#am i trying to be cool about it? yes

[romidoes]

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[gingerwerk]

helter skelter in a summer swelter

Sledgefu, Vietnam War/Roadtrip AU

In 1967, desperate to take part in his generation’s great war, nineteen-year-old Eugene Sledge defied his family to join the Marines, completely unaware that this decision would completely change the trajectory of his life.

In 1973, twenty-five-year-old Eugene Sledge finally felt as if he were getting his life back together again when, after five years of silence, Snafu Shelton appeared on his doorstep in Brooklyn with a question: “You ever seen the Grand Canyon?”

Coming to an AO3 near you January 9, 2025!

[hotarufutaba]

kay oh bee dee

[marcusagrippa]

every time i remember this movie exists i take one hundred billion psychic damage

[ganondoodle]

was feeling 'fine' (all things considered) then spent 3 hours daydreaming about oc stuff without moving and inch and now i feel very much not fine, i really cant win can i :(

[ca-d]

Northern Lights over Massachusetts // 05.10.24

[oneluckydragon]

got hit with the echo+sora brainrot so i am once more rambling in your askbox about it. because reasons.

anywho i think there is something truly saddening about echo's struggles to make peace within herself and how she truly finds it hard to find that peace when she is so certain that if the truth about her origins were to be revealed to the world, much less to *sora*, everything she achieved, everything she worked for, all of which matters to her most, will crumble away in a moment's notice.

but the fear of losing all your life's work is none compared to the fear of losing sora. the feeling of poison that settled itself within themselves and between each other out of fear and tragedy of what had happened to them is familiar. echo's resemblance to dusknoir was already enough to set the two off because of how much it had all hurt to see someone you love and yourself turn into a mockery and a splitting image of someone who had pretended to care yet showed he never did at all, but this poison is louder. it hurts to bare, to carry, and to have none but yourself to be its sole holder.

but this poison, this feeling of heartache is different. because whereas the previous pain was something both of them felt, sora was lucky enough to not have known the truth about the person who she cares for so dearly.

echo knows that she used to be darkrai. and it haunts her to have known that her previous incarnation was so *cruel*, all for the sake of it just feeling right. wishing to engulf an entire world in darkness, solely for whatever desire she used to have.

and for how much she knows, how much she will hammer it into her own head that she is *not* like that anymore, that she looks at her past with sneer and disgust and that she will not be the barer of evil anymore, it will not matter in the slightest when she will have to look at sora if she were to ever find out.

how afraid, angry and dejected she would look when finding out, and how she will go on the defense/offense because of how much this will overwhelm her.

because when echo looks at her own shadow, she sees herself for what she is. she knows what she is, be it out of shame or guilt.

but when sora will look at it, she will see a tall, contorting and menacing shadow, towering over with a bright cyan eye doing nothing but looking at her, as if tempting her to make the next move.

and she defends herself. from someone she knows will not harm her. she raises her arms up in self defense from a hand that would never hurt her more than the world has already did.

she knows echo will not hurt her. and thats why she is afraid.

Oh my oh my OH MY, Sinnoh!!! YES YES YES!

HOW!!! IN THE WORLD!!! Are you so good at crawling into my head and creating these vivid analysis/snippets on my OCs??? I've barely shared ANY information about Echo and Sora because I've been wanting to hoard most of my stuff for when my fic is finally finished... but... I think you've broken my resolve a bit, if I'm entirely honest.

You know what? I'm so inspired by your accuracy and eagerness to talk about my girls that I'm gonna forgo my crippling anxiety regarding my writing skills and instead post a snippet of my WIP fic here as a treat for you. A teaser, if you will. Since I have no idea when the fic in question will actually be done and ready (or when I will be satisfied with it, cause the thing is currently 36,000 words and still slowly climbing). And now you've got me eager to share SOMETHING of my fic with you and anyone that might want to take a peek at it.

