#YOU ONLY LIVE ON BECAUSE OF HIM
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
daisybell-on-a-carousel · 26 days ago
Text
Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest
Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here
Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭
It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony
#the final confrontation was basically his first death again#and YES he Does want the Joker dead#and it would've been really really nice if Batman was the one who did it#but when batman made it clear he wouldn't kill the joker. Jason easily switched to saying “LET me kill the joker” to accommodate#because he Wanted batman to pass his test#he gave a test to dick too. and technically tim but it wasnt the family test it was a different one so it doesnt rly count#AFTER utrh and the reveal and the batarang you can go hog wild about it. i care less about it then#granted i do believe they make jason more scared of the joker after it at some point#i guess because hes a bit too willing to kill the joker and ive heard jason wasnt meant to live after utrh#my watsonian explain for that is he was so fixated on his plan he cpuld override his fear. or maybe the pit. either work#i prefer the fixation bc i dont like the explanation that the pit was the /only/ reason he could get all plan together and done#BUT THATS UNRELATED!!!#dc stop putting the joker in jason stories im begging you please please please. lock him in a vault for the next 20 years or something#it Cpuld be good and i understand. but also. after so long of people that dont know or go for jasons need for family and parents#that love him and he can trust#the joker starts to feel like?? hm. words. a cop out? oh haha its that guy that killed him woagh hes here#i bet you dont even know that jaybin got beat until unconsciousness by an angry mob#while asking batman to save him only for batman to have to walk away#anwya. where was i going with this#i think i got off topic#jason todd#dc comics#batman#ADDED AN EDIT. SORRY. this post has been haunting me it keeps me awake. what if people misunderstand#they cant read my tags where i ramble more depth. thisbis the only option#EDIT EDIT: hiii#removed the sentence abt jason having the joker for several days bc i misremembered some things#go read its-your-mind 's addition instead also#ok no more i wont edit this post anymore i promise
2K notes · View notes
loriache · 9 months ago
Text
"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."
Tumblr media
This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.
I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.
Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)
Tumblr media
His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:
A) a short lived person
B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.
Tumblr media
Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.
Tumblr media
The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.
Tumblr media
Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.
Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!
Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!
On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.
Tumblr media
That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.
Tumblr media
The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.
And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.
Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.
Tumblr media
Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.
Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!
Tumblr media
I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.
Tumblr media
Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.
Tumblr media
4K notes · View notes
starry-bi-sky · 2 months ago
Text
on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.
Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.
Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.
Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.
There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.
#svsss#luo binghe#svsss au#scum villain#scum villian self saving system#shen yuan#shen qingqiu#disciple shen yuan#lbh. visibly exhausted and with twitchy eyes: im fine :) | everyone else: ho no the fuck you ARENT.#SQQ was hysterical not because he found out LBH was half-demon but bc he was having a long-awaited mental breakdown over his autonomy :)#or (limited) lack thereof. he was having a sudden onset crisis of mortality and was handling at quite literally the WORST time. oops#im thinking very hard that LBH would never push his disciple into the abyss especially with no system to force him to. so SQQ either#had to goad him into it (failing always) or throw himself in. he ended up doing it himself but not before some very impressive hysterics.#BUT ALSO. IF THIS HAD BEEN WHERE SQQ WAS THE HALF-HEAVENLY DEMON INSTEAD IT WOULD'VE BEEN SO GREAT.