#actually he doesnt really like himself that much.

[prettyboykatsuki]

cw for the most longwinded and insane discussion of psuedocest and caleb and mcs relationship in lds.

MY THOUGHTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE !!!!!!!!!!!!! but for now...

MAJOR CW FOR PSUEDOCEST AND SPOILERS FOR CALEB CARDS

like. not only is caleb being a siscon integral to his characterization - it also crucial to understanding what is actually going on in their dynamic because when you remove the familial context (and, in turn, remove calebs sole reason for being KJDSHJDS) none of the conflict of the story will feel meaningful or make any sense

calebs and mcs relationship is run of the mill traumatized sibling codependency. the amount and the extent in which the both of them emotionally rely on each other is reinforced in the myth where it affirms that caleb is basically fucking winter solider and that if mc had the chip in her she would end up with a similar obsession about protecting him.

but caleb has harbored a stronger desire for her since forever.

and MORE than that , i do not think his desire for her genuinely conflicts with his interest in acting as her older brother.

so much of the conflict caleb experiences is about wanting to maintain the image of protection and strength in order to make sure mc never feels completely out of depth and keep himself as a safe space in her life. he makes a promise in her bond as to not restrain her. his priority has always and will always be her family. acting as her dependable gege is something caleb goes to great lengths to do

this is proven again by their hidden waves card where he doesnt want mc to see him sick. he cant be sick, cant show weakness. because he wants her to continue to depend on him for as long as they are live. he wants to continue to be the person she relies on.

the distorted nature of their relationship exists because for calebs desire to monopolize mc and continue acting like her gege are not at odds INTERNALLY. rather, he is under the correct impression that expressing that to mc would alter her already fragile connection and feelings about family.

WHICH IS WHY THE CONVERSATION THEY HAVE IN THE MAIN STORY CAPTIVE BIRD - WHERE CALEB EXPLICITLY SAYS THAT IT WAS MCS MISTAKE TO THINK HE WOULD KEEP ACTING AS HER GOOD OLDER BROTHER IS SOOO DKJFHSJD !!!

thank you mao for the translations on that for affirming the psuedocest in it AND the tragedy in it.

based on all of that and the way i see it - i think the underlying sexual tension is probably something that has existed in their relationship for a long time. something that mc has probably felt but somewhat willfully chosen to overlook or acknowledge because of what it would mean . to what capacity she has understood it is imo still up for debate

TO ME........ i think this is about a willingness to the accept that distortion. the intentional cruelty in deying to mc that he was ever gege in the first place. i do think that this is of course partially because of his frustration over his feelings but also a way for him to make mc confront their relationship more head on. mc sees it a denial of their bond and i think this will require resolving at some point

but because i think caleb knows even better than mc that mc could accept A LOT from caleb simply because of who he is to her. but its not what he wants. he wants HER as she is. to have all of her.

to act as both. to be everything to her she is to him. in order to do that, i think he probably first intends to make mc conscious of him this way. forcefully because its the only way she'll really get it and come to him of her own volition and accept what has probably existed between them for a long time

i think this is also an act of mercy on calebs behalf. because i think it would genuinely be easy for him to get what he wants out of mc on the guise of acting as her brother only. i think it is knowing that he chooses not to do that and instead goes so forcefully in making her aware of him and his desires. i know that sounds insane but for now thats how i see it.

its a matter of caleb wanting to be both her gege and everything inbetween. above and below.

SORRY AND I AM INSANE .

[yuhenglesbian]

some mornings i wake up and my first thought of the day is

“All the monsters have been taken away. I'm the only one left. Can you lock me up in your house?”

and i just. really have to sit down for the rest of the day because of the sheer agony of it all.

[random-lil-illing]

i had a vision,,, asexual dps fans what do we think

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[jackass-jones]

Mizuki and Date though like. Imagine being 8 and your parents are filthy rich and going through a bad divorce. Your mom treats you like shit, lashing out at you, hitting you, saying she wishes you were never born all because you were behaving like a child. Your dad is more comforting, but he doesn’t do anything to stop the abuse and he spends his time invested in a completely different family, a girl who you love and look up to but he loves her more than you and it fucking shows. Then your dads new friend, some fucking bachelor in his late 20s, is just like "wow you guys are the worst fucking parents ive ever seen" and next thing you know your dad is sending you off to live with him. And it’s just a massive kick in the head cuz you go from a rich lifestyle to living in some really shitty tiny ass apartment with this guy who’s clearly never been around a child in his entire life and he doesn’t know how to behave and does a really bad job of censoring himself like he has a bunch of dirty magazines that he can’t hide very well cuz it’s literally a studio apartment and also he talks to himself sometimes, it’s really weird. He doesn’t even have the slightest clue what he’s doing