Please enjoy this conversation between Dusknoir and Echo. The topic deals a lot with what you'd described up above!! c:

[Note: this is an unedited part of my fic because I am still in the process of writing and it may change in the future, so please be gentle w/ me but I'd love to read any thoughts/comments that pop up while reading!! pls send asks or replies or anything really cause I love you guys]

+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++

“I’m going to tell you something now, and you are going to listen.” Echo commands with a sharp bite in her voice that Dusknoir cannot fathom ignoring. He pauses and then offers a slow nod, waiting, wondering what she could possibly desire to tell him at a time like this, of all things.

Minutes pass as Echo remains rooted in place, still as her own shadow, and her eyes dart around as she stares at the patches of dry grass and sand beneath her paws. Her claws clench and unclench, digging into the earth like daggers as the wind of the forest (it’s trees so close, just behind them, a looming sort of presence that could engulf them whole) whistles through the surrounding branches, carrying stray leaves of many bright greens through the chilling breeze. Dusknoir watches them dance around Echo, twirling, floating down, down, down… but it’s quiet, too quiet, and Dusknoir feels a shiver pass through him when Echo’s voice finally rings out through the silence.

"When I evolved, Sora was petrified," She says, nearly a whisper, an admission that melts away her confidence and appears to bring her a flood of both shame and regret. Her face twists up then, strangely, like she’d felt a twinge of pain from somewhere deep inside the very fabric of her own soul and was unable to quell it. "She couldn’t even bring herself to look at me most days. At first, my appearance… well, it reminded her too much of you. And eventually of someone I used to be.”

Someone I used to be. At that, Dusknoir’s immediate reaction is to recall Echo’s previous life as a human, as the miserable shell of a creature surviving alongside Grovyle that he’d relentlessly hunted in the dark future. A human made of contempt and anger and apathy, who never smiled or laughed or cried or screamed like the old legends said humans would-- an entity that simply existed rather than lived. An echo of a life long dead and buried. But, judging by her tone, by her voice, by some uneasy intuition itching in the back of his mind like a swarm of pestilent Ninjask… he knows that she means something else entirely. Something that she isn’t willing to share. And frankly, that concept utterly terrifies him.

Someone I used to be. Dusknoir wants to speak, to break his own silence, wants to ask the myriad of questions bubbling up in his throat because this isn't the first time she's hinted at another life beyond being human, but those questions die at the source like a flame doused in water. And always the coward, coward, coward, instead he takes the easy way out by doing nothing at all. Whether Echo notices his surge of inner conflict or not-- the nervous wring of his hands and the tremble in his spine that he cannot control under her gaze-- she does not react.

“I’d take a step and Sora would flinch away.” Echo confesses, her markings flickering with light before going dark and dead, as if her body wished to snuff them out entirely, a deep seated rejection, a self-loathing so strong that Dusknoir cannot help but recognize it and empathize, and his heart aches, “It took ages for her to stop shaking when I’d speak. To stop looking at me like-- like I was going to…” 

Echo grimaces like she’s enduring waves of grueling torture and doesn’t finish that string of thought, but it’s not hard to make an educated guess on what went unsaid. Like I was going to betray her. Hurt her. Break her heart. She’s been through so much already and I couldn’t bear to be another influence in the history of her suffering. I hate myself because of how I made her feel. When her eyes went wide in fear and through them I could see myself staring back like some sort of burden, some sort of curse.

“I am not my past.” Proud and true, Echo straightens up and holds her head high, a spark igniting in her eyes, a glint of determination, a will to keep going and going despite such circumstances and strife, despite this horrid, unspeakable past that haunts her so, “And I am definitely not you. It’s taken a while, but I know that much now. I’ve accepted it.”

I am not my past. And I am definitely not you.

A sigh, a breath, and Echo glances at him with a certain sorrow that cannot be described, a sorrow that lingers even through the veil of her tenacity, "But no matter how I feel, no matter my conviction, my shadows still find ways through the cracks. Every time I think I'm getting a grip and that I might finally understand myself… I change all over again." She admits, sounding more angry and tired than defeated now-- like a mirror of her old self, her human self that had clawed and damned and cursed him, despised him more than anything. "I hate it. I hate that I never truly know who I am. That I have to learn about my past through stories others tell me, or through fragments of twisted, broken memories that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Through conflict and pain and… and..."