#and by great i mean horribly angsty bc SQQ is NOT doing too hot and has. in very SY-like fashion. convinced himself that LBH will kill him#when he finds out he's a demon. so when it comes out i have this mental image of him lunging at LBH and LBH flinches back. but SQQ wraps hi#hands around the blade of Zheng Yang and yanks it up so the tip of the blade is digging into his chest where is heart is. LBH can't yank th#sword away without risking slicing into SQQ's hands. SQQ's hair has fallen out of its tail/bun and is now messily spilling down his#back and its NO helping the kinda deranged look he has going on. he's visibly shaking and his eyes keep flittering away and back at LBH's#face. SQQ is looking at the messages from the system warning him that he has to go into the abyss or punishment will occur. he's like.#rambling though. talking about how shizun doesn't *like* unclean things and there is nothing more unclean than a demon. like he is#INSISTING. LBH can't?? get a fucking word in. actually. SY isn't listening that much either anyways. too overwhelmed with the system and#the amount of stress he's under and his crumbling mental state and the innate and primal desire to live even when he's standing in front of#his own executioner. it all ends with him sitting on the ground at the lip of the abyss with his hair falling in his face. he looks so#unkempt and fallen apart and so distinctly *non-Shen Qingqiu* that LBH feels physically ill over it. tears are streaming down SQQ's face#and despite everything he is smiling. its not a nice smile. its a very frayed falling apart at the seams about to crack smile.#he tells shizun not to worry about staining his blade with this disciple's filthy blood because this disciple will take care of it himself.#and then he falls into the abyss before luo binghe can so much as grab him. the only reason LBh doesn't literally jump in after him is bc#he was numb with shock and the abyss was already closed before he could feel his legs again :]
1K notes · View notes
musubiki · 5 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
balor 🥰
3K notes · View notes
theribbajack · 5 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
"Now, the vow will be honoured, and my Lord brother's soul will return."
Radahn stans keep winning, but I personally am in Miyazaki's walls rn
2K notes · View notes
nancywheeeler · 2 years ago
Text
hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.
21K notes · View notes
teapot-of-tyrahn · 2 months ago
Text
hey. hey... chat,
i think we need to discuss an incredibly plausible probability right now:
we've figured out how the life system works. if a red or yellow kills a player of a higher colour than them, then they get their life.
pearl “has died at least 1 time per session so far” pearlescentmoon is on her yellow life. she has two lives left.
scott "always sacrificing himself for his allies" smajor is on six.
the likelihood of scott killing himself for pearl again is statistically high.
and i think it will be a beautiful parallel. because this time she really will forgive him after all.
862 notes · View notes
egophiliac · 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
this is basically what happened, right?
(these guys are very lucky that everyone at NRC 1) has the combined intelligence of a sack of bricks, and 2) is easily distracted by shiny things.)
Tumblr media
#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#stage in playful land#stage in playfulland#these two are SO sleazy and i am utterly delighted by them#can't wait to find out their tragic backstory in approximately 3-4 weeks!#fortunately i have like a month to figure out how the heck to draw their hair (spoiler: i will never figure it out)#also. god. i love it whenever leona accidentally reveals his Mom Side.#he doesn't care about any of this but he WILL be tagging along to make sure no one else gets into trouble#once again he has to be the Responsible Adult and he hates it. the whimsical hat weighs heavy upon his head.#anyway this is me so excuse me while i now talk about diasomnia for three hours#but lilia being all 'kids gotta have some adventure in their lives!' is hilarious#specifically because you know silver would NEVER.#100% silver not only never snuck out but he always went to bed on time AND brushed his teeth AND flossed even when nobody made him.#lilia: aww but you should be enjoying your youth! >:c#silver: i am. i enjoy being respectful and disciplined and honoring you as my father.#lilia:#lilia: maybe i'm TOO good at raising kids#you know i was going to say none of his kids would be involved in this but i actually think malleus definitely would#he would not see it as a moral quandry though. he would just be excited to be invited along.#(the only reason he isn't there is because he was busy admiring a termite-infested beam somewhere and yuu didn't get a chance to ask him)#i mean MAYBE if lilia as his single authority figure told him no then he would have some reservations#but lilia's the one who's screaming HELL YEAH LET'S SNEAK OUT AND DEFY AUTHORITY while dabbing so moot point there#sebek would never and he would rat on everyone else. unless malleus is going in which case he's already there.#and i guess if everyone else is going silver probably would too#but he'd. y'know. feel conflicted about it.
