#and nobody will read it anyway

[lonelylonelyghost]

Wonderful world:

A boy who lived in all things dying

met an angel from hell

I originally wanted to talk about Eun Soohyun and Kwon Seonyul separately, but they are so intertwined with each other that I can't really speak about one without mentioning the other.

They both are sooo messed up but in the best ways

(for me, obviously, not them)

(Flawless plan. Absolutely no chance of it backfiring)

Seonyul knows that his father is guilty. He knows that what he did was objectively horrible. But that was his father, the man who loved him so much. And then the person who took his father away from him told everyone that they would do it again if they could.

Seonyul's hatred towards Soohyun is not entirely logical, and he is aware of it. But hate is a strong enough emotion that kept him going. Through his father's death. Through the mistreatment by others for the crime of being related to a murderer. Through his mother's accident.

He glomed onto Soohyun and his revenge, like a person drowning at sea would at a live wire, the thing that is actively killing him but also the only support that was available to him.

So, then he meets Soohyun. Seonyul knew all that he could about her because he took the phrase "know your enemy" a little bit too literally. Everything is moving smoothly according to that plan that he'd spend years to perfect.

Except...

Soohyun was not what he expected.

Soohyun is empty. She's had her revenge, and there are no regrets in her heart, but it also brought no satisfaction, no resolution, nothing. Her son is still dead.

Despite all that, years later she somehow keeps going, for the sake of her family, whom she doesn't want to inflict the excruciating pain upon, the same that she's been subjected to already. She's not perfect, but she's kind, composed, compassionate and so, so smart.

So, when Seonyul meets her, really meets her, he's confused and angry. How dare you, my father's killer, be a good person? How dare you arrive again and again in front of me, asking questions and looking concerned?

How dare you have the same scars as me?

Even other people around him notice how much they resonate with each other. It's becoming harder and harder to fuel the hatred in Seonyul's heart. She's burned his world, so it would only be fair for him to do the same to her in return, no? His revenge is going well, so he should be happy.

Right?...

But why does he feel so hollow?

But Soohyun is also not the kind of person that would just stand and take the blow silently. What I absolutely love about her is that it's clear why she is revered by so many people around her. She's wicked smart and has a monstrous amount of self-control. So, when everything around her starts crumbling down, she is not rushing into the traps that are laid out for her, instead she quietly, calmly, starts her own investigation.

They should be enemies, they must destroy each other, but neither is willing to truly hurt the other.

Because at the end of the day, they are the only people in this world who get each other

Their dynamic is soooooo good, you guys. At every stage. Goddddd

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[lazylittledragon]

cringe culture needs to die because when i was 17 i printed out the entire player's handbook and monster manual with my unlimited school printing credit and also wore a black velvet cape the first time i ever DMed and somehow still thought i was too cool for dnd novels. who tf did i think i was fooling

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

[algoreithms]

(rob zombie voice) living dead girlllllll

kinda sorta follow-up doodles to this, frankenmandy feat. lynn lavenza for funsies

[kingtheghast]

please play a game together outside of the life series please please please please

[offkilterkeys]

The world isn’t ready for my alpha kid readings.

[casscainmainly]

There's something so beautiful about Cass' belief in people. Not only is it consistently rewarded, but it's often the very thing that allows people to change:

Batgirl (2000) #36 / Detective Comics #972

Her belief isn't enough for her, but it's enough for so many others.

[smoosie]

The 'We need to talk' scene

but I've made it into a wet cat short comic

(and it only gets worse for him...)

Bonus secret 5th panel :

(intrusive thoughts so strong they make his brain crash)

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[samipekoe]

woke up w a vision today

[ouaw-facts-i-just-made-up]

At first Kremy was giving Gideon meals because, well, he agreed to and he can't have his new hire die on him.

After they became friends it was Kremy's MISSION to make that man fat, hydrated, and happy. So help him Baron if he had to give Gideon his plate of food to make sure he wasn't even *slightly* hungry he fucking would. Kremy was ecstatic when he saw Gideon with his shirt off a few years after they teamed up and he couldn't see a single rib and his previously well defined six pack was entirely hidden.

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 147

psychically induced chronic illness squad

[essektheylyss]

Because I'm going to be thinking about this forever, I do want to talk about how Caleb speaks, because I think there's something to be said for how his protectiveness (in general) actually presents itself.

Caleb uses epithets and allusions a lot. He refers to Nott as "my goblin friend," to Jester as "my blue friend," to Yasha as "my barbarian friend." Yussa is at one point "our wizard friend," and Essek is "my Kryn friend," in the two-shot.

He is also, notably, paranoid about being surveiled. He wears the amulet of nondetection for most of the campaign, and it's not unwarranted, given that Trent locates him and nearly burns down the Blooming Grove the moment he's able to get a lock on them. Trent in fact has been shown to use any and all information he can get ahold of about or from Caleb against him, to a truly extreme level. His seemingly single-minded goal is expressed to be to ensure that not a single aspect of Caleb's life and loved ones is safe at any moment, to perpetuate the threat of harm from any direction in order to essentially control and monopolize Caleb's every thought.

In Echoes of the Solstice, Caleb does suggest that he is not concerned with Trent being able to surveil him any longer, but Trent is not the only threat, and, timey-wimey plot nonsense aside, the Hells' inability to scry on him since then suggests that he is likely wearing an amulet at least by that point in the timeline.

The extent of Trent's focus on him and his ensuing paranoia is extreme, and even beyond when he may no longer feel that Trent is a threat to him, he seems unwilling to allow him to pose a threat to others, and people he cares about in particular.

Within that context, it's not difficult to read his use of epithets, particularly in referring to people who are not currently present (rather than using their name aloud), as a form of protection. Some of his manner of speaking implicitly or explicitly presumes that he is being surveiled, even outside of the context of protectiveness; after Vess Derogna's death, he frequently refers to Lucian only by epithets, most often, "our old friend," and at one point establishes "Lady D," (to Jester's glee) as a code name for Vess Derogna for the specific purposes of countersurveilance.

This method of protection, I would imagine, goes double for Essek; not only does Caleb have the habit of worrying over those who would use his loved ones against him, which is of course borne out in Echoes of the Solstice, but he also must consider that Essek has his own enemies, and a stray mention of his name in the wrong company or setting could get his partner killed. It seems even in that gifset, when Caleb says, "I am worried for Essek," after the encounter with Trent at Vergessen, that he first considers obfuscating, stumbling over allusory phrasing before acknowledging that Trent already has the information he needs, and at that point Trent is their only real concern about who might care, given Lucien is far too focused on reaching the Astral Sea to worry about hostages.

When Caleb answers Jester's, "And he's going to hurt Essek," with a silence and an oblique reply, it feels most to me like a further measure of protection, knowing that knowledge is power that can be used against him and his loved ones, and silence is the weapon he has against it.

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)