And he’s the best parent you’ve ever had

Because fuck, it all really hurts. You have to cope with having never received any love from anyone, and with the fact that your parents clearly don’t want you and can’t even be bothered to send you with anyone even kinda responsible. And this guy has a scary job with crazy hours and you don’t know anything about him and neither does he. But still, he never once hits you or tells you you’re not allowed to cry. He just gives you space and doesn’t push you to feel any sort of way about him. And sometimes, he’s even kind. He makes you some stew, even though it’s a bit chunky. He lets you sleep in the bed and takes the couch for himself, even though he complains about the massive back pain he’d never trade his spot for a second. He pays attention to events at your school and gives you your favorite stuffed animal when you make good grades, even though you called it ugly. He gets worried sick when you come home with bruises and puts on a goofy voice and trains you to defend yourself and you develop some highly deadly skills and even though it’s really abnormal, he buys you a bench press so you can get stronger. There’s this distance there, and you feel really weird caring about someone who you aren’t related to, but you find yourself wishing it was meant to be like this all along, that maybe, he’s secretly your real dad and he loves you like his real daughter

And when you say "I’m back" he says "welcome home"

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the biggest things that makes me see Leo as trans is absolutely the size of his carapace in comparison to his brothers’.

And I’m not talking about height! I’m specifically looking at his shell here, because when you compare him to the others, particularly Donnie who is nearly the same height as Leo, it’s very clear that Leo’s carapace is much longer in proportion to the rest of his body.

Like - standing side by side, even though Donnie is shorter his carapace ends noticeably higher up than Leo’s does. And I like this not only because it really helps push the idea that Leo could very likely be trans (or intersex!), but it’s also just a fun design difference between them.

(It also lends way to future scenarios of Donnie eventually getting taller than Leo, but sitting down still has Leo being the taller one haha.)

[skitskatdacat63]

Every time I read Fernando cursing in fic, I can only think about this clip and then my brain short-circuits

[fatedroses]

I personally subscribe to the idea that Adventurer Zenos shows his affection and appreciation for his peers in very odd ways (like yoinking the Students' taxes and dealing with their expenses and maybe also paying for some of their expenses but shhh).

[buwheal]

BEACH OUTFIT 💥💥💥💥

He used to surf the web back in 98'.

[mephoj]

nickel and balloon would be so much more interesting if people explored the way nickel became everything awful that balloon used to be but so much worse ironically all in the name of "protecting" everyone from that history repeating. and not softboy tsundere yaoi or whatever is going on in those tags rn

[theokusgallery]

Hiiii I saw you say you have Notes on your Remus and Janus designs 👀👀?

Could we see/hear some tidbits?

FOR SURE !! Here's what the original doodles for their designs look like, first off, (I know you didn't ask for Virgil but I did these three at the same time)

When I drew this I had just finished an exam and had to wait another hour until I could leave the classroom, so I wrote down enough notes that I had to flip the page instead:

Virgil:

- Virgil has light brown hair that he dyes black (badly). It is essential that the dye job look like shit. It looks artificial, his roots are showing, there's patches where the color didn't take, etc etc.

- He also has blue eyes, which I decided on mostly because it makes it even more clear that his hair isn't naturally black.

- He wears earrings, but his ears aren't actually pierced — they're fake little little clip-on things.

- He wears black nail polish at all times, but it's always chipped because he gets the cheapest stuff he can get his hands on.

- His hair (especially his bangs) get very long at times because he gets too socially anxious to go to the hairdresser. Back in middle school, he used to have Janus cut them for him (Remus could have done a better job but trusting him with scissors would have been a mistake). Now he mostly cuts it off by himself — it looks about as good as his dye job.

- Virgil's purple hoodie is a leftover from Remus' fashion design endeavors that Remus thought didn't look weird enough.

Janus:

- He has naturally strawberry blonde hair. The length is very important to him — he started growing it towards the end of middle school. (He allows Remus to experiment with hairdos sometimes as long as he doesn't cut anything off. I need to draw that sometime)

- I'm not entirely settled on his eye color. I know at least one of his eyes is a very pretty brown, but I have half a mind to give him a yellow glass eye for his left side — I'm not sure it'd make any logistic sense for his situation, though

- He got his ears actually pierced when he was 16.

- He also may or may not have a forked tongue. Not sure how I'd ever be able to show that off — but if he does have one, then Remus definitely was the one to encourage him to do it.