5K notes · View notes
onnahu · 9 days ago
Text
My favourite trope in MXTX's novels is finding one that one person is a criminal/traitor so we need to get rid of them but it turns out they're the only competent people in this whole fucking place so we desperatly scramble for what's left of them to menage our taxes.
427 notes · View notes
zivazivc · 9 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
just found about this funky fish that can walk around on land and the thing looks straight out of the trolls world. look at this thing, i love it!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
anyway, floyd grew up in a cage and hed grew up in a city, i doubt they'd be thrilled to see one of these things for the first time. I know I would have shat my pants if i saw a 1.5 meter long catfish walk out of a lake towards me
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
1K notes · View notes
flwrkid14 · 3 months ago
Text
Eternal Bonds: Tim and Danny’s Infinite Realms Marriage
In the Infinite Realms, marriage is an unparalleled commitment. Unlike the mortal world, where love can be fleeting and easily undone, marriage in the Realms is something far more sacred. It’s not just about vows or ceremonies—it’s about merging souls, creating a bond that not even the vast stretches of time can sever. The very idea of marriage in the Realms is rare, almost mythical, because it requires two beings to love each other so profoundly that they’re willing to bind their very existence to one another.
For the ghosts and entities that reside in this realm, eternity isn’t just a poetic idea—it’s a reality. Time is meaningless when you’re no longer alive, when your very essence is bound to the afterlife. And because of this, relationships are viewed through a different lens. There’s no such thing as divorce, no “time apart.” Once a couple is bound, their souls are intertwined forever. To dedicate your entire being—past, present, and future—to another means accepting that their joys, sorrows, triumphs, and failures will be yours too. It’s a partnership where breaking the bond is simply impossible.
It’s why marriage is such a rare occurrence in the Realms. The ghosts, who have already lived one life and often seen the frailty of mortal promises, don’t enter into this kind of bond lightly. It’s only for the strongest of loves, for the most steadfast of commitments. Because once you marry in the Infinite Realms, that bond holds through eternity itself.
And yet, despite the gravity of it all, Tim and Danny find themselves willing to make that very commitment. Tim, a mortal tied to a world where things end, where nothing lasts forever, steps into the unknown. His love for Danny is so deep, so unshakable, that he agrees to a traditional Infinite Realms marriage. He knows full well the weight of it—he’s not just vowing to love Danny in this life, but in every life after. In swearing to this bond, Tim is offering his entire being to Danny, for now and all of eternity.
For Danny, this choice means even more. As a halfa, he exists between two worlds, knowing both the mortality of the living and the permanence of the ghostly afterlife. His love for Tim is powerful enough that he’s willing to make this eternal commitment, knowing that there’s no one else in any world—mortal, ghostly, or beyond—he would rather be tied to. For Danny, the bond is as natural as breathing. It’s a connection that deepens their relationship in a way that transcends the limitations of their two worlds.
Their marriage isn’t just a declaration of love—it’s a merging of souls, a binding that makes them two parts of the same whole. It overwhelms them with the sense of safety and belonging that they’ve both craved in their lives. In each other, they find the kind of love that doesn’t just endure life’s difficulties but thrives beyond them. Their bond ties them together forever in a way that no one else could understand, but to Tim and Danny, it’s everything.
They are each other’s home. And in the Infinite Realms, there is no greater honor, no stronger connection, than to be bound by love for all of eternity.
590 notes · View notes
littlefankingdom · 6 months ago
Text
I saw another post criticizing Bruce for having children fighting at his side, and I must say: tell me you don't know shit about the batkids' stories without telling me. Bruce fucking tried to stop those kids from being vigilantes, but they keep doing it behind his back, so he decided the best thing to do was to give them the proper training, an armor and to have them stick at his side so he can watch over them. You know, like a parent telling their underage children that they can drink alcohol but only at home where they can watch over them.
Dick became Robin because he wanted revenge over his parents' murder. He would run out in the street of Gotham as a 8 years old, all alone, to go fight Zucco. Bruce helping him make Robin was the compromise to keep Dick safe, because the child would not listen. (And yes, it wasn't the case in the very first canon, but it was like the 40s. Do you know how many kids fought against the Nazis in Europe at that time???)
