#and how easily it comes to him!!!

[atmospheral]

have to be honest. opla sanji has so much rizz. i think it's taz skylar's smile

[unicornpopcorn14]

Chuuya's reaction to Dazai getting hurt during the Lovecraft fight has always been so interesting to me...

Because it's the kind of worry you'd never expect from a character as gruff as Chuuya, who had displayed nothing but hostility towards Dazai so far. Usually, characters that are labelled as "angry" or "anger issues" (which Chuuya is much more complex than that but you get my point) act more as a tsundere type of way when the one they "don't care about" gets hurt. And show their care in very, very subtle ways (ex. their eyes widen, their mouth parts and closes again, etc) before putting up their front once more.

Chuuya, however, is open, and vocal about it. His worry is clear not only to us, but to Dazai himself, the one he shouldn't be displaying the concern to (as per the cliche). Shouldn't it be some sort of secret that Chuuya does care? Isn't that what skk's dynamic has been shaping up to be until now?

I'm telling you- the way my mind blanked when Chuuya just casually.... showed concern not once, but twice, was a sight to see.

Besides, the context makes it much more confusing, because Dazai isn't some rookie, and Chuuya knows that more than anybody. He was the youngest executive in Port Mafia's history, of course he can handle a hit or two. Of course he'd seen him handle a hit or two, sometimes without batting an eye.

Heck, Chuuya himself was hurling Dazai like a ragdoll in their reunion, which was their last meeting. And you could argue that he was going easy on him, but Dazai has mostly withstood the same damage (as far as I could see), and Chuuya was as bitter as ever.

So that kind of contradicts both what we knew of Chuuya so far, and how their dynamic was shaped to be. I mean, that just makes Chuuya a hypocrite, yeah? What makes him care now, all of a sudden? What makes him care at all?

Well, to me, this backasswards reaction implies one (or more) of the following:

- Dazai rarely got physically hurt during their partnership and thus this is an unexpected thing for him to see (during a mission).

- The four years of separation made Chuuya unsure of how much Dazai can withstand physically now. Also the fact that he isn't in the mafia anymore, aka fighting enemy organizations on the weekly, would naturally make Dazai lose his touch in a way, what prompts Chuuya's reaction.

- Dazai getting taken off guard took him off guard which led to panic. Especially since the situation was (momentarily) out of their depth. Seriously wtf even was Lovecraft?

- During the dungeon scene Dazai was an enemy, while in the Lovecraft fight he was as an ally. The difference might be significant to Chuuya.

- This has always been Chuuya's reaction to Dazai getting hurt regardless of the situation.

- "Only I can hurt him like that" ahh logic

- Asagiri was still experimenting with their dynamic and thus there are some inconsistencies.

This scenario didn't play out again (after their reunion) for me to exactly determine which one is more plausible, but it is 100% canon for Chuuya to shamelessly show his concern and run to Dazai to check on him before properly dealing with their opponent, which I find to be such an appealing layer to their dynamic, and a good spin on the type of character he gets stereotyped as.

Bonus: Dazai also becomes a softy when Chuuya's hurt, especially post corruption. Dead Apple alone displays that multiple times.

All in all, Skk are doing a terrible job at maintaining their 'hostile' and 'antagonistic' relationship post their reunion. Freaks.

[elphabasthropp]

2.08 | 3.04

[the-woman-upstairs]

Really fucked up that, when they’re young, Patrick and Art are SO tactile with each other, so comfortable sharing the same space. Art lets Patrick touch him and move him and physically overwhelm him and easily acquiesces to it, if not outright enjoys it.

Then in the present, they’ve been so far out of each other’s orbit for so long, held such animosity that when they have their moment alone in the sauna, Art physically recoils from Patrick’s close proximity! It’s so painful to watch because even as Patrick’s goading him, it’s so obvious he wants to be able to get back into Art’s space. But Art has erected all these walls around himself, he refuses to give Patrick an inch or even admit to missing how close they used to be!

AND THEN we see Art and Tashi later and he wants her to hold him, to be gentle with him, and just TOUCH him. Like, he does miss that kind of close physical contact! He either doesn’t know how to ask for it or is uncomfortable being that openly vulnerable. Worth noting that he pretty much always defers to Tashi in regard to initiating physical intimacy (with their first kiss, though he does state his desire, SHE has to be the one to make the first move). And it seems pretty obvious that Tashi herself isn’t comfortable providing that intimacy, whereas Patrick actively seeks to provide it (the hug/forehead kiss after their win together in the early years, dragging the stool closer to him).

Art has tried very hard to act like he doesn’t need physical affection and even though his discipline and devotion to Tashi has made him a stronger tennis player, it’s made him a hollow person, which, in turn, has kept him from becoming a GREAT tennis player.

All of this, of course, is why the ending hits so damn hard.

[kittykatninja321]

My less popular opinion (and what I believe to be implied by the art in Lost Days) is that rather than waking up in a fully grown body Jason didn’t actually complete his puberty until after his Lazarus pit dip while he was on his murder tour. Imagine you’re tied up in a basement in Berlin getting interrogated by a teenager and his voice is cracking the entire time and if you laugh he’s going to shoot you

[willowser]

thinking about you laying in bed with bakugou and lightly tracing the messy edges of the scar in the middle of his chest, hardly able to comprehend how deep that wound runs. it had already been there for years by the time you'd met him, but sometimes you see it and are unable to swallow the fact that—at one time—you were alive and he wasn't.

very quietly, you say, "it's crazy to think how easily i could have missed you,"

because it's not every day you meet and fall in love with a man that's died and come back. if fate is destined and soulmates are real, you imagine the two separate paths of your lives traveling parallel, in sync—and his breaking away for one horrible moment, torn from you before you even knew it.

bakugou is half-asleep, you know, but he shifts until his chin is lightly nudging your forehead, and speaks into your hair. "nah," he murmurs, voice thick and slow and slurred. "would'a found you eventually."

and somehow, you can't find it in your heart to doubt him.