"Echo," Dusknoir murmurs her name softly, an offering, a potential escape if only she would wish to drop the subject and forget this conversation had ever happened-- if she'd overstepped and needed an excuse to back out, a diversion, an understanding. And briefly, Dusknoir wonders why she is opening up about this particular information, why she would delve into something so vulnerable, so personal. Why she would bring up this hurtful history when it obviously brings her great discomfort.

And then, he gets an answer.

“You’re lucky, Dusknoir." There it is, that wildfire burning in her eyes again. A spark that’s new and bold and startling. But lucky? No, never. He'd have to disagree, accounting the mountain of evidence that was his life and regrettable deeds.

"You already know exactly who you are and what you’ve done, and most importantly why. You have more than a tattered picture of yourself that reflects broken answers. And you can change with that knowledge. I see you trying.” She tells him, searching, looking for something so deeply and Dusknoir wishes he knew what it could be so that he could give it to her, because he would, he would gladly give it to her without a second thought if it meant they could be close again. But he isn’t a fool, and he’s wise enough to know they’ll never be like they were before. “And if somehow I could change, even as half-assed as I have. Well, then what’s your excuse?”

You can do it, say her unspoken words, I believe in you.

[skrunksthatwunk]

you go to a lesbian blog and find it says women only!! no men allowed!!! and go oh! excuse me, um, what about other lesbians? plenty of lesbians are genderqueer... and they go well, okay, go fuck yourself tim chop off your sweaty dick and stop calling yourself a lesbian. you do not have a dick, actually. you think about that fact often, even though it does you no good. you do not tell this person that.

you go to another lesbian blog and it says women only and you try again, and this time they change it to wlw + nblw only (non-men who love non-men :D). and you'll say hey i appreciate that but gender's not really that cut and dry for a lot of people. someone could be both a man and nonbinary, for instance. i just worry that you're looking at nonbinary as a generic third gender, or an extension of womanhood. i mean yeah you include nblw in your tags but all your posts are about pussy-havers exclusively. what's with that? and they say go fuck yourself you pervy man pretending to be a lesbian. you tried to sneak in but i won't let you.

so you go to a lesbian blog with a dozen or so posts about queer people needing to be more weird about it and you sigh in relief. but you still see the men dni. that's odd. hoping for the best, you say hey! i know you mean well but please maybe don't put men dni at the end of the lovely posts on your lesbian blog bc some lesbians are men. and they'll be like ok!! well you're allowed ;) and you say no that's not. no. some men are lesbians not just me. you think about your own dicklessness and wonder if that's why you were given entry. and you add that even if male lesbians are allowed, there's no indication of that. how would anyone know without asking? and they're like ohh gotcha gotcha well men dni + this is for sapphics only!! and you'll be like ok well that treats the concepts of men and sapphics as mutually exclusive identities and i just told you that's not true and you agreed with me so.. i don't think that solves our problem. and they're like. ok. fine. men dni but genderfluid and multigender people are allowed! and you're like no see that's. that's still the same thing.. you're saying the same thing just with different words. if you don't want men to interact but you're fine with multigender/genderfluid/etc ppl interacting then you either don't see them as Real Men (because they don't reach a standard of Full Manhood) or Complete Men (because they're only Part-Time Men), both of which suggest that they are, in some way, not men or less-than men, which is invalidating and defeats the point of the exception in the first place (accommodation) OR that you don't really mean the dni which is confusing and inconsistent and makes guydykes feel weird and uncomfortable and excluded from the lesbian space you're trying to cultivate. and they're like um. ok. so. cishet men dni? and you're like well i think that makes more sense, but what if someone identifies as both a cishet man and a sapphic? again, if we're trying to accommodate the genderfucky populace then that has to be a possibility that is considered. and they say god you people are never happy. what do you want me to do? what am i supposed to say to keep the right men out? and you pause. you empathize with the need for a space free from dudes trying to fuck you straight and feminine. dudes who watch lesbian porn and joke about what they'd do if they were allowed into girls locker rooms. who look at you like a piece of meat, and like someone who looks at women like pieces of meat in the same way he does. you get it. you know. you want a space where you can be sapphic, too. that's why you came to these blogs in the first place. you brace yourself and you say well i don't know that there are "right men" to keep out. i don't know that there's any single label that would accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. you could go for "sapphics only" or "queers only" and i think that might be the closest thing to what you want, but it's never going to be perfect. creating any exclusive space is going to shut out people you didn't account for, and the broader the label, the more people will be shut out that you didn't want to shut out. and what about people who don't know if they're allowed? what of questioning transbians, where are they supposed to go? and, frankly, i think i might rather my dykey posts get read and appreciated by a gay guy who sees me as a man than a woman who only sees me as a sacred womb, pure from male perversions or violence or whatever. i think community might just be more complex than a dni can handle. and they look at you and say i don't want to not have a dni. i think you're too permissive. you can't just "what about" or microlabel your way into everything. go fuck yourself, i bet you're not even a lesbian anyway. go find a real problem to get mad about.