Barbara Gordon is not his daughter and he has no authority on her being a vigilante. He cannot even ground her.
Jason became Robin after helping Bruce take down Ma Gunn's school. It is implied by Bruce, while talking to Dick, that he offered Robin to Jason as a way to gain a child because he missed having Dick around. He didn't need a Robin, he just missed having a kid. Bruce used the Robin mantle with Jason like people use churu to appease stray kitten. AND JASON'S DEATH, let's talk about it. Jason ran away, which leads to him being killed, after eavesdropping on Bruce and Alfred talking about Jason's mental health. Jason is benched as Robin, but not because Bruce thinks he killed someone like fandom says, but because Bruce knows it is not helping or healthy for Jason. They are talking about getting him help for his traumas and how violence is not helping Jason. And, when he is older and has healed, they can try again if he wants to. That's why Jason or people saying that Jason died because he was a soldier, or blaming Bruce for Robin's existence is false. When Jason died, Bruce was against Jason being Robin for his own health! And Jason knows that, he heard the discussion, he wasn't bench like how so many of his siblings are, with little to no honest explanation. Jason died in the Robin's costume because of his own stubbornness, not because of Bruce. (And that's not blaming Jason for his death. He is not to blame, but neither is Bruce. It's just about the Robin's colors. Jason would not have been wearing them at the time if he listened to Bruce.)
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Tim Drake imposed himself as Robin. Bruce was against it, Tim literally went "Don't care, didn't ask". And Tim was already following them around before. Bruce already have Jason blaming him for making Tim Robin when he had no control over that.
Stephanie Brown became a vigilante before Batman knew her. He has tried SO MANY TIMES to make her stop, and so many fans hate that he did it. Make a choice, is it bad that he didn’t stop her more or that he didn’t let her more be a vigilante? He even got his kids to try to make her stop. AND SHE IS "KILLED" TO TEACH HIM THAT MAKING KIDS VIGILANTES IS BAD WHEN HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE OF HER BECOMING ONE AND TRIED TO STOP HER! No shit the man blames himself for things that are not his fault, everyone does it.
Cassandra Cain was 17 when she becomes Batgirl, so I don't know if she counts. But when Bruce tries to make her stop for her own health, with the support of Barbara and Alfred, Cass is devastated and doesn't obey him. She puts on her costume and fights him physically.
Damian Wayne was trained as an assassin. In every version of him being introduced to Bruce, Bruce is against making him Robin and Damian keeps sneaking out. Damian wants to prove himself to his father so bad and refused to be kept away from the fight. In the comics, it's Dick, DICK, that makes him Robin when Bruce is gone, because Bruce was against letting Damian out at night.
Conclusion: Bruce is a tired father of a bunch of kids that cannot understand they should stay home at night and not be vigilantes.
809 notes · View notes
morganbritton132 · 3 months ago
Text
Even more add-ons for the Steve Has Older Siblings AU:
1. One time Jason asked out a girl at the park but she turned him down because she can’t date someone with a kid. Instead of explaining that Steve was his brother, he left a four year old alone at the park to go see a movie. Steve got bored and hungry so he walked to Tommy’s house because it was close by. Mrs. H called his dad’s office and they both got in trouble.
2. Steve went to work with his parents for Take Your Kid To Work Day when he was five and his dad pointed at a guy and said, “This is Matt McDonald. One day his job will be yours.” Matt was an unpaid intern and also his dad spent the entire day berating him so much that he looked like he was going to cry. Steve slipped out the room the moment he got the nerve up and sat under his mom’s desk for the rest of the day.
3. During Steve’s first year lifeguarding, Claire and Richie brought their kids to the pool and Jason, who doesn’t have kids, came too to hang out. No one asked if Steve wanted to come. None of them even talked to him while they were there even after they must’ve seen him working.
