#Warmth and Love

[sandflakedraws]

woohoooo the time has come - i can now post the piece i did for Interlude, a Mushishi seasons zine

[demigods-posts]

i'm one hundred percent certain that after percy and annabeth made out underwater. and he wanted to make their relationship official. the question was not "will you be my girlfriend?" but "can i be your boyfriend?" i don't care what the canon says. percy gave annabeth the space to take the lead in the relationship. because after a lifetime of being abandoned by everyone she dared to care for. and then watching her on the brink of a panic attack at the thought of losing him the last four years. he wanted to honor a new beginning between them by follow her lead and moving at her pace.

[feral-ballad]

Mahmoud Darwish, tr. by A.M. El Messeri, from The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry; "A Lover from Palestine"

[writersushiii]

[pondanimal]

he knows what you are

[shuenscorner]

and i am full of love!

[catmask]

for me at least, theres always been a really stark divide in the 'child character is the main antagonist' sort of stories.

on one hand. theres stories that rely on the shock factor of a child being evil, because we're supposed to believe that kids arent capable of that sort of thing. i guess its supposed to be frightening but the novelty always wears off really quickly for me.

i think 'a child is the villain' always lands most successfully for me when a kid is given power beyond their years (either by adults around them or otherwise supernatural/societal forces) and then everyone is floored when they arent exactly responsible with that power. and sometimes theyre even selfish! not because that kid is evil, but because theyre a kid.. acting like a kid would in their situation.

it means that any sort of story that follows requires a protagonist to reason with someone who may not even understand the harm theyre doing, or worse - not have the life lived to understand why they should care in the first place. and also, i think watching what happens when u have an destructive force seeking comforts that any child deserves doing whatever they can to have those things is (to me) much more interesting than 'child who is fucked up and evil for no reason but being born that way 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.)

[nhura]

bought a few new colored pencils on impulse. everything I do is for him

[kimtaegis]

stories of three little birds for @jkvjimin ♡

texts & paintings, by first appearance: Die Drei Spatzen (The Three Sparrows), poem by Christian Morgenstern // In einem leeren Haselstrauch (In a bald hazel tree), painting by 6-year-old me // Three Little Birds, song by Bob Marley & The Wailers // three little sparrows, painting by Annemiek Groenhout // Three Birds, poem by Ben Onachila // Birds on a Branch, painting by James Coffman // Birds of a Feather, song by Billie Eilish

[truefandemonium]

Who took your smile, love?

[vaguely-concerned]

literally never am I getting over the unexpected and acknowledged throughline in this game that 'part of the reason lucanis is so good at what he does is, surprisingly, that he has a frankly remarkable capacity for empathy'. his instinct for it is so strong that it even kicks in looking at actual demons he's been culturally conditioned to think of as mindless monsters and lets him realize that they are just as innocent in the middle of this horror as every other prisoner, which is what helps him survive in there and reach an understanding (and even a warmth beneath it all!) with spite, when spite was at his most terrified and confused and needed him. it makes him an incredibly kind and devoted friend, and a terrifying enemy. shorn of most of the compassion that goes along with it in his private life, he uses it in his professional one as one more knife to kill with as easily as he does in SO gently and softly helping to untangle lace harding's people pleasing problems with her. so long as the three categories of people -- family, enemies, targets -- stay distinct and separate in his head, this seems to be working out swimmingly for him! (well. that's probably what he'd tell you at least lol it's certainly helped him survive and do his job I'll give him that.) the MOMENT the lines start to blur, he is fucked. this dude was compartmentalized to hell and back long before the ossuary.

(he shares the 'incredible insight into people and human nature -- as long as I don't have to interpersonally engage with and adapt to it on the spot. b/c then you'll see the biggest mess you could ever imagine' trait with merrill. which does make quite a bit of sense in that they're written by the same person and also in my estimation a not entirely dissimilar shade of autistic lol. also yet another tick on the 'lucanis - iron bull parallels' tally haha. 'ben-hassrath, kid. we can use anything.' what if your circumstances and upbringing forced you to turn some of the kindest fundamental instincts inside you into tools for violence and you only got to keep guarded scraps of it for yourself. what if you're so fucking scared it'll break bad inside you some day and turn you into a monster and you'll end up hurting the people you love. saddest freeze slash dissociative trauma response handshake meme duo To Me)

[softdaisie]

i hope you find peace, friendship, happiness, and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. i hope you know you are so loved. i hope you know how much you matter. i hope you never give up on your dream. i hope that you live to see another day. i hope you know you’re worth more than the stupid opinions of others. i hope you know that there is beauty and strength in every fibre of your being. i hope you know that you are not alone, and that i will always be here for you.

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[numbuh424]

the longing looks Aziraphale gives Crowley after seeing Beelzebub and Gabriel get together... his eyes just scream "I want that for us too" and it's ruining me