you go to a lesbian blog. you ignore the men dni because you know you probably don't even count to them. or maybe you do count and, out of respect for your manhood, they'd shun you accordingly. you try to feel okay about that. you scroll past dozens of posts about mediocre men and gagging at straight friends' boyfriends and how gross and undeserving men are of the beautiful women they couple up with and how all women should be gay so they can get treated right and and and and and. you finally find a post about curling into someone you love and feeling at peace and try to lose yourself in it. you know that feeling is what unites you, what makes you belong. you try to focus on it. you think about carding your hands through a butch's hair or lacing fingers with a femme and feeling warm and loved and more yourself than you ever have before. like this is who you're meant to be. you read about lesboys and butch boytoys and genderfucky dykes and big hairy deep-voiced wonderful women (like you want to be someday, like you wish you could make yourself) and you try to ignore the men dni underneath each and every post. and you daydream about meeting someone kind and earnest at a lesbian bar even though you don't think any such bars exist within three states of you and you can't drink and don't want to drink because you need to be in control of yourself at all times so you don't fuck up like you're always about to and here in the nonexistent lesbian bar you feel wanted and safe and in good company. you picture your ideal, happiest self. it is a mistake. ideal-you has a goatee. not the mascara one you smear on and call drag even though you know it's not drag, not really, the beard you call drag because you think everyone would look at you sadly if you told them it was just to pretend you had something out of your reach. a beard that's soft and that you grew and that cannot be smudged away if you get too comfortable with it. the dream shatters. your people pull away from you, their scoffs mixing with the mind-numbing gay girl bedroom pop you learned to settle for just to have something that almost resembled you, they all pull away and turn their backs and do not look at you. you're too close to being a man now, even though you're the same amount of man as before. and they know you're not supposed to interact with men, not as you would with dykes, at least. and it sours. it's all your imagination, all in your head, but it sours.

you sigh. you think about how small you are. how short, how narrow, how feeble. how your voice pitches up when you talk to strangers because it's easier to speak quietly when it carries more, and because you're nervous. because it's a chore to talk, like everything is. you think about testosterone. you think about how your family would look at you, the questions they would ask, your answers they would only pretend to accept. the uncomfortable glances and whispered questions they'd try to hide from you. you think about how small you are, and how small you will always be. how you don't know of a way to fix it, but even if there was one, no one would want you anymore. you'd be the only one thinking it made you a cooler dyke. you think about how you don't even want a T-voice all the time, how you'll never be able to switch it at will, because you don't know how and can't bring yourself to figure it out. you think about how your throat closes around every hint of your own attraction. how wanting is perverse, how wanting is invasive, how wanting is embarrassing and too vulnerable so it must stay anonymous, as an online witness, and how you can barely manage to form or maintain friendships because your brain makes you pull away, always spinning out and struggling to recover from the simplest of interactions. how they'll all leave you and you won't chase after them at all and how that will hurt them. how stuck you get. how it looks like nothing's holding you back, how that frustrates everyone who thought you were going to be more than you were. the people you love who understand except when it comes to being ghosted, being shut out. how you don't want to hurt them. how you can't tell them that because you're stuck. how you turn to stone when touched, how you never reach out, how you lose your speech and can't look at people, how your autism is fun and sexy until it becomes real and you never see them anymore, how much you longed for someone who knew everything without you having to explain, and who loved you anyway. how unreasonable you know that is to expect of anyone. you think about that not-even-real lesbian bar. you think about how you still can't drive. how you can't leave your home on your own, without dragging somebody into helping you. how you can't leave your body. how you can't leave your manhood behind.