4. None of them met Nancy. Steve made real damn sure of that.
5. Its not the first argument between his parents to scare him but it’s memorable because it’s New Years Eve and they break the model car he got for Christmas. It’s also memorable because it’s the first time someone calls the cops. They stand on the front porch with Chief Hopper, and his mom is saying that she’s taking the kids to her mother’s, and Richard is saying that she can take her kid but not his. He gives in when Claire starts crying, and they sleep four in a row on his grandma’s pullout couch. The next morning, Richard shows up with flowers and breakfast, and they all go home. Everything forgiven.
6. Steve gets pulled aside by his dad later that day and given a lecture on when it’s appropriate to call the police and when something is a family matter. Steve tells him that he didn’t call 911 and gets his tv privileges revoked for lying even though he wasn’t. He asks about his model car and Richard says he’ll get him a new one. He never does.
441 notes · View notes
vaguely-concerned · 5 days ago
Text
huh. you know something I just consciously put together for the first time about caterina and lucanis' relationship is that through the game we get to hear them talk about each other a lot, but we get very few chances to hear them speak with each other at any length at all. contrast it with other companions whose storylines have elements of 'believed lost/long time no see relative returns!' like bellara and davrin, where we get to see both of them have several pretty in-depth conversations with cyrian and eldrin. hell I think even rook talks with varric longer in the regret prison scene than we ever get to see lucanis and caterina interact directly.
(and when we do see them interact, it's mostly one-sided -- it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, caterina who is doing most of the talking and giving all the orders, as he ruefully observes is her wont after murder of crows. including jumpscaring him with 'you're first talon now btw' and the shocked pikachu face in five acts he goes through in response lmao. perhaps it's more accurate to say that she talks at him and he reacts, than that they talk to each other much.)
it has such an interesting effect too, because in deliberately denying us direct insight or experience and only having this mosaic of description from each of them to go on, as well as forcing us to pay attention to the negative space of what is carefully not said, it's evocative along the same principle that you never actually show the monster in a horror film. if you've read the wigmaker job you have a clearer image of the more uh. worrying elements at play here going in, but there is something fascinatingly insidious and naturalistic in the way it's 'hushed up' in the game itself. she has his complete loyalty both as a member of her house and, more importantly, that of an abused child to a parent figure. he readily admits several times that she's a difficult person to live with, an even more difficult person to be loved by ("even for me. and I was her favourite")... but never once does he actively blame her nor truly conceptualize that he has every right to do so (that he can be angry with her and still love her, because whether he should or not he unavoidably does), or that she might have acted differently than she did, that she made a choice every time to hurt him. even affectionately he speaks of her as a force of nature, an act of god -- something that can't be reasoned or pleaded with or resisted, something you can only hope to navigate with as little pain as possible and pray to survive. let yourself get carried away by the riptide, resisting it will only make it worse. you don't compromise with a hurricane, you just try to find the best shelter you can and cross your fingers while you wait for it to pass and be calm again.
love is that hurricane. you do whatever she asks. you earn her continued affection day by day by never letting her down. you only want the things she tells you it's okay to want and cut everything else away preemptively. ("A wyvern tooth dagger?? I loved wyverns as a boy --Caterina would never let me have one of these, though." and as we have all wept and gnashed our teeth over, it never even OCCURS to him that he's a like thirty-five year old adult man who can buy himself any dagger he wants at any time. she said he couldn't have one. so he'll never have one. that's just how it works. and maybe if Illario could just accept that and find his peace with it like I have, this whole thing wouldn't be so difficult. oh lucanis.)
such is the price -- and the cost -- of being loved by her, it's a loan on which the interest will never stop piling up. you have to keep paying it down in perfection every day if you want to keep it. who got the worse deal there: the grandson who has abandoned everything else in life to live up to that and mostly succeeded, until the day he's so burned out and broken it threatens to no longer be an option, or the grandson who can never seem to scrape together enough worth in her eyes no matter how he begs, borrows or steals it, how he hustles and plays dirty?