[welcometogrouchland]

Disgustingly messy and crusty sketch dump but I couldn't get my own terrible theory out of my head and ended up making a bunch of sketches about it. Also at the end a bonus dickbats and Damian doodle bc I was reading an issue of their Batman and Robin run (IDs in Alt)

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.

[cecoeur]

it's hell on earth to be heavenly them's the breaks, they don't come gently

[teddybeartoji]

vampire!choso struggles with holding back on his urges, he wants to taste you so so bad. nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck while quietly begging for you to let him do it.. he's very handsy too, his fingers have already found their way under your shirt and are now grabbing at your sides and your tummy and your chest he just wants to feel you in every way he can.

he really likes to suck the blood from your wrist aswell. gets down on his knees while you're sitting at the end of the bed and looks up at you with the prettiest eyes while pressing a kiss to your skin before sinking his teeth into you. he lets his eyes fall shut when he finally feels your sweet ichor fill his mouth, humming into you as he drinks away. he also really likes when you play with his hair while he's doing it, he wants to know that you're enjoying this as much as he is. he just wants to be good for you.

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[pondphuwin]

bed friend, episode 3

middleman's love, episode 3

[juniemunie]

"Why am I still doing this?"

"Don't you get it?"

"This is all just a show... and we're playing parts~"

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Thinking again about the darknesses that lurk underneath the surface of Sense and Sensibility (I have talked before about how Edward despite being the eldest is subjected to what we can argue is emotional and financial abuse by his family for years, and how the Dashwood women are disinherited on a whim of their great uncle), and this time specifically about the Brandons.

We get so little about them, and what we do get about them is all bad:

This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father... At seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married—married against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her... I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousin’s maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father’s point was gained... My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.

Mr Brandon Sr is shown to us as being a greedy man, a bad administrator of his estate, and a cruel father. His first son seems cut of the same cloth, and his pleasures were not what they ought to have been is one of the most, if not the most sinister line between all the Austen novels. But there's more about him!:

Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate relief.

The Brandons were married for two years; the colonel returns to England and starts looking for her 3 years later. Young Eliza was then a 3 year old toddler. We are obliquely told that Brandon cut all ties with his brother:

It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford.

Eliza is now 17, so the eldest brother died when she was 14, which is 16 years after his marriage with the older Eliza. In that period of time, he managed to squander the whole of her fortune, and put the estate in debt again, as we are told earlier on by Mrs Jennings:

Poor man! I am afraid his circumstances may be bad. The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved. I do think he must have been sent for about money matters, for what else can it be? I wonder whether it is so. I would give anything to know the truth of it. Perhaps it is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances now, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over. His setting off in such a hurry seems very like it. Well, I wish him out of all his trouble with all my heart, and a good wife into the bargain.”

We know the Bennets, with five daughters, and without a saving mindset, still manage to live very comfortably with 2000 a year, and if they had had any mind to save money, they could have provided all five of them with decent dowries/money enough to keep them out of poverty when their father died if they were single. It is clearly not that the money isn't enough, or that Delaford is an unproductive estate; in fact, it is described to us as almost paradisiac:

Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were there! Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for; and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so ’tis never dull, for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages that pass along. Oh! ’tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the village, and the parsonage-house within a stone’s throw. To my fancy, a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than your mother.

One interesting character, though forgotten because only mentioned in passing, is the Brandon sister. On one of the quotes above we get that she's in Avignon for her health, and we know her husband is wealthy (and probably abroad with her) because it is his estate that the planned picnic is for:

A party was formed this evening for going on the following day to see a very fine place about twelve miles from Barton, belonging to a brother-in-law of Colonel Brandon, without whose interest it could not be seen, as the proprietor, who was then abroad, had left strict orders on that head. The grounds were declared to be highly beautiful, and Sir John, who was particularly warm in their praise, might be allowed to be a tolerable judge, for he had formed parties to visit them, at least, twice every summer for the last ten years. They contained a noble piece of water; a sail on which was to form a great part of the morning’s amusement; cold provisions were to be taken, open carriages only to be employed, and every thing conducted in the usual style of a complete party of pleasure.

It is implied that Brandon and his BIL are in very good terms (and we know he's not afraid of cutting ties with bad relatives), and one can safely guess that at the very least he cares enough about his wife as to have her travel for her health. Another guess can be made about her getting married about 10 years before the events of the book. Whether she lived at home before that, or was at school or somewhere else, it isn't said.

But this way you can feel there's a parallel in a way, between the Brandons and the Tilneys: a greedy, cruel father, a son that follows on his steps, and a younger brother and sister managing the toxicity as best they can. Talking about this with @bad-at-names-and-faces, she brought up the idea that in that scheme, Cathy would be Eliza (if it wasn't her not being an orphan, or a rich heiress, and how that connects with Austen's line about Cathy not being born to be a heroine at the beginning of Northanger Abbey). Certainly part of it is the romantic gothicness of the Brandon backstory, united with NA's commentary on Gothic tropes, but to me it drove home with even greater force how such a situation would break a man; losing Cathy that way would have definitely broken Tilney, and if we had met him 14 years down the line, would he have appeared to the unacquainted much different than Brandon appeared to the Dashwood sisters?

[auspicioustidings]

Which CoD character is the best at charming parents? If your answer was not Kyle Garrick then you are incorrect and I shan't be taking criticism on this actually.

[thebeigelunatics]

bad sam and standish giving off major sibling vibes 🤪