you think about finding another lesbian blog and ignoring everything. about skimming it for the parts you can juice some meaning from. the parts men ignore and don't understand, and how typical of you it is to do so. or the parts where you're not welcome and you should accept that, because it's for lesbians only. how you are a lesbian anyway. how you're meant to choose lesbian or man, how each is a betrayal of some kind to yourself or your people, your family, your lovely strangers, your rare friendly acquaintances. about the parts that tell you you're not wanted, that you're ugly and lazy and gross and insert yourself everywhere without even asking. about the parts that tell you you are hated, and how lesbians are above it all by rejecting men. how lesbians are each blessed miracles. about the parts that say you should be ashamed of being whatever twisted confused freak you are, of everything, of looking and wanting or not looking or not wanting, of picking and choosing instead of taking it all in with a smile. after all, shouldn't you take it? or is your ego too fragile, as men's so often are? aren't you tired? good. we're not here for your consumption. and we sure as hell don't want your company or "community" or whatever. didn't you read the sign? no boys allowed. and if you want to come in you have to make up your mind. as if you haven't told them the only answer you have. you're both. you're both.

you know you broke the rule by interacting.

but it gets lonely sometimes. you wonder if they know.

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

is this outfit historically accurate? probably the fuck not. is it practical in any way shape or form? also probably not! but does it serve cunt? YES 😩🙏💅 and that's all that matters!

[featherymainffins]

Peace and love on planet Earth but if I see one more post NOT about recovery and, in fact, encouraging eating disorders in the ed recovery tag, I might just turn into a chimpanzee and tear everyone's faces off.

[yellllowstar]

slowly I'm recovering the beauty of discovery

(creature by half•alive)

(textless + timelapse below cut)

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

Hello,,, pretty please discuss renskizz at me as I've never heard of these two paired before today,,,, I'm so curious

HI absolutely can do. and i'm gonna come in with CITATIONS on the quotes in this one because i have a normal amount of emotions about these two.

so, first of all, the reason you've never heard about renskizz is because 1. not enough people are skizzleman fans and 2. their best season is third life, which is also the season where the insanity going on between ren and martyn gets the most attention from the average viewer (and from ren)

this is not an entirely one sided dynamic, because ren has an innate ability to be romantic with every single one of his friends, but like i said, most of ren's attention is on martyn, and skizz is so obsessed with this guy from day one, so it oftentimes feels one sided, or at least like skizz cares significantly more about ren than ren cares about him. but let's got into it!

so all this starts in literally the first episode of third life. while martyn is technically the first person ren recruits as an employee of renchanting, skizz is the first person ren recruits to follow him. they first encounter each other early in the first session, when ren is out in the rain and dark right near skizz's ugly ass house. skizz attempts to save him from some mobs and does a bad job, but offers ren some shelter from the storm. once inside, they do a small trade- ren asks if he can have skizz's leather, for his upcoming enchanting business, and he gives skizz a golden apple in exchange. skizz thinks this is a way uneven trade, and now skizz is tied to ren forever (all this happens around 6 minutes into skizz's first third life episode).

skizz and ren meet back up later in the first session, after ren has begun to establish renchanting more clearly, and after he's begun to recruit etho. ren, etho, and skizz decide to go check out the desert together, and this is where skizz has his first death to an enderman. every single one of skizz's deaths in third life is about ren, somehow, btw!

from there, while skizz doesn't immediately move into dogwarts, he's on their side from day one. skizz and ren (and jimmy but this ain't about him) both die to the enchanter trap. skizz is red, and ren is about to go red with the whole red winter thing. also, it should be noted- skizz looses all of his stuff to the enchanter trap. in the aftermath, bigb gives him some gold armor and half broken iron tools, just so he can make his way home safely.