one of the worst things that can happen to anyone is to be loved by a selfish god. another one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone is to not be loved by a selfish god. (hope that helps, boys!) even in betraying everything else, Illario can't bring himself to hurt his grandmother, because that would defeat the whole point. who would he defiantly be proving himself worthy to, without her. in love, devotion, submission, hatred, frustration, bitterness, everything is defined in relation to her, you can spot the gravitational force of it through how the dellamorte family move through time and space. she -- her love and regard and attention -- is still the sun both of their worlds orbit around, even as adults. the game might never tell you outright 'she used to beat and starve them growing up. for their own good you see, so they'd be strong (and broken down enough for her to build them up again however she wanted but I'm sure that's incidental)', but if you know even a little bit about how these dynamics can work the writing is on the wall everywhere you look and all the more unsettling for it.
follow lucanis' freeze-logic and fraught interpersonal catch 22 irreconcilable mixed emotions problems back far enough, looong before the ossuary entered the picture, and you start to see caterina's ghost around every fucking corner. she is so proud of him. (well, she would be. she made him. she forged exactly the knife she needed and it rests willingly, devotedly, in her hands, it would return to her every time because it doesn't know love as anything but to be a knife. his tama never taught him how to be anything else. his biggest fear with her is that she won't even want him back, the way he is now.) to the best ability of her soul, whatever parts of it survived a lifetime of crow politics and 'five children, eight grandchildren, only Illario and me left now', I think she really does loves him. he certainly loves her, with all the sincerity and artless desperation of a child, of the little boy he was once. and what she's done to him (and to illario, for all his shitty gremlin scar-ass antics lol) is awful. the harm is real, and the love is real, and trying to find a way for these two truths to exist in the same space is driving all three of them their own individualized forms of insane. you know. the way only family can and so often does lol.
through implications and short glimpses and having to put the pieces together yourself, you can have the feeling that there is very genuine mutual love and attachment in this relationship... and that beneath that there is something so profoundly wrong. and the sneaking '...oh shit it gets worse the longer I think about it' horror of that is more effective for me at least than the stark in-your-face presentation of the facts of the matter could have been. the love is here. the love is here. it only ever makes it worse.
365 notes · View notes
laurents-secret-diary · 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
oh damen we're really in it now.mp4
1K notes · View notes
puppetmaster13u · 7 months ago
Text
Still Thinkin of Yokai Amity
Y'know, where all of Amity have pretty much become yokai creatures. I might be weak for Japanese mythology and cryptids. Or really all mythology and cryptids, but Japan has a lot and it's near never-ending meaning it's fun to continue discovering and learning stuff. But anyway!
Amity Park, practically empty of humans now. Not even following the usual rule that things do thanks to how malleable ecto is. Along with how a form usually depends on ones own thoughts, feelings, and Core.
But anyway, Amity? Kind of having some trouble now that, again, no one there counts as human. Visibly so. Which, yeah the GIW is sort of incompetent, but it's also kind of... not?
Let them reiterate, individually or even in pairs, they can easily deal with the Guys in White. Heck, even a small battalion is easy enough- but they have... a lot of people. And the backing of the government. So.
Plan B? Escape. Where to?
Well, see, they've all had to interact more with the Realms, not to mention that well, the entire town was pulled into it at one point. Which was how everyone got that last bit of ecto to push the transformations from contaminated to Liminal.
Which means? Time to escape through the Realms to somewhere, maybe even somewhen else. But they also can't stay in the Realms indefinitely. Because even with their own Cores, most of them are still Living.
But they also can't agree on a World to settle down in, not with how they're still wary of reactions. So what's a city to do?
Why, pop into multiple worlds of course. A wandering city, the entrance shifting through gates and alleys and doorways that appears through time and space.
Sometimes another haunted being finds their way through, sometimes they visit one dimension more than another- sometimes they leave one behind forever. But tales still spread of the wandering city that flickers through existence.
406 notes · View notes