- His fashion style was definitely influenced by being around Remus (who may have used him as a mannequin/dummy because he's small.) so much. Remus also attempted to make clothes for him, but Janus is very fancy and picky, so he doesn't wear those clothes very often (though he might accessorize with stuff Remus made for him occasionally).

Remus:

- He has naturally very dark hair. He uses temporary/surface level dyes a lot, but if he's using permanent or semi-permanent dyes, he's usually limiting himself to the grey streak — it's kind of a sample strand, since it's already bleached. He 100% copied his hairstyle from Roman's.

- He (and Roman, of course) has greenish blue eyes.

- Janus paid for him to get his ears (and eyebrows) professionally pierced because otherwise he was just going to do it himself with a sewing needle.

- He has a lot of very shitty stick-and-poke tattoos he made/makes on himself. They're almost always hidden by his outfits.

- Speaking of which, Remus makes most of his outfits costumes himself. The quality of the work may vary, but they are always way too over-the-top for casual wear, because he stands out anyway, so... in for a penny, right. (As I said in the tags of a post: he is very creative and has no shame or social anxiety at all, so he had his whole aesthetic ("overdramatic green") figured out by the time he was 13)

- He also has SH scars, but, again — they're hidden by his outfits 99% of the time. He's a slut who never shows an inch of skin

[youssefguedira]

I wish you would write a fic about irreconcilable artistic differences on a movie set between Joe and Nicky.

not really irreconciliable as in not solvable at all but you know i had fun with this

Joe squeezes his eyes shut, covering his face with both hands, and leans forward. His shoulders tremble uncontrollably. He takes a short, sharp breath, and another, and another, but he can’t quite seem to get enough into his lungs. There’s a lump in his throat and a weight in his stomach. He leans forward with a low, wounded sound and–

“Cut,” Nicky says softly. Then, because it takes Joe a second to hear him: “Joe, stop.”

Slowly, Joe raises his head. Wipes at his eyes and takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. Nicky’s already up, frowning ever so slightly as he looks at the camera. 

“What is it this time?” Joe manages. His voice is hoarse; he has to clear his throat once or twice. Nicky doesn’t look up. The clock on the nightstand reads 01.34, but Nicky’s changed it a few times over the course of the shoot. He has no clue what time it really is, only that it’s dark outside.

It’s just the two of them in the room. Nicky had wanted to keep this one small, just him and Joe and the camera. The apartment they’re in is nice, if a little empty, though Joe supposes that’s the point. They’re in the bedroom, Joe sitting cross-legged on the bed, shirtless, sheets bunched up over his lap, a phone lying on the nightstand behind him. One entire wall of the room is taken up by a floor-to-ceiling window which lets the moonlight in, though there’s a few low lights set up behind Nicky to send bars of silver light across the bed, because the natural light hadn’t quite been strong enough for the effect Nicky wanted. It’s otherworldly; it’s beautiful. 

Nicky still isn’t looking at him, so Joe says again, “What?” It comes out a little harsher than he means it to, but it gets Nicky’s attention.

Nicky runs one hand through his hair. Joe can’t see him well, not with the light behind him and the shadows in the room. “I don’t know,” Nicky says. “It’s missing something.”

Joe has worked with Nicky enough times before. It’s not that he doesn’t like working with him - they’re friends - but he can’t fucking read him, and so after the sixth take of the same scene he can’t help but take it a little personally. 

Joe reaches for the bottle of water hidden just under the bed and takes a long drink, mostly to keep himself from snapping. What time is it? “I can try again, but I can’t do this indefinitely, Nicky.”

“I know, I know,” Nicky says, fidgeting again with the camera, “it’s not you, it’s just–” 

“What else could it be?” Joe interrupts. He’s not stupid. This scene doesn’t work if he can’t get it right, which means the entire film doesn’t work if he can’t get it right. More than anything else, this one depends on him. No music, no camera movement, no dialogue, nothing but him and the camera. And he wants to do it right, he loves this project almost as much as Nicky does, but there’s a hollow feeling in his chest and he’s spent the last however-many-hours having a near-complete breakdown over and over again and it’s still not right. And Joe doesn’t know what it is he’s doing wrong.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says quietly. Now he is looking at Joe, and Joe can’t tell if he’s disappointed, or angry, or – or what. He’s perfectly expressionless, as always. 

Joe loves this job. And he wants to get this right. But it doesn’t mean it’s not one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, and he’s tired.

“I don’t have much more left in me, Nicky,” he says, and this time he does snap. He wipes at his eyes again, can’t look at Nicky. He’s supposed to be making himself vulnerable, above all in this scene, but suddenly he can’t stand the way Nicky’s looking at him. “Pass me my hoodie.”