when martyn kills ren to usher in red winter, about half the server initially assumes that martyn turned on ren, including skizz. skizz assumes that ren is in danger, and that he needs help. it takes him a hot second to get there (partially due to his extremely shitty armor), but he's the first person to arrive at dogwarts after this happens (about 15:25 in ren's episode 9). he shows up shouting for ren to get behind him, saying he's there to help, to protect him, with his INSANELY SHITTY ARMOR AND WEAPONS. skizz gets talked down pretty quickly, but there is no way he would've won a fight with martyn if he actually needed to get into it with him. but he's willing to do it anyways in order to keep ren safe.

once he has everything explained to him, however, skizz is instantly down. skizz's favorite thing in the world is to be a "loyal sword" (direct quote describing himself, from impulse's first episode of secret life around 14 minutes in), and ren allows him to do that so completely, in a way not a single other alliance of his ever has. skizz is willing to put his entire life and all his decisions in ren's hands, and ren is willing to take on that responsibility. both of skizz's kills in the first season are entirely to protect and support ren. does this blind faith in ren always go well for skizz? ehhhh not necessarily. but his final death, which is under ren's banner, and sees him shouting "i love you guys and i hate them" to the red army, isn't actually at ren's command. in fact, it's explicitly against ren's command, but it's skizz's final show of loyalty to and care for ren and the red army, and a decision he makes entirely on his own. so even though it kills him, he can't blame ren for it, and there's no animosity between them come the start of last life.

in the wake of skizz's death, ren also gets TWO WHOLE FINAL KILLS with the sword he named in skizz's honor, which i would just like to note. ren wields skizz as sword long after he's gone.

THEN we get last life. moments get a lot sparser here because they're on different teams, but there's important things to note. namely, that two of skizz's three deaths that season are to ren!

the most insane of the two, to me, is when ren boogey kills skizz (in skizz's episode 4). skizz is on edge when he arrives at ren's base, but he's immediately drawn in by ren anyways. they both spend the entire conversation being sickeningly sweet to each other (with skizz complimenting ren's build over and over and ren constantly complementing skizz's appearance and telling skizz he loves him). and the thing is, skizz knows from basically second one that ren is the boogey. he has that feeling when he walks up, and he knows ren is just a nice guy, but he's still very on edge the whole time, and it's obvious from how he's constantly running around/trying not to stand in one place so he can't get trapped. BUT REN MANAGES TO TRAP HIM ANYWAYS!

and not only does ren manage to trap him, but skizz CAN'T EVEN BE MAD!!! like, he dies and goes "oh, i hate him", "he's the worst", "i am broken hearted" but he also knows it's his own fault for trusting ren so wholeheartedly ("he went fishing, and he got me" "i walked right into his trap, he got me"). even while he laments having died to the trap, he's still complimenting ren's abilities in regards to building it and his charisma in getting skizz to fall for it, and it's SO FUN, i love it. skizz simply cannot help but be nice to people, but it really is clear here that he has a huge soft spot for ren. he's holding a grudge, but he can't help but compliment ren the whole time he does it.

and then, of course, there's skizz's final death. skizz and impulse come up on ren's tower after lizzie kills bigb. ren is on guard, because he's a green surrounded by three reds (though lizzie leaves very shortly after killing bigb), but he doesn't make any moves on them. it's skizz who takes the first shot, firing on ren while he reminisces about ren killing him at this same tower as his first death of the season. the two engage in a fire fight for a bit, with my favorite part of the interaction being:

ren: what do you want skizz? skizz: i want blood! (skizz's episode 7, 23:50)

it's extremely reminiscent of a conversation the two of them have in third life multiple times over. skizz repeatedly tells ren that he wants blood, that he needs to kill, once he goes red. the last time he says this is before he runs headfirst into his own death. this is a sentiment ren is deeply familiar with, and before, this need for blood was channeled into protecting ren. now, though, ren's on the other side of it, and it is scary. ren's constantly asking that skizz just leave and not make him retaliate. for all that he's terrified, he doesn't actually want to kill skizz here if he doesn't have to. or at least he doesn't want to try when he's so outnumbered and scared.

