be human again with the help of his friends

There's no romance in this book. The deep friendships are the beating heart of this story, and they very much Love each other.

Breaking down a previously corrupt imperial empire through hard work and radial reforms, leading to sweeping changes including UNIVERSAL INCOME

Embracing cultural heritage, even in the heart of the imperial palace. Our main character is both one of the highest ranking members of government and from an islander culture, and he dedicates himself to both

The struggle for your family (who have a case of tall poppy syndrome, and live far far away from the capital and palace) to see you as a respected adult and understand all of your (many, MANY) achievements, even when you're very literally brought the Emperor home with you.

This book has some BEAUTIFUL confrontations, take-downs, and revelations based on the past two points (and more). If you underestimate or insult our main character, You Will Regret It. Watching him lose his temper is a glorious thing to behold.

Anyway I'm pretty sure this just became my all-time favourite book, because it's beautifully written and touches on all of my favourite tropes.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

1x9 | 3x10

[cuubism]

this cursed eternal WIP is about to hit 30k words still incomplete so here, WIP Wednesday snippet, I guess?

--

He’d just gotten on a clean pair of jeans and was reaching for a shirt when the door clicked open. Dream stepped in, so quiet he was less person and more shadow. Gone were his long coat, and his boots. His black skinny jeans and long sleeve shirt were functionally identical to what he’d been wearing before, but Hob had a feeling the actual blood-soaked ones from before had been destroyed—if they’d ever existed outside of dreams in the first place.

He stepped quietly, barefoot, over to Hob, and Hob looked up and down at this change in attire. “Planning to stay awhile, love?” he asked, a weak attempt at levity.

Dream stopped before him. His eyes were deep and very dark. “You are shaking.”

Hob chuckled self-consciously, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah, turns out that sort-of-almost-dying is a bit of a shock to the system. It’ll pass, though.”

“It will pass,” Dream echoed, expression unreadable.

“Has before,” Hob said, tension prickling up his spine at the utter stillness of him now. And not the relaxed stillness that Hob had become accustomed to when they sat and drank together. No, this was the stillness of water about to overflow. Surface tension.

“Before,” Dream repeated, again.

Hob smiled weakly at him. “Promise.”

Dream’s night sky gaze flickered over his face. His shoulders were even narrower without his coat, and the lack of structured fabric made him look softer, human, normal. 

But Hob’s friend, his love, his stranger had never felt less normal. He moved in like the approach of nighttime, hovering clouds and darkness and rain, a blanket pulled over one’s head that might cocoon or suffocate. 

Hob would have accepted either.

Dream caught him by the jaw with fingers soft as lamplight, murmured, “Promise,” and kissed him.

It was a biting, hungry kiss, what Hob thought being eaten by the summer dusk might feel like. It was a darkness that pulled him down into southern seawater echoing with the warmth of the noontime sun; that pressed him into ticklish warm grass, a lover’s body over his as the sunset swept below the horizon; that took him by the hand and tugged him from the yellow light of the kitchen and out into hot August woods singing with insect voices and howling night creatures. All the comfort and thrill of nighttime in his mouth.

Dream’s voice thrummed through Hob’s chest and his own heart beat an answering note. He found Dream’s ribcage—so bony, still—and held him fast. Unbreakable bones and fragile heart under Hob’s hands. Dream’s mouth was hot against his and possessive but also tender, tenderer than Hob would have expected. There was blood still in Hob’s mouth, and Dream kissed him anyway.

Nothing about it felt surprising. In an echo, Hob found himself in a tavern in 1389, looking up at a beautiful, tragic, dangerous creature, something like premonition flashing through him. Dreams could be precognitive, and so when their lips met it did not feel new, but rather like the long-awaited fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. 

Then Dream slipped away, ducking to press his cheek to Hob’s and then pulling back entirely to look at him. His hands slid to encircle Hob’s neck, thumbs falling to the still-healing scar where the Corinthian had carved him open. He had a dab of Hob’s blood on his lower lip. Hob didn’t wipe it away.

“Dream,” he whispered, broken open.