“Joe–”

“I can’t. I can’t keep doing this.” He kicks the sheets off and gets tangled trying to do it, grabs his hoodie when Nicky offers it, pulls it over his head in one fluid motion and gets out of there as soon as he can. Thankfully, there’s only Andy and Nile in the other room, Andy lying back on the couch with her feet up and Nile perched on the arm of it. They both look up at Joe as he enters, both look like they’re about to ask, and Joe can’t stand it, can’t be in here a second longer, can’t–

“We are done for the day, I think,” Nicky says behind him, startling Joe. He hadn’t realised Nicky was there.

Andy raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t argue. It’s already the second day of trying to shoot this scene: they’re running the risk of falling behind schedule. 

“We’ll find something else to do tomorrow,” Nicky says. “I’ll look over everything tonight. We will try this again on Monday.”

Andy and Nile look at each other. Nile shrugs. 

“Get some rest, Joe,” Nicky says. 

Joe shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t say a word.

–--------------------------------

He doesn’t get called in the next day at all, and he doesn’t interrogate it too closely. Takes the day off, pretty much, because they’ve only really got one scene left to film, and there’s not much more he can do for that. Nicky had wanted to leave it to the last, and Joe had agreed, at the time.

At about nine pm, someone knocks on his hotel room door, which is unusual on a day where they don’t have a night shoot to do. When he opens it, Nicky is on the other side. Joe lets him in without a word. 

“I wanted to apologise,” Nicky says, standing in the middle of the room and looking as uncomfortable as Joe’s ever seen him. “For last night. I was pushing you too hard, and I should not have done.”

Joe closes the door behind him. Nicky fidgets with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

“Sit down,” Joe says. 

Nicky does, settling himself on the edge of Joe’s bed, not quite looking him in the eye. Joe joins him, after a moment. 

“At the risk of sounding cliche,” Nicky says, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Joe laughs, mostly because the phrase sounds so strange coming from Nicky and also because out of everything he’d thought Nicky might say, he hadn’t expected that. 

Nicky smiles slightly, too. Then he gets up and heads for the minibar. “Mind if I have a drink?”

Joe shakes his head. Nicky gets out a little bottle of wine, glances at the label, and takes a swig straight from the bottle without bothering to get a glass. 

“I can’t seem to get it right,” Nicky says. “You know I wrote almost fifteen different versions of that scene?”

The scene in the script itself is barely a page long. “No,” Joe says. 

Nicky nods. Rubs a hand over his face. “I wanted it to feel real. I thought if I could get it right, it would… help, somehow. I don’t know.”

It’s the exact same reason Joe said yes before he even read the script, when the whole thing was just an idea in Nicky’s head, when they were talking about it over drinks at Andy’s and Joe was in love with the idea almost immediately. He knew exactly why Nicky was writing it; he knows, now, exactly why it needs to be right. But at the same time – “I don’t know if that’s possible, Nicky.”

Nicky sighs. “I know.” He crosses back over to sit beside Joe again, takes another drink from the bottle. “But there is something missing, and I cannot seem to find it. And so it does not feel real. And I know this is not easy for you.”

“It’s not,” Joe says plainly. 

“But you know,” Nicky continues, “I could not have trusted anyone with this but you. If you had not said yes, I would not have done this.”

That, Joe didn’t know: he knows he’d been Nicky’s first choice, but he’d assumed that’s because they know each other well enough already. But it makes sense: the reason Nicky wrote the script is the same thing they’d bonded over. 

Even still, it’s a lot. “I don’t know if I can do it the way you want,” Joe says. 

Nicky looks up at him from where he’s been running his fingers over the label on the bottle absentmindedly. “If you want to stop, I can–”

“No,” Joe says quickly. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to be exactly the way you felt.”

Nicky looks away. “It is a lot to ask,” he says. “I know this.”

Joe doesn’t think; just reaches over and takes Nicky’s hand. “I know,” he says. “Trust me.”

Nicky takes a deep breath. Then he nods. "Okay."