the fight continues, and skizz is doing the same thing he did in response to ren's boogey kill- complimenting him. he tells impulse over and over how skilled ren is, constantly saying that they're up against a master, even as ren is actively running away from the fight. he has an insane amount of faith in ren, and he always has. even when that faith in ren should be shaken, either because they're actively trying to kill each other or because ren, frankly, looks like a coward this whole fight, skizz can't help but be impressed with ren, and his faith remains strong. eventually, ren gets backup from cleo and scott, and skizz decides to run, but as he runs, ren works up his courage and shoots him dead. skizz is mad, but he's not mad at ren, he's mad at himself for not being able to kill anybody.

and then the two of them get separated. skizz isn't in double life, and ren isn't in limited life or secret life. and everyone has talked about how weird martyn gets in the absence of ren, but it happens to skizz too. both skizz and martyn are trying to fill the hole ren left in their lives in limited life, but they're doing it in different ways. martyn is trying to find someone (scott) to replace ren as someone he can be truly loyal to and skizz is trying to fill the hole ren left as leader, as king, not by finding that leader in someone else, but by stepping up to fill the role himself. and it doesn't work out for either of them!

skizz doesn't explicitly say that's what he's doing in limited life, but it's very clear, with the most notable example of this being skizz, just like ren, giving up his life to one of his "soldiers", by handing them an axe and saying "i need you to kill me for your own good". just like ren.

and i will say- this is not a limited life exclusive thing. skizz tries to recreate the red army in last life too, with team BEST, and it doesn't really work out there either (though it certainly goes worse for team BEST). so come secret life, skizz says "maybe i can't be ren, maybe i need to find someone else i can trust to lead me" and he TRIES in the first episode of secret life. he says, explicitly, that this is what he's doing (in the "loyal sword" conversation mentioned above, and in the small bit of conversation that proceeds that, which is around 18:40 in scott's first episode). but he can't find a single person willing to fulfill that same role, so he steps up to do it again. and it fails again.

and here's the thing about skizz trying to fill ren's shoes, trying to recreate what he had with ren and the red army every single season since then. that's how i've been interpreting skizz's actions for the entirety of the series, but also SKIZZ EXPLICITLY SAID THAT'S WHAT HE WAS DOING.

(quote starts at 1:08:01 in the imp and skizz episode about secret life)

"it's just in my nature, i'm like, i just don't- i don't care about winning. but- but i- but i'm not gonna- i'd be lying if i said it wouldn't be kinda nice. and i wanna- and i do wanna last, and i wanna be competitive, but i'm really more focused on having a great time and putting together good content, and creating alliances that are very, very strong, and are a brotherhood. like what we did with the- i mean, every season. from BEST to TIES to uh, to the Heart Foundation, like it's been a really strong family, really strong brotherhood that uh- that i've really enjoyed that- that journey in creating. and it started with ren and martyn in season one."

IT'S ALL BEEN MODELED ON DOGWARTS! IT'S ALL BEEN DOGWARTS FOR HIM THE WHOLE TIME!!! skizz has been desperately trying to recreate what he had with ren since the moment he no longer had it anymore and i think that's insanely interesting. and i choose to interpret that obsession with ren as romantic because ren and skizz are. like that. and cannot refrain from calling each other hot or telling the other that they love them or what have you, but even if you don't want to interpret it as romantic, i think their dynamic is INSANELY interesting and i need more people talking about them.

[the-somwthing]

…

[basofy]

ive never talked about their dynamic but this is one of the many thoughts i have about them

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly it's been really healing being back to actively contributing things and writing out thoughts on tumblr the last week or so, because while twitter tends to be easier for me to write out Thoughts on without getting overwhelmed, the environment in the twitter fandom circles i'm interested in is not only infested with antis but cliqueish in a way that is caustic to the fucking soul if you try to express a thought that's more than three sentences long--a hundred times over if you're autistic in slightly the wrong way--and it's incredibly reassuring to come back to an environment where the very kindest and most inclusive people toward you are not clearly thinking the r-slur the entire time they interact with you lmao