“It is… unconscionable to me,” Dream started, voice low but still with that resonant quality, “that a creation of mine would harm you in this way. I am sorry, Hob.”

“Dream, come here,” Hob begged, and hauled him back in. 

He staggered under the force with which Dream came to him. It was like he’d been waiting for permission to collapse. Hob swept his arms up and around his back as Dream kissed and bit at the corner of his mouth, holding Hob close by his neck, his jaw, the back of his head, a flood of feeling that Hob knew had been in him, had caught balancing in his eyes, along his eyelashes, but never truly seen. The cup running over. 

Hob let it run, let it spill through his hands. His hands, which were held out to catch him, as soon as he was ready.

They kissed and kissed, blood and nighttime and the spark of violent life that always rushed through Hob’s body after he’d died and come back. It jumped like static from his lips to Dream’s, and a rush of color and feeling jolted from Dream’s hands into Hob’s body. Fear-joy-red-flowers-ice-smoke-laughter-crying— psychedelic swirls of everything imaginable. Were those all of the dreams? Were those in him all the time?

Dream released him when it became clear that Hob, at least, had to breathe. He took Hob’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissing his knuckles, his palm, the pulse shuddering in his wrist, mouthing at the skin. Hob tucked his face into his hair and failed to catch his breath. 

Finally, Dream looked up at him, lips brushing Hob’s fingers. It could have been supplication, his dream king bowing before him, but that was not the look in Dream’s eyes—it was worshipful, but in the way a god worships a flower that’s bloomed from his hand. Hob couldn’t even manage to swallow.

He cradled Dream’s jaw in that same hand, running his thumb over his lower lip. “There is… so much in you,” he murmured, a heaviness in his throat. He wasn’t talking about all of the dreams. He was awestruck at the display of feeling, feeling that was whispered in the tilt of his lips and the gleam of his eyes but that may as well have been shouted for how Hob was able to hear it. “You don’t have to show me any louder, love, not if you don’t want to. I can see it. I see it.”

Dream’s hand wrapped around Hob’s wrist like he meant to hold him there. His tongue dabbed at Hob’s thumb as he spoke. “I would have you know—” God his voice was so deep now, echoing in Hob’s bedroom for all that the curtains and rugs and soft bedding should have swallowed it “—what you have become to me. I would have you know how you consume me.”

Hob had long been consumed by Dream in return so hearing this was revelatory, like breaking the surface of the water after drowning. Like collapsing in a seat across from his stranger in a 17th century tavern, and eating for the first time after starving. He’d thought he was okay, that he could be satisfied with his love being one-sided, loving Dream how he needed, so slowly, so carefully. How he was wrong.

He would have to be careful, very careful, to hold this passion gently.

Hob kissed his cheek, then his temple, the curve of his ear, the juncture of his neck and shoulder. There had been so much held between them, unspoken, for so long, that it was easy to slip into the nonverbal. To treasure him without having to speak it. 

“Dream…” he breathed, just that, Dream, and Dream came back to him, pressed his lips again to Hob’s. Kissed him like he needed it to live as Hob held his face between his hands, held him close, so close. He let Dream’s kiss calm the shivering after-effects of dying. Dream may have been full of all terrible nightmares and dramatic tales but Hob found peace in him too, the peace of easy sleep.

When Dream finally pulled away, his lips were tinted red from the strength of the kiss, his eyes shadowed under his lashes. God, he was so beautiful. Hob had thought so, from the first moment he saw him, only it had taken him some time to realize exactly how he thought it. Beautiful, like the moonlight, and like an artist, and like a work of art; beautiful like a wild fey thing he wanted to catch in his bed, wanted to lay out in all his long limbs and fine lines and worship.

“An appealing daydream,” murmured Dream, and Hob started.

“You can—?”

Dream’s brow quirked in amusement. “I can indeed view strong daydreams. Particularly when you are… open to me.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Hob said, heart ticking up a notch. What a concept that was, for another time.

Dream left the matter there for now. Instead he twined his fingers through Hob’s hair, catching on dried blood. “You are bloodied.”

“Yeah,” Hob agreed. His cursory scrub with the towel hadn’t done much. The taste of his own arterial blood was still in the back of his throat.