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

thinking about how many times Angel hides their trauma and bad days from the toys post-game. They just survived an entire week stuck inside PlayCo. and now need to be a parent to not 1, not 2, not 3 or 5 or 15, but 87 children. They need to handle the media and the authorities and to make sure no one ever finds about about the real reason the Hour of Joy happened, they gotta feed and take care of the kids, they gotta find a new house and adapt it to everyone all the while handling the fact that their new family spent the last twenty years stuck inside the factory. All the Smiling Critters and Long Legs need to constantly go to physical therapy while hating going to the doctor. Angel needs to help them adjust to a normal life AND be there for them when they screw up. They would never allow themself to even be slightly vulnerable in front of anyone while all of this is happening.

just. Angel, someone who already has PTSD and had to handle an alcohol addiction in the past, now with trauma #2: electric boogaloo on their shoulders, repressing their own feelings and fears for months in hopes of making sure Catnap and Marie and Dogday and Poppy and everyone else feels safe, the burden of being a parent when they could barely take care of themself just the week before the events of the game. it's the perfect recipe for disaster. Angel loves all of them so much, but they will hardly be able to open up to them about this because they're their parent now. Dogday, for example, KNOWS whats up. He KNOWS Angel is traumatised too but he cant just treat them like he treats the other critters, because Angel is his dad now and Angel will not open up to him about it.

[fascinationstreetmp3]

i am almost certain in the 70s when daniel found out armand could fly he went "LIKE SUPERMAN?!" and armand clasped his hands together so fucking serious and went "yes. like superman."

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

thinkin about all the ways that xenk and edgin parallel/complement each other

like. theyve both suffered terrible loss. edgin's is what drove him away from the harpers and 'doing the right thing'. xenk's is what drove him towards that very thing. edgin found a family despite his loss. every time we see xenk, he is doing his work alone. edgin and his family defeated the same evil that tore xenk from his. xenk brings to justice the man who nearly tore edgin's family apart. they are different sides of the same coin do you see

[sludgekludge]

What's your thoughts on Octavia?

she sure does exist

ok real talk, she's inoffensive, but not really a character archetype i care for, the moody goth teenager. i don't hate her though and her situation strikes a chord. brandon (i believe? correct me if im wrong) calling her a cockblocking bitch or whatever was like. kind of insane and offputting. she's in a really sad situation with a shitty dad but the narrative is so determined to defend stolas over everything and now she's in the wrong for being upset over it? gonna use this to jump off and ramble about stolas abandoning his daughter at every turn because i don't really have much to say about via on her own and i've wanted to complain about this like, forever

like 'stolas is a good dad!' when he:

actively has an open affair in front of her that seems to have kickstarted constant fighting between her parents. stolas does not seem to comfort or communicate with octavia over this whatsoever until she literally runs off crying over it in loo-loo land. even then, he's still fixated on specifically blitz protecting him. go look after your fucking daughter instead of whining about the bodyguard you don't need, dude.

tangentially, invites his affair partner (a stranger that is playing a part in actively disrupting octavia's life and relationship with her father) to what is meant to be a daddy-daughter day (ignores the fact she's not having a good time and then acts surprised when she tells him such) and flirts with him sexually in front of his (underage) daughter. seems to ignore octavia's worsening mood in favour of blitz until the aforementioned tears. has little to say for himself when confronted but assures her he won't abandon her. lol. lmao, even.

promptly forgets about something important to her and abandons her to once again in a foreign place to have sexual banter with his affair partner. is an all-powerful demon who could've pulled blitz away from funny sitcom shenanigans at any point to go look for octavia, but has to be reminded by blitz (sexily, for some reason) that they should go look for their daughters after the sitcom shit is cut short by accident. maybe via can't exactly be killed or hurt but literally anything else could've happened to her while she, a presumably quite sheltered teenager, was running around the human world for the first time by herself. she has to get a pep talk from a stranger (the daughter of her fathers affair partner, by the way) about how her dad might be a fuckup but totally loves her, despite having just spent the last afternoon fawning over blitz instead of worrying about octavia. this stranger is also the only adult bothering to look for her in any capacity. octavia would have spent the entire afternoon lost and alone if it weren't for loona being the only one to give a shit.

'what about my daughter', noticeably just kind of goes home with blitz after everything in mastermind and makes no effort to even call or text her. 'erm he was probably traumatised and exhausted-' literally everyone was just under the impression blitz was going to die. i'm sure they're all traumatised and exhausted. stolas lost his powers and his stupid ass house for a little bit, not even forever, over an affair he actively exploited a power dynamic to consciously have, not caring about how it effected his daughter, or the potential future consequences thereof. hitting the impeccable 'i wont abandon you my daughter who i definitely care about' then instantly forgetting she exists 2 seconds later because he of a hole he dug for himself. the point is he once again prioritises blitz over via. was it that easy to forget about her?

tangentially, if you want to believe that stella is an abusive mother (we haven't seen it in the show but i wouldn't be surprised if they wanted you to perceive it that way) then stolas is doing all of this while allowing stella to have octavia. alone, might i add.

via is objectively right to worry stolas is going to abandon her for blitz because he Does. she doesn't appeal to me as a character persay but her situation is miserable enough that i can't bring myself to really dislike her