He meant to say more, let the whole thing slide with a joke, maybe—but Dream’s look on him was so serious and solemn that the words went still.

“Come,” Dream said, and led him out into the hall and towards the washroom.

[tojiscrack]

to my all little liars!! (edit: wtf happened to my english? 😭)

we’re at 24.6k words rn 😟 if you plan on reading it next week, i recommend you read it on the weekends when there’s no school or work for you waiting in the morning 😀

calling in the troops rn ‘cause there’s still one final scene i have to write and it’s gonna be LONG (this isn’t including the bonus scene btw) but it’s extremely important for the story to continue, and without it, the rest of the story literally cannot go on 😭

we’re locking in guys. it’s 100% gonna border 30k words for sureee. sm has happened in that ONE chapter and i literally cannot wait to release it for all of you, you have no ideaaa

gonna go to bed and then wake up, study, break, write for the fic, repeat. had to randomly drop an update here cuz i’ve been edging you guys for so long i’m sorryyy, but it really is nearly here <333

edit: fck it guys i’m writing it rn (the immediate comments got me motivated)

[borgialucrezia]

his psychosexual obsession with his sister as he creepily stalks her around then was on verge of tears when he saw her kissing a potential lover...oh i know what you are!!

[902186]

thinking about kurapika and chrollo and parallels and this circle of horrors where they are the victims AND the tools of their fates.

they both think they are neither or more like they don't care about it at all. they don't see themselves as victims, and they see absolutely no other way to live other than this role they took upon themselves. kurapika had such a strong sense of identity and what he wanted to do with his life and understands himself perfectly at all times. he was a part of his clan, but he was more an individual than anything else. kuroro, on the other hand, never knowing, never thinking what his motives are, deliberately not understanding himself and desperately holding on to the spider. he can't be an individual but with others, he can be the spider.

and for both of them, it all started on vengeance. kurapika abandoned himself in order to become a tool, a weapon, to avenge his clan, and to collect scarlet eyes. he stopped being himself and became his people. kuroro didn't know his family, didn't know where he actually came from, didn't know who he was or what he was supposed to be. so growing up in meteor city, he held on to his people strongly. and in order to avenge and protect his people, he would become a tool, a weapon, he would give himself to them. he started being himself as he became his people.

kuroro could be something for his people. and kurapika could be nothing for his people.

kurapika took on the role of judgement for vengeance. kuroro took on the role of villain for vengeance. kurapika acted his part by diminishing everything he was, and kuroro acted his part by filling up his identity with it.

but one thing stays clear and fixed with them throughout it all. they would do anything for their people. for whomever they consider their people. "he'll put his friends before his mission." a weakness kuroro sees in kurapika so quickly and so easily. but the same thing he considers a strength in himself. "i am not your top priority. it is the spider that must be kept alive." as long as his people are alive, his identity will live on. and as long as kurapika is alive, his people’s identity will live on.

"now you will get to experience the pain of losing your home." kuroro (and the spiders) killing the kurta clan set this parallel in motion for himself as the circle began for kurapika. and (speculatively) kurta clan hurting his people was what set the circle in motion for kuroro, too. now thinking about where they are in the story and how their end could be, it is very clear that they are finally ending up in a place where they mirror each other (as they have from the beginning) and they can recognise it in each other and themselves. kurapika ending up empty after his mission and kuroro ending up empty after losing spiders. both of them purposeless and with no self left outside of it. in a way, this is how the circle ends. "i can hear that he accepted death." they walk with death every day with no fear and full acceptance and after losing the only thing they live for, not even something they hold on to because they don't see a point in being alive outside of the fact that they must keep going for their people, for their purpose, and if not then there's no reason to exist, they are meaningless.

kuroro's vengeance left kurapika all alone, with everyone he knew dead, and feeling hollow at the end. by fate, he ended up all alone, with everyone he knew dead and feeling hollow at the end.

and at that point, they will have to start a new page and build a new self for themselves.

[cupsy-daisy]

Woagh! 2 posts in 1 day! (Saying this like it’s not uncommon) but have my tma sona!!! These drawings are a month or 2 old but i’m finally posting them!!

This is just my sona from season 1-3 the progression of it n stuff, there were some sketches of 4 and 5 but i never finished them, idk if i will! But idk! We’ll see!

I’m wanna ramble a bit about my sona so if you wanna read it’s under the cut! Grahh

Got the idea from bestie @catattack08 to make it so i got hired at first for redesigning the institute logo, Because i’m a freelance artist, but then i started working on organizing physical files n caseloads on the shelves n stuff.

Hired me (mostly) because i had severe connections to a lot of entities, i had been touched by several throughout my lifetime :p

Nothing major happened to me through season 1 and 2 besides being kinda wary about john and probably agreeing that he murdered leitner in season 3.

So like- my sona story is involved with my friends a lot- and my friend was leaning towards john being innocent so managed to keep contact with him and we both went to georgies house to deliver some books, and i came with them to make sure they didn’t get murdered cuz i was still under the impression he murdered that guy.

John went out for a smoke, got kidnapped, i stepped outside to “have a word” with him abt what really went on and breekon and hope saw me, said “no witnesses” and dragged me along too, i have some drawings of that if anyones interested aaghh

When we were both together we had some time to connect and understand eachother (or as best we could) i was kept for the sake of extra skin in case john didn’t “fit” but anywayss- we bonded a lot and this is probably where i would’ve (in super canon) died, nikola kinda using me as a decoration for the ritual.

BUT i dont think abt that cuz i wanna see what happens if i live, so instead, micheal almost leaves me for dead until helen comes along and letting john and me pass through her door, we both make it back and i gain a lot more mutual respect and understanding for him, we’re both decently good friends now, then everything kinda moves forward from then on.

Until peter comes in, this is already getting long enough but long story short, i was used as a practice dummy for the lonely kinda, and i couldn’t kill em, so i got sent to super hell where martin found me. Talked me out of it, withhh the poowerrr of friendshipppp/j

Thennn i either go back home to @catattack08 orrr i stay and they come, and those have 2 different routes but grahhh idk if i should put it here, feel free to ask!

[good-night-dodger]

I finally gave in, fam. After weeks of seeing your posts about the show, I've started Lockwood and Co. yesterday. And I tried really hard to not ship these two, but I failed.

[morningnoodles]

someone please tell me nandermo is a guillermo falls first but nandor falls harder trope. this is for scientific purposes.

[chichariann]

Episode 3 moment that set the entire fandom on fire

1 split second shot and suddenly everyones on the ground crying. No one is ready for the slow burn that'll last... 5 season and possibly 8 years. DFJRJNENSNXNCN I CANT DO THIS ANYMORE (and we just started)

[captainkatie42]

Ugh they’re so cute even when they’re not together! “It’s a date!” Mah heart!

[slccpiehead]

they were showing the ryosaku and prince scene early in this show whoa!

when he smiled at her when he said you never change.

my boy you're still mada mada dane but you're on the right path. keep going!

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[iambecomeafangirl]

I was thinking about tagging Jonathan Stroud here on tumblr, to tell him, that the next short story should be about Locklyle's first kiss, to put us all out of our misery.

But I chickened out.

[girafficparka]

“Ready?” she asked, looking up at him. She saw him swallow.

“Yeah.” Then, more confidently, “Yes.”

“I’ll need help getting out of my suit.”

Garrus, whose gaze had dropped to her shoulder, snapped his eyes back to her face. “Right. Here, let me.”

He stepped in closer, hands going to her neck. Shepard, one arm dangling uselessly at her side and the other gripping the kitchen counter behind her, watched him from underneath her lashes as his eyelids lowered in concentration. This close she was surprised to note that he smelled like gun-oil and something warm and metallic. It was…nice? She took a deep breath in, enjoying the scent, and instantly breathed out sharply in surprise at herself.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, voice low, his hands stilling at her neck. Shepard fought the urge to shiver as a gloved fingertip brushed against her skin.

What.

The fuck.

Is wrong with me?

“N…no. I’m-” she swallowed. “Fine. Keep going.”

~~~

👀👀👀

Chapter Ten of Palaven Rising, available now.